Yuen-Mong's Revenge (9 page)

     
There was one plus for him coming from the storm damage. Rather
than run part of the time, they could only walk. It took them almost a day
to get back to the cave.

     
Yuen-mong willingly talked, and he learned more about the daily
struggle for survival on Aros. The difference was that this time he made
a conscientious effort to actually take in what she said instead of
dismissing it as curiosities or in disbelieving amusement. Rather than see
her as this primitive willful woman, who behaved in strange uncivilized
ways and who dared to boss him around, he appreciated that she rarely
did anything without a clear purpose, usually in view of survival.
Reluctantly, he had to admit her physical and mental superiority — hard
for a Palo male who had been raised under the tradition of male
superiority, where women of his privileged social class were mainly seen
as male adornments and breeders.

     
He had been prepared that she would show her disdain for his foolish
behavior and comments — she had saved him from what he now knew
was a horrible death — that she would let him know openly or covertly
how his actions had almost cost them their lives more than once, but her
behavior toward him was no different from before he had foolishly
threatened her with a weapon that did not function. He winced just
thinking of that. She had all the right to despise him, but if she did, she
gave no signs of it. He counted his blessings that he had crashed close
enough to her dwelling to be rescued.

     
He learned that one of these storms was the cause of her limp. It was
strange to hear her talk about her disability as if it were nothing of great
importance when in his world she would be regarded as defective, pitied
and looked down upon. He realized that this ‘disability’ was, in fact,
largely one in his own mind. He could not think of anybody he knew,
male or female, who would be able to match her physical and mental
strength, sharpness and stamina.

     
She was also highly knowledgeable in modern science, both practical
and theoretical — the intensive schooling she had received from her
parents more comprehensive by the very lack of AI access. With a sense
of shame, he recalled how he had made sarcastic comments about her
knowledge.

* * *

The damage to the trees around the cave was as bad as everywhere else.
However, except for a bit of disorder inside the cave and the disappearance of much of the firewood he had not yet stored away inside, the cave
and her belongings had escaped unscathed. Only when he put down his
survival pack, did he notice that the gun was missing, that he had not
even thought of retrieving it on their way back.
It is useless anyway.
She
had been outright beautiful in her anger when he had called her stupid.

     
He would have to learn how to make and use a bow and arrow. With
that came the full realization that he might be stuck on this world for the
rest of his life and that, initially, he would have to learn all he could
about survival from this strange woman.

     
After a quick dinner of cold meat and bread, topped with some of the
greens she had collected the day before the storm, Yuen-mong announced
that she was taking a shower. It came again as a shock that she would undress in front of a stranger without inhibitions. On Palo only women who
got paid did it. He could not help watching her, admiring her almost
evenly tanned athletic body, her strong muscles, her well-shaped smallish
breasts and completely flat stomach, the sensuous round buttocks. Never
having seen a woman with body hair, he was intrigued by the triangle of
black curls that hid her sex. So he had seen right when he had glimpsed
her on the second morning. It looked natural, even attractive. He could
not deny that she was a very desirable woman. Without her limp she
would be rated highly on Palo.

     
Would she agree to have sex with him? Somehow, yesterday’s events
had put her out of his reach. She must be still a virgin, he realized. He
had never been with a virgin and was not sure he liked the idea.

     
When she had finished, he took a shower too, not wanting to be told
again that he stank. He wondered what to do about shaving. His stubbles
felt rather long and the skin itched, but what could he do without an
electric shaver? He did not trust himself to shave with a sharp knife, as
some old-fashioned barbers still offered the men on Palo for a special
treat at exorbitant prices. He had little choice but to grow a beard.

* * *

After her shower, Yuen-mong told Atun that she wanted to spend the
evening alone meditating. She climbed up to the top of her rock, taking
her flute along. As she had feared the storm had ripped away or flattened
most sweetberry bushes that grew from cracks and small earth patches,
safe up there from the night scavengers. Had she stayed at the cave, she
would have spent much of the morning harvesting the ripe berries before
the storm, but it was little use regretting things that could have been and
cannot be changed anymore. They would run out of this sweetener,
unless they traveled way north, where she knew of a few other sheltered
rock outcrops. Maybe the bushes there had survived. In half an Aros year,
her own bushes would have regenerated. Nature recovered fast on her
world.

     
On her favorite spot facing toward the offshore islands of the night
hunters, she settled herself into a lotus position, the flute across her legs.
She removed her loose top and let the gentle breeze caress her chest,
shoulders, arms and face. She remained motionless, only allowing her
eyes to roam over the gradually fading light on the ring’s eastern section.
Then she closed them, listening to the softly changing murmur as day
creatures yielded to night creatures. The only other presence she felt was
that of Atun. It too seemed more steady, less searching.
Have yesterday’s
events opened his eyes, made him more reasonable?
she mused,
or have
I only bought myself new trouble?
She could still feel that stirring of
desire in him while she had washed herself. It was different from the
unbridled lust of the headman of the savages when his band had cornered
her and he believed that she would be his, just before she sent an arrow
through his throat.
How is it to be with a man?
But it was only a fleeting
thought. She did not want more complications. Her sole effort at this
point was to see whether her father’s idea of getting off planet could be
realized, although she immediately became aware of her own ambivalence about leaving the only world she knew, the world she had grown to
love.

