The good new stuff, p.40
The Good New Stuff, page 40
“Glodego’alah remarked once that harems change masters easily because of such human predation. Their ships come in the channels between the islands and the ice pack where beachmasters gather fish.”
Drin nodded. “I came close to being a victim myself on my way back from my initial investigation. It is easy enough for them—I suspected nothing until they shot at me. I would think someone down here would warn the humans not to do this.”
Gri‘il huffed in derision. “The sea lords don’t interfere. They say the humans take the weak and the race gets stronger, and that the inbred softness of civilization is thus cleansed from our blood. But Glodego’alah was not soft.”
“No, I’m sure he wasn’t. Who are these ‘sea lords’?”
“They are the free rovers, the ones who take from both poles what they want. They live like beachmasters at the south pole, then swim north and have all the luxuries of civilization. They are … the human word is hypocrites.”
“And if they don’t come back?”
“A harem doesn’t stay unmastered long here. A sea lord shows up soon enough to claim a missing master’s family. They seem to know, somehow, when one isn’t coming back.”
Her passiveness disturbed him, but perhaps it was simply adjustment. Early Do’utian history wasn’t any prettier than early human history. Less so, in some respects. And the Kleth, of course, were cannibals well into their spacefaring days. Drin shuddered, wondering at his fascination with such things. But he had to ask; it might be important.
“Gri’il, how was your tongue to be taken?” Did she just submit to such an amputation?
“The sea lord who ran off my first mate, said it was traditional. He demanded this after the first mating, then he said he would not take my egg unless I submitted. Also … I can’t explain. I sometimes feel a need to surrender myself, to let the tides of providence have their way with my flesh. At any rate, I did not resist. In my state at the time, he was God.”
Submit to mutilation, or die. Such was her natural paradise. What polluting monster would …
“His name?”
“Gota’lannshk.” The same ruffian he encountered at Cragen’s? Drin hissed in disgust.
“You know of him?”
“We met. Look, Gri’il, will you come back to the North with me? For treatment.”
“We are bound to you. I need to stay with you, to submit to you. And I have the eggs, remember? Or are you so civilized that that doesn’t matter?”
The eggs probably shouldn’t be hatched, Drin thought. Two fathers. No tests. No family. No birth allocation.
“Gri’il, compulsions are subject to medical intervention. My duty is to try to right the wrongs done so far, if I can, and prevent others from being done. Can you get the others to come?” And how many more were there out in those islands. Should they save them all? By force if needed?
“If it is clear that we are leaving, they will come, for whatever good it will do them.”
“We’ll regenerate their tongues, teach them to speak, send them to school.”
“They were hatched out here. Their minds were untrained during the crucial years.”
Truly feral. He feared as much. “Still, we have to try. We can find a deserted northern island for your co-mates, and arrange for them to be watched. But what about you? Now that this has happened, can’t you see your way back to—”
“To what? We live with the humans and the Kleth on this planet at the expense of ceasing to live like Do’utians, at the expense of always pulling against our own inner nature. And the stars are too far apart for it to matter. I showed my tail to all of that. Say what you want. I lived. I swam in the wild currents. I did it on the beach. You want me to go back to that northern emotional straitjacket and listen to all those proper titters and I told you so’s? I’d rather die!”
And her present state was not a humiliation? But her age-old argument, Drin thought, was unanswerable. The civilization of Trimus was for those who thought it mattered.
“We don’t want to tell you how to live. I’m sure your privacy would be respected, and protected.”
“Like in a zoo! Drinnil’ib, you rescued us, fed us. Don’t you want us? Don’t you feel the need to own and protect us? Or in the name of your Compact have you let the humans reengineer your sex?”
Drin groaned. He wanted her enough, but he did not want to want her. At least not as she was now. The whine of fans reached him before he could find a suitable way to explain that. Mary! Relief flowed through him. The aircraft settled on its fans, the hatch popped, and Drin walked over to greet his partner, leaving Gri’il with her beak in the gravel.
