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“Yes,” said the one I have come to think of as Alpha because he had been the first to approach me in the forest, “we cut your companion’s throat with sharpened stones and held him down and silent while he struggled. He died the true death.”
    “Why?” I asked after a moment. My voice sounded as dry as a corn husk crumbling.
    “Why did he die the true death?” said Alpha, still not looking up. “Because all of his blood ran out and he stopped breathing.”
    “No,” I said. “Why did you kill him?”
    Alpha did not respond, but Betty—who may or may not be female and Alpha’s mate—looked up from her loom and said simply, “To make him die.”
    “Why?”
    The responses invariably came back and just as invariably failed to enlighten me one iota. After much questioning, I had ascertained that they had killed Tuk to make him die and that he had died because he had been killed.
    “What is the difference between death and true death?” I asked, not trusting the comlog or my temper at this point.
    The third Bikura, Del, grunted a response that the comlog interpreted as, “Your companion died the true death. You did not.”
    Finally, in frustration far too close to rage, I snapped, “Why not? Why didn’t you kill me?”
    All three stopped in the middle of their mindless weaving and looked at me. “You cannot be killed because you cannot die,” said Alpha. “You cannot die because you belong to the cruciform and follow the way of the cross.”
    I had no idea why the damn machine would translate cross as “cross” one second and as “cruciform” the next.
Because you belong to the cruciform
.
    A chill went through me, followed by the urge to laugh. Had I stumbled into that old adventure holo cliché—the lost tribe that worshiped the “god” that had tumbled into their jungle until the poor bastard cuts himself shaving or something, and the tribespeople, assured and a bit relieved at the obvious mortality of their visitor, offer up their erstwhile deity as a sacrifice?
    It would have been funny if the image of Tuk’s bloodless face and raw-rimmed, gaping wound was not so fresh.
    Their reaction to the cross certainly suggested that I had encountered a group of survivors of a once Christian colony—Catholics?—even though the data in the comlog insisted that the dropship of seventy colonists who had crashed on this plateau four hundred years ago had held only Neo-Kerwin Marxists, all of whom should have been indifferent if not openly hostile to the old religions.
    I considered dropping the matter as being far too dangerous to pursue, but my stupid need to know drove me on. “Do you worship Jesus?” I asked.
    Their blank expressions left no need for a verbal negative.
    “Christ?” I tried again. “Jesus Christ? Christian? The Catholic Church?”
    No interest.
    “Catholic? Jesus? Mary? St. Peter? Paul? St. Teilhard?”
    The comlog made noises but the words seemed to have no meaning for them.
    “You follow the cross?” I said, flailing for some last contact.
    All three looked at me. “We belong to the cruciform,” said Alpha.
    I nodded, understanding nothing.
    This evening I fell asleep briefly just before sunset and when I awoke it was to the organ-pipe music of the Cleft’s nightfall winds. It was much louder here on the village ledges. Even the hovels seemed to join the chorus as the rising gusts whistled and whined through stone gaps, flapping fronds, and crude smokeholes.
    Something was wrong. It took me a groggy minute to realize that the village was abandoned. Every hut was empty. I sat on a cold boulder and wondered if my presence had sparked some mass exodus. The wind music had ended and meteors were beginning their nightly show through cracks in low clouds when I heard a sound behind me and turned to find all seventy of the Three Score and Ten behind me.
    They walked past without a word and went to their huts. There were no lights. I imagined them sitting in their hovels,