The Iron Breed (44 page)

* * *

There was no
beat-beat
now—none at all. Ku-La scrambled ahead with a burst of speed Furtig hoped would not hurl him off that narrow way. But—in the doorway ahead was movement!

Rattons? Barkers? Furtig had the Demon weapon. The past hours had conditioned him to expect the worst, even in the People's lairs. Then he made out a furred head—They were coming forward to aid Ku-La—his own kind at last!

Gammage was at ease on the wide bed place. His tail curled across his thighs, and only the tip of it, twitching now and then, betrayed his excitement at Furtig's report.

The tapes had been carried off by the In-born trained to evaluate them. And a picked group, led by Foskatt, had set out to salvage the rest of Furtig's haul from where he had left it in the ducts.

Ku-La was in the room of healing, and Furtig was finding it difficult to keep his eyes open, his mind alert to answer the Ancestor's questions. But he discovered to his amazement that Gammage was not startled by the flying thing.

That a Demon sky-ship had landed was already known to the lair People. Its coming had been foretold by certain watchers who were not of flesh and blood, but servants of metal. When those gave the alert, the People had first been baffled, then made guesses as to the cause for alarm. And, hiding out, scouts had witnessed the actual landing of the ship.

Every device which could be put to defense or used to gain knowledge of the invaders had been trained on that ship. Without, it was hoped, having yet aroused the suspicions of the old masters of the lairs.

“They are indeed Demons,” Gammage said. “Drink this, clan son, it will warm you. It is made of leaves and is refreshing to our spirits.”

He waited while Furtig sipped from the bowl Liliha brought him. She did not leave, but settled on the other end of Gammage's divan as one who had a rightful part in this conference. Furtig was aware she watched him unblinkingly. He wondered if she did so to weigh within her own mind the truth of his tale.

The odor of the hot liquid was enticing, so much so that just to sniff its vapor raised his spirits, gave him courage, and renewed his energy. The taste was as good as the scent. The feeling of warmth that spread through him made him even more drowsy than he had been. But two full swallows were all that he took, holding the cup from him lest his pleasure in its contents cloak his mind to what must be firmly faced.

“We viewed them through those glasses which bring the far close,” Gammage continued. “They brought many things from their ship and put together a flying thing. By that time it was night, and they went again into the ship and closed it, as if they believed they might be in danger. Four of them only, though there may be more inside we did not see.

“With the morning, in spite of the storm, one came forth and entered the flying thing. He raised it into the air and flew back and forth, in and out, among the buildings. He did not try to land, but hovered above. As if the Demon sought something. But we cannot guess what he sought, nor the manner of his seeking. With Demons—who can know?”

“He found us on the bridge,” Furtig returned. “But he did not attack, only stayed above us for a space and then flew away.”

“Returning,” Liliha said, “to the ship. It could be that when he hung above you he marked who—or what—you were.”

Gammage chewed reflectively on a claw tip. “What you found, with the aid of Ku-La, is a treasure of knowledge. But whether we shall be given time to use it is another matter. If these Demons plan to reclaim the lairs I am not sure we can defeat their purpose.”

“You can withdraw—to the caves—as our forefathers did when the Demons hunted them before,” Furtig suggested.

“That is the last resort. The lairs are very large and, as you proved, clan son, there are ways we smaller people can travel in secret. The Demons cannot force their greater bodies into such passages.”

“Perhaps we shall be both Demon-hunted and Ratton-attacked in the end.” Furtig saw the gloomiest of futures.

“There are also the Barkers—” Gammage chewed again on his claw.

For the moment Furtig was content enough to sit and let his fur dry in the warmth of the chamber, sniff at the odor of his good drink, and now and then sip it. But he longed for sleep; even if the Demons were to tramp these corridors soon, a warrior had to sleep.

He fought his eyes' closing by drinking the last of the liquid. Gammage spoke again:

“The Barkers are not ones to take kindly to the trapping of their scout. Unlike our people, they are happiest in the pack rubbing shoulders to the next. And they will move as a pack to avenge their kind.”

