The Alien Trace [Cord 01] (17 page)

    He left her the anesthetic gun for defense-most likely unnecessary-and strode to the base of the ridge. The climb did not look too complicated, Cord reflected. The mass of stone was broken and weathered and by no means vertical. Anyone with four limbs and a tail and in reasonably good health should be able to scramble up. He found a ramp of stone and began to climb.

    

    

    A handful of pebbles rattled down the slope. Cord paused. His reach for the next handhold had dislodged them, but the rock face seemed stable otherwise. He began to move again, carefully. Halfway up, he wedged one foot in a crack. For a moment he faced the prospect of a slow death by thirst and heat prostration. Still he had remained calm and worked the limb free. So near his goal he must not fail.

    The ridge rose at a sixty-degree angle. But for the broken, crumbling stone it would scarcely be a challenge. At last he pulled himself up onto the top of the ridge.

    The platform of rock was not wide-not as wide as a street-but not so narrow as to be worrisome. And he could see in all directions-an ocean of yellow sand. After the exertion of the climb, the wind felt cold on his skin.

    He stood in the cooling wind and tried to compose his mind. Alone with sand, rock, and sky he felt very small-beneath the notice of the Mehiran ancestral spirits, surely.

    "Ancestors," he said, the word sounding loud in his ears. "Ancestors, I am Cord, son of Fyrrell and Neteel, who have joined you." He added the names of both sets of grandparents and those of his paternal great-grandparents as well.

    "I ask your help." What should he say? He found himself describing the events at the spaceport-though whether the ancestors would understand, if they were listening at all, he did not know.

    "I have killed and cut myself off from my people and I don't know what to do. Please help me.

    "I know that what I did was wrong," he continued. "Everyone would say so. But what else could I have done?"

    The sibilance of wind in his ears rose to a roar-though its force seemed no stronger. Then the rushing resolved itself into the whisper of many voices.

    "Being what you are," they said, "you could have done nothing else."

    Everyone knew the ancestors spoke sometimes, yet Cord wondered whether the words were of his own imagining. He shook his head to clear it. Why complicate things more? They had spoken, if only to utter a reproach.

    "We do not reproach you," the voices said, replying to his thought. "You are what you are, and that is not as others are."

    "Am I really so different from everyone else?"

    "You are, are, are, are, are," the voices echoed. Here was confirmation of his worst fears. He suspected he possessed certain tendencies, criminal traits. Until now he believed his worry had painted them larger than they were.

    "Why? What is wrong with me?"

    "All but one of your forebears are among us," they told him. "But that one is very strong in you. Your strangeness springs from that source." Deep/high, soft/loud, distant/near, a thousand thousand separate murmurs.

    Blood congealed around Cord's heart. To think of someone so terrible that his spirit was not even accepted among the ancestors whom all-all!-were said to join at death.

    Cord's muscles felt stiff, and his eyes ached. The urge to face those who addressed him was overwhelming, but there was no one there, only the breeze.

    "What shall I do?" he asked. Why did he bother? What could they tell him, except to kill himself or live apart in the desert until he died?

    "You have no future on Mehira" was the sibilant reply.

    He almost laughed. That was one way of stating it. The next words were unexpected.

    "You must leave this world, Cord."

    "What?"

    "Leave Mehira. You have become a source of infection. For Mehira's good and your own survival, you must go."

    His first reaction was gladness: to see alien worlds and meet others, like Julia, who would not be offended by his background, seemed an undeserved reward. His second thought Was of the obstacles.

    "To leave, I need the Terrans' help. And you know that I… killed some of them."

    "So you informed us. Do you think they will not give you transportation off Mehira because of it?"

    "The idea occurred to me," Cord said wryly.

    "If they were Mehirans, it might be so, though even among our kind many things can be forgiven if it is to someone's advantage. Offer them what they want."

    "And what should I do when I am away from Mehira?" he asked.

    The multitude laughed softly.

    "No doubt a young man of curiosity and enterprise will find something to occupy him…"

    Cord smiled, forgetting the past few days in the warming kindness of their amusement.

    "There is one thing more," they whispered, and this time their tones were cold as the wind from a northern sea. "There is another source of contagion on Mehira, and that is the one who "killed your father and mother. Remove it."

    "Yes." He had intended all along to find his parents' killer. To have his ancestors' sanction lightened his heart. It had been uncomfortable to conceal from them a crime he planned to commit. He was only surprised to find the spirits advocating revenge.

    Once more, they read his thoughts.

    "We are not concerned with revenge. Our interest is Mehira's good. The murderer is a source of danger."

    "As I am?"

    "There is a difference. You would do harm inadvertently. But there is a hunger for emotion and experience which amounts to lust. It must be removed."

    "Who is the killer?" The ancestors often spoke in riddles, Cord knew; that was well known from the old stories.

    "We cannot tell you. We can sense the murderer's presence-but not his identity-as we can sense your genetic inheritance. Once you have found the murderer and eliminated the threat, you will take passage offworld."

    The voices were silent, so that Cord thought they had finished. Before he could thank them, they spoke again.

    "Be warned: among the humans, maintain your emotional shielding as much as possible, or you will be destroyed by their emotions and by the things you must do. We can aid you no further."

    "I understand," he said. "I'll do what you say."

    "Good fortune attend your faring, then, Cord. Our goodwill is with you."

    A surge of emotion rolled over him-joy, comfort, affection, pride, every positive feeling magnified. It lasted for the space of a heartbeat. The ancestors had embraced him, in their own way.

    "Thank you," Cord called into the wind, but the murmuring had faded away.

