Wulfsyarn: A Mosaic (19 page)

A fine rain was falling from the invisible clouds. Occasionally the air in the valley darkened and the rain became intense, pelting down into the lush green grass of the valley floor where a river moved with the quick grace of a brown snake. On its back it carried gray branches which had been stranded on the river bank since the last heavy rains. That had been in the springtime. Now it was autumn. Mixed with the bare branches were dark-rooted shrubs, tom loose by the cascading white streams which tumbled down into the narrow valley.

Where the river narrowed there were rapids. Here the branches, logs, shrubs and weeds tangled together and gradually began to form a dam. The brown water churned to lather and swirled and deepened as the dam bound fast. Below the dam the water level dropped away, until with a roar the branches snapped and the water broke through, carrying the tangled parts of the dam like swamped rafts down the hump-backed rapids.

The creation and destruction of the dams was part of the rhythm of the valley, a rhythm which had endured since the very forming of the river.

Watching the tumbling water from the dry security of his rough stone cote is the young shepherd called Sandy.

He has fair hair and freckles and mischievous blue eyes set in a rather plump face. The plumpness is puppy fat. He is already growing toward manhood. Soon he will be tall and rangy and weathered, but for the moment it is the boy that looks out with wonder at the world. He is a junior contact confrere of the Gentle Order and he was selected for this role while still an infant. Long sleeps have delayed his maturity and during these he has been prepared for the raw ordeal of being a contact confrere.

Sandy was enjoying his vigil. The solitude and the dismal sky did not depress him. He knew, though he did not know quite how he knew, that he had already been selected to join the
Nightingale.
This placed him among the forefront of his colleagues and he was proud and pleased and happy.

He watched the latest dam break and then settled himself back comfortably under the dripping eaves and felt inside his habit for his pipe and small tin of tobacco. At the same time he stretched out a leg and kicked the embers of his small fire together. A breeze tickled the glowing wood and a blade of flame perked up and he was able to select a spill of straw and light his pipe.

Two black dogs, which lay stretched out by the fire, moved in the sudden warmth and their tongues lolled out and wiped their noses. Their brown eyes watched Sandy carefully, alert for any movement of his which might indicate the imminence of food.

Sandy puffed contentedly and stared down the valley. His flock of large woolly rodents were on the hillside well above the marshy river flat. From this distance they looked like fat gray maggots. Apart from the occasional bleating, the only sounds which came to the young shepherd were the dull roar of the river and the sudden, sweet, bell-like calling of the birds as they made '.heir territories known. There were no sudden movements either. Just the nodding of flowers as they filled with the fine rain and tipped their heads to empty themselves. Even the breaking of the dam seemed to take place in slow motion.

Everything was normal.

And then suddenly nothing was normal.

Within the cote an alarm bell shrilled. A brilliant white light flashed on. The dogs reared up, snarling and baring their teeth. Sandy threw his pipe aside and scrambled over to the viewscreen which was situated in the wall angle at the back of the cote. He hit the “open” switch.

Seconds later the small platform above the machine effervesced and a gray-green, ghostly head appeared. It was the Senior Contact Consoeur, the Magistra herself, calling directly from the main hospital area at Shamrock Central.

Reception was bad on account of the weather and the high valley walls. The face lacked solidity and Sandy could see the grainy surface of the rough stone wall behind it. The colors were reversed.

The gray-green head seemed to peer into the gloom of the sheep-cote. “Can’t hardly see ya,” came a faint nasal voice. Sandy adjusted the light on the top of the machine so that it shone fiercely down on him. “Ah, so there y’are.”

Sandy could feel his heart beating. It was unknown for the Magistra to contact a trainee while on vigil. This could only be the news which he had foreseen.

“I have exciting news for you, young Sandy. You are to be given your first assignment. It is aboard the
Nightingale."
Magistra Marcova paused to allow this news to sink in. “You will be in charge of a parasite entity called a Quelle. It is a rare specimen. One about whom we know little except the planet of origin. On its homeworld it links with an animal called a Hydron, a giant creature with many legs and the carapace of a crab and there are few of these now too, since the War. You will carry the Quelle back to its homeworld and protect it until a true host can be found. Are you happy with this news? Do you feel ready?”

