The Golden Enemy

by Alexander Key

  “Oh, Boy Jaim, I’m sorry! It’s awful about the bear, but it’s something that has to be done right away. No one else can shoot the way you can—”

  “I’m not going to shoot the Golden One. There are dozens of others who can do it—he’s too big to miss.”

  “But Boy Jaim, it would be dangerous for anyone else to try. They’d have to get too close. Don’t you see? And anyhow, they’d have to find him first—and that would be even more dangerous for most people, ’cause they wouldn’t know how.” She paused. “Are you listening to me?”

  “Of course I’m listening! How can I help it? You’re like a bee right in my head.” He could have shut her out, but it required an effort. Anyway, he didn’t really want to shut her out. He asked, “Did Andru tell you to call me to meet him at home?”

  “Yes. He’s going to make some special points for your arrows, and Councilman Traml is going to mix up something at his laboratory to smear on them. I think Andru wants to pilot the sled for you.”

  “Nothing doing. I wouldn’t want anybody with me, and you can tell Andru I’m not going home.”

  “But—but where are you going?”

  “I don’t know. Leave me alone.”

  “Aw, please, Boy Jaim. I know how you feel, but you don’t have to take it out on me.”

  “I’m sorry. But can’t you see I’ve got to be alone so I can think?”

  “A’right. If—if you want me for anything, just call.”

  He was almost sorry when she left him, for now suddenly he was faced with his aloneness in a world where no birds sang, and not even the chatter of a squirrel broke the stillness. The very sunlight seemed cold. He reached the edge of town in a moment and stood undecided, hardly knowing which way to turn. Far behind him a troubled Doubtful stopped and waited patiently, not wanting to intrude.

  If Emmon’s place hadn’t been so far away, he might have headed there, but it would have taken hours to reach it on foot. The sound of running water lured him into the parklike woods on his right, and presently he found himself following a path that wound upward above a rocky creek. Although the area seemed familiar, he was not consciously aware of being drawn to a particular destination until he reached it.

  It was a well-remembered gate in a wall. A lump rose in his throat as he unlatched the gate and went through. Years ago, when Doubtful was a pup, this place had been home.

  As the gate clicked shut behind him he glimpsed what might have been a chipmunk darting for cover down by the side of the house, and he wondered if it could be old Scatterbrain or one of his family. Probably not, but it made him feel better to see life about.

  He moved on up to the terrace, and suddenly paused, smiling. A huge toad sat there at the edge of the sunlight, waiting for flies. “Hi, Warts,” he said, and stooped and touched the toad, whom he’d known for years.

  Warts was too limited to do more than blink at him by way of recognition, but it was a welcoming blink and it wiped away some of Boy Jaim’s feeling of lostness.

  Someone, he realized, had been here and swept the terrace and aired out the house recently, for the front windows under the terrace shelter were open, and there was no litter on the flagstones. He unlatched the front door and entered. The house had been dusted and the big front room looked as inviting as if his parents still lived here. Who could have cleaned the place? L’Mara? But of course. No one else would have bothered. Someday, it was understood, this would be L’Mara’s home as well as his own.

  A small, muffled sound drew him through the house and down a flight of stone stairs to the lower level which, as in all the older homes, had been cut deep into the hillside. Before he reached the dimness below, wall lights came on automatically and sent a glow through the cavelike openings ahead. It surprised him to find that the solar electric system, built into the roof, still worked.

  A little flash of movement jerked him to the left. Abruptly he cried, “Scatterbrain—hey! Don’t run off! Don’t you know me?”

  The chipmunk stopped, and one bright eye peered at him curiously and suspiciously from the safety of a corner. He spoke again. Now Scatterbrain slowly approached and suddenly threw himself upon him, chittering and making a great fuss of recognition.

  Something fell from a stuffed cheek pouch to the floor. Boy Jaim picked it up. It was a bean. A trail of beans, he saw, led across the floor to a storeroom where dried foods had always been kept. Scatterbrain, he soon discovered, had broken several jars of beans by pushing them from a shelf and had been busy hiding the contents in the ground outside.

