They had kept, half unaware, to the sleeping arrangement they had assumed on first being brought there: Dane slept at Rianna's side on a wide bed; Dallith beyond them; Aratak curled in comfort on the stone; the Mekhar coiled like a cat on the softest of the beds. Dane had thought last night of asking the women if they would prefer to share the wide bed and give him the other, but he had been held back by the calmness with which they had accepted the arrangement. It occurred to him now that perhaps to the Hunters, the gender differences between human male and human female were not of any significance.
When they lay down to sleep, Rianna laid her head in the curve of his arm. She said softly, "Dane, Dallith is so unhappy. Can she be jealous?"
Dane had been trying hard to avoid just this conclusion. What right had he to think Dallith cared? "I don't know, Rianna. She may simply be—embarrassed because I was. I told you a little about the—well, the sexual customs of my world. She picked up my embarrassment when you and Roxon—on the Mekhar ship—"
"But then she knew that Roxon and I were pretending," Rianna said shrewdly. "Dane, are you sorry about this?"
"How could I be?" He put his arms around her and held her close. She had been generous in his need—had shared it—and however he felt about her, it created a bond. He had no right to resent it. She drew closer to him, and after a few moments she fell deeply asleep.
But Dane lay wakeful, aware beyond sight or hearing of Dallith's unhappy stillness and withdrawal. It reminded him, all too graphically, of how she had looked, and acted, when she was letting herself die on the Mekhar slave ship.
Does she feel I've withdrawn from her? Does she feel too alone?
Stop flattering yourself, Marsh. There's no girl alive who's going to go off and die because you make love to someone else. Not even Dallith, special as she is.
But she has no one else. And that is why she wanted to die before. Goddamn it, I wish she'd turn over in her sleep or something....
Finally he could bear the quiet no longer. He rose and made his way quietly across the floor. Aratak, glowing blue as always when he slept, stirred, opened one eye, and nodded as if in approval, and Dane felt himself coloring with embarrassment again, but he did not hesitate.
The reddish light made barred colors through the drawn slatted blinds, falling in stripes across Dallith's scattered fair hair. Dane lowered himself to her side, bending over the girl.
"Dallith," he said gently. "Look at me. Please, darling, look at me."
For a moment she was still, and Dane's heart turned over—had she withdrawn again beyond his reach?—but then, as if sensing and answering his fear, she rolled over, her dark eyes wide and unreadable, and lay looking straight up at him.
"Don't flatter yourself," she said quietly. "It isn't that important, is it?"
He felt an unreasonable surge of anger, directed half at Rianna, half at Dallith, and all, by some incomprehensible arithmetic, at himself—his own clumsiness. He said, "Maybe not. I thought you might think so and I wanted to be sure—" His voice suddenly caught. He was the product of a society where men did not weep; but tears suddenly stung his eyes and flooded them, and he knew, in agonized outrage, that he was going to cry. He bent down close to the girl and caught her against him, burying his face in her soft tunic. For a moment she softened and held him close; then she loosened her hands and said, in a tone of gentle scorn, "Me too?"
It was like a dash of cold water. (He did not stop to think that she might be learning at last, painfully, to protect her own vulnerability.) He said clumsily, "Dallith, I—I was afraid—oh, what can I say to you? You seem to know it all. You're so damn sure of yourself now."
"Is that what you think?" She lay back, her great wounded fawn eyes dark against the pallor of her cheeks and hair.
He said, stumbling, "I love you. I want you. You know how I feel, you do, you know you do. And yet—what can I say to you? You don't have to blame Rianna, do you? It isn't her fault, and you've frightened her too."
"I'm sorry about Rianna," Dallith said gently. "She was kind to me, too. I behaved very badly. I know that. Dane, it"—for the first time she sounded a little unsure—"it doesn't matter to me—not that. I knew. I even—I guess I expected it."
