Cat Karina (12 page)

So Siervo told her his history.

They talked all day as the rain fell and the waters rose. It was one of the days Karina would remember best from that year; the rain, more gentle now, and the gentle voice of this strange True Human who’d known more unhappiness than she’d have thought a person could bear. It was the lack of freedom which affected her most, of course. The thought of spending twenty years penned in the same place was unthinkable to a free-ranging felina.

And now she was caged, too.

The fences seemed to march towards her as evening came, imprisoning her with walls of claustrophobia.

“I’ve got to get out of here!” she cried suddenly.

Siervo watched her pacing to and fro. “We can leave in the morning, if you like,” he said diffidently.

“How? We can’t get through the fence for the spiders, and you say Cocodrilo’s men are guarding the outside anyway!”

“I’ve had a long time to think,” said Siervo. “I have it all planned. I hadn’t intended to leave until after the Festival, but since the rains have come early, well.…” He shrugged rapidly and glanced around with a sudden, sly grin which was so close to madness that Karina doubted him.

“Maybe we should talk about it in the morning,” she said.

They slept together on the narrow bunk but Siervo was restless, twisting and turning for a long time before he relaxed and his breathing became regular and even. Karina was a light sleeper like most of her species, and she was awakened in the middle of the night by Siervo’s hand sliding over her body and cupping her injured breast. She pushed it away gently, but Siervo awakened with a start, realized what he was doing, and crawled out of bed, mumbling with shame. He spent the rest of the night on the floor, muttering to himself, mortified by the involuntary actions of his own body. Karina was sorry he’d gone, because the warm proximity reminded her of the grupo.

When morning came the rain had ceased and the sun was filtering through the roof. Siervo was up and about, arranging a row of breeding tortugas outside the door, clucking over them. Karina awakened, stretched, and sat up in bed watching him.

“Tell me about getting out of here,” she said.

He didn’t meet her eyes. He’d been peeping at her waking up, and her wild beauty scared him. It was many years since he’d seen a pretty girl, and he’d never known how they could affect a man. He’d been very young when they’d brought him here. And Karina was a Specialist, apparently. He shouldn’t even
think
of her as beautiful.

But she was.

Suddenly he didn’t want to leave. He was scared of the world outside, and he was scared of losing Karina out there.

“Maybe the time isn’t right yet.”

“Oh.… I don’t think I could face Cocodrilo again,” she said quietly. “He told me he would be coming, today. To see how I was settling in. He’ll probably bring other guards.”

After a pause, Siervo said, “We’ll go. First, we’ll eat.” He cracked open a tortuga by banging it against the doorstep so the shell split, then handed it to her. It was not quite ripe, and there were clear indications of flesh and blood inside.

The ripe tortuga is filled with delectable tiny eggs, like caviar.

Karina regarded it with distaste. “This isn’t a tortuga. This is some kind of animal.”

“Of course it is. Tortugas are animals.”

“But.… What about the Examples? True Humans don’t eat meat.”

“Most people think tortugas are plants.”

“But what if they found out? If True Humans eat meat, why are felinos forbidden to hunt and fish? Why do they say it’s the animal in us, that makes us need tumpmeat?”

Siervo said, “Why do you think the tortuga farms are kept secret? Why am I a prisoner here?”

“Well.… Why?”

And the True Human, with no loyalty to his race — how could he have, after a lifetime’s imprisonment? — said, “Only by regulating the food supply can True Humans keep Specialists under control.”

“But why do True Humans grow tortugas? Why take the risk?”

“It’s a profitable crop. I don’t suppose the True Humans down south know the tortuga is an animal. It can only breed here in the delta. The eggs would never hatch in the drier lands — in fact the shell would get too hard to explode. The Rangua Canton Lord, the sailway captains and the other True Humans have gotten rich on tortugas. They’ll make sure nobody finds out what tortugas really are.”

Karina looked at him, her eyes widening. “But I’ve found out.”

“So they can never let you go.”

She gulped. “I don’t want any of this tortuga. I don’t like the look of it. Let’s hurry up and get out of here.”

“All right.”

Now this mild, timid True Human did a series of things which surprised Karina.

