Fish Tails (76 page)

“Xulai told me one of the men was killed, but not who. Sun-­wings killed Digger?”

“Took his head off, like a chicken. Didn't bite him. Doesn't like the taste.”

“Too merciful, but appropriate. I knew his death was coming, just not how soon. Now, how do I find out what this stuff was, that had the metal tag on it?”

“It was there where the Edgers washed their stinkers. So I figure it has something to do with that. Something they use, maybe? Edgers got to go back and forth from there, you need somebody to follow them home, ask them.”

“How long ago were you there?”

Coyote tried to remember: A night's sleep? A day's travel? More sleep, then Precious Wind had arrived. Maybe it was a day or two or three since? He said, “Three, four days.”

“And they're not far from here.”

“The place isn't. Don't know if they're still there.”

“I understand that. How near here, do you think?”

“Might take us an hour, maybe.”

“Well, in the morning, we may give it a try,” said Grandma. “Meantime, we'll work with what we know. Precious Wind brought us a sample of the stuff that accumulates on the stinker bodies. Put that together with this tag, which we're fairly sure is a biological product, a catalyst. Well, it's simply very useful, Coyote. I'm glad it itched you. How can I repay you?”

“Chicken,” said Coyote. “I'd say that's top of my preferences.”

“Where'd you get that word, ‘preference'? Don't remember your having that one.”

“Listenin' to that Precious Wind. She has preferences, lots and lots of 'em. Mostly different from what other folks prefers.”

Grandma laughed. “Indeed.”

“You gonna help Willum?” Bear inquired. “That little girl of yours, she's brave as a . . . bear, but she's really grieved over that boy.”

“If it weren't for the arrow through him, it'd be easy. There are medical machines in the Oracles' place. I've used them from time to time. They're very good, good diagnosticians, good providers of treatment. Problem is, the machine reports that the arrow's made out of yew. There isn't any yew anywhere around here. Where did that hunter get it, that stinker hunter?” She shook her head angrily. “Yew's poison. It's as if someone made arrows that would eventually kill anything they hit. That's wicked, pure wicked. So we're figuring out what we're going to try . . . We can't just take the rock away or he'll bleed to death.”

“Thought he was like rock. Thought he couldn't bleed.”

“He'd bleed if we neutralized the rock medicine all at once. We have to neutralize it as we go. Tiny, tiny bit at a time so he loses only a tiny bit of blood. He can't heal if he's stone except as slow as stone, which means he might be healed by the time the rest of us are all dead and gone. And if he isn't stone he bleeds. They have a medical machine in there. I've fed all the information into the machines, and I'm waiting for them to come up with an answer. Then we'll wake him up.”

“Needly says you were stone, like him.”

“I was. But I just had a place on my head where a rock hit. I wasn't bleeding. It was easy to get at and heal, didn't even break the skin very much. Even though it was lots easier than with Willum, it still took quite a while.”

“You were buried there in that village. Who got you out?”

“Well, at first I thought the Oracles had. Then I thought not, but near here is where I woke up.”

“Didn't they say?”

“They don't say much, ever. Especially if it's something you really want to know.”

“She tell you all about the Griffin mare?”

“Yes, and her cub, Dawn-­song. Now, that's a much easier thing. We can heal her very quickly. I made up a batch of the antidote after I got here. There's a little patch of that stone plant just up the hill from here, near my old home; I've kept my eyes on it for a long time. I'll take or send some of the antidote back to Wide Mountain Mother, and the Griffin's leg should be healed before her wing is. The real problem is what the Griffin said about her children surviving. Now, that's a very different matter, very difficult. Very, very difficult. Nobody's sure there's enough time left. However, there's ways and there's ways, and I'm sure there are capable ­people working on the problem.”

“Ma'am, are you one of those . . . those Oracles?”

“No, Bear. I'm certainly not. I'm just a human who amused herself for much of her young life by making use of all that equipment and machinery they have here. I suppose that gave me a few enhancements, ah . . . improvements?”