But Mary was nowhere in sight.
“Mary?” he called, worried.
Do Tor opened the canopy, jibbered to his machine, and the cargo door popped open. Of course, Drin realized. There was no room in the Kleth cockpit for a human, and indeed, it took Mary a while to unfold herself from the cramped space.
“I’m here, Drin.”
“It’s good to see you!” He explained about the sea lords. “So I think your human hunters have Do’utian accomplices, at least in principle. But things still don’t swim well in my mind.”
“The strongest, fastest, or most clever survive. I can see that, I guess. You think the Sea Lords were using Lord Thet to cull their herd, so to speak?”
“That seems to fit.”
“Well, Lord Thet’s gang of wannabe barbarians seems to be only too happy to help. Your people are the most challenging hunt in the ocean, they probably think.”
“Brings up the question of whether we have right to interfere,” Do Tor observed.
“To save lives?” Drin protested. “Of course we do.”
Mary sighed and gestured to the sky. “Drin, there are now many beings out there who can trace their origins to our home worlds, but who have engineered so much into themselves that they look on us as primitivists. They could make a problem like Lord Thet vanish in an instant with no loss of life—but would we want that?”
“Those who didn’t get killed might appreciate it.”
Mary shook her head. “The parts of our natures that lead to this mess could easily be changed, but then what would we be? Death, even random death, may have a justifiable role in society that transcends individual needs. Perhaps, to keep our identity, we need to learn to accept that.”
“I think,” Drin asserted, perhaps a little more loudly than necessary, “that such issues should be debated by the planetary council and that our job is to not let anyone else get killed until they do and decide … whatever. Now, I have four physically mutilated and three of them intellectually mutilated—Do’utian women to bring back to where they can be properly protected and cared for. Let’s do that and sort the rest out later.”
“Agreed,” Do Tor chuckled. Mary nodded quietly.
“Gri’il,” Drin said, “is there any way the others can be told of how long a journey this will be?”
“They will follow you if I do,” she said, coldly, it seemed. “But the hunters will be watching.”
“And the planet will be watching them!” Drin proclaimed. “They won’t dare do anything.”
“I will ride with you,” Mary said. “In full uniform. At least they’ll know what they’re playing with.”
Drin didn’t remind her of how persuasive her uniform and submarine were at Thet harbor.
“We’ll fly cover with loud voices and guns,” Do Tor said, spreading his wings. “Aircraft can fly itself, so that makes three above.”
“Oh yes,” his mate chimed. So it was decided. A convoy North.
Drin led the way into the water the next morning with Mary’s warm legs and arms comfortably around his neck. They’d fashioned a light glasscloth collar for him that she could grasp and so hold her position in the current of his passage. This was no irritation, but the bulge of an appliance she had constructed to protect her wounded knee was a noticeable reminder of their vulnerability in these waters—many more monitors would be needed to handle Lord Thet and his allies without loss of life.
Gri’il came quietly after him, and as predicted, the harem followed.
It was a fine gray day with favorable surface winds, and light, cooling surface squalls. A brackish current flowed north here from the ice cap on the largest southern island, overlying warmer saline water flowing from an inner pole drainage basin, and so the Do’utians had made good time without becoming overtired.
By the morning of the second day, Lord Thet’s domain was well behind them, and they glided through the waves halfway into reef-crowded tropical waters. A volcanic island with wide black beaches lay to their left, and a reef to their right, but the channel was fairly deep. Drin was just beginning to relax and enjoy the scenery when the human ships appeared.
“Don’t think they’re hunters,” Do Tor sent. “Big Do’utian male right with them, no shooting.”
“Can you describe him?” Drin asked.
“One and three-eighths Charter unit long. Big white crescent-shaped scar behind the blowhole. Do you know him?”
“If it’s who I think it is, I’ve smelled him before. A harem-coveting sea lord with his tail across two beaches. It’s time to ask that rogue a few questions.”
Gri’il and her co-mates keened as if they were being mortally wounded.
