Dragon's Egg (13 page)

West-Light stopped and emptied out his pouches. He had been carrying some half-ripe pods from the fields that must have become edible since the trek had started, along with some nearly ripe wild pods.

“We were worried that perhaps there might not be enough food to keep the hatchlings healthy,” West-Light said. “So we gathered what we could these past few turns before you got too far away for me to reach. Here—take good care of the hatchlings.”

Great-Crack whispered, “Thank you, West-Light.” She moved forward to pick up his meager offering. She then stared as the thinnest cheela she had ever seen slowly pushed his way back to their now abandoned camp.

“He has not eaten a thing since we left,” she thought to herself. She turned and went back to join the rest of the clan, still moving slowly southward towards Bright’s Heaven.

The trek was dreary. The progress was much slower than Great-Crack had counted on, and she felt the pouch of seeds that represented the remaining food get smaller and smaller after every break. The quality of the food became worse as they ate all the ripe pods and started on the ones that had only partially ripened in their pouches. The littlest hatchlings didn’t want to eat these and were constantly sick. Great-Crack sent out hunting parties both east and west, but often they came back with neither pods nor meat. Great-Crack grew desperate. They were losing a hatchling every few turns; for the first time in ages, some of the clan’s eggs refused to hatch and had to be left after it became evident that the eggling inside was dead.

“All the clan is in poor shape,” Great-Crack said to herself as she worked in the rear, constantly closing gaps that a youngster or an Old One had let fall into the body of the traveling group. She looked backward. There was a long, straggling column that had become separated from the rest of the group when one of the members faltered and allowed the hard direction to close in on him. She watched as he attempted to move forward again, but it was obvious that the speed he was able to make in the hard direction would not be fast enough to let him and his followers catch up with the rest of the clan. She then saw a movement off in the smoky east that sent her into action.

“Attack from east!” she stamped as she pushed her way through the crowded clan members. When she got to the eastern edge she saw it was serious. It was a large, hungry war party and they had already cut off the straggling string from the rest of the clan. She soon had a group of warriors on either side of her and noticed with satisfaction that the clan had stopped moving and were now in a coherent group, with the stronger ones facing outward, spears and shards bristling. She started forward to rescue the captives, when her trained senses detected something from the west. It was another war party waiting for them to attack the first group, when they could rush on them from the rear.

“Stop!” she commanded. She led the war party back to protect the rest of the clan, then watched in agony as the captives were killed and the precious pods wrenched from their flowing bodies and devoured by the hungry band of marauders. The war party stayed for a few turns, trying to figure out a way to attack the rest of the clan. They made a few abortive attacks, one of which gave Great-Crack deep satisfaction as she dispatched two of the enemy, partially to avenge the clan members she had lost. Finally the war party gave up
the siege and went off toward the west, hauling the meat from their victims with them. Great-Crack immediately took the clan off again toward Bright’s Heaven.

With their enforced rest, the clan was in better shape, and with the example of what happened to stragglers still etched in their minds, there were very few times that the gap opened by the pathbreakers was allowed to fail, and the clan made good time for a few turns. But it soon became obvious to Great-Crack that they were in serious trouble. At the next break she got out the pebbles that represented the members of the clan, and after discarding the ones that had been killed in the interchange with the attackers, she laid them out in a column.

She knew that they were still far from Bright’s Heaven, for they had just started to get to the “lost feeling” region. She made an estimate of how many turns it would take them to reach Bright’s Heaven and laid those cluster seeds out in a row. She then started to fill in the diagram with seeds representing the pods left. There was no question about it—they were short by many, many pods.

She stared at the large empty space in the diagram, and her imaginative brain turned the empty space into empty cheela. It was now time—she would have to risk the chance of another attack and split her forces.

The clan grew restless as the break grew longer while Great-Crack calculated. She finally called her warriors together and explained the situation to them. Blue-Flow had never really learned why the seeds and pebbles told things to Creat-Crack that he could not see, but he now was very glad that Great-Crack had prevented him from leading the clan off many turns ago. With far fewer pods, he would have had them all dead by now. But he didn’t need pebbles and seeds to tell him
that there were not enough pods for them to make it to Bright’s Heaven.