He took a strong hardwood staff and jammed it into a crack in the outside corner of the hut. Feet planted firmly in the mud, he threw himself against the end. The hut groaned, swayed and finally collapsed; one long wall falling outwards and the other walls piling on top of one another.

“Help me with this,” said Siervo, and together they carried a long wall across the mud, laying it beside the fast-flowing trench. Then they took the two short walls, leaving only the wall with the door in it, and Siervo placed these upright on the long wall, then leaned the two top edges together and formed a triangular shelter. Pegs slid smoothly into place.

“As I said, I’ve had a long time to think,” said Siervo drily, noticing Karina’s astonishment.

Now they had a raft with a small chalet-shaped cabin. Siervo brought tortugas and other food which he placed in the cabin. He ran back to the wreckage of the hut and collected the hardwood staff, jammed it under the raft and levered.

“Push,” he said.

“Wait a moment.” Karina was bewildered by the swift events, the imminent plunge into unknown dangers. “Where are you taking me?”

He paused, leaning against the staff. “I’ve no idea. But I know that if we don’t go now, we’ll never get out of this place. We’ll die here.”

“Yes, but.…”

“HAH!”

Cocodrilo was running towards them, followed by a number of his men.

“Push, Karina!” Siervo leaned on the pole. Karina got her fingers under the raft and heaved. It slid a few centimeters, then stuck. “Push!” Siervo jerked at the staff.

It snapped.

Cocodrilo had pulled ahead of his men, skittering across the wet ground in a low-slung run, using his hands from time to time so that, horribly, it looked as though he was scuttling on all fours. As he came he uttered harsh cries.

Karina and Siervo stood shoulder to shoulder, lifting and pushing, feeling the raft move, but too slowly. Siervo was sobbing. After twenty years of subservience the enormity of his actions was almost too much for him.

“Stop!” shouted Cocodrilo.

And Siervo stopped, his body sagging, the raft falling back into the mud.

Karina said, “He’s going to kill us if we don’t get away.” She siezed Siervo’s arm, swinging him round to face her so that he couldn’t see the monstrosity bounding towards them. “Do you really want me to die?” she asked, trying to get him to meet her eyes.

Her eyes were like mountain lakes. Siervo stared.

Her beauty was more important than life itself. It was a gift placed in his care. It was.…

He hurled himself at the raft.

It slid forward into the trench. The current seized it. They jumped aboard. Cocodrilo, arriving seconds too late, trotted alongside, gauging his leap. The raft moved faster, the mud flats slipping by. Cocodrilo, yelling to his men, plunged into the channel and took hold of a corner of the raft. The vessel tilted and swivelled, touching the bank and slowing. The cai-men were yelping like hounds, closing in.

Cocodrilo, his head protruding from the water, snapped, “Stop. Get off this raft.”

Karina could see Siervo shaking as he dropped to his knees and, with trembling hands, tried to pry Cocodrilo’s fingers away. The raft tilted further, water swilling over the deck.

“We daren’t stop.” Siervo’s tone was pleading. “Your men are out of control. Coco. They’ll kill us. Look at them!”

There were six of them. They scurried along the bank, level with the raft, uttering fearsome coughing sounds, their mouths snapping at air, their coarse lips dripping fluid. They were crazed with the ecstasy of the hunt. They began to roar with anticipation, seeing a shallow place ahead where they could easily drag the raft to a halt. They scuttled on, arms pumping, overtaking the raft and getting ready to jump into the trench.

“You … asked for it,” gasped Cocodrilo, water washing over his face.

Karina found she was holding the shattered end of the staff. She stepped forward. The raft heeled and Cocodrilo disappeared underwater.

“Go to the other end,” she told Siervo.

He glanced at her, uttered a little moan of despair, climbed to his feet and scrambled away. The fence loomed less than fifty meters ahead — but Cocodrilo’s men were waiting for them in the shallows. As Siervo reached the other end, the raft balanced itself.

Karina crouched.

Cocodrilo emerged from the water, gulping air.

Karina rammed the jagged end of the staff down his throat. As he screamed, blood sprayed over her legs. Karina laughed, a harsh yell of pure delight. He let go and drifted away, twisting and turning in the water like a gaffed fish, seaming the surface with pink threads.

