James Alan Gardner - League of Peoples 02 - Commitment Hour

James Alan Gardner

Commitment Hour

To Linda: Here's another novel you don't have to finish if I get hit by a bus.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to the usual gang of writers (Linda Carson, John McMullen, Dave Till) for providing initial

feedback as chapters came hot off the printer, and to Robert J. Sawyer, Richard Curtis, and Jennifer

Brehl who read the whole thing in one chunk. Thanks too to Shelley Goetze who told me the name of

that little bump at the back of your neck (while she was giving me ultrasound for a broken leg... but that's

another story).

Finally, thanks to Chris Blythe, Eric Bristow, Duncan Bristow, and Larry Hackman who first walked

with me from Tober Cove to Cypress Marsh. Death to quill pigs forever!

ONE

A Net for a Duck

The night before Commitment, I was down in the marsh with the frogs and the fish, sitting out the time on

a mud-crusted log and waiting for the gods to send me a duck.

I'd spent hundreds of hours in that marsh when I was young, practicing my violin. Elderly mosquitoes

may still tell their larvae about the human child who was so busy rehearsing arpeggios he didn't have time

to swat. Our village doctor claims I forced her to work daily from dawn to dusk, gathering and grinding

the herbs I needed for skin ointment when I came home each night. But back then, Cypress Marsh was

the only place the Elders of Tober Cove let me practice; they said if they let me play in town, the noise

would curdle milk.

Now that I was twenty, they'd stopped complaining. I'd become our cove's most gold-getting export:

shipped down-peninsula to weddings, harvest festivals and spring struts, earning five times as much as

any fisher or farmer. My foster father told me the Elders sometimes fought over which of them could take

the most credit for my success; but the real credit should go to the dragonflies who discovered that where

there's a violin, there are all the mosquitoes a bug can eat. They saved my blood and bone... and even

today, Cypress Marsh dragonflies come buzzing at the sound of violin music, like children hearing the

dinner bell.

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As I sat on the log that night, I considered taking up my bow and giving the dragonflies a thank-you

serenade. Of course, I'd brought my violin with me—I never left the cottage without it under my arm,

even when I set out to my "day job" hauling nets on the perch boats. The violin made my work easier: in

the middle of the afternoon, someone would always say to me, "Fullin, we could sure use a tune." Then I

passed a couple hours playing "The Maiden and the Hungry Pigboy" while the other men bent their

backs.

We all thought it was a fair exchange.

I had taken the violin out and was softly tuning the strings when a song drifted to me from the far end of

the marsh.

I will come to you in winter.

Though we lay us down in snow,

It cannot chill us.

Cappie, waxing romantic. In the years she was a man, her voice was a fine bass, a rough-edged rumble

like Master Thunder's lament for his fallen son. Many times I'd told her she could polish that voice into a

real moneymaker, if she just made the effort. But in the years she was a woman her voice was

scabby—thin as a reed and apt to wobble on anything longer than a quarter note. The pity was, she liked

to sing as a woman; as a man, she was the silent type who stared moodily into campfires.

I will stay with you through spring.

Though the wild Nor'westers blow,

They cannot spill us.

Lately she'd taken to singing every day: drippy sentimental songs that she directed toward me with a

delivery she'd picked up from a throb-woman who passed through Tober Cove with a troupe of traveling

players. By popular request I'd gone to the platform to accompany the singer in a tune, and this woman

had chosen a moist little ballad designed to set men drooling. You know the kind of song I'm talking

about—performed with so many hip grinds, you can't tell whether the woman is singing actual words or

just bed-whinnies. Because I was on the stage with her, most of the bump'n'hump was aimed at me... not

that I noticed it much. While the woman was trying to rub up against me, I was working hard just to

make sure the pointed end of my violin bow didn't poke out her eye. Still, Cappie got the idea I'd been

aroused by all that slinking and strutting, and had taken to doing her own torch routines for my benefit.

Let me tell you, Cappie was no South-city seductress—it was all I could do not to cringe every time she

began to shimmy.

I will dance with you through summer.

Though the heat makes rivers slow,

It cannot still us.

Cappie had also started to ask what sex I was going to Commit to. The laws of the Patriarch expressly

prohibited discussing the choice, but that didn't matter; when Cappie was a woman, she disregarded any

law that didn't make sense to her.

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"I have to know what you're going to be," she'd say. "It would be a disaster if we both chose the same

sex and could never be married."

