A Woman of the Iron People Read online

  Bugs hummed around me. Clouds drifted across the narrow sky. They were small and round like balls of cotton. My back started hurting. I scraped one hand on the rough edge of a rock. The injury wasn’t serious. It didn’t even bleed, but it stung.

  Finally the man was out of sight, hidden by pieces of rock. Enough. I didn’t have to make him a tumulus. I straightened. By this time the clouds were gone. Sunlight slanted into the canyon. Nia was sitting up.

  “Good,” she said. “His ghost should have a home. Otherwise, the wind will take him and blow him across the sky. That is no fate for anyone.”

  “Is there any ceremony that ought to be performed?”

  “No. If a shamaness were here, she would sing. That would avert bad luck. I do not know the right words nor what to burn in the fire.” She frowned and scratched her nose. “I ought to do something. I will give him a knife. A parting gift.”

  “All right,” I said.

  We ate breakfast. I bandaged Nia’s hand. We didn’t talk much. Nia looked tired, and I found myself thinking about the dead man under his heap of stones.

  Midway through the morning my radio rang.

  “Your box,” Nia said. “It wants to talk with you.”

  I turned the radio on. “Yes?”

  “Lixia? This is Antonio. I talked to the day-to-day committee.”

  “Uh-huh?”

  “They voted ‘no.’ And then they decided this was not an administrative problem. It was a question of policy. I wasn’t at the meeting, but there must have been someone on the committee who got upset with the vote and raised the question of policy in order to get another chance.”

  I nodded agreement to the radio.

  “So the question was referred to the all-ship committee. We had the meeting. An emergency session, but a good turnout nonetheless.”

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “Eddie—of course—is against any kind of intervention. You know his arguments. I won’t repeat them. Ivanova went along.”

  “She did?”

  “According to her, we decided not to reveal ourselves to the people here until we knew more about them. There are good reasons for our decision: our own security and the fear of endangering the native culture through ignorance. How do we know what kinds of information they can handle?

  “Now—according to Ivanova—we are asked to abandon a carefully thought out, democratically decided, historically important course of action. Because of a hairline fracture. A possible hairline fracture.

  “She would have a different opinion if one of our people was in danger. But the person with the injury is a native, and the injury is not in the least bit dangerous.”

  “Huh,” I said.

  “As for our friends from the Chinese Republic,” Antonio paused for effect.

  “Yes?”

  “They said this never would have happened if the members of the survey team had been properly trained.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You ought to have gotten a course in socialist medicine. Acupuncture, herbal lore, and Marxist ideology. As far as I can figure out, you are supposed to stick your companion full of needles and read selected passages from the Communist Manifesto to her.”

  “Who came up with this wonderful line of reasoning?”

  “Who do you think? It’s a perfectly preserved ancient Chinese argument. It came from a perfectly preserved ancient Chinese. Mr. Fang.”

  The Chinese had said it was hard to go to the stars without children and crazy to go without people of age and experience. The rest of us had remained firm re children. There were none on the ship. But we had taken a number of people over sixty and a few over seventy. Mr. Fang was close to eighty, a thin man with long white hair and thick gray eyebrows. He was from Zhendu in Sichuan, a master wicker worker and a master gardener, in charge of the main room in the ship’s garden. Bamboo grew there, a dozen or more varieties. Along the walls were trellises covered with climbing palms. These were the raw materials for furniture. Most of the furniture on the ship was bamboo or rattan. Mr. Fang repaired it when it broke and made new furniture when needed.

  I liked him. I had spent hours in his shop watching him work. From time to time we talked about philosophy. He especially liked the ancient Daoists and Karl Marx.

  “They respected—at least in theory—the wisdom of the people. That is what matters, Lixia. A philosopher who fears or despises the people will come up with monstrous ideas.”

  “How did the vote come out?” I asked Tony.

  “What do you expect? We talked for hours and ended up where we started. For the time being we will stick to our original decision. We won’t go down to the planet—except maybe to help our own people. You are on your own. The medical team is not happy.”

  “Ah, well.” I scratched my head. “What do I do now?”

  “Continue to treat the injury as if it were a fracture. Keep it in a splint. Keep your friend off that foot. Time heals all wounds.”

  “Wonderful. If that’s all the advice you have to offer, I’m going to sign off.”

  “Good luck.”

  I turned the radio off, then glanced at Nia.

  “What did your box say?”

  “You’re supposed to stay put till the ankle heals.”

  She grimaced. “How can I do that? We are almost out of food, and there’s nothing to eat here. We have to get to a village.”

  “Is there one nearby?”

  “Yes. A day from here. Less than a day. The Copper People of the Plain live there.” Nia clenched one hand into a fist. “What bad luck!” She hit her thigh, then winced. “I could walk a short distance if I had a stick to lean on. But I will not be able to walk to the village. And there is climbing. The path goes up in the place where the water falls.” She frowned. “You go, Li-sa. Tell the people of the village what has happened. Ask their shamaness to come and bring medicine. I will give her a fine gift. Tell her I am a smith. A good one, from the Iron People. I can make a knife that will cut anything except stone.” She thought a moment. “It won’t cut iron, either. But anything else.”

