Virginia Hamilton (5 page)

“Am waiting my turn,” she responded. “Siv be floating in water. Who want to be drinking his dust!”

“Be still!” Duster modulated in his command mode.

Glass was at full attention, still and silent, gazing before her. It was then she saw Miacis on the other side of the pool blinking regally and flicking her outrageous golden tail at them.

Glass commenced trembling and could not stop. At that distance, the beast blended well with the murk of dust. To warn Duster of the animal, Glass would have to break his command. And she could neither act or react.

“What be with you, O Smooth?” Duster toned, following her locked gaze. He saw the she-animal where a second ago he had seen nothing.

Duster’s expression did not change. He gave commands. “Be ready!” His tone was firm, serene.

At once his packen grouped into trips.

“Drink,” he toned, gesturing to the smooth-keeps while keeping his gaze on Miacis.

The smooths drank quickly but as much as they wanted. Then they again took their places.

Duster had vague thoughts. Seeing the Miacis creature, he knew he had seen her before. He knew she must be the Miacis one the Justice from far had spoken of. He had not remembered Miacis until he saw her.

Miacis stretched languorously. She yawned lazily. Her sweeping tail of a moment ago lay flat on the ground, straight and stiff as a board. She had extended poisonous dewclaws and concealed them in the dust. Obviously she sensed impending danger.

“Ginen,” Duster toned softly to Glass.

“Ha-hahn!” Glass responded quietly yet urgently to the smooth-keeps. They formed a line beside her to her right.

.Glass pulled a weapon from her pack. In an unbroken motion she cast a shot the size of a marble at Miacis’ left eye. Swiftly, one after another, the smooths cast their shots, all the size of the first. Hurled with such smoothness, they were one blurred image streaming over the pool with a thin whining.

Miacis’ tail moved. It sprang forward in front of her face, knocking down every shot.

“Ho! Mmmm!” murmured Miacis. She laughed an exact copy of Justice’s laugh.

Miacis had learned to talk by copying Justice. Justice felt like a proud parent every time Miacis came up with a new trick.

The smooth-keeps waited, but Duster gave no further command. The she-animal made no move to flee, so Duster’s leggens kept his position.

Miacis stretched out, eyeing Duster and the packen. “A-hem,” she said. “You leggy-guys wanta run a race? Sivs?” Her sweet voice carried over the water, trembled in half-tones of honeyed, hard-sounding chords. “Come on, fellas, see which one can catch up to me. Nobody want to play? Oh, well, Hell. You lose, babies. Alas, not a damned thing to do!”

Miacis had gathered a whole cache of curse words, mainly from Thomas’ mind, and she loved using them.

Duster thought of connections—the coming of the dream, the appearance of the water pool. He had been in contact with the Miacis creature near this water. In the dream the she-animal had been hidden from his view, a golden streak at the edges of it.

He gave a hand-signal command and sauntered off in his serene walk of authority that separated him from all others of his tribe. Striding easily along the pool, he was soon face to face with Miacis.

She was seated in her most regal pose—head held high, her great tail in a question mark, orange pouches slowly pulsating.

“My, my, it’s rusty Duster hisself,” she said. “The human from the hordes. You owe me one, Duster, ever since I let you use my pool. It belongs to me, and you owe me.”

Ever since my Master made the pool, Miacis thought. But what’s that to rusty Duster?

Thinking of Justice made her uneasy. When would the Master return? she wondered. Where had she gone?

Miacis didn’t know why she bothered with this simpleton Duster. Maybe she was just lonely. Yet she was drawn to him; she could not help herself.

Duster couldn’t think to tone. His encounter with Miacis at the pool was a series of images. He was many Dusters. She was many Miacises.

“Know you and be knowing you,” Duster toned dreamily.

Miacis read his mind. “Duster, what do you know?” she said, and her tone of voice came clearly to him.

“Be remembering,” he toned.

“Well, if and when you find out something, do let me in on it, will you, friend? I get that I was some
place
before this, my home. So was you, because I knew you the moment I first saw you. Can’t figure that one. Wish I could. Oooh, wish this aching tummy would go away!”

