"A hero wouldn't have let Foltz catch him without a sword. When Aristide conked the fellow with a hammer, I shouldn't have let that cowboy drag Foltz away. I should have at least tied him up until we were on our way to Kubyab. We were much too casual and dilatory about Foltz. We should have killed him, as you said. Failing that, we should have cut and run, fossil or no fossil, as soon as Herg told us of the priestly party, or even sooner. As a hero, I'm just a poop."
Alicia clasped him around the neck and spoke, punctuating each sentence with a kiss: "I won't have you speak of the man I love that way! ... You were wonderful, and you know it! ... You were brave enough to face Foltz unarmed, ... and to kill that Krishnan with the ayas ... But for you, Foltz would be beating and raping the hell out of me right now ... And he made just as many bungles as we did ..."
Between the praise and the kisses, Reith's spirits began to revive. Alicia found him staring at her with a look she knew of old. "Fergus, don't tell me you want it again, after all we've been through today? How can you, with all those bruises?"
"It's that topless dress, darling. The sight of you in it would give carnal thoughts to Aristide's fossil. Where did you get it?"
"Ilui gave it to me. It's one their daughter left behind when she married and moved away. I'm so happy to be able to dress up again! I had one good blue dress, which I'd have worn the other night if I'd known it was you coming to dinner: but Warren cut that one up." She stood up, turning her back to him. "Please, could you undo those little buttons?"
As Reith struggled with the loops, she added: "What I missed most about being husbandless was having nobody to help with clothes that fasten down the back. There!" She gave him a smile pregnant with meaning. "Give me a few minutes, and we'll see if you can rise to the occasion!"
When Alicia returned to the bedroom, she found Reith sound asleep. She kissed his ear lightly, put out the lamp, and slid under the covers. After all, their host had invited them to spend the whole next day in bed.
The following day Reith and Alicia, smothering yawns, emerged for a very late breakfast. Marot had finished his, and the others of the household had long since departed on their various tasks.
The three Terrans set out for a walk about Kubyab, responding to the villagers' stares with amiable greetings. At that instant Reith felt that he loved everybody, with a few exceptions like Warren Foltz. They encountered Doukh, who began volubly to excuse his flight from the field of battle.
"Never mind," said Reith. "If we'd had better sense, we should have run for it, too. But you'll have to wait a while for your money."
Chewing a grasslike plant stem, Doukh looked past Reith, saying: "Here comes the priest of Bákh ye spake with yesterday."
A startled glance showed the Reverend Behorj's litter swaying between its ayas, and the rest of the priest's entourage riding behind. "Into this alley!" snapped Reith. "Quickly!"
"But what—" began Alicia as she was dragged into a narrow, muddy lane.
"Don't argue!" said Reith in a low, tense voice, tugging his companions along the alley. "Over here, in the shade!" He flattened himself against a house wall, whence he could watch traffic passing on the main street with little chance of detection.
The litter lumbered past. Then, guarded by the mounted priestly escort, six bound captives shambled past afoot. One was Warren Foltz. Beside Reith, Alicia uttered a faint squeak.
"Hush, darling!" breathed Reith. "The less that lot knows about us, the better." For once Alicia forbore to argue.
As Roqir's red shield thrust its rim above a thicket of trees downstream, the three travelers boarded the Morkerád. They stood in the bow and watched the loading of heaps of hides, baskets of farm produce, and sacks of iron ore. Two local workers carried Marot's shaihan-hide bag of fossil-bearing stones, slung from a pole, up the gangplank. The team of shaihans, which had pulled the boat upstream, were stabled in a pen in the stern, whence the light westerly breeze wafted their pungent odor the length of the riverboat.
At last Captain Sarf and his four riverboat hands cast off and pushed the craft free of the pier. Two of the hands clambered to the roof of the deckhouse and broke out the triangular sail; while the other two, manning a pair of sweeps, maneuvered the boat out to midstream, where the current ran swiftest.
Reith and Alicia remained at the rail. Alicia had her arm through Reith's and clutched his elbow as if she feared that, should she slacken her grip, he would plunge overboard or fly away like a winged arthropod. Ever since leaving Sainian's ranch house, she had clung to Reith like some timid, helpless ingénue. Knowing that she was anything but that, Reith felt both amused and gratified.
"Sainian was a generous host," said Reith, glancing at his companions. Like Reith, Marot wore the kilt and jacket which the squire had insisted on their keeping. Alicia had packed away her seductive gown; but her khakis, like those of the men, had been washed and mended by Babir.
"Yes, darling," said Alicia. "The squire's a sweetheart so long as you keep on his good side. The minute you don't— khlk!" She drew a finger across her throat.
Marot said: "The mores of this country differ much from ours. I gather that to these people, to keep one's word and meet one's obligations are important; but homicide—if that is the right word—is no great matter. We were fortunate not only in escaping Foltz and his troupe, but also in avoiding offense to our recent host through ignorance of local customs and tabus."
"I wouldn't dare bring a party of tourists to Chilihagh," mused Reith. "If they didn't run afoul of the state religion, they'd accidentally insult some cowboy and be walking around without their heads."
"Speaking of religion," said Marot, "what shall we do at Jeshang? Priestess Lazdai will probably be back on her throne. She may wish to question us further."
"We'll stay aboard," said Reith, "and keep strictly out of sight—and I hope, out of mind as well."
"How long is this journey, Fergus?" asked Alicia.
"About a hundred and fifty kilometers to Jeshang and some» thing more than that to Jazmurian. With a favoring wind and no stops, we could sail to Jeshang in two days. In practice it takes three, because this tub stops at a lot of little private piers along the way."
The day drifted lazily by. The Morkerád passed placid marshes, whence aqebats rose squawking to flap away on leathery wings. At other times the river quickened its pace between steep brown bluffs. As they continued down-river, the plant cover thickened and trees became larger and more numerous, presenting a polychrome of trunks clad in bark of crimson and emerald and gold.
"These colors pertain to cross-fertilization," Marot explained. "Krishnan plants lack the true flower, but those bright-hued tree trunks perform the function of flowers. They permit the flying arthropods, which here have the color vision, to find the species they are designed to pollenate."
Now and then wild Krishnan herbivores, surprised at their drinking, scrambled up the riverbank and bounded away. A family of bishtars, standing in the shallows, held its ground and continued to scoop up hectoliters of water plants, which they stuffed into their huge pink mouths. This Krishnan elephant was a colossal, barrel-bodied beast on six columnar legs, with an elongated, tapering, tapirlike head ending in a short, bifurcated trunk or pair of trunks. Its vast hide was clothed in short, glossy, white-spotted purplish-brown hair. A pair of small, trumpet-shaped ears completed the ensemble.
By mid-morning the Terrans, lulled by the slight motion of the hull as the wind on the sails varied and by the gentle slapping of wavelets against the hull, went into the deckhouse to sleep. They found accommodations minimaclass="underline" a stack of pallets, from which any passenger might choose one to spread out on the floor. The Captain had a private cabin, but for the others there was no privacy. Reith realized that intimacy with Alicia would be impossible before Jazmurian. Perhaps, he thought, that would be just as well; a few days' rest would be welcome.