Compared to the long climb up from the shore of the Skar, the descent was as pleasurable as an afternoon stroll through the gardens of New Riviera. In addition, the loads had been distributed among twice as many porters, the Tsla shouldering their new burdens alongside but separate from their Mai counterparts.

The Tsla joked amiably among themselves, their evident good spirits proof enough of Lyra’s claim that all were willing volunteers. Whenever Tyl moved among them they deferred to him as they would a superior, but without any of the bowing and scraping common among the Mai. The porters recognized and honored him as their mental and spiritual superior. He, in turn, did not use his position to lord it over his fellows.

There was something of a subtle hierarchy among the porters, however, as if each one knew his place without having to be reminded of it. At the bottom of the pecking order was one exceptionally large, powerful, and mentally slow individual named Yulour. He hardly spoke at all and was often the butt of gentle, nonmalicious humor on the part of his companions, to which he invariably responded with a smile. It took a while for Yulour’s slowness to manifest itself beyond a doubt, at which point Etienne slipped back from the head of the party to take Tyl aside.

“Yulour?” Etienne wished he could see if Tyl was smiling, but that weaving flexible snout concealed the lower half of his expression. “He was orphaned in the mountains, his parents slain by some carnivore he could not well describe to us. Perhaps the terror of that moment stopped his mind from growing.” Tyl made a gesture Etienne did not recognize.

“He was raised a part of Mii-an’s extended family, but it did not help him here.” Tyl tapped the side of his head. “For all that he is a goodly soul, with a kind heart, and his back is strong if his mind weak. He will gain much merit from this journey, perhaps even enough to admit him to the afterlife.”

“It’s not my specialty, more my wife’s province, but I didn’t know that the Tsla believed in an afterlife.”

“Not all of us do. I do not know if Yulour does, so I try to believe for him. He appears content with his lot, unfair as life has been to him. There are many I know who envy him his unshakable contentment. On this journey of discovery he is my greatest responsibility—save for thee and thy mate, of course.” There was no guile in those warm brown eyes.

“If he were to wander away from us he would never find his way back. Indeed, though he has lived there all his life, he could not find his way back to Turput from this spot. He would not have enough sense to follow the road.” Tyl waited and when no more questions were forthcoming, fell back among his fellows.

Everything Lyra claimed for the Tsla was borne out by each new experience. They were a kind, likable people. So why did he persist in trying to find a reason for disliking them?

He knew the answer to that one. Lyra was not fond of the Tsla. She was absolutely infatuated with them. But was that the root of his problem? He pressed on with his internal argument. No, it was something else. There was one Tsla in particular, one she spent all her spare time with, one she looked up to and turned to with every new question: Tyl.

Now there was a bizarre thought, he told himself. No question about it, Tyl was an impressive specimen of mammalian life. It wasn’t the first time Lyra had grown personally fond of some object of study.

Patrick O’Morion’s space, I’m jealous of an alien aborigine, he told himself. The shock of realization so numbed him he nearly wandered off the road toward a hundred-meter drop. Lyra noticed the dazed look in his eyes.

“Etienne? Are you okay?”

“Sure. Yeah, I’m okay.” He blinked, extended his stride until he once more assumed the lead. Lyra stared at his back, shook her head in puzzlement and hurried to catch up with him.

The Tsla brought up the rear. Tyl stood next to Yulour, dwarfed by the porter’s bulk. “Yulour?”

“Yes, Learned One?”

“What is the sign made by crossing the Oo and the Strike?”

The porter’s brow did not furrow. There was no point in straining his capacity over the mildly complex concept.

“I do not know, Learned One.”

“That’s all right, Yulour. It’s not important. Tell me, what do you think of our new friends?”

Yulour looked over the heads of his companions, at the two humans. “They are very nice, Learned One, though they have so little fur. And when they talk among themselves it is strange talk, neither like ours nor the Mai’s. But they are nice.”

“Yes, they are. Thank thee for thy opinion, Yulour.” The porter made a movement with his trunk.

