Star Hunters

by Clayton, Jo;

  Grey looked down at his shaking hands. “No,” he said suddenly. “Not yet.” He smiled. “Let her move first.”

  Faiseh looked skeptical but went to watch the door into the lab.

  Grey frowned. Losing my center, he thought. Need to make the trek again.

  The trek. The winter trek into the Wildlands. A struggle to survive hunger, cold, fear, the endless dark solitude of the gray days and gray nights where night and day had no firm edges but merged with imperceptible slowness one into the other, where light was so diffuse most days that nothing had a shadow and all things took on the eerie unreality of nightmare. The trek. To make a great circle and lay his tokens on the cairns of Jothan and Linka and var-Himboldt. Add one more marked stone to the great stone piles at the three stages of the trek.

  He could turn back with honor at the first, but forced himself on, taut with excitement and terror. He remembered looking into the gray haze over rock and snow, the endless cheating haze that tired the eyes and the spirit. He climbed carefully to the top of the cairn and added his stone to the others, then turned slowly. Without his Wolff-gift of direction he’d have lost himself a hundred times before he reached this spot. Circling cautiously on the unsteady top stones of the cairn, he saw nothing to mark the way ahead from the way he’d already crossed. Once again, he could turn back with honor. This time he hesitated. He was beaten fine by the ordeal, with little fat left on his bones. He stood on top of the cairn looking ahead into the haze but searching inside for the answer. The will … had he the will to go on?

  When he made the third cairn he was a gaunt shadow in shadows. The mist had settled on the Wildlands, cold and chill, wrapping itself around him in clammy embrace. The sun was a pale ghost, a memory of a memory of warmth. A pack of silvercoats were close behind him, impossible to see, but he knew they were there, loping along his trail, bodies moving with clumsy grace over the snow. They were beautiful animals beautifully adapted to the winter. Two-layered coats, a dense white fluff hugging the long limber bodies and stiff silver-gray hairs lying sleekly atop the inner coat. Small round ears, a fluff of silver growing over mobile pink nostrils, double eyelids. Running on pads of fur, they moved in packs of four and five. Small animals, half a meter high at the shoulder, tireless and tenacious and disturbingly intelligent.

  He climbed the cairn and placed his stone, then watched the silvercoats come out of the mist. He touched the darter at his belt, smiling grimly when he thought of his silent promise to himself that he’d return with magazine intact, supporting himself with knife and cord. Thank god I didn’t mouth that asininity, he thought. He unsnapped the holster flap and touched the checking on the butt. The silvercoats faded into the mist. He was startled and misstepped, but caught himself before he fell. A twisted ankle here and his bones would roll about the plains in the summer winds.

  High in pride, he leaped down the side of the cairn and went on into the fog. With taut excitement he looked around at the gray mist and the grey shadows of the silvercoats. He smiled with satisfaction, having at last decided on the name he’d take out of the Wildlands. “Grey,” he murmured. His whisper fell dead into the cold, still air. And the silvercoats circled closer. His body ached with a fatigue that was harder to endure than the cold. But he smiled and moved steadily on.

  The ground was beginning to rise. The snow was deeper, treacherously soft in spots, catching the tips of his snowshoes. He moved slowly, senses alert as he’d never been alert before—as if his nerve ends stretched beyond his skin and tasted the air, the fog, the snow. He saw everything. At the same time, he was intensely aware that he had in Wolff a deadly opponent, an enemy who would kill him at the first slip he made.

  When the faint sun glow dipped toward the horizon he stopped and built a shelter, cutting the snow with his snow knife and laying the blocks hi an ascending spiral. After settling the key block hi the center hole, he cut an entrance and rolled out, coming to his feet with a spring that disconcerted two silvercoats creeping nearer. He blocked the entrance and went out to hunt fuel and food.

  He spent nine days there, eating greedily the fat of his kills for the energy he needed to fight off the debilitating effects of the cold. Nine days. Long, endless days, when after the excitement of the hunt, there was nothing to do but think. On the trail his body moved and was, and that was sufficient. His legs moved in a rhythm that blanked the mind until he saw and was not conscious that he saw, heard and was not conscious that he heard. Time flowed past him, serene and unnoticed, until the end of the day came to him with a degree of surprise. And on the hunt, he was focused on the prey, intensely aware of the moment, aware also, as an animal would not be, of the future, able to plan, both more and less than animal.

