Cat Karina

by Coney, Michael

  Karina saw Saba.

  The whole camp was in motion now, as the spreading fire sent everybody into a frenzy of superstitious terror. Rayo, now a blazing cylinder unrecognizable as a sailcar, struck rocks and slewed around, beginning to roll down the hillside towards the sea, gathering speed and crushing vampires as she went. One animal, brushed by fire, rose clumsily into the sky on burning wings before tilting and sideslipping into the sea to flap for a while on the surface, raising wisps of steam before disappearing. Finally Rayo came to rest on the beach, the fabric of her hull totally consumed. She lay there smoking like the blackened skeleton of some huge marine mammal. The tortugas began to explode with a popping, growing to a roar.

  Karina held Saba’s hand. There was no life there. The felina lay twisted, her tunic torn and bloody and a sliver of hardwood projecting from the ribcage just below one slight breast.

  Karina stood.

  A vampiro approached, eyes glittering, totally reverted to the wild state. It bent over the still form of Saba.

  With an inhuman yell Karina leaped at the creature’s throat, hooking her fingers into the folds of skin. As it began a ponderous flapping, seeking to carry her off, her toes slashed into its abdomen and entrails cascaded to the grass. It fell back with a strangled whimper and Karina, her feet planted on the ground, pivoted with all her strength and threw the huge creature onto its back. She hardly felt the neck snap, didn’t realize as she stepped away from the body that she had decapitated it, and the head was still hanging from her hooked fingers.…

  Standing over the body of Saba she gazed at the scene of devastation. The stalls were on fire and the community hut had collapsed. Several of the smaller huts were smoldering. Like gigantic scavenging birds the vampiros stalked among the casualties, pecking here, clawing there, seeking easy meat first and feasting off the dead, leaving the injured for later. Everyone else had fled.

  All except for a small group near the siding on which the Pegman’s sailcar stood. Two huge men were there, restraining three people who seemed to be trying to get away.

  Karina could not see them for tears.

  “Is this what you wanted, Starquin?” she shouted at the darkening sky. “Are you satisfied, damn you? Siervo and Haleka, and now Saba! Is this your great Purpose? Well, I tell you this, you bastard. I’m through! To hell with my Word — I take it back! From now on I’m going to do everything in my power to wreck things for you. Can you hear me?

  “I’m going to start by finding Captain Tonio and his wife and his goddamned son, and if they’re still alive I’m going to kill them. Then I’m going to hunt down that burned creep the Dedo keeps sending, and I’m going to kindle the Wrath under her goddamned skirts and finish the job Agni started.

  “Then the Dedo.… I’ll really enjoy that. I’ll do it slowly. I’ll take her apart, piece by piece — your flesh, your bones, and I hope I’ll hear you screaming up there.…”

  There was more but it was becoming disjointed, merged into the sobbing, and in the end she dropped to her knees and laid her cheek on Saba’s breast.

  She didn’t hear the quiet hoisting of sails, and she didn’t see the Pegman’s car glide from its siding and roll away up the coast.

  “Oh, my God.… Oh, Karina.” Raoul let his breath out in a shuddering sigh and rolled over, face to the deck, trying to rid his mind of the image of the demented cat-girl, drenched in blood with the head of a vampiro hanging from her fingers, standing over the body of her sister and screaming her murderous intentions at the evening sky.

  While nearby, Tonio and Astrud lay watching with scared eyes as the huge, silent Us Ursa handled the ropes.

  The importance of balance.

  The handmaiden said, “She’s resisting — I think I’ve lost her. Her sister died, you see. I think she blames us.”

  “Quite rightly, of course.”

  The Dedo stood against the Rock which was unlike any other rock. It was translucent blue-gray and it seemed to consist of a multitude of interconnecting facets, each one flat and about the size of a human hand, set somewhere just below the surface so that the handmaiden could never be sure they were there at all. And the facets glowed with a light of such eerie violet tint that it was almost beyond the spectrum. They glowed and flickered, passing flashes of dull color from one to the next in a bewildering pattern which seemed to exist in the handmaiden’s mind rather than in the Rock itself.

  The handmaiden, her emotions dulled by years of contact with the Dedo, ate a small fish which had been baked before the fire. The Dedo had caught the fish. In the valley, you had to be careful about that kind of thing.

  The valley was in balance.

  When the handmaiden first came, the Dedo had explained.

  “The cai-man takes what he needs and no more. Certainly he kills more than he needs, but that is unavoidable when the prey is large. The surplus food goes to feed the scavengers, who also have their place in the valley. The ungulates graze. The rodents gnaw. The jungle lives in balance. You’re probably wondering where I fit in. Well — I grow my own vegetables and I sometimes play the role of a scavenger. Occasionally I am a predator and I kill a deer, or maybe do a little fishing if the stocks are high or if I can see a surplus in the Ifalong.” She indicated a row of smoked fish hanging from a beam.

  “I choose my role,” the Dedo said, “because I’m by far the strongest creature in the valley, and that includes Bantus. I arrange the whole of this place to suit my own needs. I balance predator against prey, browsers against foliage, grazers against range. I do it in such a way that every creature retains its place, at the same time allowing the weak to die and the strong to breed. This way, the valley will support me until I die. It is in balance.

