Cat Karina (10 page)

“I obey the Lord’s commands,” said Maquinista quietly. “The felinos will find out eventually.”

And now the real reason for Tonio’s rage boiled up, boiled out. “The Lord didn’t tell you to use
metal
.
Rayo
has metal axles and metal bearings. She’s an offence against the Examples! You’ve sought out metal from old dwellings, you’ve kindled the Wrath of Agni and you’ve worked the metal. Why didn’t you tell me? You tricked me into piloting that abomination. How in hell do you think you could have got away with it? Did you fail, was that it? Did you find you couldn’t build a proper car fast enough, so you had to resort to
this?
” He strode across the room, snatched something from the wall and flung it to the floor.

It made a sharp ringing noise, startling to the ears.

It was metal. There was metal all over the place.

Raoul huddled nervously back in his chair, staring fascinated at the thing on the floor.

“You wanted a fast ship.”

“Not at the expense of our beliefs!”

“Are you quite sure of that?”

“What in hell are you trying to say, Maquinista?”

“I’m saying we all bend the Examples when it suits us.”

“I’m damned sure
I
don’t.”

“And how about your colleague Herrera?”

“Herrera is
wrong
. I know that, and so do you, Maquinista!”

“But I don’t know that, Captain Tonio.” Suddenly the engineer’s voice was quiet, intense. “I was taught that, certainly. When I was a child, and lacked the experience to argue back. But I
know
differently. I know the Examples are wrong, for me. What may make very good sense to a kikihuahua flying through space in the pouch of a marsupial bat, may make nonsense when applied here in the jungle.

“Look at this.” He picked up the curious article from the floor, hefted it in his hand, selected a rod from a shelf, pushed it into the cross-shaped object and pulled a lever.

Then he pointed the thing at the wall.

Wang-whack!

The cross jerked, the rod quivered in the wall. Raoul stared. He hadn’t seen the rod move. One moment it had been sticking from the end of the cross, the next moment it was embedded in the wall. Tonio tried to pull it out, but he couldn’t.

“My God,” he muttered.

“No,” said Maquinista. “
My
God. Yours is a God of stupidity. My God is practical. I’d like to tell you a story, Tonio. It won’t take a moment. It might help explain a few things to you.”

And Raoul, sitting in that dim hut in the delta clearing, was aware that there was metal all around him; on the floor, on the walls, even hanging from the ceiling — and that this place was alien and terrible. A short corridor led from the room to another place, probably the engineer’s workshop; and as the daylight began to fade it was replaced by an eerie glow from this other place.

In that place, someone had kindled the Wrath of Agni.

So he shivered a little as he sat back and listened, and he thought of his mother, who told stories with a point; stories he could understand.

But the gaunt engineer with the ruined body told him a story which made no moral sense whatever.…

“The jungle up beyond Palhoa is dense and I was a fool to leave the sailway track. But work was finished for the day and I was young and adventurous, and something in the forest seemed to call me. There was plenty of daylight left and talk during supper turned to witchcraft, and the
bruja
whom the Palhoa people had warned us about, who lived in those parts. I was young and I laughed. The mountain people are always nervous — they shy away from sudden noises like guanacos.

“An older man dared me to go and look for the
bruja
.

“‘She’s pretty,’ he said. ‘About your age too, so they tell me. Lives all alone. Go and find her, Maquinista. Ask her to grant you a wish.’” The engineer mimicked this voice in a bitter falsetto.

“I climbed a ridge where the trees thinned out, and it was much lighter here. There was time to take a walk into the valley below. I started off, and suddenly things were different.…”

“Different?” Tonio’s question was a sudden, startling bark. He was staring at the engineer. “I … I know those parts,” he said lamely.

It had been a long time ago
.
The young girl had come up to him saying, “Here, take this child
.
I have brought it for you
.
”

He’d held the baby
.
It was light and warm
.
Somehow it was not in his mind to question why; not at that moment
.
“What’s its name?” he asked
.

