Shockball (16 page)

I’d been to reservations and museums. I’d seen the way even the most conservative Native Americans lived. None of them had ever tried recreating a historic habitat like this. “This is impossible.”

“No.” Milass’s scarred face lit up with a satisfied smile. “This is
Leyaneyaniteh
.”

While I stood there gaping along with Reever, our rescuer strode away and walked around the cavern. He didn’t do anything for about ten minutes.

“I don’t care what he says. They’re Navajo,” I said to Reever.

“How do you know?”

“The Navajo consider it rude to barge in and say hi the minute they arrive somewhere. They like to wait and give people time to finish whatever it is they’re doing before they interrupt them.”

Once Milass judged the time to be right, he strode casually to the center of the cavern and climbed up on a big, flat boulder there. By then everyone had finished or set aside whatever they were working on and gave him their full attention.

“Got in, got out, got ’em here.” The Indian pointed to us, then smacked his little hand against his chest and made a pushing-away gesture. “Junkers never stuck a sensor on me.”

Everyone in the cavern made a high, trilling sound, something like a cross between laughter and cheering.

He strutted around the top of the rock, detailing our escape. Then he said, “The chief gifts you two more to connect—she’s a patcher, and he’s a code talker.”

From my rusty grasp of the man’s patois, and my even scantier knowledge of Indian customs, I thought he was saying we were going to join the tribe. “Reever, did you get that?”

“Yes. He thinks we’re going to join them.”

“I didn’t say anything about joining them.” I scanned the faces around us. Most of them weren’t completely human. “Did you?”

“No.”

I started edging back toward the tunnel we had come from. “I mentioned my bad feeling, too, right?”

“Yes.” Reever stopped me. “Wait, we should hear what he has to say.”

I waited. That was my first mistake.

Milass climbed down from the rock, and headed straight toward us, flanked by two bigger men.

“Nice cave.” I looked around again for the exit. “So, can you take us up to the surface now?”

“Spill and spout on that later.”

Later. In Indian terms, that could mean anytime, from this evening to next year. “May we speak with your chief?”

Milass tapped his chest. “I’m the chiefs
secondario
.” He gestured toward the biggest man. “Kegide, the chief’s other arm.”

More like his other
army
. Trytinorn females would have fallen in love with Kegide, who stood nearly seven feet tall and had to weigh close to four hundred pounds. Lighter skin and short-cropped black hair should have made him seem less menacing than Milass, but it didn’t. His expression seemed a little vacant, and his mild brown eyes wandered. He didn’t say anything at all.

“Hok, the chiefs shoulder-talker.”

Hok’s title must have meant advisor, but he really did only reach Reever’s shoulder. Not because he was short, but due to the contorted condition of his body. The hump on Hok’s back must have been due to a severe spinal injury, or an untreated case of scoliosis. To add to his problems, he also had scars all over the lower half of his face. It looked like he’d been born with a cleft palate, and someone had done a terrible job on the oral reconstruction.

Hok wore his dark hair in a long braid that hung over one hunched shoulder, and he had shrewd, black eyes. Not that it was easy to catch his gaze. He seemed mesmerized by the ground.

“Cherijo Torin,” I said. “My husband, Duncan Reever. May we speak with your chief now?”

“Come.” Milass pointed to the fire burning in the center of the cave. “The chief craves you break and chew with us. Spout our tales together.”

Considering how much he’d helped us, I couldn’t see refusing his hospitality. “All right.”

That was my second, and worst mistake.

When we were seated on woven mats near the fire, Milass directed some of the women tending it to bring us food and drink. Reever and I were handed servers of strong, dark tea and handmade bread stuffed with some kind of cheese.

I cautiously tasted the tea and bread, and smiled. “This is delicious, thank you,” I said to the woman who’d given it to me. She merely gave me a strange look and wandered away.

The little Indian man sat down beside me and nudged me with his arm. The contact made me jump. “You’re a body patcher, like the Shaman, solid?”

“I’m a thoracic surgeon.” I nibbled on the bread, trying to figure out how these people had established an underground village. “Why are you people living like this?”

