The Iron Breed

The Iron Breed

Andre Norton

BAEN BOOKS by ANDRE NORTON

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Gods & Androids

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Masks of the Outcasts

Moonsinger

Crosstime

From the Sea to the Stars

Star Flight

Search for the Star Stones

The Game of Stars and Comets

Deadly Dreams

Moonsinger's Quest

The Forerunner Factor

The Iron Breed

Children of the Gates
(forthcoming)

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THE IRON BREED

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

Iron Cage
copyright © 1974 by Andre Norton.
Breed to Come
copyright © 1972 by Andre Norton.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

A Baen Books Original

Baen Publishing Enterprises

P.O. Box 1403

Riverdale, NY 10471

www.baen.com

ISBN: 978-1-4516-3858-5

eISBN: 978-1-61824-973-9

Cover art by Stephen Hickman

First printing, January 2013

Distributed by Simon & Schuster

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Pages by Joy Freeman (www.pagesbyjoy.com)

Printed in the United States of America

IRON CAGE

There was once a time when many animals, including man, needed each other to survive the onslaughts of raging elements in a hostile world. Their affinity must have been very deep, involving senses and abilities long lost.

We have a tendency to patronize animals, to limit their abilities, to compare adversely their physical forms, minds, and lives with our high estate. But animals live in realms of their own, realms totally different and far older than ours. They dwell within the earth, in jungles and desert, in seas and the skies. They possess senses, and extensions of senses, we have lost or never attained. They see sights we shall never see. They hear sounds we shall never hear. They respond to terrestrial and cosmic rhythms and cycles that we have never charted.

If man could remove hate and fear from his heart, then might this fundamental bond of affinity and affection bring beneficent cooperation between all the kingdoms of Life.

—Vincent and Margaret Gaddis

The Strange World of Animals and Pets

PROLOGUE

“What are you going to do with the cat?”

“Send her to the Humane Society. We certainly can't take her with us. And she's going to have kittens again.”

“But what will Cathy—?”

“We've told her that we have found a good home for Bitsy. After all, they
do
find homes for some of them, don't they?”

“A female—and pregnant?”

“Well, there's nothing else to do. The Hawkins boy has promised to pick her up. There he is in the driveway now. He'll run her over to the Humane Society. Just don't let Cathy know. She gets entirely too emotional about animals. Really, I don't know what I am going to do with that child! I've made up my mind about one thing—no more pets! Luckily we'll be in the new apartment where they aren't allowed.”

The black and white cat crouched in the carton into which she had been unceremoniously thrust an hour earlier. Her protesting yowls had brought no escape, any more than her frenzied scratching, which only made the carton rock a little on the porch step. Fear possessed her now, though she could not understand the words muffled by the box, behind the screen door. She had been uneasy all morning, her time for kittening was very near. She must get
out,
find a safe place. Every instinct told her that; yet her utmost efforts had not brought freedom.

At the sound of the car pulling into the drive, she crouched even flatter. Then the box which held her was jerked up roughly, so she was shaken from side to side. Inside—She was inside the car. She yowled once again, despairingly, afraid, seeking the hands, the voice which always meant security and comfort. But there came no answer at all. In her nervous reaction she fouled the box with spray, which made her even more eager for freedom. The car was stopping.

“What's the matter with you, man? How come you're so late?”

“Got an errand to run for the Stansons—they're moving tomorrow. Got to take their old cat to the Humane Society and dump her off.”

“The Humane Society? You know where that is? About five miles away from here. And we're late now! Go all that way just to dump a cat—man, you're crazy!”

“So? What do I do then, smart brain?”

“She in that box? Phew, she's stinking up the car, too. You'd better get rid of her fast if you plan to take that Henslow chick out tonight. Cat stink like that stays forever. I'll tell you what to do, dumbhead. You drive out a little way along the highway; there's a woods on the second turn that's a real dump. See, it's going to rain—and you want to make time if you're still planning on going to the game.”

“I guess that's all right.”

“It sure is. Get rid of that old, stinking cat and get back here, but quick. We've still got to meet those chicks, and they aren't the kind you keep waiting.”

The cat whimpered. Those harsh voices were only a noise, meaning nothing. She was gasping now, the evil smell of the box making her sick—if she could only get out! Once more the car stopped, the box again caught up roughly. Thrust through an open window, it hit the ground hard, rolling down a slope to lie with the other illegally dumped trash. The cat, shaken, in pain, cried out again.

There came the sound of the car driving away—then nothing. Except the rain striking on the box. She fought once more for freedom with claws dragging down the carton side. Why was she here? Where was home? The rough handling had started her labor. She writhed and cried sharply in pain. There was no room! The box shook under the pummeling of a rising storm. One kitten had come. The cat nosed it once, but made no effort to lick it into life. It was dead. She fought now with new frenzy at the side of the carton, and, softened by the rain, the heavy cardboard began to give. The chance at freedom made her wild and she worked at the hole until she had torn open a doorway. Rain beat in upon her, soaking her fur, making her cry aloud again.

Instinct ruled her. She must find shelter, a place—before . . . before . . .

