Grass (49 page)

Behind him, Steeplehands was describing women in urgent, prurient detail, dwelling upon orifices and the feel and lubrication thereof. Highbones tried not to listen. That wasn't it. What Steep was saying wasn't it. It was something else about women. Something he'd lost but wanted to remember.

The swamp forest was not far ahead of them now. Highbones scarcely saw it in his effort to recall what it was he'd lost, among old images, half-forgotten names. Something. He could almost put his mind on it!

The drive sputtered. Highbones frowned, came to himself with a start of panic, eyes darting across the dials in front of him. The car had been serviced just before they left. That monster Shoethai had seen to it. Fuasoi had seen to it.

It sputtered again, then whined. "Grab something," Highbones shouted. "We've got a problem."

He headed downward, faster than he knew to be safe, but if the thing zizzed out he wanted to be on the ground, near the trail. It sputtered, hissed, whined, then sputtered again. They dropped a hundred feet and Long howled in pain. "I bit my tongue – "

"You'll bite more than that if you don't hold on."

They slipped sideways, then recovered just long enough for Bones to set it down in a long, sliding skid through lashing grasses which ended with all of them thrown against the door, which broke open and spilled them out onto the bruised stems.

"Oh, God," whined Steep. "Oh, God."

"Shut up," commanded Highbones. "If the Hippae don't know we're here, don't go telling them we are." He stood up, feeling himself to make sure he was all there, not broken anywhere, not bleeding. Aside from a graze along his jaw, he was whole. "Rope, you all right? Long? Little?"

"All right, I guess."

"Fucking thing hit me right across my nose … "

"Think I broke something."

Highbones slapped and snarled. "You didn't break anything. Lie down and your nose'll stop bleeding." When he was sure they were all accounted for, he turned back to the car and tried the door to the rear compartment. It was jammed, or locked from inside. He hammered on it, trying to make enough noise to rouse those inside yet not enough to rouse something else out in the grass. "Elder Brother!"

Nothing. No response.

He turned to the forward cabin and dug out the packs they had brought with them.

"Listen," said Little Bridge with a frightened look at the sun. low in the western sky. "If we're going to be here after dark, we oughta stay in the car. If some Hippae find us, there'd be some protection being in there."

"Swamp forest just ahead," said Highbones. "We're going there."

"Swamp forest! Are you crazy?"

"I said, we're going there. Anybody wants to stay here can stay. Anybody feels like trying to fix the car, that's up to you. I'm going to the forest. Hippae don't go in the forest."

"Neither do people," muttered Steeplehands. "Or they come out dead." He was careful not to say it loudly.

Highbones didn't answer. He was already halfway back to the trail they had been following when the car zizzed out. When he reached it, he turned to his right and started down it. Those who has passed this way had broken enough of the tall and tough grasses that it wasn't difficult to walk in the stubble. Though he didn't look back, within moments he heard the others blundering along behind him. He hoped they'd picked up their own packs; he didn't intend going back for them.

Inside the rear cabin, Shoethai came to himself slowly. Both he and the Elder Brother had been thrown against the door, or rather, thrown against the latch bar which held it closed. He looked upward through the viewport. Sky. Darkening sky.

"Elder Brother!"

Fuasoi put his hands under himself and pushed himself into an upright position. "What happened?"

"We … it … it came down."

"You serviced it!"

"We … I … I didn't know we'd be on it!"

"You did this?"

Shoethai was silent, crouched in a faceless huddle. The irony of it didn't escape Fuasoi. He laughed, one short bark of laughter. "Hated them, did you?" he asked, not expecting a response. "Thought you'd kill two birds with one stone – or more than that?" He received only a snivel in reply. "Let's get out of here. You know you may have just lost your chance in the next world, Shoethai. I'm not sure the Creator is going to look kindly on you."

Shoethai screamed in rage and threw himself at Fuasoi. The latch on the door jarred loose and spilled them out, Shoethai still screaming.

Fuasoi knocked his assailant aside and got to his feet. Shoethai cowered among the grasses, alternately sobbing and yelling. The carrying bag had fallen out with them. Fuasoi unfastened it and took out the package it contained. The virus. Well. He had intended to spread it about in Commons, but perhaps it would have to be trusted to the winds. He reached for his knife and slit the package.

