Cat Karina (22 page)

“Of course,” she added with a mischievous grin, “he may have had a little help.”

“Nonsense! He told me about it often — how his tump went loco, and he prepared to die with it according to custom, how the tump began to swim, and suddenly it all became clear to him. And later he designed the tump pens and supervised the building of them — he was a famous man by then, all down the coast.”

“He told you all that? Nothing more?”

“Isn’t that enough?”

She came very close and his head swam with her loveliness, her unbearable sexuality. She put her hands on his shoulders and the fullness of her breasts touched his chest. By the time her strange eyes had looked into his for a moment he was in no condition to deny anything.

“Nothing more?” she asked sweetly.

“Well, there was.…” And suddenly his eyes widened, and the spell was broken. “You’re Karina! You must be! He was always talking about you — even when he was dying.”

“It is I,” she said composedly.

And then her composure left her because, quite unexpectedly, he took over. He was already standing close, so all he had to do was slip his arms around her, crush her body against his, and kiss her with an intensity that no other lover had even approached.

“That’s from Haleka,” he said by way of an excuse, grinning.

“Haleka would
never
have.…”

“Well, maybe he wasn’t so bright after all.”

“I’m glad you admitted it.”

“I do, lovely Karina. But ask yourself this — who does the old Pegman sing about?”

And he was right, of course. On that happentrack, nobody sang of Karina. As so often happens, the truth of the matter had been forgotten in a very short time but the legend grew fast and strong in the fertile tumpfields and the Women’s Villages; and since it was a tumpier legend it had a tumpier hero. Nobody wanted to hear about a mere felina who happened to be around at the time. Haleka’s protestations were seen as the becoming modesty of a great man and when, millennia later, the vast body of human lore had been distilled into the Song of Earth, the little legend of Haleka had its place on this happentrack which Starquin rejected.

“Some men shoot the antelope while others use the knife.

“Haleka loved the animals and gave his creatures life.”

But there was no mention of Karina.

And the Incarceration of Starquin lasted forever.

“I can’t understand what’s got into you,” said Teressa. “He was only an old tumpier. Liven up, Karina. This is the Festival, and we’re at Torres. Nobody knows us!” And she struck an outrageously seductive pose as a young True Human walked past, arm in arm with his girl. He colored and looked away, and Teressa’s laughter followed him up the hill. “Wouldn’t he just like to have,” she said.

The Festival at Torres was similar to that at Rangua; a large gathering of vampiro tents and other temporary structures on the north slope of a hill, attended by a colorful throng of humans of all species. At the base of the hill was the bend in the sailway tracks, and the felinos with their teams of shrugleggers. Then came the stalls and the pitchers of ale and the mating tents, the minstrels and their songs. The Pegman was there, his ramshackle sailcar drawn onto a siding. He cavorted about the camp, swinging his mallet and singing peg-driving songs.

The first sailcar arrived in mid-afternoon.

The sails were sighted and a great shout went up. Then followed a scene which would be repeated down a thousand kilometers of coast over the next few days — the felinos began to jockey for position.

This was different from the careful, polite and almost mathematical calculation of the felinos at Rangua. Few of the Torres felinos had made prior arrangements with the captains; it was every man for himself. Added to which the cars would be arriving over a period of time, so the felinos who secured the first tows could conceivably get back down the hill in time for another.

They jostled and pushed; and the shrugleggers, as though understanding the implications, shouldered one another roughly aside. Grupos began to gather on the outskirts, awaiting a sign from their men.

“What fun!” said Teressa. “I wish we did this kind of thing at Rangua!”

In fact, over the years the grupos had been only rarely involved because it was tacitly agreed that the resultant free-for-all would delay the sailcars unduly. So it was usually man against man. After a while, the big felinos began to aim powerful blows at one another.

Captain Herrero came sailing in.

Two teams were in advantageous positions and their felinos traded punches while the shrugleggers spread out to prevent interference. Herrero watched from the deck as
Urubu
rolled to a stop. “You!” he shouted, pointing to the tallest of the combatants. Unfortunately the shout coincided with a decisive kick and his selection fell writhing to the ground.

