Cat Karina (29 page)

She went to the house where Captain Guantelete and his wife and crew were being held, obtained their release and assured the uncertain grupo guard that she could handle them.

Later, as the great square sails were spread and the car crept into the foothills on the last of the wind, she sat on deck and watched Rangua recede. The True Humans had left their temporary jails now, and were assembled before the signal tower, where her father was addressing them from half-way up the ladder. She hoped her sisters would look after him; right now, he needed their support and affection.

She felt she needed support too; and she was relieved when an ungainly figure came bounding out of the bush and swung itself aboard. It was the Pegman, who had left town in time to avoid the night’s killing.

He sat beside her. “So Rangua belongs to the felinos now.”

A bluff hid the town from view and the setting sun illuminated the wetness of the delta region. For a moment she wondered how Manoso had fared. His silence had alarmed El Tigre, who had a vision of Manoso’s entire force being wiped out by the ferocious cai-men. Thinking unhappy thoughts, Karina was carried towards Palhoa and her historic meeting with the Dedo.

Years afterwards, they were still telling the story in Palhoa of how the cat-girl had awakened and stood, head high and nostrils flaring as she sniffed the morning air. Her beauty was unearthly, they said, but no man would have gone near her that day — except for the Pegman, a one-armed True Human freak from somewhere down the coast. The cat-girl awakened from where she’d been lying and the vicuna people edged away, tossing their heads. After sniffing she uttered a wordless sound — some said she
roared —
and she plunged into the jungle, followed by the freak.…

The Pegman had prevailed upon Karina to spend the night in Palhoa. “I’m beat,” he said. “And you must be tired, too. The jungle around Palhoa is dangerous. I know. I’ve been there. We’re going to need our wits about us.” So they’d slept on the deck of the car.

In the morning they were climbing, following the overgrown sailway. The scent was cold, but the Pegman assured Karina this was the route Tonio would have taken.

“He may be headed for Buique or even further. He’ll be expecting to be followed, for a while at least. He’s almost two days ahead of us, but he doesn’t know that. Maybe he’ll get careless.… There are other things besides jaguars here, so they say.…”

Karina had been casting around. “Somebody’s been this way — look!”

“Do you really want to go through with this, Karina?” asked the Pegman later, as they sat gnawing at a fungus.

“Is that why you’ve come? To try to talk me out of it?” Her voice was high. She was much affected by the happenings in Rangua.

“I wouldn’t do that.” He sat regarding her somberly. He was behaving with unusual normality, and hadn’t uttered a single insane yell since entering the jungle. He, like others, had a sense of converging events, of an inevitability in recent happenings which even his mad clowning could not disturb. “You have to make up your own mind, Karina.”

“I’ve made it up. I made it up when I found Saba dead.”

“So you will kill Tonio. Will you kill his wife and son, too?”

“Of course.”

“What did they ever do to you?”

“If you want to stay with me,” Karina cried suddenly, “You’d better keep your damned mouth shut, Pegman!” Her eyes were bright with tears.

After a while Tonio found he was talking about himself, telling this girl the story of the disaster. When he’d finished, she said,

“If it’s any consolation to you, Tonio, consider that on many happentracks the guiderail didn’t give way, and the people of Torres lived. Consider also, that on a few happentracks you rose to become a Company man, even in a couple of instances rising to the position of second-in-command to Silva. Consider again,” she added quietly, “that none of this matters, because the Fifty Thousand Years’ Incarceration has run more than half its course, and within twenty millennia the Triad will free Starquin to roam the Greataway once more.”

He glimpsed a vastness. “In the Ifalong,” he said.

“We work towards that day.”

“And what about me?” His chest was tight. “What happens to me?”

“Many things.”

“Yes, but what’s the
norm?
What might I expect?”

It was late afternoon already; where had the day gone? The rain had stopped and a fresh breeze stirred the trees outside the cottage. The birds were screeching in anticipation of night and the jaguars stretched and unsheathed their claws, limbering up for the evening hunt. And another creature stirred too; a huge beast, the only one of his kind.

Leitha said, “You will take your place in the scheme of things.”

