Footfall (46 page)

“Well met,” Fookerteh responded. “Will you not join us?”

Birithart-yamp said, “Chintithpit-mang is one of the elite jungle warriors. Most of them are sleepers. You’ve seen reports—”

“I have. Chintithpit-mang, have you seen these elephants?”

“I have. They are large.”

“And fearsome?”

“Not so fearsome as the humans, who kill elephants and fithp alike.”

Machines speak with as much warmth as you. “The reports say that we have lost many fithp in the jungles. Many more simply refuse to fight there. Why?”

“Death and madness wait in the jungle,” Chintithpit-mang said. “Winterhome is strange enough to fithp who know only the closed spaces of Message Bearer.”

Two young warriors came to take their leader’s weapons, and aid him in removing his harness. Fookerteh recognized members of the Year Zero — fithp. They looked like each other, but not like the Year Zero dissidents that Fookerteh had just left on Thuktun Flishithy.

Chintithpit-mang might not have seen his subordinates. His eyes looked past the walls of the mudroom. “We are warriors, and our enemies find us all too conspicuous in the open. The jungles — you haven’t seen them, Fookerteh, but you’ve seen the spiral plant in the Garden. Picture that as average size, and eight to the eighths of them growing, and smaller plants swarm at their feet—”

It sounded strange and terrible. But Chintithpit-mang was saying, “At first the jungle felt safe. We couldn’t see that terrible infinity of sky and landscape. We could hide from human rogue snipers among these huge plants.” He snorted, a sound like a gun going off. “In the jungles the humans move where we stand fast, tangled, trapped. There is a strangling creature like a length of rope. The plants hide human snipers far more easily than they hide us. They use arrays of pointed sticks planted butt down, angled, and smeared with poisonous substances. Throw yourself out of the path of a spray of missiles, and you will find yourst impaled on pungi sticks hidden in the low vegetation.

“We learned. There came revolts among warriors who refusd to enter a jungle. We ended with the elite jungle-warrior fithp. But most spaceborn simply cannot find the right mind-set. Fookerteh, you may Inform your father that sleepers will eventual hold the highest ranks among the African warriors.”

“But you adjusted.”

“I did. Do you notice anything strange about me, Fookerteh’, “You have surely changed.” Fookerteh had been avoiding it he thought. Now he could not: Chintithpit-mang behaved like incipient rogue.

“Some warriors hunt alone. We move through the jungles as on the plains, seeking human rogues. When we find them we call down laser fire from the digit ships. An octuple would find the rogues. The best hunters are those who go alone or in pain Without those we must needs cede the jungles to the humans, yet I fear what it does to our minds. Fithp minds are not geared for such wholesale killing. We don’t speak of the numbers of the dead, not among ourselves and not to the lesser warriors. Rumor spreads, and there is always the stink. We are always aware of what our foothold here has cost both humans and ourselves.

“The wholesale killing of whole human tribes due to the rogue behavior of one or two members has been forbidden by your father and the Attackmaster both. It continues nonetheless, for it is effective. Day by day the humans become more submissive. Many now cooperate with us.”

“And so we are winning,” Fookerteh mused.

“We win. There are costs. Many deaths were caused by difficulties in perception. Our lives aboard Message Bearer haven’ prepared us to recognize what we see. Fithp have wandered of cliffs, or broken their legs in holes, or shied from something harmless into real danger. The human enemy finds the simples of hiding places indecently effective. In spotted green clothing they seem to vanish. Many have guns, yet even without guns they kill us. Pointed sticks fly from the greenery—” Chintithpit-mang’s voice trailed off, and his eyes focused on Fookerteh, as if seeing the mudroom for the first time.

“Fookerteh, I have applied to return to Message Bearer for mating season.”

Well you might. “You shall. I was told.”

“Good.” Chintithpit-mang walked into the mud, bringing a bow wave with him. He sank, eyes half-closed, and it seemed he would not speak again. Then, “I fear the paths my mind would walk if I missed mating season. I have already walked too far from the life I knew.”