And stopped. Coming through the grasses was a hound. A huge hound. Grinning at him.

Reflex action took over. He threw the package with all his strength and then tried to scramble back into the car. The package burst, spreading its dark, powdery contents over the approaching beast. Shoethai had time for one more howl.

From the crest of a long ridge, Highbones and the others heard howling behind them at the same moment they could look down on the stretching barricade of trees. The sound behind them was almost gleeful. For a time it stayed where it was, yammering. Highbones and the others did not remain where they were. As they ran, however, the sound grew nearer, coming on their trail. Highbones ran faster than he had known he could, hearing the thump and pant of Steeplehands and Long Bridge close behind him. The other two had fallen back. They had shorter legs. Little Bridge was still a kid.

"Wait," yelled Ropeknots "Wait for us."

"Wait, hell," breathed Steeplehands, drawing slightly ahead.

Their feet hammered on the ground as the howling neared. Behind the leaders came one scream, then another. Whatever was chasing them stopped for a moment. Highbones and the two close behind him did not stop to see what it was.

In a moment the howling started again. Though it came very swiftly, it had not caught them by the time they splashed through the shallow mire at the edges of the forest. They stopped only when they came to the first deep pools gleaming with oily reflections in the dying of the daylight.

"Now what?" Long Bridge demanded. "You want to go wading in there?"

"Not likely," said Highbones. His eyes were fixed on vine-draped trees towering from liquid depths. "Not likely." He laid a hand on the nearest vine and asked, "Will he climb?" as he swung himself up, feet pushing him along a spiraled vine-trunk and onto the first branch above their heads. "Will he?"

They stopped halfway up to look back the way they had come. The grass moved ominously, but there was nothing there to see. Of Little Bridge and Ropeknots, no sign. They waited, then Steeplehands said, "They're deaders, Bones, lust like on the towers. No different than that."

The three exchanged glances, then lofted themselves with the ease of long practice, moving effortlessly into the heights.

In his private quarters at the Friary, Administrator Jhamlees Zoe sought among a miscellany of papers for the packet which had come from Sanctity, from his old friend Cory Strange. He had sealed it up and hidden it to keep it safe from prying eyes. Now that he had seen Mainoa's book, he needed to read the letter again.

The packet had a security wrap on it, and Jhamlees had to stop several times to remember the proper sequences to prevent the thing from going off in his hands and taking his face with it. All this nonsense. Well, what was the office of Security and Acceptable Doctrine to do with itself, back there on Terra, if it did not engage in these senseless exercises. Coded cover letters. Explosive wraps.

Once he had burrowed his way into the packet, Jhamlees skimmed the pages, reminding himself that he was expected to inform his old friend if anything at all were discovered on Grass, Jhamlees referred to the enclosed itinerary with a pout of frustration. Much though he would have liked to seal his former friendship with the Hierarch, there was no point in attempting to send word about this Mainoa matter. The Hierarch was already on the last leg of his journey to Grass.

Jhamlees folded the letter and thrust it into his pocket. No more need to keep it. He'd dispose of it later. The rest of the packet – twelve pages of sanctimonious hash and the publicly announced itinerary of the Hierarch – could be left out where anyone could see it.

Advance word or no advance word, when the Hierarch arrived he would expect his friend Nods to know anything there was to be known. Mainoa had written as though those at Opal Hill knew something, or as though he, Mainoa, knew something. Question: Was there a cure? That's what the Hierarch would want to know! Brother Mainoa had gone off somewhere, so he couldn't be asked until and unless he was found. That left the only other one who might know. Roderigo Yrarier. Not even one of the Sanctified! A heretical Old Catholic, no better than a pagan!

Elder Brother Jhamlees summoned Yavi Foosh. "Find out where Ambassador Roderigo Yrarier is now. Arrange for me to visit him." Yavi shuffled his feet, staring at the floor. "Well?"

"Well, Elder Brother, I think he could be dead."

"Dead!"

"There was a great set-to at the bon Laupmons' place. Hippae and riders and all. Lots of them got killed. Hippae, too. This ambassador was in the middle of it. Way I hear it, his servants took him away to the hospital at the port, but he may be dead."

