The Winds of Gath

Chapter Eight

They camped halfway to the mountains, an irregular sprawl of rafts and tents and weary travelers. The rafts had no weight-their nulgrav plates kept them a level three feet from the ground-but they had mass and had to be towed every inch of the way.

It was growing darker, the air dim and filled with shadows as the path swept toward the eternal night of the east. The sun had almost vanished below the horizon, only the upper rim remaining visible, painting the west with the color of blood. The air was heavy, brooding, filled with invisible forces. Above, the pale light of stars shone in a purple sky.

Megan groaned with the pain of his shoulders. He eased the clothing from his back and cursed in a low monotone. He looked up as a tall figure occluded the sky.

"Megan?"

"Is that you, Dumarest?" Megan tried to stand, groaned, made a second attempt. He relaxed as the tall man knelt beside him.

"What's the matter with you? Are you hurt?"

"My back." Megan winced. "Could you get me some salve or something? That Emmened!"

"I heard." Dumarest's hands were gentle as they bared the thin shoulders. He stared grimly at the welts crisscrossing the pallid flesh. "You fool, Megan! What did you want to take service with him for? You had enough money to take this trip easy."

"It isn't my money."

"So what? There's more than I need. You didn't have to get yourself half killed for the sake of a few units."

"I needed the money." Megan was stubborn and Dumarest could appreciate his pride. "How was I to know the devil would use the whip?"

It had been a hell of a trip. The Prince of Emmened, savage at having been left behind in the rush to follow the Matriarch, had tried to make up time and forge to the lead. His method had been simple: force the towing travelers to run and whip them until they did.

And continue whipping them all the way to the present camp.

His guards had helped but the fear of being left behind without employment had helped even more. Starvation, as the factor had cynically pointed out, made ethics and pride of minor consideration to food. Even so two had died and five had been left on the journey.

"You've finished working for him." Dumarest had salve and he applied it with a gentle hand. "Don't worry about losing your money. You don't need it. None of you need it. I've enough to buy off all his bearers. He can use his guards and courtiers to pull instead."

"Take it easy." Megan relaxed as the pain in his shoulders yielded to the soothing action of the salve. "Do that and you'll get yourself killed. You can't treat a man like the prince that way and you know it."

It was the truth but none the more palatable because of it. Dumarest had the money but it wasn't enough. He needed more than money. He needed the power and protection he didn't have.

"All right," he admitted. "So we forget the others. But don't let me see you working for Emmened again."

He rose and left the other man, wandering over the camp, feeling restless with unvented anger. A group of travelers sat around a blanket rolling dice for their day's pay. The cubes clicked and bounced and called forth groans and cheers as they came to rest. Someone would be the winner but, in the end, there could only be one who collected the money. Quentin would take it all.

His irritation grew. Striking out he left the camp, walking toward the night side, his feet noiseless in the grass. He walked for maybe half a mile and then dropped as he saw dim figures in the gloom. Hugging the grass he watched them pass. There were four of them, tall, broad, masculine even in the way in which they walked. They carried nets and the bell-mouthed shapes of sonic guns. One of them carried a small bag in which struggled some form of life.

He wondered why guards of the Matriarch should be so far from camp and what they could be hunting here in this place. The small animals, obviously; they were the only form of life, and Megan had said that the only way to catch them was with nets and sonic guns.

He was thoughtful on his return to camp.

The place had a more festive air. Small fires glowed in the ruby dusk and the scent of cooking food reached his nostrils. The scent stimulated his appetite. Megan would have food or he could get some from the kitchens of the Matriarch. He could even buy food which had been stolen from the tourists-for this brief time they were fair game. He lengthened his stride.

And almost died beneath the blaze of a laser.

Luck saved him. A tufted root twisted beneath his foot and threw him to one side, away from the blast of energy which came from behind. Common sense kept him alive. He continued to fall, letting his body grow limp, hitting the ground face down, pressing the left side of his head against the grass so that it's supposed injury was hidden, masking the right side with an upflung arm. He remained motionless, not moving even when the whisper of footsteps came very close. They stopped, too far away for him to reach, and he held his breath. The scent of the grass was in his nostrils, the damp odor of the ground. The tingling between his shoulders grew almost unbearable but he knew that to move was to die.

The assailant was watching, reluctant, perhaps, to attract attention with a second shot, but certain to fire again in case of doubt. Then, after an eternity, the footsteps rustled away.

After a long while he rolled and sat upright.

He was alone. No silhouette blocked the sky, no shape stood in near-invisibility against the purple of the east. He could see nothing but the loom of tents and the tiny glow of fires bright against the red-stained sky of the west. Whoever had fired had vanished as quietly as he had come. Or as she had come. There was no way to tell.

