Meet Me at Infinity (22 page)

This settlement is similar to the one I know in that it is in a delta around an estuary. Evidently these marshy places are proper sites for birthing and rearing the newborn. And there must be a limited number of them. By driving the Mnerrin from them, the goldskins could make it impossible for the Mnerrin to breed. Idly, I wonder why the deltas are so favorable. Perhaps tiny babies are taught to swim in the little streamlets, before their gills are strong enough for the open sea? And I am still not clear as to what role fresh water versus salt plays in their lives. Really, it is shameful how I have simply
lived,
without collecting any respectable body of data!

At this moment Manya nudges me, and we hear the
chunk, chunk
sound of paddles. A long low dark canoe, gaudily bedizened, comes in sight. Six paddlers to a side. We crouch low.

It passes by, about fifty meters away, followed by another, and another. And then no more. Cautiously, we nose out of the rocks to where we can see the camp.

It is so still that we can hear voices. After we have waited about two hours, we hear a different sound, a kind of chanting. It takes on a marching tempo. And then we see a band of about fifty men tramping up out of the swampland, chanting and blowing on pipes. They gain solid ground and set off down the coast. My heart has sunk—fifty and thirty-six, more than two to one against the Mnerrin. My laser will have to do good work.

But now we have other work in hand.

We still avoid starting the motor, but paddle in to their beach. We beach the dingy and start at a crouching run toward the big hut Falca had pointed out. Women must be all about us in the camp, but we see none—until suddenly we come on a party of them right outside the hut. They have knives in their hands.

I notice only that they are brightly gilt, their hides like goldfish, and could be called handsome if your taste runs to eighty-kilo bodies.

Manya behind me is making an extraordinary noise through his clenched teeth.

I make a sweeping pass with the laser, and they go down like tenpins without making a sound, their throats burned through. Behind them the door to the hut is ajar. Had they been going in to murder another child?

Mind-cries are coming from the hut. I send strongly, “Friends come!” and Manya joins me. We step over the golden corpses and go in to a pitiful sight.

The hut is full of rails and posts, and everywhere are tied children, ranging from toddlers to teenagers. Some grown men, shaved bald, are tied up at one end. The hut stinks.

“Cut them loose, quickly.” I have brought a spare knife for Manya.

“Hungry, hungry,” comes the mind-cry, especially from the smaller ones, as we free them.

“You will have food soon,” we send. But how? I shudder to think what meat we will find beside the cookfires. Still, surely they have already fed on it. And would their dead friends object to giving their flesh to save the living?

A spear clatters in at the other door, a woman dives back.

“You finish freeing them, I’ll attend to the village,” I tell Manya. “Can you guard the outer door?” I ask a bald man, who is rubbing his limbs.

“Yes.”

I go out and start through the village like a dervish, burning everything that moves. From one hut I am greeted by a spear. Inside, a man obviously sick or wounded is clinging to the center post. Beyond him crouch two women and children. Mercy is not in me that day; when I leave the hut, nothing lives behind me.

At intervals I check back to the big hut, where Manya is leading the children out. They stare at the goldskin corpses. The mutilated men look nervously about. Their heads are covered with pink fuzz.

I have found a pot of meat stew simmering at a hearth, and basket bowls. I put it before the kids without looking too closely.

“Can you catch reef-fish, after what they have done to you?” I ask the men.

“Oh, yes, if we can find our nets.”

As luck would have it, a pile of their filmy nets, loincloths, and other belongings has been thrown beside another hut.

“Good. Now, when you have eaten enough, you and the children will follow Manya here to an island—I think you know it—beside the path of the Long Swim. The people from my settlement will pick you up as they go by.”

“They haven’t left yet?”

“No.” And then I have to respond to the overwhelming mind-question coming at me from everyone, even as they begin to gulp food: “Who are you?”

“A friend from the skies, Tom Jared. I have been living with your people since I met a girl named Kamir and mated with her. Now, these goldskins are going to attack our village. I must return quickly and help them fight. I can carry only one. Is there a man here who can strike and kill? Kill goldskins? Our people need defenders.” I send an image of a goldskin leaping at a Mnerrin.

