Beastchild

Chapter Eight

Banalog sat stiffly in the heavy green chair in the dimly lit chambers of the Hunter Docanil. If he had been a scientist of any lesser form of knowledge, he would not have been able to withstand the probing interrogation of the Hunter. He would have made an error in detail, would have betrayed himself with a stutter or a flicker of fear across his wide features. But a traumatist was a man with total knowledge of the mind, its physical functions and the more refined thought processes of the overmind. He knew how to control his own emotions to a degree that no other naoli — aside from a Hunter — could manage. He repressed his fear, sheltered his deceit, and amplified a projected image of sincerety, honesty, and professional concern. He thought Docanil was fooled. He could not be certain, of course; no one could ever really know what a Hunter thought. But it did seem as if he were pulling this off quite well.

Docanil stood next to the room's only window. The heavy, amber velvet drapes had been tied back with thick cord. Outside, the early morning light was weak. The snow continued. Docanil seemed to be looking beyond the snow, beyond the ruins, into some pocket universe only he had the vision to penetrate.

Banalog watched the other creature with barely concealed interest. He was fascinated by every detail of a Hunter, always had been. This was a professional concern that was not faked. He longed to take a Hunter under analysis, longed to work deep into one of their minds to find out what went on in there. But a Hunter would never need a traumatist's care and counseling. They were totally in control of themselves at all times. Or so the legend said.

Docanil was dressed in snug, blue slacks that were tucked into black boots. A sweater-like garment cloaked his torso, came up high on his long, thick neck. The blue of these was almost dark enough to be called black. Around his waist was a stretch belt with dull, silver buckle and over the buckle the insignia of his trade: the reaching hand, claws extended to capture the enemy, the circle of wicked-looking nails enclosing this. Tossed across another chair was his greatcoat, a heavy, fuzzy thing that looked like it was made of fur-lined velvet. This was black. On the shoulders there were black leather decorative straps. A black leather belt around the middle. There were buttons instead of a pressure seal, and they were as large around as a naoli eye, stamped from heavy black metal, each with the reaching claw and the ring of nails.

Banalog shuddered.

He knew that Hunters wore clothes for a practical reason: as Hunters, destined to their trade even before birth, they were in all ways more sensitive to external stimuli than other naoli. Their body temperature could not easily adjust to changes in the atmosphere as could those of normal naoli. In intense summer heat, they were forced to remain in shadows as much as possible and to drink great quantities of fluids to replace those lost by their bodies. In bitter winter cold, they needed protection against the elements just as fragile humans did.

Yet, there was something sinister in their clothes. Not just in the fact that they wore them — but in the type of garments they chose. Or was this just a childish fear of the unknown? Banalog thought not. He could not pinpoint what, exactly, disturbed him about the sort of uniform the Hunters had adopted, but his uneasiness persisted.

Docanil turned away from the window, looked across the gloomy chamber to the traumatist. Hunters did not seem to need much light to see well "What you have told me is of little value," he said. His voice was haunting, a deep, whispered hiss of a voice that somehow managed to carry as well as Banalog's own.

"I have tried to — "

"You have told me about the guilt. About the sort of trauma growing more common which has caused Hulann to act as he has. I understand what you say — though I do not understand the trauma. But I must have more information, more theories about how this individual will act now that he is on the run. I cannot go by normal standards."

"You haven't tracked naoli before?" Banalog asked.

"It is rare, as you know. Once before. But he was a common criminal, similar in his reaction patterns to our enemies. He was not, however, a traitor. I cannot understand Hulann."

"I don't know what else I can say."

Docanil crossed the room.

His boots made soft ticking sounds on the floor.

He stopped by Banalog's chair, looked down from his great height, his hideously high cranium picking up bits of the glow lamps. He looked down, smiling the most frightening smile Banalog had ever seen. Beneath his blue-black sweater, his heavy, abnormal muscles bulged and rippled as if they were alive.

"You will help me further," he hissed to Banalog.