He put his arms around her and said miserably, hiding his face against her, "I—I wish it had been you—"
She tipped his face up so that their eyes met. She said very quietly, "No. It was reflex, Dane. You know that, I know that—Rianna knows it. The difference is, that I felt it too, and I fought it, because with my people— I wouldn't have wanted it like that, a mindless grab at each other in the face of death, blind, instinctive—"
Desolation broke through then, and Dallith began to cry softly.
"But if you couldn't fight it—if you couldn't—I can't bear it that you didn't come to me—"
He held her, helpless against the storm of her grief, knowing that any move he made now must be a mistake. After a long time she quieted. She even laughed and comforted him, telling him it did not matter, and sent him back to Rianna's side. "I don't want to hurt her again; I don't want you to hurt her." She kissed him, before she made him go, warmly and lovingly. But there was still something wrong and they both knew it.
CHAPTER NINE
"This place," Dane said, only half to the others, "is incredible."
"Credibility is not a concept applicable to any actual event, but only to speculative ones," Aratak rumbled at him. They were standing in the Armory, in the dull reddish light of midmorning; the Red Moon now seemed to obscure a good quarter of the sky. "If an event has actually occurred, it is by its very occurrence credible."
Dane chuckled. He wondered, not for the first time, exactly how his question had come to Aratak through the translator disks. He said, "I take it one would have trouble suggesting to you that one should practice believing six impossible things before breakfast?"
"Surely the essence of an impossible thing is that it is unsuitable for belief," Aratak began, then broke off in rumbling laughter. "What event has taxed your credibility just now, Marsh?"
Dane gestured toward the back of the robot Server, who was trundling away toward the door of the Armory, and displayed what he held in his hands. "A few minutes ago," he said, "it occurred to me that I ought to have the proper materials for taking care of the edge on this sword. I told Server that I didn't suppose he'd have the exact things I wanted, but if he could approximate them, I'd be grateful; that I needed some finely powdered limestone—only a few ounces—some soft cloth, some loosely woven cloth, a short stick, and a piece of string. I expected he'd come back with some peculiar makeshifts but he simply rolled off and came back with all of them. Every one." Dane shook his head. "You'd think he heard requests like that every day or two."
"Maybe he does," Cliff-Climber said. "There cannot be more than a few ways of caring for what amounts, in the long run, to a simple piece of steel which happens to have a cutting edge. The savage mind is seldom devious or particularly inventive."
Dane ignored the Mekhar. He was getting good at that. He sat down cross-legged and began tying one of the bits of cloth into what looked like a powder puff on the end of a stick. Cliff-Climber watched him for a moment, then went away and began practicing his shadow-dance exercise before a long strip of mirror. (When asked about it, he had told them that there was a legendary Mekhar duelist who had grown so agile that he could throttle his reflection in a mirror before the reflection could raise an arm.)
"When you have finished," Aratak said, "I would be appreciative if you would show me a little about your skills at unarmed combat. From what you have told me, you are an expert in this field."
"Far from it," Dane said. "I never even reached full Black Belt stage in karate—which is a good long way from being an expert. But I can show you a few of the basics. We won't have time for too much, but I can make a start." Even a few basics in karate, he thought, will make our scaly friend here a formidable opponent.
"Rianna has taught me som
ething," Aratak said. "I understand that in order to be prepared against would-be thieves and rapists, women on her world are routinely taught something which she calls by a name meaning something like 'The Art of Making an Attacker Defeat Himself.' It is most useful, from what she has shown me, and based upon a philosophy I find thoroughly ethical; that a violent attacker's own strength shall be turned upon himself." He went on to explain the essentials of judo in his own inimitable fashion, while Dane thought, Of course, it's a normal discovery. But it's damn lucky Rianna has that kind of training. I wish to Heaven that Dallith did.
Disquieted by the thought, he finished caring for his sword, replaced it on the wall, and went to find Dallith. He found her listlessly examining a wall display of some incomprehensible and probably nonhuman weapons. She took no notice of him, and Dane felt again the mixture of anger and unexplainable guilt.
