Brightness Reef (67 page)

When she glared at the boys spitting at the prisoners, they jumped off the wall and ran. She cast curt laughter after them. The tribe-kids never used to speak to her in the old days, either.

She entered the pen.

Ul-Tahni, leader of the unlucky urs, greeted Rety with a fluid bow of her long neck. From a gray-fringed snout, she launched into a series of whistles and clicks, till Rety broke in.

“None o’ that now!” she admonished. “I don’t follow that jabber.”

Wincing, Ul-Tahni switched to Anglic.

“I afologize. Your attire deceives the eye into seeing a Galactic-level entity.”

Rety lifted her head. “You weren’t dee-seeved. That’s exactly what I am.”

I hope, she added inside. Rann and the others could change their minds before the ship returned, especially once she gave them all she had in trade. Even if the forayers kept their word, she would, in time, have to learn all those crazy languages they used among the stars.

“Again, regret for having offended. Is it true, then? You have veen adofted off Jijo’s forlorn desert into the running-clan of star creatures? What a fortunate youngling you are.”

“Yeah,” Rety agreed, wondering if the urs was being sarcastic. “So, yee says you’re ready to tell us what your bunch was doing out here, beyond the Rimmers.”

A long sigh blew the gray fringe.

“We arrived, disgracefully, to set uf a colony, freserving our kind in a secret sanctuary.”

Rety grunted. “That much is obvious. But why here? Why now?”

“It is a site already ascertained to ve ha vita vie . . . suitavle for sustaining Earthlings, and therefore the donkeys we rely on. You yourself testified to that fact.”

“Ah.” Ul-Tahni must have been one of the junior sages in the pavilion when Rety told her story to the High Council. “Go on.”

“As to our haste—we sought to elude the fate soon to fall on the Slofe, annihilation at the hands of star-felons.”

Rety reacted angrily. “I’ve heard that damned lie before. They’d never do a thing like that!”

Ul-Tahni rocked her head. “I stand corrected. Clearly such fine entities would not slay folk who had done them no hurt, nor cast death without warning from a cloudy sky.”

This time the sarcasm was thick. Rety glanced at a young middling urs with a nasty burn along one flank, from the flying robot’s heat beam.

“Well, I guess it’s just your tough luck we had reason to come visit, asking directions, and found you already at war with my old family.”

“Not war. A transient discord. One we did not initiate. Naturally, your cousins were shocked to see us. Our idea was to vanquish their reflex hostility with resolute friendliness. To induce cordiality with gifts and offers of assistance.”

“Yeah, right.” Rety knew how early human settlers had been treated by urrish clans of yore. “I bet you also counted on having better weapons than any they had here.”

Again, a snorted sigh. “As your associates crushed us, using fower far greater than our own? It kindles wonder-could this chain of uneven strength ve extrafolated?”

Rety didn’t like the bemused look in those beady urrish eyes. “What do you mean?”

“A conjecture. Could there exist forces as far suferior to your new lords as they are over us? In all the wide galaxies, can one ever be sure one has chosen the right side?”

The words sent twinges up Rety’s spine, reminding her of recent disturbing dreams.

“You don’t know nothin’about galaxies an’ such, so don’t you pretend-“

At that moment a sudden yelp cut her short, as yee popped his head out of the pouch, mewling with unease. A ripple of reaction spread among the prisoners’ husbands, who emerged howling, swinging their heads to face south. Soon the larger females followed suit, clambering to their feet.

Rety worried-was it a revolt? But no, clearly something was unnerving them.

“What d’you hear?” she demanded of yee.

“engine/” the little urs answered, corkscrewing his agile neck.

A moment later Rety sensed it too. A distant whine. She brought a hand to the bump near her ear and pressed.

“Hey, Kunn! What’s going on?”

There followed a long pause, during which the open line relayed cabin sounds-switches being thrown, motors revving. Finally, the pilot’s voice buzzed near her skull.

“Jass chose to cooperate, so we’re off now in search of the source of your metal bird.”

“But I want to go too!”

Kunn’s reply was cool.

“Jass told me everything, including the reason he resisted so hard. It seems you convinced him I’d finish him off the moment he told what he knew. That he would live only until then. Now why did you tell the poor bastard such a thing, Rety? It caused inconvenience and unnecessary pain.”

Rety thought—Unnecessary for you, but darn important to me! Revenge was only half of her rationale for manipulating Jass. But it would have been enough all by itself.

