“Third time? What do you mean? Why are you so angry today?”
Raven gave an elaborate sigh and ticked the points off on his fingers. “We’ve been over this ground before. First: your houses are built like fortresses. Yes, you tell me that’s a symbol, but I have trouble believing that rational people like you would go to so much trouble and expense for something that was nothing but a symbol. Second: nobody lives alone any more, especially not in the wilderness. I can’t forget that place where it was tried once. Those people were killed with weapons. Third: while we were looking over the port site, your father made a remark about caves in the cliff being easily made into Bale time shelters. When I asked him what he had in mind, he suddenly discovered he had an urgent matter to attend to elsewhere. When I asked a couple of the others, they grew almost as unhappy as you and mumbled something about taking insurance against unforeseeable accidents.
“What tore it for me was when I pressed Cardwyr for a real explanation, a few hours ago on the march. He’d been so frank with me in every other respect that I felt he’d continue that way. But instead, he came as near losing his temper as I’ve ever seen a Gwydiona do. I thought for a minute he was going to hit me. But he just stalked off telling me to improve my manners.
“Something is wrong here. Why don’t you give us fair warning?”
Elfavy turned as if to depart. She blinked very fast, and a wetness glinted on her cheek. “I thought you . . . you invited me to go for a walk,” she said. “But—”
He caught her by the arm. “Listen,” he said more gently. “Please listen, I’m picking on you because, well, you’ve honored me with reason to think you won’t lie or evade when something is really important to me. And this is. You’ve never seen violence, but I have. Much too often. I know what comes of it, and—I have to do what I can to keep it from you. Do you follow me? I have to.”
She ceased pulling against him and stood shivering, her head bent so that the locks fell past her face and hid it. Raven studied her for a while. His mouth lost its hardness. “Sit down, my dear,” he said at last.
Elfavy lowered herself to the ground as if strength had deserted her. He joined her and took one small hand in his. There went a stabbing through Tolteca.
“Are you forbidden to talk about this?” Raven asked, so low that the brawling of the fall nearly drowned the question.
She shook her head.
“Why won’t you, then?”
“I—” Her fingers tightened around his palm, and she laid her other hand over it. He sat cat-passive while she gulped for breath. “I don’t know. We don’t—” Some seconds passed before she could get the words out. “We hardly ever talk about it. Or think about it. It’s too dreadful.”
There is such a thing as an unconscious taboo, Tolteca remembered through the tides in his brain, laid by the self upon the self.
“And it’s not as if the bad things happen very often, now that . . . that we’ve learned how to take . . . precautions. Long ago it was worse—” She braced herself and looked squarely at him. “You live with greater hazards and horrors than ours, all the time, do you not?”
Raven smiled very slightly. “Ah-ah, there. I decline your counter-challenge. Let’s stick to the main issue. Something occurs, or can occur, during Bale. That’s plain to see. Your people must have wondered what, if they don’t actually know.”
“Yes. There have been ideas.” Elfavy seemed to have recovered her nerve. She frowned at the earth for a space and then said almost coolly, “We are not much given on Gwydion to examining our own souls, as you from the stars seem to be. I suppose that is because we’re simpler. Miguel said to me once that he would not have believed there could be an entire race so free of internal conflicts as us, until he came here.” She spoke my name! “I don’t know about that, but I do know that I’ve little skill in reading my own inmost thoughts. So I can’t tell you with certainty why we so loathe to think about the danger at Bale time. However, might it not be that one hates to associate the most joyous moments of one’s life with . . . with that other thing?”
“Might be,” said Raven noncommittally.
She raised her head, tossing the tresses down her back, and went on. “Still Bale is when God comes, and God has Vwi Night Faces too. Not everyone returns from the Holy City.”
“What happens to them?”
“There is a theory that the mountain ape is driven mad by the nearness of God and comes down into the lowlands, killing and destroying. That would account for the facts. Actually, I suppose if you forced every person on Gwydion to give you an opinion, as you forced me, most would say this idea must be the right one.”