Something was wrong. Something was deeply wrong between them still....
"Dallith," he said, "have you chosen a weapon? You must have something to protect you—"
She turned on him almost fiercely and said, "Do you think I am expecting you to protect me?"
I only wish I thought I'd be able to, Dane thought with a spasm of fear. He said soberly, "Whether you expect it or not, Dallith, I will as much as I can. But I'm not sure. For all I know, they'll come and take us away, one by one, each of us to face the Hunters alone." He did not realize until that very moment how deeply the analogy of the bullfight had penetrated his thoughts; the image of the arena, the mental concept of yelling spectators, egging the combatants on, faceless creatures whose very evolutionary stock he could not even guess....
As if the picture in his mind had reached her, Dallith went pale. "Are we to go out alone?"
"I don't know. I hope to God we can stay together," he said. I could work the four of us—no, the five of us—into a reasonably efficient fighting unit. "We'll have to hope for the best, but we've also got to be prepared for the worst."
Fools, choosing Dallith for their prey, just because in a mad panic she fought like a tiger.... But if she has to fight alone they could tear her to pieces. He looked, in a sort of anguish, at, the frail and girlish body, the pale cheeks, the thin wrists, the neck so delicate that her poised head looked like a flower on a narrow stem. How could he protect her? She looks like one of the Christians ready to be thrown to the lions, he thought, then firmly controlled his thoughts—they could only exaggerate her defenselessness.
"I know very little about most of these weapons," she said, with a limp gesture at the wall displays, the swords and shields and knives and spears. "My people do not fight with one another, except now and then in sport or trials of strength. And even there we are—careful. You see, the one who killed another—or even inflicted injury in a trial of strength—would share the experience of death, or pain, with his victim...."
The gift, or curse, of empathy would have several side effects and that would be, probably, the most important. It had produced a timid culture, at least where inflicting the slightest pain or distress was concerned, since everyone else's pain would be as important and accessible as one's own..
She took down a sling from the wall and spun it lightly around her head. "I thought," she said hesitantly, "that I might use this. My people use them, sometimes, to drive away pests from the fields and flower gardens. Or, sometimes, to shoot at marks in competition, for prizes. It does not matter, now that my world is gone—" Her eyes were full of tears.
Dane put his arms around her, and said softly, "What is it, Dallith?"
The sling was loose in her hand. She said, "It is only fair; it is my fate, I suppose—I am here because of a weapon like this—"
He looked at her in startled question.
She said in a stifled voice, "I was reckoned a good shot; twice I had won a silk scarf in the competitions. I was vain of my skill and I did not want to lose my—my name. A few days before, I was practicing with my sling in a distant part of the garden, and I was so intent on my practice that I did not know anyone had entered the garden. Then I heard a cry and felt—oh, such pain—and I saw my best friend among the women lying senseless on the ground." She was shaking and crying. "I knew—I knew the sling could kill; I had not been careful enough. No, she did not die, but she suffered shock and concussion and days of unconsciousness, and we all thought she would die. I loved her. I would rather have killed myself than her. She was my own father's daughter—and so when she was out of danger I was sentenced to a season of exile from the places where people live."
"It seems to me," Dane said, holding her gently against him, "that you'd been punished enough already."
"There is never enough punishment for such an offense," Dallith said, rebukingly. "But since she did not die, and spoke for me—she said she too had been careless, not to realize that I was not aware of her presence—I was sent away only for a season and not for a full year. But while I was alone in the place of exile—the Mekhar slave ship came and took me. And the rest you know."
Resolutely, she dried her tears. "And so it seems to me," she said, "that if a sling could nearly kill my dear friend and sister, it should serve against the Hunters. Since I have decided to live, there is no sense in letting them kill me now."
