A faint green-tinted light penetrated the forest canopy, though the morning clouds hung low and thick. Ninth Translator thought it would rain soon. Her cracked carapace throbbed with each step, but she did not spare herself. The violent ones had returned! No wonder the breeders were so disgusting and bold. In the space of a single night, all the laka's worst fears had sprung back to life.
And that furred one was hardly any better, with its brash manner, vicious teeth and claws. It had made the situation worse back at the ceremonial arena in that unseemly brawl with the runaway breeders. They had obviously been roused enough by its aggression to access some of their deeply buried body-memories passed down from long-ago progenitors. The cycle had begun again and there was only one place it could end, if the coordinators and translators did not act.
The colony had prevailed before, she kept telling herself, as she struggled down the winding gleaning trail. But the truth was, the ones who had been so clever were long dead. No one living had resolved these things, and, though all laka possessed relevant body-memories of that period, so did breeders. It worked both ways.
Low-hanging spikeleaves brushed her face, surrounding her with their cool spice, which usually would have given her pleasure. Now they only made her shake her head and chafe at the delay. The smell of imminent rain intensified, as though the air were about to overflow. Hurry. Hurry. She must summon the castes and organize what must be done. Everyone must act in concert before it was too late. Everyone!
The land dropped steadily; she was descending into the main bowl of the colony with its broad, moss-covered sweep and hatching tower at the center. Her heart swelled at the familiar sight. Gentle home, where everyone had her function and no one ever presumed to want more than she was given. How much longer would it survive?
Five small rose-colored builders, specialized for housing repairs, bustled toward her on their way to the forest to gather raw materials. She stopped and spoke to them in the preemptory mode. "Go back to the builder nests and summon your fellows to the communal area," she told them. "I have something important to say and it cannot wait."
They turned and each headed off in a different direction, having sorted out their destinations through subtle nuances of gesture anyone but a translator might have missed. She hurried on to intercept a trio of gleaners just leaving with woven baskets on their shoulders and directed them to spread the word among their own.
Each new caste she encountered turned aside from its current task and complied with her directives. By the time she reached the communal area with its great luminary trees, her side ached so that she could barely walk. One of her sister translators, Third, spotted her distress and supported her until she had settled in a shady hollow dug out of the earth. A processor brought her a container of restorative nectar and a wedge of sweetcane.
She ate slowly, letting the needed energy kindle within as she waited for the colony to gather. Her mind roiled with all she must relate. It was agonizing to be the source of such terrible news, and yet they had to know.
What they would think, once they were told, she could not even begin to say.
When Heyoka hauled Mitsu's limp body out of the water, for a heart-stopping instant, he thought she was dead. Her skin was cold and alabaster-pale, her lips bloodless. He tilted her head back, brushed the wet hair back out of her eyes, checked her pupils, her pulse. She jerked, gulped in a ragged breath, then coughed up so much water, he felt ill with guilt. His probing fingers found a knot behind her ear that would have rivaled an ostrich egg.
But she was alive. He held onto that.
Mindful of the flek, who must be pursuing, he carried her into the deep silver-green of the rain forest, forcing his way through thick stands of bushes and sapling trees that grew close together until he found a secluded dell. Unlike hrinn, flek were sight-hunters. Warrior-drones didn't have an acute sense of smell, though they could detect heat signatures. This spot dipped below the forest floor though, and he doubted the two of them would stand out to flek senses. They should be safe for a short time.
Supporting her head, he eased her back onto a layer of damp leaf mold, then parted her black hair to examine the lump again. The swelling was receding, slowly. Her pupils seemed equal though. He checked her belt for the medkit, but it was nowhere in sight. Nonregulation equipment for a flek, he supposed. They'd probably confiscated it, or perhaps she'd even cast it aside herself.
Wind whipped through the trees, tangled his mane over his eyes. Thunder rumbled, once, twice, then again. He gazed up through the tossing leaves. It was going to rain, definitely. He tied his mane back with a tuft of grass to keep it out of his face. His lips pulled back in a soundless snarl. Damnation. He hated getting wet.
Hunched under the dubious shelter of a tree that trembled when he touched its mottled bark, he retrieved the com from his own belt and keyed in a command code. "Montrose?"
