The Winds of Altair (18 page)

"The students?" Carbo asked. "Why the students? They wouldn't be blamed for our failure if we all returned to Earth."

Foy shook his head sadly. "They would not be returned to Earth any more than the colonists would."

Jan Polchek asked, "You mean the students are . . . stuck here? Permanently?"

"The students signed up for lifetime missions. There is no provision for returning them to Earth. They and the colonists are here permanently—or until the colony they build becomes rich enough to provide the fare back to Earth."

Carbo felt suddenly hollow inside.

"You and I," Foy told the scientists, "can return home. Our careers would be ruined, our livelihoods would be shattered, but we could return to Earth if we chose to do so. The students and the colonists cannot."

"I had no idea . . ."

"If we leave," Foy said, "we leave them here to die."

"So our choice . . ."

"Is what it has always been," the Bishop said firmly. "Either we convert Altair VI—even though it means killing every living creature on the planet—or we kill the colonists and the students."

CHAPTER 24

While the scientists were meeting with Bishop Foy, Laura and Jeff made their way to the contact lab. Amanda was in charge, directing a group of students as they checked out the equipment that had not been used for two weeks.

"No contact work today," she said to Laura and Jeff.

"Uh, yeah, I know," Jeff replied. "But can we speak to you . . . in private?"

Amanda pressed her lips into a tight, nervous line. "There's an awful lot to do here."

"Please?"

"Just for a minute or two," she said. "We've got to review all our procedures. You know that every student lost control of his or her animal down there when the earthquake struck."

"All but one," Laura reminded her.

Amanda gave them a thoughtful look. "That's right. All but one."

She ushered them back into the contact chamber that Jeff knew so well. The control room, the couch and sensors, they all had the feel of home to Jeff. He could almost smell the scents of Windsong.

"Now I know what you want," Amanda said, "and I can't do it. Repeat, can not. You've been after me for a week and the answer is still no."

He grinned at her. "But we're officially back on work schedule, Amanda."

"But we are
not
authorized to resume contact work. You know that."

"You're checking out the equipment, aren't you?"

Amanda nodded.

"Well, how do you know it really works unless you run a test?"

She planted her hands on her hips and glared at him. "Jeffrey Holman, you're in the wrong business. You should have been a lawyer, or a salesman."

"Come on, Amanda, let me make contact with Crown."

"I can't do it!"

"Call it a test run. I just want to see where he is."

"There's too much to do; I can't sit here monitoring you . . ."

"I can do that," Laura said. "I can monitor the controls. I've done it before."

Amanda stared hard at the two of them. "Now look, just because you want to play with your wolfcat again—and just because you want to help him—is no reason for me to let you get yourselves, and me, into trouble with Bishop Foy."

"We won't cause any trouble."

Her scowl softened into the beginnings of a smile. "The hell you won't. Now listen carefully. I cannot allow you to make a contact test. Do you understand? I am very busy, and I am going to return to my official duties right now. I am so busy, in fact, that I won't even get to checking out this particular lab for several hours. Is that clear?"

Laura looked puzzled, but Jeff understood what Amanda was saying.

"Perfectly clear," he said.

"Good." Amanda gave them a single, satisfied nod, turned and left the room, closing the door softly behind her.

Jeff bounded to the door and snapped its lock home.

"What are you doing?" Laura asked.

He reached out and grasped her gently by the shoulders. "Amanda just told us, in so many words, that if we want to use this lab she'll look the other way. But if anything goes wrong, the responsibility is on our heads. Are you game? Will you run the controls for me?"

"And if something does go wrong?"

"I'll take the blame."

"No you won't," Laura said firmly. "We're in this together."

He kissed her. "You're wonderful. Let's get started."

Crown was padding through a forest glade, warm sunshine on his back. He stopped abruptly as he felt an old, familiar presence return to him. With a purring rumble, he realized that he had missed this alien mind, this stranger who was no longer a stranger, this mental brother who had shared so much toil and adventure with him.

Raising his head to the ever-clouded sky, Crown howled out a roar of pure wolfcat joy. Every other sound in the forest ceased. Every animal froze with fear.

If a wolfcat had been capable of laughter, Crown would have laughed.
No, we're not after you. Our belly is full.

As if the forest creatures understood his unspoken thoughts, the birds and insects and scampering, chittering creatures of the trees resumed their normal activities. The forest came alive again with the sounds of abundant, teeming, vigorous life.