"How? I have told you — "

"You will accompany me in the chase. You will give me your advice. You will try to analyze Hulann from what he does and try to project his next move."

"I do not see how I — "

"I will use the Phasersystem in an attempt to get his general location. That should succeed. Whether it does or not, we will then begin. Be ready in an hour."

The Hunter turned away, started for the door into the other room of his quarters.

"But — "

"An hour," he said as he passed through the portal and closed it behind him, leaving Banalog alone.

The tone of his voice permitted no argument.

On the northernmost petal of the daisy-shaped continent of the home world of the naoli system, next to a pincer-formed cove where the green sea beat softly insistent, stood the House of Jonovel, a respected and ancient establishment. Deep within the rock-walled, hand-hewn cellars of the venerable mansion was the family's brood hole in which the most recent Jonovel children rested and grew. There were six of them — blind and deaf and mostly dumb as well-snuggled in the warm, wet richness of the brood hole mothermud. Each was no larger than a human thumb, looked more like a small fish than a naoli. There were no visible legs, though the tail had already formed and would remain. The arms were little more than filaments. The tiny heads were buds that could be crushed between thumb and forefinger with little effort. They laid in their individual womb-wads, the slimy white semi-living discharges that had carried them out of their mother after the first stage of their development had been achieved. Fine amber-red ganglia connected them to the wads. Traceries of darker wine-hued blood vessels fed them fluid and took away their wastes. The wads pulsated around their charges, regulating all the delicate processes of life. In two months time, the wombwads would no longer be needed. The Jonovel children would squirm loose of them. The wads, deprived of their patients, would die. The rich mothermud of the hole would then begin to break them down and absorb their protein-laden tissues to maintain a healthy mixture for future births. The children, moving now, no longer blind nor deaf — and totally free to speak their nonsense words — would feed upon the cultures of fungus ringing the walls, sucking for their own life upon the mothermud. The children, at the end of six months, would be brought forth. The Phasersystem contact would be surgically implanted. Education, then, would be rapid, fed right into their overminds without need for vocal instruction.

Retawan Jonovel stood above the brood hole, looking down from the entrance foyer onto the mothermud and his six offspring. They were his first brood in fifty-one years. And, damnit, there should have been nine of them!

Nine. Not six!

But Hunters had to come from somewhere.

Shortly after his mate and Retawan had come forth from sixteen days in the warren, the central committee had authorized the Hunters' Guild to treat three of the barely fertilized foetuses and to withdraw them from the woman's womb for development in the artificial wombs beneath the Hunters' Monastery.

He should have expected it sooner or later. The Jonovel's were ancient, pure stock, just the sort the Hunters liked to use. If they had not come for part of this brood, they would have come the next time.

Still.

The six below cluttered and squealed mindlessly.

Retawan Jonovel cursed the Hunters and the need for them that made their existence a reality. He left the brood hole, closing the iron door behind. The heat, smell, and noise was getting to him.

A white-haired man stood in a cleft of rock, letting the wind flap his clothes and uncomb his frosted mane. It felt good to stand here in the open on his own world after so long in the depths of the fortress, so long in artificial light and darkness. He watched the foamy breakers toiling in toward shore, cresting, battering, spraying up on the rocks three hundred feet below at the foot of the mountain. It was a truly wonderful sight.

Taken from them now. As everything had been.

Unconsciously, he scanned the sky for sign of a naoli copter. But the skies were clear.

The sea rolled in… … crashing, spitting up, frothing.

The sea had great strength. Perhaps the world could survive this. Perhaps man could. No, not perhaps. They would survive. There could be no doubt! For doubt would be the end of them.

The scattered clouds burned away. The sun was full and radiant. It felt warm on his face, even though the wind was cool. A long while later, he turned and went into the channel in the cliffside, followed the twist in it until he came to the well-known spot. He made the recognition signal, waited for reply. The door in the rock slid slowly open. He stepped into the Haven and returned to the dismal burden of his duties