The Iron Breed (4 page)

“Jony?”

“Drink.” He held the leaf for her. As she tried to raise her head higher, one of the babies whimpered. Startled, she looked down at its flushed face.

“Baby!” She raised her hand slowly, touched fingertip to the tiny cheek.

Jony jerked back, dropping the leaf. He did not know just why, but he felt lost when he saw the way Rutee looked at the newcomer. Rutee—she was the bigger part of Jony's life, she always had been. Now there were the two babies . . .

“You got two,” he said harshly. “Two babies!”

Rutee looked surprised as her gaze followed his gesture to the other side.

“Two—?” she repeated wonderingly. “But, Jony—how . . . ?”

“It was the—the good thing who came—” he answered in a rush of words, content again that Rutee was now looking straight at him and not at either of those intruders. “It came and—and helped . . .” He was not sure just
what
the stranger had done, only that it had been there, licked the babies, bedding them down at last beside Rutee.

“The good thing?” she repeated his words again. “What do you mean, Jony?”

He used what words he could to describe the half-seen furred creature who had answered his cry for help.

“I don't understand,” Rutee said when he had done. “You are sure, Jony, this isn't just something you thought about? Oh, Jony, what—who—could it have been? And—Jony!” Her eyes were big, frightened. She was no longer looking at Jony, but over his shoulder. A twitch of fear of the unknown arose in him to answer. He screwed his head far enough around to see outside.

The stranger was back, crouched down, peering in at them.

“It's the one, Rutee—the one who came to help!” Jony's fear was gone the moment he sighted those shining eyes.

However, the woman watched the creature warily. Slowly she began to sense the feeling it brought with it: comfort, help. And she, who had learned through terror, horror, and continued fear, to look upon the whole world as a potential enemy, relaxed. Rutee did not know what—who—this being was, but she was sure within her that the creature meant her and the children no harm, quite the reverse. Now she lay back weakly in her nest of leaves and left action to it.

Though its body seemed clumsy, perhaps because of its solid bulk, it moved briskly. But it did not try to insert itself into their refuge this time; instead, it dropped a mass which it had carried looped in one forearm close to its breast, shoving it at Jony.

Obedient to its manifest signal, the boy pulled the offering to him. Branches had been broken, leaving sharp, bark-peeled ends. But still clinging to those boughs were a number of bright green balls. The creature snapped a single one of those from the stem and put it into its gaping mouth. The meaning was plain: this was food.

Food to Jony had always been the squares of dull brown substance which the Big Ones had dropped into the feeding slot of his cage at regular intervals. Now, at the sight of the creature's eating, he was immediately aware that he was hungry. In fact his hunger was an ache which was close to pain. He grabbed at the nearest of the balls for himself.

“No, Jony!” Rutee protested. How could she make him understand that what might be meat or drink to an alien whose world this was, could in turn be deadly poison to someone from another planet? She should have warned him, she should have . . .

The globe was already in Jony's mouth. He bit down hard. A little juice dribbled from between his lips to glisten on his grimy chin. He swallowed before she could snatch it from him.

“Rutee—” he beamed at her. “Good! Better than cage food. Good!”

He was breaking balls recklessly from the branches, and those in one hand he forced upon her.

“Eat, Rutee!”

The woman looked longingly at the fruit. It had been a long time since she had tasted anything but the dry and flavorless rations which had kept her alive but had no savor in them. Now she resigned herself. There would be no more of those cakes given to the caged ones; the ship had taken off and they were here now. Either they could live on native food or they would starve. And she still had enough desire to live to make her take one of the fruits from Jony and bite into it slowly.

Sweet, and full of moisture which was even better for her dry mouth than the rainwater Jony had brought her. This was like—like what . . . Her mind summoned up dim memories of that life long ago. No, she could find nothing there to compare this to. The fruit appeared to have no pit or seed, was all edible. She swallowed and reached for more, the need in her very great.

