“Among the Erqigdlit it is a sign of good fortune to be unhappy when someone leaves.”

“You are strange people and I do not want you to go.”

“We must. But we will return soon.”

Angajorqaq’s eyes widened and she whistled softly, a sign of great respect. “You must be able to see through the ice and through snow and into tomorrow if you say that. I did not know.”

Armun had not known herself—the words had just come as naturally as talking about something sure and certain. Her mother had been able to do that, lift the darkness of night a little and see tomorrow before anyone else could. Perhaps she could do that herself. She patted Angajorqaq’s face, stood and left her. The ikkergak was waiting, and they all shouted for her to run—and she did. Arnwheet jumping up and down happily and Harl shouting. Even Ortnar looked pleased. Only Kerrick still had the black expression that had captured his features ever since the decision to leave had been made. He tried to control it, to smile and to talk lightly, but he never succeeded for long. The look was always close by, ready to return. At night Armun could make him forget the future for awhile when he held her—but in the morning it always came back.

Until the voyage south began. The novelty of being at sea in the ikkergak kept his mind and his body occupied, for it was like nothing he had ever seen or experienced in his life before. Crossing the ocean in an uruketo had been completely different, trapped in a living, leathery compartment with smells and stinks and constant semidarkness, nothing to see, nothing to do. The ikkergak could not have been more different. Now they moved over the sea, not under it, sea-birds crying out, winging close, with the creaking of the ikkergak’s structure all about as the big sail was spread and they rode before the fresh wind. Here he was not a stupefied passenger but played an active role in the ikkergak’s passage. There was always water to be pumped out and he never tired of working the handle and watching the gush of clear water over the side. He puzzled over it, but never quite understood the mystery. It had something to do with the air, like the popping toy, but just exactly what he was never sure. It did not matter—it was enough to know that with a pull of his arm he could lift water from below his feet and send it back into the ocean.