The Stone Dogs (30 page)

Tragic India continued to grow rapidly, reaching a peak of 300,000,000 In 1975; the casualties of the Incident and the mass sterilizations and deportations which followed reduced this to 200,000,000 and falling by 1995.

The last factor to become significant In this era was the creation of significant human populations off Earth, first in orbit and on Luna, and then in the remainder of the Solar System.

Starting with a few hundred in 1965, growth was proportionately extremely rapid, and by 1996 total resident population beyond Earth's atmosphere reached perhaps 3,500,000-4,000,000, the majority in the Earth-orbit/Luna complex, with the asteroid belt following closely and Mars last. The remainder were outposts of great future potential but limited size; of the extraterrestrial settlements, the Domination accounted for approximately 60%

and the Alliance the remainder.

World Population Geography

Alliance Post Secondary Standard Texts

Ch. 1: An Overview

Democracy Press, San Francisco

1997

HOTEL MIRABEAU,

MAMTES LOIRE DISTRICT,

TOURAIME PROVINCE

DOMINATION OF THE DRAKA

APRIL 4, 1973

God, that thing's ugly,
Marya thought, looking at the ghouloon. The transgene animal was
big
, for one thing, about three times her brother's weight. Basically a giant dog-headed baboon, four-footed most of the time but able to walk or sprint on its hind legs. The thumbs on feet and hands were fully opposable, and the forehead was high and rounded. The biocontrollers of Virunga had started with Simien mountain baboons, then added something from leopard and gorilla and the
jag hand
… but there was more than an animal's intelligence behind those eyes. Human genes as well, a mind that knew itself to be aware and could think in words. It wore a belt, and a long knife and pouch.

They were in one of the dining courtyards of the hotel, out under the mild midmoming sun; little fleecy clouds went by overhead, like something out of a Fragonard painting. Her brother and her and the Draka they had met: Alexandra Clearmount, a woman in her thirties, nearly their own age: a geneticist. The ghouloon was of the first "production batch." It had attracted a good deal of attention, although Draka considered it ill-bred to stare; the serfs were frankly terrified of it.

"… mass production," she was saying. "So costs ought to come down pretty steadily. The War and Security Directorates've got large orders in already."

"They can be used in combat?" Fred sounded politely skeptical. A waitress brought their platter of shrimp and
crudites.

"Fo' some things. Not much technical aptitude, not intelligent enough, but they'll make killer infantry. Eh, Wofor P." She laughed and tossed a shrimp.

The ghouloon caught it out of the air with one hand, holding it between finger and thumb and sniffing curiously. Then he ate it, exposing intimidating fangs, and a long pink tongue washed the black muzzle. "Wofor good fighter," he said. The voice was blurred but understandable. "Wofor brave. Wofor smart." He slapped at his chest with his hands, a drumlike sound.

For a moment Marya's eyes met the bronze-gold slit-pupiled gaze of the transgene; she could see the lids blink, and the wet black nose ruffle slightly to take her scent.
Abomination
, she thought. That was what the Church taught, and for once she agreed wholeheartedly. The Draka woman was talking to Fred again, leaning forward with interest.

Lucky,
Marya thought. Lucky that they had stumbled on someone heading for the Sologne forest-preserve. The Conservancy Directorate usually rented out the hunting rights to the smaller preserves to groups of neighboring Landholders, in return for maintenance work. Very economical, but it made it difficult for an outsider to get a permit, and Draka law and custom were not easy on poachers. This Clearmount had connections with the local planters—
she might even be a
relative,
Marya thought ironically—and could get them into a hunting party.
Even more lucky that she's interested in Fred
and not
his sister.
Not that she wasn't prepared to make the supreme sacrifice, but…
better him than me.

Citizen sexual mores were a tricky subject. Their instructors had gone into detail, tracing it back to child-rearing patterns…

One thing Draka had never been was puritans; sadomasochistic hedonists, that was the term the psychs used. The boys had concubines from puberty on, or casual sex with any serf woman they wanted; that was a tradition dating back to their Caribbean origins and beyond. Not many pious middle-class Protestants in the bloodlines of
this
nation. Citizen women had been legally barred from any contact with serf males until quite recently, though, and it was still socially unacceptable. Given the sex-segregated boarding schools, the Draka neoclassicism and the near-total lack of erotic inhibition otherwise, she supposed a tradition of homoeroticism was natural enough. For that matter, young women generally wanted more romance in the mixture; that didn't seem to hit men until true adulthood. So young Draka women faced a perpetual shortage of interested men. Marya's mouth quirked, remembering her own teenage years.

