On Blue's waters

A man came to court this morning to ask protection from the Vanished People. There was a good deal of laughter, and when I had restored order I pointed out to him that his fellow townsmen did not believe him-or even credit the present existence of the Vanished People-and suggested that he first put forward whatever evidence of their existence he possessed so that we would not be laughed to scorn.

This man, whose name is Barsat, admitted that he had no evidence beyond the testimony of his wife, whom he offered to bring to court tomorrow; but he swore that he had seen the Vanished People on three occasions and felt sure they were by no means friendly.

I asked what he had done to offend them. He does not know, or at least says he does not. I then asked him to describe the circumstances under which he saw them the first time. He said he was going into the jungle to cut firewood when he saw several standing or sitting in thickets and regarding him in a less than friendly way, and turned back. I asked how many there were. He said he could not be sure, at which there was more laughter.

That and his obvious sincerity convince me that he is telling the truth. If he were lying, his testimony would have been both more circumstantial and more sensational. Besides, any number of Neighbors greater than two is difficult to count in my experience.

It was already late when the inhumu and I started down the mountain, and neither of us was capable of swift or sustained walking. You are not to imagine from that, however, that I was downhearted or despondent. Health makes us cheerful, and illness and weakness leave us gloomy and sad-that, at least, is the common view. I can only say that I have seldom been weaker or nearer exhaustion, but my heart fairly leaped for joy. I was out of the pit. Free! Free even of the burning thirst that had at last become a torment worse even than hopelessness. The rocks and ancient, moss-sheathed trees were beautiful, and the very air was lovely. The inhumu assured me that he knew the shortest way back to the sloop; and I reflected that Patera Quetzal had been a good friend to Silk. Was it not at least possible that this inhumu would prove a good friend to Seawrack and me?

I quickly convinced myself that he already was.

Having satisfied my thirst from the water bottle he had brought, and again at the spring he showed me, I had become ravenously hungry. There was food on the sloop, I knew; and it was even possible that the inhumu and I might sight the game that had evaded Seawrack and me. If we did, I told myself, I would shoot it, butcher it, and eat it on the spot. I unslung the slug gun and carried it at the ready.

We had gone about two-thirds of the way when something rattled the branches of an immense flintwood that had fallen only a few days earlier. It was nearly dark by then; I heard the rustle of the dying leaves much more plainly than I saw them move.

I pushed off the safety and advanced cautiously, and when they rustled again, put the butt to my shoulder. Urgently the inhumu whispered, “Don’t shoot until we see what it is.”

I scarcely heard him. I was fairly sure I knew about where the animal was, and was resolved to cripple it if I could not kill it, telling myself that I would soon track it down.

The branches sounded a third time, I squeezed the trigger, and the inhumu slapped my slug gun to one side, all in far less time than it has taken me to write it.

Before the report had died away, Babbie broke from cover, charging straight at us with all the blinding speed of which hus are capable over short distances. If it had been five minutes later and thus a shade darker, he would have opened me from thigh to shoulder. As it was, he recognized me at the last possible moment, and recognizing the inhumu as well, diverted his charge to him.

Although I had written about Patera Quetzal’s flying, and had heard him in flight when we were in the tunnels, I had never actually seen him fly. Here on Blue, I have seen inhumi in flight several times, but always at a distance, so that they might almost have been bats or even birds; in the shadow of those twilit trees, I saw one take flight when I stood so near that I might easily have touched him. He sprang into the air, and as Babbie passed beneath him his arms lengthened, widened, and thinned. His fingers spread a web of skin, each finger grown longer than my arms. That is something less than clear, I realize; but I do not know any other way to describe it. At once his arms beat, not slowly as one normally sees when the inhumi fly but with the most frantic haste, raising a sudden gale in complete and ghostly silence. Babbie turned back and leaped, his tusks slashing murderously at-

Nothing. The inhumu had vanished into the darkness of the boughs.

I called, “Babbie! Babbie! It’s me!” and crouched as I used to on the sloop.