“These creatures are small, very small, smaller than we are. These pads are soft with no marks of claws. Tso! Look there — count!”

She straightened up and spun about to face the others, extending one hand with fingers outspread, angry color rippling across her palm.

“Five toes, that’s what they have, not four. Who knows what kind of beasts have five toes?” Silence was her only answer. “There are too many mysteries here. I don’t like it. How many guards were there?”

“Three,” Erafnais said. “One at each end of the beach, the third near the center…”

She broke off as one of the crewmembers came crashing through the undergrowth behind them. “There is a small boat,” she called out. “Landing on the beach.”

When Vaintè came out from under the trees she saw that the boat was rocking in the surf, laden with containers of some kind. One of the occupants was holding on to the boat so the creature would not stray: the other two were on the beach staring at the corpses. They turned about as Vaintè approached and she saw the twisted wire necklace that one of them wore about her neck. Vaintè stared at it.

“You are the esekasak, she who defends the birth beaches — why were you not here defending your charges?”

The esekasak’s nostrils widened with rage. “Who are you to talk to me like that—”

“I am Vaintè who is now Eistaa of this city. Now answer my question, low one, for I lose patience.”

The esekasak touched her lips in supplication, stumbling backward a step as she did. “Excuse me, Highest, I didn’t know. The shock, these deaths…”

“Are your responsibility. Where were you?”

“The city, getting food and the new guard.”

“How long have you been away?”

“Just two days, Highest, as always.”

“As always!” Vaintè could feel herself swelling with rage that added harsh emphasis to her words. “I understand none of this. Why do you leave your beach to go to the city by sea? Where is the Wall of Thorns, the defenses?”

“Not yet grown, Highest, unsafe. The river is being widened and deepened and has not been cleared of the dangerous beasts yet. It was decided for safety’s sake to site the birth beach on the ocean, temporarily of course.”

“Safety’s sake!” Vaintè could no longer control her rage as she pointed at the corpses, shouting. “They are dead — all of them. Your responsibility. Would that you were dead with them. For this, the greatest of crimes, I demand the greatest of penalties. You are ejected from this city, from the society of speakers, to rejoin the speechless. You will not live long, but every moment until you die you will remember that it was your charge, your responsibility, your mistake that brought on this sentence.” Vaintè stepped forward and hooked her thumbs around the metal emblem of high office and pulled hard, tearing it free. The broken ends cutting the esekasak’s neck. She hurled it into the surf as she chanted the litany of depersonalization.

“I strip you of your charge. All of those present here strip you of your rank for your failure of responsibility. Every citizen of Inegban*, the city that is our home, every Yilanè alive joins us in stripping you of your citizenship. Now I take away your name and no one living will speak it aloud again but will speak instead of Lekmelik, darkness of evil. I return you to the nameless and speechless. Go.”

Vaintè pointed to the ocean, frightening in her wrath. The depersonalized esekasak fell to her knees, stretched full length in the sand at Vaintè’s feet. Her words were barely understandable.

“Not that, no, I beg. Not to blame, it was Deeste who ordered it, forced us. There should have been no births, she didn’t enforce sexual discipline, I cannot be blamed for that, there should have been no births. What has happened is not my fault…”

Her voice rumbled in her throat, then died away; the movement of her limbs slowed and stopped.

“Turn the creature over,” Vaintè ordered.

Erafnais signaled two of her crew members who hauled at the limp body until it flopped on its back. Lekmelik’s eyes were open and staring, her breathing already slowed. She would be dead soon. Justice had been done. Vaintè nodded approval, then dismissed the creature from her thoughts completely; there was too much to do.

“Erafnais, you will stay here and see that the bodies are disposed of,” she ordered. “Then bring the uruketo to the city. I will go now in this boat. I want to see this Eistaa Deeste who I was sent here to replace.”

As Vaintè stepped aboard the boat the guard there signaled humbly for permission to speak. She spoke slowly, with some effort. “It will not be possible for you to see Deeste. Deeste is dead. For many days now. It was the fever, she was one of the last to die.”

“Then my arrival has been delayed too long already.” Vaintè seated herself as the guard spoke commandingly into the boat’s ear. The creature’s flesh pulsed as it started forward, moved by the jet of water it expelled.

“Tell me about the city,” Vaintè said. “But first, your name.” She spoke quietly, warmly. This guard was not to blame for the killings, she had not been on duty. Now Vaintè must think of the city, find the allies she would need if the work were to be done correctly.

“I am Inlènat,” she said, no longer as fearful as she had been. “It will be a good city, we all want it that way. We work hard, though there are many difficulties and problems.”

“Was Deeste one of the problems?”

Inlènat turned her hands away to hide the color of her emotions. “It is not for me to say. I have only been a citizen for a very short time.”

“If you are in the city you are of the city. You may speak to me because I am Vaintè and I am Eistaa. Your loyalty is to me. Take your time and think of the significance of that. It is from me that authority flows. It is to me that all problems will be brought. It is from me that all decisions will radiate. So now you know your responsibilities. You will speak and answer my questions truthfully.”

“I will answer as you command, Eistaa,” Inlènat said with assurance, already settling herself into the new order of things.

Bit by bit, by careful and patient questioning, Vaintè began to build a picture of events in the city. The guard was of too low a station to have knowledge of what had happened in the higher reaches of command — but she was well aware of the results. They were not pleasing.

Deeste had not been popular, that was obvious. She had apparently surrounded herself with a group of cronies who did little or no work. There was every chance that these were the ones who had forgotten their responsibilities, had not taken the other roads of satisfaction when egg-time came, who had instead used the males despite the fact the birth beach was not ready. If this were true, and the truth could be found out easily enough, there would be no waste of a public trial. The criminals would be put to work outside the city, that was all, would work until they fell or were killed or were eaten by the wild creatures. They deserved little else.

The news wasn’t all bad though. The first fields had been cleared, while the city itself was over half grown and going according to plan. Since the fever had been countered there had been no medical problems other than normal injuries caused by the heavy work. By the time the boat had entered the river Vaintè had a clear picture of what must be done. She would check on Inlènat’s stories of course, that was natural, but her instincts told her that what the simple creature had told her held the essence of the city’s problems.

Some of her tales would be just gossip, but the body of her facts would surely stand.

The sun was setting behind a bank of clouds as the boat pulled in between the water roots of the city, where they stretched out into the harbor. Vaintè automatically pulled one of the cloaks around her as she felt the chill. The cloak was well-fed and warm. It also concealed her identity — and there was nothing wrong with that. Had it not been for the slaughter on the beach she would have insisted on a formal welcome when the uruketo had arrived. That would be unseemly to do now. She would make her way quietly into Alpèasak, so that when the news of the killing reached the city she would be there to guide them. The deaths would not be forgotten, but they would be remembered as the end of the bad period, the beginning of the good. She made solemn promise to herself that everything would be very, very different from now on.