The most common substance for tools and weapons was something with the cellular structure of wood but the weight and feel of cast metal. It was slightly malleable and could be sharpened by grinding against abrasive rocks, but it fractured when stressed beyond its elastic limit. It fascinated Barry, not only because of its unfamiliarity but because the Venusians had no tools suitable for working such a hard material.
But Xintel explained. The soft wood of undersea trees was carved to the required shape, and then the implements were taken to the Outside, across the sea bottom to the Cleft Of Hardening. There the wood underwent a change.
She had been returning from the Cleft—the Venusians always managed to visit the Outside in groups despite the Chosen—when Barry saved her from marauding norus.
The norus were outcast savages, hated and feared and despised. They had long since learned the folly of attacking Tana, but whenever possible would ambush anyone venturing into the Outside.
Males they invariably killed for their clothing and weapons, but females the savages preferred to capture alive. The mortality among their own women was frightfully high, particularly during pregnancy and childbirth when they were unable to defend themselves against the monstrous torvaks that scouraged the deeps, so replacement slave-wives were in constant demand.
Tana was not the only undersea city or yort, Barry learned, but the journey across the sea bottom was so perilous that communication was most infrequent and warfare impractical.
V
Komso had not forgotten Barry. Everywhere Barry and Xintel went a Chosen One followed, and even though their actions were not interfered with in any way it was nerve-wracking to know their every move was being reported. Under such continuing surveillance his temper grew ragged.
But he heeded Xintel's repeated warnings and the watchers learned little. Finally the Leader grew annoyed and decided this outsider, this potential threat to his unchallenged supremacy, had existed long enough. And so had the girl who sheltered him.