The Iron Breed

by Andre Norton

  But Eu-La wished to return with the messengers. So four rather than three set out again by night to return to the lairs.

  There was no sign of the flyer, though they never felt safe from it. And when they met again the Tusker patrols, they learned it had not been seen.

  The Tuskers had another message. One of their scouts had witnessed at the far end of their territory a strange thing. A truce flag had been set up. And, left by it with food and water to hand, a Barker who seemed to be recovering from ill treatment. Those who left him were a party of People from the lairs. He had been claimed by his own kind before nightfall, and the Barkers had not torn away the flag.

  Rather they were now gathering, with more of their scouts arriving all the time. And there were signs they planned to camp nearby in the woods.

  “So we freed that Barker from the Rattons,” Furtig said. “But that may have been by far the easier part. To get the People and the Barkers under a common truce flag is a thing unheard of.”

  “Yet,” pointed out Liliha, “the Barkers did not tear down the flag. It still stands. Thus they have not yet refused to talk. They summon their own clans to speak together, even as we have gone to argue with those of the caves. But whether—”

  “We cannot trust Barkers!” Furtig broke in. “Even if the Demons are all the legends say they were, we cannot trust Barkers.”

  “Barkers lived with the Demons,” Eu-La said. “That is where they first learned evil ways.” She was repeating the old legend of their own kind.

  “But so did our people once,” Liliha reminded her. “The First Ancestors fled from the lairs only when the Demons turned against them in their last madness and cruelty. But you are right in this—Gammage must have a powerful argument to make the Barkers listen. Saving one of them from the Rattons is not enough. But it is a beginning.”

  Furtig thought of the truce flag. Even though the Barkers had not thrown it contemptuously to earth, refusing contact, it would take great courage for any warrior of the People to go to it unarmed, trusting in the good will of his enemies. Who would Gammage choose—or who would volunteer to do that? And how would he who went know that it was the proper time? Would the Barkers advance a flag of their own in answer?

  Furtig was suddenly more eager than ever to get back to the lairs, to know what had happened since they had left. Had the Demons been reinforced? But a quick question to the Tuskers reassured them as to that—no second sky-ship had come down.

  Broken Nose and his people would keep guard here, and, being informed of the coming of the cave clans, they would provide an alarm system to let those travel in such safety as could be devised.

  Ahead lay the lairs and what might await them there. They slipped into the open with all the stealth and craft they possessed.

  * * *

  Ayana stripped off the sterile gloves, and crumpled them into a small ball, since they could not be used again. Jacel lay with beads of pain sweat still plain on his face. His eyes were closed, and she knew that the pain reliever had taken effect. Also the wound was not so bad as she had first feared. If they could now get him to the ship and under a renewer, in a day's time he would have no more to show for that gash than a well-closed seam.

  But she was more than a little puzzled. There was a med-kit at Jacel's own belt. Tan wore another. And such a gash as this was easily handled by the materials they carried. Why had they sent out that panicked call for her?

  She had asked no questions until now, being intent on the patient. Tan, standing against the wall, had volunteered nothing. Nor had Jacel. In fact, he had appeared to be affected out of all proportion to the seriousness of the wound itself. Perhaps—Ayana glanced around the bare chamber—there had been some poisonous substance feared—but instant anti-spray would have handled such.

  Now that she had time to think—Ayana did not look at Tan squarely, but as if she did not want him to see she noticed him. But Tan was not watching her; he was staring on through the other door in the room, seemingly so absorbed that he must see or hear something—or be waiting for something to happen.

  “What is it?” Her words sounded too loud, even echoed a little.

  Now he turned his head. And in his eyes Ayana saw that queer gleam which frightened her. She shivered. Cold as this place was, the protect suit should have kept her warm; but Tan now had the ability to chill her through when he looked like that.

  “You will have another patient, a very important one. We have had wonderful luck, Ayana, we have made contact—”

  “Contact with whom—or what?” she demanded when he paused.

  “With those who live here. Do you know, Ayana, this is a storehouse of information. They have shown us tapes, machines—What we learned from the First Ships is nothing, nothing at all to what we can learn here. If we have time—”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, our friends are not the only ones trying to get this information. There are others—and they may be closer. There was a war here in the old days. And do you know what kind of a war?” He came away from the wall to stand over her.

  Ayana rose quickly, not liking to have him towering above her so.

  “A war between men and animals—animals, mind you! Things with fur and claws and fangs that dared to think they were equal with man—dared!” He was breathing fast, his face flushed. “But there were others. Men in their last days here were few, they had to have friends, helpers—and they found them. Then, when man was gone those others were left, left to defend everything man had fought for, all the knowledge he had won through his own efforts, defended against the animals. They are still fighting that battle, but now it is our fight, too!

  “They need you, Ayana. There is a place of medical information—think of it—a storage of all the wealth of knowledge of man's time on this world! They have been trying to hold that against the enemy. They need our help so badly. One of their leaders, a genius among them, one who has been able to untangle many of the old records, was badly injured in fighting the animals. He has been taken to this center, and now they need your aid.