To my surprise, amid the blank looks I had expected from most of the men, a younger one steps smartly forward. “I think I can do what you call fight, O friend from the skies. I have thought much during our captivity. Now I can kill. But I need things to strike with. Here!”

He bends down to the row of corpses and takes a strong-looking knife from a dead woman’s hand.

“And now a long one—”

“We call those spears. Maybe we will find some in this big hut.”

And indeed we find a cache of spears. But they are mostly slim, decorated things for rituals and dancing. Again to my surprise, my new recruit sorts out some that are sturdy and useful. This lad is an untypical mutation, in theory, maybe, a dangerous one. Right now I wish I had a hundred of him.

“Good. Now we go. I have fish in the boat, you can eat on the way. And you others had best be on your way with Manya, lest some gold-skins catch you again.”

I bid good-bye to them as they eagerly follow Manya to the water’s edge. The men have found some rope, and start tying the smaller children on towlines to their belts. Always this care for the young! I cut short their curiosity about my boat.

“Later. No time, now.”

The warlike lad’s name is Sintana. His eyes shine as I direct him to help me tow the dinghy to deep water and hop in. When I start the motor and start skimming along the reef, he is visibly ecstatic.

“Now, I don’t know whether we will overtake the canoes before they reach my village or not. So we must proceed with care whenever we cannot see a long way ahead. I want you to watch and listen with all your power for those canoes. I will have much watching to do to avoid hitting coral heads this close to shore. If you see or suspect a canoe, raise your arm like this and be ready for a quick stop, right? If you are
sure
that all is clear ahead, go like this.”

Enthusiastic assent from Sintana. I gun up the motor to full speed, and we rip along at top speed toward my village. I want to keep close to the reef to avoid being sighted by the canoes ahead, but the danger from isolated coral rocks strings my nerves tight. Luckily, there is enough wave action to show where most of them lie. Avoiding one at the last minute, I nearly spill us. Sintana looks round questioningly, and after that I see him hang on.

He is radiating pleasurable excitement like a child, but looking him over, I see he has plenty of muscle to go with his combative spirit. A gods-sent ally.

It’s getting dark. Each time as we round a shallow point, Sintana waves me on. Those canoes have really covered ground. I’m not afraid of their hearing my motor over their paddling splash—and even if they did, they would not know what it was. But where are they?

We approach the last point before our bay. Suddenly Sintana’s hand goes up and we jolt to a stop.

“I think I hear minds from around the point. Maybe quite close.”

“They could be holed up, waiting for the men on land to arrive. No more talking now.”

At lowest speed we nose around the point. Presently we can see most of the bay, but no canoes.

“They’re hiding right on the other side of these rocks,” Sintana whispers. I listen, and fancy I can catch a crude mind-murmur.

“Can you paddle quietly?”

“I think so.”

“Fine. Let’s try to get a look.”

We paddle the dinghy silently forward, about an arm’s length from the rocks. Sintana’s hand shoots up and I stop. Eyes glowing with excitement, he whispers, “I can see the bows of two canoes, in a cove in the rocks. I don’t know where the third is.”

“Sintana, get down low in the boat. I am going around fast and fire my weapon at them. But we will be within spear-throw. Make sure they do not hit you. And
do not throw your spear,
you will need it later,” I add, knowing what the excitement could do to such a boy.

“And your part is to keep watch for that third canoe. Got it?”

“Yes.” He is reluctantly crouching down.

“Get farther down. The air will be full of spears, and I must fire over you. Can you
stay
down?”

“Yes.”

“All right. Hang on, here we go!”

I slam the lever to high, and we round the point in a great rooster-tail of spray. In the cove behind the point are two canoes full of gold-skins—good, I had feared some might have gone ashore. I fire as soon as I’m in range, zigzagging as I come at them. Screams, barely audible over the motor and spray. I roar in as close as I dare, and then twist the dinghy into a hair-raising U-turn, firing all the time. Spray splashes over the canoes, but I can see goldmen struggling up, lifting their spears. I turn again and make another pass, managing to laser every standing man.

But Sintana is in my way.

“Get down!”

