Brothers of Earth

by C. J. Cherryh

  "There," Kurt said, jerking his head to show him. Nearest the fire."

  "Let's take all the live ones," said another of the Tamurlin, with a look in his eyes that boded no good for the nemet. "Let's deal with them tonight at the camp."

  "Yd" howled the others, agreeing, and the chief snarled a reluctant order, for it had not been his idea. He took command of the situation with a sweep of his arm. "Pick them all up, all the live ones, and bring them. We'll see if this man really is from the ship. If he isn't, we'll find out what he really is."

  The others shouted agreement and turned their attention to the fallen nemet, Kta first. Him they shook and slapped until he began to fight them again, and then they twisted his hands behind him and tied him.

  Two other nemet they found not seriously hurt and treated in similar fashion. A third man they made walk a few paces, but he could not do so, for his leg was pierced with a shaft. One of them kicked his good leg from under him and smashed his skull with an ax.

  Kurt twisted away, chanced to look on Kta's face, and the look in the nemet's eyes was terrible. Two more of his men they killed in the same way, and at each fall of the ax Kta winced, but his gaze remained fixed. By his look they could as well have killed him.

  XV

  The ship rested as Kurt remembered it, tilted, the port still open. About it now were camped a hundred of the Tamurlin, hide-clothed and mostly naked, their huts of grass and sticks and hides encircling the shining alloy landing struts.

  They came running to see the prizes their party had brought, these savage men and women and few starveling children. They shouted obscene threats at the nemet, but shied away, murmuring together when they realized Kurt was human. One of the young men advanced cautiously- though Kurt's hands were tied-and others ventured after him. One pushed at Kurt, then hit him across the face, but the chief snatched him back, protective of his property. "What band is he from?" one of them asked. "Not from us," said the chief. "None of ours." "He is human," several of the others argued the obvious. The chief took Kurt by the collar and pulled, taking his pel down to the waist, pushed him forward into their midst. "He's not ours, whatever he is. Not of the tribes."

  Their reaction was near to panic, babbling excitement.

  They put out their filthy hands, comparing themselves with

  him for their hides were sun-browned and creased with

  premature wrinkles from weather and wind, with dirt and

  grease ground into the crevices. They prodded at Kurt with

  leathery fingers, pulled at his clothing, ran their hands over

  his skin and howled with amusement when he cursed and

  kicked at them. .

  It was a game, with them running in to touch him and out again when he tried to defend himself; but when he tired of it and let them, that spoiled it and angered them. They hit, and this time it was in earnest. One of them in a fit of offended arrogance pushed him down and kicked him repeatedly in the side, and the lot of them roared with laughter at that, even more so when a little boy darted in and did the same. Kurt twisted onto his knees and tried to rise, and the chief seized him by the arm and hauled him up.

  "Where from?" the chief asked.

  "Offworld," said Kurt from bloodied lips. He saw the ship beyond the chiefs shoulder, a sanctuary out of his own time that he could not reach. He burned with shame for their treatment of him, and for the nemet's eyes on these his brothers, these shaggy, mindless, onetime lords of the earth. "That ship brought me here."

  "The Ship," the others took it up. "The holy Ship! The Starship!"

  "This is not the Ship," the chief shouted them down and pointed at it, his hand trembling with passion. "The curse-sign on it-this man is not what the Articles say."

  The Alliance emblem. Kurt had forgotten the sunburst emblem of the Alliance that was blazoned on the ship. They were Hanan. He followed the chief's pointing linger, wondering with a sickness at the pit of his stomach how much of the war these savages recalled.

  "A starman!" one of the young men shouted defiantly. "A starman! The Ship is coming!"

  And the others took up the howl with wild-eyed fervor, the same ones who had lately thrown him in the dust.

  "The ship, ya, the Ship, the Ship, the machines and the armies!"

  "They are coming!"

  "Indresul Indresul! The waiting is over!"

  The chief backhanded Kurt to the ground, kicked him to show his contempt, and there was a cry of resentment from the people. A youth ran in-for what purpose was never known. The chief dropped the boy with a single blow of his fist and rounded on the leaders of the dissent.

  "And I am still captain here," he roared, "and I know the Articles and the Writings, and who will come and argue them with me?"

  One of the men looked as if he might, but when the captain came closer to him, he ducked his head and sidled off. The rebellion died into sullen resentment

  "You've seen the sign," said the captain. "Maybe the

  Ship is near. But this little thing isn't what the Writings predict." He looked down at Kurt with threat in his eyes. "Where are the machines, the Ship as large as a mountain, the armies from the starworlds that will take us to Indresul?"

  "Not far away," said Kurt, setting his face to lie, which was never a skill of his. "I was sent out from Aeolus to find you. Is this how you welcome me? That will be the last you ever see of Ships if you kill me."

  The captain was taken aback by that answer.

  "Mother Aeolus," cried one of the men, though he called it Elus, "the great Mother. He has seen the Great Mother of All Men."

