Beast Master's Ark

by Andre Norton; Lyn McConchie

  The shivering gradually stopped. He felt her racing pulse slow, her body grow limp, and he turned her gently. Utterly overcome by the force of her fears and emotion, Tani slept trustingly. A warmly gentle smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. He knew this sleep. She'd wake in an hour or so. It was the body's refuge from unbearable strain once that strain was released. He shifted her to a more comfortable position for them both and relaxed.

  The coyotes relaxed too. They trotted off to hunt, secure in the belief that Tani was safe. Destiny moved away to crop some of the grass nearby. She wasn't so sure but she'd watch. Storm looked down. Tani's face had smoothed out as she slept. It was a vivid face. It showed all her emotions when she was awake. The eyebrows arched like wings, the mouth was a warm curve. A generous face, Storm thought. The face of one who would give to her friends, to her kin, without demanding a return. A strong heart. Strong to fight and to give.

  The body in his arms was slender yet there was a wiry strength in the muscles. He had seen her ride down the hours and miles, seen her tease and spin before Destiny's probing horns. There was speed of reflexes there. He'd talked about her since his return and come to understand many of the events that had shaped her, and the security that she had lacked. Brion and Kady loved her, but in an absentminded way.

  They were different, with other drives and desires. They didn't understand this girl who had ridden out to tear her mind apart with her own demands. She was courage and fear, fire and ice. She had the gifts and the love of her team. Tani moved in her sleep, making a tiny whimpering sound. Storm bent his head. He'd planned to blackmail her with her love of friends and land. He'd have broken her to harness and forced her to a load that, with her unwilling, would have killed her.

  He sighed. He couldn't do that. And what would it profit them, anyway? They'd end with a girl retreating into mindlessness and the clickers still to find and stop. His head bent lower until his lips touched the corner of her soft mouth.

  "I won't let it happen," he assured her quietly. Her eyes opened slowly. Her voice a whisper.

  "What won't?"

  "No one will make you hear the clickers."

  "You wanted me to listen to them."

  "Until I saw what it cost you."

  Tani closed her eyes. Within her mind the other words he'd spoken echoed still. Her mind spun, considered, recalled. She'd heard once of this usage of gifts. It was rare but possible. They could try. She would not be so afraid if she had another to help. At least she hoped that would be so. And she would be trying. She wouldn't feel that she'd allowed her friends to lose everything, even life, without Tani putting up a fight. She was the daughter of a warrior, a man who'd died trying to save friends. That bloodline went back to Wolf Sister of the Cheyenne. Could Tani be less?

  She opened her eyes and looked up. Softly she quoted, "Do not fear so, here is one who would be a blade at your back. A shield across your breast. Here is kin, here is strength to lean upon, to share as you share with your team in need." Her eyes held his with a savage intensity. "So you said. Did you really mean it?"

  He nodded, not knowing what she intended, only that in the seconds of silence she had conceived a plan.

  "You have heard that sometimes, using a willing team, Beast Masters can link?"

  Storm bit back his dismay. That was madness that she spoke. He'd heard rumors that it had been tried. In all cases rumored, the Beast Masters had died or burned out their gift. Those who had done the latter had killed themselves. Was he to die, leave the team alone to mourn without him? Tani saw his immediate rejection of the suggestion and guessed at some of the reasons.

  "The team won't be left alone," she told him quietly. "You have a mate for Hing. I can decant the other meerkats soon. And eagles breed very slowly. One pair won't cause problems here. The surplus adults would be welcomed on Trastor. The Xiks spread a poison there that killed the Mallan hawks at the end of their food chain. They are very strongly allergic to it and with so much in the land we can't simply replace the hawks again. They have already approached the Ark for eagles or something similar."

  Storm's face twisted. "What about Surra?"

  Tani laughed, a small rippling sound. "Surra is the least problem. Survey is starting again. They'll want dune cats for first-in teams. She can have all the kittens she wants. The survey people will take them at six months and find suitable people to match them with. I can have mates for Baku and Surra in less than three months." She sobered, waiting.

