Safrah approached the tower, longing to turn around and head back to the settlement. Any traders should have been waiting for her at the outpost, not here with a boat. All along the way, she had hoped that the next time she looked toward the tower, she would see the boat drifting south, indicating that the traders had decided to leave. She told herself that perhaps they were stopping at the tower only to get some rest before heading back to the outpost where they always waited.
None of the traders had ever come to the tower by boat. They would send one or two of their number there on foot to turn on the beacon before returning to the outpost to wait. Whatever their reasons were for waiting at the tower this time, turning back and refusing to meet with them would only make them curious about why no one had responded to their signal. She did not want them to come any closer to the settlement, so she would talk to them and get the trade settled as quickly as possible, and she would not ask why they had decided to wait for her at the tower.
But she knew why they must be waiting for her there. The traders had seen the light that might be the sign of Ship’s return. Perhaps they had first glimpsed it on their way north; maybe it had been visible in the sky for even longer than that. She had no way of knowing when it had first appeared. The traders would have questions, and she had no answers to give them.
She was close enough now that she could go on foot the rest of the way. Her people had never needed to use stun guns on the traders, but they always brought them anyway, keeping them concealed; hers was under her tunic, tied to the drawstring of her pants.
She climbed out of the vehicle and walked toward the tower. The boat had been pulled up; its prow rested on a patch of muddy shore near a small green and violet bush of blossoming colulos. Now that she was closer to the boat, she realized that she had seen this craft before. The red and yellow stripes of the cloth curtain that hung in front of the cabin had faded since the last time she had seen them, but she knew whose boat this had to be.
She sighed with relief and picked up her pace. As she neared the tower, the door at its base opened and a man stepped outside. His broad face was adorned by a mustache, a long black braid hung down his back, and he wore a light brown tunic and dark brown pants.
“Tarki,” she called out. A smile crossed his face briefly. “I haven’t seen you for so long.”
“Almost two years,” he replied. “You look much the same, Safrah. A little thinner, perhaps.”
She hurried to him and clasped his hands. “I’ve missed you,” she said before she could stop herself. “We’ve all missed you,” she added.
The boatman frowned. “You’re alone,” he said as she let go of him.
“Only because we didn’t know it was you who had come here. If the others had known, they would have come with me. They’re going to be really sorry that they missed you. Maybe you could stay at the outpost while I go and fetch them.” It was easier to act cheerful and unconcerned with Tarki, who wasn’t like the other outsiders she had met. Tarki lived alone, kept to himself, and preferred it that way; so he had often told them. At the same time, he had always welcomed them aboard his boat and usually prolonged his sessions of trading in order to spend more time with them.
“You could come with me, you know,” he had told her the last time she saw him. “There’s more to Home than that settlement up there, more to life than just staying in the same place and doing the same things all those generations of people ahead of you did. I could find you a place to live and some work to do.” Of course, she had refused his offer. She had her obligations to her community, and life would be much harder for her without the technology that sustained her people.
“You can drop the pleasantries,” Tarki said to her now. “I didn’t come here to trade. I came to ask about that light in the sky. Have you had a message from Ship?”
She shook her head. “No.”
His dark eyes were studying her. “I hear the truth in your voice, much as what you say disappoints me. Then do you have any idea what that light is?”
Safrah shook her head again.
“If you’ve had no message from Ship, then surely you’ve formed some notion of what that light might be instead. Haven’t you been watching it and making observations?” He sighed. “Now I smell fear. You’re hiding something from me. But you’ve been doing that for some time now, haven’t you, you and all your people.”
“I thought you were our friend.”
“I am, as much as you’ve ever allowed me to be. That’s why I came here. Every night we look up, and that light’s still crossing the sky, and there’s more and more talk about how the dome dwellers might be communicating with Ship and poisoning Ship’s mind against us.”
“But we’ve had no message from Ship,” she insisted.
“Then you could have sent somebody out to tell us that. Moise isn’t stupid—surely that thought must have crossed his mind. So why didn’t you?”
“Would you have believed us if we had?”