What the Ancestor said was no more than all knew. You killed or took a Barker prisoner, and you had to face his fellows in force. It was one of the things that made the Barkers so feared.

“They hunt by scent.” Still the Ancestor recited common knowledge. “Therefore they will trail in here, and find the trap of the Rattons. The Rattons will take to inner ways, and in doing so, they may escape the Barkers. But—if the Barkers invade they can well pick up our scent—

“Ku-La, when he is healed, will go to his people and invite them to join us. As he has told me, those know about the Demons, and the lairs—of how we must labor to save what we have learned. If we take to the wilds, it will need many backs and hands to help carry what we must. Therefore, as Ku-La goes to his tribe, so must you and Foskatt go to the caves. There you must tell them of the coming evil and that they must send their warriors—or bring hither all the People—”

“Do you think they will listen to me, Ancestor? I am not an Elder, I am one who failed in the Trials, and went forth from the caves. Will they heed my words? You know our clans and that they are slow to believe in new things.”

“You speak as a youngling, clan son. From here you will carry certain things to impress the Elders. And you do not go alone—”

“Yes, Foskatt, too.” But privately Furtig thought Foskatt, for all his longer time in the lairs, would have little more weight than he had himself.

Gammage had been a long time away from the caves, he had forgotten the hold of custom on those living there.

“Besides Foskatt,” Gammage said, “Liliha goes, also, by her own choice. And she, as well as you, shall take weapons such as those of the caves have no knowledge of. These are gifts, and you shall promise more if your people come to us.

“This,” he continued, “will be easily done—”

Furtig did not agree with that statement in the least, but he had no chance to protest, as the Ancestor swept on—

“The Barker must be found. If he still lives, he must be freed and returned to his People. That will give us for the first time a small chance of holding a truce talk with them. Otherwise they will storm into the lairs, perhaps causing a disaster at the time when we must unite against Demons, not war among ourselves. Now we have a common cause with even Barkers.”

So they were back to Gammage's wish, that all the peoples, even those hereditary enemies, make a common cause against the greater menace. Listening to him, sometimes one could almost believe that would work. But—perhaps he would even suggest sending a truce flag to the Rattons—!

Apparently Gammage was not prepared to go that far. He was nodding a little, his tail tip beating back and forth.

“To the Barkers we shall suggest a truce. The Rattons—no—we cannot deal with them in any way! They are as accursed as the Demons and always have been. We must warn whom we can to stand together. Liliha, see to the clan son. I think he sleeps now, even though his eyes are open!”

Furtig heard that as a distant murmur. There was a touch on his arm. Somehow he blundered to his feet and wavered off, that light touch steering him this way and that, until he had come to his own bed place and stretched out there.

Demon—Ratton—Barker—sleep won out over all.

12

“Animals!” But even as Ayana spoke she knew that was not true. Yes, those bodies were furred. And they had tails. But neither could it be denied that they wore belts around their waists, and attached to the belt of one was a laser! The thing was armed with a weapon much like the most potent in the ship's locker.

She studied the scene on the record reader into which Tan had fed his tape. The light was admittedly poor, but the longer she looked the more new details she could see. Animal, no, but neither was it like her norm for “man.”

However it had a haunting familiarity. And it carried a lumpy burden—the rear one of the two, that is—on its back. Animals were used so. What of the gorks on Elhorn—ungainly, half-feathered, half-scaled, of avian descent but lacking their ancestors' wings? For an instant or two she remembered gorks with a homesick nostalgia.

No, the bundle did not mean that the creatures on the bridge were servants of men—not as the gorks served. Not when one of them also wore a laser. Still—she was teased by a wisp of memory.

“Animal—you are sure?” Jacel roused her from that search.

“No, it is armed and wearing the belt—how can we be sure?”