Tyl rejoined the objects of his interest. “Your curiosity induced me to chat with Yulour, Etienne. I put to him a question simple enough for a cub to answer, and he could not. It was beyond his simple powers of reason. Yet it struck me that he may be happier than we. While he is free of intelligence, he is also free of the pains and travails higher thought brings. Ignorance, frustration, envy: he is subject to none of these.”

“You make him out to be a perfect saint.”

“Sometimes I wonder. He is so content, and still there are times I do not understand him.”

“We have a saying among our people, Tyl.” Etienne struggled to translate it into Tsla. “Better a lucky idiot than an unlucky genius.”

“Ah, this strange concept of ‘luck’ again. Lyra mentioned it to me. We have no such concept. You must explain it to me further.” Etienne made an attempt to do so as they plodded steadily downhill toward the ever widening streak of silver that was the Skar.

Days passed and the heat intensified, rising past ninety degrees. As it did so the Tsla began shedding their clothing, capes and togas vanishing into packs, not to be used again until the climate of the far north was encountered.

It was the first time Etienne had seen a Tsla without the familiar cape-and-toga attire. They appeared quite comfortable without it, as if clothing was employed for protection against the elements and possibly to signify social standing, but not because of some primitive nudity taboo.

Not that they were naked in the human sense, since soft brown fur covered everything except forearms and forelegs. The only surprise was the unexpected presence of a tail, a short stub five to six centimeters in length. It made them look animalistic, though several intelligent races retained tails. The AAnn, for example, considered the retention of a tail as a sign of intelligence, not vice versa.

In other respects the Tsla were very human, if one discounted the six-fingered hands, six-fingered toes, and myrmecophagous face. There was one other aspect of their anatomy that interested him. He fully intended to question Lyra about it as soon as he could be sure she wouldn’t misinterpret his curiosity. Undoubtedly she would have found his uncertainty amusing.

By the time the temperature touched one hundred degrees the Mai were shedding their cold-climate attire, able for the first time in weeks to luxuriate in the stifling heat and humidity.

They reached the bank of the Skar and turned toward Aib. Etienne was looking forward to a cool shower on board the hydrofoil. As soon as they’d cleaned themselves up they’d hand over the second half of the agreed-upon payment to the local Oyt and make preparations for resuming their journey Upriver.

That evening they were confronted by the leader of their Mai porters. So rapidly did he talk that even Lyra had trouble following his words. It was left for Homat to interpret.

“It has something to do with the season of sowing,” he explained. “They are all late to help and are anxious to be on their way. There is also talk of local taxes. They come not from Aib itself but from the outlying farming district.”

Lyra nodded knowingly. “I understand. They want to skip with their payment before the local authorities can demand a cut. Perfectly Mai.”

The porters organized a hasty ceremony of departure, took their payment, and left in a rush. Only slightly discomfited by the heat, the Tsla assumed the second half of the divided burdens. Larger and stronger than the Mai, they had no difficulty with the full loads.

Two days later they were nearing the outskirts of Aib when Etienne’s eyebrows drew together. “That’s funny.”

“What is funny, Etienne?” Tyl asked uncertainly.

Etienne ignored the question. Impolite, but he was concerned with something besides alien concepts of courtesy.

“I don’t see the boat, Lyra.”

She strained her eyes. “Neither do I. Your eyesight’s better than mine, Etienne, but you’re right. I don’t see it. Surely that’s the dock where we left it moored?”

“Has to be,” he muttered. “See, there’s the basaltic outcrop the local ruler used for a dais.”

“Something is wrong?” Tyl asked. “I feared as much. These Mai,” he said evenly, not caring whether Homat overheard him or not, “will steal anything left unguarded for half an anat and consider it moral.”

“We made an arrangement,” Etienne explained even as his pace quickened, “with the head of this town to watch our boat for us. We paid him half the set fee prior to our departure.”

Forbearing to say, “I told you so,” Homat instead chose to put the best possible light on the situation. “Perhaps the people of Aib are not responsible for the disappearance of the spirit boat.”

“You rationalize hopefully, Homat. What do you really think?”

The Mai’s gaze shifted rapidly from one alien to the other. It was a look Etienne had become familiar with and he hastened to reassure their guide.

“You have nothing to fear from us, Homat. We are your friends.”

“You recall, de-Etienne, how I warned you against this possibility?”