“How long will we be able to stay in this place?” Rakki replied. “Everyone talks about a world of snow moving closer from the south. Will Roundhills be covered too?”
“That world is far away from us,” White Head replied. “I don’t think it will reach here.”
“But do you know?”
“No, I do not know. But a man can only guard himself from what is or what he knows will be. To try to guard against every fear of what might be would make him as the crazy-ones.”
“That is good,” Rakki pronounced. “We will make Joburg big and find many warriors. Then one day I will lead them back to the caves. We will settle the thing with Jemmo that was never settled, and Shingral will be avenged. Even if I have to walk the whole way there, I will lead them.”
“Your fever over Jemmo is more relentless than the one that gripped you after we brought you back up from the chasm,” White Head said. “That fever cooled and died with time. This one becomes worse.”
“It is our way,” Rakki told him. “You understood a different world. This world, I understand.”
“There comes a time when what’s past is better left in the past,” White Head said.
Rakki was about to reply, but then directed his attention away when he realized that something unusual was going on around the huts. Gap Teeth and Sims were standing in the clearing in front of the animal pen, both looking up. Hyokoka had come out from the cooking hut, while behind her Engressi was shepherding the children inside. Bakka, one of the newcomers, and his mate, Geel, were in front of the original covered shelter, he looking up, she hanging back under the roof and seeming fearful. More were coming out and calling to others. Rakki frowned and followed their gaze upward. An object unlike anything he’d seen before was hanging in the sky. His jaw tightened as he forced back his fear, at the same time reaching unthinkingly for the edged metal club that he still carried everywhere.
It wasn’t a bird, for although it possessed a body and wings, there was no movement of them, and its motion wasn’t that of a soaring bird that sailed on currents of wind. It seemed larger than any bird he’d seen, but he couldn’t be sure because he had no real way of judging how high up it was. It seemed to be circling slowly around the area where the huts stood, as if studying it. With the wind as he and White Head came over the ridge, Rakki hadn’t heard it before, but now he became aware that it was making a steady droning sound. He leveled a hand over his eyes to shield out the background light of the sky.
It was definitely not a bird. There was no head; its lines were too sharp and rigid. It had a dome like the top of a head, but it was in the middle of the body and hung underneath. Its skin was smooth and gray, lighter on the top side, as if it was reflecting the light. . . . Rakki’s finger traced unconsciously along the contour of the club he was holding. He looked down at it. Metal. A metal bird? He remembered the strange, distant roaring noises that had been coming intermittently from somewhere to the north for days now; his head jerked around sharply toward White Head as impossible thoughts came into his mind. White Head’s mouth was drawn back, showing his teeth. His face and his eyes were shining ecstatically.
“What is this, old man?” Rakki demanded. “What does it mean?”
White Head had to find breath before he could answer. “It means there are some of them left somewhere,” he answered.
“The gods?”
White Head turned his face back. Rakki had never seen his eyes watery before. “Yes, Rakki. The gods. They’ve come back!”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The site that had been chosen for Serengeti base was on a plateau of sediments left by receding floodwaters, close to halfway down the long Raphta peninsula and somewhat west of center, between the shrunken Indian Ocean to the east and the new westward ocean being created by the opening up of the Great Rift, which the Kronians had named the African Sea. North of the plateau, a river flowed westward from a wasteland of shattered rock and dizzying chasms inland, and then turned south to run for some distance through hilly regions to the west and south before turning away again to meander across a marshy coastal plain. The location was judged high enough to be reasonably safe from freak inundations in the still unpredictable conditions, while still offering access for ground exploration over a wide operating range in all directions. Also, it had the potential for expansion to accommodate a sizeable number of evacuees from Kronia, should such a measure ever be decided on.