Meet Me at Infinity (21 page)

My remaining corps of potential fighters, while overweight, looks more promising. Like many fat men, they are light on their feet and supple, and like all Mnerrin, very strong. I explain how we will use the shields, held alternately high and low, and briefly impersonate a gold-skin—whom I have as yet never seen—in coming at them. They tremble and make way, and I harangue them like a drill sergeant on the need to hold their places and protect the children behind. After I have harassed them into tightening to a respectable defense, we practice moving all together to the river and forming a corridor to protect the women and children going in the water. The idea
of protection
is, I find, the best spur.

Then we turn to shield-making; a wicker frame covered with a piece of my best tarp held on with spacer’s glue makes a pretty spear-proof defense, even if—which I can’t find out—the goldskins have metal spear points. Against mere firehardened wood it is impressive, and gives my warriors confidence. They are not cowardly, but merely totally unused to the idea of war itself, of hurting and being hurt.

This becomes clear when we go on to practice actual combat. I sacrifice one of my two canvas ditty bags, stuff it with sand and moss, and hang it up to give them a target to thrust at. It is very hard to get them even to pierce the “skin.” When I tell them to hit me, to make me fall down, their blows are mere taps. In desperation I pretend to fall; my assailant looks horrified, though I jump up and congratulate him.

But then comes assistance of a dreadful kind.

Young Kimra, who had been spying on the goldskins with Falca, comes swimming in one afternoon, broadcasting for attention. We gather round him as he wades ashore.

“The goldmen are definitely preparing for something,” he tells us. “They have been holding conferences. Falca told me to tell you that. And—” he pauses. “We have seen several of the men they took prisoner.

The golds have cut off their crests. Shaved them bald.” He sends us the images.

“Now they can never escape,” Maoul groans. But that did not seem to be all; Kimra is looking at the ground and biting his lip.

“What more?” I ask.

“And—I cannot say it. The children…”

“Yes, what about the children? What have they done to them?”

“They—they are
eating
them!”

“Oh, no!”

“Yes.” The boy’s lips tremble. “Yes… One night we swam in close—and saw. A child’s body was hung up by their fire, hung up like, like
meat!”

Maoul looks at me. “Is this possible?”

“I fear it is. You see, they do not regard you as people. And they lost their flock of some kind of animals.”

“This must be stopped!”

Around us I can hear the report being whispered from man to man.

“We must go there!” Maoul declares.

“No,” I tell him. “You could not equal them in fighting. You would only be killed. And then they would come here for your children.”

“Can you stop it, ‘Om Jhared?”

I have been thinking hard. “I can try. Tell me, is there an island nearby which is on the route of your Long Swim?”

“Yes. The Island of the Green Coral. It is small, but with good food.”

“Then here is what we can do: there is one time when their camp will be little defended. That is when they start to come here. Find me a good swimmer, a boy too light to fight well. I will take him in my boat at top speed down to their camp. When the men leave to come here, I will go ashore with my fire-weapon and free the children and any other captives they have, including the mutilated men. Your boy can lead them all to the Island of Green Coral to wait for you. I will return here at speed and be with you when they attack.”

“Can that be done? Let us question Elia closely on the distances by water and land.”

“Spoken like a general.”

As we go up to Elia’s hut, I see a man attacking the canvas dummy with his spear. He runs it right through. The horrible news has wrought a change.

Elia tells us that the plan is feasible. To get here by land, the gold-skins must go around a range of foothills; it might take them as much as two days.

As we come away, the sergeant of the watch comes to tell us that his boys have sensed minds nearby in the dawn. But the trace faded soon.

“That will be their spies,” I tell Maoul. “They will
go
back and report on this village, how many we are, and the lay of the land. Thank fate they didn’t see our weapons; they will think we are just like the village they crushed.”

So I must wait at least two days before trying my rescue raid. Young Kimra goes back to watch with Falca.

