The Ways Between Worlds: Peter Cooper

by Larry E. Clarke

  After leaving the dome we’d traveled about 10 days across a prairie before reaching the foothills of the western mountains. According to our map, copies of which we all carried, we'd be forced to cross this range sooner or later.

  The nights here were cold although we had gained very little in altitude.To cross the range directly where we first encountered it would have been difficult if not impossible. Heavy snow cover was already visible on the peaks and in the high passes. This late in the season and I didn't want us to be replay the Donner party.

  The map showed a pass a hundred more kilometers to the south. It was a long detour but one which couldn't be avoided. Thus far we had been lucky. Traveling through relatively open country our progress had been good. Leeta had shown us how to use the juices of a broad-leafed plant as an insect repellant against the dense swarms of piranha bugs (what she called "ruuin"). These swarms consisted of a million or more beetle sized insects. They bit with tiny mandibles. Individually the bites were no worse than the sting of a honeybee. But once the scout insect returned to the swarm to lead the rest with the scent of blood the unfortunate victim was doomed.

  Even the largest beasts of the plains fled uselessly in terror before them. From a distance we had seen animals fall. By the time we passed nothing remained but the animal's teeth. Even the bones were devoured by these carnivorous swarms. I prayed our supplies of Leeta's repellant were sufficient and that it continued to work as well as it had thus far.

  We had crossed some broad icy streams pouring down from sources high in the mountains. Otherwise we encountered no major natural obstacles.

  Leeta and I carried as much food from the tree as we had been able to manage, but Lady Camille had been a real godsend for that task. She offered herself as a pack animal. She insisted that she would tell us when the load felt too much for her. We made a packsaddle and loaded the most essential items first. Then we put on things which could be very useful in certain situations, and last of all things which Leeta felt we might trade with any other people we might meet. When the last item was lashed on the Lady must have been carrying a good 200 kg. Wow!

  Her stamina was amazing. She ate anything, found her own food, could pack and unpack all the items herself, and seemed ready to travel as long each day as Leeta and I might like. It was better than having a camel.

  This arrangement permitted Leeta and me to travel only with light packs. It freed us to carry our weapons at the ready. Leeta, usually carried her bow with an arrow nocked whenever we crossed open country. In this heavier undergrowth she and I each carried one of her light javelins.

  Before leaving the transport site I’d sought a better weapon than the metal bar with which I'd fought the drakor. I'd seen how the porcupine plant venom had stopped the Ursoid in his tracks and decided to make use of it. With Lady’s help I fashioned three blow pipes of varying lengths from sections of sturdy reed. Next, with extreme care I gathered hundreds of the needle filled ampules from the area around the plants. A few drops of the deadly liquid could be seen inside the translucent base of each needle like "quill". To the base of these I used the gooey leaf resin to attach a sort of wadding made from the downy interior of seed pods. Once I described what I needed Leeta had been quick to show me the nearly ideal material which resembled cotton or milkweed fibers.

  The end result was a potent weapon, but one which had to be handled with great care. Leeta again found the solution by bringing the dried hive of local insects. Once cut in half it provided hundrds of individual compartments into which the "darts" could be inserted. I practiced with dummy darts until I could with a single huge puff of air send one flying into a target no bigger than a dinner plate 10-15 paces away. At Leeta's insistence I also practiced on moving targets, and with "live ammo".

  About half of my trials resulted in a "hit" on some of the many skrits which inhabited the forest floor and lower branches. The hits with dummy darts had little effect, but even the smallest nick with an actual quill resulted in the animal falling dead in mid leap. There was little doubt as to their effectiveness.

  Weeks had slipped by on the trail. In our evening camp Leeta and I ate steaming bowls of a soup. This was an especially tasty batch made from a small tree hopper and some dried ingredients from our stores. Lady Camille stood beside us chewing her ever present cud and making melodic sounds of contentment deep in her throat. I noticed that she was loosing her shorn sheep look. The ugly blotches of color when we'd first seen her were now turning into a fur coat which, although still short, was dense and even attractive. It reminded me of the coats I'd seen on pampered show cattle at state fairs. Camille had fashioned a sort of curry comb from a piece of tough wood while we still lived at the tree. Each evening she spent considerable time combing out the dust and debris from the day’s trek. Leeta sometimes helped by combing the areas hardest for her to reach. I occasionally joined in to scratch behind her ears. This never failed to produce a blissful state. (It was not until much later that I learned the full significance of this action).

  "Lady Camille, tell us what it is like on your world," I asked on the spur of the moment.

  She looked in my direction with those brown cow eyes of hers, swallowed her cud, cleared her throat and began speaking slowly in Neslan.

  "My people. . . are a very old race. In your numbers Peter they have written history for almost 20,000 years. Long before that time they roamed in immense herds over the face of our planet. There was nothing to harm them. No plant or animal lived which would or could do them harm. Food was plentiful in all but the driest years. No Efuu raised its paw (not a correct word but probably the best the Lady knew) against another. All was harmony, or so our stories of this time before history tell us.

