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here taking in all this information and it isn't even my department. Lyra's
the one who should be making a record of your ways." He looked past them,
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making a perfunctory survey of the battlefield. "Where is she, any-way? I
haven't seen her since we split up to try and flank the two Na we first
encountered."
"Ah, Learned Teacher Lyra," Tyl murmured.
"Yes. Didn't she stick with you, Tyl?" Suddenly he was very cold, the
kind of coldness that comes from inside the body and makes the muscles of
one's arms and legs start to cramp.
"No. We became separated during the fight. I have not seen her since.
Perhaps we ought to return to the place where we began the combat." He sounded
concerned.
There was no sign of Lyra. Not where Etienne and the farmers had slain
the two Na, not in the streets nearby, not before the gate. The word was
passed among the townsfolk. Surely they'd know her whereabouts. An alien
fighting among them would stand out immediately.
When the word came it was, devastating in its finality.
Chapter Thirteen
The expedition's aims, his hopes for a personal rap-prochement, the
papers they planned to present to various scientific societies, the acclaim
and acknowledgment and honors, all suddenly meant nothing beside the
hollowness in his heart. Ten years of hard work had been shattered like that
gate which had so ineffectively protected Jakaie.
Several of the townsfolk had seen the alien female dis-appear into a Na
sack. They were positive she was alive at the time. Two or three Tsla had been
stuffed in the sack with her.
Etienne and Tyl, accompanied by the First Scholar, rushed to the narrow
street near the gate, following the lead of two young Tsla. A quick search
turned up several raggedy frag-ments of Lyra's shirt-and something more
significant. Bat-tered but still functional, her pistol lay dark against the
paving stones where she'd dropped it.
Asking without wanting to ask, he looked despairingly at Ruu-an. "Why
would they take her alive?"
The elder glanced at Tyl, who knew the strange creature better than he,
but no enlightenment was forthcoming. So he answered.
"I told thee, Learned Etienne, that when times on the Guntali are
difficult the Na come here to find food. They are not selective in their diet.
Meat is meat to them, whether recently killed on the Guntali or traded to them
by some merchant . . . or the merchant himself. They take live cap-tives to
prolong their supply of fresh food, as we do with our domestic animals."
The sudden irony of it made Etienne want to laugh, but he couldn't, any
more than he could cry. All he could do was stare silently through the broker.
gate toward the ram-part marking the rim of the Guntali, more than a thousand
meters higher than Jakaie.
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Lyra was up there somewhere, no doubt occupying her thoughts with the
unprecedented opportunity granted her to study the culture of the Na at close
range. Probably she was bouncing around in her sack with her fellow captives
and cursing the lack of a recorder. She'd be doing exactly the same thing when
they slipped her on the spit. Her last notes would detail the eating habits of
the Na. He was sure it would be a paragon of scientific explication and his
wife's final thought would be regret over the fact no one else would be able
to read them.
"Damn them," he muttered. "Damn her!" He let all his anger and hate and
frustration flow out over the stones and an occasional curious onlooker and
when he finally con-cluded the tirade he was ashamed of himself, because there
still were no tears.
As he turned back to the patient Tyl he discovered he could speak with
extraordinary calmness. It was the peace of the resigned.
"Do you think they will eat her soon, or save her for a while?" How
easily the words came now, the absurd words.
Tyl looked to Ruu-an instead of replying. "It is hard to say. Certainly
they have sense enough to wonder at the differences between her and us. If any
among this tribe has ever seen a Mai, they may think she is kin to them,
albeit from a larger tribe. They may want to sample this new food right away,
but I think they may choose to make a special feast around her. Thus they
would save her for a last meal."
"I have to proceed on that assumption."
Tyl eyed him curiously. "What can thee do, Learned Etienne? I am wounded
for thee. I was very fond of Learned Lyra. I learned much from her and enjoyed
our sharing of customs and knowledge. Both pupil and teacher she was, but
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