The Iron Breed (20 page)

In spite of the steady progress of the clan Jony and Maba caught up with them by nightfall. They were not challenged by Otik who was plainly on sentry, but neither were they welcomed. He only stared at them as they went by into the campsite, where the nests were very small and thin, meaning a short rest only.

Voak squatted by his mate who lay full length on the biggest and best of that bedding. He was flanked on either side by Uga and Corr, and Jony thought it plain that they were sharing with the rest the details of their imprisonment and treatment on board the ship.

The boy held Maba by his side when she would have sped to Yaa. Not until he had some form of acceptance from Voak and the rest would he know whether they could stay, were once more clankin in the way which would matter most.

Voak was silent as he surveyed Jony and the girl. It was Yaa who voiced some rumbles in their talk. Her mate glanced down at her, then back at Jony. Getting ponderously to his feet, he crossed to face the boy squarely. His bulk and height made Jony seem small, unimportant, or so he felt. But at least the clanchief was not ignoring him as he half-expected he would. The collar was gone, but it had not been loosened by the People. In Jony's mind it still lay about his throat until he won full fellowship with them again.

“Ship thing”—Voak's hand arose to sign—“bad.”

Swiftly Jony made answer. “Bad!”

“People—sky thing—like—you.”

Jony could not deny that outward appearance. He cast around frantically for some comparison he could use to suggest that outward and inward should not be confused.

“Hoppers, Jony,” Maba produced the possible key, “remember hoppers and pinchers!”

The comparison he had once made for her! If Voak would only accept that belief. Jony gestured. His hands moved in the sign for hopper, then for hide and hunt—and then for the pincher—and again hide. The People all knew of that strange method of concealment which the hopper could use and how often it deceived the chosen prey.

Having so outlined something which they already knew Jony launched into his parallel thought.

“Sky ones—hoppers. Jony, Maba, Geogee—pinchers. Look alike—different.”

Voak appeared to consider the idea.

Jony plunged on. “Jony captured—find Yaa, find Voak, Corr, Uga—make them come out of bad place.”

Now that Voak could not deny.

The boy continued, “Jony not clankin to ship bad ones, Jony clankin to Voak, Yaa.”

He waited tensely. This was his bid for acceptance. If Voak refused to believe, then he and Maba would be no-kin—alone—in spite of what they had done to free the People.

From where she lay Yaa again spoke. Voak moved uneasily, his head turned a little toward her and then back again.

“Geogee—take bad ones—place of stones,” Voak signed.

“Geogee not know what happened to Yaa, Voak. Geogee, Maba, not told. Think all well.”

Would Voak believe that either?

“Bad ones find power to make People
things.
Place of stones have power to do so.”

Jony signed assent and then daringly added, “People must keep bad ones from taking power.”

Voak's jaws opened, displaying his most formidable fangs. He scowled as he did when facing a smaa or a vor.

“Voak—People—have no this”—he turned and caught the staff out of Trush's paw-hand, shook it in Jony's face—“like bad ones. Those have sleep sticks. Voak go to sleep before getting near to bad ones.”

Jony pulled the stunner from the front of his ship suit.

“Sleep stick for Voak.” He held it out.

But the clansman retreated a step. “Bad thing. Not for People.”

“Better for People than to be in ship again.”

From those massed around behind Yaa old Gorni pushed. He held the metal staff Jony had found. Now he pointed the curved tip of this straight at the boy's breast.

“Give paw!” he signed.

Jony transferred the stunner to his left hand, extended the right. Before he could resist, Gorni had caught his wrist, held on in an unbreakable hold. In spite of the clansman's advanced age his physical strength could not be matched by any off-worlder.

He dropped the sharp point of the staff, piercing the skin on the back of Jony's hand. Then he dipped his muzzle and sniffed long at the bubble of blood forming there. The meaning of his action was lost on Jony. But he believed from the small stirs of the watching People, that to them this act held some vast importance.

