32
The five espers stood at the top of the hill, with the cold wind in their faces, and they watched the horses grazing and gamboling below. A good hundred of the dark brown, shaggy beasts stood on the flat plain at the base of the icy hills, as yet not cognizant of the espers. If the wind changed they would know danger was near, and they would run. That was the last thing any of the five on the hill wanted. They had obtained food within the last few days, but this success was offset by the gradual realization— obtained through a close study of Tedesco's third map and a comparison of that paper with the previous maps — of how far they had to travel until they reached the landmark known as Deathpit. This journey was to be three times longer than that from the glass craters to the Glacier of Light; without mounts they could expect to spend six months walking.
Melopina huddled against Jask's side, her arm around him. Do you think I could really ride one of those?
You could learn.
They look enormous.
Three meters from ground to shoulder, I make them, Tedesco 'pathed.
And wild — Kiera reminded them. She was sitting in front of the group, on her supple haunches, her hands out on the snow, like a real wolf might sit.
Any suggestions for corraling a few? Jask asked.
The whinny of the beasts rose to them, like distant laughter.
We could employ our extrasensory perception to pacify them, Jask suggested.
How? — Kiera.
Jask considered the exact nature of the problem for a moment, and when he had figured it out, he was somewhat surprised that he should be able to conceive of such a thing and propose it with moral impunity. At one time, not so many months ago, he would have considered his idea perverted, wicked, generated by the Ruiner. Now, because it seemed the easiest way to achieve their ends, he said, Each of us could reach out for a different horse's mind, find it, touch it, mesh with it, pacify the horse and learn its nature intimately. In minutes we should be able to establish a rapport with our mounts that most riders require months to gain.
I thought Tedesco said we must avoid meshing with any but the minds of other human beings.
That would be safest, the bruin 'pathed. He shifted from one heavy foot to the other as he watched the horses, but he made no telltale sound.
No, Jask explained, what the living city taught us was never to mesh our consciousness deeply with an intelligent creature of another race. These horses are by no means intelligent, merely dumb animals.
The others hesitated.
Melopina? Jask asked.
I don't know, she 'pathed. I think we ought to take the living city's message more to heart. I don't think we should risk this.
There'd be no risk.
You can't say for sure — Kiera.
Jask wiped irritably at his eyes, which the biting wind had made slightly teary. His hands were red and chapped, though this was the first day he had not worn gloves since they had entered the highlands. He 'pathed, How else do you suggest we get hold of those tough little beasts — and keep hold of them?
Chaney spat in the thin skiff of snow, through which green-brown grass poked like the hair of a corpse, and he 'pathed, Expediency should not be the only consideration in a situation like this.
Like what? — Jask.
We must be careful — Kiera.
Tedesco nodded.
Melopina remained quiet.
Jask looked at them, perplexed by their attitude, then opened his esp powers and more vigorously sought their thoughts. He was suddenly surprised by what twisted motivations lay behind their reluctance to act.
He 'pathed, You frauds!
Tedesco looked sheepishly at the snow before him, kicked it away from the grass as if he were going to bend over and take a bite.
Making moral judgments again, Chaney said.
Oh boy! Jask roared. When I was reluctant to share telepathic conversation, afraid to use my powers, you labeled me a snob, bigot, idiot and other choice things.
We were hardly that crude, Kiera said, looking over her shoulder but not rising from the cold earth.
You were worse!
But there was a difference, Tedesco said.
Which was?
The bruin sighed, scratched behind his right ear, picked off some ice from his beard and finally explained: You may have considered the rest of us your inferiors, back then, but we were human beings, too. That was different from this. These horses are clearly not our equals. They are inferior to us. We have a right to exercise some prejudice when it comes to meshing minds with mere beasts.
How you rationalize — Jask.
Not rationalization. Common sense, Chaney 'pathed.
What you are suggesting, Jask 'pathed, is that a man becomes — well, tainted by whatever he touches. He shook his head against the wind, hair whipping about his face. Does that mean that a man who collects trash is nothing but trash himself? Does that mean that a man who cures the ill is bound to become ill in a like manner?
You're generalizing — Tedesco. He was still embarrassed for himself and the other three reluctant espers, and he must have already realized that his prejudice was silly. Yet he argued. It was not like the bruin to give up too soon, without at least minimal defense of his position.
According to this new philosophy of yours, Jask goaded them, does a man become a beast because he passes through the Wildlands? If so, we're all beasts already. Do you mean to imply that we are all insane because we meshed with the psychic force that was the living city? Do you further mean for me to believe that Chaney and Kiera are primitives because they hunted our meat with their teeth and claws, like mindless animals?
The wolf-man growled his disapproval of that last remark, and he unthinkingly popped his shiny claws from their protective sheaths, hunched his head forward so that his jaw was more prominent.
I'm not saying that you are an animal, Jask 'pathed to the wolf-man. In fact, I don't think so at all. I'm merely applying the philosophy that you've spouted to me in the last few minutes.
Chaney looked away from him, retracted his wicked claws, spat in the snow and tried to find something to look at besides his four companions and the hundred horses below. He finally settled on lifting his head back and staring at the sky, which was dotted with swiftly moving clouds and stained with late-afternoon sunshine.
Well? Jask asked them again.
No one responded.
Melopina?
I'm afraid, Jask.
He looked at the horses again.
They still grazed peacefully, unaware of the discussion on the hilltop, their long hair shifting this way and that in the wind.
Well, he 'pathed to the other four, I don't intend to walk. If you want to wear your feet to the knees and arrive at the pit four months later than I do, you're welcome to that idiosyncrasy.
He stepped forward, past Kiera.
The horses paid no attention.
He picked out a large, dark mount, sought the shell of its mind with esp fingers, found it, touched it. It was nearly featureless, a smooth shell filled more with general impressions than with details, with emotions rather than intellect, with hazy memories in place of the clarity of a four-dimensional, intellectual understanding of the nature of time. All this was easily grasped— even more easily controlled,
Jask stood for five minutes, motionless, learning the horse, seeking its fears and allaying them, locating its pleasures and promising those.
