Free Winter in Eden by Harry Harrison Page A

be fresh when we start in the morning."
    Winter in Eden - Harry Harrison
    There was no snow that night, but the last fall still lay unmelted on the ground. The day was clear yet there was little warmth in the sun. The track lay along the river valley now and she was sure that she recognized this place. The sammads had camped here before, not far from the ocean. Armun even thought that she could smell salt in the air—she moved along strongly with the wind in her face.
    Yes there it was, white breakers rolling up onto the sand, the shore just beyond the bluff. She had her head down, pulling on the poles with steady endurance, following the track. She stopped only when she heard Harl's warning cry.
    There was a turf hut ahead, built into the base of the bluff and sheltered by it, with a fur-clad hunter standing before it. Motionless, apparently just as startled by her arrival as she was. She started to raise her voice and call to him—then the words choked in her throat.
    He wasn't Tanu, what he wore was not right. And his face…
    It was covered with fur. Not just a beard on the lower part of his face—but there was fur, soft brown fur over all of his face.
    CHAPTER SIX
    uposmelikfarigi ikemespèyilanè. uposmelikyilanè ikemespènèyil. eleiensi topaa abalesso.
    Yilanè apothegm
    A fargi lies down to sleep and one morning awakes a Yilanè. Since the egg of time a Yilanè who sleeps awakes always a Yilanè.
    Vaintè looked at the activity in the port with great interest. Up until this moment Ikhalmenets had just been a name to her, sea-girt Ikhalmenets, almost always expressed that way and now she could see why.
    Ikhalmenets had grown along a curving natural harbor—the reason for the city's existence. All of the other islands in this group were rocky and barren. But not this one. It lay on the shore, at the base of the high mountain that caught the moist winds, cooled them to cloud as they rose up, until heavily burdened they released their moisture as snow and rain. The snow tipped white the mountain top while the rain ran down the slopes until it was funneled into the city.
    But Ikhalmenets was more of the sea than of the land. Uruketo lined the shore, mixing with the smaller fishing boats heavy-laden with their catch. Erafnais called down instructions to guide the uruketo through the rush to a berth at the dock. Vaintè stood aside as the crewmembers climbed down from the fin and Winter in Eden - Harry Harrison
    made the creature secure.
    "All to remain on board," Erafnais ordered as she prepared to leave. Vaintè listened, then was careful to express no antipathy when she spoke.
    "Is your order addressed to me as well, commander?"
    Erafnais was immobile with thought; then she spoke. "I do not wish wild accounts of what occurred in Alpèasak to be spread through the city. I will talk with the Eistaa first and await her commands. But you—I cannot command you Vaintè. I can only ask you to…"
    "The need to ask is superfluous/close-to-insult, commander."
    "Never my intent!"
    "That I realize, so no insult is taken. Vaintè does not gossip in the ambesed."
    There was a wheezing behind them as Akotolp pulled her bulk to the top of the fin, laboring even harder as she hauled the protesting Esetta< after her. She signed dutiful-request to Erafnais.
    "It is required that I relieve myself of the burden of this male creature. Your discussion was overhead, so take my assurance that in the doing of this labor in the city none shall hear from me of Alpèasak's destruction."
    "It will be my duty to aid you," Vaintè said. "The male shall proceed between us to the hanalè. This will cause the least amount of disturbance/attraction among the fargi."
    "I am in Vaintè's debt," Akotolp said with pleasure-of-gratitude. "A single male is a sight rarely seen. I do not wish to arouse unseemly emotions."
    Erafnais turned her back, closed her mind on the matter. The stories would get out soon enough, though not from Vaintè and the