The Metal Maiden Collection

by Piers Anthony

  “It is their birthing season,” Elsa said. “They are busy. But if they want you, they will let you know.”

  That, it seemed, was that. Mona was disappointed, but determined to find some way regardless.

  “It is true that Elen can sing,” Elsa said, changing the subject. “She sang with Shep. You can do it if you let her body govern your effort. Try it with me.” Then she hummed the “Sheep” melody.

  Mona joined her, thus guided, and discovered that she could indeed do it. That resolved her doubt about doing the tour. She hugged Elsa in gratitude when their session finished. Erasmus shook hands with Brian, similarly thawing. It seemed the parents were no longer hostile to the two of them living in sin.

  But what about the sheep?

  Chapter 2:

  Lamb

  In the morning, after a day and night of exploration of the local terrain, Mona woke to the sound of a bleat. “The sheep!” she exclaimed, astonished. She scrambled out of bed, naked, and flung open the door.

  There was a solid Ewe. Mona knew immediately that she was special, deserving of the capital; it seemed to be the telepathy in operation. The Vulture and Python were at attention, watching her. There was blood on her hind section: she had recently given birth.

  Mona stood silent, uncertain why the sheep had come, when she had her lamb to take care of. If these animals were as dangerous as reputed to be, surely they were even more so when protecting their offspring.

  The sheep bleated. It was a brief, authoritative sound. Then she walked away.

  “That’s the summons,” Brian said. “Follow her.”

  Mona didn’t hesitate. She wanted contact with the precognitive sheep and one had come to her. She followed. So did the Vulture and Python. And Brian, respectfully behind, as he had not been invited.

  The Ewe led them to a copse just beyond the village. There, lying in leaves, was a spindly newborn Lamb also instantly special. The Ewe had evidently come here to birth it. Why, so close to the village?

  The Ewe went to stand beside, almost over, the Lamb. Then the Lamb scrambled up and tried to nurse. And failed, because one leg would not properly support it. It fell to the ground, with a little bleat of despair.

  “He’s lame,” Brian said behind her. Being a farm boy, he knew the gender.

  Mona’s heart went out to the little creature. “Maybe I can help,” she said, stepping toward the Lamb.

  “Watch it,” Brian said, alarmed. “She can kill you!”

  But the Ewe made no motion. She simply stood there, waiting.

  “She knows I mean no harm,” Mona said. “She led me here.” She dropped to her knees beside the Lamb and put her arms around him. She lifted his upper body so that it was firmly in place. “Now try it.”

  Immediately the lamb went for the teat again. This time he got it, and eagerly sucked in the milk. Mona held him while he drank.

  “I’ll be damned,” Brian said. “She’s letting you!”

  “She knew I would do this,” Mona said in a flash of understanding. “That telepathy or precognition, whatever. She brought me here so I could help him nurse.”

  Indeed he was nursing, getting his first full meal. She held him until he had finished both teats. Then, carefully, she let him go.

  He sank to the ground, unable to stand.

  “Oh!” Mona said, putting her arms around him again. She picked him up and held him to her naked bosom. He nuzzled her face. She kissed his furry nose, instantly loving him.

  The Vulture and the Python came up to stiff noses with the Lamb. Mona let them, by this time knowing that they were minions of the sheep.

  And the Ewe was gone.

  “Uh-oh,” Brian said. “Now he’s yours.”

  “But I don’t know the first thing about caring for a sheep,” Mona said.

  “Yes you do. You’re doing it.”

  “Loving him,” she agreed, realizing it was true. She stood, holding the Lamb, and walked back to the house. “Make a box for him,” she told Brian. “With bedding. So he’ll be comfortable.”

  Brian put together a bed for the Lamb. Mona tried to set the animal down in it, but he bleated sadly. “Okay, for now,” she said, sitting on the bed holding him. “But you’ll soon have to learn how to sleep by yourself.”

  He laid his head against her breast and slept.

  “We’ll have to get milk for him,” she told Brian as she held the lamb. “And see about making a splint for his leg so he can walk.”