  Now his body was quiet, retracted into itself. His mind awakened and brought black depression at first, a loneliness and a consciousness that he was a fool, a stiff-necked fool driven by pride to surpass his ancestors. To raise a new cairn, Grey’s cairn, a marker to his megalomania, to force an acknowledgment from history of his existence. To raise a monument to his endurance and skill, when he knew he was a fool and that a pile of rocks would be a monument to his stupidity in letting his pride and his need for something that he couldn’t explain even to himself drive him far beyond what he could reasonably ask of body, mind and luck. And he knew, despite his recognition of his stupidity, he would go on a full cairn-length and roll the stones together to mark his passage.

  He sat in the quiet, chill darkness of his shelter and listened to the ice melt drip endlessly from the snow blocks, reliving a dozen times each humiliation he’d suffered in his score of years, until finally he moved beyond these into dreams of the future that grew wilder and wilder until he was hallucinating—moved beyond that into the simple contemplation of the contents of the shelter, seeing them in the uncertain flicker of the crude oil lamp with an abrupt new clarity and wonder.

  On the ninth day he left the shelter, saluting the skulking silvercoats with a grave appreciation of their beauty and worth.

  At the foot of a thirty-meter cliff swept clean by icy winds, he built his cairn and carved his name into the cliffside. He stepped back, examined the crude letters and thought he should add something to tell the passerby what he’d learned in the silence of the shelter. Then he shook his head. Grey. It was enough. Whoever came here would have found his own peace. In any case there were no words for what he wanted to say.

  On the third day of his back-trek he was forced to kill two of the silvercoats. They came at him without warning as he rolled out of the snow shelter into the dim light of morning, came silent and vicious, hitting him from both sides. But they misjudged the speed of his cautionary roll and he was on his feet beyond them, darter in hand, before they could scramble around. He put darts into the snarling faces, feeling a deep regret when the dead predators crashed against his legs. The other silvercoats were hidden in the mist. He left the bodies lying in the darkening crimson of their blood and went on.

  One by one the other silvercoats came at him, forcing him to kill them. But he was settled into the deep calm he fought for alone that nine days in the shelter. And he survived.…

  In the cage he sat struggling to recapture some of that detachment earned fifteen standard years before. Fifteen years. I need to make the trek again. He repeated to himself. With Aleytys this time, if she’ll come, I’ve forgotten too much.

  “What about her? She was with him,” Faiseh said suddenly.

  “She’s here,” Grey told him. “Wait a bit more.”

  The lift beside the hareblock opened and the Vryhh stepped out. He walked briskly to the lab and moved inside. Grey rose to his knees, hesitated, looked at Faiseh, brooding over the bit of lab he could see through the arch. Grey bent over the lock and began using the force fields in his fingers to coax it open.

  Behind him the metal egg began to thrum. The sound shrilled higher and higher until the egg was shrieking. Then it sat silent and unmoved for a few minutes. After this pause it began
humming again. The hum rose and fell, stopped altogether, then came again, louder and louder, shriller and shriller, until the egg shook on its base. The watuk controller clawed at his head trying to jerk the cap off but his hands shook so uncontrollably he couldn’t get a grip on it.

  Then the egg exploded, hurling shards of metal in all directions. Grey dropped onto his face. The watuk shrieked, then slumped over, as scores of the metal pieces sliced through him. Blood gushed from his twitching body then slowed and stopped as he died. Pieces of the egg slammed against the cage and ricocheted with a high, whining noise.

  Grey was on his knees again before the metal stopped flying. He knelt by the lock and had it open when he heard Faiseh suck in his breath. He looked around. The Vryhh was running from the lab. He stopped by the shattered egg, flinging out his arms with a howl of rage that filled the cavern. “Bitch!” he screamed. “Bitch.…” Muttering wildly he ran into the lift and sent it upward.

