Delta
Pavonis II ... far from the sphere of Earth-colonized worlds where a tiny human colony
kept a miserable toehold alone on a high plateau of that unexplored planet
Delta
Pavonis II . .
. where two people, Harold and Joanne, were driven from the colony, unarmed,
into the terrors of the unknown jungle.
Delta Pavonis II . .
. where two intelligent races fought
a bitter no-holds-barred battle in which the human
intruders proved to be the decisive factor that would
throw the world to one species or the otherl ,
Tom Purdom's THE
TREE LORD OF IMETEN is a saga
of high adventure and scientific ingenuity.
Turn
this book over for second complete novel
THE TREE LORD OF IMETEN
by
TOM PURDOM
ACE
BOOKS, INC. 1120 Avenue of the Americas New York, N.Y. 10036
the tree lord of imeten
Copyright ©, 1966, by Ace Books, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Cover by John Schoenherr.
Fob
Sara
empire star
Copyright ©, 1966, by Ace Books, Inc.
Printed in U.S.A.
I
J ok Pehsa's
body lay in the dirt less
than twenty meters from the tractor. He saw it every time he peered around the
front tread. Blood stained all the ground around it and there was a big hump
underneath the jacket. The metal-tipped arrow, released at close range, had smashed
through clothing, muscle, bone and heart as if it were an Eighteenth Century
cannon ball crashing into wood, and when Joe had stopped in midstride and
toppled forward, the weight of his body had pushed the point out his back.
His
lips curled back every time he looked at it. Anger was the only response death
ever provoked from him. Five years ago, when this planet had finally killed his
mother and his young sister, his anger had sent him stalking across
the plateau late at night with a fury which his
sixteen year old mind had naively assumed was the unexceedable limit of the
indignation a human being can endure. And this morning, when he had looked out
the window and seen his father and his best friend crumple before the rifles of
Emile Detterman and Ben Keler, his outraged bellow had frozen everyone standing
in the street. The arrows had flown from his bow as if he were a vengeful god
hurling thunderbolts. He hated death—even when he had dealt it himself, even
when he wanted to kill the men who had dealt it to his friends.
He
peered underneath the curve of the front tread. Raising his eyes from the body,
he inspected the open ground between the tractor and the buildings a hundred
meters away. To his nearsighted eyes the buildings looked fuzzy. The plastic
windows looked like black holes, and if he had never seen them before, he
wouldn't have known the eight two-story buildings on his left were gray metal,
and the thirty one-story buildings on' his right were gray stone. To him, the
huge bulk of the spherical orbit-to-ground vehicle two kilometers away was a
shapeless black cloud. The forest beyond the vehicle was a dark smear which
could have been anything.
The
only detectable sounds were the wind and the faint roar of the waterfall at the
end of the plateau. He assumed no one was working in the farm on the other side
of the buildings, since he couuldn't hear voices and both the tractors were in
this shed with him, but if they had been working he couldn't have seen them.
Most
of the people in the settlement were hiding. After Emile's gang killed him,
they would creep into the open, accept the new leadership, and continue their
lives until the next struggle for power broke out. What else could they do? If
everyone could be that apathetic about who played the roll of leader, his
father and Walt Sumi would still be alive.
It
had now been several minutes since a rifle
bullet had last cracked above the tractor. It had been almost an hour since
they had last tried to rush him.
The
shed he was hiding in was isolated from the rest of the settlement. A sheer
cliff protected his back, and they could attack him from the front only by
sniping at him or by rushing him across open, leveled ground. The arrow in Joe
Persa's heart had apparently taught them even a hail of rifle bullets couldn't keep him from killing whoever volunteered
to make the assault.
He
slid behind the tractor and crouched along it toward the other end. The shadows
of the buildings had indicated it was now early afternoon, five hours since the
sun had first risen above the western horizon. He assumed they would now wait
four more hours and rush him in the dark, but he
couldn't be sure. He had to watch both ends of the tractor if he wanted to
cover all the ground in front of him. He didn't want to be taken by surprise.
When he died, he would fall hurling death.
He was a deadly archer in spite of his eyes.
He had killed or seriously injured at least two others besides Joe. His father
had insisted he get along without glasses and leam how to compensate. They
couldn't be dependent, his father had felt, on the technology of a human civilization
which was now eighteen light years away and which none of them, hopefully,
would ever contact again. This isolated plateau on Delta Pavonis II was going
to be their entire world for many decades; if they wanted to survive they
should use, as much as possible, only what could be grown or built here, or the
equipment from the starship which wouldn't wear out before they could expect to
build replacements.
He straightened up cautiously and glanced
over the top of the tractor. Something moved beside
the nearest building.
He
ducked and threw himself flat. His right arm reached behind his shoulder for an
arrow. He wiggled forward and peered under the curve of the rear tread.
Someone
was walking toward the shed. He would wait until they got as close as Joe had
been.
He
blinked the sweat out of his eyes. Under his loose white shirt and loose white
pants his body felt oily and dirty. Normally at this time of day he would have
stripped to his shorts and given himself a sponge bath.
He
pulled his head in when the fuz2y human
figure was half the distance between the buildings and Joe's body. While he was
watching it, the others could be approaching him across the ground he couldn't
see from this end of the tractor. He crawled back to the other end and looked
out.
Sunlight
flashed on red hair. His eyes finally detected the slight lurch to the left
every time the approaching figure made a step.
His heart jumped. Joannel The face was still a blur, but no one else in
the settlement had red hair and walked like that.
His
eyes searched the buildings for a flash of sunlight on gun metal. They might be
using her for a decoy. She could even have decided she should help them kill
him. In this universe anything was possible.
She stopped well beyond Joe's body. He could
imagine the expression on her face. She and Joe had been friends since they
were children on the starship.
She
cupped her hands over her mouth. "Harold! I want to talk to you. Please
let me talk to you."
He pulled his head in.
"Don't come any closer!"
"I've been talking to Emile. He's
willing to let you leave the settlement. He says he'll give you food and
equipment."
He
crawled to the other end of the tractor and looked out. The urge to kill her
flashed through his mind. He wasn't interested in living. Anger was the only
emotion left in his body.
"Go away!"
"Emile
doesn't want to kill you. Please listen to me. He knows more people will die if
they try to attack you."
He crawled back to the front end of the
tractor. Holding out her hands, she stepped forward. 'She stopped. "Don't
you trust me?"
"Go back!"
She
limped toward him. "I won't let you die. Listen to reason."
His
hand tightened on his bow. He squinted at the buildings. They could have a
dozen rifles trained on him. He lived his life in a fog.
She
stepped past the body. The bulk of the tractor hid her from his eyes.
He rose to a crouch and jumped backward into
the shadows. The bowstring slid smoothly into the notch of an arrow.
She limped around the tractor. Her eyes
widened. "Harold!"
They stared at each other. The bow was at the
level of his chest. The arrow was half drawn.
Her
eyes searched his face. She shook her head slowly. "What have they done to
you?"
He shifted the arrow so it pointed at the
ground. The bulging, overdeveloped muscles of his arms and shoulders were rigid
with tension.
Why
couldn't he go back in time? Why couldn't he reach through thirteen hours and
grab his friends's shoulder and tell him not to go out in the morning?
Her voice trembled. "Emile says they'll
line up out of bow range without their weapons. They can't let you stay here,
but they don't want to fight."
He
glanced out the front of the shed. He couldn't believe she would hurt him, but
she was a very trusting girl. While she was distracting
him, they could be closing in from both sides.
"Where will I go? Back to Earth?"
"I
know it's sickening. They're the ones that ought to leave." She wiped the
sweat off her face. Tears filled her eyes. "It's better than dying, isn't
it? Don't you want to live?"
He
gestured with the bow. "Go stand in front of the tractor. Ill talk to you there."
"Don't you trust
me?"
"While I'm standing back here, they
could be doing anything."
She buried her face in her hands. Her
shoulders trembled as she stumbled outside.
He
ran forward and crouched behind the tractor. He bobbed up and glanced over the
top and then he stretched out and peered under the front tread again.
"Harold?"
"I'm here."
"We've got a whole world. There must be someplace we can go." "We?"
"You don't think I can stay here, do
you?"
"Do you think you can live down
there?"
"Don't make me stay here! If you won't
do it for yourself, do it for me!"
He pictured the two of them trying to survive
in the forest at the foot of the plateau—separated from their own society;
exposed to unknown animals and dangers; dead from starvation if they lost their
food supply; one half blind, the other crippled by the way her muscles had
adapted to a gravitational field twenty percent stronger than the gravitational
field in which the human body had evolved; nagged at every step by the
potential danger of the unknown creatures who built the great towers and
statues which rose above the forest—
His
lips curled. Why didn't they attack? Give him one more shot.
"Don't
make me live with three graves," Joanne said. "Be yourself." Her
voice quivered. "Do you think they would have wanted a pile of bodies for
a monument?"
She
started crying. He stared at Joe's body and then looked beyond it to where the
plateau ended in a thousand-meter drop. The forest loomed in his
consciousness.
Walt
stood in front of him, shaking his head. What are you trying to do?
He
couldn't think. It had all happened too fast. He had been all set to die—he had
been dead already—and now she was asking him to stand up and do something.
"How long do you think you can stay
alive in the forest?"
She
stifled her crying. "I'd rather die there than commit suicide here."
She hesitated. "I can't stay here. When I went in T:o talk to them—to them I'm with you now. If I stay here, they'll probably kill me, too."
"Did you think about
that before you talked to them?"
"I couldn't let you die!"
He scowled. Why not?
He
couldn't say it. She made his uncontrolled savagery seem shameful. She had
risked her own life to get him out of this. It had probably never even occurred
to her he might not want to live.
"I know how you feel," she said.
"I think I feel the same way. Walt meant as much to me as he meant to you.
I'd like to crawl off someplace and never see another human face. But we've got
to go on living. What you're doing isn't right. You don't believe in it
yourself."
He
crawled to the other end of the tractor. He checked the ground brieflyiand then
he crawled back.
"What's
Emile going to do?" he asked. "Is he going to stay on the
plateau?"
She
caught her breath. "I don't know. They haven't said anything."
"Is he in charge or Ben?"
"He seems to be in charge."
"That
wont last long. What did they say they'd give
us?"
"They said they'd give us whatever we
need." "Rifles?"
She hesitated. "I didn't ask them."
"Cheese fungus? Seeds?'
Rabbits? Knives?"
"Emil said they'd give us anything we
need to survive."
"A cart?"
"Can we use one in the forest?"
"If
we can't, we'll abandon it." he thought. Through his anger and grief old
emotions were beginning to assert themselves. When his mother and sister had
died, his rage eventually had been transformed into an attitude which had
served many men before him. You couldn't defeat death by shaking your fist at
it, or by pretending it wasn't real or that it didn't matter—or by lying down
and letting it kill you. You defeated death by living as long as you could, and
by doing things death couldn't destroy. "Well need an anti-grav platform
to get down the cliff. Tell Emile they can send a girl with us to get the
platform back up. If he won't give it to us—tell him 111 stay here. I mean
that. Don't let him think I don't If you don't get the
platform, the deal's oft."
"You won't try climbing down the east
face of the cliff?"
"And
have them shoot us from a platform? They'll still
probably come after us. I'd rather go up in the mountains, but in the forest
we'll have some cover over us."
"They
really want us to go, Harold. You haven't seen them. They've had as much as
they can stomach."
"We
have to assume the worst. This is no time to be trusting." He wiped the
sweat off his brow. "Let me think. Clothes . . . water purifiers . . . Ask
for some nails."
He
was beginning to feel hungry and tired. It would be moming before they could
rest and he knew he had probably eaten his last hot meal for many days.
Why
hadn't she left him alone? They'd be lucky if they survived a month. If he ever
returned to this plateau, at least two people would pay with their lives for
everything he was about to endure.
For
a moment his churning brain threw up a scene he had never witnessed, but which
had been described to him at least once a year since he had been old enough to
understand: his father, thirty-nine years ago, looked back at Earth as the
starship made its hurried escape. That had been the most
bitter moment of his father's life. For the usual reasons—power, fear,
greed—the masters of psychological manipulation had turned the Earth into a
world where no human being could be sure his thoughts were his own. The colony
on the moon where the starship had been constructed had been the last outpost
of freedom, and everyone there had known the psych engineers would eventually
tamper with their minds, too, if they didn't escape before the government
decided their freedom was no longer useful. Gathering all their courage,
outfitting the ship in twenty-four hours of frantic labor, they had left in a
blaze of gunfire as the police closed in, and plunged into the black gulfs
between the stars, promising themselves they would find a world where men could
be free.
Soon
he would be looking back at the settlement as his father had looked back at
Earth.
II
At
night a thin mist covered
the bottom of the forest. The planet was much wetter and hotter than Earth.
Ocean covered almost eighty percent of its surface, and it was twenty-three
million miles closer to a sun which was jjnly a few hundred degrees cooler than
the sun which warmed Earth. During the hot, nine-hour day, immense quantities
of water evaporated from the sprawling ocean and were trapped between the
mountains and the southern coast.
Joanne pulled one handle of the cart and he
pulled the other. No underbrush grew in this part of the forest—the trees
blocked out most of the sunlight—but the ground fought their muscles every turn
of the cart's wheels. In the darkness and the fog they stumbled over roots,
loose rocks, and pitted, uneven ground. Fear of the night and the unknown
stiffened their legs and shortened their steps.
Cut
off from all social organization, Harold felt naked and defenseless. The animal
noises coming from the trees unnerved him. His free hand clutched the
nail-studded club he had made as if he expected to be attacked at any minute.
They
had plunged due south when they left the anti-gravity platform and then they
had turned east. He wanted to stay close to the mountains so they could
eventually leave the forest and camp in higher, more open territory. What they
would do after that he didn't know. He couldn't think that far ahead. He would
find a hiding place for them and then he would rest and brood and sooner or
later he would begin thinking about going on with his life.
What
did a man do when he was no longer part of a community? He had been studying to
be a biologist, the scientific vocation the settlement needed most, and the
indispensable element in his vision of a happy, meaningful life was a picture
of himself doing something others would find useful or interesting. He couldn't
imagine life without some kind of work.
They
had killed his friend and his father, and then, as if'they were doing him a
favor, they had robbed him of the thing he needed most—the chance to accomplish
something he could consider meaningful. In one day they had come as close to
killing him as they could without actually sending a bullet smashing through
his brain.
Something shrieked behind him. He let go of
the cart handle. Passing the club to his right hand, he whirled. "That was
on the ground."
In the cart the rabbits stirred restlessly.
Something knocked rhythmically and he realized it was Joanne's club banging
against the side of the cart.
He blinked at the darkness. In nine years no
human had ever left the plateau. Anything could prowl this forest. After the
refugees crowded into the starship had decided the towers and statues looming
over the trees had to be structures built by intelligent beings, his father
had argued monotonously that caution was the only responsible policy when you
were dealing with the unknown. There had been some violent arguments but in the
end his father's faction had won out. As the last free human minds left in the
universe, they couldn't afford to take any risks.
He
could still remember every detail of the bitter moment when they had orbited
the planet and learned that, after spending thirty years in space and visiting
two star systems, the first habitable planet they had discovered was —against
all the odds—apparently already inhabited. They had thought about going on to
another star, but thirty years in a spaceship, with two hundred and sixty
people living in a space originally planned for a hundred, had been as much as
most of them could tolerate.
He
listened. Even if he heard something, he couldn't be sure he would interpet it
correctly. On Earth a predator would have moved in silently, or they might
have heard the faint padding of cushioned paws, or claws scratching on stone or
bark, but here a predator might have evolved in ways no human could hope to
imagine. The birds and small animals he had studied on the plateau had differed
from Earth life just enough that anything had to be considered possible.
He
turned around and gripped the handle. "Let's go. Are you getting
tired?"
"I'm all right. Ill be ready to.eat
pretty soon."
"I'm
getting hungry, too." Since morning he had eaten nothing but the soup and
the pound of uncooked steak-plant she had brought him after she went to tell
Emile he accepted the bargain. Even a hunk of cheese fungus seemed appetizing.
"Don't talk much. We might as well keep going, but I want to listen."
"It sounded a little human, didn't
it?"
"That's what I thought."
He
checked their course against his wrist compass. His stomach felt nervous. If
only he had a rifle! They had even refused to give him seeds for growing
explosives.
The
cartwheels creaked at his back. In the distance he could still hear the faint
roar of the waterfall. Two hours more and they could stop to sleep. He'd take
the first guard. She must be'ready to collapse.
He
glanced at her. Their eyes met and she made herself smile.
For the
second time that day he thought, remotely, of the two of them alone in their
shelter. He was too tense, dirty and tired to feel anything more than a faint
memory of desire.
For
several months now something had been growing between them. She was a companionable
girl, a natural third when he and Walt got their weekly chance to sit around
drinking home-made beer. Something in his personality responded to her basic
serenity. He had been thinking about asking her to live with him. To keep the
settlement growing, and the pene pool varied, every woman was supposed to have
children by several men, but most of the women seemed to end up living with one
man for years at a time.
At
twenty-two she had been the oldest childless girl in the settlement. She lost
two babies in a row and both the obstetricians had agreed she should let her
system rest for a year.
Ahead of them something yapped several times.
He froze. Again he let go of the handle and passed the club to his right hand.
The cart swayed slightly, unbalanced on top of a burnp, and Joanne pulled it
forward and steadied it.
He
couldn't be sure, but to him the yapping had sounded as if it were coming from
the same kind of voice as the shriek.
"If
it's the same thing," Joanne murmured, "it moved awfully fast."
"Maybe we'd better stop."
"Couldn't
it be a carrion eater? Didn't jackals make that kind of noise?"
"We'll
keep away from the trees. Make it cross open ground. It won't do much, but. .
."
He
shrugged. His voice trailed off. He picked up his handle and they started
forward.
In
the daytime the vistas in the forest would have been at least a hundred yards.
He wondered if he should have his bow ready instead of his club. If something
resembling a lion or a panther attacked them during the day, even with his eyes
he could probably shoot it before it reached them. Even at night, an obscure
shape moving in the mist, or the noise of a charge, might give him time to
string an arrow before the predator leaped.
He
decided to keep the club. The bow would be better against some things, but the
club would be useful against anything.
They edged the cart to the right so they
could pass between two looming tree trunks with plenty of open space on all
sides. His eyes scanned the lowest branches, long, massive beams nearly twenty
meters from the forest floor. The trees in this forest had branches as high
above the ground as forty meters, which could have supported his weight. As the
noise overhead indicated, most of the life went on in the dense canopy of
intertwining leaves and branches.
His
biologist's mind wondered what the predators in this forest lived on. On Earth
the big carnivores had lived primarily in the grasslands, feeding on the big,
fast herbivores who browsed on the grass. Here, where
there were no grasslands on the entire planet, any carnivores who lived on the
ground would have to feed on creatures who browsed on the leaves, as giraffes
had on Earth, or on creatures who rooted for nuts and insects. If they were
being stalked by a carnivore, then they should also be alert for things that
could trample them.
Why
hadn't they seen any? They had walked at least ten kilometers. Were they being
followed by humans?
He
studied each branch as they trudged under it. Predators could live in the
trees, too. And there was one unpredictable factor which couldn't be ignored
and which could invalidate any reasoning based on the laws of nature: intelligence.
The nearest statues and towers were at least two hundred kilometers from here,
but for all he knew they could be walking in a carefully controlled park. /
They
walked for another hour and then they stopped to rest. They sat back to back on
top of the cart, with their clubs by their right hands and his bow and two
arrows in easy reach. They had heard the yapping twice more, but they had still
seen no animal life bigger than small creatures and birds and a huge moth which
had flapped out of a tree and drifted across their path.
He
nibbled on a chunk of cheese fungus. "Well camp in another hour. I'll take
the first guard period."
"You've been awake longer than I
have," Joanne said.
"It's been a long day
for both of us."
"The
forest is an interesting place, isn't it? It's too bad we aren't here just to
explore."
He
shook his head. Nothing could crush her. She had always been the one who
pointed out something unusual when they went on their walks across the plateau.
The most commonplace animal behavior could evoke excited comments from her.
She had been studying linguistics, but in many ways she had a much more natural
interest in the biological world than he did. He was interested in theories
and practical uses, whereas she was simply amused and awed by what she
observed.
It irritated him a little to hear her speak
so lightly. He had been looking at things all this while with the grim eyes of
a hunted animal. Still, what good did it do to concentrate on your fear and
your loss? He should be irritated with himself. She was keeping her eyes open
and her spirits up and that was important if they wanted to survive.
"Maybe we'll come back and explore it," he said. "We might as
well." She chuckled nervously. "It looks like we're going to have
plenty of time." The chuckle was a good sign she was tired. In his early
teens—he had been twelve when they had landed on the plateau—he had often stood
at the edge of the cliff and thought about exploring the forest. He and his
father had had several violent arguments about it. For a long time he had thought his father was a coward—or a tyrant who wanted to keep the people in the settlement penned up on the
plateau so he could boss everyone around. Once he had even dreamed about
running away and spending his life studying this new world and making
astonishing discoveries; he would have to live without women, of course, and
without any food other than a cheese fungus;- but it would be a heroic
existence which would be remembered forever in the legends of mankind.
Swallowing
the last of his cheese fungus, he denounced his youthful self for a fool. The taste of the stuff was always unpredictable and rarely good.
Despite the hopes of the genetic engineers who had developed it, it resembled a cheese only in its consistency and its yellowish color.
The
planners of the proposed interstellar expedition had assumed, correctly, that
the plant and animal life of a habitable planet might resemble Earth life in
many superficial ways but that its chemical structure would be different enough
to make it inedible. The cheese fungus had been developed to provide a safe
food until Earth plants and animals could be grown in abundance. In effect it
was a biological chemical plant which attacked the
local plant life thrown into its bed, broke the local proteins down into their
elemental chemicals, and reassembled the elements into proteins humans could
digest.
He
washed the taste out of his mouth with a swig of water from his canteen.
Reaching behind him, he patted her hand. "We can camp here if you want
to."
"I'm
all right. Am I slowing you up too much? You could probably walk twice as fast
without me."
"Without you I
probably wouldn't be here."
She
leaned backward so she could look at his face. "Then I'm glad I came.
Wouldn't you have left without me?"
He shook his head.
"We
can make some land of life, Harold. There really Is a
lot of work you can do here. I feel as bad as you, but we've got to go
on."
He
kissed her lips. He knew he should be watching the trees, but he couldn't help
it. Her concern for him demanded a response.
He
held her face between his hands and looked at her. He had never seen so much
tenderness in a woman's eyes.
"I
guess on Earth they would have called this a honeymoon," he said.
"I'll try to be a good wife to you. I
promise."
"I was going to ask you sooner or later
anyway."
A dark
blur sped at him through the fog. He grabbed his club and scrambled to his
feet. Joanne gasped and he jerked his head around. Two almost invisible shadows
were rushing at them from the front of the cart. Three more were coming at them
from the back. A sixth was charging straight at Joanne.
"Get
up!"
His eyes darted from side to side. Behind him Joanne stood up clumsily.
The waterproof boxes piled in the cart made a rickety, uneven platform.
He
shook the club. The animal coming at him from the front was only about ten
meters away. The others were almost as close. They were as silent as the fog.
If they hadn't been moving, he would never have noticed them.
He
hadn't thought about animals which hunted in packs. There were too many for the
bow and too many for the club.
"Kill them!" he
bawled. "Don't be squeamish!"
A
solid looking body leaped at him from the right. He twisted on his hips and the
club smashed into a round skull. A solid impact jarred his arms. The animal
screamed. He twisted with it as it hurtled past and slammed the club into the
flank of the thing leaping at him from the left.
Nails
slid into flesh and ribs. Claws tore at the loose folds of his shirt. Joanne
yelled and fell over the side of the cart.
He
fought for his balance.,On the ground below the beast
he had first seen charging him was crouching to spring. Bending his knees, he
leaped over the side after Joanne.
One of the creatures had pounced on her as
soon as she fell. He yelled savagely. Oblivious of everything except the claws
and teeth threatening her face, he brought the club down on the beast's back.
Bone crunched. The spine snapped and the
animal screamed and thrashed. Claws raked on Joanne's clothes. Hands over her face,
she struggled to roll out from under.
Two
of the animals were crouching an easy leap away. He
snarled at them and raised the club over his head with one hand. Grabbing the
broken-backed creature by the neck, he wrenched it off Joanne.
"Get up!"
He glared at the two crouching beasts. At his
feet the one with the broken back coughed out its life. The animal he had
stabbed in the side glared at him from the ground and yapped.
Joanne
pulled herself up the side of the cart. The fourth beast stalked around the
front end and crouched beside the one which had been wounded in the side.
"Pick up your club," Harold said.
She picked up her club. "Are you
hurt?"
"Not
yet." Orange eyes stared at him through the mist. Why didn't they jump? "How are you?"
"I don't feel any blood."
"Why don't they do something?"
One
of the crouching animals yapped several times. Harold's hand tightened on the
club. Three against two. If Joanne could hold her own,
they might get out of this.
The
wounded animal barked once. The other animal yapped again. The wounded animal
barked and moved its head.
"Harold ..."
"Do you think you can use the bow?"
"I think they're talking."
He
blinked. His eyes passed from round head to round head.
They
had bodies a little like the bodies of cats, lithe and big pawed, but their
faces were almost as flat as a human's, and their teeth looked shorter and
duller than a carfvore's teeth should. They hadn't run at an impressive pace
when they attacked either. Even hunting in packs, if their teeth and claws and
that speed were all they had to work with, they couldn't be very • efficient
killers. Unless they weren't as well fed as they appeared to be, they had to
have some weapon that didn't show.