“Yes, if you told the truth. Now you’ve waited too long, and people have had more time to worry and wonder, and it may be too late. Do you know what’s been happening in Westbay? When I left, people were saying that we’d waited long enough, that it was time to come up here and confront you and tell you that we have as much right to speak to Ship as you do. Some are gathering weapons and saying that it’s time to go to your settlement and demand that right for ourselves.”
Safrah stepped back, hugging herself with her arms. “There’s been no message from Ship,” she whispered. “That’s the truth.”
“Then you had better come with me and try to convince others of that. It isn’t just you I’m thinking about, Safrah. I’ve suspected for some time that things weren’t going as well for your people as it seemed. I couldn’t help seeing the uneasiness in your voices and movements. But you still have things we lack, including the means to recharge your weapons. I’m not about to watch people from Westbay or anywhere else go to your settlement, only to be cut down by your people.”
Too much was coming at her at once. She turned away and stumbled toward the lake. A hand gripped her shoulder.
“I thought that light might be Ship,” Tarki said behind her. “I was hoping it was Ship, whatever trouble that might bring upon us. There are so many questions I would want to ask if it were Ship.”
Jina, Awan, and Mikhail should have been with her. Moise should have been there to give her his advice. This was too much for her to handle by herself.
She shook off his hand and turned to face him. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Yes, you do. You’ll come with me and—”
“I said that we had no message from Ship. That’s the truth. What I didn’t tell you is that we have no way at the moment of communicating with Ship.” She had said it. Safrah was suddenly horrified at herself.
“But you do. You must. My grandmother Nuy told me that there was a room in your settlement where the ancestors used to go to talk to Ship. Long ago, she even saw the place for herself. As I’ve been up and down the river, I’ve heard many versions of the story passed down to us, including parts my grandmother stopped reciting after a while. Almost all of them tell of a room where Ship’s voice could be heard, and mention Ship’s promise to return to Home. Are you telling me that there is no—?”
“There’s a room,” she interrupted. She would have to tell him a bit more of the truth. “But the radio, the device that would carry Ship’s voice to us, has failed.”
Tarki stiffened; his dark eyes widened.
“We should be able to repair it,” she continued. “Awan’s working on it right now, and he can fix anything.” That was all of the truth Tarki needed to hear for now.
“How long will that take?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’ll have to come with me, then,” Tarki said. “Maybe people will believe you if you tell them what you’ve told me. That may be the only way we can avoid a confrontation.”
His people had nothing to fear from hers, she thought. If even a small portion of them moved against the settlement, they would have the advantage over her people. But there were Morwen and Terris, who smashed and destroyed things for no reason. They and the other younger ones would fight anything that threatened them, and even if they lost in the end, they could still inflict a lot of damage.
“I don’t know what to do,” she said.
“Well, we’d better decide. I assume you brought some food with you. Go fetch your cart, and we’ll eat and talk about what to do now.”
After she had gone inside the tower to turn off the beacon, they ate outside its entrance, around a shallow pit lined with flat rocks that might once have been a fireplace. She had brought a melon with her, so she cut it in half and gave a piece to Tarki. It came to her that the outsiders seemed more fearsome and alien when she was back in the settlement, mindful of all the obligations the old ones had placed on her and of their insistence that the outsiders had diverged from true humanity. She would think of how intently they peered at her sometimes, or how they heard sounds she could not hear, or how they could tell that a storm was coming when the sky was still clear. Yet Tarki did not seem so strange as he sat here eating her food and gazing out at the lake.
Tarki said, “You’re looking shabbier than usual.”
Safrah did not reply. She thought of the clothing stored inside the tower. There was no sense in going inside to change her clothes now, to disguise herself as a member of a thriving settlement.
“We’ll sleep,” he said, “and then we’ll head for the outpost before dawn. I just hope that people aren’t already there laying out a plan of attack.”
“Are your people so violent?”
“They’re frightened,” he replied. “If Ship has come back, that changes things, changes everything. That’s enough to scare some of my people into thinking they might have to fight yours.”
She forced herself to finish her half of the melon, having lost her appetite. “I can’t go with you,” she said as she wiped her hands on her tunic. “The others will worry about me.”
