The Best of Talebones

by edited by Patrick Swenson

  KEN RAND

  I had just begun my death song when the pinkman saved me. At first I thought the berkat in whose web I had fallen had gotten a fly caught in her throat and interrupted preparing for her meal — me, Fast Climber — to clear it. Instead, she chuffed, so close to me I could smell rotten meat on her breath, settled back on her rump, mewed like a newborn berkit and seemed to fall asleep. She yawned before closing her eyes.

  Time passed, measured in the thump of my racing heart, before I realized the berkat was dead. In the heartbeats after her death, I had never heard Mother Jungle so silent. Mother Jungle took several heartbeats to return to her otherwise ceaseless song.

  The sackmonks began chattering in the tree branches overhead, as if they’d just awakened from a night’s sleep, yet God’s Heart blazed high in a cloudless sky. Upvalley, a ‘loper sentry lowed an all clear to the herd. And nearer, I saw the pinkman; a giant, three heads taller than me.

  It stood ten spits away, almost half a half-throw, behind the broad leaves of a crythabush, motionless for a pinkman, peering at me down the barrel of its dart-spitter. I hadn’t heard its approach — and I had stalked it — so focused was my attention on easing my foot from the web’s grasp. What if it had spat the dart at me? I might then become the first of the People taken by pinkmen. I turned several shades of green as I contemplated standing before the Elders. “I let the pinkman take me,” I would say, head bowed. “Fast Climber is not worthy to lead the People.”

  And my cousin One Brow would lead.

  I swallowed an anguished cry at the thought of such failure, staying motionless even though I knew the pinkman could see me. I would wander in the jungle for a handful of passages of the Nightbird in penance.

  But I was captured. I had escaped the berkat, but not the pinkman.

  I had been a fool to get too excited about the pinkman. I had stalked it to this spot, watching, trying to decide if I should kill it or if it would be worth capturing and bringing back to the Elders. With the capture of an alien pinkman, I would secure the Elders’s blessing as leader of the People. Let One Brow catch a mature berkat, or a live galion she, toothsome and half a spit long. I’d capture a pinkman — and keep it alive.

  And so, I became inattentive and stepped into the web, my inattention proving me unworthy of leadership.

  I sat back and sighed in my mouth as the pinkman approached, dart-spitter still aimed at me.

  “Don’t move.” The pinkman spoke gibberish. I memorized its noise more out of habit than out of some other purpose.

  “Spit your dart, pinkman,” I said, though I knew it didn’t understand People talk — no pinkman did. “I am ready to return to Mother Jungle.” My foot still remained snared in the web.

  The pinkman knelt and put a hand against the berkat’s throat. It spared a quick glance away from me at the berkat.

  “Guess I saved your little brown and green butt, cammie,” the pinkman chattered, plucking a dart from the berkat’s rump. It put the dart in a pouch of its skin — its entire body (imagine) was covered in a hairless animal skin — then it returned to stalking me, though I sat a galion tail-length away.

  “Why, you’re naked as a babe,” it said, eyes squinting in a pink, round face. Most pinkmen had a hair patch atop their heads, but this one had no hair there. The round head seemed to sit on his shoulders, neckless. Pinkmen were big, yes, but this one was bigger than any I’d ever seen. Standing, my head would barely reach its chest. The arms were as big as the legs. The pinkman could lift the berkat with ease.

  So ugly.

  It anchored the dart-spitter over one shoulder, took a thing from a pouch, and knelt beside me. It held a thing like a riverpanth longtooth, for cutting, rather than a berkat tooth, for puncturing. “I’m going to cut you loose,” it said, squinting at the web around my foot.

  I stayed still. I had been foolish a heartbeat ago, getting into the web, but now I was smart.

  If the pinkman intended to send me home to Mother Jungle, it would have already done so. I might be the wiser to see what the pinkman planned to do. So I stayed still and listened to it. Now, memorizing its song took on more meaningfulness, though I didn’t know what that meaning would be.

  It pulled a web strand from another pouch; pouches seemed to blister here and there all over its body. It attached one strand end around my waist and the other end to a hide band around its waist.

  “This is so you don’t run off once I get you out of that web, savvy?” it said, nodding at the strand.

  I remained still.

