The Iron Breed (15 page)

“Animal! Who are you who dares to rise?”

There was a tight strangling constriction in an instant about Jony's throat. He cried out, caught at the collar to tear himself free. Where that had once hung loose on him, now it was tight. From the band dangled a cord. Also, his back—he was being pressed down on all fours in spite of his frantic struggles.

The woman who was Maba caught the point of her rod through the looped cord, drew it to her. She laughed a second time, stepped away from the box which had held her for so long.

“You see,” she said lightly, “you cannot be both—man and animal. Animals are ruled, men rule.” Her twitch on the cord appeared light but drew Jony after her. She began to descend the ledges, never looking at him now as he followed on all fours at her heels, the animal so easily tamed.

TEN

The growth about Jony was sodden with a rain which fell with a steady persistence. That same rain erased any tracks of the People which might otherwise have been traced from that place of disaster in the open. Had all the clan been captured?

Jony roused from a night of unquiet rest, still ridden by that singularly forceful dream. It was seldom possible, beyond a few moments when one first awakes, to remember such details. But he continued to be haunted by vivid memory, just as he had by that earlier vision, when the sleeper, awaking in his box of stone, had worn Jony's own face, not Maba's. The feel of the constricting collar remained with him also. So that, now and then, his hand went half-consciously to his throat to see if the hoop still hung loose.

He caught no sound of any flyer. Perhaps the bad weather had driven it from a stormy sky. However, the same rain and wind did not keep Jony from his steady course south. And, after a climb up another line of ridge land, he came upon what he had sought ever since that flash of evil-to-come had swept across the night sky.

Below was a valley cut by a sizable stream, angling south and west. Not too far from that placidly flowing water stood a sky ship erect on its fins. About those supports the ground was charred, blackened, fused by the force of the beams down which it had ridden to this landing.

Jony concentrated on the ship. He was quite sure this one was not as large as that of the Big Ones, though it was of the same general shape. Perhaps most sky ships, no matter who piloted them, followed a like pattern. He had expected a ramp out from an open hatch, but the body remained sleekly closed, no manner of opening to be seen at all.

Nearby, however, there rested on the ground the flyer which had sent him into cover the day before. Now that Jony could view it from above instead of below he could pick out the features which made it readily recognizable as an intricate machine. There was an over-curved hood covering the top, under which, he supposed, the pilot and any passengers could shelter while the thing was aloft.

On the side of the standing ship there was a marking also, though it was dim, as if old.

Jony stirred unhappily. Here his shelter from the storm was poor, and there seemed to be no way of finding out what was going on below within the sealed ship. He wondered if he dared to try a thought-send—but hesitated. Somehow he was sure it was by that means he had attracted the attention of the flyer before. But—

He stiffened, instantly alert. At last something was happening. A roll-back opening appeared in the side of the ship; a ramp for landing curved out as might a questing tongue. That struck the ground, anchored firmly. Now, down that incline walked a man.

Not a Big One. Jony knew relief, then immediately regained his wary distrust. What kind of men rode the sky? They might be mind-controlled. If the kinfolk of Rutee had at last made their way here . . . But then why had they attacked the People?

Maba—Geogee—and how many of the clan were now down there, imprisoned?

The spaceman's whole body was covered with clothing fastened about his arms, his legs, up to his throat. The material was a green-brown in color, making his face seem very dark. His hair had been trimmed into a short stiff brush. Now the invader descended to the end of the ramp, to just stand there, holding something before his eyes, turning the upper part of his body very slowly. As if, through that object Jony could not distinguish very clearly, the stranger was making a careful survey of the very slope upon which the boy crouched.

Did they somehow know he was here? Were they now seeking him again? Jony had dabbed his body with sticky mud and leaves before he had settled here, making the best attempt he could to copy the ability of the People to be one with their background when they chose. Now, with a fast-beating heart, he waited any moment for the stranger below to center directly on him.

