[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
She lowered her beamer and moved cautiously to where Joe lay dreadfully
still with the dead mountain cat sprawled on top of him.
"Joe?" she whispered. "Are you conscious?"
There was no reply, and she crept still closer, not taking her eyes off the
grisly feast for one moment. The noise from the struggle between cat and
browser was painful; the steep gorge caught and amplified the screech of the
cat and the rumble of the browser. She shook her head, took careful aim,
and blasted the cat first, crisping it into silence. Then she shot the two
browsers, steeling herself to hold down the lever until there was no possible
doubt.
Her stomach lurching, she grasped the dead cat's fur and heaved at it
until she had Joe uncovered enough to be able to investigate. There was
blood on him, and scratches, none of which looked serious and he was
unconscious, but, as far as she could tell, that was only the effect of a blow
on the head. She struggled to free him from the cat altogether; and then she
took a good breath and tried to remember everything she had been told
about how to lift and handle an unconscious body. He stirred.
"Huh?& What?& Holy jumping Jets, my head!"
"You must have struck it against the rock when the cat fell on you. Don't
move yet, I haven't had time to examine properly can you feel if there's
anything else?"
"There's a stink." He kept his eyes closed and made a tentative movement
or two. "I guess I'm all right. Bruised, nothing more than that. What
happened, anyway?" She told him, briefly, and he shook his head as if to
deny something. "I owe you my life, I guess. I'm grateful, but I'm sorry you
had to kill them all."
"What else could I have done?" She watched him sit up and touch himself
where the bloodstains were. "We were right in the track of the things."
"I suppose you're right." He reached around and gathered his spear,
yanking to free it from the carcass of the dead cat. There was distaste on his
face. "First time this thing has ever had blood on it," he said. And she gave
way to irritation.
"Excuse me for living!" she snapped. "You may not value your life all that
much, but I do mine, and I was looking after it. Do you mind?"
He got to his feet, stretching gingerly, then made his way down to where
the stream lashed at the bend in the track, plunging in and squatting down
in it to clean himself. She shivered in sympathy, but he made no sign of
feeling the chill. After a while he stood again, shook himself like a dog, and
rejoined her.
"We'd better get on," he said, and they went on and down, after
scrambling past the odorous carcasses. She felt ruffled and knowing that he
was tuned in on her feelings didn't help any. She made a point of changing
the power pack on her beamer and keeping the spent one for future
recharging.
"Now look," she said at last, unable to repress her indignation any longer.
"It's all very fine and good to be averse to killing things. I would go along
with that myself most of the time. But when it comes to self-defense "
"To a choice between you and them, you mean?"
"If you want to put it that way, yes."
"I've been here a long time four years, according to you. I have never
had to kill anything yet."
"How many times have you made this trip to the Tree?"
"Twenty, maybe. I haven't counted."
"Well, all I can say is you've been lucky."
"Maybe. I prefer to keep out of the way of trouble."
"They kill each other anyway!"
"I know. But this is their world. We're interlopers. You know, if you take
the long view, mankind is an interloper anyway. Wherever we go we
interfere and change and mess things up, playing about with powers and
forces we don't understand upsetting nature fouling it."
"Oh, well," she sneered. "That's about as far as you can go, isn't it? Now
you want to opt out of the whole human race."
"Wish I could. I reckon I'd be better off as a plant."
"Do you, indeed! Then, for Heaven's sake why don't you settle down
where we're going, along with your precious Tree, and live right
there instead of on the other side of the mountain?"
"You'll know why soon enough. Getting warmer. We'll be there in about
three hours or so."
TWELVE
« ^ »
I an hour they were into scrubby grass and bushes. The sun was
n less than
warm, the breeze only a gentle breath. The little blue flower came out of
hiding and settled itself around his neck and over an ear as if peering ahead.
The relief of tension was as tangible as putting down a heavy load. Selena
wasn't sure whether it was her own relief for the mix-up with the
stampeding browsers and the murderous cats had shaken her more than she
cared to admit or whether it came from the strange pair she was traveling
with. Joe showed nothing on his face, of course, but there was an easier
spring in his step. And as for the small flower, she had quite accepted it as
an independent entity, more so because it never turned its one-eyed blue
stare on her now, but kept its attention ahead.
Analyzing her own feelings was getting to be her way of passing the
time, as all attempts to strike a conversation with Joe seemed to lead straight
into differences of opinion. This positive awareness of reduced tension, now;
could it be that something of the peculiar sensory ability of the plant life was
rubbing off on her? She took an internal look at it and had to admit that she
had a definite feeling of welcome from the tangled greenery they were now
passing through. And she felt affectionate towards the plants, too. There had
been little of nature, the wide open spaces, wind-on-the-heath kind of thing
in her life. Earth was rapidly running out of that kind of luxury in any case,
and most of her adult life had been spent in arduous conditions where the
opportunities for contemplating the harmonies of nature were strictly
confined to staring at stars and more or less forbidding environments.
"Joe," she called him, all at once. "Hold on just a minute. I've not seen one
like this before. Look."
He came back a step or two to contemplate a thick bush that was laden
with bulbous and juicy-looking berries, each about the size of a big Earth
grape, but golden yellow in color.
"They look delicious," she confessed. "Are they edible, do you know?"
"You can eat 'em," he admitted, "but go easy with them. They pack a
punch like neat alcohol. In fact, most of the saps and juices I've run into
have that effect. I don't know the chemistry of it, only the effect."
"Hangovers you've had?" she suggested, and he shook his head, not
rising to her mild wit.
"They don't do that. But they will make you falling-down stinko if you
eat too many. Watch it."
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]