Cat Karina (33 page)

Some time later the sailcar rolled to a halt in Rangua station.

Nobody paid any attention to Karina and Raoul as they alighted and walked down the main street. A few True Humans were about, and felinas loitered at the corners in grupos, chattering and idly stropping their fingernails on the trees.

They found El Tigre sitting alone on a treestump beside the sailway track. “It’s good to see you again, Karina,” he said. “The Pegman was here a few days ago, with his woman. He told us the story. It was difficult to believe.”

“I hope you didn’t harm him.”

“Nobody’s been harmed for many days,” said El Tigre. His eyes were haunted. “Raoul, I’m grateful to you for saving my daughter’s life.”

“I think I’d do anything for her, El Tigre,” said Raoul.

Karina gave a smug grin, then surprised her father. “We mated, up there in the jungle. Lots of times. It was
so
good.”

El Tigre watched them silently; his wayward daughter and her True Human lover, and he was sad. It was a pity that such a beautiful thing wouldn’t last. And it was all so pointless anyway, because they were different species.…

He found himself thinking of Serena.

“Who did win the Tortuga Race, anyway?” Karina’s question brought him back to the present.

“Captain Herrero.”

“Oh. What a pity.”

“They flashed the news through just before the signalmen walked out. I’d rather not have known. It seems there’s nothing on Earth will stop a man like that from winning.”

Raoul regarded the houses of Rangua: quiet, defeated, in mourning. “If it’s any consolation, I expect Captain Herrero thinks the same about you, El Tigre.”

Then Teressa and Runa arrived, and the mock-fight finished with the girls a tangled heap on the ground while Raoul and El Tigre looked on tolerantly.

As the felinas were dusting themselves off, Raoul asked, “What’s been happening around here, anyway? I expected to find you all living in the Palace.” And for a moment the memories returned; the house with its view over the coastal downs, and his father and mother. He could never go back to that house.…

“We’ve been betrayed,” said El Tigre. “How can I deal with the Canton Lord when we can’t put our own forces in order?”

“Manoso’s double-crossed us,” Teressa explained. “He took his army to the delta under orders to capture it, but instead he made a deal with the people there. The bastard. He’s got the cai-men and Maquinista and all the Specialists on his side, and he’s holding the delta, the tortuga pens, and all the cars in there. Now he’s bargaining with us for terms.”

“He wants to operate the whole place himself,” said Runa. “He’s set himself up as a little Lord.”

“We should go right in there and slaughter every last one of them!” said Teressa.

El Tigre said, “
There will be no more killing.
”

“You see?” said Teressa.

“So what do we do?” asked Runa. “Just sit around here, like we’ve been doing this last few days? The felinas are getting restless, I can tell you that, father. People are beginning to ask what the Revolution was all about. The signalboxes are empty and the cars aren’t running, and the cargoes have all gone bad. What was it all for?”

Karina was watching her father. “Was it bad, the fighting?”

“It’ll take a miracle to bring felinos and True Humans together, after this.”

Karina said, “There’s only one thing to do. We must capture the Palace and take over the guards. How can people respect you, father, if you rule them from a treestump?”

“I don’t think we can raise a big enough army to take on the Lord,” said El Tigre. “Our people seem frightened of the guards.”

“Why do you need an army?” asked Karina, “when you’ve got us?”

They reached the Palace ground undetected and paused under cover of a dense thicket.

“Where are the guards?” whispered Karina.

“I think I saw somebody at the window,” said Raoul. He held his father’s crossbow, a bolt already loaded.

“So what now?” asked El Tigre. “As soon as we leave the bush, they’ll see us.” He’d made it clear he had little heart for the fight. For him, the Revolution had died during that first night in Rangua Town.

“Too bad,” said Karina. “Come on, Raoul.”

And she stepped into the open, and walked boldly across the grass towards the Palace doors. Raoul walked beside her, the crossbow held loosely but ready.

The guards met them inside the entrance. Karina pushed the door open and strode into the vast, dim hall — then quickly dropped into a fighting crouch. Raoul did likewise, swinging the crossbow in an arc.

