Elephant Song

TEN

The Ikona-Tarzak Road was finished and it was Put Up, the first day of The Season. Little Will sat astride Reg's neck,, leading the bulls of Miira down the road toward Tarzak. The bulls each pulled wagons piled high with lumber, while the horse-drawn wagons filled with people from Miira and the Emerald Valley had raced on ahead. In exchange for the lumber, the bulls would bring back core blades, gears, metal, and salt-packed fish. The people from Number Two would not be there; they were still building their boats. But Kuumic would be represented by a delegation that had crossed the desert.

As Reg reached the crossroad going off to Sina, the desert, and Tarzak, Little Will tapped Reg's left shoulder with her bullhook, and headed toward Tarzak. She closed her eyes and tried to remember the parades she had ridden in with the show. She had been in costume, the bulls had been decked out in spangles, and the windjammers filled the air with lusty marches. But the costumes, spangles and instruments had been tossed out to lighten the Baraboo as it tried to make orbit around Momus.

It hadn't mattered what planet they had played, beings of every sort and description would line the ways and cheer the parade after their own fashion. As Little Will opened her eyes to see Reg crossing the last metal bridge into the town of Tarzak, there were no crowded, cheering ways. The whitewashed mud huts of Tarzak were silent as the inhabitants continued with the day's occupation. They had all seen bulls before, and there was work to do.

Packy Dern rode on a horse toward her from the direction of Tarzak. He pulled up beside her. "Little Will, lead them through the town to the clearing on the other side. We have a kraal put up there for the bulls."

She nodded and Packy made a clucking sound and rode on ahead. Little Will sighed and patted Reg behind the bull's right ear. "Just a little more, Reg. Not much of a parade, is it?"

Far into the jungle from Miira, Waco Whacko emerged into a large clearing carrying the fruit he had gathered. He walked through the tall grass to the bark shack he had built, stooped inside, and deposited the fruit on a stone slab. Stepping outside, he examined the clear sky, then looked down and walked up the rise in the center of the clearing. As he approached a moss-covered mound, they began:

"Waco. Waco, Talk to us, Waco."

"It's not our fault, Waco. Please talk to us."

Waco studied the moss covering, tested its moisture with his fingers, then stood. "I promised your parents I would care for you. I did not promise them to entertain you, or love you." He turned away. "If you want conversation, talk to each other." He walked away from the mound.

"Waco! Waco! Don't leave us, Waco!"

When he was out of range of the Ssendissians' thoughts, he turned back and looked at the mound. One night twenty days before, Waco had been dreaming. He was walking through jade forests hung with jeweled leaves and fruit, the forest carpet beneath his bare feet made of satin. He had awakened to find himself up to his knees in quicksand.

The Ssendissians eggs then laughed at the joke they had played upon him. After four hours, Waco had pulled his exhausted body from the deathly trap and collapsed among the rot of the jungle floor. The next morning he had moved the eggs into the center of the clearing and had placed his sleeping quarters out of the infant Ssendissians' range.

He studied the mound, searching his soul for some small remaining spark of affection. The thing he searched, he concluded, was dead.

There was a loud splash, and Waco crouched and turned his head in the direction of the small lake that bordered one edge of the clearing. His eyes squinted, but the brightness of the sun and the shade of the trees surrounding the lake obscured his vision. He began moving toward the lake.

Several times he had felt that he was being watched, and once he had caught the flash of a huge creature as it bolted out of sight. When he had arrived at the point where the creature had stood watching him, Waco smelled a curious odor and observed a wide expanse of flattened vegetation. In its flight, the creature had made a swath through the jungle almost fifteen feet wide. Trees six inches thick had been pushed aside to right and left as though they had possessed no roots.

Waco crouched lower in the grass as he approached the trees at the edge of the lake. He could hear nothing save the buzzing of an occasional water wasp in the hot, still air. He moved quietly through the trees and squatted behind a berrybush. The water rippled from his right. He looked in that direction and saw a woman sitting naked in the water, near the rocks that lined the lake's shore.

She cupped her hands, lowered them into the water, then brought them up to rinse her face. She bent forward and dipped her long black hair into the water. As she sat up, she raised her arms and twisted the excess water from her hair. Waco studied her tiny mouth, pug nose, and almond eyes. He stood up, walked to the edge of the lake, and called out. "Well, Hanah Sanagi, look at you."