  Storm released her, gently holding her arm until she was steady on her feet as they both rose. "Slave driver. But if you can provide mates for the team I guess I can risk this link. What about your team if anything happens to you?"

  "Minou and Ferarre could go with Mandy to Dulshan. They'd be freed there. Your father said to me that Destiny could join the breeding herd when I left Arzor. That she'd never accept another rider." She giggled. "He said he wasn't too sure she'd accept any stallion, either, but she'd be free and she could make her own choices. Any foal she did have would be worth its weight in credits as breeding stock."

  He stretched. Beside him the coyotes returned, copied the leisurely movement. Wordlessly, Tani unhooked Destiny's reins and settled into the saddle. Storm whistled. Rain arrived as the silver filly pranced. Minutes later two riders pursued by a large bird and two small four-footed followers were heading back to the ranch. No one was about as they unsaddled, leaving their mounts in two of the smaller corrals. It was clear to Storm that Tani meant to try linking at once, before her determination failed. They slipped silently into the house and made for her rooms. Both teams joined them there.

  Once inside Storm lifted the bed while Tani removed the lower spare kept beneath. With the beds in parallel they lay down, held hands, and began. On the corner perches Mandy and Baku eyed each other. Minou and Ferarre had joined Tani on the bed while Surra lay heavily across Storm's legs. Both teams were restless. They sensed urgency but were unsure what was required of them. Slowly, carefully, with a mixture of pictures, emotions, and the occasional word, the Beast Masters explained.

  The team must link with them as usual. With that established the humans would try to bring each other's teams into link. With each human linked to all the teams' beasts, they would then attempt to link with each other through their teams. If the try was successful they could allow the teams to drop from the linkage. The question hung in all their minds. Not in words from Surra and the others, but in a simple emotion-query. Danger?

  "Yes," Storm sent, as Tani was also warning her team. No danger to the team but to the humans, yes. Emotions rumbled through the team's linkages. They were unhappy but they could feel the need, the urgency. They agreed. Storm clamped his fingers shut. He would hold until they had succeeded or failure was certain. Touch would help the linkage establish. They allowed their eyes to close. Behind the lids both envisioned their teams. One by one each team member dropped into place.

  Storm gathered in Baku, Surra, and Hing with the casual ease of long practice. He tightened the link until it was as if they pressed against him. He held that and reached out cautiously. Tani loved the strength and the calmness that Mandy emitted in link, the merry quick minds of Minou and Ferarre. To her surprise she felt Destiny seeking her. She reached, gathered the filly in, and settled the team in balance. There was a fiery power in that extra addition to the group. A drive to live, to fight and win.

  With her team secured Tani reached out again, slowly. She knew Surra best. She could taste the big cat with her mind: the unbreakable pride and swift power. The quick killing skills tasted like metal in Tani's mouth. She linked, adding Hing—warmth and love of kin, enjoyment digging into Tani's mind. And Baku—fierce joy in the downward stoop, the clench of claws on prey. The affection for the humans she trusted. Then, within the link she stretched out again to touch Storm.

  It hurt. Pain searing through her mind. With an effort she kept it from the team. She tried again, then again. Each time the pain drove her away. Touching the
edge of Storm's mind was like placing fingers into fire. She winced back. They'd agreed it should be Tani who tried. Storm had insisted. He'd endured pain before. He feared that if it were he who made the attempts he would continue too far, that Tani would break under the lash of his demands before he realized what he had done.

  Now half linked, he knew her pain. Still she tried stubbornly. In the back of both minds he could feel the teams watching, supporting where they could. Tani winced back again and into both minds slashed silver fire and inflexible purpose. This was what the human wished? This, Destiny could help her do. Fire burned, searing across the bridge. The filly's fury rose. She would fight, she would! Better to die fighting than to live broken. She forced the link. It held. She could feel the pain grow less, then fade. Her will relaxed. It was done as her human wished.