"Dead." Elder Brother Jhamlees sat down and frowned at the desktop with a sick, panicky feeling. Cory would not like that. "Well, if he isn't dead, I need to see him. Find out."

Yavi scuttled off to find out while Jhamlees thought bleakly how the new Hierarch would react to a message saying, "Dear Brother in Sanctity. The only two people who might know anything at all about this are probably dead." In his anything but amused contemplation of this possibility, Jhamlees forgot his intention to burn the Hierarch's letter.

Rigo came to himself among a whisper of machines. He tried to move and found he could not. His arms had been thrust inside two bulky mechanisms, one at either side of the narrow, barely padded bed he lay upon. Heal-alls, he told himself as he fought down panic. Another Heal-all had swallowed his legs. He tried to speak and could not. A mask was fastened over his nose and mouth.

Someone came, however, and peered at his eyes with an expression of gratification. After a moment the same someone took the mask away and demanded, "Do you know where you are?"

"Not sure," Rigo said in a slushy, bubbling voice. "Hospital, I suppose. At the port. I think I got trampled."

"Good, good." The figure turned away and gloated over the dials and flashing lights on the machines. A woman. Not much to look at, but definitely a woman. "Good," the woman said.

"Who?" Rigo asked. "Who brought me here?"

"Your man," the woman answered. "Or men. One or several."

"Is he here?"

"No. Good heavens, no. Had to go back and evacuate your house. Get the people out. He said something about the Hippae retaliating."

"Marjorie!" Rigo tried to sit upright.

"Now, now." Rigo was pushed into a recumbent position once more. "You aren't to worry. They'll get everyone out."

They couldn't get Marjorie out. She hadn't been there. Not Marjorie, nor Tony, nor Father Sandoval. Nor the two Brothers from the Arbai city, according to Tony's note; they hadn't been there either. All of them had gone away together. With Sylvan. At least according to the challenge delivered by bon Haunser for the Hippae, they had gone away with Sylvan.

Rigo groaned, trying to recall what had happened. The last clear memory was of that damned bon Haunser saying something about Marjorie and Sylvan. Sylvan who had gone away with her.

And with Tony, he reminded himself, and with a priest and two Brothers. Hardly a tete-a-tete. No, Marjorie had never had tete-a-tetes. Marjorie had never been unfaithful. Marjorie had never been guilty of any of the things he had accused her of. She had never refused him. Always let him come into her room, into her bed, whenever he'd wanted to. And now Marjorie was – Well, where was she?

"Is there any news of my wife?" he asked as the moment of clarity passed into a morass of threatened pain, great pain somewhere, being held back by a slender dike, a thin wall, a tissue which was fragile and beginning to leak.

"Hush," said the woman. "You can talk later." She fiddled with a dial, looking narrowly at Rigo's face as Rigo felt himself being irresistibly sent into sleep once more, to dream of Marjorie alone with Sylvan.

Marjorie was alone with Sylvan.

Brother Mainoa and Rillibee Chime were asleep. Rillibee had climbed to the top of a tall tree and had then come down again to tell them there was no way through the swamp forest to Commons. Not on the ground. Through the trees the way would be a little slow, but he could get there, he said, if there was any reason to go. Then he had lain down beside Brother Mainoa and fallen into recurrent dreams. From time to time Marjorie could hear his voice, raised in wordless ejaculations, wonder or complaint, perhaps both.

There were no foxen nearby. For a time, earlier, all of the humans had crouched in a house, arms folded protectively around their heads while the foxen disputed something among themselves. The dispute washed over them like waves of fire. After a time, they felt noticed by the foxen, and then there was a sense of departure. Almost as though one of them had said to another, ''Oh, we're killing the little human creatures. We'd better go farther away." Brother Mainoa had seemed wearier than ever after they left, weighed down by some great burden of care.

"They won't tell me," he cried. "They know, but they won't tell me."

Marjorie could guess what it was they wouldn't tell. The foxen knew all about the plague, she was sure of it. They knew, but they wouldn't tell. And poor old Mainoa was so tired and distraught, she could not suggest that he try to talk to them more.