I always suspected courtship was something adolescent
males put up with because it was the only way
to get laid,
she thought.
This more or less confirms it.

Draka teenage boys got all they wanted, and tended to be profoundly indifferent to females of their own caste, who could say no. So girls were thrown back on each other; they were supposed to grow out of it in their early twenties, theoretically.

Most did, to the extent of marrying and bearing children; granted, there was really strong social pressure to do that, as well. The agent grinned to herself. The Draka woman's come-on to Fred had been disconcertingly blunt. That's logical, too. In the Alliance countries sex was something that women had and men wanted, and men had to conform to the indirect approaches women preferred. Here, precisely the opposite.

I wonder what hunting boar with a spear is like?
she thought meditatively.

SOLOGNE HUNTING PRESERVE

PROVINCE OF TOURAINE

DOMINATION OF THE DRAKA

APRIL 10, 1973 1030 HOURS

"Shit?"
Myfwany said, reining in her horse. "What a complete cockup!"

Yolande nodded agreement, switching her reins to the spear-hand and wiping her hair back from her forehead with the other. The rain had given way to a steady drizzle, just enough to keep them soaked and replenish the low mist drifting through the trees. They had halted in a clearing, a hectare or so of knee-high purple heather amid old-growth oak; the chill cut to the bone beneath the leather and wool of their hunting clothes.

Discomfort could be ignored; they were also lost, which was rather more frustrating. She reached for her hunting-horn and blew, a dull
rooo-rooo-rooo
sound through the endless patter of rain on leaf. The air was raw and full of the smell of marsh, vegetable decay and wet horse.

"Hear that?" she asked, standing in the stirrups and cupping a hand to an ear. Their mounts stamped and blew, shaking their heads in a jingle of bridle and bit. Beyond it, far and far, came the belling of hounds.

"Sa," Myfwany said, her head coming up. "Think they caught the scent again?"

"We can hope. C'mon, this way." The Sologne was a half-million hectares of wilderness, but the keepers tended to the paths at least.

SOLOGNE HUNTING PRESERVE

CHATEAU OF MOULIN

PROVINCE OF TOURAINE

DOMINATION OF THE DRAKA

APRIL 4, 1973

1000 HOURS

"Out!"
the Security Tetrarch said. The serf flinched back from the deadly quiet of the tone. "Yo' brainless slut, yo' supposed to keep
track
of him!"

Mei-ling swallowed and straightened. "Mistis, Mastah Dave doan' like it, when we keeps him too close. We supposed to make him happy, aren't we? Anyways, Bernadette with him."

The greencoated secret police agent looked down at her control board and keyed a sequence. "Then why isn't she carryin'

her transponder? Oh, hell." Another touch on the board.

"Decurion, turn out the ghoulooris, let's see them earn their keep. No alarms, our little electronics wizard don't like the bars of the cage showin'." She stood, shrugging into a waterproof jacket. "Come on, wench.
Show
me where they might have gone."

"Where the hell have yo'
been
?" Mandy asked, as Yolande and Myfwany reined in. John looked up from overseeing the serf huntsmen who were rigging the nets between the big beech trees, waved, went back to work.

"Where have we been?" Myfwany grinned and waved at the surrounding forest. "Y'all were supposed to keep everyone in sight or hearin' of the dogs. Fo' that matter, where the hell are we now?"

A faint shout came from the woods ahead. The trees were tall here, thirty meters or more, but widely enough spaced that patches of underbrush flourished, spiny thorn and witch hazel.

They all swung down, dropping their reins. Yolande swallowed and took a firmer grip on her boar-spear; it was a head taller than she, with an oval head as broad as her hand and a steel crossbar beneath to prevent a tusker from driving itself up the shaft to gore a hunter. The nets made a deep funnel, with them at the apex… it was a slightly disconsolate feeling, as the servants led the mounts away to safety.