How different this warm forest was from the dreary cold of that beach, far to the north. How easy and unforced it was to exist here.

Crown resumed his trek southward. For days now he had been following the spoor of other wolfcats, certain that Thunder and his family were among the migrating group. Each day he got closer to them, and although he felt no anxiety, no need to hurry, each day his joy mounted as he got closer to them.

The forest closed in around him again, mottled sunlight splashing the sparse undergrowth with pools of cool shade. Something scampered out of his way to Crown's left and dashed up the sturdy trunk of a huge old tree. Once Crown had passed it by, the creature screeched at him angrily.

We're close to them. I can tell we're close to them.

Suddenly the forest was slashed by a deep ravine, its sides too steep even for a wolfcat to negotiate. Far below, Crown saw a swift stream gurgling and splashing as it surged over boulders and spilled even further
down in a series of splashing waterfalls. He followed the track of the other wolfcats until he came to a huge tree trunk that had fallen across the ravine to make a natural bridge. Crown trotted across it gracefully, three tons of clawed muscle moving as lightly as a cloud.

On the other side of the ravine the ground sloped gently downward and the forest thinned until, within an hour, Crown found himself at the edge of a broad open grassland. Ideal hunting ground for a wolfcat—or a hundred wolfcats, for that matter. But in such an open, undefined area, Crown knew, marking family territories became difficult. Fights over territory could decimate wolfcat families in regions such as this, unless they united into a large clan, under the leadership of one very senior male.

He scanned the grassland and, sure enough, saw the gray shapes of a dozen wolfcats gliding through the tall fronds. He roared out a greeting to them, and they stopped in their tracks. One wolfcat roared back.

Crown recognized Thunder's voice. Eagerly, he bounded off to join his family.

There were more than a dozen wolfcats in the group; many more. Crown counted twenty-two adults, with another nine cubs cowering warily between the legs of their mothers.

Crown's own family had suffered, he saw. Thunder was limping and scarred from flank to jaw; the wounds were fresh enough to still be red and oozing blood. He stood alone, off at the edge of the wolfcat clan, and alone welcomed Crown with a rumbling purr from deep in his chest. Brightfur and Tranquil stood beside a wolfcat that was almost twice Thunder's size, a huge snarling male who called himself Brutal. And the cubs, Strong and Dayrise, were nowhere to be seen.

Crown took all this in with a single glance. The story was immediately clear to him. Thunder had been beaten, nearly killed, by the head of the clan, Brutal, who had taken Thunder's two females for himself and killed their cubs. It was not unusual; Crown knew that when a small family joined a larger clan, the clan leader often killed the cubs. But one look at Brutal showed Crown that this leader reveled in his name and enjoyed terrorizing the other wolfcats.

For the first time in his life Crown felt anger growling from deep within his guts. And something more, a strange, eerie, alien sense of . . .

Justice
, he heard within his mind.
It's called justice.

Brutal opened his mouth to reveal razor-sharp fangs, then—with a warning grunt to Brightfur and Tranquil—stepped ponderously toward Crown. He was more than twice Crown's size, and even though he was several years older than Crown, he gave no sign of being slowed or weakened by age.

Thunder moved meekly aside, limping slightly and obviously in great pain.

Crown growled inwardly as the clan leader approached him. He knew what his role must be: to raise his head, expose his throat, in a signal of submission to the acknowledged leader of the clan. To do anything less would mean that he would have to fight Brutal.

Yet Crown's anger seethed inside him, and he knew that Brutal and all the other wolfcats could easily sense it. There would be nothing to stop Brutal from slashing Crown's throat out when he made the signal of submission. Crown himself knew that Brutal would be wise to kill him while he had such an easy chance.

So when the mountainous wolfcat stood before him, and all the others backed away, Crown snarled defiantly. Brutal did not seem surprised. He expected the challenge; he even appeared to be delighted by it. The two wolfcats eyed each other, growling, knowing that this would not be merely a ritual battle of obedience. This fight would go to the death.

I'm with you, Crown. I don't know what I can do to help, but I'm with you.

Laura sat in the control room, one eye on Jeff's seemingly unconscious form lying on the contact couch, the other on the instrument readouts displayed before her. Jeff's adrenaline level was soaring, his heartrate was climbing fast.

She bit her lip in indecision. If I call Amanda, she'll disconnect Jeff right away and send us both back to the dorm. Jeff will be furious with me for pulling him away from the wolfcat.