A few feet away, Mitsu groaned. The fingers of one pale hand twitched.
He studied her still face, the dark lashes contrasted against her translucent skin, remembering that sobering day on Anktan when they had finally brought her to see him after the conclusive battle. He had been confined to a thermal pool, critically weak, suffering from blueshift burnout, but she had been so thin, he'd thought he could see the cavern wall through her pitiful frame.
Her head turned. She murmured an indistinguishable word, then another. His heart raced. He prepared for the struggle that was bound to come when she covered consciousness, but then she quieted.
A dark-green vine slithered over his hand and he jerked away, cursing. The vine continued on, oblivious of his reaction. He turned his attention back to the com. Perhaps the elevation here was too low. The system should still be working through a tiny satellite they'd released upon arrival in the system from the ship, but if the flek fleet had made orbit, the satellite was probably history.
He might have to switch to the com's secondary terrestrial mode and then climb one of these sodding overgrown trees, not an enticing prospect, especially when they were prone to buck one off. He tried again. "Montrose? It's Blackeagle."
"Sarge?" Montrose's voice was faint and filled with static. "We expected you guys back hours ago. Are you all right?"
"Still kicking," Heyoka said. "Has Kei come back yet?"
"No." Montrose sounded worried. "Isn't he with you?"
"Long story," Heyoka said. He batted a tiny four-legged flyer out of his face. "I won't get into it right now, but I have retrieved Mitsu."
"Then she didn't go through the grid after all," Montrose said. Relief colored his voice.
"Unfortunately, I think she did, but she's back, along with at least a full unit of flek." He let Montrose digest that tidbit. "Move camp immediately and don't leave any trace behind. Find safer, less exposed ground."
"What about Kika?" Montrose said. "She left camp about an hour ago. There's just Onopa and Naxk and me left, and Naxk is too bad off to move under her own power."
"Kika can find you, wherever you go. Trust me on that. As for Naxk . . ." Heyoka hesitated. Humans always underestimated hrinnti stamina. "If she's still breathing, she can walk. You only have to ask her."
"Where should we hook up?" Montrose said. "The beach, maybe, or somewhere in the forest?"
Heyoka considered. "No," he said as the rain finally pelted against the leaves overhead, "meet us at the laka village."
A chill, driving rain made the climb back down the mountain torturous. Kei, favoring his burned palm, kept having to catch himself one-handed whenever he slipped, while Visht's shoulder made him stiff and prone to stumble. Lightning flashed a river of molten white fire across the brooding sky, and though he had never before been cold on this too-warm world, Kei was now. He ducked his head to keep the rain out of his eyes and thought longingly of Anktan's arid climate.
By the time they reached the cover of the trees below, their fur was sodden. Kei stalked along in front, feeling the other two behind. Visht remained as silent as ever, while Skal was a skulking, malevolent presence. Even the sound of his breathing infuriated Kei and he longed to whirl and rip the black-and-white's throat out, but Skal had yielded, and, for now, their numbers were too few for him to indulge in such a frivolous luxury. Maybe later, when they returned to Anktan . . .
By the time they reached the streamside clearing where they had left the others, he was longing for a fire. One flavored with gynth leaves, he thought sourly, though he'd smelled nothing the least bit like gynth on this world. At the very least, perhaps Kika or Onopa had hunted, and fresh game would be waiting.
The grass was trampled, but otherwise he saw no sign their fellow Rangers had ever been here. His ears flattened. Had they been captured or driven away?
Visht looked to him with expectant black eyes and he realized he was Leader now. He must decide what they would do next. "The com," he said and fished his unit out of his pocket. Onopa's code? He wracked his brain. The rain streamed down and he felt like a fool, standing there, trying to remember something as stupid as a string of numbers.
"Over here," Visht said suddenly. "I've found their trail, though it's almost washed out. They've taken a lot of care to erase their tracks."
"Any sign of flek?"
"No," Visht said. His yellow mane clung to his neck. He looked like a half-drowned cubling.
Kei joined him and cast about for spoor himself. "Did they all leave together?"
Nose twitching, Visht quartered the verge. "All but Kika. She left sometime earlier. Her trail is even more faint and heads down toward the sea."