  “Hey, you alive?” It waved a hand before my face. I blinked. “Okay. Spooky the way you guys freeze up like that.”

  It sliced at the web with the longtooth, sawing back and forth. “Sweet Jadu, what’s this shit made of?”

  It continued to slice at the web and the web parted at last. As the web parted, the pinkman backed away as if expecting me to attack. I stayed still.

  At last it sighed and stood erect. It returned the longtooth to its pouch and brought the dart-spitter from its shoulder anchor. It pointed the spitter at me and motioned.

  “Up,” it gibbered. “I’m taking you with me. Nice catch, if I can get back. Maybe, with you as hostage, I just might. Get back, I mean. Worth a try.”

  I stayed still.

  It poked me in the ribs with the spitter tip.

  “Up. We got to make tracks, find a clearing by dark.”

  Its motions made it clear that it wanted me to rise and walk toward the empty field of burnt beecomer trees and barren dirt where nothing now grew, where the pinkmen put their flying boats. The place the People now call Ghost Horizon. It wanted me to go there.

  God’s Heart would fall and rise four times before we reached Ghost Horizon. The flimsy web around my waist and attached to its waist hide would be easy to bite through. After the Nightbird flew, I could leave the sleeping pinkman to Mother Jungle’s mercy. By then we would be a few throws from Gray Sackmonk’s village.

  Whether the pinkman lived or not, I would go to Gray Sackmonk’s village and repeat the pinkman song there. I would drink grol and maybe we could understand more about pinkmen.

  Or maybe not. Gray Sackmonk might not be interested. We would see. Meanwhile, I would listen and memorize.

  Considering the noise the pinkman made as it walked through Mother Jungle, and its coloring, as bright as perrin tail feathers during mating season, we’d get ten, maybe eight throws from the village before we were noticed — and Gray Sackmonk’s people would think I had captured the pinkman.

  Suddenly, I realized the pinkman hadn’t captured me; I had captured it. The pinkman was too noisy, too brightly colored, too quick of movement, and too ignorant of Mother Jungle’s ways to survive the trek to Ghost Horizon. It would fall prey to berkat, galion or riverpanth — we had to cross the Panth Home at its deepest part that way — before the Nightbird flew again.

  I resolved to bring it to Gray Sackmonk’s village alive and not merely drink grol and recount its chatter which I had memorized. We would throw a message to the Elders farther upvalley and by God’s Heartrise all the People would know and honor me as leader. I thought about who would get to kill the pinkman. Maybe One Brow, as a consolation. Before or after grol? I didn’t know. I could decide that later.

  I heard message pods whistling four throws upvalley. I heard others behind us, toward Mother’s Spine where the pinkman flying boat had fallen. I guessed hunters had found the boat carcass and either looked for the pinkman body or had seen me capture it and were reporting the news.

  I saw two hunters a half-throw upvalley. The pinkman didn’t see them. One whistled to me in perrin talk. “Is that the pinkman from the flying boat near Mother’s Spine? Where are you taking it?”

  I dared not whistle back. That might startle the pinkman, and who knew how it would react. Instead I used finger talk: “It is the one from the flying boat. I am taking it to Gray Sackmonk’s village.”

  “Why do you let it keep its dart-spi
tter?”

  “It thinks it has captured me.”

  The pinkman did not hear their laughter.

  The message pods continued to fly, and other People joined the hunters as we moved crossvalley.

  We stopped after we’d trekked no more than ten throws, the pinkman panting like galions mating. “Sit down, little buddy,” it gibbered, dropping to the ground. “I’m beat. I’ve got to eat something. How can you little fuckers stand this heat? I have to turn my suit up all the way just to keep from suffering heat stroke. Sit, I said, goddamit.”

  It tugged on the web around my waist and I sat, still, watching. Two throws upvalley, a message pod whistled crossvalley. The pod flew near enough that the pinkman heard.

  “I hear that,” it jabbered. It reached into a pouch and removed some pinkman food wrapped in a thin bark. It removed the bark and bit the food with blunt teeth. Chewing noise hurt my ears. Loud, like everything the pinkmen did. How could it hear Mother Jungle sing with all that crunching?

