"Yes," said Jason.
"You'll be able to help us right away, then, when we break camp and move on. In the next few days, try and teach Howard as much as you can about the animals."
She turned back to Hilary.
"And now, Hilary, we're all going to have to get to work. With luck we'll come past here again before the year's out."
"Good luck," said Hilary.
They embraced.
"And good luck to the rest of you, as well," said Hilary, soberly, sweeping Child-of-God, Jason and Hal with his glance. He turned and walked back to his van, got in and lifted it on its fans. A second later he had spun it end for end and taken it into the trees, on his way back up the slope and out of sight.
Rukh turned away, into conversation with Child-of-God. Hal felt a touch on his elbow. He turned to see Jason.
"Come on, Howard," said Jason, and led him off toward the far edge of the clearing and into the trees beside the stream there.
Chapter Seventeen
In appearance, the men and women of Rukh's command seemed to Hal to be less like guerrilla fighters and more like simple refugees. The strongest impression he received as Jason led him about the confines of the camp was one of extreme poverty. Their beehive-shaped tents were patched and old. Their clothing was likewise patched and mended. Their tools, shelters and utensils, had either the marks of long wear or the unspecific, overall appearance of having been used and used again.
The weapons alone contradicted the refugee appearance, but hardly improved it. If not impoverished fugitives, they were, by all visible signs, at best an impoverished hunting party. There were apparently several dozen of them. Once among the trees, Hal revised his first estimate of their numbers upwards, for the majority of their tents were tucked back in under the greenery in such a way as not to be visible from the edge of the valley cut, above. As Jason led him along upstream to their left, they passed many men and women doing housekeeping tasks, mending, or caring for equipment or clothing.
Those he saw were all ages from late teens to their middle years. There were no children, and no really old individuals; and everyone they passed looked up at them as they went by. Some smiled, but most merely looked; not suspiciously, but with the expressions of those who reserve judgment.
They came, after about a hundred yards, to an area that was not a true opening in the trees, but one sparsely overgrown, so that patches of sunlight struck down between the trees in it, and between trees large patches of sky were visible.
Tethered each beneath a tree, at some little distance from each other, were a number of donkeys cropping the sparse grass and other ground vegetation that the sunlight had encouraged to spring up between the trees. Jason led the way to the nearest animal, patted its head, looked at its teeth and ran his hands over its back and sides.
"In good shape," he said, stepping back. "Rukh's command won't have been too hard pressed by the Militia, lately."
He looked at Hal.
"Did you ever see donkeys before?"
"Once," said Hal. "They still have them in the Parks, on Earth, to use for camping trips."
"Did you ever have anything to do with one of them on a camping trip?" Jason asked.
Hal shook his head.
"I only saw them—and of course, I read about them when I was growing up. But I understand they're a lot like horses."
Jason laughed.
"For what good that does us," he said.
"I only meant," said Hal, "that since I've had something to do with horses, I might find what I know about them useful with these."
Jason stared at him.
"When were you on Earth long enough to learn about horses?"
Hal felt suddenly uncomfortable.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I ended up telling Rukh more than I'd told you—and I still can't tell you. But I forgot for a moment you didn't know. But I've ridden and handled horses."
Jason shook his head slowly, wonderingly.
"You actually did?" he said. "Not variforms—but the original, full-spectrum horses?"
"Yes," said Hal.
He had let it slip his mind that many of Earth's mammals—even the variforms genetically adapted as much as possible to their destination planet—had not flourished on most of the other worlds. The reasons were still not fully understood; but the indications were that, unlike humans, even the highest orders of animals were less adaptable to different environmental conditions, and particularly to solunar and other cycles that enforced changes on their biorhythms. The larger the animals, the less successful they seemed to be perpetuating their own breed under conditions off-Earth; just as, once, many wild animals were unlikely to breed in zoos on Earth. Horses, unlike the ass family, were almost unknown on other worlds, with the exception of the Dorsai, where for some reason they had flourished.
"Do you know anything about harnesses and loading a pack donkey—I mean a pack animal?" asked Jason.
Hal nodded.
"I used to go off in the mountains by myself," said Hal, "with just a riding horse and a packhorse
Jason took a deep breath and smiled.
"Rukh'll be glad to hear this," he said. "Take a look at these donkeys, then, and tell me what you think."
Together they examined the whole string of pack beasts. To Hal's eye they were in good, if not remarkable, shape.
"But if they were my animals, back on Earth," he said, when they were done, "I'd be feeding them up on grain, or adding a protein supplement to their diet."
"No chance for that here," said Jason, when Hal mentioned this. "These have to live like the rest of the Command—off the country, any way they can."
The light had mellowed toward late afternoon as they made their inspection; and it was just about time for the second of the two meals of the day that would be served in the camp. Jason explained this as he led Hal back toward the main clearing.
"We get up and go to bed with the daylight out here," Jason said as they went. "Breakfast is as soon as it's light enough to see what you're eating; and dinner's just before twilight—that's going to vary, of course, if we move into upper latitudes where the day's going to be sixteen hours long in summer."