"Stupid female!" Skal threw back his head and snorted his dismissal.
Kei whirled and, open-clawed, struck him to the muddy bank. "She is your huntmate now, and a fellow Ranger. You will give her your respect!"
Red-orange blood welled in the claw marks across Skal's neck, then washed away in the rain. He snarled, but did not lift his eyes. Visht stood back impassively, gazing over both their heads, studying the trees beyond the stream as though they were brimming with game.
"We must catch up," Kei said, "and find out what they know. They may have had word from the Black/on/black, or perhaps the ship has come back." He swiveled his head. "Is there any sign of him?"
"No," Visht said, "only his trail from when he left with us."
Skal pushed himself up from the mud. His handclaws were flexed and Kei could smell his eagerness to fight. Kei loomed above him. "Do not even consider it," he said. "We cannot afford the time it would take for me to spare your life—again. This time, if you come at me, I'll rip out your throat and leave your bones for the scavengers."
Skal did not meet his eyes, but defiance was obvious in every rigid line of his body.
"Why did you come here?" Kei asked suddenly. He clenched his hands to keep from striking Skal again. "Why did you join the Rangers, if you had no wish to follow the Black/on/black and honor his ways? We knew it would be strange and difficult, but most of us fought at his side on Anktan. We had smelled the flek and knew they were real, that the pattern which had brought him back to us was huge and all-pervading, so no one was outside its influence. But your males' house did not answer the Black/on/black's call. You weren't there with us on the plains that night, so I do not understand why you volunteered."
Skal did not answer.
"He was cast out," Visht said, his voice unexpected in the silence.
"What?" Even wet, the fur bristled along Kei's neck.
"For random killing," Visht said. "They said he craved the smell of blood—hrinnti blood."
Skal lunged to his feet and stood, head hanging, sides heaving with emotion.
"How do you know this?" Kei asked slowly.
"As a Priest of the Voice," Visht said, "I visited many of the males' houses along the river valley that summer before the Black/on/black returned from the stars. My fellow priests, scattered throughout the valley, thought something/in/motion was in the first stages of pulling itself together, something vast and powerful. Many hrinn felt it and I was trying to learn its name before it was upon us."
Skal lowered his ears and the look in his eyes was haunted.
"At the Vandd Peak Males' House, there was much talk of a young black-and-white who had killed twice without any hint of Challenge." Visht's eyes glinted. "He had been chased away and would have been slaughtered on sight had he ever dared return. I heard similar tales at the next two males' houses. A rogue, they called him, throwback to the days of chaos, totally without honor."
"Then why didn't you tell the Black/on/black?" Kei said. "Why let him go off-world with us?"
"Many are marked with black and white. I had no proof," Visht said, "only suspicions, until now."
Visht hadn't revealed himself either, Kei realized with a start. The Black/on/black was not overly fond of priests, having been forced to Challenge and kill one before the Council would listen to his request to join him in fighting the flek.
He looked at Skal. His wet fur was plastered to his body, so that he looked much smaller. Kei tried to decide what he felt about this shocking new bit of information. Anktan was far away. He himself had been raised outside of many hrinnti conventions, and none among them could be spared, if he could be put to use.
"It doesn't matter what you did before," he said finally to Skal. "Humans don't care about the same things important to hrinn. This is an entirely new pattern and all that counts is what you do from now on. Just keep your head down and follow orders!"
Skal flicked an ear, signifying he had heard. Satisfied, Kei waded across the stream and followed his fellow squadmates' trail into the forest.
Kika finally found an outcropping of rock overlooking the black sand beach that would suit her purpose. She had known from earliest memory that she possessed the potential for healing. Restorers cropped up in the Jhii Lineage from time to time, as they did in all Lines, but Jhii had always considered them self-indulgent failures, contributing nothing to the continuation and improvement of the Line.
The first time she had produced a fat blue spark at the end of one claw, she had still been in the nursery. It had seemed a marvel to her, something wonderful and alive, all her own. Upon learning of it though, the current Line Mother, old Menn, had ordered her beaten until she couldn't move. As she lay bleeding at the Line Mother's feet, she was told Jhii did not breed cublings only to have them stolen by the Restorers.