  “That’s your jungle telegraph, right? We finally savvied how you cammies communicate. You use those seeds, big as a man’s head. You take one of those big palm tree seeds that’s dropped to the ground, whittle a message with your teeth, climb up one of those palms, bend that fifty meter tall sucker to the ground — how you little guys do that, we haven’t figured out yet — turn loose of the tree and fire the seed off like a slingshot. We tried it. Those tree trunks are like rubber. You can fire one of those suckers two hundred meters. And the damn seed pods whistle when they’re airborne, so the cammies at the other end know there’s a message pod incoming. You got cammies stationed all over the jungle, don’t you, relaying message pods quicker than we can heat up a can of bist stew. Damnedest thing I’ve ever seen.”

  The pinkman stopped gibbering suddenly and glared at me. Its little eyes had the look of a berkat ready to pounce. It talked, low in its throat: “We lost thirty-eight good men trying to figure that out. I knew a couple of them personally, but they were all Marines. Lost them all in this Jadu-forsaken jungle within a hundred meters of the compound perimeter. A hundred meters. Thirty-eight Marines. Can you believe that shit?”

  I remained motionless.

  It lost its killing eyes as fast as they had come, and looked as if it had death dreams. Pinkmen did everything fast.

  It ground more food in its mouth. “That’s why we’re giving up. That’s right. HQ says pull out, give up, abandon the mission. Too much equipment lost, too many casualties. Two sentries wounded last night by friendly fire. Jadu, you got Marines shitting their pants on picket duty. Spooked. So out we pull. Off planet, entirely. I think HQ is ready to give up the whole system, maybe the whole sector. Static says the war isn’t going so good in this arm and we’re pulling back. Too bad. If we could only keep a toe-hold on this planet, keep this system in contest, I bet we could force a cease fire, maybe, on our terms. End this fucking war. Go home a winner.”

  The pinkman poked me in the rib with a stubby pink finger, slimy, like a marshwurn. “You still with me, little buddy?”

  I sat still, but the poke startled me into blinking.

  “Jadu, you guys are spooky. You hold still as a rock, turn whatever color tree or bush you’re crouched up against and disappear when we blink. How the hell can we catch you to talk, try to make treaty with you, keep you from killing our people in the night, wrecking our equipment with your foul smelling goop — that stuff you been pouring down our gun barrels to rot our equipment with? Jadu, we just want that landing site, just a few hundred acres is all. We don’t want your whole damned jungle. Just the site. That’s all. Politics. With this site, we might win this fucking —”

  It went from sad to angry in a few heartbeats. I thought again that it might kill me, and my death song rose to my throat. And just as fast, it stopped and looked resigned, as if preparing to sing its own death song.

  “I got out a distress signal, but my tracker is fritzed. They can’t find me on infrared in the jungle. And my guess is they aren’t sending in any rescue parties either. Standing orders: no more live patrols past the perimeter. No flyovers either, I bet. Damn equipment is fritzed, all of it. So I get to walk out. Or die. And I refuse to do that.”

  Again, its mood changed, from sadness back to anger. It stood suddenly, tossed the food bark aside to Mother Jungle and jerked on the web. “On your feet, cammie. We got kilometers to go before we sleep. And you’re my insurance policy that I’ll wake up in the morning, savvy? Do you critters understand what a hostage is? Worth a try.”

  We walked again, crossvalley toward Ghost Horizon, but I tried to tilt us upvalley toward Gray Sackmonk’s village a little at a time so the pinkman wouldn’t notice. I did not succeed. Now and then, it would tug on the web and speak. “We’re drifting too far north, little buddy. Keep due east, goddamnit.” It held a thing, something like a black dungbeetle, in its hand, looking at it often as we walked. It looked between the thing and God’s Heart and muttered.

  God’s Heart glittered in and out of the broad leaves of the beecomer trees and the sackmonks chattered at their lateday meal when the pinkman brushed against a takvine.

  I had walked past the takvine, of course, not touching the sticky tendrils. I forgot the pinkman didn’t know what pain a takvine could cause and I didn’t warn it. It screamed.

  When I turned around, the pinkman lay writhing on the ground in pain, clutching with one hand the shoulder where the takvine had touched. At the spot, the pinkman’s outer skin had been eaten away and a large welt on its true skin formed before my eyes, getting redder and redder.

