Departures

Carver stared. There are times when, no matter how well one speaks a language not his own, he will hear something, understand it perfectly, and still doubt his ears. This was one of those times. The trader spread his hands in a gesture of confusion. “We wish your folk nothing but good, Nadab. We think it wrong for you to be forced into separation on account of the color of your skin. My own race”-he touched the dark brown skin of his arm- “has too much of that in its own past. Save for your being green and Baasa blue, we know your kind and his are no different.”

It was Nadab’s turn to look sharply at the human. “You know that, do you?” He astonished Carver by throwing back his head and letting out the strangled snorts that served the locals for laughter.

“What’s funny?” the trader demanded, a bit angrily.

“Only that I came close to confusing skill with wisdom, a mistake I thought myself too wise for.” The oblique reply did little to soothe Carver’s temper. Nadab said, “Never mind. I see you bear me and mine no malice. Ignorance we shall cope with: we have before, often enough.”

The calm confidence with which the greenskin spoke only nettled Carver further. Somehow Nadab had put the shoe on the other foot, and the trader did not care for it. He was unused to being forced into the role of ignorant outsider, with the local as sophisticate.

“I think we can return now,” Nadab said. He still sounded,

Carver thought, quite full of his own importance. And then, as he turned, that note vanished from his voice. “Or perhaps not.”

Carver looked back toward the greenskin village. The blue guards had spread into a line between him, Nadab, and the buildings. “What are they doing?” the trader asked. But even as he spoke, he knew. His glance went to the sun. Not much daylight was left.

Nadab’s head swung in the same direction, then back to Carver. “Yes, outlander, it is exactly what you think. If I am not on the other side of the boundary stone by sunset-”

“But that’s murder!” Carver burst out. Immediately afterwards, he felt like a fool. Hunting down any greenskin outside his village when the sun went down was murder. He had seen that in gruesome telephoto from the safety of the Enrico Dandolo. Somehow, though, it had not occurred to him that even that violence might be perverted further by deliberately keeping a greenskin from reaching sanctuary.

Nadab, with three thousand years of tradition to guide him, had no such naivet?. He said, “It happens. From time to time, it happens. Now all that remains to be seen is whether they are out for their own amusement, or have something more in mind.”

He walked slowly toward the blue guards. They held their line, positioning themselves so he had no chance of breaking past them back into the village. Carver stood where he was, feeling extraordinarily helpless. He wished he were carrying a Kalashnikov to mow down the blues, who were waving clubs and spears and yelling threats at Nadab.

The greenskin said loudly, “Let me by. Baasa will not be pleased to learn I have come to harm at your hands.”

Strangled snorts came from the blues.”We’ll take our chances on that!” one shouted. “That’s what you think,” said another.

Carver saw Nadab’s shoulders sag. Such was what passed for a greenskin’s power in Shkenaz: if Nadab’s patron tired of him, he was as much at the mercy of the blues as was the lowliest greenskin tinsmith.

A small crowd of greenskins had gathered just on the safe side of the boundary stone. They watched and waited, making no move to help Nadab. Carver was sure they would not. The whole village stood hostage to the blues of Shkenaz. Everyone knew it, greenskins and blues alike. The ritual of death would be played out with no interference.

The lower edge of the local sun’s red, swollen disk touched the western horizon. The blues sidled forward. In a couple of minutes, Nadab was theirs in perfect legality. He drew back a few paces toward Carver, not that running would do him any good.

Or would it? That retreat, that pathetic reflex of life trying to prolong itself even to no purpose, broke the trader’s horrified paralysis. “Nadab!” he shouted. The greenskin kept his eyes on the blues, but his ears twisted toward Carver. The trader yelled, “Run for our tradeship!”

Nadab stood motionless for another long moment. He had, Carver thought, been so sure of his imminent death that he needed time to realize he might live yet. Then he whirled and dashed toward the Enrico Dandolo. Carver, slower on two legs than the greenskin was on four but also closer to the ship, began to run, too.

The blues shouted in outrage. They were bound in the same web of custom as Nadab, though, and hesitated before giving chase: a sliver of sun still glowed above the horizon. Then it was gone, and they came pelting after Nadab and Carver. The trader heard their three-toed feet pounding behind him.