Collected Short Fiction (Jerry eBooks)

by Rosel G Brown

  He saw the Veed beginning to leave the grove as they made their way through the trees. Either they had had all their fun or it was time for them to get back before their parents discovered they were gone.

  “There he is,” said the white gracyl female. “What do you want with him?”

  One last Veed, seeing Roan, gave Clanth a parting slash and moved sinuously off. Roan knelt by the dying gracyl. “Clanth, I couldn’t find you. I couldn’t help.” But he hadn’t looked.

  “I’m broken,” Clanth said. “But Roan, I had a female.”

  “I brought her to you.” Roan said. He stood and put his knife at the white female’s back until she came over to Clanth. “You can die in her arms.”

  “That was silly,” she said when Clanth had died.

  The gracyl, those that were left, were coming down from the trees now and incredibly starting their mating ceremonies again.

  Roan walked away through the grove, and out into the white moonlight. He climbed to the top of the tallest garbage heap, and sat, looking down on the ghetto, not listening to the happy gracyl sounds, thinking about what a human woman might be like.

  V

  Here on the high ledge, the wind was sharp with sand particles, buffeting at him angrily like a gracyl when you held him upside down to show him that even if you don’t have wings, you weren’t something to throw chunckflowers at. Roan got to his feet, holding on tightly to the tiny fingerholds of the-wind-worn carving, feeling with his toes for a firm grip. He was high enough now: over the tops of the purplefruit trees, he could see the glare panels strung out across the arena gate, spelling out:

  GRAND VORPLISCH

  EXTRAVAGANZOO ! ! !

  Renowned Throughout the Eastern Arm ! !

  Entrepreneur Gom Bulj Presents:

  Fabulous Feathered Flyers!

  Superb Scaled Swimmers!

  Horrific Hairy Hurlers!

  A Stupefying Spectacle of Leaping Life-

  forms, Battling Boneless Beasts, Wingless

  Wizards of Wit, Frightful Fanged Fighters!

  See Iron Robert, Strongest Living Creature—

  Stellaraire, the Galaxy’s loveliest creation!

  Snarleron, Ugliest in the Universe!

  ADMISSION, G. CR. .10, plus tax.

  Roan’s hand twitched, wanting to go to his credit coder to check once more; but he restrained it. He knew what it would show. The balance gauge would barely show. Even the five demi-chits he’d earned stacking bread-logs for the Store was gone, spent for dyewood billets for carving. He’d have to be satisfied with what he could see from here—not that that would be much. He could hear the noise-makers faintly, but the dusty grounds of the arena were mostly obscured by the trees and the high wall, crumbling along its top like all the Old Things, but still high enough to shield the marvels from his view.

  But on the other side, there, where the great white-boled Never-never tree grew. . . .

  It was outside the Ghetto, beyond the Soetti quarters, where Dad had told him never to put a foot—but the tree spread wide, almost to the rubble-littered top of the wall, where it dipped down in a sort of notch.

  He wouldn’t really be going into the Soetti Quarter—just passing through.

  Then minutes later, Roan perched in an arched opening, just above the lower gates. He was breathing a little fast from the quick climb down. He checked to be sure no heavy old gracyl mares were stretching their atrophied wings on nearby balconies. Then he jumped, caught at ancient green-scaled tiles, scrambled up to a position astride the steep gable of the first house. From the balconies below, he heard a clatter of food troughs, a few shouts, a lazy pad of feet, the slam of a door. The oldsters’ early-evening siesta was under way, and everyone else was at the Extravaganzoo.

  He rose, ran lightly along the ridge tiles, jumped the gap to the next house. There were carved devils at ten-foot intervals here; he had to drop flat at each one, work his way under, then up again. At the end, he swung down under the eave, dropped to a shed below, then swarmed up the carved gable end of the next house. But then it was easy. A series of wind-god altars, like stepping stones, led to the end of the last house before the high, black-glazed Barrier. He jumped for a drain-ledge, worked his way along to a down-gutter, held on with his fingers and slid quickly to the yellow dust of the path. Roan grinned to himself. All those years of playing with the gracyls had almost taught him how to fly.

