The Mammoth Book of Best New Science Fiction 22nd Annual Collection (88 page)

“Go on, Mai; explain!”

The Cat forced herself to talk, and rolled onto her back, submissively.

“
’ere wasssh a ribber
. . . ,” she said, toothlessly. “There was a river and there were many goats and many wolves to eat them.” Her voice sounded comic. Everything came out sssh wvuh and boub, like the voices we adopt when we tell jokes. “
Verh whuh whvolbss
. . . there were wolves, and the Ancestors killed all the wolves because they were predators.”

It was exactly as though she were telling a funny story. I was triggered. I started to laugh.

“And then the rivers started to die. With nothing to eat them, there were too many goats and they ate all the new trees that held the banks together.”

I shook my head to get rid of the laughter. I trembled inside from fear. I wanted to wee.

The Cat groaned. “Issh nop a zhope!”
It’s not a joke
.

Leveza craned her neck back, looking as though she was teaching me a lesson, her eyes glinting at me in a strange look of triumph and wonder. “What Memory Sticks do Cats have?”

“We know about the seeds, the seeds inside us.”

Grama’s ears stood straight up.

Leveza’s words kept pace with her heavy feet, as if nothing could ever frighten her or hurry her. “Cats know how Ancestors and beasts mingled. They understand how life is made. We could split us up again, Horse and Ancestor. We could give them something else to eat.”

It was all too much for me, as if the Earth were turning in the wind. I was giddy.

Grama marched head bowed, looking thoughtful. “So . . . you know what the other peoples know?”

Leveza actually laughed aloud too. “She does! She does!”

“What do Dogs know?” Grama asked.

The Cat kept telling what sounded like jokes. “Things that are not alive are made of seeds too. Rocks and air and water are all made of tiny things. Dogs know all about those.”

“And goats?”

“Ah! Goats know how the universe began.”

“And electricity?” Grama actually stepped closer to the Cat. “Everything we know is useless without electricity.”

“Bovines,” said the Cat. “I’ve never seen one. But I’ve heard. You go south and you know you are there because they have lights that glow with electricity!”

“We could make a new kind of herd,” Leveza said. “A herd of all the peoples that joins together. We could piece it all together, all that knowledge.”

The Cat rolled on her belly and covered her eyes. Grama looked at her and at me, and we thought the same thing. Wounded, no food, no water – I felt nausea, the Cat’s sickness in my own belly. Why didn’t Leveza?

Grama said, almost as if defending the Cat, “We’d have to all stay together though, all the time. All of us mixed. Or we’d forget it all.”

The Cat rumbled. “The Bears have something called writing. It records. But only the big white ones in the south.”

“Really!” Leveza said. “If we could do that, we could send knowledge everywhere.”

“I’ve thought that,” the Cat said quietly. “Calling all of us together. But my people would eat them all.”

It was one of those too-bright days that cloud over, but for now, the sun dazzled.

“The dolphins in the sea,” murmured the Cat as if dreaming. “They know how stars are made and stay in the sky. They use them to navigate.”

Sun and wind.

“Sea turtles understand all the different elements, how to mix them.”

Grama said, “She needs water.”

Leveza sniffed. “We’ve crossed a watershed. We’re going downhill; there’ll be a stream soon.” We marched on, toward cauliflower clouds.

Grama and I took over pulling the wagon for a time. I don’t know what hauling it uphill is like, but going downhill, the whole weight of it pushes into your shoulders and your legs go rubbery pushing back to stop it rolling out of control.

It’s worrying being yoked: you can’t run as fast; you’re trapped with the cart. I looked back round and saw Leveza in the cart fast asleep, side by side with a Cat.

I found myself thinking like Leveza, and said to Grama, “I can’t aim a gun. You better keep watch.”

So I ended up pulling the cart alone, while Grama stood in the wagon with a gun, and I didn’t know which one of us was the biggest target.

The slope steepened, and we entered a gully, a dry wash between crags. The wind changed direction constantly, buffeting us with the scent of Cat.

“They’re back,” I said to Grama.

The scent woke up Leveza. “Thank you,” she said. “The two of you should go join the others.” She dropped heavily down out of the cart. She searched me with her eyes, some kind of apology in them. “Choova’s alone.”

