One thing Etienne no longer had to concern himself about was Lyra’s tendency to adopt Tsla habits. After Tyl’s breakfast explanation of adaptable battlefield philosophy he never again saw her in Tsla cape and toga.

They reached the place where the Gaja flowed thick and muddy into the clear Skar. The Tsla records were accurate. It was immensely wide and tinged a pale rust in color. The Gaja was another Amazon, just another tributary. He felt no amazement. Tslamaina had already exhausted his store of geological superlatives.

Beyond the Gaja the Skar narrowed rapidly. As it did so the current intensified. Submerged mountains and hills began to produce some white water, the first they’d encountered in their long journey Upriver. The cloud cover was thick overhead and. Etienne saw why that section of the river had not been accurately mapped by the single orbiting satellite.

Seven thousand meters overhead, the edge of the Guntali glistened with ice and snow. The rim was now a mere two hundred and fifty kilometers distant to east or west, descending toward the bottom of the canyon in a series of steps and escarpments. Through the telescope Etienne examined one sheer wall some four thousand meters high.

One day they were cruising slowly so that Etienne could check the standard subsurface water samples. Lyra sat at the controls while Etienne was working in the lab astern. Several Tsla were watching the logging procedure with interest while Homat lay half asleep on his mat on the rear deck. Suddenly the boat tipped wildly, almost knocking Etienne from his feet. Something had bumped the right side of the hull.

“What the hell was that?” Etienne yelled forward.

“I don’t know. Something hit us from below.”

“What’s with the scanner?”

“Nothing. It didn’t come from Upriver.”

He did some fast thinking. Whatever had nudged them un-gently hadn’t shown up on the scanner. Therefore it hadn’t slipped down toward them. Therefore it must have come up behind them.

Therefore it sure as hell wasn’t a rock.

Homat was shouting hysterically from astern and Etienne and the Tsla piled out through the rear door into the hot, damp air. Even as he emerged Etienne caught himself wishing for his pistol.

Not that it would have done him any good. He was staring at a slowly rising cliff black as polished obsidian. Within the cliff was a cavern, filled with acres of dripping blue-black streamers like baleen, only thicker and more widely spaced.

“Lacoti!” Homat was blubbering in fear. Etienne immediately understood how they’d missed the creature on the scanner, since it was programed only to acknowledge submerged objects which might be dangerous to the boat. The device would blithely ignore anything organic flattened out along the river bottom. The current provided food for the Lacoti, which doubtless rested contentedly in the mud of the Skar, mouth agape to receive whatever nourishment the river chose to provide.

Unless something disturbed it, of course.

If the Lacoti had eyes, they were hidden somewhere back of that vast cavernous maw. It was moving toward them, a fact that he perceived right away. He shouted toward the intercom, unafraid but having no wish for a closer view of Lacoti gut. It might be a slow swimmer but it might also be capable of a last second burst of speed. “Lyra, there’s something back here that’s about half the size of a starship. Move us out of here.”

“What do you think I’m trying to do? I can see it on the rear screen!” Her voice was frantic. “We’ve got a short or something. I can’t get any speed up.”

“Oh hell,” he muttered. “Tyl?”

The Tsla wore a fatalistic expression. “We are not river dwellers and have no experience of such creatures. We can pray.”

Etienne let out a curse and dove into the cabin. Behind him the towering gullet was drawing slowly nearer. Part of the problem stemmed from the fact that it was sucking in water at an enormous rate, creating a suction the hydrofoil was hard put to counter. If they didn’t lift up on foils and make some speed they were going to go down the Lacoti’s throat like a cork in a sewer. He had no idea what had prodded it out of its bottom lair. Maybe the hydrofoil’s engine produced a discomfiting vibration. No time now for study.

He reached the cockpit and shoved Lyra aside. She didn’t protest.

“Emergency override?”

“I tried it already!”

He fumbled at the instrumentation. The stern screens were dark now and he could hear the echo of water rushing down a monstrous throat.

