The Iron Breed Page 4

  To Jony's vast surprise, Trush had turned away his head, started determinedly walking away from the rock river, refusing to answer any of Jony's questions, acting as if no one must see or speak of such a thing. His displeasure was enough to subdue Jony; and the boy had reluctantly joined in that retreat, though he had been plagued ever since by the memory of the strange thing and the need to know more.

  By his People-trained ability of location he was certain that, had the river of rock really penetrated deeply into the hills, it could not lie far now from this present site. As soon as he could persuade Maba and Geogee to leave the water and see them back with the cubs to the clan campsite, he was going to do a little prowling on his own.

  However, unless Jony wanted to arouse the only too annoying curiosity of the twins, he must do nothing to make them suspicious. Jony sighed. He considered that he was as cautious and reasonable as Voak, but the twins rushed madly into action without ever thinking. Also, they both lacked his own ability to sense danger, or to use the control he could hold by concentration upon some other minds.

  Not that he could so influence the People. Their minds were too different. Jony had never been able to enter, let alone bend, any one of them to his will, as he had that Big One during the crucial moments of escape. Perhaps (he had talked about it with Rutee often), perhaps this was because the Big Ones had used the mind-controller, and so in some way were themselves more vulnerable to such power. But neither of the twins had such a talent. Rutee explained, when Jony had grown older (it was just before she had died, when she had him promise to watch over them), that their father had been wholly mind-controlled. And she thought perhaps that might make them more susceptible to influence.

  She had made Jony promise then that he, himself, would never try to control either Maba or Geogee by such a power. To do so was an evil thing. Her distress had been so great when she spoke of this that Jony had promised at once. Though many times his exasperation with the twins' reckless disregard for their own safety—and that of others—made him wish she had not demanded that of him.

  So he had to use other methods of persuasion to control them, and, the older they grew, the more they resented his orders. Jony stirred impatiently on the rock, which was now almost too hot to make a comfortable lounging place. He sat up and called down:

  “You two—time to come out!”

  Maba laughed and jumped back, so the falling curtain of water hid her slim brown body. Geogee bobbed up and down in the stream and made a face.

  “Come and make us!” he hooted.

  However, if they disregarded Jony's command, they had still to reckon with Huuf and Uga. Huuf moved up behind Geogee, his hands out, to close upon the boy's upper arms. In spite of Geogee's irate yells and kicks, he bore him calmly to the bank, to dump him on the grass not far from where Geogee's kilt lay in a tangle. Uga disappeared under the spray curtain, to return in less than a breath, not carrying the screaming Maba, but leading her by the long streamers of her hair, on which Uga had a good and unshakable grip.

  “Jony—” Maba screamed as soon as she was through the water curtain into the open. “Make her stop! She's hurting me!”

  “Do as you're told,” he replied with satisfaction, “and you won't get hurt. It's time to head back and you know it.”

  Though perhaps she did not. None of the three had the built-in sense of time which moved the People calmly and serenely through their days, a time to eat, a time to doze, a time to make nettings, to heap up bedding for the night, to look about them.

  The People used some tools. They knotted nets which they employed as loose bags to carry fruit and edible roots with them. Also each treasured a staff such as Jony now reached for. These were carefully made from a well-selected thick branch or sapling.

  One end curved in a hook for pulling down fruit-laden branches. The other end was sharpened by much patient rubbing between stones to aid in digging up roots and grubs. It could also be a weapon upon occasion. Voak had slain a vor bird with his staff. Though after he had thrown away the staff, since a kill-thing must not be used again.

  The People were equipped with their own armament. The tremendous strength of their thickly muscled arms and their fangs was enough to make them formidable opponents. Only the vor birds, which could attack from aloft, and smaa, a legged reptile with lightning lash speed, were any real danger. Of course there were the Red Heads, too. Jony had only seen them once, and the memory was enough to make him shiver even now. They had looked (to the unknowing) like tall plants, with huge flaming scarlet balls for flowers, one large ball aloft on each stalk. By day they were root-fixed in the ground—growing. At dusk their life changed. Feet, which were also roots, wriggled out of their chosen pits of sod as they set out to catch and devour any life they could meet.

  From the lower parts of their ball heads they discharged a light yellowish powder, the brisk waving of which had seemed like leaves wafted out into the air. Whatever breathed that powder became quickly insensate; the Red Heads would gather up the limp body, enfolding it in thorned leaves which aided in sucking the juices from it. Once this grisly meal was concluded, the shrunken remains were hurled into the open root holes, as if the refuse of their horrible meals would nourish them even longer.

  The People knew no way of defeating the Red Heads. One merely avoided them as best one could. Luckily their coloring was such that they could be easily sighted. And they were the first enemy to scout for upon coming into any unfamiliar territory.

  Jony watched Maba and Geogee dry themselves off with bunches of grass and belt on their kilts. Rutee had taught them how to weave those, using the same fibers, but thinner and split, which the People processed to construct their nets. In addition all three possessed squares of more closely woven stuff, packed tighter with feathers of vor birds, which they pulled about them in the cold times.

