The Iron Breed Read online

  “Eat now.” Gammage gestured to the bowl. “Within the lairs we need all the strength food can give us. Rattons”—his voice deepened to a growl—“Rattons establishing their own place here! Rattons attempting to gain Demon knowledge! And so little time perhaps before we shall be called upon to face the Demons themselves.” Now his voice became a growl without words, the sound of one about to offer battle.

  “But of that we can speak later. Furtig, what say they of me now in the caves? Are they still of like mind—that I speak as with the mindless babble of the very young? The truth, warrior, the truth is of importance!”

  And such was the compelling force of the Ancestor's tone that Furtig answered with the truth.

  “The Elders—Fal-Kan—they say that you plan to give Demon secrets to strangers, even to the Barkers. They call you—”

  “Traitor to my kind?” Gammage's tail twitched. “Perhaps in their narrow viewing I might be termed so—now. But the day comes when the People, plus the Barkers, plus the Tusked Ones, will have to stand together or perish. Of the Rattons I do not speak thus, for there is that in them akin to what I have learned of the Demons. And when the Demons return, the Rattons may run with them to overturn all our lives.”

  “The Demons return?” Listening to the note of certainty in the Ancestor's voice made Furtig believe that Gammage was sure of what he said. And if he truly believed that, yes, would it not be better to make truce even with Barkers against a common and greater enemy?

  “Time!” Gammage brought those odd hands of his together in a clap to echo through the room. “Time is our great need and we may not have it. We have so many lesser needs, such as the one which took Foskatt into that section of the lairs we had not fully explored, seeking hidden records. But, though he did not find what he sought, he has alerted us to this new danger, a Ratton base on the very edge of our own territory. Let the Rattons learn but this much”—Gammage measured off between two fingers no more than the width of one of them—“of what we have found here, and they will make themselves masters, not only of the lairs, but of the world beyond. Say that to your Elders, Furtig, and perhaps you will find they will listen, even though they willfully close their ears to a worse threat.”

  “Foskatt was seeking something?”

  Gammage had fallen silent, his eyes on the wall beyond Furtig, as if he saw there something which was as plain to be read as a hunting trail, and yet to be dreaded.

  “Foskatt?” Gammage repeated as if the name were strange. Then once more his intent gaze focused on Furtig. “Foskatt—he was hardly handled, near to ending, when you brought him back to us, warrior. But now he heals. So great were the Demons—life and death in their two hands. But they played games with those powers as a youngling plays with sticks or bright stones, games which have no meaning. Save that when games are played as the Demons play them, they have grim consequences.

  “They could do wonderful things. We learn more and more each day. They could actually make rain fall as they pleased, keep the sun shining as they would. There was no great cold where they ruled and—But they were not satisfied with such, they must do more, seeking the knowledge of death as well as of life. And at last their own learning turned against them.”

  “But if they are all dead, why then do you speak of their return?” Furtig dared to ask. His initial awe at seeing Gammage had eased. It was like climbing a mountain to find the way not so difficult as it had looked from the lowlands. That Gammage could impress, he did not doubt. There was that about him which was greater than the Elders. But he did not use it consciously as they did to overawe younger tribesmen.

  “Not all died,” Gammage said slowly. “But they are not here. We have tracked them through this, their last lair. When I first began that search we found their bodies, or what was left of them. But once we discovered the knowledge banks we also uncovered evidence that some had withdrawn, that they would come again. It was more concerning that second coming that Foskatt sought. But you will learn, Furtig—There is so much to learn—” Again Gammage gazed at the wall, rubbing one hand on the other. “So much to learn,” he repeated. “More and more we uncover Demon secrets. Give us time, just a little more time!”

  “Which the Rattons threaten now.” Liliha broke into the Ancestor's thoughts, amazing Furtig even more. The fact that she had not withdrawn at Gammage's arrival had surprised him. But that she would speak so to the Ancestor, almost as if to an unlessoned youngling, bringing him back to face some matter which could not be avoided, was more startling yet.

  However Gammage appeared to accept her interruption as proper. For he nodded.

  “True, Liliha, it is not well to forget today in considering tomorrow. I shall see you again and soon, cave son. Liliha will show you this part of the lairs which we have made our own.”

  He pulled the fabric tighter about him and was gone with the speed of a warrior years younger. Furtig put down the bowl and eyed the female uncertainly. It was plain that the customs of the caves did not hold here in the lairs. Yet it made him uncomfortable to be left alone with a Chooser.

  “You are not of the caves,” he ventured, not knowing just how one began speech with a strange female.

  “True. I am of the lairs. I was born within these walls.”

  That again amazed Furtig. For all his life he had heard of warriors “going to Gammage,” but not females. But that they carried on a normal manner of life here was a minor shock. Until he realized the limit of his preconceptions concerning Gammage's people. Why should they not have a normal life? But whence had come their females?

  “Gammage draws more than just those of his own tribe,” she went on, as if reading his thoughts. “There are others of the People, on the far side of the lairs, distant from your caves. And over the seasons Gammage has sent messengers to them also. Some listen to him more closely than his blood kin seem to.” Furtig thought he detected in that remark the natural air of superiority which a Chooser would use on occasion with a warrior.

