“Are you awake?”

She blinked.

“Where does it hurt?”

She frowned. “My hand and my leg.”

I felt along her legs. There was no blood. I found no wounds.

“The ankle,” she told me.

I touched her left ankle. She winced again. I pressed in. Nia groaned. Something was wrong there. But what? How could I tell if anything was broken or out of place? I didn’t know how an ankle was supposed to feel. Not on this planet. Not an ankle belonging to an alien. I thought for a moment. There was always bilateral symmetry. I checked her right ankle, then went back and rechecked the left.

“They feel the same.”

Nia frowned. “To you. Not to me. What am I lying on?”

“The man.”

“Aiya!” She got up on one elbow. “Help me.”

“I don’t want you to move.”

“I will not lie on a corpse.”

I frowned, trying to remember my first aid. Would it be okay to move her? I was having trouble concentrating, maybe because I had just helped to kill someone and the body was right in front of me.

Nia struggled into a sitting position. I laid down my torch and helped her off the dead man. “Is your back all right?” I asked. “Are you hurt anywhere else? Do you feel any other pain?”

“I told you. My hand and my leg. Nothing else. I think I will lie down.”

I eased her onto the ground. She lay full length next to the dead man. I got up and grabbed hold of his arms. He was heavy, much heavier than Nia, and entirely limp. I managed to pull him a meter or so, then gave up and let go. His arms hit the ground with a thump. “That’s it. He stays here.”

“I do not feel good,” said Nia.

I didn’t think her leg was broken, but I wasn’t positive. I’d better put on a splint. And get cold water for the hand. And get a cloak. She might well be in shock.

“I am going to need your cooking pot.”

“Take it. What a strong man! I made a mistake. I thought he’d be old or very young. I am not as clever as I think I am.”

I got her cloak and covered her, then took the cooking pot to the stream, filled it with water, and brought it back. “Put your hand in. It will help the burn. I’m going to rebuild the fire.”

She made the gesture of assent. I went to gather wood. When the fire was burning brightly, I made a splint. I had an elastic bandage in my first-aid kit. For padding I used my undershirt and a spare pair of socks.

“I hope this is temporary,” I said. “I need those socks. How is the hand?”

“Better, but now my shoulder hurts.”

I pulled the cloak down. The fur on one shoulder was matted. I touched it and looked at my hand. The fingers were red. “Another wound. He did a good job on you.”

“I knew when I saw him I was in trouble. But it was too late to change the plan. Is the wound bad?”

I got a piece of gauze and wiped the blood away. “It’s a nick. He must have got you with the point of his knife.” I looked at the contents of my medical kit. What was safe to use? She wasn’t human. I had no idea of how she would react to any human medication.

I had brief, horrible fantasies about allergic reactions, toxic reactions, shock, and death.

But the wound ought to be covered. I didn’t think any harm could come from a bandage.

I got out the can. “This is going to sting just a little.” I hit the button.

“Aiya!” Nia said.

The wound vanished. In its place was a small dark patch of plastic. The patch was lumpy, and clumps of hair stuck out of it, coated with plastic. Idiot! I told myself. I should have shaved the area around the wound. Well, I hadn’t and the best thing to do now was leave the wound alone. I rocked back on my heels. “Anything else?”

“No.” She took her hand out of the pot, then grimaced. “This still hurts.”

“I’ll get more water.”

I went to the stream and filled the pot again and brought it back. Nia put her hand in. Her eyes were almost shut. I had the impression she was exhausted. I tucked the cloak around her.

“Thank you.” Her voice was drowsy. She closed her eyes.

I put more wood on the fire, then got the poncho out of my pack. It was light and waterproof with a removable thermal lining. I did not remove the lining. Instead I wrapped the poncho around me, lay down, and went to sleep.

I woke later, feeling cold. The fire was almost out. I got up and laid branches on the coals. Flames appeared. How silent the canyon was! I could hear water, but nothing else. Above me stars shone. I recognized the Big Dipper. It looked the way I remembered it—maybe a little brighter. That would be the air in the canyon. It was dry and extremely clear.

I went over to Nia. Her hand was still in the pot. On her face was an expression of pain. But she was sleeping, breathing slowly and evenly.

I checked her leg. It had stopped swelling. The bandage wasn’t tight. She groaned when I touched her, but she didn’t wake. I went to my pack and got out the radio.

This time I got Antonio Nybo. Another North American. There were a lot of them on the sociology team, maybe because there were so many different societies in North America. Tony was from somewhere in the Confederation of Spanish States. I couldn’t—at the moment—remember exactly where. Not Florida. Texas maybe. Or Chicago. Most of his work had been done in southern California, studying the Hispanic farmers who were moving back into the California desert and interacting—not always easily—with the aborigines.

“Lixia! How are you?” His voice was light and pleasant with a slight accent.

“I had an interesting day…” I told him about it, then said, “Now for the problem. I don’t think the leg is broken, but I’m not sure. Is there any way to tell without doing a scan?”

“I’ll ask the medical team. Is it okay to call you back?”

“Yes.”

He signed off. I got up and stretched, then touched my toes five times. My stomach gurgled and I remembered that I hadn’t eaten dinner. I got a piece of bread. It was stale. I enjoyed it, anyway.

The radio rang. I turned it on.

“First of all they say they need more information.” I could hear amusement in Antonio’s voice. “They also say there ought to be more hemorrhaging with a fracture—than with a sprain, I mean. And hemorrhaging produces bruises—usually. Or did they say often? Anyway, if her foot turns black and blue in the next three days, she may have a fracture. But a bad sprain could produce bruising, too.”

“What are you telling me?”

“The only way to be certain is to do a scan. The medical people suggest that they come down with the necessary equipment.”

“Oh.”

“They think,” Tony said gently, “they ought to. And they would love—absolutely love—to get hold of a native. It is interesting what one finds out when one asks an apparently simple question. The aliens are not alien enough.”

“What?”

“I don’t mean at the cellular level. There—we have to assume—they are like the rest of the life on the planet. The biologists say there is no question that the organisms they have examined are alien and belong to a different evolutionary line. That is why they can say—so confidently—that we can’t catch the local diseases. Nor can we spread our own diseases to anything on the planet.” Antonio paused. “You might be interested in knowing that Eddie asked the medical team to double-check this fact.”

“Why?”

“A native died shortly after you arrived at your village.”

“I told Eddie what the woman died of. Old age, poison, or magic. There was nothing unnatural about her death.”

Antonio laughed. “Eddie was worried about the bugs in your gut. The ones that were designed to metabolize the local food. The biology team said absolutely not. The bugs can’t live outside a human. The biology team became offended and spoke about people moving outside their areas of expertise, especially people in the social sciences—which, as everyone knows, are not realsciences like biology and chemistry.”