  “Think of it, Ayana—such devices of healing as were just hinted at in our records! You can see them, learn to use them—you can help this leader. It is such a chance as only luck could have given us.”

  He was in one of his exultant moods, but to a degree she had never seen before.

  “Tan's luck—” she said before she thought.

  He nodded vigorously. “Tan's luck! And it is going to help us—help us win a whole world for man again! But they're coming—listen!”

  She could hear Jacel's heavy breathing, and then something else, a light pattering. There was a gleam of light beyond the door, and those Tan expected arrived. Ayana gasped and shrank back.

  These were not the furred creatures of the bridge which she had half-expected, but something she instinctively found repulsive.

  They scuttled on their hind feet, but they had naked tails at the ends of their spines. And they were small, the largest standing a little above her knee at its full height. Fur grew on them in ragged patches, with naked skin between. On some, the smaller, that fur was a dirty gray; on the two largest it was white. Their heads had the long, narrow muzzles of animals showing sharp teeth. Against the domes of their skulls their ears were pointed.

  Ayana hated them on sight. She watched with frozen horror as Tan advanced to greet the tallest white-furred one, which seemed to be their leader, squatting down so that his head came closer to that of the creature.

  Around its neck hung a small box. It reached with one paw—hand?—and touched that. Then it uttered a series of squeaks, but from the box came distorted but still recognizable words.

  “Chief—waits. Hurry, hurry—”

  “She is here.” Tan nodded toward Ayana. “She is ready.”

  “No!” Ayana cried. Not for all the knowledge, all the treasure of this world heaped up before her, would she go with these small horrors deeper into their burrows.

 
Tan, on his feet, came at her, and she could not get away. She could not even slip along the wall out of his reach.

  “Little fool!” He caught her arm in so painful a grip that she gasped. “Do you go with them on your own two feet, or do I inject you with a sleep-shot and let them carry you? No stupidity is going to wreck my plans now, do you understand?”

  And she knew that he would do just that. If she went, perhaps with an outward show of willingness, she could at least see the road they took, might even be able to escape. If he drugged her and they took her—no, she had no choice.

  “Try no tricks with them, they are no animals.” Tan showed his teeth almost as if they were the fangs of the waiting squad. “Jacel discovered that. Now get going—”

  He gave her a push, and she stumbled toward the door. Around her the creatures closed in.

  16

  Ayana stood looking about, first in bewilderment and then with a growing excitement which drew her attention from those chittering things which had brought her here—and even from Tan, who had followed behind and with whom she had not spoken since this nightmare began. For he had actually picked up and carried the chief horror—that half-bald, half-white-furred leader, exchanging speech with him. The girl had pushed ahead to avoid that monstrous companionship. For monstrous her emotions told her it was!

  But this place! She had studied in detail every scrap of information having to do with medical knowledge that they had found in the looted tape banks of the First Ships. Ayana had had access in addition to all the combined learning, surmise, and speculation of those who had had more than a hundred years before her to study the same records.

  So now she turned slowly about, surveying a vast and much better lighted chamber, cut by many partitions rising to her shoulder height or beyond, into booths and cubicles. This was indeed a medical center such as her teachers had hardly dared dream existed on the parent world.

  Some of the machines she recognized from old diagrams—diagnostic, operative, healing—For a moment, in her amazement and excitement, Ayana forgot her company and went forward confidently, pausing here and there before an installation she did know, passing for now those she could not understand. Why—with these—if they still worked—one could cure a nation!

  Ayana put out her hand, ran fingertips along the outer transparent wall of a healing cell. If they worked! But how long had it been since they had been put to use? She might be able to work out the procedure for activating those she did know, always providing they were intact. But if their machinery was at fault, she had no way of knowing what a tech would do to put that right again.

  She passed down one aisle between those partitions and came into an open space. There before her—

  That table—the smell—the pools of—blood! Ayana recoiled as she faced it. Amid the sterile disuse of the rest of the place, this was like a blow in the face, to bring her to the realization of how she had come here. The tangle of blood-stained instruments thrown in an ugly pile on one end of the table hinted more of cruel butchery than of any desire to heal. What had they done here—these small monsters with whom Tan seemed to have made some evil pact?

  “Well?” Tan's voice from behind made her start. “What do you think of this? Did I not tell you there was more to be found than you could guess? Now—Oudu wants to know if you can use it to cure his chief.”

  She looked away from that blood-stained table with a shudder, tried to close her mind to it. And she was able to find voice enough to croak:

  “Some of this was on the tapes. The rest”—Ayana shook her head—“is new. And we do not know whether the power works.”

  “Oudu will know.” He looked at that thing he carried, as if, Ayana thought, it was human!

  “Some work—” The dry rustle of the words overlay the shrill chittering as the box on the creature's chest translated. “There is material to try with—”

  “Material?” Ayana could not force herself to look directly at Oudu, nor address it—him. “What does he mean?”