  “There is now a new tribe here, formed from those of many different clans,” she continued in the same faintly superior tone. “It has been so since my mother's mother's time. We who are born here, who learn early the knowledge of the Demons, are different in ways from those outside the lairs, even from those who choose to join us here. In such ways as this do the In-born differ.” She put forth her hand, holding it in line with Furtig's. Not with their flesh, making contact, but side by side for comparison.

  Her longer, more slender fingers were in even greater contrast when held against his. Now she wriggled them as if taking pride in their appearance.

  “These”—she waved her hand slightly—“are better able to use Demon machines.”

  “And being born among those machines makes you so?”

  “Partly, Gammage thinks. But there are also places the Demons use for healing, such as that in which Foskatt now lies. When a mother is about to bear her younglings she is taken there to wait. Also, when she first knows she has young within her, she goes to that place and sits for a space. Then her young come forth with changes. With hands such as these I can do much that I could not do—”

  She paused, and he finished for her, “With such as mine.” He remembered how he had used his tongue, as had Foskatt, in the cube hole. Perhaps, had he had fingers such as Liliha's, he need not have done that.

  “Such as yours,” she agreed evenly. “Now, Gammage would have you see the lairs, so come. We have,” she told him, “a thing to ride on. It does not go outside this one lair, though we have tried to make it do so. We cannot understand such limitations. But here it is of service.”

  She brought forward something which moved more swiftly than the nimbler on which they had ridden out of the Ratton prison. But this was smaller and it had two seats—so large Furtig was certain they had been made to accommodate Demons, not People.

  Liliha half-crouched well to the front of one seat. Leaning well forward, she clasped a bar in both hands. He guessed that she w
as uncomfortable in such a strained position, but she made no complaint, only waited until he climbed into the other seat.

  Then she drew the bar back toward her. With that the carrier came to life, moved forward smoothly and swiftly.

  That there was need for such a conveyance became clear as they swept ahead. And things which astounded Furtig at first became commonplace as he saw other and more awesome ones succeed them. Some, Liliha told him, they did not understand and had found no way to use—though teams of workers, specially trained by Gammage, and at intervals under his personal supervision, still tried to solve such problems.

  But the learning machines, those Gammage had early activated. And the food for them was contained in narrow disks wound with tape. When Liliha fitted one of these into a box and pressed certain buttons, a series of pictures appeared on the wall before them. While out of the air came a voice speaking in a strange tongue. Furtig could not even reproduce most of the sounds.

  However, there was another thing, too large to wear comfortably, which Furtig put on his head. This had small buttons to be fitted into the ears. When that was done, the words became plain, though some had no meaning. One watched the pictures and listened to the words and one learned. After a while, Furtig was told, he would not need the translator but would be able to understand without it.

  Furtig was excited as he had not been since he had forced himself to face up to the Trials, knowing well he might lose. Only this time it was an excitement of triumph and not of determination to meet defeat. Given time (now he could understand Gammage's preoccupation with time in a way no cave dweller could) one could learn all the Demons' secrets!

  He would have liked to have lingered there. But the chamber was occupied by Gammage's people, one of whom Liliha had persuaded to allow Furtig to sample the machine, and they were plainly impatient to get along with their work. Perhaps they had allowed such an interruption at all only because Furtig had been sent by Gammage.

  For Furtig was not finding the warriors here friendly. They did not show the wary suspicion of strange tribesmen. No, this was more the impatience of an Elder with a youngling—a none-too-bright youngling. Furtig found that attitude hard for his pride to swallow.

  Most of these workers displayed the same bodily differences—the slender hands, the lessening of body fur—as Liliha. But there were a few among them not different, save in coloring, from himself, and they were as impatient as their fellows.

  Furtig tried to ignore the attitude of the workers, think only of what they were doing. But after a space, that, too, was sobering and disappointing. He, who was a trained warrior, a hunter of some note, an accepted defender of the caves (a status which had given him pride), was here a nothing. And the result of his tour with Liliha was a depression and the half-thought that he had much better return to his own kind.

  Until they reached Foskatt. They stood in an outer room and looked through a wall (for it was the truth that here you could see through certain walls). Within was a pallet and on it lay the tribesman.

  The lighting in the room differed from that where Furtig stood with Liliha. Also it rippled just as wind rippled field grass. Furtig could find no explanation of what he saw there. There was light, and it moved in waves washing back and forth across Foskatt.

  The wounded warrior's eyes were closed. His chest rose and fell as if he slept, rested comfortably without pain or dreams. His wounded leg was no longer bloody, the fur matted with clots. A scar had begun to form over the slash.

  Furtig, knowing how it might have gone had Foskatt lain so in the caves, how many died from lesser wounds in spite of the best tending their clanspeople could give them, drew a long breath. It was but one more of the wonders he had been shown, yet to him, because he could best appreciate the results, it was one of the most awesome.

  “This can be done for the coughing sickness?” he asked. He had set his two hands flat on the surface of that see-through wall, pushed so close even his nose touched it.