*
We spend the days improving our drill and solving last-minute problems. Such as, what if the goldskins attack the circle with fire? Torches? I set out big containers of water, with a delegate to keep them filled. But the prospect of torches is too daunting. In desperation, I give the fire-control sergeant my can of extinguisher and explain its use. But in future they will have to depend on water alone.

And I confer with Mavru, their quasi-official Healer, to set up the way to treat spear wounds—packing them with the water-moss, which seems, like a similar Terra sphagnum, able to suppress infection. We set up a first-aid station by the river.

Strangely enough, in those last hours of peace, I get to know the Mnerrin better than ever before. I stroll the beach, watching their recreations. Among the more expected sights—boys and girls playing ball—I find a man surrounded by onlookers. He is drawing circles and triangles in the sand and, with a knotted string, explaining what he calls “Relations.” This seems to be their art of geometry and mathematics. I am startled to find diagrams that imply knowledge of the Pythagorean theorems. So these people are not just simple Polynesianlike paradise-dwellers! No, this beach is more like the Athenian agora, where men in simple lengths of cloth discussed the eternal verities.

“We plan to make a permanent structure of stone at storm-season home,” one man told me. “And we are going to use Relations to make it beautiful.”

I find that one of their carefully preserved possessions is a big shell straightedge, marked off in equidistant intervals. They have a standard of measure! The man who carries it across his back has found a friend who has promised to take it over in case he is wounded in the coming fighting with the goldskins.

Nor has Maoul forgotten his discovery of the Galactic alphabet on Kamir’s bracelet. He has been talking it over with others. They get me to teach them the whole alphabet and begin discussing whether more letters are needed to “picture” Mnerrin phonemes. The agora, indeed!

For my part, I take time to teach the Relations enthusiasts about our system of written numbers. Typically, they grasp it at once, and start transcribing them onto their shell measure. They are especially interested in the concept of zero.

“With this, we can do many things!” exclaims Kerana, the Relations explainer. I wonder by how many centuries—or decades—I have speeded their mental evolution. I wonder about their minds; this is no case of an isolated genius, but of a group with high, though unexploited, mental capability. And they seem not to be in danger of the fallacy that brought Plato and Aristotle’s deductive logic low, the fallacy of refusing experiment. No; they test out every step of their Relational logic.

I tell them the story of Aristotle’s deduction that women must have fewer teeth than men, while refusing to count his wife’s teeth. They laugh. I sigh, and wonder if I should expose them to Bacon’s scientific method. I try.

But time is growing short. I have scoured the land that lies behind the beach, and on the last day discover a flintlike rock. I bring it to two men who have been doing shell knives.

“Look. I think you can chip this into blades which will be stronger than shell. Let me show you.” Inexpertly, I flake out an edge. They assent with pleasure to trying.

Maoul has produced a youth named Manya to accompany me on the rescue party. On the last night I pack a few rations and emergency supplies into the boat, and we leave it secured to the beach, to start at dawn.

That last night with Kamir she is untypically thoughtful. I think that the reality of all this has just come through to her, preoccupied as she is with her monstrously growing pregnancy. She has been lying lazily on the beach by day, sunning her vast belly, and smiling to herself, only distantly interested in my warlike activities. She is still enchantingly beautiful in a different way; my little mermaid has turned into a nature goddess.

“Darling, take this.” I extract from my gear my last resort, a tiny close-action personal laser. “Defend yourself with it if I do not return in time. But remember, sweetheart, you must wait until your attacker is very close, almost within arm’s length.”

“I will kill for our babies,” she says calmly. “And you are right to go to save those children. We Mnerrin, as you call us, do not have many. All are precious.” she hugs me again, then pushes me away.

It is very hard to leave her.

But Manya and I get into the dinghy, and shortly the little craft is leaping through the green waters at its great top speed. In a couple of hours we are within sight of the other settlement’s bay, a journey which had cost the wounded Elia two painful days. The birthing huts here are different, somewhat larger, and supported by a center pole. Falca and Kimra are still on the reef, invisible until we catch their mind-call.

We stop out of sight, where we will wait for the goldskins to leave, and hold conference.

