The Iron Breed

by Andre Norton

  Whatever had happened, Jony realized, Geogee believed what he had just said was true. But—a wall which swallowed?

  Jony himself gulped down his fear as best he could. He wanted nothing so much as to run with Geogee, get free of this place which, taking on the evil memories of the cages in the dusk, was far more alarming than any trap. Only—there was Maba. He could not leave her here. Instead he must get Geogee quieted enough to make better sense.

  He caught the braid of the boy's hair in a firm hand, exerting enough pull on it to bring Geogee away from him so he could view the twin's convulsed face in what small light was here. Rutee had made him promise—never use the control.

  But Rutee could not have foreseen this situation. Jony must free Geogee from the clutch of his wild terror long enough to discover what had happened. Or else . . . or else Maba might be lost.

  Conquering, at least for this moment, his own uneasiness, Jony gazed steadily into the boy's eyes. They were fixed, staring, as if Geogee still watched something so utterly horrifying that he was caught within that moment of horror as a prisoner. Jony used his mind-touch, soothing, trying to break through the fear barrier.

  The younger blinked; his mouth twitched. Jony concentrated. He was here—Geogee was not alone—they must find Maba! As he had earlier spoken emphatically, he now fed those thoughts.

  Geogee's frantic grip on him was relaxing. Jony knew he was getting through. His own impatience warred with the necessary overlay of calm. While they wasted time here—what could be happening to Maba? He firmly shoved aside such thoughts; at present his task was to learn all Geogee knew.

  After a time that seemed to stretch endlessly, Jony made a question of her name: “Maba—?”

  Geogee loosed his hold, stood away. His face was now calm. Jony remembered the mind-controlled from the cage days, hated what he saw. But otherwise—he did not really have Geogee under full control, he had only managed to reach beyond the boy's fear as he had had to do.

  “Back there,” Geogee gestured to a darker portion of the den and another opening. “We were back there . . .”

  Jony wet dry lips with the tip of his tongue. To go into that darkness . . . But it had to be done. He scooped up his staff. At least he could probe shadows with that, not walk straight into disaster unprepared. His sense told him there was no enemy, no living enemy that he could recognize within these stone heaps. Yet from the heaps themselves came a strange awareness, which to him was a warning such as he had never known before.

  “Back here.” Geogee was already pattering away into the dark. Jony quickly followed.

  They went through two of the open spaces which had wall holes giving a small amount of light. Then Geogee halted in the third, facing what gave every appearance of a completely solid erection of stones. Yet the younger boy advanced toward this as if he saw an opening invisible to Jony.

  “Maba—” Geogee reached out his hand. “She put her hand right there.” With that he forced his palm flat on the stone.

  There was a dull grating sound. Under Geogee's push not only the block he touched, but those above and below moved. The boy, off-balanced, stumbled forward through the black hole now open. Jony aimed his staff. The stones were swinging back again to seal Geogee in, but they were stopped by the stout length between.

  Jony heard Geogee cry out. Then he levered frantically with his shaft. The stones opened again more fully, but he could see their strength had nearly bitten through the wood.

  There was no help for it, he must follow into whatever secret the wall concealed.

  He groped through, heard the stones crunch behind him. Panic filled him. This was a cage, worse than those of the Big Ones; it was dark and the wall was solid. And . . . He took a single step away from the edge of this new cage. His foot did not meet a surface; there was nothing there!

  With a cry Jony fell into that nothingness.

  His fall was not far. Only after he landed heavily, he was on a slope down which he continued to slide, though he struck out with his staff trying to find some hold, some way of staying that slip ever downward. So intent was he on such struggles, that it was a moment or two before he realized that he was not moving over a rough stone surface which would have stripped his skin by the friction. Rather under him was soft stuff which gave at the pressure of his exploring fingers and then rose again. It was as if this strange way of traveling had been devised with maximum safeguards against injury.

  Down and down, Jony had no way of judging how far this slippery passage reached.

  “Geogee!” he shouted, waited for some answer.