    

    

    The climb down seemed to pass very swiftly. This time Cord's mind was full of plans and possibilities. Once he got back inside the spaceport…

    Bird stood waiting as he scrambled down the last rocky shoulder onto the desert floor. He seemed to see everything with preternatural clarity. He noted that Bird's face was smudged and anxious but that she had rebraided her hair and rolled it up into a knot for convenience. It would be cooler thus.

    "Did you-?"

    Cord knew what she meant. Had he heard the spirits?

    "They spoke to me." The words sounded prosaic as a description of what he had experienced. Did the ancestors speak to one in a hundred thousand? To no more than that, he was sure.

    Bird waited in silence, her eyes wide. One might never meet anyone who had heard the ancestral spirits.

    "Let's sit in the shade, Bird, and I'll tell you about it."

    Under the ridge's shadow, it was pleasantly dim. After enjoying the coolness for a moment, he began, "I know what I have to do. They told me to leave Mehira."

    Bird drew a harsh breath. "How?"

    "The Terrans will take me, the spirits say."

    "Is there nothing else you can do? Living among
them
will be a cruel punishment."

    "Yet if I stay here I may not be permitted to live at all." He had not thought of exile from Mehira as a sentence for crime, yet most would regard it as a terrible fate.

    "Cord," Bird asked, "did the ancestors say how the aliens would take you away-or why? What if they take you away only to punish you?"

    "It's all right, Bird. The spirits said the Terrans would give me passage in return for my parents' devices. And that's not all. One of them killed my parents, and I am to discover the murder…"

    He left the statement unfinished. Better not to speak of what would happen next. But Bird had already been touched by his cold thought of revenge before he could throw up a barrier.

    "The spirits ordered you to do this?" Doubt was strong in her voice. "It's sacrilegious."

    "Bird, I swear to you, I'm not making this up. They told me the murderer was a source of contagion and must be removed."

    Bird crossed her arms on her chest and regarded him seriously.

    "One of my father's friends has a theory about the spirits. He claims their advice is directed toward the survival of the race, that it isn't kindness or family feeling that leads them to give assistance. He has documented many manifestations, including times they've spoken to someone who didn't ask for help. He says that one way or another, they get rid of anyone who poses a danger to Mehira. But if it's true, your experience makes sense."

    "But why haven't I heard of this?" Cord demanded, then answered himself. "Of course, I'm no scholar."

    "The Council has not approved its publication yet."

    "Ah."

    They sat for a time without speaking. Cord saw with surprise that the sun had not yet begun to slide down the sky. He felt he had already lived a long day, but there were plans to be made.

    "We'll have to avoid being caught by our own people," Cord said, mostly to himself. "It may be hard getting inside the spaceport again, if the Council is still blockading it."

    "Cord, I am not going with you." She spoke with the finality of death.

    "They won't touch you again, Bird. That will be part of my bargain with them. Hamilton K wants what I have. He'll agree."

    Bird's tail twitched, throwing a miniature shower of sand.

    "Perhaps you can guarantee it, but I am not thinking of my safety. What concerns me now is decency. You intend to go back among the aliens and kill another of them. I want no part of it, whether the ancestors approve or not."

    He started to protest, and stopped. She was gazing down at the sand, tight-lipped, her ears lying close to her head. Cord reached out to stroke the nearest one.

    "I'm sorry, Bird." For what, he did not know. But what she said was true. No normal Mehiran would do what he planned.

    "I know. So am I. If you were someone else-but you aren't. You're intelligent and fun and kind… and you're a wild animal. You can't help it, and I can't overlook it anymore-or pretend that you're civilized. The ancestors are right to have you leave Mehira. But I'm not going with you."

    "Did I ask you to come?"

    "No. You assumed I would, though. Didn't you?"

    In his turn, Cord lowered his eyes.

    "Never mind. Please understand, Cord. You've gotten worse lately. You aren't touching my mind even now, and you've got your own barriers up, as usual. You are willingly becoming deaf and blind. It's like finding the cub of a dangerous beast, taking it home and making a pet of it, then discovering when it's grown that it's still a predator."

    Cord winced. He was a "predator." He liked hunting people. When he was engaged in a chase, he found it utterly engrossing. Now he had killed, and it was really no more difficult than the pursuit. He was no longer fit to live in Mehiran society.

    "I know," he replied. "It was foolish of me to think of your coming: you wouldn't be happy among the humans. I'm not sure you could even survive the continual onslaught of their emotions."

    "And will you find it easy to endure?" she asked.

    "I may not like it, but I can bear it. My training helps." So often he had shut himself off from others, because so often they were hostile to him because of his trade.

    Bird put her arms around him. "I wish I could help."

    "You can't," he replied. "No one can. It's all right, Bird. I think I'll be happier away from Mehira. At least I won't be unhappier, except for missing you. But what can I do to make things right for you?"

    "Drop me off near a town on your way back to the spaceport. You won't want to start until dusk, will you? If you could approach unseen it would be best."

    Cord, remembering the Council's guard on the alien enclave, agreed.

    "Now that's settled, we have the afternoon left," Bird pointed out. "Love me, Cord."

    It would be for the last time, he knew, as he began to peel off her clothing.

    She was as hot for him as though she had taken an aphrodisiac, and she wound her lithe legs around him to lock him to her. Cord opened his shields to feel her. Her need was compelling. It affected him, triggering an even deeper urge. He wanted to plow her again and again. His organ felt enormous. She was near ecstasy as he penetrated her, so it was easy to maintain a rhythmic pounding while Bird wriggled, nipped him tenderly, and moaned. He rode her until her passion exploded into orgasm and she lay limp beneath him.

    "Anyone would think you never expected to have sex again," he murmured to her, after he had withdrawn. "Whereas there will be dozens and dozens of men in the future who'll worm their way into your… affections."