Turning Point (6 page)

“Meg,” Carrie hesitated, spoon held in midair, “I'm sorry about ...”

Meg smiled and patted Carrie's other hand where it lay on the coverlet. “Don't you worry, love, I understand. If your friend can behave like that when he thinks you're threatened, I reckon we've nothing to fear from him. If he'd meant us any harm, we'd have known it by now.

“Now come on, eat up your broth. There's plenty more in the pot where that came from.”

Valleytown Inn served a variety of functions. It was first and foremost the place where the adult members of the town—population some 300 souls plus assorted livestock and one forest cat—could relax. It was also where the Ladies' Sewing Circle met on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, and the center for the informal exchange of information. The less charitable called it the Gossip Shop.

Its second most important function was as the central clearing house for information gleaned by the Passive Resistance movement run by Carrie's father, Peter Hamilton.

Unlike the guerrillas led by the Captain and what remained of the starship crew, the Passive Resistance did not use violence. They claimed that it only brought retaliatory action, resulting in more deaths of the already depleted colonists.

Though Carrie's talent lay in working with children, she was often called upon by her father to help out in the taproom during the evenings. She enjoyed the break from her routine and found it refreshing now and then to be able to talk to people who were over a meter tall. So for her first sortie back into the community life, the taproom was a natural place to start.

She had taken longer than she had expected to heal. It had been six weeks since ... that night ... and occasionally she still felt weak and drained from her ordeal. At least all the broken bones had mended and she could use her hands again. Even the faint scars from the lacerations on her arms were beginning to fade.

She looked round to where Kusac lay on the floor by her feet, nose on his front paws, tail curled round him. An ear cocked in her direction and his eyes opened slowly.

His recuperative powers had been something else. Of the terrible wound in his flank all that now remained was a slight limp and a long patch of shorter fur.

He was like her shadow, never leaving her side for any length of time even on the couple of short walks they'd taken on the slopes out at the back of the fields.

This pleased Carrie. She enjoyed having him around, especially when the Valtegans did one of their sudden searches of the Inn. They showed Kusac a healthy respect that bordered on a pathological fear of him, although it hadn't stopped the soldiers from the local base outside the village from coming into the Inn when off duty.

 

Kusac lay quiescent, well aware of Carrie's surface thoughts. He desperately needed to know more about these Valtegans, but the girl's mind was strong—growing stronger since he had started teaching her—and now he doubted whether she would respond to a gentle nudge in that direction.

 

Carrie took another sip of her coffee, finding her thoughts slipping back to the past. Ten years ago when the Valtegans had descended on them like a plague of locusts, the colony had only just gotten itself established. Each interdependent unit was finally in its proper location: the fishing center remained at the landing site, calling itself Seaport; the mining community had set up its houses in the hilly country—Hillfort; and her own group had moved to the fertile plains they called Valleytown. Oceanview moved up the coast, taking advantage of the pure seawater to farm seaweeds and shellfish as well as the land.

They had only been on the planet two years, and what they had achieved in that time had been outstanding.

Keiss had been almost a new Eden. There was no intelligent dominant life-form on the planet, though given time it was argued by some that the felines could have filled that niche. The soil was rich and fertile, hardly even needing the manure they ploughed into it to help feed the Terran crops they had brought with them.

Most of the native grasses and grains were edible by livestock and humans alike, and the climate was temperate. It was all they could have wished for. Until the Alien ships landed.

Carrie's thoughts veered away from that back to the present time and she grinned. At least the Valtegans hadn't found the human population on Keiss a walkover. Despite delaying tactics from the forced human labor groups, the two giant domed cities of Geshader and Tashkerra had been built—plus a major military base on the coast and local garrisons at each of the four settlements, these last thanks to their guerrilla activities.

The Valtegans' R & R planet—for such was the use they had intended Keiss to fill—had ended up as armed camps that their recuperating troops had to be virtually interned within until they were fit to return to their spacecraft. It was no holiday world.

Who and where the Valtegans were fighting was a puzzle that no one could uncover. It seemed the Valtegans on Keiss didn't even know. All the humans could discover was that Keiss was well back from any combat zone, and this only because over the years they had learned to judge the state of the injuries of the hospitalized Aliens. The who and where were recurrent topics of speculative gossip given their total lack of any known facts.

Carrie pulled her wandering thoughts back to the here and now, aware that she was supposed to be working.

 

Kusac lay quiet, piecing together what he'd learned. Apart from having a good understanding of their language now, he'd found out more in the last few minutes than in the last six weeks.

 

The taproom was large and had a friendly atmosphere. Every effort had been made to create as pleasant surroundings as possible. A solid screen stood in front of the doorway to prevent the bitter winter winds from howling round the room whenever the door was opened. Alcoves had been created along the walls, the benches padded and covered with hand-woven brightly colored cloth.

In the center of the room stood the open log fireplace, the local resinous wood scenting the air with a smell reminiscent of pine. Smaller round tables and chairs filled this middle area.

The bar was opposite the door and this was where Carrie was sitting. Reaching forward, she took the jug of coffee off the hot plate and poured herself a second mug, adding sweetener and milk. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Kusac's head raise and his nostrils twitch appreciatively at the smell.

“Sorry, Kusac, coffee isn't for cats. You know where your bowl of water is.”

She took a mouthful, then set the mug down.

“I'd better get started, I suppose,” she said, letting herself slide off the high stool.

