But Nafai didn't wait for Vas to answer. Instead he reached his arms as far as they could go onto the ledge above, then dug his fingers into the loose grassy soil. It slipped and came away, but by scrabbling constantly, grabbing more and more, he was able to get enough of a purchase that he could get his shoulders above the edge of the cliff, and then it was a relatively easy matter to swing a leg up onto the ledge and pull himself to safety. He rolled onto his back and lay there, panting in relief. He could hardly believe that he had done such a dangerous thing so soon after falling - if he had slipped at any time while clambering up onto this ledge, he would have had a hard time catching himself on the ledge below. He was risking death - but he had done it.
Vas came now. "Ah," he said. "You're already up. Look - this way. Right back to where we were."
"I've got to find the pulse."
"It's bound to be broken and useless," said Vas. "It wasn't built for a fall like that."
"I can't go back and tell them that I don't have the pulse," said Nafai. "That I lost it. It's down there, and even if it's in forty pieces, I'll bring those pieces home."
"It's better to tell them you broke it than to tell them you lost it?" asked Vas.
"Yes," said Nafai. "It's better to show them the pieces than have them always wonder whether, if I had only looked, I might have found it. Don't you understand that this is our families' meat supply we're talking about?"
"Oh, I understand," said Vas. "And now that you put it that way, of course I see we must search for it. Look, we can come down this way - it's an easy enough path."
"I know," said Nafai. "Right down to the sea."
"Do you think so?" asked Vas.
"Down that way, and jogging to the left - see?"
"Oh, that would probably work."
It made Nafai faintly ashamed, that he had noticed the route to the sea, while Vas had not even thought of it.
Instead of going down to the sea, however, they scrambled down to the brush where the pulse must have fallen. They didn't have to search long before they found it - split in half, right down the middle. Several small internal components were also scattered here and there in the bushes, and without doubt there were others that they didn't find. There would be no repairing this pulse.
Still, Nafai put the pieces, large and small, into the sling he had made for carrying the pulse, and tied it closed. Then he and Vas began the long climb up the mountain. Nafai suggested that Vas should lead, since he would do a better job of remembering the way, and Vas agreed at once. Nafai didn't give the slightest hint that he didn't dare let Vas walk behind him, where he couldn't see what he was doing.
Oversoul, was that warning from you?
He didn't get any answer from the Oversoul, or at least not a direct answer to his question. What he got instead was the clear thought that he should talk to Luet when he got back to camp. And since that was what he would have done anyway, especially after an experience like this, being so close to death, he assumed that it was his own thought, and the Oversoul had not spoken to him at all.
SEVEN - THE BOW
The loss of the pulse was such a blow that neither Volemak nor Elemak made any effort to keep the situation calm - not until it was already almost out of control. There lay the pieces of the pulse, spread out on a cloth; nearby were the two water-damaged pulses that Elemak had saved. Zdorab sat by them, the Index in his lap, reading out the numbers of the broken parts. Almost everyone else stood - few were calm enough to sit - waiting, watching, pacing, grumbling as he tried to find out if one whole pulse could be salvaged from the parts.
"It's no use," said Zdorab. "Even if we had all the parts, the Index says that we don't have the tools that would be needed, and no way of making them without spending fifty years achieving the appropriate level of technology."
"What a brilliant plan the Oversoul had," said Elemak. "Keep all of humanity at a low level