Shame of Man (9 page)

Still no one else moved. Hue started to—and Lee looked at him across the water, shaking her head no. Then she screamed again, and zigzagged toward the patch of reeds.

The raider splashed into the water after her. Apparently he wasn't concerned about the shallow water. Maybe the raiders had known that they couldn't catch any of the people in the deep water, so hadn't tried. But Lee hadn't had the sense to plunge deep immediately, and now was about to be caught by the reeds. If she tried to run through the reeds, she would be slowed, and the raider would have her in a moment. In fact he was about to have her anyway.

The man reached out and caught Lee's shoulder. Then he looked startled. He suddenly sat down in the water. He bellowed with pain. Yet there was nothing. Lee just stood there, looking down at him.

The man seemed to be unable to scramble back to his feet. His hands splashed, and for a moment his head ducked under the surface. Then he somehow moved past Lee, not toward the shore but toward deeper water. What was happening?

Two other men burst from the brush on shore. They forged into the water to rescue their companion. So there
had
been more of an ambush there!

Still neither Lee nor any of the other water folk moved.

The two men got knee deep, then abruptly fell forward, their faces splashing into the water. Both thrashed wildly. Then one brought out a flint knife and slashed with it, stabbing at something under the surface. In a moment he got back to his feet, holding a length of rope with clamshells
dangling from it. The other man joined him, but seemed to be limping. Even from a distance, Hue could see a reddish tinge in the muddy water.

Hue was beginning to understand. That rope had been hidden under the water, and had tripped the men. That was why they had fallen. The shells were sharp-edged, cutting their legs. They had escaped the trap, but not without injury. It was a lesson; after this, they would be far more cautious about pursuing any water person into the shallow water.

Meanwhile the first raider, who had chased Lee, was now floating silently beside the reeds. His face was under water. He appeared to be dead.

The two raiders stared at the body, then shook their heads. They knew better than to try to wade out that far.

Then they turned to face Lee, who still stood where she had stopped. They had spears strapped to their backs, but they did not try to use them. It was all too clear that further efforts were likely to cost them a good deal more than their spears. They simply turned around and sloshed out of the water, defeated.

After they were gone, Lee moved. She returned by her devious route to the shore. Now Hue understood that she knew where the hidden ropes were, and was avoiding them. She had stirred up the water so that the raiders couldn't see what was under it. They had been the ones walking into the trap, not she.

Yet the whole tribe had waded directly into the water, before, not encountering any hazards. Where had the ropes and sharp shells come from?

Lee explored the shore, and found nothing. This time the raiders really were gone.

But the water folk did not go back to land. Instead they began moving along parallel to the shore, seeking some other place. They were finished with this region anyway. Two men approached the floating body of the raider and stripped it of anything of value. Then they pushed it to the shore and left it there.

Hue waited until Lee re-entered the water and waded up to him. “Rope no,” he said, trying to express his confusion.

She smiled with secret knowledge. “Rope yes,” she replied. And that was all.

They formed into a single file and headed toward the center of the lake. But though the shore receded, the depth of water did not. Hue realized that they were walking along a built-up path; his toes could feel the sloping sides of it. So the lake was getting deeper; they merely had a ramp. A ramp which surely could be changed, if an enemy learned its location.

But why didn't the enemy just swim, instead of trying to walk the path? Hue thought of the answer immediately: few regular folk were good swimmers, and they couldn't fight well while swimming. While the water
folk surely were good swimmers—and could stand on their hidden ramps and use weapons effectively to stop any enemy swimmers. So the lake was proof against invasion.

They approached an odd island. It seemed to be made of a tangle of wooden branches. In fact it
was
such a tangle, extending well down below the surface. There seemed to be several domes in it, but no one was climbing onto them. Instead people were disappearing.

Disappearing? Hue watched the line ahead, and saw a man sink quietly out of sight, not to reappear. Then a woman with a baby did the same, pausing only to let the baby get a good breath. What was happening? No one seemed alarmed.

