The guides brought Us to a dwelling larger than others. Before it, clad in fur-trimmed leather and a headband with three eagle feathers, waited the man who spoke for these folk. Aryuk had come to know him as Red Wolf. That was what the name meant in his speech. He would change it now and then during his life, therefore it had to mean something. To Aryuk, his own name was merely a sound that singled him out. If he had thought about it, he might have understood that it said “Northwest Breeze” with an accent different from his, but he never did think about it.
He forgot Red Wolf. He forgot all else. Another man was coming through the crowd. He loomed over them, even over their leader. They made way for him with much respect, yet also with smiles and greetings which showed he had been among them for some while. His face was thin and lacked beard, though a mustache grew beneath the curving nose. His hair was short. Skin and eyes, body and gait, recalled Her Who Knows Strangeness; his garments and the things hung at his waist were wholly like hers.
Dzuryan groaned aloud.
“Lay down loads,” Red Wolf bade Us. He had gained some knowledge of their tongue. “Good. We feed you, you sleep here.”
The one from beyond the world halted at his side. Unburdened, Aryuk ached but felt oddly light, as if about to fly off on the wind. Or was it only his head spinning? “Rich gathering be yours,” the one hailed in Our words. “Be not afraid. Do you remember Khara-tse-tuntyn-bayuk?”
“She … she lived near our dwelling,” Aryuk said.
“You are that very family?” The one was plainly delighted. “You yourself are Aryuk? I have been waiting for this.”
“Is she with you?”
“No. She is of my kindred, however, and asked me to give you her friendliest thoughts. My name is—the Cloud People call me Tall Man. I have come to spend a few years among them and learn about them and their ways. I want to know you better too.”
Red Wolf stirred, impatiently, and barked something in his own speech. Tall Man replied likewise. Words went between them, until Red Wolf made a chopping gesture, as if to say, “So be it.” Tall Man looked back at Aryuk and his sons, who stood mute within the encirclement of hunters’ eyes.
“Talk goes easiest when I help,” Tall Man said, “though I have warned them they should take the trouble to learn your tongue better. In time I also will depart this country, and meanwhile I will not always be here. Red Wolf wants to talk with you when you have rested, about what you and your folk are to bring later.”
“What have we to bring, other than driftwood and deadwood?” Aryuk asked, his voice gone as dull as his heart.
“They want more of that. But also they want good stone for their tools and weapons. They want peat and dung, dried for burning. They want pelts. They want dried fish, blubber, everything the sea gives.”
“We cannot!” Aryuk cried. “They already crave so much that we can barely feed ourselves.”
Tall Man looked unhappy. “This is hard for you,” he said. “I cannot free you of it. But I can make it bearable, if you heed me. I will tell the Cloud People that they can get nothing from you if they cause you to die. I will have them give you and show you the use of things that make fishing and hunting easier. They fashion … points that fish bite on and then cannot escape, spearheads that go into án animal and stay fast. Clothes like theirs will keep you warm and dry—-” His tone faltered. “I am sorry I may not do more for you than this. But we can try—”
He stopped, because Aryuk no longer heard him.
Red Wolf had shifted to the side of the entrance. Forth from it crept a woman. She was garbed like others, but the clothes were dirty, greasy, and stenchful. Her belly bulged them out. Hair hung lank past a face gone gaunt. When she rose to her feet, she wavered on them and her arms dangled slack.
“Daraku,” Aryuk whispered. “Is it you?” He had not seen her here before, nor been able to ask what had become of her. He had wondered whether Red Wolf told her to stay out of sight, lest she bring on trouble, or whether she hid in fear and shame, or whether she was dead.
She stumbled to him. He embraced her and wept.
Red Wolf threw a command at her. She cowered against Aryuk. Tall Man frowned. He spoke harshly. Red Wolf and the hunters who were in earshot bristled. Tall Man lowered his voice. Bit by bit, Red Wolf eased. At last he spread his hands and turned his back, a sign that he was done with the matter.
Aryuk looked across Daraku’s shoulder. How sharply her bones jutted under the buckskin coat. Hope flickered in him. Through a blur, through a surf he saw, he heard Tall Man:
“This girl that they took away is your daughter, is she not? I have spoken to her, a little, though she hardly ever answers. They wanted to learn your speech from her. They have done that now, as much as she was able to tell them before sadness grew too heavy in her. They still want the child she carries, to be another hunter or another mother for them, but I have gotten them to let her go. She may return with you.”
Aryuk flattened himself and Daraku on the earth before Tall Man. Her brothers did the same.
Afterward it was to eat—the Cloud women were generous, though the food was so different that We could not swallow much—and sleep, together again, in a tent raised for them, and then talk at length, Tall Man explaining between Aryuk and Red Wolf. A great deal was said about what We must do henceforward and what would be done for them in exchange. Aryuk wondered how long it would take for him to discover the full meaning. Certain was that life had changed beyond his power to grasp.
He and his children set out for home on a morning when wind flung raw gusts of rain. They walked slowly and often stopped, for Daraku could only stumble along. She stared before her and seldom answered when spoken to, then in just two or three words. Yet when Aryuk stroked her cheek or took her hand, she smiled enough for him to see.
That night while they were camped, her pangs came upon her. Rain cut and torrented. Aryuk, Barakyn, Oltas, and Dzuryan clustered close around, trying to give shelter and warmth. She began screaming and did not stop. She was so young; her hips were still narrow. When morning sneaked gray from the unseen east, Aryuk saw that she bled heavily. Rain washed it off into the peat moss. Her face was stretched across the skull and her look was blind. She had scant voice left. The last noises rattled away into silence.
“The baby is dead too,” Barakyn said.
“That is as well,” Aryuk mumbled. “I do not know what I would have done about it.”
Afar, a mammoth trumpeted. The wind loudened. This was going to be a cold summer.
II
The Patrol team came late on a moonless night, to do their work as fast and quietly as possible and then disappear. Local folk would soon know that another marvelous thing had happened, but best not have it occur in their sight. Always minimize impact.
However, Wanda Tamberly could arrive after sunrise. Her hopper brought her straight inside the shelter that had been erected for her. Heart thumping hard, she dismounted and looked around. The transparency was set at translucent and light was ample. Familiar stuff was arranged neatly enough. She’d need a while, though, to shift it around to the way she liked it. First let’s have a peek at the neighborhood. Warmly clad in preparation, she added a mackinaw, unsealed the entrance, and stepped out.
The time was fall in the year after she last left Beringia (and she had spent only a few weeks in the twentieth century before this return). Astronomically, the season was not very far along, but snow could fly any day now, at a subarctic latitude in an ice age. Morning lay bright and bleak. Wind whistled over sere grass. Hills narrowed horizons north and south. A heap of till, left when the glacier retreated, bulked above her dome and Corwin’s. A spring trickled from its foot. She missed the sea and dwarf trees at her earlier camp. What birds wheeled overhead were fewer, and inland species.