They were crouching around him and Joanne
exactly like a gang of humans who were afraid to move in because nobody wanted
to be the first one hurt—like creatures who could size
up a situation and predict what would happen if they acted.
For
the first time in history, humans were face to face with an alien intelligence.
For
a moment, in spite of the danger, he felt some of the excitement of discovery.
He had imagined this moment many times as he looked down on the forest from the
plateau. What insights two entirely different species could give each otherl
His father had insisted any intelligent beings who lived on this world had to
be at a low level culturally, but there had always been the possibility the
natives were masters of some other skill, such as social organization, or that
they had created a technology so simple and efficient humans couldn't recognize
it. They might even know how the human race could control the follies which had
wrecked civilization on Earth.
An
idea flashed across his mind. Theorists had aften argued
that human hands had triggered the development of human intelligence. Man was
supposed to have evolved from an animal which had used primitive tools and weapons
when it hunted. Tools had created a way of life, and the way of life had made
tools more and more necessary. Instead of favoring the strong and the fast,
natural selection had begun to favor the intelligent, the people who could use
tools with more skill and imagination than the rest of the pack. Here was some
evidence for that theory! If Joanne were right, these creatures had a language
but no hands. If they had evolved from some animal which had hunted in packs,
and which had used primitive signals to coordinate the hunt, then on this
world, too, intelligence had e-volved because a species had become dependent on
a skill only intelligence could improve.
He
cursed. "What difference does it make? They attacked us! For all we know
they're just savages." He loosened his knife in its sheath. The excitement
had lasted only an instant. They might be intelligent, but they were no more
civilized than the intelligent animals he had left behind on the plateau.
"Get the bow. Climb on the cart and shoot the one standing by the one
lying on the ground. I can take the other two. They can't know what the bow is.
They don't have any hands."
"What if they want to
be friends?"
"They can leave. Who's
stopping them?"
One
of the crouching animals grunted. The wounded animal barked again.
Joanne's
hand flew to her mouth. "They can't leave the one that's wounded! That's
what it is! They can't leave and they're afraid to attack us. Why don't we back
away and see if they'll leave?"
"We can't leave our
food here unprotected."
"The
cheese fungus is on the back of the cart. I can pick up the box as we back up.
We can't kill them, Harold. They may be trying to get out of this, too."
"Then why did they
attack us?"
"They probably thought we were just a
new kind of animal."
He
shook his head. He was letting his anger get out of hand again. He wanted to
live but he wasn't blind to the long-term implications. Sooner or later the
humans in the settlement were going to have to start living on the same world
with these people.
"Start backing
up."
She edged along the side of the cart. Four
heads followed her. He felt as if he were staring at a drawn bow.
She
picked up the waterproof box at the end of the cart and he started backing away
with her. He wanted to pick up his bow but he didn't dare make any mysterious
moves. If he had seen one of them do something he didn't understand, he would
have assumed the worst and attacked.
He
stopped about twenty paces from the cart. "Lower your club. Let's see what
happens."
They
rested on their clubs. He thought about yelling to them—perhaps his tone of
voice would communicate something—and then he decided anything he did would
probably be misunderstood. The message was now as clear as they could hope to
make it.
Humans
and—what?—stared at each other. The four shadows by the cart were so still
that at this distance he wouldn't have seen them if he hadn't known they were
there.
"It's
a good thing they don't know how tired I am," he said. "If they did,
they wouldn't have'hesitated."
Joanne
chuckled. "It's a good thing they don't know how I fight."
The wounded one barked several times.
"What are they doing?" Harold murmured. "I can hardly see them."
"Two
of them just ran away. I can't see them anymore."
"Watch my back."
"Here they come. It looks like they're
dragging something between their teeth."
He
peered into the darkness. They seemed to be gathered into a dark shadow where
the wounded one was lying. There was a lot of low barking and yapping, like
murmured conversation, and then the shadow seemed to break up.
Joanne
gasped. "It's a stretcher! They're dragging him away!"
"It looks like you were right."
"God help us."
He put his arm around her shoulder and
pressed her face against his chest. His head moved from side to side as he
checked to make sure they weren't being attacked again. He felt exhausted.
Every time he turned around something new happened.
They
trudged back to the cart. He picked up his bow and stared at the two corpses.
"We'd better keep
going. They'll be back after these."
She lifted her cart handle.
"Are you as tired as I am?"
"All
I want to do is get someplace where' I can lie down and stop feeling. Try to
keep alert. We'll try to walk another hour."
They heaved and the cart rolled out of the
depressions it had made in the ground. Around him the forest and the darkness
looked more menacing than ever. He wondered how many of these creatures there
were and when they would be back—and at the same time the scientist in him, the
eternally curious human, wondered about their way of life, and how they had
managed to build those statues and towers if they didn't have hands.
Ill
Standing on the lowest brach of a rough-barked
black-tree, Eight Leader Nimenlej Lumin held himself semi-erect by clinging to an outcropping on the trunk with his left hand. He stared
dumfoundedly at the Itiji hanging in the net. The spearman crouching beside him
on the branch snorted derisively.
"You want my word!" His voice rose
with anger and surprise.
The
Itiji's orange eyes stared back at him. It had been hanging in the net since
morning while Nimenlej and his Eight rounded up the rest of its pack. It
obviously needed water and relief from the insects attacking the wound in its
hind leg, but it hadn't whimpered once in all those hours. Even when its mate
and its youngest children had called to it from the nearby nets in which they
were now confined, the orange eyes had revealed only a momentary flicker of
emotion and the powerful jaws had remained shut.
And
then, unexpectedly, the Itiji had called its guard and asked to see the chief
of its captors, claiming it had information the city of Imeten would want to
hear.
"I
know the people of your city," the Itiji said. "You keep your
word." It spoke the language of Imeten fluently, even though the words had
been shaped by a different tongue.
"I
keep my word to my own people," Nimenlej said. He glanced at the spearman,
"To my equals."
"If you won't keep your word to me, you
won't give it. You are a Warrior of Imeten."
All
his training told him he should have the Itiji killed on the spot. It was
assuming he would feel obligated to treat it as an equal. And wasn't that
equivalent to implying he might think he was as low in the scheme of things as
it was?
Only one thing kept his hand from the stubby
spear which protruded from the sheath on his back. He had been fighting the
Itiji for six years now, since his seventeenth birthday, and unlike some of the
priests and politicians who stayed in the safe shelter of the city, lecturing
about a world in which everything had been created to serve their own
well-served selves, he had come to respect the courage and shrewdness of the
creatures he fought. He captured them and took them home to be slaves, but they
were no lower in his eyes than the slaves of his own species. Anyone could
become a slave. It was easy for a priest like Telmuj Elt Mujin to say a truly
brave man would die rather than be a slave, and, therefore, anyone who
submitted to slavery deserved to be a slave, but those who had faced brave,
determined enemies in battle knew the gods had rules the priests had never
heard of. The bravest warrior who had ever lived had been afraid many times,
and could be forced to surrender if his enemies caught him at the right time,
and it was the will of the gods.
Didn't even the legends of his own city tell how the founder himself, Jinel Tun
Teljul, had panicked and cursed the goddess Niluji when his enemies had him
trapped on a burning branch?
He
might become a slave himself one day, if Lidris of Drovil ever attacked Imeten.
He hoped he would die first, taking many brave men
with him, but who knew what lie would
do if he ever found himself surrounded and disarmed?
"Even
if I keep my word," he said, "even if I let your son free, how do you
know I won't capture him again tomorrow?"
The Itiji closed its eyes. "Give him the
night to escape. After that—it's the will of the gods."
"Will
you swear you won't try to escape while we're going back to Imeten?"
"Don't
ask for too much. What I have to tell you is worth my son to you."
"You
can't escape anyway. It will be an easier trip for all of us if you don't
try."
The Itiji stared past him. By now he knew
them well enough to understand some of the emotion in its eyes. It was thinking
of the forest where it would never run again, and it was thinking of the road
from the iron mine on which most of the Itiji slaves dragged huge sleds to
Ime-ten. Or would they blind it and put it to work hauling water to the baths?
He
rarely visited the mines. He always thought of the Itiji as he knew them in the
forest, as brave, fierce warriors who tested his courage and his cunning. What
happened to them after they were captured was as shadowy in his thoughts as
what happened to mortals after death.
"I'll
swear," the Itiji said. "For my son. What
choice do I have?"
"Then
I give you my word." He unhooked his mace from his belt and held it over
his head. "I swear by the goddess Niluji and by my courage as a Warrior.
If you tell me information which I know in my stomach is of value, your eldest
son will go free—and he may have until sundown tomorrow to run as far from my
nets as he can."
"By
my name," the Itiji said, "and by the name of my father, and by the
gods who dwell in the mountains, I will not try to escape until we reach
Imeten."
He
returned the mace to his belt. "Now what do you have to tell?"
"Twelve days ago, creatures we had never
seen before entered our land, dragging a kind of sled we had never seen before.
At first in the darkness we thought they were some of your people. We followed
them and I and my sons attacked them." The Itiji paused. "They were
not of your people. They look like you but they walk on their hind legs
without holding on to anything. They have hands like you, but they live on the
ground like us." It paused again. "They can use their hands all the
time, even when they're • walking."
Nimenlej kept his face under control. Th$
inferior beside him must not see how he felt.
The fierce pleasure in the Itiji's eyes was
unmistakable. It had won its son's freedom, but it had also achieved something
which must taste almost as sweet: revenge for its own enslavement.
It
had to be lyingl How merciless could the gods bel
"How many were there?" "Two," the Itiji said. "Did you
see any others?"
"We
didn't look. They fought us off with clubs." "Where are they
now?"
"They've
made a camp on the edge of the mountains." "How
far?"
"For us it would be a
day and a morning's walk."
"Would they still be
there if I went looking for them?"
"If
they weren't, you could probably follow the tracks their sled makes."
The
Itiji's flat, subtly mocking tone compelled belief. What had the gods sent
against him? If slaves had not been desperately needed by the city, if he had
not been promised a wife from Jemil Min Mujin's own collection if he brought
back eight Itiji, oath or no oath he would have dropped on the net then and
there and caved in its skull with his mace.
Beside
him, emotion finally overcame discipline. The spearman, who had been so
contemptous only a moment ago, rolled forward onto his knees and swayed back
and forth on the branch with his face staring at the ground.
"The gods of the
mountain I The gods themselves I"
Nimenlej
dropped to all fours. His right fist shot into the grovelling insect's skull.
"Silence! Get back on your haunches!"
The
spearman shook his dazed head. His big shoulders rocked back and forth. He
looked up at his leader and his right hand shot toward his spear.
Nimenlej reached behind his shoulder and
jerked his own spear out of its sheath. The spearman froze with his fingers
gripping the shaft of his weapon.
They
stared at each other. "Get on your haunches," Nimenlej whispered.
"Get up or 111 have you hanging in a net, too."
On
neighboring branches the rest of his men turned to watch. They had all seen
incidents like this many times. If he ever wavered they would be on him in an
instant. They obeyed him only because they feared him, and because they knew
that if they killed a Warrior of Imeten they would be hunted through the forest
like Itiji by the lords of every city.
The spearman took his hand off his spear.
Scowling at the captive Itiji, he resumed his proper stance. "That's
better," Nimenlej said.
He
stared at the man thoughtfully, as if he were inspecting his posture or
planning his punishment. Was the Itiji lying? This could be a trap. To
investigate the story he would have to leave slaves lightly guarded in the
wilderness, where his men might be attacked at any time by Itiji or other
slavers. He was as disturbed as the fool crouching before him, but that was no
excuse for stupidity.
On the other hand, the Itiji knew enough
about Imeten to understand exactly what would happen to him if he were lying.
Who
knew what the gods had created in the lands beyond the mountains, or on the
other side of the ocean? Suppose he returned to Imeten with a new kind of
slave? Powerful new allies? Suppose it really were the
gods themselves. Why not pray to them in person? Imeten could use some help.
If
he went back to Imeten now and told the story, they would mock him for a fool
for believing the word of an Itiji. If he wanted anyone important to believe
him, he at least had to be able to say he had seen the things with his own
eyes.
He roared for his second in
command. "Tun!"
Crouching
on the branch just above the Itiji's net, Ilnjet Tun Tinjun had been watching
the scene with glittering eyes. Now he slapped the wood and bowed his head.
"My
lord!"
"I'm
going to the mountains with two men. I'm leaving you and four men here with the
slaves. Four days in the nets and they'll be worthless. Make sure you feed
them, too. If anything happens to them or the men while I'm away, you're
responsible."
He
pushed his spear into its, sheath. Resting on his right arm, he pointed his
left hand at the Itiji. "You'll come with me. Your son stays here until we
come back."
The
Itiji glanced at the other nets. It moaned something it its own tongue and then
it threw back its head and howled its anguish at the treetops.
Its
mate and two of its sons joined its protest. Nimenlej listened stonily. He had
heard similar outcries many times. Sooner or later they always started wailing.
This one had lasted longer than most, but basically they had less self-control
than most children.
Their
complaint made a strange, throbbing music. He had' never told anyone but he
liked to hear Itiji sing. Sometimes he would creep up on a group in the forest
and delay the ambush for a long time because he was listening to their music.
He had lost at least two good lots that way.
The
howls died away. "Lower the net, Tun. Release it. Dartblowers—point your
weapons at the other nets. Kill them if it tries to escape."
The Itiji's mate barked at it. He knew enough
of their language to gather she was telling it to run away anyway. Apparently
she had little respect for the oath of a warrior.
The two dartblowers in the Eight aimed their
tubes at
the other nets. Tun and another man hung their weight
on the rope which held the Itiji's net, and which had been
passed over the branch above them and tied to the branch
on which they were standing. When they had enough slack,
Tun reached down with one hand and untied the knots.
Their muscles bulged as they fought to keep the net from
dropping too fast. They knew how to treat the property of
their betters. ,
They
let go as soon as the Itiji's paws touched the ground. The net fell away from
its captive and the Itiji arched its back and stretched.
"You
can put your weapons down," the Itiji shouted. "You have my son and
my oath. If it weren_'t for that, I'd let us all die."
Nimenlej grabbed the trunk and pulled himself
semi-erect. Far below, a huge moth fluttered between him and the Itiji.
"You're going to lead us to these new animals you've discovered. I hope we
find them. If we don't sight them in two days, you and your family will wish
you had died."
He
picked two men for the journey and inspected their weapons and their equipment.
After a little thought he reduced the food supply to one loaf per man, a
skimpy ration for a four to five day hike, and told the spearman to hook two
extra spears on his back and the dartblower to triple the number of darts he
carried. They could live off the trees. They might need all the weapons they
could carry.
He thought about using the Itiji for a pack
animal and then decided against it. The idea offended him and he knew enough
about slave handling to know this one would have to be broken in by a veteran.
"I
don't know if the Itiji is lying or not," he told the two men who were
going with him. "If it is, it's going to wish it hadn't. If it's telling
the truth, every punishment for disobedience is doubled the instant we sight
these things. Do what you're told and there'll be a feast for all of us as soon
as we're home. The gods may be sending us a great gift. There may be some gifts
from the High Warrior himself when we reach Imeten."
He
looked down between his feet. Tun was already leading the pit-digging party
hand over hand down the ropes they had hung from the lower branches. His second
in command knew what to do when the Eight Leader was watching.
"Itijil"
The
Itiji looked up. It opened its mouth and then it closed it again—what could it
answer that wasn't servile?—and waited for its orders.
"I
will set the pace. You will stay just behind me and let me know at once if I
stray from the right course. Do you understand?"
"I understand."
He
turned to the two men who were going with him. "We'll have to stay closer
to the ground than usual. Stay behind him and keep your eyes on him." He
glanced at the dartblower. "If he tries to run, paralyze him."
He
cupped his hand over his mouth. "We're ready, Itiji. Follow me!"
He leaped for the next highest branch, two
long body lengths away. For a moment, arms and legs outstretched, he hung
joyously weightless in the air. Far below, the Itiji's eyes followed him. Tun
and the others looked up from where they were collecting woodland stones to
make shovels.
His
hands clutched the branch. He swung himself up and trotted along semi-erect,
supporting himself by running his hand along the branch just above. At this
level, and on up to where the top of the green canopy swayed beneath the sun,
the branches were close enough together so that he could move comfortably.
The
moisture from the leaves wet his face. His eyes darted from side to side and up
and down, watching the Itiji and searching for birds and poisonous snakes and
insects. Behind him his men padded silently after him. Unlike some of the
people of Imeten, he and his men were not so far removed from the wilderness
they couldn't be at ease where no bridges and hand-rails connected the trees.
The
branch began to sway under his weight. He leaped three body lengths for a
slightly higher branch on the next tree. His long arms reached for moist,
fungus-covered wood. He swung along hand over hand and then pulled himself up
and trotted on.
Birds
and small animals scrambled out of his way. He slipped into the comfortable
rhythm of the march and his mind began to calculate some of the things he might
gain from this venture. At the very least, he would get a few extra days away
from the city.
Soon
the wailing of the enslaved Itiji was lost in the distance.
IV
He
struggled upward
through a' fitful sleep. The first morning light was beatirfg on his eyes
through the thin curtain he had hung across the entrance to their inflatable
shelter. In the distance he could hear the squawks of the birds and animals in
the trees.
He
rolled over and propped himself on his elbow. Joanne was smiling in her sleep.
He loved the way her pale skin looked in the morning light.
He
picked up his club and crawled out of the shelter. Shrubbery and grass wet his
legs as he walked down the hill swinging the canvas bucket. They were high
enough above sea level that the tree line ended a good hundred meters below the hollow which hid their shelter from any
passing eyes. A cliff guarded their back and the trench he had dug around the
hollow reinforced the protection they got from the open space on their front
and sides.
They
had been here thirty days now. They had stopped as soon as they had found a place where they would have water and where he felt they could defend
themeselves a-gainst a surprise attack. They would have
been safer in the mountains but this had been as far as he could go. It had
taken all his will to get them this far.
From
his reading he knew the name for what he had been doing all this time. Freud
had called it the mourning process, and it was the same whether you lost a
leg, or a friend, or a way of life. The mind had to put
together a new picture of the world, and for most people this meant a period of
listlessness and depression while they concentrated on the job.
He
was beginning to function again. For the last few days he had been more
engrossed in the beauties and pleasures he shared with Joanne than in the
catastrophe he had left behind in the settlement. He was a basically optimistic
person. He could tolerate. almost anything as long as
he had work to do or as long as he could struggle. Defeat could crush him but
not trouble.
He wasn't even sure they
were going to go to the mountains. He wanted to know more about the creatures
who had attacked them in the forest. Now that they had been forced to leave the
plateau, why not make something good out of a bad situation? That first
encounter could have been worse. Thanks to Joanne, he had shown them he didn't
mean any harm—and they had shown him they were people who looked after their
wounded.
He
wasn't going to waste his life sitting around the first planet men had ever
explored eating cheese fungus and growing rabbits. If he couldn't make his
exile a major event in human history, he wasn't fit to be a man.
He dipped
the bucket in the stream and started back up the hill. His body felt terrible.
His beard itched and the salt in his sweat burned under his armpits. He would
probably have to send Joanne after a second bucket before he got dressed
again.
As
he climbed out of the trench, something screamed behind him.
He
put down the bucket and dropped into the hollow. His hand tightened on the club
as he peered over the rim.
His
heart jumped. Several four-legged creatures were crouching in the grass a few
paces up the slope from the stream.
"What is it?" Joanne asked.
He glanced over his shoulder. She was
standing in front of the door, with her hand over a yawn. "Get your
club."
She ducked into the shelter. One of the
creatures screamed again. He raised his head cautiously. Joanne dropped down
beside him and looked for herself.
She gasped. "Look at
the trees."
He shielded his eyes from the sun. The
shadows under the trees were a dark blur speckled with sunlight. "Tell me
what you see."
She didn't answer. When he looked at her she
was shaking her head.
Two of them, Harold. Two of them!"
"Tell me what you see!"
She
closed her eyes. One of the creatures on the hill screamed and moved a couple
of steps closer. He put his hand on her shoulder and waited patiently.
"Two
of them are hanging from the vines under the trees," she said.
"They've got tubes pointing at us—long tubes in front of their mouths like
blowguns. They're all wearing clothes. The ones on the ground are squatting
like gorillas or monkeys, but they're thinner and they've got hairless
faces."
He
peered desperately into the shadows. He was just as stunned as she was.
"They've
all got stuff on their backs. I think they've got sheaths. It looks like
they've got arrows in them. One of them has something in his belt. Their faces
are long and thin with big foreheads and pointed ears."
"Do you see any more
in the trees?"
"I think I can see
metal flashing."
His
bow was in the shelter. He knew almost nothing about the blowguns primitives
had used on Earth, but if they had something that might be a blowgun pointed at
him, he had better assume he was in range.
He stood up. He put the club on the ground
and held out his hands palm upward.
One of the creatures on the ground jabbered
rapidly. The entire group started shambling up the hill on all fours. The one
in the lead seemed to be the one with something hanging on his belt.
"They
look like they're clumsy on the ground," he said. "If it comes to a
fight, I think we should try to run for it.
Go
stand near the door. If we have to fight, IT] try to hold them off while you
get the bow out of the shelter."
"What about the
blowguns?"
"We won't fight unless
we have to."
He
had hidden a cache of supplies in a rock formation near the hollow. If they had
to abandon what they had here, they could slip back after and pick it up. He
had even included a pair of rabbits with enough food and water in their cage to
keep them alive several days.
The
creatures paused a few paces beyond the ditch. For the
second time in thirty days he looked into the eyes of an intelligent being who had been shaped by the stresses and opportunities of
another world.
If
the creatures had been standing erect, they would have been about a head
shorter than a human. Standing as they were, hands resting on the ground with
their knees bent and their thick torsos leaning forward from the waist, their
heads were about the height of his stomach.
They
had three fingers and a thumb on each hand. The thing on the leader's belt
looked like a well made mace. The equipment on their backs looked like it had
been made with tools also. Since he didn't see any bows, he assumed the
metal-pointed stakes sticking out of the sheaths on their back were probably
spears. The leader and two others seemed to have short metal swords.
The
leader screamed several syllables. His shoulders and hips wiggled as he talked
as if he were doing some land of dance. He clapped his head several times and
Harold realized he was making the same sound over and over— neemenlej,
neemenlej.
He glanced back at Joanne, who had stood up
and moved back a couple of paces. "That must be his name. What do you
think?"
"That's
as good a guess as any. Tell him your name and see what he does."
He
pointed at his chest. "Harold. Ha . . . rold. Haa . . .
rold." He resisted the impulse to shout. To make it clear he was
naming, he pointed at Joanne. "Joanne. Jo . . . anne." He clapped his
head several times. "Harold. Harold."
"I hope you haven't
just given me away," Joanne said.
The
leader took one hand off the ground and pointed at his face. "Nimenlej.
Ni . . . men . . . lej." He pointed at his
followers. "Imeten. Imeten."
"I
think you can assume he's named Nimenlej," Joanne said. "I can think
of at least six things Imeten could mean."
Nimenlej
shuffled around on all fours until his right side was facing the hollow. Her
jerked his head and shoulders at the forest and screamed several syllables.
Harold
frowned. "He could just be telling us where they're from." He rubbed
his beard with his palm. "Well pack the cart and start toward the
mountains. If they stop us, well go with them and try to get away
tonight."
"Shall I get the cart?"
"Right."
She
disappeared behind the shelter. Their visitors stretched their necks so they
could see into the hollow. When she came back dragging the cart, the entire
group started jabbering. The leader shrieked and they shut up as if he'd
turned off a switch.
They
deflated the shelter and Joanne folded it neatly and packed their equipment
while Harold rolled out the two logs he had cut for this purpose and laid them
across the trench. Their visitors watched them intently. Every time Joanne put
something new in the cart, they wiggled excitedly.
He
packed the bow where he could get at it easily. He didn't try to hide it; he
was certain they didn't know what it was.
"Are
you sure you don't want to go with them?" Joanne asked.
"Do you?"
"What will we do in
the mountains?"
"We'll
come back. I'm forcing myself to be cautious. I'd like to spy on them from a
distance for awhile before we got too involved with them."
They
lifted the handles of the cart. She smiled at him bravely. "We'll be all
right," he said.
They
dragged the cart across the logs. The leader shrieked and his men spread out
through the grass in a wide semicircle.
Harold
glanced at the trees. "Are the blowguns still there?"
"Yes."
He
wondered what they thought he was. Would they kill him for a specimen if they
thought they couldn't capture him alive?
He pointed at the grass-covered mountain
peaks with his free hand. "I'm sorry we've been trespassing. We're on our
way to the mountains. It's been a pleasure meeting you."
The
leader shrieked as they took their third step. Screaming and shrugging at the
forest, two of the creatures shuffled hurriedly into their path.
V
Once
they had grabbed
vines and climbed hand over hand into the trees, their captors lost all their
awkwardness. They trotted along the lower branches and jumped across the open
spaces from handhold to handhold as easily and gracefully as birds fly or fish
swim. Just as man had evolved on the edges of the forest, a walking,
weapon-using hunter with his pelvis and spine modified so he could stand erect
with free hands and see for long distances, they had evolved, on this world
covered with forest, in the trees themselves—and kept the tree-adapted anatomy
which made them as awkward on the ground as a man would have been in the trees.
He
watched them with such pleasure and wonder that he had trouble remembering he
should be spying out their weaknesses and planning their escape. Two
intelligent species . . .