Finally the last person before Hue sank down. Now Hue saw that the man was swimming toward the stick island, going deep as if to pass under it. Then he disappeared.

Lee smiled. “Follow Lee,” she said. Before he could protest, she took a small breath and dived low.

He had no choice. He ducked down into the water as well as he could and stroked after her. He was very glad that he knew how to swim; he knew that many did not. His curiosity about things had led him to explore rivers and ponds, and he had also liked to listen to the odd sounds under water. Sounds had always intrigued him. It was apparent that he was not nearly as proficient at swimming as Lee was, but she was not trying to elude him, and he was able to keep her kicking feet in sight.

Down she went, down, down. Then she swam into the base of the stick island and was gone. But in a moment he found that there was a way there, an opening in the mass of sticks. It was deadly dark within, like a deep cave, but that was where she had gone. So he followed, his breath getting pained.

The cave ceiling opened almost immediately, and he swam up. In a moment he found the surface and gasped his breath back. It was dusky here, beneath a dome of sticks; he was
under
the island! Had he had time to think about this swim, he would have been frightened.

Around him was a circle of legs, knees, and thighs. He was in the center of an interior pool, surrounded by sitting women. All of their legs were spread, showing their genitals as if inviting sex. But when he looked at any woman directly, her legs closed, denying sex. What was happening here?

He looked around the full circle until he located Lee. Her legs alone did not close. He shook his head, not trying to explain that this was not a thing he wished of his little sister.

She did not protest. She heaved herself up, and he saw that she had been sitting on a woven rim of reeds just above the water level. She moved on hands and knees away from the circle. “Follow Lee,” she repeated.

So he put his hands on the rim and managed to heave himself up and onto it. That was just as well, because his arms, unfamiliar with this type of
swimming, had been tiring. He was conscious of the women inspecting his body at close range, but none commented. He moved on hands and knees after the girl.

She led him down a short tunnel through the sticks that opened out into a chamber where many children were. Each seemed to have his or her place, out of the water but with the ceiling so low that it was not possible to stand up, or even sit up in comfort. There were many thick stick columns supporting the roof, and the resting places were around these columns. Lee had a section that was large enough for two, if they lay close together.

And that was what they did. They settled down for the night, and Hue was glad to sleep. He was worried that Lee would proffer him sex again, but now her legs were firmly closed; apparently this was not the occasion for that.

In the morning the women and children stirred, stretching and going to the water hole. At first he heard them in the dark, then he saw them. This reminded him that no babies had shown up for many women, just older children who were no longer nursing. Yet all of the grown women had full breasts. The mystery was not being resolved.

Lee had evidently awakened before him, but remained close. She saw him peering at the women. “Hue ask?”

“Breasts,” he said. “Babies no?”

She laughed. “Breasts women,” she said, cupping the halves of her chest with her hands so that its slight shaping was more evident. “Children no.”

Hue shook his head. “Breasts, babies.” He knew he had never before seen a breasted woman who was not nursing. When a woman lost or weaned her baby, her breasts quickly shrank into nubs, and developed again only when she had another baby in her. When men raided other tribes and captured women, they had sex only with the appealing breastless ones.

Lee shook her head in turn. “Breasts women.”

So it seemed. “How babies?”

“Breasts babies,” she said.

Women with breasts could get new babies? Hue was amazed and disgusted. These men had to take sex from unsuitable women? It was a wonder the tribe didn't soon die out.

Lee was quick to appreciate his revulsion, and to take advantage of it. “Lee breasts no,” she pointed out, this time pressing her hands flat on her chest to diminish the swellings there. “Legs yes.” She spread them invitingly. “Sex yes.”

Hue realized that he would have to explain. “Lee sister. Sex no.”

She looked perplexed. “Sister? Lee sister no.”

