Страница 35 из 44
“We go away from here,” Big Ones’ Friend said. “Soon be fire all around. Go away through woods; keep wind in face.”
Everybody began to run. The brush was thick. After a while, Wise One saw Lame One ru
At first the moon, Zerk-Zees, which was more than half round, was on their left as they ran, and a little in front. After a while, he saw that it was almost directly in front of them, though it was only a little higher. He spoke of this to Big Ones’ Friend and also to Stabber. They stopped, and Big Ones’ Friend got out his point-north thing, and made a light with his firemaker. Then he said more Big One words.
“Wind change. Maybe change more, maybe bring fire to us. Come, make run fast.”
They floundered on through the brush and among the vines and trees. After a while they came to a big moving-water, not as big as the one that made wide lake-places, but still big. They could not cross. There was argument about what to do. The fire was up the river, but if they went down they would come to where it came into the lake, and that would be a bad place to get out of. He looked in the direction of the fire and was glad that he could not see yellow flames, though all the sky was bright pink. The wind still blew toward the fire, so they decided to go down the river.
The brush became less thick, and here were tall longleaf trees. There were animals all about, moving in the woods, frightened by the fire. Then, ahead they saw the light of Zerk-Zees shining on the lake.
“Not go that way,” somebody — Wise One thought it was Stonebreaker — said.
“Not go across moving-water either,” Big She said. “Too deep.”
“Make raft,” Big Ones’ Friend said. “Little raft. Get big sticks, tie together with rope, put things on. Some get on raft, some swim. Who has rope?”
Nobody had the rope. Lame One and Big She had thrown it away to run faster. Big Ones’ Friend said one of the mean-nothing words, then thought for a moment. “We go along lake, that way.” He pointed east, where the thin edge of Dry-As was just above the horizon. “Go back to place fire start. Maybe all dead, ground cool. Then we be safe.”
Fruitfinder said he was hungry. Now that it was said, everybody else was hungry too. They found a goofer, so frightened that Stabber just walked up to it and speared it. Big Ones’ Friend took out his knife, ski
While they were eating he smelled smoke, but thought it was an old smell in his fur. Then Carries-Bright-Things said she smelled smoke, and so did Stonebreaker. They stopped eating and looked about. The fire was much brighter, and they could see yellow flames among the red pink glow over the trees.
Big Ones’ Friend said, “Jeeze-krise go-hell bloody damn! Wind change again. Fire that way, wind come from fire, bring fire here!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
JACK HOLLOWAY WAS bringing a hangover home from Mallorysport, but even without it he’d have felt like Nifflheim. Traveling east was always a bother — three hours airtime and three hours zone-difference. You had to get up before daylight to get in by cocktail time. He winced at the thought of cocktails; right now he’d as soon drink straight rat poison.
He’d done too much drinking since — since Little Fuzzy got drowned, go ahead and say it — and it hadn’t done a damn’s worth of good; as soon as he sobered up, he felt worse about it than ever. Hell, he’d had friends killed before, on Thor and Loki and Shesha and Mimir. Everywhere but on Terra; people didn’t get killed on Terra anymore, they just dropped dead on golf courses. If it had been anybody but Little Fuzzy… Why, Little Fuzzy was just about the most important person in the universe to him.
His head thumped and throbbed as though an overpowered and badly defective engine were ru
They were going to put in a big commemorative plaque for Little Fuzzy, eight feet by ten: Little Fuzzy in gold with a silver chopper-digger on a dark bronze ground. He’d seen the sketches for it. It was going to be beautiful when it was done, looked just like the little fellow.
And then, when he’d wanted to go home, Ben and Gus had insisted that he stay over for the banquet for the delegates, and he wanted to help get them in a good humor. And, God, what a gang! One thing, they were all in favor of lynching Hugo Ingerma
George Lunt, beside him, had tried to make conversation after they’d lifted out, then gave it up. He’d tried to sleep, and must have dozed off in his seat a few times. Each time he woke, his head hurt worse and he had a fouler taste in his mouth. He was awake when they passed over Big Blackwater; not a sign of smoke or anything going on. Grego’d moved everything he had there up to Yellowsand and was bringing men and equipment in from Alpha and Delta and Gamma. He’d seen one of the Company’s big contragravity freighters, the Zebralope, lifting out of Mallorysport air terminal for Yellowsand when he was leaving Government House. He hoped Grego got out a lot of sunstones before the trial.
Coming up Cold Creek, he couldn’t see any activity where they’d been holding the raft building classes. There weren’t many Fuzzies ru
Gerd was silly enough to ask him how he was.
“I have a hangover with little hangovers, and some of the little ones are just before having young. Is there any hot coffee around?”
That was a silly question, too; this was an office, and offices ran on hot coffee. They went into his office; Gerd called for some to be brought in. There was a stack of papers half the size of a cotton bale — he’d been right about that. He hung up his hat and they sat down.
“Didn’t see much of a crowd outside,” he mentioned.
“A hundred and fifty less,” Gerd told him. “They’re down in the Squiggle.”
“Good God!” He knew what the Squiggle was like. “What are a hundred and fifty of our Fuzzies doing in that place?”
Gerd gri