by Timothy Zahn
Jaker and Welles were still arguing when Kendal tuned his mind back to the conversation. "Look at how fast these new ones figured out the lasers—" Jaker was saying.
A motion to Kendal's right caught his eye. One of the tricorns was moving forward. "Jaker!" he snapped, yanking his laser from its holster.
Jaker had been half-turned to shout at Welles; whipping back around, he brought his own weapon to bear, firing a second after Kendal's shot grazed the massive skull near the leftmost of the three serrated horns. The creature thudded to the ground; two more shots and it was dead.
Kendal turned back quickly to see a tricorn directly in front of him take a couple of heavy steps forward. He raised his laser, and the animal stopped. Almost reluctantly, it backed up to its original position.
"See?" Jaker said, just the slightest tremor in his voice. "They know when it's not safe to attack."
"All right, can it," Cardman Tan called from the pit, where the sounds of work had ceased. "Jaker, you give your brain a vacation like that again and I'll have your hide—if one of the tricorns doesn't get it first. That goes for all the rest of you, too. Stay alert, damn it!"
There were muffled acknowledgments from the guard ring. Wiping a layer of sweat from his neck, Kendal reflected that the strain of the past eight months was starting to be felt. He wondered if they would be able to hold out for five more.
The huge bins that had been set up nearby to store the ore had been designed to handle over a hundred tons each. As a result they were almost, but not quite, strong enough to be proof against the nighttime tricorn rampages; and when it came time to load the day's production, it was found that one of the conveyors had taken one too many dents and was inoperable. Loading the gravel via the remaining two naturally took more time than had been allowed, and as a result it was already after sundown before Kendal started for home. Even then his luck almost held, and he was nearly to the House before a tricorn caught his scent and charged.
Kendal's instinctive urge was to make a dash for it, but he knew a tricorn in musth could outrun him. So instead he stood his ground, laser on full power, and waited until he couldn't miss before firing. The shot hit directly between the deep-set eyes. Dodging to one side, Kendal fired again and again into the creature as its headlong rush carried it past him to crash against the side of the House.
Keeping one eye on the motionless tricorn, Kendal quickly collected his equipment and went inside. "Hello, House."
"You killed it," the deep voice said accusingly.
"Uh, yeah. Sorry, but I didn't have much choice in the matter."
"You could have let me lure it to me."
Kendal didn't answer. Whether or not the House's odor lure could have distracted the tricorn was an academic question: Kendal couldn't have let the House eat it in any case. After crushing a victim, the House digested it by forming a thin film of rock under it, attaching it to the House's own ceiling, after which it could be absorbed. But until the film was completed, the ceiling had to remain down—and for an animal the size of a tricorn the process could take a half-hour. Kendal couldn't risk being outside that long at night.
"Again, I'm sorry," he said at last. "There were a lot of tricorns out by the mine today. Maybe one will come out here tomorrow."
The House remained silent. Feeling uncomfortably like a rich man having a picnic in a slum, Kendal fixed his dinner and ate. He tried three or four times to strike up a conversation with the House, but his questions elicited only monosyllabic responses, and eventually he gave up. Settling down instead with one of his handful of books, he read for a while and then turned in.
The tricorn he had shot was still lying against the House when Kendal cautiously emerged the next dawn. A quick check showed that the animal had probably been dead on impact; Kendal's head shot had fried its brains. A thought struck him, and when he had finished stowing his nighttime things, he assembled his rock-cutter plasma-jet torch and returned to the carcass. A typical tricorn weighed in at something near a ton, and for once Kendal was glad that the tricorns' nocturnal activities made it unsafe to leave tools at the mine. The torch sliced the rock-hard carcass in half with only a little trouble; and by using the shoring pole as a lever, he managed to roll the pieces to the House's orifice. "House?" he called "I've got some food here for you. Wait until I get both parts inside before closing up, okay?"
A minute later the job was done. "Thank you," the House said, a little too grudgingly for Kendal's taste. The orifice puckered closed, and Kendal heard the dull thud as the domed ceiling came down with the force of a rock crusher.
"Any time," Kendal muttered as he turned and headed off toward the mine. That altruistic act had cost him time, energy, and a fair amount of power, and he was annoyed that the House wasn't more appreciative. But it didn't really matter that much. If feeding it put the House back in a reasonably good mood, it would be worth the trouble.
—
The day's work was uneventful, and Kendal was in good spirits as he returned home. "Hello, House," he called his usual greeting as he set the pole snugly in place.
There was no answer. "House?" he tried again. "You all right?"
As if in response, the orifice closed, sealing Kendal in. He breathed a little easier, his worst fear assuaged: clearly, the House was still alive. But why wasn't it speaking to him? He searched the walls with his eyes, looking for some clue. Two bulges in the wall near the orifice were undoubtedly the remains of the tricorn he'd killed; otherwise everything seemed as usual.
No, not quite. Kendal felt a shiver go up his back as he felt the vibrations through the soles of his boots. The House was talking to his fellows scattered through the hills. It was a normal enough occurrence—except that he knew that the House could handle two conversations at once when it wanted to. Clearly—painfully clearly—Kendal was being ignored.