“I came to learn such things.” The Attackmaster had never spoken of such. “Can you tell me how Pheegorun died? I’m told you were there.”

“I was there.” Chintithpit-mang was deep in the mud, eyes fully closed now, only his head protruding. “We were not even in danger. I cannot think — we behaved stupidly. Nonetheless we did not understand Africa as we do now.

“You must see the jungle. I will show you. We had tamed it when I arrived, though the cost was high. When I stepped off the float-fort I found Pheegorun examining what might have been a primitive digging tool. .

Chintithpit-mang spoke without body language. His voice was almost a monotone. It was as if the emotions raised by his terrible tale had long since been burned away, by time or by worse to come.

Pheegonin said, “Here, Eight-cubed Leader, you can see that there’s a blade moored to one end. The native throws the stick and hopes the blade-end hits one of us hard enough to penetrate skin.”

Were Pheegorün a friend, Chintithpit-mang would have swatted him across the shoulders. Mocker! But this was a subordinate, a sleeper, a stranger — “Are you in fact joking?”

“No. They make it work. They kill us with these. Why doesn’t it turn end for end? How can they throw it so hard?”

Chintithpit-mang considered. A long, thin mass would have the proper moment of inertia if it could be thrown straight. But how? “Perhaps if you hold it properly? At the end, perhaps?”

“Lead me.”—

Chintithpit-mang picked up the long shaft with just the tips of his digits. He raised it into place, above and behind his head, point foremost, and threw it. It traveled some four srupkithp and landed sideways.

Pheegorun tactfully said nothing. Chintithpit-mang said, “Pause. Maybe if I—” He retrieved the spear. This time he carefully wrapped all eight segments of his trunk the same way round. “Now when I let go, it should spin, right?”

“Lead me, Eight-cubed Leader.”

The spear traveled four srupkithp and landed sideways.

“Take it,” said Chintithpit-mang. “Give it to a prisoner and let him demonstrate.”

Chintithpit-mang, who had been seeing nothing at all, was abruptly staring Fookerteh in the eye. “Of course Pheegorun must have tried this already. He had seen the spear kill, and he had studied it longer than I. He must have perceived me as a talkative novice an interloping fool. He was a good fi’, a good officer. He might have been one of the elite.”

“What happened?”

“He followed my orders.”

The man was very black and very tall and nearly naked of clothing and hair. The hair of his head formed a huge puffball. There was paint on his face and patterns and ridges in his skin, carefully applied scars. Of the prisoners he was the only one unwounded. He had stood up from the bush with a spear in his hand, too close to the column. A soldier in the rear had knocked him flat with a swipe of a gun butt, rolled him over, and taken his surrender.

He wore strange harness. Ancient fur pieces encircled his ankles and wrists. Once splendid but now bedraggled feathers hung about his neck. His head was circled by a green furred band. All of his harness was old and brittle, stained with earth and sweat.

They had seen many dressed that way.

The man listened to his orders. He looked about at his audience of a hundred fithp warriors. Then, without answering not so much as nodding, he strode to the spear and picked it up, holding it in the middle.

Chintithpit-mang felt he would never get used to the sight. It made his belly queasy, as while a spacecraft was involved in a finicky docking. Why didn’t the man fall over? He was tall and narrow even by the standards of men, and if he fell he ought to break his neck. But he didn’t fall. He stood almost motionless, weaving slightly, as Pheegorun pointed to the target.

“Put it as close to the dot as possible,” he called. He was standing a safe eight srupkithp away. Would this work as he expected? Pheegorun must know how closely his Eight-cubed Leader was watching.

The man raised the spear, level with the ground, aimed at the target. He raised himself-on his toes, and still didn’t fall. He slapped the spear haft with his free hand; the spear turned ninety degrees, and so did the man, and Pheegorun was looking straight down the halt.

