We roasted the bloodroots. They were pale orange when we put them in the fire. By the time we raked them out, they had turned dark red. They had a sweet flavor and a mealy texture. Imagine a potato with the taste of a ripe sweet pepper. Not bad, I thought. But they needed butter.

Derek stripped the bark off his piece of wood and scraped the wood with a knife, cutting away irregularities I couldn’t even see. Then he sat and twisted the bark into cord.

“This man is skillful,” the oracle said. “Even though he has no hair, he knows the things a man has to know.”

Derek glanced up and grinned, then went back to twisting.

“Though I don’t understand,” the oracle said, “why he likes to show his teeth. He does it over and over.”

“It is an expression of pleasure or happiness,” I said.

“Oh,” said the oracle.

Night came. The wind was off the lake. It carried bugs to us: a new variety, tiny and numerous.

I cursed and waved my hands.

“Ignore them,” Derek said.

I moved closer to the fire. Smoke swirled around me, and the bugs left me alone. But now—of course—my eyes were watering. I looked at the oracle. “Don’t they bother you?”

“Yes,” he said. “But there is nothing to be done. A lake like this always has bugs. And these ones do not bite. That is the best we can hope for.” He opened his mouth in a really wide yawn and I saw his canines. They were long and sharp. No wonder these people did not express happiness by grinning. Those teeth looked menacing. “Are we going to keep watch?”

“Derek?” I asked.

“Yes. I’m not certain we did the right thing by letting that woman go. She gives me a humorous feeling. I don’t like her aura.”

“We couldn’t keep her tied up for days,” I said. “Anyway, she has a real problem to deal with now. Her enemies in the Groundbird Clan.” I grinned.

The oracle lay down. I watched Derek. He split the piece of wood at one end and wedged the knife in, the blade pointing out. Then he wound the cord around the split wood and the knife. “Crude but effective. I hope.” He kept winding and knotting. I put more branches on the fire. Then I lay down.

I woke. Something was biting my hand. A mosquito. I slapped and got the little varmint. At the same moment I remembered that it could not possibly be a mosquito. I looked at the fire. It was a heap of coals, glowing dimly, not giving off much smoke at all. Off to the west above the lake the Great Moon shone. It was getting close to full. I squinted and thought I saw a line above the upper edge. It was curved like a handle, going up and over the terminator, then back down—from sunlight into shadow. Derek had better eyes than I did. To me it was just barely visible.

“Goddammit!” Another biter got me on the neck. I looked around for wood. There wasn’t any. I couldn’t rebuild the fire.

I lay down and put my arm over my face, trying to protect it. The bugs hummed around me. They didn’t bite often, but the sound and the expectation kept me awake. I gave up finally. It was time for a walk. Maybe I would find a late-night store that sold bug repellent or one of those hats with a veil made of mosquito netting.

I started toward the reeds. The wind was still blowing. Leaves rustled, and the grove was full of moving shadows. Here and there a beam of moonlight penetrated the foliage, and I could make out a branch or a stem of monster grass. But for the most part I saw very little, except for the moon ahead of me and the lake aglitter with yellow light. A lovely evening, except for the bugs.

When I was a short distance from camp—thirty meters at the most—hands grabbed my neck. I tried to yell and couldn’t. The hands pressed in, choking. I grabbed at them. I couldn’t break the grip. “Unh,” said the person in back of me. It was a deep, low, satisfied sound. The person turned, dragging me around, and slammed my body against something that was hard.

The person let go. A moment later I was on the ground, belly down with my face pressed against something that felt lumpy. A root? The base of a tree?

The person rolled me onto my back. I kept still. Maybe he or she would think I was already dead. He or she leaned close. I heard heavy breathing, then smelled the person’s breath.

Mouthwash, I thought.

More heavy breathing. I had a sense the person was going to touch me.

Someone shouted nearby.

The person straightened up. A moment later he or she was gone.

My throat hurt. So did my shoulder and my arm. I inhaled slowly and carefully. So far, so good. My lungs still seemed to work. I exhaled, then raised myself up on one elbow. I could move. My neck was not broken.

I turned my head and felt a twinge of pain. The camp. Where was it? I saw a dim red glow. The fire. I got up on my knees. As I did so a figure jumped in front of the glow, visible for a moment. Then it was gone.

What?

There was something next to me. I touched it. Monster grass. A big smooth stem. That must have been what I’d hit when my attacker swung me around. I’d been picked up and slammed against a tree, the way a human would knock a shoe against a post to get off dry mud.

Aiya! I climbed to my feet, bracing myself against the stem of the monster grass. For a moment I felt dizzy. I closed my eyes and tried to breathe evenly, but not deeply.

“Monster!” It was a scream. Inahooli. That lunatic.

I opened my eyes. Next to the fire two figures struggled. They were on the ground, rolling over and over. I couldn’t make out who they were.

I began to walk. It was possible, though I still felt dizzy. The campfire—and the two figures—went in and out of focus.

A voice cried, “Help me!”

It was the oracle. He was in the fight. But where was Derek? I reached the edge of the camp and looked around. There he was. Three meters away. He lay on his back, half in moonlight and half in shadow. His hair was loose and had fallen forward. Long, pale, and tangled, it covered most of his face. I bent and brushed it to one side. His eyes were closed. There was blood around his nose and mouth.

“Help!” the oracle cried again.

I saw Derek’s spear near him on the ground. The blade shone faintly in the moonlight. He must have dropped it when Inahooli got him. I picked it up and walked around the fire, moving carefully. There was something wrong with my sense of balance.

Inahooli was on top. It had to be her. She wore a new tunic, pale with a lot of embroidery. The oracle had nothing like that. She straddled him. Her hands were on his face. I thought I saw her thumbs go into his eyes. The oracle screamed. I raised the spear and drove it into her back.

She cried out. There was fury in the sound. No pain. She twisted, trying to see who had done this thing. I let go of the spear. The oracle pushed up. She tumbled off him. A moment later he was on his feet. She was on the ground, on her side, groaning, beginning to feel the pain.

“Are you all right?” the oracle asked.

“No. Find out how Derek is.” I went down on my knees next to the woman. The knife blade had gone into her lower back under the ribs. What had it hit? I had no idea. There wasn’t much blood. Should I try to pull the spear out? Or would that increase the bleeding? My eyes went out of focus. I lifted my head and breathed fresh air. Inahooli was moving, trying to find a comfortable position. “Be still,” I said.

“Demon.”

I took her wrist and tried to find a pulse. She pulled her arm away. “Leave me alone.” She grimaced. “Aiya! The pain!” She closed her eyes and pressed her lips together.

I took hold of her wrist again. This time she didn’t pull away. I found the pulse. But how was I going to measure it? Not in beats per minute. I didn’t have a way to measure time. And I didn’t know what was normal for her people. Fifty beats a minute? Seventy? Or a hundred? I would have to compare her pulse rate with that of another native. “Oracle?”