  Feeling as if his mind had been bruised by trampling hooves, Storm tightened the link. Down it and back again flowed feelings of gratitude that the pain was gone. The link remained. Storm reached out, gathering the team back in again; Tani added her team and they relaxed. It was well, very well. They had the link. Quietly Storm broke it, allowing the teams to drop away one by one. Then he reached, taking them back and linking again with Tani. That was the final test.

  He opened his eyes. Tani had a grin that matched his own. Storm unclasped cramped fingers and grimaced over slowly darkening bruises on her wrist.

  "I'm sorry." Her gaze followed his and she laughed.

  "If that's the only price I'm lucky. You did know what we risked?"

  "I did. I didn't know if you knew."

  Tani shook back her hair. "Bright Sky was involved in some of the first experiments. The other man died. Father was ill for weeks. Alisha told me about it a few months before she was killed. She said it was another example of how Command wasted people." She took a deep breath. "Father wasn't burned out, though. But Alisha said that usually happened if a Beast Master lived. I think she almost hoped it would happen. She was sure she could have kept my father from suiciding and then she'd have had him to herself. I think I was so afraid to try in case I burned out and then didn't have the courage to die."

  Storm clasped her hand. "You have the courage to live. That's more important. And now, I'll get us food. We'll practice linking a couple more times and get a good long sleep. In the morning I'll get Kelson here."

  "Why him?"

  "Because with our link we stop running. Now we find the clickers and hunt them, for a change. We may even find the Xik team." His eyes gleamed ferally. "I'd like that."

  "So would I," Tani said, the teams echoing the desire to have their enemies in sight. "I'm starving," she added, as her stomach growled. Storm grinned.

  "Don't move. I'll be right back." He returned bearing plunder from the ranch kitchen for humans and teams. They ate ravenously before Tani found her eyes starting to close. Storm smiled and stood, signaling his team to follow. "Sleep. I'll call for you in the morning once I've commed Kelson. He's going to be a very happy man to hear what we can do."

  Tani yawned hugely as the door shut behind Storm and his team. Inside her there was joy. She had taken the next step. At least they could now find the clickers, maybe destroy them and save her friends. And she owed half of it to a Beast Master. Alisha had been wrong. There were good Beast Masters besides Bright Sky. She believed now that Hing's mate hadn't been thrown away.

  Well, Tani would provide others. Hing would be matriarch of a meerkat clan. Tani grinned as she undressed and washed before slipping into a sleep robe. Storm was a good man. She hadn't been asleep all the time in his arms, either. Her finger went up to touch the corner of her lips. No, not all the time. She fell into bed, asleep almost before she had stretched out. On her face a small grin still lingered. Life was becoming more interesting by the hour. Tani found it frightening and exhilarating.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Both were awake again early. For some time Tani lay in her bed, luxuriating in warmth, the presence of her team, and the link she could establish. That thought nudged her. Idly she reached, yes, she could feel Storm. She couldn't link. She required physical touch for that, but she had the sense of him. She knew where he was, how far away and in what direction. She reached again. She could do the same for his team as well. That could be useful one day soon.

  She knew she'd taken a huge risk when she insisted on the linking. Those who tried went mad for one simple reason: they were unable to cope with another's thoughts. Not just as intrusive thoughts, but in a complete overlay. A doubling of everything they were in their head, with the link's thoughts laid on top. They became lost inside their own heads, driven mad by thoughts that were not their own.

  She wasn't sure why she and Storm could link without that happening. It could have been the addition of Destiny to the link; they hadn't been able to complete the original tie without her forceful assistance. Perhaps it was because they were of a different blood. Maybe those who were wholly or partially Indian had better defenses against madness. After all, her father had attempted the link once; he'd foiled but survived the try. She grinned to herself. That was racist, but it wasn't impossible. Once this was over she might talk to Uncle Brion and Aunt Kady about running tests. If they could find out why Storm and Tani could survive linking, it would be useful to others.

