The dust began to kick up in discernible clouds, wave fronts borne on the wind. The sand ran in moving serpentines like water across the broad shelf of sandstone which he followed.
He turned his head yet again, half-blinded by the sand, lowered his visor against the dust.
And when he looked back again before him there was a black figure on the northwest horizon, nearer by far than he had expected, and in a different quarter.
Panic tugged at him, bidding him swing away south, and perhaps that was what they wanted him to do. He glanced to that horizon and saw nothing but naked land and naked, sand-fouled sky. There was an incline: his eye had learned to pick variations out of the vast samenesses, the incredible flat expanses. Ambush was possible there.
He bore west, summoning his dus with all his might, apprehensive now of every quarter of the horizon. They might cut him off to question him; and even a stone’s-throw sight of him would tell them he did not belong here, that some connection might be made between ships and destroyed cities and a stranger-kel’en.
Only the dusei, if they had not killed them, his own and the wild ones which were its offspring, might set fear enough into them, sendings of nameless dread.
But time would come when that fear itself drove them to attack, for kel’ein were trained to caution, not cowardice. They would fight the fear as readily as they would an enemy.
His heartbeat hammered in his temples; there came times when he walked blind, sight blurred, numbed by want of air. He dared not, as he wanted desperately to do—abandon the pack. They would come on it, know by the alien things of it that here was a mystery they could not leave unsolved. A sand-laden gust rocked him, rattled off his lowered visor, stinging his hands, the only part of his flesh exposed. He leaned into it, hands tucked into the wide sleeves of his robes. The battering gusts made him stagger, and after a time he was less and less sure that he remained true to west. The rock underfoot was uneven, and dipped and rose, misguiding him when he needed to catch his balance.
Dus, he sent, desperate, cursing it for its tendency to be elsewhere when it was most needed. The wind blasted body heat away from him, weakened his limbs. He began to be afraid, wondering whether to take shelter for fear of the wind itself, or to keep walking, trying to lose his pursuers while the wind erased tracks and obscured vision.
He slipped suddenly, rock peeling under his feet; he hit soft sand, caught his balance, tried to retreat onto the sandstone shelf, but it had run out. He tried vision without the visor, a mistake; he lowered it again, and in that little time he stopped to clear his eyes his limbs were chilled to the bone, shaking so that it tore his joints.
He was blind and out on open sand; and of a sudden he began to be very much afraid, that he was making wrong choices, that he should have stayed on the rock surface. It was not panic fear, only deep dread; he kept moving, into the wind, the only means he had of determining west.
Fear grew. He looked behind him and the bleared eye of Na’i’in showed through the storm and the visor like the ghost of a sun, wan and sickly hued. In all the world there was neither up nor down, neither horizon nor sand underfoot, only the sun strong enough to penetrate the murk. He swung about again, sucked dusty air through the veils, weary with the battering. If he went down, he thought, he would die.
“Dus,” he muttered aloud, wishing, pleading it back to him. The wind drowned all sound, the demon voice becoming an element in itself. His knees tottered under him, his joints wearied from the slipping sand and the force of the gusts, until at last he slipped to his knees and hunched away from the wind, fumbling with shaking hands after the bit of pipe he carried. His fingers were stiff; he bit the piece instead of using the knife, stuffed the rest back. His mouth was so dry it stuck, and his eyes stung with the dryness. “Dus,” he murmured again, despairing.
A curious paralysis had settled on him, the cessation of pain. The wind vibrated into his very bones, masked every other sound, and became no-sound. He had no more force at his back; sand was piling up there, sheltering him, making an arc about him, drifting into his lap.
And fear—grew. Sweat prickled on his skin, sucked dry before it could run. He began to think of something creeping up on him, something better adapted than he to the wind and storm—it seeped into him, so that slowly he moved, stirred himself, thrust himself to his feet and staggered farther against the wind. Panic drove him, a dread so strong he tore his knees with his driving strides.
Dus-fear, not his own: he recognized it suddenly; not his own beast, but another, and near. It drew on the images of the rational mind, shaped itself. Ha-dus, wild one, wild-born, of the tame pair the mri had brought here . . . and dangerous without his own to fend it back.
He moved; it was all he could do.
And suddenly a shadow came at him on the other side.
He snatched at the shortsword, staggering aside—knew suddenly, recognized it.
His dus. It materialized out of the murk, pressed against him, and he sank down with its great body between him and the wind. It wove this way and that between him and the gusts; and another shape and another joined it, slope-shouldered, massive, weaving him a circle of protection. He knew his own, flung his arms about its hot, fat-rolled neck, and the beast heaved itself down beside him, five hundred kilos of velvet-furred devotion, venom-clawed, radiating a ward-impulse that meant business.
The other dusei, the wild ones, settled about him so that among the three he was warm and sheltered from the wind. Sand built up about them too, but each time they rose and shook it off, their great strength untroubled by the effort. He lay against the shoulder of his own, breathing in great gasps—found strength enough to finally shrug out of the pack, to fumble out packets of dried food. He put bits in his mouth, sipped at the canteen, holding water there to moisten them, and finally gained control enough to chew and swallow.
