The Sky People

by S. M. Stirling

  "Ah…"

  How to encapsulate United States history?

  "Our American tribe is made up of people whose ancestors came from many lands. Blair comes from a kindred tribe allied to ours—they speak the same language and many of our people came from his tribe's territory in past times."

  "Our tribe adopts outsiders, too, sometimes," Teesa said. "True-men, of course."

  Marc nodded, and adjusted the improvised tillering device—it was basically a frame with an adjustable weight, to test that a bow's limbs were of the right resistance and evenly stressed.

  "So, tell me of your mother and sire," Teesa went on.

  Marc chuckled. "Only if you tell me of yours," he said.

  "I know little of them. My sire died while I was in the womb, and my mother when Zore was born."

  "Mine—," Marc began. A good deal of conversation later he went on: "Mais, this looks good," and took the bow out of the frame.

  A couple of dozen Cloud Mountain warriors squatted on their heels around him. They watched with interest as Teesa took the weapon. It was her own height, five-nine, and he'd adjusted the draw to seventy pounds, using his own longbow as a template. The riser-handle was a hard, glossy, local wood he couldn't identify, yellow-brown with black stripes in the grain; the tribe was used to working it, and they'd done so astonishingly fast with only stone tools. The limbs were nicely tapered shoots of second-year shamboo from a wild stand that had died out at that stage, and they'd required very little working. At each end was a cap of notched antler to hold the string.

  None of it had been very difficult. Blair and Cynthia were running their own classes, and the locals were already highly skilled woodworkers with access to first-rate materials.

  Marc smiled to himself. Chris was still trying to figure out why the Cloud Mountain People didn't have the bow already; it was a Mesolithic invention, long pre-dating the Proto-Indo-European period. He was also already writing up his notes on the language, using sections of smooth bark for paper and a quill pen with homemade ink. Some of the tribesfolk were interested in that, too—particularly the shamaness-midwife-herb-doctor ones, who had a system of pictographs used as mnemonic aids. It wasn't anything like a writing system, but they'd grasped the concept and seemed quite taken with it.

  The warriors had focused like gimlets on the bow-making. Marc suspected every male in the tribe would have a longbow in a couple of months, and a lot of the women, too. It took a long time to train an archer from scratch, but these folk were already all strong and highly skilled with throwing spears and blowguns; they'd learn quickly.

  Or at least most of them would. Taldi stood with folded arms, sneering.

  "What need have Cloud Mountain warriors of such a new-thing?" he asked, his lip curling slightly. "Perhaps it is cursed. He consorts with a greatwolf—perhaps he is a creature of the Father of Greatwolves. For that One is no friend to our folk; his wrath bears a deadly curse."

  Some of the watchers snorted or laughed; evidently Taldi's obsession was well known. Some looked slightly frightened, and a few thoroughly so. Teesa frowned, obviously troubled.

  "He is challenging you," she said, leaning close and speaking English. "I cannot forbid him—but that means he accepts you as a warrior worthy of challenge."

  Blair looked at him from the corners of his eyes. "Can I be of any help?"

  "No!" Teesa said. "Such challenge must be met by each man alone, with weapons or hand-to-hand, between the trees—on the field of the warriors."

  "A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do," Marc said, mouth slightly dry at the suddenness of it.

  Then he remembered: He would like to share her hearth. The dude's jealous, even though he's got nothing to be jealous about. Mais, nothing much, yet.

  Marc straightened up and handed the bow to Teesa with a slight bow. She smiled at him, plainly confident, the turquoise eyes calm. That heartened him for some reason, and there was a small smile on his mouth as he turned to Taldi.

  "You are a fool, and a liar," he said in the Cloud Mountain language. "You want this woman, and you fear to lose her, so you close your mind to truth, and do harm to your own tribe and clan, lying as to the real reason for your challenge."

  Taldi's face went pale under its natural umber color. Folk scattered as he turned and walked towards the Terran, then drew the stone-headed hatchet and threw it into the ground at Marc's feet. It struck with a hard, dry thunk in the packed soil and stood with the polished handle quivering.

  "At dawn!" Taldi said, and stalked away.

  Dawn was clear and mild as the sun rose to their west. The tribesfolk woke with the sun anyway; this morning they were up even earlier. Some went chattering and eager to the field of short, dense turf spotted with evergreen oaks. More were grave and subdued, for while a fight wasn't something very unusual, it wasn't common, either—and this was against one of the probably magical visitors, and those under the protection of the Guardian of the Mysteries. She was there when the earliest spectators arrived, burning a small fire of sweet-smelling herbs and chanting.