Pheegorun turned to run. Eight srupkithp distant or not, he turned to run, and half his soldiers were raising their weapons. The spear flew.

It thudded deep into Pheegorun’s side. Pheegorun froze. Chintithpit-mang glimpsed the black man standing calmly, arms at his sides, in the instant before the guns tore him apart.

Pheegorun took his surrender. They don’t think like us… never mind. It flew straight. I saw it.

The medic studied Pheegorun without touching him. “I want him to lie down,” he said. “Some of you help. First, brace him while I pull the stick-blade out.”

Two soldiers held him with their mass while the doctor pulled. Pheegorun screamed at the pain. It was deep inside him, tearing its way out-it was out, held bleeding before his face. Chintithpitmang, watching horrified, felt the tearing inside when Pheegorun tried to breath.

“Good. Now brace him. Pheegorun, can you hear me? Lean to the left. You should be lying down.”

Pheegorun couldn’t make himself move. The doctor pushed, and he leaned anyway, and was lowered to his left side. His own weight was forcing his lungs shut. Exhaling was a matter of letting it happen, despite the agony, but inhaling was like lifting a mountain. The doctor said, “This will end the pain. I believe the stickblade punctured a lung. I must cut him open and sew up the wound.”

“Save him if you can,” said Chintithpit-mang.

Pheegorun was dying. He must have known it. He had to speak now or die silent. His eyes found and locked on Chintithpit-mang. “Did you see? The danger—” and he was reduced to gasping. His eyes filmed over. The doctor’s knife was cutting into him. He tried to make his mouth work.

Not loud enough. Chintithpit-mang bent his ear next to Pheegorun’s mouth. Pheegorun gathered his will, forced his rib cage to move, gathered breath like a thousand daggers, and spoke.

“Thumbs,” he said, and died.

“His village.” Chintithpit-mang screamed the demand. “Coordinates!”

Someone answered. Chintithpit-mang shouted into the communications box.

Five eights of makasrupkithp away, green lines laced down tight spirals. When they were done, Chintithpit-mang turned the prisoners.

“Who from his tribe?”

They all were. When the work was finished, Chintithpit-mar sent two captives away to tell others.

“I can guess what he was thinking. Their thumbs are more dexterous than our digits. We were the supreme tool users until we came here. We were ready for the wrong things. We guessed some of the prey’s advantages: his greater numbers, his knowledge his own territory, his grasp of an inferior technology that he ha at least built himself, with no thuktunthp for guidance.

“Pheegorun was dying, and he thought to warn me. I had heard such talk from others since. But it is wrong! What if the thumbs let them make their machines smaller? We have the thultunthp to give us more powerful tools, and they have-only then selves.”

“You violated orders,” Fookerteh remarked. “You destroyed a entire fithp—”

“I did. I did it in rage, and I did it to correct my own mistake Shape your own lessons. We have lost only two more fithp in this region,” Chintithpit-mang said. “The others bring us cattle an milk.”

“Have you done it since?”

“No. Not yet. But it changes me, this war. I need the wisdom of the females. I need my mate.”

A light drizzling rain kept them zippered and sweating in their waterproofs. Today wasn’t bad. They had huddled through days of rain-laden gales that would have blown Harry’s motorcycle off the road.

The sign read BELLINGHAM city LIMITS. The freeway off-ramp led to what had once been a main road. Now it hardly looked used. They drove past closed service stations, closed motels, a closed Black Angus restaurant. One gas station was open, but there was a sign: NO GAS. NO SERVICES. I DON’T KNOW WHY I’M OPEN EITHER. WANT TEA?

Most of the houses were boarded up.

“Bellingham has an unfriendly look,” Roger shouted in his ear. It seemed to make him happy.

Where the hell was that turnoff? The map showed the main road forked, with one fork going off west around Western Washington University and down to the harbor-there it was. Harry took the other branch. It curved east and went under the freeway, past a shopping center that didn’t look completely closed. After that there were only houses.