Crying still, she pulled out of the box, looked around. There was the massive pile of dumped litter. Not too far away a refrigerator lay on its side, the door ripped off. Toward this small hope of shelter the cat dragged herself. She was inside when the next kitten came, feebly alive. And then there were two more. She had found shelter, but food, drink—she was too tired, too beaten by fear and shock to try to hunt for those. She lay on her side and whimpered a little as she slept.

ONE

“This is the maun female? What will you do with her? She is heavy with young.”

“Worthless for our purpose. She is mad, also. When we took her last young for experiments, she turned dangerous. We bred her to the younger male, but she fought him badly. Luckily he was mind-controlled and, so, useful in such cases.”

“It is odd, the mind-controls do not work evenly. There are reports—”

“Do not speak of reports! They pile in the reader, and when does one have a chance to really sort through them? Now, with Lllayron ordering this early take-off, a goodly number of the experiments will never be carried through. This female—we cannot space with her—she would never deliver living young. Not that that is of much interest, since she is plainly a reject. To dispose of her is best.”

Rutee crouched in the cage, hunched over, her arms protectively around her bulging abdomen. A baby—another baby in this hellish place! She wished she could kill herself and the child before it was born! Only there was no way. If you did not eat they tied you down and force-fed you with their shots. Just as they had made her have—Rutee tried to close her mind to memory.

She was not mind-controlled as were most of the other experimental livestock. Bron had not been either. That was why they had killed him right at the start. That—that
thing
they had used to father what she now carried . . . No,
that
she must
not
remember.

The aliens were probably discussing her. But not one of her species had ever heard an alien speak. Either they were telepathic or their range of communication was above or below the power of her human ear. She could sense, however, that they were concerned with her. And she was smart enough to know that some event beyond the regular lab procedure was close at hand. They had been doing a lot of packing, putting things in special containers and sealing them. Was what she suspected the truth? Were they preparing to space again? Then—what of the baby?

She curled into a tighter ball, remembering what had happened to Luci who had been caged with her for a while right after they had all been captured. Luci had been pregnant, too. And in space she had died. Rutee tried to think clearly.

Over the months—how long had she been here? There was no way of reckoning time. But it had been long enough for her to learn that somehow she differed from most of the others. When they turned that controller thing on her, she felt only a prickling, not the compulsion which apparently gripped her fellow victims. Jony, he had not either!

She turned her head a little, trying to see down the line of cages.

“Jony!” she called softly. “Are you there, Jony?”

One of her discoveries had been that the aliens did not or could not hear her voice any more than she could theirs. It had given her one little ray of hope.

Perhaps now was the time to make the final effort.

“Jony?” she called again.

“Rutee,” he answered her. Then he was still there! Each period of waking time she always feared he would not be.

“Jony,” she picked her words carefully. “I think that something is going to happen. Do you remember what I told you—about the locks of the cage?”

“I've already done it, Rutee. When they brought the eating bowl a little while ago, I did it!” There was excited triumph in his reply.

Rutee drew a deep breath. Jony was almost alarmingly bright sometimes; he seemed able to sense things quickly. For a seven-year-old he was unusual. But then, he was Bron's own son. Bron's and hers, born out of their love and belief in each other and a future they had thought they had, when they had been colonists on that planet they had named Ishtar. No, this was no time to remember—it was a time to act.

She studied the aliens searchingly.

Their physical strangeness was so far removed from the norm her people had always considered “human” that she had never been able to think of them as anything but devilish nightmares—even apart from the treatment they accorded their unfortunate “specimens.” Towering on their spindly legs far over the tallest man she had ever seen, they had round pouchy bodies and heads which appeared to rest on their narrow shoulders without benefit of neck. Their mouths were gaping slits, their eyes protruded like goggling globes. Their entire greenish-yellow bodies were entirely hairless.

And their minds—Rutee shuddered. She could not deny them mental process superior to her own species. To these monsters her flesh and blood were only animals—to be used as such and discarded.

One was coming now to unfasten the clamps which held her cage in a line with the rest. They—they were taking her away? Jony—no, no!

Rutee wanted to beat on the bars, tear at them. However, better act as if she were cowed. She did not want them to bring a pressure stick, give her jolts of pain.

“Jony, they are moving my cage. I do not know what they are going to do with me.” She tried to make her message matter-of-fact.

“They are going to put you in the dump place,” Jony's words startled her. “But they will not!”

The dump place—where the dead and the useless disappeared! Rutee wanted to scream aloud her fear, though that would do no good.

“They won't do it!” Jony repeated. Perhaps he did sense all she felt at that time. He had those odd flashes of empathy. “Wait for me, Rutee!”

“Jony!” Now she was suddenly more afraid for him than she was for herself. “Don't try anything—don't let them hurt you.”

“They won't. Just wait, Rutee.”

The alien had her cage freed and was carrying it beside his giant's body down the aisle. She clung to the bars, trying not to be hurled from side to side. They were close to the dump door now. Rutee hoped death came quickly on the other side.

But, to her amazement, they passed that. After Jony's words she had been so certain of her fate that she was a little dazed as they went out the lab door, down a corridor, only able to understand that death, apparently, had been put off for a little while. She was still puzzled as they came into the open, down the ramp of the ship which towered far above any building she had ever seen.