Nation

She saw him return and go back up the mountain, where Milo and Cahle had been watching over the body of Ataba, so that he would not become a ghost.

In the morning they followed Mau down to the beach, where the Unknown Woman and a few others joined them. The sun was rising now, and Mau was not surprised to see the gray shadow drifting beside him. At one point, Milo walked through it without noticing.

Two more deaths, Hermit Crab, said Locaha.

“Do they make you happy? ” growled Mau. “Then send this priest to the Perfect World. ”

How can you ask that, little hermit crab who does not believe?

“Because he did. And he cared, which is more than his gods did. ”

No bargains, Mau, even for another.

“At least I’m trying! ” Mau yelled. Everyone stared at him.

The shadow faded.

On the edge of the reef, above the dark current, Mau tied broken coral to the old man and watched him sink beyond the reach of sharks.

“He was a good man! ” he shouted to the sky. “He deserved better gods! ”

Down in the steams of the low forest, someone shivered.

It had not been a good night for Arthur Septimus Polegrave, who would have been known to his friends, if he’d had any friends, as “Septic. ” He knew he was dying, he just knew it. He must be. There couldn’t be a single thing in this jungle that hadn’t tried to bite, peck, or sting him during the last dark soupy hour. There were spiders — giant, horrible things, waiting at nose height in every path — there were the insects, every one armed, by the feel of it, with red-hot needles. Things had bitten his ears and climbed up his trousers. Things had trodden on him. In the middle of the night something horrible had flopped down from the trees and onto his head, which it had tried to unscrew. As soon as he could see clearly, he would take his chances and make a run for the boat and a getaway. All in all, he thought as he pulled something with far too many legs out of his ear, things were about as bad as they could get.

There was a rustling in the tree above him, and he looked up just as a well-fed grandfather bird threw up in time for breakfast, and found that he was wrong.

Later that morning Daphne marched up to Pilu with the log of the Sweet Judy in her hand and said: “I want a fair trial. ”

“That’s good, ” said Pilu. “We’re going to look at the new cave. Are you going to come? ” Most of the population were gathered around him; news of the gods had got around fast.

“You don’t know what a trial is, do you? ”

“Er, no, ” said Pilu.

“It’s where you decide if someone has done something wrong and if they should be punished. ”

“Well, you punished that trouserman, ” said Pilu cheerfully. “He killed Ataba. He was a pirate! ”

“Er, yes… but the question is, should I have done it? I had no authority to kill him. ”

Milo loomed behind his brother, bent down, and whispered to him.

“Ah, yes, ” said Pilu, “my brother reminds me of the time we were in Port Mercia and a Navy man had been found thieving, and they tied him to the mast and beat him with some leather thing. Is this what we’re talking about? I think we’ve got some leather. ”

Daphne shuddered. “Er… no, thank you. But, er, don’t you ever have crime on the islands? ”

It took some time to get the idea settled in Pilu’s head, and then he said, “Ah, I’ve got it. You want us to tell you that you didn’t do a bad thing, yes? ”

“The ghost girl is saying that there must be rules and there must be reasons, ” said Mau, right behind Daphne. She hadn’t even known he was there.

“Yes, but you’re not to say I did a good thing just because you like me, ” she added.

“Well, we didn’t like him, ” said Pilu. “He killed Ataba! ”

“I think I see what she means, ” said Mau. “Let’s try it. It sounds… interesting. ”

And so the Nation had its first court. There was no question of judge and jury; everyone sat around in a circle, children too. And there was Mau, sitting in the circle. No one was more important than anyone else… and there was Mau, sitting in the circle just like everybody else.

Everyone should make up their own mind… and there was Mau, sitting in the circle. Not big, not even tattooed, not shouting orders — but somehow being slightly more there than anyone else. And he had the cap. He was the captain.

Daphne had heard some of the newcomers talking about him. They used a kind of code, about “the poor boy, ” and how hard it must be, and somewhere in it all there was, unspoken yet still present, the suggestion that he wasn’t old enough to be a chief — and around that point, either Milo or Cahle turned up like an eclipse of the sun and the conversation turned to fishing or babies. And every day Mau was a little older, and still chief.

Pilu was in charge of the court. It was the sort of thing he was born for. But he did need some help….

“We must have a prosecutor, ” Daphne explained. “That’s someone who thinks what I did was wrong, and a defender, who says what I did was right. ”

“Then I’ll be the defender, ” said Pilu cheerfully.

“And the prosecutor? ” said Daphne.

“That would be you. ”

“Me? I have to be someone else! ”

“But everyone knows that man killed Ataba. We saw him! ” said Pilu.

“Look, hasn’t there ever been a killing in these islands? ”

“Sometimes too much beer, a fight over women, such things as these. Very sad. There is a story, a very old story, about two brothers who fought. One killed the other, but in the battle it could have been otherwise, and the other one dead. The killer fled, knowing the punishment and taking it upon himself. ”

“Was the punishment awful? ”

“He would be sent far away from the islands, far from his people, from his family, never to walk in the steps of his ancestors, never to sing a death chant for his father, never to hear the songs of his childhood, never again to smell the sweet water of home. He built a canoe and sailed in new seas far away, where men are baked into different colors and for half of every year trees die. He lived for many lifetimes and saw many things, but one day he found a place that was best of all, because it was the island of his childhood, and he stepped onto the shore and died, happily, because he was home again. Then Imo made the brothers into stars, and put them in the sky so that we shall remember the brother who sailed so far away that he came back again. ”

Oh my word, thought Daphne as the picture of the dying brother faded in her mind, that is so sad. And it’s a story about something else, about sailing so far that you come back again…. Oh, I must go back into that cave!