Taking the notepad and pencil out of her pocket, she went round behind the bar and began checking the bottles of wines and spirits off against her list.

They made all their own alcoholic drinks using a mixture of the grains and fruits they had brought with them as well as some of those indigenous to Keiss. Her father's passion was his vines, though, and he spent hours tending them in his greenhouses. He did brew lovely traditional wines, but Carrie preferred those made with the other fruits.

All their crops were either edible or tradable at the monthly markets held at Seaport, the only large gathering the Valtegans would allow them, and that only because it provided amusement as a tourist attraction for the Valtegans from Geshader and Tashkerra. The markets were sacrosanct, needed by the humans for their continued survival, so no anti-Valtegan activities were allowed for fear of losing the privilege of exchanging goods for foodstuffs.

As she checked out which bottles needed replacing, the outer door opened. Ever alert, Kusac turned his head, ears pricked forward, but it was only Annie arriving for work.

“Hello, Carrie. I didn't expect to see you in here so soon,” she said, taking off her hat and coat and hanging them on the rack at the back of the screen.

Carrie glanced round. “Hello, Annie. Dad asked me to do a bar check on the spirits. He wants you to restock them from the cellar.”

“Well, you go back to your stool and nurse your coffee. I'll read them out to you,” she said, coming across the room toward Carrie.

“No, honestly ...”

“Go on now,” Annie smiled, squeezing past her and giving her a gentle shove. “You rest while you can. Your dad will have you worked off your feet again in no time.”

“I've done nothing but rest,” objected Carrie, returning to her perch by the coffeepot.

The door opened again, this time to admit the Merediths.

“Hello there, Annie,” said Ted, coming up to the bar while his brothers settled themselves in the alcove nearest to the fire. “Three pints of bitter, love.” He slapped a handful of assorted coins down on the bar and turned to Carrie.

“Hello, Miss,” he said, nodding to her. “Nice to see you up and about again.”

“Hello, Ted,” she replied, aware of his increased uneasiness in her company. She saw his sidelong glance to where her hands lay folded on the counter. Anger flared inside her.

So everyone knew, did they? And it frightened them, did it? They knew that this time although the Valtegans hadn't laid a hand on her, she had suffered exactly the same injuries as those inflicted on her twin. She stretched her fingers along the bartop. Then let them see and be really afraid!

“Yes, they're healing nicely, thank you,” she said, her smile brittle.

Ted took a step back.

“There you are, Ted,” interrupted Annie, drawing his attention away from Carrie as she put the first of the pottery tankards of beer in front of him. “It's raw out tonight, isn't it? You wouldn't think spring was nearly due.”

Ted turned back to her, relief evident on his face.

“Well, if it keeps those bloody lizards out of the Inn, all to the good,” he said, picking up the first tankard and taking the second from her. “You can't go anywhere these days without tripping over a couple of them.”

“Well, whatever it is they're looking for, they haven't found it yet,” Annie said, pulling the last pint.

“One of my pigeons came in from Hillfort today. The message said as how the lizards turned them all out of their beds in the middle of the night last week. Kept them standing out there for two solid hours while they turned the houses over with their searching,” he said over his shoulder as he carried the drinks to their table.

“I've heard it's only us and Hillfort they're searching,” said Annie.

“I've heard that, too,” said Bill, taking a hefty swig of his beer.

Ted ambled back over to the bar to collect his own drink.

“Don't let yourself get wound up so,” said Annie quietly, touching Carrie lightly on the arm. “They're just curious, there's no harm in them.”

Carrie let go of the anger the way she had been taught and managed a slight smile.

“That's better,” said Annie. “Now let's get back to our list before we get any busier.”

As she picked up her pencil again, Carrie could hear them on the edge of her mind.

I'm telling you, it was as if they were doing it to her,
insisted Bill.

What, bruises and the like?
asked Alan, leaning forward.
No, she always had the bruises. This was worse. This time she was found covered in blood.

Get on,
said Bill, taking a sip of his beer.

She tried to ignore it, but it was becoming, less easy these days. She felt raw, hypersensitive to any mention of her name. She concentrated on listening to Annie, the other voices beginning to fade as they moved onto another topic.

They had just finished when the door banged open and a cold draft swept into the room.

“Is a search,” said the Valtegan officer, sweeping his gun round the room in an arc as his two companions joined him.

“All in corner.” He jerked the gun toward where the Merediths still sat. “Go.”

As the score or so people in the Inn got to their feet and moved toward the corner, Carrie heard Kusac's growl start to build.

The smell, that musty odor they created, filled the room, bringing back memories of darkened corridors and rooms—the smell of fear and blood. She couldn't move.

Behind her was the door to the Inn's private quarters and from beyond it came raised voices. The door opened and her father and brother, followed by Meg, were pushed through. A fourth soldier accompanied them.

Kusac's growl became a snarl.

Carrie stood as if frozen as one of the soldiers advanced on her.

“Leave her alone,” said Richard, trying to move back to her side.

The nearest Valtegan backhanded him in the chest, sending him reeling into the others.

Kusac stood in front of her, tail lashing from side to side, teeth bared.

The officer's gun pointed directly at his head.

“Move,” he hissed at Carrie, “I kill it else.”

Fear and anger in equal proportions exploded in Carrie's mind, none of it hers. The force made her reel and she stumbled against Kusac, breaking their deadly tableau. Able to move and think again, she grasped him by the collar he wore round his neck and, ignoring his strangled cough of protest, hauled him with her over to the others.