“Huh,” I said.

Harrison glanced at me and grinned. “Now, Lixia, you know I have not been in love with anyone for a long, long time. Not since we went to sleep. I think it may be a side effect of hibernation. Are bears amorous when they first awake?”

“I haven’t the vaguest idea. But some people are. Remember what Derek was like when we were coming into this system.”

Harrison laughed. “Maybe people recover from hibernation at different rates. Maybe some bears are amorous when they first awake.” He paused. “I’d better go find out when the last boat leaves. If I don’t make it, I’m going to have to swim.”

We said good-bye. I went to the supply dome and got a bag, went to my room and packed.

I did not sleep well. My dreams mixed the planet with the ship. I walked down a corridor made of cermet and ceramic. There were natives there, moving among the shipboard humans. I turned a corner and was in a garden. An enormous quadruped grazed on lettuce plants. It regarded me serenely with a tiny dark eye. The ugly-nasty scuttled over a floor of yellow tile. I heard the clicking of its nails.

I turned another corner. There was a native camp in the middle of a ceramic meeting room. Smoke rose from a fire. A native woman was crouched over a metal cooking pot. A native child was playing with a cat. It was a perfectly ordinary Earth cat, a domestic short hair, half-grown. Its fur was spotted black and white. The child’s fur was brown.

Derek woke me. I stared at him, thinking about the cat. Marina was right. We ought to grow a few.

“Rise and shine,” he said.

“I’ve been having damn strange dreams.”

“You’ve been getting too much information. And you’re trying to process it.”

I got up and went to the bathroom.

We ate breakfast in the dining hall. It was empty except for the people who were going upriver and Peace-with-Justice. He recommended eggs Benedict.

“The egg gives you cholesterol. The ham does damage to your karma. And the sauce contains enough calories to—”

“Have we started killing the pigs?”

He nodded. I felt queasy. They were a special miniature breed, originally developed for lab work. They were bright, clean, well mannered, and extremely cute. I could eat the chickens. I could eat the iguanas. But I wasn’t sure about the pigs.

“I’ll tell you what,” he said. “I’ll fix you a serving with no ham. I can tell by your expression that you are willing to do damage to yourself in this life only. So—here you are.” He gave me a plate. “Cholesterol and calories, but no bad karma.”

“Thanks,” I said.

I ate. The sun rose. The landscape outside the dome became visible.

“Time to go,” said Ivanova.

I gulped my second cup of coffee. Peace-with-Justice said, “Good-bye.” We went down to the boats.

Nia and the oracle were there, standing on the dock, looking uneasy. Nia had a bow and half a dozen arrows with pale gray feathers. The color reminded me of Marina’s biped, the one that hadn’t been eating.

“Five people on each boat,” said Ivanova. “I have given thought on how to split us up. The natives should stay together. Lixia will go with them. And Agopian. And Tatiana.

“The rest of us will take the other boat.”

Eddie frowned.

“You are putting all the politicians on one boat,” Derek said. “Is that wise?”

“We will aggravate each other,” Ivanova said. “But the other people will be safe.”

“It’s fine with me,” I said.

“And with me,” said Mr. Fang. His apprentice was with him. “Poor Yunqi may suffer. She has no interest in politics.”

The young woman blushed and nodded.

“But it is good for the young to experience adversity.”

I climbed onboard and stowed my bag, then went out on deck. Ivanova had already started her engine. Agopian was casting off for her. The two natives were on the dock, watching. They looked interested and nervous.

“Come on,” I said. “Get on.”

Ivanova’s boat moved out from the dock and turned, going in a wide circle away from shore. Tatiana started the engine on our boat. Agopian cast off. I leaned on the railing and felt relaxed for the first time in days. I was moving again. There was nothing I liked better than travel.

We followed the first boat out into the lake, turning south, then east, then north. Ahead of us was the dark river valley.

A wind blew. The lake was flecked with foam. Ahead of us and to one side Ivanova’s boat bounced over the waves. We were bouncing, too. Nia and the oracle grabbed on to the railing.

“This thing goes quickly,” the oracle said.

“What makes it move?” asked Nia.

How to explain the internal combustion engine?

“There is a fire inside,” I said finally.

She frowned. “That does not make sense. Fire can move, but it does not make other things move, unless they are alive.”

The oracle made the gesture of agreement.

Nia looked at the water. “I have seen the plain on fire with everything running before it. Bowhorns and osupai.Every kind of bird and bug, the ones that fly and the ones that jump, all hurrying ahead of the fire. Even the killers were running and the little animals that tunnel underground.

“But they were alive. Fire changes. It does not carry.”

“Maybe Derek can explain.”

We reached the north end of the lake midway through the morning. The wind dropped as soon as we got among the little forested islands. The sky remained partly cloudy. There were patches of sunlight on the river and on the green and blue-green trees.

The boats moved slowly. Tatiana said, “Keep an eye out for debris.”

After a while I saw a lizard. It was in midchannel, swimming steadily, its head held out of the water. The spines along its back were visible, but nothing else, and it wasn’t easy to estimate the animal’s size. About ten meters long.

“Aiya!” said the oracle. “I am glad we are not in Ulzai’s boat.”

“Going south,” said Agopian in English. “I wonder if it is true about the migration?”

By noon we had seen five lizards. All were big, and all were heading south. Only one was out of the water. That one dragged its enormous bulk over a mud bank, going south like all the rest.

The radio crackled and spoke Russian.

Tatiana said, “Ivanova has warned the camp. If those animals decide to leave the water, there may be trouble.”

We ate lunch in the cabin: sandwiches and tea. The natives had the haunch of a biped.

“Sacrificed by Marina,” Agopian said. “And cooked without anything. It ought to be safe.”

“How does it taste?” I asked in the language of gifts.

The oracle made the gesture that meant “it could be worse.”

“It needs salt,” Nia said. “And other things. I will be glad to be in a village again.”

I took food out to Tatiana. She remained at the wheel, guiding the boat with one hand while she ate a smoked-fish sandwich.

“We are almost to the tributary. If the satellite pictures are not telling a lie, we ought to be able to go up it.”

I made the gesture of acknowledgment.

The others came out on deck.

“It’s frustrating,” Agopian said. “I’m sitting with people from another star system. My mind is full of questions; and all I can do is point and make faces.”

“He has been making improper gestures,” said the oracle. “And baring his teeth.”

“We decided he is ignorant, like most of your people,” said Nia.

About this time I noticed the bugs. They had bright yellow wings. I saw two of them fluttering over the water. Another pair rested on a log that floated past our boat.

Agopian pointed at an island. The trees were dotted with yellow. More bugs, resting on the foliage.

“It looks like autumn,” said Tatiana. “At home when the poplars start turning.”

We passed other islands where the foliage was partially yellow. Clouds of bugs drifted over the river like leaves in the wind. But there was no wind—at least none sufficient to explain this whirling and dancing.