“Maybe in a couple of months. Certainly no sooner.”
“That takes us into local winter. That wouldn’t cause us any problems here, but up near the arctic circle the Skar may freeze solid. The hydrofoil’s not equipped for ice skimming, Lyra. We can’t wait two months.”
She turned again, a swirl of brightly striped cottonlike folds. “I’m sorry, Etienne, but I can’t abandon my work here. As you so aptly pointed out, I don’t have sufficient evidence to support my numerous conclusions.”
“Where are you going?”
“Evening meditation. I’ve been invited to watch and to participate if I desire. I’d ask you along but you wouldn’t find a bunch of aborigines sitting around attempting to get in touch with their inner selves very interesting, would you?”
And she was gone. He stared after her for a long minute.
“Well, damn!” He would have kicked his bed if it hadn’t been constructed of solid rock. He settled instead for slamming one fist into an open palm until the latter was sore.
Of one thing he was certain. No matter how vital Lyra considered her work here, they had to return to the Skar. That was the agreement. Similar agreements had kept their marriage together for twenty years and he was damned if he was going to alter that relationship because of a sudden infatuation on her part for a race of pseudolamaistic anteaters with soulful eyes.
She didn’t come to the room that night. It wasn’t the first time she’d stayed away all night, but it was the first time he’d lain awake long enough to notice it. It was very early the next morning when he strode purposefully down the hall toward the porters’ quarters.
Like his companions, Homat lay asleep beneath a half dozen heavy woven blankets. Etienne estimated the room temperature at seventy degrees. He nudged the Mai hard.
“What is it, de-Etienne?” Homat inquired as he tried to clear his vision.
“Get up. Get everyone up. We’re leaving.”
“Leaving, de-Etienne? I thought—you did not say, and it is very early.”
“There’s been a sudden change of plans. You’ll find out that we humans have a tendency to do things on the spur of the moment.”
“I understand that, de-Etienne, but—”
“I’ll be in the courtyard if you need me. Tell them to hurry it up.” He left a very puzzled Mai behind him.
Evidently meditation was over, or else someone had roused his wife from her contemplation. She stormed out into the open courtyard, ignoring the strained singing of several lizardlike puouts on the main gate. Etienne didn’t look up from his work. He was checking the supplies several somber Tsla were providing.
“Etienne, this is childish. You know how I hate it when you turn childish.”
“Yes, I know, and you hate ultimatums even worse.”
“That’s because ultimatums are the worst manifestation of childishness. I thought everything had been settled last night.”
“Settled to your satisfaction. Not to mine. I’m leaving.” He tugged brutally on a backpack’s straps.
She sighed deeply. “I told you that my work here is just getting under way, that I’m only beginning to make some real progress in understanding this culture, these people.”
“Fine. I understand that.” He moved to check another pack. Homat and the rest of the porters began filing sleepily out of the hospitality building, shivering in the early morning cold. Few Tsla were about this early and the sun was just peeking over the eastern wall of the canyon.
“You stay here, Lyra. You don’t have to come down with me. If all goes as intended I’ll be back in six months to pick you up. Stay and meditate like mad.”
“You can’t go north alone,” she argued. “Two is the absolute minimum authorized for an expedition like this.”
“Then from this point on the expedition advances without authorization, I guess. Homat’s learned enough to assist me. Haven’t you, Homat?”
The Mai guide’s gaze shifted warily from one tall alien to the other and he found reason to work on the pack farthest away from them both.
Etienne started toward another bundle and Lyra rushed to confront him, blocking his path. “Stop it, Etienne. Stop it right now. I’m not in the mood for a fight.”
“Why not?” he asked sarcastically. “Did I upset your morning devotions? And as long as we’re on the subject of childish acts, how would you define someone who forgets eight years of higher education and goes native despite twenty years of arduous fieldwork that consistently proves such activities are counterproductive to good research?”
“I’ve explained before that the Tsla are a unique race deserving of special study. Sometimes to obtain the best results it’s necessary to bend the rules.”
“Not as far as I’m concerned it isn’t.” He waved expansively at the surrounding buildings. “But you go ahead. Stay and have yourself a deliriously good time. Bury yourself in native customs and habits. Inhale primitive wisdom, join the local religion, become a Tsla nun if they have such institutions—I don’t care. I never put restraints on you, Lyra, despite all your talk of ultimatums.
“As for me, I intend to locate the source of the river Skar and study its history and geology from there to the morass of the Skatandah. Halfway along that journey of discovery I will make it a point to stop back here and pick you up.”
“Etienne.”
“What?” He stepped around her and bent to the pack with a will.
“Etienne, you know I can’t let you go without me.”
“Why not? What about your carefully timed research program?”
“We’re a team, Etienne. We complement each other. Neither of us does our best work solitaire.”
“We’ll just have to adapt somehow, won’t we?”
“No,” said a new voice. Etienne frowned, looked toward the hallway. He and Lyra had been arguing in Tsla, using the local language out of habit.
The Chief Consoler and First Scholar of Turput stood in the portal. It was the first time Etienne had seen him and the Tsla’s advanced age manifested itself in the streaks of silver that dominated his face, the wrinkled flesh of exposed forearms. Tyl stood at his right shoulder to lend support should it be needed. Mii-an leaned on a twisted cane.