  The captain looked at Kurt from under one brow, hating, just the least part uncertain. "Then," he said, "what did she say to you?"

  The lie closed in on him, complex beyond his own understanding. Aeolus-homeworld-confounded with the nemet's Mother Isoi, Mother of Men; nemet religion and human hopes confused into reverence for a promised Ship. "She... lost you," he said, gathering himself to his feet. They personified her; he hoped he understood that rightly. "Her messenger was lost on the way hundreds of years ago, and she was angry, blaming you. But she has decided to send again, and now the Ship is coming, if my report to her is good."

  "How can her messenger wear the mark of Phan?" the captain asked. "You are a liar."

  The sunburst emblem of the ship. Kurt resisted the impulse to lose his dignity by looking where the captain pointed. "I am not a liar," said Kurt. "And if you don't listen to me, you'll never see her."

  "You come from Phan," the captain snarled, "from Phan, to lie to us and turn us over to the nemet."

  "I am human. Are you blind?"

  "You camped with the earthpeople. You were no prisoner in that camp."

  Kurt straightened his shoulders and looked the man in the eyes, lying with great offense in his tone. "We thought you men were supposed to have these nemet under control. That's what you were left here to do, after all, and you've had three hundred years to do that. So I had no real fear of the nemet and they were able to surprise me some time ago and take my weapons. It took me this long to escape from Nephane and come south. They hunted me down, with orders to bring me back to Nephane alive, so naturally they did me no harm in that camp, but that doesn't mean the relationship was friendly. I don't particularly like the nemet, but I'd advise you to save these three alive. When my captain comes down here, as he will, he's going to want to question a few of the nemet, and these will do very well for that purpose."

  The captain bit his lip and gnawed his mustache. He looked at the three nemet with burning hatred and spit out an obscenity that had not much changed in several hundred years. "We kill them."

  "No," Kurt said. "There's need of them live and healthy."

  "Three nemet?" the captain snarled. "One. One we keep. You choose which one."

  "All three," Kurt insisted, though the captain brandished his ax. It took all his self-possession not to flinch as the weapon made a pass at him.

  Then the captain whirled t
he weapon in a glittering arc at the nemet, purposely defying him. The humans murmured, eyes glittering like the metal itself. The ax passed within an inch of Kta and of the next man.

  "Choose!" the captain cried. "You choose, starman. One nemet. We take the other two."

  The howling began to be a moan. One of the little boys shrieked in glee and ran in, striking all three nemet with a stick.

  "Which one?" the captain asked again.

  Kurt kept his sickness from his face, saw Kta look at him, saw the nemet's eyes sending a desperate and angry message to him, which he ignored, looking at the captain.

  "The one on the left," Kurt said. "That one. Their leader."

  One of the two nemet died before nightfall. The execution was hi the center of camp, and there was no way Kurt could avoid watching from beginning to end, for the captain's narrow eyes were on him more than on the nemet, watching his least reaction. Kurt kept his own eyes unfocused as much as possible, and his arms folded, so that his trembling was not evident.

  The nemet was a brave man, and his last reasoned act was a glance at Kta, not desperate, but seeking approval of him. Kta was standing, hands bound. The lord of Elas gave

  the man a steadfast look, as if he had given him an order on the deck of their own ship, and the nemet died with what dignity the Tamurlin afforded him. They made a butchery of it, and the Tamurlin howled with excitement until the man no longer reacted to any torment. Then they finished him with an ax. As the blade came down, Kta's self-control came near to breaking. He wept, his face as impassive as ever, and the Tamurlin pointed at him and laughed.

  After that the captain ordered Kurt taken to his own shelter. There he questioned him, threatening him with not quite the conviction to make good the threats, accusing him over and over of lying. The captain was a shrewd man. At times there would come a light of cunning into his hair-shrouded eyes, and he doggedly refused to be led off on a tangent. Constantly he dragged the questioning back to the essential points, quoting from the versified Articles and the Writings of the Founders to argue against Kurt's claims.

  His name was Renols, or something which closely resembled that common Hanan name, and he was the only educated man in the camp. His power was his knowledge, and the moment Renols ceased to believe, or ceased, to fear, then Renols could dispose of Kurt with lies of his own. The captain was a pragmatist, capable of it; Kurt was well certain he was capable of it.

  The tent reeked of fire, of sweat, of the curious pungent leaf the Tamurlin chewed. One of his women lay hi the corner against the wall, taking the leaves one by one. Her eyes had a fevered look. Sometimes the captain reached for one of the slim gray leaves and chewed at it halfheartedly. It perfumed the breath. Sweat began to bead on his temples. He grew calmer.'

  He offered the bowl of leaves to Kurt, insisting. At last Kurt took one, judiciously tucked it hi his cheek, whole and unbruised. Even so, it burned his mouth and spread a numbness that began to frighten him.

  If he became drunk with it, he could say something he would not say; his capacity for the drug might be far less than Renols'.