“That'd be betterments, I guess. Blue says ‘betterments.' ”

“Betterments, then. I'm not quite sure what the Oracles think I am or what they regard me as being in connection to themselves. I've learned a lot of things from them—­well, that is, I've learned it from the machines and devices they brought here. You know, it's very strange. They acquire these things, all kinds of things, but once they have them, they just sort of . . . let them be. They have pictures they never look at, equipment they never use. I seem to be the only one who is using the equipment, so I have no idea why they brought it.”

Bear nodded wisely, looked at Coyote. “Sounds like pack rats t'me.”

“Pack rats,” agreed Coyote. “Can you tell us anything about them, even just a little bit?”

“Only a little bit. They're not from here. They're from another world. I know the Oracles look like humans, more or less, but I don't think they are. I think maybe they can take pretty much any shape they like. Which is another way of saying they don't have any shape. They say they're on some kind of mission. They don't say who gave them the mission. They say they have their orders. I don't know why, but I've come to doubt that.” She stared into the distance; Bear and Coyote stared with her. “They've been here a very long time for us to know so little about them. I've given them credit for a lot of things . . . things they maybe had nothing to do with. Until I brought Willum . . . there's never been anything immediate that I've put to them, something that needs doing right now, and I'm a little confused by the way they act.”

“Like how?”

“Well, if they were human I'd say they were embarrassed. Kind of . . . shifty. It has nothing to do with you two good creatures. Now, I promised Needly I'd be back to tell her a bedtime story. She's too big for bedtime stories, and it's way too early for bed, but she remembers how they made her feel when she was little and she wants to feel cozy. She needs a little cozy because she's had a lot of horrible lately. You two look like you could do with a bedtime story.”

“We're awright,” said Bear, nudging Coyote, who grumphed an assent. “Wish you good night.”

“Wish you good night, good creatures, and I did bring you a bedtime something,” she said, taking two sizable packets from a deep pocket and putting them before two noses. When she was a quarter of the way up the path to the portal, she heard two voices behind.

“Chicken! It's a whole roasted chicken. How'd she know I like it roasted? Whadju get?”

“Honey,” said Bear, with enormous satisfaction. “Two big pieces of comb. She's a very nice old lady.”

Grandma smiled ruefully. Of course she was very nice, but she didn't feel anywhere near that old.

N
EEDLY HAD NOT VISITED
B
EAR
and Coyote, for the Oracles had invited her to have supper with them. Supper had consisted of an endless series of tiny bowls, plates, vessels, kettles, each with something different in it. The food items (liquids, pastes, solids; crunchy, slimy) were a very strange assortment, by no means all delicious, though a few were. The Oracles, however, seemed to get quite as much pleasure (if, indeed, that was what they were having) out of analyzing the ingredients, the tastes, the intermixing of the tastes, the fading away of the tastes, the texture, the changing of the texture when chewed (whether unyielding or compliant), and all the other ways in which food could possibly be appreciated as they did the eating of it. Their vocabulary was limited and their comments repeated several times. The entire event took about half an hour.

Somehow it all had been very . . . like playacting? Needly had not been sure until this event, but now she was. They were not what Grandma thought they were! She wasn't afraid of them, but she didn't like them or admire them or consider them wise. They were merely . . . acting. As though they had seen . . . seen a pictured dinner party. Needly had been told of such things: Grandma's bedtime stories had been full of wonderful events and wonderful ­people doing wonderful things. The machines were full of such things. The Oracles had many sources they could copy. And they were simply copying, she was sure of it!

Had it not been for Grandma's having remarked that she sometimes felt the Oracles were “tasting” the Earthian environment, Needly would have been dismayed by the “dinner party.” As it was, she nodded agreement when she agreed, kept silent when she disagreed, refused to eat anything her nose told her would promptly come up again, and showed proper reverence for the hosts (or hostesses) when it was over. By the time she returned to the room where Grandma lived, Grandma herself had returned.

“What did you think?” Grandma asked.

“I thought it was a lot of fuss about nothing.”