More and more, I didn't think that would be a disaster at all. It was too cruel to say out loud, but that

response clattered around in my brain every time she asked how much I loved her. She asked the

question a lot; I thought my unspoken answer just as often.

I'd outgrown her. I was famous throughout the Bruise Peninsula, and well paid for my music: a goat for

an evening, a sheep for a day, a cow for an entire weekend. When Cappie wanted to tag along on my

out-of-town performances, I discouraged her. Being seen with her embarrassed me. Her love songs and

attempts at being wanton stirred nothing in me but pity—the pity you feel for a crippled old dog that still

tries to catch rabbits.

I will hold your hand through fall.

Though the sun damps down its glow,

Our love will fill us.

The song ended. I wanted to scream back, "Stop lying to yourself!"... but of course I didn't. It would

only bring Cappie thrashing through the marsh to ask what I meant, or to demand that we talk about our

future before it was too late. That was the last thing I wanted. Every talk about our future forced me to

invent new ways to dodge her questions.

On top of that, we were both on Commitment Eve vigils and forbidden to see another human being till

dawn. Cappie might ignore the law if it didn't suit her, but I wanted to do things right. I had to avoid

confrontation, and that meant playing up to Cappie for one more evening.

She would be sweat-trickling now in the darkness, waiting for me to answer her song. I had no stomach

for singing back to her, but I could always play my violin. Its sound would carry clearly to her, and I

wouldn't have to worry about her hearing the lack of enthusiasm in my voice. A simple tune would do:

"Stars in the Hottest Black" came to mind, a song that felt dreamy and romantic but never actually

mentioned the word "love." Besides, it was appropriate—the stars were out in abundance, smeared

across the summer sky like gems in Mistress Night's hand. I lifted my bow above the strings, inhaled

before the downsweep, and...

...heard another violin begin to play somewhere deeper in the marsh.

I was so startled I dropped my bow. It bounced against the strings with a soft twang and fell to the dirt

at my feet. I snatched it up again quickly, as if someone might steal it.

The player out in the marsh was good.

A stranger.

The violin is a Southern instrument. I inherited mine from my lamented mother, who inherited it from her

father, and so on, back seven generations. No one else on the peninsula owned one, let alone played

with any skill. I assumed this new player was some out-of-place Southerner, a traveling performer who'd

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wandered off the road and camped in the marsh for the night. But the tune was native to Tober Cove

itself, an unfaithful lover's ballad called "Don't Make Me Choose."

I cursed loud enough to send nearby frogs plopping hastily into the water. There was no telling how an

outsider had learned that song, but no tune on earth could bring Cappie running more quickly. She would

run straight to me, not the unknown Southerner—she knew where I was keeping vigil, and she would

never guess there was a second violinist out in the night. I had to get away before she arrived. As a

matter of fact, I had to find the Southerner as evidence I wasn't the one playing the song.

For a moment, I debated whether to take my violin with me. I didn't want to leave it on its own, but if I

slipped on mud while slinking through the midnight marsh, I might tumble into some scum-covered pool,

instrument and all. Hurriedly I put the violin away and slid the case into the hollow of the log where I'd

been sitting. Instead of the violin, I took my spear. Tober Cove already had all the violinists it needed,

and I intended to make sure this Southerner got the message.

From childhood days practicing in the marsh, I knew the best shortcuts and the most solid trails. As

expected, I slipped several times anyway, soaking my pants to the knee. A dunk or two didn't bother

me, but I wanted to avoid stepping on a stone that was really a snapping turtle, dug into the mud to lay

her eggs. I cautiously approached every rock that lay in my path, knocking the top with the butt end of

my spear, waiting to see if a mean little head would appear and bite off a chunk of the shaft.

The music continued to play strong and clear. "Don't Make Me Choose" is a long piece with a dozen

choruses and variations, as the singer details the virtues of the two men who want to share her bed. She's

twenty years old, and therefore about to choose her sex permanently. She believes one of her lovers will

become a woman while the other will stay a man; whichever gender she chooses for herself, she'll be

shutting the door on one person and committing to the other. It's a frequent Tober Cove dilemma, which

makes it a song of enduring popularity... except for people like Cappie who find it strikes too close to

home.

