“My people put a kind of elevator there. It isn’t magic. It’s just a force field. They sometimes put them in places like this where the way-gates end up in difficult places. I knew the field was there. I could feel it.”
“The people can’t follow us?”
Falija shook her head. “Not unless they know precisely where this way-gate is, because if they are what we think they are, they can’t smell it or see it, the way my people can. Each gate creates an aversion field so nonsensors walk on past it without even noticing.”
“Well,” I remarked, with a glance at the ledge we’d jumped from, “we probably shouldn’t go too far. We might get lost, and we’ll want to be able to go back…”
Falija was shaking her head. “Grandma, I’m sorry, I thought you understood that the gates go only one way. There are ways to get back to Tercis, but the closest is five worlds away from here.”
I felt my face go dead. All my blood drained to someplace below my feet. For a moment I tottered there, feeling lost and out of place. I thought about fainting and decided not to. As I’d learned so long ago on Phobos, what was, was. All fainting did was delay dealing with the inevitable. “Well then, just in case you’re not totally correct about their coming after us, let’s get out of the foyer of this place and into some part that’s not quite so exposed from above.”
That seemed sensible to everyone, so we moved off quietly under the trees, hearing nothing at all from behind us or even around us. A few bird sounds. A tiny breeze. That was all. After a time we came to a trail and turned left along it, simply because leftward ran downhill and it seemed easier. I was breathing very hard.
“Are we moving too fast?” Falija asked, concerned.
“It’s not the walk, it’s the…what, Glory?” I asked her.
“The difference,” Glory said. “The strangeness. The not knowing whether they’ll catch up to us and what they’ll do.”
Falija said, “I’m certain they won’t catch up to us. Not now. Not today. Not here.” She took my hand and caressed it. “Nobody expected us to come here, so we don’t need to worry about dangers coming after us, just the ones we may happen on.”
“Which isn’t likely,” said Gloriana quickly. “Is it?”
Falija shook her head. “Not around here, no.”
When we had gone about a mile down the trail, we heard voices coming in our direction, people singing, a clinking noise, a strange sound halfway between a whinny and a moo, then the crunch of wheels. We left the trail and went back into the trees to lie down and peek out without being seen. In a few minutes a wagon appeared, hitched to two large creatures covered with close, curly hair like a sheep’s. Their tails arched forward over their backs and head, the long, silky hair making a parasol over the entire animal. They had horns like cows, single hooves like horses, plus long, silky ears that extended almost to the ground.
The people in the wagon looked rather human, if one could accept green humans somewhere between Falija size and human size. Those with ribbons tying up their dark green hair were on one side of the wagon, and those with kerchiefs around their necks were on the other.
“Let’s try that last chorus again,” said the right-hand animal, speaking perfectly intelligible Earthian. “One, two…” and they all began to sing, girls high, boys medium, the team of animals, baritone and bass.
“The right time of day
For raiding hay
Is three o’clock in the mornin’.
The world is asleep
and the birds don’t peep
so the farmer has no warnin’.
We can cut, we can bale
with a sharp toenail
and an energy that’s unflaggin’,
And the entire crop
fits under the top
of our ‘inside-out’ hay wagon…”
“What are those people?” whispered Bamber.
“The team are umoxen,” said Falija thoughtfully. “And the people are hayfolk. All winter they let their toenails grow. By summer they’re as long as scythes, then they hitch up their wagons and go dance through the hayfields at night, cutting enough hay to get them through the winter.”
“What do they do with it?” Gloriana asked.
“Eat it,” she said. “That’s why they’re green. They call themselves hayraiders, but they only take the first cutting, so the farmer doesn’t lose everything.”
“Except the fruits of his labors,” said I disapprovingly.
“Not exactly,” Falija told me. “The farmer depends on the hayraiders to do the second and third cutting for him, and there’s some other kind of arrangement as well. It’s fair to both.”
“Then why are they called raiders?” I asked, outraged.
“Because they like it. It makes them sound adventurous and bold. It’s a lot more fun to dance in the moonlight than it is to work in the noonday sun, especially if it’s illicit.”
“What’s an inside-out hay wagon?” asked Bamber.
“One that seems bigger on the inside than it seems on the outside.”
Glory asked, “Why do they speak Earthian?”
Falija said, “A surprising number of worlds do, particularly worlds where Gentherans have been. Gentherans call human language one of the two great gifts from Earth. Earthian is a lot easier to read, write, and speak than most languages, as well as having an enormous vocabulary. So, whenever you find several races living together, chances are they’ll speak Earthian. The hayfolk and the umoxen also have their own languages, of course. Shall we ask them for a ride?”
I shook my head doubtfully. The wagon did look filled to overflowing with creatures. Suddenly, however, the left-hand umox called, “Who’s out there? I hear you thinking! Come out now, before they come slishing and slashing after you!”
Falija led us out onto the road as the hayfolk came