“It sounds like our refugees have smelled him before as well,” he continued. “I’d better let those humans know what we’re about. Ready, Mary?”
“Gills on.” He felt her arms as well as her legs encircle his neck, and her hands grasp the collar. She was secure. He dove and, slamming the ocean back and forth with his tail, headed toward the lead human ship much faster than he could manage on the surface.
About ten Charter units from the hull, he broke water again. So did his harem—he’d forgotten to tell Gri’il to stay back. It shouldn’t be necessary, but he was uneasy.
“Mary, I’m not sure how much comfort we should take from Gota’ lannshk being present.”
“Why would they shoot at us and not him?”
“Why is there a sea lord always ready to inherit the harem of a victim? Why did Gota’lannshk seem to know that I’d had a close call with these hunters when we met him at Cragen’s?”
“Lord Thet—”
“Mary, I don’t want to insult your species, but I don’t think that idiot has been running this atrocity.”
“Huh? Why?”
“Later. I just hope these people have sense enough to keep out of this.” Drin inhaled and boomed as authoritatively as he could, “Human ship, we are Planet Monitors escorting citizens on an official mission. We need to ask your companion some questions. Please do not interfere. I say again, do not interfere.”
Mary waved at them and smiled.
The report of the harpoon gun reached him first, then Mary’s scream and the sharp, deep pain in his neck.
“Look out!” Do Tor yelled over the radio link.
The taste of blood was in his throat. He dove and heard a sharp smack on the water over him. Instinct said to head for the very bottom, but Mary, if she were still alive—he could no longer feel any pressure from her legs—wouldn’t survive that. Despite the pain, he pushed water hard and got about eight-squared Charter units away from the ship before he surfaced again.
“Mary?” he called. If those polluting, suicidal, feral idiots had killed her …
There was no answer. Oblivous of his wound, he turned back toward the ship, rage building.
“Do Tor, I can’t see behind my head. What’s happened to Mary?” Did the Kleth follow him?
“Drin. Long spear in your neck. Went through Mary first, through her leg. Not necessarily fatal wound, but suggest you make for nearest island. Go Ton will go with you. West, Drin, now. I’ve called aircraft down. That ship will not fire again. Go!”
As if to contradict the Kleth, the harpoon gun fired again and the lance slapped the water beside him. He could hear warning blasts from the aircraft and Go Ton squawking at the top of her lungs, telling the human ship to stop shooting. In the name of eternal repudiation, the murderers would pay for this! He started swimming toward the ship.
He felt, more than saw, a Do’utian charge under him directly at the human vessel.
“GRI’IL, NO!” he bellowed hopelessly, much too late.
The impact boomed out, sound reaching him underwater before through the air. Then, beneath, he heard the creaking and cracking of wood and the screams of humans underwater.
“Drin!” Do Tor screamed. “Get to that island, now. I take care of this. I will mark them. They will not escape, not melt into primitivist population. I mark. Go, now, save yourself. Save Mary.”
“Drin,” a soft voice called. “I’m awake. It hurts like hell, but if you have to go back for her, I understand. I can take it.”
Reason returned. “Mary. No. I’ll have to trust Do Tor.” There was no way Gri’il could have survived that impact. No way that he would have. And the eggs … it was better that way. Perhaps Gri’il had known that. But his wound had little to do with the effort it took to push himself toward the island.
A whistle and some kind of explosion sounded behind him. Then another. He could hear loudspeakers. Killing for killing—perhaps they would understand that. Then, somewhere from the back of his mind, between the currents of pain and grief, a thought formed in an eddy of cold fear. Gota’ lannshk had disappeared when the shooting started. To where?
The island was a long swim on the surface and he gagged on his blood by the time he got there. Go Ton was waiting at water’s edge, alone, with a med kit that must have weighed as much as she did.
“Come on, just a few steps farther, above the tide line,” she urged.
