A Home for the Old Ones

1

WHEN the guy came in, bold as brass, we were busy aversion training a leopard cub, and it was taking all our attention. The cub was a healthy little male, no more than a week old. That's a little bit young to begin the aversion training, but we'd been tracking the mother since she gave birth. When we spotted the mother this day, she had dropped off to sleep in a convenient place—at the edge of a patch of brush that wasn't large enough to conceal any other leopards. So we jumped the gun a little, doped the mother with an air gun and borrowed her cub.

It's a job that takes all three of us. Shelly was the one who picked up the baby, completely covered, and sweating, in a gasproof isolation suit so it wouldn't get any ideas about a friendly human smell. Brudy kept an eye on the mother so we wouldn't have any unpleasant surprises. The mother had had her own aversion training, but if she had woken and seen us messing with her cub she might have broken through it. I was the head ranger, which meant that I was the boss. (Did I mention that my name is Grace Nkroma? Well, it is.) And, as boss, I was the one who manipulated the images—3-D simulations of an Old One, a human, a Heechee, one after another—with a cocktail of smells of each released as we displayed the images, and a sharp little electric shock each time that made the kit yowl and struggle feebly in Shelly's arms.

It isn't a hard job. We do it four or five times for each cub, just to make sure, but long before we're through with the training they'll do their best to run away as fast as they can from any one of the images or smells, whether they're simulations or the real thing. I don't mind handling leopard cubs. They're pretty clean, because the mother licks them all day long. So are cheetahs. The ones that really stink are the baby hyenas; that's when whoever holds the animal is glad that the gas-proof suit works in both directions. As far as other predators are concerned, lions and wild dogs are long extinct in this part of the Rift Valley, so the leopards, hyenas, and cheetahs are the only ones the Old Ones have to worry about on their reservation. Well, and snakes. But the Old Ones are smart enough to stay away from snakes, which aren't likely to chase them anyway since the Old Ones are too big for them to eat. Oh, and I should mention the crocs, too. But we can't train crocodiles very reliably, not so you could count on their running the other way if an Old One wandered near. So what we do is train the Old Ones themselves to stay away. What helps us there is that the Old Ones are sort of genetically scared of open water, never having experienced any until they were brought here. The only reason they would ever go near any would be that they were tormented by thirst and just had to get a drink. We never let it come to that, though. We've taken care of that problem by digging wells and setting up little solar-powered drinking fountains all over their reservation. They don't produce a huge gush of water, but there's a steady flow from each fountain, a deciliter a second year in and year out, and anyway the Old Ones don't need much water. They're not very interested in bathing, for instance. You catch a really gamy Old One, which we sometimes have to do when one of them is seriously sick or injured, and you might wish you could trade it for a hyena cub.

The first indication we got that we had a visitor was when we'd given the baby leopard four or five aversion shocks, and he suddenly began to struggle frantically in Shelly's arms, nipping at her gas-proof clothing, even when he wasn't being shocked. That wasn't normal. "Let him go," I ordered. When a cub gets really antsy, we don't have any choice but to call it off for the day. It isn't that they'll hurt whoever's holding them, because the gasproof coveralls are pretty nearly bite-proof, too. But it's bad for the cubs themselves. Wild animals can have heart attacks, too.

We backed away, keeping an eye on the morn as her baby, whining, scooted over to her, crept under her belly, and began to nurse. What I didn't know was what had set the cub off. Then I heard it: motor and fan noises from afar, and a moment later a hovercar appeared around a copse of acacias. Leopard cubs had better hearing than people, was all. The vehicle charged right up to us and skidded to a halt, the driver digging its braking skids into the ground for a quick stop and never mind how much dam-age it did to the roadway or how much dust it raised. The man who got out when the bubble top popped open was slim, short, rather dark-complected and quite young looking—for what that's worth, since pretty much everybody is. But he was quite peculiar looking, too, because he was wearing full city clothing, long pants, long sleeves, with little ruffs of some kind of fur at the cuffs and collar. (A fur collar! In equatorial Africa!) He gave Brudy a quick, dismissive glance, looked Shelly and me over more thoroughly, and ordered, "Take me to the Old Ones."

That was pure arrogance. When I sneaked a look at my indicator, it did not show a pass for his vehicle, so he had no right to be on the reservation in the first place, whoever he was. Brudy moved toward him warningly, and the newcomer stepped back a pace. The expression on Brudy's face wasn't particularly threatening, but he is a big man. We're all pretty tall, being mostly Maasai; Brudy is special. He boxes for fun whenever he can get anvbodv to go six rounds with him, and he shows it. "How did you get in?" Brudy demanded, his voice the gravely baritone of a leopard's growl. What made me think of that was that just about then the mother leopard herself did give a ragged, unfocused little growl.

"She's waking up," Shelly warned.

Brudy has a lot of confidence in our aversion training. He didn't even look around at the animals. "I asked you a question," he said.

The man from the hover craned his neck to see where the leopard was. He sounded a lot less self-assured when he said, "How I got in is none of your business. I want to be taken to the Old Ones as soon as possible." Then he squinted at the leopard, now trying, but failing, to get to her feet. "Is that animal dangerous?"

"You bet she is. She could tear you to shreds in a minute," I told him—not lying, either, because she certainly theoretically could if it wasn't for her own aversion training. "You'd better get out of here, mister."

"Especially since you don't have a pass in the first place," Shelly added.

That made him look confused. "What's a 'pass'?" he asked.

"It's a radio tag for your hover. You get them at the headquarters in Nairobi, and if you don't have one, you're not allowed on the reservation."

" 'Allowed,' " he sneered. "Who are you to 'allow' me anything?"

Brudy cleared his throat. "We're the rangers for this reservation, and what we say goes. You want to give me any argument?"

Brudy can be really convincing when he wants to be. The stranger decided to be law-abiding. "Very well," he said, turning back to his hover; he'd left the air-conditioning going and I could hear it whine as it valiantly tried to cool off the whole veldt. "It is annoying to be subjected to this petty bureaucracy, but very well. I shall return to Nairobi and obtain a pass."

"Maybe you will, and maybe you won't," Shelly said. "We don't disturb the Old Ones any more than we can help, so you'll need to give them a pretty good reason."

He was already climbing into the vehicle, but he paused long enough to give her a contemptuous look. "Reason? To visit the Old Ones? What reason do I need, since I own them?"