Kandid stared about him, clenching his jaws, all this wasn't delirium, as he had at first hoped. It was something everyday, very natural, just unfamiliar to him, but there was plenty unfamiliar in the forest. He had to get used to this, as he had got used to the noise in his head, and edible earth and deadlings and all the rest of it. The masters, he thought, these are the masters. They're not afraid of anything. They control deadlings. Therefore, they're the masters. Therefore, it's they who send deadlings after women. Therefore, it's they... He looked at the damp hair of the women. Therefore... And Nava's mother, who was abducted by deadlings...
"Where do you bathe?" he asked. "Why? Who are you? What do you want?"
"What?" asked the pregnant woman. "Listen, my dear, he's asking something."
Her mother spoke to Nava: "Wait a moment, I can't hear anything because of you... What do you say?" she asked the pregnant woman.
"This little lamb," said she. "There's something he requires."
Nava's mother looked at Kandid. "What can he want?" she asked. "Wants to eat, I expect. They're always hungry and they eat an awful lot, it's quite baffling why they want so much food, they don't do anything after all..."
"Little lamb," said the pregnant woman. "Poor little lamb wants grass. Be-e-e! Do you know," she said, turning to Nava's mother, "it's a man from White Rocks. They're turning up a lot more often. How do they get down there?"
"It's harder to understand how they get up there. I've seen how they come down. They fall. Some get killed, some stay alive..."
"Mam," said Nava, "why are you looking at him like that? It's Dummy! Say something nice to him or he'll get annoyed. Strange that he isn't annoyed already, in his place I'd have got annoyed long ago..."
The hill once again began to roar, black clouds of insects covered the sky. Kandid could hear nothing, all he could see was Nava's mother's lips moving; she appeared to be impressing something on Nava. The lips of the pregnant woman, who was addressing him, were also moving and her facial expression indicated that she was in fact talking to him as if to a domestic goat, strayed into the garden. Then the roaring ceased.
"...only a mite grubby," the pregnant woman was saying. "Aren't you sorry, now?" She turned from him and began to watch the hill.
Deadlings were creeping out of the lilac cloud on hands and knees. Their movements were uncertain and clumsy, and they kept falling forward, head-first into the ground. The girl was walking among them; she bent down, touching and nudging them till, one after another, they hoisted themselves to their feet, straightened up and, after initial stumbles, strode on more and more confidently and set off into the forest. The masters, Kandid assured himself. The masters. I don't believe it. And what to do? He looked at Nava. Nava was asleep. Her mother was sitting on the grass, and she herself was curled up in a ball next to her and slept, holding her hand.
"They're all weak, somehow," said the pregnant woman. "Time to clean it all out again. Look at them stumbling about... the Accession will never get finished with workers like that."
Nava's mother made some reply, and they commenced a conversation which Kandid couldn't make head or tail of. He could make out only isolated words, like Ears did when the fit was on him. He consequently just stood and watched the girl coming down the hill, dragging a clumsy armchewer by the paw. Why am I standing here, he thought, there was something I needed from them, they being the masters... He couldn't remember. "I'm just standing, that's all," he said aloud bitterly. "They've stopped chasing me away so I'm just standing. Like a deadling."
The pregnant woman glanced fleetingly at him and turned away.
The girl came up and said something, indicating the armchewer; both women began examining the monster intently, the pregnant one had even risen from her chair. The huge armchewer, the terror of the village children, squeaked plaintively, and made feeble efforts to break loose, helplessly opening and closing its fearful horned jaws. Nava's mother took hold of its lower jaw and with a powerful, assured movement, detached it. The armchewer gave a sob and froze into stillness, closing its eyes with an oily film. The pregnant woman was speaking: "... obviously, insufficient ... remember my girl, ... weak jaws, eyes not fully open ... surely won't stand the pace, therefore useless, perhaps even harmful, like every mistake ... it'll have to be cleaned up, moved elsewhere, and clean everything up here..."
"The hill, ... dry and dusty..." the girl was saying, "... the forest has slowed right down ... that I don't know yet ... but you said something totally different..."
"... you try it yourself," Nava's mother was saying, "you'll see, go on, try!"