  “But why?” Boy Jaim asked. “Don’t you know it’s too early to be burying things? Especially beans!”

  “No, no, no!” Scatterbrain chitter-chattered. “Need food!”

  “But there’s plenty of food everywhere! Why, the nut trees are loaded—or haven’t you noticed? Besides, you’re wasting your time, burying the beans now. It’s midsummer. They’ll all sprout.”

  “No, no, no! Need food. Must hurry.”

  Scatterbrain rushed away and vanished through some secret hole that let him out to the rocky hillside. In seconds he returned with empty cheek pouches. Boy Jaim watched him thoughtfully as he gathered more beans and flashed away again. Scatterbrain might be flighty and excitable and have a little difficulty communicating, but he wasn’t stupid. Not a bit. He knew exactly what he was doing, though it didn’t seem to make sense. What was driving him?

  As the chipmunk came back the second time, Boy Jaim asked, “Have you heard about the Golden One?”

  Scatterbrain paused and chittered questions.

  After several exchanges, Boy Jaim gathered that Scatterbrain was aware of something very unpleasant in the air, but hadn’t learned what it was. Did it have anything to do with hiding winter food so early? Scatterbrain didn’t know. All he knew was that the future looked very bad, and that everyone must gather food.

  Frowning, Boy Jaim turned to a cubbyhole on the right and sat down in a chair facing a desk. What was going to happen? Even old Emmon had said that there was trouble in the stars. According to Malla, it had already started.

  The desk, of age-darkened wood, had been beautifully carved and built into the wall by some early relative. Automatically he opened it and looked curiously at the large cloth-bound volume lying before him. It was his father’s journal.

  The sight of it now, on this day of growing uncertainty, somehow gave him comfort. It was almost as if his father stood close and could talk to him. He thumbed slowly through the journal, pausing occasionally to glance over a page. Most of the entries had to do with weather and the crops, and local happenings. But his father had been interested in a thousand things. A question at the top of a page suddenly caught his eye. In strong script his father had written:

  What actually happened at the Barrens? Was ancient man’s last huge city destroyed by a meteor, as we have been taught? Or was that teaching a lie?

  We in the Five Communities think highly of ourselves, as if man could do no wrong. But secretly I think otherwise. I suspect we are the remnants of a murderous race, and that man himself was mainly responsible for what happened at the Barrens.

  I hope I am wrong. Emmon insists that Nature alone caused the destruction and points out that the entire surface of the globe was entirely changed at about the same time. I do not like to think that man might have disturbed a balance that triggered the entire change—but I cannot help wondering.

  The fact remains that there were only a few survivors: a small group of humans who were our ancestors, and a limited number of birds and animals. Why did these few survive when all the rest died? Were they tougher than the others, and immune to something that killed the majority? Or were they mutants? If they were mutants, then all of us today, man and beast, belong to new breeds—though whether or not we are any better still remains to be seen.

  Boy Jaim, shocked by what he had read, had momentarily forgotten the Golden One. Could man himself have caused the destruction at the Barrens? He couldn’t believ
e it. Even early man must have been too intelligent to kill his own kind. But there might be something to the mutant idea. He flipped the page and read:

  Here is another puzzle: Why do we build the lower levels of our houses the way we do? They are cut deep into the hillsides and are more like caves. It’s just an old custom, we say, and very practical for storage. But I suspect our ancestors first built them as hiding places. Only, what were they hiding from? Radiation, or poison air from volcanoes or meteors? Extreme cold or heat? Vicious animals? I understand there were once some monstrous bears that were highly dangerous to humans, but there are no records that our ancestors had actual conflict with them.

