Breed to Come (25 page)

Fur Furtig had been thinking, and Jir-Haz's lastaccusation bothered him.

"When you captured this one," he asked, "was shenot alone? Were there any Rattons or the otherDemon with her?"

"Yes," Liliha added. "If she was alone, why wasthat so, supposing that she hunted you? Your story isthat you had sent A-San ahead, and the Barker hadgone his own way. She had three trails to follow,which did she seek?"

Jir-Haz's tail twitched. "None," he said slowly."The Demon was taking a fourth way, going from ourpart of the lairs. And it is true she was alone. Also,after we had taken her we waited for a space, but none followed."

"So, we can believe that this Demon was not hunting you. She was alone when she watched you in thehealing chamber, she was alone when she opened thedoor of that and bid you go. These are all the truth?"

"It is so," Jir-Haz acknowledged.

"Then what you yourself saw and report being somuch the truth, must we not begin to believe that thisDemon was not engaged in any hunt devised by Rattons, and that perhaps she too speaks the truth?"

"But she is a Demon!" Jir-Haz protested.

For the first time Eu-La broke silence. She had goneto stand close beside the bed on which they had laidthe Demon.

"She does not look like one who kills. See—" Eu-Laleaned over to set claw-tip to the Demon's middle."She is all softness, easily torn. And, though like allDemons she is large, yet I do not believe that our warriors need look upon her as an ever-ready enemy. Ifshe loosed Jir-Haz and the others from the Rattons,perhaps she had some reason. Why not ask her? Shesaid she heals not harms, ask her how she does thisand why. And how she came among the Rattons—"

"Also, to some purpose," Furtig cut in "ask herwhy she came to the lairs and if more Demons are onthe way." Of course the answer to that might not betrue, but it would do no harm to ask it.

He wished Gammage was here. Of them all, certainly the Ancestor was best suited to deal with a Demonand weigh truth against not truth. But the lair leaderhad departed to a truce flag meeting with the Barkers—since that hard-voiced people had sent a messageand a flag to stand beside the first, thus agreeing tothe meet. The second Barker, whom this Demon hadfreed, was he another scout of the same pack? And ifso was he now making his way back to his people?

What influence would his report have on the negotiations?

Slowly the Demon answered their questions. Yes,she had come from the sky—she was one of four—

All that they knew. So they were learning nothing.But when they questioned her about the Rattons—then they could not check her story. She had comefrom the ship at a call for help from one of her companions; She had found him injured and had treatedhim. Then the other, the Ratton friend (if anyonecould friend that scum) had ordered her to treat aRatton leader, had threatened her if she did not.

The longer Furtig listened to her halting, slowlyspoken words, the easier it was to understand them.And somehow they sounded true. In spite of Jir-Haz,his own inborn distrust of Demons, everything, hecould not say this was false.

When she spoke of Shimog the very tone of hervoice (now that he was more familiar with it) boreout her aversion to the Ratton leader. But it was Liliha who brought home with a question the strange point in the whole tale.

"So they told you that Rattons were the comradesof Demons? But we have not learned it so. In fact, itis recorded that until the final days when the Demonswent mad, Rattons were enemies to all. My people,the Barkers—we once lived in friendly company withDemons. Then the evil which the Demons themselveswrought seized upon them. They turned against allother living creatures, hunted them—"

"This evil." There was such urgency in the Demon's voice as made them all stare. "What manner ofevil? I tell you—we came searching for the reason weleft this world, why my people long ago lifted to thestars and then hid all mention of the past from us.Tell me, if you know, why did they go? What happened to them here, to you—to this place?"

She looked from side to side as if begging one or another to answer. Such was the power of the emotionwhich flowed from her that Furtig believed in herwholly—that she had come seeking just what shesaid. Liliha did not answer at once. She spoke to Furtig.

"Cut her loose!"

His hand slipped into fighting claws in obedience.Then he hesitated. Jir-Haz growled warningly. It would seem that he still clung to his suspicions.

"Loose her," Liliha repeated. "What do you fear?"she asked Jir-Haz. "Look, she has no weapons, noteven claws. Do you believe she can overcome us all?"