  “Okay.”

  “What?” she asked.

  “I’ll go.”

  “What is that word? Ok …?”

  “Okay. It means ‘yes’ or ‘I agree.’ ”

  “Okay,” Nia said. “Go now. If you walk quickly, you’ll be at the village before dark. Come back tomorrow. I’ll be all right till then.”

  I got my pack and left. On the other side of the river I stopped to dry my feet. I couldn’t see Nia, but I saw smoke rising from our fire, and I saw the grave of the crazy man. I thought I saw it. Maybe it was some other heap of stones.

  I put on my socks and boots. Then I turned and walked away.

  A curious thing about the canyon. From a distance the walls looked bare, and the canyon floor was stone gray. But close up I saw flowers and brightly colored bugs. The six-legged animals had vanished. Now I saw creatures that looked like birds or maybe tiny dinosaurs. They stood on their hind legs, and they were covered with feathers. But they had arms instead of wings. I saw one catch a bug. It grabbed the bug with little clawed hands and opened its mouth. I saw rows of teeth. A moment later—crunch! The bug was gone.

  The hunter tilted its head and looked at me. I returned the gaze. The creature had blue feathers except on its belly and throat. The belly was white. The throat was sulfur-yellow.

  The creature hissed at me.

  “Oh, yeah?” I said.

  The creature ran away.

  At noon I stopped and ate. Above me birds soared on the wind. A fish jumped in the river. I rested for a while, then went on. The river got more turbulent. The trail began to go up and down, twisting around great rough lumps of a grayish-black stone. Ahead of me I saw the end of the canyon: a wall of stone, badly broken, full of crevices. Water ran down through the crevices, appearing and disappearing. At the top the water was in sunlight. It glittered like silver. Farther down, in shadow, it was g
ray. At the bottom of the cliff was a pool, half-hidden by mist.

  Even at a distance I could hear the sound of the water. It was a continuous low roar.

  I kept going. The trail went along one side of the pool. The canyon wall was next to me. Designs had been cut in the rock: spirals and triangles and the figures of animals.

  Aha! I thought. A sacred place. But sacred to what? The spirals might represent the sun. Back on Earth the triangle was often a symbol of fertility or female sexuality. The animals were local species, or so I assumed. A quadruped with horns. A biped with a neck like an ostrich and long narrow arms. Were they worshipped or hunted? Or both?

  The wind blew spray toward me from the waterfall. The trail became slippery. I decided to concentrate on my footing.

  The trail went around a tall rock covered with pictographs. On the other side was a man. No question about his gender. He was naked, and his male member was large enough to be conspicuous. He was dancing, hopping from one foot to the other. He carried a pole. On top was a pair of metal horns, green with corrosion. Copper, almost certainly. The man spun and waved the pole, then spun back so he was facing me. He wore one thing, I realized now. A string of large, round, bright blue beads. They reminded me of faience beads from Egypt.

  He stopped dancing and stared at me. I stood without moving, looking back. He was my size, maybe a little wider. His fur was dark brown and shaggy. His eyes were large and pale yellow.

  He said something I didn’t understand.

  “I do not know that language,” I said.

  “You speak the language of gifts,” he said. “You must be a stranger. I thought you were a demon, but a demon would have understood me.” He frowned. “I suppose you might be a demon from far away. A demon from far away might not know the language of my people. Are you one?”

  “A demon? No. I’m a person. My name is Lixia. Who are you?”

  He looked surprised. “The Voice of the Waterfall. Haven’t you heard of me?”

  “No.”

  “You must be from very far away.”

  “Yes.”

  “I speak for the spirit of the waterfall. It is powerful and knows almost everything.” The man sang:

  “It knows

  what the fish say

  in the water.

  “It knows

  what the birds say

  on the wind.

  “It knows

  what the demons say

  deep underground—

  “The movers,

  the shakers,

  the ones who send up fire—

  “It knows

  what they say

  to one another.

  “People ask me questions. I tell them what I hear in the sound of the water.” He hopped on one foot and turned, still hopping. Then he staggered and came down on both feet. “What do you want? Why are you here?”

  “I’ve been traveling with one of your people. She is hurt, and I’m looking for help.”

  The man frowned. He waved the pole and shouted:

  “O waterfall,

  tell me,

  tell me what to make of this.”

  He tilted his head and listened. I listened too, but heard nothing except the roar of the water.

  “The waterfall says you are probably telling the truth. In any case, the waterfall says, it is bad luck to give trouble to travelers or people who ask for help. Therefore I will help you. Come along.” He turned and walked up the trail. I hesitated a moment, then followed. It was never a good idea to argue with an oracle, especially one from a society you didn’t understand. Soon we were a good distance above the pool. I looked down and saw churning water. Part of a rainbow shone faintly in the mist.

  The trail entered a crevice. We walked between black walls of stone. Water trickled down. There were patches of shaggy orange vegetation on the rock. A creature walked between the patches. It was level with my shoulder and moving slowly, Earth-sky-blue with at least a dozen legs. Two antennae stuck out in front of it, waving gently. Two more antennae stuck out behind. They also waved gently. I couldn’t see a mouth or eyes.