The familiar high whine of the jet filled the air. Lyra was thrown against a wall and the backrest of the pilot’s seat pressed hard into Etienne’s back. For an instant Etienne was sure he could see a thick black lip overhead as the boat slid down that endless throat. Then they were out in the light again and the stern screen showed the immense mouth receding behind them. It closed and the Lacoti sank like an island. A quick check of the scanner showed it was not pursuing, just as it revealed rocky outcrops, mudpoles, and vegetation growing atop the massive back. The thought that something the size of the Lacoti required camouflage was sobering. The sooner they reached shallower water the better he’d like it.

He rechecked the readouts before allowing himself a long, relieved sigh. “Go check our passengers.”

“Don’t give me orders,” she snapped as she pushed back her hair and adjusted one fallen halter strap. “I know what to do. I’m just not as mechanically inclined as you, that’s all.”

He spoke very carefully, conscious that she was treading a fine line between anger and hysteria. “When you tried the accelerator you forgot to disengage the secondary lock on the autopilot. That’s why the emergency override didn’t work either.”

“I know that,” she murmured. She was mad at herself, he saw, not at him. “I saw that thing in the screen and I got scared. I guess … I panicked a little.”

“It could have happened to anyone,” he said softly. He didn’t want to say that. What he wanted to do was let off tension by calling her a stupid, senseless little fool. But he didn’t. He was gentle and understanding. It was possibly the most intelligent thing he’d done since they’d stepped off the shuttle at Steamer Station many months ago.

What really confused him was that he didn’t know why he did it.

“I’m going to run a complete checkout,” he told her. “That thing coming up underneath our keel gave us a pretty good jolt. I want to make sure it didn’t bust something loose.”

She nodded. “I’ll have a look in the hold.”

She was gone for several minutes, returned sooner than expected. Her expression was grim.

“Etienne, we’ve suffered a fatality.”

“What?” He spun the seat around and stared at her in disbelief. “How? We made it clear in time.”

“One of the porters. Her name was Uon. When you hit the accelerator I was thrown against the wall. Everyone out back was knocked to the deck. But Uon was standing up top, near the mast. When we shot forward she lost her footing and fell. Cracked her skull, looks like. She’s dead.”

Fingers tightened on the back of the seat. “I didn’t have any choice,” he growled. “Another second’s delay and we’d have become a meal.”

“I already explained that to Tyl and the others. They understand completely. They’ve … made a request.”

He didn’t look up. “What do they want?”

“They’d appreciate it if we could stop hereabouts for the night so they can give Uon a proper sendoff. I didn’t get the details but apparently there’s a lot of ritual involved. They want to anchor somewhere inshore.”

“I suppose we can find a quiet place. Least we can do. I’m really sorry, Lyra.”

“It was my fault as much as anyone’s.” She smiled slightly. “They’ve accepted it with somber grace. They adjust to death very well.”

Now he looked up. “Maybe better than we? If that’s a sign of social maturity I’m willing to concede the point.”

But his concession didn’t make her feel any better.

They found a small cove, no more than an oversized pothole that the Skar’s swirls and eddies had etched into the riverbank. The night sky was a dull starless gray thanks to the solid cover of clouds that stretched like a fluffy awning from one rim of the Guntali to the other.

Lyra overcame her sorrow by burying herself in her studies, trying to record every slightest nuance of the Tsla funeral ceremony which was performed on the open rear deck of the hydrofoil. This involved the use of torches, some special powder carried by Tyl, and much chanting and singing. Having no desire to participate or watch, Homat had relinquished his bedmat for the privacy of the bow. He lay there murmuring spirit rhymes as he leaned over the side to watch the phosphorescent motocrullers, tiny, superfast clamlike bivalves that made whirlpools of light beneath the shade afforded by the ship.

Having considerably less interest in native rituals than his wife, Etienne had retired to the comfort of their cabin. The expression on her face when she burst in on him startled him out of his reading. She stumbled against him and he put both hands on her shoulders to steady her. She looked ill.

“What’s wrong, Lyra, what’s the matter?” She’d left the door open behind her and the steady chant of the Tsla filtered in to the bedchamber.

“Sendoff ritual,” she whispered, choking on the words. She pushed past him, toward the head. The recorder dangling from her neck bounced against her chest.