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making landfall; it would be a long, hot walk to Port Central, and she was not sure
Danner would welcome her opinion of the Mirror s actions.
High Beaches was a forbidding place, all bleak, liver-colored cliffs and rocky
promontories rearing from a choppy and restless sea. The Nemora weighed anchor,
and Marghe and Thenike took the Nid-Nod in to a steeply sloping pebble beach. A
woman with the same liver-colored eyes as the cliff rock met them. She was thin,
with lank brown hair rising from a high widow s peak and the kind of sallow
complexion that made her look grimy. She introduced herself as Gabbro.
The viajeras Marghe Amun and Thenike, sa? Marghe nodded. I m to be your
guide through the burnstone to the west, she said, and set off up the beach in a
ground-eating stride. If we hurry, we can make a good start today.
They did not follow her. We can use the skiff, Thenike called. Gabbro turned;
reluctantly, Marghe thought. The wind should be steady enough to take us
upstream faster than we could walk. That is, if the spring rains were heavy enough.
Sa, sa. The river s deep enough.
The skiff will save time, Marghe said.
Sa, sa. Gabbro headed back down the beach toward the Nid-Nod.
But we ll need to eat before we set out.
We can eat on the way. The silverfish shoals are due before the end of the
moon. I have to be back by then. Come, we ll need ropes.
After so long aboard ship, Marghe struggled to keep up on the sliding pebbles,
and she was sure she would be sick of hearing sa, sa before dark, but she said
nothing. This had been her own idea.
They were four days on the river Glass, four lazy days of trimming the sail, sitting
at the tiller, and watching the banks go past. Marghe spent endless hours trying not
to think about how she would persuade Danner to honor trata, concentrating instead
on the variety of plants and animals they saw: nutches, knobby dark reptilian
predators sunning themselves on stones; sleths, which Marghe at first mistook for
bunches of reeds until one exploded into motion as a swarm of boatflies hummed
past, catching half the cloud in its sticky fronds; pelmats, slow green amphibious
things that crawled on the riverbed, and sometimes up onto the hull of the Nid-Nod.
In the evenings, they tied up on the bank and Gabbro caught fish for their supper.
Sometimes Thenike told a story.
Marghe hardly tasted the fish, barely listened to the stories. Her stomach felt full
of rocks. The closer they came to Port Central, the more she lost herself in trying to
find a solution to her problem: how to make Danner do the right thing. How? Danner
would do as she thought best for her personnel. The difficulty lay in persuading the
Mirror commander that honoring trata was the best thing, in the long term.
Marghe went over and over in her mind that original report on trata to Danner,
searching for flaws. She found none. It was all there: long-term and short-term
benefits. What more could she add? She had no idea, but she knew she had to try.
She just had to hope that presenting the arguments in person would carry more
force. The queasy weight in her stomach told her otherwise. No. The problem was
not in her arguments, her initial reasoning: something was happening that was forcing
Danner into this decision. Something of which Marghe knew nothing. What? She
could only assume some kind of Company threats. What had Sara Hiam said? That
cruiser out there isn t hanging around for the view. The Kurst s a military vessel&
Every time I wake up, I wonder, Is this going to be my last day?
Marghe picked absently at her fish. It was almost cold, but she did not notice.
What had changed to turn that ever-present threat into something more urgent,
something that made Danner believe trata should take second place?
The only thing she knew of was the fact that she was no longer protected by the
vaccine. But that would not precipitate Company action, not of and by itself. If the
vaccine had been proven ineffective, maybe. But her message had been quite
specific: she had chosen not to continue. As far as Company was concerned, that
decision would only result in unpleasant consequences for her personally. It should
not affect Company s attitude toward Danner or Hiam. In the long term, Company
would be philosophical and simply try the vaccine again with someone else. After all,
it was not as though the damn thing did not work&
Amu? Marghe?
Um?
That fish is beyond eating.
Marghe looked at it. Thenike was right. She threw it onto the pile of leftovers that
they would bury in the morning before they set sail again. Gabbro was toasting some
gram roots in the embers. They smelled sweet. All of a sudden, Marghe was restless.
I m going to walk for a while, she said, scrambling to her feet and brushing
sand from her legs. She faced west, where the last bloody rags of sunset lay
scattered on the tops of the distant hills.
Do you want company?
Marghe nodded. They walked in silence, occasionally stopping to skip stones on
the river, or to listen to the steady, reassuring flow of the water. It was warm, and
insects hummed and buzzed. The evening gradually seeped into Marghe, loosening
her shoulders, straightening her back.
That s better, Thenike said.
They walked farther, then Marghe stopped to watch the last of the dark red slide
from the sky. Inky clouds swept across the sky, and the air stirred with a warm
breeze from the nttls. I have seen dawn and sunset on moors and windy hills, she
quoted quietly, coming in solemn beauty like slow old tunes of Spain. A viajera s
memory was good for remembering poetry.
They walked back hand in hand, and ate hot, charred gram roots with Gabbro.
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