El Tigre, following up, murmured, “Mordecai.…”

There were over thirty guards standing around the walls. They carried no weapons — they didn’t need them. Their strength and size was intimidating enough. They stood with their arms folded across their chests, watching the small band silently.

“Come on, you bastards.…” said Karina softly. “Come on.…”

Teressa began to creep towards the nearest guard, her lips drawn back. “I’m going to kill you,” she said. The guard made no move.

“Wait, Teressa!” Raoul said suddenly.

“Huh?” Surprised, she glanced over her shoulder. “No True Human brat tells me what — oh!” The guard had stepped forward, pinning her arms to her sides. He lifted her and she hung kicking, snarling with frustration.

Raoul said, “Take us to the Lord.”

“The Lord is gone.”

“Gone? Where?”

“We don’t know. He’s left the Palace and won’t be back.”

The guard released Teressa and she dropped to her feet. “Scared, huh?” she said triumphantly. “The Lord got scared of us, and he ran out. We’ve won, father!”

El Tigre remained silent and thoughtful.

“Who’s in charge, then?” asked Raoul.

“Nobody. We await your orders.”

“
Our
orders?” Runa’s gaze ran along the row of guards in delighted surprise. “You mean you’re
our
guards now?”

The guard permitted himself a faint smile. “We answer to Karina and Raoul. They’re the new Lords.”

“Why them?” asked Teressa in aggrieved tones. “They’re not in charge here. El Tigre is. Besides, Raoul here is a True Human!” She spat out the words with the utmost distaste.

“Ask yourself, cat-girl,” said the guard. “Will the Canton accept a single Lord from a single species? Can’t you see the wisdom in setting up this couple as joint Lords — a True Human and a Specialist?”

El Tigre smiled for the first time in days. “That makes a hell of a lot of sense to me. What do you think, Karina?”

She nodded, wordless, feeling Raoul squeeze her hand.

El Tigre continued. “We have other problems besides True Humans. Manoso, for instance. Do you have any ideas about him, short of annihilation, of course? We’re through with war.”

“Negotiate with him. Treat him the way he wants to be treated — as an independent ruler. After all — he’s already done what you were trying to do, El Tigre. He’s united True Humans and Specialists in a single purpose. If the purpose is to make money, is that bad? He seeks power through commerce, and you seek power through conquest. Is either way more right than the other?”

El Tigre shook his head silently.

“Go and organize Rangua, El Tigre. Share the work and the rewards equally between Specialists and True Humans. At the same time work towards restoring good relations between Rangua and the other Cantons — they’re going to be suspicious of the change, for a while. It’s not going to be easy, but you can do it.

“Meanwhile Karina and Raoul will rule from the Palace. Ostensibly you’ll be working under their orders, but their main purpose will be to serve as figureheads — a united couple for the Canton to look up to. Proof that different human species can live together, and more.”

Now El Tigre laughed. “Karina a figurehead? I’ll believe that when it happens.”

Looking much happier, he ran his hand through his daughter’s hair, saw Serena in her eyes again, glanced curiously at Raoul as though he was half-remembering something, gathered Teressa and Runa around him and set off back to Rangua Town, to begin the rebuilding.

There never had been a Lord of Rangua, of course. The Lord had always been whichever Us Ursa chose to sit behind the opalescent screen. They took it in turns. In their grim, thoughtful way it amused them to think that True Humans were, after all, ruled by Specialists.

And the Us Ursa wanted no trouble. Power, yes; that was their birthright. But trouble meant danger, and danger was against their creed.

So, in the name of peace, they shared their power with Karina and Raoul for a while. Meanwhile El Tigre worked hard in Rangua, a deal was concluded with Manoso, the impounded sailcars were released, and trade was resumed with the southern Cantons with every sign of a boom in prospect.

The Johnathan Years, as the subsequent Age was called, marked the beginning of the end of the religious movement inspired by the Kikihuahua Examples. Under the crafty guidance of Manoso, metal artifacts began to come out of the delta and were accepted into general use. More sailcars of the
Rayo
type were built. Felino objections to these cars were overcome by allowing increased Specialist participation in sailway operations, and in due course the example of Rangua Canton was followed all down the coast.