His dus nudged at him, begging; he offered it a piece of dried meat. The massive head pushed at his hand, flat face inclined; the prehensile upper lip picked the tidbit off so delicately he felt nothing but the hot bread on his hand. The other dusei crowded him, and for one and then the other he offered remainder, in either hand, fingers carefully out of the way, for the jaws could crush bone. The bits vanished as daintily as the other. He tucked down again, hands within sleeves, conscious of vibration, first from his own dus and then from the others, pleasure-sound, inaudible in the shriek of the wind. Eyes shut, ears down, nostrils opening only slightly, filtering through fringed internal hairs and membranes, the dusei were not suffering in the least.
Duncan snugged down between, wiped what he reckoned was a trace of blood from his nose and bit himself off another bit of pipe, as safe as any man could be in Kutath’s wild, companioned by such as these.
Chapter Four
The younglings huddled, muttered in hissing whispers. Occasionally one looked up, shifted weight uncomfortably.
Suth loathed them, once companions. They came near the bed when they must, offering food rich and elaborate. They trembled until it was accepted. They mourned one elder on the ship; another was in the making. Suth Horag-gi clenched degh’s bony lips and groaned in the agony of Change.
Suth: it, neuter until the hormonal shifts had begun to course hot and cold through degh’s body, until appetite increased and temper shortened to the verge of madness. The ship Shirug moved far apart from human ships orbiting Kutath, and ignored inquiries. There was the Wrapping of the departed elder; there was mourning; there was ag-arhd, the Consuming. These were secret things, in which Suth felt an instinctive vulnerability. Degh was not capable of full function in degh’s hormone-tormented state, moving toward Change. Humans inquired, offered help, doubtless deviously motivated, hoping to learn enough to gain control . . . offered regret, soliciting information in the process. Degh commanded degh’s attendants to silence.
Degh ate. Already the pallor of youngling skin was diminishing, and each move freed tissue-thin sheets of former skin, exposing elder-dark new skin b
eneath, a complete skin change twice since the Consuming. Suth was sore, sensitive new skin like a bleeding wound. The joints of degh’s facial plates ached, aggravated by the need to eat, to drink, constantly. Degh burned with fever, heightened metabolism, and most of all those parts which had not yet determined function burned, swollen, maddening with pain.
A youngling ventured near with mul, water-soaked, to ease the skin. Suth suffered it, sucking on a straw from a mug of soi, occasionally reaching to a platter for a sweet.
Suddenly there was pain, and Suth screamed and flung the platter and struck. Something cracked, and when the grayness cleared, other younglings were bearing away the dead one and cleaning up the spilled sweetmeats. Suth hissed satisfaction, annoyance departed. Another took up the washing, more carefully.
“Report,” Suth breathed, clenching degh’s hand about a new mug of soi. Degh sucked at it, looked at the frightened younglings. “Witless, the news: report.”
“Favor, Honored, there is no report available; storm is covering the land.”
“Storm.”
“A vast and violent storm, Honored, 687.78 koingh across. We attempted to penetrate it, but at this range, and with the dust—”
Suth breathed a sigh of weary pleasure. “Perhaps the human Duncan will die.”
“Perhaps, Honored.”
Degh wished this earnestly. This human had killed the reverence bai Sharn, in command of Shirug. Human elders on Saber had then dismissed this Duncan as if this act were inconsiderable to them. Degh had been only youngling then, neuter, confused, horrified by the death as all the younglings had been horrified.
Now degh yearned toward the death of this human; it was anomaly, perverted; it no longer knew what it was, this Sten Duncan. It had killed younglings, it and its mri allies, and now it killed an elder. Its kind excused this . . . threatened now even to treat with mri, through this mri-imprinted youngling. The very thought set Suth’s hearts to hammering and made degh short of breath.
Forty-three years the mercenary Kel had served regul against humans, and now at war’s end came a new arrangement to trouble regulkind: mri, intriguing with humans.
Adult authority was desperately needed in this crisis, a mind to make decisions on which the survival of other elders might rest, back at Kesrith, even on homeworld itself. Sharn was dead; elder Hulagh was years removed, on Kesrith. Someone had to make the decisions.
The pain . . . .
“Honored, Honored, be easy,” a youngling murmured, sponging gently with the mul. Suth panted and strove to rise, fell back again, amazed at the feel of degh’s own body, the increase in girth. The bony carapace which covered the face ached maddeningly. Degh closed degh’s eyes and breathed in great gasps, aching in degh’s lower belly until the pain was intolerable.
“Degh is in crisis,” a youngling moaned. “Days, days of this; it must end, it must end, or degh will die.”
“Silence!” degh shouted, and shouting helped; the pain ebbed somewhat. Muscles contracted. The hearts sped and the temperature rose.
It was true. Degh was in deep trouble. Degh had served bai Hulagh, male, and approached Impression; degh had looked to the time of Change, knowing degh’s future gender with smug certainty, female to Hulagh’s male . . . ambition, to mate the Eldest of great doch Alagn: security, and vast power.