Grama’s chin tapped me twice. Leveza was right. As we climbed together uphill toward the herd, I said, “Cats don’t go out of their territory.”

“They’re following Leveza. They want Mai, they want her.” In other words, Leveza was pulling the Cats with her.

“Don’t tell the others,” I said.

The wall of faces above us on the hill opened up to admit us, and then closed again behind. We found Choova, who had been having fun with playmates. She’d forgotten Cats, Leveza, everything, and was full of giggles and teasing, pulling my mane. As we walked, the herd gradually caught up with Leveza, and we could hear her and the Cat murmuring to each other.

“What on earth do they find to talk about?” said Raio, my cousin.

“How delicious horseflesh is,” said Ventoo.

Choova scowled. “Everybody says that Leveza is bad.” I stroked her and tried to explain it and found that I could not. All I could say was, “Leveza wants to learn.”

The trail crossed a stream and Fortchee signaled a break. Leveza’s cart was already there with Leveza still in harness reaching down to drink. The trickling sound of safe, shallow water triggered a rush. We crowded round the creek, leaning down and thrusting each other’s head out of the way. Grama trotted up the hill to make room and found herself the farthest one out, the most exposed. I was about to say,
Grama, get back
.

Three Cats pounced on her. The entire herd pulled back and away from her, swiftly, like smoke blown by wind. Two Cats gripped her hind legs; one was trying to tear out her throat. She was dead, Grama was dead, I was sure of it. I kept leaping forward and back in some kind of impulse to help. Then came a crackle of gunfire. The two Cats on her hindquarters yowled and were thrown back. One spun away and ran; one flipped over backward and was still.

Then one miraculous shot: it sliced through the Cat in front without touching Grama. I looked back in the cart and saw that Leveza had been held down in harness, unable to stand up or reach for her gun.

In the back of the wagon, head and rifle over the sides, was Mother Cat.

Grama shook and shivered, her whole hide twitching independently from the muscles underneath, her eyes ringed round with white. She wasn’t even breathing, she was so panicked. I knew exactly how awful that felt. I ronfled the comfort sound over and over as I picked my way to her, touched her. She heaved a huge, painful-sounding breath. I got hold of the back of her neck. “Come on, darling, come on, baby,” I said through clenched teeth. I coaxed her back downstream toward the others. Her rattling breath came in sobs.

There were no sympathy nitters. The other Horses actually pulled back from us as if we carried live flame. Grama nodded that she was all right and I let her go. She still shivered, but she stepped gently back and forth to test her torn rear legs. I lifted the healer’s pack from her shoulders and took out the bark water to wash her.

I was angry at the others and shouted at them. “It’s all right, all of you, leave her be. Just leave her alone. She’s nursed you often enough.”

Fortchee stepped toward us, breathed in her scent to see how badly hurt she was.

Then he looked over in the direction of the Cat, who still held the gun. He calmly turned and walked toward the cart. Leveza had finally succeeded in slipping out of the yoke and begun to climb the hill back toward him.

I tried to coax Grama back to our wagons, but she firmly shook her head. She wanted to listen to what Fortchee said.

I couldn’t quite hear him, but I certainly could hear Leveza. “She has just as much reason to escape them as you do!”

Fortchee’s voice went harsher, giving an order.

“No,” said Leveza. He said something else, and Leveza replied, “It seems she’s done a good job of protecting us.”

His voice was loud. “Out, now! You or her or both of you.”

“I’m already out. Haven’t you noticed?”

She stepped back toward the long neck of the cart and slammed back on the yoke. “I don’t need you, and I don’t have you!”

She wrenched herself round, almost dragging the cart sideways, turning it down to follow the stream itself. Fortchee shouted for a break. “Afriradors, guard everyone while they drink.” To my surprise, Grama began to limp as fast as she could after Leveza’s wagon.

I couldn’t let her go alone, so I followed, taking Choova with me. As we trooped down the hill, we passed Fortchee trudging up the slope, his head hanging. He ignored us. A Head Man cannot afford to be defied to his face too often.

I caught up to Grama. We hobbled over rocks, or splashed through shallow pools. Choova rubbed her chin against my flank for comfort. Leveza saw us behind her and stopped.

“Hello, darling,” Leveza called back to Choova, who clattered forward, glad to see her. They interlaced their heads, breathed each other’s breath. I pressed in close, and felt my eyes sting. We were still a family.

