The Iron Breed (10 page)

Voak raised his staff to beckon. Jony stumbled forward obediently. One of the other People advanced to take Maba from him. He and Geogee followed on their own feet, though Jony did not miss the point that Voak himself had caught Jony's own staff, drawing it easily away from Geogee.

They staggered along, the People closing in about Jony and Geogee in a way which was not protective, but rather gave the feeling that they were now prisoners. So they traveled in silence back to the campsite near the stream.

Voak waved his staff in another gesture, sending them to their sleep nests. The one who had carried Maba gave her over to Yaa, who carried her back into the family place. Jony knew a little relief at that. He still trusted Yaa to give the girl care. He did not know what was wrong with Maba. The thought persisted that she might have contracted some illness connected with the place of stones, and he feared how dire that might be.

Geogee came and curled up beside him under their covering.

“Jony,” his voice was the thinnest of whispers in the dark as Jony stretched his aching legs and tried to find comfort from the fact that at least they were back in the camp. “Jony, what is the matter? Why do the People hate us?”

Hate them? Jony was not sure that was the emotion which had built the wall so suddenly between them and the only friendly life they had known. Something vital, and perhaps terrible, had happened to their easy relationship with the People. However, he would have to wait for an explanation rather than guess.

“They may not hate us,” he tried to find comfort for Geogee. “We could have broken one of their clan rules by going to that place. If that is so, there will be a judging.”

Geogee shivered so that Jony could feel the shaking of his body.

“They will beat us with vines!” He was remembering last warm season when there had been a judging against Tigun after he had acted foolishly and been reckless about leading a smaa lizard across their trail, so that the lizard had come hunting them and Hrus had been badly bitten.

“If they do,” Jony told him, “or if they try, then they shall beat me only. I was the one who went to the stone place; you only followed.”

“No,” Geogee sniffled. “We saw you come out. But we wanted to see inside. We knew it was wrong.”

“If I had not done it first,” Jony continued, “or gone hunting for the stone river, you would not have followed. If Voak thinks we have done wrong, I shall let him know that that is the truth. Now—try to sleep, Geogee.”

In spite of his own fatigue Jony did not sleep at once. He had told Geogee the exact truth. The People were reasonable and very just. They would understand that if any punishment was to be meted out, it must be his rather than the twins'. The children had only followed because they had been curious concerning his actions. His own curiosity was what he must answer for.

After a while he dreamed. Again he stood in that place by the block whereon sparkled those dots of colored fire, which could almost be the stars a-glitter in the sky on a cloudless night. From the box slowly arose the sleeper. He raised one hand to the red mask to free his face, so that Jony could look directly on his features.

Jony shrank from seeing; yet a will stronger than his own held him there to watch. While—the face beneath the mask—! It was the same as he had seen now and then dimly reflected from a pool of water—Jony's own! Then the other had reached forth with the rod and tried to make Jony grasp it.

In his mind he knew that, if he did so, power would fill him. He would be so great that his will would be all that mattered. The People, even Maba and Geogee, would be to him as the mind-controlled were to the Big Ones.

One part of him wanted fiercely, so fiercely that it was a pain through his body, to seize that rod. Within his mind, very far away, as if long buried, arose a voice saying that such power was his by right, that he alone was fit to take and wield it. However, another part of him remembered the lab and Big Ones. Jony shook with the force of the battle within him—for he was like two who warred within one body. Now his hand stretched to take the rod, now he snatched it back!

“Jony! Jony!”

He roused dazedly to the sound of his name. There was the gray of early morning around him. But he was not in that place of stones. Over him was the good, familiar arch of tree branches. Then he saw Geogee. The boy's dirty face was a mask of fright.

“Jony!” He had his hands on Jony's shoulders, was shaking him.

“It's all right—” Jony's own mind was coming back, so slowly, from that struggle. His skin was rank with sweat in spite of the chill. He felt weak, as if he had just performed some task which had strained his body strength to the uttermost.

