West of Eden

“As the Eistaa commands,” Kerrick said. Though he spoke with humble courtesy he was possessed of sudden excitement: his skin flushed and he trembled. He knew that he loathed the disgusting creatures. Yet he still longed to communicate with them.

“You will speak, but not with those we brought back. They are dead. Build your strength. When the warm sun returns to the north we go there again for an even greater killing.”

Kerrick signed supplication, wondering at his sudden disappointment.

It was enough now to lie in the sun, to put the illness behind him as his strength returned. Many days passed before Akotolp sent for him. The fargi led the way to a part of the city he had never visited before, to a sealed and strangely familiar panel. It opened to reveal a still damp chamber.

“It is a water entrance — just like the one in Inegban*!”

Inlènu* wriggled her thick body in agreement. “Hurts the eyes.”

“Then keep them shut, one of great stupidity.” Then he closed his own eyes quickly as the warm liquid washed over them.

Akotolp turned from her work when they entered, reached out and pinched Kerrick’s flesh between her thumbs.

“Good. You cover your ribs. You must exercise as well. That is the order I pass on to you from the Eistaa. She is most concerned that you will able to go north with the others.”

“I hear and I obey.” Kerrick’s eyes were moving about the strange room as he talked, trying — and failing — to understand what he saw. “Once, in distant Inegban* I was in a place like this.”

“You are wise in your stupidity. One laboratory is the same as another.”

“Tell me what you do here, great one.”

Akotolp smacked her lips and her fat flesh trembled with the strength of her feelings. “You wish me to tell you, creature of endless stupidity! Were you to live ten lifetimes you could not begin to understand. Since Yilanè first came from the sea we have had our science, and since that time it has been growing and, maturing. Science is the knowledge of life itself, of seeing inside life, seeing the cells that form all life, seeing inside the cells to the genes, seeing the spiral there that can be cut and moved and changed until we are masters of all life. Have you understood a word that I have said, groveling and crawling one?”

Kerrick signed groveling and crawling as he spoke. “Very little, she of endless knowledge, but enough to know that you are the master of life.”

“That is true. At least you have intelligence enough to appreciate even if you ca

“You are afraid of it?”

“Those eyes…”

“They ca

“A drop of water?”

“Amazing observation. Now watch when I place it into the sanduu.” Akotolp prodded with her thumb until an opening appeared in the sanduu’s side, then slipped the plate into it. She then squinted into the topmost eye, grunting to herself as she thumbed the sanduu with instructions. Satisfied, she straightened up and signaled Kerrick to her.

“Close one eye. Look in here with the other. Tell me what you see.”

He saw nothing. Just a blur of light. He blinked and moved his head — then saw them. Transparent creatures with rapidly moving tentacles. He could not understand it and turned to Akotolp for assistance. “I saw something, moving beasts, what were they?”

“Animals, minute ones, there in the drop of water, their images magnified by the lenses. Do you know what I am talking about?”

“No.”

“Exactly. You will never learn. Your intelligence is equal to that of the other ustuzou behind you. Dismissed.”

Kerrick turned and gasped when he saw the silent, bearded Tanu standing in the niche in the wall. Then he realized that it was only a stuffed and mounted animal. It meant nothing to him and he left quickly.

Yet he felt strangely disturbed as he walked back, the sun warm on his shoulders, Inlnu* plodding patiently behind. In thought and speech he was Yilanè. In form he was ustuzou. Which meant he was neither one nor the other and he grew upset when he thought about it. He was Yilanè, that was what he was, there was no doubt about that.

Unconsciously, as he told himself this over and over, his fingers pinched at his warm Tanu flesh.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

“The time has come for us to leave,” Stallan said. “It is here in the pictures, everything we need to know.”

“Show me,” Vaintè said. Her aides and the fargi pressed close to see as well, but a gesture drove them back. Stallan passed the pictures over, one at a time, with a careful explanation of each.

“These are the earliest, of the high valleys where the ustuzou usually winter. But this last winter the valleys remained frozen. The thaw did not come that brings them life during the rest of the year. Therefore the ustuzou must move south to find food.”

South, away from the cold of their winter, Vaintè thought, just as we flee south from the frigid winters of Inegban*. She wiped this repugnant idea away as quickly as it had come. There was no co

“South — where we can reach them.”

“You see the future clearly, Eistaa. If they stay, then they die of starvation. If they do not stay, why, we will be there to greet them.”

“When do we leave?”

“Very soon. See here, and here. The large beasts that drag the poles and skins. They come down from the hills. There is grass, but still gray and dead after the winter. And the white, here in the hollows, that is hard water. They must come further south.”

“They will. Are your preparations made?”

“They are. Supplies gathered, the boats fed, the armed fargi are ready.”

“See that they remain that way.”

She dismissed Stallan, put the hunter from her mind instantly, addressed her thoughts instead to the coming campaign. They would be going far inland this time and would be away all of the summer. They could not carry enough food with them for this long a time — so should she arrange for resupply? Or live off the land? This would be easier — and every beast they killed and ate would be one less for the ustuzou. But there would also have to be a reserve of preserved meat so their progress would not be slowed. Everything must be considered. Prisoners must be taken as well. The raptor’s chance movements would find only a few of the ustuzou packs. But questioning the prisoners would lead them from one pack to another until they had all been destroyed. A fargi hurried over at her gesture.

“Command Kerrick to attend me.”

Her thoughts went to the coming campaign until she was aware of his presence before her.

“Tell me of your health,” she ordered. “You are thi

“I am, but the weakness has gone, the scars from the sores are healed. Each day I make this fat Inlènu* run with me to the fields. She loses weight, I gain it.”

“We go north soon. You will go with us.”

“As the Eistaa speaks, so do I obey.”

He expressed this in the most formal ma