Rork!

by Avram Davidson

Again the silence. The wind spoke, nothing else. Then, slowly, slowly, on his great and high kneed legs, an old one, more grey than black, came stepping forward. Halfway toward the pavilion he paused. “Ror’k. Come,” it said. And, “Ror’k c’ome in peace.” Next to him, Ran heard someone make a noise in his throat. The creature took another few steps forward, and sank down, folding its legs. It was only then that the Tame Tocks seemed to wake up to what was actually happening. As a second rork came forward they all felt for their charms, started to squat down and mumble their apotropaic formula. But none of them finished doing so. Slowly they straightened up. Some still continued to hold onto their ju-ju bags. But Ran felt that the first step toward the conquest of fear had been taken.

  And in such a situation, it was the first step which counted.

  • • •

  Rorkland had to be mapped.

  So Ran’s thought was, standing there on an unnamed and rain-soaked hill somewhere in the uncharted heartlands. Aerial surveys had doubtless long ago been made and were probably somewhere available. But they weren’t available now, and would be of limited use in the present circumstances. It was in filling this gap that the rorkmen were found, unexpectedly, to be of especial help.

  One of them came scrambling up to him now, rain streaming from his hair and naked breast and shoulders. “What’s ahead down there, Tranakh — in that glen full of ferns?” Ran asked him.

  The man told him, half in speech and half in gestures, that the glen widened considerably, that it contained a small brook. It was unlikely, he thought, that any rips were there … but there might be.

  Ran nodded, and, turning bis head, spoke into the small mike-piece on his shoulder, Tranakh trotting back to his scouting mission immediately. In a few minutes a small band of men entered the glen. Ran knew, though he could not see, that another one would be approaching from the other end. If there were any rips in the little cove they would not leave it alive The sides were too steep. He brushed his rainy face and started down the hill, taking with him a long pole with a white flag on it. At this signal other white flags moved on, from far right and far left. Like an irregular wave, he knew, the movement would spread east and west the breadth of the narrow continent.

  The war against the rips proceeded its slow, but reasonably certain, pace.

  The war was an important one, important by the nature of the enemy. But more — much more — important by reason of the nature of the allies. In one month, he had upset the notions and the habits of centuries. Tame Tocks working alongside of Wild ones — not, not yet, literally alongside or side by side, but at least in the same endeavor — and knowingly so. Wild Tocks cooperating with Guildsmen! And, of course, most wondrous of all: Man (civilized, barbaric, degenerate), Man was working with rorkl It was all very revolutionary, but perhaps it had been swept along in part by its very immensity. Only Flinders and Flinders’ Clan, still sullen and recalcitrant in their stronghold on the Crag, held aloof from the campaign.

  Ran sighed, faintly, recollecting that this great project in mutual aid was to hold good for only one year. It was too bad, too bad, but it appeared that the time was not yet ripe for an attempt to institute a perpetual con cord. For a year, at any rate, the two species (including the four classes of men: Wild Tocks, Tame Tocks, Guildsmen and rorkmen) were cooperating to wipe out the two common enemies — the predatory rips and the crippling disease they bore.

  A voice spoke now in Ran’s ear, from the tiny speaker plug there. “Skimmer Five, reporting to Command.”

  “How’s it going your way, Motor Aide?”

  “Just a bit slow … don’t let them move too fast ahead, east of center. We don’t want to break the line.”

  “All right. What’s the holdup there?”

  “Quite a big rip pack down on the coast a ways back — part of it broke through and they had to move the line back to make sure none got away. Hey! I got a few of them, myself!”

  “Very good, very good, MO! Anything else?”

  “Nothing else for now Skimmer Five, closing out.”

  Whether it was Tan Carlo Harb’s potent powers of persuasion or whether the situation had actually impressed itself upon the Motor Aide, or whatever it was — Starchy Manton had actually broken through at least one of his obsessions and allowed that a genuine emergency was at hand. He had put all his skimmers into use, and his ground craft, too (limited though its value was in uncleared, roadless Rorkland); and was participating with eagerness. Perhaps, too, the fading into the distance of the last Q Day, with its mysterious fears that he would be shanghaied aboard, had something to do with his vigorous emergence from his shell.

