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  The Iron Breed

  Andre Norton

  BAEN BOOKS by ANDRE NORTON

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  THE IRON BREED

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  Iron Cage copyright © 1974 by Andre Norton. Breed to Come copyright © 1972 by Andre Norton.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

  A Baen Books Original

  Baen Publishing Enterprises

  P.O. Box 1403

  Riverdale, NY 10471

  www.baen.com

  ISBN: 978-1-4516-3858-5

  eISBN: 978-1-61824-973-9

  Cover art by Stephen Hickman

  First printing, January 2013

  Distributed by Simon & Schuster

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Pages by Joy Freeman (www.pagesbyjoy.com)

  Printed in the United States of America

  IRON CAGE

  There was once a time when many animals, including man, needed each other to survive the onslaughts of raging elements in a hostile world. Their affinity must have been very deep, involving senses and abilities long lost.

  We have a tendency to patronize animals, to limit their abilities, to compare adversely their physical forms, minds, and lives with our high estate. But animals live in realms of their own, realms totally different and far older than ours. They dwell within the earth, in jungles and desert, in seas and the skies. They possess senses, and extensions of senses, we have lost or never attained. They see sights we shall never see. They hear sounds we shall never hear. They respond to terrestrial and cosmic rhythms and cycles that we have never charted.

  If man could remove hate and fear from his heart, then might this fundamental bond of affinity and affection bring beneficent cooperation between all the kingdoms of Life.

  —Vincent and Margaret Gaddis

  The Strange World of Animals and Pets

  PROLOGUE

  “What are you going to do with the cat?”

  “Send her to the Humane Society. We certainly can't take her with us. And she's going to have kittens again.”

  “But what will Cathy—?”

  “We've told her that we have found a good home for Bitsy. After all, they do find homes for some of them, don't they?”

  “A female—and pregnant?”

  “Well, there's nothing else to do. The Hawkins boy has promised to pick her up. There he is in the driveway now. He'll run her over to the Humane Society. Just don't let Cathy know. She gets entirely too emotional about animals. Really, I don't know what I am going to do with that child! I've made up my mind about one thing—no more pets! Luckily we'll be in the new apartment where they aren't allowed.”

  The black and white cat crouched in the carton into which she had been unceremoniously thrust an hour earlier. Her protesting yowls had brought no escape, any more than her frenzied scratching, which only made the carton rock a little on the porch step. Fear possessed her now, though she could not understand the words muffled by the box, behind the screen door. She had been uneasy all morning, her time for kittening was very near. She must get out, find a safe place. Every instinct told her that; yet her utmost efforts had not brought freedom.

  At the sound of the car pulling into the drive, she crouched even flatter. Then the box which held her was jerked up roughly, so she was shaken from side to side. Inside—She was inside the car. She yowled once again, despairingly, afraid, seeking the hands, the voice which always meant security and comfort. But there came no answer at all. In her nervous reaction she fouled the box with spray, which made her even more eager for freedom. The car was stopping.

  “What's the matter with you, man? How come you're so late?”

  “Got an errand to run for the Stansons—they're moving tomorrow. Got to take their old cat to the Humane Society and dump her off.”

  “The Humane Society? You know where that is? About five miles away from here. And we're late now! Go all that way just to dump a cat—man, you're crazy!”

  “So? What do I do then, smart brain?”

  “She in that box? Phew, she's stinking up the car, too. You'd better get rid of her fast if you plan to take that Henslow chick out tonight. Cat stink like that stays forever. I'll tell you what to do, dumbhead. You drive out a little way along the highway; there's a woods on the second turn that's a real dump. See, it's going to rain—and you want to make time if you're still planning on going to the game.”

  “I guess that's all right.”

  “It sure is. Get rid of that old, stinking cat and get back here, but quick. We've still got to meet those chicks, and they aren't the kind you keep waiting.”

  The cat whimpered. Those harsh voices were only a noise, meaning nothing. She was gasping now, the evil smell of the box making her sick—if she could only get out! Once more the car stopped, the box again caught up roughly. Thrust through an open window, it hit the ground hard, rolling down a slope to lie with the other illegally dumped trash. The cat, shaken, in pain, cried out again.

  There came the sound of the car driving away—then nothing. Except the rain striking on the box. She fought once more for freedom with claws dragging down the carton side. Why was she here? Where was home? The rough handling had started her labor. She writhed and cried sharply in pain. There was no room! The box shook under the pummeling of a rising storm. One kitten had come. The cat nosed it once, but made no effort to lick it into life. It was dead. She fought now with new frenzy at the side of the carton, and, softened by the rain, the heavy cardboard began to give. The chance at freedom made her wild and she worked at the hole until she had torn open a doorway. Rain beat in upon her, soaking her fur, making her cry aloud again.