Gorni gave a last sniff, raised his head. “Smell right,” he signed. “Clankin.”

Jony gave a great sigh of relief. What the smell of his blood had to do with acceptance, he could not tell. Only it was very apparent from the attitudes of those Gorni had so reassured, that he was again one of them. And, being one of them, he must now try to make them understand the danger from the sky ship. Not only for the present, but in days to come.

If Maba was right—that this one ship was the forerunner of a colony—then they were in desperate straits and must move. In what direction and how, Jony did not know. It might be they were already defeated in that instant when the ship had made a safe landing. But he refused to accept that; he dared not believe such a thing could happen.

With more confidence than he had felt for a long time, Jony signed to Voak: “People must not let bad ones take any power things from place of stones.”

Voak hunched his massive shoulders a little. Almost Jony could believe that the clansman felt the same breath of defeat which had touched his own thoughts.

“How stop?”

How indeed? Jony could give him no answer yet. Perhaps if they returned there he could tell. But would Voak agree to break the rule of the People and enter a place the clan held in such disgust and dread?

“We must find a way. What they take—” In his mind Jony could picture very vividly the use of a red rod with intent, not chance the way Geogee had done. “What they take could be very bad.”

Voak made the down and back muzzle assent of his species. “People go far—bad ones not find.”

“Bad ones can move through the air faster than People can travel.” Jony hoped that Voak would agree that was true. He, himself, was under no illusions as to how successful the flyer and the sky ship were.

Perhaps Voak wanted to deny that, but he could not. Instead he made a dismissing sign which Jony must obey. Taking Maba's hand, the boy crossed to the other side of the campsite, allowing the People to discuss the matter in their own way. Only he was sure of his own plans.

“Jony, what if they won't go to the place of stones?” Maba asked.

“I shall have to go anyway,” he told her. Best get that settled now.

“And me,” she said promptly.

“No! You will stay with Yaa and the People.” He was going to be firm about that.

Some of her old rebellion countered that order instantly. “I won't! I know more about the place of pictures than you do. I found the way in. If you try to go without me, I'll follow.”

She would, too, he had no doubts about that. Nor did Jony believe that the People would make any move to prevent her.

“Geogee's there,” she was continuing. “And, Jony, Geogee, he likes Volney, he follows him around all the time. Volney has promised him he can learn to fly a sky ship someday. I don't think Geogee would listen if
you
told him they're bad. But he might listen to me.”

“Who is Volney?” Jony demanded.

“He's the one of them who knows how to make things go up and travel in the air,” Maba explained. “Geogee is all excited about the machines. He told them lots about what he saw in the place of stones. And I heard them talking, they think some of those old people left very important things there. Geogee will want to stay with them, not us, unless we can make him understand.”

She was very serious about this, and Jony knew that she was telling the full truth. The tie between the twins was a deep one, it could well be true that Maba could accomplish more in making Geogee understand the danger threatened by these strangers than he ever could. But he hated to take her with him into what might be not only hopeless but a dangerous struggle.

“I will go!” She returned to her own statement of fact.

Before he could find any answer, Voak broke from the cluster of the People, came toward them. Jony could read nothing, of course, in that furred face, but Voak's paw-hands were moving.

“We go—to see . . .”

At least he had won that much, thought Jony, soberly, but not in triumph. He could be entirely wrong, leading them all into danger. There was only that instinct within him saying stubbornly that this was all which was left for them to do.

FOURTEEN

Their party did not approach the place of stones (which Maba said the spacemen referred to as a “city”) by the way Jony had done so before, openly down that solid river which flowed directly into its heart. Once Voak had assented to this journey, he had taken command of their small party, leaving behind the females and the young under orders to move off to the west, into a region of deeper and more impenetrable woods which they hoped would be a barrier against any more attacks from the flyer.

Their own return journey north had followed, at the best pace of the People. Even Jony, impatient as he was, realized the wisdom of not becoming too tired before they reached their goal. Such progress demanded the better part of two days of travel, with only a short interval of rest during the dark hours.