“It is matched with this life-reading.” Massa consulted the dial. “And there are similar life-readings here, here, and here.” The computer had produced a sketch map earlier and Massa's pointer tapped that. “Now here, and here are two other readings of a different type, one differing from the other—three kinds in all.” She made checks now on the map surface with yellow for the first, red for the second, blue for the last.

Yellow marked the building towards which the two on the bridge headed, red lay behind them.

“Those blue—they are near the outer rim.” Tan surveyed the results with satisfaction. He had brought back enough to keep the computer busy. Catching those two in the open had been the crowning bit of luck—Tan's luck.

“The creature to the fore,”—Ayana moved closer, “it has been hurt.” Her medic-trained eyes were not deceived by the effects of rain and wet fur. Was she watching part of a drama such as one had on a story tape—perhaps the rescue of a wounded comrade from the enemy?

“Fighting?” Tan sounded excited. “Two species at war?”

She looked up from the screen, startled by that note in his voice. His eyes were shining. It took a certain temperament to produce a scout. Tan had tested high in all the attributes the commanders believed necessary. But there had followed rigid training. And the Tan who had survived that training, winning over all others to gain his place with this crew, was not exactly the same Tan to whom she had been drawn.

Ayana knew that her own place in the ship depended not only on her ability to do her own job, but also on the fact that she was a complement to Tan, supplying what he lacked. It was the same with Jacel and Massa. They had to complement one another or they would not have been put together to form a crew, necessarily living closely during the voyage; their personalities were so related as to assure the least possible friction.

But now there was something in Tan Ayana shrank from, refused to face. The Tan who had come out of the grueling training had a hardness which she secretly feared. He could look upon that wounded body dragging painfully along, and what he thought of was the struggle which had caused those hurts. It was as if he actually wanted to watch such a battle. And that Tan—no, she would not believe that that Tan was the ruler of the mind and body she loved.

“But there is not”—Massa, frowning, paid no attention to Tan's comment “a single life-reading for our own kind! Yet this is a city built by man. We have landed on a site such as our fathers made on Elhorn, save that they did not ring it about there with a city—a city so vast that Tan's record”—she shook her head—“is more than we expected—”

“Expected?” Tan challenged that. “We can expect anything here. This is the world which sent the First Ships into space, where secrets, all the secrets we need, lie waiting!”

“And from which,” Jacel pointed out dryly, “our own kind seems to have gone. We had better keep that in mind when we go prying about for secrets, lest some of those we find are other than we care to own or discover. Do not forget that this city has inhabitants—such as these—” He pointed to the reader. “And do not forget either, Tan, that those men of mighty secrets, our parents of the First Ships, fled in such fear that they tried to keep hidden the very existence of this world.”

Tan looked impatient. “We have protection that those animals do not know of—”

“Animals who carry lasers?” Jacel was not to be shaken. “And if this is indeed a storehouse of waiting secrets, perhaps some of them are already in the paws—or hands—of those who intend to keep them. We walk softly, slowly, and with all care now. Or it may be, in spite of caution, we cease to walk at all.”

He did not put any undue emphasis on those words. Yet they carried the force of an order. Ayana hoped that the conditioning they had all accepted—that the will of Jacel was to hold in any final decision—would continue to control Tan. Let him work off his restlessness, his energy, in his sky exploration of the city.

It would seem that her hopes held the next day. The storm died before midnight, and sunrise brought a fair day. The light caught the windows in the buildings, some of which did not seem windows at all but clear bands running in levels around the towers. And those blazed as the sun struck them fairly.

Tan took off in the flitter, this time to trace the outer boundaries of the city. Again he carried equipment to feed back to their computer all the data he gained.

The others did not lift ramp at once, but set out sensors to pick up any approach at ground level. Jacel supervised that, being very careful about the linkage. When he had finished he stood up.

“Nothing can pass that. A blade of grass blown by the wind would cause an alarm,” he said with conviction.

Ayana had climbed part way up the ramp. She shaded her eyes against the steadily warming blaze of the sun, tried to view the flitter. But Tan must have streaked straight away, wasting no time hovering as he had yesterday.