“Everyone needs a knife,” I tell her. “In the village, there are many ropes and lots of wood that often need cutting or whittling. And making food is much easier if you have a knife.”
The stream becomes ever shallower, and I steer the boat onto the rocks on the side. If my boat were smaller, we could use it to go farther, but this will do.
“Here we are,” I state and jump out of the boat. I strap my spear to my back, then offer Callie my hand so she can jump from the boat straight onto land.
She looks up and around, clearly not being too happy about being here. “I not like the jungle.”
“The ocean is better,” I agree as I make my way along the side of the stream, with her behind me. “More open. The only way you can be surprised is from the Deep. Here, the Bigs could come from any side.”
“Or from sky,” Callie points out, and looks up. “The irox.”
I raise my eyebrows, surprised that she knows that word. “That’s right. Have you seen one?”
“I have seen one,” she replies. “High up. I been on Xren years.”
I’m so surprised I stop. “You’ve been here foryears?On that beach? In the Plood ship?”
“Years. This many years.” She holds up seven slender fingers.
“Ah. that’s… a long time,” I say feebly. I’m shocked that she’s been here that long. “The Plood brought you here that long ago?”
“Plood ship. Not Plood. Brought me and friends. Other women.”
Again I stop and turn. “I didn’t know that. I mean, you told me about the friend. Theodora. But not several other women.”
“I not know the words to say,” Callie informs me. “But I ask boys. They say words to use. You know now.”
I turn into the jungle, away from the stream. From old habit, I keep looking out for Bigs.
“You’re telling me this now that we’re alone, because you’re worried about what the tribesmen would do if they knew there were other women there.”
“I not understand all you say,” she says from behind me.
I turn my head and give her a quick smile. “That’s fine. We shouldn’t talk too much here anyway. When we’re back in the boat, we can talk more.” I’m stunned by Callie having been on that beach for years. Of course, it was the longest trip I’ve ever made, because nobody has ever had a boat as big as mine, and I wanted to see how far I could go before I found something.
Now my mind is full of thoughts, which is dangerous in the jungle. I try to clear them away when I recognize a familiar place.
I point to the big hollow in the ground, now overgrown with grass and bushes. “This is where we make charcoal,” I say softly. “It’s soon time for that again. After the splix run, many men from the tribe will come here and prepare for the burn.”
“What ischarcoal?” Callie asks, reasonably enough. Of course, the word is unknown to her.
“It’s wood that has been burned, but can still burn more. And the second time, it burns hotter. We do the first burn here. We need it for our forge, so we can turn steel into blades and tools.”
Nearby, a cluster of the white bulbs that are growing all over the jungle now. They have an unpleasant look to them, but the tribe has decided to leave them alone until we know they are bad. They obviously can’t be eaten.
We keep walking, keeping quiet. I’m ready to draw my spear if we come upon a Big. There’s no sign of one, but the jungle is never safe. An attack could come at any time. That’s one reason I prefer the ocean—there can be attacks, but they are not common.
I spot my secret rock and clear away the vines and branches I’ve used to disguise it. “This is the iron.”
The rock is about as tall as Callie, and it’s different from all the other rocks I’ve seen. Gray and pockmarked, it’s half buried in the ground.
I pick up another rock and strike the big one with it. Sparks fly, and I manage to knock a small piece off it. “Only I know about this. The rock has a lot of iron in it.”
Callie strokes her hand over the surface. “Is almost all iron. Came from sky.” She points up. “Fall on Xren many years ago.”
I frown. “Oh? It fell from the sky? How do you know?”
“Sometimes happen,” she says as she puts her shoulder to the rock and tries to rock it. “Rock fall from sky. From stars. All iron. This,” she puts one fingertip into one of the thousands of hollows in the surface, “is because rock burn when fall. Very hot rock. Now cold and all iron. Called meteorite.”
