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The message was finished. A few seconds passed. And then the beam lanced out, piercing Jeydee's chest. He fell forward and hung from the post. Again and again, repeating exactly the. group-pulses, the beam flashed. It shot through the top of the head, and blood ran down from it until it was drained.
When the beam ceased, the Tsimmanbul broke into a frenzy of drumming, fluting, and piping. Two warriors ran down the slope and untied the body, making sure that they were not in the line of the beam.
The shaman piped so loudly that he could be heard even at that distance. "Once more, the god Phemropit has mocked us! But we will not be discouraged! We know that the time will come when he will deign to talk with usl"
Feersh stood crying. Jowanarr's face showed no emotion. Tishdom and Shig, the two slaves, were sobbing, not for their former master but for themselves. Vana was looking around as if she'd like to make a run for it. She wouldn't get far with her hands tied behind her. The Yawtl seemed withdrawn, as if he was no longer acknowledging the reality around him. Deyv thought that was only a pose, however.
The wily Hoozisst would take advantage of any chance, no matter how small. But he wasn't going to get any.
The two warriors brought up the body of Jeydee and flung it down on the earth. They looked at the captives as if to say, who's next? Fat Bull came up a few minutes later. He piped for silence and said,
"The god Phemropit has refused to talk to us. But he has given us meat to eat, the body of an enemy!"
There was a great cry. Jeydee's corpse was lifted up by two huge females and carried down the other side of the slope to the camp at its bottom. The captives were herded at spearpoint to a log cabin near the huts. Evidently this had been used many times to hold prisoners while the tribe held a feast. The door was barred, and two guards were stationed outside it. This cabin was much smaller than the one in the village and had no windows.
Vana said, "It looks as if we're reprieved until after the next sleep-time."
Deyv, looking out through the space between two logs, gasped. He said nothing until he had gone to the wall, though. Then he whispered that they should gather around him.
"I saw Jum and Aejip at the edge of the jungle!
They appeared for only a second, then went back inl They've escaped and followed us!"
The Yawtl said, "What of it? Even if they sneaked in while all but the guards are sleeping, and they killed the guards, how would that help us? We couldn't reach through and lift that bar in time. If s tied with a rope. By the time we got it untied, the whole camp would be roused."
"Some of us might get away," Deyy said. "I'm going to try. I won't just sit here and make it easy for them."
By then the corpse had been degutted and beheaded, and the legs cut off. Five hardwood spits were forced through the torso and the limbs, and these were placed on forked sticks over the fires. A female brought food and water for the prisoners. They ate it all, though they were glum. The celebration continued until all the brown liquor was drunk and the corpse and other food were devoured. One by one, the Tsimmanbul crawled into their makeshift huts. The guards, who'd been forbidden to drink much, sat by the door talking in low pipings. Now and then they got up to hold their torches to the entrance and look within.
"What do you make of this Phemropit?" Deyv asked Sloosh.
"Whatever else it is, it's our death," the Archkerri said. "Unless we find some way of communicating with it. Even then, it might kill us. Perhaps it can't help it."
"What do you mean?"
"I could be wrong. But I think that it uses that beam of light as we use sound. What only impinges with no bad effect upon others of its kind, as voices do to our ears, pierces beings of softer stuff. Stone or metal can take the beam; flesh can't. I think that the creature doesn't know it's killing other creatures. But then perhaps it wouldn't care if it did. I'll speculate that until it emerged from under the tree, it had never seen anything but its own metal-stone kind."
"You mean that it had lived on the meteor before it fell? That it was a native of a large rock that spun through cold airless space?"
"I wouldn't be surprised."
"It doesn't breathe air? But how could it live?"
"It might, probably must, get its food from eating rock. Or perhaps it lives off radiation, certain elements which would kill you or me but are its breath of life and its meat and bread."
There seemed little else to say about the thing. Deyv lay down on the ground in a corner. He wished he had Jum to snuggle against. During the last of The Beast's passage, the air had grown chilly. He shivered. It was then that Vana sat down by him and asked softly, "Could I lie in your arms? I'm cold."
He was so surprised that he could say nothing for a moment.
"But ..."
"But nothing. I just want to warm myself with your body. I don't want to make love with you. I know how you feel about an eggless. I don't blame you. I feel the same way toward you. That is, I did for a long time. But lately, I've been thinking. We've gone a long, long time without the soul eggs. Yet ... we have survived without them. They haven't been necessary, even if we do miss them now and then.
Perhaps the plant-man was right when he said that we might find out we don't need them."
"We're still without souls."
"Are we? You know Sloosh is rather wise, even if he is sometimes arrogant and even ridiculous. He said that it is the body which grows the soul. No body, no soul. The eggs, he said, are mere psychological aids. They are crutches, and a healthy person doesn't need crutches. Nor can the eggs provide us with souls."
"He doesn't know everything," Deyv said. "What you're saying is wicked. It means that we've been lied to. Would our parents and grandparents and the shamans and all our ancestors have believed in soul eggs if they weren't what they said they were? They couldn't have been so mistaken."
"Sloosh says that the Earth is round. He proved that. Yet we've been told by our elders that it was flat."
"What are you getting at?"
"Just let me lie in your arms and get warm. I didn't come to you to argue. I'm tired of all the disagreements and squabbles we've had. I just want to be next to you and get warm before death makes me cold forever."
Deyv opened his arms. She lay down close to him, her breast on his, her arm thrown over his other breast, her head on his shoulder.
After a while, his shoulder became wet.
"I hope you don't mind if I weep," she said. "It is a terrible thing to die so far away from your tribe. If my egg hadn't been stolen, I'd be with my tribe, or at least with my husband's. I would've been married and would have had at least one child by now. But if s never to be."
Deyv said, "I'm weeping, too. It is an awful thing."
"It's not so bad holding a soulless next to you, is it?" she said. "You don't feel nauseated, do you?"
"I thought I would," he said. "But no, it isn't. You feel just like any woman with a soul. And if we were alone, I would lie with you. I think that if you had your egg, you'd make a good wife for me. Of course, I couldn't tell unless we could match the eggs."
"Do we really need them? Can't we tell what our hearts say, not some stone?"
"You mustn't talk such nonsense."
"I wish you'd both quit your nonsense," the Yawtl said. "You're keeping me awake. I would like to point out, however, that the witches don't have soul eggs, and they don't miss them one bit."
"But they're evil," Deyv said, a
"Originally, yes," the Yawtl said. "The founders of the witch families had no eggs or they had mismatched eggs and so were driven from their tribes. And they found artifacts of the ancients and became powerful. They also made it their tradition not to have eggs. Why should they? They didn't need them. Besides—"