Return to Eden by Harry Harrison - West of Eden 03

Author:Harry Harrison - West of Eden 03 [03, Harry Harrison - West of Eden]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: new
Published: 2011-01-15T04:00:30.375000+00:00

"Poor baby," Merrith said, then passed Ysel back to her mother. "Do you know what sammad it was?"

"Sorli, sammad Sorli."

Merrith gasped and clutched her hands to her breasts. "Then she is dead, my daughter is dead! She and her hunter, they went with sammad Sorli. Melde. Dead now, like her sister."

When she heard this Armun went rigid, holding the baby so tightly that she began to wail. She controlled herself, caressed the infant until it stopped crying, until she could talk. Yet her voice still trembled when she did.

"At first Darras would not speak when we found her, could only cry. She had watched them all being killed. Later I could talk to her, she told me about it, how she had been alone in the forest. Told me her name. Darras. Told me her mother's name as well." Armun hesitated, then forced herself to speak. "She spoke her mother's name. It was Melde."

The two women looked at each other in shocked silence and it was Merrith who managed to speak first.

"Then this child-my granddaughter?"

"She must be. I must talk to her. She never told me, but she must know her father's name."

At first Darras did not know what was happening, could not understand it. Only when the relationship had been explained over and over again, often enough to make it clear to her, only then did the long-hidden tears come as she clung to her grandmother and wept.

"You will live with me," Merrith said, "if that is what you want to do. If Armun says it will be all right."

"She is your daughter's daughter. She is yours now. You must put your tent close by so we can be together always."

Her tears changed to laughter and Armun joined in and, after a little while, even Darras managed to smile through her tears.

The days that followed the arrival of the sammads were the happiest that Armun had experienced in her entire life. The murgu who had fought against them fought no longer, they did not have to be considered or feared. The coming of the sammads had changed life completely on the island. The tents stretched away under the trees and smoke rose from many cooking fires. Children ran and screamed between them and their cries were echoed by the trumpet of the mastodons from the field. Game was abundant, their stomachs were full-while the dried meat hung heavy in the smoking huts. A large hardwood tree had been cut down, trimmed of its branches and floated to the shore near the tents. Here, under Herilak's direction, it was being hollowed out by fire. When it was finished they would have a boat to go into the marshes with, to trap the feeding birds that now had grown very wary of the hunters. Arnwheet and the other boys of the sammads had watched this being done and were now hard at work making a smaller version for themselves. There were some burned fingers and tears, but the work progressed.

In her newfound happiness Armun realized how much better off they all were for the joining of the sammads.

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