  Then a wise female found a way to protect the people from the sickness which took so many of their numbers each year. Slowly our numbers began to increase. Year by year there were more of us. Knowledge of the wise woman's medicine spread to the farthest places of the world. Many who would have died now lived.

  Year by year good pastures became harder to find. Some looked to the mountains where none had previously bothered to go. Some left the fellowship of the bands to seek pasture on their own. Some ate new food which none had before been willing to eat. Competition arose among the bands. There are accounts, which may be but myth, that some of the people tried to force their fellow beings from pasture by threatening harm to those who stayed.” Here her voice softened like someone who had just delivered the punch line of a ghost story to a group of campers. She looked at me and then at Leeta and back to me as if waiting for us to show our shock at the thought of a creature harming its own kind.

  In a moment she continued. "In the midst of this time of trouble two great things were born. First, the people of the Efuu found that they could produce more food by growing it than they could find in the wild. The other was perhaps even more important. In the time before the farms became cities the people discovered writing, the preservation of knowledge. The people were consumed with the desire to know, to learn. To this day that desire continues. We continue to learn until the day we join the sacred bones of our ancestors. Because we are a people who breed very slowly and because some diseases remained the people enjoyed a long period of serenity. Finally, however, our numbers again began to exceed our food supply. Every part our world that could be cultivated had been. We planted on land reclaimed from the sea, in the parks of our cities, in gardens on the roofs of our dwellings, and yet in time there was not enough to eat.

  As more young cried out from hunger there arose in one of the ancient bands, the Yfarms, a cry that we were wrong to have thwarted nature's sicknesses, that it was better to die quickly from sickness than to die a slow death as a starving people. Their followers saw science as an evil thing.

  In my band, the Ghffts, we looked to our healers for help. They found a way to help our people have a young one only when they chose to. The Yfarms thought this a cursed thing, just more tampering with nature. We of the Ghffts a
ccepted it slowly at first but soon saw that for the good of the many each would have to have but one cub to carry on the clan line rather than the three or even four which was the common number. The hunger continued many years. Yfarms rejected the medicines and their numbers lessened. Ghffts had but one cub and once more were able to provide for all. These two largest of bands drifted farther and farther apart however.

  Since those days the Ghffts have pursued science and it's blessings and the Yfarms have shunned it for the old style of life. Both groups have had periods of leadership on the planet. When my clan launched the first ship to leave our world the Yfarms opposed it. They say we should provide first a great storehouse of reserve food for our people. My clan has also spent many years in understanding the transport device that carried Peter and this one here to Leeta's world. Our great hope was that the device would let our people find other worlds on which to live and grow food before a cycle of great starvation overtakes us once again. This time millions will starve. The Yfarm will use the failure of the test with me to stop the project and throw the resources of the planet into a shortsighted plan to store food. Their plan will only insure that larger numbers of my people live long enough to face starvation.

  Her voice remained steady, but the sadness in the Lady's aspect was obvious even to my alien eyes. If anything she was here under conditions worse than my own. The earth was not going to suffer greatly for my absence. That night I dreamt of Lady Camille's world covered with large, gentle creatures, like her, slowly starving to death.

  CHAPTER 10

  "There is another one." I murmured nodding toward another recently used campsite along our route.

  For the last few hours we had been following the banks of a small river. Above our heads the fronds of slender, fragrant trees sheltered a variety of small animals. Some could have passed for earthly critters but others were obviously alien.

  My favorites were the scarlet howlers that glided from branch to branch on a flap of loose skin that looked for all the world like a hang glider. They hooted and howled to their colleagues. No bigger than my hand they were pursuing large insects that flew a sort of corkscrew trajectory through the leaves and branches.

  At the moment I was more concerned with the makers of those burned out campfires. We had long ago passed beyond the home range of the tree people. Their annual migrations did not pass this way so Leeta had never seen this territory, even from the air. She had no idea who might have left the burned remains. Tracks in the area told us only that they were not likely human.

  "Hold up" I called as I paused to adjust a strap on the leather bag I had slung over my shoulder. As I looked up I saw them.

  "Leeta, do you recognize these people?"

  "No, they look something like the Nugas but they are not of the Red Kyree clan".

  She spoke, as I had, in English, a language we could be certain they didn't understand.

  "I'll deal with them”. She said in a stage whisper. “If you will nod when I look to you it will help".

  She stepped forward, javelin ready but not overtly threatening, she began to address the three orange furred creatures standing a few meters off the trail near a cluster of tall ferns.

  I stayed with Lady Camille. Neither of us could hear well what was being said. They spoke with an accent which sounded odd compared to Leeta, and they spoke much more rapidly than we had been accustomed to hearing Leeta speak. Here and there we caught a few words and phrases.

  From what I could hear Leeta was telling them that we were travelers and traders who wished only to pass through their territory. She was also giving me a build up as her master/protector and a great warrior to boot. I had supposedly had slain a veedeer beast with my bare hands and killed many many drakor for the sport of it! I only hoped she knew what she was doing and that I wouldn't have to some day live up to her billing.