“Be trying thinking deep and just not feel so good either,” toned Duster.

Pet me!
she telepathed.

“Touching, be feeling better, yes,” Duster toned.

“So pet me. I’ll admit it settles my stomach, too.”

Duster petted her head and smoothed his hand along her back fur. Sitting beside him, she was taller than he. She rested her chin on top of his head and he reached with both arms to pet her.

Her eyes closed. A series of moves took place between them. Miacis slapped at his arm with one of her mitt-sized paws. She had retracted her dangerous dewclaws so as not to poison or stun him. Duster batted at the paw. His eyes, too, fluttered closed; and he might have been sunbathing there, with his head held upward toward the murk above.

Paw batted hand and hand batted paw. In a surprise move Duster grabbed her ears and yanked them. Miacis whined, trying to pull free. They rolled over, punching and hitting with hands and paws. She bared razor-sharp incisor teeth and clamped them on Duster’s shoulder. She did no damage. He dared put his head in her mouth. She caught his neck in her paws as if to bite his head off. The weight of her knocked him over.

They frolicked. Miacis rose on her hind legs. Duster crawled down her back, grabbing one of her feet, then the other, to make her fall.

She fell on all fours and galloped away with him clinging to her. Siv raced after them. His leader was clinging to the beast on his stomach, facing the wrong way!

On the run, Siv turned and signaled Glass to throw him the deep-daggen. And, racing, he caught it neatly. He overtook Miacis, but he couldn’t outrun her.

She sensed the weapon glinting in Siv’s hand, veered out of harm’s way and turned back. Duster had his legs wrapped around her neck and held on to her tail for dear life.

They came back in a trot, with the ever watchful Siv bringing up the rear. Duster slid to the ground. Miacis paced before him and the standing Siv; she was panting with the exertion.

“My, my!” she sighed, catching her breath, and flopped down beside Duster.

“Be feeling better,” Duster toned. “Sickening be like nothing.”

Miacis moaned in reply. They were still while their breathing settled back to normal.

Lazily, he signaled the smooth-keep to take her place beside the leggens. He next toned to the leggens, and Siv handed the deep-daggen still in his palm to Glass. She put it away in her pack. Then she and Siv took up positions at Duster’s left and right sides.

All this while Justice, her brothers and Dorian, from their vantage of invisibility, watched the scene at the pool as they would a curious sort of show.

Abruptly Justice traced,
Why did Duster start dreaming? Why does Miacis think she comes from some other place?

Because,
Thomas traced back promptly,
she ran into Duster
—
maybe that brought back memories. It came at the right time and helped break the process.

What process?
she traced.

Conditioning not to think about certain things,
Thomas traced.
And if you do think about them, you get sick.

Right,
she traced.

They get sick when they think,
Levi traced,
and they feel better when they play together and don’t think.

Right,
traced Justice.
They’re outcasts from someplace, for sure. The sickness keeps them from remembering and from escaping.

So now things are changing,
Levi traced.

And I bet we caused it
. Thomas was glum.
We upset the balance of things; we don’t have any right!

We didn’t start it,
Justice traced.
Duster was already dreaming by the time we got here. But if we’re going to be of any use, we’d better get to work,
she continued.
No telling when the Mal will return.

What will we do?
Thomas wanted to know.

Oh, I’m not sure of it all,
she traced.
But I think I know where to begin.

“Time to show ourselves,” she whispered, and joined hands—minds—with the other three.

They became the unit. It glided over the water to the other side. It materialized as it went.

M
IACIS HAD BEEN YAWNING
and swishing her flawless tail. When the unit was halfway across the water, she sensed something taking shape out of thin air, gathering space and light into it above the water. Erector muscles attached to hair follicles of her skin bristled from the end of her tail to the tip of her leafy ears.

She experienced sensations of color. At last she sensed the number and exact size of the unit.

Miacis screamed, “Mercy! Lord above!” and jumped straight up.

The sudden noise stunned Siv and Glass guarding Duster.

“It’s First Unit!” Miacis hollered to them and all around. She began running in circles. “It is, by God. It
is!
Master! Justice come to find me!”

She howled and pranced. “Oh, Master, lady!” she wailed at Justice. “Ain’t you a sensation for the blind?”

