Winter in Eden

With the feel of solid ground beneath her feet Armun's sickness from the voyage soon disappeared and she joined the others in dragging in the bundles and furs. It was all right.
    Everything was going to be all right. She was safe, Arnwheet and Harl were safe. They would all live to see the spring. With this thought she seized up the child, held him tightly to her as she sat down heavily on the heaped furs.
    "Build the fire quickly," Angajorqaq called out. "Hair-of-sunlight is tired, I can tell by looking at her.
    Hungry and cold. I will get food. "
    "We must move this paukarut onto the ice," Kalaleq said between puffs of breath to encourage the fire.
    "The bay is frozen, winter is really here."
    "Tomorrow. All will rest first. "
    "We will do it tomorrow. The ice is warmer than the land now, the sea water below it will keep the cold away. And I will cut snow to keep out the wind. It will be warm and we will eat and have good fun."
    Thinking of this made him smile with pleasure and anticipation and he reached for Angajorqaq to have some fun now, but she slapped his hand away. "No time," she said. "Later. Eat first."
    "Yes—eat first! Hunger makes me weak." He groaned in mock agony, but could not stop himself from smiling at the same time. It was going to be a good winter, a very, very good winter.
    CHAPTER NINE
    Winter in Eden - Harry Harrison
    esseka    Yilanè apothegm
    When the wave breaks on the shore, small swimming things in it die, are eaten by the birds that fly, they are eaten by animals that run, Yilanè eat them all.
    Lanefenuu had been Eistaa of Ikhalmenets for so many years that only the oldest of her associates could remember the previous eistaa; even fewer of these could recall her name. Lanefenuu was large in spirit as well as body—a head taller than most Yilanè—and as eistaa had wrought great physical changes to the city. The ambesed, where she now sat in the place of honor, had been constructed by her: the old ambesed continued its existence as a field of fruit trees. Here, in a natural bowl on the hillside above the city and the harbor, she had shaped an ambesed for her own pleasure. The morning sun fell full upon her raised seat of inlaid wood to the rear of the bowl, even while the rest was in shadow. Behind her, conforming to the natural curve of the land, were beautifully worked wooden panels, carved and painted so realistically that during the daylight hours there were always fargi pressed close and gazing in gape-jawed admiration.
    It was a seascape of dark blue waves and pale blue sky, enteesenat leaping high while the dark form of an uruketo stretched from one end to the other, almost life-size. At the top of the high fin a figure had been carved, the replica of the uruketo's commander, which bore more than a chance resemblance to the Eistaa seated below it. Lanefenuu had commanded an uruketo before rising to the eminence of her present position, still commanded one in spirit. Her arms and the upper portion of her body were painted with patterns of breaking waves. Every morning Elililep, accompanied by another male to carry his brushes and pigments, was brought from the hanalè in a shrouded palanquin to trace the designs. It was obvious to Lanefenuu that males were more sensitive and artistic: it was also good to take a male every morning.
    Elililep's brush-carrier was made to satisfy her, for Elililep himself was too valuable to end up on the beaches. It was Lanefenuu's firm belief—though she never mentioned it to Ukhereb knowing that the scientist would sneer—that this daily sexual satisfaction was the reason for her continued longevity.
    This day she was feeling her years. The wintry sunlight did not warm her and only the body heat of the living cloak wrapped around her kept her from sinking into a comatose sleep. And now she had added to all her other worries the burden of despair that the newly arrived commander had placed upon her.
    Alpèasak the jewel to the west, the hope of her own city, gone. Destroyed by crazed ustuzou—if Erafnais could be believed. Yet she must be believed for this was no second or thirdhand report passed on by yileibe fargi. Erafnais, who commanded an uruketo, the supreme responsibility, had been there, had seen with her own eyes. And the other survivor, Vaintè, she who had grown the city and had witnessed its destruction. She would know more about what had