“Kunn, don’t leave me. I’m one of you now. Rann an’ Besh, an’ even Ro-pol said so!”

Suddenly she felt small and very vulnerable, with urs in front of her and Bom behind at the gate, surrounded by others who would surely love to bring her down. She covered her mouth and lowered her voice, whispering urgently for the little transmitter, “The sooners’ll turn on me, Kunn. I know it!”

“Perhaps you should have thought of that before.” Another long pause followed. Then—“If Rann hadn’t insisted on long-range radio silence, I could talk it over with the others before deciding.”

“Deciding what?”

“Whether to bring you back, or to leave you where you began.”

Rety fought down a trembling that coursed her body, in response to Kunn’s harsh words. Her hopes were a bright tower that seemed about to crash.

“/’// tell you what, I’ll leave the robot to protect you, Rety. It will do what you say till I get back. Do not abuse the privilege.”

Her heart leaped at the phrase—till I get back.

“I promise!” she whispered urgently.

“Treat this as a second chance. Question the urs. Destroy their weapons. Don’t let anyone leave the valley. Do a good job and we may wipe the slate clean when I return-providing my hunt flushes out the prey at last.

“Kunn out.”

The line clicked, cutting off the cabin sounds. Rety quelled an urge to press the button and choke out another plea to be taken along. Instead she set her teeth grimly and climbed the fence rails to stare as a silvery dart lifted out of the narrow canyon, turned in the morning light, then streaked southward, leaving her with a heart as cold and barren as a glacier.

Dwer

THE SOONER VILLAGE WAS A SIMMERING PLACE that squatted at the base of a canyon filled with dense, sulfurous, listless air.

A hellish place, from an urrish point of view. Dwer’s high vantage point looked down at the captives, in their cramped pen. Long necks drooped, and they lay like the atmosphere, barely moving.

“I count about a dozen, not including dead ones, just as you said,” Lena noted, peering through her compact telescope. “I guess you’ll do as a tracker, fella-me-boy.”

“Thanks, Oh Mistress of Forbidden Devices,” Dwer answered. He was getting used to Lena’s ways. She always had to get a little bite in, even when making a compliment. It was like a noor, purring on your lap, who repays your petting by dipping its claws briefly into your thigh. The funny thing was-he’d actually been getting used to the idea of making a life with this woman, along with Jenin, Danel, and the lost tribe of human exiles. Even discovering the urrish invasion hadn’t made the notion absurd. Danel had been right. There might have been room for common cause.

But now all such ideas were obsolete. Over to the left lay the reason why-a silver-gray machine, shaped like a hoonish cigar with stubby wings. It was the first alien thing Dwer had seen, since almost being killed with Rety by a floating robot that evening in a mule-spider’s lair.

The sky-car should not be here in the badlands.

It meant the demolishment of all their plans.

It also had no business being so beautiful.

Dwer was proud of this overlook, high on the canyon wall, which surveyed from the village, past the steam pools, all the way to the flying machine, sitting in a nest of crushed vegetation.

“I wish the yokels would stop movin’ around. It’s hard gettin’ a good count,” Lena complained. “At least the kid said the local bully-boys won’t let women use weapons, so they aren’t combatants to worry about.”

She sniffed disdain over such a stupid waste of resources.

Dwer would prefer not to fight Jijoan humans, as well as the alien kind. Anyway, their only real chance lay in achieving complete surprise.

Sharing the cramped ledge, Dwer felt Lena’s breast pressing against his arm, yet it provoked no arousal. Their bodies seemed to grasp that a change had occurred. There would be no more passionate episodes. No life-affirming gestures. Sex and gender were important to colonists planning to raise families, not to a raiding party bent on destruction. All that mattered now were skills. And an ability to count on one another.

“It looks like a standard atmospheric scout,” Danel Ozawa said. “Definitely a fighter. I wish we brought along just one text on Galactic technology. Give me the glass, will you?”

Like Dwer’s and Lena’s, Danel’s face now bore jagged, charcoal slashes that were supposed to muddle the pattern-recognizing optics of alien killer machines. Dwer preferred thinking of it as war paint.

“Well, I’ll be-“ Danel muttered. “Here, take a look. I guess now we know how the star-gods found this place.”

When Dwer got the telescope, the first thing he noticed was that the flyer’s hatch now lay ajar, revealing part of the interior, including banks of control panels. If only we were close right now, he thought. With the door open and no guard robot in sight . . .