“Haven’t you tried to check up on it? Why not leave somebody behind in the towns, waiting in ambush, to see?”
“No. Who would forego his trip to the Holy City, for any reason?”
“Hm. One might at least leave automatic cameras. But I can find out about that later. What’s this mountain ape like?”
“An omnivore, which often catches game to eat. They travel in flocks.”
“I should think a closed door and a barred window would serve against animals. And don’t you keep guard robots at your sanctuaries?”
“Well, the idea is that the beast may be half intelligent. How could it be found on so many islands, if it did not sometimes cross the water on a log?”
“That could happen accidentally. Or the islands may be the remnants of an original continent. There must at least have been land bridges now and then, here and there, in the geological past.”
“Well, perhaps,” she said reluctantly. “But suppose the mountain ape is cunning enough to get by a guard robot. That needn’t happen very often, you see, to cause trouble. Suppose it has gotten to the point of using tools that can break and pry. I don’t believe that anyone has ever really investigated its habits. It usually stays far out in the wilderness. Only communities which lie near the edge of a great forest, like Instar, ever glimpse a wandering flock. Remember, we are only ten million people, scattered over a planet. It’s too big for us to know everything.”
She seemed entirely calm now. Her gaze went around the dell, up the tumbling river to the sky and the hunting bird. She smiled. “And it is right that the world be so,” she said. “Would you want to live where there is no mystery and nothing unconquered?”
“No,” Raven agreed. “I suppose that’s why men went to the stars in the first place.”
“And must keep looking ever further, as they suck the planets dry,” Elfavy said with compassion tinged by the least hint of scorn. “We keep the frontiers that we already have.”
“I like that attitude,” Raven said. “But I don’t see any sense in letting an active menace run loose. We’ll look into this mountain ape business, and if that turns out to be the trouble, we’ll soon find ways to deal with the brutes.”
Elfavy’s mouth fell open. She stared at him in a blind fashion. “No,” she gasped, “you wouldn’t exterminate them!”
“Um-m . . . that’s right, you’d consider that immoral, wouldn’t you? Very well, let the species live. But it can be eradicated in inhabited areas.”
“What?” She yanked her hands from his.
“Now, wait a bit,” Raven protested. “I know you don’t have any nonsense here about the sacredness of life. You fish and hunt and butcher domestic animals, not for sport but quite cheerfully for economic reasons. What’s the difference in this case?”
“The apes may be intelligent!”
“On a very low plane, maybe. I wouldn’t let that bother me. But if you’re so squeamish, I suppose they could simply be stunned and airlifted en masse to a distant plateau or some place. I’m sure they wouldn’t much mind.”
“Stop.” She raised herself to a crouch. Through the close-fitting tunic, on the bare sun-gold arms and legs, Tolteca could see the tension that shook her. “Can you not understand? The Night Faces must be!”
“Brake back, there,” Raven said. He reached for her. “I on
ly suggested—”
“Let me alone!” She sprang to her feet and fled up the trail, almost brushing Tolteca but unaware of him in her weeping.
Raven swore, the word was less angry than hurt and bitter, and started to follow. That’s plenty, Tolteca thought in a gust of temper, and stepped forth. “What’s going on here?” he demanded.
Raven glided to a halt. “How long have you been listening?” he murmured in a tiger’s voice.
“Long enough. I heard her ask you to let her be. So do it.”
They confronted each other a little while. Shadow and sunlight speckled Raven’s black shape. A breeze blew spray from the fall into Tolteca’s face. He tasted it frigid on his lips, but a smell akin to blood was in his nostrils. If he jumps me, I’ll shoot. I will.
Raven let out a deep breath. The heavy shoulders slumped noticeably. “I suppose that is best,” he said, and turned around to stare at the river.
The swift end of the scene was like having a wall collapse on which Tolteca had been leaning. He knew with horror that his hand had been on his pistol butt, and snatched it away. Ylem! What’s happened to me?