Visions
of a galaxy bursting with life crowded his head. Life must flower more
vigorously than men had dared to imagine. What kind of creatures might be
living on worlds as different from Earth as Jupiter and Mercury had been? How
many unimaginable and varied civilizations had they passed as they cruised
through the star systems in which they had failed to find planets men could
inhabit?
Joanne
stumbled and he jerked out of his revery. "Are you all right?"
"A rock turned under
me."
"Is your ankle all
right?"
"I think so. It
doesn't hurt."
She was getting tired. Her face was covered
with a thin film of sweat and the strain on his left shoulder told him he was
pulling a bigger share of the load.
He
looked up. Ahead of them the line of tree-dwellers on their left side was
leaping across a gap between two trees. On the lowest branches on each side of
them a blowgunner was trotting a few paces behind the cart. Two men armed with
spears were trotting just ahead.
The line jumping the gap
was well ahead of their immediate guards. Trotting seemed to be the natural
pace of the tree-dwellers. They moved in spurts. They had rested twice already,
both times after two kilometer dashes, and at least once during each hiking
period the main party had crept far enough ahead that Nimelej had been forced
to scream a halt so the humans could catch up.
"We
should be stopping to rest soon," Harold said, "We'll have one
advantage tonight—if we can keep away from them for the first two kilometers,
we should be out of their hands for good. They're faster than us over any two
kilometers, but we can do more kilometers per day,"
"You're
still planning to escape tonight? You're sure you don't want to spend a couple
of more days with them?"
"We
can't take the risk. The further we are from the cache, the longer we'll have
to walk without supplies. We're going to have to leave everything behind but
the weapons, some cheese fungus, and our canteens."
"I'm going to miss the
shelter. It was our first home."
"I'll make you
something better."
At night the tree-dwellers made a camp in the
trees which completely encircled the cart. Directed by screams and a few blows
from Nimenlej, they fit two fires on the lower branches and roasted the birds,
fruit and animals they had foraged during the march. The evening light and his
own bad eyes defeated Harold's attempts to determine the technique they used
to start the fire.
Nimenlej
offered them food several times before he accepted their refusal. They ate
their cheese fungus surrounded by the odors of a feast. Harold's mouth watered
every time the rabbits attracted his attention. He had thought about butchering
them and reluctantly decided against it; if they didn't get away tonight, he
would want something more than cheese fungus and vegetables when they reached
wherever they were going.
After
supper their hosts played games from a while. A contest in which two men tried
to push each other off and of the upper branches seemed to be a big favorite
with everybody. When the loser fell toward the ground, banging against branches
and clutching desperately for a handhold, the entire group made a loud
screeching noise and slapped the wood with their hands. They screeched even
louder when both men fell off the branch.
The
fires stayed lit after the group went to sleep. Four guards squatted on the
branches just above the cart.
They
unfolded their sleeping bags under the cart. He wanted a position from which he
could see all their guards.
"Ill
time the first guard period," he whispered. "Try to get some sleep.
Well go just before the second time they change guards. The guards on watch
should be getting sleepy about then."
"What
about the blowguns? The fires are almost as bad as daylight."^
"I only see one. Check
and see if I'm right."
She
peered out from under the cart as cautiously as she could. "It looks like
one blowgun and three spears."
He
glanced at her face. "I can eliminate the blowgun with my bow."
"Harold-"
"We have to get away, Jo."
"We
don't even know they're unfriendly I They may think we're their guests I"
"Is that why they're keeping us
guarded?"
"They're
probably afraid of us. We don't know anything about them. This may be the only
chance well ever have to make peace"
"The longer we stay
with them, the harder it will be to get away. We're probably-heading for a settlement. WhatTl we do if they throw us in a prison?"
"Can't we just run?"
"And get a dart in our
backs?"
A
guard stirred in the trees. He put his hand on her shoulder and she closed her
mouth.
A
guard shrieked at the top of his lungs. Wood clattered on metal pans. The whole
camp sprang awake. Long-armed shadows leaped through the trees in the
firelight.
Ropes
dropped from the branches. Nimenlej and most of his men climbed down hand over
hand and ran toward the cart, screaming excitedly and jerking their heads at
the trees.
Harold
slid out from under the cart and stood up. Nimenlej slapped the ground several
times and pointed at the trees. More ropes dropped from the lower branches.
Awkward forms swarmed over the cart and started tying ropes to the axles and
the wheels.'-
Joanne
stumbled to her feet. A rope, dropped from the branch directly overhead,
brushed against Harold's face. Nimenlej screamed and pointed at the trees.
Something
rumbled in the distance. A hum like a flight
of insects teased his ears. Nimenlej shrieked. His men jumped on the ropes and
started hauling themselves up.
Harold
scooped up the sleeping bags and threw them on the cart. "Get on the cart!
Hurry!"
She climbed on top of the cart. He grabbed a rope and started climbing. On a branch
far above, faces glowing in the firelight, a line of tree-dwellers hauled on
the ropes. A voice screamed rhythmically. The cart lurched and rose swaying
toward the branches. Joanne stretched out flat on top of their equipment and
peered into the darkness.
Hundreds
of small animals shot out of the darkness. The hum vibrated unrelentingly in his skull.
Heaving backs covered the ground. A cloud of insects and small birds
flitted past his face.
The humming and the tiny forms darting at his eyes unnerved him. He pressed his face against the back of his
hands. His muscles strained under his weight. He closed his eyes and hauled
himself up the rope.
He
opened his eyes. He was above the insects. He pulled himself up smoothly and
arrived at the lowest branch just behind the cart.
They
perched uneasily on a branch and watched the herd uproot and trample everything
in its path but the trees themselves. When the animals
finally disappeared, the ropes stayed up. Apparently they were supposed to
spend the night on the branch. From.what he could see of thd ground in the
firelight it was a good idea.
They
slept with their backs against the trunk of the tree and a rope tied around
their waists. When they awoke in the morning they both had headaches and pains
in their backs and legs.
By
the end of the second marching period they were further from the mountains than
they'd ever been. Harold felt gloomy and Joanne was so tired she stumbled -over
every bump. Once he shouted down her protests and made her walk unhindered
while he pulled the cart himself for two kilometers.
They
went on making jokes, however, and he went oh observing their captors. He made
notes in his head as if he were planning to report to a scientific conference
back on Earth.
"I think we'd better escape tomorrow
during the day," he said. "We're too tired to do it tonight, and if
we wait until tomorrow night well be three days' march from the cache. And it
looks like they've got better hearing than we do, too. If they can track us
down, I'd like to be able to fight back—and with them in the trees, the bow is
the only weapon we've got." He glanced at her. "We won't hurt them
unless they try to stop us."
Her
eyes glittered. "I knew you'd decide something like that."
"It's
only because we can't go tonight," he said gruffly. "If we go during
the day, I think we can arrange it so well be almost out of range when we start
running."
The
next time they stopped to rest he started getting the tree-dwellers used to the
idea that humans like privacy when they eliminate their body wastes. They both
walked a good twenty meters from the camp with half a dozen tired guards
trailing after them. One of them made a trip every break that day. After every
meal they filled their canteens with water from their twenty-liter waterbag and
broke some cheese fungus off the main bed and stuffed it in their pockets.
They
climbed into their sleeping bags while their hosts were still rough-housing in
the trees. He squeezed her hand once and then fell asleep as if he'd been
clubbed.
The
morning light woke him up just as the camp started bustling. He propped himself
on his elbow and watched his wife yawn.
She looked up and smiled.
"Feel better?" he said.
"Uh-huh. How are you?"
He put his hands on her shoulders and buried
himself in a kiss. The knowledge they might both be dead soon hovered in his
consciousness.
Nimenlej started the march
minutes after the camp awoke. The tree trunks were still damp and the foliage
still glistened with moisture. The morning air smelled warm and slightly sweet.
"I
wonder what Nimenlej will do with the rabbits," Joanne said. "I hope
they don't poison themselves."
She started walking away from the cart as
soon as they stopped for the first break. A guard stalked along a branch
several paces behind her. Harold leaned against the cart and fingered his bow
and his quiver.
The
tree-dwellers were scattered over the lower branches of three trees. Most of
them had already stretched out on their stomachs with their long arms dangling
over the sides. Nimenlej was munching on a fruit he had speared with his sword.
Two men armed with blowguns were crouching on the branch closest to the cart.
He
picked up the bow and the quiver and whirled away from the cart.
"Run!"
Joanne
broke into a stumbling, lopsided run. Her guard screamed and scrambled along
his branch after her.
Voices
shrieked. Wood clattered on metal. He ran after Joanne's swaying back with his
bow clutched in one hand and his quiver in the other. His overgrown thigh
muscles resisted his every stride. He couldn't raise his knees high enough. His
body had adapted to walking in this gravity, not to short distance running.
He
looked back over his shoulder. Nimenlej was crouching on his branch, screaming
orders and trying to shake the fruit off his sword. All over the camp men were
rising to all fours. The two blowgunners were looking at Nimenlej with their
weapons half raised, as if they were waiting for orders.
He looked up and smiled cheerfully and waved
with the hand holding the bow as he passed Joanne's guard. He tried to think of
some clever remark to cheer her up, but he found that his wit failed him.
Although the guard screamed at him, he didn't reach for his weapons.
He
slid the quiver over his shoulder aitd ran along behind her. When he looked
back, Nimenlej and the rest of the main party were moving sluggishly along the
branches. He had timed the thing perfectly. They looked like they were
straining more than he was. After one of their two kilometer spurts they were
just as tired temporarily as a human who had walked five times as far. If he
had been running by himself, he could have gotten away easily.
"Run
faster," he said. "It's only for a sprint. If we can stay ahead a
kilometer, we'll wear them out."
"I'm doing my
best."
She was panting already.
She could hardly talk.
He
looked back. They had moved into the upper branches. He could only see one or
two dim shapes on the lower levels. He could judge where the others were only
by their screams and by the noise of the birds and animals they disturbed.
He
slapped a tree. "Thirty meters to the next one. Ten' trees and we've won. C'mon."
He
looked up. Far above, at the height where the sunlight speckled the leaves,
two silhouettes jumped a gap almost directly overhead.
He
pulled up beside her. "They're catching up with us. Hurry."
She lengthened her stride. Her face twisted
as if she were in pain.
He looked up again. He couldn't see the two
silhouettes. When he looked back he thought he could see several others
creeping up on them. Their fur and their clothes blended with the shadows in
the leaves. They would have been invisible if they had been standing still.
Joanne sobbed. "I can't keep it
up."
"You've got to."
"Go on without me."
"Don't be ridiculous."
She stumbled. He grabbed her elbow and held
her on her feet. Wild screams above and behind told him the tree-dwellers were
gaining.
They
should have escaped at night. She was too slow, lie
had let her make him soft-hearted.
"Run!"
She stumbled again. He grabbed at her but she
slipped out of his grasp.
She
landed on her knees. He stepped behind her and pulled her up by the shoulders.
"Can you stand up?" They had run less than five hundred meters.
Something
thumped against a tree. He looked up. A weighted rope had wrapped itself around
a branch just ahead of them.
Another
weight flew through the leaves and swung a-round the branch. Thump. Thump. Three screaming demons swung out of the
trees.
Joanne
stood up. The three tree-dwellers dropped in front of them on all'fours and
turned around. Crouching on three limbs, they jerked spears out of their sheathes and poised them above their heads.
He turned Joanne to the
left. "Runl"
A voice shrieked. A spear
streaked past her face.
He
whirled, his hand leaping to his quiver. An arrow slammed into the shoulder of
a spearman. The third spearman screamed and hurled his shaft.
He dropped to the ground and the spear flew
over his back. The two spearmen who could still run turned tail and fled toward
the nearest tree.
Thump.
Thump. Thump.
He looked back as he jumped to his feet. A
dark body was swinging at him like a cannonball.
He jumped to one side. Three more screaming
bodies swung at him simultaneously. A long lack slammed into his chest and
knocked him off his feet. A hand wrenched the bow from his grasp.
Joanne
screamed. He looked up from the dirt and saw a weighted net fall on her from the trees.
He
stood up. His head felt dizzy. He pulled out his knife and ran toward her.
Ropes
dropped from the trees above the net. Two blow-gunners slid out of tne branches
and hung by one hand with their tubes at their mouths. More weighted ropes were
thumping on the branches. The men who had taken his bow were all crouching on
the ground with spears poised above their heads.
He
put the knife in its sheath. Joanne stopped struggling. He raised his hands
above his head and hoped they understood what he meant.
VI
They
kept Harold's bow and
arrows and confiscated his knife. Two guards rode the cart all day. When they
stopped at night Nimenlej had the cart and their sleeping bags encircled by a
cage made out of two nets pegged to the ground.
Every
day was like the day before. The ground rose and fell and they passed small
rivers and waterholes, but the forest was basically the same everywhere. Every
day the sun filtered down to their eyes through the green canopy; birds and
animals squawked in the trees and watched them from hiding; and they dragged
the cart and its two passengers south while Nimenlej and his men trotted overhead.
Joanne
blamed herself for the catastrophe. When she developed red, itchy spots on her
hands and neck, Harold wondered if it was an allergic reaction or a guilt reaction.
She had sensitive redhead's skin, however, and allergic reactions were the
curse of human life on Delta Pavonis II; the difference in chemistry which
protected them from parasites and germs meant they were surrounded by matter
more foreign to their bodies than anything they could have touched or breathed
on Earth. His mother had died from an allergy which had festered
her lungs.
The
fear that the allergy would spread to Joanne's face tormented them both more
than any of the hardships of the march. They had both been astonished by the
pleasure they had gotten from their bodies during the thirty days they had
spent on the edge of thé mountains.
"I
couldn't stand it if something spoiled that, too," Joanne said one night.
"As long as I know we can enjoy each other, I feel like I can stand up to
anything that's waiting for us."
"You're a brave girl," Harold
murmured.
"Are you glad I'm your wife?"
"You're the best wife I could have
married."
The ground became rough as they approached
the great river which meandered between the mountains and the southern ocean
for thousands of miles before it finally turned sharply south. With tributaries
flowing toward the river onK either side, they were actually
crossing a swamp in the forest. Something held them up at almost every lap. If
they didn't have to haul the cart across ruts dug by swift creeks, or wade with
it across a wide, shallow river, then they had to circle an immense fallen log
or a thick clump of low brush while their captors cut straight across and let
them catch up during the rest period.
They
rested once for every two or three times the tree-dwellers rested. Harold
didn't know whether Nimenlej was being cruel or just indifferent. He tried not
to hate him. There might still be some hope that he and Joanne could establish
a friendly relationship with these people.
Early one afternoon he looked up from the
maze of damp, insect-infested shrubbery through which they had been picking
their way for the last kilometer, and saw a sheet of daylight in front of him
for the first time since they had left the hills. They were approaching the
river.
The
tree-dwellers stood on the lower branches and watched them drag the cart
through the shrubbery. The full light of the sun blasted them in the face as
they stepped out of the shade of the last row of trees.
They
let go of the cart handles and shaded their eyes with their hands. Clouds of
black insects hummed above the wide back of the river. Strange birds skimmed
over the current. Ponderous animals wallowed near the banks. And on the
opposite shore, above the dark wall formed by the trees, a high, wooden tower
and a gTeat, six-armed statue rose above the forest.
Nimenlej pointed. "Imeten. Imeten."
Harold
rubbed his forehead wearily. "Tell me what you see," he said to
Joanne.
"Some
kind of wooden framework extends out of the trees to the shore. I can see
tree-dwellers moving around on it. It looks like some of them are hauling
things up from the river."
They were crossing on a raft which floated
downstream from the opposite shore when Nimenlej signalled with a red flag.
Nimenlej sat on top of the cart and most of his men crowded around him, holding
on precariously. On the opposite shore someone pulled them across with a rope
tied to an iron stake on the prow.
Joanne's face darkened. "Oh no."
"What's the
matter?"
"We're
being pulled by some of the creatures we met in the forest. They're being
prodded with a pole by a tree-dweller."
Hundreds
of screaming, chattering tree-dwellers crowded onto the grid-like framework as
they approached. The raft bumped against the shore. Nimenlej and his men jumped
onto the grid with drawn weapons and shoved the crowd back. They pulled the
cart up the bank and dragged themselves under the shade of the trees,
surrounded by ribise and curious eyes.
They
were obviously in—or under—a settlement. It looked like a big one. For Harold,
in fact, it was the biggest settlement of intelligent beings he had ever seen
in his life. He had seen movies of Earth's cities, but it still came as a
shock. The clamor unnerved him. Noisy, wiggling bodies swarmed through the
leaves in every direction. Bridges and handholds connected every tree. Huts
covered with bark and leaves hung from branches, nestled in forks, and perched
on platforms which looked as if they had been skillfully carpentered and
properly braced against the trunks. Some trees were covered from the lowest
branches to the highest with a spiral of dwelling places. With a planet-wide
forest to live in, the tree-dwellers seemed determined to get as close to each
other as they could.
They
stopped before another wooden grid. Far above them—tiny figures against a patch
of sky—a procession was descending hand over hand.
Nimenlej slid down a vine and crouched beside
Joanne.
He
screamed an order and his men slapped the branches they were standing on and
drew their weapons.
A
high pitched wind instrument shrieked twice. The crowd shut up so abruptly he
and Joanne both started.
The
procession halted just above their heads. The man in the center hung in the
grid and observed them with little flickering eyes. He was about a head taller
than the others and was flanked by two guards with drawn glowguns.
Nimenlej
slapped the ground. The man in the grid screamed several syllables and
Nimenlej started a long monologue.
Harold
glanced at Joanne. She was listening carefully. The art of learning new
lanuages had been highly developed on Earth during the last decade of the
twentieth century, and she was one of several people in the settlement who had
been encouraged to master it. Even during the worst part of the march she had
managed to spend some time each day studying the screams of their captors. She
already knew several words and two simple phrases.
Nimenlej
slapped the ground. The man in the grid turhed toward the humans and pointed at
his chest with his thumb. "Jemil . . . Min . . . Mujin." He paused.
"Jemil . . . Min . . . Mujin. Jemil.. . Min . . . Mujin"
He
paused again. He unhooked the iron, obviously functional mace on his belt and
raised it above his head. Solid blows crashed on the grid as he screamed a long
harangue. Harold guessed he was making a ritual series of brags and titles.
They might not know his language, but he wanted them to know he had more to say
than his name when he introduced himself.
The
harangue stopped abruptly. The mace described an arc which took in the entire
city.
"Imeten . . . Imeten ... Imeten..."
Harold
pointed to his chest. "Harold Lizert. Harold . . . Lizert . . . Harold . .
. Lizert . . ." He drew himself up.
He
pointed at the sky and across the river at.the mountains.
"I am Harold the Magnificent," he shouted, "Ambassador High,
Mighty and Terrible from the People Who Dwell in the Mountains, Man Among Men, Illustrious Descendant of Albert Einstein,
William Shakespeare, Isaac Newton, Sig-mund Freud, Socrates, Homer and Ulysses,
He Who Comes From the Great Shining Land Beyond the Sky, Amen."
He glanced at Joanne. She
was stifling a smile.
"Joanne Hamilton . . . Joanne Hamilton . . . Joanne . . . Hamilton .
. . Wife of the Illustrious and Apparently Irrepressible Person Who Stands
Beside Me."
Jemil
Min Mujin screamed an order. Two spearmen descended from the trees with
Harold's weapons. He looked them over without comment and turned his attention
to the cart. Nimenlej shrugged at the wheels and jerked one of the handles with
one hand.
Jemil
Min Mujin screamed another harangue. Nimenlej slapped the ground. The wind
instrument shrieked again and the procession turned around and ascended the
grid.
The
people in the crowd started talking again. Nimenlej shrugged at the cart. The
humans picked up the handles and he led them further into the forest.
They
stopped beside a trail, a narrow
patch of worn ground which extended into the forest as far as Joanne could see.
They were apparently on the edge of the city. Harold felt relieved when he
realized there were no houses overhead; he had seen enough refuse on the ground
to be worried about garbage and droppings.
Guards
took up positions in the trees. Nimenlej screamed. In the upper reaches of the
canopy an invisible party of workmen
lowered a huge wooden tub filled with water.
For
the first time in ten days they took a bath. The watching eyes made Joanne
hesitate only a moment. She hated dirt and the tree-dwellers were not only not
human—for all she knew they might not even be male.
They
relaxed in the tub as if they had just come home from a trip. That night Harold could even look at the nets which caged them
without boiling with frustration. Tomorrow they wouldn't have to walk. Tonight
he could hold a clean woman in his arms. He would worry
later.
The
next morning a gang of carpenters began erecting a shelter on the lowest branch
of a tree. Nimenlej arrived with a man
dressed in a new kind of clothing—a shirt made of
feathers, and a flat hat woven from vines—and their lessons began.
The
language was not difficult. The Imetens even used the same subject-verb-object
structure the Indo-European languages used. They classified things
differently—they had dozens of words for the various states-of-being of
plants, for example—but most of the novelties were either easy to understand
or irrelevant for present puposes. The big problem was pronunciation. No human
would ever be able to scream like an Imeten. He might leam to make himself
understood, but he would always sound like an alien.
Twice,
during the next few days, teams of the four-legged language speakers labored
past their camp dragging sleds loaded with great mounds of iron ore. The teams
were always surrounded by guards and they were always wailing mournfully.
Their enslavement outraged Joanne. She
automatically sided with the oppressed. Harold felt compelled to warn her she
mustn't let Nimenlej know her feelings. The Eight Leader called the fourlegs
the ftiji, the "talking animals," and his contempt was obvious.
From
what they had learned from their language lessons, slavery was a normal part of
Imeten society. If diey couldn't win more status than captives usually
received, they might be in serious trouble.
They
practised the language until their throats were hoarse. On the fourth day
Nimenlej decided a trip through the city would be useful. Sixteen guards formed
a cordon around them and they followed the Eight Leader up a ladder into the
trees.
They
spent most of the day clambering after Nimenlej on ladders and bridges thirty
and forty meters above the ground. Joanne was in danger almost every step.
Harold didn't know which was worse: watching her or looking down.
Everywhere
they looked, curious faces peered at them from windows or out of shaded, hidden
places in the leaves. Slaves with heavy packs trotted along on all fours and
swung hand over hand across the undersides of bridges occupied by their
betters. Warriors with maces on their belts savagely elbowed the lower classes
out of their way. Common soldiers armed with spears maneuvered through the
branches to the harsh commands of their leaders.
The
slavery disgusted both of them. In the crowded workshops slaves forged tools
and weapons. In the farms on top of the city, under the full heat of the sun,
slaves cultivated vines and fruits and tended a herd of long, many legged,
leaf-munching animals. In the baths near the great tower, Itiji slaves poured
the buckets into a trough which emptied into a series of overflowing terraces—a
series which ended far below with a crowd of slaves washing in the water
dirtied by their masters.
The
city resounded with screamed commands. Force and pain seemed to be the only
social technique the Imetens knew. Nimenlej treated his Imeten subordinates,
Harold noted, almost as roughly as he treated the slaves.
The baths, were the
worst part. As soon as he realized the Itiji slaves had been blinded, Harold
tried to turn Joanne away. He moved too late. He had to hold her against his
chest and evade Nimenlej's questions while she fought to get herself under
control.
A
big, noisy crowd surrounded the central grid. Their guards cleared a path
through it with drawn weapons, screaming orders and shoving anyone who didn't
move out of the way fast enough.
"The High Warrior
commands! Move! Move!"
In
the center of the grid two men were climbing hand over hand toward the top.
They seemed to be racing. They were facing each other across a single section
of the grid and one man was one rung ahead.
Nimenlej
turned to Harold. His shoulders wiggled with excitement. "The gods are
speaking."
The
man who was trailing jumped across the framework. His right hand closed around
the rung his opponent was standing on. He jerked his mace off his belt and
swung at the other man's legs.
Joanne
turned her head. Harold put his hand on her shoulder and made himself watch.
The
man on top twisted away from the blow. He let go with his hands and dropped on
the other man's back. His legs gripped the other man's torso. He grabbed his opponent's
wrist with one hand and pulled his mace off his belt with the other.
The man on the bottom screamed. He kicked
away from the framework and the two bodies fell toward the ground. Wrestling
and shrieking, they banged against the grid. A mace flashed in the sunlight.
The crowd screamed.
A long arm grabbed at a rung. The two falling
bodies broke apart. One clutched at the framework and the other fell silently
toward the forest floor.
The victor pulled himself up the framework.
Horns shrieked. Metal pans clattered. At the top of the grid a priest of the goddess Niluji raised his vine hat at the sky.
"The gods have spokenl Obey the
gods!"
Nimenlej
explained the custom as they made their way back to the camp. The Imetens
believed the gods spoke through battle. They settled all disputes by battle,
and they picked their government by battle, too. Once every year, when the two
brightest stars were in the right position in the sky, all the
seventeen-year-old boys in the city, except those who had chosen to be priests,
fought in the grid until every man was either dead or a prisoner. The few who survived without yielding became Warriors for
life. Those who would surrender rather than die became inferior soldiers. The
custom had been handed down many generations before by the founder of the city,
Jinel Tun Teljul, and according to Nimenlej it had made the Warriors of Imeten
feared up and down the river.
"Every
city envies us," Nimenlej screamed. "We have more slaves per free man
than any city on the Great River. The bodies of our women torment the dreams of
every male who had heard of Imeten."
That night Joanne had trouble sleeping. Twice
Harold woke to find her staring through the ropes at the campfires and the
mist.