She made odd word-combinations put together from the four’s thoughts and memories. The fact that the unit had not yet divided into its separate selves did not stop her for a moment from addressing Justice and ignoring the other three.

“My God, lady, I thought you never was going to show up. Man, I even glad to have that rotten runaway back, that Tom-Tom Douglass, you ratty brother, the chickensh—!”

“Miacis!” Justice cried. The unit had quickly separated into its selves.

“You dumb, mangy dog!” Thomas yelled at Miacis. He would have kicked her if Justice hadn’t stopped him.

“Now quiet, both of you” Justice said. “Miacis, please don’t insult anybody.”

“I just so glad to have you here, lady. Shoot, not so much fun by myself after foolin’ ’round with you people.” Her blind eyes eagerly sought them out. “I be good, I promise. You wouldn’t even know me, I be so good!”

She
was
good, helping to bring calm after the power of the four was felt and they settled on the ground.

Other roamer packens were at the pool. Grims had come and Slakers, who had homed in on the force of the unit and thirst-quenching water.

“Don’t mind some nasty Jammers,” Miacis said brightly when she heard the flapping of mighty wings. By Jammers she meant the Slaker beings, who jammed their third legs into the ground during violent roller storms.

“Guess you ain’t never going to fly out of here, is you, folks?” she called to the Slaker females. She knew that the leader, the Bambnua, searched for a way out of Dustland. “You big old uglies still lookin’ for a home!”

Slakers made no spoken sound. Warily they fluttered in tight knots, keeping a sharp eye on all the other kinds, and watching Miacis prance and preen.

The scent of blood hung over the packens, over the grims, who had followed the scent. It took time for the packens to settle down, for the four were beyond their understanding, appearing out of nowhere as they did. Grims were too mentally slow and physically starved to be startled or shocked by the four. These older humans, who resembled one another, ran in disorganized bands.

Grims aren’t the parents of packen kinds, Justice decided, observing the scene. They’re a class all their own. Are they a mistake, created old?

Somewhere human beings are duplicated, she thought. Made to look alike. Somewhere they are being created.

Thinking it made it seem less impossible.

Justice searched among the Slakers for the wise and ancient female, the Bambnua, Dustwalker. Justice had been in mind contact with her, but she was not among the Slakers who moved about and regrouped throughout the night.

Duster, Siv and Glass took care of their own packen and helped leaders of other packens. So many had come to drink and to feel the power. The pool teemed with kinds. Still there was only one Miacis. She strutted around, trying to tempt the Sivs into chasing her out into the black nothing of Nolight. Sivs stayed watchful in their
darks
by their leaders when it was time for sleeping. All kinds did sleep, although fitfully—Slakers out in the open and covered with dust, huddled with wings around one another; grims, too old to dig their
darks
near the pool. They slept entwined in heaving bunches as those on top sought warmth and safety on the bottom.

It looks like the worst nightmare you could think of,
Thomas traced, watching it all, deep in the Nolight.
The youngens in their
darks
look just like corpses lying in open graves! What a night!

All through the Nolight the four were alert. Duster did not dream this night, but slept deeply, soundly, better than he had in many Graylights.

After a sparkling dawn of the unit’s second Dustland Graylight, Mal came sweeping. Its sudden, unexpected glide across made many around the water pool fall down, sick to death. Female Slakers gave off a stench of fear. Their bald heads glistened with perspiration. Male Slakers whipped their dangerous third legs around like clubs. Sixty of them, an entire colony, huddled at one end of the water pool.

The Mal swept back and forth. Many covered their faces, rocked themselves for comfort, shuddering. Duster felt nauseous, shaky, but he held his ground. Weak and ill, Miacis lay at his feet, whimpering.

Deep in the packens, the four had hidden themselves. Justice’s split-second premonition of the Mal gave them the chance to hide. Thomas, Levi and Dorian were invisible now and surrounded by Thomas’ illusion that they were a Duster, a Siv and a Glass. Justice was again microscopic on Levi’s clothing.

Darkness surrounded the pool as the Mal spoke.
All is well here?
It questioned Duster.