"I think the red moon has come back."
"Yes." She pointed over his shoulder; he glimpsed it through a gap in the leaves. "A good moon. Begins the Moon of Little Rains. The small rains make no harm, make the ground sweet. Is better than the moon past—that we call the Moon of Beginnings." She moved restlessly against him. "This country—all forest? How long have I sleep?"
"Most of the night. We're past the open land."
She whispered, "No one has ever come here. We have think always there are bad—what word?—tev—tevils in the north."
"Tomorrow—rather, today—we turn west and then south on the other side of the hills, to the island."
"Ah, the island.... I cannot see this island."
"You'll like it, Nisana. You'll be happy there."
"Happy?" And he remembered that the old pygmy language had no word for happiness.
Wright's voice came thinly in the dark: "Abara, stop them! Sears——"
Millie halted and knelt without an order: Nisana jumped down. Paul saw the shapes of Elis and Sears suddenly bright under Wright's flashlight—the only radion light left. "Easy," Elis said. "I have you." And he lowered the man's bulk to the ground as Susie moaned and shifted her feet. Sears had said nothing, but he was smiling, his face red and vague above the disorder of the black beard.