“There’s no easy way to tell you this,” he said. He was gazing past us, at the smoke rising from his garden. He was weighing up his approach. I shivered suddenly, wondering what terrible thing had happened, or was going to happen. “Humans have been on your world a long time,” he said eventually. “We’ve tried to be good neighbors.”
I’d never stardreamed far enough back to remember the arrival of the humans, but it seemed to me relations had always been good. I nodded.
He sipped his drink thoughtfully. “There are two kinds of space travelers in this part of our galaxy,” he said. “There are humans, and there are people I’ve mentioned before, called kikihuahuas. We’re both good guys in our way, although we have different approaches. We both have codes of behavior that we try to stick to, and we both break them from time to time. It’s inevitable.” There was a plea to understand in his eyes. “It’s easier for kikihuahuas. They’re genetic engineers, but we humans are only technologists. The kikihuahuas don’t believe in killing. We humans, on the other hand, often have to kill others to save ourselves. Time doesn’t matter to kikihuahuas; they travel in huge living space bats, hibernating for thousands of years. They don’t work metal; they have no machinery. They have a creature that produces other creatures for whatever purpose is needed.”
“A creature like the goatparent?” I asked.
He looked at me, surprised at the religious reference. “I guess so.”
“What do the kikihuahuas look like?” asked Charm.
“They look like whatever they’ve been bred for. The space bat is a kikihuahua, and the little people traveling in it are kikihuahuas too; they look something like Earth gibbons. They’re very nice, friendly folk, clean and tidy.
“But we’re not so clever as them. We blast around the galaxy in metal ships and we make one hell of a mess everywhere we go. We have to, to survive. We take, the kikihuahuas give.” He sighed. “I’m trying to contrast the two species. I’m trying to say it’s not our fault.”
“What’s not your fault?” I asked.
“We need metal and other elements to survive, you see. We came to your world because it had some of the elements we need, and we came to an agreement with you to mine it. We handled everything in a fair and businesslike manner. And now things have gone wrong. To put it simply, it’s begun to cost us more to operate the mine than the value of the product. And that doesn’t sit well with a group of very important humans we call Sector Central.”
“You should close the mine down, then.” It was the Nowhere Man speaking, and his tone was harsh and angry. He knew something Charm and I didn’t.
“I’ve already told you, that’s not possible. We’ve sunk too much into it.”
“You must cut your losses.”
“You think that. I think that. But Sector Central thinks otherwise. I’m sorry.” He turned to Charm and I. “You see, Sector Central is right, up to a point. The mine could be profitable, but for one factor.”
At that moment I had an inkling of what he was getting at. “And what’s that factor?” I asked, my mouth suddenly dry.
“The lorin.”
“What about them?”
“They slow things down. They hinder our work. They slip in and out of the tunnels and make a nuisance of themselves. Our people aren’t productive when they’re around.”
I remembered the lorin I’d met in the mine. I knew what he meant. “That’s just the way they are. They can’t help it. There’s nothing anyone can do about the lorin.”
“Sector Central thinks there is.”
“Yes?”
“We… .” He hesitated. “We have orders to wipe the lorin out.”
I found I’d jumped to my feet. “You can’t do that!”
“I’m very much afraid we can. We’ve already had orders from Sector Central. That’s what Missus Froggatt came to see me about. She knew I’d be angry and she thought she might be able to talk me round. But we got into an argument and she said I’d gone native and… well, you know the rest.”
“Why did she come to see you? Why not just go ahead and do it?”
“There’s a big lorin warren under Arrow Forest. That’s where most of the local lorin come from. The forest comes under my jurisdiction. There are certain protocols we humans observe, even at times like this.”
I was seeing him through a red haze of anger. “I was there in that warren myself a couple of days ago. The lorin saved my life and looked after me. The lorin are…” I searched for the right words; the words that might make a difference. “They’re part of us. Without them we wouldn’t have a civilization. They take care of us and they help us, and they ask nothing in return. You can’t kill creatures like that!”
Charm was aghast too. “I thought you humans weren’t allowed to interfere with other civilizations. What are you saying — the lorin aren’t civilized? Just because they can’t speak, you think they aren’t intelligent?”
“Oh, they’re intelligent enough, my dear.”
“So how can you bring yourself to do this?”
“We humans have this knack of breaking the rules when it suits us. I sometimes think it’s what makes us great — our flexibility. On this occasion, it makes us rotten. Our current bosses esteem profits more highly than a few hundred non-speaking aliens. I’m sorry. You’re seeing us at our worst.”
I was beginning to pull myself together. “You don’t agree with this, do you?”
“Of course not. That’s why I’m telling you, Hardy. You’re the one person who may be able to help the lorin.”
Charm exclaimed, “You’d betray your own people?”
“Just this time, yes. I’m flexible, too.”
“How in the name of the Great Lox can I help the lorin?” I asked bitterly.
“I don’t know. Warn them, or whatever. Get them away from the warren. I have no idea what weapons we’re going to use; maybe poison gas. Or we might send heat-seeking mobile mines down there.”
“It’s not just the lorin. I think the warren itself is alive, like a big mother animal. A cave-cow.”