“You will give him a name. The name is unimportant, although it is written in the If along as Manuel, Joao, and Raoul. His son, however, will be called John in every happentrack in which he lives
.
John will be the most important human of his time
.
”

Maquinista said, “It was very quiet. No birds sang — although birds were there, I knew. They seemed to be watching me. All different kinds, all together. Animals too — I knew they were there, even though I couldn’t see them. It was as though I was being
escorted
into the valley. They were on three sides of me, so that it seemed I could only go forwards. I walked on until the nature of the forest changed and the ground became spongy underfoot. I wanted to turn back, but I didn’t seem to be able to. I walked beside small lakes, and crossed streams. When I started to climb a path away from the water, a tapir stood before me, barring the way. It didn’t run. It just stood there, and I knew it wouldn’t let me pass. The other animals were all around me, waiting — and I could smell jaguar.

“By Agni, I was scared!

“I stood there, and after a while the birds and animals went. Then, at last, I heard a sound.

“It was a woman singing.

“She sang a song I’d never heard before — a song of old times, like the Pegman sings. But as I listened, the song became something different, and the words changed and became strange, and somehow I knew the things she sang of were not old happenings any more. She sang of the future, of all of Time and the Greataway, and the place of the world in all this vastness. It was a song about everything we ever knew and ever will know. A song of Earth.

“Then she stopped singing, and spoke. She didn’t say much, but I’ll never forget those words. Her voice was queer and flat and dead, quite unlike the song. And all she said was,

“‘Hungry, Bantus?’

“And something sighed.

“It was a huge sound, like stormwater blasting from a blowhole. And I was alone on the path. I took out my knife. It was a good knife with a keen blade chipped from the hardest stone. The handle was mahogany, bound to the blade with horsehair twine. It was a strong knife, and yet when I heard —
felt
 — the creature moving down the path towards me, I knew it wasn’t enough.

“I turned and ran. I ran so fast my legs couldn’t keep up with my body, and I fell. I fell into soft wet ground and I lay there, too frightened to rise, screaming into the grass. The creature came for me. I felt the earth shake to its footsteps, then I felt its breath on my neck. I couldn’t turn. I couldn’t look at it. It touched my hip. Hard, sharp claws; I felt them. My eyes were shut. It rolled me over and began a huge sniffing, and at last I dared to look at it.

“I could only see its muzzle, a handsbreadth from my face. Warm fluid dripped on me. I’ve never seen jaws that size before or since — far bigger than the greatest crocodile. Then the muzzle tilted and I saw the eyes of the beast. They were quite small, and all the more frightening because they were not savage. They were curious, inquisitive like a bear looking at a hole in a tree. The face of this beast was hairy, but it wasn’t warm. Wherever it touched me, I felt coolness. It looked at me as though I was a plate of food, not a living man. And I found the knife was still in my hand.

“I drove it upwards into the brute’s throat.

“And I felt the blade snap like a stick.

“The animal didn’t even blink. It sniffed its way down my chest, straddling me, seeking out the softest parts.

“Then it began to eat me.”

There was a moment’s silence in the hut. The air was keen and cool, blowing through the open doorway, and bore with it the sad singing of the little Specialists who were mourning the loss of their comrade. Maquinista regarded Tonio and Raoul, then turned away and disappeared into the dark recesses of the hut.

When he returned, he brought
light
.

It flashed from his hand, brightening the hut and glittering from the metal things on the walls. It dazzled Raoul and filled him with fear. He heard his father groan, saw him cover his eyes so that a black shadow fell over his face. But Raoul couldn’t shut out the terrible sight. He had to look. The light held a dreadful fascination as it swung and flickered from Maquinista’s hand. It was hot and fierce, like the eye of a cyclops. It stared at him, burning away his will to resist.

It was the Wrath of Agni.

“You’ll kill us all,” Tonio groaned.

And the engineer laughed. He set the little fire on a shelf, and it showed no sign of consuming the hut. It blazed alone there like the evening star. Unbelievably, the engineer seemed to have
controlled
it.

“That’s your answer to the felinos,” said Maquinista. “Fire. They’re scared of it, even more than you are. It’s the animal blood in them — a race memory of forest fires. If it wasn’t for the damned Examples, the True Humans would rule the world, instead of going in fear of every Species they live with.”