  "When," asked Renols, "will the Ship come?"

  "I told you. There's machinery in my own ship. Let me in there and I can call my captain."

  Renols chewed and stared at him with his thick brows contracted. A dangerous look smoldered hi his eyes. But he took another leaf and held out the bowl to Kurt a second time. His hands were stubby-fingered, the nails broken, the knuckles ridged with cut-scars.

  Kurt took a second leaf and carefully eased that to the same place as the first

  The calculating look remained in Renols' eyes. "What sort of man is he, your captain?"

  The understanding began to come through. If a ship came, if Mother Aeolus did send it and all points of his prisoner's tale proved true, then Renols would be faced with someone of greater authority than himself. He would perhaps become a little man. Renols must dread the Ship; it was in his own selfish interests that there not be one.

  But it was also remotely possible that his prisoner would be an important man in the near future, so Renols must fear him. Kurt reckoned that too, and reckoned uneasily that familiarity might well overcome Renols' fear, when Aeolus' messenger turned out to be only mortal.

  "My captain," said Kurt, embroidering the tale, "is named Ason, and Aeolus has given him all the weapons that you need. He will give them to you and show you their use before he returns to Aeolus to report."

  The answer evidently pleased Renols more than Renols had expected. He grunted, half a laugh, as if he took pleasure in the anticipation.

  Then he gave orders to one of the sallow-faced women who sat nearby. She laid the child she had been nursing in the lap of the nearest woman, who slept in the aftereffects of the leaf, and went out and brought them food. She offered first to Renols, then to Kurt.

  Kurt took the greasy joint in his fingers and hesitated, suddenly fearing the Tamurlin might not be above cannibalism. He looked it over, relieved to find no comparison between this joint and human or nemet anatomy. Starvation and Renols' suspicious stare overcame his other scruples and he ate the unidentified meat, careful with each bite not to swallow the leaves tucked in his cheek. The meat, despite the strong medicinal taste of the leaves, had a musty, mildewed flavor that almost made him retch. He held his breath and tried not to taste it, and wiped his hands on the earthen floor when he was done.

  The captain offered him a second piece, and stopped in the act.

  From outside there came a disturbance. Laughter. Someone shrieked in pain.

  Renols put down the platter of meat and went out to speak with the man at the entry to the shelter.

  "You swore," said Kurt when he came back.

  "We're keeping yours," said Renols. "The other one is

  ours." '

  The confusion outside grew louder. Renols Mocked torn between annoyance at the interruption and desire to see what was passing outside. Abruptly he called in the man at the entry, tersely bidding him take Kurt to confinement.

  The commotion sank away into silence, Kurt listened, teeth clamped tight against the heaving of his stomach. He had spit out the leaves there in the darkness of the shelter where they had left him, hands tied around one of the two support posts. He twisted until he could dig with his fingers in the hard dirt floor and bury the rejected leaves.

  There was a bitter taste in his mouth now. His vision blurred, his pulse raced, his heart crashed against his ribs. He began to be hazy-minded, and slept a time.

  Footsteps in the dust outside aroused him. Shadows entered the moonlight-striped shelter, pulling a loose-limbed body with them. It was Kta. They tied the semiconscious nemet to the other post and left him.

  After a time Kta lifted his head and leaned it back against the post. He did not speak or look at Kurt, only stared off into the dark, his face and body oddly patterned with moonlight through the woven-work.

  "Kta," said Kurt finally. "Are you all right?"

  Kta made no reply.

  "Kta," Kurt pleaded, reading anger. in the set of the nemet's jaw.

  "Is it to you," Kta's hoarse voice replied, "is it to you that I owe my life? Do I understand that correctly? Or do I believe instead the tale you tell to the umani?"

  "I am doing all I can."

  "What is it you want from me?"

  "I am trying to save our lives," Kurt said. "I am trying to get you out of here. You know me, Kta. Can you take seriously any of the things I have told them?"

  There was a long silence. "Please," said Kta in a broken voice, "please spare me your help from now on."

  "Listen to me. There are weapons in the ship if I can convince them to let me in there. If I can fire its engines I can burn this nest out."

  "I will forgive you," said Kta, "when you do that."

  "Are you," Kurt asked after a moment, "much hurt?"

  "I am alive," Kta answered. "Does that not satisfy you? Shall I tell you what they did to the boy, honored friend?"
r />   "I could not stop it. Kta, look at me. Listen. Is there any hope at all from Tavi? If we could get free, could we find out way there?"

  There was no answer.

  "Kta, where is your ship anchored?"

  "Why? So you can buy our lives with that too?"

  "Do you think I mean to tell-"

  "They are your kind, human. It would be possible to survive... if you could buy your life. I will not give you Tavi."

  Against such bitterness there was no answer. Kurt swallowed at the resentment and the hurt that rose in his throat; he held his peace after that. He wanted no more truth from Kta.

  The silence wore on, two-sided. At last it was Kta who turned his head. "What are you fighting for?" he asked.