  Boy Jaim paused with a quick intake of breath. Bears—monstrous bears! Were they like the Golden One? His eye raced on:

  So many centuries have passed that any written records would have crumbled to nothing. What really happened at the Barrens and in the long period afterward when our ancestors must have struggled to live are puzzles we may never solve. Unless, as Emmon says, we learn to make better use of the Pool of Knowledge. Occasionally we’ve been able to dip into it a bit. The ability is a rare one, but Jenna and I are beginning to hope our son may possess it. Boy Jaim is too young to show it at this writing, yet already he has developed a remarkable ability to converse with animals.

  Most animals, I have noticed, are telepathic. Not only can they communicate to some extent with each other, but they also know in advance when trouble threatens. If Boy Jaim can somehow manage …

  There was more about himself, but Boy Jaim did not read it. The words suddenly blurred as a startling thought came to him. Abruptly a switch seemed to click in the back of his mind.

  He visioned Scatterbrain hurrying to store away food—and the Golden One driving the goats to destroy it. Something—something unknown and nameless—was going to happen, and the little chipmunk knew it. The great bear knew it also. Food meant survival, and the lack of food could mean death. Even Emmon had been afraid that there might be a terrible shortage of food. He had advised that no seed be wasted.

  The Golden One was cleverly trying to bring about the destruction of all the future food supplies. Did that mean he knew what was going to happen?

  Of course the beast knew!

  Boy Jaim stared blankly in front of him while his clenched hands beat slowly on the chair arms. A great dread began to grow in him. Suddenly he lurched to his feet. A startled Scatterbrain chittered questioningly as he sped past and rushed up the steps, but he did not notice.

  In the upper hall he paused briefly, thinking of transportation. Should he call L’Mara?

  Instantly he decided against it. She’d want to go with him, and there was bound to be danger. But there ought to be a usable air sled around here somewhere.

  He turned, ran to the end of the hall, jerked the rear door open, and raced into the courtyard.

  The youngest herder thought of his dog and stared unhappily into the night while he waited for his star to rise. When the star appeared, serene and beautiful, he caught his breath and forgot the anger and the hurt and the confusion in him. The hunters were still out, and the beast that had caused so much trouble was still eluding them. But at the moment it did not seem to matter.

  In his mind he could see again the planet he’d imagined. For a moment he saw it as a peaceful place, then he realized that man, if he lived there, might have his troubles. After all, if there were beasts around with the power to hurt man …

  He shook his head, and suddenly wondered why man and beast were always at odds. Did man really have the right to kill?

  5

  PLEA

  On the right of the courtyard Boy Jaim threw back the wide doors of a storage structure and ran inside. Long ago he’d helped take the better sleds over to Andru’s house, but here, in a corner, were a pair of old ones that had been left behind. They were rough, open affairs for use in the fields, though one of them, he remembered, had a power unit strong enough to carry him anywhere.

  It did not occur to him, until he had hurried over to it and was reaching for the switch, that the sled might have lain too long away from the sunlight. The switch, turned on, brought no response. The solar batteries were dead.

  In dismay he tried the second sled. It was as useless as the first. Hurriedly he hauled the heavier sled out into the courtyard where the afternoon sun could reach it and wondered if he had time enough to wait for the power to build up. Or had he better call L’Mara?

  She chose that moment to call him.

  “Boy Jaim, please—this is important! Where can I find you?”

  “What do you want?”

  “Emmon wants to see you right away, and so does Andru.”

  He knew he’d better avoid Andru as long as possible, but the Elder was another matter. Suddenly he wished Emmon had the ability to communicate with him as easily as L’Mara. But few people could, and with most of them it required great effort and concentration.

  “Do you know what Emmon wants?” he asked.

  “He didn’t say—but I can guess. I’m at home now, and he’s just left for his place to study some star charts. He’s awfully worried …”

  The Elder, he thought, had a right to be worried.

  “I—I’d better see Emmon,” he told her. “I’m at the old house, out back, and I don’t have a sled. Will you come and get me? And hurry!”

  While he waited for her he walked in circles, trying not to think of what might happen if he failed in what lay ahead. He could feel excitement and fear in every direction and hear the constant rush and whistle of speeding air sleds in the distance. Never in his memory had the Five Communities been so upset.