  Finally that came—thin, faint, and Jony believed far away, a mere thread of sound reaching him. He sent a mind probe instantly.

  Geogee was again in a state of fear and confusion, but he was alive, unharmed. If there ever was an end to this worm hole, Jony would catch up with Geogee, and, doubtless, with Maba.

  The purpose of such a passage—Jony did not even try to guess at that. Was it a trap set long ago to catch any invading the stone heaps? Did each stone heap have one? If so, what bitter enemies had the people here faced?

  The dark was no longer absolute. Ahead, Jony saw a grayish gleam of light. And that cheered him. To be out of suffocating darkness was enough to raise his spirits.

  Also, he was not sliding so fast now. The angle of the way under his body was less acute. The light increased, coming from a round opening ahead. Jony began to hope that he had reached the end of this nightmare passage.

  He could see better, use the staff as a brake, so that he did not fall through that hole, but crouched at its mouth, to look out warily.

  “Jony!” Geogee, his dirty hands smearing at his cheeks where there were the marks of tears, hunkered on the floor of a vast place filled with the gray light. There was no opening to the outer world. In fact, Jony was sure that they were far beneath the ground in some cave. He could not see nor understand where the light came from. But he accepted thankfully that it was there.

  Before him was a very short drop to the floor. Jony jumped, then thought-quested. Something . . . He swung away from Geogee, facing out into the wide open of that space. Maba—that way!

  He stooped over Geogee, drew him up onto his feet. “Come!” He must find Maba and then a way out. To climb up the passage he had just descended might be impossible. Jony shrugged away such speculation. Let him find Maba, perhaps then further exploration would show them an escape.

  “Jony, I want out of here!” There was a shrill note in Geogee's voice.

  Jony could have applied the calming influence again, but his concentration was needed to guide him to Maba.

  “We'll get out,” he gave assurance which might be a lie, but which must serve him at present as a tool. “But first we find Maba.”

  “Where is she?” Geogee demanded, his head turning from one side to the other as if he sought her within eyesight.

  “This way.” At least Jony was confident of that much. He kept hold of Geogee's shoulder, urging the boy on. At least Geogee seemed willing enough to go.

  As they struck out straight across the center of the open space Jony noticed the open space itself was much larger than he had first guessed, stretching farther and farther ahead. He caught sight of other holes in the walls, similar to the one through which they had come. It would seem that this was some central meeting place for many such.

  There was an utter silence here, a deadness which did not exist in the shadowed heaps above where small life had made hiding places and dens of their own. Jony shook his head impatiently. He had the odd sensation that the deadness also blanketed thought, that it was becoming harder and harder to retain his guiding tie with Maba. How far had she gone? He was startled when Geogee suddenly shouted: “Maba!”

  The name echoed, re-echoed, so that it seemed many Geogees cried that aloud. The boy whimpered and crowded closer to Jony.

  “Please,” he said, “I don't like this place, Jony. And Maba—where is she?”

  Jony was wo
ndering if the girl was on the move, straying farther and farther ahead of them all the time. He knew she was there, but when would they catch up?

  The hole openings along the walls were no longer to be seen, while the open space through which they trotted was narrowing. Now they moved between two walls without any breaks in them at all. At the same time the gray light grew stronger, changing hue. It was then Jony saw the barrier ahead.

  This was not like the walls on either side, but gleamed a little, while in it was a crack placed vertically. An opening they could force? He hoped so. Maba?—his mind-call went out. To his relief he knew that at last she was close, perhaps only behind that barrier.

  When he reached the surface Jony could see that the crack indeed marked an opening. But there was no manner of pulling it open. When he pushed, it closed only more firmly. Again he tried his staff, working the now splintering tip into that crack, exerting all the leverage he could.

  Slowly, reluctantly, the crack widened; the door was opening. Jony's hands were slippery with sweat as he worked. Then Geogee joined him, adding a small measure of strength to the effort. Inch by inch they won until they had opened a space wide enough for both to slip through.

