Grass (64 page)

Those with the arrogance to be ridden could not disguise their eldritch riders, however. The sight of a shuddering corpselike figure coming head high along a wall was enough to warn that there was a beast beneath it. Roald, peering down from the aircar at this display, wondered what arcane motives led the Hippae to this horrid mockery of a Hunt? Why did they burden themselves with these useless excrescences? When the Hippae died, their riders rolled off, some of them alive, some barely alive, some already truly dead. Roald had picked up a few that looked like they might make it. Even the most alive among them did not know why they were there. Why were they there?

"I see more dead ones," Roald muttered to Alverd as they flew from rooftop to rooftop. "More dead Hippae."

"I know," Alverd marveled. "Who's killing them? Not the troopers. They're all tied up over at the order station."

"Us, I guess."

Alverd snorted. "Not likely, father-in-law. There's another dead one, at the corner down there. All torn apart."

"What's killing them, if we're not?"

"I don't know," he said. "Something. Something we can't see. Something with teeth."

From the lowest floor of the Port Hotel winter quarters, Marjorie worked her way through the network of tunnels toward the barn, which stood almost at the wall of Com. The trip recorder could not guide her but it would keep her from becoming irretrievably lost. The barn was not far from the place where Hippae rampaged and killed. It would be difficult to get the horses out without being seen. However, if they could reach the swamp forest they might be safe. If they were seen, she would undoubtedly be slaughtered. She felt the anger of the Hippae, against her, personally. She was the one they hated. She had spied on them, gone into their cavern, ridden against them. They would not miss the chance to bring her down.

Even so, if she could get the horses out onto the slope, some of them would make it. She could get them moving in the right direction, at least. Once they reached the forest, First would take them, protect them. Gallant horses. They deserved better than this fangy death. They deserved meadows and foals and long days of grazing under the sun.

Her feet echoed on the stone. Dim lights picked out the junctures of one tunnel with another. When the trip recorder said she had come far enough in the proper direction, she began looking for a way up. The horses would be above her somewhere. Pray the barn had not yet attracted Hippae attention. Pray the horses were not injured, or dead.

No
, said someone.
The horses are safe.

She stopped, stunned into frozen immobility. That voice belonged to the wilderness, to the trees, not to these dry, dark corridors. When the shock passed, she turned toward the voice as a compass needle turns toward the north, quivering.

Here,
it said.
Here.

She crept toward the summons, upward along slanting corridors, up twisting flights of stairs, pulled like a fish on a line.

He was in the barn with the horses, lying across the door. She saw the troubled air, the miragelike wavering, the glint of tooth or eye. The horses chewed quietly, undisturbed. When she came in, Quixote whickered at her and she leaned against the wall, trembling. So. Was He the only one to get involved, or were there other foxen as well?

Why are you here?
she asked.

I knew you would come here,
He replied, in words, human words, clear as air.

She shook with the implications of that.
I could not abandon my friends.
she said.

I know,
He said.
I knew before, but my people didn't believe in you.

She asked,
Have they changed their minds'?

Yes. Because of these, He said.
Because of the horses.

She saw herself on Quixote's back, menaced from front and rear, the aircar above her offering escape, saw herself refusing to go. The picture in her mind was larger than life, freighted with enormous import. She would not leave the horses. Silly, she thought.
I thought so at the time.

Silly, He agreed, using words again.
Important. Important to know one would risk herself for another not like herself. Important to know humans feel loyalty. Important to know friendship can extend from race to race.

Were the Arbai your friends?

A negation. She saw Arbai involved with Hippae, working with Hippae while foxen prowled nearby and the Arbai studiously avoided seeing them. To the foxen, it seemed the Arbai preferred to teach at arm's length rather than communicate as the foxen did; she felt the fastidious withdrawal of the Arbai, their punctilious modesty of mind, similar to her own feelings, but carried so much further! They could not see evil, but they could perceive an invasion of privacy, and they rejected it. How familiar! How horrible!

