Chapter 19
- Callie -
Outside the sun has just risen. Many canoes are already making for the opening of the bay, their crews paddling fast.
Crat'ax and I jump into his boat, and as we push off, I ignore the boys who’re quarreling about who tied their boat in the wrong place and with the wrong knot.
Crat'ax paddles calmly, and I examine the net, making sure the right pieces of driftwood and rocks are in the right places. At this speed, the cold drops splash my face more than yesterday, but I don’t mind it. I’m excited to see how the net works.
Ahead, the men pull their oars in and throw the hooked lines into the water. Immediately, they pull them back in, full of silvery, writhing splix, five or six to a line.
Crat'ax paddles us farther out. When he puts his oar down, he gives me a little smile. “Look down.”
I look over the side of the boat and gasp.
Below me, right under the surface, are millions upon millions of alien fish, so near and so many that I’m sure I could reach down and come back with a handful of them.
It’s as if the water of the ocean has been replaced by them.
It’s so mesmerizing I could just stare at it.
“The net!” I exclaim when I remember why we’re here. Together, Crat'ax and I toss it overboard. It barely seems necessary—I’m sure I could pick these things out of the ocean one by one.
After about a second, the net is so heavy with splix that it sinks. Crat'ax heaves on the rope and pulls it in, having to use considerable strength.
The net is chock-a-block with splix, spraying droplets as they still try to swim with their thin fins.
Crat'ax and I quickly pull them out of the net and dump them in one of the wooden boxes we brought. Then we toss the net back out.
Crat'ax takes his spear and rams it straight down into the immense mass of splix and harpoons maybe fifteen of them. He shakes his head as he picks them off, then puts the spear down. “We have a better way now.” Then he hauls the net in again. “This is the greatest splix run I’ve ever seen. And our catch will be by far the biggest anyone’s heard of. ”
The splix are probably so different from Earth fish that there’s no comparison, but to my non-zoologist eyes they look like fish are supposed to.
Except for the number of eyes and the shrimp-like segments they have around the middle.
They’re cold to the touch and as slippery as I remember trout being back on Earth the one time I went fishing there.
We work frantically until the boxes are full and the boat floats so low in the water that the waves are only about an inch below the sides.
We’re the first to turn back home. In all the other boats and canoes, the men are hauling up their lines and struggling with picking hooks out of splix mouths.
“Incredible,” Crat'ax marvels as he paddles. “Not only is the run beyond all expectation, we also have the net to catch many more of them than we otherwise could. Let’s make another trip out here.”
When we reach the village, we unload the full boxes. The men who are ready to gut the splix stare with open mouths.
“That… is remarkable,” Chief Brun'ax manages. “I’ve never seen so many splix in one place.”
“It is a giant run,” Crat'ax tells him. “And this net means we can catch more of them than ever before. Even my spear isn’t as good as this. Now will we agree that Callie is a blessing from the Deep?”
“A blessing?” The chief shoots a quick glance toward the dragon’s cage. “Yes… yes, perhaps. Oh, you’ll make another trip? Are you sure? Come on, boys. You’ll be gutting fish until the next moon at this rate.”
We get all the way out of the bay before any of the other canoes turn for home, heavy with splix.
A thought comes unbidden to mind: I wish Dorie could see this.
As we fill the boxes again and turn back home, the dragon’s words echo through my mind. I will make something good happen to the tribe. I suppose this could be it.
Back at the village, the tribe is all smiles and laughter and awestruck wonder as the boxes full of splix stack up so the platforms creak.
“I’ve never seen anything like this!”
“Blessed be the Deep!”
“This is food for years to come! We can eat splix with every meal!”
“I hope the Dry tribes brought enough wares to barter for this great wealth.”
“That net… is it hard to make?”
I have a permanent grin on my face as I watch the boys gut splix. Then I have an idea. “Don’t throw the guts away. Keep them and dry them. Gren’ix, there’s your fertilizer. Grind up dry splix guts and mix it in with the dirt to help the plants grow. Or use them raw. Just bury them well.”
The old man smiles. “I wonder if you may be right, Crat'ax. She may be a blessing to us all.”
The tribe starts to worry as the splix keep piling up. “We’ll all be on gutting duty for the next six moons,” someone laments.
“But there’s no need for us to gut all of them,” Crat'ax says. “Let the Dry tribes gut their own splix!”
“Ah,” the chief exclaims. “Good idea. Ures’ax! Light the fire! Let them all know that the day of trade is here!”
The fire in the Circle is lit, and special wood makes it give off a pillar of red smoke that first rises straight up, then bends toward the jungle as the breeze takes it.
Tribesmen paddle empty canoes toward the shore, where men from other tribes are already waiting to be ferried out here.
The tribes come in waves. Canoes nose up to the platforms and men climb out unsteadily, unused to the canoes.
Their eyes are already measuring the piles of splix.
They wear different loincloths, different swords, and they have stripes of different colors.
They smell of smoke and earth and unfamiliar oils.
I count six tribes, which surprises me. The Adropo tribe is nowhere to be seen, to my relief.
More than once, I catch someone staring at me a little too long, then looking away too quickly when Crat'ax shifts closer. I hear my name spoken with strange accents, passed along with quiet comments I can’t understand. I smile when they look at me directly, but the smiles don’t always come back.
Trade begins in earnest. Bundles of dried roots, cured hides, obsidian blades, coils of string and beads change hands. There are fabrics and skins and firewood and many pots of various dried goods, as well as big pots of frit. All of it is coming our way, and the other tribes only take away splix.
The traders’ eyes widen as they realize just how many there are. They’re truly astonished and don’t complain when they learn they have to gut the things themselves.
Someone laughs and says something that makes a group of men glance toward the far end of the bay, toward the platform and the cage. No one laughs after that. A man from one of the Dry tribes asks, casually, what they keep out there.
The answer he gets is vague and short, but also smug in a way I don’t like. I notice how the conversation shifts immediately after, as if a line has been crossed.
I find myself looking that way too. I can’t see the dragon from here, just the dark shape of the platform against the glittering water. Still, I feel that shudder going through me, and I’m sure he’s looking at me right now.
The splix pile higher, and the traders look pleased. Everything is going well. And yet my stomach feels tight, as if I’ve swallowed something sharp.
Crat'ax stays close to me as the day wears on, one hand brushing my back when people pass too near. He looks proud, satisfied, in his element.
When there’s a brief lull, I take hold of his wrist and draw him a step aside, away from the noise. “When will you take me back to Theodora?” I ask quietly. I keep my voice even. I don’t want this to sound like an accusation.
He doesn’t answer at once. His gaze goes past me, toward the traders, the splix, the red smoke rising into the bright sky.
“Not right now,” he says finally. “You see how it is today. With the run and the trade. It wouldn’t be safe to travel outside the bay now. Many ocean Bigs follow the run, nibbling from it. We must wait until those have passed, too. And there is much that still needs to be done in the village.”
“After that, then?” I press.
He exhales, slow and controlled. “Soon,” he says. “When things settle. When the time is right.”
None of those are answers I can hold on to. I nod anyway, because I don’t want to argue here, with so many eyes around us. He squeezes my hand, as if that should be enough.
And for him, I’m sure it is.
As the sun passes the midway mark and starts going down, the platforms are still full of strangers and voices and the smell of unfamiliar food.
The dragon’s cage remains where it is, half-hidden, half-forgotten.
I watch the traders laugh and bargain, and I think of what Vyrathion said, of promises that slide forward from one good reason to the next.
Crat'ax moves beside me, solid and warm, and I realize that no one has ever told me what happens if I decide to leave before the time is right.