  Taldi got a fair share of scowls and covertly hostile gestures as he stood with his arms crossed, black and red chevrons painted over his cheekbones and his long golden hair clubbed back in a fighting braid. A core of friends stood by him, leaning on their spears and scowling back at the critics.

  Marc ignored him as he walked out and began some stretches. A flight of long-tailed scarlet birds soared up from one tree as the three Terrans approached, screeching and hooting. The hot yellow sunlight flared on their crimson feathers and a tumble of trumpet-shaped blue flowers below. Marc eyed the bees buzzing around those with wariness—the last thing he needed now was a stinger in the butt, and Venusian bees were the size of your thumb and made the African variety look like harmless butterflies.

  The more so as he'd decided on Teesa's advice to wear Cloud Mountain costume of breechclout and short, soft moccasins. It made him feel hideously conspicuous, though fortunately he wasn't as parti-colored as Blair would have been, not being so pink by nature and taking the sun fairly quickly.

  The Englishman held out his field belt; Marc drew the machete in his right hand and bowie in his left.

  "Do I have to kill him?" he said to Teesa.

  She blinked in surprise. "Don't you want to? He wants to kill

  you"

  Marc's mouth crooked slightly. "Do you want me to kill him?"

  "Well…" She hesitated. "No. He is my mate's brother and he has been a good friend to me, a good hunter, and a good warrior for our folk. If only he were not so foolish."

  "Does the law say that I must kill?" Marc asked.

  "No—we are not so many that we can afford to lose strong men often. The law is that one or the other must die, or flee, or surrender, or be too badly wounded to fight," she said. "But Taldi will not surrender—and he is a fine fighter, brave and strong and quick. He will fight to kill, and will take no mercy from you."

  "Weh, we'll see," Marc said.

  Cynthia's breath hissed out as the Cloud Mountain man drew his obsidian knife and flint hatchet, crouching slightly with his left foot forward. She drew her pistol and quietly thumbed off the safety. Marc met Blair's eyes and nodded very slightly; if he lost, they might suddenly find themselves fighting their way out of a hostile settlement.

  And I'd be dead, he thought. This guy doesn't look like he's in a winning-on-points mood.

  Taldi was two inches taller than the Terran, and built of whipcord and gristle. He looked to be about Marc's age, which meant he'd managed to grow to manhood in this place of savage half-men and even more savage beasts; the scars on his arms and chest and face told the story of it. And the way he moved, light on his feet, watching his opponent's eyes, not his hands.

  On the other hand, Marc thought grimly, as he drew his knife and machete. Ten million people had tried out for the slot he'd won. So I'm the product of a rigorous selective process, too, non?

  Taldi's lips spread from white, even teeth
in a carnivore grin as he circled and Marc turned on one heel to face him. The triangular blade of the volcanic glass knife moved in a small, precise circle, the edges sharper than a razor, sharper than a surgeon's scalpel. The tomahawk's business end was thicker, a rectangle of polished flint lashed into the end of a yard-long handle. From the way it twitched back and forth, the tribesman knew exactly what to do with them. He waited until the sun was in the Terran's eyes before he sprang.

  Gotcha! Marc thought, watching for the tensing that came before motion, watching through carefully slitted eyes.

  He swayed left. You didn't have to see every detail to know when a man was going to jump you. Taldi's ferocious swipe with his hatchet made an ugly wind six inches before Marc's face, but the Cloud Mountain warrior recovered with supple ease. It still left him vulnerable, and the obsidian knife shattered as he used it to block a swipe of Marc's machete, with a sharp crack and a spray of fragments.

  The crowd roared and swayed as Taldi leaped back in a panther bound; Tahyo was wulfing hysterically and lunging against the stout rope that bound him to the tree. Marc grinned and tossed his own bowie aside, thankful that the weather was warm—not all the sweat on his face was from exertion or heat. That stone had come far too close to taking off his nose.

  There was a murmur from the spectators at the gesture of renunciation; a Cloud Mountain woman's voice cried out, "He is a warrior!"

  He thought Cynthia chimed in, too—something on the order of "He's an idiot!"