Determined not to let it throw him, he prepared his dinner and afterwards tried to read. But he found it impossible to concentrate in the increasingly hostile atmosphere he could feel around him. More than once he actually considered spending the night outside, but common sense and stubbornness killed that idea. The House was simply in a bad mood, he told himself firmly as he finally switched off his lantern for the night.
The vibrations were still going when he fell asleep.
—
The glowing numbers of his alarm chrono showed three hours till dawn when Kendal woke with a start. For a moment he lay still, slightly disoriented, as he tried to figure out what had awakened him. Then he heard it: a gentle creaking of metal. Rolling over, Kendal switched on his lantern, his other hand snatching up his laser.
The sight that greeted his squinting eyes shocked him to full consciousness. In the center of the room the shoring pole was bowed a good thirty centimeters out of line in response to the newly convex shape of the ceiling. For a long minute the tableau seemed frozen, and Kendal could almost hear the House straining against the pole. Then, reluctantly, the ceiling gave way, returning to its original position as the pole straightened out.
Kendal found his voice. "House! What are you doing?" he called sharply.
His only answer was a sudden bulging of the wall just above the floor, forming an instant torus whose purpose, he knew, was to shove anything that had been near the wall toward the center where the main crushing force would be exerted. The torus withdrew, and once again the ceiling came down in an effort to break the pole.
"House!" Kendal shouted again, a touch of fear creeping into his voice. Had the House gone crazy? "House! Answer me!"
"You cannot be allowed to live any longer."
Kendal's heart jerked at the words. "Why? What have we done to you?"
"Do not act innocent. You have forced us to your will, killed our food. And now you have offered me food that is almost useless. I can bear no more."
Almost useless? "House, that tricorn was freshly killed. You know that. Look, it couldn't have rotted that fast, especially at night." There was no answer exce
pt another squeeze on the pole. "Hey, come on, be reasonable. You know you can't break that pole."
"So the Others also believe. But once I have proved it can be done, they will join me in killing their parasites, too."
Kendal felt cold all over. His communicator was resting near the far wall, where he couldn't retrieve it without risking the explosive ballooning which could easily hurl him into the pole. And, anyway, what good would it do to alert the other miners? Kendal's House would hear the message, the other Houses would hear it, and it would just precipitate the attacks a little ahead of schedule. And then... what? All the miners had lasers, but no one had the faintest idea how to kill or disable a House. "Look, can't we talk this over?" he called. "If I gave you bad food, I didn't mean to, and I apologize."
The torus bulged outward and flattened, and the ceiling came down. To Kendal it looked like the pole was bending a little further with each attack. If the House kept at it, it would succeed—and probably long before Kendal could cut his way through the orifice with his laser.
"House!" he tried again, desperately. "You don't want to do this. Remember how bored you all were before we came?—you told me that yourself. We can tell you about places and things you've never seen, teach you about science and—"
"It is not enough," the House interrupted. "Knowledge is of no use to us if we don't have enough food."
It was, Kendal realized, as good as a death sentence. As long as the House needed tricorns as part of their diet, and the tricorns themselves were so hostile to the miners—
The inspiration that abruptly struck could hardly be described as blinding. It was a hunch only, and the plan it evoked was nothing short of foolhardy. But Kendal was desperate. "Wait a minute, House. If we can supply live tricorns for your food, will you let us live here until our ship comes?"
The House, halfway into another crushing attempt, seemed to pause. "What trick is this?"
"No trick. I think I may know how to control the tricorns."
"I don't believe you."
"All right, I'll prove it." Kendal took a deep breath. "I'll go out right now and bring one back for you."
There was a long silence. "Very well," the House said slowly. "I will let you out. But you will leave your lightning-maker and talker here as proof that you will return."
The tone left no room for argument. "Okay," Kendal agreed at last. Going outside without his laser might be possible for the distance he would need to cover. Anyway, there was no choice.
The House's orifice opened, sending in a rush of cold air. "Go."
Swallowing hard, Kendal steeled himself and stepped outside into the dim light from Drym's three moons. Pausing only long enough to check for nearby tricorns, he set off at a fast jog in the direction of the mine. He had already done a quick mental inventory of the mining equipment in the nearby cave, and there was nothing there that had both the power and range to serve as an effective weapon. Speed and luck would have to do.
The three moons gave off a respectable amount of light, and as Kendal's eyes adjusted, he discovered he could see most of the plain ahead. Tricorns dotted the landscape, cropping tufts of grass-like plants, digging their snouts into the ground, or running about with triple their daytime speed. Kendal felt his jaw tighten at the thought of passing among the deadly beasts. But he was committed now. He stopped briefly to establish the wind direction and, struck by a thought, stripped off his outer jacket, wadding it into a ball for easy carrying. Picking a path that would put him downwind of as many of the tricorns as possible, he set off at a fast trot.
His luck held for perhaps three minutes. Then, a traveling tricorn happened to pass downwind of him and changed its path abruptly.