I soon realized the music was coming from the heart of the marsh, probably the patch of open mud

known as the duck flats. Despite the name, you seldom find ducks on the flats—they avoid the place

because the people of Tober Cove set so many traps for them there. The tradition is this: every year on

Commitment Eve, each candidate for Commitment sets a snare on the flats. If the gods want you to

choose a particular sex, they'll send a duck of that sex to tangle itself in your net; if the gods don't have

special plans for you, your net stays empty and you can choose whichever sex you like. Two decades

had passed since the last divinely inspired duck was netted. The Mocking Priestess attributed this to a

growing intelligence on the part of ducks... but of course, it was her job to say things like that.

As I neared the duck flats, it occurred to me I was close to violating the rules of my vigil. I wasn't

supposed to set eyes upon another human being till sunrise... and a Southerner probably counted as

human, even if the laws of the Patriarch sometimes hedged on the issue.

What was the penalty for breaking vigil? I couldn't remember, but the Elders were forever looking for

excuses to grab a bigger share of my music income. Earlier that very day, the Patriarch's Man had

imposed a "monetary penance" on me for suggesting our village should build a roofed dance pavilion like

the one in Wiretown—as if I were the only Tober who thought it wouldn't hurt to borrow ideas from

down peninsula. Iwas the only Tober who got fined for saying so... which meant I had to observe every

little rule carefully, including the one about not setting my eyes on anyone else during vigil. Instead of

facing the stranger directly, I pulled up with only a stand of bulrushes between me and the duck flats, then

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shouted, "Hey!"

The music stopped.

"This is Tober land," I said. The Patriarch had used the same words to repel the Pagans during the Harsh

Purification—saying the words made me feel like I wasn't just carrying the spear for show. "Take

yourself and your ways," I recited, "and slink back to the pits of iniquity. You are damned, and your smell

offends me."

"The gracious welcome I expected," a voice sneered back. "Thank you." I couldn't tell whether the

speaker was male or female, and there was none of the nasalness of a Southern accent.

"Who are you?" I asked.

The only answer was a loud thrashing of reeds. I covered my eyes quickly, expecting the stranger to

burst through the wall of rushes; but the noise plunged off in the opposite direction. I held my breath as I

listened to it recede.

The stillness of the night seeped back in: no sound but crickets chirping, frogs chugging, and hundreds of

dragonflies buzzing around the flats. Cautiously, I parted the bulrushes, ready to avert my eyes if the

stranger returned.

In the middle of the flats, a fire sputtered on the muddy ground. By its light, I could see footprints

everywhere: boots with leather soles that left sharp outlines—city boots, unlike the moccasins worn by

everybody local. Judging from the quantity of tracks, I guessed the unknown violinist had been here for

hours, but I saw no sign that he or she had intended to stay the night. There was no tent, no gear, nothing

but the fire... as if the stranger had been ready to pick up and run as soon as someone came to

investigate the music.

"I'm not going to play hide and seek!" I shouted into the darkness. Immediately, I regretted the

noise—Cappie might hear me. If she was close enough, she'd know I was on the flats, and technically

speaking, my presence here was another violation of vigil. Once we set our traps we were supposed to

stay clear until...

Uh-oh.

I didn't know how long the stranger had lingered here, but it wouldn't have taken much to spot my snare.

Maybe it was a good idea to amble over that direction—not to break the rules by checking my trap

before dawn, but just to see if there were bootprints close to it. Sure enough, the prints were there, lots

of them... and my trap had caught something.

There was a duck tangled in the net, a motionless duck. I felt a perk of excitement—me, the first person

in twenty years who warranted the attention of the gods.

But gloating was childish. As chosen favorite of the gods, I had to comport myself with dignity. Gingerly,

I picked up the net by the slack at one end, expecting the bird to quack itself into a frenzy.

It didn't move. A fat drip of liquid fell from the duck's body to the mud.

Slowly I untangled the bird. The netting was wet, even though I had set the trap on land, two paces from

the edge of the water. I looked at my hands; by starlight, the wetness on my skin seemed black. Lifting

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my fingers to my nose, I smelled blood.

The duck's body was cold.

When the bird was completely unwrapped, I let the net fall from my hands and walked back with my

catch to the stranger's campfire. The flames were almost out; I yanked some dry cattails off the nearest

bulrushes and threw them onto the embers. They flared into a fizzing yellow blaze that gave more than

enough light to examine the duck.

It was a mallard, its coloration male. Under its tail, however, was nothing but a mess of bloody guts

dangling where a knife had cut off a chunk of flesh.

