Foster, Alan Dean - Humanx 01 by Foster Alan Dean

Author:Foster, Alan Dean
Language: eng
Format: epub

108

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"Mind you do not overload your roots with too much nourishment too soon," she advised him, and then she grinned. "Or I will have this room to clean yet again. And you will have to start afresh."

Bom nodded without really hearing her. He stumbled into the room, where fruit, fresh meat, and preserved pulp was laid out in abundance on the eating mat. Joyla beckoned to Cohoma and Logan, indicating they might as well eat too.

"Thanks," Logan replied.

"You can watch him as he eats and restrain him."

"Why don't you?" Logan asked, as she sat down at the edge of the mat and selected a bright yellow gourd-shaped fruit with blue striping.

Joyla shook her head, studied Bom, who was shoving food into his mouth at an appalling rate. "I have already eaten, and there is much to be done now that the Longago can proceed." Her'smile became sad. "Tonight I will return many old friends to the forest, and a daughter as well." She started to say something else, reconsidered, and left through the leafleather curtain behind her.

Logan continued thinking on this Longago that now seemed of paramount importance to these people. She bit into the gourd, found it had a taste like sugared persimmon. How did Bom's people dispose of their dead, anyway, with no earth to bury them in? Cremation, maybe, in the firepit at the village's center.

She said as much to Bom. He mouthed contradic-tions through mouthfuls of food. "The earth? Would you offer up the souls of your own friends to hell?

They will be returned to the world."

"Yes, Joyla mentioned that," she replied impatiently, "but what ex actly does that mean?"

But Bom had returned to his food. She continued

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to prod him, arguing that the rest between eating would do him good. Bom still showed no inclination to talk, but the giant's constant pestering compelled him to satisfy her. "It is plain," he finally mumbled, "that you know nothing of what happens to people after they die. I cannot describe the Longago to you. You will see it tonight."

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