“When we came to Cochim-Mahn,” she said, “we left the hostel and started down the trail when it was barely light. Chahdzi said it wasn’t quite proper to start before the dawnsong, but we did it, nonetheless. Suppose we take the animals very early in the morning, just at dawn.”
“The herders would not hear us then,” I agreed. “They sleep in the hive, and they do not come out until the daysong.”
“So, if you locate the animals we need, and if Leelson finds a wain, and if we take all our supplies down, a little at a time … well, then, in a few days … ”
“It must be sooner than that,” I told her. “There are only a few animals left in the caves.”
“Well, we’ll begin at once,” she said. I heard apprehension in her voice. It would have been surprising if she had not felt it. I did.
“At once,” I agreed. “It will take time to carry our supplies down the ladders.”
She sighed deeply. “Do you know the way to the omphalos?”
“No. But I have heard the stories of the journey, over and over since I was a child. How the wains go, and what people see on the way, and how the … ” I had been about to mention what the beautiful people did at Tahs-uppi. That was forbidden. Instead I said weakly, “I’ve heard how the songfathers draw out the extra days, to balance the seasons.”
“What did they look like, these extra days?” she asked, half smiling.
I shook my head at her. “No one knows. All those present hide their faces. It would be improper to look.”
“Improper to look at a lot of things around here,” she muttered to herself as she rose and went back into the leasehold, to tell the others. I went down the ladders to see if our plan could be made real or would remain only talk.
The herd caves smell only a little, because the droppings are taken away at once to the caverns where fungus is grown, just as our human waste is taken in the hive. So, when I came to the caves, there were herders moving about with their shovels, cleaning the pens and pretending not to see me. Perhaps they did not see me. I tried to remember if I had seen veiled women before I became one myself, remembering times in childhood when adults had whispered to me that it was not wise to look, not wise or polite to see. So I had not seen. Now I was not seen.
So much the better. I could take my time. I could linger. I could see where the stoutest gaufers were, two in this pen, three in that, one in the third. When they are neutered, their horns curl tightly instead of growing out to the sides. That way we may drive them in pairs, side by side, without their bumping. The neutered ones get heavier, too, and tamer, for they are constantly handled. There were seven or eight good ones in the pens, and they nosed the woven panels at the front of the caves, soft noses wrinkling, side-whiskers jiggling. They had not been trained not to see me. If I brought tasties for them, they would see me well enough. Well enough to follow me.
Where was the harness kept? I did not see it in the caves, though there was other equipment hung here and there among the bins of dried fungus. I swept dust from my memory, recalling me as a child, riding on Chahdzi’s shoulder, being shown the beasts, the caves, the wains. What had the harness looked like? Chest straps, as I recalled, with fringes on them to keep the insects away from the soft, naked hide between the front legs, where the false udders are. And carved wooden buffer bars, to hold the pairs abreast. Wide hauling straps of gaufer leather, and long, light reins of braided bark fiber, the same as our well ropes.
There was nothing resembling a harness in the caves.
Which meant the harness was with the wains. Or in the hive somewhere.
I passed Leelson Famber on the ladders, murmuring to him that I had not found the harness. He nodded and continued downward. Perhaps he would find it.