Once more they crossed the open fields about the river of stone before working back into those ridges which Jony believed were near the place of the cage. This passage took them almost the whole of another day before they reached a ridge point from which the city could be viewed, not from the front, but directly from the rear.

Jony sighted no sign of the flyer. However, the machine could have set down on the far side of the cluster of rising walls. As he lay near Voak, concealed by the grass and brush on the crest, the boy used his own method of locating who might be below.

Even if those on the flyer had been warned in some way (Maba stated positively the off-worlders were able to communicate even at a distance by using machines) to set up that same mind barrier the ship people had used to repel his control, the very fact they did this would be assurance they were still here.

He sought Geogee, fixing a picture of the boy in his mind, sending out a probe to pick up the familiar pattern of the twin's thought processes. Jony encountered no barrier—and—yes! So faint was it that he was not sure he could track the touch with any certainty to where Geogee was. But he
had
caught it.

Voak raised himself head and shoulders from the ground. His wide nostrils expanded, to flatten again visibly. Then the clansman ducked his head in the gesture of agreement before Jony had a chance to report his own findings.

Crabwise, Voak retreated from the top of the ridge. Jony slipped after him. When that bulk of earth and stone wall stood between them and the city, the remainder of Voak's people drew in to meet the scouts.

“Scent—strong—they—there.” Voak signed.

He looked gravely at Jony who was trying to think of what to do next. Whether the ship had warned the men in the city was unknown. If the off-worlders had been so alerted, then the chance of his own party's success was lessened.

Remembering the stone-walled dens, Jony knew that there were places in plenty where one could play hide-and-seek. Thus the People, with their natural tendency to take cover efficiently at need, might still well work their way in secretly. Only, the strangers had the superior weapons, that could operate at a distance and far more effectively. Also—would the People even consent to enter the city?

His companions were talking in their own speech. Jony sat quietly, his hands clasped on the metal shaft which had been returned to him, frowning a little as he thought of one ghost of a plan and then another, rejecting each in turn. Then he remembered, with sudden and complete clarity, the cage in the mountains. Why it came to him at that moment he did not know.

There lay the evidence that the People, in the past, had been able to deal with those having superior weapons, and very effectively! He hunched forward and his change in position must have registered on Voak. For the clanchief swung his head a little to again eye Jony with that steady regard.

The next move depended on how much Voak could or would tell Jony, and then on whether the People would trust him fully. He longed bitterly for the power to read their thoughts, more so than he ever had in his life before. But he . . .

Voak signed: “What do?”

Had the clansman guessed that Jony did have, at last, a nebulous idea? One, however, that depended so much on others, having so many flaws even he could see, that it might also fail?

“The People were there,” Jony tried to sort out in signs what he must learn, if they would let him. He pointed to the ridge behind which lay the city. “They wore collars, they were things . . .”

Voak made no assenting gesture to that. Jony refused to be daunted.

“How People be freed?” He made his question boldly.

For a long instant he was afraid Voak would refuse to answer. There came a series of sounds from others about, until Voak signed silence with a paw-hand. His muzzle sank forward until it nearly rested against the pied-fur on his chest. Jony waited.

Maba, who had squatted beside the boy, moved. Jony put out his own hand in a signal to be still. This time he could guess that Voak was weighing the idea of telling, by doing so perhaps breaking some old rule of his own kind.

At last the other raised his black-skinned hands, beginning to sign slowly, as if he wanted to make very sure Jony understood.

“Those—were sick. Many died. People did not die. People strong. People break collars—out of cages . . . They make trap. Catch those—take them out—away from place where those had strong things to hurt—to kill. Put in place they could not get strong things—Those die. People free. Not again collars for People.”

An illness had weakened the makers of the city and left them open to a rebellion of the People. This trap . . .

“In the place of stones,” Jony asked, “there was a trap?”