“Wait for me,” the oracle said. He walked into the grove.

I rubbed my shoulder, then looked at Derek. He had washed his face, but he still looked pretty awful. His nose was red and swollen, and one eye was almost closed. There was a bruise on his forehead above the eye.

“Why did you make that speech to Inahooli? To reassure the oracle?”

He nodded. “And me. One must never take without explaining and never kill without making an apology.”

“How civilized are you, anyway?”

He grinned. “Not very.”

The oracle came back. He carried food: a strip of dried meat and a handful of fresh berries. He laid these in the grave next to Inahooli. Then he unfastened his necklace of gold and turquoise and laid it next to the food. “Maybe she will be less angry if we give her presents. Though I doubt it. She is the kind that holds on to anger. What a bad way to be!”

We piled sand over Inahooli, then found rocks and put them on top of the sand. When we were done the oracle said, “We ought to perform ceremonies of aversion and purification. But I am not a shamaness. I don’t know the ceremonies the holy women learn. I don’t even know the ceremonies that men learn to help them after they leave the village. All I know is what the waterfall has told me.” He sang:

“O holy one!

O being of power!

Why don’t you help me?

What should I do next?

“O holy one!

O being of power!

Why don’t you help me?

Tell me what to do!”

He tilted his head and listened. The wind blew. Reeds rustled. Water lapped the shore. “All I can hear is, ‘Take a swim.’ Maybe we can wash off what has happened in the last few days.”

Derek made the gesture of agreement. The two of them undressed and waded in. They washed in the deep water by the reeds, then swam. I was worried about the cut on my arm. I didn’t want to get it wet. And I didn’t think my shoulder was up to swimming. I took off my boots and rolled up my jeans and waded in the shallows, looking for shells and polished stones. The stones were uninteresting: black stuff like pumice, worn round or oval. The shells were lovely: tiny spirals, pale lavender or pink. I gathered a dozen, then waded to the beach. I laid the shells on the grave. A ridiculous gesture. What use was the gift? I did not believe in an afterlife, so it wasn’t an attempt to buy off Inahooli’s anger. And it wasn’t enough to buy off my feeling of responsibility.

“Killer,” I said out loud.

That mood was dangerous. I refused to give in to it. Why should I? Guilt was not part of my heritage. The senior members of my family had disapproved of it. One must recognize mistakes and acknowledge them and work to break the patterns of behavior that led to them. But guilt was unproductive.

“Life is a process,” Theresa had said. She was one of my co-mothers, a medical technician who specialized in psychology. Half the year she worked on a deep-sea mining ship, the Pacific Aurora,out of Pearl Harbor. The other half of the year, she helped to raise the junior members of the family. “We make and remake ourselves, responding to changes both external and internal. But guilt is static, as are related ideas and emotions: sin, for example, regret, and maybe shame. Though I am not certain about the effect of shame. But the others anchor you in the past. They hold you, so you can’t move freely in the present.

“Imagine guilt as an iron band fastened around something that is growing: the trunk of a tree, the neck of a child. Sooner or later, one of two things must happen. If the band does not break, the growing thing will be deformed.

“Commit yourself to change, Lixia, to living in the present, to making and remaking who you are. Do the best you can. Understand what you do. And do not feel guilty.”

Good advice, I told the memory of Theresa. I picked up my boots and walked to our camp.

The oracle went off to gather roots and berries. Derek went for wood, and I sorted through Inahooli’s belongings. Two tunics—three, if I counted the one I had on, a leather cloak, a pair of sandals, and a knife. All the tunics had embroidery: geometric patterns. The cloak had a fastener, similar to a fibula, made of bronze and covered with silver. The silver was wearing thin.

“Lixia!” Derek shouted.

I threw down the cloak and ran through the grove. He was at the eastern edge.

“There!” He pointed.

Out on the plain was a rider. He or she was astride a bowhorn. I could make out the animal’s long curving horns. A second animal—another bowhorn—followed the first.

“Nia?” I asked.

“I think so.”

The rider came closer. I recognized the wide shoulders and the way she rode: easily, comfortably, slouching a little in the saddle. “We have to call Eddie at once,” I said.

Derek glanced at me. “Shall I do the talking? I’m a better politician than you are, and we have some explaining to do. The unfortunate death of a native religious leader.”

“Okay.”

She reached us and dismounted. “Well, I found it.” She waved at the bowhorn. “And the gear. I’m hungry. Is there any food?”

“Yes,” I said.

“I’ll take care of the animals,” Derek said. He held out his hand. Nia gave him the reins.

“Where did you get that tunic? And what happened to his face?” She pointed to Derek.

“Inahooli came back.”

“Aiya!”

“She came after us at night. We had to kill her. I had to kill her.”

“You?” Nia stared at me, her eyes wide open.

“Yes.”

Nia was silent for a while. At last she said, “Any unexpected death is bad. A death like this—that happens in a fight—is worse than other kinds. The ghost of the dead person is certain to be angry. There is likely to be bad luck. When we get to a place where there is a shamaness, we will ask for ceremonies to placate Inahooli or drive her away. We’d better do something about the man in the canyon as well.

Though it doesn’t matter in the same way when a man dies suddenly.” She frowned. “Did you bury Inahooli?”

“Yes.”

“With gifts?”

“Yes. The oracle gave his necklace.”

“Good. Maybe there will be no bad luck.” Nia did not sound confident. “The woman was crazy and dangerous. She brought this on herself. The spirits will not blame us, and ghosts do not usually travel any great distance. Once we are gone from here, we ought to be safe.” Nia made the gesture that meant “I wish, I hope.”

We returned to camp. I got out food: dried meat and dried fruit. Nia ate. “Hu! I have been starving on the plain.” She leaned back and sighed. “The food is from the woman?”

I made the gesture of agreement. “Derek explained to her.”

She looked at the piece of fruit in her hand. After a moment she popped it in her mouth. “I thought about it while I looked for the bowhorn. I thought—at first—that I was responsible for what was happening. But that can’t be.” She finished chewing and swallowed, then she scratched her nose. “Most of the time, bad luck comes from something that is unexpected or peculiar. Well, I have done strange things and had my share of bad luck. But in this case it was Inahooli who was behaving oddly. We came to her land. We were strangers. But she did not welcome us. Instead she tried to kill us. Now, everyone knows that women do not quarrel with strangers. That is male behavior.”

“Women never quarrel with strangers?” I asked.

“Once in a while. Hakht did. She is a bad person.” Nia said this firmly with conviction. “And Inahooli did. She was crazy. And I killed the old man who killed Enshi. But ordinary women, women with self-respect, never quarrel except with people they know. Kinfolk and close neighbors. That is the right way to have an argument.” Nia ate more fruit. “There is no way to be certain who a stranger is or what will happen if you give her trouble.”

It made sense. The people on this planet did not have war—nor, as far as I could tell, any kind of organized theft. When they saw a stranger—a strange woman, at least—they did not have to wonder: Is this person a thief? A killer? Someone who will do us harm? They could instead anticipate with pleasure the gifts and the stories the stranger would bring.