  “This can be done for any illness,” Liliha told him, “as well as most hurts. There is only one it cannot cure so.”

  “That being?” A certain shading of her voice had made him turn his head to look at her. For the first time he could see uneasiness in her expression, the superiority gone.

  “Gammage found a thing of the Demons. It spouts a mist—and when that meets flesh—” She shuddered. “It is the worst handwork of the Demons we have seen. There is no halting what happens to one unfortunate enough to be caught in the mist.” She shivered again. “It is not even to be thought upon! Gammage had it destroyed!”

  “Ah, and what do you think now of the lairs, Furtig?”

  Gammage stood behind them. His sudden appearances—how did the Ancestor manage thus to arrive without warning?

  “They are full of marvels.”

  “Marvels upon marvels,” the Ancestor agreed. “And we have hardly touched the edge of what is stored here! Given time, just given time—” Once more he stared at the wall, as if his thoughts set a barrier between him and those he addressed.

  “What I do not understand”—Furtig dared now to break in upon that withdrawal—“is why, when the Demons knew so much, they came to such an end.”

  Gammage looked at him, his gray frost-furred face alight.

  “It was because they were greedy. They took and took, from the air, the earth, the water. And when they realized that they had taken too much and tried to return it, they were too late. Some went—we cannot yet read their records well enough to know how or where. They seem to have flown into the sky—”

  “Like birds? But they were not winged, were they? Those I have seen represented . . .”

  “Just so,” Gammage agreed briskly. “But we have good evidence that they had some means of flight. So, a number of them flew away. Of those who were left—well, it seems that they worked very hard and fast to find some way of restoring the land. One of their attempted remedies became instead their doom. We have found two records of that.

  “What developed was an illness like our coughing sickness. Some it killed at once. Others—it altered their minds so they became like those Barkers who foam at the mouth and tear madly at their own kin. But with all it had one sure effect: They bore no more younglings.

  “Also—” Gammage hesitated as if what he would say now was an important thing, a wise utterance of an Elder. “This sickness had another effect. For it made us, the People, the Barkers, the Tusked Ones, even the Rattons, what we are.

  “This is the thing we have learned, Furtig. We were once like the rabbits, the deer, the wild cattle we hunt for food. But we had some contact with the Demons. There is good evidence that some of us lived with them here in the lairs, and that”—his voice grew deeper, closer to a warrior's growl—“that they used us to try out their discoveries, so we were their servants to be used, killed, hurt, or maimed at their will.

  “But it was because of this that we grew in our minds—as the Demons dwindled and died. For they forced on us their fatal sickness, trying to discover some cure. But us it did not slay nor render sterile. Instead, though our females had fewer younglings, those younglings were different, abler in ways.

  “And the Demons, learning too late that they had set those they considered lowly servants on a trail which would lead those servants to walk as their equals, tried then to hunt them down and slay them, since they wished not that we should live when they died. But many escaped from the lairs, and those were our forefathers, and those of the Barkers, and the Tusked Ones.

  “The Rattons went underground, and because they were much smaller, even than they are today, they could hide where the Demons could not find them. And they lived in the dark, waiting, breeding their warriors.

  “The hunting of our people by the Demons was a time of great pain and terror and darkness. And it set in us a fear of the lairs, so great a fear that it kept our people away, even when the last Demon met death. That was a disservice to us, for it cost us time. And even now, w
hen I send to the tribes and tell them of the wonders waiting them here, few conquer their fears and come.”

  “But if we learn the Demon's knowledge,” asked Furtig slowly, “will not all their evil learning perhaps be mixed with the good, so that in the end we will go the same way?”

  “Can we ever forget what happened to them? Look about you, Furtig. Is there forgetting here? No, we can accept the good, remembering always that we must not say ‘I am mightier than the world which holds me, it is mine to be used as I please!'”

  What Gammage said was exciting. But, Furtig wondered, would it awake the same excitement in, say, such an Elder as Fal-Kan? The People of the caves, of the western tribe, were well content with life as it was. They had their customs, and a warrior did this or that, spoke thus, even as his father before him. A female became a Chooser and set up her own household, even as her mother. Ask them to break such patterns and be as these of Gammage's clan, who paid more attention to learning the ways of Demons than to custom? He could foresee a greater difficulty than Gammage could imagine in that. Look at what the Elders now said of the Ancestor, in spite of his years of free giving, because he had tried to breach custom in a few of their ways.

  6

  While he was with Gammage, listening to the Ancestor, inwardly marveling at the fact that it was because of the will and curiosity of this single member of his own cave that the lairs had been invaded, that its secrets were being pried open, Furtig could believe that this Elder was right. Nothing mattered save that they learn, and learn in a race against time with some invisible enemy who might at any moment arrive to do battle. And that the only weapons which would adequately protect them were those they still sought in that time race.

  However, Furtig's own part was not only insignificant but humiliating. For he, a seasoned warrior, must return to the status of youngling, studying with those half his age, even less. For learning here did not go by seasons reckoned from one's birth, but rather by the speed with which one absorbed lessons in the instruction rooms.