She had come very close to dying that day and her ribs still bore the scars. Even now, she trembled at the memory. In order to survive, she'd learned to suppress any hint of the ability to accumulate power, though it had been difficult to ignore the energy simmering through her nerves whenever she had been out too long hunting in the sun on a torrid day.
Then last year, on one such day, she had been unwary enough to lose control after an exhausting hunt and loose a spark in the presence of two of her huntmates. As dutiful daughters of Jhii, they had told the new Line Mother, and she, in a fit of white-hot rage, had gone after Kika herself. The thought of being Challenged by the Line Mother was so stunning that she had given too much ground and not fought well. Only the intervention of the Black/on/black, who had been there recruiting for the Rangers, had preserved her life.
But this was another place, another time, and there was no one else here, human or hrinn, who could do what must be done. As Onopa had pointed out, events now unfolding were undoubtedly part of stars/over/stars and new things must be attempted. She had left Jhii and crossed the stars. Now Naxk and Onopa, and even Kei, Visht, and Skal were her Line. If Naxk died, it would be her fault. Though she had no training, she had seen this done upon more than one occasion when Restorers had treated residents of Jhii. She must at least try.
First, she had to draw power. The best source would have been a thermal spring, but this was an alien world with a very different geology, and she had seen no such spring here. The next best source was the sun, and it would shine again today. She was sure of that. Though it rained often here, since they arrived, it never went on for long. Already, the downpour seemed to be fading into mere drizzle. If she waited, the sunlight would blaze down again, feeding the special cells in her body. She would absorb as much as she could, then go back and see what could be done for young Naxk.
Second Breeder led the other three until they found a lone gleaner working in a grove close to the compound. Her carapace was dull orange, quite unremarkable, and she was undersized as well. He rushed forward to block her path. She hesitated, a stalk of sweetcane, green outside, white within, held in one hand. Her placid pink eyes flickered from his face to those behind him, but she did not speak.
The reasons gleaners did not use the same dialect as breeders, Second decided suddenly, was that they were too stupid. Breeders were obviously much the superior caste. He darted forward and seized the sweetcane out of her hand. She cried out, then fell back, shaken.
He bit off a chunk, then passed it to Tenth Breeder. It tasted glorious, much better than anything he'd ever eaten. Tenth ate a bite, then gave the rest to the other two. They squabbled over it, each demanding to be first, and that was almost better than the food.
The gleaner tried to creep away, but Second charged and bowled her over. The blood sang through his head as she lay on her side, crying out, legs and arms waving in distress.
"How silly," said Tenth, who was growing more bold. He edged closer and peered down at her. "Why doesn't she just get up?"
"She's afraid," said Sixteenth. Green sweetcane juice dribbled from his jaws. "She thinks we'll hurt her."
"Well, I certainly will!" said Second. "I'll attack her, if she gets up again!"
"But she has to get up, if she's going to bring us food," said Tenth. "I'm still hungry. What else does she have in her basket?"
Eighth and Twenty-seventh crowded the trembling gleaner and sorted through the basket's contents, which yielded several small shellfruits and a bluemelon. Second snatched the melon and let the others divide the rest. They complained, but ate their share anyway.
"Now," said Second to the mewling gleaner, "I've changed my mind. You can get up and find us some more food."
Instead, she closed her eyes and buried her face in her forearms.
"I don't think she understands," said Eighth. "She still believes you're going to hurt her."
"I will, if she doesn't find us some food!" He picked up a sharp-edged rock. The weight of it felt wonderful in his hand and he lobbed it at her shoulder. It only bounced off, so he bent to sort through the undergrowth and find a larger one.
"Wait," said Twenty-seventh. "Right now we only need a translator. If you damage her, then we'll still have to find both another gleaner and a translator."
That made sense. As diverting as attacking was, Second was forced to be practical. "All right. Stay here and watch this gleaner. Do not let her return to the colony. I will move in closer to the compound, hide, and secure a translator as soon as one happens by. Then we'll have everything we need."
"This is one of the main trails into the compound," said Eighth. "If we stay here, someone is sure to come along, maybe even a keeper. Then we'll have to go back."
"All right," Second said. "Take her to the ruins in the forest then. They aren't far away. I'll meet you there."