“That’s nonsense and you know it. If this was a normal trade, they wouldn’t start worrying about you for another three or four days at least, and even after that, they’d probably just think any agreement was taking longer than usual. But you’ve already admitted that you, like us, don’t yet know what that new light is, and that your equipment for contacting Ship is useless until it’s repaired. Your people won’t be expecting you to get back there all that soon. They’ll guess that we’ll need to reach a very different sort of agreement this time.”
“I should at least go back and let them know what’s going on.”
“Safrah, you must be honest with me now. There isn’t time for me to drag the truth out of you. What else are you hiding from us?”
“Nothing.”
“Why did you come here alone? Why didn’t Moise or someone older—?”
“Moise is dead.” She could give him that much truth.
“I’m sorry to hear it. I sensed some kindness and fairness in him, however much he distrusted us.” He stood up. “I’m tired. Do I have your word that you won’t run back to your settlement while I’m sleeping?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I’m a light sleeper, especially under these circumstances, so you wouldn’t get very far anyway. You can keep watch. Wake me if you notice anything out of the ordinary, and be sure to wake me once the second moon’s on the rise.”
“I will.”
The sun was setting; a broad pathway of silvery light stretched to the west across the lake. Tarki went to his boat and climbed aboard. Safrah retreated to the tower and sat down, her back against the door.
She could still try to slip away, but that would solve nothing. She would have to go with Tarki and hope that she could keep his people away from the settlement. By the time she returned, perhaps Awan would have repaired the radio, and then—
She drew up her legs and wrapped her arms around them. If Ship had returned, she and her friends would have to admit the truth to Ship. What if it told them that it wanted to communicate with all the people of Home? The truth would come out then, that she and the others in the settlement were no more than a small group trying to preserve what little they still possessed. Would Ship conclude that its seeding of Home had failed?
When the second moon was just above the horizon, Safrah went to the boat. Tarki came out of the cabin, pushing the curtain aside, just as she was about to board. He grabbed her hand as she climbed into the craft.
“I’ll go with you to the outpost,” she said quickly, before she could change her mind. “We can decide what to do after that.”
“I’ve already told you what you’re going to have to do.”
“Maybe you’re wrong,” she said. “Maybe we won’t find anybody at the outpost. If so, I should head back to the settlement. Awan might have repaired our radio by then.”
“We can talk about that later. Right now we’re heading for the outpost.”
“Now?” she asked.
“I’m not waiting until morning.”
“Then I’d better get my cart.”
“Forget the cart. This isn’t a trade, so you won’t need a cart to carry things back. We’ll go in my boat.” He turned away from her, then looked back. “I still don’t understand why you came here alone, why none of the older ones came with you. Your people must be as worried as ours, but they sent only you out to the tower.”
“There was no need to send someone else. I have experience dealing with outsiders.” She kept her voice steady, grateful that she could not see his face in the darkness. “And I’m almost nineteen— I’m not that young.”
“You’re not that old, either.” Tarki sighed. “Fetch what you need from your cart and then help me push the boat out. You can get some sleep in the cabin.”
The floor under her was rolling gently. Safrah opened her eyes, saw a striped curtain outlined at its edges by bright light, and then remembered where she was.
One of her packs, the one in which she had hidden her stun gun, was under her head. It was warm, almost too warm, inside the cabin. She got up and drew the curtain aside.
The sun was high in the east. It was already midmorning, with the sunny green sky promising a warm day. The boat drifted slowly toward the eastern shore of the lake. She slapped her hands against the deck and hoisted herself up onto the surface.
Tarki sat in the stern, bare chested, the rudder in his hands. As he steered his craft toward the shore, the soft hum of the motor died. He stood up, reached for the heavy rope near him, and threw it over the side. The weight tied to the end of the rope hit the water with a splash.
“Why are we stopping here?” Safrah asked.
“Because I feel like swimming.” Tarki pulled off his pants. Safrah was about to look away until she saw that he was wearing a loincloth. He came toward her across the deck, stepped to the edge of the boat, and jumped into the water.
He hit feetfirst, with a splash that showered Safrah. She watched as he swam to shore, then waded out of the water, plopping down next to a shrub. “Come on,” he called out.
