"But her mind,” Cottontail thought. “There is nothing else like it."
"Yes. But are we being foolish, because we like her mind so much? We have made no progress in getting recognized as an established burrow. When winter comes and foraging grows harder, we may regret it."
"You have thought this through farther than I have."
"It is my business, as burrow landlord. And association with her mind has enabled me to think much more clearly."
Cottontail struggled with a concept. “She would call that—irony. Association with her makes us understand that maybe we shouldn't associate with her."
"Yes. But we want it as much as she does."
"We shall have to establish our burrow,” Cottontail agreed. “We have been foolish, but I would not send the girl away. There must be a way to use that fantastic mind of hers for more than just the pleasure of larger understanding."
"I hope so."
Then Owl flew down and landed on the lowest branch of the tree. “We have a problem."
In a moment they had it from his mind: he had been hunting near a hawk, and exchanged thoughts. The hawk was part of a predatory female burrow that was looking for a better territory to move into. The hawk had gotten the description of Owl's burrow from his mind before he realized what she was up to, and she had concluded that this was a good region. Especially since the existing burrow was not formally recognized. That meant it was open territory; as an established burrow they could simple displace the local one and stake claim to the territory.
"This is disaster!” Gopher thought.
"If only I had masked the fact that we are not yet recognized,” Owl thought. “But I didn't think to, and I fear the hawk would have had it from me anyway; she is adult, and has a sharper mind and more experience."
"We must have a burrow meeting,” Gopher thought.
"Yes. But I think there is nothing we can do."
Rowan returned. “The possum is satisfied,” she thought. “I got there quickly and knocked over another rock.” Then she looked for carefully at the three of them. “What's the matter? Your minds are shaken up."
"A rival burrow may oust us,” Cottontail explained.
"Burrows do that? I thought they respected each other's territories."
"They do,” Cottontail agreed. “But we are not yet a recognized burrow. We have not yet gotten our sixth sapient member, or applied for approval by the Council of Tortoises."
"But you're a rabbit. Why would you have to apply to the tortoises?"
"It is a tortoise burrow,” Gopher explained. “I am the one who must apply. I need five other sapients of suitable character and competence. Because I am a young, unreformed tortoise, I must demonstrate mature responsibility, and my resident sapients must be especially apt. We had hoped for a raccoon, but not yet found one who is interested. So we are an informal burrow, and as such have no territorial rights. Any established burrow could take over our territory if it wanted to."
"But can't you resist? I mean, stop them physically from moving in? Or isn't that the way you work."
"It is not the way we work,” Owl thought. “But even it it were, we could not compete against this burrow. It has five hunters; all its residents are grown female predators."
"Female? There are male and female burrows?"
"They don't have to be,” Cottontail thought. “We happen to be all male, because we are all young impetuous animals, and most females don't like that. But some burrows are mixed. If a female raccoon wanted to join us, we would welcome her."
"So what are these formidable predators?” Rowan asked.
"A hawk,” Owl thought. “A rattlesnake. A civet cat, wildcat, and coyote."
Rowan leaned her back against the trunk of the tree. “I see what you mean. Those are some mean brutes."
"Not mean, merely mature—and formidable,” Cottontail thought. “Any of them could make a meal of me."
"We shall hold a burrow meeting when Indigo and Peba return,” Gopher thought. “To consider our best course."
"Can I sit in?” Rowan asked. “I mean, I've been a lot of trouble to all of you, and maybe I can help in some way."
"It will take more than a stick to beat back these creatures,” Cottontail thought.
"Even if I can't help, I'd like to listen in. If my going back to my own realm would solve your problem, I'd do that, though I love it here."
"This problem would have come regardless,” Owl thought. “It is not your fault."
"You may sit in,” Gopher decided. “Meanwhile, we should rest and consider what we might do."
Gopher and Owl entered the burrow, leaving Cottontail with Rowan. “I know you don't want to go back,” he thought. “But if we can't maintain a viable burrow, you may have to, because others would not accept you here."
"You're right. If you have to move, it would be all you could do just to survive. And I couldn't use this treehouse, after all our effort to make it possible."
Cottontail knew from her mind that she was very unhappy about the prospect. In fact she was close to crying. That wasn't a thing that rabbits did, but her sadness infused his mind and made him want to. “Perhaps you could go with the raccoons,” he suggested.
"I don't want to be with the raccoons. I want to be with you."
He liked that, without fully understanding why.
They held the burrow meeting in the afternoon, at the mouth of the burrow, with Rowan tuning in from the tree. Gopher reviewed the situation for Indigo and Peba. “Now we must decide what to do,” he concluded.
"There is no chance to reason with them?” Peba asked. “We may not yet be recognized by the tortoises, but we are functioning as a burrow, and of course every burrow has to start at some time. All were new once. Would they recognize our right to this territory?"
"They are predators,” Owl responded. “They have an aggressive attitude. They might accept my rights, and Indigo's, but they would simply want to eat Cottontail."