  A sudden quick scuffling from the rear of the courtyard caught his attention, and he turned to see Doubtful squeezing his small body under the back gate.

  Boy Jaim said, “Why didn’t you bark? I’d have let you in.”

  “Didn’t want to bother you,” Doubtful told him. “You got things figured out now?”

  “Hardly. All I know is what I’ve got to do.”

  “That’s what I mean. You taking me?”

  “No. It wouldn’t be safe.”

  The dog looked at him reproachfully. “Be safer with me.”

  “Maybe it would. So you know where I’m going, do you?”

  “Sure. Always know.”

  L’Mara arrived then, coming so swiftly that she was forced to bank and circle before she could manage a sideslip and spin into the courtyard. It took unusual skill and quickness, for the sled she was using hadn’t been built for that sort of flying. Just watching it gave Boy Jaim a chill.

  “Are you crazy?” he snapped at her. “When I told you to hurry I didn’t mean for you to pull any silly tricks—”

  “I know what I’m doing!” she flared back. She shook her bronze hair from her face and glared at him with her big eyes full of fire. For a moment she looked like an angry little red squirrel. Then she wilted and became very small and young and frightened.

  “I—I’m sorry, Boy Jaim. It seems like everybody’s gone crazy, and it’s got me all upset. Why did that horrible beast have to come here and ruin everything?”

  “I can’t understand it,” he muttered, as he leaped aboard after Doubtful. “But maybe it’s a good thing he came. Let’s get on to Emmon’s.”

  She sent the sled upward and turned it toward the Elder’s distant hill. “W-what did you mean by saying it’s a good thing? I don’t see anything good about it. It’s awful!”

  He drew a deep breath. “Look, L’Mara, something’s going to happen, and that bear knows it. If he hadn’t come, we might have been caught by it. But now, maybe I can find out in time so we’ll know what to do. Don’t you see?”

  She nodded quickly. “Emmon thinks—well, wait till you talk to him. Father’s furious with you for running off. He’d hurried to cut out some special tips for you, but when you wouldn’t come home he called over Hiras and the other members of your archery team. Before they could get their arro
ws ready, the North Com team flew down, and then Councilman Traml came with a chemical he’d mixed—”

  “Hey,” he interrupted. “What’s going on?”

  “I—I told you everyone’s gone crazy. It’s the bear—being allowed to kill it, I mean.”

  “But—” A new kind of horror was rising in him. “Are—are you trying to tell me they all want to kill it?”

  “Yes. Everybody wants to—even Father! The North Com team has challenged the West Com team to see who can locate it and put the first arrow in it. The East Com team wants to take part. They’re supposed to be getting ready to fight off goats, but they’re coming anyway—and the South Com team as well.”

  “But didn’t Emmon tell them what the bear is like? Don’t they realize what will happen if they get too close to it?”

  “Of course Emmon told them! Do you think that made any difference? They don’t really believe him. They want to kill that bear. A lot of them are being stiff-backed and noble about it, as if they were everyone’s saviors—and some are even saying you ran off because you were afraid—but the truth is they’re all secretly excited about going hunting and killing something.” She paused and gave him a quick, worried look. “W-what are you going to do, Boy Jaim?”

  He struck his clenched hands together. “I’ve got to stop them, if I can. But first I must see Emmon.”

  The Elder was waiting for them on his terrace. It was late in the afternoon now, and Emmon was showing the strain he had been under by a growing irritability. His eyes were glittering and he was impatiently twisting a ruler in his frail hands.

  “Well!” he snapped at Boy Jaim. “You knew you were needed! What do you mean by running off at a time like this?”

  “I—I’m sorry, sir, but I just had to go somewhere and think.”

  “Think!” Emmon shrilled. “Thunder above! You haven’t learned how to think yet—you’re being driven by your emotions. Think indeed! Now forget that impossible beast for a moment and listen to what I have to say.”