“I’m not any good in the water!” she shouted back. She and her friends had never been allowed to wade more than a few paces from shore.
“Just jump in and wade over here, then. The water won’t be much higher than your shoulders.”
She did not want to take off her clothes in front of him. She also did not want him to think she was afraid of the water. At last she pulled off her shirt and pants, but did not shed the ragged shorts that were her only undergarment. She stepped onto the edge of the boat, pinched her nose, and jumped.
The cold of the water was a shock. Her feet sank into the lake’s muddy bottom; her head bobbed above the water. She waddled toward shore, splashing about with her arms until she came to the bank, then waded out and sat down on a flat rock a few paces from Tarki.
“Admit it,” Tarki said. “That felt good.” She nodded. “And I needed to wash.”
She turned away from him, slouched forward, and pulled her long dark hair over her chest, suddenly shy.
“We should be close to the outpost by nightfall,” Tarki said. “Depending on what I see when we’re closer, we can either keep going, or just sleep on the boat and wait until dawn to land.”
“What are you actually expecting to see?” she asked, suddenly apprehensive again.
“What I’m hoping I don’t see are a lot of people and boats from Westbay, and maybe other places, heading to your settlement to demand some answers.” His hand snaked out and closed around her wrist. “You’re not going to convince anybody of anything if you give them only a piece of the truth. You have to offer up all of it. I’ve been thinking for a while that things aren’t going so well as your people pretend. I sense too much during our meetings that seems false.”
“I’ve been honest with you, Tarki.”
“No, you haven’t,” he said. “I’ve felt your dishonesty.” His fingers tightened around her wrist. “The last time I saw Moise, he looked like a man not far from death. I was sorry when you told me he was gone, but that he was dead didn’t really surprise me. For a while now, I’ve been brooding on the fact that the only dome dwellers who have ever come out to trade with me are you and Awan and Jina and Mikhail, and Moise while he was still alive. I’ve spoken to other traders over the past few years, and it seems you’re also the only ones they’ve ever seen.”
“You couldn’t have spoken to all of the traders.” She paused. “After all, only a small number of your people trade with us, so it shouldn’t seem strange that only—”
“Safrah, you keep trying to say as little as you can, after I’ve told you that doling out little bits of truth isn’t enough.”
She tried to pull her arm away. At last he let her go. “I made promises to the older ones,” she whispered. “You’re asking me to break them.”
“Maybe you don’t have to break those promises. I’ll tell you what I think has happened up there among you dome dwellers. You’ve kept things going, but it’s getting harder and harder. You haven’t grown large enough in numbers to build any more settlements, because if you had, you would have been sure to brag about it, or we at least would have seen some sign of them. Instead, what I see for myself and hear about from others who have come near here are growing herds of cattle and horses and other wild animals out on the plains, animals that seem to be more numerous in the north and the east than they are in the south. And I’ve seen other wild creatures in the regions near the lake, small cats and the occasional pack of dogs that can only be the spawn of the domesticated animals that once lived in your settlement, since they bear no resemblance to the larger predators left on Home. You bring us no seeds and no grain. All you’ve offered in trade for some time now are recharged screens or wands and other such tools, things that I’m sure you couldn’t have made yourselves. Your settlement’s failing. Maybe it’s already failed. How many of you are left?”
She was silent. Saying nothing was not breaking her promise, and to deny what he had said would be a lie.
“We may be few,” she murmured, “but your people would be in danger if any of them moved against us.”
“That I don’t doubt. I imagine you still have plenty of weapons.”
Admitting the truth to Tarki would be nothing compared to having to confess it to Ship. Her people were still the true descendants of humankind. Would that be enough for Ship to forgive them for their failures?
They continued south, with Safrah seated in the prow and Tarki in the stern, tending the rudder. The weather was warm enough that her long hair dried quickly as she combed it with her fingers. She had not put her pants back on, and she would have shed her tunic in this heat, had she been alone.
She had told Tarki most of the truth, without going into detail. He knew how few of her people there were, and that there were no older ones to guide them. He seemed more concerned about that lack of guidance than anything else. “It can be dangerous to be young,” he had said, “dangerous to yourself and to others, too, because young ones often don’t believe they can die.”