Now he realized that she had not actually claimed to be his sister; he had simply assumed it, because it seemed right. He had a feeling, if not an
actual memory, of a sister about her age, with whom he had always been close. And of course Lee came from a different tribe than he did, so she couldn't be his sister unless something quite unusual had happened. Why hadn't he realized that before? But if Lee was not that sister, who was she? “Lee who?” he asked.

“Lee water folk tribe child. Hue brother no.”

Then how had the two of them come to be together? Normally men hunted with other men, or mated with their women, or protected their children or siblings. So she had to be his daughter or his sister. He was sure she wasn't his daughter. And now he strongly doubted that she was his sister, because of the difference in tribes and dialect. So if her claim not to be his sister was true, what was the explanation for their association? “Hue Lee how?”

She was ready for that question. “Lee woman need man. Lee—” Here she hesitated. “Lee hairy. Tribe men like no. Lee look hairy tribe men. Lee find Hue.”

That made sense. Lee was the only one of the water folk who wasn't distressingly bare on torso and limbs. Her fur was light, but sufficient. And they actually rejected her because of that? So she had gone out to see if she could find a hairy man who would like her. She was evidently an enterprising girl. And she had had the wit to do so before she became adult, so that her growing breasts would not cause a hairy man to reject her. Hue was the one she had found. But that was not the whole answer. What had he been doing alone—or had she found him in a tribe? He would not have hunted with either a woman or a child, or gone out alone with a stranger.

“Find Hue where?” he asked.

“Find Hue walk alone,” she clarified. “Hue stranger. Hue know land no. Lee know land by water. Lee tell land.”

So he had agreed to let her walk with him, if she showed him the way. Because it was dangerous to go alone through the territory of another tribe. He had to avoid any party of hunters, lest they kill him without parley. He had wanted guidance; she had wanted a man. Their purposes had never been aligned.

Then they had tried to pass a mountain, using a dangerous path that others did not use, and had fallen. Now it was coming back. Lee knew the land near the water, but was less certain of the terrain high on the mountain slope where he had wanted to go. So there had been an accident. He had been helpless, because of his injury and his confusion, so Lee had led him home to her tribe. The tribe had had to admit him, because Lee meant to mate with him, and mating with a tribe member made a person a member. It made sense, from her perspective.

But not from his own perspective. Now he knew that Lee was not his sister, so she was legitimate for marriage. But he still thought of her as a
sister, and had no sexual inclination for her. And he needed to make this clear to her. “Hue Lee sex no,” he said firmly. That meant no mating, no marriage; he wasn't interested. In fact he wasn't interested in any of the water folk women, with their furless bodies and repellent breasts. This was not the place for him.

That hurt her. “Lee sex good,” she protested, stroking her genital region. “Sex many. Sex any.”

She was offering it as often as he wanted it, any way he might want it. She was ready to be completely obliging. But any woman was, with any man, willingly or unwillingly. But that couldn't make her attractive to him, or eliminate his perception of her as a person very like a sister. He still wasn't interested. “No.”

Now she was angry. “Hue water folk Lee,” she said, reminding him how she had been the one to get him admitted to this tribe. “Hue Lee mate day day day. Mate no, Hue go.”

That made it quite clear: the water folk had let him in only because of Lee, with the expectation that he would mate with her. That was standard in any tribe he knew of, because often it was was better for a person to mate with one from another tribe. Neighboring tribes might not like each other, and might fight often, but they had to be tolerant of mating between them. It was the way it was. But there was a time limit: three days. If it didn't happen in that time, it was reasonable to suppose that it wasn't going to happen. No tribe wanted to have a noncontributing member, or one who was not implicitly tied to the tribe, so this was a reasonable limit. So he had to commit in that time, or be banished as the foreigner he was.

Since he didn't care to mate with Lee, there was no point in prolonging it. His head had stopped aching with the good night's sleep, and he was feeling stronger. He would resume his walk to wherever he was going. “Hue go.” He got to his hands and knees and moved toward the pool.

Lee scrambled after him. “Go no! Land bad. Aliens bad. Kill Hue.”