The Enclave wasn’t easy to find. It lay at the end of a winding road, and it didn’t look much like the place that had once been described to Harry. It seemed too small, and the tennis court had become a greenhouse. There was a heavy fence, and a gate, with a big J. Arthur Rank kind of gong set up so he’d have to get off the bike and go past a concrete barrier to ring it. “They sure don’t encourage casual visitors. Which figures.

Harry drove slowly past, unsure. There was a small woods at the end from there they had a view of the area in front of the garage.

“John Fox! He’s there!” Roger shouted.—

“Fox? Oh, yeah, I remember him. Never met him,” Harry sal “How do you know?”

“How many pickup trucks have a California personalized license plate that reads ECOFREAK?”

“Oh. That one.” Harry turned the motorcycle around. “So now what?”

“We go in. Before, I just wanted a shower. Now I know I want to meet your friends.”

“Okay.” Harry stopped at the gate. The gong wasn’t as lot as he’d thought it would be.

Jack McCauley’s round face had picked up angles and a closely clipped black beard. Men wore beards these days, all across the country. His shoulders and arms had gained muscle mass; they strained his old shirt. “I’m telling you up front, we’ve got the room,” he said, “but drive on in. George’ll be glad to see you Harry. But what in hell is a newsman doing here?”—

Roger smiled lightly. “We’re planning a feature lifestyle. There’s a lot of interest in Colorado Springs on how the rest the country is doing.”

McCauley eyed Roger closely. “Yeah. Sure. Well, come on in but there’s no story here.”

The house and grounds looked like a construction site, Hart thought. They put the bike next to Fox’s truck. Roger looked it and nodded in satisfaction.

They found George Tate-Evans working on the greenhouse Harry wasn’t surprised to see that George was clean-shaven. H would be. George drove in a nail, straightened, stared at Harry and whistled. “It’s really Hairy Red.” He smiled warmly. “Dam all, Harry, you’re not as clean as you used to be, but somehow you look a lot better. How’s the back?”

“Wonderful. I haven’t had to see a lawyer in months. Mee Roger Brooks, with the Washington Post. We’ve both come out of Kansas.”

“Kansas. Harry, I expect everybody would like to hear some stories about Kansas. You’ve come all the way from Washington?

“Naw, from Colorado Springs,” Harry said.

“Colorado Springs,” George said carefully. “Yes, Harry, I guess you better come to dinner, as long as you understand the situation. There’s no room here, Harry. No spare beds.”

“We have tents—”

“Look around you. The only place you could put a tent would be in the driveway.”

— “We’ll think of something,” Harry said. He grinned. “Look, George, I’m used to telling tales for my supper. Tonight, though think you could throw in a shower?”

It didn’t surprise Roger Brooks that there was plenty of water, because there was water everywhere, too damned much water.

This was different. He showered in warm water; not as much as Roger wanted, because the pipes in the rooftop heat collector didn’t hold that much, but more than Roger had enjoyed for a long time.

I better enjoy it. I’ll pay for it. It had been a long trip. I chose the right guide. We got here. But now Harry will tell his war stories again…

The dining room was large, with a long table in the center. At one end was a lecturn. The whole place reminded Roger of the refectory in the Christian Brothers monastery they’d stopped in on the way up from Colorado Springs. The Brothers had taken in travelers the way monasteries did in medieval times. They’d also put all the local indolents to work in gardens and vineyards.

The room grew crowded. John Fox seemed genuinely glad to see Roger. Roger’s memory held the names as they came: a useful skill for a newsman. Fox’s friend Marty Carnell. George and Vicki Tate-Evans. Harry had called George “super survivor”; his wife was quiet, and it became clear that visitors made her uncomfortable. Isadore and Clara: Roger didn’t get their last names. Clara wanted to know what was happening in the capital. Others: the man at the gate, Jack McCauley. His wife was Harriet, and she was listening a lot while making up her mind about something.