“You were saying, ‘No—no'!” Geogee told him.

“It was a bad dream,” Jony answered quickly. “Just a bad dream.”

However, he could not dismiss memory so easily for himself. Something of that two-partedness remained in his mind. He had wanted the power of the rod; he had hated and feared it. Now, suddenly, he did want to view that sleeper again, to make sure that the mask still lay over the face, that it was not, as in his dream, he who slept.

The People, early as it was, were moving about the camp. No one looked at Jony or Geogee, or made finger-talk. Laid out on the ground not too far away was a portion of nut cake. Jony gave Geogee a share and wolfed the rest, suddenly realizing how hungry he was.

He had just wiped the crumbs from his fingers when he looked up to see that the males of the clan were gathering in around him. Geogee moved back a little, apprehension plain to read on his face. Jony put his arm protectively about the younger boy's shoulders for a moment, gave him a reassuring squeeze. Then he used both his hands for finger-talk.

“Young ones not to blame. They followed me.”

Impassively those ranged about him made no sign in return. Voak reached out and closed a hand-paw on Geogee's arm, drawing the boy away from Jony, pushing him outside their circle, giving him a shove in the direction of the females.

He signed an answer: “Young follow always. Best older do not give them bad trail.”

Jony relaxed a little for Geogee's sake. Anything which happened now would rest on him alone. He hoped that Geogee had had enough of a scare so that this lesson would stick with him. Voak was right, he was the one to blame if some law of the clan had been broken.

“Truth spoken,” he signed. Then he waited. What would come now—a judging with some punishment to follow?

“You—come—” Voak replied.

He turned purposefully and Jony fell in behind him. Nor were they two alone. Otik of the younger males and Kapoor of the older joined them. No one returned Jony's staff; he drew an ominous conclusion from that omission. Wherever they might be going it was not near the camp, for each of his companions was equipped with a net of journey food.

All the more apprehensive because he had no idea what was intended, Jony went, a well-guarded prisoner, into the beginning of the morning.

SEVEN

They headed toward the higher ridges again—not in the direction of the stone place, but more to the northeast. Voak led purposefully, as if he knew exactly where they were bound. The familiar sights of the open country warred with the shadows in Jony's mind. Now it was easy for him to accept that what had frightened him
was
only a dream, born out of yesterday's strange adventure. Somehow he felt a relief from oppression, even though he did not know what the People planned for him.

He would
not
go back to the stone place, to face the masked one and make a choice between the rod and this freedom. Drawing a deep breath of pure relief, he luxuriated in the feel of dew-wet leaves brushing against his legs and the clean, clear air he drew into his lungs.

Though the People's rather clumsy walk might seem less effective than his own loose stride, Jony was forced to quicken that to keep up with his guards. This pushing pace was quite unlike that generally kept when the clan was on the move. For then they were apt to seek edible roots, berries, scraper stones, over a wide area, each some distance from another as they traveled.

The day was clear, with a bright, warm sun. In fact, Jony was almost too warm as they emerged from under the trees to cross a stretch of open land where grass grew nearly waist high. Those creatures who lived in that miniature turf jungle fled from them, their flight marked only as a quick weaving. Here and there stood some tall spikes of stem, wreathed with blue flowers around which insects buzzed.

On the opposite side of that open land, brush began again. Jony had expected Voak to thrust his way in through it. Instead, the clanleader turned sharply left, following the base of the rise. Jony was thirsty, but he had no intention of allowing any discomfort to make him appeal to Voak now. His pride stiffened his resolve to ask nothing of his companions.

They had gone some little distance before Jony noted ends of stones protruding here and there from the soil of the ridge. These had been squared, though exposure to the weather had pitted their surfaces, rounded the edges. In spite of Trush's reaction to the stone path, the strangeness of the clan since Jony had confessed his visit to the place which had been made by the aliens of the pictures, Voak appeared to be heading on into a section where similar remains appeared.

