Cuckoo's Egg

That night, when they sat before the fire (the spring nights were cold) Thorn crawled into his lap and sat there a while; and got up on his feet in the triangle between Duun's crossed legs and touched Duun's face, the scarred side. Duun caught the hand with his maimed one. And let it go.

"It's a scar," Duun said. He did not prevent the exploration. He made himself patient. He shut his eyes and let Thorn do what he liked, until Thorn pulled savagely on both his ears, which was challenge. Duun's eyes flashed open.

"Ah!" Duun cried, drawing back his lips in a grimace. Thorn recoiled and stumbled on Duun's legs; Duun caught him in mid-fall and rolled with him, rolled holding him in his arms, never coming on him with his weight. Thorn screamed, and gasped, and when Duun bit, bit back, and screamed and squealed till Duun clamped a hand over his mouth and held it there.

Thorn grew still. The eyes stayed wide with shock. So. So. Fright, not fight.

Duun gathered him to his breast and licked his eyes till Thorn had begun to pant, recovering his lost breath. For a moment Duun was worried. Small hands clutched at him.

He gripped Thorn by both arms and held him up. Gri

That night Thorn waked howling at Duun's side, short sharp yelps, gasps for breath. "Thorn!" Duun cried, and turned on lights and snatched him up, thinking he had rolled on the infant and hurt him in some way; but it was nightmare.

Thorn held to him. It was Duun Thorn feared. That was the nightmare.

"Ah," Duun cried, falling back, dragging Thorn atop him. "Ah! you hurt me! You hurt me-" To give him the upper hand. He had no pride in this.

"Duun," Thorn cried and snuggled close.

Sometimes genes were truer than teaching. Alien. Thorn clung to what had frightened him.

"Duun, Duun, Duun-"

Duun held him. It was all Thorn understood.

There was a day, in the morning bath, that Thorn noticed his own naked skin. Thorn scrubbed at Duun's belly and at his own with a rough-textured sponge. Dropped the sponge and put both hands on his own belly, rubbed it thoughtfully. When he looked up thoughts passed in his milk-and-storm eyes, with a little knitting of his brow. "Slick," he said of himself. His speech did not go as fast as a shonun child. But there was a difference of mouths and tongues. "Slick."

Perhaps Thorn wanted to ask, if his young mind had thought of it, when his own pelt would begin to grow. The hair on his head was abundant, tousled curls, which had finally settled on a faded, earthy brown. The eyes had never changed. It was a dangerous time.

Duun took Thorn from the bath and held him in his left arm, hugged him close in front of the mirror. Thorn had seen mirrors. He had one for a toy. He had seen this one many times. Today there was distress in young Thorn's eyes, and thoughts were going on. Thorn had never seen a shonun child. He had never seen other shonunin, except the meds. Perhaps some terrible thing was dawning on his mind, put together of little wordless pieces, images in mirrors, smooth bellies, a facility for making water in a long, long arc, which was for a time his nuisancefully chiefest talent. He spread his five-fingered hand at Thorn-in-the-mirror, in a way that should bring claws and did not; he grimaced at this Thorn as if to frighten him to flight. (Go away, ugly Thorn.) He flexed the fingers yet again. Made faces.

Duun turned them both away. Bounced him to distract him.

After that Thorn did not mention the difference of their skins. Only from time to time there were small moments which Duun caught: a moment of rest when Thorn, lying beside

Duun, reached and stroked his arm, turning the fur this way and that. Another when Thorn, finding Duun's hand conveniently palm up, dragged it closer to him across Duun's lap and played with it, fingering the dissimilar geometries of the palm, working doggedly at the fingers to make the claws come out. Duun cooperated. It was his right hand. It was not the deformity Thorn explored, but an ability which surely Thorn envied; and Duun was suddenly aware of a silence within the child, a secrecy which had grown all unawares, that small walled-off place which was an independent mind. Thorn had arrived at selfhood, a self which came out to explore the world and retreated with scraps of things which had to be examined with care, compared (sign of a complex mind) against other truths: Thorn had arrived at self-defense, disappointed in his body, it seemed. Aware of his own deformity. And not, truly, aware of Duun's. Duun was Duun. Duun had always had scars; they were part of Duun as the sun was part of the world. There was no past. Thorn had not been in it: therefore Thorn could not imagine it.

But Thorn's hands were not like Duun's. His skin was not. And Thorn had begun to take alarm, suspecting imbalance in the world.

Duun gathered him close, as he had done when Thorn was smaller, rolled him into his lap and poked him in the belly, which Thorn resisted for a moment, and writhed, and finally gave way to, in squeals and laughter and abortive attempts to retaliate in kind. Duun let him have that victory, sprawled backward on the sand before the fire, belly heaving under Thorn's slight weight, in laughter which was not reflexive, like Thorn's. To be touched on throat or belly went against instinct. There was a sense of peril in that abandonment.

But a child had to win. Sometimes. And lose sometimes. There was strength in both.

"Follow, follow," he urged the child, looking downhill. The rocky incline was a great trial for small legs, and Duun's stride was long. Thorn stood with legs apart, arms hanging, and staggered a few more knock-kneed steps. "Keep climbing," Duun said. "You can."

A few more steps. Thorn fell and cried, a weak, breathless sobbing. "I can't."

"You have breath left to cry, you have breath to get up. Come on. Up! Shall I be ashamed?"

"I hurt my knee!" Thorn sat up, clutching it and rocking.

"I hurt my hand once. Get up and come on. Someone is chasing us."

Thorn caught his breath and looked downtrail, still hiccuping.

"Perhaps it will eat us," Duun said. "Get up. Come on."

Thorn let go his reddened knee. Limbs struggled. Thorn got to his feet, wobbled, and came on desperately.

"I lied," said Duun. "But so did you. You could get up. Come on."

Sobs and snuffles. Wails of rage. Thorn kept walking. Duun walked with shorter strides, as if the way had gotten steeper for him as well.

"Again." Duun gave Thorn another small stone. Thorn threw. It hit a rock not so high up the cliffs as before. "Not so good. Again."

"You do it."

Duun threw. It sailed up and up and struck near the top of the sheer face. The child's mouth stayed open in dismay.

"That is what I can do," Duun said. "Match that."

"I can't."

"My ears are bad. Something said can't."

Thorn took the rock. Tears welled up in his eyes. He threw. The stone fell ignominiously awry and lost itself among the rocks at the bottom of the cliff.

"Ah. I have frightened you. Thorn is scared. I hear can't again."

"I hate you!"

"Throw at me, then. I'm closer. Perhaps you can hit me." Duun gave Thorn another stone.

Thorn's face was red. His eyes watered and his lips trembled. He whirled and threw it at the cliff instead.

So.

"That was your highest yet," Duun said.