Bill and Gwen Shakes occupied the head of the table. There were a lot of Shakes kids-a lot of kids, for that matter, and Roger let their names slip through his head unclaimed.

Shakes was concerned about Roger’s story. “We don’t need any publicity. Don’t need any, don’t want any. I’d tell you how tough things are if I thought you’d believe me.”

“I won’t be writing much about Bellingham,” Roger said. Or any other specific place. Anyway, if you’re worried about getting lots of new company, forget it. Harry and I could have stopped cold half a dozen times, and that’s on a motorcycle, press credentials and a gas ration card! Nobody’s coming to Bellingham.” And nobody’s printing anything about Bellingham. But before we left the Springs we went through all the files I could. Nothing, nothing at all, since long before the snouts dropped the Dinosaur Killer. I can taste it, a secret a year old, hidden from snouts and citizens alike — “A lot of people have come to Bellingham,” Harriet McCat said.

“Yes. It’s getting crowded,” Clara added. “The markets crowded. Lines, long lines for almost anything except staples dairy products”

“Hah. Most places there are lines for those, too,” Harry “Maybe you have it better than you think.”

Dinner was spaghetti. There wasn’t any meat in the sauce, there was cheese, and fresh stewed tomatoes from the greenhouse. Conversation became local while they ate.

“It’s wet everywhere, isn’t it?” Fox asked.

“Pretty much so,” Roger told him. “We were never able to out except for a couple of days in Utah. You must get more here than I’d have thought.”

Fox snorted. “Heck, Bellingham wasn’t noted for its sunshine before that snout asteroid hit. Not like Death Valley,” and sudden fury surged into his face before he could hide it. “What made you think we get sunlight now?”

“Hot water,” Roger said. “That was heated in those roof collectors, wasn’t it?”

“Sure, but it was warm, not hot,” Fox said.

“It collects diffuse sunlight,” Miranda Shakes said. “We hot water when there’s real sunshine. Three days so far this ye I’d kill for a hot bath.”

When dinner ended, almost everyone left.

“Chores,” Fox said. “Nice to have seen you again, Roger.’

Bill Shakes and George Tate-Evans helped carry dinner dish out, then came back. “We’ll offer you brandy, but it’s getting dark out,” Bill Shakes said. “Maybe you’d rather go make camp where there’s light?”—

“It’s no problem for us,” Roger said.

“We’ve made camp in the dark before,” Harry added.

“Okay. The best place will be up the lane. It runs into the woods. Go up about half a mile, cross the creek, and there’s a clearing. Be careful how much wood you burn, and don’t cut any.”

“Okay.”

Isadore brought in two bottles of California brandy. “Two more cases,” he said to nobody in particular. He took thin glass snifters from a cabinet and brought them around. George Tate-Evans went to help, but poured his own glass half full first. The doses that Isadore poured for guests were considerably smaller.

Bill Shakes waited until they were all seated with their glasses. “Harry, you said you have a gasoline ration card.”

“Yep.” Harry grinned. “Hero’s reward, you know. I captured a snout.”

George Tate-Evans started to say something, but Shakes’ quiet voice was insistent. “We’ve located some fertilizer. A dairy farmer about thirty miles from here will sell us some, but we have to go get it. We’ve got trucks but no gas. What are the chances of buying some gasoline from you?”

“Zero,” Harry said. “The card’s personal.” He took a plastic encased card from an inner pocket. “See, my driving license on one side, gas card on the other, picture on both. Nobody can use it. Unless you want to grow a beard and dye it to look like me.”

“Most amusing,” Shakes said without a smile. His head might have come level to Harry’s shoulder.

“Maybe we can exchange favors,” Roger said. “We go get your fertilizer. You let us use a truck for a couple of days.”

Harry frowned at him. “Why do we need a truck? Especially need one that bad?”

“I’d like to look around, and my tail-bone is tired,” Roger said.

“I’ll buy that one. Okay, Bill. We’ll haul your cow shit.”