Another change was triggered by Manoso. He took charge of tortuga production, making no secret of the fact that the creatures were animals, and that True Humans had therefore been eating meat for a long time. And so another Example collapsed, the felinas began to hunt their food again, and the tumps could safely become extinct — which they did, on that happentrack, a thousand years later.

History, as recorded by the Rainbow, does not relate what happened to the Us Ursa. A little-known stanza of the Song of Earth speaks of a small but powerful tribe of huge Specialists who, in later years, inhabited a certain valley of lakes once rumored to be the haunt of a
bruja
. If this tribe was the Us Ursa, they could be there still. It is equally possible that they discovered the workings of the Rock, and, one day after the Triad had removed the Hate Bombs, took off into the Greataway in search of new worlds.

Early in the following summer Karina went to see her father. By that time the Canton had settled down and he was chief of the Town Elders.

“I’m pregnant,” she told him.

He had aged, this last few months. He walked a little more slowly, stood a little less tall. He spoke more carefully, weighing each word, the memory of the Massacre of Rangua still burning in his mind. Torch now handled a lot of his work — in addition to squiring Teressa and Runa.

“I don’t see how you can be,” said El Tigre, but his eyes told him she was.

She laughed shakily. “Neither do I.…” She glanced down at herself, gulped, then burst into tears. “Father, I’m so
scared!
What kind of things am I carrying?
What
’
s in there?
”

He laid a huge arm around her. “It’s not like my girl to be frightened.”

“I never used to be, before,” she sobbed. “Whenever I was frightened or hurt, I used to be able to … kind of concentrate, and I could make it go away. I used to call the things that helped me my Little Friends. I never told anyone about them.”

El Tigre’s eyes were far away, remembering. “Serena … your mother. Nothing could hurt her — until.…” Until a few months before she died.

“Father, my Little Friends have gone, now. I’m scared the things inside me have killed them!”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Karina.” He spoke firmly, masking his love. It was the only way. “They’re just babies, your first. It’s natural for you to be nervous.”

“I’m going away. I want to do this by myself.”

“That’s the usual way.”

“I … I may not come back.”

“I’ll be very sorry if you don’t. And so will Raoul.”

“Raoul?”

“Well, you are.… I mean, I thought.…”

“Only True Humans stick around one another afterwards, father.” Her voice was brittle. “Raoul and I have stayed together for the good of the Canton, but now we do it the felino way. I’d have thought you’d understand that, of all people.”

And El Tigre made his confession.

“I’ve never stopped loving your mother, Karina.”

Karina bore John by the shores of Lake Da Gueria.

It was a difficult birth because he was so big. Karina lay on the pebbles at the water’s edge, mewing with pain. She was alone, apart from a guanaco who watched her with supercilious eyes, chewing. John was born, and Karina bit the cord, and the pain subsided to an ache. There were no others; John was the only baby and Karina inspected him closely for strangenesses, but he seemed normal enough.

Karina rested.

Later that day, feeling better, she bathed John in the warm waters of Lake Da Gueria and wrapped him in a soft blanket, and held him against her. The low sunlight slanted past her, casting long shadows and illuminating the distant sail of a car beating down the coast. She lay back in some contentment, listening to the ripples spending themselves on the lake shore.

John made a sound.

Karina jerked; she’d been dozing. The guanaco had wandered away.

John looked at Karina directly, his eyes focussed in a way that babies’ eyes never do. He smiled.

And something in those eyes said,
I
’
m hungry
.

“Hello, Little Friends,” said Karina happily, and held John to her breast. He was a fine, strong boy.

She found herself looking forward to showing him to Raoul.

Michael Coney is the award-winning author of such novels as SYNZYGY, MONITOR FOUND IN ORBIT, BRONTOMEK, CAT KARINA, and THE CELESTIAL STEAM LOCOMOTIVE. His short stories have appeared in magazines the world over and are frequently included in anthologies.