What would have happened, if—He needed his whole courage not to bolt.
Raven straightened. “Your chivalrous indignation does you credit,” he said sarcastically, around the back of his head. “But I assure you I was only trying to keep her from getting murdered one fine festival night.”
Still shaken, Tolteca grasped at the chance to smooth things over. “I know,” he said. “But you have to respect the sensitivities of people. Different cultures have the damnedest geases.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Did you ever hear why trade with Orillion was abandoned, why nobody goes there any more? It seemed one of the most promising of the isolated worlds that we’d come upon. Honest, warmhearted people. So warmhearted that we couldn’t possibly deal with them if we kept on refusing their offers of individual friendship . . . which involved homosexual relations. We couldn’t even explain to them why it wouldn’t do.”
“Yes, I’ve heard of that case.”
“You can’t go bursting into the most important parts of people’s lives like an artillery shell. Such compulsions have their roots in the very bottom of the unconscious mind. The people themselves can’t think logically about them. Suppose I cast doubts on your father’s honor. You’d probably kill me. But if you said something like that to me, I wouldn’t get resentful to the point of homicide.”
Raven faced him again, cocking one brow upward. “What are your touchy points, then?” he asked dryly.
“Eh? Why, well—family, I guess, even if that relationship isn’t as strong as for a Lochlanna. My planet. Democratic government. Not that I mind discussing any of those things, arguing about them. I don’t believe in fighting till there’s a direct physical threat. And I can entertain the possibility that my notions are completely mistaken. Certainly there’s nothing that can’t be improved.”
“The autonomous individual,” Raven said. “I feel sorry for you.”
He went on rapidly: “But there is something dangerous on Gwydion, especially at that so-called Bale season. I’ve learned that a certain animal, the mountain ape, is generally believed to be responsible. Do you have any information about the creature?”
“N-no. In most languages, ‘ape’ means a more or less anthropoid animal, fairly bright though without tools or a true speech. The type is common on terrestroid planets—parallel evolution.”
“I know.” Raven reached a decision. “Look here, you’ll agree that action must be taken, for the safety of base personnel if nothing else. Later on we can worry about how to do it without offending local prejudices. But first we have to know what the practical problem is. Could the apes really be the destroyers? Elfavy was so irrational on the subject that I can’t just take her word, or any Gwydiona’s. I’ll have to investigate for myself. You mentioned to me once that you’ve been on long hunting trips in the forests of several planets. And I suppose you are better than I at worming things out of people, especially when it involves their sore spots. So could you quietly find out what the spoor of the apes looks like, and so on? Then if we get a chance we can go off and have a look for ourselves. Agreed?”
VIII
There were no signs until the party was over the pass and down in the woods on the opposite slope. But then young Beodag, who was a forester by trade, spotted the traces and pointed them out to Tolteca and Raven. The trail was fairly clear, trampled grass and broken twigs, caerdu trees stripped of their succulent buds, holes where tubers or rodentoids had been snatched out of the ground. “Be careful,” he warned. “They have been known to attack men. You really ought to take a larger party.”
Raven slapped the holster of his pistol. “This will handle more than one flock of anything,” he said. “Especially with a clip of explosive bullets in it.”
“And, uh, more people might only alarm them,” Tolteca said. “Besides, you couldn’t help us. We’ve both had encounters before now with animals on the verge of intelligence, not to mention fully developed nonhuman races. We know what signs to watch for. Iafraid you Gwydiona don’t, as yet.”
Beodag looked a trifle skeptical but didn’t press the point. It was assumed here that any adult knew what he was doing. Dawyd and his men had only been told that it was desirable to investigate the mountain apes, since protection against their raids might be needed at the spaceport. Elfavy, retreated into an unhappy silence, had not given Tolteca the lie.
“Well,” Beodag said, “luck attend you. But I doubt you will discover much. At least, I have never seen them carrying anything like tools. I’ve merely heard third- and fourth-hand stories, and you know how they can grow in the telling.”
