by Andre Norton
If Liliha had any vanity she had not displayed it. And perhaps now she was quick enough to see that the uglier and stranger she made herself seem, the more acceptable she would be. Ugly, strange—the two things Liliha could never truly be!
* * *
Ayana moved in the medic cabin. Her body was stiff; she had held herself so tense, her muscles had cramped. At least she had a plan, but its success depended upon a great many factors. And most of those could only be resolved by time. She had no idea how long she had crouched here, considering what Tan might do, and then what she could do to oppose him.
Yes, time and patience. She must hold on to patience as if it were a safety line. Yet patience had never been a strong part of her.
She rubbed her hands down her cheeks; her face was cold, she shivered slightly. Nervous chill. Suddenly she wished for a mirror, to look into it and see the new Ayana, how much she had been changed by this time of facing black truths and learning that she might live and die by uncertain choices. Just as Tan would never again look to her as when he wore that mask he must always have assumed before her.
As she arose she swayed, clutched for a hand-hold. Not only was she stiff, but movement brought vertigo, as if the whole world were unstable. But Ayana reached a cabinet in the wall, brought out a tube of tablets. One of those she held to dissolve under her tongue. She did not mind its bitter taste.
Now she worked swiftly, stripping the shelves of certain things, until a small pile of vials and tubes lay on the bunk. Possession of those gave her weapons and defenses. But she must find somewhere to conceal them.
14
“Thus it is.” Furtig faced the Elders, and not only them but all those in the caves, who had crowded in crouching rows behind. He could read no emotion in their eyes, which, when the light of Gammage's lamps touched them, were like disks of glowing fires, orange, red, and green. At least the messengers had been given cave hospitality—not warned off.
Before him lay the weapons they had brought. And he had demonstrated each. There were two lightning throwers, another producing a thin stream which made ice congeal about the target, even though this was not the cold season.
The fourth, which Liliha had carried and which she alone knew how to operate, was the strangest of all. For a warrior might escape by luck or chance the other two. However, from this tube spun small threads at Liliha's twirling. Those floated as might a windborne spider's web. That web, once launched, was drawn instantly to the warrior at whom Liliha had aimed it, in this case Foskatt.
Once it had touched his shoulder, as if that touch was a signal, it straightaway wrapped itself about his body so he could not move. Nor could he break that hold, though the cords of the web were very fine and thin. Liliha had to cut it in two places, and then the whole thing withered and fell in small black particles to the ground.
The Elders, in spite of this display, kept impassive faces. But from the others came growls and small hisses of wonder and alarm that such things existed. Liliha was frank: these tanglers were few, some did not work at all. But the lairs held endless caches of other wonders.
“But you say”—it was Ha-Hang, one of the Elders of the western tribe, who spoke—“there are others in the lairs. You have spoken of Rattons in force, and Demons, at least as a scouting party. If the Demons have indeed returned, it is best to let them have the lairs. Those of our kind saved their lives before by taking to the wilds when the Demons hunted.”
For the first time Foskatt spoke. “Only just, Elder. Remember the tales? It was only because the Demons sickened and died, fought among themselves, that our mother kin and a few mates escaped. It took many seasons thereafter of hiding and bearing litters, in which too many younglings died, before the clans could do more than run and hide.
“These Demons are neither sick nor fighting among themselves. If they come in strength, how long will it be before they hunt us again?”
Furtig did not wait for any to answer that question; he carried on the attack. “Also, Elders, in those days we had no Gammage, no seekers of Demon secrets, to aid us. Those who were our ancestors had no weapons and little knowledge. Compared to us they were as fangless, as clawless, as a newborn youngling. Perhaps these Demons are scouts, but among us how is the move to a new hunting ground made? We send scouts and if they return with ill news, or do not return, then what is the decision? We go not in that direction but seek another.
“These Demons' ancestors must have been those who fled the sickness and the fighting of their kind, even as we fled the lairs. Therefore their legends of the place are sinister; they will be ready to believe that evil awaits them here. And if their scouts do not return—”
It was the best argument he could offer, one which fit in with their own beliefs and customs.
“Demons and Rattons,” Fal-Kan said. “And Gammage wishes all, strangers and caves alike, to gather to make war. Perhaps he also speaks of a truce with Barkers?” His voice was a growl, and he was echoed by those about him.
Liliha spoke, and, because she was a Chooser, even Fal-Kan dared not hiss her down. She held out her hand with its strangely long fingers, pointed to where the Elder Chooser of Fal-Kan's cave sat on a cushion of grass and feathers, holding the newest youngling to her furry breast.
“Do you wish the little one to become Demon meat?”
Now the growl arose sharply, ears flattened, and tails lashed. Some of the youngest warriors rose, their claws ready for battle.
“The Tuskers believed they were safe. Would any of you dare to take a Tusker youngling from his mother's side?”
That picture startled them into silence. All knew there was no fiercer fighter in the whole wilds than the Tusker female when her young was threatened.
“Yet,” Liliha continued, “a Demon flying through the air did so. Can you now say that you will be safe in the wilds when this Demon can fly at will, attack from above, perhaps kill with such weapons as these?” She gestured to the display. “In the lairs we have hidden ways to travel, so small the Demons cannot enter. Our only chance is to turn on them, while they are still so few, the very deaths they used in the old days to destroy our kind.