Damn, but I'm still light for this,
she thought. No more than a hundred fifty tall; strong for her weight, but wild pig had
heft
.

"Shut up, yo' crybaby," she whispered to herself under her breath, inaudibly. Aloud:

"Where are those citybred, the ones Alexandra picked up?"

There was a slightly patronizing note to her voice; the pair had seemed nice enough, but she thought her cousin could do better… and had been a little undiscriminating, since her divorce. Oh, well, not everybody can find the right one, she thought charitably, sparing a quick glance for Myfwany. They all faced the gap in the net, spreading out to twice arm's length, just close enough to give support. A horn blew ahead of them, and John came trotting back towards them.

"Don't know," Mandy said with a shrug. John stopped to give her a brief hug before taking center position; Yolande noted how they were almost of a height, now.
Mandy's really filled out
, she thought, with a slight envy.
I'm always going to be like a sylph
beside her.
And it looked as if she might be a sister-in-law…

"Alexandra lost track of them herself, an' said she was goin'

lookin'."

"Shit. Oh, well, could be worse. Could be rainin'."

The wind picked up, blowing into their faces, and the cold drops came more thickly.

Myfwany laughed. "Yo' had to say it, eh, sweetlin'?"

"Sign!" John said sharply.

They fell quiet, leveling their weapons in a two-handed grip.

The boarhound pack was in full cry not two hundred meters ahead, and then there was an enraged squealing sound. The dogs stopped.
No fools
they,
Yolande thought, as the squeal sounded again, closer. No way of telling which way the boar would go, either. Wild pigs were omnivores, like people; much more likely to go looking for trouble than a meat-eater like wolf or lion. She stamped the rough-soled boots deeper into the slippery leaf mold and emptied her mind, letting her vision flow. The tips of the bushes quivered, against the wind.

"He's breakin'," she called.

" Got him," John said, grin white against his tan.

He moved slightly forward from the line. The bushes tossed again, and the pig came out. He stood motionless, three-quarters on, watching them with tiny red eyes. The massive head was held close to the ground, and the curved tusks stood up like daggers of wet ivory. Bulky and bristling, the shoulders moved behind as weight shifted from one cloven hoof to another. The pink snout wrinkled as the animal tried to take their scent; an organic battering-ram twice the weight of a heavy man, knife-armed, faster than a horse and many times as intelligent. The dogs bayed again, nearer; the shouts of the huntsmen ran beneath that harsh music, and the sound of their horns racketed from the trees. John leveled his spear and moved forward, dancer-light.

"Come on, yo' ugly son-of-a-bitch," he crooned. "Get past me and yo' home free. Come
on
."

The boar seemed to sink lower against the wet grass and heather of the forest edge. Then it moved, springing forward as if shot from a catapult, stumpy legs churning the leaf mold, and nose down to present nothing but weapon and heavy bone.

Yolande's breath caught as her brother took two swift strides forward, poised the spear, thrust. Another squeal, louder, full of pain and rage; blood bright under the wan sun, and John was pushed back two bodylengths before he could brace the iron butt of the boarspear against the ground. The animal stumbled, and she could see its mouth wide open in a spray of blood and saliva; then it went to its knees for a second, but the hind legs were still pumping it forward. Mandy closed in to the side. Her spear lifted, body and weapon a perfect X across raised arms, braced legs. Yolande saw the point dip, then vanish into the boar's ribs with a precise snapping thrust.

"Hola!" Yolande cried, and saw her friend's rapt smile as she and the man pushed the beast backward, still fighting. Words formed in her mind; half-consciously she began to work them into form.
Arms
together/blood and love—.
"Ware!" Myfwany shouted.

Another boar had followed in the footsteps of the first; it broke cover, grunted uncertainly at the scent of blood, then angled around the struggle. Myfwany sidled off, and Yolande moved away from her, closing the beast's escape-route. She could see its eyes roll from one of them to the other, and a hoof pawed at the ground.
Is it a little smaller than the other one?
she thought.
Maybe. Wotan, I hope so.
Myfwany was beside her; unthinkable to flinch. Yolande could feel the coiled vitality of it, like raw flame. Then it was coming at her, bouncing off tensed hindquarters, and there was no time for thought of anything.