After a moment Mister McNeil said hesitantly, “Yes. You see, the lorin are a species of kikihuahua.”
“The space-travelers?” Charm was incredulous. “They certainly don’t look like it.”
“You expect them to wear clothes, maybe space suits? They don’t need them in this climate. They were bred for your world. They hibernate if it gets too cold for them, and their body cells can survive freezing without damage. All they really need on this world is food, and they get this from the anemones and cupps.”
“How?” I asked. I was visualizing myself leading a few hundred starving lorin across the countryside.
“You know anemones catch their food and digest it to feed the roots. And cupps catch rainwater and process it into a kind of honey for the same reason. So the sap flows downward, instead of up like it does with other trees. Well, the kikihuahuas have bred a creature genetically similar to their space bats, only much smaller. That’s Hardy’s cave-cow. It lives underground and taps into the roots of the trees, and produces a milk the lorin feed off. It’s all they need to survive. Our people know this, and the cave-cow will be a prime target.”
“How come you know all this, and we don’t?” asked Charm. “After all, we’ve had generations to find it out.”
“Maybe we have more curiosity,” he said, evasively I thought.
I asked, “If the lorin are a species of kikihuahua, won’t they simply radio for help? And if the kikihuahuas hear what you’re doing, won’t they retaliate?”
He smiled grimly. “They won’t find out, not for a few hundred years or so. They don’t have radio. Sure, they can communicate telepathically, but only over short distances.” He sighed. “So now I’ve told you what our plans are. We’ll be moving against the lorin within a day or two. Now, we have to decide what you can do about it. For a start, the Nowhere Man will drive you to Arrow Forest.” He
glanced out of the window. “You can be safe in the warren before nightfall. After that it’s up to you.”
“I’ll think of something,” I said. Somehow I had to make the lorin understand the situation. I didn’t know how. After that, maybe they’d have some ideas of their own.
He said, “You feel very strongly about the lorin, don’t you? You’re very protective of them.”
“Of course. They’re good people. And they’re very protective of us.”
He looked at me seriously. “That figures. You see, we believe the kikihuahuas created you people, too.”
There was a moment of total shock.
But looking back, I don’t know why there should have been. The clues had been there, all through my life, all through my memories. It was just that I felt we stilks should be — I don’t know — unique. Springing from out of the ether, fully dressed. Instead, we were the product of some ancient genetic program. “The goatparent?” I whispered.
“Yes.” He watched the expression on my face and said, “At least it’s a clean and purposeful creation. Not like us, crawling from the ooze with no purpose other than to survive and breed. No wonder we make a mess around the place. Be proud of your beginnings, Hardy.”
“Proud?” It was a strange word to use. I felt as though, somehow, we’d been living a lie.
Charm recovered first, and took hold of my hand firmly. “It makes no difference to anything, my love. Not a bit of difference.”
“She’s right,” said Mister McNeil firmly. “And always remember, the more you know about yourselves, the better your chances. You never liked religion, did you?”
“I didn’t want to find it was right in any way at all. I wanted it to be complete nonsense. And now you tell me the goatparent produced us. Well, to Rax with the goatparent!” I said bitterly.
A short while later Charm and I climbed into the glittering interior of the buggy. The Nowhere Man sat at the controls. It should have been fun, but I had more important things on my mind.
Mister McNeil watched us go, standing in the wreckage of his garden. As we swept through Yam and turned onto the Totney road, Charm and I couldn’t help but sit tall, inviting the admiration of the villagers. I caught sight of Caunter and Trigger standing outside the ale house. Their mouths dropped open as they saw us in our glittering carriage. My mood improved rapidly. I grinned and waved. Then it occurred to me that Trigger would report my resurrection to his father. Well, he’d have heard the news from Noss sooner or later.
Once clear of the village, I asked Charm a question that had been bothering me ever since we left Mister McNeil. “Had you ever heard of the kikihuahuas before? I mean, even the name of them?”
“No. But I haven’t bothered to stardream very far yet. Maybe there’s something way back there.”
“I’ve never heard of them, myself. You’d think people would talk about them. Legends, even if there are no memories. But the only legend we have is the goatparent.”
“When I asked Mister McNeil why it was all news to us, he avoided answering. Did you notice?”
“Yes. He knows a lot more than he’s telling. I wonder why?”
The Nowhere Man spoke suddenly. “Because too much knowledge is not always a good thing.”
“Mister McNeil doesn’t think that,” said Charm.
“Maybe he hasn’t been telling us the whole truth,” said the Nowhere Man.
The seed of suspicion had been planted. And that was a pity, because I’d begun to accept what I’d been told.
We took the same road I’d traveled with Smith and Smitha in their motorcart, but we reached Arrow Forest in a fraction of the time. The Nowhere Man dropped us at the spot where I’d fled Stance’s posse. He spun the buggy round and headed home.
We watched him go, then Charm regarded me uncertainly. “Are you sure you know the way? Arrow Forest is a pretty big place.”