  At the back of her mind, as she mused, she'd kept light contact with the feel of Storm's mind. His direction shifted, he was heading toward her. Tani scrambled out of bed, flinging on her clothes. She was brushing out her long black hair when Storm tapped on the door.

  "Come in, Storm."

  He entered, his eyes warming as he looked at her. Tani grinned back as the coyotes went to greet him.

  "They approve of you."

  "It's mutual."

  The girl was plaiting her hair swiftly as they talked. She tied off the long fall of plait and turned. "Let's do this before I lose my nerve again."

  His hand brushed lightly down her arm. "You won't. I asked Kady to leave the clickers out in an escape-proof container. No one will be there but us. If you and I can hear them close up, then Brad will help us make experiments. We need to find out how far away we can hear them and if we can get the direction. Dumaroy and the others will copter back once we have anything solid we can show. Dad says they were still frothing about Xiks when they had to leave."

  Tani laughed. "I liked Mr. Dumaroy."

  Storm looked at her in surprise. "Why? Oh, he isn't a bad man, and he was a good soldier. He's a loudmouthed hothead, though, and he doesn't like the natives."

  It was the girl's turn to ask why.

  Storm snorted. "The sort of thing that happened in the early days. His father was sick so his mother rode out to check the frawn herd. She was thrown and badly hurt. Norbies found her, cared for her, but she was left crippled. Her husband blamed them. Said they let the Thunder-Drummer try healing when she should have been brought in at once. Rig would have been only small. All he knew was that his mother went out fit and happy one day and came back a week later in pain, a permanent invalid, and his father said the natives had done it.

  "She was never well again. She lost the baby she'd been carrying and Rig ended up as the only child. Mind you, I don't know this myself. It was what Brad told me once when I was more annoyed than usual with Dumaroy and his stubbornness. Brad said the man adored his mother. She didn't blame the Norbies but Rig took his father's word for it." Storm grinned. "He got shaken up a while back, though. He went off half-cocked, listened to the wrong person, and made a fool of himself.

  "Then a while later he started a fuss about the natives and it turned out the trouble was started by a human. Since then he's been a bit less keen to jump to the conclusion that everything that goes wrong is tied to the natives. He still isn't fond of them, though, and I guess he never will be. He refuses to use them as riders like the rest of us. So, why did you like him?"

  Tani was seeing the story as he told it. The small boy who loved his mother. The woman injured and cared for b
y Norbies who did their best. The father who felt that if he hadn't been sick in bed his wife wouldn't have been doing his work. The father who blamed the Norbies because he couldn't blame himself, and passed on his guilt to a small child. She looked up at Storm as they reached the laboratory door.

  "He feels something like you." Storm was still openmouthed as they walked in. He sought for words to deny he was anything like the big bellowing rancher from the Peaks and gave it up. How Tani could say that he'd never know. Tani hid a smile. That had pushed him off balance. She took a last step inside and came face-to-face with the clicker container. She shuddered.

  The clickers, too, seemed agitated. Storm reached for the container and positioned it in the center of the bench. He closed a gentle hand on her unbruised wrist.

  "Now. Link." They slid awkwardly into contact. Tani reached toward the clickers slowly. The feel of them was like a blow as she reached. Hunger! Flesh. Pleasure-pain. The hot salty coppery taste of blood remembered. Hunger! She jerked her mind back, shutting down on the reading so fast that Storm felt it, like a door slamming in his mind, then easing open just a crack again.

  Storm gave a soft grunt. "Right. No trouble with that. Let's go outside. I want to check something." He walked out and shut the laboratory door. Then he turned to the girl, taking her by the shoulders. "Shut your eyes." Tani obeyed. "Don't open them until I say." He left her briefly, then returned. He began to spin her around. At last when he stopped she was dizzy. "Don't open your eyes yet and don't try to touch the clickers. Think of it as if you're feeling heat. Not close enough to know more than the change in temperature before you feel it as actual warmth. Now, where are the clickers. What direction?"