  I assumed that the animal was traveling forward, but I had no way of telling. I thought of picking it up. Maybe there were organs visible on the underside. But I had never liked animals with more than eight legs.

  My guide was moving quickly. I followed him, slipping now and then on the wet stone.

  We were coming to the end of the passage. The walls were only a couple of meters tall. On top of them plants grew. I saw leaves and stalks and flowers.

  The height of the walls decreased further. I could see over them and over the vegetation. We were coming out onto a plain.

  Off to one side was a bluff—a low one, dotted with trees. In every other direction the land was flat and covered by a plant with long, narrow, flexible leaves. The plant was about a meter tall. Its color varied: green and blue-green, yellow-green and a silvery blue-green-gray. I couldn’t tell what the differences in color meant. Was there more than one kind of plant growing on the plain? Or did the color represent variations within a species?

  “There.” The man pointed at the bluff. “The river is there. The trail goes along it. Follow the trail. At nightfall you will come to a village. Ask for the shamaness and say you have a message from the Voice of the Waterfall. Tell her the waterfall says give this person what she asks for. Say there is no harm in this. I know. The waterfall has told me.

  “Do not disbelieve me,

  O you people.

  I know what the river knows.

  “I know the secrets

  discovered

  by the rain.”

  He waved his pole and danced sideways, then spun and pointed down the trail. “Go!”

  I went. When I got to the top of the bluff, I looked back. I could see the trail, winding through the pseudo-grass, but I couldn’t see the man. He must have returned to the canyon and the waterfall.

  I scrambled down the slope toward the river, which was wide and shallow here, shaded by trees with dark blue leaves.

  In the middle of the river was a gravel bar. Half a dozen creatures rested there: large hairless quadrupeds with tails. One lifted its head and stared at me, then croaked a warning. They all got up and lumbered into the water.

  Lizards, maybe? The name seemed appropriate, and it gave me a label. Though I would have to remember that these creatures were not real lizards.

  I reached the village at sunset. It stood on top of the river bluff, and all I could see at first was a wall made of logs. Smoke rose from behind the wall. Cooking fires. A lot of them. On the wall were standards like the one the oracle had carried: long poles that ended in metal horns. The horns gleamed red in the sunlight. Polished copper, I told myself.

  I climbed the trail up to the gate. A woman was standing there, watching the sun as it went down. She was dark like the two men in the canyon and dressed in a bright blue tunic.

  “Make me welcome,” I said.

  The woman turned.

  “Who are you?”

  “A traveler. The Voice of the Waterfall told me to come here.”

  “Did he? Come in. You got here just in time.”

  We entered. She closed the gate and put a bar across it. “There!” She brushed off her hands. “Come with me. I’ll take you to the shamaness.”

  I followed her along a narrow street that wound back and forth between houses. The houses were octagonal, built of logs. The chinks between the logs had been filled with a fuzzy yellow plant that seemed to be alive and growing. The roofs were slanted, going up from the edges to the center, where there was a smoke hole. I couldn’t see the holes, but the smoke was obvious, rising from almost every house. The roofs were covered with dirt—an excellent form of insulation—and plants grew in the dirt. They were small and dark. I reached up and picked a leaf. It was round and thick and waxy. I squeezed. Water squirted out. A succulent or something very like. Chances were it would not burn, which was all to the good. Sparks wou
ld float out of the smoke hole. If they landed on a dry plant, these people would have a prairie fire going over their heads. What was the plant for? Was it edible? Was it decoration?

  The woman stopped in front of an especially large house. “O shamaness, come out!”

  The door opened. A woman came out, short and fat, wearing a long robe covered with stains. The robe was off-white, and the stains were easy to see. A poor choice for an obvious slob. She had on at least a dozen necklaces. Some were ordinary strings of beads. Others were elaborate with chains and bells and pendant animals. Everything was copper, and everything was tangled up. I didn’t think there was any way she could have taken off just one necklace.

  “This very strange person has come, o holy one. She says she has a message from the Voice of the Waterfall.”

  The shamaness peered at me. “Where is your fur? Have you been sick?”

  “No. I come from far away. My people don’t have fur.”

  “Aiya! This is strange indeed. What is your message?”

  “The Voice of the Waterfall says he wants you to help me.”

  “No.”

  “What?”

  “That man could not have said that. He has no wants. He has no opinions. He is the Voice of the Waterfall. When he speaks, it is the waterfall speaking. Therefore, what you said was wrong. It is not that man who wants me to help you. It is the waterfall who wants me to help you.”

  The other woman made the gesture of agreement.

  “What do you need?” the shamaness asked.

  “I have a friend who has been injured. She is a day from here—to the east, in the canyon. Will you go for her?”

  The shamaness frowned and scratched her chin. Then she made the gesture of assent. “Tomorrow.” She turned and went back in the house. The door closed.

  “Aiya!” said the other woman. “This is something she never does. She never goes to people. They must go to her. But everyone listens to the Voice of the Waterfall. And that man used to be her son. She used to be fond of him. Come with me.”