"You wore yourself down to a nubbin, Lisele; that's what you did. I should have watched you more carefully." For the first time in days, Lisele saw Rissa smile. "Basically you are all right; your pulse is good and your breathing is normal for this heat. When we continue, however, Stonzai will take the travois, while Sevshen relieves her on the heavier one."

  Lisele tried to sit up. "I can do it!"

  "Not today, duckling. Working yourself to collapse-for now, once is enough. Later you will have other chances-many of them."

  Past Rissa, Lisele saw Tregare's face; his expression didn't show his thoughts. He shook his head, and said only, "I guess you get it from both sides of the family,"

  In a little while the group was up and moving again. Even without the travois, now, Hagen Trent had trouble keeping pace. Liseie angled over to walk beside him. He looked at her without

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  seeming to see her, until he stumbled and she grasped his elbow; then he glared and pulled away. "What you doing? / don't need help."

  "Please, Hagen. If you fall, somebody's got to pick you up. Like they did me."

  He muttered a curse; then his arm went around her shoulder, and he said, "Know something? One thing I can't stand, it's a smart-off kid-but sometimes you make a lot of sense."

  He tried not to put much weight on her; she could tell that. But before they got down to the water, he was leaning about as heavily as she could handle.

  Twenty meters back from the water-a little more, maybe- a steep bank rose. A gully cut the bank, and that's how they went down. To their left a big tree stood, with some of its roots buried in the cliff and some arching down in air, making a shallow cave under the main trunk. "Not perfect," said Tregare, "but it'll do for bivouac until things cool off." He checked his chronometer. "I'll take first watch. You next, Stonzai. Two hours; all right?"

  Even with the heat stifling her, once Lisele lay down it didn't take her long to go to sleep.

  Rissa's touch woke her; she blinked at the red sun, just grazing the horizon. The smell of food, cooking, brought her more awake. Stretching stiff muscles, she got up to have dinner with the rest, sitting around a fire of small wood. Everybody sat well back from its heat, but after the dark closed in, the fire's light let her see far enough to feel reasonably safe.

  Evenings had been quiet, lately; nobody had energy for talk. But now Rissa said, "Bran? We have as much relief from heat, tonight, as we can expect. Perhaps you should now announce your plan."

  "Sure. Why not?" Looking almost like his normal self, Tregare stood. "We built us a kind of little fort, here. You see-" He pointed, and shone his handlamp; Lisele began to see what he meant.

  Then he said, "Rissa's right; it's cooled off as much, tonight, as it's going to. So now's a good time to start building."

  By the light of handlamps, Lisele saw branches and entire trees cut by Tregare's energy gun and come crashing down. Too heavy to move, those fallen things, until Tregare or Hagen cut them smaller. But then, everybody helping, a

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  respectable barricade was built. "Not high enough," Tregare said, "but it will be."

  Two days later he was satisfied. Then they put the roof on-mostly heavy-foliaged branch-ends, but those lay over a lattice of strong boughs spaced close enough that no tonguewalker could squeeze through. Or anything else, big enough to cause much trouble. That's what Tregare said, and Lisele thought he probably had it right.

  Waiting miserably through Shaarbant's perihelion, the group had a few nasty surprises. No one had thought that tonguewalkers might come in smaller sizes, but they did. When a clutch of them squeezed down through the roof, nearly everybody got burned by the acid tentacles before the things were killed. Then Rissa and the two Shrakken wove thinner, pliant branches into the ceiling, leaving no opening big enough to let the creatures through. The irony was that once the place was secure, no more of the animals turned up. "Migrating, maybe," Tregare said.

  The heat was worse than ever, but if you didn't have much work to do, you could get used to it. Especially if, as Lisele, you practiced alpha-state meditation a lot. Besides helping with normal camp chores, Lisele's only job was to go scouting-with Stonzai's gun to guard them both-for plants to eat. Every morning they set out at false dawn, using handlamps until true dawn came.

  As time passed, they had to range farther for good forage, and one morning they crossed a point of land and heard a gurgling sound. Pushing ahead through a thicket, Lisele came to a running stream, about two meters across-the first water she'd seen since the scout crashed, that wasn't swamp and didn't smell like swamp.

  Lisele was tired of smelling like swamp, herself, from bathing in a stagnant pool while somebody stood by with a gun. Mostly, everyone scrubbed off with fine sand-but sometimes, to feel halfway clean, they just had to bathe in water.

  The stream was cooler to her hand than she expected. Cupping her palm, she scooped up a little water; it tasted fine. Quickly, as Stonzai approached, Lisele slipped off the light slacks and blouse she wore against scratchy brush, kicked loose her sandals and stepped into the stream. It felt so good; with a splash, she sat down, and then lay flat. She ducked her head under for a moment, then sat up and began rinsing her short hair.

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  Grown out from stubble now, it was almost long enough to need a comb.

  She ducked under again, came up, and rubbed some more. Stonzai, looking down at her, suddenly pointed, yelling words Lisele didn't understand. Then something struck her thigh. It felt like fire, and without meaning to, she shrieked-shrieked, and tore with her hands at a grey thing that flopped in the water and sent agony up her leg.