He did that, then he was on his belly, his tail still in moist sand. Go Ton fluttered to the top of his head, out of sight. He heard the buzz of a bone saw, and the shaft of the harpoon soon tumbled to the ground. There was a yelp, quickly stifled, from Mary. Then a numbness started spreading through the wound. Soon he felt as if he didn’t know what had happened to him, that all that was wrong with him was a stiff neck.
“Now, Mary,” Go Ton said, “I know it looks awful, but I think it best to leave that piece in your leg alone until help arrives. Human aircraft will be here in eight-fourth beats. Might do more harm than good if I try to remove it now.”
“I understand,” she said, “this sounds ridiculous, but right now I feel OK, except my leg is dead to the world. I’ll be all right as long as I don’t look at it. Can you help me down?”
“Not alone. Lieutenant Drin, can you lend a tongue?”
His tongue still worked; the barb had not gone in that deeply, perhaps in part because Mary’s leg had slowed its entry. He reached back, and between the three of them, they were able to lower Mary down to the sand.
“Where’s Do Tor?” she asked.
Pollution! She’d forgotten, Drin realized, and he couldn’t warn her with his tongue extended so far.
“He’s with the aircraft cleaning up the mess with the human ships,” Go Ton responded, shakily. “He should have everything well in hand and be back with us soon.”
“You’ve been too busy helping us to check!” Mary said. “I’ll contact him, let him know we made it, and find out how things are.”
“Please do not do that,” Go Ton pleaded.
Just a little farther, Drin thought. There! Mary was safely down, and he could speak again.
“But, I know how much he means to you—” Mary started, oblivious to the danger.
“That’s why, Mary,” Drin interrupted, “for the sake of providence, think!” The Kleth team had taken the ultimate risk for them, and Go Ton’s position was precarious. She would live as long as she believed her mate was alive. But if everything was not fine with Do Tor, that would effectively eliminate Go Ton as well. “We need Go Ton just now.”
“Oh!” Mary said. Everyone was quiet for a heartbeat. Then Mary continued, her voice with a certain forced steadiness. “Go Ton. Uh, that human garbage doesn’t have any weapon that can hurt Do Tor. He’ll be fine.”
That human garbage shouldn’t, Drin thought, have had any weapon that could have hurt him or Mary. But here they were.
“Drin, I am stiff-winged on Do’utian first aid,” Go Ton said, firmly changing the subject, “but I think the spear should come out of you now. It is the sort that works its way in deeper every time you move, and without Mary’s body holding it back …”
“Do it.” Before the anesthetic, Drin could sense how close the barb had worked itself toward his central nervous column. He had arteries and blood to spare, but didn’t want to stop breathing just yet.
“If you could roll on your side …” Go Ton asked. He complied, then lay silently, feeling little tugs and tears in his flesh and tried to imagine one of Go Ton’s tiny thin horny arms deep in his flesh with knives, cutting a passage for the barbed spearhead.
Then the Kleth said: “Mary, need help. The strength of your arms.”
Using the discarded shaft of the spear as a crutch, Mary hobbled around behind him, patting him on the beak as she went by.
A little later, he heard her say “oof,” felt a sharp pull, and saw Mary fall backward into his field of view again—her arms bloody up to the elbows, her hands clutching the cruel barbed spearhead. Go Ton remained behind him; little tugs and pulls continued for another eight-cubed heartbeats.
“Now that’s all closed as well as I can do it,” Go Ton said.
“Thank you,” Drin said, and rolled slowly back onto his belly. “Did the harem follow us here?” The thought of them reminded him of Gri’il. He shut his eyes and let the empty feeling pass.
“Yes, they’re huddled together in shallows behind you,” Go Ton answered. “They seem very sad, beaks in sand, but are unhurt, I think.”
Drin was thinking that Do Tor should have been back by now, and searching his memory for any kind of convention for handling the worstcase situation. There would come a point when, if the news were bad, Go Ton would have to be told, and nature would have to take its course. To do otherwise would be to not respect the decision her people had made to not change this part of their genetic make up. Perhaps the best thing would be to wait until she asked herself. If …