Together she and Jony cleaned the branches of all the fruit. It was only when Rutee was sure that the last globe was gone she remembered the giver. The strange, heavy-looking creature still squatted there watching them. The rain had stopped; there was further lightening of the world without.

Jony straightened out one leg and gave a little gasp. Rutee saw the raw gouge in his skin; blood stood out in new drops when he moved.

“Jony—” She tried to lever herself up on her hands from out of the leaves. As she moved one of the babies wailed loudly. Rutee found the world swinging unsteadily around her dazed head.

She saw a large hand (or was it closer to a paw?) reach within their small shelter. The hand closed firmly about Jony's ankle and drew him away from her side.

The boy did not fight. Even when he lay across the outstretched arm of the creature, Jony had no fear. Nor did he experience the instant revulsion which had always arisen in him when he had been handled by the slimy hands of the Big Ones. He did not struggle as the stranger straightened out his leg, sniffed along the broken flesh as it had along Rutee's body.

But he was surprised as that long tongue came forth and touched the torn skin, rasped over his wound. Jony was held firmly so that his start did not send him rolling away, but kept him just the proper distance from the probing tongue. As the creature had earlier licked the babies from head to foot, so now it washed the gouge. Nor was Jony released at once when the other raised its head, snapped its tongue back between its jaws.

Instead he was held against a broad, furry chest, one massive arm both cradling and restraining him, as the stranger got to its feet, strode away from the tree shelter. Jony squirmed and would have fought then, for his freedom, to return to Rutee. But there was no way he could break the grip which held him prisoner.

They had not gone far before the stranger paused, reaching out with its free hand to tear up from the ground a long-leafed plant. The muzzle above Jony's head opened; teeth worried the top-most leaves free of their parent stem, chomped away.

Jony smelled a queer scent—saw a little dribble of juice at the corners of the full lips. Then the creature spat what it chewed into the palm of its hand as a thick glob of paste.

With the tip of its tongue it prodded what it held, seemed satisfied. Swiftly it applied the mass to the tear on Jony's skin. The boy tried to evade the plastering, for the stuff stung fiercely. But the stranger held him tightly until there was a thick smear covering the whole of the gouge. Now the stinging subsided, and with it vanished the smarting pain of which Jony had been only half-aware during his anxiety over Rutee.

“Jony—Jony—what has that thing done!” Rutee had somehow reached the edge of the shelter, was looking up and out, her face very pale under the leaf dust. “Jony—!”

“It's all right,” he roused to reassure her. “The good one just put some chewed leaves on my leg. See.” He moved a little so he could show the plastered leg. “It hurt a little, just at first, but it is all right now.”

Gently the stranger lowered Jony to the ground. He limped a little when he walked, yes, but the wound no longer smarted. Now he turned around, still favoring his leg, and looked all the way up to the muzzled face above him.

“Thank you . . .” Because words probably did not mean anything to the stranger, Jony concentrated, as fiercely as he had when he had saved Rutee from the dump place, on making his gratitude known.

Once he was sure that thought had touched thought, if very fleetingly, and that the stranger did understand. Then one of the babies began crying in loud wails. Rutee drew back into her shelter, took them both up, one in each arm, and held them close to her, crooning softly until the crying died down into a small whimpering. Jony watched. Once more his faint resentment of Rutee's preoccupation with the little ones troubled him. Though he did not know why he wished these two interlopers gone.

There was a warm touch on his shoulder. He looked around. It seemed to him that the muzzle wore a smile, if those thick lips could ever move in a way to imitate his. Jony grinned and reached out to clasp one of the paw-hands, which closed very tight and protectively around his own much smaller and weaker fist.

THREE

Sunlight struck bright on the surface of the stream which frothed from the edge of the small falls on through the narrow valley. The same steady beams heated the rocks, drying quickly any spatter of spray that had reached this point. Jony lay belly down, his head propped on arms folded before him so he could watch where Maba and Geogee were diving back and forth under the falling water, shrieking at each other worse than a couple of vor birds.