  Kitosime smiled down at the boys sitting in a half circle around the powerstones. The small shrine was hot and stifling now that the rain had stopped, The boys shifted uneasily, their slit pupils almost round in the dim light. She bent over them and touched each upturned face, then moved back to stand in the open doorway. “You should be safe here. I’ll lock the door.” She held up the large key. “Fa-men won’t disturb a shrine. They may try the door. But you all keep very quiet and they’ll go away again.” She touched the eyestones in the pouch around her neck. “I know it’s not an easy place to be. But you are welcome here, I promise you.” She smiled at each in turn. “You all right?”

  The boys nodded. But she could feel their discomfort as she shut the door on them and locked it. She looked up. A few drops fell on her face, but the clouds were shredded and the sun was hotter than before, leaching steam from the thatched roof of the shrine.

  She walked slowly down the manstairs and stopped outside the dormitory. She pushed the door open. Mara and S’kiliza were finishing the last bed. Hodarzu sat playing with his blocks, content to be with the girls. Kitosime nodded at them. “Good,” she said. “You got up all the blood on the porch?”

  Mara nodded. A small smile turned up the corners of her full mouth. “Wash whole porch with lye. No hound pick up scent there.”

  Kitosime laughed, but shook her head. “If you want to join the boys.…”

  Mara shook her head vigorously. There was a bright glitter in her indigo eyes. “Make fool of them, the.…” She couldn’t find the word she wanted in her limited new vocabulary, but she projected a fierce hatred.

  “S’kiliza?”

  The younger girl grinned at her, came over, and took Mara’s hand.

  “Well, then.…” Kitosime sighed. “You know your roles. Mara, you’re Bighouse girl and S’kiliza’s your bound-girl attendant. She also takes care of Hodarzu. You know the discipline, both of you. Think carefully, my little ones. Can you hold in front of Fa-men?”

  Once again they both nodded. Kitosime moved back to the door. “Mara, come to my room when you’re finished here. We need to put the last polish on you. S’kiliza, take Hodarzu down to the water garden.” She studied the small, neat form in the plain dresscloth. “You look fine as you are, Siki. Don’t let Hodarzu get you too mussed.”

  In her own room on the floor below, she changed into her most striking dresscloth, a pattern of waterdrops in alternating white and black falling across wide diagonals of solid white and black. She had no one to help her dress her hair in its coils of small braids so she drew it into a tight spiraling knot on top of her head and twisted a gold chain about the spiral. She chose earrings to match, gold hoops that swung gently beside her neck. When Mara came in, she was buffing her nails. “Sit on the bed, little one,” she said. “Give me your hands.”

  She took Mara’s small hand. “Could be worse. You kept them washed, didn’t you?”

  Mara nodded. “Bad feeling being dirty. I hate it. But if I try to get in house.…” She shivered.

  Kitosime began buffing the short, square nails. “It comes back fast now, doesn’t it.” She finished with one hand and took the other. “I’ll put on some henna when I’ve done your feet. Remember, Mara. Every move is studied, graceful. You are submissive in the presence of men, bending like a willow wand. Say nothing without thinking first. Do nothing without thinking first. Don’t let them startle you into something unconsidered.” She set the small foot down then reached for the henna cream.

  “I know, ’Tosime. As you say, it come back fast.”

  The Fa-men came clattering through the arch, the hounds snarling before them. Four men clad in fine-dressed chul fur with blood-stained assegais slung across their backs, their burnished tips gleaming in Jua Churukuu’s strengthening light. Their hair was braided as elaborately as a woman’s, a silver ring hung from the left ear of each, arm rings of silver clasped around upper arms. And scars, four of them, slashed across the right cheek. They were images out of an almost forgotten past, creatures of the mythic time before the Families united and drove Watulkingu from its tribal anarchy.

  Kitosime stood on the porch, a silent, elegant figure, her serenity forcing them to control their eagerness and adopt proper manners. The hounds ran at her. She didn’t move, stood quietly waiting for the Fa-kichwa to call them off.

