they followed were quite lost in the mists ahead.
But he had witnessed the departure of the natives from camp and could
visualize them plodding toward their sleep: the hardiest males, their
speaker G’ung at the rear.
That was a position of some danger, when late-waking summer or
early-waking winter carnivores might suddenly pounce. (It wouldn’t
happen this year, given a tail of outworld observers armed with blasters
and slugthrowers. However, the customs of uncounted millennia are not
fast set aside.) The Domrath were at their most vulnerable, overburdened
with their own weight, barely conscious in an energy-draining chill.
Flandry sympathized. To think that heatsuits were needed a month ago!
Such a short time remained to the xenologists that it hadn’t been
worthwhile bringing along electric-grid clothes. Trying to take
attention off his discomfort, he ran through what he had seen.
Migration–from Ktha-g-klek to the grounds beneath this footpath, a
well-watered meadowland on the slopes of Thunderbelow, whose peak
brooded enormous over it. Unloading of the food hoard gathered during
‘summer. Weaving of rude huts.
That was the happy time of year. The weather was mild for Talwin. The
demoniac energy promoted by the highest temperatures gave way to a
pleasant idleness. Intelligence dropped too, but remained sufficient for
routine tasks and even rituals. A certain amount of foraging went on,
more or less ad libitum. For the main part, though, fall was one long
orgy. The Domrath ate till they were practically globular and made love
till well after every nubile female had been impregnated. Between times
they sang, danced, japed, and loafed. They paid scant attention to their
visitors.
But Talwin swung further from Siekh; the spilling rains got colder, as
did the nights and then the days; cloud cover broke, revealing sun and
stars before it re-formed on the ground; wair and trees withered off;
grazing and browsing animals vanished into their own hibernations; at
morning the puddles were sheeted over with ice, which crackled when you
stepped on it; the rations dwindled away, but that made no difference,
because appetite dropped as the people grew sluggish; finally they
dragged themselves by groups to those dens whither the last were now
bound.
And back to base for us, Flandry thought, and Judas, but I’ll be glad to
warm myself with Djana again! Why hasn’t she catted me for this long, or
answered my messages? They claim she’s all right. She’d better be, or
I’ll explode.
The trail debouched on a ledge beneath an overhang. Black in the dark
basaltic rock gaped a cave mouth. Extinct fumaroles, blocked off at the
rear by collapse during eruptions, were common hereabouts, reasonably
well sheltered from possible lava flows, somewhat warmed by the
mountain’s molten core. Elsewhere, most Domrath moved south for the
winter, to regions where the cold would not get mortally intense. They
could stand temperatures far below freezing–among other things, their
body fluids became highly salty in fall, and transpiration during sleep
increased that concentration–but in north country at high altitudes,
without some protection, they died. The folk of Seething Springs took
advantage of naturally heated dens.
Among the basic problems which life on Talwin must solve was: How could
hibernators and estivators prevent carnivores active in the opposite
part of the year from eating them? Different species solved it in
different ways: by camouflage; by shells or spines or poisonous tissues;
by tunneling deep, preferably under rock; by seeking areas where
glaciers would cover them; by being so prolific that a percentage were
bound to escape attention; and on and on. The Domrath, who were large
and possessed weapons, lashed out in blind berserkergang if they were
roused; winter animals tended to develop an instinct to leave them
alone. They remained subject to a few predators, but against these they
constructed shelters, or went troglodyte as here.
Shivering with hands in jacket pockets, breath puffing forth to join the
mists, Flandry stood by while G’ung shepherded his males into the den.
They moved somnambulistically. “I think we can go inside,” murmured the
Merseian nearest the Terran. “Best together, ready for trouble. We can’t
predict how they’ll react, and when I asked earlier, they told me they
never remember this period clearly.”