Dumarest wondered who had wanted him dead.

The guards, perhaps? One could have spotted him and have circled to cut him down and shut his mouth. A creature of the Prince of Emmened seeking revenge for the death of his favorite? A traveler bribed by the factor to burn him down so that he could keep his passage money? There was no way of telling.

The camp had settled down by the time he returned. Weary figures hugged the ground, watchful figures guarded the tents, and even the tourists had gathered in little clumps for mutual protection. One of them waved to him as he passed. He was a smooth, rosily fat man wearing bright clothes and with a peculiarly marked ring on his finger.

"Hey, friend, care for a game?"

"Of what?" Dumarest halted, wondering if they knew who he was. His dress was not that of the rest of the travelers.

"You name it, well play it." The man riffled a deck of cards. "Highest, lowest, man-in-between. Best guess — straight or two out of three. Starsmash, olkay, nine-card nap. Your choice, friend." The cards made a dry rattling as he passed them from one hand to the other. "Come close and have a drink."

"I'll take the drink." After his narrow escape Dumarest felt that he could do with it. The man handed him a bottle and he lifted it to his lips. He swallowed, a gulp of a full three ounces. It was good liquor. "Thanks." He handed back the bottle. The man's eyes widened as he took it.

"Say, I know you! You're the one who beat the prince's fighter. That was something I wouldn't have wanted to miss." He became confidential. "Listen, if you want to turn professional I could fix you up all the way."

"No."

"Maybe you're right." The gambler wasn't annoyed at the abrupt refusal. "A pro gets known too fast. Tell you what. Let me handle things. I know quite a few places that have a liking for blood. We can kid them to back their local and then you step in. Get it? Just like you did with Moidor but this time you'd get plenty of gravy." He chuckled. "I forgot. You didn't do so bad. A High passage is plenty of loot for a-" He broke off. Dumarest finished the sentence.

"For a stranded bum of a penniless traveler?" His voice was very gentle. "Is that what you were going to say?"

"No!" The man was sweating. "Look, no offense. Have another drink."

"I'll cut you for a double-handful of units," said Dumarest. He leaned close so that the man could see his eyes. "High man wins." He watched the deft way in which the man shuffled the cards. "I've got the feeling I'm going to win," he said evenly. "It's a pretty strong feeling. I'll be annoyed if it's wrong."

He won. He wasn't surprised. He wasn't ashamed either of the way he had forced the result. A man had to learn to pay for a loose mouth. The gambler had got off cheap.

He left the tourists and headed across the camp, carefully stepping over slumbering figures huddled around the fires. A small line had formed where the Brothers Angelo and Benedict had set up their portable church and he wondered at the energy of the monks. His eyes narrowed as he found what he was looking for. Sime, apparently fast asleep, rested beside his coffin.

Dumarest looked around. It was still too bright for him to be totally unobserved if anyone were watching but details would be blurred by the dim light. He dropped to one knee very close to the sleeping man. His hand touched the coffin and he leaned forward-and saw the gleam of watchful eyes.

"Sime?"

"What is it?" The man lifted himself on one elbow. His gaunt chest was bare beneath the ragged tatters of his shirt, his face skeletal in the ruby glow. "What do you want?"

"I've got a proposition." Dumarest leaned close so that the man could smell the liquor on his breath. "Remember me? I helped you carry this thing from the field." His hand rapped the coffin.

"I remember."

"Well, I can get you a lift with it. A couple of units will do it."

No.

"Are you stupid? We've got as far again to go. You want to pass out before we reach the mountains?"

"No. Of course not."

"Then how about it?" Dumarest sounded impatient. "A couple of units to one of the guards. Its worth it."

"Thank you, but I can't." Sime reared upright and rested one arm on the lid of the box. "I know that you mean well but it's a personal matter. Please try to understand."

Dumarest shrugged. "Suit yourself-it's your funeral."

He rose to his feet, half turned and caught a glimpse of movement. He lurched toward it and almost trod on the recumbent body of the old crone who had traveled with Sime. She appeared to be fast asleep.

Melga adjusted the hypogun and held the nozzle close to the furry hide of the small animal which Dyne held writhing in his hands. It was desperate with terror. Its mouth gaped and its eyes bulged but it made no sound aside from the harshness of its breathing. She watched it for a moment then pressed the trigger. Air blasted a charge of anesthetic through the hide and into the bloodstream. Immediately the animal went limp.