“The third canoe! Look out, look out!” he yells.

I glance back and see the third canoe, come out of nowhere, rushing straight at me. I turn and fire. Luckily, from dead ahead, the spearmen are blocking each other. But they are also shielding each other from my fire. I whip around fast and slice in close to the gunwale, doing slaughter—and then I’m out of the little cove, heading for the reef. Luckily, moons are up.

But that’s as far as we go. The feel of the dinghy warns me—I see two spear shafts sticking from the pontoons. Oh gods. I turn toward the beach, weaving between the rocks at the start of the reef, and just make shallow water as our craft collapses around us. No one is in pursuit.

Sintana and I jump out. I wrestle the motor from the sagging folds and hand it to him while I rescue the batteries. Thus laden, we struggle ashore, towing the half-submerged dinghy. Sintana, I’m glad to see, still has his spear. A cool boy.

At that moment a fearful hooting hits our ears from the delta beyond. The watchers have sighted goldskins and are blowing their conches.

I hate to leave my wrecked dinghy to the attentions of any survivors from the canoes—it is my only link to the lander—but there’s no time to do more than throw a couple of armfuls of brush over it. We start for the village at a run.

As we near it, I see splashing in the shallows. A Mnerrin family has forgotten the drill and is heading straight for the sea. Ahead of me two goldskins, shining in the moonlight, race after them, spears lifted. They throw before I can get the range; the man of the fleeing groups goes down into the water. The children stop, trying to pull him up, but the goldmen are upon them; I manage to pick one off, but the other is too close to the children.

He whips out something silvery—it’s a rope, he is tying them up. He starts out of the surf, dragging them behind him, screaming.

We pound after him, Sintana in the lead. I see his spear flash, and the goldman goes down. By the gods, my Mnerrin has killed! We cut the children loose and tell them to follow us.

“No, Father Pavo is out there!”

“He’ll be all right. Come.” I know that if Pavo has survived the spear, he will be safer under water than on shore.

We run on.

Most of the goldskins are still coming down the bank onto the delta. I can see the main hut now, see that my Mnerrin have actually formed a protective circle. Women and children are still being thrust in.

I identify us by mind-call.

“Quick, there is time to start for the river
now!”

“But Pavo’s family are not here.”

“He ran to the sea and got caught. I have his children. Here,” I tell them, “get in behind these men.”

The leading goldskins are upon us. I fire, pick them off. Others are circling, trying to get between us and the sea.

“They are after the children! Quick, to the river! All together, go!”

The circle starts off at a wobbly trot, the men in the rear having a hard time shepherding the children and fending off goldskins, who are now arriving in force. I fire, fire till no more are in range, wishing that I were within the circle firing out—too many times I have had to hold fire to avoid hitting Mnerrin. And then another shining rank of goldmen is upon us.

The next hour is collapsed in my mind into a montage of firing, running, firing, running. The goldskins catch up with the Mnerrin circle before they reach the river, and there is wild spear-jabbing, hand-to-hand combat. Children’s shrieks fill the air.

At last they reach the river and form a corridor as I had taught them. Children rush down it, women hobble after, babies in arms, and fling themselves into the deep channel, followed by the men. Goldskins rove the banks, searching futilely for some shallow place where they can get at their prey. I lurk behind, picking them off as I can. I do not think many of them are clearly aware of me. Finally when they pause at the beach, I have a clear shot at a mass of them, and wreak scorching havoc. Sintana is busy chasing stragglers.

There is a moment’s lull. I stand up to look—and am jolted by a blow. A spear shaft in my shoulder. But moments later I am aware that Sintana is by me, having dispatched my attacker.

“Pull this out of me, Sintana.”

He does so, surprisingly gentle. I watch the ripples that mean Mnerrin are reaching the sea, gritting my teeth.

“Is there much blood?”

“Some.”

“Pack that moss in the hole.” I cut off a length of rope and make a sling for my arm. Fortunately the spear doesn’t seem to have hit anything vital.

“Where are the rest of the goldmen?”

“I don’t think there are any more standing,” he says with quiet pride. I can see in the moonlight that he is bloodied all over and has a different spear.