  A hand gripped her shoulder; she was yanked up and then she landed on dirt, flat on her back with the wind knocked out of her. Stonzai's gun gave a ripping hiss; something clawed at her right thigh where it hurt worst, and then the pain eased a little.

  Struggling to get up, she managed to prop herself on one elbow and could see what was happening. Not flopping now, burned nearly in half, the grey thing lay to one side. She looked at her leg. Dark blood ran from a cluster of wounds at the front of her thigh, toward the inside, a handsbreadth from the groin. And as she watched, the area began to swell and darken.

  With a high, keening wail, Stonzai put her mouth to the bleeding punctures, spat discolored blood and repeated the act. A half-dozen times, until the blood that came, looked normal. Slowly the darkened patch of flesh began to clear at the edges; the swelling didn't leave but it stopped spreading. Pain settled down to throbbing ache; Lisele found she was biting her lip, and that now she could stop doing it.

  She took a deep, ragged breath. "Thanks, Stonzai. What was it?"

  "Poison out, to get," the Shrakken said.

  "Yes-yes, I know, and I thank you. I meant, the creature-?"

  Stonzai gestured; on her hands and one knee, the hurt leg trailing, Liseie moved to see. The grey thing was about a meter long, and as thick as the thigh it had attacked-wormlike, with a sort of flipper at the tail. At the front she saw no eyes, only a cluster of leechlike sucking mouths. She nodded, and said, "Yes. Stonzai, remember the big water beast we told you about, our first day in the swamp?"

  "Remember, yes. See, though, not."

  "Well, you have now; this is just like it, only smaller. We'd better take it back, to show everybody."

  Stonzai touched the injured leg. "Walk, you can?"

  "I think I ought to try." Being helped up, she couldn't hold back a moan. Then, standing, she held still and the pain ebbed.

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  Not in her face, but somehow in the way she stood, the Sharakken looked concerned. "Carry you, must I, yes."

  Lisele was tempted, but shook her head. "You need your gun hand free. Wait a second." Leaning on Stonzai and keeping her leg stiff, even the hipjoint, she took one step and then another.

  It wasn't as bad as she'd feared. "We can do it. It'll be slow; ! may have to stop a lot." Sweat ran down her forehead, and the furnace wasn't even on yet. "Some sticks for crutches would be good, but here there's nothing big enough." Now she felt feverish; maybe there wasn't much time to spare.

  She asked Stonzai to fetch her clothes, and to fill two plastic bags with stream water. Then she said, "We'd better start."

  The trip back was longer than she'd realized. She had to pause often, and sometimes the pain wouldn't let her keep silent. The day's heat built; usually they were home by this time. But some of her own heat, she knew, was fever.

  Things she saw wouldn't hold still, and once in a while she forgot where she was and who Stonzai was. She wanted a drink of water, but had a vague idea there was some reason she couldn't have one. The one thing she never forgot was to keep that leg straight.

  Finally she saw the "fort" ahead, and for a moment everything came clear to her. Rissa, eyes wide, ran toward them. "What happened? Are you all right?"

  Hot, reddish blackness was closing in, but now it was all right if it did. Except that first she had to tell. "We found some real water, a little river. And something bit me-like the big thing in the swamp, only a little one. And Stonzai sucked the poison out, and-and I did walk."

  There was more to say, but the blackness wouldn't wait. As the leg crumpled under her, the last she felt was its stab of pain.

  Something felt good; after a while she knew it was the wet cloth that lay over her head, leaving only nose and mouth exposed. When she figured that out, she reached and pushed it back, so she could see.

  Rissa sat watching her. "Are you feeling better now? The fever is gone, and most of the swelling from your leg."

  Her thigh wore a bandage, but through it Lisele felt no

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  rigid, painful lump. She tried moving the leg; it was plenty sore, but nothing worse. "I feel pretty good, I guess."

  Across from Rissa, Tregare said, "The fever and swelling, all of it-some kind of venom reaction, strictly chemical. Lucky thing Stonzai could get most of it out. The rest, your system just took a while to clear up." He leaned and touched her forehead. "Princess, you had us scared. Welcome back."

  Then he kissed her, and so did Rissa, and Lisele told them everything that had happened, in case she'd missed something before. Tregare said, "There has to be a safe way to bathe in that good water. Tomorrow I'll go check it." And with the look that meant he was enjoying figuring something out, he talked about making some kind of hand-pumps, and screens, and maybe filters, too....

  Liseie smelled dinner cooking. When Rissa brought a plateful, she was hungry, all right. Well, it was her first meal of the day. And then she was sleepy again.

  For a few days the leg bothered her some, but she got around well enough. And now the furnace wasn't turning on so early. Shaarbant, Tregare said, had definitely passed perihelion and was moving farther from its sun. Every day, and faster than Lisele expected, the time grew that they could stay outside and be active. "Well," said Tregare, "I think we're all acclimated better, now. This time, when we get moving again, we should do better."

  They'd been a long time inactive, though, so he set everybody practicing with the travoises again. Lisele found the work easier than she remembered. When she told Rissa, her mother said, "After all, you are growing, you know." The haul to Tregare's "bathtub" at the stream, and back, was just about right for a practice stint.