  Jony leaped down from his rock perch, crossed the stream with a couple of jumps from rock to rock. The cubs already headed purposefully toward that clump of trees which marked their present campsite. Both had full nets; their morning had been spent to better purpose than just playing in the water.

  “You let them pull us out!” Maba's lower lip stuck out as she scowled at Jony. “You think they know more than we do!”

  Geogee nodded in agreement, his scowl just as heavy.

  The twins resembled each other in that their hair was fair, almost white where the sun had bleached it, and they had the same general contour of feature. Jony had never been able to see anything of Rutee in them. But Rutee had always said that Jony, himself, was like his father. He often wished that Maba, at least, had had Rutee's dark hair, her face. Now it sometimes seemed he could not, in spite of all his concentration, recall Rutee at all. Except as just a shadowy shape whom he continued to miss with a dull ache.

  “They do know more than you do,” he said shortly. “If you'd copy them a little, it would be better—”

  “Why?” Geogee asked. “We aren't them. Why do we have to act like them at all?”

  Jony frowned in return. He had been through this many times during the past seasons. The older the twins grew, the more they wanted to question and argue. At times he had even had to cuff them, as Voak had cuffed him once or twice in the past when he had been foolish and thoughtless.

  “We act like them because they have learned to live here. This is their world; they know best how to use it.”

  “Then where's our world? And why can't we go there?” Maba asked a question he had also answered many times over.

  “I don't know where our world is. You know how we came here—the Big Ones had Rutee and me in their sky ship. We got away from them. Rutee saw their ship go back into the sky. We were left here. Which is much better than being in the cages of the Big Ones. Now get going; Yaa is waiting.”

  “Yaa is always waiting.” Maba refused to let his warning silence her. “She wants me to make some more netting. I don't see why I have to. While you get to go off out there.” She made a wid
e circle with her arm to include the hills ahead of them. “I want to go too.”

  “Yes,” Geogee nodded. “Huuf goes, so we can . . .”

  “Huuf,” Jony tried to put full emphasis on what he said now, “watches all the time. He does not run off and hide, or pretend he is lost in order to have the whole clan out hunting for him.”

  Maba laughed. “That was fun,” she broke out. “Even if Yaa did slap us when we got back. We want to go and see things, Jony, just not always stay around where the People are. They really don't like anything different to do.”

  She was right, of course. But both the twins must learn caution, and they seemed unable to understand, or want to understand, that danger walked with the unknown. For Jony the situation was different. He was much older, bigger, and he had his warning sense to call upon. If the twins only had that, he would not have worried so about their taking off into the unknown. But they had not the least trace of his talent.

  “Wait until you're older—” he began when Geogee interrupted.

  “You say that every time. We do get older, and still you keep on saying it. You're just never going to let us go. But you wait, Jony. I'm 'most as tall as you now. Someday I'm just going to walk away to go and see things for myself. And Voak and Yaa, they aren't going to stop me, even, any more than you can then, Jony. You'll see!”

  Maba was smiling, and Jony distrusted that smile. He had seen that expression before and it generally meant trouble to come. But he could rely upon Yaa; she would not let either twin out of her sight once they were back in camp.

  Oddly enough both Maba and Geogee went the rest of the way uncomplainingly and with no more questions. Jony saw them back under Yaa's kind, all-seeing eyes, then went to the opposite side of the campsite where the unmated males had their own small inner circle. The clan was a small one, closely related by blood ties. If any of these younger males wished a mate, he must wait until one of the clan assemblies, which occurred before the coming of the cold, and try then to urge a female away from another family group to join with him. Three of the older ones were already impatient to reach that satisfactory situation in life. But there were four younger, who with Jony, were not yet interested in such complications.

  Jony munched a crumbling cake of ground nuts mixed with sap which was their principal noon eating. The food was flavorsome enough, but he looked forward with more anticipation to the evening meal when the results of the morning's fishing would be shared out as additional tasty tidbits.

  Trush had had the misfortune to break his staff two days earlier, and had spent the morning largely in careful search for raw material for its replacement. He had been lucky enough to discover a sapling hooked in just the right proportions, and was now engaged in the patient rubbing of its thicker end into the proper point.

  Otik had brought back a collection of stones which he was picking over carefully, trying one and then another for abrasive uses. Gylfi worked on the shell of a giant crawler; he had scooped out all the meat (a delicacy greatly appreciated by all the clan), and set the shell with the body side down over a zat nest last night. By morning these obliging insects had divested the interior of the very last vestige of organic material. Gylfi now had a rock-hard bowl over which he stretched a section of carefully dried and smoked vor bird skin which he had treasured with just this purpose in mind.

  He smeared the sap of a vine (a nuisance because of its strong adhesive qualities) around the edge of his bowl and pulled the skin taut across, binding a twist of grass cord about it to make sure of no slippage until the vine sap was thoroughly dry. His work was patient and thorough, and Jony knew what pride he took in it. Once the sap dried, Gylfi would have a handsome drum to thump.

  The People did not sing—unless their series of ululating, throaty calls was singing. But they had a strange love of dance. Each full moon overhead brought them to stamp and leap, stamp and leap for hours. Jony usually found such gatherings dull. He would watch for a while and then seek out his sleeping nest. Or else offer, as was more often the case, to go on guard duty so that some clan member could fully enjoy the entertainment.