“What do you mean?”

“Tonio, you’ve been at odds with your surroundings for some time now. You must have known it yourself — you’ve been fighting things instead of going with the flow. Soon, things will be different.”

As he left, he said, “You didn’t mind me shooting the fish, then?”

“Mind? No, I don’t
mind
. Today you shot the fish. It is a fact, and it was going to be a fact before it happened. It makes no difference to the overall scheme — in fact, it’s part of the scheme.”

He walked away, musing on the disturbing fatalism of those words. He was almost back at the signal cabin before he realized he’d left the fish behind. Astrud greeted him, and immediately accused him.

“You’ve been with that girl!”

“I talked to her, yes.” He was abstracted, still back at the strange cottage in spirit, still seeing the girl’s cold face.

“It’s not like you’re thinking, Astrud. She’s an odd person, but I think she could help us a lot.” He leaned out of the window, looking east. It was possible to see where the old sailway had run; the jungle was thinner, the roof of the trees just a little lower. From a certain position he could just see the ocean, probably fifteen kilometers away. “If they ever came after us,” he said, “I think she would hide us and look after us.”

“Why? Because she likes you?”

“Because it might fit in with the nature of the Ifalong,” he said, and she stared at him.

Later Raoul tackled him. “We have to move on, father.”

“I think this will suit us fine, Raoul.”

“You didn’t see the way she looked! She’s after us, I know that — and she’ll be bringing a few grupos with her!”

“Are you still talking about that felina?”

“Yes I am, and I think she’s a lot more important than that
bruja
you’re always with. It seems to me she’s got you twisted around her finger! ‘You will take your place in the scheme of things,’ mimicked Raoul furiously. “What about us, father? What about mother and me?”

By the Sword of Agni
, he thought,
the young bastard’s been following me.
Tonio glanced around, saw Astrud was out of earshot, and said, “The jungle is a dangerous place, Raoul. Particularly that valley where the girl lives. You could get yourself killed, going in there.” He said this quietly, and there was no doubt as to his meaning. A
different world
, he thought.
Survival of the individual is what counts
.

Raoul had backed off as though Tonio had struck him, and now he was staring incredulously at him. “Are you threatening me, father?”

“Just pointing out the dangers.”

“Right,” said Raoul. “I understand.…”

They hadn’t made such quick progress as Karina had hoped. After a few kilometers’ climbing they’d left the sailway on the Pegman’s advice, heading south.

“Tonio will have made for Buique,” said Enri, but he lied. “This is the quickest way. The sailway took a roundabout route, because of the gradients.”

His own fury at the death of Saba had subsided and he was regretting telling the El Tigre grupo where Tonio might be. There had been enough killing. He’d heard some of the screaming from Rangua during the previous night and he knew that, so far, Karina had had no part in it. He wanted it to stay that way.

They spent the night a few kilometers below Buique, having bypassed the area where the Pegman supposed Tonio to be. Congratulating himself, he settled down to sleep. Tomorrow he would continue the wild-goose chase until Karina cooled her intentions. He slept heavily and it seemed only a moment later that it was dawn and Karina was shaking him awake, oblivious of the fact that her breasts jiggled in full view under the loose neck of her tunic.

“Enri! Wake up! Look!” She shook his shoulder violently and he dragged his gaze away from her to look in the direction she indicated.

A wisp of smoke rose above the trees, several kilometers below them.

“We’ve come too far,” said Karina.

“We can’t be sure it’s them.”

“Of course it’s them! Who else but a True Human like Tonio would kindle the Wrath of Agni? And now —” her eyes narrowed to fierce slits as she squinted against the wet brightness of the rising sun “— we’ve got them! Now we close in. Come on, Enri!”

Resignedly, the Pegman allowed himself to be led downhill, and soon they came across the upper reaches of the old sailway.

“We should never have left the track,” said Karina, with a glance at Enri.

“You’ve met Astrud?” asked the Pegman later.

“No. I’ve seen her, though.”

“She’s a nice woman. Simple, really. Very religious — she really believes the Examples. I was in her house once, and I saw texts all over the walls.”

