Footfall (33 page)

“What was it like?” Jeri Wilson asked. “You were on the space station—”

He told it long. It didn’t look like anything would interrupt them for a while.

“Your turn,” Dawson said.

Alice wasn’t eager to talk until she got started. “We were in the basement, along the walls. It was just like a tornado scare. They crowd all the patients in, in any order, mixed in with the orderlies. It’s the only time you see the ones on the locked wing.

Anyway, there was a terrific noise and some of the walls fell in. Anyone who could still stand up ran away screaming, even some of the orderlies. I just ran. I got into the zoo next door and hid in the mammal house, but there wasn’t any place to hide, really. James came in and I told him to go away, but he wouldn’t. When the horrors came in I thought some of the zoo animals had got loose.”

The aliens had moved through Topeka, through shattered buildings and corpses beginning to decay. They took books and magazines from libraries and drugstores: anything with pictures. They led the prisoners through a supermarket and various small stores. Jeri and Melissa and the Woodwards had refused to cooperate, but Alice tried to assemble a collection of fresh and canned food, vitamins and mineral supplements — “Did you have a chance to get coffee?”

“Hell, no, I didn’t get cigarettes either. Bad for you. I got some herb teas, though.” And when Dawson laughed she looked furious.

The images on the video screen faded. Raztupisp-minz continued to stare at it, as if that would bring meaning to what he had seen. Finally he turned. “What do you believe this means?” he asked.

Takpusseh’s digits flared.

“The Herdmaster will not be amused,” Raztupisp-minz hissed. He glanced at the camera in one corner. “Perhaps he has seen already.”

“His annoyance will be as nothing when Fistarteh-thuktun sees these recordings,” Takpusseh said. He flared his digits again. “We know they have curious courtship and mating habits. Apparently the females are continuously in estrus, and do not care what male satisfies their urges.”

“Then how do the females control them?” Raztupisp-minz demanded. “It cannot be possible—”

“Much is possible,” Takpusseh sighed, “Forgive me, grandson, but you have seen only life aboard ship. You have never lived on a world rich with life.”

“They eat their own kind! And sing as they do! I do not care to live on such a world.”

“If that is what we saw,” Takpusseh said. “We must ask the prisoners.”

“Does Dawson speak well enough?”

“No. Nor do I know their speech so well. But Tashayamp does. She has been studying.” Takpusseh took a deep breath. Then another.

Raztupisp-minz did likewise. Pheromones filled his lungs. A sweet flavor.

“Grandson, you are my only relative,” Takpusseh said. “Leader of my family, I wish to speak with you.”

Raztupisp-minz backed away slowly, then settled to a crouch. He waited until Takpusseh was similarly postured. “Speak.”

“I wish you to carry winter flowers with me.”

“Ah. I have seen you grow stronger with new domains. I am glad, Takpusseh-but have you not waited overlong? The Time is upon the Sleeper Herd, and you are hardly able to be rational.”

“I know of no unmated Sleeper who would have me to mate. I speak of Tashayamp.”

“Ah. Of acceptable lineage, and competent in her work. Yes.” He let his voice trail to nothing, without a stop.

“But,” Takpusseh said. “Yes. She is not comely. Indeed, some would say she is misshapen. Yet I find her attractive enough, and as you say, she is diligent at her work.”

“It happens seldom that spaceborn mates to sleeper. Do you know that you are acceptable?”

“How should I? I have no one to speak for me. None save you—”

“Yamp,” Raztupisp-minz mused. “Her grandfather is Persantipyamp. He is said to be irascible. A warrior in his day.” And say no more; there was no war, bus had there been, it could only have been against the sleepers. “You wish me to speak with him.”

“I ask that, my leader.”

“Tashayamp.” Raztupisp-minz snorted wry mirth. “1 have little experience in this, I should ask you what to say! Our roles are indeed reversed, in all ways. Let me see if I recall the words I am to say—”

“1 know them,” Takpusseh admitted. “But let the customs be kept.” He listened as Raztupisp-minz stumbled through the traditional lecture: that the fithp mate for life, that mating is an alliance forever, not to be entered through passions.

“Are you certain it is not passion? It is Time for your herd—”

“Not mere passion,” Takpusseh said. “Recall, I am-somewhat-older than you. I was mated to your grandmother. I know something of passion, and of reason as well.”