  Focus made the noise a distant murmur, shrank the world to a pair of blazing blue eyes. Taldi had been startled at the blow that broke his knife, but he wasn't in the least daunted by the machete's two feet of sharp steel. Marc could see his eyes narrow; that brief exchange had also given him an idea of the Terran's speed.

  And I got some idea of his, and I don't like it, me. This guy's made out of springs.

  The men circled again, slightly crouched, their feet scuffing in the dirt and grass. Now that neither had a knife, Taldi spun the tomahawk from one hand to another and back again in a quick blurring snap. It was showy… but it also made the sudden backhand chop at Marc's temple frighteningly unpredictable. He turned it with a wrench and a sweep of the machete, and flint struck sparks from steel, a flat, unmusical kwranggg! of sound. Blows went back and forth with blurring speed; steel sparked on flint again, cracked on hard wood. When they backed off and circled once more, blood trickled down Taldi's chest from a shallow slash, and a raw red graze showed on Marc's left cheek.

  He lunged, and Taldi parried. The blade of the machete struck the fire-hardened wood of the tomahawk shaft and slid over the bone rings that covered it, with a tooth-jarring vibration. Taldi punched at the Terran's face and Marc twisted his head to let the fist go by; then each grabbed at the other's weapon-wrist, and the men pushed chest-to-chest, straining against each other as their feet churned at the dirt. There was no subtlety or skill to this; it was raw strength against strength, like two rutting stags in season.

  Taldi grinned in triumph; they had similar builds, but he was three inches taller than the stranger, and thicker through the arms and shoulders. Marc smiled back and gripped until wrist bone creaked beneath it and pushed. The tribesman's blue eyes went wide as he felt the strength in his opponent's limbs—muscles bred on a world that pulled more heavily than this, and a body selected from millions. Slowly, slowly, Taldi's own arms bent back in the iron grip.

  Christ, this fuckers strong, Marc thought, as the breath wheezed between his clenched teeth. But I'm stronger.

  Back and back the tribesman's arms twisted. Then suddenly he threw himself back and whipped a knee up at Marc's groin. The Terran twisted to catch it on the point of his hip; that was painful enough to make the breath hiss out between his teeth, but it brought a yelp of pain from Taldi as well. Another flurry of movement and they broke apart and faced each other panting, their bare torsos gleaming with sweat and blood; the tomahawk lay on the ground, and the machete still rested in Marc's right fist.

  "Yield!" he called. "You fought well, Taldi of the Badger totem, but you're beaten. I don't want your life. Yield!"

  Voices from the crowd joined the call; evidently they'd been impressed. Taldi looked around with a desperate, hunted expression.

  "Kill me!" he said to Marc.

  "Why should I kill you?" the Terran replied.

  He looked aside; there was a young live oak not far away, perhaps ten yards. He flicked the machete across his body and to the right; it turned once as it flew, the honed edge glinting in the morning sun, then sank into the wood with a heavy thunk and a malignant humm as the blade quivered for a few seconds. A flight of small yellow birds burst out of the branches, cheeping and weaving in and out in a mass of avian panic.

  Taldi blinked, then screamed, "You scorn me!"

  Marc shrugged and made a beckoning gesture with both hands. He wasn't surprised when the other man gave an incoherent shriek and leaped to attack once more. Instead Marc grabbed an outstretched arm, locked it, turned, and bent and twisted. Momentum turned into flight, and the Cloud Mountain warrior crashed down flat on his face. He had grit; his nose was streaming blood and his eyes were glazed, but he pulled himself to his feet and began to stagger forward.

  "Co faire te en colaire?" Marc said in exasperation; it was what his father had said to him when he threw a tantrum as a youngster. "Why you getting angry, eh? I'm trying not to kill you!"

  Taldi wound up for another haymaker. It was a clumsy blow. Marc wasn't surprised at that, either—apart from the way the man was battered to reeling incoherence, in his experience Venusian tribesmen were deadly with weapons. Outside Kartahown they hadn't developed much of a martial arts orientation yet.

  Marc's own left blocked the punch, sweeping a knife hand to the inside of Taldi's forearm. In the same motion Marc drove an extended knuckle into the soft spot of the solar plexus just under the breastbone, into the inevitable gap in the steely muscle that sheathed the other man's stomach.