Grama stuck her head over the sides of the wagon. “Thank you,” she told Mai.

“You nursed me,” said the Cat.

“Mai?” said Leveza. “This is my groom-daughter Choova.”

“Choova,” said the Cat and smiled, and crawled up the wagon to be nearer. “I have a boy, Choova, a little boy.” Choova looked uncertain and edged back.

“Is he back . . . with the pride?” Leveza asked.

“Yesh. But he won’t want to know me now.” Mai slumped back down in the wagon. “Everything with us is the hunt. Nobody thinks about anything else.” She shrugged. “He’s getting mature now, he would have been driven off soon anyway.”

Leveza stopped pulling. “You should drink some water.”

As slow as molten metal, the Cat poured herself out of the cart, halting on tender paws. She drank, but not enough, looked weary, and then wove her unsteady way back toward the wagon. She started to laugh. “I can’t get back in.”

Leveza slipped out of harness and we all helped roll Mai onto Leveza’s back. Grama sprang back up into the cart, and helped pull up the Cat.

“Good to be among friends,” Mai whispered.

Leveza stroked her head. “Neither one of us can go back home,” she said, staring at Mai with a sad smile. Then she looked at me, with an expression that seemed to say, I think she’s going to die.

I wanted to say, I’m supposed to care about a Cat?

“Don’t you get pushed out too,” she said to me, and jerked her head in the direction of the herd. She asked us to bring her lots of lamp fuel, and Grama promised that she would. As we walked toward the others, I couldn’t stop myself saying in front of Choova, “She’s in love with that bloody Cat!”

That night, Choova, me and Grama slept together again beneath a wagon, behind the windbreak wall.

In the middle of the night, we heard burrowing and saw claws, digging underneath the timbers, trying to get in. We jammed little stakes into the tender places between their toes. I cradled Choova next to me as we heard shots from overhead and Cat cries. We saw flickering light through the boards and smelled smoke. Fortchee stuck his head underneath the wagon. “Leveza’s set the hillside on fire! We have to beat it back.” He looked wild. “Come on! There’s no more Cats but the camp’s catching fire!” He headbutted Ventoo. “We need everyone!”

Light on the opposite hillside left dim blue and grey shadows across our eyes. Fire rained slowly down, embers from the grass, drifting sparks. Ash tickled our nostrils; we couldn’t quite see. We had fuel and firestarters on the wagons; if those caught alight we’d lose everything.

“That bloody woman!” shouted Ventoo. Blindly, we got out blankets and started to beat back the grass fire, aiming for any blur of light. The men stumbled down the stream with buckets to fill, stepping blindly into dark, wondering if Cats awaited them. The ground sizzled, steamed, and trailed smoke. We slapped wet blankets onto the gnawing red lines in the wood.

It was still milklight, and the fire had not burnt out, when Fortchee called for us to pack up and march. Blearily, we hoisted up the windbreak walls, only too happy to move. The smell of ash was making us ill. I glanced up and saw that Leveza had already gone.

Butt her! I thought. My own milk had given out on the trek, and Choova was hungry. What do you have a groom-mate for if not to help nurse your child? “You’ll have to graze, baby,” I told her.

We churned up clouds of ash. I wandered though something crisp and tangled and realized I had trodden in the burnt carcass of a Cat. Later in the grass we saw the quail that Leveza had shot, thrown away, the meat gone dark and dry. The Cat still had not eaten.

“I want to see if Mai’s all right,” said Grama.

In full milklight, we trotted ahead to the wagon to find the Cat asleep and Leveza hauling the wagon on two legs only, keeping watch with the rifle ready. She passed us the gun and settled down onto all fours and started to haul again. Her face and voice were stern. “She says it would be possible to bring Horses back, full-blooded Horses. Can you imagine? They could have something else to eat, all of this could stop!”

“What? How?” said Grama.

“The Ancestors wanted to be able to bring both back. We have the complete information for Horses and Ancestors too. We still carry them inside us!”

“So . . . what do we do?” Grama asked.

“Bee-sh,” said a voice from the cart. The Cat sat up, with a clown’s expression on her face. She chuckled. “You could carry them forever, and they wouldn’t come out. They need something from bees.”

For some reason, Leveza chuckled too. She was always so serious and weighty that I could never make her laugh.