I sighed, and put one of my new sweeps into the water with a plop that she surely heard.

"Good-bye, Horn." She clutched our book to her chest. "You will come back someday? Please?"

"When I've got eyes for you," I told her, and pushed off. The little inlet was so sheltered by its cliffs that there was scarcely any wind; I had to scull the sloop to its mouth before the mainsail began to draw.

I was trimming it when I heard Mucor's long, shrill whistle and looked up. She was pointing at the sloop and me, her left arm stiffly extended; and because the outcrop on which she stood was a good deal higher than the top of the mast, her rag of gown and long, coarse, black hair were whipped by the wind. Whenever I think of her now, that is the image I recall first: poised upon the outcrop she has reached by the almost invisible crevice behind her, her arm stretched forth and her face the face of General Mint restrained by some subordinate, ordering forward troops she would rather have led in person.

Mucor might, as I have tried to say here, have commanded ten thousand spectral troopers; but at the time I could not see even one. Then some slight sound from the top of the rock reached my ears, and I realized that her gesture had misled me. Like any actual general, she was not pointing to whatever forces she commanded, but to their objective.

At the top of the cliff, I saw a small dark figure that seemed almost a cluster of boys, or two men upon their hands and knees. It vanished, then reappeared as it made a flying leap from the top of the cliff. For a moment I thought its target was the sloop, and at it would strike it and die. It sent up a waterspout five cubits from the tip of the bowsprit, however, and vanished as if it had sunk like a stone.

Back in the inlet, Maytera Marble was shouting, her voice audible but unintelligible, echoing and re-echoing from cliff to cliff. Mucor waved, but disappeared into the crevice too quickly for me to wave in return. Earlier I wrote that she is not tall, but that was misleading. Majesty is not a mere matter of a hand or two over the eight. In twenty years, I myself had matured and even aged; yet subconsciously I had supposed that Mucor was still the preternatural adolescent I remembered.

Nearly noon, although I am writing by lamplight. Gusts that would lay the sloop on her beam ends rock my cracker-box palace, whistling through every lattice and shutter. Green was bigger than a man's thumb last night when it rose over the willow in the garden, and I was reminded that my people here call it the Devils' Lantern. Seeing it, I thought only of the inhumi, and not of the storms and the tides, which I in my folly imagined would mean nothing to us in this inland place. I needed a good lesson, and I am getting it, and the whole unhappy town of Gaon with me. Between gusts, I hear my elephant trumpeting in his stall.

No quantity of preaching or teaching will make the people wholly safe from the inhumi's sleights and subterfuges. No one knows that better than I. But preaching and teaching may do something, may even save a few lives, and so they are worth doing. It may be at least as valuable, however, to encourage the farmers to plant crops that will not be beaten flat by the storms-yams for example. This is surely the first storm, and not the last.

I see that when I described my departure from Mucor's Rock 1 never actually mentioned that Babbie came on board, his black snout and little red eyes breaking water just aft of the rudder, and his stubby forepaws clutching the gunwale beside me in a way that reminded me unpleasantly of the leatherskin. Hus can swim like rainbow-frogs, as Sinew and everyone else who has ever hunted them attests, and certainly Babbie could.

Only the leatherskin could have been a less welcome boarder. I ordered him to return to Mucor, and he crouched in the bow and defied me. I grappled with him then, and tried to drop him over the side, but he was as heavy as a stone, and clung to me with all his legs so tightly that the two of us might have been hewn from a single block of flesh; and when, after a long tussle, I was able to tear him loose and push him out of the sloop, he swam under the keel and climbed back on board in far less time than it had taken me to throw him off.

After that, I sat by the tiller frowning at him, while he squatted like a spider on the other side of the mast, glaring at me through close-set crimson eyes that seemed only slightly bigger than the heads of pins. When I ate that night, I flung him a loaf of bread and a couple of apples, reflecting that if I fed him he might be somewhat less likely to charge when my back was to him.