“I know very well that I can die,” she had replied.
“You told me before that you weren’t that young. Anyway, I wasn’t thinking of you. I was thinking about the youn gest of your people, the ones that frighten even you.” She had told him nothing about her fear, not even that much about Morwen and Terris and the ones who ran with them, but he had picked up on it somehow.
Something inside her was telling her that she had betrayed her people, that all the older ones would have cursed her for what she had revealed. Another part of her was saying that whatever might happen now was out of her hands, and that she must do what would best preserve her settlement and her people. She did not tell Tarki that the radio failed because someone among her people had destroyed it, but she wondered how long she could conceal that detail, which now seemed the most shameful part of the truth.
By dusk, Safrah could barely make out the tiny huts to the south. There were no boats tied to the dock at the outpost, and no sign that anyone was waiting there.
Pale tendrils of clouds were in the sky. Tarki steered his boat toward shore, dropped anchor near a bed of tall reeds, and refilled their waterskins. They sat on top of the deck to eat a supper of some of her dried fruit and meat.
“I’ll keep watch,” Tarki said after they had finished their food, “and wake you if I get tired.”
“You’re not going on to the outpost tonight?” she asked.
He shook his head. “We don’t want to be there if somebody comes there during the night, and you don’t want to be there if they’re suspicious and angry and you can’t offer them any reassurances. We’ll stay here for the night. If anyone coming north happens to glance in our direction, those reeds should keep us hidden, as long as it’s dark and cloudy like this.” He sniffed at the air. “Wouldn’t surprise me if we get some fog tomorrow.” He peered up at the thickening clouds, then put a hand on her arm. “Go to sleep, Safrah,” he said more gently.
She crept under the deck and pulled the curtain open to the cooler night air. Awan might have repaired the radio by now. Perhaps he, Mikhail, and Jina were already talking to Ship. Or they might have picked up nothing except the usual background noises, and concluded that Ship had not returned.
Please, she thought, not knowing what it was that she wished for now. She lay there in the dark, the floor hard against her back. If she could just return to the settlement, everything would be as it had been only a few days ago. She and her companions would save what records they could from the library, and then they would move to the eastern side of the settlement. They would find enough there to survive somehow, and could leave the younger ones to take care of themselves. Awan would finally fall in love with her. Or Ship would speak to them at last, and tell them how to save their settlement.
But Ship could not speak to them. Someone among her people did not want Ship ever to be able to speak to them.
“Safrah.” Tarki spoke so softly that she could barely hear him. “Come out here.” There was fear in his voice.
She sat up and crawled out of the cabin. Tarki sat in the bow, arms resting against a gunwale, gazing south. She looked up and saw a streak of bright light above the clouds, and moving in their direction.
Part of the sky was glowing. A band of dark blue clouds rippled with yellow light as a long metallic object dropped below the clouds and then glided slowly toward the outpost.
“What is it?” Tarki whispered. Even this far from the outpost, Safrah could hear a high whining sound that seemed to be coming from the thing that was flying down from the sky. “What could it be?”
She knew what it had to be—she had seen objects much like it in the records. Vehicles shaped like that one had brought her ancestors to Home. Her gorge rose in her throat; she felt sick with fear and despair.
Ship had judged them, she thought wildly. Ship had found them wanting and had decided to reseed Home with better human beings, people who would displace hers. She struggled to control her panic.
The whining sound abruptly cut off and the light died. Tarki cupped a hand around his right ear and leaned farther over the side of the boat. Safrah realized that she was holding her breath. She squinted, but could not make out anything near the outpost in the darkness. Then the light suddenly flared up once more, rose toward the sky, emitted a sound like thunder, and vanished.
“What was that?” Tarki asked, after a long moment.
“Ship has come back,” Safrah said. “I know that now.”
“What are you saying?”
“That’s the kind of vessel that brought the first people here. It’s true, Tarki. I’ve seen vehicles like it on screens, in our historical records. It has to mean that Ship has returned.” She covered her eyes and sank down next to him.