"It's spring here now, isn't it?" asked Hal.
"That's right. It's still muddy in the lowlands."
The kitchen area turned out to be a somewhat larger tent under the trees on the far side of the clearing. It was filled with food supplies and some stored-power cooking units. A serving line of supports for cooking containers were set up just outside the tent. Inside, were the cook—a slim, tow-headed girl who looked barely into her middle teens—and three assistants at the other end of the age scale, a man and two women in their forties or above. The preparations for the meal were almost done, and food odors were heavy on the twilight-still air. Both Jason and Hal were put to work carrying out the large plastic cooking cans, heavily full with the various cooked foods for the meal; and setting these cans up on the supports of the serving line.
By the time this was done and they had also brought out and set up an equally large container of Harmony-style coffee, the members of the command had begun to queue for dinner, each one having brought his or her own eating tray.
They went down the line of food cans, served by the three assistants with the aid of Jason and Hal. Hal found himself with a large soup-ladle in his hand, scooping up and delivering what seemed to be a sort of stiff gray-brown porridge, of about the consistency of turkey stuffing. To his right Jason was ladling up what was either a gravy or some kind of sauce that went over what Hal had just served.
When the last of those who had gathered had gone through the line the assistants took their turn, followed by Jason and Hal with trays they had been given from the supply tent. Last of all to help herself was the cook, whose name apparently was Tallah. She took only a dab of the foods she had just made, and carried it back into her supply tent to eat.
Jason and Hal turned aside from the serving line with loaded trays, looking f
or a comfortable spot of earth to sit on. Most of the other eaters had carried their trays back to their tents or wherever they had come from.
"Howard, come here, please. I'd like to talk to you."
The clear voice of Rukh made him turn. She and Child-of-God were seated with their trays, some twenty yards off at the edge of the clearing. Rukh was seated on the large end of a fallen log and Child-of-God was perched on the stump of it, from which age and weather had separated the upper part. Hal went over to them, and sat down crosslegged on the ground, facing them with his tray on his knees.
"Jason showed you around, did he?" Rukh asked. "Go ahead and eat. We can all talk and eat at the same time."
Hal dug into his own ladleful of the porridge-like food he had been serving. It did taste a little like stuffing—stuffing with nuts in it. He noticed that Child-of-God's tray held only a single item, a liquid stew of mainly green vegetables; and it occurred to him that only in one of the cans at the serving line had he seen anything resembling meat—and that had been only as an occasional grace note of an ingredient.
"Yes," he answered Rukh, "we walked through the camp and had a look at the donkeys. Jason seems to think the fact that I've had something to do with horses on Earth would help me be useful with them."
Rukh's eyebrows went up.
"It will," she said. She looked, as Jason had predicted, pleased, and put her fork down. "As I promised you, I haven't said anything to anyone, including James, of what you told me. Still, James—as second-in-command—needs to know much of what I need to know about your usefulness to us. So I asked him to listen while I ask you some specific questions."
Hal nodded, eating and listening. The food tasted neither as dull nor as strange as he had been afraid it would when he was helping to serve it; and his ever-ready appetite was driving him.
"I notice you aren't carrying anything in the way of a weapon," Rukh said. "Even bearing in mind what you told me, I have to ask if you've got some objection to using weapons?"
"No objection, in principle," Hal said. "But I've got to be honest with you. I've handled a lot of weapons and practiced with them. But I've never faced the possibility of using one. I don't know what'll happen if I do."
"No one knows," said Child-of-God. Hal looked at the other man and found his eyes watching. It was not a stare that those hard blue eyes bent upon him—it was too open to be a stare. Strangely, Child-of-God looked at him with an unwavering, unyielding openness that was first cousin to the nakedness of gaze found in a very young child. "When thou hast faced another under conditions of battle, thou and all else will know. Until then, such things are secrets of God."
"What are the weapons you've practiced with?" asked Rukh.
"Cone rifle, needle rifle, slug-throwers of all kinds, all varieties of power rifles and sidearms, staffs and sticks, knives, axe, sling, spear, bow and crossbow, chain and—" Hal broke off, suddenly self-conscious at the length of the list. "As I said, though, it was just practice. In fact, I used to think it was just one kind of playing, when I was young."
Child-of-God turned his head slowly to look at Rukh. Rukh looked back at him.
"I have reason to believe Howard in this," she said to Child-of-God.
Child-of-God looked back at Hal, then his eyes jumped off to focus on Tallah, who had suddenly appeared at his elbow.
"Give me your tray," Tallah said, holding out her hand, "and I'll fill it for you."
"Thou wilt not," said Child-of-God. "I know thee, and thy attempts to lead me into sin."
"All I was going to do was refill it," said Tallah, "with that mess you try to live on. I don't care if you get a vitamin deficiency and die. Why should I care? We can get another second-in-command anywhere."
"Thou dost not cozen me. I know thy tricks, adding that which I should not eat to my food. I've caught thee in that trick before, Tallah."
