A single early-rising buyer came to the tower nearest the river to obtain a breeder as a manhood gift for his son. He was accompanied by a vizer of the Prophet, and they strode self-importantly through the outer courts and into one of the smaller sales halls. A day before the old women who worked as inspectors had been instructed to examine certain women, previously selected by age and appearance, to be sure they had been properly cut and sewn as children to guarantee their purity.
The small sales hall was empty. The vizer strode into the nearest corridor, bellowing, only to be greeted by vacant echoes. There was no one in the tower except a few old women cowering in an upper room. He ran out of the place in frantic haste, and there followed a great consternation of guards and officers and men galloping this way and that. Not only was the one tower virtually empty, but so were all the towers. Not only the towers beside the river, but many of the bowers in the houses of the city as well. Not only in the city, but in the palace of the Prophet himself, and in the countryside where in remote and hidden areas invisible forces had sped women on their way. Even in the most distant parts of the province, the story was the same. In all Thrasis there were only a few hundred women left, many of them old.
A boat was sent out to the Dove, and a vizer, encountering Danivon, who had risen early to put together materials for his rescue effort, demanded to see the person who had invaded the towers the day before. With all the rest of the party, Jory came forth, looking old and frail and a little half-witted.
“You wanted me, my son?” she asked, the words intended to be provocative, which they were. In Thrasis, only men had sons.
“Where are the women?” the man screamed at her.
“What women?” she asked innocently. “I have no women here except those who came with me. What women?”
“Our women! The Prophet’s daughters. Someone has stolen them!”
“A thief does not steal what is worthless,” Jory said. “The women of Thrasis are worthless, so it is said by all the prophets since earliest times. Why would anyone steal what has no value? Probably they simply ran off.”
“The guards did not see them go!”
“Well, the guards watching this ship certainly didn’t see them come out here. Why are you yelling at me? I didn’t take them.”
Baffled, the officer made certain threats, then forgot them in a momentary fit of confusion during which he seemed to hear the voice of something huge and invisible telling him not to be silly. When he was ashore, he remembered his former concerns, but only foggily. He reported that the people on the ship knew nothing of the disappearance. Certainly the women of Thrasis could not be aboard the little ship.
“What have you done?” whispered Danivon to Jory. “What have you done, old woman?”
“I’ve been right here on the ship all night,” she said innocently. “Haven’t I, Cafferty?”
“Right here,” agreed Cafferty.
“All the women are really gone?” demanded Danivon.
“Most all, I should think. It really will make very little difference in Thrasis. Aside from making a few minor adjustments in their sexual habits, the men will hardly notice the difference. No more sons, of course, but that’s the way of things sometimes. The universe is no guarantor of sons. And likely there’d be none anyhow, once those things from Derbeck get here.”
“Where did the women go!” Danivon demanded.
Jory shrugged. “What choice did they have. East is Molock, they wouldn’t have gone there. North is the waste, a great desert of stone and sand and predatory serpents running all the way to the sea. South is the river, and I doubt any Thrasian woman ever learned how to swim. West is the Wall….”
“Which leaves?”
“What would you say? Underground, perhaps? Unless they flew away.”
“Boat ho,” cried the lookout. “Boats. Boats ho.”
In midriver a scattered fleet of tiny boats was using the light breeze to make its way upstream. Turning his glass upon them, Danivon saw they were full of Murrey folk with a few Houm scattered here and there. “Where are they going?” he demanded.
“Upstream,” Jory commented, her eyes wide with pleased surprise. “Obviously. Away from Derbeck.” She went to the railing and called across the water. “Why have you left Derbeck?”
“… Chimi-ahm …” came the faint reply. “… eating all the people….”
“They can’t do that!” shouted Danivon. “They can’t leave their province!”
“They are doing it,” she cried. “On their own. All by themselves!”
“Boarmus won’t stand for it!”
“Boarmus may have other things on his mind.”
“Council Supervisory will have an army of Enforcers down here at once.”
“I think not, Danivon. If the things we saw along the river are stealing our folk here in Panubi and eating the people of Derbeck, what may they be doing in Tolerance? Boarmus is probably very busy! Or dead.”
He had no answer for her. He took no time to think of one, but threw up his hands and started for one of the small boats. “I’m going ashore and taking the flier Zasper came in,” he said.
“Do you have any idea what you’re going to do?” Jory asked.
Danivon replied, “I can set down almost on top of the place Fringe was taken. I’ve got weapons that should be able to sterilize the area….”
“Sterilize?”
“Well, Boarmus told Zasper it might be a kind of network, and if I melt the surrounding area, the network should melt with it, shouldn’t it?”
“What if the network is keeping them alive, and we wreck
