“No doubt,” the tal Denisovan said with an understanding smile.
Vinnevra wrinkled her nose, took a deep whiff, and glared at me, but I was in no mood for her theatrics.
We stood on the edge of the plateau. For a moment, a breeze came up and scattered the insects, then—a profound stilness. I looked around at the others.
“What’s your name?” I asked the tal Denisovan.
“Kirimt,” he responded with a sweep of his hand. In turn he introduced the females, partners to the other males. One of the males did not seem to have a female in this group.
Vinnevra received these introductions with a haughty expression, unwiling as yet to admit any of them to her protected inner circle.
During al this I kept my eye on the Forerunner, and now he returned his attention to me. His focused interest made me uncomfortable; he seemed to look right through me. Then, his facial muscles altered slightly, his eyes crinkled up, and he bowed his head.
I had learned, during my time with Bornstelar, to pick up on some of the expressions Forerunners used, however strange and stiff their faces, and I thought I detected a hint of relief and something like pride. But this one was stiffer than usual, stiffer even than the Didact.
“With this group, the Librarian may have enough,” he said—or some word like “enough,” more technical.
Gamelpar held up his hand and climbed off the litter. He drew himself up straight, then took back his stick from Kirimt, who had carried it for him.
“Our capabilities are much reduced,” the Forerunner continued.
“The Master Builder’s security has suffered a great setback, but we who serve the Librarian have yet to regain our strength.”
The ape reclined on the grassy ground. Vinnevra and Gamelpar knelt down next to her, then leaned back on her great round bely and rested. The ape cocked her head, as if capable both of listening and understanding.
“What’s your name?” I asked the Forerunner.
“I am Genemender Folder of Fortune,” he said, blinking eloquently. Something about his eyes—the smoothness of that quick motion of the eyelids—disturbed me.
“Are you going to set us free and return us to Erde-Tyrene?” I asked. The question just popped out of me, and it reminded me that despite al I had experienced, I was stil young and more than a little brash.
“I wish that were possible,” he said. “Communication has broken down and many of our facilities have been damaged. Power stations everywhere have been sabotaged. There are only a few damaged stations left to supply the needs of the entire wheel. They are not enough—yet.”
The breeze had slowed and the insects returned. The Forerunner waved his long fingers, and suddenly they al moved off to hover in a bal several meters away. “I advise you to stay here with us until stability returns. There is food, shelter, and an explanation I hope wil satisfy al as to our intentions.”
After a few minutes’ rest, the Denisovans and the Forerunner urged us to get moving again. The Denisovans took the lead, skirting the humming bal of frustrated insects and walking in a loose line toward the middle of the plateau.
“Wil you ever alow us freedom?” I asked Genemender. “Or are we like those insects?”
A quick flick of expression—embarrassment?
“Not our choosing,” he said.
We pushed through the edge of the jungle and saw a clearing ahead, a flat expanse of short-cut green grass. Huts raised on stilts surrounded the clearing on three sides but not where we entered.
“Come with us,” Kirimt said. “This is where we live.”
The air at the center of the clearing shimmered and a silvery blue blob appeared, surrounded by a wal of tree trunks. From where we stood, it was hard to determine just how large the blob actualy was—its rounded contours were perfectly reflecting, in a distorted way, everything around it. Perhaps the blob concealed something else—perhaps it was what Bornstelar had caled a Dazzler.
The shadow-ape stood back for a moment with Vinnevra, but she supported Gamelpar, who now refused the litter. As he walked past me, arm over her shoulder, he said, “There is no other place to be. But we hear you.” And he gave me a direct gaze, one old soldier to another—neither exactly present.
Kirimt swung up his arm and jerked his head, let’s go, and I realized there was nothing more to say or do for the moment but comply.
The Denisovans escorted us over the lush grass to the huts. An empty hut waited in the middle. Al the huts were accessible through steps or ladders, but the shadow-ape lifted Gamelpar up and over the rail onto the porch. He stood there, gripping the bamboo rail, while Vinnevra and I climbed the rough-cut steps. From the porch we had a broad view of the clearing and of the Denisovans gathered below.
“Clean up, rest, and then we wil share supper,” Kirimt said.
Vinnevra wrapped herself in her arms and stooped to pass through the low door into the hut’s interior. Gamelpar seemed content to watch the shadows lengthen across the jungle and the clearing.
The ape reached out, gently nudged the old man’s hip with a thick-nailed finger, whuffed, then moved around to the left and vanished in the trees.
Vinnevra returned and took a stand beside Gamelpar. “This is my geas,” she said, “more than any other place, but something’s stil not right. We cannot stay here.”
“Not to your taste?” I asked, nodding at the hut.
“It’s very comfortable,” she said with a shake of her shoulders, though there were few insects at the moment. “That Forerunner—I do not smel him. I do not smel the others, either. I only smel the ape.”
I had noticed the same thing but did not know what it meant. I hardly knew what anything around here meant.
“My nose is old,” Gamelpar said. “I barely smel the ape.”
The hut’s interior was made of bamboo and wood slats. There were leafy beds, a smal rough table, and three chairs. A basin of stone supplied water that poured out of a bamboo pipe when it was lowered. I studied this mechanism with idle curiosity, drank some of the water, splashed it about my face, and took a leaf cup to the old man. He drank sparingly, then lay back on one of the beds, and was almost immediately asleep.
Vinnevra remained on the porch, where she knelt with her forearms on the rail. I saw her through the low door, silhouetted by glowing clouds.
Just after dark, Kirimt caled us to our supper.
Chapter Eighteen
WE CROSSED A dirt path to a larger log hal at the corner between two lines of huts. Thunder echoed across the mountains and we barely made it inside the hal before rain began to pour down.
The hal was almost fifty meters long and twenty wide. Tables had been set up in four long rows under a high arching roof woven from branches and vines. The drum of rain on the roof was almost deafening. The heat had gotten more intense and the air seemed wet enough to swim through. Stil, Gamelpar shivered as if with chil, enough so that Kirimt and one of the female Denisovans—I had a difficult time teling them apart—provided him with a roughly woven blanket.
Four more females carried in a palet and offloaded food onto a head table. I watched them with real curiosity, for they were not Denisovans, nor like Vinnevra and Gamelpar, and not at al like me.