Milass explained a little about it. From what I grasped of his speech patterns, the Night Horse Clan was formed from Navajo refugees and half-Navajo, half-alien fugitives, some ten years ago. They’d bought land here after leaving the reservation, and had discovered the tunnels by accident. The hybrid fugitives decided to move underground to prevent being deported. Their human family members divided their time, living above ground part of the year, and moving into the cavern in the winter months.

“We got back the
Diné
ways,” the little man said. “Here we do like the old ones.”

Diné
was what the Navajo called themselves. “I thought you said you aren’t Navajo.”

“We are not. We are Night Horse.”

Jenner, whom I’d been holding with one arm, sniffed at the bread in my other hand. Absently I broke off a piece for him and put him down between me and Reever.

“What made you decide to leave the Navajo reservation and form your own tribe?” Reever asked.

Milass scowled. “Whiteskin laws. The people hang on them now. Whiteskin law say all brids taboo, have to go from
Dinéteh
, go from Terra. Rico fetched the brids and their kin away, fetched them here.”

“The way you ‘fetched’ us here?” I asked.

The little man shrugged. “Some. They crave it now.”

“You solid, patcher? Decent?”

The beautiful voice asking me that came from Hok, and for a moment, all I could do was stare. Finally I realized how rude I was being, and nodded. “Yeah, I’m a pretty decent patcher.”

“Crave a new mug, Hok?” Milass said. His squeal of laughter was as mean as his eyes. “No patcher decent enough do that.” He laughed, and Kegide grinned.

“You’d be amazed what I can do,” I told Milass, angry that they’d ridiculed him. An image of Furre-Va’s beautifully reconstructed face, and me pulling a berth linen over it, made me bite my tongue.

But the little twerp wasn’t done.

“Bet this hairball do the job,” he said, and held Jenner up by the scruff of the neck. “What you spout, Hok? Crave a good scratchin’, better up your mug some?”

I got to my feet. “Put him down.”

“Snap your lip, patcher.” The little man shook my poor cat. “I ain’t marring him.”

I wasn’t going to wait and see if he meant
at all
or
yet
. I grabbed Jenner from Milass, pressed him against my chest, and ran. For about ten feet, until someone literally picked me up off mine.

Kegide grinned down at me as he carried me suspended between his huge hands back to the fire.

“Milass making fun,” Hok said to me as Kegide gently put me back down between him and Reever. “No grief, patcher.”

I looked at my husband, who was staring at the hunchback, evidently fascinated by his melodic voice. So I elbowed him.

“Thanks for helping me rescue Jenner,” I said, heavy on the sarcasm.

“You get wrathful easy, little patcher,” Milass said. “Your animal ain’t marred.”

“We’d like to make arrangements to leave Terra,” Reever said. “Do you have any contacts with interplanetary transportation?”

“We’ll spout on that tomorrow. Come.” Milass rose to his feet. So did the other men. “I’ll guide you to your night hogan.”

We were both so tired we fell asleep as soon as we were shown our “night hogan,” one of the little mud-and-stick huts at the back of the cavern. It felt good to curl up with Reever and Jenner. All we had to do was get back to the
Sunlace
, and I’d be a happy girl.

One of the Night Horse women came in to wake us the next morning, and brought some water to wash with and two servers of their eye-opening tea. I assumed it was morning, anyway. The cavern remained lit only by dozens of optic emitters.

We must be a good mile underground.

Reever waited until the silent woman departed before he spoke to me. “I am getting the impression the chief does not wish us to leave.”

“From what?”

“If they meant only to help us escape your creator, why are they keeping us here?”

“Indian hospitality, I guess. Don’t be a pessimist.” I splashed my face and dried it off with the edge of my tunic. Almost as an afterthought, I replaced the Lok-Teel in its accustomed spot under the tunic. “They’ll probably make us honorary Horses or whatever, then take us to the surface.”

Jenner refused to budge from the blankets we’d slept on, so Reever and I went out by ourselves to the center cooking fire. This morning it looked like the entire tribe was gathered around it, sitting cross-legged, heads bowed. Hok stood off to one side, chanting something that sounded religious.

I stopped. I didn’t know much about Indians, but I knew they took their rituals and religious practices very, very seriously. “Maybe we should wait until they’re done.”