“When they do things like that, it's like a game to them. I believe they don't ordinarily have bodies that need to eat. They have several of those really advanced food machines in the big reception area, did you see them?” Needly had not. “Just tell the machine what you want, and it produces it. Sometimes it asks for a recipe. I use them regularly when I'm here, but the Oracles never use them at all. Maybe their bodies soak up sunlight, though I wouldn't swear to it. The best I've been able to get them to say is first: they have to be here. Second: they have a job, a mission, a task. Third: they chose to appear as the leading life-­form—­that's us—­and fourth: they wish to experience things the leading life-­form experiences.”

“Do they also pee and poop?”

Grandma looked puzzled. “How clever of you, Needly. You know, I have no idea! There's a water toilet in my quarters here, but that's meaningless. It could be for guests only. So I can only say I shouldn't be surprised either way.

“This, by the way, is probably my last visit. They were talking about something coming or their going? It's confusing, and they weren't talking to me. More like someone mumbling to themselves, really. If they go, I'm afraid they'll take all this lovely machinery with them. I'll regret that.” She sat back, ready to hear about Needly's trip through the woods and whatever else the child wanted to tell her, then, startlingly, she sat up again, looking very alert.

Needly heard a humming sound. Grandma looked as though she wanted to spit. “Excuse me, my darling, but I'm wanted. I shouldn't be long.”

The door thing, which faded into the wall when not needed, opened as she approached it and closed behind her. Needly decided to inspect the bookshelf along one wall, nicely filled with books, some of which she recognized. In Tuckwhip, books had been hidden except when she and Grandma were sure they were alone. Most of the ­people there used them to start fires. She was quite hungry, but couldn't do anything about it until Grandma came back, and a book would pass the time. She found a book of animal stories and was deeply involved in it when Grandma returned, a Grandma pale-­faced and obviously unhappy.

“They can't do it,” she said. “What we planned to do for Willum. It won't work. The medical machine had a report for me. It's that blasted yew wood. Who in heaven's name put that weapon into the hands of those . . . creatures?”

Needly wanted to scream or cry or both. Instead she knotted her hands together and concentrated on making them as tight as she could. And tighter. “What won't work. Grandma?”

“I told you how we planned to do it. We have the antidote that nullifies the stone, we have an excellent medicine that aids healing. The minute we nullify the stone, the yew shaft starts poisoning Willum's living tissue, and the healing aid can't fight it. The machine is running on low, I guess researching everything that's ever been recorded about yew wood or the rock medicine . . .”

“Couldn't you start working in the middle of him. Then do a tiny bit at a time, but from both sides.” She turned away, visualizing what she meant. “Tell me about the healing agent. How does it work?”

“It's a liquid. You warm it to liquefy it, then pour it into a wound and it sets into quite a solid gel at body temperature—­ours, that is. It has chemicals and organics in it that encourage the tissue on all sides to invade the gel and build new tissue. The growing cells actually eat it. Of course, to get the tissue to do that, you have to stop its being rock first.”

“So it turns into a gel at our body temperature?”

“Oh, yes. We get it much warmer than that to melt it.”

“Does the liquid set into gel immediately, or does it take a little time? I mean, does it flow at first? If there's a little opening like into a blood vessel, will it flow in before it sets?”

“Yes, if it's warm when you pour it, it stays liquid for as long as it takes to cool, longer if someone has a fever, but not terribly long.”

“Oh, what would happen if we tried . . .” Needly murmured. “Suppose the shaft could be pulled out completely while he's rock, then rinse out the hole to get every splinter of yew out of him. Then maybe you could warm him while he's rock, warm enough to keep the healing stuff liquid. Plug the hole in his back, and from the front fill the hole completely with the heal-­all, turn him so it will flow into any little hole, any open capillary, any gap in cells. Wait until it sets into gel. Then turn him over and be sure the heal-­all is gelled even with his skin in back. When that is set, then you could try to de-­rock all of him. By that time, maybe the stuff will be plugging every capillary. There will be no place for him to bleed from. That is, if the shaft isn't through his heart or something. If it isn't, he won't bleed.”