Lyra had to give him a shove to start him back toward the stockade gate. “Back to the harbor, everybody, before they get over the shock!”

Moving as fast as possible without conveying the impression of a hasty retreat, the intruders fled with studied dignity. Now and then a face would peek out at them as they passed along the street, but a burst from an asynaptic pistol would cause doors and windows to slam shut quickly.

They reached the narrow gate and filed quickly through it. Unable to quite clear the crest of the palisade, the hydrofoil made a satisfyingly loud smashing and crackling as it splintered several of the massive logs.

Etienne and the Tsla remained behind to guard the landward end of a pier while Lyra directed the boat over the water before retracting her husband’s order. The hydrofoil settled gently into the Skar. Bending low to avoid an intact section of wooden cage, she stepped aboard.

From his position facing the town wall, Etienne was gratified to hear the start-up growl of the engine as power was transferred from repellers to jet. A few armed Mai had pushed through the gap in the stockade, but hadn’t gained the courage to charge. As soon as word came that the boat was acting like a boat once more, some of the initial terror of its unboatlike behavior would fade and the Hochacites would try to recover it. Etienne had no intention of giving them that kind of time. “Now, Tyl! Get your people on board before the Mai have time to regroup!” Even as Etienne backpedaled to cover the Tsla’s retreat, the bolder villagers slowly advanced.

Lyra made a quick head count and spun the wheel as she nudged the accelerator. The hydrofoil varoomed out into the safety of the Skar, but not as fast as Etienne wanted. The unwieldy remnants of the cage prevented the boat from rising up on its hydrofoils. Distant shouts sounded from Hochac’s harbor; pursuit was being organized.

Among the ship’s tools was a heat stitch that could cut and weld. It made short work of the leather thongs that bound the sections of the wooden cage together. As Etienne sliced the thongs the Tsla heaved the heavy timbers over the side, and a few arrows thunked against the rear of the boat. Finally, with a loud splash the undersection of the cage gave way and drifted astern. The pursuing Mai were still within insult range but by now even Homat was too tired to respond.

Etienne stumbled to the intercom. “We’re clear, Lyra. Raise her up.”

The nimble of the electric jet became a whine as the boat rose above the surface on its twin foils and rocketed Upriver at a leisurely sixty kph, leaving the Tsla whispering their wonderment to one another and the frustrated Hochacites far behind.

“Wonderful, delicious,” Tyl muttered as he peeked hesitantly over the side. “The boat flies over the water. You must explain to me how it works.”

Etienne stiffened, relaxed almost as quickly. Tyl’s words had sparked bad memories of Irquit and the ease with which she’d mastered the hydrofoil’s security system. But there was no deception in this philosopher-teacher. Etienne felt guilty at his instinctive suspicion.

“Be happy to, Tyl. You’re entitled to learn about what you’ve just rescued. I’ll try and explain the principles to you and you must tell me more about what we’re likely to encounter Upriver, especially this Topapasirut that has you so concerned.”

“I will gladly do so, Etienne. But as for the Topapasirut there is little to say. It must be seen to be understood.”

“Still certain we can’t surmount it?”

“I still think so, yes, but after seeing what you have achieved tonight I am less certain than I was before.”

That is faintly encouraging, Etienne mused. Further discussion would have to wait until morning. He longed desperately for the softness of his air-conditioned bunk. Lyra could drive for another half hour. Then they’d be far enough Upriver from any lingering pursuit to put the boat on autopilot.

At last they were on their way again, though he felt no pride in the thoroughly unprofessional but necessary diversion for which the inhabitants of Hochac were responsible. With any luck that would be the first and last interruption of its kind.

As for allowing the Tsla into the cabin, that was a necessity. They would be much more comfortable inside, where the temperature approximated that of their home. There was no fear in him. For one thing he was too tired. For another, he’d slept peacefully among the Tsla for weeks. They’d earned his trust. Besides, he and Lyra could always lock themselves in their cabin, and no curious Tsla could disengage a locked autopilot.

The morning dawned bright, hot, and stinking humid but Etienne sat comfortably alongside Lyra in the little dining nook. Tyl squatted on the floor nearby. The porters ate farther astern, in the storage area that had been turned into their living quarters. They could have joined the humans but chose not to. Etienne asked why, confident it would have some bearing on his question.

