Oh, my aching feet, Sara thought.

The chief raised her conical head, hissing as one human pilgrim neared a tent flap.

“Got to go,” explained Jop, the Dolo tree farmer.

“What, leaking again? Are you ill?”

Jop had spent most of the journey immersed in a copy of the Scroll of Exile, but now he seemed affable. He laughed. “Oh, no. I jest drank too much lovely spring water. Time to give it back to Jijo. That’s all.”

While the flap was briefly up, Sara glimpsed bubbles in the pond again. Blade was back under, soaking for the next hard march. Was he also blocking out the storyteller’s victory paean over defeated qheuens?

The flap fell, and Sara looked around the pavilion-shelter.

Kurt the Exploser used a compass to draw loopy arcs on sheets of graph paper, growling over his labors, making a papermaker’s daughter wince as he crumpled one sheet after another in frustration. Nearer to Sara, Prity also drew abstract figures, more economically, in a patch of sand. Pulling at her furry chin, she consulted a topology text Sara had brought from Biblos.

My, what an intellectual caravan, Sara observed sardonically. A would-be priest, a designer of things that go bang, a geometrical chimpanzee, and a fallen mathematician, all hurrying toward possible destruction. And that just begins our list of oddities.

Over to the left, the Stranger had set aside his dulcimer to watch Kurt’s nephew, young Jomah, play a game of Tower of Haiphong with a red-qheuen salt peddler, a pair of Biblos librarians, and three hoonish pilgrims. The contest involved moving colored rings over a hexagonal array of posts, stuck in the sand. The goal was to pile a stack of rings on your Home Post in the right order, largest at the bottom, smallest on top. In the advanced game, where ring colors and patterns signified traeki attributes, one must wed various traits to form an ideal traeki.

Pzora seemed more entranced by the storyteller than the game. Sara had never heard of a traeki taking offense at Tower of Haiphong, even though it mimicked their unique mode of reproduction.

“See here?” the boy explained the game to the Stranger. “So far I got swamp flippers, a mulching core, two memory rings, a Sniffer, a Thinker, and a Looker.”

The star-human showed no sign of frustration by Jomah’s rapid speech. He watched the apprentice ex-ploser with an expression of intelligent interest — perhaps he heard Jomah’s warbling voice as something like musical notes.

“I’m hoping for a better base, to let my traeki move around on land. But Horm-tuwoa snatched a walker torus I had my eye on, so it looks like I’m stuck with flippers.”

The hoon to the boy’s left crooned a low umble of gratification. You had to think fast, playing Tower of Haiphong.

Jomah and the others all stopped what they were doing to stare at the Stranger, who rocked back and laughed.

He’s getting better at this, Sara thought. Still, it seemed eerie whenever the star-man came up with the verse to some song, perfectly apropos to what was going on at the time.

With a glitter in his eye, the Stranger waited till the other players were engrossed once more in their own stacks. Then he nudged Jomah, covertly pointing out a game piece ready to draw from the reserve box. The boy stared at the rare torus called Runner, trying so hard to stifle a yelp of joy that he coughed, while the dark alien patted him on the back.

Now how did he know that? Do they play Tower of Haiphong, among the stars? She had pictured space-gods doing — well, godlike things. It was encouraging to think they might use games with simple pieces — hard, durable symbols of life.

Of course, most games are based on there being winners… and losers.

The audience hissed appreciatively as the bard finished her epic and left the low platform to accept her reward, a steaming cup of blood. Too bad I missed the end, Sara thought. But she would likely hear it again, if the world lasted beyond this year.

When no one else seemed about to take the stage, several urs stretched and started drifting toward the nearest tent flap, to go outside and check their animals, preparing for tonight’s trek. But they stopped when a fresh volunteer abruptly leaped up, clattering hooves on the dais. The new storyteller was Ulgor, the tinker who had accompanied Sara ever since the night the aliens passed above Dolo Village. Listeners regathered around as Ulgor commenced reciting her tale in a dialect even older than the one before.

A mutter of consternation. The caravan chief corkscrewed her long neck. This was a rare topic, widely thought in poor taste, among mixed-races. Several hoon-ish pilgrims turned to watch.

Bad taste or no, a tale under way was sacrosanct till complete. The commander flared her nostril to show she had no part in this breach, while Ulgor went on evoking an era long before urs colonists ever set hoof on Jijo. To a time of space armadas, when god-fleets fought over incomprehensible doctrines, using weapons of unthinkable power.

Sara wondered — why is she doing this? Ulgor had always been tactful, for a young urs. Now she seemed out to provoke a reaction.

Hoon sauntered closer, air sacs puffing, still more curious than angry. It wasn’t yet clear that Ulgor meant to dredge up archaic vendettas — grudges so old they made later, Jijo-based quarrels with qheuens and men seem like tiffs over this morning’s breakfast.

On Jijo, urs and boon share no habitats and few desires. No basis for conflict. It’s hard to picture their ancestors slaughtering each other in space.

Even the Tower of Haiphong game was abandoned. The Stranger watched Ulgor’s undulating neck movements, keeping tempo with his right hand.