"Well, you just die, then!" said Tallah. She was, Hal saw, very angry indeed. "Go ahead and die!"
"Hush," said Rukh to her.
"Why don't you order him to eat?" Tallah turned on her. "He'd eat some decent food if you ordered him."
"Would you, James?" Rukh asked the older man.
"I would not," said Child-of-God.
"He would if you really ordered him."
"Hush, I said," said Rukh. "If it becomes really necessary, James, I may have to order you to eat foods you consider sinful. But for now, at least, you can eat a decent amount of what you will eat. If I refill your tray will you trust me not to put anything in it you Wouldn't take yourself?"
"I trust thee, of course," said Child-of-God, harshly. "How could it be otherwise?"
"Good," said Rukh.
She stood up, took the tray from his hand and was halfway to the serving line before he started to his feet and went after her.
"But I need no waiting on—" he called after her. He caught up; and they went to the food container holding his vegetable stew together.
"These old Prophets!" said Tallah, furiously, turning to Hal. She glared at him for a moment, then broke suddenly into a grin. "You don't understand?"
"I ought to," Hal said. "I have the feeling I ought to know what this is all about, but I don't."
"There aren't many like him left, that's why," said Tallan. "Where did you grow up?"
"Not on Harmony," said Hal.
"That explains it. Association's hardly a comparable world of the Lord. James—now don't you go calling him James to his face!"
"I shouldn't?"
"None of us, except Rukh, call him James to his face. Anyway, he's one of those who still hang on to the old dietary rules most of the sects had when we were so poor everyone ate grass and weeds to stay alive—and when anything not optimum for survival was supposed to be flying directly in the face of the Lord's will. There's no human reason now for him to try to live on that antique diet—as if God wouldn't forgive him one step out of the way, after the way he's fought for the faith all his life, let alone he calls himself one of the Elect."
Hal remembered that the self-designated Elect in any of the sects on Harmony or Association were supposed to be certain of Heaven no matter what they did, simply because they had been specially chosen by God.
"—And we can't, we just can't, get the vegetables he'll eat all the time, on the move as we are. There's no way to give him a full and balanced diet from what we have. Rukh'll just have to end by ordering him to eat."
"Why hasn't she done it before?" Hal tasted his own portion of the vegetable stew that had been the only thing on Child-of-God's tray. It was strange, peppery and odd-flavored, not hard to eat but hardly satisfying.
"Because he'd still blame himself for breaking his dietary laws even if it wasn't his fault he broke them—here they come, and at least she got his tray decently filled."
Tallah went off. Rukh and Child-of-God came and sat down again.
"We've got two tasks," Rukh said to Hal. "In the coming months we'll be trying to do them while dodging the Militia and covering a couple of thousand kilometers of territory. If we get caught by the Militia, I'll expect you to fight; and if we don't, I'll expect you to work like everyone else in the Command; which means as hard as you can from the time you get up in the morning until you fall into your bedsack at night. In return for this, we'll try to feed you and keep you alive and free. This Command, like all those hunted by the slaves of the Others, doesn't have any holidays, or any time off. It spends all its time trying to survive. Do you understand what you're getting into?"
"I think so," said Hal. "In any case, if I was trying to survive out here by myself, it'd be a lot worse for me than what you describe."
"That's true enough." Rukh nodded. "Then, there's two things more. One is, I'll expect you to give instant and unquestioning obedience to any command I give you, or James gives you. Are you capable of that, and agreeable to it?"
"That was one of the first things I learned, growing up," Hal said. "How to obey when necessary."
"All right
. One more point. Jason's been with a Command before, and he's also of the faith. You'll notice in the next few weeks that he'll be fitted right in with the rest of us, according to his capacities. You, on the other hand, are a stranger. You don't know our ways. Because of that, you'll find that everyone else in camp outranks you; and one result of that is going to be that almost everyone is going to end up giving you orders at one time or another. Do you think you can obey those orders as quickly and willingly as you can the ones from James and myself?"
"Yes," said Hal.
"You're going to have to, if you plan to stay with us," Rukh said, "and you may find it's not as easy as you think. There'll be times when something like your training with weapons is concerned, when you may be positive you know a good deal more than the person who's telling you what to do. In spite of how you feel then, you're still going to have to obey—or leave. Because without that kind of obedience our Command can't survive."
"I can do that," said Hal.
"Good. I promise you, in the long run you'll get credit for every real ability you can show us. But we can't take the time or the risk of accepting you as anything but the last in line, and keeping you that way, until we know better."
Rukh went back to her eating.
"Is that all?" asked Hal. His own tray was empty and he had visions of not being able to get back to the serving line in time to refill it.
"That's all," said Rukh. "After you've finished eating, help the cook people to clean up, then look up Jason. He'll have found a tent and equipment for the two of you. Once you're set up in that respect, if it's already dark, you'd probably better turn in, although you're welcome to join whoever's around the campfire. Think before you stay up too late, though. You've got a long day tomorrow, and every day."
"Right. Thanks," said Hal.