I could have broken out the slug gun, loaded it, and shot him. Or at least, I supposed at the time that I could have, though in point of fact Babbie could have killed me long before I got the first cartridge in the chamber. I am no longer quite sure why I did not, although there were certainly some compelling arguments against it. The first, which I could not help giving considerable weight, was that I might well hole the sloop. If I missed, the slug would undoubtedly smash through her planking, unless the new cartridges were vastly inferior to those made beneath the Long Sun. Hus are notorious for their tough hides and massive bones; and yet it was quite possible that a slug fired at close range might penetrate this small hus and a plank, too.

Hus are difficult to kill as well, and almost always charge if a hunter's first shot merely wounds them. A fast second shot is often necessary, and although one or two dogs would be enough to track one down, most hunters recommend taking eight or ten to impede the charge. I had none, and the distance would be too short for me to have any hope of getting off a second shot.

There was also a chance at least that this particular hus would be of value to me. A tame hus might always be sold, and while I had him he would, presumably, guard the sloop in my absence. Recalling my old fellow pupil, and the shame I had felt at being forced to borrow three cards from Marrow, I could almost wish that Babbie had been with me earlier.

But the most serious reason was that I would be destroying the gift Mucor had sent me as a gesture of good will. Mucor, whose spirit might be watching us invisibly for all I knew (or could know) would surely take that amiss, and if Silk were to change his mind and choose to reveal his whereabouts once he learned that I was determined to search him out, only Mucor could bring me that information. When I had turned this last reason over in my mind for a few minutes, I acutely regretted having thrown Babbie overboard.

Half joking, I told him, "We may never be friends, Babbie, but we need not be enemies either. You try to be a good beast, and I'll try to be a good master to you."

He continued to glare; and his glare said very plainly, You hate me so I hate you.

I filled my washbowl with fresh water then, and gave it to him.

An inhuma was caught last night, and today I was forced to watch as she was buried alive. There is no trial for these monsters, and understandably so-we burn them in New Viron-but I could not help wishing it were otherwise; I would like to have granted her a death less horrible. As things are, I had to preside over the customary means of extermination. One of the big, flat paving stones was lifted in the marketplace and set aside, and her grave dug where it had lain. Into that grave she was forced, though she pled and fought. Five men with long poles pinned her there until a cartload of gravel could be dumped on top of her. Dirt was shoveled on top of the gravel, and at last the stone was returned to its place and a symbol, too awful to describe, was cut into it so that no one will aig there again.

These people, like people everywhere here, seem to fear that an inhumu may live on even with its head severed. That is not the case, of course; but I cannot help wondering how the superstition originated and became so widespread. Certainly the inhumi have no bones as we understand them. Possibly their skeletons are cartilage, as those of some sea-creatures are. On Green, Geier maintained that the inhumi are akin to slugs and leeches. No one, I believe, took him seriously; yet it is certain that once dead they decay very quickly, though they are difficult to kill and can survive for weeks and even months without the blood that is their only food.

But I can continue this little lecture best by returning to my narrative.

Back in New Viron, Marrow had been told of a trader named Wijzer who knew the way to Pajarocu. We found him on his boat (which was four times the length of mine, and five times the width) and Marrow invited him to his house.

"If what I know a good supper it will buy..." He shrugged "Or you want to see me eat."

We assured him that it had never occurred to us that he might be an inhumu.

"Strangers you don't know, I think. Before Pajarocu with a hundred you must speak. Sharp you better be. Sharp they are, those inhumi. Sharp always."

Marrow grunted agreement.

"Many in Pajarocu I meet. Some I killed. Them you cannot drown. That you know?"

I said I had heard it, but that I did not know whether it was true.

"True it is." Wijzer paused to inspect a load of melons, then looked around and pointed. "You, Marrow. Your house that way is it? A house bigger than all the rest it is? The whole town you steer?"

Marrow leaned upon his stick. "The town doesn't always think so."

"Him sending you are." Wijzer pointed to me. "To go he wants?"

"Yes," I told him. "I want to because it is my duty."