What would happen then? Could the invaders loose some vapor into the air as did the Big Ones, leaving him unable to defend himself as they came to collect another prisoner?

However, the other swung past, no longer centering on Jony's perch. Instead he was continuing his examination of the terrain. At last the spaceman dropped his hands, though he still held the object through which he had studied the countryside.

Just then the rain hit with a heavier gust. Apparently the stranger did not care for that. He turned and ran back up the ramp into the open hatch. A moment or so later, the ramp itself was lifted and drawn in. Jony, however, did not relax. The ship was now a cage, the most secure cage he had ever faced.

Should he have tried to fasten on the mind of that watcher, perhaps control him? Had he lost his best opportunity of rescuing those inside? If he only knew a little more! He had been able to work on the Big Ones because he had watched them, studied them with all the concentration Rutee had taught him to use. But Jony knew very well that an approach which might work with one life-form would not serve as well for another. Also, his own advice to Maba held true. This stranger might seem to be kin physically, but that did not mean that he really was.

Jony edged backward from his spy post. Mistrust still held—suppose that watcher
had
detected him, but had been cleverly concealing the fact by his actions? Better be gone from here and find another place from which he could still spy on the ship.

Crawling backward he again came to a complete halt. One of the People—and not too distant! Jony sat up, sure that he was far enough into the brush not to reveal himself to any ship lookout, and stared straight in the direction from which that shadowy touch of mind had come. A space of time as long as several breaths passed before Jony's eyes detected the lurker apart from his brush cover. Otik!

Jony's first impulse was to join the clansman—try to discover what had happened to the rest of the People and the twins. Then he remembered only too well how they had parted. His hand went to the collar. The first gesture must come from Otik; he was very sure of that.

The clansman knew Jony was there; had probably had him under observation all the time Jony himself was spying on the ship. Now Otik's head was turned so his eyes watched the boy. Well as he knew the People, Jony had never learned to read any emotion by the expression of their faces. He could not tell now whether Otik would allow contact at all.

Patience was one of the first lessons to be learned when dealing with the People. They lived by deliberation for the most part, and Jony had seldom seen them hurried. He waited, trying to match Otik's impassive stare with an answering one of his own.

Then the clansman hunkered forward, not rising to his feet, but using his hands against the ground as had his ancestors in those pictures. He came forward deliberately and slowly. There was a food net slung about one of his thick shoulders, but he had no staff.

Reaching a position several arms distance away from Jony, he sat back on his heels, his paw-hands dangling loosely between his knees. Otik was young; he had been Yaa's first cub some seasons before she had come to aid Rutee. As yet he had neither the bulk nor the strength of Voak or Kapoor, though he could best Trush in friendly wrestling. Had the clan done as always this year and met with other families, Otik might well have gone hunting a mate.

The clansman continued to sit and stare. Inwardly Jony fought his own impatience. He longed to sign a question, a demand, for all the information Otik could supply. Had others escaped? What had happened back at that trampled space of grass in the open? Only now he must wait until Otik accepted or rejected him.

The paw-hands moved. Otik gestured, grunted also, as if to emphasize the importance of what he would say.

“You go flying thing?” He gave that the quality of a question, not a statement.

Jony had planted his staff close to hand to have his fingers free to answer. Now he tried to keep his gestures as unhurried as he could.

“No go—yet.”

“Your clan—they be so.” Otik continued.

Jony found it disturbing that the other's face remained without expression, that he could learn so little from Otik's attitude as to what thoughts moved behind those large eyes. He had not really realized until this moment how frustrating it could be when their powers of communication remained so meager. Probably because, his mind now suggested, the daily life of the clan had been so based on the essentials of food, familiar action, and the routine of ways Jony had known for years, that he had not had to improvise any means of conveying messages outside the bounds of those basic elements.

“Not
my
clan,” he chose the best answer and the simplest he could think of. “Where Maba—Geogee?” He spoke their names aloud, aware that Otik would recognize those sounds, just as he could recognize and attempt to imitate the sounds which identified each of the clan by name.