Raoul spoke. “But it’s wrong to rule the world. We must live in accord with the world and the creatures in it.”

“Tell that to the creatures.… No. Just forget about the Examples and take a fresh look at things as they really are. Explain it to me, Raoul. Explain to me why I was better off with a stone knife which broke, when I could have had a metal knife like
this!
”

And he snatched something from the wall and threw it. It struck the floor beside Raoul and stuck there, quivering.

Raoul flinched, pressing himself against the wall and shivering.

Maquinista turned, and the light fell across his stomach, and the scars were like rose petals, and Raoul thought he could see the outline of the spine in there.

As if from a long way off, he heard his father saying, “Maybe.… Maybe it isn’t my business to judge, Maquinista. Maybe my business is to pilot sailcars the best way I can. Maybe the exact nature of those sailcars is none of my business. Wouldn’t you say that’s the case?”

“I can have
Rayo
repaired and ready for trials in two weeks,” said the engineer.

Raoul saw the Wrath of Agni kindling a light of greed in his father’s eyes, and felt some of his childhood crumbling away from the core of his belief, leaving him exposed and naked in this adult world, while outside the hut the monkey-men sang a slow lament.

And as he mourned, the sounds of the Specialists changed. There were little squeals and shufflings, and a deadly barking. Suddenly things were different, Maquinista was cocking his head, and the dream of glory faded from his father’s face to be replaced by a questioning look.

Then came the trampling of heavy footsteps.

A solid body of cai-men burst into the hut. They were bunched about something, corralling it with their scaly bodies. They flung short-arm punches at it, barking and grunting in excitement. The air was fetid with their fishy stench and as they milled around one of them knocked over the lamp. A trickle of fire ran across the floor. Maquinista threw a sack down, snuffing the flames.

“Get the hell out of here, you bastards!” he shouted, “How many times do I have to tell you to stay away from my camp!”

Cocodrilo detached himself from the others and stared coldly at the engineer. “If you had the sense to take proper security measures I wouldn’t have to waste my time on your part of the delta, Maquinista! Just take a look at what we found out there!”

He reached among his men, seized a pale arm and dragged out a struggling figure which he flung to the floor.

“A felino spy, Maquinista,” he said softly. “Now, what do you think of that?”

Karina looked up at them, bleeding, her tunic hanging in rags.

“What were you doing out there, girl?” asked Maquinista quietly.

“Spying, that’s what!” snapped Cocodrilo. “Now you’ve seen what can happen around here, Maquinista, I’ll take her away for disposal. I’ll report this to the Lord, of course. I don’t suppose he’ll be very pleased.”

“You tell me, girl,” said Maquinista.

Karina was silent, staring at them with blazing eyes.

“Disposal?” echoed Tonio uncertainly.

“Well, she can’t go back to the felino camp now, can she?”

Tonio regarded Karina. “Who is she, anyway? She looks familiar.”

Raoul said, “She’s Karina. You remember, father — El Tigre’s daughter. She came up on deck the other day.” There was a bitterness in him. He’d liked Karina, but now he suspected that her apparent friendship on that occasion had been a ruse to pump him for information. So here she was, caught. A dirty spy. She deserved everything she got — except disposal. That was taking things too far.

“El Tigre’s daughter?” Tonio’s expression was worried. This presented a political problem.

“There’s no way we can let her talk to El Tigre now,” said Cocodrilo, jerking Karina to her feet. She lashed out at him but her fingernails had no effect on his horny skin. He laughed coldly. “You’ve met your match, girl.”

“And there’s no way you’re going to dispose of her, either,” said Maquinista.

“Talk!” Cocodrilo suddenly shouted, wrenching at Karina’s arm. She winced, blinked back tears of pain, tossed her head so that her hair flew like spun copper, then slammed her elbow into Cocodrilo’s stomachs The man-creature grinned toothily, tightening his grip so that Karina gave a little mew of pain.

“Easy, Cocodrilo,” said Maquinista. “We’ll keep her out of sight for a while.”