affected Ruth. Her face twisted with remorse, she turned from the nearest cage and faced Locklear with tears streaming down her cheeks. 'Locklear kill?'
'No, no! Sleep,' he insisted, miming it.
She was not convinced. 'No sleeptalk,' she protested, placing a hand on her head and pointing toward the rugged male nearby. And doubtless she was right; in stasis you didn't even dream.
'Before, Locklear take Ruth from little house,' he said, tapping the cage, and then she remembered, and wanted to take the man out then and there. Instead, he got her help in moving the cage onto his improvised dolly and outside to the scooter.
They were halfway to the cabin and a thousand feet up on the heavily-laden scooter when Ruth somehow struck the cage base with her foot. Locklear saw the transparent plastic begin to rise, shouted, and nearly turned the scooter on its side as he leaped to slam the plastic down.
'Good God! You nearly let a wild man loose on a goddamn raft, a thousand feet in the air,' he raged, and saw her cringe, holding her head in both hands. 'Okay, Ruth. Okay, no problem,' he continued more slowly, and pointed at the cage base. 'Ruth no hit little house more. Locklear hit, soon.'
They remained silent until they landed, and Locklear had time to review Newduvai's first in-flight airline emergency. Ruth had not feared a beating. No, it was his own panic that had punished her. That figured: a Kzin telepath sometimes suffered when someone nearby was suffering. He brought food and water from the cabin, placed it near the scooter, then paused before pressing the cage base. 'Ruth-gentle man talk in head same Ruth talk in head?'
'Yes, all gentles talk in head.' She saw what he was getting at. 'Ruth talk to man, say Locklear much, much good magic man.'
He pointed again at the man, a muscular young specimen who, without so much body hair, might have excited little comment at a collegiate wrestling match. 'Ruth friend of man?'
She blushed as she replied: 'Yes. Friend long time.
'That's what I was afraid of, ' he muttered with a heavy sigh, pressed the baseplate, and then stepped back several paces, nearly bumping into the curious Loli.
The man's eyes flicked open. Locklear could see the heavy muscles tense, yet the man moved only his eyes, looking from him to Ruth, then to him again. When he did move, it was as though he'd been playing possum for forty thousand years, and his movements were as oddly graceful as Ruth's. He held up both hands, smiling, and it was obvious that some silent message had passed between them.
Locklear advanced with the same posture. A flat touch of hands, and then the man turned to Ruth with a burst of throaty speech. He was no taller than Locklear, but immensely more heavily-boned and muscled. He stood as erect as any man, unconcerned in his nakedness, and after a double handclasp with Ruth he made a smiling motion toward her breasts. Again, Locklear saw the deeper color of flushing over her face and, after a head-down gesture of negation, she said something while staring at the young man's face. Puzzled, he glanced at Locklear with a comical half-smile, and Locklear tried to avoid looking at the man's budding erection. He told the man his name, and got a reply, but as usual Locklear gave him a name that seemed appropriate. He called him 'Minuteman.' After a quick meal of fruit and water, Ruth did the translating. From the first, Minuteman accepted the fact that Locklear was one of the 'new' people. After Locklear's demonstrations with the Kzin memo screen and a levitation of the scooter, Minuteman gave him more physical space, perhaps a sign of deference. Or perhaps wariness; time would tell.
Though Loli showed no fear of Minuteman, she spoke little to him and kept her distance-with an egg-sized stone in her little fist at all times.
Minuteman treated Loli as a guest might treat an unwelcome pet. Oh yes, thought Locklear, he knows her, all righty…
The hunt, Locklear claimed, was a celebration to welcome Minuteman, but he had an ulterior motive. He made his point to Ruth, who chattered and gestured and, no doubt, silently communed with Minuteman for long moments. It would be necessary for Minuteman to accompany Locklear on the scooter, but without Ruth if they were to lug any sizeable game back to the cabin.
When Ruth stopped, Minuteman said something more. 'Yes, no problem,' Ruth said then.
Minuteman, his facial scars writhing as he grinned, managed, 'Yes, no problem,' and laughed when Locklear did. Amazing how fast these people adapt, Locklear thought. He wakes up on a strange planet, and an hour later he's right at home. A wonderful trusting kind of innocence; even childlike. Then Locklear decided to see just how far that trust went, and gestured for Minuteman to sit down on the scooter after he wrestled the empty stasis cage to the ground.