That made Cottontail jump, evoking a twinge in his leg. It was true: four or five of the six members of that burrow would regard him as prey. “Could the rest of you make a physical stand if I departed?” he asked.
"No,” Indigo thought. “I could handle the rattlesnake, and Owl could balk the hawk, but if we tried to, the wildcat and coyote would get us. Only Gopher and Peba could be proof against physical attack, and they would be in trouble the moment they emerged from their armor. None of us want to tangle with the civet. We are overmatched."
"What about mental?” Rowan asked.
"These are grown animals,” Cottontail reminded her. “Their minds are fully developed, and they are experienced. We are not their intellectual equals."
"Maybe not, though I like all of you fine as you are. But what about me?"
"We will take you with us when we go,” Gopher thought. “We can still help you conceal your nature, so that you can remain in this realm. But it may be better for you to return to your own realm, for our lives will become much harder without our burrow. It may be long before we are able to lay claim to a new territory, where we can forage in peace, and we won't have resources to trade for the things you need."
"I'll go home if I have to,” Rowan thought. “Not for my benefit, because they'll just put me in a boarding school. But I'd do it for your benefit, because I really—” Her thought broke off, because she was crying again.
"We know you don't want to leave our realm,” Cottontail thought. “We don't want you to leave. But neither do we want you to suffer. Would they house you and feed you at the wooden place?"
The girl's tears abruptly became laughter. “Oh, that's a pun! Boarding—board—wood. I didn't know puns were possible with telepathy. Yes, they would take care of me. But I wouldn't have any freedom. I wouldn't be able to be with any of you again, and that—” Her tears were back.
"We will keep you with us as long as you wish,” Gopher thought. “But if you do not return now, the other burrow will have possession of the pas
sage to the portal, and you may not be able to do it later. Is this a good risk to take?"
"I don't know,” she admitted. “My common sense says I should use the portal while I can. But my heart—my desire—says I should stay here with you. I'm young, like you, and unreformed, so I want to do the foolish thing."
"We understand,” Owl thought, and there was a mental murmur of agreement from the others. “We are all young and foolish."
"Then let's stay and fight them,” Rowan thought.
"We are not that foolish,” Indigo thought. “We can't hold this territory against such a group."
"Not physically,” she thought. “But I had a notion, back before I got distracted. Maybe we could fight them mentally."
"We do not understand,” Gopher thought, thinking for all of them.
"That's good, I think, because it'll work better if the folk here don't understand. Have any of you ever played games? Games of imagination, of pretend?"
"Is this related to deception?” Cottontail asked. “We are not good at that."
"Yes. In my realm we have games—pretend fights—where we try to beat each other without actually hurting anyone. We do it for fun. Like pretend fighting, or role playing."
They gazed blankly at her. This concept was not only new, it seemed indecipherable.
"Like I might pretend to hit Cottontail, but not really do it,” Rowan thought, swinging her arm at him but missing. “Just for teasing. For fun."
Cottontail was as blank as the rest of them. “How can it be fun to strike an animal, or to pretend to? I knew you were not going to do it, and if I had not known, I would have been alarmed."
"And if my mind were closed, you could be really alarmed,” she thought. She picked Cottontail up and started to heave him at the tree. He tried to jump, alarmed, but before he could do it, her motion slowed. She had not thrown him.
"I do not like that,” he thought reprovingly.
She set him down. “And suppose a fire suddenly spread, surrounding you?"
Cottontail looked nervously around. There was a fire, racing in a circle around him. There was no avenue clear for him to flee it.
Then it faded. There was no fire. He realized that there had been none; she had merely thought of it in her mind, and her mind was so strong that it had seemed real for a moment. When she was sharing a burrow meeting, her imagination became real for all of them. “I do not like the fire either,” he thought.
"Now suppose you're a—a foreign wildcat or something, and you find yourself surrounded by fire, and soon it will burn you. Wouldn't you get out of here as fast as you could?"
"Yes. But there is no fire."
"But there could seem to be, if you burrow folk strengthened my telepathy and I imagined it strongly enough. I could imagine a forest fire, if only I could make others see it."
"We could help you do that,” Cottontail agreed. “But to what point? An imaginary fire would not harm anyone."
"To scare away the invading burrow creatures. If enough weird things happened, they might decide to go look somewhere else for their new territory."
Slowly the concept spread through the group of them. What the girl had shown Cottontail was unpleasant. She had done it on her own, because her limited telepathy was effective at close range and they were open to her mind. If the others enhanced it, the effect could be much worse. It could indeed frighten those who did not know it was imaginary.
"But very soon such a fire would be revealed as merely a thought,” Owl thought. “An overview would satisfy a creature that it was not dangerous."
"A fire, yes, because it wouldn't actually burn anything. But what about a ghost?"
Again they all were blank.
"Like a dead thing acting alive,” Rowan thought. “Let me concentrate again.” She frowned, concentrating.
A shadow appeared before Cottontail. It flickered and thickened, assuming the form of a rabbit. An ugly rabbit, with tattered ears and empty spaces for eyes. Suddenly it jumped right at him.
