Sam had the knife in his hand. He didn’t remember getting it there, but it was there, open, sharp, something better than teeth, though not much. It was only a tool, something to cut vegetables with, in the fields, something to cut fruit from a tree or bush. Not a weapon, not intended as a weapon.
He felt claws rake his arms, smelled the breath of the thing, hot and stinking. He struck out with the knife and was rewarded with a howl, not so much of pain as of surprise. He leapt forward, knife out, slashing it, trying to wound. The knife encountered something hard, bone perhaps, and the howls increased in fury.
The thing came at him again, brushing his knife hand aside. Sam ducked, getting under the clutching arms, feeling the heavy body go by him. He whirled, grabbed, touched the head, lunged forward to get his arm around the creature’s thick, muscle wrapped neck.
He was whipped from side to side, knocked against the stones. His knife flew away, somewhere; he thought he heard a splash. He had his hands locked, arm around the throat of the thing, pressed tight as he hung on. Warm, metal-smelling blood ran over his chest. His own? The thing’s? He couldn’t tell.
Time crawled. He was dizzy and weak. He held on as long as he could and then let go. The thing went away from him, or fell, perhaps. He couldn’t tell. After a time, he struggled to his feet and staggered back the way he had come. When he came to the pool, the high bank defeated him. He couldn’t climb it, A star shining through a notch showed him the way to get out, a rocky defile, like a flight of monster stairs. He was barely able to climb them.
• Sal just happened to be up around dawn—little Sahke had had a stomach ache, which had kept her restless through the night—when Sam came home. She saw him in the street, covered with blood, as though he had been run through a harvester. She screamed and ran to him.
“All right, all right,” he said, pushing her hands away.
“But Sam, you’re cut, you’re bleeding, you’re … come inside, let me wash … call the medical techs …” And all the time he was pushing her hands away.
She got him into the kitchen of the brotherhouse and went at him with a wet towel, finding to her astonishment that it wasn’t all his blood he was covered in. Oh, there were one or two cuts and tears, nothing too serious, as though something had sliced at him with a knife, or fangs. One tear on his arm might need closing up, but most of the thick, horrid blood wasn’t Sam’s. It didn’t even smell like human blood.
She took his helmet and sword belt and put them away. No need for the med-tech to see those.
“What … how?” she cried into his peaceful face. “What did you …”
“Something out there in the dark,” he said at last. “I was walking, and it attacked me.”
“But what was it, Sam?”
He sighed, blinking at her sleepily. “It had teeth and claws and bad-smelling breath. It came at me from behind. It was dark. I’m pretty sure I killed it. At least I hurt it, I know that.”
“Why didn’t you use the link, Sam?” She slapped it with her hand, angry at him. “Why didn’t you use the link?”
He only blinked at her, not answering as she used it, summoning Africa and Jebedo Quillow, who went to get the Tharby men up. The settlement had no sniffers or dogs or anything like them, but Jebedo Quillow was a good tracker. Meantime the med-tech had arrived and was busy sealing up the long tears on Sam’s arm with coag and body glue.
Jebedo and his group returned midmorning, saying they’d found where the attack took place right enough, blood all over everything and the bones of something biggish, the size of a big man. But the birds and ferfs and pocket squirrels had been at it, and nothing was left but the bones, and they didn’t look mannish, somehow. Not quite.
“Where?” she asked.
“Out in that strange canyon with the little river and the caves,” they told her.
“What little river? What strange canyon with the caves?” she demanded, never having heard of any such thing.
“That one,” said Jebedo Quillow, “that funny little old one that’s out there.”
Sam slept peacefully, a slight, wondering smile on his lips.
• Saturday Wilm wanted her cousin Jep to go fishing with her. Jep was as determined to spend the off-day playing scissor hockey with the first level team as a possible substitute player.
“They won’t take you until you’re fifteen, Jep,” she told him. “No matter how good you are.”
“They haven’t seen how good I am, yet,” her cousin announced. “I’m really very good. I’m better than Willum R.”
“You could be the best they’ve ever seen, but they still won’t let you on the team until you’re fifteen.”
“Who told you that?”
“Mam. It’s a Settlement Rule.”
“A big rule, or a little one?” Big rules had to be changed by CM; little rules could be changed by the Topman or by settlement vote.
“It’s a big rule. It’s part of the child labor prohibitions.”
“Playing scissor hockey isn’t labor!” he objected hotly, his voice squeaking in disbelief.
“It is if you play a lot of games against bigger people and your bones aren’t grown yet. That’s what Mam said.”
“Crap,” said Jep. “Why didn’t they tell me that when they said I could come around and play?”
“Because you’ve been pestering them for ages, and they figure if they let you play with them once and get knocked around a little, maybe you’ll get some sense and quit bothering them.”
“Why didn’t they just tell me about the rule, for shish sake. I’m not about to waste time with them if there’s no chance they’ll
