Maia

At length they emerged on to the quay-side. A few boats were out fishing. As she had expected, they were all anchored-or perhaps foul-anchored-well within the area of calmer water above the meeting-point of the two streams. One or two had masts, but not a sail was hoisted in the still air. None had either deck or cabin or was what you'd call, she thought, a traveling craft.

Anda-Nokomis, seeing a little group of men busy with tackle a short distance away, went up to them and, having greeted them politely, said he wanted to buy a boat stout enough to travel down the river. This, as Maia could have told him, was a mistake. She herself, if she'd been a man, would have passed the time of day, talked about the coming of the rains, asked a few questions about the fishing, repeated a rumor or two of the fighting in Lapan and said nothing at all about boats until someone-either that time or next time-got as far as asking what might have brought her to Nybril.

Oh, ah, they said. A boat? Well. One asked another to chuck him that length of line over there. Did he reckon it could do with a bit more grease rubbed in? Anda-Nokomis, interrupting, asked them whether they knew of anyone who would sell a boat. A boat? Well, now, they couldn't say. There wasn't all that many boats sold, really, not without a man was to die, and not always then. Boats- well, they nearly always got passed on, didn't they?

But might not someone sell one exceptionally, Anda-Nokomis persisted. Well, they hadn't just exactly heard of anything like that; not just lately they hadn't. Every man had his own, you see. Needed it for his living, didn't he?

What was the river like further down, inquired Zen-Kurel. They shook their heads. They didn't really know. None of them had ever been all that far down. It was the getting back, you see, wasn't it? Strong current-well, yes, everyone knew that. Very dangerous for a lot of the year, specially in the rains. Oh, yes, desperate in the rains. Well, and after all, what would anyone be wanting to go down there for? Quickest way to get yourself drowned. Someone else sucked on a hollow tooth, spat in the water and nodded in corroboration.

With them and with others Anda-Nokomis spent nearly

a couple of hours pursuing inquiries. No one was uncivil, though one or two seemed sullen; but always he found himself helpless in the face of that reticent, noncommittal evasiveness which is the reaction of most remote-dwelling people the world over to a brisk, direct approach from a stranger. Maia, who had grown up among such people, understood their feelings very well, though she could not have explained them in words. These people depended for a sense of security on doing what they and their fathers had always done in the only place they had ever known. That much they could feel sure of. Anything new or unusual probably had a catch. in it. They were prone to a kind of cryptic envy, too. This stranger, this gentleman was eager for a boat; they had only to do nothing in order to frustrate him. (And indeed after a time, although he retained his courtesy and self-possession, Anda-Nokomis's frustration began to show fairly clearly.) Towards the end of the morning and at about the tenth inquiry, Maia was left in little doubt that their fame was traveling before them.

Once Zen-Kurel, falling into conversation with a couple of youths who were playing wari with colored pebbles in the shade of a tavern wall, and finding them comparatively forthcoming in response to a few jokes and a little banter, asked whether it might not be possible to obtain a passage on one of the rafts coming down the Here from Yelda. Why, yes, they answered. People often travelled down on the rafts, though usually from higher upstream. There wasn't all that many started from Nybril, though. Yes, it was the Here pretty well all the rafts came down: very few down the upper Zhairgen. Lapan and Tonilda didn't go for the same markets downstream-or so they'd always understood. But very likely the gentleman would know more about that than what they did.

But there wouldn't be any more rafts, coming down the Here now. It was the rains, you see, as'd be starting any day. Oh, yes, both the rivers got fair desperate during Melekril. They'd break any raft to bits like you'd break an egg in a pan. 'Twas like the wrath of Cran to see the water going past the rock. You couldn't sleep in your bed at night for the roaring.

By this time Maia was beginning to feel embarrassed and ill-at-ease. She had grasped the situation clearly enough and disliked looking conspicuous and-she suspected- silly. She could imagine how she herself and Kelsi, only a