The mounted Silfen were warbling away in their own tongue as they looked down on the crowd. They wore long coats of fluffy swan-white fur with hoods that tapered away down their backs. Gloves and boots were made from the same pelt, which made Ozzie wonder what animal it had come from, he suspected it would look rather spectacular.
Sara stepped forward and bowed slightly before the lead rider, then spoke in their own language. “Welcome back, we are always pleased to see you and your brethren.”
The lead rider twittered away in reply. “Dearest Sara, happiness flies with the kiss that fruits among us. Joy we know at the seeing of you and your lifeful people. Cold this world is. Strong you must be to thrive below its red light. Strong you are, for thrive you do amid the deep ice and the high sky.”
“Your Citadel is a fine home for us in this cold wilderness. Will you be staying here tonight?”
“Time among this home long past is what we will reap this day.”
“If we can help, then please just tell us. Are you hunting the icewhales this time?”
“Out there they are, covered in their white deeps. Fast they move in short moments. Big they grow in long years. Loud they call. Far away amid the uncountable stars we hear their refrain. We challenge. We chase. And in the end we share our blood to know such a life we gladly live.”
“We would like to follow. We would like to have the icewhale bodies afterward.”
The rider dismounted in a quick lithe leap to stand in front of Sara. He pushed his hood back, and looked down at her well-covered face as if perplexed. “When all is done and life has lost its body what happens then to that which is left dead matters not.”
“Thank you.” Sara bowed again.
The riders led their animals into the unused stable halls, while the Silfen on foot went straight inside, singing and laughing as they descended the broad spiral passage to the central chamber. It was a gushing invasion of light and good humor and the smell of springtime and cozy fireside warmth, transforming the ancient Citadel to the kind of haven from the cold and desolation outside that its builders must surely have intended right from the start. When Ozzie finally got down to the main chamber the lantern poles had all been slotted into holes in the wall so they overhung the floor, their thick gold radiance holding back the oppressive red sunlight, banishing the grime fouling the carvings. The Silfen had shed their white coats, bringing the tangible taste of a temperate forest to the harsh stone universe of the cavern with their leaf-green toga cloaks. They opened their packs to hand around flasks and clusters of berries and little biscuity circular cakes. It was the carefree party gathering that made Ozzie ache for his earlier life and the simple pleasures it contained. To his horror and disgust he found his eyes filling with moisture at the memories that the sight triggered.
Most of the humans and other alien residents stood around the walls, watching their visitors in simple contentment. Orion was down there on the floor in the thick of things, moving from one Silfen to another to be sung at and admired and given morsels of food and sips from the flasks. A wondrous smile lifted his young face as his friendship pendant blazed with turquoise starlight.
“Quite something, isn’t it,” Sara said quietly in Ozzie’s ear.
“I’d forgotten what they were like,” he admitted. “Christ, I’d forgotten what anything outside this gulag is like.”
A slight frown deepened the heavy wrinkles on her face. “You’re going then?”
“Oh, yeah!”
“George could use some help first.”
“What?” He made an effort to turn away from the exultant Silfen.
“We have to get the big sleds ready. We need those icewhales, Ozzie. People will die without them.”
“Yeah,” he said reluctantly, knowing she was right. Too many people were depending on the hunt and its bounty. “All right. I’ll go help George.” He glanced back across the cavern. “But do me a favor, don’t ask Orion.”
“I won’t.”
Ozzie was just one of forty people who George and Sara had marshaled into the preparations for tomorrow. Even so, it took the rest of the afternoon to load the big covered sleds ready to follow the hunt. There were the triple-layer tents, and the cooking gear, and fuel oil to be transferred into bladders, the butchery kits, the barrels and cauldrons. Then George and the more proficient bone carpenters made some last-minute repairs and patches. More people were readying the ybnan in the stables.
He felt tired but quietly pleased when he finished up and made his way back down to his rooms. Orion was still with the Silfen, but Ozzie insisted he leave them. Tochee was already in their sleeping room when they arrived. Ozzie shifted his retinal inserts to ultraviolet. Ragged patterns were flashing within Tochee’s front eye segment, question upon question about the Silfen.
Ozzie made calming gestures with his arms and picked up a much-washed parchment of cured hide. He used a charcoal stump to write: Yes, they are the aliens who made the paths. Tomorrow they will hunt the big fur creatures. After that, we follow them off this world.
“What’s it saying?” Orion asked excitedly as Ozzie held the parchment up in front of Tochee.
“It’s really happy they’re here and we’ve got our chance,” Ozzie told him.
Orion snatched the parchment from Ozzie, and wiped the charcoal letters away into a broad gray smudge. Then he wrote: It’s great news, isn’t it? We’re leaving!!!!!
Tochee took its own parchment off the small pile, its manipulator flesh closed around a charcoal stump: Together we will do this. Together the three of us will be a triumph.
Orion stood in front of Tochee and raised both hands in a double thumbs up. The alien’s manipulator flesh closed around the boy’s fingers.
“Okay, you dudes,” Ozzie said. “Let’s get serious. We’ve only got one chance at this, so it’s got to be right. Orion, open the security mesh up and get all your stuff packed away. If it isn’t in your rucksack, it’s staying here. Then get your best outdoor clothes ready for the morning. When you’ve done that, pop out to the kitchen range and fill all our thermos flasks with boiling water, we’re going to make up some of that powdered juice, the stuff with extra glucose and crap in it. We’ll drink that outside tomorrow.”
“Can’t I do that in the morning?”
“There’s no telling when the Silfen are going to leave; everyone says it’s always early, so we can’t gamble that there’s like going to be hot water ready for us tomorrow. This has all got to be done now. We’ll have about fifteen minutes’ warning, man. I’ve fixed it with George for us to have places on one of the big covered sleds.”
“All right then,” Orion said. “I’ll get started.”
Ozzie wrote more lines on his parchment, telling Tochee to get the best meal it could tonight.
Don’t forget me, the alien wrote back. Don’t leave me behind.
We won’t.
Ozzie dug out some self-heating packages of Cumberland sausages and mash in onion gravy, which fizzed away while he prepared his own kit. Even piling the tent and various other essentials in bags on the back of Tochee’s sledge, and himself and Orion both skiing with their rucksacks, they’d never be able to take everything they’d brought with them on the lontrus. It was time for hard choices and educated guesses. He decided to leave most of his clothes behind, he was wearing enough to survive on this planet, which gave him enough to live anywhere, just not in any great variety. There was packaged food for fifteen days, which he included in the bundle to go on Tochee’s sledge, though luxuries like chocolates and biscuits and tea he would leave for Sara and George. The medical kit was also a must. His set of ceramic Teflon-coated cooking pans was dumped, as was the small kerosene stove. All the riding gear, the saddle, the pack harnesses from the lontrus—it was all useless to him now.