Cottontail fell over backwards, astonished. But the pretend rabbit was gone. “I do not like that either."
"Suppose you kept finding ghost rabbits like that, and maybe nobody else could see them, but they kept jumping at you. Wouldn't you want to get away from them?"
"Yes."
"Even if you were a big tough coyote or something?"
"No one would like this sort of thing,” Cottontail thought. “Predators would dislike it as much as anyone."
"So if we could make a slew of bad things to bother them, maybe the members of that other burrow would decide this territory wasn't worth it, and would go away."
This was beginning to make sense. “But we lack experience with this—pretending,” Cottontail thought. “We could not fool the other animals more than a moment."
"But suppose you had a really big mind to draw on, that nobody else knew about? One that could imagine a lot of ugly things?"
"This becomes more interesting,” Indigo thought. “We do have an associate with such a mind."
"But she is not skilled with telepathy,” Peba thought, getting to the bottom of the problem. “She can make such effects only when close by."
"That's why I need your support,” Rowan thought. “To enhance me, so I can do it from farther away."
"We would have to be close by you,” Owl thought. “That could be awkward, especially if they suspected and looked around for other sapients."
"There is a better way,” Peba thought. “But it may be dangerous.” He shared his idea.
Rowan clapped her hands together, making a sound, in another of her odd mannerisms. “Double or nothing. That's perfect!"
Maybe it would work. It was not something Cottontail himself would ever have thought of, and it was risky, but it did give them a real chance to prevail. They settled down to work out the details.
Chapter 11
Scare
Peba Armadillo was extremely nervous. He knew the plan, but now he understood the concept of risk, and that was uncomfortable. He had thought of the key aspect, but now almost wished he hadn't. There was so much that could go wrong.
"But if it works, we'll be home free,” Rowan thought. She was standing at the base of the tree.
That was true. So Peba curled up in the bottom of her treehouse and oriented his mind on hers, closing out all other contacts. He was here to enhance her telepathy. That, and her closeness to the enemy—(another unusual concept)—were the essence of their plan. He would think through her mind, and she would make monsters like none conceived of before in this realm. It should be terrifying—if the members of the other burrow did not, as Rowan put it, catch on.
But if they did realize what it was, both Rowan and Peba would be in severe trouble. That was the essence of the girl's thought, Double or Nothing. They could win more than otherwise, or lose more than they wanted to.
"They're coming,” Rowan thought. “Even with my limited telepathy, I can feel their hostile minds."
"Remember to be humanly stupid,” Peba reminded her.
"Duh,” she agreed.
The first to arrive was the hawk, flying in to perch on a lower branch of the tree. “What is this?” she demanded arrogantly.
Peba hid his mind. Rowan was supposed to be the only one here. His contact with her was closed to others.
"Me human bearer,” Rowan thought.
"Where is the burrow?” The hawk's brusque thought did not mean the hole in the ground, but the burrow mates.
"They go,” Rowan thought dully.
"Why didn't you go with them?"
"Me not told to."
The hawk considered. “They left so fast they forgot to take their bearer? That is our fortune. You are now our bearer."
"Me do as told,” Rowan agreed.
But the hawk was not quite satisfied. “They should have made some protest. Why did they leave so readily?"
"Ghosts."
The hawk had trouble with this concept. “Explain."
<
br /> "Me not good at explaining.” Peba, new to the concept of mirth, nevertheless experienced it. The girl was having fun playing a dummy, fooling the sapient bird.
The hawk become impatient. “Make your best effort."
"Place haunted. Bad things come, scare burrow mates."
"What things?"
"This."
Then Rowan imagined a monster from the fantasy of her own realm. It was a vulture with a human face, called a harpy. It flapped in from behind the tree, a huge filthy bird with wild hair and feathers. “Get the hell out of my tree, hawkbill!” the harpy thought, making a raucous screeching noise.
The hawk sailed off her perch, startled in just the way Owl had been when Rowan showed this image to them the first time. It was especially repulsive to a bird, because it was like a gross misshapen bird. A caricature, as Rowan put it.
And the harpy flapped after the hawk. “Come back here, you misbegotten birdbrain! Gimme a kiss!” There was a loud smacking sound as the harpy moved her human lips.
But the hawk had had enough. Peba was able to intercept her thought to her burrow mates as she fled. “This is a bad location. It is haunted. That's why the prior tenants left."
But the next member of the foreign burrow was almost there. This was the coyote, running swiftly. “There are no such things as haunts,” she responded. “You're too flighty."
"See for yourself,” the hawk thought irately, and continued flying away.
The coyote arrived, and Rowan stood with her staff, assessing him in her terms. She was about one and a half feet high, and twice that long, counting the tail. Big for a sapient, small for a wolf. She could probably bash her off with the pole if she had to.
"Do not do that,” Peba thought urgently.
"I won't. I know a bearer would never attack a sapient animal. But if this goes wrong, I'll go down fighting."
The coyote drew up before her, considering this creature. “Who are you?"
"Me bearer. Hawk say me your bearer now."
"Of course, though we hardly need one for travel. You will do brute labor."