“Give us a minute,” Derek said in English.

I looked around. He was standing, holding on to the oracle with one hand. With the other hand he rubbed his forehead. “Ouch!”

“A concussion?” I said.

“Maybe. I can remember what happened. I think I can. That argues against a concussion. Maybe you had better check the size of my pupils.”

“Okay.”

The oracle said, “Speak a language I can understand.”

Derek made the gesture of assent. “I was checking the grove, going in a circle, making sure everything was okay.

“When I got back to camp, you were gone, Lixia. I called your name and got no answer. That worried me—a little, not enough. I thought Inahooli was a fool. I didn’t think she’d be able to get past me. I went looking for you.

“I found Inahooli.” He sounded puzzled, as if he could not understand how any of this could have happened to Derek Sea Warrior, Ph.D. “I didn’t see her coming. She appeared out of nowhere and grabbed the spear from me. She just grabbed and pulled and it was gone. She used it as a club. Right across the face.” He felt his nose. “I don’t think it’s broken.”

“Is that where the blood came from?”

“What blood?” He wiped below his nose, then looked at his hand. “Oh. That blood. I think so. The thing I don’t understand is—why didn’t she stab me?”

“She was going to,” the oracle said. “After you fell. But you yelled before she hit you. I woke up and saw what was happening. I got to her before she drove the spear in. I jumped on her back and bit her shoulder. That made her drop the spear.”

Inahooli groaned. I was still holding her wrist. Her pulse seemed slower than before. “Oracle, come here. I want to find out how quickly your heart is beating.”

“Why?”

I thought for a moment. How was I going to explain? “When one of my people is sick, her heart beats differently.”

“Than what?”

“Than it does when she is well. And a wise person—a person skilled in healing—can listen to the heart or feel the way it beats and tell how sick the woman is.”

“I know that,” the oracle said. “Remember, my mother is a shamaness. She taught me a few things when I lived in her house. But I haven’t been injured. Why do you want to know how my heart is doing?”

“To compare.” I waved at Inahooli with my free hand. “I don’t know what her heartbeat ought to be. I don’t know what is right for your people.”

The oracle glanced at Derek. “Can you stand by yourself?”

“I think so.” Derek let go of him.

The oracle walked over to Inahooli. He crouched down and took her wrist from me. “We don’t belong to the same people, Inahooli and I. But all hearts beat in the same fashion.” He paused, tilting his head and frowning. “It is going a little too fast, but remember she has been fighting.” He laid the wrist down. “We will pull out the spear and bind up the wound. Even though I am a man and she is crazy, I cannot walk away and leave her in this condition.”

Inahooli opened her eyes. “You are all demons.”

“Don’t talk,” the oracle said. He took hold of her tunic where the spear had cut it and pulled gently. The fabric tore. In a moment or two he had the tunic off. He gave it to me. “Tear it in pieces.”

I did what he asked. It wasn’t easy. I kept running into embroidery. Fortunately I had sharp incisors. I bit through the threads, then went back to tearing. When I was done the oracle said, “We need more cloth.”

What did we have? My shirt and Derek’s. I looked at my comrade. He was still upright, but he hadn’t moved any closer to us. He seemed—in the dim light—to be swaying. He looked worse than I felt. I unfastened my shirt and pulled it off.

The oracle looked at me. “What is that across your chest?”

How does one explain a brassiere to an alien? I tugged at the shirt. There was a weak seam. It tore. “I’ll tell you later,” I said.

Derek walked over to us. He stumbled once.

“How are you?” I asked.

“Okay. Dizzy and confused. I didn’t really expect her to come back. I was only being careful. Why’d she do it?”

I finished tearing, then I made the gesture of uncertainty.

The oracle had his hand on the spear. He began to pull. Inahooli gasped. “It will be over soon,” he told her. He glanced at me. “Have the cloth ready.” He pulled again. The spear came out. I saw the blade, covered with dark blood. He laid the weapon down, then leaned forward and peered at the wound. “It is bleeding, but slowly. It is a flow, not a rush. That is a good sign. Give me the cloth.”

I handed him a piece of tunic. He made it into a pad and tied it in place over the wound, using the rest of the cloth, the beautifully embroidered pieces of native fabric and my denim shirt.

A bug got me on my bare shoulder. I slapped it.

“Wood,” said Derek. “There’s a tree—I guess you would call it a tree—down and dry not far from here. Come on.”

We went into the dark grove. Derek found his piece of monster grass: a huge fallen stem. It lay in moonlight. There was a growth on it, something analogous to fungus. It looked like coral, delicate and intricate. Pale branches divided and redivided. Either they were translucent or they glowed with their own light. I couldn’t tell which. But the thing had a dim radiance. I stared at it. Another bug bit me, this time on the arm. “Let’s hurry,” I said.

We gathered wood and carried it back to camp. Derek rebuilt the fire. When it was burning brightly, I checked his eyes. The pupils were of equal size. No concussion.

I went over to the oracle. “How is she?”

“Her heartbeat has slowed down. But I do not like the way she breathes. My mother’s sister made a noise like that when she had the coughing sickness. She did not live.”

I listened. The oracle was right. Inahooli sounded congested, as if she had a bad cold or pneumonia.

“She told me she was cold,” the oracle said. “I put Nia’s cloak over her. Aiya! It is good that Nia left it!”

Derek spoke in English, “If she doesn’t make it, remember it was self-defense.”

“I should have hit her over the head or kicked her. Distracted her and given the oracle a chance to get away. Do you have any idea what this is going to do to my karma?”

“I told you before,” the oracle said. “Speak a language I can understand.”

“This will bring bad luck,” I said. “To do this—to harm another person—is to act like an animal, without reason or compassion. People—true people—don’t harm each other.”

“Do you really believe that?” Derek asked. “And if so, what about the man in the canyon? He’s dead, and—from what I heard—you helped.”

“I didn’t intend to kill him, and I did not deliver the fatal blow. Nia did. I don’t know what was going through her mind. In any case, that’s her problem, not mine. I try not to impose my system of ethics on the people I study. Here—” I paused. “I drove the blade in. So it’s my problem and my karma. And I’m not entirely sure what I was intending. Maybe I wanted to kill Inahooli. I never expected to become a Buddha, but I thought I’d do better than this.”

“What is a Buddha?” the oracle asked.

“A person who understands what is going on. Or maybe a person who doesn’t understand what is going on and doesn’t care.”

“That makes no sense.”

Inahooli groaned and moved restlessly. Her eyes opened, but she didn’t look at us. She was staring up at nothing.

Derek leaned forward. “Inahooli? Can you hear what I’m saying?”

She looked at me. “I thought when autumn came I would be an important woman.”

“Why did you come back?”

She moved her head slightly. Her eyes met his. “Do you think I believed you? Those crazy stories? I knew that you were demons.”

I said, “You mean you were pretending? The story about the shamaness was a lie?”

“A trick.” She pulled her lips back, so her teeth were exposed. It was not a smile. “You are very stupid demons.” She paused for a moment and breathed in and out. Her eyes narrowed. “The pain is terrible.” She looked at the oracle. “Will I live through this?”