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5
"Huy! Was that you yelling a while back?" a man's voice called out of the
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gloom.
Gweanvin turned, trying to see him. "Yeah . . . I didn't hear you answer."
"I was stalking a deer at the time. Couldn't make noise," the man explained.
His form moved closer to the fire, and she saw he was carrying something large
over a shoulder which he heaved to the ground a moment later. "I finally got
within bowshot and brought her down. Then I started looking for you, and saw
your fire."
He turned to look at her, and she could see his face dimly in the flickering
light. He was clean-shaven, which she had not expected from a buckskin-clad
man of the wilderness, and appeared to be in his thirties.
"Looks like you've strayed a long way from home, young lady," he said. "You
from Bernswa?"
"Farther away than that. The Commonality," she replied. "My power pack's
exhausted. I had to land here to get a recharge."
"A recharge on Arbora?" he laughed. "Well . . . probably you can, at that.
There ought to be a few rechargers scattered about. I don't know for sure,
though."
"You don't know?" demanded Gweanvin. "Where do you go for a recharge?"
He chuckled. "The only thing I recharge is my stomach. And I'm about ready to
do that right now, if you'll let that fire die down to a bed of coals fit to
cook over. You hungry?"
"I'm starving."
"More than plenty for both of us." He slid the large backpack off his
shoulders and busied himself with knife and deer carcass.
"Then you don't have a life-support system?" she asked.
"Just Arbora. No implants. I guess that sounds primitive to you, doesn't it?"
"It sounds restrictive," she said diplomatically, not wanting to offend the
source of her supper. "Doesn't anyone on Arbora use implants?"
"A few do. That's why I say you might be able to get a recharge. There's a
settlement called High Pines about five days hiking west of here, and about
eight days to the southeast is Lopat. You could almost call
Lopat a town, I suppose."
"What's in between?"
He shrugged and motioned vaguely at the surrounding woods. "Just this. Good
hunting country. And not many hunters. I don't average running into somebody
three times a year out here."
Gweanvin considered this information. At last she said, "Then I'd better start
walking for High Pines in the morning, if you'll tell me the way."
"Sure." he agreed. "Or maybe you should head for Lopat. It's a longer trip,
but . . . well, I can't say for sure which place is more likely to have a
recharger, but I'd guess Lopat is."
There was a silence. Gweanvin was waiting for the man to offer some assistance
in her search, perhaps hiking to Lopat while she went to High Pines. But he
made no offer. Perhaps the primitive life deadened the chivalrous inclinations
. . . or perhaps he needed to know her better to exert himself in her behalf .
. .
"My name is Gweanvin. Gweanny. Gweanvin Oster."
"Glad to meet you, Gweanny. I'm Holm Ocanon."
"There are a lot of Ocanons in the Commonality," she said.
"That's nice," he said. Which was a conversation-stopper if ever she had heard
one.
* * *
When supper was ready they sat by the fire eating the broiled meat strips,
roasted roots too fibrous to be potatoes but with a pleasant nutty flavor, and
some kind of raw greenery Holm had had in his pack. Also he had brewed a
bitter tea that was invigorating, and might have actually been tasty with a
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little sugar.
"I have a blanket you can wrap yourself in," he said. "As near naked as you
are, you'll sleep mighty cold without it."
"Thanks. It seems strange to need a blanket on a comfortable E-type planet,
when ordinarily I'm perfectly comfortable just like this in interstellar
space. It's easy to take life-support for granted."
"I imagine so," he mused. "It's easy to take living conditions of whatever
kind for granted. And some conditions are less dependable, less stable, than
others."
"Yours seem stable enough, but awfully strenuous," she said. "Wouldn't life in
or near one of the settlements be easier?"
"Yes, and wouldn't life in the Commonality be easier without the econo-war?"
he returned.
"Too much easier as we found out a few decades ago when the war got too
one-sided and almost ended."
"Yes, that was after the Lontastans found the non-human telepath they call
Monte, and brought him in on their side," Holm said. "We heard about that.
Then your side developed the Bauble to even the sides up again."
"I hardly expected to find an econo-war fan here in the Arbora wilderness,"
she said, smiling.
"People are interested in other people's games . . . to watch if not to play,"
he said musingly.
"That's true," Gweanvin replied. "For instance, I'm interested in your game,
and why you choose to play it. I would think the game of family-raising near
one of the settlements would have more appeal for an
Arboran, and be plenty challenging."
He nodded slowly. "I'd be playing that game if I could."
"Why can't you? A shortage of women on Arbora?"
"No. I could get the women all right. I can't get the children."
"You look like a thoroughly functional male to me," said Gweanvin, still
hoping to recruit Holm's aid with a bit of flattery.
He laughed. "I feel like one, especially with you sitting next to me. But just
the same, I'm out of whack, somehow. I don't reproduce."
"Oh . . . That's a problem I know a bit about."
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