Falca says he expects them to leave very soon. “And see, they are loading three canoes. I think it is as you said, they are sending a party by sea to cut off escape on the beaches.”

“How many are there in all?”

“About ninety, counting thirty-six in the canoes.”

“It is bad odds for our people. But I have a very powerful weapon which will kill many. I shall be busy!”

“Kimra told you about the children?”

“Yes. That is why I’m here.” I tell him my plan. Falca sighs.

“That is a great relief. Last night… they killed another. It was all we could do not to rush ashore and assail them. Stranger, you are a good man. Kimra and I were going to try alone, but we had no place to send them. The mutilated men cannot guide.”

“Manya here will take care of that. Meanwhile, you and Kimra are no longer needed here. You might as well start swimming home. But be wary that those canoes do not overtake you in the water.”

“Good. I go. The children are in that large hut with two entrances, and so are the other captives. They are tied with ropes.”

“I can take care of that.” I show him my shark knife. “Fair travel, friend.” He nods, and without more ado he and Kimra take off in long, flat dives.

And then we wait. It becomes clear that the goldskins’ start will not be made till next morning; they are preparing for a feast. I make the mistake of giving my binoculars to Manya, and he sees the fresh-killed body of a child hung up by the fire. He chokes with fury, then weeps quietly. I take the glasses and try to soothe him as best as I can.

“Oh, if only I had those long-range weapons you told us about! No—I would go to them, I will kill them with my bare hands. I would
kill!
I will kill!… We will return in time, won’t we?”

“Yes, but you won’t be with me, Manya. You will be leading the children and the mutilated men to safety on that island.”

He heaves a sigh. “Yes, I forgot. But if there is a goldskin left ashore, I will kill him with my bare hands.”

“Don’t be rash, Manya. Those men are practiced fighters. One of them could destroy you. I will attend to the killing.”

“Then I will kill their children!”

He seems to hear himself then, and looks shocked. But he continues in a grim voice, “Their children will grow into such as they. They have devoured our babies. Yes, I will kill them.”

I, too, am shocked. What have I created? Or no, it was not me, but the circumstances, the irruption of the goldskins. The sight of one’s children being butchered like animals is not to be reacted to in a civilized way. He is not to be blamed.

But what about me? I contemplate cold-blooded genocide. No, not cold-blooded; these Mnerrin are in a sense my children. My ideal of Human life… Grimly, I realize that I have fallen into every psychic trap that spacers are warned of. I love these people.

So be it. When I return, I will pull every lever, press every button known to me to obtain official intervention, to save this planet for the Mnerrin. It’s just possible, especially if one or two of my friends are still in their offices…

Twilight has come. We eat and settle for the night, thinking our different thoughts. This is, in fact, one of the few times I have had pause from my duties to reflect. Manya’s slight form beside me in the boat reminds me of Kamir. What of her? What of my babies, if incredibly they are born whole and viable? Can I stay here with them? Could I endure this tranquil life, as a non-sea animal? I don’t know….

In any event, the need to get off-planet and do something for the Mnerrin will dominate my life for a while. After that, we’ll see.

The fact is that my conviction that our mating would be infertile has been so strong that I still do not believe I am about to father little half-aliens, if all goes well. I have never fathered others. What is this recurrent question, How will you feed them. How
are
they fed, without mother’s milk, by non-mammals? I had vaguely supposed that they would eat fish, like the adults. Evidently there is something that I, helped by Agna and Donnia, am going to have to do. And Kamir—I shudder away from the mounting evidence that somehow this birthing will mean her death. Surely those were older women, there in the village. Not my bright, vital little mermaiden! No… no… These concerns are for after the coming battle…

Finally I sleep, and the balmy night goes by.

We rouse to dawnlight, at once aware that the camp is in motion. I check the glasses. Yes, goldskins are loading the canoes, preparing to cast off. We had better conceal ourselves.

We paddle in among some rocks that have tumbled to the sea, forming one arm of the bay shore. There we eat and watch.