“Me!” shouted the other, and fastened his team to the towbar. The shrugleggers leaned into the harness and
Urubu
began to glide up the hill. Lower down, fighting broke out afresh as another sail was sighted.

The El Tigre grupo hung about the guiderails, watching with open-mouthed excitement.

All except Karina. “Don’t you find all this a bit degrading?” she asked Runa. “Fighting for tokens thrown to us by True Humans?”

“She’s in a bad temper,” Teressa explained, “Just because she had to leave her precious lumpier friend.”

“Yes, she’s beginning to sound like father,” added Runa.

“Well, at least El Tigre wouldn’t stoop to fighting with his own people for the chance to serve a True Human,” said Karina hotly.

“No, because nobody would fight with him, not if they valued their life.”

“Shut up, you three,” said Saba. “There are more cars coming.”

For a while the felinos were too busy to fight as the cars arrived one after another, some switching tracks to slip ahead of opponents. Ripe tortugas began to make their appearance as Torres’ only merchant bought a small quantity. They were quickly cracked open and handed round. Then the sailcars were gone.

“Let’s go and see what’s happening up the hill,” said Karina, and ran towards the vampiros. As she peeped inside the first, hoping to catch someone in the act of mating, shock hit her like a physical blow.

The handmaiden sat in there.

“Go back to the trackside, Karina.”

“Why?”

“It is necessary for the Purpose.”

“Oh.…” This time, it was no big thing. “All right,” she said. She ran back and met her sisters on the way. “There’s still another car to come,” she called to them.

“Rayo,”
observed Teressa, adding maliciously, “and Karina’s boyfriend.”

“How many times do I have to tell you I can’t stand the sight of Raoul?”

“Why do you ride with him on Captain Tonio’s old sailcar, then? And who was following him in the jungle not so long ago, and got caught?”

Karina flung herself at Teressa who met her with a short jab to the ribs. The usual battle was developing when Saba gave a shout.

“Rayo’s
coming!”

Karina and Teressa paused to watch, still locked together, neither one wanting to surrender her imagined advantage.

“She’s moving fast,” Karina said.

“Of course, you would think
Rayo
is the best car.”

“No, I mean really fast. Just look at her.” Now the rails were roaring and Runa, sitting on the guiderail, could feel the vibration through her buttocks.

She looked up from her scrutiny of a young bachelor to see
Rayo
coming towards them faster than she’d ever seen anything travel before.

“Mordecai!” she shouted, jumping to the ground. “Let’s get out of here!”

There was something different about this car, and this trip.

Astrud sat at the forward end of the hold, just behind Tonio. The wind funnelled like a hurricane through
Rayo’s
nose and Astrud would have gone on deck except that it was bedlam up there, the crew fighting with the sheets while the ground sped past at an insane speed. It wasn’t
right
for anything to travel so fast. It was against nature. And it was surely against the Examples, although Astrud couldn’t quite work out why.

Anyway, she was quite certain they would be punished.

She’d even worked out how it would happen. The whole cargo of tortugas would suddenly explode, scattering
Rayo
and its inhabitants across the pampas.

“Tonio.… Do we have to go so fast?”

But her words were whisked away by the wind, drowned in the terrible noise. Not that Tonio would have paid any attention, even if he’d heard.… That was another thing. He’d been behaving so strangely. He seemed to lose control of himself at the slightest setback. And just before they’d finally got away from the yards, he’d vomited.

She caught hold of the ladder and, with difficulty, climbed to the deck. It was like climbing a tree in a gale. And just as she reached the top of the ladder,
Rayo
passed the hill they called Camelback, and a gust of wind almost lifted the mast out of its tabernacle. She actually heard fibers parting. As she staggered, Raoul caught her. His eyes were bright with excitement.

“Steady, mother!”

“And just what would we do if the mast broke?” she asked shrilly, fear making her snappish. “Where would we be then? What’s the point of all this speed?”

