in.
“How’re you doin’?” he asked.
“Alive,” I grunted.
“Yeah,” he said, “I can imagine. Stiff, sore, and starved. But you aren’t in serious shape, far’s I can see, and we’ve got
a lot of talkin’ to do.” He propped me in a sitting position and gave me a stimulo from his medikit. Some strength flowed
into me, with an odd, detached clearness of thought.
I looked past Valland’s cross-legged form, through the cave obscurity to the mouth. There was considerable stir outside. Armed
males kept trotting back and forth; the smoke of campfires drifted in to me; I heard the barks and growls of a multitude.
“S’pose you tell me exactly what happened,” Valland said.
After I finished, he uttered one low whistle of surprise. “Didn’t think the downdevils had
that
much goin’ for them.” He extracted his pipe, stuffed and kindled it, while he scowled.
“We haven’t got much time,” he said. “I’m damn near out of tobacco.”
“I’m more concerned about food,” I said. “I remember what you took along and what I was carrying. Between us, we might last
till sundown.”
“Uh-huh. I was tryin’ to put the idea in a more genteel way.” He puffed for a bit. “The drums sent word ahead to us here,
about the Herd enterin’ our camp and then about you bein’ on your way to us. That last was the best thing you could possibly
have done, skipper. Ya-Kela couldn’t have protected me for long if the Pack figured my people had sold out. As was, I got
Rorn on the radio. He was pretty frank about havin’ taken over on behalf of the downdevils, once he knew I knew you’d run
off. He said I should try to escape from here, and he’d send a troop to meet me. I told him where he could billet his troop,
and we haven’t talked since. My guess was he’d turned coat out of sheer funk. I didn’t realize what’d actually happened to
him. The poor fool.”
Hopelessness welled beneath the drug in me. “What can we do except die?” I asked.
“Hadn’t you any notions when you cut out?”
“Nothing special. To die like a free man, maybe.”
Valland snorted. “Don’t be romantic. You haven’t got the face for it. The object of the game is to stay alive, and get back
our people and our stuff. Mary O’Meara’s waitin’ on Earth.”
That last sentence was the soft one, but something about it yanked me upright in my bed.
God of Creation
, I thought;
can a woman have that much power to give a man
?
“Relax,” Valland said. “We can’t do anything right now.”
“I gather … you’ve been busy, though,” I said.
“Sure have. I stopped bein’ a prisoner the minute ya-Kela got across to the Pack that my folk were now also downdevil victims.
He’d been ready to trust me anyhow, for some while.”
Afterward, when I knew more Azkashi, I was told that Valland had been along on a hunt in which a twyhorn charged past a line
of spearmen and knocked down the One. Before the animal could gore him, Valland had bulldogged it. Coming from a higher gravity
was helpful, of course, but I doubt that many men could have done the same.
“The problem’s been to convince ’em we aren’t helpless,” Valland said. “They still have trouble believin’ that. Throughout
their past, they’ve won some skirmishes with the Herd, but lost the wars. I had an ace to play, however. The Herd’s crossed
the lake, I said. They’ll build an outpost around our ship. Then, to support that outpost, they’ll call in their loggers and
farmers. If you don’t wipe ’em out now, I said, you’ll lose these huntin’ grounds too.” He blew a dragon puff of smoke. “We
got the other Packs to agree in principle that everybody should get together and attack this thing while it’s small.”
“Stone Age savages against energy guns?” I protested.
“Well, not all that bad. I’ve done soldierin’ now and then, here and there, so I can predict a few things. Rorn can’t put
“How’re you doin’?” he asked.
“Alive,” I grunted.
“Yeah,” he said, “I can imagine. Stiff, sore, and starved. But you aren’t in serious shape, far’s I can see, and we’ve got
a lot of talkin’ to do.” He propped me in a sitting position and gave me a stimulo from his medikit. Some strength flowed
into me, with an odd, detached clearness of thought.
I looked past Valland’s cross-legged form, through the cave obscurity to the mouth. There was considerable stir outside. Armed
males kept trotting back and forth; the smoke of campfires drifted in to me; I heard the barks and growls of a multitude.
“S’pose you tell me exactly what happened,” Valland said.
After I finished, he uttered one low whistle of surprise. “Didn’t think the downdevils had
that
much goin’ for them.” He extracted his pipe, stuffed and kindled it, while he scowled.
“We haven’t got much time,” he said. “I’m damn near out of tobacco.”
“I’m more concerned about food,” I said. “I remember what you took along and what I was carrying. Between us, we might last
till sundown.”
“Uh-huh. I was tryin’ to put the idea in a more genteel way.” He puffed for a bit. “The drums sent word ahead to us here,
about the Herd enterin’ our camp and then about you bein’ on your way to us. That last was the best thing you could possibly
have done, skipper. Ya-Kela couldn’t have protected me for long if the Pack figured my people had sold out. As was, I got
Rorn on the radio. He was pretty frank about havin’ taken over on behalf of the downdevils, once he knew I knew you’d run
off. He said I should try to escape from here, and he’d send a troop to meet me. I told him where he could billet his troop,
and we haven’t talked since. My guess was he’d turned coat out of sheer funk. I didn’t realize what’d actually happened to
him. The poor fool.”
Hopelessness welled beneath the drug in me. “What can we do except die?” I asked.
“Hadn’t you any notions when you cut out?”
“Nothing special. To die like a free man, maybe.”
Valland snorted. “Don’t be romantic. You haven’t got the face for it. The object of the game is to stay alive, and get back
our people and our stuff. Mary O’Meara’s waitin’ on Earth.”
That last sentence was the soft one, but something about it yanked me upright in my bed.
God of Creation
, I thought;
can a woman have that much power to give a man
?
“Relax,” Valland said. “We can’t do anything right now.”
“I gather … you’ve been busy, though,” I said.
“Sure have. I stopped bein’ a prisoner the minute ya-Kela got across to the Pack that my folk were now also downdevil victims.
He’d been ready to trust me anyhow, for some while.”
Afterward, when I knew more Azkashi, I was told that Valland had been along on a hunt in which a twyhorn charged past a line
of spearmen and knocked down the One. Before the animal could gore him, Valland had bulldogged it. Coming from a higher gravity
was helpful, of course, but I doubt that many men could have done the same.
“The problem’s been to convince ’em we aren’t helpless,” Valland said. “They still have trouble believin’ that. Throughout
their past, they’ve won some skirmishes with the Herd, but lost the wars. I had an ace to play, however. The Herd’s crossed
the lake, I said. They’ll build an outpost around our ship. Then, to support that outpost, they’ll call in their loggers and
farmers. If you don’t wipe ’em out now, I said, you’ll lose these huntin’ grounds too.” He blew a dragon puff of smoke. “We
got the other Packs to agree in principle that everybody should get together and attack this thing while it’s small.”
“Stone Age savages against energy guns?” I protested.
“Well, not all that bad. I’ve done soldierin’ now and then, here and there, so I can predict a few things. Rorn can’t put
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