Fireball Hanah Sanagi started for an instant, then lowered her arms as she saw him. "Waco. Everybody said you were dead." She lowered her arms into the water again and brought them up to splash water on her breasts. She looked again at Waco. "Getting an eyeful?"

Waco turned away. "I apologize. I didn't expect to find anyone out here."

Hanah stood. "I didn't expect to find you either. You can look, Waco. From what I hear, I don't have anything to worry about."

Waco frowned as he looked back at her. "What is that supposed to mean?"

Hanah walked from the water, wiped the water from her body with swift strokes of her hands, then picked up her clothes from beneath a tree. She returned to the water, squatted upon a rock, and began rinsing and wringing out her clothes. Waco walked around the shore until he stood beneath the trees behind her. "I asked what you meant by that?"

"You're a garry, aren't you? That's the word I heard. All those years living with Buns and Bullhook."

Waco flushed and turned away. "Don't believe everything you hear."

"Are you?"

Waco lowered himself to the ground and leaned against a tree. "Am I what?"

"A garry." She finished wringing out her clothes, then turned and walked to a large, smooth rock that was bathed in the hot light of the sun. She spread her clothes to dry.

Waco shook his head, picked up a stick, and flexed it until it snapped. "It's not anyone's business." He looked at her again, and she was stretched out on the rock beside her drying clothing. Waco tossed the pieces of stick aside. "What are you doing here?"

Hanah smiled as she drew her hands down from her breasts along the length of her body. "That's none of your business." She stretched in the sun, fanned out her hair, and clasped her hands behind her head. "How are the eggs, Waco? Are they still alive?"

"Yes. They're still alive." He rubbed his eyes, then looked back at Hanah.

She turned her head, glanced at Waco, then closed her eyes and faced the sun. "I left when they began chewing up Number Three to make tools. They're building a road to connect the cars. I wandered a lot. I guess I felt like pulling the plug a time or two." She shrugged. "But I didn't." She looked back at Waco. "Say, have you seen one of those lizards that live in this swamp yet?"

Waco shook his head. "No. I came close a couple of times. The tracks they make seem to indicate that they are fairly large."

Hanah laughed. "I'll say they're large. I got a good look at one while it was playing patty-cake in a big mud puddle. It made a bull look like a puppy dog." She shrugged. "Once it saw me, though, it took off like its tail was on fire."

They were both quiet for a long time. Waco studied the naked woman. "Hanah?"

"Yes, Waco?"

"How do you feel now, about Number Three?"

She opened her eyes and looked at the clear sky. Then she sat up and began turning her clothes over. "I've worked it out of me. I don't know how long it's been that I've been wandering around the jungle, but at some time or other, I discovered that I'd gone for a couple of days without thinking about the car." She turned over on her stomach and spread out. "I can take it, I guess. I've just been exploring the jungle since. It's an interesting place. I don't know that I really want to be back with the old crowd yet. Or ever." She lifted her head. "Waco?"

"What?"

"Are you a garry or not?"

The snake charmer smiled, looked down at the ground, and shrugged. "I don't know." His face grew serious. "Everything and everyone disappoints me. I didn't want to risk anything."

"You're a virgin? Both ways?"

"All ways." Waco picked up another stick and fiddled with it as he looked up at the sky. He looked down at the ground and shook his head. "There are a lot of unhappy people in the universe, Hanah. I'm not unique."

Hanah Sanagi studied the snake charmer. "Waco, how long will it take for those eggs to hatch?"

He sighed, then shrugged. "On Ssendiss it takes about two hundred and eighty Earth years." He held up a hand toward the sky. "With the different climate, gravity, soil nutrients, I don't know. I don't even know if they'll live to be hatched,"

Hanah lowered her head to her arms. "That's a lot of years."

"A lot of years."

"Waco, when my clothes are dry, show me where your digs are."

The snake charmer jumped to his feet. "Why?"

Hanah wiggled on the warm face of the rock. "Oh, I don't know. If nothing else, you could use a cook. If you were any skinnier you wouldn't even cast a shadow. Besides, two hundred and eighty years is a long time."

The former snake charmer settled back against the tree and studied the former pilot.