“Yes. Politically, it is a good match. The yainp clan holds a wide domain; and you have taken your own.” And you are male, mating with a spaceborn female. It is not as there were the other way, spaceborn male to submit — “I will speak with Persantipyamp, and if he will consent, I will come with you to present the winter flowers.” Raztupisp-minz rose to his feet. “And my congratulations!”

They had floated forward, then inward along half a mile of spiral corridor, not quite in free-fall, but with so little gravity that motion was difficult for the newcomers. Wes tried to help where he could.

Two alien warriors carried large boxes. Tashayamp led the way.

A huge door opened for them: a cargo door, much bigger than would be needed to pass a fi’. They entered.

This huge chamber must be along the axis of the ship, forward of the chamber of the Podo Thuktun. A line of yellow-white light ran down the middle, too bright to look at directly. Elsewhere there was green, everywhere green, with splashes of carmine and yellow. Alien plants grew in cages, rooted in thick wet pads fixed along the walls. Green banners flapped in the breeze from the air conditioning. A field of yellow flowers turned as if to look at the intruders.

Here was a roughly rectangular block of loose dirt. Vines wrapped it loosely, and it was riddled with seven-inch holes. A head popped from a hole and was gone before Wes could react. A streamlined head, it had been, like a ferret’s, with red beads for eyes.

It was, finally, like being on another world.

Wes stole a glance at the others. Jeri Wilson was keeping her calm. Carrie Woodward expected to be killed at any moment. The prospect didn’t seem to frighten her much. Before she allowed herself to be escorted from the cell, she had led the others in prayer, and stared disapprovingly at Wes Dawson when he didn’t join in.

Melissa and Gary were gaping: not frightened, but delighted. Plants, birds, animals-and distant objects, after confinement in cells and corridors. Melissa pointed at something above them. It was gone before Wes could see it. but they all stopped to look.

Takpusseh looked back impatiently. “Come!” They followed hastily. Otherwise the warrior fithp would use their gun butts as prods, not brutally but playfully, as if they were herding children.

A tree grew along the ship’s axis, thirty feet tall. One continuous green leaf ran round it in a spiral. Guy wires along its trunk braced it against lateral acceleration.

Something dived at Wes’s head. He ducked as the warrior behind him casually brushed the thing aside with his mink. The thing flapped off shrilling a musical curse. A bird. They were everywhere: long-necked birds with large, colorful aft wings that turned up sharply at the tips, and small canards set to either side of the long neck. Wes gaped in wonder. “Is this your food source?” he asked.

“Ours and yours.” Takpusseh waved his trunk at a plot of bare dirt. It must have been recently cleared: dust and plant detritus floated in the air around it. The teacher said, “Now you have plants from your own world to grow here. Space has been set aside.”

John Woodward came forward to the boxes of soil. Gingerly he took a handful and rubbed it in his fingers. “Good Kansas soil,” he said. “Maybe we’ll live long enough for something to grow.”

“You will live,” Takpusseh said. He peered at the farmer. “Do you suffer for your distance from your home? One day you will land with us.”

Woodward didn’t answer. His eyes glittered.

“For now you will grow your own food,” Tashayamp said. “On the level trays, and in those.” She pointed to cages filled with earth. “There is a flower. This.” She held out a flower, bright, shaped like a long, thin trumpet. It was as large as a sunflower, with wild colors. Strange shapes lurked deep within the blossom.

She’s learned English fast, Wes thought. But her posture is— strange. Why? I wish 
I
could read their body language.

“We have seeds,” she said. “You will grow this in soil from your world.”

“What if it won’t grow?” John Woodward demanded.

“It will grow. If need, we will mix soil from other world. It will grow.”

“And that’s important?” Wes asked.

“It may be,” she said. She glanced at Takpusseh. “You will begin now.”

“You will also grow to feed you.” Takpusseh took a seed packet from one of the boxes. It was tiny in his ropy digits. He peered at it, tore it open. Some of the seeds spilled. A warrior was prepared: he swept a fine-mesh net through the cloud. Takpusseh himself ignored the incident. “Farming is different when you float. Seed must be pushed in, so, with small tool… no, your digits are small enough. Water comes from below, from wall. Against forward wall’, find special tools. Sticks to hold plants against thrust. Tools to stir dirt.”