“Cherijo, Duncan.” Hok gestured for us to join them, then continued his low, haunting chant.

We sat down on the outer fringes of the group. Someone passed us a cup made out of hard clay, and made hand motions for us to drink from it. I pretended to take a sip, and wrinkled my nose.
Ugh
. Whatever it was, it smelled like wet, burnt wood.

Reever made a similar pantomime before passing it along. “Ashes,” he murmured against my ear. “Mixed with water.”

“Maybe they ran out of tea,” I whispered back.

Hok finished his chant, and I nearly jumped out of my skin when the entire tribe yelled “
Ayi
!”, then got to their feet and walked away from the fire. Reever and I got up, too, but Hok waved us to come closer and sit with him. Milass and Kegide took positions behind us.

I could feel Milass staring at the back of my head as I spoke to Hok. “Thank you very much for letting us stay overnight, and your generous hospitality. But we really need to get out of here before someone comes looking for us.”

“No heat, patcher. Gunboys never find
Leyaneyaniteh
.” He handed me something, and I saw it was two wristcoms. Milass and Kegide wore them, too. “Clap it on. Make it simple for us to spout.”

Reever only shook his head when I handed one to him. “I don’t need it.”

Of course he didn’t. The man only spoke about a million languages. I put mine on and adjusted it. “So, what do we need to talk about?”

Hok’s voice came through the wristcom very clearly, unfortunately. “Our chief wishes you to stay here.”

If Reever said, “I told you so,” I was going to smack him. “Why? You don’t even know who we are. We could be mass murderers.”

“I know what you are,” he said. “Not all of my tribe hides underground. We have many hogans up in the canyons. We have vid equipment.”

So Hok knew we were fugitives. “Are you going to turn us in?”

“No. Some of our tribe play for the New Angeles Gliders. We need you to help them.”

“The Gliders?” I was totally confused for a minute, until I placed the name. “You mean they play shock-ball?” He nodded. “You want to help them, make them quit.”

“That would be unacceptable to our chief.”

“Okay. What’s the problem with your players?”

“Their appearance.” Hok traced a circle in the air around his own face. “As long as a player can run and kick, the junta doesn’t ask a lot of questions. The problem is with the random commission inspections. They require physical alterations to better pass as full Terrans.”

Physical alterations as in surgery, I assumed. “Why me?”

“Our team physician says you’re the best cutter he knows. You’re blood, too. You owe it to your people to help them.”

“You are not my wife’s people,” Reever said, very calm and cold. “The fact that Cherijo has Navajo ancestry doesn’t obligate her to provide her services to your tribe.”

“You’re not blood, whiteskin,” Milass said, dismissing him with a flick of his hand.

They meant to keep us here. But that couldn’t happen. We had to get back on the surface and get off Terra as quickly as possible, before Joseph found us again. I didn’t need the additional headache of escaping our rescuers. But there were only two of us, and a whole tribe of them.

Panic made me surge to my feet. “I’m flattered by your invitation, but I have to refuse. You’ll find someone else to help you out. We really need to leave now.”

“You’ll do what you’re told,” Milass said. “All the blood follow the chiefs orders.” He clamped a hand on my wrist.

“Let her go,” Reever said.

Milass pushed me aside, and pulled out a knife. “You don’t challenge me. I’m
secondario
here. My words come from the chief’s mouth.”

“Then you should both shut up.” My husband produced a blade similar to Milass’s. He must have stolen it—Reever always liked to be armed, for some reason.

“Wait.” I stepped between them. “We can talk about this, work something out.”

“Cherijo, get out of the way,” my husband said.

Milass shifted the knife back and forth between his hands. “Hide behind your woman while you can, whiteskin.”

I looked at Hok. “Don’t let him do this.”

Hok only motioned to Kegide, who strode over, picked me up like a doll, and hauled me to the sidelines.

Milass jumped forward and slashed at Reever, who circled back and around the fire. The Night Horse silently gathered to watch. Kegide held on to me, and didn’t make a sound, not even when I kicked him repeatedly in the shins.

I shrieked when Milass’s blade caught Reever’s shoulder, and left a gash that saturated the front of his tunic with blood.