To both of these questions Sandy merely nodded. Magistra Marcova accepted this. She knew that young boys were often tongue-tied.

“So,” continued the Magistra, “the
Nightingale
has been with us for several days and is now fully assigned. The Quelle is aboard inside its present host and is waiting for you.”

“Why does the Quelle not remain with its present host all the way to its homeworld? They must be happy together,” asked Sandy, a bit stiffly.

The gray-green head smiled. “They are happy, as you say. But the host will die soon and we need a high intelligence to prepare the future of the Quelle. You may withdraw if you wish. No penalty or disfavor will—” “No. No. No. No.” called Sandy. “That was merely a question. I am ready to serve at any time. The sooner the better. When can I join the
Nightingale
?”

“The
Nightingale
will find you. It has already departed from Shamrock Central. It has your coordinates. It will be with you within hours or days. It will send down a land-sleigh to collect you. Any more questions?”

“Who will guard my flock?”

“There is a young confrere already on his way. Do not worry about your flock. They will be cared for. I hope you enjoy your first mission. Remember to keep plenty of notes of your experience as we taught you. Good luck.” There was no more to say. Magistra Marcova smiled and waved and then her sharp-featured face abruptly vanished leaving the space where it had been milky. The brilliant light which had shone down on Sandy faded slowly and the filaments in the lamp glowed golden and red.

Sandy made his way to the door of the sheep-cote and looked out. The rain was still falling and the valley was darker. Evening was approaching. The Magistra had said that the
Nightingale
would arrive “within hours or days.” The great ship would surely not try to find him in the dark. He had no beacon. He would have one last night of peace before the most important day of his life.

He began to think about food and about cleaning up the small station before his departure. He had not checked his snares since morning. He hoped there would be a nice fat coney to savor his pot. Sandy had a liking for fresh meat and this was part of his training for he was schooled to take charge of the lion but not the lamb and hence had to understand the hunter. The snare killed quickly and cleanly.

Sandy whistled to his dogs and pulled his hood up over his head and was about to step outside when one of the dogs reared up on its hind legs with a low growl and bared its teeth. At almost the same moment Sandy felt a tingling in his scalp, an itchiness, as though there were ants in his hair. He ran out of the low enclosure and stared at the sky. There was nothing to be seen except perhaps a faint luminescence behind the clouds. He put his fingers to his mouth and whistled short imperative messages which sent his dogs like black arrows through the green meadows. Behind them rose a bright arc of spray.

The shreep heard the whistling too and began to mill about in their silly fashion, waiting for one of them to take the lead. And then the dogs were on them, from different sides, growling and creeping and threatening until the shreep had no alternative but to pour down the hillside like so many grains of sugar from a broken bag toward the enclosure.

Sandy held the gate at the back of the enclosure open and whistled and urged the shreep while his scalp prickled as though his hair was catching fire.

Sandy knew what he was experiencing. The tingling was an anti-grav rake. He had felt such before but never so intensely. The dogs were in pain. One of them twitched as it ran, twisting its head up over its back and snapping as though to remove a predator. The other ran with its tad down and then rolled on the ground and squirmed in the mud.

The shreep began to panic too. Most entered the pen, but some ran straight past despite Sandy and his widespread arms. Others blundered into the water-meadow and became stranded in the mud and sodden. A few with their mouths open and their eyes showing white plunged straight into the river and were gone in an instant.

Sandy slammed the gate to the enclosure as soon as the last shreep had entered. Then he staggered around the budding and in through the door. He tore at his hair and tried to scratch inside his heavy water-blackened habit.

The air outside the enclosure began to glow a fierce vivid green. Sandy heard the shreep begin to clamor in fear. Of the dogs there was no sight.

From outside there came a sudden noise like thunder and the walls shook. Then there was silence and brilliance and Sandy remembered no more.

He awoke aboard the
Nightingale.