  Instinct ruled her. She must find shelter, a place—before . . . before . . .

  Crying still, she pulled out of the box, looked around. There was the massive pile of dumped litter. Not too far away a refrigerator lay on its side, the door ripped off. Toward this small hope of shelter the cat dragged herself. She was inside when the next kitten came, feebly alive. And then there were two more. She had found shelter, but food, drink—she was too tired, too beaten by fear and shock to try to hunt for those. She lay on her side and whimpered a little as she slept.

  ONE

  “This is the maun female? What will you do with her? She is heavy with young.”

  “Worthless for our purpose. She is mad, also. When we took her last young for experiments, she turned dangerous. We bred her to the younger male, but she fought him badly. Luckily he was mind-controlled and, so, useful in such cases.”

  “It is odd, the mind-controls do not work evenly. There are reports—”

  “Do not speak of reports! They pile in the reader, and when does one have a chance t
o really sort through them? Now, with Lllayron ordering this early take-off, a goodly number of the experiments will never be carried through. This female—we cannot space with her—she would never deliver living young. Not that that is of much interest, since she is plainly a reject. To dispose of her is best.”

  Rutee crouched in the cage, hunched over, her arms protectively around her bulging abdomen. A baby—another baby in this hellish place! She wished she could kill herself and the child before it was born! Only there was no way. If you did not eat they tied you down and force-fed you with their shots. Just as they had made her have—Rutee tried to close her mind to memory.

  She was not mind-controlled as were most of the other experimental livestock. Bron had not been either. That was why they had killed him right at the start. That—that thing they had used to father what she now carried . . . No, that she must not remember.

  The aliens were probably discussing her. But not one of her species had ever heard an alien speak. Either they were telepathic or their range of communication was above or below the power of her human ear. She could sense, however, that they were concerned with her. And she was smart enough to know that some event beyond the regular lab procedure was close at hand. They had been doing a lot of packing, putting things in special containers and sealing them. Was what she suspected the truth? Were they preparing to space again? Then—what of the baby?

  She curled into a tighter ball, remembering what had happened to Luci who had been caged with her for a while right after they had all been captured. Luci had been pregnant, too. And in space she had died. Rutee tried to think clearly.

  Over the months—how long had she been here? There was no way of reckoning time. But it had been long enough for her to learn that somehow she differed from most of the others. When they turned that controller thing on her, she felt only a prickling, not the compulsion which apparently gripped her fellow victims. Jony, he had not either!

  She turned her head a little, trying to see down the line of cages.

  “Jony!” she called softly. “Are you there, Jony?”

  One of her discoveries had been that the aliens did not or could not hear her voice any more than she could theirs. It had given her one little ray of hope.

  Perhaps now was the time to make the final effort.

  “Jony?” she called again.

  “Rutee,” he answered her. Then he was still there! Each period of waking time she always feared he would not be.

  “Jony,” she picked her words carefully. “I think that something is going to happen. Do you remember what I told you—about the locks of the cage?”

  “I've already done it, Rutee. When they brought the eating bowl a little while ago, I did it!” There was excited triumph in his reply.

  Rutee drew a deep breath. Jony was almost alarmingly bright sometimes; he seemed able to sense things quickly. For a seven-year-old he was unusual. But then, he was Bron's own son. Bron's and hers, born out of their love and belief in each other and a future they had thought they had, when they had been colonists on that planet they had named Ishtar. No, this was no time to remember—it was a time to act.

  She studied the aliens searchingly.

  Their physical strangeness was so far removed from the norm her people had always considered “human” that she had never been able to think of them as anything but devilish nightmares—even apart from the treatment they accorded their unfortunate “specimens.” Towering on their spindly legs far over the tallest man she had ever seen, they had round pouchy bodies and heads which appeared to rest on their narrow shoulders without benefit of neck. Their mouths were gaping slits, their eyes protruded like goggling globes. Their entire greenish-yellow bodies were entirely hairless.

  And their minds—Rutee shuddered. She could not deny them mental process superior to her own species. To these monsters her flesh and blood were only animals—to be used as such and discarded.

  One was coming now to unfasten the clamps which held her cage in a line with the rest. They—they were taking her away? Jony—no, no!

  Rutee wanted to beat on the bars, tear at them. However, better act as if she were cowed. She did not want them to bring a pressure stick, give her jolts of pain.

  “Jony, they are moving my cage. I do not know what they are going to do with me.” She tried to make her message matter-of-fact.

  “They are going to put you in the dump place,” Jony's words startled her. “But they will not!”

  The dump place—where the dead and the useless disappeared! Rutee wanted to scream aloud her fear, though that would do no good.