  The burrow under the Barrier was almost choked with nibble and blown pricklebushes; it had been a long time since he and Yopp, a Fustyan eggling, had last exploded it. Maybe he was too big now; he grew so fast—like a Soetti, Raff had said once, grumbling at having to cobble new shoes so soon after the last ones.

  But it was all right. Once the last pricklebush was dragged clear, Roan went in head-first, pulling himself along with his hands until he came to the straight-up part. Then he stood, put his back against one wall and his feet against the other and walked up.

  The idodine-smell of the Soetti was strong, even before he reached the top and pulled himself out into the hazy, late orange sunlight, filtered dark by the great, sagging, patched nets the Soetti used to hold in their kind of air. Roan lay flat, breathing close to the ground. When he had his lungs full—even though they burned a little, from the bad Soetti air—he jumped up, ran for the high fences barely visible in the gloom at the far side of the quarter.

  He was halfway there when a big Soetti—almost five feet high—in greaves, a flared helmet with black eye-shields, and a heavy cloak, popped out of a hut in his path, blocking his way, heavy pincers ready. Roan slid to a stop, watching the violet-freckled claws. They looked too massive for the short, spindly Soetti arms, but Roan knew they could cut through quarter-inch chromalloy plate.

  From burrows all around, bright Soetti eyes winked, ducking back as he looked their way. The warrior advanced a step, snapping his claws like pistol shots, pow! pow! Roan stooped, picked up a four-foot stick of springy booloo wood. He waved it at the Soetti. It hissed, its arms twitching in instinctive response to the movement.

  It saw what Roan was trying to do, and backed quickly; but Roan moved in, flicked the stick almost under the Soetti’s faceted eyes. The pincers flashed, locked on the wand, as involuntarily as a wink; and Roan jerked the stick hard, throwing the warrior off balance. He dropped the stick and sprang past the creature, sprinting for the board wall, laughing as he ran.

  The Never-never tree was three yards thick at the base, rising like a column of buttressed white stone set with daggers of crystalline lime. It wasn’t hard to climb, as long as he just held on with his knees and elbows and didn’t touch the spines. The branch that reached out to the wall wasn’t very big, but it would probably hold all right—even with the weight of a sixteen year old Man on it.

  Roan started up. The first fifty feet was simple enough, the spines were as big as Roan’s wrist, set well apart; he could even use them as footholds.

  He reached for a higher grip—and a spine broke under his foot. His hand snapped out to seize a razor-edged spine while his knees gripped the narrowing buttress between them. Pain tore through his hand and snaked down his arm, red pain and blood. Roan hated the dumb way his hand had grabbed, like the Soetti’s claws, at whatever came near. The Soetti’s claws couldn’t learn but maybe Roan’s hand could, if it hurt enough. And it did hurt enough and now it was slippery as well.

  Pain was a taste of death in Roan’s mouth, like the time he’d broken his foot. But something else Roan could do was force himself to forget things. He ignored the hand and went on.

  The branch that stretched over die wall had patches of peeling bark adhering to it. Roan brushed them away before stepping out on it. He couldn’t take a chance on losing his footing; with his slippery hand, he might not be able to hold on if he fell. He wiped his hand again on his tunic, then clenched it to hold in the pain and the blood.

  The branch moved gently underfoot as he walked out on it, swaying to the gusty wind, and dipping no
w under his heavier weight. Raff was right; he did grow too fast. He was heavier than an old gracyl brood-master. The tip of the branch was level with the top of the wall now; and now it dipped lower, the shiny blue leaves at its tip clattering softly against the weathered masonry. But he was close now. The whine and thump of the noise-makers was loud above the chirp and bellow of the crowd beyond the walls, and he could see the blue-white discs of the polyarcs glaring on the dusty midway.

  The last few yards were hard going. The tiny spines were close together here—and sharp enough to stab through his bos-hide shoes. If the slender bough sank much lower under his weight, he wouldn’t be able to reach the wall. But he knew. He knew from the gracyl games how much weight a tree limb could hold.

  Balancing carefully, Roan started the branch swaying, down, up, in a slow sweep, down, heavily, then shuddering up. . . .

  On the third upward swing, Roan jumped, caught the edge of the wall, raked at loose rubble, then pulled himself up and lay flat on the dust-powdered surface, still hot from the day’s sun.

