“He’s all right,” Tyra said. “In better shape than you, actually. The locals were a bit leery of having him in the village, but they put up a shelter for him and Hans has been working on him.”
“Speak of der teufel,” Hans said, ducking through the doorway of bamboo sections on string. “Aren’t you sitting pretty, young feller,” he added. Tyra blushed slightly and set Jonah’s head back on the pillow.
“Your furry friend is fine, as far as I can tell,” the old man went on. “Growling and muttering about that brother of his.”
“Who nearly killed both of us,” Jonah said grimly.
He felt at the side of his face; the swellings were gone, and his fingers slid over the slickness of spray-skin. From the slightly distant feel from within, he was on painblockers, but not too heavily.
“He would have killed me, if Spots hadn’t jumped him.” Jonah shook his head. “I’m surprised. Usually, if a kzin swears a formal oath, they’ll follow it come core-collapse or memory dump; look at the way Spots stood up for me. I can see Bigs challenging me, but to try and kill me in my sleep-”
“Temptation can do funny things to a mind, human or non,” Hans said shrewdly. “Seem to remember one feller who wouldn’t believe there was a fuzzball under a rock, on account of temptation.”
Jonah flushed, conscious of Tyra’s curiosity “When will I be ready to ride?” he said.
“Not for a week at least,” Tyra said firmly.
Hans tugged at his whiskers. “Funny you should ask; Spots said the same thing, more or less.” His button blue eyes appraised the younger man. “Neither of you was infected.” Wunderland bacteria were not much of a threat to humans; the native biochemistry lacked some elements essential to Terrestrial life, and vice versa. “He’s healing real fast, seems to be natural for him. You’re dehydrated, and those cuts shouldn’t be put under much strain, sprayskin or no. Say three days, minimum.”
“One,” Jonah said grimly. He held up a hand at Tyra, stopping her before the words left her lips. “It’s not just what we-Montferrat-could do with the knowledge. It’s what that tnuctipun could do, once it’s out of its bottle. I think we badly underestimated it. I believe it’s controlling Bigs, somehow. Control, hypnosis. Maybe what the Thrintun do for all I know. That thing is a deadly danger every instant it’s free, never mind what the government or the ARM would do with it. I think it would be better if the ARM does get it. Maybe they can dispose of it.
Hans nodded. “Can’t say as I like it, but you’re talking sense,” he said.
Slowly, reluctantly, Tyra nodded too. “I might have expected boldness like that from you,” she murmured.
“Tanj. It’s common sense.”
“Which is not common.”
Bigs shook his head again, trying to clear the stuffed-wool feeling. ft refused to go away, even though he was thinking more clearly again. More calmly, at least. The mule-beast brayed in his ear, then shied violently when he threatened its nose with outstretched claws.
Stupid beast, he thought with a snarl, then exerted all his strength to haul it down again and hold it back; they were both very thirsty, but he could not let it run to the little watercourse ahead. It is does not even have enough brains to obey through fear. The ruined manor-house was half a kilometer ahead, and Neu Friborg beyond that. He would rest for the day in the ruins, and help Durvash when he emerged from the autodoc. Then he would pass the town in the dark and walk down the trail to Munchen until he could buy a ride on a vehicle.
“And abandon this stinking, stupid mule-beast,” he muttered to himself.
With grim patience he led it down the steep day bank to the slow-moving creek and moved upstream, throwing himself down to lap. I; was the ground-scent that alerted him, since the wind was in his face. That and the clatter of pebbles as feet walked the bank behind him. He was up and turning in a flash, but his feet and hands were further away than they should have been, and he shook his head fretfully again. Spots. I smell Spots. Stand by me, brother Bare is a back without brother to guard it. Spots was dead, he remembered, and forced his fur to bottle out.
Four humans, all armed but scruffy and hungry looking, their ribs standing out. The leader-beast a taller one with heavy facial pelt and the remains of a swollen belly. Bigs grinned and waited.
