«And had the poem letter-perfect after one hearing, and passed it unchanged up and down the coast, and now it’s crossed the sea and taken hold,» Vaughan choked.
«Who explained that therium is a root meaning ‘mammal’?» I asked. Nobody knew, but doubtless one of our naturalists had casually mentioned it. So five-year-old Mierna had gotten the term from a wandering sailor and applied it with absolute correctness: never mind feelers and insectoidal eyes, the yao was a true mammal.
After a while we emerged in a cleared strip fronting on the bay. Against its glitter stood the village, peak-roofed houses of wood and thatch, a different style from Dannicar’s but every bit as pleasant and well-kept. Outrigger canoes were drawn up on the beach, where fishnets hung to dry. Anchored some way beyond was another boat. The curved, gaily painted hull, twin steering oars, mat sails and leather tackle were like nothing on our poor overmechanized Earth; but she was sloop-rigged, and evidently a deep keel made it impossible to run her ashore.
«I thought so,» Baldinger said in an uneven voice. «Pengwil went ahead and invented tacking. That’s an efficient design. He could cross the water in a week or less.»
«He invented navigation too,» Lejeune pointed out.
The villagers, who had not seen us descend, now dropped their occupations—cooking, cleaning, weaving, potting, the numberless jobs of the primitive—to come on the run. All were dressed as simply as Mierna. Despite large heads, which were not grotesquely big, odd hands and ears, slightly different body proportions, the women were good to look on: too good, after a year’s celibacy. The beardless long-haired men were likewise handsome, and both sexes were graceful as cats.
They didn’t shout or crowd. Only one exuberant horn sounded, down on the beach. Mierna ran to a grizzled male, seized him by the hand, and tugged him forward. «This is my father,» she crowed. «Isn’t he wonderful? And he thinks a lot. The name he’s using right now, that’s Sarato. I liked his last name better.»
«One wearies of the same word,» Sarato laughed. «Welcome, Earthfolk. You do us great… lula… pardon, I lack the term. You raise us high by this visit.» His handshake—Pengwil must have told him about that custom—was hard, and his eyes met ours respectfully but unawed.
The Dannicarian communities turned what little government they needed over to specialists, chosen on the basis of some tests we hadn’t yet comprehended. But these people didn’t seem to draw even that much class distinction. We were introduced to everybody by occupation: hunter, fisher, musician, prophet (I think that is what nonalo means), and so on. There was the same absence of taboo here as we had noticed in Dannicar, but an equally elaborate code of manners—which they realized we could not be expected to observe.
Pengwil, a strongly built youth in the tunic of his own culture, greeted us. It was no coincidence that he’d arrived at the same spot as we. Taori lay almost exactly west of his home area, and had the best anchorage on these shores. He was bursting with desire to show off his boat. I obliged him, swimming out and climbing aboard. «A fine job,» I said with entire honesty. «I have a suggestion, though. For sailing along coasts, you don’t need a fixed keel.» I described a centerboard. «Then you can ground her.»
«Yes, Sarato thought of that after he had seen my work. He has started one of such pattern already. He wants to do away with the steering oars also, and have a flat piece of wood turn at the back end. Is that right?»
«Yes,» I said after a strangled moment.
«It seemed so to me.» Pengwil smiled. «The push of water can be split in two parts like the push of air. Your Mister Ishihara told me about splitting and rejoining forces. That was what gave me the idea for a boat like this.»
We swam back and put our clothes on again. The village was abustle, preparing a feast for us. Pengwil joined them. I stayed behind, walking the beach, too restless to sit. Staring out across the waters and breathing an ocean smell that was almost like Earth’s, I thought strange thoughts. They were broken off by Mierna. She skipped toward me, dragging a small wagon.
«Hello, Mister Cathcart!» she cried. «I have to gather seaweed for flavor. Do you want to help me?»
«Sure,» I said.
She made a face. «I’m glad to be here. Father and Kuaya and a lot of the others, they’re asking Mister Lejeune about ma-the-matics. I’m not old enough to like functions. I’d like to hear Mister Haraszthy tell about Earth, but he’s talking alone in a house with his friends. Will you tell me about Earth? Can I go there someday?»
I mumbled something. She began to bundle leafy strands that had washed ashore. «I didn’t used to like this job,» she said. «I had to go back and forth so many times. They wouldn’t let me use my oontatherium because he gets buckety when his feet are wet. I told them I could make him shoes, but they said no. Now it’s fun anyway, with this, this, what do you call it?»
«A wagon. You haven’t had such a thing before?»
«No, never, just drags with runners. Pengwil told us about wheels. He saw the Earthfolk use them. Carpenter Huanna started putting wheels on the drags right away. We only have a few so far.»
I looked at the device, carved in wood and bone, a frieze of processional figures around the sides: The wheels weren’t simply attached to axles. With permission, I took the cover off one and saw a ring of hard-shelled spherical nuts. As far as I knew, nobody had explained ball bearings to Pengwil.
«I’ve been thinking and thinking,» Mierna said. «If we made a great big wagon, then an oontatherium could pull it couldn’t he? Only we have to have a good way for tying the oontatherium on, so he doesn’t get hurt and you can guide him. I’ve thinked… thought of a real nice way.» She stooped and drew lines in the sand. The harness ought to work.
With a full load, we went back among the houses. I lost myself in admiration of the carved pillars and panels. Sarato emerged from Lejeune’s discussion of group theory (the natives had already developed that, so the talk was a mere comparison of approaches) to show me his obsidian-edged tools. He said the coast dwellers traded inland for the material, and spoke of getting steel from us. Or might we be so incredibly kind as to explain how metal was taken from the earth?
The banquet, music, dances, pantomimes, conversation, all was as gorgeous as expected, or more so. I trust the happy-pills we humans took kept us from making too grim an impression. But we disappointed our hosts by declining an offer to spend the night. They guided us back by torch-glow, singing the whole distance, on a twelve-tone scale with some of the damnedest harmony I have ever come across. When we reached the boat they turned homeward again. Mierna was at the tail of the parade. She stood a long time in the coppery light of the single great moon, waving to us.
Baldinger set out glasses and a bottle of Irish. «Okay,» he said. «Those pills have worn off by now, but we need an equivalent.»
«Hoo, yes!» Haraszthy grabbed the bottle.
«I wonder what their wine will be like, when they invent that?» Lejeune mused.
«Be still!» Vaughan said. «They aren’t going to.»
We stared at him. He sat shivering with tension, under the cold fluoroluminance in that bleak little cabin.
«What the devil do you mean?» Haraszthy demanded at last. «If they can make wine half as well as they do everything else, it’ll go for ten credits a liter on Earth.»
«Don’t you understand?» Vaughan cried. «We can’t deal with them. We have to get off this planet and—Oh, God, why did we have to find the damned thing?» He groped for a glass.