He agreed. Nonetheless, He felt pity and guilt that they had died.

They died
, she said,
Now we are dying. The
Hippae
are up there. They'll get into Commons and kill us.

Already in Commons. But not many are dying. Not this time.

You're protecting us?

This time we know what is happening.

You didn't know what was happening before? she asked.
You didn't know what was happening to the Arbai?
It seemed impossible, and yet, would the foxen necessarily have known? The slaughter had been out on the prairie, away from the forest ...

He said,
Some hated humans because you hunted us. Some felt it was not our affair, not our concern, because you would not be our friends, no more than the Arbai. I told them Mainoa was friend. They said he was only one, a freak, unlike any other. I said no, there would be others. Then there was you. They say you, too, are freak, and I say there will be others yet.
We
have argued over it. Finally, we have compromised.
Humor Almost laughter, yet with something sad and tentative in it.
We agree if you are truly my friend, I can tell you.

Me?

If you will give your word. To be friend as Mainoa was friend. To be where I am.

She heard only the condition and assented to it at once. She had already decided to stay here She would not take Stella away from here. At least the people here understood what had happened to her.

I will give my word,
she said.

To be where I am?

Yes.

Even if that is not here?

Not here? Where would He be, if not here? She waited for explanation and got none. Something told her she would receive none. If she could only see His face. See His expression … 
We see one another,
He told her.
We foxen.

She flushed. Of course they saw one another, in their intimacy. As she could have seen them if she had let go of herself and joined them. As humans stripped away their day-to-day habiliments to come to their lovers naked, so foxen stripped away concealing illusion to perceive the reality … 

But she could not see Him now. If she accepted this condition, it would have to be blindly, like a ritual, like a marriage ceremony, swearing to forsake all others for this one, this enigma, with no more certainty than there had been before. Swearing to give up her central self for something else. She shivered. Oh, perilous. Take it or leave it.

How could she? This is what Rigo had wanted, too, and she had tried, over and over, but could not. Because she had not known him, had not trusted him … Did she trust this one?

He had known where to find her. He had committed Himself and His people to saving her and her people. What else could He have done to be trustworthy? What else would she have him do?

She sighed, choking on the words, committing herself forever. "Yes. I promise."

He showed her then why and how the Arbai had died. Why men were dying.

When she understood, she leaned against Him, her mind whirling in a disorderly ferment of ideas, things she had heard, connections she had made. He did not interrupt her. At last things began to fall into place. She only partially understood, and yet the answer was there, close, like a treasure sparkling in a flowing stream, disclosing itself.

There is something you must get for me,
she said.
Then I must go through these tunnels into town … 

Marjorie came into the cavern where Lees Bergrem was huddled over a desk. For a time she stood in the corner, unseen, putting her thoughts together. Lees looked up, aware of being observed.

"Marjorie?" she asked. "I thought you were at the Port Hotel! I thought the Hippae had you trapped!"

"There's at least one tunnel under the wall. I came back through it," she said. "I had to talk to you "

"No time," the other said, turning back to her work. "No time to talk about anything."

"A cure," she said. "I think I know."

The doctor turned burning eyes. "Know? Just like that, you know?"

"Know something important," she said. "Two important things, really. Yes. Just like that."

"Tell me."

"First important thing: The Hippae killed the Arbai by kicking dead bats through their transporters. We don't have transporters, so the Hippae have been killing us by putting dead bats on our ships."

"Dead bats!" She pursed her lips, concentrating. "The bon Damfels man said that was symbolic behavior!"

"Oh, yes. It is symbolic. The problem is that we thought of it as purely symbolic. We should have remembered that symbols are often distillations of reality – that flags were once banners flown during battle. That a crucifix was once a real device for execution. Both are symbols of something that is or was once real."

"Real what?" Lees sat down, glaring at Marjorie. "Bats are real what?"