Furtig went forward and, seeing his hand so armed,the Demon shrank back with a cry, trying to free herself before he could reach her. Liliha spoke swiftly.

"He will not harm you, he comes to loose you."

She quieted then, and he cut swiftly through thecords.

"What would you do with me?""We can show you better than we can tell. Come."So they brought the Demon to the room of learning, and there Liliha started the tape readers, thoserecords which had given them the information concerning the last days of the Demons. Though thesewere faulty and lacking in many details, as if thosewho had made them had lost the skill to do so properly. Afterward Liliha explained even more of the traditions of the People and of what Gammage and the Inborn had learned.

But that took some time. And Furtig was not longa part of it. He had other duties, and it was true thatthe Demon female did not need such guarding—shewas weaponless and surrounded by Choosers whowere certainly as keen-eyed as any warrior.

There was still the matter of the Demon male andthe Rattons. How deep into Ratton territory theydared send their own scouts was a question to bothereven Dolar. But before night their numbers began tobe augmented by an inflow of People. Not Furtig's asyet, but Ku-La's forces.

What these brought with them, as well as theirweapons and supplies, was information, some bits held from the days of the Demons, some gathered byinvestigation in those parts of the northeastern lairs where Gammage's explorers had never done any realsearching. Once their Choosers and younglings wereestablished in the safe heart of Gammage's territory,their warriors spread out to join the In-born and thehandful of newcomers such as Furtig.

Reports came in now from questing scouts. TheDemon who had been injured had crawled out of thetunnels, gone back to the grounded ship, which wasalways under observation. The ship itself was sealed,no hatch open. It was as if the two within it held it asa fort against attack. On the other hand the fourthDemon, he who had joined the Rattons, had also beensighted.

A young warrior of Ku-La's people, very small andslim and so able to take ways closed to those of largerframe, had managed to squirm through a side ductand look into a very busy place in the Ratton burrows.

There were machines there like the rumblers, andthese the Rattons were swarming over, working on,under the leadership of the Demon. It was apparentthat the machines were being readied and that couldonly be to attack.

Armed with this report Dolar, with Furtig in tow,went to the chamber where the Demon female waswith Liliha. She had shared food with them, and ather request they had given her back those looser skinsshe wore. As the warriors entered she was sitting withLiliha exchanging talk, the translating machine on adivan between them.

"Ask her," Dolar said abruptly, "what the Demondoes with the machines and the Rattons. We believethat they prepare an attack, and we must know howthese machines will work."

Liliha relayed the question. But when the Demonanswered, she spoke directly to Dolar.

"There are many kinds of machines. Can you tellme, or show me, the form of these?"

He clanged his fighting claws together. A machinewas a machine. How could you find words to describeit? Then he rounded on the In-born who was his at-tailmessenger.

"Bring the seeing box."

The warrior had not gone empty-handed into thenarrow ways, but had taken with him one of the discoveries of his own people, a box which made a permanent record of what he saw.

When this case was set before the Demon she appeared to know it for what it was, instantly pressingthe right button. Across the room, on the wall, appeared a picture, small enough fox Furtig's two handsto cover, yet clear in details.

For a long moment the Demon studied the pictureand then she spoke:

"I do not know what all these machines may be.See, there are at least three different kinds. But there—that one upon which the Ratton stands—thatshoots forth fire. It is like the weapon your people took from me but much more powerful, for the firespreads wider. I believe that these are machines of war." Her voice died away, and yet she continued tolook at the picture as if there was something there to hold her full attention.

"Machines of war, fearsome ones," Dolar repeatedas if to himself. "Let those come seeking us and perhaps the Rattons will win."

The Demon female spoke again. "You have showedme much. Also—there is something—if I can onlymake it plain to you—" She twined her hands together, finger punishing finger in that tight grip, as if shemight wring the words she wanted to say out of herown flesh. "I am one who heals. I have been taught todo so since I was very young. We did not know whyour ancestors—our long-ago Elders—left these lairs.And we have a trouble on our home world which isbad—therefore we were sent to seek out our oldhomeland, and aid.

