Paws and Planets (7 page)

Saru returned
to his daga and as he reflected ever afterwards, it was a wonder he
reached it in one piece! So lost in thought was he that he flew
dangerously close to a tall copse of trees at one point, tilting
his wings just in time to avoid an accident.

Not yet knowing
about the telepathic abilities at this point in time he was
surprised to see his family’s two Lind waiting for him. As he
glided into land they began to jump about, obviously in high good
humour.

His and Sanua’s
half grown ltsctas were watching them open mouthed. Young Lind
would often play games, gambolling around, but here were two adults
dashing here there and everywhere and generally acting like a pair
of crazy idiots and now that Saru knew to listen he thought he
could discern some attempts at speech.

By the eggs
of my ancestors
, he thought as his talons hit the dirt, not the
tidiest of landings which was not surprising, so preoccupied was
he
, I am a part of a tremendous thing, a great leap forward for
any species. No doubt they would have learned to talk anyway, in
the future but what a blessing our advance party didn’t interpret
their curiosity and behaviour for what it was. If they had we’d
still be travelling around the universe in the Limokko and would
have missed all this!

By the time he
had gathered himself together, he found that there were many more
Lind around him than his own Aei and Aya. There were around twenty
of them, all jumping around seeking attention. Every heartbeat or
two one would stop for a moment and concentrate hard and try to
speak. Saru thought it was funny how their eyes became half-lidded
as they did.

How long have
they been trying to talk and I have never noticed?

He responded to
their greetings with wry good humour, speaking slowly and clearly
and enunciating each syllable and they were listening he realised,
listening hard, ears cocked as the assimilated each new sound.

Maru, Velua and
little Belu came pounding over, simply bursting with questions.

“Father, what
is happening? Come tell Mother. She can’t leave the eggs but she
wants to know.”

“Mother says
you’ve to come to the daga immediately.”

“Mother says
now and not a tvan later.”

“Quieten down
all of you,” said Saru, raising a wing for silence.

Both Lind and
Lai ceased their tumult.

“Go tell your
mother that I will be there in a tvan or two,” he told Maru, “you
can tell her also that our little furry friends here are far more
clever than we thought they were.”

“How’s that
Father?” asked Belu.

“It seems that
they can talk. At least Dakaru’s Andei can and I’m sure the rest
won’t be long in being able to as well.”

“But Father,”
said Velua, rolling her eyes in exasperation, “we three have known
that for ages!”

* * * * *

EPISODE 5 –
DAGAN

FIRST
LESSON

There is a mix
of Lai and English words for numbers in this story as it was far
too confusing not to do so. It’s not that important anyway, it’s
the story that matters.

In Lindish dun
is one, vad is two, lok is three, san is four and rak is five.

Before he had
left the triumphant Dakaru, Saru had extracted his promise not to
mention his findings to anylai else until he, Saru gave him leave.
He extracted the same promise from Sanua, Maru, Velua and Belu.
They all promised readily enough.

Before ‘it went
public’ so to speak, Saru wanted to test it all out for
himself.

Now get your
brains to work my Lai, how am I to do this?
He was sitting on
the eggs in a brown study, aware that Aei and Aya were seated
nearby and staring at him in an expectant manner. After some
thought, he decided on a possible avenue of approach. He would
attempt to teach them their numbers! That would separate the truly
intelligent from the merely well-trained!

Ltsctas copied
their parents with actions and words. During their early xanus they
had no real conception of what the words they were uttering in
their squeaky voices actually meant. They merely repeated them
parrot fashion (of course Saru did not know what a parrot was but
back on Daiglon his ancestors had kept as pets bird-like creatures
of a similar type who had spoken words that had been repeated by
the Lai in their hearing. Like the parrots of Earth, these
creatures had no real understanding of what they meant). Perhaps
the Lind, despite what he had seen were the same.

Saru meant to
find out, not before he was much older, but that very day.

If the Lind
could be taught a few numbers and could make the jump between the
spoken word for these numbers and the numbers themselves he
decided, that would prove whether or not they possessed the power
to reason or not.

As he waited
impatiently for Sanua to return and take over the eggs he made his
plans and when she did he took only the time to say a few
pleasantries before he escaped with Aei and Aya, leaving her
wondering why he seemed to be so preoccupied and what on Dagan was
he carrying in the receptacle?

In actuality,
inside the receptacle were five wooden balls, culled from the
ltsctas play box. Marua, Velua and Belu were getting a bit old for
playing ball anyway and Saru was pretty sure they would not notice
they were gone.

He led Aei and
Aya deep into the trees that surrounded the daga. The allsts (the
Lai word for tree) were tall and dense here, providing a leafy
canopy under which he could conduct his investigations in
private.

At last they
reached a spot with room enough for his purpose and Saru placed the
receptacle on the ground.

“Right you
two,” he said to Aei and Aya, “time for your first lesson.”

He picked out
the first ball and held it up

“This is a
ball,” he said and Aei and Aya looked at him then at the ball.

“We’re not
going to play with it.”

They looked at
him with uncertainty, balls usually meant play, their gazed turning
into puzzlement as they watched him place it before them.

“Don’t touch
it,” Saru ordered as he placed a second beside the first then added
a third.

Three in a
row
, he hummed to himself, quoting a well-known song.
Three
is enough to start with.

“There are
three balls here.” He pointed at the first and said “one.” The
second he called two and the third he called three.

“One, two,
three,” he said then, pointing to each in turn.

He took one
away.

“One, two,
there are two balls here.”

Aei and Aya
wagged their tails.

He took a
second away.

“One ball.”

He added
another.

“Two
balls.”