  Similar things had happened with some of the other Guildsmen. It was reported, for example, that Reldon, in charge of a message center moving up the west coast, had not touched a drop since the campaign began! And old “Cap” Conders, leaving his rank-smelling curing sheds for the first time in years, had thrown himself into the work so enthusiastically that the Medical Aide had been obliged to order him to slow down.

  At its most basic, the campaign comprised an irregular rectangle which constantly moved in upon its own center from all four sides. The Tame Tocks comprised the Northern Line, moving steadily south. The Wild Tocks, on the other hand, constituted the Southern Line, and moved steadily north. In both cases “steadily” was merely approximate. When these two longitudes reached set points as they worked towards each other, the rorks whom they would find waiting for them would commence moving inland from the coasts; the Western Line moving east, the Eastern Line moving west. As all four lines gradually decreased the area of the rectangle they naturally were spread less thin.

  And a good thing, too!

  Usually the hunted rips did not wait for the lines to come within striking distance, but fled upon their approach. First came the men, armed with pikes and hacks and clubs and guns. Behind them, the women and boys, drumming on everything that would drum and clashing everything that would clash; meanwhile shouting and howling and making shrill ululations. Where the ground was clear enough for the skimmers that passed continually back and forth aloft to see that no rips lay closely near ahead, the spaces between the people was increased: else they would have driven a good part of the ground fauna of Pia 2 ahead of them; instead the animals were allowed to pass through the gaps in the line.

  The speed of each line and of each section of line naturally varied with weather and terrain. On clear days, cool and crisp, over the grassy flats and low rolling terrain, which would have made and might yet make such excellent pasture, the going was good. Rain, excessive heat, gullied and broken ground, all would slow up the passage. Mountains and valleys, naturally, reduced it to a crawl; thick forests, swamps and brambles, heavy stands of whip grass — there were no great rivers in Rorkland, none that could not be forded except when the greater rainy season had increased them to torrents.

  The white flags of the command posts sometimes swept along, sometimes picked, sometimes felt their way. Down from the yellowgrass, the sloping hills and salt-scented seacoasts of the North; up from the black-mossed rocks and valleys of the South — through the redwing glades, again aflame with rich color — now wet, now dry — they pressed on. And finally, on the west coast the Wild Tocks made first contact with the waiting rorks, and paused. Shortly afterwards the Southern line reached the Eastern one, too. It took a while longer before the Northern line touched either Eastern or Western Rorks, and began Phase Two of the campaign.

  Once before, looking down from a skimmer, Ran Lomar had seen a line of rorks and a mass of rips. But the rips had been in swarm then, uncountable, and the rorks had been fleeing. It was different now.

  As far as his eye could see the line went on in both directions, advancing westward with almost military precision. He could hear the stamping of the feet, see the haze of dust, feel the vibration of the rorking. The yellow masks bobbed about, the stalked eyes swung all around. Few as the rips were now in comparison with their numbers the year before when th
eir population had exploded, the growing concentration was resulting in ever-larger packs of them. From time to time such a group would form and for a while attempt to hold its ground, teeth bared, bristles high. But the line of rorks never faltered; invariably, the rips gave way.

  Rather late, admittedly, a frightening notion had occurred to Lomar. If the rips spread the fever as they advanced, would not those advancing now find the fever, so to speak, waiting for them? The little Medical Aide, startled so thoroughly out of his preocupation with mushrooms that he might never return to them, threw himself into this question with agitated enthusiasm. Rips were captured, killed, dissected, organs probed and peered at, slides and solutions made and examined, soil samples subjected to a variety of tests — the very water and the very air was trapped and tortured to divulge its evidence.

  Finally, the verdict.

  “Mind you, mind you,” the small physician urged, caution finally overtaking enthusiasm; “this is a provisional opinion — merely provisional, merely an opinion. It’s not an official report.”

