Skeen's Leap

by Clayton, Jo;

  “Well I know,” Timka said, rubbed at her temple. “How long will she be out?”

  “Five, six hours.”

  “It’s something, I suppose. Too bad it’s not five, six years.”

  Skeen swung into the saddle. “Offer’s still open,” she said. She leaned forward, then back, settling herself as comfortably as she could. “Or you can take off, go where you want, hope she chases me not you.”

  Timka got to her feet, stretched, patted a yawn. “Lifefire, I’m tired.” She bent to the falling water, splashed a handful on her face, drank. She straightened, wiped her mouth. “Do you want to get rid of me that much?”

  Damn right, I do, Skeen thought. Aloud, she said. “All I’m saying is it’s up to you.”

  Timka swung into the saddle. “I stick with you.”

  “Hm. You know the land. What direction’s the Lakes?”

  Timka glanced at the sky, pointed. “That way.”

  “Djabo’s weepy eyes, so’s Mintown, unless I’m turned around. You sure?”

  “Yes. Oruda’s ten days’ ride from Dum Besar, three days by riverboat, given a good wind.”

  Skeen clicked her tongue at the horse, nudged him into an easy walk, heading south. When Timka came up beside her, she said, “And from here to Oruda. How long?”

  “On a straight line, a guess, maybe twelve, thirteen, fourteen days, depending on the going.”

  They moved under the trees, into the growing shadow of the late afternoon, riding side by side, unhurried, Skeen thinking, Timka content to leave the planning to her.

  “Direct line is out,” Skeen said.

  Timka looked drowsily at her, nodded.

  “Soon as she wakes, your sister will have scouts searching for us.”

  Timka yawned, nodded. “Fliers,” she said.

  “That complicates things. We’d have a good start on any other low tech world, but we can’t outrun wings. Your sister could trace us and set up ambushes just about anywhere she wanted.”

  “Told you. Should have let me use the knife.”

  “Call me squeamish. How can we break out of this trap?”

  Timka raised her brows. “Me?” She shook her head. “You’re the Pass-Through, the fighter. I float. What happens, happens; the less fuss I make, the less pain there is.”

  Skeen grimaced. “Better change your mind about coming with me. You must have kin in these mountains who’d take you in and keep you safe.”

  “No.”

  Silence for a long while. The sound of hooves on forest mold, of leaves rustling, a web of insect, animal and bird noises—a kind of white noise, soothing and restful. Skeen forced herself to go on worrying at the problem, her thoughts had leaden feet, didn’t want to move at all. More than anything else she needed to sleep. She was in that state when mistakes were fatally easy and unusually fatal.

  “The Ever-Hunger,” she said.

  Timka glanced at her, startled, straightened her back. “What?”

  “What is it?”

  “Hungry.”

  Skeen frowned, made a brushing motion as if to wipe away feeble attempts at humor. “I mean, what does it look like?”

  “Don’t know. Anyone who got close enough to see it got eaten.” She shivered. “Mostly it lives on deer and bear; sometimes in winter, we can feel it there … hungry, beating against the wall, reaching for us.” Again she shivered, looked sick. “It sings. You go close enough, it sings to you and you go closer and it crawls inside your head and you climb the wall. In the winter, we lose a lot of children to the Hunger.”

  “Why stay then?”

  “Where can we go? This is our land.”

  “Hm. Given a choice you wouldn’t go near the Wall, even on wings.”

  “Lifefire, no!”

  “Nor any other Min, even on wings?”

  “You don’t mean.…”

  “Why not? Listen, I’ve got an idea. This damp, the clouds, smells like rain.”

  “Before morning. It’s the season. But rain won’t stop the Hunger.”

  “Didn’t think it would. What it will do is wipe out our spoor, nose and eyes neither one any good. Give us a day loose after that and Telka will be biting her own tail because that’s all she can find.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “When you said it sings, you told me all I needed to know. Besides, I had a taste of that song when I came through the Gate.”

  “You’re not thinking of stuffing wax in our ears. A Min tried that a few generations back when her children got caught and she went after them. It didn’t work.”

  “No, not my idea. You’re more sensitive to the thing than I am. How far is the Wall from here?”

  “Oh, about a stad, maybe a little more.”