  “They won't do it!” Jony repeated. Perhaps he did sense all she felt at that time. He had those odd flashes of empathy. “Wait for me, Rutee!”

  “Jony!” Now she was suddenly more afraid for him than she was for herself. “Don't try anything—don't let them hurt you.”

  “They won't. Just wait, Rutee.”

  The alien had her cage freed and was carrying it beside his giant's body down the aisle. She clung to the bars, trying not to be hurled from side to side. They were close to the dump door now. Rutee hoped death came quickly on the other side.

  But, to her amazement, they passed that. After Jony's words she had been so certain of her fate that she was a little dazed as they went out the lab door, down a corridor, only able to understand that death, apparently, had been put off for a little while. She was still puzzled as they came into the open, down the ramp of the ship which towered far above any building she had ever seen.

  It was when they were on their way down the ramp she caught sight of Jony. Not in another cage, but slipping along the floor, progressing by quick darts, a few feet forward at a time, and then freezing into immobility before he made another dash. Jony had indeed triggered his lock; he was free. The wonder and hope of that filled her for a long moment with an emotion close to joy.

  * * *

  Jony never understood how he knew things. It was as if answers just came into his head. But while Rutee had sensed that change was coming, he had known it for certain. This place (Rutee said it was a spaceship) was going away, up into the sky. And Rutee—the Big Ones were going to get rid of Rutee. Perhaps he could get free, reach her cage and open it from the outside. He had to!

  Moments earlier when he had been sure of what was happening even as Rutee herself, he had balled up, his arms about his crooked knees, his chin resting on those same knees. Some time ago he had made his big discovery. Rutee had told him that he was not like the others, who did just what the Big Ones told them. Sometimes, if he tried very hard, he could make a Big One do just as he thought!

  Now—now he must do that with the Big One who was standing in front of Rutee's cage. There was only one of the enemy, so he had a chance. Jony put to work all his power of concentration (which was such as would have astounded Rutee if she had known) into a single thought. Rutee—must—not—go—in—the—dump—place. Rutee—must—NOT—

  He was startled out of that concentration by Rutee's call. However, after he had answered, his thoughts once more centered only on the Big One and Rutee's cage.

  That was loose now, grasped in a single hand where the six digits were all small, boneless tentacles, yet with a power of grip his own five fingers could never possess. Jony thought—

  The door to the dump place, the Big One had passed it! Jony unrolled in an instant, was out of his cage, clambering down the wire of the empty one below, making the last drop to the floor. Then he moved in small rushes from one hiding place he marked out ahead to the next. He reached the ramp to see the Big One with Rutee's cage stamping down ahead of him. Jony drew a deep breath and ran full speed. He flashed past the Big One, heading on into the open world beyond, expecting every moment that one of those great hands would reach from above, wrap its tentacles about him, take him prisoner again.

  But, fear-ridden though he was, he turned when he was aware of cover over him. Throwing himself flat, he rolled back into the dim shadow of a toweri
ng bush. Once in that shadow, Jony drew several gasping breaths, hardly daring to believe he was still free. Then, resolutely, he wriggled forward to peer back at the only place he had ever known as a shelter.

  He could see only a bit of it, the ramp, the hatch from which it sprang, then the rest towering up and up so it was hidden beyond his range of sight. The Big One had paused at the foot of the ramp. Jony sensed his bewilderment.

  Once more Jony concentrated. The cage—put it over there.

  Fiercely he aimed that thought at the enemy. There was still a feedback of confusion from the alien. However, he was moving forward away from the ramp, the cage in his hand.

  Then the Big One stiffened, glancing back at the ramp as if he had been called by someone at its head. Jony shivered. There was no way of contacting the other now—he would return to the ship with Rutee and—

  Only the alien did not. At least he did not take the cage. Instead he threw it from him, went pounding back up the ramp. Even as he reached the hatch, it began to close and the ramp was jerked in. The Big One was inside as the ship sealed itself.

  Rutee—the cage—Jony scrambled from his hiding hole, fought his way through brush which lashed his bare body, leaving long, smarting scratches.

  “Rutee!” He cried aloud. Then his voice was swallowed up in a thunderous rumble of sound, so terrible he crouched against the side of a huge tree, his hands flying to his ears to keep out that deafening explosion of noise. There was a wind beating in to follow. Jony tried to make himself even smaller. Could he have dug his way into the root-bound ground beneath him he would have gladly done so.

  For moments he only endured; his fear, filling all his mind, sent his body into convulsive shivering. He whimpered.

  The wind died and the sound was gone. He took his hands from his ears, gulped in air. Tears streaked his scratched face. Still he shivered. It was cold here. And dark—the gloom in the brush was thick as it had never been in the cage room which was all he could remember.