After her escape, Mitsu found a depression that had once been a pond in the forest and huddled there, rocking, in the grips of a rage so white-hot, it seemed a nova had exploded behind her eyes. The flek had put their filthy hands on her!
The Oleaakan night, though hot as bath water, seemed cold and threatening. The wind from the sea increased until it whistled through the trees looming overhead. Intertwined limbs tossed and cracked against each other and the smell of rain rode in the air. Out at sea, a storm was brewing.
She closed her eyes and bent forward, pressed her face to her knees, trying not to scream. That terrible white room, the conditioning that sent her spinning farther and farther from reality, her growing tolerance, then acceptance of flek tastes and songs and customs.
The only thing which had sustained her down through the long months in Rehab was her determination never to fall victim to the flek again. She had sworn an oath to die first, and now she had just strolled into their trap like an idiot and let them carry her off!
Did some warped part of her still believe she was flek? That farce down in the cave had revealed a lot about what was lurking in her subconscious. Perhaps she had even betrayed herself into their hands on purpose. If so, she might as well go and throw herself in the sea, for all the help she was going to be in recovering Montrose and Onopa. She'd be of more use to Heyoka if she returned to the ship and locked herself up.
She glanced up at the shifting canopy of leaves overhead. Neither the mountains or the sea were visible from here. Face it, she told herself. She had no idea where she was. That flek had carried her off; then, when she'd come to in the middle of a nest, she'd run off in a blind panic without even taking stock of the surroundings.
One of the first tenets of Ranger training was to know the terrain and where you were at all times. Instead, she was lost, and would continue to be, until the sun came up and she could get her bearings. Unless . . . her hand strayed to the com on her belt. She keyed it on.
"Blackeagle?" Her voice sounded tinny and lost in the night.
No answer.
He was probably out of range, or even dead. The bloody flek had probably killed him, killed them all, while she was unconscious. After the white room . . . she had fought even her partner . . . she heard the ear-splitting squeal of the transfer grid on that night, saw herself run through the installation, rallying the confused flek who were on the point of losing the battle—
She had been weak and there was no way she could make up for that. The enemy had broken her and the crimes she had subsequently committed could never be put right. Kei was right to look upon her with so much hatred. What he didn't understand was that she hated herself more.
She tried the com again. "Blackeagle?"
It crackled, then fell silent.
Too much interference. She had to get to higher ground, at the very least out of these trees. Then perhaps she could find out if she were the only sentient left on this sodding world besides the flek.
When the breeders untangled themselves from the great pile they had made with their bodies, Twenty-fourth's foreleg was damaged beyond repair. The chitin was quite shattered. Second Breeder stood over his fellow as he lay keening, pale blood soaking into the earth, while the others milled about the ceremonial clearing.
Once before, in the interval since Second had emerged from the sac, a young male, not yet officially released from the nest, had wandered off a cliff and broken his body upon the rocks below. The adult females had been indifferent, saying he had obviously been too foolish to breed and there were more than enough drones as it was. It would have been necessary to discard some anyway. The young of all castes had been anxious and more circumspect in the days to follow.
Second Breeder judged this incident to be quite different though. The first had been caused by an error in judgement, while this injury had been inflicted purposefully.
The alien beast's action had been so overt, so forceful. Second Breeder felt his mind brimming with intriguing possibilities. A strident new song burned just below the level of his awareness, intoxicating and different. He remembered how he and the other breeders had acted in concert, actually leaped upon the savage alien, borne it to the ground and pinned it. Such a feeling of power and purpose! He thought he might well burst from it.
The beast regained its feet, its fur tinged with green by the light of the immense luminary. Its claws were no longer visible, and it looked harmless enough for the moment. It snarled and they all retreated a bit. In the background, Twenty-Fourth Breeder continued to keen.
"It's like them," Sixth Breeder's awed voice said, "the unharmonious ones, who took whatever they wanted and then spoiled what was left. We are doomed!"
"Don't be ridiculous. It doesn't look a bit like them," Second said. "My body-memories say they were shaped more like us, like real people, with four arms and legs, smooth, hard bodies, and one head."
"It has only one head!" Sixth Breeder craned his neck as he studied the hulking black-furred stranger as it paced back and forth.
"And that's as far as the resemblance goes," Second said. "Can you think of any creature, significant or not, which does not have but a single head?"
Sixth lowered his gaze in shame. "I am so utterly ignorant," he said. "I will never be able to sort out things half so well as you."
"Perhaps not," Second said. And he did feel an unaccustomed largeness within, a sense that he might well be more than others.
The beast limped a bit, seeming to regard them warily, but was otherwise undamaged, which was more than could be said for Twenty-fourth, whose cries were weakening. Second felt that sense of largeness swell inside him again-—pride, it was called. They, he and the other breeders, had brought a dangerous, clawed alien down all by themselves!
Eighth Breeder approached. He had always been a nervous individual and now both pairs of his hands waved uselessly. He glanced at the beast, then flinched and looked away. "Shouldn't we go back? The night is almost over and the coordinators will be here as soon as it's light. They will be very sharp with us, I fear, for opening the forbidden place."