  With all three of his usual companions enwrapped in their own affairs he felt safe, though a little guilty in seeking out what he wanted to do. Finishing his handful of crumbs, he signaled to Trush that he was on scout. Plainly preoccupied with his own affairs, Trush only hunched a shoulder.

  A glance across the campsite assured Jony that Maba and Geogee were both netting, one on either side of Yaa. So he slipped away hurriedly hoping that neither saw him go.

  There were times when Jony found a certain pleasure in being alone. Though he lacked the homing ability of the People, he could mark his trail when he reached unfamiliar territory and never feared being lost. The world about him was a constant source of wonder and interest. There was always some life-form to hold one's attention, from a strange insect on the wing or underfoot, to a plant with flowers or leaves which were either odd enough to catch the eye, or beautiful and pleasing. On impulse he plucked now a cluster of orange-red blossoms, none larger than his little fingernail, but with gleaming petals and a heady, sweet scent, and tucked the spray into the hair above his ear, just because the color excited his eyes and pleased him for the moment.

  The People did not seem to have much interest in any vegetation, unless it offered them food, or some tool, or was an annoyance and an obstruction. But Jony and the twins often picked flowers and wore them. The colors and the scents satisfied some longing in them which they did not understand.

  Now Jony turned, started an upward climb, still angling south. If he could find his stone river, perhaps someday he might even trace it to its source. Nowhere else had he seen stones so smoothed, set in straight lines on the ground. It was as if they did not lie there naturally at all, but rather had been placed so for some purpose. By whom—for what?

  He reached the top of the ridge. From here he would mark his trail and—But, even as he raised the sharpened end of his staff to scrape across a tree trunk, he looked down slope—and what he saw held him quiet in sheer amazement.

  There were . . . what? Jony had no name for those towering things beyond. For one startled moment a thrill of fear ran through him, the dim memory of the ship of the Big Ones. But a second later he knew that what he saw was not the Big Ones, standing silently as a part of the land on which they were based. Yet neither were they piles of rock raised in pinnacles by some chance. The towering fingers of stone were too perfect, too patterned in their arrangement. No, someone—something—had put rocks to use and built, one atop another, straight-edged mounds and heights.

  To the edge of that building ran the river of stone, straight and even, only a little covered by the creeping earth in shallow drifts. It was plain, Jony decided, that this was truly the source of that river. So that, too, must have been made. But how—and again why?

  He kept under cover, using each bit of brush, each stand of trees, as he advanced. At the same time he alerted that other sense of his, probing, seeking for some trace of thought—thought which was akin to that of the Big Ones. For only some people with the same powers and needs as his ancient enemies would or could devise what lay ahead. It was not in the nature of the People to work so with stone.

  But all his mind-search brought not the least suggestion of such life. He could detect only those faint sources which were always about: the native insects, a flying tiling. Not even the in-and-out wavering pattern of the People, or the cold menace of smaa, could he pick up. No, there was no life in the pile ahead. Jony began to be certain of that. So he moved on more confidently with greater excitement and an awakened curiosity he would have to satisfy.

  FOUR

  Boldly at last, Jony stepped out on the stone river, to walk confidently toward those piles ahead. They varied in size, some merely his height plus that of his staff, if he held it straight upright. However, there were others so tall he had to tilt back his head to see where their tips touched the sky. Now the stone river led hi
m on between the outermost piles.

  Jony hesitated. He wanted so much to explore. Yet he was still cautious. Once more he quested intently for any emanation ahead signaling danger. Did the People know of this place? Trush's odd reaction when they had first come upon the stone river remained vivid in Jony's memory. He had not warned Jony off; he had simply pointedly ignored the strange find. Why?

  There were many holes in the stone heaps ahead, some small, some large. Again each was regular, as if it had been formed for a purpose, not just because some stone fell out of place during the course of time. Holding his staff at ready, as if he crept up on a smaa's hunting territory, Jony advanced step by wary step, his glance shooting ever from side to side, his extra sense at full alert.

  Those larger holes were on the level where he walked now. They reminded him a little of the entrances to caves, but were still too regular and repeated in pattern to be like those dens where the People sheltered during the time of cold. On impulse Jony entered the nearest, peering at what lay on the inner side of that opening.

  A limited amount of light came from the other, smaller holes; enough to see an open space, more door holes. Jony's sense picked up a feeling of emptiness. He grew greatly daring, went farther. Unidentifiable masses lay on the floor. He poked at one gingerly with the sharp end of his staff. The whole mound collapsed in an out-puffing of dust.

  Jony sneezed, retreated quickly. He did not care for the faintly sourish odor, unlike any he had sniffed before. But his curiosity still held. Those much larger heaps farther along the stone river, were they all alike?

  He sighted some straggles of vine, a few clumps of tough grass which had managed to root in cracks of the stone. There was a cawing. A flight of six foraws took off from an upper ledge, as if propelled by some vast need for instant escape. But that was the way foraws were. Jony, ashamed of his own start at their sudden clamor, pushed on at a bolder pace.