  "I have told them we are travelers and that you are a great warrior Pe-tar. They have told me that their chief is also a great warrior and has no fear of strangers or their ‘ugly animals’." Here she inclined her head to Lady Camille who had taken the opportunity to begin grazing beside the trail.

  "If we follow this path to where the second stream enters the great river we will come to their city which they say is a wonder to behold."

  An hour later the three hunters were still with us. Like Leeta they carried a sheaf of small javelins. One also carried, slung round his neck and shoulders, a dead animal the size of a jackrabbit. They had made no threatening moves and I was beginning to relax a bit.

  Trees arched aboue the trail where we’d first met the relatives of the Nuga. This slightly lower altitude had brought with it denser, but shorter vegetation. Here and there were a few palm-like plants with enormous skirts of prickly foliage near their bases. This thick skirt probably kept many animals from reaching the trunk and climbing to the thick clusters of fruit that hung from the upper branches.

  We crossed a rude footbridge of logs, rounded a bend along the riverbank and came upon the village. The "magnificent city” we'd been promised turned out to be little more than a collection on mud huts. A larger structure of logs stuccoed with mud occupied a central position in the village. It was toward this structure that Leeta, the Lady, and I were being led. I guessed it to be either a community meeting hall, the chief's house, or possibly both. A flap of animal hides laced together hung at the rounded opening. Before entering I stopped for a short conference with Leeta and the Lady.

  "Can we really trust these people?"

  "I do not know Pe-tar. The people of the tree sometimes traded with others of their kind without problems, but there were also many stories of battles with other tribes."

  "Did they think Lady Camille is an animal?"

  "Yes. Do not take offense Lady, but they say she is ugly but a good pack animal to be able to carry so much."

  "Good. Here's what I propose. Lady Camille, try to understand that not all people on this world are gentle. Some may wish to harm us. Because they do not know you are an intelligent being you may move among them as you will. While Leeta and I are inside will you watch them and warn us if they prepare to harm us?

  "You are both my friends Peter. Of course I will do all that I can to keep you well."

  Leeta and I turned and entered the village hall. The interior logs were more carefully plastered over with mud. A fire pit in the middle of the room held the remnants of a sizeable fire which had obviously used both for heating and cooking. The half burned remains of a previous meal still hung on a roasting spit before the fire. Two creatures I presumed to be females because of their smaller size and lighter fur color were tending a large pot. I couldn't tell whether it was lunch or laundry.

  Smoke from the fire was let out through a hole in the roof. Today was calm, however, and the system wasn't working very well. My eyes were already starting to water and burn in the smoky interior.

  "Try to get information about what is down river" I urged Leeta, "and find out if we could stay here a few days. I'll pretend that I speak none of the language and that way we can confer about any decisions without them knowing." I'm not by nature a suspicious person, but... there was something about these monkey men that I could not trust.

  Our escort led us to one of their number who sat on an enormous seat carved from a section of tree trunk. The log from which it was carved must have been six feet in diameter and twice as high. It was so big that I wondered if the building had not been built around it. Certainly, none of the existing doors would have accommodated it. The carving decorating this "throne" was of poor quality but nonetheless must have taken an enormous amount of time. Seated there, a good meter above us, was the head honcho.

  Our escort made a gesture of subservience which Leeta and I faintly echoed. They approached and told of finding us on the trail a few kilometers upstream. As we had not gotten around to exchanging names with them they made no attempt to introduce us but simply referred to us as “the strangers”. Leeta, showing more spunk than I
felt at the moment, stepped in to fill the void.

  "We, sir, are travelers and traders from a distant land. My master Lord Petar has come here after a journey. Perhaps if he finds anything of value he will return here with his servants and commence trading with your people. I have come from your cousins the people of the great trees to assist him for he speaks only the tongue of his own kind.”

  "My name is unimportant" she rambled on "but my lord Petar would know with whom he is speaking."

  "I am Gutan, emperor of this great city and all the river people" he bellowed in reply.

  Whoever Gutan was he obviously was not used to being addressed in such a direct manner by adolescent girls. Long whiskers around his mouth twitched and I could hear his teeth grinding.

  "It is I who allow you and this 'lord' to view our great city. How do I know that you have not come to steal the great treasures we have collected here?" he said with a broad sweep of his arm to indicate the contents of the room.

  About the walls were hung a few ratty hides, some pieces of primitive sculpture which may have been idols, and many animal teeth strung on rawhide thongs. If there was treasure here I failed to recognize it.

  Leeta handled it beautifully. "Your mightiness is clearly great ruler. You surely have nothing to fear from a warrior/trader and a young girl. We wish but to remain in your village a few days to engage in honest bargaining with you and your people. However, if it is your wish we will not tarry here. We are eager to rejoin the Lord's party of warriors waiting for us to the south."

  His attitude softened slightly. The old scars which had stood out clearly as he bristled before were now less obvious.