The coordinators would scold, and the keepers would scold as well. He could hear them now: he and the others were simply drones, useful for but one day of their entire lives, and far more in number than were actually needed. Some of them would be dispatched without ever being allowed to perform their sole function in life.
He had always pondered the strangeness, that the other castes should be so much more useful to the colony, while drones had but a single moment of service. They should be allowed to do more, see more, perhaps even learn something.
The new song, hovering at the edge of his awareness all night, seemed closer than ever. Second closed his eyes, feeling a strange, sweet ache for something unnameable, then let the song burst into his mouth. He had heard its beginnings in the voice of the marvelous crystal forest, when it summoned them from their nest. It was wild and riotous, something entirely unimagined, forthright, even brash.
The others joined in, their voices tentative at first, until they caught its rhythm, then louder and more enthusiastic. There was emotion in that song, exuberant and charismatic. He felt wide as the sea itself, as he sang it, as though he could march across the island and—
What?
He faltered. It was as though there was something immense he was supposed to do, perhaps even somewhere he should go, but he had no idea what it might be.
The beast growled again, a rattling, deep-throated sound that skirled at the edges of Second's mind. Sixth edged closer until his side scraped against Second, though he was shorter by a head. "Shall we jump on it again?" he said, and his voice quivered with an excitement Second had never heard before.
"Perhaps," Second said and he felt very eager himself. This was a new thing, never thought before, that they should—should—
He groped for a word that would say what he felt, how they should watch the alien and make sure no other laka were injured. There should be a word that made clear all of that. It must be secreted down there, deep in his cells, with all the other body-memories that refused to make themselves known. In the old days, though, terrible things had been done, although breeders were never told exactly what. Surely the laka had needed such a word then.
"If the keepers come to fetch us back, how shall we bring the alien with us then?" Sixth asked. "We do not speak its language so we cannot ask it to come."
It had been so heady, being out on their own, singing any song they chose, going wherever they might. Second realized he did not want to go back, ever. The thought of having to return to the colony was like being stuffed back into the sac, after hatching. He was simply too large for that now.
"If the keepers come," he said boldly, "we will tell them to go away. We wish to remain here. This will be our colony."
Eighth's hands froze in a gesture of shock. "But how will we eat?" he said. "Where will we sleep? How will we ever know what to do or when to do it?"
"Those are foolish questions, fit only for hatchlings," Second said. "When we need something, we will find it. Perhaps even the songs will tell us what we need to know."
The beast edged toward the trees and Second could see it was going to try to escape again. "Surround it!" he cried. "Don't let it get away!"
His fellow breeders circled the black-furred alien, shoulder to shoulder, and settled in to keep watch. Second felt a wave of anticipation. The beast strode about the circle, quite agitated, and would most likely try to force its will upon them again. When it did, they would have to respond. How wonderful, he thought. How fascinating and utterly glorious. He could hardly wait.
At first light, Kei stalked through the abandoned Ranger camp, so miserable he could hardly lift his ears. His first encounter with a flek as a Ranger, and he'd run without even drawing blood. It was unbearable. He didn't know what to do with himself. He could never show his face to the Black/on/black again, never return to the world of his birth.
He'd heard the shuttle leave during the night, some hours before, as humans counted time. That was bizarre anyway, chopping up time into tiny bits, like breaking up a log, then counting the pieces. Humans were obsessed by numbers.
Nutrapaks lay scattered about and his stomach insisted food would be welcome right about now. He started to open one as the wind whistled against the tents, then threw the plas package aside. He was a hrinn. He needed fresh meat and grains, not this overprocessed grit. He would hunt for himself, now that there was no one to stop him.
Beneath the murmur of the wind, he heard fur brush against fabric. He looked up, bristling. Kika's pale-gray silhouette stood before the farthest tent. Her unbound mane whipped in the wind and she had discarded her uniform shirt.
He tensed, always uncomfortable conversing with females who were not Levv. Bey had reported that she had been Jhii, but disgraced in some way, and had barely escaped Anktan with her life. "I thought you left with the others on the shuttle."
Kika snarled. "We had no desire to leave just as the enemy arrived!"
The rest came into view then: tawny, undersized Naxk; enigmatic Visht, who rarely spoke more than two words at a time; piebald Skal, bad-tempered and hulking even for a mature male, though not so tall as Kei; and his huntmate, sturdy, faithful Bey. "All of you are here then," he said in Hrinnti.
"Except the Black/on/black," Naxk said. "We scouted half the night, but could not find him."
"I tracked him back into the cave," Kei said, "before the flek came. I do not know if he closed with them in a fight or not."
Naxk's tawny ears pricked with interest. "You saw them—the flek?"
Kei stiffened. The breeze teased at an errant strand of his mane. He raked it aside savagely. "One."
"Where is the carcass?" Bey asked, eagerness written into every line of his body. His black eyes were aglint with joy. "I want to see it!"
Naxk and Kika rumbled approvingly.
"I—did not kill it." Kei felt his heart shrivel with shame.