“Blue-Flow,” she said, “I want you to lead a hunting party to Bright’s Heaven and bring back pods for us.” She looked down at the diagram and said, “You will only need a Slink’s worth of pods to keep you going. You are going to arrive very hungry—but the ripe pods at the end of the journey will make it worthwhile.”

Blue-Flow and the others in the hunting party emptied out most of their pouches. Some of them attempted to leave without taking any pods, preferring to leave them for the hatchlings while making do with bravado, but Great-Crack, trusting in her calculations, made them take their ration of pods. The hunting party took off and was rapidly out of sight of the slowly moving clan.

With her warrior forces depleted, Great-Crack took no chances and moved the clan along carefully so that no gaps developed and the perimeter always had warriors on the lookout both east and west.

The hunting party quickly traveled over the “lost feeling” region and soon saw the welcome sight of Bright peeking over the horizon. As they came into the region where the skies became clear and the petal plants flourished, they ate their fill and then started loading up their pouches in preparation for the long trek back to the hungry clan.

Suddenly Bad-Turn whispered, “I see a Flow Slow moving just over the horizon.” Blue-Flow and the others soon confirmed the sighting and they thinned their bodies to keep out of its sight.

“It is to the east and we could get to it easily,” Blue-Flow whispered. “The hatchlings have been without meat since we left home. Let’s kill it!”

The Flow Slow depended on its armored plates for protection. This one had never seen a cheela before, and
ignored them as it ignored all small, scurrying creatures. The Flow Slow moved ponderously from plant to plant, its armored tread plates moving over its top surface to fall directly on the plant, crushing it to pulp, to be ingested in the gaps between the plates as the huge body slowly flowed onward. The Flow Slow sought out plants, but, as many an unfortunate cheela had found out, it would eat anything that happened to fall before its onslaught.

The kill was easy, since the Flow Slow had never tasted a dragon crystal spear before. The cheela slipped in ahead of it, timing their moves carefully, and planted spears in the crust in just the correct position so that the sharp points entered the gaps between the plates as they came down to the surface.

As they started to move away from the carcass, Bad-Turn looked back at it and said, “Too bad we can’t carry that whole carcass back to the clan. If they had all that meat to eat, there would be no worry about food for the rest of the trip.”

Blue-Flow replied, “I thought about that too. We could try to push a large chunk of meat ahead of us, but we can carry in our pouches more than we can push—especially when we have to go in the hard direction. Besides, pushing the meat through the ashes over that whole distance will ruin it.”

“If we only had some way to keep it out of the ashes,” murmured Bad-Turn, and he went over to one of the large Flow Slow plates and looked at it. It was large, half as big as he was. It was a flat square plate of material almost as hard as dragon crystal. At the front and back edges were curved lips that had been attached to the skin of the Flow Slow. Bad-Turn flowed onto the plate, thinking, “This could hold a lot of meat and pods, much more than I could carry in my pouches.” He flowed to the front lip and stayed there for a moment,
his back edge hanging back on the front lip of the plate.

“What are you doing?” Blue-Flow asked. “We should be going.”

“Watch!” said Bad-Turn, and Blue-Flow and the others saw his back edge stiffen as he grew a long internal manipulator crystal that ran from one end of the Flow Slow plate to the other. Since the crystal was horizontal and did not have to fight the pull of Egg, he could make it very thin, thin enough just to fit under the lip of the plate.

“I never heard of growing a manipulator bone that way,” one of the party said to Blue-Flow. Then they both watched as Bad-Turn moved away, the front of his body digging into the crust and the back edge dragging the plate along behind, firmly attached by the strong crystal bar just under the skin and stretching from one eye to another.

“It feels funny, but it works,” Bad-Turn said. “Once I get it moving, it is easy to keep it moving despite its weight. With someone behind pushing, I think we could pull much more than we could carry.”