Karina ran to the other end where Siervo was struggling with a cai-man who had got a grip on his ankle. She kicked, and ripped the man’s throat open with her toenails. Blood welled out, bubbling as he fought for breath, then he was gone somewhere under the raft.

Then someone grabbed her leg, scaly fingers digging deep. She kicked out, slipped and fell, sliding towards the edge of the raft. Another hand gripped her thigh just as she caught hold of the cabin front and checked her slide. The fingers were like steel, inhumanly strong, and although she kicked with all her strength she couldn’t shake them free. She caught sight of Siervo in a similar predicament, being dragged off the raft; then two of the men began to climb aboard, grinning, crawling towards her.

The raft tipped.

Karina floundered in deep, icy water. Something struck her a smashing blow across the head, then the grip on her legs slackened and she rose. Surfacing, she found the raft beside her and pulled herself half onto it, gasping for breath. Other heads bobbed up, Siervo’s among them. They began to drop astern as the raft sped over the shallows. Karina stood, preparing to dive to Siervo’s aid.

“No!” The little True Human shouted. “Leave me, Karina!”

She couldn’t do that. But his cry made her pause, and in that instant the raft swept past a tall figure dressed in black, standing motionless beside the ditch. The ruined face turned to Karina, the scarred lips formed just two words.

“
Leave him
.…”

And Karina hesitated, just for a second.

Then a fetid blanket enveloped her and she fell.

Siervo had designed his escape route well. The gathering momentum of the raft across the shallows was sufficient to carry it through the fence, and a hundred spiders hissed their fury as the raft smashed through their handiwork and sped on past the guards, across a shallow tributary and into the deeper waters of the delta.

She lay still, wrapped in a dense, translucent web, using every last part of her self-control to summon her Little Friends against the spiders attacking her body, while the floodwaters hastened her towards the sea.

In later years the Escape of Karina formed an important part of the Song of Earth, being celebrated in the stanza beginning:

“Karina fought the crocodiles with courage and with might,

Then called upon the power of
bor
to dull the spiders’ bite.”

But there was another Karina on another happentrack, who refused to heed the command of the Dedo’s handmaiden, and who dived into the swift water to swim to the aid of her True Human friend. Now
that
Karina fought the cai-men bravely, killing one and mortally wounding another before her neck was broken by two of the brutes.

The minstrels of Late Earth do not sing of that Karina. They do not know of her, because her story is locked in some cold memory of some dying Rainbow on some remote happentrack. On that happentrack the Purpose was not fulfilled, Starquin was not freed, and in his eventual disinterest he allowed Mankind to rot in his Domes and villages. The Dedos were withdrawn into Starquin’s body and Earth spun on its way, of no more use to him than the dead canyons of the Moon, while in the reaches of the Greataway the Hate Bombs circumscribed his eternal tomb.

In the year 91342 Cyclic, Earth was threatened by a race of aliens known as the Bo Adon Su. This was during the Age of Resurgence when it seemed that nothing could stop humanity from populating the entire Galaxy, given time. His three-dimensional spaceships were everywhere and their navigational, drive and defensive equipment were wonders of physical technology. You will understand that this technology was to seem incredibly clumsy fifteen hundred years later, in the age of the Outer Think and the Invisible Spaceships; but at the time it was a thing to be marvelled at. And marvel was what the less-advanced races did.

All except the Bo Adon Su. Refusing to accept the supremacy of Man, they scythed through the Galaxy in a series of clumsily-executed raids of little more than nuisance value, finally arriving at the Solar System itself — the very cradle of Mankind. They poised to attack Earth, trying to mass their fleet into some semblance of order for a concerted onslaught.

Suddenly, humanity woke up to what was happening.

They fed the Bo Adon Su’s tactics into the Rainbow, to prepare their defenses.

The Rainbow found the Bo Adon Su’s tactics incapable of analysis.

The attacks had been utterly undisciplined, characterized only by inventiveness and adaptability. Frequently the attacks had not been pressed home despite initial gains. The Bo Adon Su had apparently lost interest, or maybe proved their point, and taken off in search of fresh glory.