  Jony stopped short. The contrast between what faced him now and the stark corridor which had led them here was so great it took a moment for his eyes to adjust. Here was color in plenty, so much that it battered against one, dazzling and deluding the sight. Ribbons of brightness were along the walls, and, between the same type of stone tree trunks that Jony had seen in the largest pile, were stacked tightly, from the floor under them to the surface high overhead, blocks of color, no two alike. Some of those blocks were transparent, like the one which held the sleeper, so that he saw many objects piled inside them.

  The glitter and brilliance of this place bothered Jony. There was no sign of Maba, yet she was here; his sense told him that. Lost perhaps among the ranges of blocks.

  “Maba!” He raised his voice in the loudest shout he could summon.

  “Jony . . . ?” Her answer was low-voiced, drawing him to the left, along that painted wall. Now that he could focus on one single part of this cluttered place he could see that those colors made up pictures. Not too far ahead Maba sat, her feet straight out before her, her dirty, dusty face turned up, staring intently at what was just before her.

  “Maba!” Geogee broke from Jony's side, ran toward his twin. “What—”

  She raised her hand to point, never looking in her brother's direction at all, her voice eager and alive.

  “Geogee—Jony—look! People—like us . . . see!”

  The paintings on the wall had a strange look about them. They did not exist on a flat surface, but somehow stood out and away from that, with the semblance of figures only partly caught in the stone, a portion of their forms protruding beyond.

  The section Maba had chosen to study showed a number of females who were doing things with their hands which Jony could not understand. Before them were a number of boxes of different sizes and shapes, on which were dots in various colors. The women appeared to rest their hands upon some of these dots. Piled about them at foot level were a number of things, among which all he could recognize with any certainty was a roll of woven substance, very much finer than their own kilts or the knottings of the People. Some objects reminded him unpleasantly of articles which had been in use in the labs of the Big Ones, save that these were of a brighter color and a shape more pleasing to the eye.

  He glanced at the next picture. Here were males, and they each had in hand one of those red rods such as he had seen in the hands of the sleeper. One man pointed his rod, and a beam of light was pictured as springing from its tip to strike a rough, unshaped rock. A little farther on was a rock which was its twin, but that had one side smoothed and squared. Jony guessed that those in the picture used their light beams to cut stone, even as the People used sharp stones to hack some length of wood to proper measure.

  That such could possibly be done he knew from his memories of the ship's lab. But that was a power of the Big Ones, and therefore evil. Jony frowned at the picture. The men in it looked not unlike those of the mind-controlled the Big Ones caged.

  “Look!” Maba picked up something which had lain on the floor beside her, flaunted it at Jony. “See what I found!”

  The substance fell in graceful folds between her hands, and he realized that it was cloth—not coarse and heavy as their own clumsily woven kilts, but smooth, soft, beautiful. The color was a clear green, like the leaves of some plants, and, over that, waved a pattern of clusters of small flowers. Jony's hand went to his head. The sprig he had broken off earlier that day had not survived. He had wanted for a moment to compare that with the pictured ones on the cloth, for by his memory they appeared very similar.

  “I shall wear this—so—like that one . . .” Maba stood up. She let fall her kilt, struggled to drape the length of green about her in imitation of the covering on the painted woman she had pointed to. Deep in Jony his extra sense stirred in warning. He did not want to see Maba strutting back and forth before that picture, the cloth clutched about her thin brown body. This was—wrong!

  “No!” Jony moved on that instinct, snatching at the material before Maba could hold it more tightly. Becoming aware of what he was doing, she cried out, clinging to it stubbornly. There was a ripping sound. The cloth tore so that the larger part was in Jony's hands; she only held the end.

  The stuff was so soft, seeming to cling to his skin. He wadded it together in a fierce gesture, threw it from him.

  Maba stared incredulously at the ragged scrap she held. Then she let that fall, to rush at Jony with her hands balled into fists, pummeling him with all her strength.

  “You—you spoiled it!” she gasped. “You tore it!”

