Crat'ax shifts his spear to his other hand, then grabs mine. “That place is nothing to worry about.” He pulls me along with him until a hut blocks the view.
A man comes toward us. As he approaches, he holds out one of the skin bags that these guys use to keep drinks in. “Good morning, Crat'ax. Are you showing the woman our village? Perhaps she would like to refresh herself.”
“I’ve already given her what she needs, Mek’tor,” Crat'ax growls. “Shouldn’t you be preparing lines and hooks for the run?”
“Oh, I’ve been done with my lines for a while,” the man says with a yellow grin, looking only at me. “You know we don’t have that many hooks anyway. And my boat is always ready. Would you like to see it, Callie? Perhaps you have boats on Earth too, the way you have farms?”
The man speaks slowly and clearly, like to a child. He has an ingratiating way about him. But it crosses my mind that he would only know about the farm thing if he had interrogated the old man about what we talked about.
Or if he had eavesdropped.
6
- Crat'ax-
Callie glances at me before she answers him. The movement is small, but it tightens something low in my belly all the same. She looks to me as if weighing her words, as if my presence is important. I suspect she understands far more of what Mek’tor is saying than she lets on. She is careful and clever. And that, too, draws my attention far more than it should.
“Many boats on Earth,” she says carefully. “Big ones. Small ones. Some that go on oceans.”
Mek’tor’s eyes gleam. “Perhaps ours will interest you, too.”
“She already knows about my boat,” I point out. “She has been aboard it for hours.”
“Yes, but?—”
I step forward just enough to place myself between them, my shoulder nearly brushing Callie’s arm. I feel the heat of her through the thin air between us. Her scent is smoke, fruit, andsomething warm and living, sweet and strange. It slides into my lungs and settles there. “We already had juice. Enjoy it yourself, tribesman. It’s a warm day.”
Mek’tor’s smile never falters, but something tightens around his eyes. “Of course. I only thought?—”
“And it was a fine thought, although I don’t remember you ever offering me juice. Is there something special about Callie that makes you want to see her drink?” I smile to take the edge off my words. We both know what’s special about Callie.
“We so rarely have guests in the village,” Mek’tor whines. “And a woman guest… we want her to feel welcome!”
“Am I not making you feel welcome, Callie?” I ask, turning to her.
“I feel welcome,” she says in her beautiful voice, with the strange lilt to her speech. “Is nice juice, but now not… like? Need?” She looks at me as if asking what the correct word is.
“Want,” I tell her. “Now you don’twantjuice. You heard that, Mek’tor? She says I make her feel welcome after all.” I give him a hard stare and tap the bottom of my spear on the planks to indicate that the conversation is over.
“Ah. Of course you do. Well, perhaps later.” Mek’tor inclines his head and withdraws, still smiling and still watching very carefully.
Callie exhales quietly once he is gone. “He want all guest feel welcome.”
“No, just you,” I correct. “Once a year we have guests here, when the jungle tribes come to trade. I can’t remember Mek’tor ever offering them juice.”
She frowns. “That’s… strange.”
“That he only cares because you are a woman? I’m not sure it is strange. Perhaps it is.”
We move on. I make a point of showing her the clever things now, partly because she asked, and partly because it steadies me to speak of craft and work. The way the stilts are braced against currents. The channels cut beneath the platforms so debris washes through instead of piling up. The racks where fish are dried, and the large huts where they are smoked in the sweet beres wood that we have to paddle and walk for hours to find.
Callie listens intently. She crouches to examine knots and traces her slender fingers along carved grooves meant to direct rainwater into storage jars.
“This is good village,” she says. “Very strong.” She stomps her little foot on the floor planks.
“We learned the hard way,” I reply. “The first village was not this solid, they say. It was taken by a storm. The second one was torn up by another. Then we learned to build with wood that’s thick enough.” I slap the top of a thick pole that goes down all the way to the bottom of the bay.
Callie nods, thoughtful. Then she points toward one of the boats. “You have sails?”
