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ordered the boat to open the intake feed they responded with a cor-responding
jolt. No wonder the computer couldn't locate the source of the short-out in
the system.
It was external. You'd order the feed opened and these little cuties would
short it shut, countermanding the directive."
She rose and turned to open one of the ports in the cock-pit. With great
deliberation she flung her slimy acquisitions as far out into the river as
possible. Then she closed the port and spoke toward the stem.
"You can come out now, Homat."
Hesitantly their Mai guide emerged from the heated stor-age locker in which he
had secreted himself. "We're not going to die, de-Lyra?"
"No, we're not going to die. Not today, anyway. The spirit boat is functioning
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normally again."
He crept out to join them, still encased in his cold-weather gear to combat
the cabin's air conditioning. Soon that air conditioning would no longer be
required. That would be no comfort to Homat, who would continue to pile on
clothing the nearer they drew to Tslamaina's arctic circle.
The population of Jakaie was still assembled along the riverbank. As the
spirit boat reemerged from the mouth of destruction, alien voices expressed
relief.
The villagers lined up quickly and once more the occupants of the hydrofoil
were treated to the chant of farewell as Tyl and his com-panions performed the
gestures of good-bye.
"Calm acceptance," Lyra murmured, "no matter what our fate." She was standing
on the foredeck alongside their Tsla friends. "Tell me, Tyl, what would the
reaction have been if we hadn't come back out?"
"There would have been no reaction that thee could have seen, save that after
a suitable time they would have begun a funeral chant instead of one of
farewell."
"There didn't seem to be any panic as we slipped down-stream."
"Why should there be? There was nothing they could do to help us," he
explained patiently. "Thee should know, Lyra, that we are not given to violent
displays
of emotion in public."
"I recall. Would any of them have grieved for us in pri-vate?"
"I imagine so. But they could do nothing to help us."
"Just as nothing could be done to help those who'd been taken by the Na."
Etienne spoke from inside the cockpit, addressing his wife in terranglo. "I
don't care what the level of mental serenity is among these people, they're
not going to make much progress until they dump this fatalism. If they don't
watch out, the Mai are going to push forward to de-velop a complete, advanced
technological civilization. The Tsla will end up becoming wards of the Mai,
just as it will be the Mai who will push out to tame the Na and the Guntali."
"Specious argument for radical change," Lyra shot back. "The Tsla are content
as they are, much happier than the Mai.
"Sure, and the ancient Polynesians were happier and more content than the
caucasoids who ministered among them, and we remember what happened to their
culture."
"Etienne, the analogy doesn't apply here. The Tsla are a different race,
occupying a radically different ecological niche. It's not the same thing at
all." And she launched whole-heartedly into a lengthy dissertation on history
and anthropology that both Homat and Tyl desperately wished they could
understand.
Upriver, according to the best information available to Ruu-an and the elders
of
Jakaie, two last immense tributaries fed into the Skar: the Madauk and the
Rahaeng. Beyond that lay the far narrower but still impressive Upper Skar, and
unknown lands.
Several hundred kilometers above the Topapasirut the geology of the land
altered radically. The gorge of the Barshagajad widened and the river rose in
frequent steps, re-ducing the depth of the canyon. The Redowls were constantly
being wakened from sleep by the insistent beeping of the computer. Since the
boat could not negotiate rapids on au-topilot, Etienne or Lyra would stagger
sleepily forward to run the whitewater or lift the hydrofoil past it on
repellers.
The steady rumble of the rapids was in stark contrast to the silent river
south of Aib. At night Tslamaina's four moons transformed the streaks of white
water into thousands of pale crystalline tentacles. Not all was difficult,
however.
There were quiet stretches of relatively calm water of great beauty.
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They began to relax for the first time since leaving the Skatandah. As the
temperature grew chillier and the river climbed its ancient bed they
encountered fewer signs of set-tlement, as the land was fit only for Mai
hunters and gath-erers. Occasionally they saw a few ramshackle houses
clustered around poorly irrigated plots. No elaborate ter-races had been built
there.
Shaped by a harsh land, the local Mai were a hardier breed than their southern
cousins. They were also open and much more honest. Or perhaps they were just
so startled by the appearance of the hydrofoil and its strange inhabitants
that the urge to thieve never crossed their minds.
"I'm not sure that's it at ail," Lyra theorized one day. "The truism seems to
hold among nonhuman primitives as well as among our own kind that the poorer
the people and the more isolated their homes, the more trustworthy and helpful
they are. Hardship seems to breed a need for com-panionship which extends to
lending assistance to any who come your way."
Etienne did not argue with her because he was more in-terested in the locals'
openness and lack of fear. They were startled but there was none of the
fearful paranoia or jealous awe the Redowls had encountered farther south. He
sur-mised it was because everything was new to these pioneers. For all they
knew the
Redowls came not from another world but from some unknown distant city-state
bordering the Groalamasan. When one shares a world with two other in-telligent
races it's not difficult to accept the existence of a third.
They expected to encounter a few Tsla villages, but Ruu--an told them to
expect none, and the information supplied by the elders of Jakaie turned out
to be accurate. Whether the abandonment of the northern latitudes by the Tsla
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