He added the
third.

“Three
balls.”

They watched
with no obvious reaction.

Saru repeated
the process six times more and then another six times until he
began to observe the dawning comprehension in their faces.

He sat back,
having placed two of the balls in front of them once more.

Here goes.

“How many balls
are there?” he asked, not really expecting a reply.

Aei looked at
Aya and his lips quirked.

He tapped his
paw on the ground twice and Aya nodded.

Is this a
fluke?

Saru tried
again and got the same reply, two distinct taps of a paw.

He added the
third ball.

Aei didn’t even
wait to be asked. He tapped his paw three times.

With rising
excitement Saru took the two remaining balls out of the receptacle
and placed them with the others, enunciating carefully the words
for four (san) and five (rak).

This time it
was Aya who tapped, five times.

Saru spent the
next fifty tvans removing and adding balls and the Lind never got
it wrong once. He sat back to think it over then to his surprise
Aei came over and nudged him with his cold, wet nose.

“R … k blls,”
he said very slowly as he pointed at them with his paw and not
really expecting an answer Saru asked, “and how many balls would
there be left if I took one away?”

Aei considered
for perhaps half a tvan.

“San,” he said
at last, “san blls eft.”

Result? One
speechless Saru!

He had no
doubts now. Dakaru had been right. The Lind were extremely
intelligent and in possession of reasoning powers that made them
most definitely sentient.

Now what were
the Lai to do? Remain and teach them or try to find an isolated
spot in order to leave the Lind to develop their new abilities on
their own? As he looked at them, pleased and triumphant expressions
on their faces, he knew what the answer would be.

The Lai would
stay, at least for a while, stay as teachers and guides, until the
day when it would be time to leave.

Saru was about
to embark on a new career, as a teacher of the Lind and he would
carry out this self imposed task for the remainder of his long
life.

Within a
Lindish generation, speech was common place amongst the rtaths the
length and breadth of the continent. The Lind adopted many Lai
words and some of their grammar and invented some of their own.

* * * * *

EPISODE 6 –
DAGAN

LEAVE-TAKING

Six hundred
xanus later …

“Maru,” said
Belu to his brother, “it is time for us to go.”

“Not yet,” Maru
replied, “they are not ready.”

“The Lind are
as ready as they will ever be, it is time for them to determine
their own destiny.”

Maru shook his
head, “not yet awhile. The attitude of the Lind Largei worries me.
He and his rtath are warlike and unpleasant in their attitude to
the others. He needs guidance still.”

Belu shook his
head with regret, “have you forgotten our own history so soon
brother? Do you forget the Dglai?”

“I do not and
remember Belu, they might still be out there, how can we protect
the Lind if we are hidden away in the west?”

“We will think
of a way,” Belu promised, “but go now we must. The destiny of the
Lind is no longer our concern.”

“Their destiny
will always be our concern,” said Malu, “and that is as it should
be. We shall watch over them still.”

“We shall watch
but shall not interfere,” agreed Belu and left Maru to make his
arrangements for departure to the wooded mountains of the far
west.

* * * * *

The centuries
passed and the existence of the Lai passed into legend except for a
few, those whose ancestors had decided to share the exile with
their Lai friends. These Lind and their descendants remained with
the Lai on the other northern continent, keeping their secret and
waiting for the day when all could be revealed.

* * * * *

THE LIND -
THEIR PREQUEL

* * * * *

KOLYEI (AL-20
to AL0)

Kolyei and Tara
Sullivan were the very first Lind and Human to make direct
inter-species contact and to become life and mind-bonded. Kolyei
erupts on to the stage in ‘Wolves and War’ as a fully-fledged adult
Lind but what of his upbringing? What was it like to be a Lind
before humankind arrived on their planet?

This was one of
the first pieces the author wrote about Planet Wolf. It was the
story which fired her enthusiasm for all things wolfish.

“
Talking
wolves? Whatever next?” exclaimed her husband when she told him
about what she was writing. “No-one will want to read about talking
wolves!” How wrong can anyone be?

From ‘Tales of
Rybak’, Volume 1, Chapter 14

Written by Tara
Sullivan-Crawford (born AL -12, died circa AL 55)

Twenty summers
before mankind landed on our planet, deep within what would become
the land of Vadath, Kalya, life-mate of Sanvei, gave birth. Kolyei
was the third and middle member of the litter and the only
male.

As the five
ltsctas (this is what our Lind friends call their children), eyes
closed and mewling, nestled into their dam, it was beyond Kalya and
Sanvei’s wildest imaginings as to how their lives would change
during the generation ahead.

During their
first season the little ones tottered around the family daga under
the watchful eye of Kalya. Their father was often absent, he had
duties to perform that required frequent journeys away from the
domta, the home of rtath (pack) Alanasei.

Within the
relative security of their pack-ranges the Lind raised their young
in a manner that had not changed for generations beyond count. They
could neither read nor write, but their ancient and varied oral
tradition was passed down to the ltsctas by their parents and later
by their teachers.

From an early
age they were taught about what it meant to be a Lind. Kolyei was
also aware of the closeness of his siblings, the love of his mother
(and of his father when he was there) and of the peace and
contentment that came from being part of a loving family.

But Pack
Alanasei was a warrior pack and charged with the patrol and initial
defence of the eastern coast of the lands of the Lind.

Between the
northern and southern continents is a wide seawater channel. A
chain of islands form a sea bridge that can be traversed,
especially during the low sea levels of the hot season. In the
southern continent lives a species who call themselves the
Larg.

These
southerners like nothing better than to cross over the island
bridge and descend on the inhabitants of the north. They hunt and
kill all that cross their path.