Do you who are reading this believe in omens? I do not. However, I can recognize that some ventures begin well and others begin ill and retrospectively these beginnings can be accorded significance. Contact Confrere Sandy’s entry into the
Nightingale
was accompanied by disaster. The coordinates given to the
Nightingale
were wrong by a fraction of a degree. The giant ship used as one of its anchor points the very valley where young Sandy was waiting. The brilliant green light that he saw and the tingling that he felt on his scalp were both the effects of his being placed almost directly under the anti-grav foot of the
Nightingale.
Luckily, Contact Confrere Sandy was not directly under the beam or he would have been killed. Also, he was protected by the thick walls and roof of the small cote. But the shreep and the dogs were not. All died.

The land-raft dispatched to pick up Sandy discovered the error and rescued him.

Apart from the loss of two highly trained dogs and the entire flock of shreep, the damage was not great. It took Sandy just twenty-four hours to recover and then he declared himself ready to accommodate the Quelle. The doctor/technicians aboard the
Nightingale
demurred and he spent another week recovering.

The
Nightingale
was full. Aboard the ship there was a crew of two thousand, four hundred. There were eight hundred and twenty Close Metabolism Life-forms and a hundred and thirty Distant Metabolism aliens.

The ship was tight. All its systems were stretched in a proper and complete way. The analogy with an athlete suggests itself: the runner when racing is good and complete: such was the
Nightingale.

Sandy was introduced to the Quelle as soon as he had completed his short convalescence. It was the very night that the
Nightingale
was shifting from the orbit of Shamrock and out into free space. Wilberfoss accompanied Sandy down into the DME section where Mohawk was in attendance. She had taken a special interest in the Quelle for they were so rare and so strange even by the standards of the DME adepts.

A room had been created which resembled the simple, pleasant cell that Sandy had occupied during his training on Shamrock. The room had its own small garden off to one side and was filled with flowering plants. All Sandy’s few possessions were there.

Standing on a table in the center of the room was a cage and in this was lying a cat with blue fur. Judging from its stillness and the regularity of its breathing the cat seemed to be asleep but its fur stood out as can happen when a cat meets a dog. This was the present host to the Quelle.

Since the death of its natural host several hundred years earlier the Quelle had maintained itself among a family line of cats, moving from mother to daughter down the generations. Slowly, it had outgrown the capacity of its hosts.

As a parasite that lived inside the body of its host, the Quelle thrived in the physical systems such as the circulation of the blood and in the nervous and mental systems. It caused certain minor physiological changes in its host (with the exception of its natural host) such as turning the skin or fur blue. It also brought the power of speech to creatures which, in their natural state, had no verbal language. Speculation about the origin of the Quelle held that it was a creature between spirit and matter. That it was life without a distinct form of its own and that it had come into being in the chaotic times when the universe was young. At some point in their evolutionary history the proto-Quelle had joined with the Hydron, which was regarded as one of the oldest species in existence. There had been Hydron and Quelle, living in the one body, and crawling in the cold seas of their homeworld long before the earth was formed.

The cat’s eyes opened as they entered the room and it stared at them fixedly. Then it yawned showing all its teeth. Its face twisted as though an unseen hand were pressing and pulling it and the lips moved. A voice spoke, manufactured from a nose and throat that had been developed for no more than mewing. “Are you my new vehicle?”

Mohawk prompted the young boy with a nudge.

“I think I am,” said Sandy.

“Come closer,” said the cat. “My eyes are weakening. Damned poor biology. Failing under stress. I want to see you.” The cat stood up and arched its back and stretched its claws and then sprang up onto the side of the cage and held on there, more like a monkey than a feline. There were flecks of saliva at the side of its mouth. The eyes stared at Sandy and Sandy felt himself threatened. Once, while guarding his flock of shreep at night, he had been wakened by panicked bleating. In one movement he had rolled from his sleeping bag, grabbed his electric probe and run outside to discover what was wrong. In the darkness he had met the glaring yellow eyes of a mountain hyena, a beast that was as large as a pony and with jaws that could bite a shreep in half. Both had been surprised and while the hyena growled like a saw blade on iron, Sandy instinctively struck with his probe for the eyes and scored. The probe released its charge and the eyes closed and the beast slumped. Minutes later, when the charge in the probe had accumulated, Sandy set it to high power and killed the hyena by burning its brain.