Marjorie rubbed her head, ruefully. "Real pains in the neck, originally. Real vermin. The Hippae kick dead ones at one another. I've seen them do it."

"We know that! Sylvan bon Damfels said it meant 'You're nothing but vermin.' "

"Yes. Originally, it would have meant 'You're nothing but vermin.' That's what it meant when the Hippae kicked dead bats at the Arbai, too. On Terra there were once animals that threw feces at strangers. The Hippae despise strangers. They think of all other creatures either as useful tools, like the migerers or the Huntsmen, or as things to be despised and, if possible, killed. The Arbai fell into that category, so the Hippae kicked dead bats at them, and at their houses, and at their transporter. It was pure chance that a bat happened to go through the transporter to somewhere else. At this end, it was only symbolic. At the other end, it meant plague. Death."

"The vector of infection … "

"Yes. It happened. Somewhere, wherever the transporter was set for, Arbai died. And then the foolish Arbai here on Grass told the Hippae what had happened. From that moment on, the gesture no longer meant 'You're vermin' It meant 'You're dead.' Once the Hippae knew they could kill by putting bats through the transporter, they kept on repeating the act. It was not symbolic, it was real."

"Kept on – "

"Kicking dead bats through the transporter until all the Arbai were infected. It may not have taken long. Maybe only a day or a week. Whenever they weren't observed. The Arbai were so … so set in their thinking that they never thought to set a guard. I'm assuming the transporter must have worked like a voice-activated com-link. Whenever the network was in use, certain sets of terminals must have come on so that a bat kicked in at one terminal would have ended up far away. On Repentance? On Shame? There are Arbai ruins both places. On a hundred worlds we've never seen? Wherever, however many, it worked. The Arbai died, everywhere. Hippae memorialized the event in their dances. A great victory. 'Fun to kill strangers.' They remembered it.

"When humans came to Grass, the Hippae would have repeated the act again, but we didn't have transporters, we had ships. Dead bats had worked with the Arbai, so the Hippae decided to put dead bats on our ships. Our ships, however, were inside the forest where the foxen had influenced us to put our port. The foxen had believed that if the port was inside the swamp forest, it would be safe. The foxen had enjoyed having the Arbai around. Though they would have liked direct contact, being telepathic they hadn't needed to have it. They had sought a kind of intellectual intimacy with the Arbai and been rebuffed, so they didn't try it with us. Instead, they regarded us as we might regard some intelligent, interesting, but unaffectionate pet, and they thought we would be safe enough … 

"They underestimated the Hippae. Perhaps they thought the Hippae wouldn't remember after all those centuries, but they did remember. They had codified their memory into dancing, into patterns. When men first arrived, the Hippae set the migerers to digging a tunnel, at first only a small one, one large enough to admit one human messenger at a time. Human messengers the Hippae had wiped clean except for a certain
impetus,
a certain programmed activity – "

"That's unbelievable!"

"It's quite believable because it was only a slight variation of their natural habit. Peepers have no such ability. Hounds have almost none. The Hippae have enough to affect the minds of those around them and bend those minds to their purposes. Think of what they do to the migerers and to the Huntsmen! When the Hippae change into foxen, the ability is multiplied a hundredfold. Hippae may not be truly intelligent. Evil and sly. yes, able to learn but incapable of true subtlety. They learned to kill by accident, but once having learned, they went on, and on. Everything they have done was merely a repetition of a pattern they already knew … "

The doctor was very still, thinking. "You said you knew two important things."

"The other thing was about your books. I tried to read them. I'm not scientific. All I can remember is that one of them was about this nutrient, this protein building block. You said it was something we all needed. Most living cells. And you said it existed in two forms here on Grass, and only here. I got to wondering why. Why two forms here? And then I wondered, what if something here turned it around? What if something here on Grass turned around an essential nutrient? Something all our cells need and use. Something we couldn't use in a reversed form … "