He
knew how she felt. He had read enough history to be aware that his ancestors had lived like the Imetens for thousands of
years. Humans had groaned under slavery, too, and obeyed terrible customs, and
killed and plundered so a few could enjoy the small surplus a
primitive technology could wrest from the environment. To see the reality was
another thing, however. He had decided the world was generally a cruel place,
and that was the way of it, and a man
had to live in it as best as he could, but even so, he found it hard to stay
calm in the midst of so much suffering. And if it were almost too much for
him, it must be a thousand times worse for Joanne.
"We'll get out of here
somehow," he murmured.
"It
won't make any difference," Joanne said. "They'll still be here.
They'll still be living like this. And we'll know it."
A few days later Nimenlej escorted him into
the city again. This time they went directly to the tower, the palace of the High Warrior himself, Jemil Min Mujin.
When
they entered the assembly room, the High Warrior and his council of senior
Warriors were all lying prone on the Imeten equivalents of chairs: padded,
three-legged logs with chin-rests on one end. The senior Warriors reclined
along both sides of the room and Jemil Min reclined alone at the front, a guard
with a blowgun on each side. Even to Harold the room seemed cramped and
crowded. The sweet smell of tree-dweller bodies stuffed his nostrils.
He
stuck with the story he had given Nimenlej. He came, he claimed, from a people
who lived in a land far to the north of the mountains. He had been forced to
leave his city because of a dispute and he and his wife were now wandering the
world.
"When I left my city," Jie screamed
hoarsely, "the gods gave me a message. 'Go
south,' they said. 'Cross the mountains. Find a ruler and offer him your
services.' " He hesitated. He had thought about
this last night but he still hadn't mentioned it to Joanne. "I think I can
be of service to the High Warrior of Imeten. I can fight on the ground as well
as your men fight in the trees. I can help you attack your enemies from a new
direction."
Jemil
Min studied him silently. Reclining on the log, he looked like a serpent with
ears. From what Harold had learned of the city's politics, he had to be a
shrewd, ruthless man. He had been High Warrior, Nimenlej said, longer than any
man in history—ten of the planet's years. In a society in which the rule of
every High Warrior had been terminated by rebellion or thinly-disguised murder,
that was a spectacular achievement.
"Your
knife is made of very fine metal," Jermil Min screamed. "How do you
have such a good knife and such a crude mace?"
"I
had to leave my city in a hurry. I made the mace with what I happened to have
with me."
"Why
did you run from the Warrior we sent to welcome you?"
"I
didn't know what the gods wanted." He shrugged. "The gods have
spoken."
"How do I know you
won't run away again?"
"A wise man obeys the gods."
"Do your gods speak
through battle also?"
"The gods we worship
are as fierce as yours."
"Why won't you eat the
food we offer you?"
"It
would kill us. We can live only on the food we carry with us."
"Even
the Itiji can eat our food. Why are you so different?"
He wiped the sweat off his face. Nimenlej had
asked the same question. It seemed to be very important to them. He wasn't
sure, but from some of the conversations among the workmen Joanne had
overheard, he believed the use of special foods might somehow be connected with
a fear that he and Joanne were sorcereres.
"A
demon of the lake put a curse on the founder of our city," he said.
"He decreed we would die if we ate any food. Only the great god of the
mountain—Hail Zeus the Thunderer!—saved us. He wouldn't lift the curse but he
made special foods for us and gave us plants and animals which had never
existed before. If we eat anything else, we die."
The
High Warrior glanced at the council. Harold wished he could read his
expression. Nimenlej had questioned him closely, and he had been forced to make
the story more and more elaborate. He wasn't sure he could repeat everything
he had told Nimenlej without contradicting himself.
"Follow me,"
Jemil Min screamed.
The
High Warrior slid off his couch and trotted toward a curtain at the rear of the
hall. The two guards backed up after him and took positions in front of the
curtain.
Harold
followed Nimenlej through the curtain. The room on the other side was barely
three paces square. In the light of a smoky oil lamp, a mace in one hand and a
fruit in the other, Jemil Min was already reclining on
the only couch.
"Has
Nimenlej told you what we do to deserters?" Jemil Min asked.
Harold swallowed.
"No."
"We
hunt them through the woods as if they were Itiji. When we capture them we
torture them with cuts and then we blind them and put them to work in the
baths. Now and then we let them rest for a day: we hang them in nets in the sun
and let the other men listen to them screaming for water."
"We do similar things in my city."
Jemil
Min munched on his fruit. "I've been thinking about what you can do ever
since Nimenlej brought you here. Don't repeat anything I'm about to tell you.
The only weapon most of the insects out there can use is a slave prod. If they
find out about this, 111 probably have to kill half of them."
King Lid lis of Drovil, the ruler of a large
city further up the river, had added three cities to his domain in the last
three years. He was now the strongest ruler in the area and Jemil Min was as
certain as if the gods had told him in person that the next city he wanted was
Imeten itself. No city had ever been as powerful as Drovil. The Warriors, Harold
gathered, had raided and plundered other cities, but they had never actually
ruled them. Lidris had invented a formidable new weapon: empire. He now had the
armies of four cities at his command.
He
also had two iron mines—the mine of Drovil and the mine of Ghanis. If he
captured Imeten, he would control all the iron known to the Warriors. All the
cities as far west of Imeten as any Warrior had ever ventured would be at his
mercy.
The
Iron Age was apparently only a few generations old. As the survey from orbit
had indicated, there was less iron in the crust of the Delta Pavonis II than
there had been in the crust of the smaller world the' humans had fled. And of
course a people who made most of their fires in the trees were less likely to
discover ore by building a fire in a rich dirt and
discovering pieces of hot metal in the ashes.
"We
are the Warriors of Imeten," Jemil Min screamed. "When people in
other cities hear our name, they beg the gods for mercy. Even with four armies,
Lidris of Drovil won't attack us until he can arm every man in his forces with
an iron mace. The mine of Ghanis is a two-day journey from Ghanis itself. You
and Nimenlej are going to raid one of the caravans which take the ore from the
mine to the city.
"You
will leave in the morning. Nimenlej will explain the strategy to you. If you
succeed, you will be rewarded as richly as your commander. We will take good
care of your wife while you're gone."
VII
Joanne
was appalled.
"If it weren't for me, you wouldn't have to do this!"
"If
it weren't for you," Harold said, "I'd be dead back on the plateau.
It's our only hope, Jo. We're in that kind of a world. To these people you're
either a warrior or a slave."
He
didn't tell her the party was going to capture slaves, the Itiji who would be
hauling the iron to Ghanis. He didn't tell her he would be under the same
autocratic discipline as Nimenlej's other subordinates.
When
the raiding party assembled by their hut in the morning, Nimenlej had a
surprise for him: two large, wheeled wagons. "We'll transfer the ore to
them," Nimenlej said. "The Ghanisans will expect us to move much
slower and they'll send men out from the city to stop us. They'll think we've
been carried away by the gods."
Harold
nodded. The wagons were crude but they would probably move at least twice as
fast as a loaded sled. He squatted beside the front one and examined the wheel
and the axle construction.
He
looked up. The lead Itiji in the four slave team was staring at him. He glanced
back and the orange eyes slid away.
Nimenlej grabbed a rope and started up.
"Prepare to march! Assume your places!"
The
men lounging in the trees rose to all fours. The two slavemasters slid down
vines and climbed into the wagons.
Joanne
started to climb down the ladder in front of their treehouse.
"Forward!"
Nimenlej screamed. "Follow me!"
The
slavemasters drove their prods into their teams. The wagons rolled forward.
Joanne stopped on the ladder and looked down.
Harold
backed away behind the second wagon. "Take care of yourself,"
he yelled in their own language. "Ill be back. I
love you."
He
couldn't see her face. She had planned to come down and kiss him goodbye as
soon as he finished discussing the march with Nimenlej.
She waved slowly. "Be
careful. I love you."
He
walked backward until the trees finally came between them. Loneliness closed in
on him like night closing in on the fordst.
Discipline
on the march was just as harsh as the discipline he had observed ever since he
and Joanne had been captured. The threats and commands Nimenlej screamed at his
men stabbed at his emotions like a spur. Every time a prod dug into an Itiji's
side, his hands drifted toward the mace and the short sword Nimenlej had given
him. The more he watched the tree-dwellers behave, the more he wanted to get
out of this situation.
His
overactive brain had produced a theory about tree-dweller psychology which
added to his anxiety. On Earth, bi-pedal walking had narrowed the human pelvis,
and some theorists had felt that one change in anatomy had been a major reason
human children were more helpless at birth than the young of any other
terrestial animal. The human child was not bom with a fully developed brain;
the head of the newborn child could pass through the narrow opening in the
mother's pelvis only because a major portion of the brain grew after birth.
The tree-dweller women he had seen had broad
pelvises. Their children could probably scamper around and create havoc almost
from birth. Under primitive conditions, the children who had survived probably
had had parents who were good disciplinarians, instead of parents who felt
tender, protective emotions toward helpless infants. Affection had had little
survival value; reward and punishment had been the only social techniques the
circumstances had demanded.
It
was a chilling theory. Before they left Imeten he wanted to test it by
observing the behavior of very young Imeten children. It would have helped if
he had known more about the psychology which had developed on Earth between
1990 and 2022, but unfortunately that had all been forbidden knowledge.
The
nights were worse than he had expected. He couldn't sleep alone anymore. All
the anxieties which had been dulled during the day by the rhythm of the march
assailed him as soon as he stretched out in his sleeping bag. He knew what they
would do to punish him if he stepped out of line. They had her at their mercy.
On
the third evening of the march—just before the rough-house usually began—he
sauntered across the campsite and stood under the branch on which Nimenlej was
reclining.
"My Lord."
" Nimenlej hung his head over the side of the branch. Harold had deliberately
picked the time when he was just getting comfortable for the evening,
He usually lay on his branch and watched the games in silence. "What is
it?"
"I've been thinking. If I'm going to
drive the Ghanisan slaves when we make the raid, I should do some practice
slave driving before we get there."
"It's almost dark. Why didn't you think
about this earlier?"
"If
I did it during the day, I might slow down the march. A few minutes every night
should be enough. I've been watching the slavemaster while I walked."
Nimenlej
moved restiessly. "Get a slavemaster. Tell him I said to rouse one of the
teams."
The
slavemaster for the first team was lying on a branch above the wagons. He
climbed down a rope, grumbling all the time, and prodded his team awake.
"Get up. We're going for a stroll."
The
Itiji slept tied to the two poles which connected them to the cart. Crossbraces
which kept them from gnawing each other's bonds held the two poles apart. Even
if they had managed to gnaw the rope which bound the poles to the tree, they
would probably have starved to death in the forest.
The
leader of the team stood up silently. The others made soft noises in their own
language. All Itiji still looked alike to Harold, but he had the feeling he
would have recognized the leader anywhere. In addition to several distinctive
scars on his side, he was bigger than the others and he seemed to carry himself
with more dignity. He didn't vent his every emotion through his mouth, as the
others did. Harold had noticed Nimenlej sometimes bypassed the slavemaster and
gave him orders directly.
The
slavemaster hooked the poles to the cart. He climbed in and held himself
semi-erect on a special bar attached to the front and Harold jumped in beside
him. The Itiji stood at the ready position: eyes forward, legs straight, backs
perfectly horizontal.
The slavemaster handed him the prod.
"Use it every time you give an order. If you want them to turn left, prod
the leader on the left. If you want them to go faster, prod
him hard in the head. Don't spoil them."
Harold
prodded the lead Itiji. "Go!" He had to force himself to do it. The
prod disgusted him.
"Harder!"
the slavemaster screamed. "Don't be so clumsy. You've got hands. Use them
like you've got a stomach."
To
the Imetens the stomach was the seat of intelligence. Harold started to snap
back and then relaxed. He smiled to himself and gave the Itiji another clumsy
prod.
They
drifted away from the camp. Every mistake Harold made took them further into
the forest. Soon the campfires were a long way back. The first thin mist of the
night closed in on the wagon.
The
slavemaster continued his invective. He kept jerking the prod out of Harold's.
hand to show him what to do with it. His language got
stronger as Harold kept quiet, and his confidence grew.
'Turn back. We're too far
from the camp."
Harold
glanced back. The campfires were lost in the mist and the darkness. He leaned forward
and prodded the lead Itiji. "Go left."
The prod slid along the smooth flank and
rammed the round head at the base of the skull. The Itiji jumped. He looked
back at the wagon and his mouth opened silently.
The slavemaster jerked the prod out of
Harold's hand. ''Insect! Clumsy, crippled groundlife!"
Harold
turned on him with a snarl. "Mind your place, inferior! Do you you want
your tongue cut out?"
The slavemaster quivered. The end of the prod
swung toward Harold's face.
It
could have been an involuntary gesture. Harold didn't wait to find out. He
jerked the prod out of the slavemas-ter's hand and hit him in the face as hard
as he could.
The slavemaster's eyes closed. His hand slid
off the bar. Harold grinned happily and hit him again.
The
slavemaster tumbled over the side of the wagon. After a moment he looked up
and rose groggily to all fours. His hand moved toward the spear on his back.
Harold
drew his sword. "You can walk back. You're lucky. Act like
this again and 111 have you pulling the cart yourself."
The
slavemaster reached for his spear. Harold leaned over the side of the wagon and
slashed. The heavy iron blade chopped through the wooden shaft. The slavemaster
threw himself to one side to avoid a cut.
Harold poked the lead Itiji
in the rear. "Gol"
The
Itiji had all been watching but they turned their heads as soon as his voice
snapped. The cart rumbled forward. He looked back and saw the slavemaster
scrambling up a tree.
He
called a halt as soon as he thought they were temporarily safe. He jumped out
of the wagon and walked to the front of the team with his sword in one hand and
his mace in the other.
"Do you want to be free?"
Four
pair of orange eyes stared at him. He waited but they didn't answer. The two in
the rear shuffled restlessly.
He
searched for words in Imeten. His heart pounded. For all he knew they liked
being slaves. On Earth after one or two generations slaves had often had all
their drive for freedom eradicated by their upbringing.
"They
have my wife in their power. I can't escape with her—she's crippled and she
holds me up. If you could help me by pulling her cart, I could do things for
you. I can cut your ropes for you. I can help you fight the Ime-tens and I can
pole you across the river on a raft."
One of the Itiji in the rear said something
in their language.
Teeth
flashed in the darkness. The leader turned his head and spoke several words.
Harold
glanced at the trees. His eyes strained for some sign that Nimenlej was coming.
"We
don't have much time," he said. "They'll be here any minute. Do you
want to be free?"
"Does
a tree want to grow?" the leader screamed in Ime-ten. "Does a bird
want to fly?"
"Then you'll help me?"
"The others are afraid we can't trust
you."
"I need you. I can't get away without
you."
"How
do we know you won't keep us tied to this thing? Don't your people have
slaves?"
"I
hate slavery. My people left their first city to escape it. Even the gods we
worship hate it."
The
leader turned to the others. For a moment all four of them seemed to be talking
at once. Heads bobbed up and down. Paws scraped the ground.
The
leader turned back to Harold. "We believe you." He paused. "I've
met you before. You gave me the scars on my side."
Harold
blinked. "If it hadn't been for my wife, I would have gone on fighting.
She saved both your life and mine. We owe her something."
"Do you want to escape now?"
Temptation
tugged at his heart. "No. There'll be another raid. I want time to plan
and make sure I've thought of everything. We'll only get one chance. They won't
think about us cooperating until they actually see it."
"Nimenlej is tired. With four of us
pulling you, we could get back to Imeten hours ahead of them."
"We can't afford a mistake. Nimenlej
acts like he trusts you. Do you think he'll take you on other raids?"
"Definitely. He doesn't hate us as much as he
pretends."
"Well wait until the next raid. Let's go
back to camp."
"Are you sure there'll be another
raid?"
"If
this one succeeds there will be. If it doesn't, we'll try an escape on the way
back."
He
jumped into the wagon. Torches were flickering in the trees. "Head toward
the torches," he said. "If I can't talk to Nimenlej—be ready to
run."
The
cart rolled toward the lights. A voice shrieked the alarm. Other voices picked
it up and the torches converged on them.
"What's going on
here?" Nimenlej screamed.
Harold
guided the Itiji to Nimenlej's branch with the prod. 'Tour slavemaster was
insubordinate," he screamed back. "In my city he would have been
killed for that."
Hs
eyes peered upward through the mist. The torches had' him encircled.
"Slavemaster!" Nimenlej screamed. "Here!"
The
slavemaster scurried through the leaves and slapped the branch before his
superior. "My Lord! The two legs—"
"Silence! Do you want your tongue cut out? Insect! Groundlife!"
Angry
words scorched the slavemaster's crouching back. "Go back to camp,
Harold!" Nimenlej ordered. "The next time you have any complaints,
tell me! I'm in charge of discipline in this group."
Harold didn't answer. He prodded the Itiji
and the cart rolled forward. He had observed the tree-dwellers e-nough to know
incidents like this happened all the time. No one would think it was important.
He had even been abused less than seemed to be customary; his status with Jemil
Min must be high enough to make Nimenlej cautious.
VIII
They
approached the enemy
road in the night. They halted a couple of kilometers from the place where the
caravans usually camped for the night and scouts went ahead to spy.
There
were three sleds at the camping place. The scouts said they looked like they
were heavily burdened. There seemed to be more guards than usual—at least four
times eight, one scout said.
"There
will be two of them for every one of us," Nimenlej told his men.
"Normally we couldn't break through their lines. This time, however, we
have Harold. Forget about the ore. Concentrate on killing Ghanisans. You can
even retreat a little and draw them away from their sleds. Use your stomachs
and fight hard and we'll win. Well come back heroes from a raid the High
Warrior himself ordered."
They
left the carts and the Itiji with the slavemaster and moved forward. Nimenlej
stalked along the lower branches just above Harold's head. Far above both of
them the infiltrators slipped through the upper branches of the trees.
The
enemy campfires glowed in the mist. A rope brushed against his face—Nimenlej's
signal to halt—and he stopped and knelt behind a tree. He was still about two
hundred meters from the camp. The fires in the trees were'all he could see of
it.
He looked up at the dark canopy above his
head. For a moment the gods of battle were as real to him as they were to any
of the Imetens poised in the trees. He blew Joanne a kiss and raised his mace
at the invisible sky.
The rope brushed his face again. Nimenlej had
returned from a last-minute inspection of his men. The dartblowers should be
puffing their first darts at the enemy sentries.
A
startled voice shrieked the alarm. "Attack!"
Nimenlej screamed. "For the Goddess and the City!
Conquer and kill!"
Rattles
and horns clamored. The Ghanisans sprang to arms. The Imetens swung down from
the upper branches screaming battle cries. A horde of panic-stricken small life
stampeded through the leaves.
The
rope brushed his face. He stood up and moved forward. Ahead of him smoke bombs
made from the leaves of certain plants were falling on the camp.
He
stepped behind a tree and located the enemy sleds. The rope danced in front of
his eyes. "Gol" Nimenlej screamed.
He
plunged into the smoke with his sword in one hand and his mace in the other.
Bellowing like an animal, he leaped onto a sled.
Two
Ghanisans were crouching on the sled on three legs with their weapons drawn.
They screamed and a third guard appeared on top of the ore. Harold twisted away
from a spear thrust and shoved another spear aside with his sword. His mace
caved in a skull. A long arm pushed a sword toward his. stomach.
He caught it on his own blade, iron grinding on iron, and stepped toward the
upturned face grimacing at him through the smoke. His sword plunged into the
Ghan-isan's shoulder. A wild, gurgling shriek tore at his nerves. He jerked the
blade out and turned. The third guard pulled back his spear and fled.
He picked up the prod stuck in the ore pile
and poked at the ribs of the Itiji. His voice roared orders in the language of
Ghanis. "Go! Go!" The Itiji pushed against their bonds and the huge
pile of ore edged forward. He felt as if the prod were jabbing into his own
ribs.
He
goaded them toward the place where he had left Ni-menlej. A rope dropped on him
from a tree. He raised his sword and an Imeten slavemaster descended hand over
hand through the smoke.
The
slavemaster jumped onto the sled. Harold handed over the prod and he shoved it
into the flanks of the Itiji. They howled with pain and the sled heaved
forward.
A
spear flew past his face as he ran toward the second sled. He jumped aboard
with both weapons flailing. He slashed through a spear arm and crushed a
shoulder and the guards fell back. Holding them at bay with his sword, he
picked up the prod and jabbed at the Itiji.
"Go! Go!"
Danger
made him jab as hard as any slavemaster. The Itiji howled and threw themselves
against their bonds. Prodding with one hand and fighting with the other, he
tried to guide them toward Nimenlej.
They
wouldn't veer left. He jabbed them as hard as he could on their left flanks but
they kept moving straight a-head. They had seen their chance. They were trying
to escape.
Ghanisans
dropped on the sled. Swords and spears stabbed at his flesh from three sides.
The two guards who had been following the sled leaped at his back.
He
jumped off the sled. They hopped off after him and closed in. He swung at a
sword arm with his mace. His blade slid along a wrist and he twisted away from
three searching spear points.
A
voice screamed an Imeten battle cry in his ear. Nimenlej charged in, swinging
his mace. They fought toward the sled side by side and the Ghanisans fell back
before them.
They backed onto the sled. Harold held off
the Ghanisans and Nimenlej hooked his mace in his belt and grabbed the prod.
"Move
left!" Nimenlej screamed at the Itiji. "Left or I'll blind you."
The
prod poked at an Itiji's eye. The Itiji howled and the team veered to the left.
A
pair of Ghanisans swung at them on ropes. Harold crouched and met the attack
with both weapons. Bodies curled around the ropes; they swung toward him with
their maces held in front of them and their feet poised to kick. He sidestepped
and stabbed at one of them as the screaming body hurtled by. A foot glanced off
his head. He whirled on the other one and swung blindly with his mace. Iron glanced
off bone. He opened his eyes and chopped a spear thrust at him by a spearman
who had run at the sled while he was off-guard.
They
inched out of the smoke, fighting all the way. Again one of the slavemasters
climbed down a rope and took charge of the sled.
Hard,
heavy fruits dropped on him from the trees as he ran toward the last sled.
Voices screamed orders in the language of Ghanis. Spearmen slid out of the
branches on ropes and formed a bristling line in front of the sled.
"Turn back!" Nimenlej screamed at
him. "Enough! Come back!"
The spearmen charged. He turned around and
fled through the smoke. The screams of the slavemaster guided him toward the
sleds.
He fell in behind the last sled and walked
backward with his weapons ready. Nimenlej was in the trees giving orders. The
Imetens were the defenders now. Judging by the screams and the bodies falling
from the trees, most of the fighting was now in the lower branches and. a few
meters behind the sleds. The sleds seemed to be inching away from it.
"Watch your
right!" the slavemaster screamed.
He
jerked his head around. Dark, low shapes were trotting at the sled from the
side.
He
stepped in front of them and met them with sword and mace swinging. Spears
pressed on him from all sides. He beat his way through them and stayed on the
move. They had longer arms and the points of their spears seemed to thrust at
him every way he turned, but on the ground in the open he could evade their
three-legged shamble with ease as long as he kept backing away from the sled.
They didn't want to attack his two arms any more than he wanted to attack four
of theirs.
He
glanced at the sled. Two Ghanisans armed with swords were crouching on the ore.
The slavemaster had dropped his prod and was trying to fight them off with his
spear.
A
sword splintered the slavemaster's spear. He jumped off the sled and ran toward
a tree. Harold roared. His tired arms flailed. The spearmen poked at him
defensively and shuffled backward. He struggled toward the sled like a bound
man straining against his ropes.
The
two swordmen on the sled peered at him through the darkness. One was already
prodding the Itiji. The other screamed a challenge and hopped onto the ground
to help the spearmen.
Nimenlej swung out of the trees onto the ore.
His mace crashed into the Ghanisan with the prod. The Ghanisan who had jumped
off the sled heard the grunt of pain and shuffled around. Nimenlej dropped his
mace and his hand whipped toward his spear. The Ghanisan on the ground shrieked
as the shaft plunged into his shoulder.
Harold
whirled on the spears closing in behind him. Step by step he backed toward the
sled.
IX
The
sleds crept away
from the battle in the trees. Harold walked backward behind them and fought off
the halfhearted attacks of the spearmen. Eventually the spearmen dropped back
and the battle in the trees was lost in the darkness.
He
helped the slavemasters load the ore into the wheeled wagons. It was a
backbreaking job and it took longer than he had expected. The short-handled
Imeten shovels were, awkward tools for him and the
Imetens themselves couldn't work much faster. He cursed as much as they
screamed. His only consolation was the way the slavemasters complained about
doing slave work.
A
messenger came back from the battle line and watched from the trees as they
worked. As they loaded the last wagon and hitched up the captured Itiji, he
raced back to Nimenlej with the news.
By
morning they were well ahead of their pursuers. A few of the guards were still
trailing them but the rest had gone back to Ghanis to fetch reinforcements.
Aside from one brief skirmish on . the
second day—probably some Ghanisan officer's desperate attempt to regain
status—they returned to Imeten with no more violence.
The
High Warrior gave them all gifts. Everyone in the city had to attend a ceremony
in their honor in the main grid. "The gods have spoken!" the High
Warrior screamed. "The iron of Ghanis belongs to us. The gods want us to
have it. Obey the gods!"
Joanne greeted him with tears. She didn't say
it, but she had probably been trembling all the time he was gone. He told her
about his conversation with the Itiji as soon as he could.
He
lay beside her on the floor of the hut and thought about the risks he had
taken. He couldn't do it again. If he had died, she would have been left alone
in a strange, savage environment—and a prisoner at that. He saw her living here
blinded, and his face twisted in agony.
