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She was beginning to see how narrow her scientific horizons were. No botany, no geology, no biology of any sort—she was as ignorant as a baby.
And then she heard a low thunder-like rumble, which was hard to locate until she saw a cloud of dust moving along one of the roads—toward the stand of trees, and toward her. It was about a mile away, but it wasn’t moving slowly, and all of a sudden she felt afraid.
She darted back into the grove. She found a narrow space between two great roots and crammed herself into it, peering over the buttress beside her and out toward the approaching dust cloud.
What she saw made her head spin. At first it looked like a motorcycle gang. Then she thought it was a herd of wheeled animals. But that was impossible. No animal could have wheels. She wasn’t seeing it. But she was.
There were a dozen or so. They were roughly the same size as the grazing creatures, but leaner and gray-colored, with horned heads and short trunks like elephants’. They had the same diamond-shaped structure as the grazers, but somehow they had evolved, on their front and rear single legs, a wheel.
But wheels did not exist in nature, her mind insisted; they couldn’t; you needed an axle with a bearing that was completely separate from the rotating part, it couldn’t happen, it was impossible—
Then, as they came to a halt not fifty yards away, and the dust settled, she suddenly made the connection, and she couldn’t help laughing out loud with a little cough of delight.
The wheels were seedpods. Perfectly round, immensely hard and light—they couldn’t have been designed better. The creatures hooked a claw through the center of the pods with their front and rear legs, and used their two lateral legs to push against the ground and move along. While she marveled at this, she was also a little anxious, for their horns looked formidably sharp, and even at this distance she could see intelligence and curiosity in their gaze.
And they were looking for her.
One of them had spotted the seedpod she had taken out of the grove, and he trundled off the road toward it. When he reached it, he lifted it onto an edge with his trunk and rolled it over to his companions.
They gathered around the pod and touched it delicately with those powerful, flexible trunks, and she found herself interpreting the soft chirrups and clicks and hoots they were making as expressions of disapproval. Someone had tampered with this: it was wrong.
Then she thought: I came here for a purpose, although I don’t understand it yet. Be bold. Take the initiative.
So she stood up and very self-consciously called:
“Over here. This is where I am. I looked at your seedpod. I’m sorry. Please don’t harm me.”
Instantly their heads snapped around, trunks held out, glittering eyes facing forward. Their ears had all flicked upright.
She stepped out of the shelter of the roots and faced them directly. She held out her hands, realizing that such a gesture might mean nothing to creatures with no hands themselves. Still, it was all she could do. Picking up her rucksack, she walked across the grass and stepped onto the road.
Close up—not five steps away—she could see much more about their appearance, but her attention was held by something lively and aware in their gaze, by an intelligence. These creatures were as different from the grazing animals nearby as a human was from a cow.
Mary pointed to herself and said, “Mary.”
The nearest creature reached forward with its trunk. She moved closer, and it touched her on the breast, where she had pointed, and she heard her voice coming back to her from the creature’s throat: “Merry.”
“What are you?” she said.
“Watahyu?” the creature responded.
All she could do was respond. “I am a human,” she said.
“Ayama yuman,” said the creature, and then something even odder happened: the creatures laughed.
Their eyes wrinkled, their trunks waved, they tossed their heads—and from their throats came the unmistakable sound of merriment. She couldn’t help it: she laughed, too.
Then another creature moved forward and touched her hand with its trunk. Mary offered her other hand as well to its soft, bristled, questing touch.
“Ah,” she said, “you’re smelling the oil from the seedpod . . .”
“Seepot,” said the creature.
“If you can make the sounds of my language, we might be able to communicate, one day. God knows how. Mary,” she said, pointing to herself again.
Nothing. They watched. She did it again: “Mary.”
The nearest creature touched its own breast with its trunk and spoke. Was it three syllables, or two? The creature spoke again, and this time Mary tried hard to make the same sounds: “Mulefa,” she said tentatively.
Others repeated, “Mulefa” in her voice, laughing, and even seemed to be teasing the creature who had spoken. “Mulefa!” they said again, as if it were a fine joke.
“Well, if you can laugh, I don’t suppose you’ll eat me,” Mary said. And from that moment, there was an ease and friendliness between her and them, and she felt nervous no more.
And the group itself relaxed: they had things to do, they weren’t roaming at random. Mary saw that one of them had a saddle or pack on its back, and two others lifted the seedpod onto it, making it secure by tying straps around it, with deft and intricate movements of their trunks. When they stood still, they balanced with their lateral legs, and when they moved, they turned both front and back legs to steer. Their movements were full of grace and power.
One of them wheeled to the edge of the road and raised its trunk to utter a trumpeting call. The herd of grazers all looked up as one and began to trot toward them. When they arrived, they stood patiently at the verge and let the wheeled creatures move slowly through them, checking, touching, counting.
Then Mary saw one reach beneath a grazer and milk it with her trunk; and then the wheeled one rolled over to her and raised her trunk delicately to Mary’s mouth.
At first she flinched, but there was an expectation in the creature’s eye, so she came forward again and opened her lips. The creature expressed a little of the sweet, thin milk into her mouth, watched her swallow, and gave her some more, again and again. The gesture was so clever and kindly that Mary impulsively put her arms around the creature’s head and kissed her, smelling the hot, dusty hide and feeling the hard bones underneath and the muscular power of the trunk.
Presently the leader trumpeted softly and the grazers moved away. The mulefa were preparing to leave. She felt joy that they had welcomed her, and sadness that they were leaving; but then she felt surprise as well.
One of the creatures was lowering itself, kneeling down on the road, and gesturing with its trunk, and the others were beckoning and inviting her . . . No doubt about it: they were offering to carry her, to take her with them.
Another took her rucksack and fastened it to the saddle of a third, and awkwardly Mary climbed on the back of the kneeling one, wondering where to put her legs—in front of the creature’s, or behind? And what could she hold on to?
But before she could work it out, the creature had risen, and the group began to move away along the highway, with Mary riding among them.
because he’s Will.”
EIGHT
VODKA
I have been a stranger in a strange land.
• EXODUS •
Balthamos felt the death of Baruch the moment it happened. He cried aloud and soared into the night air over the tundra, flailing his wings and sobbing his anguish into the clouds; and it was some time before he could compose himself and go back to Will, who was wide awake, knife in hand, peering up into the damp and chilly murk. They were back in Lyra’s world.
“What is it?” said Will as the angel appeared trembling beside him. “Is it danger? Get behind me—”
“Baruch is dead,” cried Balthamos, “my dear Baruch is dead—”
“When? Where?”
But Balthamos couldn’t tell; he only knew that half his heart had been extinguished. He couldn’t keep still: he flew up again, scouring the sky as if to seek out Baruch in this cloud or that, calling, crying, calling; and then he’d be overcome with guilt, and fly down to urge Will to hide and keep quiet, and promise to watch over him tirelessly; and then the pressure of his grief would crush him to the ground, and he’d remember every instance of kindness and courage that Baruch had ever shown, and there were thousands, and he’d forgotten none of them; and he’d cry that a nature so gracious could never be snuffed out, and he’d soar into the skies again, casting about in every direction, reckless and wild and stricken, cursing the very air, the clouds, the stars.
