On Blue's waters

“When I was older, she would just wrap herself around me, and that was nice, like when you hold me. But not the same. What do they ask gods for, in the Whorl?”

“Oh, food and peace. Sometimes for a son or daughter.”

“For gold? She said you liked it.”

“We do,” I admitted. “Every human being wants gold-every human being except you. Because they do, gold is a good friend to those who have it. Often it brings them good things without going away itself.”

“Has my gold brought you anything?”

I smiled. “Not yet.”

“It’s old. You say that old things are always tired.”

“Old people.” I had been trying to explain that she was much younger than I, and what that would mean to both of us when we found land, and people besides ourselves. “Not old gold. Gold never gets old in that way.”

“Mine did. It wasn’t bright anymore, and the little worms were building houses on it. Mother had to clean it, pulling it through the sand. I helped.”

“She must have had them a long time. Possibly for as long as you lived with her.” Privately I thought that it must have been a good deal longer than that.

“Can I see it again?”

I got the box out for her, and told her she could wear her gold if she wished, that it was hers, not mine.

She selected a simple bracelet, narrow and not at all heavy, and held it up so that it coruscated in the sunshine. “This is pretty. Do you know who made it?”

“I’ve been wondering about that,” I said, and wondered as I spoke whether she would tell me. “It could have been brought from the Long Sun Whorl on a lander; but I would guess that it is the work of the Vanished People, the people who used to live here on Blue long before we humans came.”

“You’re afraid of them.”

It had been said with such certainty that I knew it would be futile to argue. “Yes. I suppose I am.”

“All of you, I mean. All of us.” She turned the bracelet to and fro, admiring it, then held it in her teeth to slip over her wrist.

“The Long Sun Whorl was our whorl, our place,” I told her. “It was made especially for us, and we were put into it by Pas. This was their whorl. Perhaps it was made for them, but we don’t even know that. They’re bound to resent us, if any of them are still alive; and so are their gods. Their gods must still exist, since gods do not die.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Where I used to live, the greatest of all goddesses tried to kill Pas. Wise people who knew about it thought that she had, although most of us didn’t even know she’d tried. Then Pas came back. He had planted himself, in a way, and grew again. Do you know about seeds, Seawrack?”

“Planting corn. You told me.”

“He re-grew himself from seed, so to speak. That’s what a pure strain of corn does. It produces seed before it dies, and when that seed sprouts, the strain is back for another year, just as it was before.”

“Do you think the Vanished People might have done that?” From her tone, it was a new idea to her.

“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “I have no way of knowing what they may or may not have done.”

“You told me the seed waited for water.”

“Yes, for rain, and warmer weather.”

Babbie ambled over to see what Seawrack and I had in the box, snuffled its rings and chains and snorted in disgust, and returned to his place beside the butt of the bowsprit. I, too, looked away, if only mentally. My eyes saw bracelets and anklets of silver and gold, but I was thinking about Seawrack’s implied question. Assuming that the Vanished People were capable of coming back in some fashion, as Pas had, what might constitute warmth and rain for them?

Would we know, if they returned? Would I? At that time I did not even know what they had looked like, and so far as I knew, no one did. Doubtless they had been capable of making pictures of themselves, since they had certainly been capable of constructing the great building whose ruins we had discovered when we arrived; but any such pictures-if they had ever existed-had been erased by time, on Lizard and in the region around Viron at least. Seawrack, who appeared so fully human, had gills beneath the golden hair that hung below her waist. Were those gills the gift of the goddess, or the badge of the original owners of this whorl we call ours? At that time, I had no way of knowing.

“I think I see another boat.” She rose effortlessly, pointing at a distant sail.

“Then we’d better get these out of sight.” I began to shut the lid.

“Wait.” As swiftly as a bird, her hand dipped into the box. “Look at this, Horn.” Between thumb and forefinger she held a slender silver ring, newly made in New Viron. “I like it. It’s small and light. All that gold made it hard to swim, but this won’t. Will you give it to me?”

“Certainly,” I said. “It’s a great pleasure.” I took it from her and slipped it on her finger.

In the light airs that were all we had that day, the other boat took hours to reach us. I had ample time to break out my slug gun and load it, and to put a few more cartridges in my pockets.

“Are you going to fight with that?” I had told her about the pirates.