But to Suth’s lasting dismay there had been transfer; Suth, most honored of Hulagh’s youngling attendants, passed as special favor to bai Sharn, who undertook a mission on which but one elder could be risked: Sharn, female, on a voyage years in length. Maleness tempted; Sharn herself was very high in doch Alagn.
Sharn, female, fourth eldest of one of the greatest of the docha, and murdered by a deranged human youngling.
Degh had been Impressed in witnessing that incomprehensible act. To replace bai Sharn . . . . to be Sharn . . . that desire came with the Consuming.
And degh could not complete the Change, poised between, for days neither Hulagh’s nor Sharn’s, neither female nor male.
Degh screamed aloud and cursed the human who had done this thing, who allied with mri and tried to lure others of his species after. A hundred twenty-three stars, a hundred twenty-three . . . dead . . . lifeless . . . systems. And even after seeing the deadly track the mri had cut through the galaxy . . . humans approached these killers and spoke of peace.
Degh must live. Species demanded. Life demanded. More than personal ambition, more than doch, than the chance of elevating degh’s little doch of Horag, allying to powerful Alagn at its highest levels: these things were motivation . . . but this touched something at depth Suth had never felt, which perhaps no regul had ever had to feel, for no regul had ever confronted such a possibility, death on such a scale. Degh must live, generate, produce lives to deal with this threat, innumerable lives.
There came another touch at degh’s body, faint, tremulous. It was Nagn, an older youngling. And it tore back with a shriek of dismay.
“Honored,” it cried, “I burn!”
It had happened: next eldest had gone prematurely into Change. Suth cried out with relief and shut degh’s eyes.
The pain moved lower. Muscle contractions began at last, fever increasing, skin sloughing and peeling. The younglings brought food, and bathed degh, and applied unguents to the swollen parts.
Scarcely supported by the younglings the Honored Nagn moved again to degh’s side, touched, shuddering in degh’s own pain.
The choice was Suth’s. Suth’s body was making it. The swelling continued as one vestigial set of organs was absorbed, and the other began, in convulsive heaves of Suth’s body, to press down into the membrane covering the aperture . . . descended, evident as it would never be henceforth save in mating.
“Male!” a youngling declared.
Nature’s logic. Suth smiled, a tightening of the muscles beneath his eyes, and this despite the pain. Elsewhere Nagn writhed in the throes of Change, but Nagn’s choice was set, and swifter. Tiag cried out in agony, and Morkhug, the hysteria of Change settling upon all the eldest.
The pain ebbed in time. Suth moved, supported by younglings. Never again would he stand long unaided. His bulk, already increased by his appetite, would increase twice more. His legs, once strong, would atrophy until little muscle lay under the abundant fat, although his arms, constantly exercised by the operation of the prosthetic supports, would remain strong. Senses would dim hereafter, save for sight. The mind dominated. Regul memory was instant and indelible; he would live, barring accident or murder, for three hundred years more, remembering every chance moment and every minute detail to which he paid attention.
He had lived to be adult, and only thirty percent of regul did so; he was, by virtue of being the first adult on the ship, remote from others of greater age . . . an elder, in command of Shirug and of whatever other adults matured; only one percent of regul reached such status.
And by the Change which had come on him he could not now meet his old bai Hulagh as mate . . . but as a rival of another doch. He was senior to Nagn and Tiag and Morkhug, who were Alagn, and therefore this great Alagn ship, the pride of the doch, became Horag territory. Hulagh of Alagn had miscalculated, reckoning every eventuality but Sharn’s premature death and a Horag sexing ahead of the others. Suth smiled.
Then he looked on the three who were in the throes of Change, . . . on Nagn, who was flushing with the swift completion of agonies which had held him for days.
“Out!” he shouted at the other younglings.
They fled. He struck at those who supported him, and they joined the others in flight. He could not long stand, but sank down on his weakened legs, panting.
“Honor, reverend Nagn,” he said.
“Honor, bai Suth.” She struggled to sit. He had deprived her of younglings to help her, but she was female and would always be more mobile than he save in the final stage of carrying.
And she had not near attained his dignity of bulk, nor suffered the several skin changes. Those were, for her, only b
eginning.
“Favor,” said Suth, “Nagn Alagn-ni.”
“Favor, Suth Horag-gi.”
She came to him, the order of their age of Change, although it was established by mere moments. He mated her, with dispatch and twice, for honor to her precedence of the others. She was next eldest and would hold that rank while he held the ship. He moved then, necessity, and mated the other two, which likely would produce no young, but which would Impress them with more haste, painful as it was for them. He would mate them until all three were with as many young as they could carry. These were his officers; it was economical, his maleness. There was need of rapid reproduction of Horag young: eldest claimed all young in any mating. As other younglings aboard Shirug sexed, they would sex under his Impress, female.
Horag young would increase on the ship at first by the factor of the litters these three would bear; and more, with more females. Had he sexed female as he had first tended, the Alagn youngling Nagn would have sexed male in complement, and the next two would have sexed randomly, with himself bearing three to five young as female, some by Nagn, some by any other young male that might develop, and though he could claim such young as Horag, as female he could make only a small nest of Horag young on an otherwise Alagn ship.