  He heeled the faras forward, driving it between Kitosime and the hounds. With a doubled leather strap he beat them back and drove them out of the court. Then he rode to the foot of the stairs. He looked across at her, his eyes bold and appreciative. “I’ve seen you, lady. You’re Kitosime the favored.”

  She inclined her head but said nothing.

  “Where is Old Man Kobe?” He scanned the court, then the face of the building. “Or are you here alone?”

  She moved a hand in graceful negation. “My son stays with me, and a girlchild in my care with her bondservant. I know nothing of Old Man Kobe or the others. She in my care and I went with my son to Legba’s shrine on pilgrimage. When we returned from the mountains, the Holding was as you see. The bondman serving us went to search for them and has not returned. We have been here since.” She spread out her hands, letting him see their lovely shape, the faint red stain of the henna.

  “The hares walk, lady.”

  Her hands fluttered in delicate helplessness. “Where would we go? We have been quiet and undisturbed here.”

  He backed his faras up and reined it in to face Sniffer and Fireman and Second, then led it around until it stepped daintily in front of her again. “We trailed a wilding male here.”

  “Here?” Her doll mask firmly in place, she fluttered her eyelashes at him. “Kobe’s will is known. They wouldn’t dare.”

  He scowled at her, suspecting something was wrong. Some nuance in her behavior or voice it might be, or nothing at all. “Your son is here?”

  “My charge and her bondservant have him in the water garden.” She stared past him out of the arch. “A wilding male?” She shivered delicately. “You tracked him here?”

  The Fa-kichwa scowled in annoyance. “The rain washed away his trail, but he was close to this Holding.” He slid off his mount, motioning the others to follow his lead. “We’re tired and wet, lady. A mug of cha would comfort us. As you say, Kobe’s will is known in these things.”

  Kitosime bowed her head, holding desperately to her doll mask, silently blessing the hard training Kobe had unknowingly given her. She led them to the kitchen and put water on to boil. Meme Kalamah, give me strength. She touched the eyestones in the neck pouch and felt them move warmly under her fingers. Comforted a little, she set four mugs on the table in front of men whose eyes watched her avidly.

  She wanted to stand silent and let them wait until the water boiled, but that would be a flagrant breach of training, so she bowed her head over her hands. “Is there anything else I can find for you, eM’zeesh?”

  “Food would be welcome, lady.”

  She made an apologetic gesture. “I know little of cooking, eM’zeesh. But there is cheese and
meat and bread.”

  “Bring it, lady.”

  She bowed again and left them, going to the cold cellar to fetch the food. With smoked kudu and cheese in a basket, she sank onto the bottom step of the stairs and stared into the chill darkness of the cellar. She didn’t want to go back into that kitchen. “Meme Kalamah,” she whispered. “I’m afraid. His eyes, the way he looks at me … the way they all look at me.… He’s still afraid to touch me, afraid of Kobe. But Kobe isn’t here. How long will that fear last?” She bent over the basket, her hand closed over the pouch with the eyestones, a cold nausea twisting her stomach. “I can’t bear it if he forces me.…”

  After another minute, she wiped a hand over her sweating face. The children were depending on her. She touched the eyestones once more and climbed slowly up the stairs. The hand that pushed open the door was shaking. She paused a moment to discipline her body, then she glided into the kitchen and placed the food on the table in front of the men. She brought knives then stepped back. She was Bighouse. It wasn’t her role to serve food. Backing away gracefully, she crossed to the outwall and stood close to the rough stone, like an elegant, blank-faced statue. Carved by Kobe, she thought. Polished by time. Endless, unendurable time.

  The Fa-men ate in silence for several minutes, then the kichwa banged his mug down on the polished wood of the table. “You said your son is here, lady?”

  “In the water garden with the boundgirl and she who is in my care.” She kept her voice low and musical, letting none of her tension show. There was a cold sickness in her stomach. She fought to control it as she waited for the man to go on.

  “His father is suspect. Wild Ranger, running around out beyond the Jinolimas instead of following custom and working his father’s land. Rumors say your son might be tainted also.” His fingers had tightened around the mug as if he were strangling something.