"I have changed the dosage and chemical content of the anesthetic," said the physician. She took the animal from the cyber's hands and fastened it to the surface of her dissecting table. "On the next specimen I shall, if necessary, simply sever the sensory nerves to the brain." She sat down, picked up a heavy scalpel and bared the skull with a few, deft strokes. She had had much practice. The dissected remains of half a score of the creatures stood in plastic containers. She had concentrated on the skull.

"Perhaps it would be as well to dissect without undue concern for the creature's pain," suggested Dyne. Like the woman he wore a surgeon's gown and mask. Elbow-length gloves covered his hands. "It could be that any anesthetic used will destroy what we are trying to find."

"Possible," agreed the woman, "but very unlikely." She cut and snipped and discarded. A saw whined briefly as she sliced through the top of the skull. A suction device removed the circle of bone. Blood welled over the surface of the living brain. "While I agree that chemicals may alter the metabolism they can hardly change the physical structure. But I may have to make perfectly sure." The blood vanished into the maw of a sucking tube as she adjusted the instrument. "However pain, in itself, can serve no useful end. The muscles will be tense, the blood cells engorged, the entire glandular system in a state of abnormality." She swung a glass over the wound and selected a delicate probe. "Fear is also an important consideration. It may be as well to gas the next collection of specimens to ensure that they are uncontaminated by the effects of the emotion."

Dyne made no comment. He leaned forward, watching as the woman cut and probed into the mass of living tissue, her expert fingers baring the innermost recesses of the creature's brain. He caught the faint sound of her indrawn breath.

"Something new?"

"No."

She put down the probe and picked up a scalpel. Quickly she stripped the rest of the hide from the now-dead creature. Again she cut and delved, this time with more speed but with no less skill. Finally she put aside her instruments and leaned back in her chair.

"The same," she said flatly. Her voice was heavy with fatigue. "Exactly like the others."

"You regard the evidence as conclusive?"

"There can be no doubt. The random sampling would have shown any divergences if they existed. No divergences were found. We must accept the logical conclusion."

Leaning forward she pressed the release. The disposable topsheet of the dissecting table sprang from the edges into a cup cradling the unwanted remains. She threw it into a disposal unit. A gush of blue flame converted it to ash.

Dyne narrowed his eyes at the brief glare. "You are not preserving the remains?"

"It would be unnecessary duplication-the specimen yielded nothing new."

She leaned back, acutely conscious of the confines of the tent, the clutter of her equipment. She was a tidy woman and such confusion caused mental irritation. Dyne didn't help. He stood, a watchful figure, to one side of the table, the dissecting light casting hollows beneath his eyes. She wished that he would sit down or go away. She always worked better alone.

"We can now be quite certain that these creatures have no functioning auditory system," she said, knowing that he waited for her summation. "They have no outer ear-in itself not too important, but they have no ossicle and no tympanic cavity. They have a membranous labyrinth containing otoliths and similar in structure to that of the gnathosomes. This takes care of their sense of balance but it is not connected to anything which could be a functioning auditory nerve."

"Could it be vestigial?" He was shrewd, she thought before answering.

"No. There is simply no recognizable nerve tissue present which it could be and no connection to the outer hide or to any form of tympanic membrane. The conclusion is inescapable. These creatures are completely devoid of the mechanism of an auditory system."

She closed her eyes, feeling waves of fatigue rolling over her like the waves of a sea, remotely conscious of the dull ache in her hands and wrists. Once it would not have been like this. Once she had been able to sit at her table and work and work and work… She caught herself on the edge of sleep and opened her eyes to the glare of the dissecting light. Age, she thought wryly. It comes to us all.

Something brushed against one of the walls. A soft tread whispered beyond the plastic-one of the ubiquitous guards of the Matriarch on her rounds. Dyne waited until she had moved away.

"So these creatures are completely deaf. Is that your summation?"

"I didn't say that they were deaf." The physician reached out and snapped off the dissecting light. The comparative gloom was restful to her eyes. "I said that they had no auditory system."

The cyber could recognize the difference but he wondered why the woman was being so precise. "Exactly. But with no auditory system they must be completely deaf in the sense that we use the word."

She nodded.

"Then they cannot receive and interpret external vibration." He was insistent. "You are positive as to that?"

She had been positive from the first. Scientific thoroughness had prompted the following dissections and now there could be no doubt. Without an auditory system the animals were stone-deaf. The sonic guns used to trap them? They operated directly on the nervous system and created a condition of panic fear. The victim had no choice but to run from the point of maximum disturbance. Ground vibration? Perhaps they could sense it but in a manner she couldn't yet tell.

But, without the ability to hear, how could they survive? How could they hunt, mate, elude ordinary means of capture?