Coloration or not, the duck wasn't male. Not anymore.

I grabbed the bird by its neck, swung it twice around my head, then threw it with all my strength. Its

wings fell open limply as it traveled, and dragged against the air; it barely cleared the reeds before it

splashed into open water. For a moment I stood there panting. Then I kicked at the cattails I'd thrown on

the fire. They scattered in a flurry of sparks, some hissing as they hit water. Methodically I walked

around the flats, stamping on burning cattail fluff and grinding it into the mud.

The stranger had castrated my duck. The duck sent to me by the gods. The duck telling me what sex the

gods wanted me to choose.

The duck had been cut neuter. Made a Neut.

I'd seen a Neut once. It was my earliest memory: a pale face, fat and blubbery, close to mine; and hands

lifting me up, heaving me off the ground. I screamed, terrified—I knew this monster wanted to kill me.

Then I was torn away from the thing and there were other people there, throwing stones at the Neut,

thrusting at It with the butts of their spears. The Neut howled as a sharp rock opened a cut across Its

forehead. It looked back at me once, hungrily, then fled.

That was how we Tobers treated Neuts: immediate exile, and death if the monsters ever returned. Neuts

were renegades, malcontents, heretics. Untold generations of our people had chosen a permanent sex in

their Commitment Hour, accepting that they had to abandon either their male or female halves... but

Neuts refused to let go of either side. Neuts claimed you didn't have to reject half your life, that people

could follow both male and female ways. So Tober Cove hated Neuts with the fierce burning hate you

always aim at someone who says your pain is stupid and self-imposed.

To suggest that I should turn Neut—that the godswanted me to turn Neut—the thought was poison. An

evil so disgusting, my brain could hardly grasp it.

"Fullin?" It was Cappie calling, very close—on the other side of the bulrushes, not far from the place

where I'd called to the stranger. Perhaps she'd seen the fire I'd made with the cattails. "What are you

doing on the flats?" she asked, her voice whetted sharp with anger.

"There's someone else nearby," I said as quietly as I could. "Someone dangerous. Don't make any

noise."

"How could there be anyone else here?" she asked, softer but not soft.

"I don't know what's going on; I just know there's trouble, all right? Go someplace safe and stay there."

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"Don't talk to me like that!"

"Cappie, please..."

But the rushes parted and she stepped out to join me. I sighed. So much for vigil.

Surprisingly, she wore pants, bleached cotton pants. Perhaps I shouldn't have been taken aback—pants

are more practical than skirts when spending the night in a mosquito-filled marsh—but I had never seen

her in pants, not in the years she was female. She must have sneaked the clothes from her father's closet:

they were much too big for her slender frame. Held sloppily at waist level by suspenders and stuffed

firmly into socks at her ankles, the pants billowed in the middle like the sail of a perch boat. Her shirt

billowed too, a man's shirt so large and loose there was only a hint of her compact breasts under the

cloth. And her hair... no billowing there. Her long black beautiful hair was gone. Just a few hours earlier,

it had draped fluidly over her bare shoulder as her daughter Pona sucked sloppily at supper. But now

Cappie's lovely thick hair was chopped off raggedly, as short as mine.

Cappie the woman was dressed and barbered as a man. I wondered if this could be some new ploy to

arouse my interest. If so, it hadn't worked; I found it unsettling and unnatural. Commitment Day tradition

allowed candidates to wear whatever they liked, but the town would still be scandalized.

"What have you done to yourself?" I blurted.

"Think about it," was her only answer. "What are you doing here?"

Under normal circumstances, I would have lied or brushed her off—it was a reflex I'd acquired over the

preceding months. Since winter, I hadn't had the stomach to share anything with her, certainly not events

that confused or disturbed me. Now, however, she looked so unlike herself that the reflex didn't spark. I

told her everything, all the while glancing furtively at her hair, her clothes. She snorted in outraged

disbelief when I swore there was a second violinist; but she had figured out the music came from the

duck flats and she could see I didn't have my instrument with me.

When I finished my story, she headed immediately for her own duck trap. The brisk way she stomped

off intimidated me; I didn't go after her. In a moment I heard her curse with a phrase no woman should

ever use, and something heavy splashed into the water.

She walked back slowly. In the darkness I couldn't identify the expression on her face.

"A duck for you too?" I asked.

"Part of one. Are you going to use that spear for anything?"