  Jony dropped the staff he had caught up again, took her by the shoulders, held her away, kicking and flailing her fists. The girl screamed in sheer anger, and he shook her sharply until she stopped and began to cry.

  But she smeared away her tears, as if angry that she shed them, and continued to glare at Jony.

  “You spoiled it!” she repeated, her eyes hot with anger.

  “Listen!” Jony shook her again. “Now, you listen to me, Maba. Do you remember what happened to Luho? Do you?”

  Her eyes were held by his level stare. “She—she ate the yellow thing that smelled good . . .”

  “And after that?”

  “She—she hurt bad, real bad. And—and—she died . . .” Maba's voice trailed away. Then some of the fierceness came back into her face. “But I didn't eat any yellow thing, Jony. I had—had something nice.”

  “Did Luho think she had something nice?” he continued, hoping to drive home his meaning by reason alone.

  “Yes. But that was growing, Jony. It was a live thing. Mine wasn't a live thing. They made it, I think—” she gestured toward the women on the wall. “It wouldn't hurt me.”

  “You don't know, Maba. Luho didn't listen when she was told strange things must be handled carefully. This place, it does not belong to the People, nor does it belong to those who are like us either—”

  “But they are, Jony! Look at them; you can see! Maybe Rutee was wrong, maybe the sky ship brought her back to this, her own world.” Maba spoke faster and faster.

  Jony shook his head. “No, Rutee would have known. The People never lived on her world. Think about the hoppers, Maba. Remember how they catch the pincher ones?”

  “They—they can make themselves small and they hide a part of their bodies—so they look like a pincher—” she replied. “You mean,” her head turned away from him now so she could gaze searchingly once more at the wall, “You mean—these people could be like hoppers—make themselves look like us . . . ? But, Jony, how could they know about us? This place is old. It must have been here before Rutee and you came out of that ship, before we were born.”

  “Not to catch us. But I mean that, though they look more like us than the Big Ones, they co
uld be as different really as the hoppers are from the clawed ones. Do you understand?”

  She looked back at him and then once again at the pictured wall.

  “Yes. Only what if you're wrong, Jony? What if they are really our kind? Jony”—she pulled away from his loosened hold—“those things over there.” She pointed eagerly now to the ranks of colored squares and oblongs. “Those can be opened up and they're full of things. Things like what you tore up. And others—just come and see, Jony!” She caught his hand and pulled him toward the nearest of the squares. Before they reached that, Geogee came running.

  “Look what I found!” he shouted. He waved over his head a red rod, swinging it around so that light flashed from its surface.

  Jony, again with only instinct to guide him, made a grab. Their hands met on the surface of the rod. From its tip shot a beam so brilliant that Jony was temporarily blinded. He heard screams from the twins, the clatter of something metallic falling, as he reeled back against the wall, his hands pressed protectively over his eyes.

  “Geogee—” somehow he managed to get out, “leave that thing—leave it alone!”

  “I—I can't see, Jony . . .” Geogee's voice approached a scream. “Jony—Maba—”

  “It's all right.” Maba answered him. “This is me, Geogee. Take my hand. That—that thing. It . . . Jony,” her voice trembled. “Where the light went . . . there just isn't anything! Jony, what happened?”

  He blinked, his eyes were tearing, but he could see, as if through a watery haze. His first horrible fear was dulled. The red rod lay on the floor. He made a careful detour around it to reach the children. Maba had her arms about her twin, was hugging him close, but she was looking beyond him and Jony followed her line of sight.

  Where the top row of squares had been piled upon a firm base of their fellows there was—as Maba had reported—nothing. The power of that lancing light certainly was a threat which seemed now to him worse than the devices the Big Ones had used.

  Had the twins learned their lesson? Nothing here must be touched again. They had no idea what a careless mistake might loose. What if Maba had been in the line of that beam? Jony shuddered, feeling more than a little sick at the answer his imagination offered. He picked up his staff. Now he moved in on the twins.