'Gavving…dear…we need sleep too. Isn't your watch about over?'
His face cracked in a great yawn, closed in a grin. 'I've got to tell someone.'
The Grad was curled half into the fetal position, snoring softly. Gayving jerked twice on his tether and said, 'We're getting married.'
The Grad's eyes popped open. 'Good thinking. Now?'
'No, we'll wait till sleeptime's over. It's your watch.'
'Okay.'
Chapter Ten
The Moby
VOICES WOKE HER. SHE CAME AWAKE FULLY ALERT, THIRSTY and nervous.
He was young. She had given him what he wanted, had virtually forced it on him. He would lose interest. He would remember that she'd tried to kill him. He'd had hours to change his mind. The voices were some distance away, but she heard them clearly. '—Ten years older than you, and you don't have the bride-price…but that's trivia. Six or seven days ago she was trying to kill us all!'
'She could have her pick of us.' Clave speaking, and he was amused. 'All but me, of course. You wouldn't like that, would you, loves?'
'I think it's wonderful,' said Jayan or Jinny. The other twin said, 'It's-hopeful.'
'Gavving, you are not old enough to know what you're doing!'
'Feed it to the tree, Alfin.'
Gavving noticed Minya when she stirred and pulled herself back to the bark. 'Hello,' he called. 'Ready?'
'Yes!' Too eager? It was a little late to be coy! 'What kind of ceremony will it be? We can't use mine. I left our Scientist in the Tuft.' And he'd have me killed.
'There's that too,' said Alfln. 'The Scientist—'
The Grad said, 'I'm the Scientist now.'
Ignoring Alfin's contemptuous snort, he opened his pack and spread the contents. Packed in spare clothing were four small flat boxes of starstuff-plastic-and a flat, polished surface that was glassy, like the Chairman's mirror, but didn't reflect.
Quinn Tribe seemed as surprised as Minya. Gavving asked, 'Have you been carrying that all along?'
'No, I materialized it from thin air. We Scientists have our ways, you know.'
'Oh, sure.'
They grinned at each other. The Grad picked up the mirror and one of the boxes. He fitted the box into the thick rim of the mirror.
'Prikazyvat Menu.'
The Grad's pronunciation had shifted; it was odd, archaic. Minya had heard the Dalton-Quinn Scientist speak like that. The mirror responded: it glowed like the diffuse nighttime sun, then bloomed with tiny black print.
Minya couldn't read it. The Grad apparently could. He pulled the box loose and substituted another. 'Prikazyvat Menu…Okay. Prikazyvat Record,' he said briskly. 'First day since sleeptime, the first sleep following the breakup of the tree, year three hundred and seventy. Jeffer speaking as Scientist. Quinn Tribe consists of eight individuals. Prikazyvat Pause.'
Then nothing happened, until Minya couldn't stand it anymore. 'What's wrong?'
The Grad looked up. His face was a mask of pain. A keening moan tore through his throat. Crystal lenses trembled over his eyes. Tears didn't run here, without tide to pull them.
Clave put his hand on the Grad's shoulder. 'Take a minute. Take as long as you need.'
'I've been trying not to…think about it. The Scientist. He knew. He sent these with me. What good does it do if we're dying too?'
'We're not dying. We're a little thirsty,' Clave said firmly.
'We're all dead except us! I feel like recording it makes it real.'
Clave glared around him. The tears were about to become contagious. Jayan and Jinny were sniffling already. Minya had to remind herself that Dalton-Quinn Tuft still lived, invisibly far, somewhere.
Clave snapped, 'Come on, Scientist. You've got a marriage to perform.'
The Grad gulped and nodded. Teardrops broke loose and floated away, the size of tuftberries. He cleared his throat and said in a creditably crisp voice, 'Prikazyvat Record. The tree has been torn in half. Seven of us survive, plus a refugee from the outer tuft. Marriage between Minya Dalton-Quinn and Gavving Quinn exists as of now. No children are yet born. Terminate.' He pulled the box from the mirror and said, 'You're married.'
Minya was stunned. 'That's it?'
'That's it. My first act as Scientist. Tradition says you should consummate the marriage the first chance you—'
'Just what have you got there?' Alfin demanded.
'Everything I need,' the Grad said. 'This cassette is recent records. It used to be medicine, but the Scientist ran out of room and erased it. We couldn't use that stuff anyway. St.armen got sick in ways nobody ever heard of and used medicines nobody ever heard of either. This cassette is life forms, this one is cosmology, this one is old records. They're all classified, of course.'
'Classified?'
'Secret.' The Grad started rolling the gear in clothing again.
Clave said, 'Hold it.'
The Grad looked at him.
'Is there anything in your classified knowledge that we might need to know, to go on living?' Clave paused, not long enough for the Grad to answer. 'If not, why should we guard that stufl or let you carry it to slow you down?' Pause. 'If so, you're hiding knowledge we need. Why should we protect you?'
The Grad gaped.
'Grad, you're valuable. We're down to eight, we can't spare even one. But if you know why we need a Scientist more than an apprentice hunter, you'd better show us now.'
It was as if the Grad had been frozen with his mouth open. Then he gave a jerky nod. He chose a cassette and fitted it into the rim of the nonmirror. He said, 'Prikazyvat Find moby: em, oh, bee, wye.'
The screen lit, filled with print. The Grad read, 'Moby is a whalesized creature with a vast mouth and vertical cheek slots that are porous, used as filters. It feeds by flying through clouds of insects. Length: seventy meters. Mass: approx eight hundred metric tons. One major eye. Two smaller eyes, better protected and probably near-sighted for close work, on either side of a single arm. It stays near ponds or cottoncandy jungles. It prefers to be spinning, for stability and to watch for predators, since there is no safe direction in the free-fall environment. Moby avoids large creatures and also shies from our CARMs. When attacked it fights like Captain Ahab: its single arm is tipped with four fingers, and the fingers are tipped with harpoons grown like fingernails.”
Clave glanced over his shoulder. They had a side view of the flying mouth. Despite the swarm of insects near the raft, it was going around them. 'That?'
'I'd think so.'
'Carms? Captain Ahab? Whale-sized?'
'I don't know what any of that means.'
'Doesn't matter, I guess. So. It's timid, and it eats bugs, not citizens.
Doesn't sound like a threat.'
'And that is why you need a Scientist. Without the cassettes you wouldn't know anything about it.'
'Maybe,' said Gavving, 'we don't want it to go around us.'
He explained, stumbling a little. Nobody laughed. Maybe they were too thirsty. Clave studied the massive bug-eater, pursed his lips, nodded.
Clave stood as Minya posed him, gripping the steel bow in his left hand, drawing the bowstring halfway back
