The sands were empty, the ocean as well. Amahast bent and picked the hunter’s long spear out of the surf, then looked out to sea again.
“You could not see what it looked like?”
“Just the thing’s legs, the arms,” he said through his chattering teeth. “They reached up out of the sea.”
“Their color?”
“I couldn’t see. Wet, green perhaps. Could they have been green, father?”
“They could have been anything,” Amahast said grimly.
“There are murgu of all kinds here. We will stay together now, one will be awake always while the others sleep. As soon as we can we return to the sammad. There is only death in these southern waters.”
* * *
CHAPTER SIX
Alaktenkèalaktèkan olkeset esetakolesnta* tsuntesnalak tsuntensilak satasat.
What happens now, and next to now, is of no importance as long as tomorrow’s-tomorrow is the same as yesterday’s-yesterday.
The storm had passed and the rain had stopped; the ground was steaming now in the heat of the fierce sunlight. Vaintè stood in the shade of the dead tree and looked on as the workers carefully planted the seedlings in neat rows. Vanalpè herself had marked the rows in the ground that the others were to follow. She came up to Vaintè now, moving slowly with her mouth gaping wide in the heat, to stand at her side in the shade.
“Are the seedlings dangerous to handle?” Vaintè asked. Vanalpè, still breathing heavily, signaled a negative.
“Only when the thorns begin to grow, and that is only after eighty days. Some of the animals will still graze them then, but not after the thorns begin to exude the toxins. The taste is bitter to the ruminants, deadly to anything smaller.”
“Is this one of your new modifications?” Vaintè asked, moving out into the sun.
“Yes. It was developed in Inegban* so we could bring the seed with us. We are so familiar with the thorn hedges around the city fields, always far higher than our heads, that we might forget that they have not been there since the egg of time. They were planted once, were small before they grew large and spread. Now the young branches grow over the old to make an impenetrable barrier. But a new hedge in a new city asks for a new answer.” She was speaking easier now with her mouth no longer gaping. Cool enough to move until part of her body was in the sun. “This new hedge I have developed is fast growing, short lived—and toxic. But before it dies we will have seeded the usual thorn hedge to grow and eventually take its place.”
“And the trees?” Vaintè asked, looking in the direction of the leafless dead trees that stood gauntly about the new field.
“They are already being destroyed—see where the limbs have fallen from that large one. They are riddled with wood-consuming beetles, most voracious. When the supply of wood is gone the beetles will enter a larval stage. Then we can gather the coarctate pupae which preserve themselves in hardened cuticula. They can be stored until needed again.”
Vaintè had moved back into the shade and she noticed that most of the workers had done the same. The afternoon was hot and comfortable, but not a time for getting any work done.
“When these seedlings have been planted send the workers back to the city,” Vaintè said.
Enge was working alongside the others; Vaintè waited until she caught her eye, then signaled her over. Enge expressed gratitude before she spoke.
“You have taken the shackles off your prisoners. We are most thankful.”
“Don’t be. The reason that I had them shackled on the uruketo was so they could not attempt to seize the craft and escape.”
“You don’t understand the Daughters of Life, do you? Violence is not our way…”
“I’m pleased to hear that,” Vaintè said dryly. “My way is to take no chances. Now that the uruketo has gone there are only forests and jungle to escape to should anyone not be satisfied with her lot. Not only that, your companions will work better unshackled.”
“Yet we are still prisoners.”
“No,” Vaintè said firmly, “you are not. You are free citizens of Alpèasak with all the rights and duties of other citizens. Do not confuse what happened with what will happen. The council of Inegban* deemed you unworthy of citizenship in that city and sent you here. To make new lives in a new city. I hope you will not repeat the same mistakes here that you did there.