The trek resumed. Perhaps it was a night’s restful sleep, or the eye-opening start to the day. But Rety now seemed less sullen, more willing to enjoy sights like a meadow full of bumble flowers — yellow tubes, fringed with black fuzz, which rode the steady west wind, swooping and buzzing at the end of tether-stems. Rety’s eyes darted, enthralled by the antic dance of deception and pollination. The species did not exist in the stagnant weather shadow beyond the Rimmers, where a vast plain of poison grass stretched most of the way to the Gray Hills.

Just getting here across all that was an accomplishment, Dwer noted, wondering how she had managed it.

As alpine sheerness gave way to gentler foothills, Rety gave up hiding her fierce curiosity. She began by pointing and asking — “Are those wooden poles holding up your backpack? Don’t they make it heavy? I’ll bet they’re hollow.”

Then — “If you’re a hunter, where’s the rest of your stalking gang? Or do you always hunt alone?”

In rapid succession more questions followed. “Who made your bow? How far can you hit somethin’ the size of my hand?

“Did you live in one place the whole time you were little? In a… house? Did you get to hold on to stuff you wanted to keep, ’stead of leavin’ it behind when you moved?

“If you grew up by a river, did you ever see any hoon? What’re they like? I hear they’re tall as a tree, with noses long as your arm.

“Are the trikki really tricky? Are they made of tree sap? Do they eat garbage?

“Do noors ever slow down? I wonder why Buyur made ’em that way.”

Other than her habit of turning Buyur into a singular proper name, Dwer couldn’t have phrased the last question any better himself. Mudfoot was a perpetual nuisance, getting underfoot, chasing shrub critters, then lying in ambush somewhere along the path, squeaking in delight when Dwer failed to pick him out of the overhanging foliage.

I could shake you easily, if I didn’t have a glaver and a kid in tow, Dwer thought at the grinning noor. Yet he was starting to feel pretty good. They would make quite an entrance at Gathering, sure to be the talk of the festival.

Over lunch, Rety used his cooking knife to prepare a scrub hen he had shot. Dwer could barely follow her whirling hands as the good parts landed in the skillet with a crackling sizzle, while the poison glands flew to the waste pit. She finished, wiping the knife with a flourish, and offered it back to him.

“Keep it,” Dwer said, and she responded with a hesitant smile.

With that he ceased being her jailor and became her guide, escorting a prodigal daughter back to the embrace of clan and Commons. Or so he thought, until some time later, during the meal, when she said — “I really ha’ seen some of those before.”

“Seen some of what?”

Rety pointed at the glaver, placidly chewing under the shade of a stand of swaying lesser-boo.

“You thought I never saw any, ’cause I feared she’d bite. But I seen ’em, from afar. A whole herd. Sneaky devils, hard to catch. Took the guys all day to spear ’un. They taste awful gamey, but the boys liked it fine.”

Dwer swallowed hard. “Are you saying your tribe hunts and eats glavers?”

Rety looked back with brown eyes full of innocent curiosity. “You don’t on this side? I’m not surprised. There’s easier prey, an’ better eatin’.”

He shook his head, nauseated by the news.

Part of him chided — You were willing to shoot this particular glaver down, stone dead, if it crossed over the pass.

Yes, but only as a last resort. And I wouldn’t eat her!

Dwer knew what people called him — the Wild Man of the Forest, living beyond the law. He even helped nurse the mystique, since it meant his awkward speech was taken for something more manly than shyness. In truth, killing was the part of any hunt he did as capably and swiftly as possible, never with enjoyment. Now, to learn people beyond the mountains were devouring glavers! The sages would be appalled!

Ever since surmising that Rety came from a sooner band, Dwer had known his duty would be to guide a militia expedition to round up the errant clan. Ideally, it would be a simple matter of firm but gentle ingathering, resettling lost cousins back into the fold of the Commons. But now, Rety had unknowingly indicted her tribe with another crime. The Scrolls were clear. That which is rare, you shall not eat. That which is precious, you must protect. But, above all — You may not devour what once flew between the stars.

Irony was ashen in Dwer’s mouth. For after the sooners were brought back for trial, his job then would be to collect every glaver living east of the Rimmers — and slaughter those he could not catch.

Ah, but that won’t make me a bad person… because I won’t eat them.

Rety must have sensed his reaction. She turned to stare at the nearby stand of great-boo, its young shoots barely as thick as her waist. The tubelike green shafts swayed in rippling waves, like fur on the belly of the lazy noor, dozing by her foot.

“Are they gonna hang me?” the girl asked quietly. The scar on her face, which was muted when she smiled, now seemed stretched and livid. “Old Clin says you slopies hang sooners when you catch “em.”

“Nonsense. Actually, each race handles its own—”

“The old folks say it’s slopie law. Kill anyone who tries to make a free life east o’ the Rimmers.”

Dwer stammered, suddenly awash in irritation, “If— if you think that, why’d you come all this way? To— to stick your head in a noose?”

Rety’s lips pressed. She looked away and murmured low. “You wouldn’t believe me.”

Dwer repented his own flash of temper. In a gentler tone, he asked… “Why don’t you try me? Maybe… I might understand better than you think.”

But she withdrew once more into a cocoon of brooding silence, unresponsive as a stone.

While Dwer hastily rinsed the cooking gear, Rety tied herself in place ahead of the glaver, even though he had said she could walk free. He found his cooking knife by the smothered coals, where she must have laid it after those sharp words.

The gesture of rejection irked him, and he muttered gruffly, “Let’s get out of here.”

We had chosen to feign a small distinction between two crimes. At best a slightly lesser felony — that of accidental rather than planned colonization.

No one could deny the obvious — that our ancestors had loosed unsanctioned offspring on a fallow world. But Vubben’s artful evasion implied an act of culpable carelessness, rather than villainy by design.

The lie would not hold for long. When archaeological traces were sifted, forensic detectives from the Institutes would swiftly perceive our descent from many separate landings, not one mixed crew stranded by mishap on this remote shore. Moreover, there was the presence of our juniormost sept — the human clan. By their own bizarre tale, they are a wolfling race, unknown to Galactic culture until just three hundred Jijoan years ago.

Then why even try such a bluff?

Desperation. Plus a frail hope that our “guests” have not the skill or tools for archaeology. Their goal must be to swoop in for a quick sampling of hidden treasures. Then, covering their tracks, they would wish a swift, stealthy departure with a ship’s hold full of contraband. To this mercenary quest, our strange, forlorn colony of miscreants offers both opportunity and a threat.

They must know we possess firsthand knowledge of Jijo, valuable to their needs.

Alas, my rings. Are we not also potential witnesses to their villainy?