“I know. I … kind of spied on them a while back, and I saw into the house.”

“And you want to kill her.”

“
Rayo
had metal bearings! How two-faced can she be!”

“She didn’t know. I’ll swear to that, Karina.”

“Huh.”

They scrambled down further, walking in the bed of a little stream which followed the sailway. Then Enri said,

“You know.… One time, I thought you rather liked Raoul.”

She didn’t turn round. “Oh?”

“Well.… I hear you rode with him up to Rangua one day — and got into quite some trouble about it, so they say. And you followed him into the delta.…”

“And I got caught, and he didn’t do a thing to help me! Mordecai, what a creep! He’s weak, weak!”

“You’re right. He doesn’t have the guts to stand up to his father. It’s the way True Humans are raised, I suppose.”

“Maybe,” said Karina.

Later the track levelled out to a platform and there, barely visible among the dense trees, was a signal tower.

“Look at this, Enri!” Karina stood in a glade. At her feet, the remains of a fire smouldered. “They’re here.” Her gaze snapped this way and that, finally dwelling thoughtfully on the signal cabin at the top of the tower. “Up there,” she said.

But the cabin was empty. There were signs of recent habitation however; some food, skins, and blankets laid on the floor.

“Right,” said Karina grimly as they climbed down to the foot of the ladder. “They’re not far off, and the trail’s still warm. We’ve got them, Enri. Follow me, and don’t think of making any loud noises.”

Raising her head, she sniffed the air delicately.

“Are you sure you don’t mind?” asked Tonio. “Four fish would probably be enough, but five would be better. They’re quite small. My wife, she must learn to eat.…”

“The valley will be in balance again before long,” Leitha said. “When you arrived there was a certain imbalance, but that will right itself. Meanwhile you can keep the fish.”

She looked at him in a way which he might have thought calculating — but dead eyes cannot calculate. His gaze strayed to the water. Today the fishing had been good — and there was another big fish there. He’d seen it. Not so big as Torpad, but big enough.

Yet the blood lust had left him. When he’d successfully shot his first small fish and laid it on the grass there had been no elation; just a relief that his hunger would be appeased.

Suddenly, the Dedo stood, glanced around, then walked off up the trail without a word. He watched her go. It was warm in the sun and he was drowsy. He’d lost all sense of time, but figured he ought to be getting back. The signal cabin had begun to feel like home; although Astrud’s mood had become unpredictable, and Raoul was showing signs of youthful rebelliousness.…

In fact Astrud was close by at that moment, having tired of fixing up the cabin, and having begun to wonder, not for the first time, just what Tonio spent his days doing.

She emerged from the trees in time to see the Dedo disappearing up the trail. Tonio sat by the stream as though in a trance. He’d taken off most of his clothes and he looked pale and flabby. Rage began to gnaw at her. She stormed down to the riverbank.

“You’ve been with that girl!”

“Yes.”

“Well, it’s not right! I’ve been working back there while you spend your time idling about with some forest girl!”

“I wasn’t idling. I caught some fish.” He indicated them.

“I won’t have you playing around with that girl! Listen, Tonio, I haven’t stuck by you all this time for you to run off into the woods with some Specialist.”

“Leitha isn’t a Specialist.”

“And you know all about Specialists, don’t you? After all, you killed plenty of them!”

“What’s happening here?” Raoul pushed his way out of the bush. “I could hear you a kilometer away.”

“Your father’s running out on us, that’s what!”

There was a strange expression on Tonio’s face, and he was blinking rapidly. “I thought I told you not to come this way,” he said. “It’s dangerous. You could cause an imbalance.”

“A what?”

“It’s claptrap,” said Astrud furiously. “Claptrap he teamed from that girl. Since he met her he’s been coming out with all kinds of queer things!”

Tonio was blinking at the water. “Nothing to be done.…”

“There’s one thing to be done. You come with us back to the cabin, right now!”

“Two happentracks. I do, or I don’t.” A tic was twitching in Tonio’s cheek. Soon Astrud might start screaming. It was in the nearby Ifalong.