The older female, who seemed to be in charge of the group, greeted them pleasantly enough, but she didn’t smile, and when Moss did, she didn’t return it.
A meal was presented and eaten, but in contrast to the previous night, there was very little conversation as there had been on the previous night.
Moss decided to try and get things going by asking if it would be all right for them to be on their way next day.
‘Yes, but where will you go?’ asked the older female.
‘We have a Direction Pointer, and we follow wherever it points. We hope to discover many strange things to tell our Story Teller when we get back to our group in the forest.’
‘Why you want to do this?’ she asked.
Moss and Kel looked at each other for a suitable answer. They had both started on their journey because it was something exciting to do, and had never really thought about it any further.
‘We just wanted to see what the rest of the world was like. According to the legends, it wasn’t just the forest we lived in.’ Moss didn’t like the way the female had made their expedition seem of little value.
‘Well, you can go next morning, but where will you go from here? There is only the plain you come in from and the valley forest below with the big water, and you not able to go through that.’
‘Why not?’ asked Kel.
‘The big water go through big rocks, and no way up, no way around. We not go through, so you not go through.’
She seemed quite certain of that.
‘We will have a look at that next day.’ said Moss, trying to make his voice sound as positive as possible.
‘We must have serviced just about every female in the group by now, so I wonder what they have in store for us tonight?’ Moss quietly asked Kel when no one was looking.
‘Perhaps it’s just food time, and they want to be nice to us, but I doubt it. Watch out for those brightly coloured fruits we ate in their little forest, we don’t want any more of those.’
They needn’t have bothered. The juice from the fruits were already incorporated in the drink which was so liberally provided.
The Lesser Sun rose to bathe the area in its pale and gentle glow, lighting the way for the pair as they were hurried from hut to hut in a state of euphoric stupor. The females were making sure that at least some pregnancies would be forthcoming, and if they didn’t, it wouldn’t be for the want of trying.
Two Kinds of Water
When they awoke next day they were alone, except for the large female standing at the entrance to the hut.
‘They’ve done it again,’ Moss exclaimed, ‘and I can’t remember if I enjoyed it, and that’s the annoying bit, apart from the soreness.’
‘Me too. I won’t be able to water in a straight line for days. They did what they thought they had to do in order to keep their group going, I suppose, but I wish we had had a little more say in the matter.’
Moss looked thoughtful for a moment or so, before saying,
‘I haven’t seen any males at all since we’ve been here, do you think there are any left? Maybe they only told us half the story of what happened.’
At this point the older female came in, looking in a much happier mood than the previous day, and actually smiling.
‘You start your journey this day.’ she said.
Not knowing if it was a question or a statement, Moss decided to take the initiative and said as firmly as he could,‘Yes, we do. We mustn’t delay any longer, but we may come back this way on our return journey.’
The female couldn’t hide her extreme pleasure at this news and the possibility of future romps, and smiled even wider.
‘You eat, we take you to forest.’ and with that she left.
A fresh platter of fruits and pods were produced, and the pair tucked in with gusto, later asking if they could take some of the food with them for their journey.
They checked their carry belts to make sure that nothing was missing, loaded up with food, and made sure their water bags were full. A feeling of relief and excitement gave an extra buoyancy to their steps as they set off for the forest, accompanied by a small group of females who were going to show them the barrier which had been mentioned earlier.
They were soon down by the water’s edge, and followed a winding path along the smoothly flowing river until the trees began to thin out to low scrub, and the pathway came to an abrupt end.
Moss drew out his Greater Cutting Knife and cleared a new path for them, much to the amazement of the females who, by the look on their faces, had never seen such a knife before.
As the new pathway grew in length, Kel looked up from the task of pushing the cleared scrub to one side and exclaimed
‘I see what the older female meant when she said we couldn’t go past the forest. Look up there.’
Above them, the massive cliffs of a rift valley were closing in to a narrow vee shaped opening, the river speeding up as it threaded its way between the towering, almost vertical rock faces.
‘We can’t climb up there, but the water is getting through.’ said Moss, pausing to survey the scene. ‘Perhaps we could swim in the water and let it take us out to the other side.’
‘What about the Water Snapper?’ asked Kel, remembering his narrow escape. ‘It may return, and there are no banks for us to climb up.’
A little more cutting and they had reached as far as they could go, the smooth black rock forming a barrier to their progress in the direction indicated by the Direction Pointer.
As they rested on the river bank, a large log floated by, and Moss had an idea.
‘If we
