hauling their lockbox from the pile of gear and sitting on it. Its tattered leather cover disguised the alloy container inside, secured.with a lock that could only be opened by the fingerprint of one of the three of them. He plucked at the two-stringed lute that he had made in frank imitation of the one he had seen the jongleur use, and hummed a song to himself. A passing tribesman stopped and watched the cainach being erected. Jason recognized the man as one of the riders who had intercepted them earlier and decided to take no notice of him. He plinked out a version of a spaceman’s drinking song.
“Good strong woman but stupid. Can’t put up a camach right,” the tribesman said suddenly, pointing with his thumb.
Jason had no idea what he should say, so he settled for a grunt. The man persisted, scratching in his beard while he openly admired Meta.
“I need a strong woman. I’ll give you six goats for this one.”
Jason saw that it was more than her strength that the man admired. Meta, working hard, had taken off her heavy outer furs, and her slim figure was far more attractive than the squat and solid ones of the nomad women. Her hair was neat, her teeth unbroken, her face unmarked or scarred.
“You wouldn’t want her,” Jason said. “She sleeps late, eats too much. Costs too much. I paid twelve goats for her.”
“I’ll give you ten,” the warrior said, walking over and grabbing Meta by the arm and pulling her about so he could look at her.
Jason shuddered. Perhaps the tribeswomen were used to being treated like chattels, but Meta certainly wasn’t. Jason waited for the explosion, but she surprised him by pulling her arm away and turning back to her work.
“Come here,” Jason told the man. He had to break this up before it went too far. “Come have a drink. I have good aehadh.”
It was too late. The warrior shouted in anger at being resisted by a mere woman and, with his bunched fist, struck her over the ear, then reached to pull her about again.
Meta stumbled from the force of the unexpected blow and shook her head. When he pulled at her this time, she did not resist but spun about, bringing up her arm at the same time. The stiffened outer edge of her hand caught him across the larynx, almost fracturing it, rendering him voiceless. She stood, ready now, while the man doubled over, coughing hoarsely and spitting up blood.
Jason tried to spring forward, but it was over before he had taken a single pace.
The warrior’s fighting reflexes were good, but Meta’s were even better. He came out of the crouch, blood streaming down his chin, with a knife in his hand, swinging it up underhand jn a wicked knifefighter’s thrust.
Meta clutched his wrist with both her hands, twisting at the same instant so that the knife went by her. She continued to twist, levering the man’s arm up behind his back, exerting bone-breaking pressure so that the knife dropped from his powerless lingers. She could have left it at this, but, because she was a Pyrran, she did not.
She caught the knife before it touched the ground, straightened and brought it slanting up into the man’s back, below and inside his rib cage, sinking it to the hilt so the blade penetrated his lung and heart, killing him instantly. When she released him, he sank, unmoving, to the ground.
Jason sank back onto the lockbox and, as though by chance, his forefinger touched the keying plate and he felt the click as the bolt unlatched. A number of onlookers had watched the encounter and a hum of astonishment filled the air. One woman waddled over and picked up the man’s arm, which dropped limply when she released it. “Dead!” she said in an astonished voice and looked wonderingly at Meta.
“You two over here!” Jason called out, using their own “tribal” tongue that the crowd would not understand. “Keep your weapons handy and stand close. If this really gets rough, there are gas grenades and your guns in here. But once we use them, we’ll have to wipe out or capture the entire tribe. So let’s save that as a last resort.”
Shanin, with a score of his warriors behind him, pushed through the crowd and looked unbelievingly at the dead man. “Your woman kill this man with his own knife?”
“She did, and it was his own fault. He pushed her around, started trouble, then attacked her. It was just self-defense. Ask anyone here.” There was a mutter of agreement from the crowd.
The chief seemed more astonished than angry. He looked from the corpse to Meta, then swaggered over and took her by the chin, turning her head back and forth while he examined her. Jason could see her knuckles go white but she kept her control.
“What tribe she from?” Shanin asked.
“Prom far away, in the mountains, far north. Tribe called the… Pyrrans. Very tough fighters.”
Shanin grunted. “I never heard of them.” As though his encyclopedic knowledge ruled them out of existence, “What’s their totem?”
What indeed, Jason thought? It couldn’t be a rat or a weasel. What kind of animals had they seen in the mountains? “Eagle,” he announced, with more firmness than he felt. He had seen something that looked like an eagle once, circling the high peaks.
“Very strong totem,” Shanin said, obviously impressed. He looked down at the dead man and stirred him with his foot. “He has a morope, some furs. Woman can’t have them.” He looked up shrewdly at Jason, waiting for an answer.
The answer to that one was easy. Women, being property themselves, could not own property. And to the victor went the spoils. Don’t let anyone ever say that dinAlt was not generous with secondhand moropes and used furs.
“The property is yours, of course, Shanin. That is only right. I would never think of taking them, oh no! And I shall beat the woman tonight for doing this.”
It was the right answer and Shanin accepted the booty as his due. He started away, then called back over his shoulder. “He could not have been a good fighter if a woman killed him. But he has two brothers.”
That meant something all right, and Jason gave it some thought as the people in the crowd dispersed, taking the dead man with them. Meta and Grif finished erecting the cover on the camach and carried all of their goods inside. Jason dragged in the lockbox himself, then sent Grif together the goats closer in, near their moropes. The killing could lead to trouble.
It did, and faster than Jason had imagined. There were some thuds and a shrill scream outside and he raced for the entrance. Most of the action was over by the time he reached it.
A half dozen boys, relatives perhaps of the dead man, had decided to exact a little revenge by attacking Grif. Most of them were older or bigger than he, so they must have planned on a quick attack, a beating and a hasty retreat. It did not work out quite as planned.
Three boys had grabbed him, to hold him securely while the others administered the drubbing. Two of these now lay unconscious on the ground, for the Pyrran boy had cracked their skulls together, while the third rolled in agony after having been kneed in the groin. Grif was kneeling on the neck of the fourth boy while attempting to break the leg of the fifth by twisting it up behind his back. The sixth boy was trying to get away and Grif was reaching for his knife to stop him before he made his escape.
“Not the knife!” Jason shouted, and helped the survivor on his way with a good boot in the coccyx. “We’re in enough trouble without another killing.”
Scowling, deprived of his pleasure, Grif elicited both a shrill scream, with an extra ankle twist, and a choked groan, from under his grinding
knee. Then he stood and watched while the survivors limped and crawled from the area of combat. Except for a rapidly blackening eye and a torn sleeve, he himself was un,hurt. Jason, speliking calmly, managed to get him inside the camach, where Meta put a cold compress on his eye.
Jason laced up the entrance and looked at his two Pyrrans, their tempers still aroused, stalking around as though still looking for trouble.
“Well,” he said, shrugging his shoulders, “no one can say that you don’t make a strong first impression.”
8