“You war with the Barkers, but not the Tuskers—why is that so?”
It was not an Elder who answered when she paused but Furtig, hoping to impress at least the younger warriors of that company—those not so set in the ways of doing as always.
“Why do we fight the Barkers? Because we are both eaters of meat and there is a limit to hunting lands. The Tuskers we do not fight because they eat what is of no use to us. But there is food in the lairs, much of it, and no need for hunting. And if you saw before you a Barker and a Demon and had a single chance to kill—which would you choose? That is what Gammage now says—that between Barkers and Demons he chooses the Demons as the greater enemy. As for the Rattons, yes, they are a spreading evil within the lairs, and one must be on constant guard against them.
“But also they promise an even worse fate if they are not put down. For Gammage has proof they seek out the secrets of the Demons also. Do you want Rattons perhaps riding sky things and capturing warriors, and Choosers, and younglings with such as these?”
With his foot he edged forward the tangler so that they could understand his meaning. This time the growl of protest was louder. War with the Barkers was open and fierce, yet there was a grudging respect for the enemy on both sides. The Rattons were different; the very thought of them brought a disgusting taste to the mouth. There were far off, strange legends of individual Barkers and People living together when they were both Demon slaves in the lairs. But Rattons had always been prey.
Ha-Hang spoke first. “You say Barkers are less dangerous than Demons. We have lost warriors to Barkers, none to Demons. And what is a Tusker youngling to us?”
He had a gap on one side of his jaw where he had lost a fighting fang, and both ears were notched with old bite scars. It was plain he was a fighting Elder rather than a planning one.
“T
ruth spoken!” applauded Fal-Kan.
They were losing, Furtig knew. And perhaps the Elders were right to be cautious. He himself, until he had heard the Tuskers' story of the flyer, had been of two minds about the matter. But those moments when he had lain on the bridge with the Demon hovering over him had given him such a deepset fear of the flyers that he wished he could make it plain to these here what an attack from the air might mean.
Yes, they could hide in the caves. But what if the Demon took up patrol so they could not come forth again? What if the flyer swept low along the very edge of the cliffs, attacking the cave mouths? Furtig had a hearty respect now for Gammage's warnings against Demon knowledge. One could expect them to do anything!
“This affair concerns not only the caves and their defense,” the Chooser of Fal-Kan's cave, she who was of the Ancestor's blood, said throatily. “It also concerns our young. And this matter of the Tuskers' young whose mothers could not defend—”
“We live in the caves, the Tuskers in the open,” growled Fal-Kan. And his warriors added a rumble of approval.
“Younglings cannot live in caves all their lives,” the Chooser continued. “I would listen to this Chooser from the lairs; let her tell us of the younglings there and how they are cared for. What knowledge have they gained beside that of knowing better how to fight, which is always the first thought in the mind of any warrior?” Fal-Kan dared not protest now, nor interrupt.
So Liliha spoke, not of battles or the need for fighting, but of life within the lairs as the Choosers would see it. She spoke much about the ways of healing which had been discovered, how Choosers about to bear young went to places of healing, and how thereafter the young were perfect in form and quick and bright of mind. She spoke of the new foods which ensured even in the times of poor hunting that there would be no hunger, and told of the many things a Chooser might do to make her own life of greater ease and interest.
Some of what she said Furtig had seen with his own eyes, but much of it was as a Chooser would explain it to a Chooser, and this talk in a mixed assembly was new. At first the Elders stirred, perhaps affronted by the breaking of custom, yet not able to deny it when the Choosers themselves, who were even sterner guardians of custom, accepted it. Then Furtig could see even the males were listening with full interest.
She talked well, did Liliha. Foremost in the line of Those-Who-Would-Come-to-Choose sat Eu-La, her eyes fast on the almost hairless face of the female from the lairs. Furtig looked from his clanswoman to Liliha and back again. Then he caught a glimpse of Foskatt.
Perhaps the other had heard Liliha's information many times over, for there was an abstraction about him. He was leaning forward a little, staring at—Eu-La! And there was a bemusement on his face which Furtig knew for what it was. Just so had he seen the Unchosen look at Fas-Tan when she passed with a slow swing of her tail, her eyes beyond them as if, as males yet Unchosen, they had no place in her life.
Eu-La—but she was hardly more than a youngling! A season at least before she would stand with the Choosers. Startled, Furtig studied her. She was no longer a youngling. He had seen that when she had met them outside the caves, but it had not really impressed him.
Eu-La a Chooser? There was a small rumble of growl deep in his throat as he thought of her perhaps in the open with a Demon flyer above. Furtig's fingers stretched and crooked involuntarily, as if he wore his fighting claws.
But he had no time to consider such things now, for Liliha had finished and the Elder of the Choosers spoke:
“There is much to be thought on, kin sisters. Not yet, Elders, warriors, Unchosen, are the cave people ready to say that this or that will be done.”
