He recognized her from the picture: a tall woman, young and uncertain. She sweated in a black, high-collared dress. Her hair was tied back in a foreign fashion; it had been passed through a long sleeve, or wrapped in a wide scarf perhaps. The last ends of it curled out of the scarf down near her waist. The scattering of short-haired native girls behind her were laughing and reuniting with kin, but she stood straight, her hands clasped together at her waist, her eyes scanning the road in the other direction. A large handbag sat on a trunk close beside her. He started to walk up to her, then stopped two paces away, remembering that Old World people preferred to speak to others from a distance. "Chloe?" She looked at him uncertainly. "Hames?" Of course, she would have been expecting her fianceā to come in person. "Ah, no. I'm his brother. Reed." He held out his hand to her and she took it uncertainly. Around them the other passengers were already loading bags into trucks, or dragging them down to the docks to waiting boats. "Where is Hames?" She spoke with a throaty accent, the way Old World girls in videos always talked. "He couldn't come. He's busy with the harvesting, you know." She looked up at the reddish glow on the horizon that marked the sun, hidden behind the thin sheet of clouds. "What time is it?" "It's just a little before noon." "How long do we have before night?" "Twenty or thirty days." She looked back at him, her expression blank. "I meant today." "Yes. Of course. Almost two hours." "Thank you. Are you going to take me to Hames, now?" "Yes. Of course. We'll be there by nightfall. Just across the straits, up the Finger Bay. I've got my boat here." She picked up one end of her trunk as he reached for it. "Here," he said, "I'll get that." She stepped back, as if it were a concession to him, but she took the handbag off the trunk and held it against herself. Reed suddenly knew she had not been far from her luggage on her whole journey. Her trunk took up most of his boat, making it unstable and low in the water. He stood on the gunwales to balance the boat with his weight, then offered to help her in, but she was already settling herself on the edge of the seat in the bow, her hands once again folded in her lap. He started the electric motor, and unfolded the arm so he could guide it from his standing position. The other boats were slipping quietly into the dimness to their private destinations. Reed pointed their boat across the strait and opened the throttle. The flyer that had brought her lifted off with a rush of wind and noise. The sudden roar cut them off from each other, they could not speak and be heard. When it faded away they were alone on the water, no one else in sight. Chloe opened a button at her throat. "You say it's almost winter?" she asked. "Yes." "It's hot." But still she sat with her legs together and her hands folded in her lap. "It will cool off later. You won't want that dress again before deep winter." "What is it you call winter here? You have your own name for it." He hesitated. "Actually, we divide up the year into twelve seasons, not four. This is Sleep. You might want to cut your hair, too. It tends to rain a lot this half of the year. It's hard to keep things dry. There's a story of a foreign diplomat who wore his hair tied up in a knot on his head. After two months of never drying out, it started to mildew and he had to shave his head." For the first time, her face cracked a thin smile. One hand came up and touched the braid at the back of her hair. "It's never been cut before," she said to herself. She looked out over the water again. She had to be uncomfortable, perched on the edge of the seat that also supported her trunk. "Looks like it might rain again, soon," he said, looking at the sky. "I think we'll make it, though." "Tell me again why Hames couldn't come," she said, twisting around on her seat. Reed cleared his throat. "Well, it's the last harvest, you see. We only have so long to get the crops in, before... before winter." "Famine," she said. "That's what you call winter, isn't it? No, don't shelter me. I live here, now. I want to know." "It's not so bad as that. There's always fish. And we keep good grain stores." "How long does Famine last?" Reed hesitated. "Tell me." "Here, six hundred and forty-two days. From the last sunset to the first sunrise." She looked into the bottom of the boat, considering this. "Almost two years," she said to herself. "You must be very brave to come here," Reed said, trying to be positive and not knowing how. "If I got the chance, I'd leave. For the chance to have the sun rise every day... Here when it finally does come up we get so much of it..." "And in-between are the seasons you call Pestilence and Death, yes, I know. Am I so brave? We had four seasons of death in the Old World. Here there's only one." She looked out over the water and Reed thought she didn't want to talk anymore. Breakers swelled up as they emerged from the harbor onto the open straits. Reed balanced the top-heavy craft with his weight. He felt safer standing. He felt in control. The wind picked up. The rain was not far away. "Is it true that mores in the New Worlds are more conservative than in the Old?" she asked suddenly, catching him by surprise. "Ah. I don't know. What do you mean?" "I've heard that on some worlds people do not bare their knees, for example." Reed laughed. "In the other half of the year, you keep yourself covered. The sun is your enemy. Now, we have darkness for our modesty." |
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