“Thank you.”

Harry lifted his glass. “You’ve done pretty well.”

“Not too bad.” It was hard to read Shakes’ smile. “Do you know anything about Los Angeles?”

“They’re coping,” Harry said.

“You didn’t go through there?” George asked. He brought over a bottle of California brandy and poured a generous second drink.

“No,” Harry said. “But they’re coping.”—

“Eh?”

“Just about everywhere,” Harry said. “Things are tough. Tougher than here, mostly. But people are managing, one way or another. Greenhouses. Vegetable gardens. Chicken coops on rooftops.”

“Surprising,” Bill Shakes said.

“Yes, considering there’s not much the government can do Roger said. “Colorado Springs can’t even find out what people are doing, much less help them.”

“That’s why things are working,” George said. He knocking back his brandy and poured more. “Get the goddamn government out of the way and people can cope. You watch, if things get little better, good enough for the government to get active, ever thing will get worse again. Look at us! We’ve got government Boy, do we have government! Government people out the arse.

George was wrong, of course. Roger had seen it: what made it all work was just enough government. Government wasn’t powerful enough to meddle any more, but it could tell those who would listen how to help themselves: how to build greenhouse keep the plumbing working, deal with untrustworthy water supplies, eat all of a steer carcass: the things once printed in its survival manuals. George Tate-Evans must have expected his survivalists to be the government by now. Instead of decently dying away, the government had taken over his territory!

If Roger could say that just right, he’d get himself and Han kicked back into the Street. Instead he said, “Clara said there are lots of new people here. Why?”

Bill Shakes booked edgily at George, but George didn’t notice “Big government project in the harbor,” George said. “New people coming in. Navy people. Computer programmers. Ship fitting plumbers-we have to do all our own plumbing now. Every plumber for a hundred miles seems to work down there at Ui harbor.”

“They don’t moonlight?” Harry asked.

“They don’t even come out for a visit.”

“Hoo-hah.” Harry was on his second brandy. “And you guy came up here to get away from the crowds!” Harry chortled and poured himself another drink without asking.

“There is an amusing aspect to it.” Bill Shakes still wore his enigmatic smile. “I remember a story. There was a guy who knew the Second World War was coming. The news said it all. So he looked around for a quiet spot to sit it out, and he moved his whole life there. He picked an island out in the middle of the Pacific, way the hell away from everything. Called Iwo Jima.”

“We haven’t done that bad,” George said.

“No, but it isn’t the quiet little backwater with the silted-up harbor any more,” Isadore said. “The roads are crowded, the prices have gone up, there are MPs minding everybody’s business—”

“Screw them,” George muttered.

“But what are they doing down there?” Roger asked. “Who knows?” Isadore said. “They say they’ve built greenhouses and they’re growing wheat. You can believe as much of that as you want to.”

“And if I believe none of it?”

“Miranda’s Deputy Sheriff heard rumors that it’s a prison,” Isadore said. “Political prisoners from Kansas. Collaborators. They’ve built greenhouses, all right, but they’re working them with prisoners. Slave camp.”

“Serve the snout lovers right,” Harry said.

“They may not have had much choice,” Roger said.

“They could fight—”

“You captured one, Harry,” Roger said carefully. “But he was alone. I saw what happened to people who tried to fight them all. It wasn’t pretty.”

Bill Shakes leaned forward. “You were in alien occupied country? Tell us about it.”

Roger’s digital watch said 3:00 A.M. Both brandy bottles were empty, and they were better than halfway through a third.

Somewhere during the evening Miranda had brought down Kevin’s guitar for Harry to play, and nearly everybody came to listen while Harry sang his songs, but then the others had gone away, leaving George and Isadore and Bill.

Kevin Shakes was working on the government project-and hadn’t come home since he went down to the harbor. They got letters from him, and word through Miranda’s boyfriend.

Roger felt the tightness in his guts. I shouldn’t have had so much brandy. It’s hard to stay in control.