“There must be plenty of entrances to the warren. I only visited a part of it, but even that part felt huge to me.” I was grappling with the concept of the cave-cow. Was it so vast that it extended under the entire Arrow Forest? Surely not. A single cavern that big would need supports, which meant the cave-cow would need holes in its body for those supports to run through. I couldn’t imagine it.
“It’s going to get dark soon,” Charm reminded me.
“Come on.” I led the way into the forest.
Late in the afternoon, just as we were beginning to get a little worried, we found an entrance by chance. A decaying anemone tree was falling prey to a rising tide of clamberweed. I pulled the curtain of weed away without much hope, and saw a dank hole at the foot of the hollow trunk where the thick taproot had rotted. The clamberweed was the only thing holding the tree up.
“You want to go down there?” asked Charm doubtfully. The evening wind had begun to whisper through the forest, scaring her with its cold breath. I hugged her. She was shivering.
I lowered myself into the hole and kicked my feet around, but could feel nothing. There was a faint smell of lorin, however; and I knew there would be a tunnel floor not far below. I let go, fell, and hit bottom sooner than I anticipated. The floor was soft.
“It’s all right!” I called. “Just lower yourself through the hole and I’ll catch you. It’s much warmer down here.”
Charm’s descent was a lot of fun, because she was still wearing the thin dress and the descent rucked it up around her waist as she slid into my arms. I made the most of the moment, exploring each part of her as I lowered her to the tunnel floor. Even in the most worrying times, lust and love always lurked in my mind when Charm was around. I kissed her thoroughly while one of my worries evaporated. I still wanted to make love to her. Perhaps I always would.
“I never knew dropping through holes in the ground could be so exciting,” said Charm happily. “We must do it more often.”
“Whenever you like.” I recalled our purpose, released her and extended my arms. The tunnel, high at this point under the tree, dropped to crawling height on either side of us. The walls were soft, warm and yielding, unlike the sandy tunnel of my previous visit. We were already in an extremity of the cave-cow; a hollow tentacle. Perhaps this was how the creature extended over such a wide area. “Now, kneel down and sniff. Can you smell lorin?”
After a moment she said, “Down that way.”
I thought so too. A familiar warm, slightly sweet smell wafted toward us. “I’ll go first. Keep close behind me.”
We left the faint light and crawled into the darkness. Quite soon I heard soft scuffling sounds and the walls of the tunnel opened out. I stood. Immediately a warm, furry hand took hold of mine. I grabbed Charm as she was getting to her feet and pulled her against me. I didn’t want us to be separated.
“Hardy,” she said uncertainly, “there’s a lorin holding my hand. Why do you think it’s doing that?”
“It’s just being friendly. There’s one holding my hand too.”
“So what happens next?”
“Somehow we’ve got to make them understand the danger.”
“We can’t ask them to take us to their leader. I don’t think they have one.”
“I’m going to explain the danger in words. They won’t understand them, but if they’re telepathic like Mister McNeil says, that won’t matter. They’ll be able to get pictures from my mind while I talk.”
“If they can read our pictures. They may only be able to read kikihuahua pictures.”
“It’s the only chance we have.”
So I repeated to the lorin everything Mister McNeil had told us, standing there in the dark with a teat of the cave-cow brushing my hair. I addressed the lorin holding my hand, but assumed my words were going out to all lorin in the cave. By the time I’d finished I was quite thirsty.
“You expressed yourself very well,” said Charm admiringly. “I could almost read your mind myself. I wish my mom had heard; she’d say you were leadership material. If they didn’t un
derstand all that, it’s their own silly fault.”
The lorin was drawing me forward. After a few paces it stopped, and a longer teat brushed my face. I took hold of it and drank.
“They did understand,” I said when I’d finished drinking. “They knew I was thirsty.”
“So why aren’t they panicking? I’d have expected more scurrying to and fro, and some squeaking or something.”
“Maybe there’s nothing they can do.”
“Or maybe they already know the human plan. There are lorin at Devon Central, remember? They could have read the humans’ minds and reported back. We could be wasting our time.”
It was a possibility. Whatever had happened, we’d done the best we could. I suddenly realized how tired I was. Immediately the lorin tugged at my hand. I followed, keeping a tight grip on Charm. Soon we reached the area where the roof hung low. We lay down, side by side. There was a little light here, given off by a small pile of fungi nearby.
“Make love to me,” whispered Charm.
“What, here?”
“Don’t argue.”
So we made long, slow love despite our tiredness, and it was just as wonderful as the first time.
Before I fell asleep I projected the thought into the darkness: Wake me if anything happens.
It’s easy to oversleep by a few days, in the cave-cow.
I awakened to the certainty that only a short time had passed. Charm was stirring beside me. I could hear voices. Deep human voices.
“I think we’ve found it.”
A brilliant light flashed around. It was the first time I’d seen the interior of the cave-cow in detail. The shapeless mass of the roof was striped black with the shadows of a thousand dangling teats. As I’d expected, horny columns rose from the flesh of the floor to support the roof. Piles of hay were scattered here and there, except around the edge where the roof curved around to become the floor on which Charm and I lay. In the distance was darkness; endless teats were dimly visible, and small heaps of glowing fungus.
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