“Look to the right, up the. trail a ways,” Danel urged.

Dwer shifted the spyglass, sweeping till he glimpsed a small figure dressed in one of the aliens’ one-piece garments, moving toward the sooner encampment.

“Great Ifni’s Egg!” he yelped.

“What is it?” Lena demanded, grabbing the scope as Dwer rolled on his back, staring past tangled branches at a murky sky.

“Well, well,” Lena muttered. “Looks like she caught up with us, after all.”

“I should’ve strangled her when she stole my bow. I should’ve left her to the damn spider.”

“You don’t mean that, son,” Danel chided.

Dwer knew the sage was right. Still, he grumbled. “Oh, don’t I? She was a pain from the start. Now she’s ruined everything.”

“Perhaps Rety was coerced.” But the sage sounded unconvinced as they took turns with the telescope. Each of them had seen the girl’s clothes, her freshly coifed hair, and her confident stride, swaggering into camp like she owned the place.

“She’s gone to see the prisoners,” Lena reported, a little later. “Talking to one of ‘em now. . . . Those urs sure look ragged, poor things.” Lena tsked, and her sympathy was clearly more than sarcastic. “I wish I could make out-“

She stopped as Dwer suddenly gripped her arm, reacting to a faint, high keening that seemed to scrape the inside of his skull. The noor beast chuttered irritably, shaking its head and sneezing. Soon the noise deepened and grew loud enough for the rest of them to hear. Even Jenin, who was on lookout duty upslope, hissed a worried query.

The clamor came from the aircraft. It made Dwer’s teeth feel as if they were loosening in their moorings.

“Something’s coming out!” Lena exclaimed, turning the telescope. “It’s the robot!”

Dwer saw a hovering black dot with dangling tendrils separate from the ship, whose hatch then closed. The air shimmered from expelled dust as humming motors lifted the scout off the ground. The gray arrowhead was larger than the house Dwer grew up in, yet it wafted upward and turned lightly, stopping when its nose pointed almost due south. Then the heavens echoed its fierce growl as it plunged away, receding faster than anything he had ever seen.

“Damn,” Danel cursed. “We missed our best opportunity.”

Lena wasn’t watching the departing scout. Instead, her eyes followed the black robot, now cruising toward the tribal village.

“Don’t worry,” she assured. “I expect we’ll get another chance.”

The glavers were back. Of all irksome times for the stupid things to tag along!

They must have followed, at their own lazy pace, all the way from last night’s campsite. Now they mewled unhappily at the sights and smells of the fetid ravine, but that did not keep them from following Dwer as he left the shelter of the forest, heading toward the cluster of rude huts.

Dwer glanced back at Lena Strong, crouched at the edge of the last line of trees. With raised eyebrows, she asked if he wanted her to shoot the idiotic beasts. He said no with a terse headshake. They were dangerous only to a man who was trying to hide. And he did not mind being conspicuous at this point. In fact, that was the general idea.

Still, when he passed a rotting log, he gave it several swift kicks, exposing a rich trove of grubs swarming the interior. The distracted glavers crooned delight and dove in for the kill.

Which left just one irritation, the scampering noor beast, who darted through the meadow grass and between his legs.

Trying to ignore Mudfoot and carrying his bow slung over one shoulder, Dwer walked with feigned nonchalance past a devastation of jagged tree stumps toward the bustling sooner tribe. The. prisoners’ pen lay a quarter of an arrowflight to the left, the huts to the right. Straight ahead, a cook fire fumed smoke that hovered lazily, as if reluctant to depart.

Come on, people, Dwer mused when he was over halfway across the pocket meadow and still unnoticed. Don’t you have any son of sentry system?

He pursed his lips and whistled a tune-“Yankee Doodle,” the first thing to come to mind.

Finally, one of the kids peering at the urrish captives glanced his way, did a gaping double take, and began screaming, pointing at Dwer.

Well, whatever works.

Their reaction might have been different as recently as a week ago. For generations these people had seen no outsiders at all. Now, after making contact with an urrish band, then flying aliens and a lost cousin transformed into a goddess; they took his arrival pretty well. Only three out of four ran away, howling in terror. Hesitantly, with goggle-eyes that showed white around the rims, the remainder gathered to stare at him, edging forward in a clump when he showed no sign of aggression.