John and Carrie Woodward were examining the dirt plot. They began taking seeds out of the boxes. John said “Plants should grow taller here,” with a question in his voice.

The children moved warily away, their eyes wide with wonder. Something like a bird whizzed past.

“Not there,” Tashayamp called. She motioned the children back to the group. “You wait here: Do not disturb those—”

Aft, from the grove of spiral-wound trees, came the windinstrument murmur of fithp voices.

The Herdmaster had climbed a huge pillar plant. Like the humans themselves, in the minuscule gravity he had become a brachiator. He found the viewpoint odd, amusing. He watched.

In a forward corner of the Garden the human prisoners worked. The Herdmaster admired their agility, newly trained dirtyfeet that they were. They seemed docile enough as they planted alien seeds in alien soil. Yet the Breakers’ disturbing reports could not be ignored much longer. It was more than enough to make his head ache.

Yet here were smells to ease his mind: plants in bloom, and a melancholy whiff of funereal scent. The end of life for the Traveler Fithp was the funeral pit, and then the Garden. Twelve fithp warriors, wounded on Winterhome, had gone to the funeral pit after Digit Ship Six returned them to Message Bearer.

The Garden was in perpetual bloom. Seasons mixed here, created by differing intensities of light, warmth, moisture. The alien growths might require alterations in weather. He hoped otherwise. Winterhome would be hospitable to Garden life, if the humans actually persuaded anything to grow here.

The Herdmaster would have preferred to loll in warm mud, but Message Bearer’s mudrooms had been drained while her drive guided the Foot toward its fiery fate. He had sought rest in the Garden; and it was here that the Year Zero Fithp confronted him. In the riot of scents he had not smelled their presence. Suddenly faces were looking at him over the edges of leaf-spiral, below him on the trunk of the pillar plant.

He looked back silently, letting them know that they had disturbed his time of quiet.

Born within a few eight-days of each other in an orgy of reproduction that had not been matched before or since, the Year Zero Fithp all looked much alike: smooth of skin, long-limbed and lean. Why not? But age clusters didn’t always think so much alike. These were the inner herd that led the larger herd of dissidents.

One was different. He looked older than the rest. His skin was darkened and roughened, one leg was immobilized with braces, and there was a look. This one had seen horrors.

With the Advisor’s consent, the Herdmaster had chosen to divide the Year Zero Fithp. Half the males had gone down to Winterhome. They were dead, or alive and circling Winterhome after the natives’ counterattack. That injured one must be fresh from the wars.

The Herdmaster’s claws gripped the trunk as he faced nine fithp below him. For a moment he thought to summon warriors; then a sense of amusement came over him. Dissidents they might be, but these were not rebels. So. They sought to awe the Herdmaster, did they?

And they had brought a hero fresh from the wars. No, these were no rogues. They wanted only to increase their influence…

“You have found me,” he said mildly. “Speak.”

Still they were silent. Two of the smaller humans wandered toward the group, but were retrieved by Tashayamp. Now the humans worked more slowly. They watched, no doubt, though they must be out of earshot. What passed here might affect all the herds of Winterhome. Still it was an imposition, and the Herdmaster would have asked Tashayamp to remove them if he could have spared the attention.

Finally one spoke. “Advisor Fathisteh-tulk had said that he would gather with us. He said that he had something to tell us. He did not come. We are told that he has not been seen on the bridge in two days.”

“He has neglected his duties,” Pastempeh-keph said mildly. “He has avoided the bridge, and his mate, nor does he answer calls. I have alerted my senior officers, but no others. Is it your will that I should ask for his arrest?”

They looked at each other, undecided. One said firmly, “No, Hercimaster.” He was a massive young fi’, posed a bit ahead of the others: Rashinggith, the Defensemaster’s son.

“So you do not know where he is either?”

“We had hoped to find him through you, Herdmaster.”

“Ha. I have asked his mate. She has not seen him, yet she has a newborn to show.” The Herdmaster became serious. “There are matters to decide, and we have no Advisor. What must I do?”

They looked at each other again. “The teqthuktun—”

“Precisely.” Pastempeh-keph breathed more easily. They still worried about the Law and their religion. Not rogues, not yet. “I can take no counsel nor make any decisions without advice from the sleepers. It is the teqthuktun. the pact we made with them, and Fistarteh-thuktun insists upon it. Now I have no Advisor, and there are matters to decide. Speak. What must I do?”