“They’re ashamed,” Tyl explained.

“Ah.” Lyra looked satisfied. Apparently she’d been thinking along similar lines. “Because they had to fight?”

“Oh no.” Tyl nibbled at his bowl, his stubby six-fingered hands probing for solid morsels. The Redowls had already overcome their distaste at seeing a Tsla rummage for food with its long snout. “They are. ashamed because they were not permitted to fulfill their intentions.”

“But they did,” Etienne argued. “We’re safe and we recovered our boat.”

“Yes, but no thanks to us.”

“You dispatched that patrol at the harbor.”

“It was our intention to assist thee during the entire process, Etienne. Yet we could only stand helplessly by and watch while this wondrous craft,” and he tapped the metal floor, “did more to save itself than did we.”

“But you couldn’t have done more than you did,” Lyra told him. “We barely had enough time to activate the voice pickup.”

“That is not the point. We know we could not have carried this boat to the river on our shoulders, but we did not have the chance to try. Therefore merit was lost because we did not have the opportunity to vanquish our enemy.”

Lyra looked uncomfortable. “It’s my understanding that your society is a pacifistic one.”

“Of course, that is true.”

“Then how can you talk of gaining merit by fighting?”

“Like a storm or rockfall, a declared enemy is an agent of nature. As an enemy it removes itself from the considerations of civilization.”

Etienne was enjoying his wife’s discomfiture enormously. “But your enemy is only acting in what he considers a civilized manner.”

“He must be judged by civilized standards.”

“You mean, by Tsla standards.”

“Naturally. You do not think that we would adopt the standards of the Mai?” He sounded politely outraged. “A truly civilized people instinctively know what constitutes civilized behavior.”

“Sounds like expediency to me.”

“Not at all. Our moral standards are not nearly so flexible.”

“Then you feel remorse when you kill an enemy?”

“Naturally. An enemy is one who has freely abjured his soul. How else could we feel but sorry for him?”

“That wouldn’t, however, have prevented you from killing every Mai in Hochac who opposed you?”

“No, it would not. By opposing us in the recovery of your property they would have demonstrated disregard for civilized behavior, thus removing themselves from consideration by those who adhere to such behavior. I see no contradiction in this.”

“No contradiction at all.” He glanced at his wife. Lyra’s note-taker was running and she didn’t look up at Tyl. “Just wanted the point clarified.”

“I thought,” Lyra said quietly, “that the Tsla considered it sinful to kill.”

“To kill any civilized person, yes, a terrible sin. But there is no moral restraint against defending oneself from the hostility of an uncivilized person any more than it is sinful to raise a roof to keep out the rain.”

“All perfectly clear,” Etienne agreed. He was content. It was clear that his initial worries about the safety of the Tsla were unfounded. For all their vaunted pacifism they were quite capable of taking care of themselves should the need arise. Killing a civilized person is a sin. Anyone who assaults me is uncivilized. Very neat.

Neat enough to quash Lyra’s romanticized notions of Tsla society. Her beloved mystics were no more or less bloodthirsty than any other primitive folk. Well, that wasn’t quite fair. But it was evident they could slaughter with a clear conscience so long as their victims fell below civilized standards. When you set those standards yourself it gave you considerable flexibility in establishing a defense.

Lyra continued to press Tyl for information, hoping to bolster her fading thesis of Tsla nobility. Etienne left to check the autopilot and then to see what the other Tsla and Homat were up to. He also wanted to tell the porters that, in his eyes at least, they’d acquired a great deal of merit for what they’d done in Hochac.

They were more than three thousand kilometers north northwest of Steamer Station and the distant Skatandah Delta. Cloud cover was increasing daily though it brought little relief from the heat and humidity. The Barshajagad was beginning to narrow sharply, towering walls shortening the daylight on the river. Both sides of the canyon could be seen now though the edge of the Guntali Plateau was still faint with distance. But for the first time it felt like they were sailing up a canyon.

Ahead lay another major tributary of the Skar, the river Gaja. Beyond this confluence, according to Tyl, the Barshajagad’s walls drew toward one another with breathtaking suddenness, closing in to seal off the place where river devils were born, the Topapasirut. Beyond the Topapasirut lay lands unknown even to the wise men of Turput.