Soon they were scudding along just above the trees at a pace guaranteed to scare the hell out of any sensible Neanderthal, Minuteman desperately trying to make a show of confidence in the leadership of this suicidal shaman, and Locklear was satisfied on two counts, with one count yet to come. First, the scooter's pace near trees was enough to make Minuteman hold on for dear life. Second, the young Neanderthal would view Locklear's easy mastery of the scooter as perhaps the very greatest of magics and maybe Minuteman would pass that datum on, when the time came.
The third item was a shame, really, but it had to be done. A shaman without the power of ultimate punishment might be seen as expendable, and Locklear had to show that power. He showed it after passing over specimens of aurochs and horse, both noted with delight by Minuteman. The goat had been grazing not far from three does until he saw the scooter swoop near. He was an old codger, probably driven off by the younger buck nearby, and Locklear recalled that the gestation period for goats was only five months-and besides, he told himself, the Outsiders could be pretty dumb in some matters. You didn't need twenty bucks for twenty does.
All of the animals bounded toward a rocky slope, and Minuteman watched them as Locklear maneuvered, forcing the old buck to turn back time and again. When at last the buck turned to face them, Locklear brought the scooter down, moving straight toward the hapless old fellow. Minuteman did not turn toward Locklear until he heard the report of the Kzin sidearm which Locklear held in both hands, and by that time the scooter was only a man's height above the rocks.
At the report, the buck slammed backward, stumbling, shot in the breast. Minuteman ducked away from the sound of the shot, seeing Locklear with the sidearm, and then began to shout. Locklear let the scooter settle but Minuteman did not wait, leaping down, rushing at the old buck which still kicked in its death agony.
By the time Locklear had the scooter resting on the slope, Minuteman was tearing at the bucks throat with his teeth, trying to dodge flinty hooves, the powerful arms locked around his prey. In thirty seconds the buck's eyes were glazing and its movements grew more feeble by the moment. Locklear put away the sidearm, feeling his stomach chum. Minuteman was drinking the animal's blood; sucking it, in fact, in a kind of frenzy.
When at last he sat up, Minuteman began to massage his temples with bloody fingers-perhaps a ritual, Locklear decided. The young Neanderthal's gaze at Locklear was not pleasant, though he was suitably impressed by the invisible spear that had noisily smashed a man-sized goat off its feet leaving nothing more than a tiny hole in the animals breast. Locklear went through a pantomime of shooting, and Minuteman gestured his 'yes.' Together, they placed the heavy carcass on the scooter and returned to the cabin. Minuteman seemed oddly subdued for a hunter who had just chewed a victim's throat open.
Locklear guffawed at what he saw at the cabin: in the cage so recently vacated by Minuteman was Loli, revolving in the slow dance of stasis. Ruth explained, 'Loli like little house, like sleep. Ruth like for Loli sleep. Many like for Loli sleep long time,' she added darkly. It was Ruth who butchered the animal with the w'tsai, while talking with Minuteman. Locklear watched smugly, noting the absence of flies. Damned if he was going to release those from their cages, nor the mosquitoes, locusts, and other pests which lay with the predators in the crypt. Why would any god worth his salt pester a planet with flies, anyhow? The butterflies might be worth the trouble.
He was still ruminating on these matters when Ruth handed him the w'tsai and entered the cabin silently. She seemed preoccupied, and Minuteman had wandered off toward the oaks so, just to be sociable, he said, 'Minuteman see Locklear kill with magic, Minuteman like?'
She built a smoky fire, stretching skewers of stringy meat above the smoke, before answering. 'No good, talk bad to magic man.' . 1 It's okay, Ruth. Talk true to Locklear.'
She propped the cabin door open to adjust the draft, then sat down beside him. 'Minuteman feel bad. Locklear no kill meat fast, meat hurt long time. Meat feel much, much bad, so Minuteman feel much bad before kill meat. Locklear new person, no feel bad. Loli no feel bad. Minuteman no want hunt with Locklear. '
