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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 humans. 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.

An ape cast a stone it had been carrying. The missile smacked Tolteca’s temple. Pain blinded him. He lurched, and then they were on him. Thick arms dragged him to earth. His nose was full of their hair and rank smell. Fangs snapped yellow, a centimeter before his face. He struck out wildly. His fist rebounded from ridged muscle. The drubbing and clawing became his whole universe. He whirled into a redness that rang.

When he came to himself, a minute or two afterward, he was pinioned by two of them. A third approached, unwinding a thin vine from its waist. His arms were lashed behind his back.

He shook his head, which throbbed and stabbed him and dripped blood down on his tunic, and looked around. Raven had been secured in the same manner. The apes squatted to stare, or bounced about chattering. They numbered a dozen or so, all males, somewhat over a meter tall, tailed, heavybodied, covered with greenish fur and tawny manes. The faces were blunt, and they had four-fingered hands with fairly well-developed thumbs. Several carried bones of leg or jaw from large herbivores.

“Oa,” Tolteca groaned. “Are you—are—”

“Not too much damaged yet,” Raven said tightly, through bruised lips. Somehow he found a harsh chuckle. “But my pride! They were tracking us!

An ape picked up one of the dropped pistols, fingered it, and tossed it aside. Others removed the men’s daggers from the sheaths, but soon discarded them likewise. Hard hands plucked and prodded at Tolteca, ripped his garments with their curious pluckings. It came to him with a gulp of horror that he might well die here.

He fought down panic and tested his bonds. Wrist was lashed to wrist by a strand too tough to break. Raven lay in a more relaxed position on his back, squirming a little as the apes played with him.

The largest howled a syllable. The gang stopped their noise and got briskly to their feet. Though short of leg and long of toe, they were true bipeds. The humans were hauled up with casual brutality and the procession started off deeper into the woods.

Only then, as the daze cleared fully from him, did Tolteca realize that the bones his captors carried were weapons, club and sharp-toothed knife. “Proto-intelligent—” he began. The ape beside him cuffed him in the mouth. Evidently silence was the rule on the trail.

He didn’t stumble long through his nightmare. They came out into another meadow, where an insolently brilliant sun spilled light across grasses and blossoms. The males broke into a yell, which was answered by a similar number of females and young. Those came swarming from their camping place under a great boulder. For a moment the mob seethed with hands and fangs. Tolteca thought he would be pulled apart alive. A couple of the biggest males knocked their dependents aside and dragged the prisoners to the rock.

There they were hurled down. Tolteca saw that he had landed near a pile of gnawed bones and other offal. Carrion insects made a black cloud above it. “Raven,” he choked, “they’re going to eat us.”

“What else?” said the Lochlanna.

“Oa, can’t we make a break?”

“Yes, I think so. I’ve been very clumsily tied. So have you, but I can reach my knot. If you can distract ’em another minute or two—”

Two males approached with clubs raised. The rest of the flock squatted down, instantly quiet again, watching from bright sunken eyes. The silence hammered at Tolteca.

He rolled over, jumped to his feet, and ran. The nearest male uttered a noise that might have been a laugh and pounced to intercept. Tolteca zigzagged from him. Another shaggy form rose in his path. The whole gang began to scream. A club whistled toward Tolteca’s pate. He threw himself forward, down across the wielder’s knees. The blow missed and the ape fell on top of him. He buried his head under the body, shield against other weapons. But his feet were seized and he was dragged forth. He saw two clubbers tower across the sky above him.

Suddenly Raven was there. The Lochlanna chopped with the edge of his hand, straight across the throat of one ape. The creature moaned and crumpled; blood ran from the mouth, bluish red. Raven had already turned on the other. His arms shot forth, he drove his thumbs under the brows and hooked out the eyeballs in a single motion. A third male rushed him, to meet a hideously disabling kick. Even at that instant, Tolteca was a little sickened.

Raven stooped and tugged at his bonds. The apes milled about several meters off, enraged but daunted. “All right, you’re free,” Raven panted. “You have a pocket knife, don’t you? Let me have it.”

Several rocks thudded within centimeters as he got moving. He unclasped the blade on the run and charged the nearest stone-throwing ape, a female. She struck awkwardly at him. He sidestepped. His slash was a calculated piece of savagery. She lurched back yammering. Raven returned to Tolteca, gave him the knife again, and picked up a thighbone. “They’re out of rocks,” he said. “Now we back away very slowly. We want to persuade them we aren’t worth chasing.”