  “Cow’s milk won’t do,” Brian said. “Sheep need sheep’s milk. There have been foundlings, and they always died, because nobody can milk a sheep.”

  “Well, we’ll have to try. We can’t just let him starve.”

  He shrugged, not knowing what to do.

  Mona held the Lamb, and nodded off to sleep herself. She was awakened by a bleat outside. She understood immediately. “The Ewe returned!”

  She got up, still holding the Lamb, and carried him to the door. There was the Ewe, stolidly standing. Mona went to her, kneeled, and braced the Lamb beneath her so he could nurse. He did so with enthusiasm. However long they had slept, it had been enough for the Lamb to get hungry again, and for the Ewe to refill her udder.

  Was this the way it was to be? The Ewe going out to graze and recharge, while Mona babysat the Lamb? This was not the kind of interaction with the sheep Mona had had in mind.

  After the Lamb had been suckled, the Ewe did something odd: she made a kind of stiff-legged bow to Mona. Then she departed. Mona watched her go, puzzled. Then she took the Lamb back inside. She tried again to set him in the box, and again he protested. But this time the Vulture and Python followed her in. They looked sternly at the lamb. He halted his protest and accepted his bed. The Python curled around it while the Vulture perched nearby.

  “They gave him the word,” Brian said. “They serve the sheep. They’re babysitting. You have a break.”

  “I need it,” Mona said, not questioning the reliability of the animals. She went to the toilet, heedless of Brian’s gaze, then washed and dressed for the first time that day. Then she saw about breakfast, which had been blotted out by the event of the morning.

  Refreshed, she looked at Brian, silently offering him sex. He shook his head, now having the confidence to know that it would be there for him when he needed it.

  “Did you see what the Ewe did?” she asked Brian.

  “I saw. I don’t know what it means.”

  The Lamb woke. She picked him up, kissing his little ear. “You need a name,” she said. “How about Ram Bunctious? Or maybe Lamb Bunctious.”

  Brian shook his head, bemused.

  “Let’s go out for a walk,” Mona said. “We’ll show you off to the neighbors.” Because it was clear that the Lamb was staying.

  They took a walk through the village: Brian, Mona, Vulture, Python, and the Lamb in Mona’s arms. They didn’t need to say anything; this was merely the public announcement. All the villagers knew she was adopting a little sheep. They might doubt that it would survive long, but they were now aware of the event. Just as they were aware of the Vulture and Python, and tolerated them in their midst. It was the will of the sheep.

  “The village elder,” Brian said. “Maybe he would know. About the bow.”

  “Oh, yes,” she said, remembering. “Take us there.”

  He led her to a central house. The elder sat on his deck chair in front. He stood when Mona approached. “Salutation, madam,” he said formally.

  “I am Mona, of Earth,” she said, though he surely knew. “Holding the fort for Elen Elf during her stay on Earth. The sheep brought me this Lamb. I’ll handle it. But I am perplexed about one thing: his mother, the Ewe, made a sort of bow to me. What does it mean?”

  “She did that,” he said, amazed. “I heard of something similar, maybe thirty years ago. A ewe made it to the village elder of the time. Then he designated the sheep a protected species, never to be hunted or molested. It was as though she recognized him for it, before
it happened. That precognition. You must be going to do something of similar magnitude for the sheep.”

  “I’m taking care of her Lamb,” Mona said. “Does that count?”

  “I don’t think so. That’s just one animal. More likely it affects all the sheep, significantly.”

  “I have no idea how. I’m here to study them, though I haven’t yet had much chance.”

  “Study the lamb,” he said.

  Surprised, she looked at the Lamb in her arms. “That’s it! I can study him! I never thought of that.”

  “Or of whatever it is you will do to affect all the sheep,” the Elder said. “But it will occur. Trust the sheep.”

  “Thank you,” she said, feeling awkward.

  He smiled. “You’re new here. You’ll learn.”

  “I hope so.” She moved on.

  “Now I’m curious too,” Brian said. “What do the sheep have in mind?”

  “We’ll both learn,” she said, laughing a trifle uneasily.