They were not alone. Two of the People cublings splashed around them. But Huuf and Uga were more intent on a little fishing, trying to lever water-dwelling tidbits out from under streambed stones.

In the brilliant sunlight the patchy coloring of the People's fur, which gave them such good concealment in the brush, looked ragged. There was no pattern to the splotches of light and dark which dappled their stocky bodies. The fur of all patches was a green-yellow but in such a diversity of shades as to make their outlines almost indiscernible even here in the open. Only on their round heads was the color laid in an even design of light on the muzzle, dark about their large eyes.

Jony and the twins were not so well provided with body covering, to his resentment and disgust. He did wear a kilt of drab, coarse stuff which was dabbled with berry and vine juice to resemble the People's shading. But, compared to the soft fur of his companions, he considered it highly inadequate, which it was.

Though he lay at ease, his mind was alert on sentry duty. For more seasons than he could now count, for he had never tried to keep track, they had shared the life of the People. Formidable as they were (even a second season cub could best Jony in a friendly strength-match) they had their enemies, also. And Jony had early discovered that that inner sense of his was, in its way, a more accurate warning than any the People possessed.

He tried now to count how many seasons it had been since Rutee had died of the coughing sickness. She had never been strong, Jony realized now, since the birth of the twins. But she had held on to life until they were almost as old as Jony had been when they had escaped from the Big Ones. In this time he had grown taller, taller than Rutee, nearly as tall as Voak who headed this clan of the People. It had been Voak's mate, Yaa, who had found them, saved Rutee and the babies, brought them back to be of the clan. When Rutee left them, Yaa had taken over the raising of Maba and Geogee as if they were her own cublings.

Jony sent out a questing thought. He detected nothing—save that which should be on wing or on paw, going about the normal business of living. He allowed his mind a chance to deal with his own present burning desire: further exploration.

The clan had their established hunting grounds. Mainly the People were vegetarians, with a liking for a water creature now and then, or thumb-thick grubs which could be found in the rotted wood of certain fallen trees. But last season there had been a drought in the section held loosely by Voak's and Yaa's kin. A drying land had forced them to move away into the hills, beyond which rose those mountains that held up the sky bowl.

Grumbling and snorting, they had come. The People were a settled lot who distrusted and disliked change. But Jony had welcomed the move. There was something which ever urged him on, a curiosity which was as much a part of him as the clubbed braid of his dark hair, his sun-browned skin. He wanted always to know what lay a little farther on.

During that journey they had come across a thing which astounded Jony by its very being. It was like the stream below, save it was not formed of water, but stone (or something as hard as the rock about Jony now). However, in the likeness of a stream, it ran as a narrow length from the lowlands up toward the hills. The top of it was uniformly smooth, though in places earth had drifted across its surface, even as sand bars pushed at the water of the stream.

Jony had run along that surface for a space, finding excitement in being able to move so quickly without stone or brush to impede his going. In the sign language of the People (Jony and his kind could not reproduce their grunting speech), he had tried to ask questions about this strange river of rock. He had been with Trush that day. Trush had been Yaa's cubling when she had come to Rutee's aid.

To Jony's vast surprise, Trush had turned away his head, started determinedly walking away from the rock river, refusing to answer any of Jony's questions, acting as if no one must see or speak of such a thing. His displeasure was enough to subdue Jony; and the boy had reluctantly joined in that retreat, though he had been plagued ever since by the memory of the strange thing and the need to know more.

By his People-trained ability of location he was certain that, had the river of rock really penetrated deeply into the hills, it could not lie far now from this present site. As soon as he could persuade Maba and Geogee to leave the water and see them back with the cubs to the clan campsite, he was going to do a little prowling on his own.

However, unless Jony wanted to arouse the only too annoying curiosity of the twins, he must do nothing to make them suspicious. Jony sighed. He considered that he was as cautious and reasonable as Voak, but the twins rushed madly into action without ever thinking. Also, they both lacked his own ability to sense danger, or to use the control he could hold by concentration upon some other minds.