  With a sharpened stick for a spear, Hagen Trent caught one of the leeches. But even after boiling in several waters, it stank, and had to be thrown away.

  When the heat ebbed enough that they could work outside past noon, the group in council decided to move on. Choosing what to take or leave, and then repacking, took another day.

  Next morning they ate by handlamps, and left at true dawn.

  A week they traveled, a little longer every day, before they ran out of solid ground. A kilo ahead, maybe, they saw a wooded rise, but in between was pure total swamp. Tregare

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  turned and hiked back up the last hill, and this time climbed a tree himself. He came back shaking his head. "If there's any kind of route to either side, it's a long way around."

  Jenise Rorvik pointed down at the scummy water. "You want to go through that!"

  Tregare shrugged. "No more than you do. But we have to." Before she could answer, he added, "There'll be more like this. We might as well start learning how to handle it."

  Lisele poked a long stick into the water; even at the edge it was over her head. She could swim some, sure-but a kilo! Then Tregare began opening a pack, and talking; she listened.

  "We inflate these flotation rigs, they'll carry the travoises with buoyancy to spare. We'll hang on, using safety lines, and propel them as best we can. I don't know how high things will ride; we can't guarantee to keep it all dry. So we better look at our loads and see what needs waterproofing." He squinted up toward the sun. "Lucky we've got more than half the afternoon to do that."

  Lisele had a question, but Hagen Trent beat her to it. "How about the leeches-like the one that got Lisele, or even a big one?"

  Rissa smiled. "We shall all smell very badly, but I do not think any life form will consider us edible." She looked from pack to pack, rummaging, and brought out a spray container. "This repellant was developed on Earth. I understand that among other things it is effective against sharks, Alaskan mosquitoes, piranha and the tsetse fly."

  There wasn't enough brush at hand to make a decent stockade, so at nightfall Tregare set one-hour watches. "Me, Trent, Rissa, Jenise, Stonzai, Sevshen, then repeat." Lisele scowled-Tregare should know she was big enough to stay awake when she had to, and he did know she wasn't afraid to use a gun-but he didn't notice, so she picked a place and lay down to sleep.

  Near to dawn, Rissa woke her. Everyone ate last night's leftovers, cold. Rissa and Trent rigged flotation units to the travoises and Tregare inflated them. Then Rissa had everybody strip, and spread the clothes on the ground, and she sprayed them. "As advertised," Tregare said while he dressed, "we don't stink pretty, at all." Fumes from her blouse stung Lisele's eyes, and she saw why Rissa wanted the clothes off when she sprayed them.

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  Then they got into the water, gear and all, and began the longest day Lisele had ever lived. Behind a travois she kicked, swimming style, until her legs ached-and then, because she had to, kept doing it. Breathing so near the surface, the swamp stench knotted her stomach. She kept her breakfast down, though, because she was pretty sure she was going to need it.

  They must have been moving nearly an hour before there was any sign that other life shared the water with them. Then something moved, ahead, and made the surface swirl. Tregare signaled for everyone to hang quiet, and they waited. The thing, whatever it was, came to within about five meters-still under water, only a shadow there, but a big one-then turned, throwing a wave of water, and went away. Tregare whistled. "Your stuff works, Rissa!"

  After that, once in a while they'd see some disturbance in the water, but nothing came very close and they just kept moving.

  Lisele began to wish they wouldn't be quite so brave; to keep going at all, she had to hold her mind on the time when she could rest. The least-loaded travois was buoyant enough to let a person lie on it. One out of seven, and by Tregare's schedule, soon it would be Lisele's turn.

  When that turn came, she opened her mind to relaxation. She wasn't certain whether she slept, but when Jenise nudged her to slip back into the water, for a while her legs were strong again.

  More than Tregare's guess of a kilo, the distance had to be. But by sun's noon the land ahead was nearer than that behind, so Lisele could rid herself of the notion that this hell would never end. Especially when they paused to sip broth and water from plastic bags.

  Past mid-afternoon she wasn't so sure. The water went shallow-still too deep for her to find footing on the muddy bottom, but shallow enough that water plants entangled her feet and made her leg movements futile. Tregare, Hagen, and of course the two Shrakken, were tall enough to stand up and push. Tregare told the others-except Jenise, who was having her turn at rest--just to hang on and let their legs dangle. Eyes closed, Lisele hung limp.

  When her trailing feet dragged bottom, she looked to see Tregare in water not much above his knees. Now she stood up. Everybody else was bending over, pushing a travois. So she did, too.

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  Even more shallow, the water got, and the less of it to balance against, the easier it was to slip and fall, and get smeared with sticky, itchy mud. When the water deepened again, they paused and tried to scrub that mud off each other. But without much luck, and Tregare said, "Hell with it; let's go. We don't want to be caught out here when it gets dark." So, back to the swim-kicking. Lisele was getting hungry; dawn was a long time ago, with no food but broth. Rissa had figured a way to eat, even in the middle of wet swamp. But then she'd shaken her head. "No. We cannot risk exposing anything that smells edible." They could sip from the bags, only.

 

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