  They returned to the house. The routine quickly was established: the Ewe returned often to nurse the Lamb, and Mona cared for him the rest of the time.

  Brian made a padded splint and carefully fastened it to the lamb’s foreleg. After a few tries Bunctious caught on, and was able to stand alone. Then when the Ewe came again, Mona carefully set the Lamb on his feet beside her. He took several small steps and reached her udder, where he nursed. Victory!

  The Lamb slept in his box, but Mona cuddled him often. After a few days she became aware of something else: his mind. She could almost feel what it was like to be a newborn lamb. In fact she was feeling it; this was beyond empathy. It was the telepathy beginning to manifest in him, as it already existed in the Ewe. She was getting to study it in the best possible way: as it manifested in a young creature. She communed with him daily, strengthening the rapport. She wasn’t ready to write a paper about it; it was just a feeling, but she was sure it was real. For one thing, with each passing day she could connect from farther away. She realized that her mature mind was lending power to his immature one, so that the phenomenon expanded rapidly. Soon she could tune into him when she was lying on the bed, knowing when he needed to go out to defecate; he had become housebroken when he picked up the preference for it from her mind.

  Then there came something else. Not a connection so much as a premonition. There was danger approaching, not directly to the Lamb or to her or her household, but to their environment.

  She questioned Brian. “I’m picking up on a threat, I think to the village. What could it be?”

  “Sometimes predators raid, rabid wolves. They’re big, and hunt in packs.”

  “No. It’s not like that. I’m feeling hot and cold.”

  “The HiLo!” he exclaimed.

  “The what?”

  “It’s a weather event that comes erratically; there’s no predicting it and we don’t know what causes it. But it’s devastating. First it gets super hot, something like a hundred and thirty degrees F. Then it gets cold, maybe twenty degrees under freezing. It wipes out the turnip crop, and others, in a single day and night. Then its gone, and maybe won’t come again for ten years. Been six years since the last.”

  “That’s it,” she agreed. “One is coming soon.”

  “Can you find out when?”

  “I’ll try.” She communed with Bunctious, and zeroed in on it. “Maybe four-five days hence.”

  “Times a wasting! I’ll tell my folks.”

  “But do you have any way to abate the menace? It sounds ferocious.”

  “Sure. Tuff stones. Volcanic rock that readily absorbs heat, and radiates it back out when the cold comes. Put a stone by each plant, and it makes it so that the high is only about ninety, and the low about forty. The plants can handle that. But it’s a lot of work to place all the stones.”

  “But better than losing the crop.”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Tell your folks.”

  He was off. Mona hugged Bunctious. “If this proves out, we’ve got precognition. My dream.”

  But there was a complication. The farmers didn’t believe it. They rejected the idea that a newborn lamb could predict such an event. Grown sheep yes, but not such a young one. They were not about to struggle to place all the stones, probably wasting their time and effort, on such a tenuous prediction. Only Brian’s own family and a few friends accepted it, probably as much in support of him as actual belief.

  Mona appreciated the villagers’ caution. It was hard for her to believe, herself. Could it be a product of her imagination amplified to seeming reality by her communion with the Lamb? Yet she had not known about the HiLo.

  They joined the Peterson family putting out the stones. There were a lot of turnip plants to cover, and every stone had to be placed precisely, because the radius of their effect was small. Too far away and it was useless; too near and the air circulation could be impeded and spoil the leveling effect. Mona got sore knees and a backache from the hunched labor, but felt she had to do her part. They were trusting her insight. The sheep were to be trusted, yes, but she was no sheep, and the Lamb was as yet unproven.

  The timing became more certain as the event approached. “Tomorrow,” Mona said. “That’s when it happens.” Though there was no indication from the weather.

  The Petersons were busy all day putting out tuff stones, but it was apparent they would not finish on time. So Brian and Mona worked late with them, despite their fatigue, taking the corner of the field near the forest. It was tedious labor, carrying irregular fragments from the wagon and setting a stone beside each turnip plant. The tuff was light, but still solid enough to make Mona sweat, and her back ached from the constant bending over. But the extra effort was paying off; they would complete this section by nightfall.