"But when our ship landed here—we—we changed.No more were we as we had always been.

We becamestrangers one to the other—" She looked at none ofthem as she spoke thus, but ever at the wall pictures."We seemed to become—no, perhaps I cannot say it. But you have showed me that there was once a madness here, an evil thing which possessed my kind. Ithink that the shadow of that lingers still, so that weare becoming enemies, one to the other. If this is true,that illness must be healed, and we must go. And itmay be too late." She covered her face with herhands, sat shivering so that Furtig could see the shudders of her body. Liliha put out her hands, laid themupon the Demon's shaking shoulders.

Then, as henever thought to see, she drew the Demon to her asshe might in comforting a sister Chooser, and held herso.

Ayana pulled away, though the comfort of that softwarmth the cat-woman offered was such that shelonged to cling to it. She wiped her wet cheeks withthe backs of her hands. All that she had learned was aweight on her spirit. But it was, as these people mademuch of saying, the truth. No wonder her kind hadfled this place. This sickness of spirit was as strong asonce had been the sickness of body which had eitherproduced it -or been the end product of it. She needonly look at that picture of Tan, at his intense, absorbed face as he readied machines to wipe out life,and know how deeply they had been stricken.

These lairs, as they called them, lairs of darkness inspite of all the light within, lairs of knowledge whichcould kill as well as cure. Knowledge, could one pickand choose among knowledge? A thing which mightcure in one form could be used to kill in another. As amedic, who should know better than she? Had she noteven sought out death dealers herself on board ship,gathered them together?

But what Tan intended—that must not be! Andthere was something else, a warning she must give ofanother kind. She had seen this Gammage only briefly when they had first brought her in. His urging for union among intelligent species—yes, that was a stepforward. But his thirst for alien knowledge—his tinkering with the scraps and remnants they played withhere—no! That was tampering with that which mightend him and his people as surely as the Rattons andTan, equipped with war machines, could do.

However, the immediate threat—resolutely Ayanapushed aside what might happen tomorrow, concentrated on today. Suppose Tan and his nightmarearmy of allies did activate those machines of crawlingdeath? Weapons used by men who had built and inhabited this complex would be very sophisticated. AndTan would release what he could not control.

These cat-people looked to her for an answer. Andshe did not have one. Jacel—Massa—could help, butwould either of them do so? She had no idea of whathad happened between Jacel and Tan before she hadreached them. But that comment of Tan's about Jacel's discovery that the Rattons could be dangerous ifcrossed lingered now in her mind. There must havebeen ill will between the two men, some argument.Could she build on that?

It seemed to Ayana a very thin hope, but it was allshe had now.

"There are many machines, and I have no knowledge of them." She made her explanation as simple aspossible. "But those in the ship still can help. I see noother way—"

She had been long enough with the cat-people nowto be able to read expressions a little, and she sawthat suggestion was not welcome, especially to thelarge male with the scarred ears. But she could not help them. Only Jacel and Massa knew the machines.And how much time did they have?

The growling, spitting speech of the People amongthemselves was prolonged. Finally the males went outtogether, leaving her once more with the females shehad learned to call Liliha and Eu-La.

"You are a Chooser?" Liliha asked, and Ayana sawboth the cat-women watching her closely, as if her answer was important.

"What is a Chooser?"

They appeared startled. Then Liliha explained."There is a time when one wishes younglings.

One'sbody is ready to hold such. As mine—" She slid herhand over her slim belly. "But not yet is Eu-La so."She pointed to her companion's slighter figure. "Whenthis time comes the warriors display their strength sothat we Choosers may look upon them, judge theirskills, select one to father a youngling. You have sochosen?"

Ayana looked down at her own hands. Not to get achild had she chosen (or rather had had the choosingdone for her) but rather that a certain needed seriesof traits could complement and perhaps fill out another's character. Had she been subtly conditioned to accept Tan so readily? Now she suspected that. He hadbecome a stranger so fast, as if the sickness which clung here had broken through'that shell of acceptance.

"I did not choose, he was chosen for me." She feltan odd shame at making that confession.