“With your clan.” Otik signed uncompromisingly. “Those came from sky.” He stopped word signs and was acting out with his two paws what must have happened. One set of fingers pattered along the ground, plainly the clan traveling. The other hand flattened, swooped down upon that small band from the air and held in position over it for an instant or two. Then the fingers against the ground went limp, sprawling out flat. The hand representing the flyer scooped them up—made to carry them away.

Both hands returned to signs. “So Otik see.”

Jony moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue. He must ask the next question but he feared what the reply might be.

“Dead?” he signed.

Otik made the sign for “not sure,” and then, hesitatingly, the one for “sleep.”

Perhaps the space people had a stunning device such as the Big Ones used. Jony hoped with all his heart that was so.

“Who?” he signed now. If Otik had escaped—had others also?

“Voak, Yaa,” Otik barked the sounds Jony knew, added two more names.

Four of them in all then, as well as the twins. And the rest . . . ?

He did not need to ask, Otik was already signing that those were in hiding, watching. Though what hope they had of getting their people out of the sealed ship, Jony thought, was very small indeed.

“You go—your clan—” Otik repeated his earlier accusation, or was it simply a statement of fact as the clansman saw it?

“Not mine!” Jony made the gesture for firm repudiation.

Otik's hands were still. Did the clansman believe that? Jony knew of no proof he could offer to back up what he had said. Though he was certain at that moment he did speak the truth.

For a very long instant Otik simply sat and looked at him. Then the clansman made one of those lightning swift moves which could startle even one who knew them well but had become lulled by their usual placid, slow-moving attitude. Before Jony was aware, Otik had Jony's new staff in his hands.

Jony's reaction to grab for it, was, he knew at once, useless. That Otik had taken it at all was ominous. For a staff was its maker's and should not be handled by anyone else.

“You get—where?” Otik signed with one hand, keeping the staff closely gripped with his other.

“Found—by running water. Long time hidden in sand,” Jony returned.

Otik inspected the find carefully, running fingertips along the pitted metal of the shaft, even bringing it to his nose for an investigative sniffing down the whole length.

“Thing—of old ones—” he declared.

“I found it—in sand, by running water,” Jony returned with all the force of gesture he could muster. He must not let Otik get the idea that he had returned to loot the place of stones.

The place of stones! An idea which was wild, which he was sure no clansman would agree to, flashed into his mind. Against the weapons those of the ship must be able to muster what chance had the clan with their wooden staffs or their strength of body? But, suppose they possessed rods such as the sleeper held, with which Geogee had experimented so disastrously? A beam from one could bring down that flyer; might even eat a doorway into the ship for attackers.

One idea joined another in his mind. Jony breathed faster, unconsciously his fingers flexed in and out as if he were ready to grasp one of those terrifying weapons right now.

There was a honk from Otik which startled Jony out of his own thoughts, back into the present and the realization that there was little hope of doing what he had dreamed in those moments of anticipated triumph.

The clansman had laid down the metal shaft. Once more he regarded Jony with that searching look. Then his paw-hands moved.

“You know a thing to help.” Again no question, but a statement. Jony's amazement was complete. How had Otik guessed that? Could it be that, although he was unable to tap minds with the People, the same difficulty did not exist on their side? Such a thought was more than a little frightening.

“You know,” Otik repeated. “I smell you know! What this thing?” Smell? Jony was bewildered. How could one
smell
thoughts? The idea was dizzying, but he had no time now to explore it.

“Things—in place of stones—” he took the plunge. Otik could only say yes or no to that. “They better than staff—like things from ship.”

Otik made no answer at all. Instead, once more on hands and feet, he backed into the brush, leaving Jony alone. That was probably the end of any contact with the remnants of the clan, Jony decided bleakly. His first move was to secure the metal staff. His second was to think again of his wild idea of turning the finds in the storage place to use.