  “I’ve adjusted the balance to include yourself.”

  Now the handmaiden wondered how this was going to work out, because the Dedo had hinted that she was expecting several visitors in the nearby Ifalong. The handmaiden mentioned this.

  “The balance of the valley will work towards the fulfilment of the Purpose,” said the Dedo. “Before very long, your work towards that fulfilment will be complete, and John will be conceived.”

  A moment of human frailty caused the handmaiden to shudder.

  HERE ENDS THAT PART OF THE

  SONG OF EARTH KNOWN TO

  MEN AS

  “TORTUGA FESTIVAL”

  IN TIME,

  OUR TALE WILL CONTINUE

  WITH THE GROUP OF STORIES

  AND LEGENDS KNOWN AS

  “IN THE VALLEY OF LAKES”

  Where El Tigre loses and wins his battle,

  Karina loves,

  And John is born to the furtherance of

  Starquin’s mighty Purpose.

  Five

  * * *

  Exile

  “Should you espy a monstrous beast who shoulders a tree to the ground in passing, tell yourself the trunk was rotten, but get out of the valley of Bantus nevertheless — for sometimes safety is more important than sanity.”

  — Tales of Old Brasil, anon.

  Astrud’s shoulder hurt so badly that she could hardly move her arm, her legs were bleeding from a network of scratches, and blisters were erupting on the palms of both hands — the Punishment of Agni.

  She wondered how she’d come out of it alive. She’d seen the ground rising to meet her, then she’d known little more until she’d found herself lying on the deck of this squalid little sailcar, with two giant men handling the ropes.

  “Palace Guards,” Tonio whispered to her. “They must have been sent here to make sure we had a clear track. The Canton Lord looks after us, you see, Astrud.” There was a dreadful bruise on the side of his face, and much of the skin was missing so that his cheek looked like raw tumpmeat, wet but not quite bleeding.

  “Raoul …?”

  “He’s fine.”

  Raoul turned and looked at her then, and his eyes were full of pain. “She said she was going to kill us. She had this terrible … head in her ha
nds, I don’t know what it was a head of, but it looked as though she’d pulled it off some animal. Ugh. She will kill us, you know. I’m sure of it. She looked crazy.”

  “The Canton Lord will protect us.”

  “What, from every felino in the Canton?” Raoul voiced Tonio’s own private fear. “How in hell can he? They could get us any time. They could attack the Cadalla — they could even come to the house. You ought to have seen her face, father.”

  “I knew no good would come of this year’s race,” said Astrud. “Rayo was touched by Agni, and in the end he claimed her. That’s what happens when you forsake the Examples. Tonight, I’m going to pray for forgiveness. And I’ll make sure you do too, Tonio. And you, Raoul. You were involved in this, too.”

  Raoul said, “I’m not sure we’ll have much time for praying, mother.”

  “What do you mean? What does he mean, Tonio?”

  Tonio said carefully, “When news of the accident gets back to Rangua, we may find the felinos in a troublesome mood. It might be better not to spend the night at home.”

  “There were so many hurt.…” The vision of carnage was reborn in Astrud’s mind; the flames, the screaming, the crazed vampiros.…

  Raoul said, “I think one of the El Tigre grupo died. That’s what Karina was crying about.”

  “Mordecai!” In his perturbation Tonio swore like a Specialist. He turned, staring through the open tail of the old Estrella del Oeste at the rosy glow in the southern sky. Torres still burned.

  The Us Ursa were slackening sail as the hill of Rangua South Stage loomed ahead. The rails gleamed palely against the darkness, and no sails were to be seen.

  “What happened to the rest of the cars?” Raoul said. “I’ve been expecting a head-on collision.”

  “I think.…” Tonio hesitated. “Perhaps the felinos refused to tow them, after the news of the accident reached them.”

  Astrud said, “If you ask me, they’d be more upset about the way we sailed straight past them up the hill at Rangua.” Although her head still throbbed, the wind had helped and she was beginning to think clearly again. “I simply can’t understand you, Tonio. How could you hope to get away with a trick like that? You know how touchy the felinos are. Now you’ve probably tied up a dozen sailcars the wrong side of Rangua. I don’t blame the felinos one bit. You as good as told them they were redundant. It’s against the whole culture of the coast!”

  Tonio looked away, discomfited by her accurate summing-up. “There are other pressures,” he muttered. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Your only hope is to apologize to the felinos.”

  At this totally inappropriate suggestion Raoul, with Karina still vividly in his mind, uttered an almost hysterical shout of laughter. “I think it’s gone a little beyond that, mother.”

  The Estrella del Oeste glided to a stop at the foot of the bank. The Us Ursa climbed to the ground and the True Humans followed. The grass was wet with dew and South Stage still deserted.

  For the first time in over an hour, one of the Us Ursa spoke.

  “You will report to the Palace in the morning.”

  Then the two big Specialists melted away into the night.

