The fish surfaced. The dark back shone. I caught a glimpse of a ragged dorsal fin. It dove and resurfaced again.

“Come on, baby,” said Derek. He lifted the pole and took a step backward. “That’s it. I promise you, I’ll be grateful. I’ll give you praise. You won’t be sorry you came to me.”

The fish thrashed. Derek took another step toward shore. “That’s it,” he said again.

The fish floated just below the surface of the water. I could see it: a long, narrow shape like a cigar or a torpedo. It was almost motionless.

Derek changed his grip, going hand over hand along the pole, until he reached the tip. The butt dropped in the sand in back of him. He took hold of the line. The fish struggled weakly. Derek pulled it in and grabbed it, his fingers going behind the gill cover. He lifted. The animal twisted. It was half a meter long with a tan belly and a dark brown back. The fins were spiny and the mouth was full of teeth. Derek pulled out the hook. He was grinning.

“Another chapter for the book I’m planning to write. Fighting Game Fish of the Galaxy.I think I’ll lie about the weight of the line.”

“Ulzai says that kind isn’t very tasty. And it has a lot of bones.”

“Damn.” He lifted the fish higher. “I promised that I would give it praise.”

“You could throw it back,” I said.

“It’s exhausted. I’ve just done a lot of damage to its gills. If I let it go, it’ll die. I’ll have increased my karmic burden, and I won’t have dinner.” He shook his head. “As long as it isn’t poisonous, I’m going to eat it.”

“It is not poisonous,” Ulzai said.

“Good. Take care of the fishing pole, will you, Lixia? I have to kill this fellow.”

“Okay.”

He walked up the beach. I went to retrieve the pole. By the time I had it, the fish was dead.

We went back to the clearing. Derek roasted the fish. It had more bones than a northern pike and even less flavor. Derek ate most of it. The rest of us made do with bread and dried meat.

When we were done, Derek said, “I told the fish I would praise it. That’s a promise that has to be kept. It was handsome. It fought well. It kept me from hunger. I’ll remember how it looked, leaping out of the water. And in time”—he grinned—“I’ll forget what it tasted like.”

Ulzai made the gesture of agreement.

“That was good praise,” said the oracle. “And more than I expected of you. Most of the time you seem lacking in respect.”

“I am an intricate person,” said Derek. He used an adjective that was usually applied to metalwork or embroidery. As far as I could figure out, it had two connotations. It meant either an impressive technical achievement or something that was ornate and overdone.

Nia woke me the next day at dawn. By sunrise we were back on the water.

Derek and Ulzai paddled. I watched the river. We glided past islands and sandbars and a lot of floating debris. Clouds appeared sometime after noon. Cumuli. They loomed through the summer haze.

“Another storm,” said Ulzai. “I know a place on the eastern shore. A stream runs into the river. There is a cave.”

“Aiya!” said the oracle.

“Are there any spirits in the cave?” asked Nia.

“I have never seen any. I have camped there many times.”

“Okay,” said Derek.

The river wound toward the eastern side of the valley, and the main channel ran almost directly under the eastern bluffs. The riverbank was steep here, overgrown with green and yellow bushes. Above the foliage was a high wall of stone.

Ulzai pointed. I saw a notch in the cliff. A stream emerged from the bushes that grew below the notch: a thin sheen of water that ran over yellow rocks, then vanished into the river.

We landed south of the stream, unloaded the canoe, and pulled it up on the bank. Birds wheeled above us, crying.

“What a lot of work,” I said.

Derek made the gesture of assent. “One of the many reasons I am not entirely in love with pre-industrial technology. Though there are plenty of people on Earth who could make a better canoe using traditional methods. Maybe the problem here is a lack of the proper materials. Maybe we should introduce the birch tree.”

“Aluminum,” I said. “Plants scare me more than factories.”

“You are doing it again,” said the oracle. “Using words we don’t know.”

I made the gesture that meant “I’m sorry.”

Ulzai said, “Come on.”

We picked up our bags and followed him up the bank. The stream ran next to us in a ravine full of bushes. I couldn’t see the water. I heard it: a faint gurgle. The birds kept crying. I looked up. A flock was chasing a single bird that was obviously of a different species. The bird that fled was the size of a gull. The members of the flock were—comparatively speaking—tiny.

The big bird fled toward the cliff. The little birds followed, swooping and screaming.

I tripped.

“Watch where you are going,” said Derek in back of me. “Or you’ll end up in that ravine.”

We reached the cliff. Vines grew on it and overhung the entrance to the cave, so I didn’t see it until Ulzai pushed through a patch of greenery and vanished. We followed him into a shallow space, five meters deep at most. I glanced around. There were no dark holes, no signs of an inner cave. I set down the bags I carried.

“We’ll get wood,” said Ulzai. “Before the rain.”

Nia was right. He did like to give orders. A pity he was on this planet where the men had no chance to organize anything. He would have been a natural for disaster relief.

We went out. The sun had vanished behind a wall of clouds. The valley was dark and the sky was darkening rapidly as the clouds spread.

I gathered an armload of wood and returned to the cave. Ulzai was back already. He had a fire going, just inside the entrance. Smoke drifted up through the leaves of the vines. They were fluttering. The wind was rising.

“This will be worse than yesterday,” said Ulzai. “Look at the sky in the west. It is a color between black and green.” He laid another branch on the fire, then looked up, frowning. “The worst weather is in the spring. Nia is right about that. This time of year it is not likely that we’ll see the black dancers. The clouds that hop and spin.”

Tornadoes. I had seen one the first year I lived in Minnesota. I still had nightmares about the damn thing. They scared me more than tidal waves or volcanoes. Maybe because they were unpredictable.

Derek and the oracle came in. They dropped their wood next to mine in the back of the cave. The oracle said, “It looks terrible out there.” He rubbed his neck. “Aiya! I am tired.”

“How is your arm?” I asked.

“That isn’t the problem. Now it is my belly. It was grumbling all night. I could not sleep, and I still feel queasy.”

“The fruit,” said Derek. “I wondered if it would get to you.”

Nia returned. “The rain has begun. Big drops. When they hit the rock, they make a mark as wide as my hand.”

She added her wood to the pile and sat down. “It has been a long time since I’ve been on the plain. And usually this time of year I’d be north of here with the herd and the village. I think—I am not certain—the storms are worse along the river.”

“I don’t think so,” said Ulzai. “But I am not certain, either. I haven’t spent a lot of time on the plain.” He paused. “There is a question I have been wanting to ask.”

“Yes?” said Derek.

“I do not want to ask you.” Ulzai looked at Nia. “Tanajin told me that you are a smith.”

Nia hesitated, then made the gesture of affirmation.

“She said that you belong to the Iron People.”

“Yes.” She paused. “I used to.”

“Are you the woman we heard about?”

Nia said nothing.

“She was a smith, and she belonged to the Iron People. I don’t remember her name. I am not certain that Tanajin ever told me. But she did tell me the story.”

“What story?” asked Nia.

“The woman who loved a man. The Iron People tell it. So do the Amber People and the People of Fur and Tin. She is a famous woman! Are you the one?”