I opened my mouth, then shut it without saying that Bernesohn Famber was still among us. Lutha hadn’t believed it. Leelson wouldn’t believe it either.
Leelson went on, “Let’s assume the songfathers know the way to the omphalos because they’ve inherited instructions from former generations, not because they’ve made the trip before.”
Lutha asked, “Where are you going with all this, Leelson?”
“I’m getting there. The map shows a dozen canyon mouths opening into the area of the omphalos, and assuming the Nodders did not grow here but were put here, we could extrapolate that there may be similar installations at the mouths of all the canyons. In which case, what purpose do they serve?”
“I haven’t the least idea,” she replied in a grumpy voice. “Do you? Or are you just being rhetorical.”
“He’s not being rhetorical,” Trompe offered. “He’s saying there may be Nodders guarding all access to the omphalos. Controlling traffic, so to speak.”
“Traffic!” She stared pointedly at the emptiness around us. Stone and more stone. No traffic.
Trompe persisted. “If he’s right, timely travelers get through, others don’t.”
I said, “It is true that songfathers may not go to the omphalos except at the time of Tahs-uppi.”
“What about leap year?” asked Lutha in a contentious tone. “I thought an extra day had to be drawn from the navel hole every few years!”
“Only the big days must be pulled by songfathers,” I told them. “The little days are pulled out by the spirit people who live there, at the sipapu.”
“Monks?” Lutha puzzled in aglais. “Priests?”
I knew those words. “Women too.”
“Nuns?”
I shrugged. “Spirit people is what the songfathers call them. Spirit men, with spirit women to take care of them.” In the sisterhood it was said the spirit people had no House Without a Name. It was said the spirit women never got pregnant. No one had ever told me how they managed that. I thought perhaps they were all very holy. Or very old. I would ask Lutha about it later.
Trompe rolled up the map and put it back in the wagon. “How do the Nodders decide to let people through? By the season of the year? By counting planetary revolutions since the previous visitors? By genetic pattern? Or are they controlled from somewhere?”
“We’re going to have to find out,” Leelson said. “One of us will have to try it. You or me, Trompe.”
“I can go,” I offered. Perhaps this is why I had come, to spend my life, and my child’s, for something important. “I want to.”
“Your going wouldn’t tell us what we want to know,” Trompe said kindly, patting my shoulder. “They could let you through, then come down on us. We need to know if non-Dinadhi can get through. Assuming the time is right, of course.”
“But that’s not all you’re assuming!” cried Lutha incredulously. “You’re assuming they’re artificial, you’re assuming they’re a danger, you’re building this whole scenario out of thin air.”
“Thin air! Look at the damn things,” Leelson snarled at her. “For the love of heaven, Lutha! Stop living in your gut and start living in your head!”
She went pale with anger as she spoke between gritted teeth. “I’m as thoughtful as you are, Leelson Famber. And as intelligent! It’s just that I don’t go building elaborate theoretical structures on damned little evidence.”
“Really! That hasn’t been my observation up until now,” he said, with an obvious sidelong look at Leely.
“That’s unfair,” she cried, storming away from us to stand at some distance, back turned, rigid.
He strode after her. “Lutha, damn it, use good sense!”
“You’re talking about Leely.”
“Forget Leely!”
“I can’t. He’s alive! His heart beats. His lungs pump air—”
“Frogs’ hearts beat,” he shouted. “Sparrows have lungs that pump air. Is that your criteria for humanity? Hearts and lungs?”
“He has brain waves!” she shouted.
“He has the same kind of brain waves as chickens. As a matter of fact, his brain waves are virtually indistinguishable from those of chickens.”
“He’s not a chicken. He’s a human being!”
Leelson’s face was very pale, his mouth was hard. “Morphologically, he’s a human being. Mentally, he’s a chicken.”
He came striding back, saying something to Trompe in an angry tone, words I couldn’t catch. Trompe soothed him.
“Give her room, Leelson. She’s not here because she wants to be.”
“She stayed when she had a chance to leave! I wanted her home, safe, out of this!”
“It’s no good arguing that point now. She’s here. Leely is here. You’re here, and so am I, and Saluez. We’ve got people, animals, and a wagon to get through those … whatever they are. You’re not going to get Lutha to think logically about Leely, so let’s forget that and concentrate on what we have to do!”
Leelson heaved a deep breath. “You or me, then. We’ll draw for it; short straw goes, on foot. Then we’ll know if nonplanetary human males can get through. Saluez can come next, to establish whether women are allowed.”
Even angry as he was at Lutha, to protect her he would sacrifice himself. And me. But then, I was used to that.
“Then Lutha and … Leely. Then the other one of us, driving the wagon.”
“Not driving,” amended Trompe. “Leading on a long, long rope. That way, if they don’t like wagons, or gaufers, the one leading will still have a chance.”
They nodded at one another, agreeing. I thought we wouldn’t have any chance unless the Nodders let the gaufers and the wagon through. But then, before we left Cochim-Mahn, I was fairly sure we’d be eaten the first night or so. And before I first met Leelson, I thought outlanders would be strange and exotic instead of just ordinary people. And at one time I’d thought the Kachis were invulnerable and all-seeing, but some of them had died and thousands of others had sat like stones around the Burning Springs. And at one time I’d thought