She
rolled over and looked down at him. "What's the matter?"
"Nothing. It's all right. Just a
delayed reaction."
She squeezed his hand.
"We'd better leave here soon."
"We
will. The next time I go on a raid, be ready to leave the second I come
back."
He
spent the next few days thinking about alternate escape routes and the tactics
he would have to use. He did everything he could to improve his acquaintance
with Nimenlej. He wanted the Eight Leader to think of him as a fellow Warrior,
a being who thought and acted like a tree-dweller.
He
listened ^patiently as Nimenlej complained about the discussions taking place
in the Council. The Great Priest and many of the senior Warriors were
whispering that the iron raids would be the ruin of Imeten. The gods had
spoken, but the Great Priest apparently felt their message had been
misinterpeted. The High Warrior was giving Lidris of Drovil an excuse to attack
the city, the Great Priest was warning. With an enemy like Lidris, they should
• be more cautious. Sometimes the gods set traps to tempt the reckless.
As
Harold had gathered, there were two ruling classes in Imeten. High Warriors and
Great Priests had been feuding as long as both offices had existed. Religion
and warfare were so entangled that the lines of authority had never been
completely separated.
Despite
the enmity of the two classes, there were always ambitious Warriors who hoped
to overthrow the current High Warrior with the aid of the priests. Jemil Min's
predecessor had been a "priest's mace" and the Great Priest had never
forgiven Jemil Min for ending a long period of priestly dominance.
The
High Warrior was engaged in a never-ending struggle to hold his position. One
slip and Jemil Min would meet the fate of his predecessor, whom he had
personally speared after a year of plotting. The Warriors might be far-sighted
enough to know they had to weaken Lidris, but many of them were siding with the
ambitious senior Warriors who were being supported by the Great Priest. A new
High Warrior would mean new status for everyone.
Five
days after they had returned to Imeten, Harold said goodbye to Joanne once
again.
When
he climbed down from the hut the scarred Itiji was leading the first team. They
exchanged a swift, meaningful glance as he took his place next to the first
wagon. He looked back at Joanne and gave her the thumbs-up sign.
As
he ate breakfast on the morning of the third day, he casually watched the
slavemasters hitching the Itiji to the wagons. Above him Nimenlej and his
assistants were screaming orders. All the Imetens except the slavemasters were
in the trees. It was the moment of maximum confusion; the men had finished
breakfast but they hadn't fallen into line yet.
He strolled to the front of the scarred
Itiji's team. He leaned over the poles as if he were examining something.
"Are you ready?"
"Now?" the Itiji mumbled.
"When I say go."
He
stood up. The slavemaster was staring at him. "I thought he had an insect
on his neck." "He'll tell us. Leave him alone."
He
walked back to the wagon. The two Itiji in the rear glanced from him to the
Imetens in the trees. Their lips curled.
He
jerked his mace off his belt as he stepped onto the wagon. "Go!"
The
Itiji howled. The wagon lurched forward. The slave-master tried to dodge and
the mace landed on his back. He shrieked with pain and Harold swung again at
the back of his head.
The
Itiji had swung the wagon around. They galloped past the second wagon as he
pushed the dead slavemaster overboard. The other slavemaster stared at them
dumfoundedly.
"Follow
us!" the scarred Itiji yelled.
The
leader of the second team turned his head after them. His team-mates howled and
pushed against their bonds. The slavemaster stunned the leader with a savage
thrust of his prod, hopped out of the wagon and held a spear against his
throat. Four pairs of longing eyes watched the runaways rumble toward Imeten.
"Stop
them!" Nimenlej screamed. "Treason!
Desertion! Dartblowers!
Spearmen!"
A
dart flew past the side of the wagon. Harold dropped to his hands and knees.
The Itiji yelled something in their own tongue.
He pulled out his sword. The wagon was loaded
with provisions and extra weapons and there were several hides to protect the
equipment from the rain. He cut the ropes around the biggest hide without
getting up and tugged it off the food it was protecting. It was a good tough material.
Darts flashed through the air like silver insects. He stood
up and threw the hide as if he were shaking out
a blanket. It dropped heavily on the rear Itiji. They howled with surprise and
the leader looked back at him. "It's to protect you from darts I"
He
dropped to his hands and knees again. His sword slid across the ropes which
bound another hide. His hands were steady but his heart was hammering. One
paralyzing dart in an Itiji's flesh and it would all be over.
He
stood up and heaved the hide over the front Itiji. Darts hung harmlessly in the
loose folds of the first hide. Even under the covering he could still see the
rhythmic rise and fall of the powerful Itiji shoulders.
Two
more darts flickered past and landed in the hides. The cart bounced over a root
and the hide over the rear team started slipping off.
He
squinted at the trees. He couldn't see any Imetens hut he could hear them
crashing through (the branches. Nimenlej was screaming. orders and birds and animals were squawking as they hurried
out of the way. The second cart was already lost in the trees.
He
stepped over the front of the wagon and crouched on the left pole. Holding on
with one hand, he tugged the hide back into place.
"Are you all right?" he yelled.
"Is
that you on the pole?" the leader asked. His hindquarters were showing
but his head was completely covered. "Yes. Is it too much weight?"
"It's slowing us down some." "I had to straighten the hides. Can
you see?" "Yes. Are they close?"
"We're
out of spear range. We'll be out of dart range soon."
"Did the other team come?"
"No."
He listened for the Imetens above the rumble
of the wagon wheels and the rattle of the equipment he had loosened. The
ground slid past the tossing hides. Even with the heavily-loaded wagon they
were well ahead of their pursuers.
He climbed into the wagon and huddled against
a hide. Minutes passed. He stared at the trees slipping past and made himself
relax. Above him the morning sun filtered through the leaves. The screams of
the Imetens faded.
He
stood up and started throwing gear overboard. "How much food will you
need?" he asked the leader.
The
Itiji exchanged comments in their own language. The hide slid off the leader's
head as he looked back. "We'll get our own. We've had enough of their
food."
"Will
you have time to hunt? We've got to get to Ime-ten hours before they do."
"We
can go without food until tomorrow if we have to. We will not eat slave food
again!"
He kept the waterbags and a few extra spears
and maces, and the slavemaster's quiver and dartblower. The Itiji didn't speed
up as the load grew lighter, but on the other hand they hadn't slowed down
since they sprinted out of the camp. If they could keep up this pace, Nimenlej
would be hours behind by nightfall.
The leader looked back. "There's the
other wagon!"
Harold
crouched behind the back of the wagon and peered through the trees. He could
just make it out in the pattern of light and shade. It was about two or three
hundred meters back.
"How many are in it?"
"Can't you see?"
"No."
"It's Nimenlej and two others."
"Will the other team help us if we stop
and fight?"
-No."
"Why not?"
"They have his wife."
Nimenlaj
had probably lightened the second wagon as noon as he realized the Imetens
couldn't catch them on foot. He looked as though he were driving his team at
top upeed. If he slowed down now and stayed behind them, they would spend the
next three days racing toward their execution. If he left them and went
directly to Imeten and the High Warrior, he might even get there first.
"Slow
down," Harold yelled. "Keep them behind us. We can't lose them."
He
crawled to the front of the wagon and took the dart-hlower and quiver off their
hooks. He would have traded overy weapon on the wagon for his bow and two
arrows.
The leader looked back. "You're going to
fight them?"
"I'll
try to paralyze one of their team. These things don't kill, do they?"
"They hurt. I've been hit by them
twice."
"I
can't do anything else. If we don't stop them, we might as well forget about my
wife."
"Do what you have to do."
"Let
them come as close as the distance between two trees."
He crawled to the rear of the wagon. The
leader gave nn order and the team slowed down. He puffed through the dartblower
a couple of times and put his hand in front of the tube to see whether he was
generating much thrust.
He
watched Nimenlej creep closer. Dart range seemed to l>e about a hundred
meters. The distance he had given the Itiji would be about seventy.
He
picked up a scrap of hide he had saved and wrapped It
around his head. They were close enough now so he could see that Nimenlej was
prodding the team himself. He had apparently brought two dartblowers with him.
Nimenlej
screamed an order. His wagon veered to the left. One .of the dartblowers raised
his weapon. They were just far enough to one side so that he might be able to
land a dart on Harold's team.
Harold
scurried forward to make sure the hides were in place. He let out a yell. One
of the rear Itiji had turned his head to look at their
pursuers and the hide had slipped enough to expose his outside flank from the
shoulders forward.
The
leader looked back at him. The Itiji who had exposed himself went on watching
the Imetens.
He
pointed at the hide. He couldn't keep his anger out of his voice. "Veer to
the left. Get the wagon between you and them. Stop and let me get this
fixed."
The
leader glanced at the exposed Itiji. They turned sharply. The leader picked up
the pace and they galloped around a big tree and stopped short.
Harold
jumped out. The tree trunk would protect him until Nimenlej was almost abreast.
He
jerked the hide over the Itiji's head. "Don't let him do that again) Doesn't he know what we're doing?"
The leader turned on the offender and roared.
His claws scraped the ground as if he wanted to rip the planet to pieces.
Harold
jumped back on the wagon. The leader howled and they lurched forward and picked
up speed.
He crawled to the back of the wagon and
picked up the dartblower. Nimenlej was about fifty or sixty meters away. He was
jabbing his prod into his Itiji as if he were punishing them for disobedience.
He stuck a dart in the rear
end of the blower and tried to aim over the back of the wagon. The front end of
the tube moved up and down with every bounce.
"Turn
back!" Nimenlej screamed. "I won't tell the High Warriors! I swear
itl Well go on together and finish our mission!"
Both
the dartblowers in the other wagon had their weapons at their lips. He filled
his cheeks with air and blew. Two darts flashed toward him.
He
dropped behind the backboard. "Are the hides all right?" he screamed.
"They're all in
place," the Itiji leader yelled.
He
raised his head. The other team was still galloping. He blew another dart and
ducked.
"Turn
back!" Nimenlej repeated. "Remember the punishment for
desertion!"
He Blew four more darts at them. Every time he raised his head
the dartblowers were waiting for him.
He
flattened himself on the floor of the wagon and collected the spears and maces
he had saved in two clattering piles. "Let them come closer," he
screamed at the Itiji. Bring them into spear range. Keep the wagon between you
and them. They'll be using spears, too."
"You're going to use spears!" thé leader
shrieked.
-Yes."
"Who are you going to
aim at?"
"Nimenlej. If I aim at the Itiji, it'll be the last thing I do."
The leader roared at the team. They slowed
down and Harold crawled to the back of the wagon.
He
stood up. For a moment he and the three Imetens stared at each other. He raised
the spear above his head and hurled it at Nimenlej.
The dartblowers ducked.
Nimenlej jabbed his team with the prod and they swerved sharply. The spear thunked into
the side of the wagon and a dartblower popped up. (
Harold
dropped. He looked up and saw the dart flash over his head. They were too close
to miss.
He
picked up another spear and looked over the backboard. Both dartblowers had
their weapons on him.
"Surrender!" Nimenlej screamed. "I'll have you blinded if you don't
surrender!"
He
grabbed a half-empty waterbag and pulled it toward him. It was big enough to
cover most of his chest. By squeezing the hide together he could get a good
grip on the middle.
He
stood up with the hide in his left hand. The Imetens screamed. Two darts sped
toward him and he hurled the spear.
The
darts tapped hollowly on the water bag. An Imeten shrieked as he dropped to the
floor. He peeked over the backboard and saw one of the dartblowers falling backwards
with a spear in his chest.
Nimenlej thrust the prod at the other
dartblower and pulled his spear out of its sheath. He screamed a prayer at the
gods. Harold stood up without his improvised shield and they both let fly.
Harold dropped. Nimenlej's spear crashed into
the floor of the wagon and quivered in the wood next to his foot. He stared at
it as though it had some kind of hypnotic power. When he looked over the
backboard, Nimenlej already had another spear in his hand.
Nimenlej screamed an order. The dartblower
prodded the slaves and his wagon veered sharply to the left. The right wheel
came off the ground. Nimenlej leaned forward and hurled his spear.
"Turn right!" Harold screamed at
the Itiji. "He's throwing his spear at you."
The Itiji leader roared. The weapons on the
floor of the wagon bounced and clattered as the Itiji swerved.
An
Itiji howled. The wagon lurched to a halt. "Tavid's speared!" the
leader yelled.
Nimenlej
stopped his wagon just out of spear throw. "You can't escape, Harold.
Surrender and you won't be blinded. I won't tell the High Warrior."
Harold
stood up with the waterbag in front of his chest. Behind him the wounded Itiji
was beginning to moan. Nimenlej was brandishing another spear and the Itiji
leader was looking at him over the writhing hides and wailing a wild, strange
song in his own language.
He
jumped out of the wagon and ran back to the team. Nimenlej screamed at him. A
dart sailed over his head.
He
jerked the hides off the backs of the Itiji. His sword slashed at their bonds. "Fight!" Thwack! "Fight
for your lives!" Thwack!
Thwack!
The
Itiji burst out of the poles like three howling demons. He held the waterbag in
front of his chest and they charged across the dark ground at Nimenlej's spear
and the dart-blower's tube.
They
fanned out and came in from four directions. Nimenlej screamed at them to
halt. The Itiji in Nimenlej's team howled. Harold roared. The Itiji running
beside him yelled a battle cry which woud have chilled the blood of a Viking.
Darts tapped on the waterbag. Nimenlej heaved
his spear. The Itiji on Harold's right rolled over and clawed the ground with a
shaft dancing in his side.
Nimenlej drew his sword. The dartblower swung
the cattle prod as the Itiji leaped at the wagon. Harold stepped onto the
poles binding the slaves and stabbed at Nimenlej.
Nimenlej parried and stabbed back. Iron
gnashed on iron.
Behind
Nimenlej's back the dartblower went down before the Itiji.
"Deserter! Traitor!"
Nimenlej
stabbed. Something hot burned Harold's side and he gasped. He stepped off the
pole and dropped to one knee with his sword raised to ward off another blow. A
black shape reared up behind Nimenlej's shoulders and knocked the Eight
Leader's sword out of his hand.
The
dartblower was lying dead and mangled on the ground. The Itiji who had been hit
with the spear had stopped moaning. Above him Nimenlej was pinned to the wagon
with his arm hanging over the front and the Itiji leader resting heavily on his
back.
He clutched his side. Warm
blood oozed into his hand.
"Are you all
right?" the Itiji leader asked.
He
looked at the wound. It was a lpng slash and there was
plenty of blood, but apparently his abdominal wall was still intact. If he
could avoid chemical poisoning or a freak infection, it should be healed enough
to give him no trouble by the time they reached Imeten.
"It
isn't deep. It's bloody but it isn't serious." He stood up and looked at
Nimenlej. "Will you surrender or do I have to let him hold you like that
until we leave?"
Nimenlej
wiggled angrily. Harold tried to find some way to say he was sorry he had to do
this but gave up when he realized the only words for regret in the Imeten
language implied self-abasement. He shrugged and turned to the Itiji in
Nimenlej's team.
"We
need two more men to go with us. We'll take all of you if you want to go."
"You'll
all be blinded," Nimenlej screamed. "Well hunt you to the end of the
river."
The leader of the team stared down the forest
lanes. The other three looked up at the scarred Itiji and said a few words in
their own tongue. They understood Imeten but, as slaves, only a few of them
were expected to speak it fluent-
"They'll all come but
the leader," the scarred Itiji said.
He
stepped forward and cut their ropes. 'Til have to tie you to our wagon the best
way I can. We don't have time to work out something better. As soon as we're
able, 111 arrange the ropes so you can leave the wagon
at any time. You aren't slaves anymore. We will work together as
males-with-the-same-status."
His
sword arm seemed to surge with power. He had rarely felt so glad he was alive.
The
Itiji who had been speared in the charge was definitely dead. The other Itiji
who had been wounded was still lying in front of the wagon, moaning to himself.
The wound in the thigh of his right rear leg looked terrible. Harold bent over
it, clutching his own wound, and shook bis head.
"We have to put you in the wagon,"
Harold said. "It's going to hurt but we have to get out of here right
away. I'll do what I can for you when we start moving."
"I understand,"
the Itiji said. "You're wounded, too."
He
howled from the moment Harold lifted his shoulders. The spear wobbled
constantly. Fresh blood gushed out of the wound.
"See
what your friends are like," Nimenlej screamed. "Listen to
him."
The wounded Itiji put his forepaws over the
side of the wagon. Harold released his shoulders and lifted his rear paws. His
own wound hurt every time he twisted or bent but he kept his temper under
control. The Itiji probably expressed all their emotions with their voices. For
all he knew the creature howling in his ears might be as brave and
self-controlled as a silent, stoic human. He had kept his claws sheathed when
pain might have made him scratch, and every motion of his body was making the
job a little easier.
X
They
didn't stop for
several hours. To save time, Harold built a small fire inside the wagon,
removed the spear and disinfected both wounds with boiled water while they were
moving.
The
Itiji pulling the wagon cursed the Imetens for several minutes when he told
them he thought the spear had cut a nerve and their friend would never walk
again. The rest of their conversation restored most of his satisfaction, however.
Apparently a crippled Itiji would always be supported and cared for by his
social group.
.
"He's better at loving and poetry anyway," one of the Itiji pulling
the cart said in halting Imeten. "When we get home, he can lie around all
day and tell the girls pretty stories."
The
wounded Itiji made a face. "Hell be free,"
the scarred Itiji growled. "Cripple or not, hell be free. Before 111 be a slave again, 111 lose
all my legs."
The
scarred Itiji was named Gladvig Ligda Liva. As soon as they had finished
expressing their feelings about the wound and the Imetens, he introduced
himself and the others with elaborate ceremony. It took him almost half an hour
to say everything that had to be said, and they managed
to get it all in while maintaining the same pace they had kept up since they
left the Imeten camp.
They
had been taciturn and silent among the Imetens, but now thatthey were free they
never closed their mouths. If they
weren't talking, they were singing. He questioned them about their culture and
their history, and they answered with so much enthusiasm that a few questions
kept them talking until bedtime.
The contrasts between the two types of intelligent beings
fascinated him. As the day wore on he forgot about the
danger waiting for them in Imeten and revelled in the
heady feeling that his awareness and understanding were
expanding at a tremendous rate. He was doing exactly what
he had dreamed about when he had stood on the edge of
the plateau and stared at the forest. -
They
took time out to forage on the morning of the second day. He untied the ropes
which bound them to the poles, and they disappeared into the forest in five
different directions. For the first time since they had left Nimenlej
screaming in the forest, they were all silent at the same time. Even the
wounded Itiji in the wagon limited himself to breathing.
Harold
crouched in the cart and wondered if they were going to return. Why should they
care about Joanne? From here on he might be more of a hindrance to them then a
help.
A
deep-throated howl broke the quiet. Sharp yaps answered from the four corners
of the compass. Swift, black shapes slipped through the trees. Howling back and
forth, they drew their net around their quarry.
His heart jumped when the animal burst into
sight. It was galloping toward the wagon through the shadows of the forest with
two Itiji howling on its tail. It was about the size of a large deer but it had
a single long horn and its legs were thick and muscular. An Itiji howled behind
him just before it reached the wagon, and Liva leaped in front of it and
swatted at its nose. It stabbed at him with its horn and veered, and another
Itiji darted from behind a tree and turned it again.
They
brought it to bay in a circle of noisy huntsmen only a spear-throw from the
wagon. Harold's fists clenched with excitement. Liva howled and one of the
Itiji charged the animal's hindquarters and dodged as it turned in its own
length and kicked at his side with its powerful front legs. For all its weight
it was agile as a dancer. In a single flow of motion it kicked both hind legs
at an Itiji who came in from its rear, thrust with its hom at the Itiji snarling
at its face, and spun on the Itiji trying to reach its flanks.
Sharp teeth snapped at a foot. An Itiji
leaped at the animal's neck and twisted away from a thrust of the horn. For an
instant one side of the tawny neck was exposed. Liva leaped in and slashed at
its throat. The animal shrieked. Two heavy bodies crashed into its side and
bore it to the ground.
He
had trouble watching them eat. They were polite and ceremonious, but they had
never invented fire.
They
dismembered the part they didn't eat with deft stokes of their claws and he
wrapped it in a hide and tied it under the wagon for them. Later in the day
they added more tidbits to their diet by stopping to rob a colony of bird
nests.
The
way they talked about food filled him with envy. He had been living on cheese
fungus since he had left the mountains and they insisted on talking about all
the meals they had eaten in the past and planned to eat in the future.
They
despised the diet the Imetens had fed them. Eating was not the least of the
many things freedom meant to them.
"I
admired the way you brought that animal down," Harold said. "If the
Imetens think you're cowards, either they're blind or they've never watched you
hunt."
"They
know how brave we are," Liva said. "Why do you think they stay in the
trees until they've got us paralyzed or tangled in nets? It's been a long time
since any Imeten hunted us on the ground for sport. If we had weapons and they
had to face us on the ground, they'd avoid us as if we were the gods
themselves."
Harold
felt uncomfortable. He was going to return to the mountains and relative
safety, but what were the Itiji returning to? Their species was probably
doomed. In the grim process of evolution, weapons counted more than
gracious-ness and a strong sense of community.
Or
did they? If humans had been a little more like Itiji, they might not have
ruined everything they had built on Earth—and his father and Walt Sumi might
still be alive.
He
changed the subject. "Are all the animals you hunt as dangerous as that
one?"
"I
would have waited for an easier quarry if we had time. We don't hunt those
normally unless we have at least eight hunters. You can't kill them quickly
with a small group unless someone risks his life."
They circled Imeten in the night. Twice they
had to hide in the shadows while a patrol trotted by above Only
the keen senses of the Itiji warned them in time. He might be their hands, but
they were his eyes, ears and legs.
He marched up to the treehouse as if he were
coming hack from the fields for lunch. He had his sword and his mace and he had
stuck a few of the slavemaster's paralyz-er darts in his belt.
Four guards were squatting in the branches
around the house. He waved hello jauntily. ' "Where
are the others?" the guard leader screamed.
"I left them at the
Itiji stockade. We had to come back."
Joanne
stuck her head out the door. He smiled up at her and she waved and blew him a
kiss. One of the guards rushed off as he climbed the ladder.
She
pulled him into the house. He put his hands on her shoulders and held her at
arms' length. "We're going. Are you ready?" He wanted to kiss her but
he didn't dare. He didn't want to be tempted into lingering the few seconds
that might spoil everything.
"I've
got everything we need, except the rabbits, in one bag," Joanne said.
"What do you want me to do?"
He
handed her the mace and several darts. "You can throw the darts by hand at
this range. They don't kill; they just paralyze temporarily. When I shout, step
out the door and throw one at the nearest guard. The^ Itiji will run out of the
trees as soon as they hear me." He hesitated. "Use the mace if you
have to. Don't be squeamish."
She swallowed. "I
won't."
"There
are three of them. One just left for the city. Get rid of them fast and well be
gone before anybody else gets here."
He stepped through the door and started
climbing the ladder as if he were going to the city. The guard leader crouched
on his branch and watched him carefully. One guard was squatting on a thick branch
near the door; the third was hidden from him by the leaves of the shadows.
His right hand sneaked toward his belt. He
twisted on the ladder and flung a dart at the leader.
"Joanne! Liva!"
The guard leader reached for his spear and
tried to shuffle to one side. Harold reached for another dart. The guard leader
stiffened and toppled backward off the branch.
Joanne
was leaning out of the house. The guard who had been posted opposite the door
was sprawled on his branch. The Itiji were galloping toward the house.
Harold searched for the
third guard. "Be careful, Jo."
She
ducked into the house. "Can you see him? He's on my left. In that cluster of vines."
"Where the big yellow
flower is?"
"Yes."
A
face broke through the vines. A spear aimed and ready to throw pointed at him
from beside the right ear.
He
slid around the rough bark of the tree. "Throw the mace at him," he
yelled. "We don't have time to play games."
He
held onto the ladder nailed to the tree and watched the front of the house.
Joanne leaned out and hurled the mace at the cluster of vines. It crashed
through the foliage and the guard scrambled out of the way. For a second sunlight
glistened on his head and shoulders.
Harold
tossed a dart at him. The spear dropped from his hand. He stiffened and
plummeted through the leaves.
Joanne
dropped the bundle and the rabbit cages. In the distance, Imeten voices
screamed faintly.
They
scrambled down the ladder. He jumped into the wagon and pulled Joanne up after
him. Liva howled and they rumbled into the trees.
They
lurched to a stop less than a hundred meters from the house. The Itiji turned
around and looked at them.
"What's the matter?" Harold asked.
Liva glanced toward the city. The screams.were getting louder. "We are freeing your
wife, Harold. We came back here just for her. My wife is still in the
stockade—a slavel I don't want to leave her any more than you wanted to leave
your wife. By the laws of gods I shouldn't leave her. Will you come back and
help me free her?"
Harold glanced at Joanne.
She nodded slowly.
"We'll come
back," Harold said. "I swear it."
The
Itiji howled. They leaped against their traces and the wagon shot forward.
Behind them Imeten voices screamed batde cries.
XI
This
is the song every child must learn. Sing it with fervor. It is the song of
gratitude.
They
came out of the north walking on two legs. The first time Lim. saw them, they frightened him more than all the armies of the
tree-dwellers. The strange thing they were pulling said they could make tools
and weapons no creature who could speak had ever seen. They could work and
fight with both hands at the same time. They were more terrible than the sun,
more frightening than death and loneliness. Every living thing was at their
mercy.
And
this was the gift of the gods: that
they were brave and could act, and wise and could foresee.