“Hey, what’s a ratcat doing here outback?” the leader asked. The voice had a haunting familiarity, except that the stuffing in his head got in the way.
“Nice mule,” one of the others said, examining the beast. It snapped at him, and he slapped its nose down with an experienced hand. “Hey, good saddle too.”
Bigs snarled. “Away from my possessions, monkeys,” he said, backing toward the animal and retreating slightly to keep all the humans in his field of vision. They were ambling forward, not seeming to spread out deliberately but edging around behind him all the same. His head swiveled.
“Hey, that’s not polite!” the big manbeast said, grinning insolently. “You shouldn’t call us monkeys no more, on account of we kick your hairy asses.”
Bigs felt fury build within him and his tail stiffen, then inexplicably drain away. I must dominate them, he told himself.
“We just poor bush-country men. You got any money? That’s a fine strakkaker you got, and a nice beamer. Maybe I recognize the beamer-maybe we had one like it a while ago, before my luck got bad?” The leader’s face convulsed. “Maybe Ed Gruederman should boot some head, hey?”
“Get back!” Bigs said. The monkeys continued their slinking, sidling advance.
His hand blurred to the strakkaker, and he pivoted to spray the monkey nearest Durvash, he would turn and cut them all down. The weapon clicked and crackled-there was sand in the muzzle! He crouched to leap, but something very cold flashed across the small of his back. Something huge, like his father’s hand, slapped him across the left side of his head, and he was falling. Falling for a very long time. Then he was lying, and he hurt very much, but his head seemed clear
“Forgive me, brother,” he whispered. Soft hands reached down out of time to lift and hold him, and a tongue washed his ears. A voice crooned wordlessly. He closed his eyes, and welcomed the long fall into night.
“Hey, Ed-look at that!”
Ed Gruederman glanced over to where a rifle muzzle prodded the huge wound on the dead kzin’s head, right where his left ear would have been. Silvery threads were lifting out of the blood and grey matter, almost invisibly thin, twisting and questing in the light. He slid his cleaned machete back into the sheath behind his right hip and walked over to the mule.
“Get back from that, you scheissekopf,” he called to the man by their victim. Stupid ratcat, not to think we had a sniper ready. “That’s some kzin shit, it may be catching, you know, like a fungus.”
The bandit jumped back and leveled his rifle, firing an entire cassette into the dead carnivore. When it clicked empty the torso had been cut in half, but the tendrils still waved slowly.
“Watch it, fool, we’re close to town-you want them to hear us and call the mounted police?” Then: “Yazus Kristus!”
They all crowded around, until he beat them back with his hat. “Gold,” he said reverentially, lifting one of the plastic sacks from that side of the packsaddle.
They all recognized it, of course. Nobody could be in their line of work in the Jotuns and not recognize gold dust; for one thing, nothing else was that heavy for its size. They counted the bags, running their hands over them until their leader lashed the tarpaulin back.
“Ten, fifteen thousand krona,” one muttered. “Oh, the verguuz and bitches I can buy with this.”
“Buy with your share, if Ed Gruederman can keep your shitty head on your sisterfucking shoulders that long,” their leader replied. “Back! There’s an assessor’s office in Neu Friborg. We’ll stop there and get krona and sell the mule, and then head for Munchen or Arhus-on-Donau, the Jotuns is no place for an honest man these days-too many police. Look at them, letting ratcats wander around attacking humans.”
That brought grins and laughter. “What’s this, boss?” one asked, lifting the smooth featureless egg that balanced the mule’s load.”
It shifted in his arms, and he dropped it with a cry of surprise. That turned to horror as it split open, and a spindly-limbed creature rose shakily from the twin halves; it was spider thin, blue-black and rubbery with three crimson eyes and a mouthful of teeth edged like a saw.
“Scheisse!” the bandit screamed. The mobile lips moved, perhaps in the beginning of wait.
The motion never had time to complete itself. A dozen rounds tore the little creature to shreds, until Gruederman shouted the bandits into sense-they were in more danger from each other’s weapons than from