“If the mast broke we’d jury-rig it.” He pointed to a locker full of crimson lianas. “It’s a chance we have to take, if we want to catch the others.”

“And the way those felinos looked at us, at Rangua. Shouldn’t we have stopped? The things they shouted after us! I’ve never heard of a car not stopping before!”

“Rayo
is no ordinary car.”

Even on the swaying deck, with the noise beating at her mind, Astrud sensed something odd in Raoul’s tone. He might not be her real son, but she’d known him a long time. “What are you saying?”

“Nothing, mother.”

“Raoul!” She clung to him. The car was flying across the plain like a thing possessed. This was the work of Agni! It had to be! There was evil in this speed! “How is
Rayo
different?”

Her stepson was silent.…

In the fulness of intuition, she said, “There’s something in this car which is against the Examples.”

He didn’t reply. He moved away, face averted, and began to help the crew replace a fraying line.

Astrud leaned against the deck rail, weeping with terror, while the hellish car bore her headlong into perdition. Her head whirled with the terrible speed of the ground beneath, and when the voice of Tonio snapped commands from the pipe nearby, she felt it was not her husband but the Fire-god Agni himself who sat in the nose, the wind forcing his lips back into a fierce, hungry grin.

She was hardly aware of Raoul running past her some time later, grabbing the voicepipe and yelling into it.

The Fire-god yelled back, unintelligibly.

Raoul was dragging at some kind of lever, and after a moment she was dimly aware of the rest of the crew bunched there, adding their strength to his. It was of no consequence, because a few seconds later Agni struck, as she’d known he would.

Smoke rose from below, acrid and evil.

Something was screaming inhumanly, stabbing into her ears.

And finally the Wrath of Agni, crimson and yellow and painful to look at, blossomed around the nose of
Rayo.

This was what burned into Astrud’s brain. The Wrath was crawling towards her, reaching for her with scarlet tentacles so fearful that she hardly noticed the screaming had stopped, hardly heard the great crash of parting timbers, hardly knew that
Rayo
had left the track and was leaping blindly towards destruction.

“Let’s get out of here!” shouted Runa.

Karina and Teressa disentangled themselves and began to run. All around, people were scattering as
Rayo
bore down on them, swift and terrible, her vast sails filling the sky like thunderclouds.

“Mordecai!” someone exclaimed. “The Wrath of Agni is upon her!”

“She’s going too fast! She’s —”

Down by the bend Karina ran on, bounding over the coarse scrub, reaching the pebbles of the beach. She was aware of Teressa at her shoulder, Runa panting behind her, others near, all running.

Saba!

She halted so suddenly that Runa ran into her and she staggered, scanning the fleeing people for a sign of Saba.

She heard an enormous, splintering crash.

Rayo
hit the curve and the outside guiderail snapped like a dry stick. The car leaped from the running rail, trailing smoke and flames, and flew thirty meters through the air before landing with an impact that toppled the mainmast.

Embedded in Karina’s mind was the vision of a small figure hurled through space and striking the ground under the very wheels of
Rayo.

The great ship ploughed on, her decks a tangle of sailcloth and ropes, the flames sweeping aft and flaring over the waxed fabric. The mizzenmast still stood, catching the wind and tilting the ship. The nose, already a skeleton of smoking timbers, crashed through the first of the vampiro tents and the huge bats reared up, screeching, teeth bared as they were swept aside.

Karina ran forward. “Saba!”

The crowd further up the hill realized, too late, that they were not safe. They began to run.
Rayo
slid on, slowing now and toppling so that the mizzenmast cut a swathe through stalls and huts, flinging aside pots and fabrics, jugs of ale, fruit and other merchandise. In her wake, shrugleggers and humans struggled to their feet, but some lay still. Then the vampiros, crazed with fear and pain, staggered in among them and began to strike viciously with tooth and claw, great wings flapping loosely like tarpaulins in a gale.

Karina ran among them, ignoring their thrusts, searching for her sister. The injured lay around screaming, arms held up to ward off vampiros. The shrugleggers were easy meat, tangled in their harness.