This is the song of wonder, the song of
Harold and Joanne ....
At
the resting place on the road from the iron mine to Imeten, the embers of
campfires glowed in the trees. Bone-weary Itiji slaves slept in their bonds
beside their overloaded sleds. Imeten guards crouched at their posts or paced
restlessly from branch to branch.
Two
kilometers away, Harold and Joanne moved from Itiji to Itiji, fastening shields
of wood and hide on each muscular back. Orange eyes glowed in the darkness.
Choked voices murmured their reactions to Liva's whispered oration.
"Some
of us will die tonight," Liva was saying. "Some of us will never
again enjoy our wives, never again run singing through the forest, never hunt
and eat the good food the gods have given us. The words some of us might have
spoken will never be heard."
Harold
listened as he worked. He would never master the Itiji languages as well as he
had mastered Imeten, but he had learned the language Liva was speaking well
enough to follow it, and he liked the rhythms and the deep, rich sounds. The
fourteen Itiji who were listening were exploding with emotion, but they
automatically fitted their responses into the pattern of Liva's oration. As he
had learned during many lengthy sessions, the Itiji couldn't move without a
speech; if quiet hadn't been absolutely necessary, they would have been
singing.
Point
by point, as if they had never heard any of it before—and argued it out among
themselves every time they had a spare moment—Liva reminded them of the justice
of their cause, their right to be free, the long history of their race which
every Itiji carried in the phenomenal Itiji memory, and the women and children
in every community who would think of them with admiration when the story of
their courage became one of the great songs of their people.
"If we fail, someday our species will be
silenced forever. The tree-dwellers will do what Harold has prophesied: their
weapons will become stronger and stronger, and they will take over all the World and leave us nothing. What does it matter if
we live a few years longer and everything our tongues have spoken is eventually
forgotten? Treat death with contempt."
Harold
rested a shield on an Itiji's back and started buttoning the front straps.
Joanne finished the shield she was working on and came over to help.
"This is the last
one," she whispered.
He reached across the
shield and pressed her hand.
"The
gods have sent us Harold and Joanne. Show the gods we are worthy of the
gift!"
They
buttoned the last strap. Harold picked up his own shield and stepped in front
of the line.
"We're ready,
Liva."
"Have you heard?"
Liva asked. "Do you consent?"
"We have heard,"
the Itiji murmured. "We consent."
"The sun is risingl
Sing the morning prayer!"
Joanne
climbed into the wagon. Four Itiji took their places between the poles and the
rest spread out in a long skirmish line.
They
moved out, with the wagon a few paces in the rear. Harold walked beside Liva
with his sword in his right hand and his big oval shield in his left. A light
rain brushed across his face, but the ground was still firm; if things went as
well as he hoped, they should be far away from the Imetens before the earth got
muddy enough to slow down the wagon.
He
looked down at the dark shape stalking beside him. Liva had planned for this
night since their first conversation; from the moment Harold had asked him if
he wanted to be free, he had begun to think about ways the humans could help
his species fight the tree-dwellers. With their hands, he had reasoned, they
could make weapons which Itiji could use, but which they couldn't make for
themselves. He had had a few vague notions about what such weapons might be
like, and he had been certain peopie who were used to working with tools would
be able to think of many more.
Their
basic strategy had been Harold's idea. He had thought about it before they
crossed the river but he hadn't suggested it until they were halfway to the
mountains. He and Joanne had discussed it several times before they mentioned
it to Liva. If the Itiji accepted the idea, they would be committed to a
struggle which might take years.
If
they could assemble enough fighters, Harold believed they could harass Imeten
so effectively that the Warriors would soon discover they couldn't fight the
Itiji and hold back Lidris of Drovil at the same time. To get even a weak force
off his back, Jemil Min might be willing to make concessions.
Liva
hadn't known enough about the wars of the tree-dwellers to think of such a
strategy himself. When Harold had suggested it to him he had roared with
excitement. Descriptions of a wonderful future had flowed from his tongue.
Harold
had not been happy about the prospect of more fighting. He was proud of the way
he had handled himself in combat, but he was no warrior. He had been awed,
however, by the importance of the thing. The destiny of an entire species
depended on him.
"If we can just force the Imetens to sit
down and bargain," Joanne had pointed out, "we'll have accomplished
something. We'll have established a new relationship between the Itiji and the
tree-dwellers. You don't negotiate with animals."
In the future there would undoubtedly be
other exiles from the plateau. If he and Joanne could do something significant
for the Itiji, at least one race on this planet would remember humans with
gratitude and treat them as friends. And when humans finally left the plateau
in large numbers, as they had to sooner or later, a world in which two species
lived as equals would accept them much more easily than a world in which one
intelligent species dominated another.
Or
suppose some of the mechanized savages he had left on the plateau decided they
would like to use their superior technology to do a little enslaving themselves? If that day ever came, he wanted the Itiji and
the tree-dwellers both to have some evidence that humans could bring a world something better than trouble and suffering.
He
had to fight. He had no choice. He was his father's son; he knew a
responsibility when he saw one.
By
my troth I care not; a man can die but once; we owe God a death . . . and let
it go which way it will, he that dies this year is quit for the next.:..
"What
are you saying?" Liva muttered., "Is that
your language?"
Their
hearing amazed him as much as their memory. His lips had hardly been moving.
"It's a verse by one of our poets. It's
about death and the gods."
He tried to work out a translation which
would do Shakespeare justice. He gave up when he realized the Itiji had no
word for owe which implied the debt could be paid in full
sooner or later. The closest word he could think of— gliad—referred to a continuing lifelong 'obligation to the community.
"I'll translate it later," he
whispered. "It's harder than I thought.
Different customs make different words."
He
dropped back to the cart and walked beside Joanne. She touched his shoulder and
the top of his head and he looked up at her face and brushed her hand with his
lips.
They
had made love just before dawn. At lunch they had baked a rabbit and tasted
real meat.
He
returned to his place beside Liva. The whispers on either side told him the
Itiji could already see the embers of the Imeten fires. Liva sent his orders
down the line and black shapes flowed into the night.
He
waited by himself in the shadow of a tree. Rain and sweat ran down his face. He
glanced back at Joanne and discovered that the wagon was already hidden.
A
guard shrieked the alarm. The Itiji howled a hunting song. Swift shadows
streaked toward the sleds.
He
crouched behind his shield and listened to the song. Each hunter always fitted
a terse description of his own actions to the traditional melody. At all times
each individual was supposed to know everything that was happening to the
group. He had expressed his doubts, but even in warfare the Itiji believed
cooperation should be given as freely as possible.
They
had surrounded the sleds. The slaves were howling questions at them. Spears and
darts were raining on their shields. Teeth were gnawing at the ropes binding
the slaves.
The
Imetens had been taken by surprise. Confined to the use of one hand hand at a
time, they had never invented the shield. They were throwing missiles from the
trees as if it were a habit they couldn't break.
An
Imeten officer screamed an order. Half the triple eight guarding the sleds slid
down ropes and formed a battle line on the ground. The officer screamed a
prayer at the gods and they charged the sleds from two sides.
The
Itiji formed a circle around the sleds. The snarls and groans of hand-to-hand
combat filled the forest. Itiji went down with spears in their bellies and
faces clubbed in by the iron weapons of the Imetens. Imetens fell shrieking before
mangling claws and teeth.
Every time an Imeten died, Liva roared out
the total. Two Itiji were dead but six Imetens had died with them—and more
Imetens were lying on the ground, shrieking in pain. The freed slaves were
joining in the struggle. Already the hunting song sounded triumphant.
Liva
bellowed above the din. The last slave had been freed. Two live, unwounded
Imetens were lying on the ground with Itiji standing over them.
Harold
ran toward the carnage. He burst out of the night without a sound. Crouched on
three legs, the Imetens were thrusting at the Itiji with their weapons and the
Itiji were holding them back with swipes of their paws and sudden rushes.
Wounded of both races were writhing on the ground.
A
voice shrieked his name. He stabbed an Imeten in the back and shoved another
out of the way with his shield. Two Itiji stepped apart to let him' through the
line. A mace slammed the bottom of his shield against his legs and he staggered
into the circle.
He bent over the prisoners. The sleds
protected him on most of one side and his shield on most of the other; for the
rest he would have to depend on the Itiji and the gods.
The
two Imetens had been stunned from the back and dragged through the melee by the
two Itiji Liva had dela-gated for the task. They were lying face down in the
dirt and each one had an Itiji standing on his shoulders. They had already
stopped struggling; they were inferiors, not Warriors, and they had
surrendered, after all, the time in their life when it counted most.
He grabbed the ropes which had bound the
Itiji slaves and started binding the prisoners' hands and feet. He glanced up
and saw Liva brushing a spear aside with his paws. The tree-dwellers were
poking at the Itiji lines as if they were going through the motions to appease
their officers.
An
Itiji howled behind him. He looked back. A slave was writhing on the ground
with a spear stuck in his side. He
jumped in front of a spear aimed at
Harold, Liva
sang. Remember his name
forever. Gliadl Gliadl
He
laid the edge of his sword on the necks of the two prisoners. The two Itiji
jumped off their backs and joined the battle line. "Do
what I say," he screamed, "or you'll be killed. Come with us and well
treat you well. You'll live longer than if you'd stayed in Imeten."
He
stood over them with his sword raised and the bottom of his shield resting on
the ground. Imetens shrieked curses at him across the line. The Itiji waiting
with the wagon burst from their hiding place and galloped out of the rain at
the sleds.
The
Imetens cried out. The four Itiji pulling the wagon crashed into the battle
with their heads pulled back under their shields and their bellies close to the
ground. Imetens scrambled out of their way. The poles extended half a meter in
front of the front pair and spear points bristled along the crossbar which
connected them.
The
wagon stopped beside the sleds. The Itiji crowded a-round it and Harold planted
himself in front of the back-' board. His shield gave him an overwhelming
advantage. The Imetens backed out of his way as through he were brandishing a
pistol.
Joanne
stepped off the wagon and dragged the prisoners aboard by their shoulders. They
shrieked curses at her but they didn't resist. Harold prayed to the gods a
freak spear wouldn't slip past his shield and the protecting bulks of the wagon
and the ore sleds. He had tried to keep Joanne out of the battle zone but she
had insisted that his hands should be used to fight.
An unshielded slave hopped onto the wagon
with the prisoners. Joanne started picking up weapons and laying them in the
wagon. Above the din Harold heard Liva telling her to pull the spear out of the
slave who had saved her husband's life; he would have wanted them to use his
death for everything they could use it for.
She
climbed into the wagon and crouched on the floor. The Itiji bellowed the music
they sang when they dragged the quarry to the ground. The wagon rolled forward
and Harold ran beside it and pushed the Imetens back with his sword.
When
they counted their dead, they discovered they had left six Itiji lying by the
sleds.
XII
The
Itiji lived in nomadic communities which wandered
the country north of the river. The largest community had
about a hundred citizens, and most were smaller, but each community had
its own law and political organization, and usually spoke its own language. For
thousands of years the Itiji had spent their leisure hours speculating about
the universe and experimenting with new social relationships; they lived under
every form of government Harold and Joanne had read about, plus several which
humans had never invented.
The
communities were not isolated, however. They communicated constantly, as their
trails crossed and as they met at watering places and hunting grounds, and
people often switched from one community to another. The entire country north
of the river was actually a single society of fantastic complexity.
Unfortunately no community had emphasized the
ideals of courage and military honor which make men act like warriors. The
Itiji had no history of war among themselves, and their
linguistic talents had given them such complete mastery of their environment
that they had been forced to face few dangers other than disease. Until the
coming of the tree-dwellers, they had lived comfortably and easily. Their poems
and stories told about sexual relations and family life, exploration,, and the beauty of such things as speculative thought and
the rhythms and interactions of nature. They had stories in which the hero
faced great danger in defense of the community, but they were stories which
celebrated social responsibility, not courage.
Only
their strong sense of community had made them fight back as hard as they had.
They had organized a loose but effective system of passive defense, with
communities exchanging information about slaving parties, and scouts watching
the river and passing the word when a slaving party crossed, but they had
resigned themselves to a steady trickle of losses. The tree-dwellers were a
fact of life, like rain and disease. When the will of the gods came armed, it
could be discussed, but not defied.
For
hundreds of kilometers east and west, Itiji had exchanged rumors about Gladvig
Ligda Liva and the two strange creatures with hands, and the small band of
young men who had followed Liva and the humans across
the river. Now Liva led his caravan from community to community and let every
Itiji in the land north of Imeten look at the first Imeten prisoners any Itiji
had ever captured. His eloquent voice proclaimed the news: The gods had sent
allies. The Itiji were unarmed no longer. The days of graceful, gentlemanly
acceptance had come to an end.
To
Harold and Joanne it was an impressive performance. Liva knew the customs and
the language of every community they visited. They sat through endless
discussions and ceremonies with Liva's son, Gladvig Liva Dlav, translating for
them, and Liva always made his plea at the optimum moment, and used the
arguments which would have the maximum impact on the group he was addressing.
He knew when to appeal to a community's sense of proportion and grace, and when
to remind them that no Itiji ever left another Itiji to die when he could do
something to help; and he knew when he should compliment the leader's taste in
food or pretty glades, and when he should sing a gay song about sexual
pleasure, or flatter the importance of women or the wisdom of democratic
groups.
Three
or four recruits joined them after every visit. For any attempt to persuade
Itiji that was apparently a good record; the hair-splitting and logic-chipping
Liva had to listen to drove Harold crazy. If humans had been as hard to lead
as Itiji, his father would have been reduced to gibbering rage ten days after
the starship left the Moon.
The
two prisoners were put to work helping the humans make weapons. Soon four
groups of shielded Itiji were patrolling the forest. Harold constructed bows
and dartblow-ers an Itiji could carry on his back while another Itiji loaded
and shot with his teeth, and a young genius even designed a shield harness an
Itiji could put on and take off without help.
Harold quickly realized that tools were more
important then weapons. He and Joanne couldn't possibly arm the-forces Liva was
raising. With the captured Imeten weapons, he made the Itiji metal knives and
saws which could be worked with the mouth. Liva's son designed a hammer, a
piece of stone or metal with a glove-like strap into which an Itiji could
insert a paw, and the Itiji had everything they needed to make their own
shields. Although their only tools had been crude stone knives and such
temporary devices as stretchers and sleds made out of bushes, the Itiji seemed
to be as mechanically inventive as the Imetens. All they had needed was help
with the first developments. They couldn't attach the strap to the hammer, but
they could use the gadget when it was given to them—and they could invent it,
once they knew there were hands to build it.
They
were still on the defensive, but fori a
few of them at least it had become an active defense. In the past when a
slaving party had ambushed an Itiji with a dart or trapped him in a pit or a
net, the prisoner's community had been forced to choose between two
options—slink away, or make a suicidal attempt to free him and add more victims
to the slavers' bag as darts and nets fell on them from the trees. Usually most
of the community had slunk away in shame and despair, and the prisoner's
immediate family had tried to save him, as had happened when Liva had been
taken. Now they could call on one of the groups of shielded fighters instead.
The slavers were forced to fight on the ground just to keep their bait.
Casualties
were heavy on both sides. For every dead Ime-ten there was at least one dead
Itiji. Two more Imetens were captured, however, and put to work making tools
and weapons. And with every successful attack on a slaving party, more Itiji
joined the fight.
The
humans concentrated on making weapons and tools and supervising the Imeten
prisoners. They moved their camp every day. Several double eights had entered
the forest and seemed to be looking exclusively for them. Harold kept the camp
ready to move at all times. Tools and weapons were put in the wagon as soon as
they were completed, and everyone in the party except the captives knew what
should be abandoned at once and what should be saved if possible. Every time
they made camp he worked out an escape plan with Joanne and the six Itiji who
travelled with them.
They had one narrow escape. An Imeten patrol
almost surrounded them and attacked them by surprise. They would have been
wiped out at the start of the struggle if it hadn't been for a lone Itiji who
had either been following the patrol or had stumbled on it by accident just
before it reached the camp. By the time he got close enough to give the alarm,
the Imetens were apparently in position directly above his hiding place. His
warning howl ended in a death rattle.
They
abandoned the prisoners and the unfinished work and galloped away from the
campfire in a hail of missiles. Eventually a passing community discovered the
Itiji who had given the warning hanging from a branch with three spears in his
body.
They met Liva three days later at one of
their periodic conferences. He was as disturbed by the loss of the prisoners
as Harold had been. The tools were their biggest problem. It took an Itiji
eight days to make a shield, and at the present moment they had only fifty
hammer and saw sets.
"If we had enough tools," Liva
said, "I could have three hundred men fighting in another eight days. They
come to me eager to fight and I have to tell them to wait."
Harold
leaned against a tree and rubbed his beard. He glanced at the wagon to make
sure Joanne was still taking her nap. He had been doing some arithmetic in his
head.
He
had always wondered how the generals in the history books could compute human
deaths as if they were keeping accounts. Now he thought he understood—it was
inherent in the nature of war. Eleven dead Itiji equalled two prisoners. Two
prisoners equalled twenty hammers and saws in sixteen days—plus nails, darts,
arrows, and the six two-man missile weapons he had built while the prisoners
were making the tools. So many tools, so many weapons, equalled so many armed
Itiji, equalled so many dead Ime-tens, equalled victory.
His
revulsion was irrelevant. From now on every life but one had a price.
"We need
prisoners," he said.
"The
last time we captured a prisoner," Liva said, "six men died."
"If we're going to fight, we have to think like fighters.
If ten men died to get one prisoner, we've come out ahead.
It's a terrible way to think, but if we can't make ourselves
do it, all the lives we've already lost will have been lost
for nothing." —
A
guard barked a warning. Harold picked up his shield and Liva rolled over onto
his and came up with it resting securely on his back. The guards lying around
the camp jumped up.
One
of the guards, who had been circling the camp at a distance, was galloping
toward them through the trees in the perfect silence Liva had requested—a
strenous discipline for an Itiji.
"Prepare for
flight!" Liva howled.
Joanne
looked over the back of the wagon. Four Itiji slipped between the poles.
The guard threw himself down on the ground in
front of them. His claws tore up the dirt. He threw back his head and wailed
his news to the music of a lament as old as the anguish of the Itiji.
"The Imetens have sent an army. Eight
times eight double eights crossed the river six days ago. A community is
coming toward us escorting a woman. Four double eights surrounded her community
and captured them. Two prisoners in every eight were speared. She was beaten
and slashed with their swords. Two of the men were blinded."
Harold beat on the ground with the bottom of
his shield. Rage blinded him.
Several
Itiji were coming toward the camp. Everyone in the area ran out to meet them.
The woman who had been tortured limped forward and told her grief to the same
music the guard had chosen. Terrible scars covered her face and her sides.
Joanne
knelt beside the woman and examined her wounds. "When did it happen?"
Liva demanded. "Where are they now?"
"Three
days ago," an Itiji said. "They're moving this way. I think her
community was the first. We heard about another this morning."
They
broke camp and started moving toward the mountains. During the night they
encountered a community which was moving in the same direction with three more
survivors of an Imeten ambush.
Divided
into units of four double eights, the Imeten army scoured the forest. Out of
every eight Itiji captured, two were speared and hung from the trees. The minor
watering places were fouled and the major ones were guarded. The animals the
Itiji hunted were slaughtered wantonly. And after every atrocity the beaten,
scarred prisoners were sent into the forest with the same message—bring us the
two-legs who gave you the weapons.
In
the past the Imetens had come in small bands of slavers and they had killed
only when they couldn't avoid it. Now, fielded in the numbers in which they
fought battles, with maiming and killing their only objective, they were almost
invincible. The five thousand Itiji who lived in the land north of Imeten fled
before the storm.
Liva
and his handful of fighters did what they could. Against overwhelming odds they
stormed into Imeten camps to rescue ambushed communities. Liva's son died
trying to pull a paralyzed mother out of a ring of Imeten spearmen. By the
time the last community had slipped out of the holocaust, only ten fighting men
were left alive.
Harold
watched the slaughter put new sorrows in Joanne's eyes. He wondered how he
could go on living. He had set out to change the history of a world and instead
bodies hung from the trees. Was this the hubris of
the Greek tragedies, the overweening pride which brought down the wrath of the
gods?
Jemil
Min's troops cut deep into the lands dominated by Ghanis. The communities which
normally roamed the lands north of Ghanis endured some of the punishment
intended for their neighbors. Itiji from both territories crowded together in
camps. Every minute of the day Harold could hear a funeral song or a child
crying for food. On every side cries of despair echoed his
own feelings. Outnumbered, outwea-poned, short of food, surely they were
the sport of the gods!
Liva
stalked from camp to camp, calling for men to bear shields and avenge the dead.
Was this any worse than what they had endured for generations? Did the people
who had been tortured in the raid suffer anymore than the Itiji enslaved in
the tree-dweller cities suffered every day?
"Do
you see Harold wailing and scratching the dirt?" Liva thundered.
"Have any of us fought harder than Harold? The humans were sent to us by
the gods. Did you think the gods wouldn't ask something from us?"
Harold
felt embarrassed. He put aside his despair. This was no time for brooding about
guilt and pride. If Liva still wanted to fight, he would go on fighting beside
him.
But
what were they going to do? If they waited until the raiders returned to
Imeten, and then started attacking slaving parties again, Jemil Min would
merely send his army back for more slaughter. After what they had just endured,
the Itiji were not going to fight unless Liva offered them something better
than that.
Obviously
a drawn-out war Vould never succeed. Everywhere Liva
went people begged him not to fight. After enduring the tree-dwellers for
centuries, and the ordeals of disease and the elements since they had first
evolved, the Itiji did not have the confidence in technology and military power
which gave humans and Imetens the patience to pursue far-off, difficult victories. They were not fatalists, but
strenuous resistance to pain, death and enslavement was not part of the
tradition which shaped their psyches. Most of their philosophies of behavior
dealt with the beauty of lives lived within limits which gave them grace and
harmony; most of their poems about death urged the hearer to enjoy himself as
much as he could.
He
found Liva sharing a small, pig-like animal with five of the men who had fought
with him during the raid. They were grumbling about the reception they had been
getting and discussing the shortcomings of a meal which would normally have fed
three.
"I have a proposal," Harold said.
Liva looked up from the foreleg he was
gnawing. "I've been wondering when you were going to tell me what you've
been thinking about."
"I
wanted to think about it very carefully. I think we should attack Imeten."
Liva's companions stopped chewing. Their
whiskers wiggled with interest. They still looked to him as a source of miracles.
"I think I can make you weapons which
will hurl stones-big stones—from here to the top of that tree. I know I can make you wagons with towers on them as tall as the middle branches.
You can run up the inside of the towers and get into the city. You can't climb up there normally, but once you get there you can move around as
well as the Imetens. If we can get enough fighters into the city itself, we
can hold a portion of it and refuse to leave until they make concessions. We'll
have all the advantages of the defense and at the same time we'll be in a place
where they can't let us stay."
Liva
licked his lips. His five companions made emotional noises.
"How many men will it
take?" Liva asked.
"Well
need at least four times eight triple eights. Can you
recruit them?"
"How many will live to
enter the city?"
"I don't know. Half of
us may die in the initial attack."
"You
think the few who would be left could hold off the entire Imeten army?"
"If they try to attack us once we're in
the city, I think we can kill two of them for every one of us they kill. If
they try to wipe us out, they'll lose half their army."
"What if they try to starve us
out?"
"If
they let us stay that long, Lidris of Drovil will probably hear about it and
decide to attack while we're there. Jemil Min won't let that happen. Once he
realizes how much of his army he'll have to sacrifice to dislodge us, he'll
listen to what we want."
"If.the gods are with us," one of
the Itiji said.
"If the gods are with us," Harold
said.
XIII
Liva
moved among the demoralized
communities like a prophet out of the Old Testament. His eyes were focused on the
future again.
"The
cities of the tree-dwellers throb with cries for help I How can we let people from our own communities— from our own families!—suffer
the torments the slaves of the tree-dwellers are enduring every day? Before we
had no choice, we were powerless and there was nothing we could do. Now the
gods have sent us power. We cannot refuse to fight. The gods gave us the law
when they gave us speech. The man who has food will share it with the hungry.
No one will ever be abandoned by those who can help him. Forget that law now
and the gods will punish us forever. Once the Imetens are conquered by Lidris
of Drovil, Lidris will turn the power of five tree-dweller cities against us. Now is the time to attack. Now the
Imetens will fear^for their city when they see us."
At
the end of two eight-days they had twelve hundred volunteers. When they-
eliminated the aged, the infirm, and the very young, an army of nine hundred
stood ready to be armed. The others would help make weapons and would bring
supplies through the Imeten lines after the army was established in the city.
They
worked near the mountains at the eastern border of the lands dominated by
Ghanis. Liva split the army into groups of forty-eight and scattered them over
the forest. While Harold watched in awe, he welded the varied cultures and
personalities into a new kind of Itiji community
—a
large fighting community with all the order and discipline of a human or a
tree-dweller army, but without the ever-present threat of physical violence the
weapon-making species had always used to keep people cooperating. The Itiji
might not have a military history, but they did have a political history.
Without weapons their leaders had been forced to develop the arts of
persuasion. If Jemil Min ever agreed to negotiate, Harold decided, the Imetens
would be lucky if they walked away with the clothes they came in.
They
worked for fourteen eight-days under constant fear of detection. The first four
eight-days Harold and Joanne made tool sets and raised
the production per eight-day from fifty shields to seventy. At the end of the
period they were outfitting two fighting groups per eight-days. The Itiji were
becoming more skillful and had worked out a division of labor which gave the
tools to the people who could use them best.