For the first few minutes it went well. He knocked aside a couple of flung clubs. The males snarled, barked, and circled about, but did not venture to rush. When the humans reached the edge of the meadow, though, fury overcame fear. The leader whirled his weapon over his head and scuttled toward them. The rest followed.

“Back against this tree!” Raven commanded. He hefted his thighbone like a sword. When the leader’s club came down, he parried the blow and riposted with a bang across the knuckles. The ape wailed and dropped the club. Raven drove the end of his own into the opened mouth. There was a crunch of splintering palate.

Tolteca also had his hands full. The knife was only good for close-in work, and two of the beasts had assailed him at once. A sharp jawbone ripped across his shoulder. He ignored it, clinched, and stabbed deep. Blood spurted over him. He pushed the wounded creature against the other, which went down under the impact, then rose and fled.

The surviving males retreated, growling and chattering. Raven stooped, seized their dying leader, and threw him at them. The body landed in the grass with a heavy thump. They edged back from it. “Let’s go,” Raven said.

They went, not too swiftly, stopping often to turn about in a threatening way. But there was no pursuit. Raven gusted an enormous sigh. “We’re clear,” he husked. “Animals don’t fight to a finish like men. And . . . we’ve provided them food.”

Tolteca’s throat tightened. When they came back to the guns, which meant final safety, a cramp gripped him. He knelt down and vomited.

Raven seated himself to rest. “That’s no shame on you,” he said. “Reaction. You did pretty well for an amateur.”

“It’s not fear,” Tolteca said. He shuddered with the coldness that ran through him, “It’s what happened back there. What you did.”

“Eh? I got us loose. That’s bad?”

“Your . . . tactics. . . . Did you have to be so vicious?”

“I was simply being efficient, Miguel. Please don’t think I enjoyed it.”

“Oa, no. I’ll give you that much. But—Oh, I don’t know. What sort of a race do we belong to, anyway?” Tolteca covered his face.

After a while he recovered enough to say emptily, “This wouldn’t have happened but for us. The Gwydiona give the apes a wide berth. There’s room for all life on this planet. But we, we had to come blundering in.”

Raven considered him for some time before asking, “Why do you think pain and death are so gruesome?”

“I’m not scared of them,” Tolteca answered with a feeble flicker of resentment.

“I didn’t say that. I was just thinking that down underneath, you don’t feel they belong in life. I do. So do the Gwydiona.” Raven climbed erect. “We’d better get back.”

They limped toward the main trail. They had not quite reached it when Elfavy appeared with three bowmen and Kors.

She gasped and ran to meet them. Tolteca thought she might have been some wood nymph fleeing through the green arches. But though he looked much the gorier, it was Raven whom her hands seized. “What happened? Oh, I grew so worried—”

“We had trouble with the apes,” Raven said. He urged her away from him, gently, with a rather sour smile. “Easy, there, milady. No great harm was done, but I’m a mess, and a bit too sore for embraces.”

I wouldn’t have done that, thought Tolteca desolately. Harsh-voiced, he related the incident.

Beodag whistled. “So they are on the verge of toolmaking! But I swear I’ve never observed that. I’ve never been attacked, either.”

“And yet the bands you’ve met live a good deal closer to human settlement, don’t they?” Raven asked.

Beodag nodded.

“That settles the matter,” Raven declared. “Whatever the source of your trouble at Bale time, the mountain apes are not it.”

“What? But if they have weapons—”

This flock does. It must be far ahead of the others. Probably inbreeding of a mutation has made the local apes more intelligent than average. The others haven’t even gotten to their stage, in spite of observing humans using implements, which I don’t imagine these have ever done. And our friends here couldn’t break into a house. A shinbone is no good as a crowbar. Besides, they lack the persistence. They could have overcome us, and should have after the harm we did, but gave up. Anyhow, why would they want to plunder a building? Human artifacts mean nothing to them. They threw aside not only our guns but our daggers. We can forget about them.”

The Gwydiona men looked uneasy. Elfavy’s eyes blurred. “Can’t you forget that obsession for one day?” she pleaded. “It could have been such a beautiful day for you.”

“All right,” Raven said wearily. “I’ll think about medicine and bandages and a pot of tea instead. Satisfied?”

“Yes,” she said. Her smile was shaky. “For now I am satisfied.”




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