  And Harb, sweaty, grimy, impatient: “Either talk, boy! and talk fast, or — ”

  So, hastily, not waiting for the sentence to be concluded, the MA talked. Traces of latent fever were found. Almost no evidence that it was now active among the rips. And more, and more:

  “ … in fact, it’s my opinion that, well, naturally, the same disease affects different organisms differently, wouldn’t you agree? so it’s my opinion that the fever is only virulent among them during those years when they swarm — in fact —

  “… it’s my opinion that it is the effect of the fever upon them which makes them swarm!”

  In the sudden silence which fell, he added, again timid, “Wouldn’t you agree?”

  There was no time for much agreement or disagreement. All through the days the four-fold march went on and on; all through the nights myriad fires burned and glowed. Not since the continent had emerged, molten and hissing and steaming from the sea had the land seen such activity. The camphres and the watchfires blazed, the crybabies wailed as if heartbroken in the bush and forest Beyond, inside the ever-concentrating rectangle, the rips could be heard, coughing and snarling uneasily.

  Between twenty and fifty square miles was the ultimate area set by the over-plan for Phase Three. For quite some time before this compression was reached, however, the rips had been standing and fighting with increasing frequency. But the lines of men and rorks hemming them, pressing them in, were thicker now. The savage beasts were speared and clubbed, shot to death, torn apart by powerful claws. Men were, to be sure, sometimes wounded, and rorks as well. But prompt first and subsequent aid resulted in surprisingly and gratifyingly few fatalities.

  Finally the ultimate area was reached, somewhat northeast of the continent’s center. This was not quite convenient, in terms of the terrain and the over-plan; so it was, so to speak, rolled back. And then the third phase began in earnest.

  A corridor was opened, about a mile wide; “troops” to line or to create it being withdrawn from the other flanks, which immediately proceeded to close in. The rips were driven out of the ultimate area and along the corridor. They were allowed no rest, no time to pause and make stands. Their pursuers worked in shifts, by lamplight and by torchlight and by the light of great blazing fires. By force of arms, by noise, by gunfire and pike-thrust, by stones cast, the rips were forced down the corridor opened for them that led to the selected place on the Western coast.

  Unmapped and unknown the greater part of that coast, like the interior, may have been. But this part of it, rimmed by sheer cliffs falling hundreds of feet into the troubled seas, this part of it had long been known and long avoided.

  Its boiling and reef-infested waters bore the name of Kill-Man Gulf.

  Every vessel that the Wild Tocks could muster — dugout, raft, catamaran — plied in a great arc where the waters of the gulf disembogued into the Western Sea. The single Station boat, making up in speed for its singularity, joined the picket line; and overhead, as close to the water as safety allowed, the skimmers supplied their armament to the blockade.

  But few were the rips that survived long enough to be picked off.

  The fourth and final phase of the campaign was made with less noise but equal thoroughness. The forces now deployed along the coasts looking for rip breeding grounds — sandy beaches, between high water mark and true ground. Had the creatures been live-breeders, the task might have been simpler — or might have been harder — but at any rate, different. However, they were oviparous monotremes of a sort, and by this time even a child was able to know what to look for: low, rounded, sandy mounds, heaped with sea wrack, the decomposition of which supplied warmth to aid the slow hatching of the eggs.

  It was not necessary to destroy the leathery-looking clusters entirely. The blow of a hack, the thrust of a pike, or even a fire-sharpened stick or a spear of sorts improvised from a sharpened shell-shard was sufficient. The sea birds gorged themselves upon this unprecedented feast. But sometimes the searchers found the mounds already broached, the egg husks dry and scattered, and they knew that other predators had beaten them to it.

  The last of the mopping-up was on the east central coast, and Ran was bringing his white flag down the sloping shelf rather late one afternoon when his ear-speaker gave a preliminary hum.

  “Skimmer Five here — Ranny?”

  “Starchy?”