Raven nodded, turned on his heel, and headed into the forest. Tolteca hurried to catch up. The sound of the others was soon left behind, and the outworlders walked through a stillness broken only by rustlings and chirpings. The trees here grew tall, with sheer reddish trunks that broke into a dense roof of leaves high overhead. In that shade there was little underbrush, only a thick soft mould speckled with fungi. The air was warmer than usual at this altitude. It carried a pungent smell, reminding of thyme, sage, or savory.
“I wonder what makes that odor?” Tolteca said. He had his answer a few minutes later, when they crossed a meadow where lesser plants could grow. A thick stand of bushes had exploded into bloom, scarlet flowers surrounded by bee-like insects, filling the area with their scent. He stopped for a close inspection.
“You know,” he said, “I think this must be a rather near relative of baleflower. Observe the leaf structure. Evidently this species blooms a little earlier in the year, though.”
“M-m, yes.” Raven stopped and rubbed his chin. The cold green eyes grew thoughtful. “It occurs to me that the true baleflower should be opening its buds very soon after we get back to Instar—which is to say, just about in time for the Bale festival, whatever that is. In a culture like this, bearing in mind the like names, that’s no coincidence. And yet they never seem to tell stories about the plant, the way they do about everything else in sight.”
“I’ve noticed that,” said Tolteca. “But we’d better not ask them bluntly why, not at least till we know more. When we return. I’m going to send our linguists into the ship’s library to do an etymological and semantic study of that word bale.”
“Good idea. While you’re at it, dig up a bush sometime when nobody’s looking and have it chemically analyzed.”
“Very well,” said Tolteca, though he winced at the implications.
“Meanwhile,” said Raven, “we’ve another project. Let’s go.”
They re-entered the cathedral stillness of the forest. Their footfalls were muffled until their breathing seemed unnaturally loud. The trail of the ape band remained plain to see, prints in the ground, mutilated vegetation, excrement. “Pretty formidable animals, if they plow their way as openly as this,” Raven remarked. “They’re as sloppy as hum
ans. I daresay they can move quietly when they hunt, however.”
“Think we can get close enough to spy on them?” Tolteca asked.
“We can try. By all accounts, they have little shyness toward men. Certainly we can find some spot where they’ve stayed a few days and check the rubbish. You can tell if a bone was split with a rock, for instance, or if somebody has been chipping stone to shape.”
“Suppose they do turn out to be what we’re looking for? What then?”
“That depends. We can try to talk the Gwydiona out of their nonsensical attitude—”
“It isn’t nonsense!” Tolteca protested indignantly. “Not in their own terms.”
“It’s always ridiculous to submit meekly to a threat,” Raven said. “Stop being so tender with foolishness.”
The memory rose in Tolteca of Elfavy’s troubled face. “That’s about enough out of you,” he rapped. “This isn’t your planet. It isn’t even your expedition. Keep your place, sir.”
They halted. A flush darkened Raven’s high cheekbones. “Keep a leash on that tongue of yours,” he retorted.
“We’re not here to exploit them. You’ll damned well respect their ethos or I’ll see you in irons!”
“What the chaos do you know about an ethos, you cultureless moneysniffer?”
“I know better than to—to drive a woman to tears. You’ll stop that too, hear me?”
“Ah, so,” said Raven most softly. “That’s the layout, eh?”
Tolteca braced himself for a fight. It came from an unawaited quarter. Suddenly the air was full of shapes.
They dropped from the trees, onto the ground, and threw themselves at the men. Raven sprang aside and pulled his gun loose. His first shot missed. There was no second. A hairy body climbed onto his back and another seized his arm. He went down in a welter of them.
Tolteca yelled and ran. An ape laid hold of his trouser leg. He smashed the other boot into the animal’s muzzle. The hands let go. Two more leaped at him. He dodged their charge and pelted over the ground. Get his back against yonder bole, spray them with automatic fire—He whirled and raised his pistol.
Flandry's Legacy: The Technic Civilization Saga Page 50