  “And what’s a stad?”

  “The distance a horse can cover at a quick walk in one hour.”

  “Sounds rather indefinite.”

  “The edges blur; it’s not important.”

  “How close do we have to be before the Hunger gets dangerous?”

  Timka scowled down at hands clenched about the reins. “Half a stad. After that, the calling … the singing … you can’t break away.”

  “How good are you at estimating time and distance?”

  “Not bad. I’m almost afraid to ask why.”

  “Hour. I’m fairly sure what that means to you isn’t close to what it means to me.” She showed Timka the ring chron. “This is set to ship standard time. My hours. Up till now I haven’t bothered with yours—haven’t had to and it was just too much trouble. But your day is a little longer than our arbitrary ship standard, so I expect your time divisions are quite different. They usually are, planetside. So if I’m to have some general idea of what a stad is, I need your help.”

  “I see … I think.”

  “Right. Suppose I give you a start, then you tell me when you think we’ve been moving for an hour.”

  “Yes, I can do that.”

  “Right.” She looked at the chron, waited a few breaths. “Now.”

  “Got it.”

  “Good.” Skeen yawned, rubbed at the nape of her neck. “Djabo! Can you listen and count time? I need to keep talking or I’m going to fall out and it’ll take a jolt of lightning to wake me.”

  “Talk. It won’t bother me.”

  “This is something that happened to me when I was a lot younger and a whole lot rasher, before I had Picarefy—oh Tibo you baster, I hope she fries your liver.…”

  “What?”

  “Never mind. Habit I’ve got into, meaning nothing. Where was I … yes. What with one thing and another I was stranded on this crazy world, a place called Dragons Fart. Vulcanism like you wouldn’t believe. What land there was changed shape day to day, mountain into swamp, swamp into desert, desert to mountain … well, it was not a place you went for fun. The south pole had the biggest hunk of land and was fairly stable, warm enough so there was some plant life. The seas were a real soup, walking on water was no miracle there, and the stink! Your nose gave out after ten minutes of breathing that air. As air goes it was reasonable stuff, but the stink would make you swear off living, it was that bad. How I don’t know, but someone found out that one of the plants on the fringes of the ocean produced a juice that could be refined into one of the dandiest aphrodisiacs ever, good for all live-bearing oxygen breathers with iron-based fluid in their veins. Which made for one hell of a huge market, especially when the bosses did a little gengineering on it. You couldn’t get that plant to grow anywhere else, and believe me, lots of types tried it. Which the bosses didn’t mind all that much since it gave them a stranglehold on the stuff.

  “A while before I got there, two refinery jocks got in a fight where one of them was killed. I heard the story in a dozen versions, no one was quite sure what actually happened. Some said it was over one of the sporting women working the barracks; some said it was because Erb was a tittuppy, acerbic type designed to provoke the worst in Dolf who was from a rabidl
y patriarchal world and neurotic about his masculinity, that Dolf kept riding Erb until Erb exploded; some said it was Erb’s pet responsible for the nesh, that he bit a hunk out of Dolf and Dolf tried to stomp him and Erb jumped Dolf. Whatever started it, they cut each other up till it was hard to find enough pieces to pray over. When it was done, no one could find that pet.

  “The beastie was a singing swamp lizard the length of your forearm, tail included. Carnivorous little worm—Erb used to feed it baby rats, always rats wherever there are men. It must have lived on garbage and rats, plenty of both around. A couple of men and a woman said they saw it scuttling about. Problem was, it grew. Oh how it grew. When it got big enough, it needed something more substantial than rats and developed a taste for biped … large live wriggling meals. It grew cunning, too, as it got bigger and bigger, never set pinky in any of the traps. Soon enough, things reached the point when either someone took out the Whistler, that’s what everyone called it, or all flesh was going to have to get off-world and wait for the lizard to starve. The bossmen didn’t care for that idea, they needed men down there. Androids rotted out and were a lot more expensive than your basic flesh machines, so they put a bounty on the Whistler’s head and armed any fool who thought he was a great hunter. What that did was get Whistler a lot of easy meals.

  “When it wasn’t dining on hunter, it’d sit outside the settlement and whistle its meat. Soft and natural so not many heard it. Someone always did. Someone would go out and for all we knew walk right down Whistler’s throat.