When
they started working on the towers and the cata-paults, a young Itiji suggested
a change in plan. Why not mount them on rafts and attack across the river?
Advancing across an open, treeless space, they would be safe'from the Imetens
until they were almost on the city.
They
adopted the idea at once. Harold had ben trying" to design wheels several
times the size of those which the Imetens had installed on the wagons, and he
had come to realize exactly how ingenious the first human inventors had been.
They finished the tower in three eight-days.
It was a crude structure—a framework made out of lashed-togethef logs, walls
"armored" with smelly hides and a tangle of live, flower-decked
vines—but they knew it would do the job. Four meters square and twenty-five
meters tall, it was the first building the Itiji had ever possessed. When they
practiced running up the interior ramp and storming the middle branches of the
trees, they were as delighted as children.
For the catapaults Harold took advantage of
the Itiji talent for teamwork. Five Itiji with wooden sandals on their feet
jumped off a platform as one man; they landed on a wide crossbar on the long
end of the launching arm and the short end snapped up and hurled a ten kilo
stone at the upper branches of the trees. It was light
artillery, not heavy, but it would batter the Imeten structures along the river
front, and it might unnerve the Imetens lined up to stop the assault. He built two and supplemented them with a bow drawn by
eight Itiji which could hurl small logs three hundred meters and Imeten spears
six hundred meters. Once they were inside the city, the daily havoc wreaked by
the bow would be one more argument against a lengthy attempt to starve them to death.
They
spent the last four eight-days making two man bows and dartblowers. By the time
the last Itiji had put a shield on his back, they had sixty-one missile weapons
and several hundred darts and arrows.
They
would have had more if Joanne had been able to work faster. She slowed down as soon as she touched a weapon. She couldn't forget she was making something which would
eventually kill or mangle a creature
who could feel pain and worry about the future.
"Do you want to stay behind?"
Harold asked. "It's going to be
bad."
She looked at the arrow she was smoothing and
bit her lip. "I want to be with you every day we may have left," she
said slowly.
He didn't argue with her.
Liva dispatched the army from the mountains
group by group over a period of several days. The groups drifted toward the
river over routes which ranged over all the country north of Imeten and Ghanis. Each group
earned part of a dismantled siege weapon and the routes crossed according to a
complicated plan. Every day Liva's group was supposed to encounter a group
which had ended up with reports from all
the other groups.
Harold
and Joanne travelled with a group which circled far to the east. They arrived
at the river exactly on schedule, one afternoon after Liva. They were supposed
to work without a break and have the rafts and the siege equipment ready to
move right after sunset the next day. If they set sail just after the first
stars rose, according to Harold's calculations they would arrive at Imeten
three hours before nightfall.
The
parts arrived according to the schedule in Liva's head..
As each group finished its part of the job and slipped into the forest, another
group came out of nowhere to take its place. By dawn they had lashed the rafts
together and erected the framework and half the inside ramp of the tower.
The
sun beat on the clearing. They put on hats Joanne had made out of dried vines
and resigned themselves to the taste of thirst. The sweat poured out of their
bodies.
Weariness
slowed them down sooner than they had expected. Evening came again and they
still had the top of the tower to cover and catapault to assemble. Three groups
of Itiji were standing by in-the trees.
They
ate a cheese fungus dinner and pushed their bodies back to work. Three hours
before dawn the rafts were finally ready for the river.
Liva
howled a signal and the last group of Itiji slipped from their hiding place and
dragged the cumbersome tower to the water. They talked nervously as they
pushed the raft toward the middle of the river tnrough an environment crowded
with flesheaters.
Harold dropped the anchors overboard and
watched the
Itiji
swim back to shore. Joanne was already in her sleeping bag when he looked
inside the tower. He laid his own bag on the ramp beside her and dropped on top
of it.
He
pulled up the anchor just after sunset. The tower slid down the river
surrounded by a cloud of insects attracted by the flowers and the Itiji. He
took his place by the tiller and the Itiji arranged themselves on each side so
the raft would be balanced. The wind hitting the tower made the raft rock as if
they were on a choppy sea. The deck was soaked and the Itiji smelled of wet
fur.
Joanne
sat in front of him on her sleeping bag. For the first time in many eight-days
they could watch the stars without trees blocking out most of the sky. She
picked out the constellations the refugees used to locate Earth and they stared
across the light years at the sun which had given its energy to the planet on
which their species had evolved. Even his eyes could enjoy that brilliant point
of light when someone told him where it was.
"Someday I'd like to wear glasses just
long enough to really see the stars," he said.
She plucked a flower off a vine and brushed
it across his hand. "If you ever do, I'd better go hide until you take
them off."
She fell asleep sitting with her back against
the tower. He put his foot next to hers and listened to the Itiji while he
steered. As usual they were expressing their feelings without any shame.
"I wish the gods had struck me deaf when Liva spoke," an Itiji on the
left side moaned. "I
could not ignore suffering
women and children. I am more virtuous than I want to be." The others were
either frightened but determined, or fanatically convinced the gods were on
their side and their human allies were a sure sign victory was inevitable.
"It doesn't matter whether the gods are
with us or not," one of the frightened Itiji said. "I'm not afraid
we'll be defeated. I'm afraid I'm going to die."
As
he had learned from his past experiences with them, they could talk freely
without losing their self-control.
The dark wall of the forest slipped by. Now and then a big animal rolled in the water near the shore. At his feet Joanne sighed
occasionally in her sleep. He kept his eyes open—as did the Itiji, in spite of
their talk—and prayed that no monster would suddenly rear up beneath them. The
Itiji knew little about the animal life in the river. They had stories about
explorers who had ridden fallen logs over parts of it, but in general they
stayed near the banks. For swimming they used springs and smaller, clearer
streams.
Joanne
woke up and they watched the dawn together. The sun worshippers among the Itiji
sang their morning prayers. For a moment the river stretched before them like a
shining road leading to the immense yellow ball seventy million miles away.
They
averted their eyes. In a few minutes the raft had become unbearably hot. Joanne
collected all the spears and shields on board and made sunshades for everyone.
The Itiji on the other two rafts laid their shields on the cata-paults and
huddled in a pool of shade at the rear of the deck.
Every now and then wild yaps hailed them from
the shore. As each group of Itiji spotted the raft, it let them know the army
was hurrying toward the rendezvous.
The sun rose higher. Harold ate a piece of
cheese fungus and Joanne took a turn at the tiller so he could rest his arms.
On the other rafts the Itiji seemed to be steering the tillers he had
constructed for them with no special strain. He felt cramped and hot but the
work itself was pleasant.
An
hour after noon a keen-eyed Itiji yelled from the bow. Joanne stood up slowly
and shaded her eyes. Harold couldn't see
it, but he knew it was there, barely visible above the trees—the goddess Niluji
and the high wooden tower of Imeten.
XIV
As they
approached the city, horns
shrieked the alarm. On top of the tower sacrificial smoke drifted toward the
sky.
Joanne
dismantled the sunshades. Liva and his men rolled into their shields and lay on
the* deck with their heads pulled in out of the sun. Cries of rage and axiety
rose from all three rafts.
"Softer," Liva roared. "They
don't know who we are yet. The less they know the better."
The
cries faded to a discordant murmur. Joanne crouched beside Harold behind her
shield. He pushed on the tiller and the rafts began to drift toward the trees.
He
stared intently at the forest. They were still on the eastern edge of the city,
a few hundred meters from the place where he planned to run aground. The
catapults were creeping up behind him on his river side.
Sunlight
flashed on weapons and armor moving in the green blur. Liva raised the hunting
song and the other Itiji joined him. Imeten officers shrieked orders. The
bodies rushing back and forth made the leaves sway as though a rough wind were
shoving the trees.
He
turned away from the shore for a moment and then turned back again. A few darts
and spears splashed in the water.
Joanne pointed toward the other shore.
"They're here! There they are!"
He
looked back. He could imagine* what they looked like as the black, shielded
bodies ran out of the forest and plunged into the river. In the city hundreds
of voices screamed. Pans clattered for order.
"How many?" he asked. "Are
they all there?"
"They're still coming," Joanne
said. i
Liva
was singing at the top of his lungs. He stood up and looked back at Harold with
his savage mouth wide open.
"The
hunt is on! The quarry is at bay! Sharp claws gallop toward the kill!"
On
the shore a big animal lumbered into the river and swam away from the din with
its hump and its head above the water. They were now about a hundred and fifty
meters offshore and about two hundred meters from the landing place he wanted
near the middle of the city. The catapaults had turned and were moving in
beside him.
The
Itiji in the water sang the hunting song as they swam. The first group was
already in the middle of the river.
A
few darts landed about twenty meters from the raft. Harold untied his shield
with one hand and held it between his body and the shore.
"You'd better get in the tower, Jo. We're
almost in range."
She
pressed his hand and stepped inside the door. Liva and his men raced up the
ramp to man the dartblowers mounted in the tower.
On
the catapault rafts the launching team climbed onto the shielded platform on
the bow. The synchronizer crouched behind the low wall beside the launching arm
and watched the shore. The first rock had been sitting in the pouch on the
short end of the arm ever since they had left the rendezvous. The two men
working the tiller with their teeth had the anchors placed where they could
kick them overboard as soon as the synchronizer ordered.
The
Itiji leading the swimmers paddled toward the rear of the tower. He waved at
them and the leader sang a greeting. Their shields made them look like long
black turtles.
Joanne
pointed across the river. "They're still coming out of the forest. It
looks like they all made it."
The
Itiji swam up to the raft and pressed their foreheads against the padded rear
log. Darts dropped into the water on all sides. A spear crashed into Harold's
shield and jarred his arm. He looked up at the trees and saw the first ranks of
the Imetens waiting for him in the leaves.
The
second group of Itiji arrived at the raft. The first group climbed out of the
river one by one and ran up the ramp. Joanne stopped each one at the door and
made sure his shield and his weapons were in order. The deck ran with water
from their dripping bodies.
The
catapaults had dropped anchor. Harold glanced at them just as a perfectly
synchronized team jumped off the platform. The rock shot up at a steep angle.
For a moment everyone in the river and the trees seemed to be hushed by the
sight. The rock hung for an instant over the front ranks of the Imetens and
then it crashed through the trees. The Itiji cheered. Imetens shrieked. The
branches swayed as officers fought to get their men under control.
Darts
flew out of the tower at the trees. Another rock rose toward the city and
dropped on the Imetens.
Branches
scraped against the top of the tower. More Itiji dragged themselves
onto the raft and ran noisily up the ramp. Darts and spears rained on the
river. Imetens charged along the branches to meet the invaders. Somewhere at
the edge of Harold's consciousness an Itiji wailed in pain. A tree-dweller body
dropped through the leaves. The first blood flowed on the dark water of the
river.
Every
Itiii climbing aboard seemed to have an Imeten missile dangling in his shield.
Harold's right side was soaked from the water they left on his clothes as they
brushed past. They were streaming up the ramp faster than Joanne could examine
them. A few stopped to have her adjust shields which had slipped during the
swim. The rest ran past her with the hunting song ringing in their throats.
A
spear quivered in the deck near the base of Harold's shield. An Itiji halfway
out of the water screamed in his ear and slipped back into the river with a
spear piercing his shield and blood gushing out of his mouth.
He
looked up. Imetens were crowding onto the branches near the top of the tower.
They were swinging their maces at the dartblower tubes sticking out of the
sides and shoving their spears through the walls and stabbing at random. Darts
flew at them from the tower at arms' length range. Spearmen wrapped their legs
around the branches directly above the deck and hurled their shafts straight
down with all the force a strong tree-dweller arm could add to the planet's
powerful gravity.
Harold
crouched behind his shield with one hand on the tiller. Another Itiji screamed
as a spear plunged through his shield. Ropes dropped from the trees and a gang
of boarders began to descend on the raft.
He
let go of the tiller and stood up with his sword in one hand and his shield in
the other. The raft was pointed at the bank, and the Itiji were still pushing
it. "Back up the ramp," he yelled at Joanne. "They're coming
aboard."
Her
eyes widened. She stepped back and disappeared into the darkness.
The
Itiji who had just crawled out of the water howled their anger at the Imetens
climbing down the ropes. They rallied around him and he waved the next group up
the ramp. In the back of
his mind he heard another rock dropping through the trees. He pointed his
sword at the sky. "The gods are with us! Gliad! Gliad!"
A swarm of screaming Imetens dropped on the
deck. Harold blocked a mace with his shield and slashed a spearman's wrist.
Spearmen jumped on the Itiji and tried to plunge their shafts through the
shields. Claws raked at flesh. Itiji and Imetens fell struggling into the
water. In seconds wounded of both species were being trampled underfoot.
The
raft lurched as the Itiji shoved it against the bank. The door in the tower fell
open and Itiji shoved the landing ramps at the trees. The first assault party
charged onto the branches. Darts and spears thudded on shields. The warcries of
the Imetens mingled with the hunting song of the Itiji. The Imetens in the
forward ranks braced themselves to meet the charge.
Harold
pushed an Imeten into the water with his shield. Behind his back the Itiji
continued to climb on the deck and run up the ramp.
"We've landed! Attack!
Go! The gods are with us!"
He
stared blankly at the remains of the slaughter on the raft. The last Imeten in
the boarding party had just gone to the deck under the fangs of an Itiji. The
wounded and dying of both species were writhing oh the deck and struggling to
keep afloat in the water.
Harold
looked back at the river. More than half the Itiji had gone up the ramp. Above
him a stream of black demons was shooting out of the tower. The landing ramps
were firmly in place and the first rush of the Itiji seemed to have carried
them into the front lines of the Imetens. Above the din of the battle the clear
voices of the Itiji were communicating steadily. The fighting community
adjusted to the changing situation as if the five hundred individuals in the
trees were a single organism. If he fiad listened
carefully he could have learned the exact location of every Itiji.
He crouched behind his shield and sent the
Itiji up the ramp with shouts of encouragement. The hunting song carried good
news. The forward eights of the Imetens were falling back. The Itiji had
established a perimeter. The rocks from the catapault were damaging houses and
bridges and creating a turmoil in the rear of the
battle. The two-man missile launchers were sending death streaking toward the
unshielded bodies of the Imetens.
He
followed the last Itiji up the ramp. Joanne picked up her shield as he trudged
toward her, and they climbed side by side. It was a harder climb for two legs
than for four. Her fingers touched his knuckles and he put his sword in its
sheath and squeezed her shoulder. He couldn't see her face in the darkness. She
pressed herself against him and he moved away so that the blood on his legs
wouldn't rub off on her.
"Are you all right?" he asked.
"I'll be fine. Don't worry about me.
Just try to stay alive."
Liva
was crouching below the door. They knelt beside him behind their shields and
looked out. In the shadows under the leaves the two armies were struggling only
two trees from the tower. Crowded onto the narrow bridges and the thick
branches, the Itiji were pushing forward in all three dimensions. The last
Itiji to leave the tower were still only a few paces from the ramp. Everywhere
they looked they could glimpse savage individual combats through the openings
in the trees. The branches shook beneath the movements of several hundred
struggling bodies. It was the slaughter on the raft all over again—multiplied
several hundred times.
"Where should I go?" Harold asked.
"We're in trouble on the left,"
Liva said. "I think they've started a counter-attack. The trees are thick
there and we're being attacked from above."
"How many of us have
they killed?"
Liva's
head turned from side to side. He was listening to the hunting song as they
talked. "I've counted eight times eight. I think we've killed four to five
times eight Imetens."
He
got his bow and his quiver out of a weapon chest in the back of the tower. When
he returned to the door he bent over behind his shield and touched Joanne's
hand.
"I'll be back,"
he said.
She looked up at him. Her eyes glistened.
"Be careful."
He
stepped onto the landing ramp and ran toward the battle line. The Itiji crowded
on the branches moved aside to let him pass. He used their shields for
handholds and they dug their claws into the bark to give him firmer support.
Imetens screamed his name. Darts and spears flew at him from the upper
branches.
He
ran across a bridge toward a clot of struggling bodies. Several Imetens swung
at him suddenly on ropes. He hacked at them as they came by, catching blows and
missiles on his shield, and rallied the Itiji holding the bridgehead with a
bellow.
"Stand by mel
Stay with me! Back them into the ocean!"
Snipers
blew darts at him from every direction. An assault party of two double eights
swung at the bridgehead, screaming for the traitor's life. He retreated into
an abandoned house and fought back with his bow and the aid of three two-man
teams. The Itiji who had followed him across the bridge were forced to retreat.
More Imetens assaulted the house. Spears stabbed at him through the flimsy
roof. The Itiji fighting at his side called on the gods for mercy and bewailed
their fate—and aimed their weapons as cooly and lethally as people who had been
using weapons all their lives.
A small army of Itiji rushed across the
bridge and leaped on the Imetens. Liva had sent reinforcements. The Imetens
hacked up and Harold bellowed and came out of the house with his sword
swinging.
By nightfall they were firmly established in
the city. They liad pushed inward one hundred meters from the river and they
had strong positions at all but the highest levels.
They
worked all night, tearing down bridges and establishing bow and dartblower
teams where they could cover llie few approaches the Imetens would be able to
use. The giant bow was set up close to the "perimeter and the cata-paults
were anchored beside the tower.
Harold
slept in the tower, near the small fire he had built so that Joanne could see
while she gave the wounded the extra help only a pair of hands could provide.
Even the wails of the wounded couldn't keep him awake. He slept from the moment
he dropped on his sleeping bag until Liva woke him up half an hour before dawn.
He
listened to the news while he ate a piece of cheese fungus. A small party on
the ground had been doing what it could for the wounded who
had fallen from the trees, and the leader had reported that the party had
stumbled across thirty-two Imeten casualties. Liva's final count of their own
casualties had been one hundred and six dead and twenty-Iwo seriously wounded.
"There must be more Imetens down
there," Harold said. "They were working in the dark. The Imetens can
keep themselves in the trees better than our wounded can, too. I think we
should add at least another double eight to our estimate of the Imeten
casualties."
"That
means we've killed about eight to ten eights," Liva said.
Harold
nodded. Discussions like this still made him uncomfortable. "And
yesterday they were on the defensive! Today we'll reverse the ratio."
XV
The
Imetens attacked through the mists of dawn. The horn
on the great tower shrieked once and the first assault parties swung toward the
Itiji lines. Groups of two and three double eights raced down the branches with
their spears lowered.
A
volley of darts and arrows sailed at their unshielded bodies. The Itiji raised
the hunting song as if it were a hymn of thanks and braced themselves
to meet the charge.
All
day long the Imetens hammered at the Itiji lines. Harold posted himself in the
center and threw his bow and his hand weapons into the battle wherever the
hunting song told him he was most needed. In the early afternoon an assault
party broke through a weak point and charged the tower itself. They were
stopped before they stormed the entrance only because Joanne picked up the
mace Harold had given her and added her hands and her shield to the struggles
of the handful of Itiji left to guard the wounded. When Harold arrived with a
rescue force, most of the Itiji who had been with her were dead and she was
fighting in desperate silence on the landing ramp, her hair falling around her
face and three Itiji standing with her against twelve Imetens. The
reinforcements rushed in with Harold in the lead and in seconds the Imetens
were surrounded and killed.
He didn't see her when he recovered from the
frenzy of I he skirmish. He found her sitting in the
rear of the tower, staring at her mace. He made sure she wasn't hurt and then
lie touched her shoulder and returned to the battle.
At
the end of the day eighty-six Itiji had been killed, and about a hundred and
fifty Imetens. The Itiji raised their heads to the gods and sang a hymn of
thanks.
"They've
lost one man in every double eight," Harold said. "Four more days
like today and Jemil Min can ask Lidris to come and be High Warrior."
For
supper the Itiji ate the provisions they had carried with them and the few fish
which the foraging parties had splashed out of the water. When they settled
clown to sleep on their uncomfortable perches, complaints about hunger could be
heard on every side.
Liva's morning howl roused the camp. As the
light filtered through the trees they braced themselves for another onslaught.
The Itiji trembled with eagerness at their posts.
The
last wisps of dew rose from the foliage. The Imetens remained in their places.
Only screams of command and an occasional dart told the invaders their enemy
was still there.
They got out the long arrows piled in the
tower and put the big bow to work. The heavy missiles shot through the trees
and the Itiji cheered every time they heard the scream of dying Imetens or the
sound of a house being smashed. Down below the catapaults lifted the few small
rocks they could find near the landing point.
"The Warriors cower before their
superiors," Itiji, who knew the Imeten 'language, howled across the lines.
"Their slaves foul their city. They cringe before our claws. Smell the
tear of the Warriors. The Itiji have defeated them. The Itiji have trampled on
them. They will be the slaves of slaves. The gods have spoken—and the Warriors
have fled."
No
one answered. In their posts hidden in the leaves, the Imeten officers kept
their men under control.
The
Itiji began to grow resdess. "They're going to starve us," voices wailed.
"They won't attack. We've failed."
Liva
moved among the community and reaffirmed his faith in Harold's judgment of the
Imeten character. After one of those discussions which drove Harold mad with impatience,
five eights of the army stayed at their posts, and the other three eights spent
the day foraging for fish, birds' eggs, and whatever the Imetens had left
behind. As soon as night came a few hunting parties slipped out of the city on
the ground. The Itiji went to bed with half-filled bodies but they obviously
weren't going to starve for another day or two.
On the morning of the third day a voice
called to them across the lines.
"Itiji! Slaves! The High Warrior sends his orders. Hear and obey. Surrender and
we will let you live. Give us the two-legs who gave you weapons and we will let
you live. Disobey and you will starve to death here—and we will return to your
country and-punish your wives and children."
Liva
hurried down the crowded branches to the front of the enclave. All around him
black bodies were wiggling with emotion. Teeth were bared for combat.
"Imeten! Cursed of the gods! Hear and obey! Free every Itiji in your city. Swear
you will never take another Itiji slave. Swear you will never enter our country
again without our permission. As punishment for what you did
to our wives and children, make shields and weapons for every Itiji north of
the river. The gods have sent us and the gods will keep us here. We will
kill and destroy without mercy. For every Itiji you killed when you invaded our
land, two Imetens will die. We will destroy your army. We will leave you
defenseless before your enemies. The gods have spokenl Obey the gods!"
The Itiji howled the hunting song. Darts and
arrows flew toward the Imeten lines.
That
night a foraging party came down the river on a raft loaded with food. Harold and Liva met them at the bottom of the
tower and listened soberly to the leader's report. The foraging parties on the
other side of the river had been doing their best to reach the city. The
Imetens were patrolling the shore for half a day's walk in both directions.
"We
stole the raft from Ghanis," the leader said. "We didn't have shields
but they weren't expecting us. After this everything you get will have to be
swum across the river. I'm supposed to ask you if that's what you want us to
do. If it is, we'll do it'."
They
escorted him to the top of the tower and Liva supervised the distribution of
the food. By dividing it up very carefully he managed to make it feed one in
eight.
"Stay
another day or two," Liva told the foragers. "We won't ask the others
to swim the river unless we have to. Harold is right: Jemil Min may know he
shouldn't attack, but sooner or later his enemies in the city will force him
to. Already some would-be High Warrior must be muttering he would drive us out
of here in a day if he were the leader."
Hope
faded minutes after sunrise. By nightfall the Itiji were restless again. For
the first time a few voices suggested the community should leave the city and
try to fight its way through the Imeten patrols.
Harold
stood on the landing platform and listened to the arguments criss-crossing in
the darkness. A full scale community debate had erupted. Liva and about a
hundred others were arguing for patience and a few were insisting they should
leave. Most of the rest wanted to attack.
It's been three days! . . . They aren't going
to attack. . . . Harold was wrong. . . . Attack, Liva, attack! . . . Attack or
leave!....
Liva
stalked out of the darkness and marched into the tower. He leaped on the wall
with a roar and raked it with his claws.
"How
the gods must laugh at us! No wonder we're slaves!"
Harold stepped off the ramp. Joanne glanced
at him across the dimly-lit room. The wounded Itiji lying on the floor wailed
fitfully.
"We
have to attack," Liva said. "We can't wait, Harold. If we don't act,
by tomorrow some of them will start leaving. We came here to kill Imetens—by
the sun and the trees, let's do it!"
Harold stared at the darkness outside the
door. His shoulders felt heavy. Now he knew why human generals had rarely been
young men in their early twenties.
"It
will be as bad as the landing," he said. "It may even be worse."
"If that's what-the
gods want, it will have to be."
"You don't think you can hold the
community together
another day?" s
"They'll
stay if we attack. That's what we're like. That's why we had to come here. Are
they wrong? It's been three days!"
Harold
listened to the Itiji arguing. The Imetens must have at least one man who could
understand what they were saying. By now Jemil Min knew they were beginning to
crumble.
He
braced himself. "We'll do whatever the community wants," he said.
"It's up to them. We can't do anything they don't want to do."
XVI
At dawn the Itiji plunged across the bridges at the
spears of the eights drawn up to meet them. Once again the branches shook
beneath the feet of hundreds of struggling creatures. Blood spattered on the
green. Bear the panting body
down, wailed the hunting
song. Scrape your claws on
flesh. . . . Crush the throat beneath your fangs. . . .
At
the end of the day a hundred more Itiji were dead. They had pushed into the
city another fifty meters and they had killed approximately seventy Imetens.
When they raised their voices to the gods of night, they sang the prayer of
mourning.
Harold
slept with one hand touching Joanne. The noise of the battle clamored in his
brain. He could still feel the heat and the grime on his body when he woke at
dawn and went out to push forward again.