"If you think I should track down the stranger, you're wrong," I said. "I don't want to break vigil any

more than I have already."

"Then giveme the spear." She held out her hand.

"Don't be ridiculous. You're a woman."

"I'm better with a spear than you are."

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I had to laugh. In her male years, yes, Cappie was an absolute master with the spear, both in target

throwing and hand-to-hand fighting. If she Committed as a man, she would surely be offered initiation

into the Warriors Society. But this year she was a woman and unfit to wield a weapon. Her clothes must

have gone to her head.

"Go hide someplace safe," I told her. "Down by the dead tree where we once saw the owl, remember?

I'll stay close to that tree too; if the stranger comes back, you can call for help and I'll be right there."

She stepped in close to me, and I thought she was coming for a hug of reassurance. I started spreading

my arms. Then her fist ploughed hard into my stomach and she kicked my feet out from under me. I

crumpled to the ground and lay there dizzily, the smell of mud under my nostrils.

The spear was no longer in my hand. Somewhere far above me, Cappie said, "Go hide someplace safe."

I lay on the flats several minutes, my head spinning. Eventually I managed to flop over on my back and

stare up at the stars as they reeled like drunken fireflies. My stomach fluttered on the edge of vomiting,

but I had no strength to fight it down. I simply waited to see what happened... and my stomach settled,

the stars slowed to a stop, and the murkiness in my brain cleared.

Cappie had breast-fed Pona at supper. She had been a woman then; I saw all the evidence anyone

could need. The mood during our own meal was strained, but we were used to that. Then we had gone

our separate ways to prepare for the vigil, she to her parents and I to my foster father.

Sometime after we parted, she must have been possessed by a devil. Or a legion of devils. When devils

possessed a woman, they often made her think she was a man. Hakoore, the Patriarch's Man, claimed

that Commitment Eve was too holy for devils to leave their burrows, but the Mocking Priestess said it

was the devils' favorite night of the year: the air was alive with power that they sucked up with toothless

mouths in their skin.

For once, it looked like the Mocking Priestess was right.

I rose painfully to my feet and looked around. Cappie was gone, my spear was gone, and I was alone in

the dark.

Toward the south, somewhere near the spot where Cypress Creek smoothed over Stickleback Falls, a

violin began playing again: "Don't Make Me Choose." The stranger obviously wanted to catch our

attention. I took a deep breath, then started toward the sound.

I knew the marsh trails well. I had walked them many times as a child, violin under my chin, pretending

to be a wandering troubadour. These trails taught me the power of music—my playing scared utter hell

out of wildlife. Many of the marsh landmarks I'd named in honor of animals I'd frightened there. A patch

of stinging nettles I'd christened Turtle Terror; a stretch of puckered mud was Heron Horror; and an

OldTech horseless cart half-swallowed in bog I called the Frenzy of Frogs.

The OldTech machine was now no more than a stepping-stone across sucking muck. Four hundred

years earlier, before the collapse of OldTech culture, there must have been a road running through this

marsh; but it was gone now, swallowed by mud and time, just as everything else of twentieth-century

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Earth had been swallowed. When I was young, I sometimes like to scare myself with the image of a

skeletal driver trapped inside the swampbound cart, fingers clutched on the steering wheel, bony feet still

pressing the pedals. More likely, he simply abandoned the vehicle—stepped out and called to the sky, "I

want to leave!" Then he was carried off to the stars by the so-called League of Peoples, just like all the

other traitors who turned their backs on Earth in the Great Desertion.

Good riddance.

As I clambered onto the cart's grille, the music ahead of me stopped in mid-phrase. I paused and

listened. Silence... then a shout followed by the splash of something hitting open water. I raced forward,

swiping my way through head-high reeds till I came to a clear area on the bank of Cypress Creek itself.

Cappie stood waist-deep in the water, her spear held over her head and ready to plunge downward, as

if she were going to jab a fish. I couldn't see what she was aiming for, just black water lapping around

her. She waited, holding her breath, watching the stream in front of her.

On shore near my feet was a violin bow, and a few paces off, the violin itself, lying facedown in the mud.

I hurried to pick it up. It looked like a fine instrument, lighter than mine, with the scroll more ornately

carved. The strings weren't gut, but metal wire. Wire strings must last a lot longer than the gut ones I

made myself; I wondered where I could get a set.