  “There I was, landed in the middle and broke to my toenails. Living with a Hulk and a Snake and working in the Gummery to pay my food bill, all of us were and likely to spend the rest of our lives at it, since the pay was a hair above slave comp. When the bounty was doubled, Yamchik, that was the snake, he had a bright idea. The Hulk and me and him, we’d go hunting old Whistler. I thought it was one of his better ideas; Dragons Fart was wearing on me hard. What I didn’t know was he planned to use me for bait. Come the dawn, there I was tied to a shaved fern on one of the few dry spots outside town. I did not appreciate the compliment, no way. Yamchik and the Hulk were in separate patches of bracken trying to keep leeches out of their shorts, clutching pellet rifles Yamchik had liberated from Stores. I’ll say this for Yamchik, he had the hands of an artist when it came to locks. Taught me a lot, but that’s nothing for now.

  “So picture the scene. Gray slime in all directions. Some sour murky water standing in hollows of the slime. Hummocks of decayed leaves and fern. Air thick enough to chew with swarms of gnats and sapsuckers who were turned on by blood. After a couple of hours with those bugs crawling over me and I couldn’t scratch or slap, I was praying for Ol’ Whistler to show. Dead would be a change for the better. Uhhh! Makes me itch just thinking about it. The only thing that took my mind off was planning what I was going to do to those … those … well, Telka didn’t supply those kind of words, you supply your own … anyway, what I was going to do to them when I got my hands on them.

  “It got to be noon, turned steamy hot, really unbearable. Us rejects stuck on Fart didn’t much go outside during the midday heat. Ol’ Whistler did. The sound came curling through the stink and the bugs, saying come come to me, come to me, come, come, come. Djabo bless, I would’ve done it if I wasn’t tied to that fern tree. The Hulk and Yamchik, they heard it and they weren’t tied. They came walking out of the bracken, left their guns behind. Yamchik’s plan had this little flaw in it. I was going crazy trying to pull loose. When Yamchik walked past me he sort of absent-minded slashed at the ropes of my arms, dropped the knife by my feet. Don’t know why he did that. Maybe Ol’ Whistler didn’t like part of his lunch being kept away from him, he was a twisty old lizard.

  “I broke the last threads of the ropes around my arms and started cutting my feet loose. I was late for dinner where I was the dinner. Whistler went quiet a minute, Hulk, I suppose, going down hard. The bugs were swarming round me, making their own keening, and that broke the fading dream. Soon as I was loose, I went diving for the rifles. By that time Whistler had finished off the Snake and was wanting dessert which was me, so the whistling started again. But I’d got the idea from the humming bugs and I started whistling myself. Uh huh. We had quite a concert out there. Irritated him a lot when his meat talked back. He reared up out the mud. Yeee, that sucker was big. You see that tree over there, the top of it’d stand hip high on him. Puny pellet rifle looked like a mistake. Nothing I could do but try it. Yamchik had his weak points, but he wasn’t always dumb. Somewhere he’d got hold of boomers. First shot hit that lizard in the eye and just about tore the top of his head off. Got him in the chest and belly and one more time in the head. He went down, and I almost drowned in the mud tide he sent up.

  “No way I could cart him back to the post, so I settled for a couple of teeth, a finger, and a patch of skin. I collected the bonus and got off that world like my tail was on fire. For almost a year after, I was taking a couple of baths every day trying to wash away the memory of that stink.” Skeen rubbed at her eyes, straightened her back. She was starting to feel every muscle she had. She turned her head. “Hour yet?”

  “A while to go.”

  Skeen glanced at the ring chron, sighed. “The reason all that came to mind,” she said, “your Ever-Hunger is a bit like Ol’ Whistler, uses a kind of sound to seduce. What sound makes, sound can break. You said plugging the ears didn’t work. That figures. Vibrations act through headbones too, can’t plug those. What you want to do is set up a counter vibration. I’ve got a thing.…” She shrugged out of her backpack and began fishing around in it. After a moment of muttering and scowling, she brought up a battered case, opened it and took out an equally battered silver shepherd’s pipe with an odd-looking mouthpiece. “Hold this a moment, will you?” She handed the pipe to Timka, returned the case to the pack, buckled down the flap, and swung the pack into place.