Skal pushed forward. He alone of the six still wore his tan Ranger shirt. It had come loose at the neck and hung open so that his black and white markings were clearly visible. His lips wrinkled back from his teeth in a fierce grimace. "It ran away?"
"No." Kei stood very still, thinking of the excruciating noise, of how his brain had threatened to boil out through his ears, the way his vision had wavered and he'd been almost blind from the pain, how the air itself refused to enter his chest. But those were only excuses. There could be no acceptable reason for allowing his enemy to escape.
They looked away, unable to process the enormity of what he had done. The biggest among them, Squad Leader by right, had turned aside from first blood.
Finally, Bey turned to Skal, next biggest among them, as well as the oldest, a seasoned fighter. The rest turned also. Skal's distinctive scent filled the air as he realized what was coming. Kei had a flash of white-hot anger. Skal was big, but nothing more, not fierce, nor clever, nor especially fast. He couldn't even hold blueshift for more than a handful of breaths. This was not the pattern/in/progress they had been seeking. They could not put themselves beneath the claws of such an inferior leader.
Skal threw his head back and roared. The sound echoed against the green-carpeted mountains above, then out across the aquamarine sea. For a breath, Kei hovered on the edge of Challenge. Hot desire for cleansing combat beat through his blood. He could defeat Skal, who was slow and had not absorbed the hand-to-hand Ranger techniques as well. He was still biggest.
Then he saw the cant of the others' ears, the disapproving set of their shoulders. He had disgraced himself and they would not follow him now, no matter how well he fought. If he disputed Skal, they would turn and tear his throat out on the spot. And he found it tempting to force them to end his shame. One snarl, one sweep of his claws, and it would be all over.
Then he remembered how it had been back on Anktan. The Black/on/black had convinced them that no one could hunt the flek alone. They had been forced to put Line politics aside, as well as the traditional divisions between male and female, and bind themselves together into a single massive hunt, strength multiplied by strength, to sweep the flek from the plains and take back their world.
Now that the shuttle was gone, along with the human Rangers, they were few and the flek were here. They could not spare one even so unworthy as himself. He lowered both eyes and ears, and positioned himself at the rear of the pack.
The tree flickered out about an hour after Heyoka found himself trapped by the laka. He spent the rest of the night in darkness, unable to find a way out without injuring another native. As good as hrinnti night sight was, the natives' seemed even better. Every time he'd so much as flicked an ear, they were all over him. Montrose had not called out again and he was hopeful the two humans had escaped in the confusion of his capture.
When dawn finally brightened the sky, he made out the mountains first, off to the left, rugged and green, sweeping above the horizon. Several large six-legged avians soared overhead on their way to the restless sea. The air was humid and sweet, the clouds so low upon the trees, they seemed to be growing out of them.
His shoulder ached where he'd hit it in that earlier, ill-advised fracas. The laka he'd taken down last night lay unmoving on the ground, probably dead. None of the rest had made any move to aid or comfort it, or take it back to the village for help. They still surrounded him, a multicolored lot, their pink eyes brilliant with the rising sun. He prowled back and forth across the grass, assessing their strength, looking for weak spots.
His savage other raged within at the delay in finding his people, but he subdued it with an effort. He had given in to it earlier, but attacking had been a big mistake. It seemed to have triggered a primal response in the natives, clumsy, to be sure, but unmistakably aggressive. He should have known better.
Way to go, Blackeagle, he told himself. You managed to make a bunch of pacifists hot for your blood. He should have kept his mind on persuading the laka to provide shelter and supplies, and perhaps even defending their homes and themselves against the flek, but instead, like an idiot, he'd antagonized them.
He still had his laser rifle, but he needed to conserve the charge for real battle. If he couldn't get out of this without drawing further blood, he didn't deserve to be a Ranger.
Now that there was enough light to see clearly, it was time to try diplomacy again. "Look," he said and held up empty hands. "I don't want to hurt anyone else."
The natives stirred, moved in closer. Each one was a different pastel color: pink, blue, green, yellow, mauve, purple, as though they were a bunch of terran flowers. They had been "singing" off and on all night, a chorus of odd atonal buzzing that set his fur on end. They often moved in unison too, like a bizarre dance, though there was nothing particularly rhythmic or graceful about it.
Their scent was strong, but not unpleasant, a bit like the greenery of this island, which no doubt comprised much of their diet. They watched him carefully, seeming to wait for something.
"I'm sorry about last night," he said. He had no sense they understood anything he said, not even the tone of his voice. "We'll make reparations for your loss, I promise."
Their eyes, large in their oval faces, did not blink, did not even seem to have lids. Their hands, four each, were poised, ready, for—something.
Heyoka felt the other's dangerous impatience rising again. "Look, we can't just sit here all day. Either kill me or let me go!"
Silence. All eyes on him. Stillness. What did they want?
He fingered the stock of his laser rifle, then slung it onto his back. If they were so eager for him to make the first move, then he would. He couldn't stand this waiting anymore. "I'm leaving," he said, "but we must do this again sometime."
Suddenly their gaze shifted to something beyond him. He turned and found himself confronted by dozens more laka outside the circle, every one of them bigger than these who had held him prisoner all night.