As I wiped muck off the violin's bridge, water surged loudly behind me. I turned in time to see a stranger

erupt from the creek a stone's throw away from Cappie.

The stranger was a Neut. No doubt of that. Its homespun shirt hung wetly over full breasts that sagged

slightly with age; but Its face was thickly bearded and lean as a man's. In Its hand It held a huge knife, a

machete dripping water and glinting in the starlight.

"You'd better hope my violin isn't damaged," the Neut said to Cappie.

"It's all right," I called out.

Stupid. Neither of them had noticed me yet. Cappie half-turned at the sound of my voice, and in that

moment, the Neut lunged. If that lunge hadn't been slowed by the water... but it was, and Cappie dodged

in time, knocking the Neut's machete aside with the butt of her spear. She tried to follow through with a

cross swing that brought the spear point around to attacking position, but she was off balance and slow. I

shouted, "Quick!" but the Neut was gone, vanished beneath the water again. Cappie stabbed out once

but hit nothing.

"Watch that It doesn't grab you underwater!" I yelled.

"Shut up," she yelled back. But she retreated toward the riverbank, all the while holding the spear ready

to drive downward. When her thighs touched the bank behind her, she stopped and waited, in fishing

position again.

I set the violin on a clean bed of reeds and approached Cappie, saying, "Get out and give me the spear."

"No."

"You can't fight, you're possessed. Women are very susceptible..."

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The Neut geysered up a short distance to our right. Cappie turned to meet the attack, spear held high.

The spear was within reach, perhaps my only chance to get it away from her. I seized it with both hands,

just as she was stabbing out.

I think I saved her life. If she had followed through, she would have run straight into the blade that the

Neut thrust at her, stomach height. But my hold on the spear brought her up short, twisting her body out

of the path of the knife. She grunted with pain, but it was only the pain of wrenched muscles, not metal

piercing flesh.

There was no time to congratulate myself. Cappie's weight and the force of her jab jerked me forward

to the edge of the creek bank. My feet slid on mud like sleigh skids on snow; for a heartbeat I stayed up,

dancing for balance, then I furrowed into the water with a deep plunging sound, directly into the gap

between Cappie and the Neut.

Water stung in my nostrils as my head went under. A body bumped against me; I'd lost my grip on the

spear, so I punched out blindly, hoping it wasn't Cappie. My fist was slowed by water and connected

without force, but it still spooked my opponent. The body surged away from me with noisy splashing.

Good—someone was afraid of me. If it was the Neut, I was pleased; but if it was Cappie, the Neut was

still out there somewhere, ready to impale me on Its knife. Without coming up for air, I kicked out into

the night-black water, just trying to put distance between me and the Neut's blade. A few strokes, and

my outstretched hand collided with the opposite bank of the creek. Cautiously, I lifted my head.

The Neut, Cappie and I stood dripping in a widely spaced triangle: me against one bank, Cappie against

the other, the Neut in the middle, several paces downstream. Cappie no longer held the spear; I assumed

she'd lost it when I fell into the creek.

Keeping Its eyes on both of us, the Neut asked, "Is either of you named Fullin?"

The question startled me. I said, "No," immediately, the same reflex that automatically lied to Cappie

whenever she asked what I truly thought.

Cappie said nothing.

"This makes things easier," the Neut said with a dark smile. "Two against one isn't so bad when I have

the knife."

The Neut waded down the center of the creek, until It stood on a direct line between Cappie and me.

That particular stretch of the Cypress isn't wide—from the middle it was only a few steps to either bank,

where Cappie and I waited to see which of us the monster would attack. Behind my back, my hands

scrabbled for any sort of weapon: a stone I could throw, a stick I could jab at the Neut's eyes. I found

nothing but a dirty piece of driftwood, shorter than my forearm and light as a bone with the marrow

sucked out. It would break into tinder with the first strike of the Neut's knife... but I swung it up smartly

and hoped that in the dark, the Neut couldn't see how flimsy my defense was.

I must have looked intimidating—the Neut lunged for Cappie instead of me.

She still had the spear. Just below the surface of the water, she must have held it pressed between thigh

and bank so that her hands would seem empty. I marveled at the ingenuity of the devil that possessed

her. Now she snapped up the spear in the face of the Neut's charge and thrust forward. The Neut

managed to parry the attack with Its knife, but not entirely. Cloth ripped. In the dark, I couldn't tell if the

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James Alan Gardner - League of Peoples 02 - Commitment Hour

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