  Lamb Bunctious—or Bunky as she was coming to call him—was a little apart, nibbling experimentally on weeds. He knew already not to touch the turnips; Mona had mind-warned him, and that had been gratifyingly effective. He was not really eating anyway, still dependent on the Ewe’s milk, but the more plant roughage he took in, the more his digestive system would learn the way of it, until he could be weaned. The Vulture and Python paced him, standing guard. They were nervous about the proximity of the forest, where danger always lurked, and tried to encourage the Lamb to move farther away from it, but he was still somewhat uncertain on his feet, especially the foreleg with the splint, and stayed where he was. Mona realized belatedly that she should have set him down farther inside the field; she hadn’t been thinking of the risk of the edge of it.

  Then trouble erupted from the forest, confirming the Vulture and Python’s concern. Six pony-sized wolves charged out, rapidly orienting on the people and creatures on the field.

  “Dire wolves!” Brian exclaimed. He ran protectively toward Mona. But before he got there, one wolf charged him. Brian swung his massive staff, viciously, cracking it into the wolf’s head so hard that the animal was knocked off its feet, blood welling from its ear, for the moment unconscious.

  But two wolves were coming for Mona. Petrified, she had no notion what to do, and just stood there with a large chunk of tuff in her hands.

  Then another creature ran from the forest. It was the Ewe, moving at an amazing velocity. She zoomed toward a wolf, and as it sprang into the air toward Mona, the Ewe leaped to intercept it in mid-air. They collided, and dropped to the ground, linked. But it was the Ewe who was still on her feet; the wolf fell on its back, bleeding from several wounds. What had happened?

  Mona couldn’t focus on that at the moment, because the third wolf was charging right at her, huge jaws gaping. Instinctively she heaved the stone into its mouth. The jaws snapped closed, and the teeth sank into the tuff. And stayed there, trapped by the soft rock. The wolf had been effectively muzzled.

  But her primary concern was for the Lamb. “Bunky!” she cried, running toward him. But she was too late and too weak to do anything; all she could do was watch while the action proceeded, seco
nds later than it had with her own group.

  The Python intercepted one wolf, biting its nose and wrapping her coils about its body. The wolf fell to the ground, in a fight for its life. The Vulture flew to catch another wolf, wrapping her claws about its snout and pecking at its eyes; this wolf, too, was now in serious trouble. But the third wolf pounced on Bunky. Its giant mouth closed on the Lamb’s little body.

  Mona opened her mouth to scream in horror. But something restrained her. It was Bunky’s mind. He was not afraid. Not hurting. He was fighting back.

  Then the wolf’s jaws parted and it pulled away, letting the lamb go. Blood was pouring from its mouth. Again, what had happened?

  “The blades,” Brian said. “They’ve got defensive blades that jam out to stab whatever attacks them. Bunky too.”

  Now Mona saw that the Ewe, having dispatched her wolf, had made no motion toward the Lamb. Instead she calmly walked off the field and disappeared into the forest.

  The wolves gave up the attack. The one Brian had bashed recovered consciousness and slunk toward the forest. The one Mona had fed tuff finally got its mouth clear and departed also. The two nullified by the Vulture and Python lurched toward the forest, and were let go. The one that had tried to bite the Lamb was in sad state, its mouth a mass of blood; it made its way slowly to the forest, where death seemed likely if it could not heal quickly enough. That left the one the Ewe had blocked. It was dead, its life blood drained by savage wounds in its side and belly. Defensive blades? That Ewe had attacked and dispatched the wolf in short order.

  Now Mona fully appreciated the nature of the sheep: they were indeed deadly. Even the baby one.

  She went and picked up Bunky, and he cuddled comfortably in her arms. He was covered with wolf blood, but there was no sign of his blades. At the house she put him in a tub and washed him thoroughly. He was completely uninjured. She put him in the box, and he dropped off to sleep immediately. His effort of defense had to have depleted his energy.

  Then she washed herself, getting the last of the wolf blood off, and changed her clothes.