  She took the pipe back, shook it out, blew into it lightly to get rid of some bits of fluff. No sound. “I ran across this not long after I left Dragons Fart, collected it on my way through … well never mind that. I figured what happened once could happen again and I was going to be prepared.” She grinned. “When I’m right, hey, I’m right. Might take forty years.…” She blew into the mouthpiece again, slapped the pipe against her palm.

  “Hour now,” Timka said.

  “Nice timing. Hm. Say you’re reasonably accurate, one of yours equals one of mine plus, mmm, a dozen minutes. What do you think about this? We’ve got about an hour—your hour—clear ahead of us before Telka wakes. Actually, it’s nearer two hours but I don’t want to take chances. We keep riding along like we are now, no strain, for that clear hour, you keeping watch for a Min overflying us though we’ll hope that doesn’t happen, ride Bona Fortuna just a little. Then we head for the Wall, moving well inside the danger area, me playing my pipe like a demented jongleur. If it stirs up the Ever-Hunger, all the better. Your sister’s Minions,” she grinned at the feeble pun, “they’ll keep well away.”

  “I don’t like it, but I suppose it’s the best chance. Will you listen to me if I tell you the pipe isn’t working?”

  “Oh, definitely. I’ve no wish to decorate the inside of that one’s belly.”

  CONCERT FOR THE INSIDE OF THE HEAD.

  or

  SKEEN ACQUIRES A COUGH AND LARYNGITIS.

  Skeen turned her mount away from the direct line south and started riding toward the wall, glancing continually at the ring chron to make sure she didn’t get too close; the trees were thick and there was a lot of brush—she’d be on the thing before she saw it.

  After about fifteen chron-minutes, she turned to Timka. “We should be in the danger zone.”

  “You can’t feel it?”

  “Not a twitch.”

  “It’s there. Awake now. Trying for me.”

  “Why didn’t you say something?” Skeen knotted the reins, dropped them on her mount’s neck, took out the pipe. “How are you doi
ng?”

  “Holding off. But it’s getting louder.”

  Skeen searched within, shook her head. “Not a tickle.” She scratched along her nose with the pipe’s mouthpiece. “Maybe you and I vibrate so far apart, it can’t do us both at the same time.” Thunder had been rolling about them for several minutes, now a large drop landed on Skeen’s nose. She grimaced. “Wet, too. I’ll be lucky I don’t come down with pneumonia.”

  Timka managed a weary smile. “I thought you wanted rain to wash away our trail.”

  “Sure, but that doesn’t mean I can’t bitch about it, too.” She frowned at Timka. The little Min had a glazed inward look; she was struggling with a force Skeen couldn’t even feel.

  She tried turning her horse; it resisted her briefly, but she managed to pull its head around and shoulder Timka’s mount about. Knee and heel keeping the gelding heading south, she began playing a nearly inaudible song on the pipe, feeling a tickle suddenly flourish in her own brain a breath or two after she started playing. A breath more and her mount shook his head, repeatedly, shuddering and snorting as if ants were crawling up his nostrils and into his ears.

  She glanced at Timka. The strain was melting out of the little Min’s face. She caught Skeen watching her and mimed flying with her hands, then pursed her lips and whistled a version of the tune Skeen was playing.

  They rode south, the rain falling in earnest about them, Skeen lowering the pipe only to spit or snatch a drink from the waterskin Timka held for her. She found she had to change the tune every stad or so, the sly creature behind the Wall found a way to alter its siren song. As soon as her mount began heading toward the wall, Skeen switched songs. Hour after hour, stad after stad. The rain finally stopped. The sun rose. They rode on, the horses reduced to a slow walk. Hour after hour. Skeen no longer bothered being fussy about her playing, just kept pushing air through the pipe.

  By mid afternoon, her lips felt swollen and her head was swimming so badly it was hard for her to keep her balance on the horse. Finally she turned her back on the sun and moved away from the wall, glancing often at the ring chron so she’d have a clue when she could stop the playing without being sucked in by the Hunger. She was so tired she wouldn’t have will enough to blow out a match that was burning her.