Never in his life had Furtig heard a Chooser speak so before. But perhaps the Elders had, for not one of them protested her decision. And the gathering broke up, the Choosers threading into the caves, Liliha following the Chooser who had spoken.
Furtig and Foskatt gathered the sample weapons into their carrying bag again. The warriors padded out into the dark, making no sound as they moved. And the guardian of the lamp had come to stand beside it as if impatient for Furtig and Foskatt to follow.
“What do you think?” Furtig asked in a whisper. “Has Liliha made the right impression?”
“Ask me not the way of a female mind,” returned Foskatt. He was tightening the cords about the bundle. “But it is true that when it comes to the general safety and good of younglings it is the Choosers who decide. And if they believe that the lairs promise more than the caves, then these people will go to Gammage.”
* * *
Had Tan thought about the advantage this cabin gave her? Ayana sat up on the bunk in the medic-lab. She had no idea how long she had been asleep, but she awoke with a mind free of that fear and despair which had held her. Was it the fact that she had been selected, even conditioned, to be the other half of Tan that had made her so helpless?
But, if they had selected, conditioned, her so, that preparation had not endured. She would think for herself, be herself—and not Tan's mate, Tan's other part, from now on.
Looking back at the years on Elhorn, even the days of the voyage, Ayana could not understand the person she had been. It was as if she had slept and was now awake. And Tan—certainly Tan had changed too! It could not be only the alteration in herself which had caused the break between them.
She had known him to be impatient of restraint, curious to the point of recklessness. But now all his faults were intensified; never before had he been ruthless or cruel. It was as if this world, the long-sought home of their kind, had acted on him—on her—
And if that was so—what of Jacel, Massa? Were they, too, other people? If they were now four others, their old, carefully cultivated close relationship broken, how could they work as a unit, do their duty here?
Ayana looked at the small kit she had put together before she had slept, and she shivered. What had been in her mind to seek out those particular drugs and want to hide them—or use them? She had been more emotionally disturbed than she could believe possible, in spite of all her training.
If she, a medic, one supposedly dedicated to the service of life, could, in some wild moment of terror, contemplate such an array of armament, what would the others do? She might do well now to destroy all which lay there, so that if such wild thoughts came to mind again there would be nothing—
Save that which lay there could help as well as harm. The drugs were specially selected for this voyage and they could not be replaced. No, not destruction; however—concealment.
No one knew this cabin, its fittings, better than she did herself. Ayana began a careful search for a hiding place, finding it at last, and strapping the packet on the underside of the bunk.
That done, Ayana faced her ordeal. She must leave the safety of this cabin, go out into the ship. Somehow she must be able to pass off what had happened as a temporary emotional storm, and present to all eyes, including Tan's, the appearance of firm self-control.
As she forced herself to her own cabin, she met no one. There was no sound in the ship. Twice she paused to listen. Without the vibration, the life which had coursed through its walls while they were spaced, this whole complex of cabins had a curious hollow and empty feeling.
It—it was as if she were encased in a dead thing! Ayana caught her lip between her teeth, hit upon it hard that that small pain might be a warning. Emotions rising, fear—What was wrong with her?
She would have no armor against Tan's charges, against the others, until she could face this objectively. Was it herself—or this world? Was there something about this planet that upset her, forced her out of her pattern of living? It was better to believe that than to think that there was a flaw so deep in her that she was breaking because of it.
No one in the cabin. But Tan's protect suit was gone. He must have taken off again. And where—when—?
Ayana climbed to the control cabin. No one there—had they all gone and left her? Alone in a dead ship, on a world
which their ancestors had fled after some disaster so great that it must be erased from all records?
She almost fell down the steps in her hurry to seek the cabin of Jacel and Massa. But now she smelled food—the mess cabin!
Massa sat there alone. Between her hands was a mug of hot nutrient. Of the two men there was no sign.
“Massa—”
She looked up and Ayana was startled out of asking the question she had ready. Massa was older than Ayana by a planet year or two. She had never been a talkative person, but there had been about her such an air of competence and serene certainty that her presence was soothing. Perhaps that was one of the factors the home authorities had considered when they made the final selection of the crew. She had always been detached, held people at arm's length. What she was in private to Jacel must have satisfied him. However, Ayana had held the other girl in awe, had not seen in her any ally against Tan.
But this was not Massa's usual serene and untroubled face. She looked as if she had not slept for a long time, and her eyes were red and swollen as if she had been crying. The way she stared back at Ayana—hostile! That very hostility brought an end to the wall between them. Had Massa, also, discovered Jacel to be another person?
“Where is Tan—Jacel?” Ayana slipped by to the heating unit, poured herself a mug of nutrient, and seated herself to face Massa, determined now not to be driven off by a forbidding look. In fact, the signs of the disturbance in the other girl acted on her in an oddly calming way.
“You may well ask! Tan—he is like a wild man! What did you do to him?”
“What has Tan done?”
“He has persuaded Jacel to go in—on foot, not in the flyer. On foot! Into what may be a trap. He—he is unmotivated.” She spat forth the worst she could find to say about a supposedly trained colleague.
“On foot!” Ayana nearly choked on the mouthful she had taken. Two men in that huge expanse of ruined buildings! They could easily be lost, trapped—