"Careful be. Careful you must be." He made off through the hay market, pushing others out of his way and leading us as if he knew the route to Marrow's better than either one of us; he was a big man, not so much tall as broad, with a big, square, sun-reddened face and muscular, short-fingered hands whose backs were thick with reddish hair.

"He's rough," Marrow whispered, "but don't let that make you think he's honest. He may send you wrong."

The set of Wijzer's shoulders told me he had overheard, so I said, "I'm a good judge of men, Councilor, and I think that this one can be trusted." At the word councilor councilor, Marrow's eyes went wide.

His cook had prepared a good, plain dinner for us. There were seven or eight vegetable dishes variously prepared (most of Marrow's wealth came from trading fruits and vegetables still), a big pork roast with baked apples, hot breads with a bowl of butter, and so forth. Wijzer pitched into the meat and wine. "No cheese, Marrow? Councilor Marrow? So said it is? Like a judge you are? No one this to me tells, or before more polite I am."

"A few people call me that." Marrow leaned back in his carved chair, toying with his wine glass. "But it has no legal force, and I don't even make my servants do it."

"This man Horn, he does. Him I hear. Why him you send it is?"

Marrow shook his head. "We're sending him because he's best qualified to go, and because he will. If you're asking if I trust him, I do. Absolutely."

"I'm going because I want Silk here more than anybody," told Wijzer.

"Ahh?" His fork, laden with a great gobbet of pork, paused halfway to his mouth.

Marrow's look suggested that I hold my tongue.

"So. Silk. Why you want so far to go I wondered. A long sail ror you Pajarocu is. Long even for me from Dorp it is, where nearer I am." The Pork attained its ultimate destination.

"Do you know about Silk?"

He shrugged. "Stories there are. Some I hear. Someone a big book he has. Things he said, but maybe not all true they are. A good man, just the same he is. In Pajarocu Silk is, you think? Why? Him I did not see."

"We don't believe he's in Pajarocu," I said, "either one of us. I believe that he's probably still in Viron, the city we left to come here. But Councilor Marrow got a letter from Pajarocu not long ago, a very important letter. I asked him to have a copy made for me, and he did. I think you ought to read it."

I got out the letter and handed it to Wijzer, but he only tapped it, still folded, against the edge of the table. "This city, this Viron. From there you come. A councilor it steers. Not so it is?"

Marrow shook his head. "Under our Charter, the calde decided things in Viron. We didn't always follow our Charter, but that's what it said. The Ayuntamiento was under him, and it was composed of councilors. When Horn and I left, Silk was calde, and he told us to go. People from other landers who came later than we did say he was still calde when they left, and urged them to risk the trip."

Wijzer gestured with the folded letter. "One of these councilors you were, Marrow?"

Marrow shook his head again.

"Nothing you were. When this Silk comes, nothing again you will be. Why him do you want, if nothing you were?"

I began to protest, but Marrow said, "That's right. I was nothing."

Wijzer swallowed half his wine. "So here Silk you bring, where people who have never him seen him love. Calde here he will be, and a council like before he will want. A councilor then you are that real is."

"It could happen." Marrow shrugged. "But it probably won't. Do you seriously think that's why we're sending Horn here to fetch Silk?"

"Enough for me it is."

"Who governs your own town? You?"

"Dorp? No. My boat I govern. For me, enough she is."

Marrow buttered a roll while we waited for him to speak again. "You may know winds and landmarks, but you don't know men. Not as well as you think you do."

"Anybody that can say." Wijzer helped himself to another salsify fritter.

"You're right. Anybody can say it. Even Calde Silk could, because it's true." Marrow picked up his wine glass and put it down with a bang. "I'm one of five who try to steer New Viron. Horn can tell you about that, if you want to hear it. I'm not always obeyed, none of us are. But I try, and our people know I want what's best for the town. You say Calde Silk will want a new Ayuntamiento if he comes here. He may not, he had a lot of trouble with our councilors back home."

Wijzer continued to eat, watching Marrow's face.