  All the air went out of Taldi in a single agonized ooofff. The involuntary downward motion of his face met the Terran's swift uppercut with a crunch of snapping cartilage as his nose flattened—Marc took the sharp pain in his knuckles rather than risk shattering the tribesman's jaw or smashing in his facial bones with a knee strike.

  Taldi collapsed, curling up like a shrimp and struggling to get air into his paralyzed lungs. Marc picked up the man's own hatchet, stepped forward, and ceremoniously, lightly, touched the edge to his fallen opponent's neck. Then Marc stood and tossed it aside once more.

  When he straightened, Blair and Cynthia were looking very relieved. Marc nodded to them, then gravely to Teesa's beaming countenance, and waved to the cheering spectators as he walked back to his comrades. Even the clump who'd been yelling for Taldi looked impressed, and a few of them nodded soberly in his direction. Tahyo tried to lick Marc's grazes and minor cuts when he walked into range, flattening his ears and looking aggrieved when told down; after all, he'd only been trying to help.

  "Water," Marc croaked, and drank deep, coughed, drank more.

  It tasted delicious despite being lukewarm and having a strong mineral tang, but it stung when some ran out of his mouth and into a shallow cut over his collarbone he hadn't even noticed. His hand started to shake as he remembered the flint whipping by the end of his nose, and how easily his hacked body could be out there right now, twitching… or possibly screaming for his mother and waiting hoping to die quickly.

  But I didn't lose, he thought. Phew!

  Teesa came up. "You fought very well," she said seriously, and handed him a gourd with a glossy green-and-white skin.

  "Better than him," Marc said, laughing, and she gave a sudden brilliant grin and a nod.

  "And very… very cleverly. I saw how you led Taldi on. That took both skill and courage."

  Marc took the container and put it to his mouth. The smell told him it wasn't water: some sort of berry wine, acrid but not unpleasant, and with a kick
like a cotton-field mule. It helped relax the knots in his gut and back. He'd never wanted to be any sort of a soldier, but fighting now and then was part of exploring Venus. Having Teesa beam at him wasn't hard to endure, either… and oddly, it made him feel better to know she liked him the more for not killing Taldi.

  "Thanks," he said a bit hoarsely.

  Then he looked over to where the fallen man's friends were tending to him—mostly by pouring water on him. He coughed, choked, and then sat up with one helping him and holding a cup to his mouth. He looked worse than he probably was, although his nose wouldn't be the same again, and it was pouring blood down the lower half of his face and beginning to swell and turn purple. One of his companions held a swatch of some fiber—like an enormous cotton boll—to it, and Taldi came out of his daze with a start as it touched the tender flesh. He grabbed it and then held it to the injury himself, with a tender, tentative dabbing motion.

  In a story I'd go over and shake hands and we'd be friends, or he'd be a faithful Tonto type, but I don't think that's in the cards, Marc thought. Look at that glare!

  "You have made an unforgiving enemy," Teesa said, as Taldi came to his feet and was led stumbling towards his hut.

  "Better that than he makes me an unmoving corpse," Marc replied, in her language—it sounded funnier that way, and Teesa gave him another of those wide white grins.

  "But you have won respect from most," she said. "You were feared for your magic, but now you have shown you are a strong fighter… and a merciful one."

  "Hey, let us in on it, man," Cynthia said sharply.

  "According to Teesa, we've gone up in the eyes of the locals," Marc said.

  She muttered something; he thought it was, "One of them, at least."

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Encyclopedia Britannica, 16th Edition University of Chicago Press, 1988

  SCIENCE FICTION

  A literary genre developed principally in the twentieth century, dealing with scientific discovery or development, often set on other worlds…

  … a great boom in the popularity of science fiction following World War II however, coupled with the public realization that many, in fact most, of the spectacular advances of modern science had long been anticipated by intelligent writers of science fiction, led to a gradual reappraisal of its status. This trend was greatly accelerated by the discoveries of the late 1950s and early 1960s which confirmed many of what had previous been regarded as the most lurid and improbable predictions: life on other worlds and human cultures on Mars and Venus. In the 1970s, proof followed of a multitude of Earth-like worlds orbiting nearby stars. By the 1980s, science fiction's status as the characteristic and dominant form of twentieth-century prose fiction has been widely accepted, arousing considerable resentment in some literary circles marginalized by this development; the petition drive against the assignment of what they called "pulp trash" as the basis of university English courses earned Norman Mailer and Truman Capote a brief reprise of their former fame…