  “I believe they have been experimenting for themselves. They have taken prisoners from time to time, the animals roaming in here. They use them, just as our ancestors used to do. That's why those were here in the first place—they were lab animals.”

  “We—we were helpers of the Great Ones!” came that other voice. “Workers here. The others, they were used to try the machines upon—as we do now. But many escaped, many lie in wait—kill—destroy. They destroy the records, the knowledge. Soon all will be gone if we do not stop them.”

  “See?” Tan demanded. “We have to stop such destruction—or we'll lose everything.”

  “Do not waste time.” Oudu cut in. “Shimog dies. Let this knowing female use her knowledge to make Shimog live again.”

  Ayana swallowed. “I have to see—see—”

  “Naturally. They have him down here.” Tan passed that ghastly table as if it did not exist, and she followed, glad to leave it. But she knew now that she played a game, and it would not be Tan's. No alliance with these things—she could not do it. Not for all the knowledge here!

  Not even, asked something within her, if it means the success or failure of your mission? The life or death of those on Elhorn? But Elhorn was far away, and here—here was now, before her. She could only follow Tan's lead for a time, waiting for a chance, a plan, to wrest herself free of this nightmare.

  They came to a cubicle at the end of the line, and there was a gathering of the creatures, several on guard at the door, two by the cot within. Lying on the cot was one even larger than Oudu and even more scantily furred.

  It—he—was swollen of paunch. And the skin, where it showed, was dark, scaled with sores. Breath came and went in slow, heavy panting, as if the effort to breathe was almost too great. Its attendants drew back as Ayana forced herself on her knees close to the creature.

  She could not find any pity, even when the thing turned its head a fraction and looked at her. For the consciousness within those eyes was coldly evil. Ayana recognized intelligence of a type so alien to all she believed in that it was like meeting black and deadly hatred formed into a repulsive body.

  There was no way of telling how or why Shimog suffered. She could only guess that it was from some disease. But that might be native to this planet, or to the creature's own foul species. Certainly she had never seen such symptoms before.

  “What can you do?” Tan demanded impatiently.

  What? She had no idea. Except one. She had seen something out there she had recognized—a renewal chamber. If this Shimog was in the least responsive to what would act for humans, that might be the best hope.

  “The renewal chamber. If the installation works—that might help.”

  “A machine?” Oudu demanded. “You can run this machine?”

  “I have seen directions for such,” she answered, careful not to make any promises to these small devils. “I would have to try it, to make sure that it was running properly, before we used it on your chief.”

  “To do so then you must have an animal?” came the swift demand.

  “But it will only work on one hurt—or ill.”

  “We have what is needed.”

  Oudu did not add to that, but he might have given some inaudible order, for most of those who had come with them scurried away.

  Troubled, Ayana arose. “I must see the renewer—”

  Free of that cubicle with its fetid odor, its aura of dark hate, she ran back to the glass-walled booth with the soft flooring. It was large enough to accommodate some twenty beings of Shimog's size, perhaps five humans.

  She did not open the door, but went to the controls. Since she could not set for any particular disease, well, it would be full treatment. Yes, here were the symbols she had seen on the tapes. And a single finger press brought an answering spark of life—it worked! At least the power was still on. And—

  Ayana whirled—those sounds!

  Toward her—she wanted to be sick. Those they were dragging, cryin
g, babbling. No—this was a deadly nightmare! Then her head rang as Tan slapped her hard across the face.

  “Those are only animals, experimental animals, do you understand? Sure, the Rattons don't play pretty with their enemies but neither do the animals with Rattons!”

  Ayana caught her tongue between her teeth, bit on it. Tan—was this Tan? Not her Tan but the one who had come alive since they had landed on this cursed world. For cursed it had to be!

  The nightmare crew pulled, rolled those torn and mangled bodies into the renewal chamber, slammed the door.

  “Get to it!” Tan's hands on her shoulders brought her about before the controls. “Prove it, one way or the other.”

  She could not think straight—but she must. Those poor wrecks, perhaps she could give them merciful unconsciousness, death. Ayana sent the machine into humming life. She did not look into the chamber as she jerked the lever up to full power, hoping that would kill mercifully, quickly. Now she was disciplining her thoughts into some kind of coherent order.

  She would never join Tan in his alliance with these Rattons—not ever! There was a point past which no thought of gain could carry one. And Ayana was there.

  Therefore, if she was to get out of this venture alive, she would have to move before the Rattons realized that she was not their ally.

  Tan had taken her stunner, but she had something else in her kit which could be a weapon. If she could get that in hand—

  “This will take time.” She kept her voice level. “And Shimog—a sedative might help.”

  “Give it to him then.”

  Still not looking into the chamber, Ayana went back to the ailing leader. She brought out openly what she needed, charged it. Luckily Tan knew no more than the necessary medic first aid. Correct dosage of this meant nothing to him.

  “I will give your leader”—she would not look to Oudu—“sleep that he may rest until the machine is proven.”

  “Not so!” Oudu's harsh protest shook her, though she hoped not to open betrayal. “Prove no harm—Mog!”