“You must find another Advisor,” the wounded one said.

“Indeed.” This hardly required discussion. The Traveler fithp might continue on their predetermined path, but no new decisions could be made without an Advisor.

Fathisteb-tulk might be dead, or too badly injured to perform his duties. He might have shirked his duty, crippling the herd at a critical moment. He might have been kidnapped… and if some herd within the Traveler Herd had been pushed to such an act, it would be stripped of its status. But the Advisor would still lose his post, for arousing such anger, for being so careless, for being gone.

The Herdmaster had already decided on his successor. Still, he must be found. “You, the injured one—”

“Herdmaster, I am Eight-Squared Leader Chintithpit-mang.”

He had heard that name; but where? Later. “You must come fresh from the digit ship. Do you know anything of this? Or are you only here to add numbers?”

“I know nothing of the Advisor. What I do know—”

“Later. You, Rashinggith. If you knew where the Advisor might be, you would go there.”

His digits knotted and flexed. “I assuredly would, Herdmaster.”

“But you might not tell me. Is there a place known only to dissidents? A place where he might commune with other dissidents, or only with himself?”

“No. Herdmaster, we fear for him.”

There must be such a place, but the dissidents themselves would have searched it by now. “I too fear for Fathisteh-tulk,” the Herdmaster admitted. “I went so far as to examine records of use of the airlocks, following which I summoned a list of fithp in charge of guarding the airlocks—”

“I chance to know that no dissidents guard the airlocks,” Rashinggith said.

An interesting admission. “I was looking for more than dissidents. Did it strike any of you that what Fathisteh-tulk was doing was dangerous? Consider the position of the sleepers. In herd rank the Advisor is the only sleeper of any real authority. The sleepers could not ask his removal. Yet he consistently opposed the War for Winterhome. How many sleepers are dissidents? I know only of one: Fathisteh-tulk.”

They looked at each other, and the Herdmaster knew at once that other sleepers held dissident views. Later. “There are sleepers in charge of guarding the airlocks. The drive is more powerful than the pull of the Foot’s mass. A corpse would drop behind, but would not disintegrate. The drive flame is hot but not dense. Our telescopes have searched for traces of a corpse in our wake.” Pause. “There is none.

“Shall we consider murder, then? By dissidents seeking a martyr, or conservative sleepers avoiding future embarrassment? Or did Fathisteh-tulk learn something that some fi’ wanted hidden? Or is he alive, hiding somewhere for his own purposes? Rashinggith, what did Fathisteh-tulk plan to tell you?” The Herdmaster looked about him. “Do any of you know? Did he leave hints? Did he even have interesting questions when last you saw him?”

“We don’t know he’s dead,” Rashinggith said uneasily.

“Enough,” the Herdmaster said. “We will find him. I hope to ask him where he has been.” That was a half-truth, Fathisteh-tulk would cause minimal embarrassment by being dead. On to other matters. The Herdmaster had remembered a name.

“Chintithpit-mang, you had someting to say?”

Nervous but dogged, the injured warrior got his mouth working. “The prey, the humans, they don’t know how to surrender.”

“They can be taught.”

“There was a-a burly one, bigger than most. I whipped his toy weapon from his hand and knocked him down and put my foot on his chest and he clawed at me with his bony digits until I pushed harder. I think I crushed him. Of the prisoners we brought back, only the scarlet-headed exotic would help us select human food! Even after we take their surrender they do not cooperate. Must we teach them to surrender, four billion of them, one at a time? We must abandon the target world. If we kill them all, the stink will make Winterhome like one vast funeral pit!”

Chintithpit-mang was one of six officers under Siplisteph.

Siplisteph’was a sleeper; his mate had not survived frozen sleep, and he had not mated since. He had reached Winterbome as eightcubed leader of the intelligence group. It was an important post, and Siplisteph had risen higher still due to deaths among his superiors. The Herdmaster intended to asic him to become his Advisor, subject to the approval of the females of the sleeper herd-and Fistarteh-thuktun, as keeper of the teqthuktun.

Chintithpit-mang was among those who might have Siplisteph’s post.

“Why did you seek me?” the Herdmaster demanded.

The response was unexpected: first one, then others, began a keening wail. The rest joined.