     
She felt the approach of the night hunters before she could see them
above the water and raised her flute to greet them with a tune full of
sadness and longing for her parents, a melody that had slowly grown and
become more intense with many variations as the years passed. It invariably drew the two night hunters to her rock. They circled above it
several times, their haunting call answering her song, before they
continued farther inland. She always thought of them as the souls of her
parents, united with her own for only a passing moment.

5

Over the next few days, Yuen-mong was heartened by the apparent
change in Atun’s behavior and attitude. He seemed to be eager to learn
and willingly helped with the various tasks. He always wanted to know
the whys and the hows, rarely questioning them. He wondered where the
water supply in the cave came from, and she took him to the top of their
rock, feeling a pang of regret to give away even that last refuge of her
own.

     
It not only served as her place of contemplation and meditation, but
also as her garden for various herbs that she added to the versatile timoru
mash and it was her usual source for sweetberries. Its shape was that of
a shallow irregular flat bowl that collected the rain water where it seeped
into rock caverns that supplied the constant dripping in the shower. Since
there was a short downpour most days an hour or so before dawn, she
could not remember ever having run out of water.

     
They gathered food and fuel; they caught fish off the boulders near
their rock using hook lines, ate some of them fresh, cooked others, and
salted and dried the rest. Since there were few flying insects, fish could
just be dried in the sun on top of the sun-warmed rock.

     
She showed him where she made salt along the rocky shore near the
cave by filling a large shallow indentation on a huge boulder with sea
water once a week and letting it evaporate. Once a crust an eighth of an
inch thick had formed, she could scrape off the salt crystals.

     
Where mature broadleaf trees had been toppled by the storm, the first
leafless shoots were pushing from the earth ‘like asparagus spears’, as
her mother had told her. At that stage they were still easy to cut and by
far her favorite vegetable. After boiling, the skin could be peeled off and
the soft inside had a slightly sweet, but tart taste. For a while, they would
have plenty of them.

     
Atun was eager to make himself a bow and arrows, and was disappointed when she told him that suitable flexible wood branches could
only be found in the mountains, a day’s walk farther inland. She
promised to take him there as soon as they could spare two days. In the
meantime, she showed him how to fashion arrows from the thinner top
branches of the thorntree. The density of that wood was such that
scorching the tapered end produced a very hard point that readily
penetrated even the tough skin of the craw.

     
"If this is so, why didn’t you kill the one that attacked us twice?"

 
     
"What for?"

 
     
"So that you don’t have to worry anymore about crossing that
estuary."

 
     
"It is no trouble, in fact, it is a challenge to fool him."

 
     
"But if anything goes wrong, he’ll get you."

 
     
"True, that is why I killed his mate, so that I only have to contend with
one.’
 

     
"You really did kill a craw?"

 
     
"Yes, all my clothing, this pack, and the craw decoy are made of its
wing skin."

 
     
"How did you do it?"

 
     
"They are defenseless when they crash. Anyway, killing the other one
is of little use. Within no time another mating pair will take its place and
then I will have to deal with two again."

* * *

One late afternoon, a few days after their return from the shuttle, she was
washing out several small sponges and strung them up for drying on a
thin strand of a spear grass blade.

     
"What are those for?" he asked, touching one.

     
"I use them to catch the blood when I menstruate," she answered,
matter-of-fact.

     
His hand shot back and he blushed.

     
She smiled and said: "You may touch them. They are not poisonous…
That is the bane of being a woman. What do women do on Palo?"

 
     
"Many take injections that prevent menstruation."

 
     
"That cannot be healthy. And those who don’t?" She could see that he
was embarrassed to talk about it, but she wanted to know and did not see
why this should embarrass him.

     
"They wear sanitary napkins — thin pads that soak up the discharge."

 
     
"I think inserting a sponge into my vagina is more practical."

 
     
"That exists too. It’s called a tampon."

 
     
"That is probably where my mother got the idea. She showed me
shortly before she was killed." She closed her eyes as a wave of pain
briefly coursed through her.

     
"Are you in pain?" he asked alarmed.

     
"Not physical pain. Thinking of my mother sometimes brings up that
feeling of void."

 
     
"Were you very close?"

 
     
"Close? … Much more than that. When she died it felt like part of me
departed with her. We knew each other’s thoughts without the need to
talk."

 
     
"And your father?"