Nor did the clansmen pause, when, before them arose series of those same ledges Jony had climbed to the place where the sleeper lay in his box. Earth masked these in part, and several small saplings were rooted along them. Yet it was very plain that once they had been used to ascend the slopes behind the first ridge. Voak brought the butt of his staff down on each ledge with a thud as he mounted it, as if that gesture was some necessary announcement of their coming.

Kapoor and Otik echoed Voak's movements, their staffs rising and falling in company with his. The three also began to utter sounds, not unlike those they used when they were moon dancing, the notes rising and falling as they went. Jony sensed that both gestures and sounds were meant to protect against some menace which the clansmen thought lay ahead. Moreover, their present attitude was so unlike the sensible dispatch they used when actually attacked that his wonderment grew.

For any meeting with vor birds, or the smaa, there was no pounding of spear butts or calling of voices. The People fought in silence or uttered only a few hoarse grunts now and then. Jony used his own protective sense, sending it questing ahead. He felt naked without a staff in his own hand, and the attitude of his guards aroused his apprehension.

Still, he could pick up nothing. As the situation had been among the heaps of stone, so was it here. The life forces he touched were all that could be found anywhere else in the open. Then Jony tried to fasten on a very elusive emanation of . . . What? He found a disturbing hint of alien energy (though what he picked up was not born of any spark of life). Whatever waited ahead was not alive as he had always known life. No, it was . . .

A fleeting scrap of memory halted Jony. This outflow of energy was very near to what he had felt when he had dared touch palms with the woman of stone!

The clansmen had been so enrapt in their rhythmic thudding of staffs, their united sounds, that Otik and Kapoor gained a step ahead of Jony before they noted that he had stopped. They turned only a little, each reached out a hand-paw, clamping on his shoulders, drawing him up between them again.

There was no escaping their united wills. He must face whatever lay ahead. Realizing that, Jony tried to explore with his sense for what did wait there. It was not true life, of that he was sure. For he could not even pick up a hint of communication as he could with the People, unable as he was to ever reach them completely. However, there did exist somewhere ahead a force of some kind, a power to which his extra sense responded.

During those moments of the climb, Jony felt the odd and disturbing wash of that power. His body might have been plunged into a substance less tangible than water, but which had as strong a current as any good sized river might produce. Did the People also feel this, or was the thumping of staffs and the ululating sounds they voiced in some manner a shield against it?

Voak topped the long line of steps. He paused there, though he did not turn his head to see how far the others trailed him. Instead he quickened the beat of his staff against the bare rock on which he now stood. His voice was louder; the sounds he made faster as if he needed to build up his defense.

The smooth space on which the clanleader stood was large, as Jony saw when they joined the older male. Like the river of stone, the platform extended, a tongue out-thrust from the last of the ledges. Above, the heights had been broken or dug away to give room to that path, and the sides were walled up with stones to retain the earth.

A short distance ahead loomed a tall opening into the core of the hill. That, also, was rimmed with blocks of stone. This must have been the handiwork of the pictured men, Jony was sure. Yet the People appeared to be able and willing to enter here.

Otik and Kapoor echoed Voak's faster beat of staff, his louder voice. They did not glance in Jony's direction, but rather kept their gaze fastened on the opening ahead. They might be waiting here for someone, or something, to issue forth. But there was no hidden life, Jony would swear to that, just a stronger sense of that power he could not understand.

Once more Voak began his march toward the opening, the others falling in behind in the same pattern they had followed since leaving camp. Jony felt a little dizzy. Perhaps his giddiness was caused by the thumping, the cries—or the
thing
ahead. He could not seem to think clearly anymore.

Over their heads arched the edge of the opening. What light shone in from behind showed only a pavement of stone, the walls about. The way narrowed abruptly just within the doorless opening.

On they went, the duskiness increasing as they left the day behind. This absence of light made no difference to the three clansmen, but it added to Jony's feeling of disorientation. Was there never any end to the sounds, to this way?