  Over the past few moments Astrud had been reappraising the situation. Her head was aching abominably, the strangeness of her surroundings was oppressing her greatly, and some inkling of the dreadful implications of recent events was coming home to her. They were not safe. The Specialists, those odd animal-people, could present a genuine menace. Rangua was going to be uncomfortable for a while.

  “I’m glad the Canton Lord is going to discuss this with you, Tonio.” That great palace on the hill represented a rock of permanence, normality and security. “It would be quite unfair to expect you to handle this alone.”

  With something that sounded like a groan of terror, Tonio plunged off into the night to round up three mules. They would have to ride home from here. He hoped they wouldn’t meet anyone on the way.

  The Canton Lord didn’t speak for some time, and Tonio sat watching the screen while the sweat dribbled from his body and his stomach contorted itself into knots.

  “Say your piece, Captain Tonio,” said the Lord at last.

  “I … we’re in trouble. The felinos are after us. You’ll have to hide us somewhere, just for a while.”

  “I’ll have to, will I?” There was amused sarcasm in the voice. “You wreck my car and kill a number of people through your own incompetence, and you want me to help you? I don’t think so, Captain Tonio.”

  “But they’ll kill us!”

  “Think of the sailways. The daily commerce, the interlocking cultures. A thousand miles of coastline. What’s one captain more or less?”

  “I did it for you, Lord Benefactor! It was all for you, at your request! You promised me —”

  “Oh,” purred the voice. “Just what did I promise?”

  “Well, I assumed you’d make sure I.… After all, you did organize the whole thing; Rayo, Maquinista.… If the felinos knew the Canton Lord was responsible for —”

  “Are you trying to blackmail me, Captain Tonio?”

  “Absolutely not. But, Lord Benefactor.… Surely, we’re in this together.…”

  “Partners, you mean? You and I?”

  “No! I wouldn’t presume …!” Tonio was weeping with despair.

  “Of course not. What you must understand, Captain Tonio, is that there are bigger issues here than your personal well-being. I had hoped that Rayo would be an example to the whole coast of what could be achieved — and coastal unity would have outweighed the felinos’ objections. But you failed to demonstrate the craft’s capabilities. Now I cannot expect any support from the other Cantons if the felinos become … dissatisfied with their lot. And I understand they are dissatisfied. They have refused to assist the remainder of the tortuga fleet, which is now immobilized north of the town. The next step — so I should imagine — is that El Tigre will lead his people in some undisciplined raid on Rangua Town and, possibly, this very Palace.”

  “No, I don’t think so,” said Tonio eagerly. “I really don’t think we have to worry about that. No, no. El Tigre? That fool? Never!”

  The Canton Lord sighed, as though the effort of unintelligent conversation had finally exhausted him. Slowly and distinctly, he said, “You will leave, now.”

  And an Us Ursa entered, carrying black clothing. He dumped this on a chair and approached Tonio. There was no expression on his broad face, but his fingers were curled slightly.

  “All right,” said Tonio.

  “Put on these cloaks,” said the figure behind the screen. “They will hide your faces — and people in cloaks are generally left alone. My guards will escort you to the Palhoa sailcar. After that, you are on your own. My advice is to take to the mountains. It will be unwise for you ever to come back to Rangua — particularly since I intend to cast you in the role of scapegoat for this disastrous enterprise. It may go some small way towards maintaining law and order in the Canton, and then again it may not.”

  “I will never come back,” said Tonio woodenly.

  “You didn’t tell me that felina had found out about the tortugas, Tonio.”

  There was nothing he could say.

  “Goodbye, Captain Tonio.”

  Revolution.

  That same morning a band of felinos on muleback rode north through the drizzling rain. Wet and tired, they had been riding since dawn, and they had not exchanged one word during that time.

  A cold, animal fury burned within them.

  They’d helped bury the dead, all except the four crewmen of Rayo. Two of those men died in the accident, but the other two had taken to the hills undercover of gathering darkness.

  The felinos had sent the grupos after them.

  They were caught at midnight, hidden in the branches of a tree on the edge of the tumpfields. A grupo had winded them and had dragged them out of there, screaming. They had every reason to fear for their future. Within an hour of t
heir arrival back at Torres they had been sentenced to death by an ad hoc court and, together with their two dead comrades, had been nailed to crosses on the beach, facing out to sea, in the glow of the still-smouldering Rayo. The grupos spent the rest of the night in fruitless search for Tonio and his family and at dawn the search had been called off. The general supposition was that the fugitives had somehow managed to board one of the other cars which was on the hill at the time, and had been whisked south.

  It was no problem, the Torres felino chief assured El Tigre. The signalmen would be busy by first light, and descriptions would be flashed all the way to Patagonia. There was no escape.

  Meanwhile, the True Human inhabitants of Torres huddled indoors, with doors and shutters barred.…

  Now El Tigre rode into Rangua South Stage. The camp had been re-erected overnight, and a number of people from North Stage were there too, because it was generally felt that South Stage would be where the action was.

  They expected El Tigre to initiate that action — and this time they would be listening.

  “Pegman’s here,” Karina said to Runa. They rode behind the men, like errant children being brought home. “There’s his sailcar. He must have come back right after the accident. Strange he didn’t stay.”

  “Have you ever known the Pegman to do what we expect?”