  He opened his hand and looked at it. The blood had formed a blackish cake with the dust. That was good; now maybe it would stop running all over things and spoiling his fun. He patted it in the dust some more, then crawled to the edge of the wall and looked over into the glare of the grounds.

  Sound struck him in the face like a thrown chunkflower: the massed roar of voices, the shrill clangor of the noise-makers, the rustle of scaled and leathered bodies, the grating of feet—shod, horned, clawed, hooved. The cries of shills and hucksters. . . .

  It was dark now. Twenty feet below Roan, the heads of the crowd stretched in a heaving sea of motion, surging around the pooled light of the midways, alive with color and movement. There, a jeweled harness sparkled on tandem-hitched bull-devils; there a great horned body, chained by one leg, pranced in an intricate dance; and beyond, caged dire-beasts paced, double jaws gaping.

  Roan forgot to breath, watching as a procession of scarlet-robed creatures with golden hides strode into view from a spotlighted arch, fanned out to form a circle, dropped the red cloaks, and rushed together, cresting up into a living pyramid, then dropping back to split and come together like a wave breaking against a wall, and then. . . .

  He had to get closer.

  He raised his head and looked along the broken wall, following its great arc to the far side where it loomed black against the luminous amber twilight. He could jump down easily enough, but not without landing on a bad-tempered gracyl or a wide-jawed Yill.

  He rose and moved off, stepping carefully among the rubble. It was almost full dark now. Ahead, he made out the heavy sagging line of an anchor cable, its end secured to a massive iron capstan set in the stone coping. He clambered up, followed the cable with his eye as it dipped, then rose up to meet a slender tower.

  This was almost too easy. The base of the tower was hidden in shadow behind a cluster of polyarcs. No one would notice if he walked across and slipped down there. . . .

  He stepped out on the taut cable. It was much easier than the branch had been; it was only as big as his finger, but it was steady. No one looked up from below. He was above the polyarcs, invisible against their glare.

  He walked out across the crowd, reached to tower, swung down.

  A hand like an iron clamp locked on his ankle.

  He looked down. A face like a worn-out shoe blinked up at him. Gill-flaps at either side of the wide head quivered.

  “Come down, come down,” a curious double voice said. “Caught you—ought—you good—ood.”

  Roan held on and pulled; it was like trying to uproot an anvil tree.

  “Let’s go,” he said, trying to make his voice sound as though it were used to being obeyed by beings with old-shoe faces and hands like ship-grapples.

  “You’re—re—going to see—ee the boss—oss.” The iron hand—which was bright green, Roan noticed, and had three fingers tugged, just gently, and Roan felt his joints creak. He held on.

  “Want me—ant me to pull—ull your leg—eg off—off?” the hollow voice echoed.

  “All right,” Roan said. He lowered himself carefully until his other foot was on a level with his captor’s head. Then he swung his free leg back and kicked the creature in the eye.

  The grip was gone from his ankle, and he leaped clear, landed in dust, turned to duck away—

  And slammed against a wide, armored body that gathered him in with arms like roots of the grizzly-wood trees.

  VI

  It was dark inside the big tent, and hot, and there were odors. Roan stood straight, trying not to think about the way his hands were numb from the grip on his wrists. Beside him, the shoe-faced creature flapped its gills, blinking its swollen eye. “Ow—ow,” it said, over and over. “Ow—ow.”

  The being behind the big-scarred, black-brown desk blinked large brown eyes at him from points eight inches apart, in a head the size of a washtub, mounted on a body like a hundred gallon bag of water. Immense hands with too many fingers reached for a box, extracted a thick brown cigar, peeled it carefully, thrust it into a gaping mouth that opened unexpectedly just above the brown eyes.

  “Some kind of Terry, aren’t you?” a bass voice said from somewhere near the floor.

  Roan swallowed. “Terry stock,” he said, trying to sound as though he were proud of it. “Genuine original Terrestrial strain,” he added.

  The big head waggled. “I saw you on the wire. Never saw a Terry walk a wire like that before.” The voice seemed to come from under the desk. Roan peered, caught a glimpse of coiled purplish tentacles. He looked up to catch a brown eye upon him; the other was rolled toward the gilled creature.