"It ought to do," Dane said thoughtfully. In the Roman arena, hadn't one of the major spectacles been the sight of a slinger from the Balearic isles, pitted against a man with a net and trident? Of course, the Romans who arranged gladiatorial combats hadn't always been at pains to be fair about it—the important thing seemed to be bloodshed—but most of them hadn't gone in for massacres, either. They were the kind of fighters who would have had more fun in seeing a fight where the contestants were reasonably matched, if only to make the fight last longer, and see more blood shed. There was also the story of David and Goliath. "But how accurately can one shoot with a sling? I'm not at all familiar with them."
Dallith picked up the sling and fitted a small round ball into it. It looked like an ordinary pebble. "Look," she said, pointing to a small pale mark on the Armory wall, a projecting bit of brickwork. It was only three or four inches square and about forty feet away. She spun the sling around her head and let it go; almost simultaneously something struck the pale mark with a sound like a rifle shot and the projecting bit of brick broke away and clattered to the floor.
"If that had been the head of a Mekhar," Dallith said, "I do not think he would have much to purr about."
Dane knew she was right. She was better protected than he had thought possible. Of course, they did not know what the Hunters were like; if they were huge boneheaded creatures like some of the saurians, her pellet might not be of much use, but that was just one of the chances they all had to take, and Dallith probably knew it as well as he did.
"Just the same," he said grimly, "I think you ought to learn something about using a knife. In case—well, in case you need something at close quarters."
A grimace of revulsion passed over her features, but she said soberly, "I suppose you're right. Rianna has chosen to use knives, and perhaps her techniques would be more suited to a woman."
"Perhaps. And she has had serious training," Dane said. In any case, teaching Dallith would sharpen up Rianna's own technique, and he would keep a damn close eye on both of them.
If they could all stay together...
He spent much of that day watching as Rianna demonstrated to Dallith the kind of training she had had in close-quarter knife play. (Dallith was slightly appalled at the thought of a rapist and Dane reflected that this would be one problem no woman would have on a world of empaths.)
He remembered what Aratak had said about Rianna's skill at unarmed combat; judo had never been his own field of interest—although, like most people who have studied karate, he knew some of it—and he wondered how good she was at it. But when he put the question she gave him her crooked grin and said, "Try, if you want to."
He picked up one of the "kendo sticks"—he had asked Server to bring hi
m one about the same weight as the samurai sword, and Server had taken him so literally that there was probably less than an ounce of difference between its weight and the sword's—and said, "Anyone coming at you will probably be armed, Rianna. You don't think you can take me with a sword, do you?"
"Probably not," she said. "Your big razor there might cut my hand off before I could get my knife out. But with the stick, certainly. Or a club. Or a short knife. Come on. Try."
He said, "I don't want to hurt you. But you asked for it." Take a little of the conceit out of her now and save her worst trouble later, he thought and was surprised at his own sense of resentment. He lifted the stick—it was made of some light wood not too unlike bamboo—and rushed at her.
He never knew exactly what happened, but he abruptly found himself shoved backward, the stick thrust into his stomach harshly enough to knock all the breath out of him; he recovered himself in an instant, jerked the stick free, raised it again—and once again found himself wrenching it from Rianna's hands. Her foot kicked his ankle and he nearly went down.
She stepped back quickly and said, "I don't want to hurt you, Dane. But as you can see, I'm not really afraid unless they do come at me with something like your razor-edge there."
He shook his head ruefully, but the experiment had taught him a great deal in a short lesson, nevertheless. He could not count on the Hunters using any known weapon or technique. It was literally a case of having to be prepared for anything. After some thought, he added to the sword a short curved knife. It wasn't much like the dagger a samurai would have had as the normal accompaniment to his sword—briefly he wondered what had happened to the samurai's knife and other gear—but it was going to be damn helpful in close-range fighting.
As he was caring for the sword that night before putting it away—tapping it all along its length gently with his powder puff of powdered limestone, wiping it gently with the cloth—he looked at the blood-etching near the curved end of the knife and wondered. Had it been made on Earth? Or here... ? And what strange creature's blood had discolored the steel?
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