  “Seems to be a sort of cove or inlet about two leagues down from where you are. I doubt if it can be seen from shore in either direction … cliffs cut it off … but I think I can see sand. I’m going in — in fact, I’m almost there — yes, sand — and put down and see if I can take care of it my — ”

  Ran broke in. “Be careful, Starch. There may be tricky updrafts there. Or down ones, for that — ”

  A rueful laugh. “You’re telling me? Um — ” A mutter.

  Ran, mildly disturbed, said, “Hold off a bit, will you?” For answer there was only quick, troubled breathing. Then another voice — Harb’s — broke in.

  “Pull out of there, Motor Aide. Right now. Do you — ?”

  Brief; brief and terrible, was the sound of the crash in their ears. From down the coast a single gust of flame shot up into the air. Then came the smoke. Then silence.

  Finally, after a long moment, Harb murmured, “ ‘Fear no more the heat of the sun …’ ”

  But Ran had something else in mind. “Or the Q Ship,” he said.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Manton’s death was not made to seem vain by an absence of rip egg nests; the nests were there, all right, and if he had not observed the inlet possibly no one else would have. This put Ran to thinking about something, and he found out rather soon that others were thinking of it, too.

  Norna, for one.

  It had been some days since he had seen her, exactly how many, he couldn’t remember; and now, looking at her, he seemed to see some reflection of how he himself must look. She was thinner, wearied, eyes reddened, not overly clean, hair tangled and in places white with dried salt spray. Sand clung to her feet and ankles; she scraped them on the sparse grass.

  “I’m thinking of Flinders,” she said, abruptly.

  “You are!” He looked at her, sharply. “Curious…. Well, I’ve just been thinking of him myself.”

  She nodded. The sun was warm, the air clean and smelling of the sea and the little marshy estuary not far away, and of the tiny yellow flowers now suddenly out in great profusion. Down a ways on the shore a Tame Tock suddenly picked up a ruined egg cluster and tossed it, smack, at a rork. For a moment Ran tensed. But before he could move or speak, the rork had whirled around and, with a great backward movement of a powerful foot and leg, splattered the man with mud. The Tock stood there, foolish and gaping. His fellows hooted and snorted at him. The rork made a sound which might have been meant for laughter. Ran relaxed.

  “Yes … I means, not just the Mister and all that … how he’s a danger … But we’s not been
into his country. If rips be’s there — ”

  She had put her finger on it. If any rips remained in or around the Crag — and, probably, some did — then they might eventually reconstitute their former numbers. There was, he mused, uncertainly, some belief that a species could never make a come back if its numbers were reduced beyond a certain point; other factors than mere sexual coupling being involved. If this were true or not, he did not know, nor did he know what the number might be. Possibly, probably, it might well differ from species to species.

  But if enough rips did remain about Flinders Crag, then the whole ardous campaign would have gone for nought.

  “What do you think, Norna?” he asked. And she told him.

  They found Tan Carlo Harb sitting under an improvised lean-to overlooking the Eastern Sea. He was more like his old self, now that the campaign was almost over. He greeted them with a flap of his hand. “Pull up a tree stump … or something,” he invited. “Or just squat, if you want to be picturesque and barbaric and all that. I’ve had enough sand in my crotch, thank you. Well. I can offer you cold drinks once again, and I shall insist upon your taking them before you oblige me to listen to whatever it is that I can tell you are just bursting to confide in me.”

  He beamed, cheerfully. “I must say that I feel at least ten years younger. The trouble is, I am not quite sure that I wish to. Ah, the drinks. Hmm, yes, we shall need a new toast, shan’t we? How tiresome.” He lifted his glass.

  “Dead rips,” he gave them.

  They returned it. “Dead rips!” Ran had clear forgotten how incredibly good a long, cold drink could feel. He seemed to feel this one all the way down.

  The SO frowned very slightly. “Now, let me see, before you two young things begin burbling and babbling, now, what was it that I wished to speak about … ? Oh, yes. That nasty old rat, Flinders…. Dear me, what have I said?”

  Feeling slightly foolish, Ran muttered, “Well, that’s what we wanted to remind you about.”