  “You shouldn’t have hurt Ithc,” the deep voice rumbled. “Be quiet, Ithc.” The wandering eye turned back to Roan. “Take off your tunic.”

  “Why?”

  “I want to see what kind of wings you’ve got.”

  “I don’t have any wings,” Roan said, sounding as though he didn’t care. “Terries don’t have wings; not real original Terrestrial stock, anyway.”

  “Let’s see your hands.”

  “He’s holding them.”

  “Let him go, Ithc.” The brown eyes looked at Roan’s hands as he opened and closed them to get the blood going again.

  “The feet,” the basso voice said. Roan kicked off a shoe and put his foot on the desk. He wiggled his toes, then put his foot back on the floor.”

  “You walked the wire with those feet?”

  Roan didn’t answer.

  “What were you doing up there?”

  “I was getting in without a ticket,” Roan said. “I almost made it, too.”

  “You like my little show, hey?”

  “I haven’t seen it—yet.”

  “You know who I am, young Terry?”

  Roan shook his head.

  “I’m Gom Bulj, Entrepreneur Second Class.” One of the broad hands waved the cigar. “I’m owner of the Extravaganzoo. Now—” the heavy body hitched forward in the wide chair—“I’ll tell you something, young Terry. I haven’t seen a lot of Terries before, but I’ve always been a sort of admirer of theirs. Like back in ancient times, the wars and all that. Real spectacles.” Gom Bulj thumped his desk. “This desk—it’s made of Terry wood—woolnoot, I think they call it. Over six thousand years old. Came out of an old Terry liner, a derelict on—” He cut off.

  “Never mind that. Another story. What I’m getting at is, how would you like to join my group, young Terry? Become a part of the Great Vorplisch Extravaganzoo; Travel, see the worlds, exhibit your unusual skills to appreciative audiences of discerning beings all over the Western Arm?”

  Roan couldn’t help k: he gasped.

  “Not much pay at first.” Gom Bulj said quickly. He paused one eye on Roan. “In fact, no pay—until you learn the business.” Roan took a deep breath. Then he shook his head. Gom Bulj was still looking at him expectantly.

  “No,” he said. “Not until I ask Dad.” Suddenly
Roan was remembering Ma, waiting, with his dinner ready now, and Raff. Raff would be worried, wondering where he was.

  “I’ve got to go now.” he said, and wondered why he had such a strange, sinking feeling.

  Gom Bulj drummed his tentacles under the desk. He sucked on a stony-looking tooth, eyeing Roan thoughtfully.

  “No need to trouble old Dad, young Terry. You’re big enough to leave the burrows, no doubt. Probably he’ll never miss you, new litters coming along—”

  “Terries don’t have litters. Only one. And Ma only had me.”

  “You’ll write,” Gom Bulj said. “First planetfall, you’ll write, tell them what a mark you’re making. A featured sideshow attraction in the finest ’zoo in this part of the Galaxy.”

  “I’ll have to ask Dad’s permission first,” Roan said firmly.

  Gom Bulj signaled with a finger. “You’ll surprise him; come back some day, dressed in spangles and glare-jewels—”

  Ithc’s reaching hand grazed Roan’s arm. as he ducked, whirled, darted for the tent flap.

  Something small, with bright red eyes, sprang in front of him; he bowled it over, ran for the tower, darting between the customers milling in the way between the bright colored tents under the polyarcs. He veered around a cage inside which a long-legged creature moaned, jumped stretched tent-ropes, sprinted the last few yards—

  A hulking, gilled figure—a twin to Ithc—bounded into his path. He spun aside, plunged under an open tent flap, ploughed through massed gracyls who hissed and struck out with knobbed wing bones. A vast gray creature with long white horns growing from its mouth teetered on a tiny stand. It trumpeted nervously and swung a blow with a heavy gray head-tentacle as Roan darted past; then Roan was under the edge of the tent, up and running for the wall. Behind him, an electric voice crackled, deep tones that rattled in a strange tongue.

  He saw the gate rising up, light festooned, above the surging pack. To one side, another of the gilled creatures worked its way toward him, knocking the crowd aside with sweeps of its three-pronged hands. Roan threw himself at the mass before him, forcing passage. Another few yards—