"If he doesn't, I'll be nothing again. All right, I'll see to my turnips, and if Silk ever asks my help, he'll get it. If he wants an Ayuntamiento, he may want me to be on it. That will be all right, too. If he asks my help, I may bargain for a seat. Or I may not. It'll depend on what help he wants and how badly it's needed. I won't ask if all this satisfies you."

"Good that is. Not you ask."

"I say I won't ask, because I'm not asking your help for my own sake. I'm asking for everybody in my town, and everybody on this inside-out whorl Pas packed us off to. If that's not exact enough for you, I'm asking for Horn here. He's going off alone to a place that neither one of us have ever been to, because there's a chance we can get Silk to come here."

Marrow pointed to me with his fork. "Look at him. There he sits, and inside of a week he may drown. He has a wife and three boys. If you know something that might help him, this is your chance to tell him. If you don't and he dies, maybe I'll be the only who blames you. One old man in a foreign town, that's nothing. But maybe you'll blame yourself. Think about it."

Wijzer turned to me. "This wife, a beautiful young girl she is?"

I shook my head and explained that you are my own age.

"Me?" He indicated himself, a broad thumb to his chest. "A beautiful young girl I got. In Dorp she is."

"You must miss her, I'm sure."

Marrow started to speak, but Wijzer stopped him with an up-raised hand. "Did I say I wouldn't tell? No!" He belched. "This I will I have said. A trader that his word keeps I am. Who and why to know I wish. My right that is. But who you are I see, Marrow, and why it is they here to you listen."

He unfolded the letter and rattled it between his fingers. "Good paper. Where this do you get?"

Again, Marrow pointed to me.

I said, "I made it. That's what I do."

"The papermaker you are?"

I nodded.

"Not a sailor." Wijzer frowned. "Why a sailor does he not send?"

Marrow said, "He's a sailor, too. He's going instead of somebody else because getting to Pajarocu won't gain us anything unless he can persuade Silk to come back with him. He's the only one, or almost the only one, who may be able to."

Wijzer grunted, his eyes on the letter.

I said, "There are two other people who might have as much influence with Calde Silk, or more. Do you want to hear about them?"

"If you want, I will listen."

"Both are women. Maytera Marble might, but she's old and blind, and believes that she's taking care of the granddaughter who cares for her. Would you want me to step aside so they could send her?"

Wijzer made a rude noise. "Not as far as Beled she would get."

"You're right. The other is Nettle, my wife. She's a fine sailor, she's strong for a woman, and she's got more sense than any two men I know. If I had not offered to go, they were going to ask her, and I feel sure she would have gone."

Wijzer chuckled. "And you at home to sit and cook! No, you must go. That I see."

"I want to go," I told him. "I want to see Silk again, and talk to him, more than anything else in the whorl. I know Nettle feels the same way, and if I succeed, she'll get to see him and talk to him too. You said Maytera Marble wouldn't get as far as Beled. Beled's the town where the Trivigauntis settled, isn't it?"

Marrow said, "That's right."

"It's that way? North?"

Wijzer nodded absently. "Here of this He-hold-fire I read. Back to the Whorl Whorl he will make his lander go. How it is, this he can do? Other men this cannot do." he will make his lander go. How it is, this he can do? Other men this cannot do."

"I have no idea," I said. "Perhaps I can find out when I get to Pajarocu."

"Horn's good with machinery," Marrow told Wijzer. "He built the mill that made that paper."

"In a box it you make?" Wijzer's hands indicated the size.

"No. In a continuous strip, until we're out of slurry."

"Good! A lander here you got? A lander everybody's got."

Marrow said, "We have some, but they're just shells. The one Horn and I came in..." He made a wry face. "For the first few years, everybody took everything they wanted. Wire, metal, anything. I did it myself."

"Dorp, too."

"I used to hope that another would land. That was before the fourth came. I had a plan, and men to carry it out. We would arrive before the last colonist left, and seize control. Search them as they got out, and make them put back the cards they'd taken, any wiring, any other parts. We did, and it took off again."

Wijzer laughed.