She watched the viewscreen, seeing what Crown saw, staring at the snarling face of the biggest wolfcat she had ever seen.

But if Crown is badly hurt, or killed, what will it do to Jeff? Laura reached for the switch that started the automatic disconnect sequence. Her hand hovered over it uncertainly.

Crown could see that Brutal bore the scars of many fights on his head and shoulders. But the giant wolfcat showed no hesitation about fighting again. He did not circle warily around his younger opponent, he moved straight in on Crown, reared back to free his forelegs, and jabbed one forepaw lightly at Crown's snout.

Crown blocked it and instinctively backed away.

Brutal moved relentlessly forward. This was no argument over food, or even over territory. This was a fight for survival, life or death. A wolfcat clan can have only one leader, they both knew. All other males must either submit or be killed.

All the other wolfcats dropped down onto their haunches or bellies, forming a ring around the combatants as they watched the opening moves of their struggle.

For long moments Crown and Brutal stood facing each other, radiating hatred and fighting pride, snarling, tails twitching, ears flattened back on their skulls. Then, with a sildden bunching of muscles, they leaped at each other.

Six tons of wolfcat collided with an earthshaking thud as they reared on their hind legs and slashed at each other with the claws of their fore-and mid-paws. Crown felt searing pain rake him from chest to abdomen, but he saw that he also slashed Brutal along one shoulder.

Both animals bounced off and backed away for a moment. Crown felt hot blood dripping down his flank. But he had less than a heartbeat to think before Brutal reared again and attacked. Again they jarred the grassland with the concussion of their furious collision. Muscle and bone, strength and anger smashed against each other time and again, without either wolfcat scoring a telling blow. Their mightily fanged jaws played no role in this stage of the fighting: it was claws against claws, for now, a fencing match where the two ponderous beasts stood facing each other, snarling, glaring, tails twitching—then a roar and a leap, claws flashing. Then back on all sixes again, looking for a weak spot, a half-second's delay, a place and a time to press home the killing attack.

Crown was getting the worse of it. He was as fast as the older male, perhaps even a shade faster. But Brutal was more experienced, more sure of himself, deadly accurate with his claws. Crown was bleeding from a dozen long, raking slashes. None of them was dangerous in itself, except that soon enough the loss of blood would wear him down, tire him, slow him to the point where Brutal could finish him off with a final snap of his fanged jaws.

But the part of Crown that was Jeff was learning faster than any wolfcat had ever learned. Jeff felt the pain, but he and Crown together were watching the way the bigger wolfcat moved, the way he tensed his shoulders just before he leaped, the way he lowered his head to keep his throat protected.

Brutal leaped at Crown again, but this time Crown dodged sideways, twisted in midair, suddenly a three-ton acrobat, and landed on the back of his surprised enemy. His jaws closed on Brutal's neck while all six of his paws dug deeply into the doomed wolfcat's flanks.

A single strangled scream of pain and fury, then it was finished. The old leader lay dead, his blood staining the grass. Crown stood over the corpse—panting, bleeding, but victorious.

He lifted his head and roared long and full and joyously. The other wolfcats got to their feet and approached him. Thunder was the first, and Crown nodded and grunted toward Brightfur and Tranquil. They were Thunder's mates, and no other wolfcat would touch them as long as Crown headed the clan.

Jeff opened his eyes, a contented smile on his face.

Laura came into the contact room, bubbling with excitement.

"You did it!" she exulted. "You did it! You beat that horrible bully!"

Jeff smiled at her. "Crown did it . . . although, maybe I helped a little."

"You're marvelous," she said as she unfastened his cuffs.

Jeff lifted the helmet off his head and swung his legs off the couch. Laura clasped her arms around his neck and they clung together in a long, happy kiss.

"Hey there, that isn't the kind of contact work I expected you two to get into."

They broke apart guiltily, then saw Amanda grinning at them.

"I made contact with Crown," Jeff blurted, "and he's . . ."

Amanda stopped him with an upraised hand. "Don't tell me. I don't want to know. I never authorized you to use this equipment. As far as I'm concerned, you left this lab right after I talked to you this morning."

"Oh! Yes, sure."

"So get out of here before somebody spots you and reports back to Foy," Amanda said, trying to sound stern, and failing.

"We're going," Jeff said.

"But be prepared to report for duty tomorrow morning at 0700 hours," Amanda added. "The orders were issued this afternoon; we start back to work with the animals tomorrow."