  I tried to pry the pinkman’s hand away from the wound. “The poison will go from the wound to your hand,” I explained. “Do not touch it and it will wear off.”

  It pushed me away. It didn’t understand me. The hand began to swell. It looked at the hand, alarmed. Then it crinkled its brow in a puzzled frown and looked at me.

  I shrugged. “I told you so. Do you want help?”

  Its eyes rolled in the head and it fainted.

  For a heartbeat I thought it had died.

  Despite their size, pinkmen are fragile. The People had killed a few pinkmen, but Mother Jungle killed more in her various ways.

  Imagine blundering into a takvine. Even a ‘loper calf knows better. No wonder the pinkmen seem to feel the need to kill all the beecomer trees and create Ghost Horizon. They are too stupid to live in Mother Jungle.

  But if one could not live in Mother Jungle, why live at all? Pinkmen are a puzzle.

  I listened to its breath, which smelled like fresh-caught river crannish. It lived. But who know for how long?

  If it died, the Elders would turn to One Brow to lead the People; a dead pinkman was a poor gift. It could not be eaten. One Brow could demonstrate greater favor with Mother Jungle by capturing a barrit pup.

  No, it had to live.

  We were six throws from Gray Sackmonk’s village. I decided to take the pinkman there and drink grol with it. Maybe then I could understand what to do to keep it alive.

  I chewed at the web the pinkman had attached around my waist and it fell off. Six hunters who had been following our progress approached. My cousin Perrin Feather squatted among them. He pointed at the pinkman and laughed.

  “What will you do with it?”

  “Take it to Gray Sackmonk’s village. Drink grol with it.”

  They all laughed.

  “Why would you want to sing pinkman song?”

  “To find out what to do to keep it from dying. Mother Jungle has given me this alive pinkman to offer the Elders to show she favors me as leader of the People.”

  Cloud Dreamer, eldest among the hunters, spoke. “If you can keep it alive, it will be a great gift to the Elders. It will prove your abilities just to keep it alive until you can present it to them. But what will the Elders do with it? It cannot be eaten.”

  They spat in disgust. We rigged a carrying pole from which to hang the pinkman. I had thought about their question
for the many throws we’d walked and I told them. “I will give the pinkman to the Elders and suggest One Brow be allowed to kill it. Or maybe I will suggest Grandfather Galion Claws give it to his granddaughter Shines Like God’s Heart as a pet.”

  They all nodded at my wisdom. I would gain the Elders’s favor — if I could bring them an alive pinkman. We tied the pinkman, still breathing, to the carrying pole and began trekking toward Gray Sackmonk’s village. Black Tooth gnawed a message on a pod and threw it ahead: “We are coming to Gray Sackmonk’s village with Fast Climber and his pinkman. The pinkman lives. Fast Climber will drink grol with it.”

  Before we had trekked two throws, the air above Mother Jungle came alive with messages whistling to and fro. I suspected all the People up and down the valley had heard of my adventure and that People from villages near Gray Sackmonk’s would come to see the pinkman and to listen when we drank grol.

  Gray Sackmonk met us a throw away from the village. “Does it still live?”

  During the last half-throw, the pinkman had awakened and had begun calling out. “Get me the fuck out of here, you goddamn little speckled jungle shits. I swear to Jadu, I’m going to wring your scrawny little fucking necks when I get my hands on you. I’m going home, you little shitheads. I’m going to live, do you hear me? I’m going to live.”

  When he heard its gibberish, Gray Sackmonk nodded. “It lives. Will you still drink grol with it?”

  I thought for a while. “Yes. Maybe it will tell why pinkmen hate Mother Jungle, why they made Ghost Horizon. Maybe it will say how to make the pinkmen go away.”

  Gray Sackmonk nodded and escorted us into the village, where a crowd waited. People old and young, male and female, sat among the beecomer branches looking down on us. People from other villages arrived to see the pinkman even as we arrived. Gray Sackmonk’s village hosted a handful of handfuls of the People, all at one time.

  I felt sure the Elders, who had received a message by now of my adventure, would approve.

  The pinkman struggled as we tied it to a tree. As we tied it, a message pod came. Mother Jungle had reclaimed One Brow. A riverpanth had eaten him. I was leader of the People.