Kendal put on a burst of speed, even though his lungs were already beginning to ache from the frigid air. It was no use; even with his lead, he was being steadily run down. Gritting his teeth, he waited until the tricorn was almost upon him. Then, in one quick motion, he unrolled his jacket and threw it across the animal's face. The tricorn broke stride and tossed its massive head, throwing the jacket to the ground. From the corner of his eye Kendal saw it turn to worry the garment; then he turned his attention forward. His goal was just ahead: the stream that flowed past the ruin of his old prefab. He turned a bit upstream, making for a place where the stream widened into a relatively deep pool. Two tricorns, he saw, were drinking there, but they were upwind of him, and neither turned as he approached. He was almost to the water's edge when a motion to his right caught his eye. Another tricorn was charging.
Kendal had no choice. Running full tilt between the drinking tricorns, he leaped into the pool.
The shock of the icy water was paralyzing, and Kendal's legs instantly knotted into agonizing cramps. Fortunately, the water was less than a meter deep, so keeping his head above the surface posed no major problem. Rubbing hard with hands already growing numb with the cold, he managed to work out the cramps and to get his clothes off, tossing them to the far side of the stream. Then, conscious of the speed at which his body heat was being sucked from him, he began to wash himself as quickly and thoroughly as possible. A few minutes was all he could stand; even as he waded ashore he was staggering with the beginnings of hypothermia. The wind cut into his naked skin like nothing he'd ever felt before, and his whole body was racked with violent shivering, but he hardly noticed—his full attention was on the three tricorns now eying him. Docile and harmless, the Company exploration group had called them. Mentally crossing his fingers, Kendal stepped forward.
None of them made any move except to follow him with their eyes. Gingerly, Kendal reached out and laid his hand against the head of the closest animal. Two openings in its neck—its nostrils, Kendal had long ago decided—flared once, but otherwise it didn't seem to object to the familiarity. Kendal withdrew his hand, and after a moment the animals returned to their drinking.
So his hunch had been right. But Kendal had no time for self-congratulation. He turned and headed back toward his House, keeping his eyes open. He was nearly there when he found what he was looking for: a grazing tricorn whose sides were heaving with the breathlessness of a long run. Walking boldly up to it, Kendal carefully gripped one of the horns and tugged. The action had no effect; if the tricorn was winded and therefore not inclined to run away, neither was it going to interrupt its grazing. Kendal tried again, then gave up and went instead to several nearby clumps of vegetation, pulling up the plants until he had a good handful of them. Returning to the tricorn, he waited until the animal had finished eating and then waved one of the plants in front of it. The tricorn bit off a piece, and when Kendal slowly backed away it willingly followed him.
They reached the House with two or three of the plants left. Dropping them onto the ground for the tricorn, Kendal stepped to the open orifice. "I'm back," he said through chattering teeth. "As you see, I've brought you some food."
"I see, but do not understand," the House said, its emotion unreadable.
"Never mind that for now. I'm going to come in now and get my stuff. You'll be able then to lure the tricorn in. Okay?"
"Yes." A pause. "Can you do this again?"
"I'll make a deal with you. If you and the other Houses will let us live inside you safely until our ship comes, we'll guarantee you each at least one tricorn every three days; maybe more. What do you say?"
"I agree," the House said promptly.
—
"You promised them what?" Cardman Tan said, eyes wide with disbelief. "Are you crazy, Kendal?"
Muffled to the eyebrows in his spare clothing and still just barely recovered from his overnight chilling, Kendal nevertheless managed to keep his temper. Tan was not dumb, but he'd clearly missed the significance of Kendal's account of his predawn activities. "Not crazy at all, Tan. With the proper precautions we can handle the tricorns."
"Look, I don't know how you lucked out last night, but you can't count on the tricorns always being in a good mood like that."
"Moods have nothing to do w
ith it. It's the dust."
"Besides, we—what? What dust?"
"The rock dust from the mine. Remember the exploration group report on the tricorns?"
"Sure," Tan said bitterly. "Lousy rubber-stamping toadies—"
"Forget that. They were right. The tricorns aren't interested in us—they're attracted to the rock dust that sticks to our skin and clothes. Apparently they eat one or more of the minerals we dig up at the mine."
Tan opened his mouth, closed it again, and suddenly looked thoughtful. "That would explain why they hang around the mine all day and stomp through it at night. But why? And how come we've never caught them at it?"
"We have, or at least I have," Kendal pointed out. "I always assumed they were digging up small plants, myself. Anyway, most of their feeding's done at night, I think." He shrugged. "And why shouldn't they eat rock? We know the Houses have organo-mineral metabolisms—it only makes sense for the tricorns to be similar."
"Well... okay, suppose you're right. What then?"
"I thought you'd never ask. Here's my idea...."
—
It was a real pleasure, Kendal decided, to be able to head for home without that tense uncertainty as to what kind of reception he'd get. Now that it was being fed regularly, the House was consistently cooperative and—following the pattern of human societies through the ages—was beginning to take more and more interest in abstract and intellectual matters. The other Houses were behaving similarly, causing both surprise and some uneasiness among the miners and rekindling the old debates over the usefulness and origin of House intelligence. Kendal kept out of the arguments; the truth, he suspected, would only disturb them more.