The others tried it and they were all quick converts, especially when they tried it with a huge pile of bulky chunks of meat that could never be crammed into pouches. Within less than a turn, the Flow Slow had been converted into meat piled on top of its own armored plates.

The hunting party then moved off in single file, a pathbreaker leading the way, pushing into the hard direction, followed by a plate-puller crouched up behind him, hauling a plate of meat and helped along by a pusher and followed by three other teams. The meat on the plates seemed to work as well as their bodies at keeping the gap open in the hard direction, so they made good time. Their rest breaks were few and short
and only for downing another chunk of nourishing meat.

When Great-Crack observed them coming over the horizon, she saw them at a great distance. Many turns ago she had stopped the trek to conserve food, while she kept watch with an eye perched up on a long eye-stub. There were no longer any pods for anyone except the hatchlings, and they were doing poorly on those. The whole clan was gathered in a circle, too weak to move much, and Great-Crack herself was forced to lower her eye-stub often.

“Fine Leader you turned out to be,” she berated herself. “Leading your clan off to die beneath smoky skies in a place where they always feel lost.”

Still, she had faith that Blue-Flow would return shortly with pods and that then they could move again while Blue-Flow returned for more. She was relieved when she saw the returning column, but was amazed by the bulk and length of it. Only the obvious shape of Blue-Flow breaking path at the front of the column relieved her worry that it was another attacking war party.

The clan watched in awe as the procession pulled their wonderful-looking cargo into camp. Within two turns everyone was back to a good comfortable bulk. The hatchlings were soon feeling good enough to make pests of themselves while the adults were more interested in pairing off and having a little fun alone. Great-Crack listened in admiration as Blue-Flow recounted their journey, the kill of the Flow Slow, and the results of Bad-Turn’s invention.

“Bad-Turn,” Great-Crack said, “for too long you have been stuck with that dreary hatchling name. From now on you shall be Plate-Puller.

“Come with me,” she commanded, and some of her eyes turned to look back at Blue-Flow as they left. “I will see you later. This new name calls for a reward.”
Blue-Flow watched the couple go off, a little jealous, but he would have his chance later this turn.

With their strength renewed by the meat and ripe pods, the clan moved off at good speed. It was not long before they began to feel less lost. The sky cleared and finally Great-Crack called a halt and arranged the clan so that all, even the smallest hatchling, could see the intense reddish yellow glow of Bright on the horizon.

“O Great Bright One. Brightest of all in the sky,” Great-Crack intoned, all of her dozen eyes staring at the bright star while her undertread rhythmically pulsed the crust. “We thank You for saving us from the rolling walls of blue-white fire. We thank You for saving us from the choking clouds of poisonous red smoke that kill the plants and still the eggs. We thank You for leading us out of the land of starvation and lostness to Your Heaven.”

Her eyes turned from the star and looked around at the clan. “Let us go now to claim our reward—a Heaven where there are no enemies and plenty of food and game. Come—all of you—into Bright’s Heaven.”

The strong limbs of Commander Carole Swenson pulled her compact body slowly along the central shaft of St. George, her long yellow braid flipping from side to side with the motion. Carole’s eyes automatically monitored the traffic in the side corridors, watching the to and fro motion of the humanity on her tiny planet. Although many of the crew were still busy with their normal tasks, there was a general flow toward the viewing ports near the bridge. However, Carole was headed in another direction, toward the port science blister. The view of the upcoming action would not be as good there, but she wanted to see the closeups from the cameras on the probe spacecraft. She swung into a corridor
and with a dexterity born of many years in free fall, launched her body unerringly toward the hatch at the far end. Bouncing to a halt on the wall next to the hatch, she palmed the lock and floated in. No one saw her enter, for Pierre had his science crew busy.

“How much longer?” she asked the group gathered in front of consoles at the other end of the room.

Pierre glanced at the flickering numbers on the right of his screen. “Fourteen minutes, and everything looks fine.”