Laurinda winced. “To, to learn about this strange race of ours?”
He nodded. “Yes, that’s my hunch. Not even she, nor the galactic brain itself, can take first principles and compute what any human situation will lead to. Human affairs are chaotic. But chaotic systems do have structures, attractors, constraints. By letting things happen, through countless variations, you might discover a few general laws, which courses are better and which worse.” He tilted his goblet. “To what end, though? There are no more humans in the outside universe. There haven’t been for—how many million years? No, unless it actually is callous curiosity, I can’t yet guess what she’s after.”
“Nor I.” Laurinda finished her drink. “Now I am growing very tired, very fast.”
“I’m getting that way too.” Christian paused. “How about we go sleep till evening? Then a special dinner, and our heads ought to be more clear.”
Briefly, she took his hand. “Until evening, dear friend.”
10
The night was young and gentle. A full moon dappled the garden. Wine had raised a happy mood, barely tinged with wistfulness. Gravel scrunched rhythmically underfoot as Laurinda and Christian danced, humming the waltz melody together. When they were done, they sat down, laughing, by the basin. Brightness from above overflowed it. He had earlier put his amulet back on just long enough to command that a guitar appear for him. Now he took it up. He had never seen anything more beautiful than she was in the moonlight. He sang a song to her that he had made long ago when he was mortal.
“Lightfoot, Lightfoot, lead the measure
As we dance the summer in!
‘Lifetime is our only treasure.
Spend it well, on love and pleasure,’
Warns the lilting violin.
“If we’ll see the year turn vernal
Once again, lies all with chance.
Yes, this ordering’s infernal,
But we’ll make our own eternal
Fleeting moment where we dance.
“So shall we refuse compliance
When across the green we whirl,
Giving entropy defiance,
Strings and winds in our alliance.
Be a victor. Kiss me, girl!”
Suddenly she was in his arms.
VIII
Where the hills loomed highest above the river that cut through them, a slope on the left bank rose steep but thinly forested. Kalava directed the lifeboat carrying his party to land. The slaves at the oars grunted with double effort. Sweat sheened on their skins and runneled down the straining bands of muscle; it was a day when the sun blazed from a sky just half clouded. The prow grated on a sandbar in the shallows. Kalava told off two of his sailors to stand guard over boat and rowers. With the other four and Ilyandi, he waded ashore and began to climb.
It went slowly but stiffly. On top they found a crest with a view that snatched a gasp from the woman and a couple of amazed oaths from the men. Northward the terrain fell still more sharply, so that they looked over treetops down to the bottom of the range and across a valley awash with the greens and russets of growth. The river shone through it like a drawn blade, descending from dimly seen foothills and the sawtooth mountains beyond them. Two swordwings hovered on high, watchful for prey. Sunbeams shot past gigantic cloudbanks, filling their whiteness with cavernous shadows. Somehow the air felt cooler here, and the herbal smells gave benediction.
“It is fair, ai, it is as fair as the Sunset Kingdom of legend,” Ilyandi breathed at last.
She stood slim in the man’s kirtle and buskins that she, as a Vilku, could with propriety wear on trek. The wind fluttered her short locks. The coppery skin was as wet and almost as odorous as Kalava’s midnight black, but she was no more wearied than any of her companions.
The sailor Urko scowled at the trees and underbrush crowding close on either side. Only the strip up which the travelers had come was partly clear, perhaps because of a landslide in the past. “Too much woods,” he grumbled. It had, in fact, been a struggle to move about wherever they landed. They could not attempt the hunting that had been easy on the coast. Luckily, the water teemed with fish.
“Logging will cure that.” Kalava’s words throbbed. “And then what farms!” He stared raptly into the future.
Turning down-to-earth: “But we’ve gone far enough, now that we’ve gained an idea of the whole country. Three days, and I’d guess two more going back downstream. Any longer, and the crew at the ship could grow fearful. We’ll turn around here.”
“Other ships will bring other explorers,” Ilyandi said.
“Indeed they will. And I’ll skipper the first of them.”
A rustling and crackling broke from the tangle to the right, through the boom of the wind. “What’s that?” barked Taltara.
“Some big animal,” Kalava replied. “Stand alert.”
The mariners formed a line. Three grounded the spears they carried, the fourth unslung a crossbow from his shoulders and armed it. Kalava waved Ilyandi to go behind them and drew his sword.
The thing parted a brake and trod forth into the open.
“Aah!” wailed Yarvonin. He dropped his spear and whirled about to flee.
“Stand fast!” Kalava shouted. “Urko, shoot whoever runs, if I don’t cut him down myself. Hold, you whoresons, hold!”
The thing stopped. For a span of many hammering heartbeats, none moved.
It was a sight to terrify. Taller by a head than the tallest man it sheered, but that head was faceless save for a horrible blank mask. Two thick arms sprouted from either side, the lower pair of hands wholly misshapen. A humped back did not belie the sense of their strength. As the travelers watched, the thing sprouted a skeletal third leg, to stand better on the uneven ground. Whether it was naked or armored in plate, in this