Black,
swift bodies charged relentlessly across the branches. Imeten faces grimaced at
him over his shield and died with his sword in their bodies. His mouth burned
with the thirst of exertion. His spirit rose and fell with the hunting song and
the surge of the battle.
He
ran across the treacherous branches as if he were drunk or insane. Time after
time the first wave in a charge died to a man and killed every Imeten who had
dared to stand his ground. The hunting song reported minor epics on every side.
His name came to him through the frenzy as if the voices of the generations of
Itiji who would sing of his deeds were hailing him across the centuries. Harold has
killed six. . . . Harold has held a bridge alone. .
. . Harold has cleared a way on the left. . . . Follow Harold. . . . Fight like
Harold. . . .
Both
sides were reeling when the day ended. They broke apart almost by mutual
consent. The Itiji had advanced another hundred meters and nearly a hundred
Imetens had been killed or seriously wounded. Ninety-two Itiji had hailed the
sun for the last time.
They
sang the hymn of thanks. Parched voices promised the Imetens they would do
better tomorrow. . Harold dropped among the Itiji sprawled on the landing ramp
and ate his cheese fungus. He was lying half-asleep when a guard at the front
of the enclave called Liva's name.
"What is it?"
Liva asked.
"Come forward. Bring
Harold."
"What is it?"
"Come forward. Hurry."
Liva
stood up. Harold raised his head and they looked at each other. "We'd
better go," Liva said.
Joanne
came to the door of the tower. She had been working with the wounded since
early afternoon. "What is it, Harold?"
"I don't know. We're going to see."
They
picked their way along the branches. Liva went first and Harold stayed on his
tail and trusted his life to the night vision of tlje Itiji. Itiji moved aside
with many grumbles, and an occasional apology when
they remembered what they had done during the day.
"What is it?"
voices muttered. "Are they coming to talk?"
"Pray," Liva
said. "Hope."
The
guard was posted at the front end of a bridge. Liva went forward into the
darkness alone. Harold looked up at the sky and prayed to whatever gods might
be.
Two shadows crept toward him across the
bridge. The one in front was an Imeten walking on all fours.
"Be
quiet," Liva whispered. "Don't talk until we're well in the
rear."
The Imeten stepped off the bridge. Harold
raised his shield and -stepped aside to let him pass. He fell in behind Liva.
They crossed another bridge and stopped on a branch far from any listening
ears. The Imeten pulled himself semi-erect on a vine.
"Welcome," Liva said.
"Consider yourself our guest. You are as safe and protected as an Itiji in
his own community."
"I'd
better be," the Imeten said. "Betray me and well drive you off the
face of the world."
It
was Nimenlej. A surge of excitement blotted out Harold's weariness. He stood
behind Liva with his shield raised and let the Itiji do the talking.
"I
have a message from the High Warrior," Nimenlej said. "Obey and you
will live. Disobey and you will all die. The gods have indicated Itiji are not
to be slaves any longer. The gods have their ways and only fools defy them.
Tomorrow Harold Lizert will appear before the High Warrior and his Council and
swear he was sent by the gods and the gods want us to free our Itiji slaves. If
he can swear this is true, all Itiji now enslaved will be freed. Itiji will be
fighters, not slaves. From now on you will fight beside the Warriors of Imeten
whenever the High Warrior commands."
Harold
smiled to himself. If he had had less faith in Imeten honor, he would have
suspected a trap. As it was, he was amused by the way Nimenlej presented all
his proposals right at the start. Obviously bargaining was not a part of
tree-dweller culture.
On
the other hand, the High Warrior obviously knew how to engineer social change.
The mysterious representative of a new species was supposed to masquerade as
the messenger of the gods. The radical innovation was to be justified by
tradition.
"Warriors need shields and
weapons," Liva said. "Will you make them for us?"
"We
will send you slaves from the cities of Ghanis and Drovil. Whenever the High
Warrior calls for you, you will appear before him fully armed. Every male Itiji
will fight for us. Any male Itiji who disobeys a call to arms will be punished
for desertion."
Liva turned his head to the left and stared
at the darkness. After a minute Nimenlej began to wiggle
restlessly.
"Why
does Harold have to appear before the High Warrior?" Liva asked.
"The High Warrior commands it."
"Will
you swear he won't be-harmed? He won't be punished for desertion?"
"He
will not be harmed or punished in any way. I swear it."
Liva
lapsed into silence again. Harold started to speak and then stopped himself.
"Are you willing to do this,
Harold?" Liva asked. "Yes."
"Then
I think we'll accept. When will the Council meet?" "In the
morning," Nimenlej said. "I will escort him myself."
XVII
He
marched through Imeten
with Nimenlej and a triple eight to guard him. Spectators crowded every branch
as he climbed toward the tower. Behind him in the enclave the
Itiji
were beginning to respond to the first scent of victory with songs of love and
pleasure. Joanne had looked almost happy.
"The High Warrior hasn't told the
Council you're coming," Nimenlej said. "Don't speak until he tells
you to. Keep your hands off your weapons. If any fighting starts, be ready to
leave as soon as I tell you to: I'll protect your retreat. I have sworn you
will not be harmed—if anything happens to you, it will happen after I'm
dead."
Harold nodded. "How
far should I run?" he asked.
Til tell you when the time comes."
The
triple eight paused on the bridge in front of the tower. Two guards flanked him
and he followed Nimenlej into the council room.
Heads
snapped up. Warriors screamed questions at Jemil Mia At the far end of the left
row of couches, a priest rose to his hands and knees
on his log and pointed with one arm. "Traitor!
Deserter! The gods will punish you! The gods demand your life!"
"He
is here as my guest!" the High Warrior screamed. "He is not a
prisoner. Silence! Hear him! I have sworn he will not be harmed. Blindness and pain for the man who touches him."
Harold
stood stiffly erect behind his shield. The screaming voices racked his nerves
more than the din - of battle. Angry eyes darted from him to the High Warrior.
The
priest shook his fist. Harold couldn't see his face well enough to be sure, but
he thought it was the Great Priest himself. "What have I lived to see? The
High Warrior of Imeten has sworn to protect a deserter! The gods tremble with
rage!"
Half the warriors in the room rose on their
logs. Nimenlej jerked his mace off his belt. The two guards looked around the
room and pulled out their spears.
"Tell them your tale," Jemil Min
screamed. "Tell them what you swore to Nimenlej Lumin."
Harold
pointed his right arm at the roof. "Hear and obey," he screamed in
Imeten. "Hear the will of the gods!"
Every
Warrior in the room was wiggling with emotion. A few had even lowered their
heads as if they were crouching to spring. He spoke as fast as his lungs could
rasp the air through his throat.
"The gods told me to leave my country
and go across the mountains to Imeten but they did not tell me why. As I was
marching toward Ghanis with Nimenlej, the goddess Ni-luji appeared before me.
The Itiji have found new favor in the eyes of the gods, she said. The gods
prize the Warriors of Imeten, too, and wish to see Lidris of Drovil humbled.
Lidris tries to rule more than the gods gave him. Let the Warriors of Imeten
and the Itiji who will follow you be the weapons of our vengeance. Lead the
Itiji against Imeten that the Warriors may learn our will. All Itiji slaves
must be freed. From this day forth the Itiji are fighters, not slaves. They
will make war by the side of the Warriors against the enemies of the gods. If
the Warriors obey, their city will endure forever. If they disobey they will be
destroyed. Imeten will be buried in the mold beneath the trees. Hear and
obey."
He lowered his hand. Several mouths opened to
speak. He had learned enough about tree-dweller expressions to know they would
have killed him then and there if they had dared.
Jemil
Min's eyes flickered around the room. "Do you swear this is true?"
Harold
raised his hand again. "I swear by all the immortal-"
"Judge
what he says by what you know of the gods," the Great Priest screamed.
"The gods have raised the Warriors above all other creatures. Would the Itiji let us enslave them if the
gods meant them to be free? He insults the goddessl He fouls her city. He will
bring her wrath upon usl"
A
Warrior pounded on his log. "What can he swear by? He swore to serve us
and he deserted. He insults every god I Jemil Min has brought him here to trick
us into accepting defeat!"
Jemil Min's back arched. He turned toward the
Warrior who had dared to say such a thing in his presence. His dart-blowers
raised their tubes to their lips..
"Kill him!" A
Warior shrieked. "Kill the deserter!"
"Avenge the
goddess!"'
"Drown the slaves in
the river!"
Jemil
Min slapped his log. "Silence! Hear and obey! Silence!"
The screams crescendoed. Warriors shook their
fists at Harold and Jemil Min. Nimenlej brandished his mace above his shoulder.
"Insects!" Jemil Min said. "The gods are giving you a prize. Lidris is
doomed."
"Slaves
are slaves," the Great Priest chanted. "Warriors are Warriors. The
gods gave the law to your fathers. Obey the gods."
"Give
us a leader," a Warrior screamed, "and we'll see what the gods want.
Do the gods want Jemil Min?"
Jemil
Min turned on his log. His hand moved toward his spear. The warrior who had
flung the challenge arched his back and reached for his own spear. They stared
at each other across the room.
Nimenlej
looked back at Harold. "Run! Go all the way back to the Itiji!"
Every
Warrior in the room was reaching for his weapons. The gods were about to speak.
Harold's brain reeled.
Jemil Min must have brought him here out of desperation. The victory was an illusion. The Itiji had
suffered and died for nothing. They had come to make Jemil Min negotiate and
instead they had merely destroyed his authority. He had led them into a
massacre.
He
gripped the hilt of his sword. Who came first? Joanne? Himself?
The three races who would someday occupy this planet? The Itiji who had died
because they had trusted his judgment and believed their sacrifice would
accomplish something?
The music of the hunting song rose and fell
in his mind. He threw back his head. His voice filled the room.
"I
was sent by the gods," he screamed. "Let the gods show you. Pick the
best Warrior you have to fight me."
XVIII
"How
can you fight in the grid?" Liva wailed. "You were made to fight on
the ground. Would you fight a flesh-eating fish in the river?"
"I've
fought the Imetens in the trees ever since we got here," Harold said.
"Most of the time I've even been outnumbered. I've got a reasonable
chance. If I didn't think I could win, I wouldn't have challenged them. I want
to live as much as you do."
"You've
been fighting on bridges and branches. The grid is made just for them—for
leaping and swinging. You're risking everything we've accomplished on one
fight."
"It's
our only hope. Jemil Min was about to go down. If he falls, he'll be replaced
by somebody who won't surrender until we're all dead and half the Imeten army has heen wiped out. If I
lose, you can go back to the forest and keep on fighting. You don't have to
keep any promises I make. We don't have anything to lose! If I don't do this we
may as well retreat today. Every Itiji who's died here will have died for
nothing."
Liva
rose on his hind legs and broke a branch with a savage blow of his forepaws.
"You'll be killed! You'll die! What will we do without you?"
Harold
looked across the enclave at the Itiji peering at him through the leaves. The
community was relatively quiet; murmured voices were carrying everything he and
Liva said to the furthest outpost.
"You
can go on fighting," he said. "You have the tools now to make your
own weapons. You've proved you can meet the tree-dwellers in open battle and
hurt them as much as they hurt you. You don't need me. If I survive, then all
the people who will die if you go on fighting the Imetens will survive with me.
If I die—make them wish I hadn't."
Joanne
was standing in the entrance to the tower. He turned around and walked toward
her across the landing ramp. He hadn't talked to her alone yet.
She fell into his arms.
"Oh, Harold—"
"Let's go below."
He
turned her around and they walked down the ramp in silence. Behind them the
Itiji were beginning to talk again. Already he could hear wails of terror and
despair.
She
fell into his arms again as soon as they were alone on the raft. Her shoulders
quivered. He held her face against his chest and patted her back.
"It's no worse than what we've already
been through, Jo. We could both have died anytime. If I win, we've won
everything. It'll be all over."
"I love you! I don't want you to
die!"
Terrible
sobs shook her body. He looked down at her and wished he could leave her now
and stay away from her until it was all over. He had been dreading this scene
since he had left the council room.
"I've
made up my mind. Don't spoil whatever we've got left. This is no worse than
it's been since we first decided to help them. Do you want a world run by
people like those animals we left in charge back on the plateau? I want us to
have children someday—do you want them to grow up in the kind of mess we made on
Earth? Men have been doing things like this since they started walking on two
legs. It's the way the world is. Don't fail me now. You've been a good
wife—hold on a little longer."
She
stopped sobbing. Her arms slid around his chest and she squeezed him as hard as
she could. He stroked her hair and rocked back and forth.
"What do you want to
do?" she said.
He
looked up at the tower. From here the trees and the river looked deserted.
There was plenty of shade and the waves would rock them while they slept. They
could even bathe in the river water.
"I'll
ask Liva to have them leave us alone here. We'll do whatever we want to do. You need a rest more than I do."
They
woke up just after dark. He knelt behind her on the deck and stroked her hah
and they looked at the stars together.
"I've got two things to say," he
said. "I "Wouldn't mention them if they weren't important to
me." "Go ahead. I'll be all right."
"If
I don't live, you may want to go back to the settlement again sooner or later.
If you do—if you have any children tell them about me. I always wanted to have
children."
She
caught her breath. He held onto her shoulders and waited.
"If I have any children by
anybody," she said, "you'll be their father."
He
swallowed. "No one could have acted better than you have. You've been a miracle. You've been everything a woman
should be."
"Oh, Harold-"
He
held her while she cried. This time he didn't argue with her.
Liva's morning howl roused them shortly after
dawn. Harold washed in the river and they ate a cheese fungus breakfast in
silence. They had both said everything they had to say.
Liva came down the ramp alone. "Did you
sleep well?" "I haven't felt this good in several eight-days,"
Harold said.
"Nimenlej
is waiting for you at the bridge where we met him the first time. Do you still
want to do this?"
He
hooked his mace on his belt and strapped his sword on his back Imeten style.
"I've made up my mind, Liva. Please don't argue with me."
"I
won't. I argued with you yesterday because I like you. You're doing the right
thing, Harold. Go with the gods."
The
Itiji shouted with one voice when they stepped onto the landing ramp. The
hunting song soared above the enclave. He squeezed Joanne's hand and stepped
forward. Murmurs of encouragement and good wishes followed him as he advanced
toward the front lines. Soft paws touched his hands.
Nimenlej was waiting for him with a triple
eight. An Imeten handed him a spear in a sheath and he examined it and
strapped it on his back next to his sword.
"The gods are
waiting," Nimenlej screamed. "Follow me."
He waved at the Itiji
standing on the other side of the bridge. Nimenlej stepped in front of him and
the triple eight fell in with half the men in front of them and half behind.
The gods go with you," the Itiji
shouted. "Gliad! Gliad!"
He
followed Nimenlej up a ladder nailed to a tree trunk. They climbed toward the
top of the city. Imeten soldiers peered at them from their posts hidden in the
leaves. Most of the city's inhabitants were waiting for them at the grid, and
the noise of the crowd came to him as he climbed.
The
gods have chosen Lujinet Nin Tujetu," Nimenlej said. "He's young and
he's very fast. He was the Warrior everyone talked about after the last
Choosing."
"Has he fought in the
grid before?"
"Not since he became a
Warrior."
"How
would you fight him?''
"Let
him attack you. He's fast but he gets tired fast, too. Wear him down."
They
stepped off the ladder and trotted out of the shade on a bridge which spanned the
top of the grid. Sunlight beat on his face. The crowd below screamed insults.
He gripped the handrails and tried not to look lown.
Jemil
Min and the Great Priest were both holding themselves semi-erect on a platform
at the end of the bridge. A Warrior was crouching in front of them and the
Great Priest was making passes with his free hand and haranguing the statue of
the goddess.
Nimenlej crouched in front of his superiors
and slapped wood. The Great Priest lowered his eyes from the goddess.
"Gol" Jemil Min
ordered.
Nimenlej
led his men down a ladder. Harold rested his hand on his mace and met the eyes
of the two Imetens.
"The
gods know we are here," the Great Priest said. "Go to your
places."
The young Warrior screamed
a battle cry. The crowd cheered and he jumped off the platform and swung hand
over hand toward the south side of the grid.
Harold
walked back to the middle of the bridge and knelt carefully on the narrow
footboard. He stuck his hand under the handrail and gripped a top rung with
both hands. For a moment he had to look straight down through the framework.
He
pulled in a deep breath to make himself relax. His legs slid off the bridge and
his feet found the next rung down. He edged toward the north side of the grid
with his arms wrapped around the upper rung. The vertical distance between
rungs was a little less than the height of his shoulder; the horizontal
distance~was a strenuous jump across a drop which would kill him if he missed
or fell short.
The
sun burned the back of his neck. The crowd screamed at him to hurry. He reached
the side and crawled down an upright until he was at the traditional starting
place five rungs below the top. Across the grid Lujinet Nin hung carelessly by
one hand. Spectators grimaced at him from branches an easy leap from his back.
He
wiped the sweat off his face. The horn on the tower shrieked twice. The crowd
wiggled with excitement.
Lujinet
Nin followed up the grid hand over hand. Harold inched toward the center,
clutching the rung near his shoulder with both hands.
He
stopped two uprights in. Lujinet Nin swung two uprights to the west and
climbed on top of the grid. The spidery silhouette stalked toward him on all
fours across the glare of the sun.
He
gripped an upright with one hand and shielded his eyes with the other. Lujinet
Nin stopped directly overhead and pulled his spear out of its sheath.
Harold
drew his own spear. They stared at each other through the framework with their
weapons poised above their shoulders. The sun flamed in Harold's eyes.
He dropped his head and looked up through his
eyebrows. Lujinet Nin's arm descended.
He
threw his own spear and twisted toward the upright. He jumped off the rung he
was standing on and grabbed at the rung which crossed it. His
fingers clutched for-a handhold.
His feet scrambled on the lower rung. Lujinet Nin screamed a battle cry and
swung toward him through the framework.
Lujinet
Nin jumped at the rung opposite him and drew his sword in mid-air. His
three-fingered hand curled around the wood. He kicked off the bottom rung and
swung across the void and stabbed.
Harold parried. The strength of Lujinet Nin's
arm made him gasp. His sword twisted in his grip. Lujinet Nin fell back and
swung at him again.' Their swords clanged. Lujinet Nin fell back and rested
for a moment on his rung.
"I
was sent by the gods," Harold screamed. "The priest has sent you to
your doom."
A
strange expression flickered across Lujinet Nin's face. It was the same look of
awe and fear Harold had seen yesterday on the faces of most of the Imetens in
the council room. Would he have offered to fight in the grid if he hadn't been
sent by the gods?
He
gestured with his sword. His arm still ached from the impact of the last parry.
"The gods are waiting for you. Cornel"
Lujinet
Nin stepped sideways. His long toes curled around the rung as if they were
fingers. He stepped onto the rung which crossed the one he was standing on and
crept around the frame with his sword pointed at his adversary. Hate and fear
twisted his face. In all the fighting he had done, Harold had never seen an
Imeten look more savage.
He
waited with his sword raised. Sweat dripped into his eyes and he wiped his face
on the sleeve of his sword arm.
Lujinet .Nin stepped onto the rung he was
standing on and took one step forward. The point of the Imeten's sword shot at
his face.
He
parried. Lujinet Nin's sword slid past his blade and he stepped back. Lujinet
Nin stabbed again. The upright pressed against his back and he twisted around
it and edged backward. Step by step the Imeten backed him toward the center of
the grid. The sword poked at him relentlessly. Lujinet Nin's arm forced it past
his strongest parries. Retreat was his only defense.
He
braced himself between the rungs and parried with all his strength. Their blades
pressed together. His overdeveloped muscles strained against muscles adapted to
this gravity. They glared at each other across their upraised arms. He gathered
his courage and prepared to risk everything on an Imeten tactic: a two-handed
slash as he dropped off the rung. With luck he would grab a handhold before he
hit the ground.
Lujinet
Nin shrieked. His body shifted away from the ryngs and he dropped. Harold's
sword banged against the rung above his head. He lurched forward from the waist
and his feet, slipped on the wood. The crowd screamed. Lujinet Nin grabbed the
rung he was standing on and stabbed upward at his exposed stomach.
He
parried awkwardly. Iron rasped on iron. Lujinet Nin's sword pressed toward his
hip. He lifted his front foot off the rung and stepped on Lujinet Nin's hand
with his heel.
Lujinet
Nin grimaced. His sword arm faltered. He dropped another rung and looked up
with bared teeth. "Slave! Insect!"
He sheathed his sword and swung away through the framework. Again he climbed,
toward the sky.
Harold
watched through half-closed eyes. The sun beat on his face. He sheathed his
swprd and hung onto the framework with both hands. His left arm felt cramped.
Lujinet
Nin stalked him across the top of the grid. He drew his sword and positioned
himself against an upright. He had learned enough about this kind of fighting
to know what to expect next.
The Imeten hung above the grid like a black
bird of prey. He shrieked a prayer at the goddess and dropped through the
framework with one hand raised above his head and the butt of his sword pressed
against his hip.
Harold
raised his sword. Lujinet Nin twisted away from the point and stabbed as he
fell past. Harold parried and his sword shrieked against the free-falling
blade.
Fingers
closed on the wrist of his sword arm. The plummeting body pulled his hand
down. A sudden wrench jerked his fingers off the framework.
He
fell toward Lujinet Nin's grimacing face. His free hand clutched for a hold.
Rungs banged his legs. Fire ran through his body as his glands and his nervous
system reacted to the alien gravity with an overdose of hormones and nerve impulses.
He screamed in panic.
His
sword slipped out of his hand. Lujinet Nin's fingers slid off his wrist. He
twisted frantically and clutched at the framework with both hands.
His
left hand closed around a rung. His legs banged against the framework. He
gasped as the sudden stop nearly wrenched his shoulder out of its socket. His
fingers slipped and he fell again. He grabbed the next rung with both hands and
held.
The
crowd screamed. His feet scrambled for a perch. He twisted his head and
discovered that he and Lujinet Nin were hanging back to back. The Imeten was
holding on with both hands, too. He was gasping for breath and both sheaths on
his Hack were empty.
Harold jerked his mace off his belt. Lujinet
Nin looked back and Harold swung at him across the void with all the strength
left in his aching arms.
Lujinet
Nin dropped away from the blow. He stopped himself two rungs below and looked
up. His chest was heaving. He leaned his forehead against the framework as if
he wanted to take some of the weight off his arms and legs.
Harold
looked down. His head slumped onto his chest. The emotions evoked by the fall
were still raging through his body. He looked down the open shaft created by
the uprights and cringed. Of all the bad dreams he had lived through, that had
been the worst.
He jumped off the rung and
dropped.
His
stomach turned over. The framework flashed by. Lujinet Nin looked up and the
first signs of shock and surprise appeared on his face.
Panic
hammered at Harold's self-control. He swung with all his might and the mace
crashed into the side of Lujinet Nin's head. It slipped out of his hand and he
fell toward the next rung with both hands clutching.
His
fingers held. Something heavy bounced off his back. He held on and his feet
found the lower rung. Below him Lujinet Nin's body banged against the framework
as it fell toward the ground. He pressed his face against the back of his hand
and closed his eyes.
His
lungs sucked in the air. He looked up through the grid and saw the blue sky.
Jemil Min appeared at the end of the platform with his two dartblowers
crouching by his side.
"The gods have spoken!
Obey the gods!"
Horns
shrieked. Pans clattered. An Imeten swung through the grid to the bridge and
slapped wood before the High Warrior. More Warriors streamed out of the trees
after him. A small army crowded onto the upper rungs and let the gods and their
leader see they were eager to obey.
Harold stared at them dully. Little by little
full awareness
of what he had done seeped through his
consciousness. The future flowed past his eyes and he stared at it in awe.
He edged toward the side of
the grid. As he climbed onto the nearest branch—and the Imetens backed out of
his way—the last verses of the hunting song rose above the city.
Here's a quick checklist of recent releases of
ACE SCIENCE-FICTION BOOKS
F-titles 400 M-titles 450
F-350 STAR OF DANGER by Marion Zimmer Bradley F-353
ROGUE DRAGON by Avram
Davidson F-354 THE HUNTER OUT OF TIME by Gardner Fox M-127 WE, THE VENUSIANS by John Rackham
and THE WATER OF THOUGHT by Fred Saberhagen M-129 EMPRESS OF OUTER SPACE
by A. Bertram Chandler
and THE ALTERNATE MARTIANS
by
A. Bertram Chandler F-355 THE DEVOLUTIONS by Homer Eon Flint F-356
THE TIME AXIS by
Henry Kuttner F-357 YEAR OF THE UNICORN by Andre Norton F-361
THE DAY OF THE STAR CITIES by John Brunner F-364 THE MIGHTIEST MACHINE by John W. Campbell M-131
BEHOLD THE STARS by
Kenneth Bulmer
and PLANETARY AGENT X by Mack Reynolds F-365 NIGHT OF MASKS by Andre Norton F-367
THE MAKER OF UNIVERSES by Philip Jose Farmer M-133 THE CAVES OF MARS by Emil Petaja
and SPACE MERCENARIES by A. Bertram Chandler M-135 SPACE CAPTAIN by Murray Leinster
and THE MAD METROPOLIS by Philip E. High M-137
BEST FROM FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION:
11th Series
F-372 SPACEHOUNDS OF IPC by Edward E. Smith F-373
THE SWORD OF LANKOR by Howard L. Cory F-375 THE WORLDS OF ROBERT A.
HEINLEIN
If you are missing any of these, they can be
obtained directly from the publisher by sending the indicated sum, plus 5<f handling
fee, to Ace Books, Inc. (Dept. MM), 1120
Avenue of the Americas, New York, N.Y. 10036