The debt they owed, they insisted, could never be repaid. Until Tyl came aboard the hydrofoil one morning to see the patient.
“There was a meeting.” The temperature in the main cabin was seventy-five and Homat sat shivering off in a corner.
“What kind of meeting?” Lyra asked.
“A community meditation. I am sorry thee were not invited, but there was no time. I have made the people aware of thy problem. Thy wooden undercarriage is still serviceable, is it not?”
“The wheels haven’t fallen off, if that’s what you mean,” Etienne replied.
“There are not here the large draft animals like the Mai have. No vroqupii. There are lekkas, but they are for riding, not for pulling. Unlike Turput, here the land is cultivated mostly by hand. But we are Tsla. The Tsla are strong.” He flexed both arms and they saw the muscles ripple beneath short fur.
“All Jakaie will assist. Will it not be easier to lower thy boat back to the bottom of the Barshajagad than it was to bring it up?”
Etienne considered their guide’s words, trying hard to restrain any excitement. Excitement hurt his back.
“Sure it would be easier, but still a difficult descent.”
“I have talked long with Ruu-an and the other elders. There is a way north of here that descends to the Skar and bypasses the Topapasirut. They say also that the way is longer and gentler than that which climbs the side canyon we used. They say, Etienne and Lyra, that it can be done.”
“Who am I to dispute Ruu-an?” said Etienne. He felt like shouting but restrained himself lest he strain something.
“When can we start down?”
“Soon. The families of those thee saved demand the honor of taking up the ropes nearest the spirit boat, where the work will be the hardest.”
“Our thanks go out to them,” Etienne said.
“Thee can thank them thyself.” Tyl readied himself to leave. “It will take some time to organize provisions and find the rope sufficient to secure thy craft. Thee will have ample time to thank thy new friends and repair thy back.”
“Wait a minute,” said Lyra, frowning. “What about the Na? What if they come back when the town is nearly deserted, or catch everyone out in the open?”
“This too was discussed during meditation. They will not come near Jakaie for a long time, so embarrassing to them was their defeat. And after a few days of descent the temperature will grow much too hot for them to follow us.”
“We won’t argue with that, will we, dear?” He stared meaningfully at Lyra.
As usual, she wasn’t intimidated. “If the townsfolk feel confident of their security, I don’t see why we shouldn’t permit them to bounce you all the way down to the river.”
In contrast to the agonizingly difficult haul up from the bottom of the Barshajagad, the descent to a rocky beach northwest of Jakaie and the bulk of Aracunga mountain was almost relaxing. There were a few rough places, easily surmounted by the hydrofoil’s repellers, but as the Tsla promised the slope was far gentler than the steep side canyon route on the southern side.
Chanting in unison as they leaned into the heavy ropes, the Tsla were able to lower the boat on its wheeled cradle faster than the Redowls expected. It was hard to imagine the vroqupii and their Brul doing the job any more efficiently than the citizens of Jakaie. It helped that there was none of the sense of competition among the townsfolk that there had been among the Mai. Homat grudgingly conceded that sometimes cooperation was worth more than skill and strength.
When at last the wooden cradle was removed from the hull and the boat bobbed once more in the waters of the Skar, Etienne passed among the villagers trying to thank personally each and every Tsla for their help.
Ruu-an chided him. “Too many thanks. If thee would truly thank us, thee may share thy knowledge with us when thee return this way. We will be waiting to take you up and past the Topapasirut a second time.”
No obstacles ahead to hold us back now, Etienne thought excitedly. No more blank spaces on the topographics, no second Topapasirut. According to the Mai, the Barshajagad began to widen once more north of that place. For the moment they still floated between immense sheer walls, but now that the birthplace of river devils lay behind them the stark cliffs no longer seemed quite so forbidding.
The seven of them reboarded and the Redowls settled into their boat with a sense of relief. It had become their home and refuge, and it was good to be surrounded once more by familiar objects and the comforts of an advanced technology.
As Etienne let the boat float free in the current, the townsfolk assembled on the shoreline set up a plaintive, haunting chant of farewell, as different a music from the whirling frenzy of the Mai as Ligeti is from Gregorian chant. The swift current pushed the hydrofoil out into the center of the river.
Lyra stood on the foredeck alongside Tyl, executing with him the Tsla posture of good-bye. The song of farewell was beginning to fade with distance when Lyra turned and called to her husband. “Don’t you think that’s enough? Let’s move.” He made a face up at her. Suddenly she was concerned.
“What do you think I’m trying to do?”
She pressed her face to the plexalloy. “What do you mean you’re trying?” They were accelerating steadily, but in the wrong direction. Only the boat’s internal stabilizers kept them from spinning in helpless circles like a leaf caught in a flash flood.
“Everything’s functioning except the intake feed.”
“Dammit!” She rushed for the nearest gangway.
As she looked aft she saw the canyon narrowing further behind them, forming the immense granitic funnel which Etienne had theorized constituted the upper limits of the Topapasirut. In the distance and coming rapidly closer she could make out thickening mist and the first faint, threatening rumble of water attacking rock. She dropped through the gangway and in seconds stood alongside her husband.
“Everything checks out, everything. Except the intake feed. Every time I try to open her wide she locks shut on me.”
“Emergency override?”
“Forget it. I’m still trying, though.”
“Repellers?”
“No way. We used our stored power during the descent from Jakaie. We need time to recharge or else we can recharge by moving Upriver. Of course, if we could move Upriver we wouldn’t need to recharge.” He worked rapidly at the diagnostic computer, canceling unhelpful replies to his queries. Unfortunately, those were the only type of reply he could extract.
The rumbling astern was becoming thunder. Dense mist enveloped the narrow cleft of the canyon. He switched the stern scanner to sonic and tridee black-and-white graphics appeared on the screen as ultrasound penetrated the obscuring mist. In a very few minutes the current would slam the helpless boat into the unyielding sheer cliff that was the upside-down waterfall, the Topapasirut. Fragments of the hydrofoil would boil out of the water Downriver, to be wondered at by any Mai who encountered them on nameless beaches. Of the crew there would be only a memory. Nothing so fragile as flesh and blood would survive the coming concussion.
The boat was enveloped in a storm as the river rained toward the sky.
“Do something!” Lyra shouted above the crash of the water.
