Cobra - Cobra Strike Part 23

Moff was speaking again. "And you think our little mojos deserve the credit?" he asked, stroking his bird's throat. "You give no credit to our people and philosophy?"

"Of course we do," Rynstadt said. "But there've been countless cultures throughout history who've paid great lip service to the concepts of justice and freedom from fear without doing anything concrete for their citizens. You-and in particular the generation which first began taming the mojos-have proved humanity is capable of truly practical idealism. That achievement alone would make contact between our worlds worthwhile, certainly from our point of view."

"Your world has difficulties with war, then?" Moff's gaze shifted to Rynstadt

"So far we've avoided that particular problem Rynstadt answered cautiously. "But we have our share of normal human aggressions, and that occasionally causes trouble."

"I see." For a moment they rode in silence, and then Moff shrugged. "Well, you'll see that we aren't completely without aggression. The difference is that we've learned to direct our attention outward, toward the dangers of the wild, instead of inward toward each other."

Dangerous indeed, Joshua thought; and even Cerenkov's eyes seemed troubled as conversation in the bus drifted into silence.

A few minutes later, they reached the village of Huriseem.

Joshua could remember arguments aboard ship as to whether the rings around the villages were actually walls; but at ground level there was no doubt whatsoever.

Made of huge stone or concrete blocks, painted a dead black, Huriseem's wall was a stark throwback to ancient Earth history and the continual regional warfare of those days. It seemed gratingly out of place here, especially after the discussion of only a few minutes earlier.

Beside him, York cleared his throat. "Only about three meters high," he muttered, "and no crenels or fire ports."

Moff apparently heard him. "As I said, there is no war here," he said-a bit tartly, Joshua thought. "The is to keep out bololins and the more deadly predators of the forests."

"Why not build along the same open lines as Sollas?" Cerenkov asked. "That works well enough for the bololins, and I didn't see any predators getting in there."

"Predators are rare in Sollas because there are many people and there is a wide gap between city and forest. Here such an approach would clearly not work."

So clear back the forest, Joshua thought. But perhaps that was more trouble than a single village was worth.

The bus followed the encircling road to the southwest side of the village, where they found a black gate set into the wall. Clearly they were both expected and observed; the gate was already opening as they came within sight of it. The bus turned in, and Joshua glanced back to see it close behind them. The wall and the forest setting had somehow led Joshua's subconscious to expect a relatively primitive, thatched-hut scene, and he was vaguely disappointed as he left the bus to find the buildings, streets, and people as modern as those they'd seen in

Sollas. Three men waited off to the side, and as the last of the Qasaman escorts left the bus they stepped forward. "Mayor Ingliss," Moff nodded in greeting,

"may I present to you the visitors from Aventine: Cerenkov, Rynstadt, York, and

Moreau."

Where Mayor Kimmeron of Sollas had been almost cheerful, Ingliss was gravely polite. "I welcome you to Huriseem," he said with a nod. "I understand you seek to learn about village life on Qasama. To what end, may I inquire?"

So Qasaman suspicion isn't limited to the big cities. Somehow, Joshua found that more of a disappointment than the lack of thatched huts.

Cerenkov went into his by-now familiar spiel about trade and cultural exchange, and Joshua allowed his gaze to drift around the area. Huriseem seemed to have none of the taller six-story-plus buildings of Sollas, and the colorful abstract wall paintings were also absent, but otherwise the village could have been a transplanted chunk of the larger city. Even the wall's presence was not intrusive, and it took him a moment to realize the structure's inside surface was painted with effectively camouflaging pictures of buildings and forest scenes. So why is the outside painted black? he wondered-and with a flash of inspiration it hit him. Black-the same color as the tree trunks. A charging bololin must see the village as a giant tree and therefore goes around it. And that meant-

Reaching to his neck, he covered the pendant's translator mike. "I've got it," he murmured. "The Sollas street paintings make the place look sort of like a clump of forest-same colors and everything. Keeps the bololins from shying away."

There was a long enough pause that he began to wonder if no one on the Dewdrop was monitoring the circuit. Then Nnamdi's voice came in over the earphone.

"Interesting. Weird, but entirely possible. Depends partly on how good the bololins' eyesight is, I suppose. Governor Telek's still asleep, but I'll suggest this to her when she wakes up, see if she got any data on that last night."

"Fine," Joshua said, "but in the meantime can you find any sociological rationale for wanting those herds to come trampling through Sollas?"

"That does put into doubt Moff's a.s.sertion that they simply can't keep the bololins out, doesn't it?" Nnamdi agreed thoughtfully. "I'll work on it, but nothing comes immediately to mind. Wait a second-face left a bit, will you?"

Joshua obediently turned his head a few degrees in the requested direction.

"What is it?"

"That red-bordered sign near the gate-haven't seen anything like it anywhere in

Sollas. Let me get the visual translator going...."

Joshua held his head steady for a moment to give the tape a good image, then turned back to face the others.

"Okay," Nnamdi said after a moment. "It says, 'Krisjaw hunts this month: the 8th and 22nd at 1O'." Today's the eighth, I think, if the numbers we've seen elsewhere are accurate. Wonder why they bother to post a sign with the other comm lines they have."

"Maybe a village this small doesn't have the same wiring as Sollas does," Joshua suggested. It looked at like Cerenkov and the Qasamans had about finished the preliminaries; Mayor Ingliss was gesturing toward the an open car of the sort they'd used in Sollas all week. "I'll try to find out," he added and let his hand fall to his side.

Its mike open again, the translator came back online. "-will be able to visit the farming areas later," Ingliss was saying. "At the moment many of the workers are out hunting, so there would be little to see."

"Is that the krisjaw hunt?" Joshua spoke up.

Ingliss focused on him. "Yes, of course. Only krisjaws and bololins are worthy of ma.s.s hunts, and you would have heard a warning siren if a bololin herd were approaching."

"Yes, Moff has mentioned krisjaws once or twice," Cerenkov said. "I get the impression they're dangerous, but we don't know anything more."

"Dangerous?" Ingliss barked a laugh. "Immensely so. Two meters or more in length, half that from paws to shoulder, with wavy teeth that can shred a man in seconds. Savage hunters, they threaten both our people and our livestock."

"Sounds a little like our spine leopards," Rynstadt commented grimly. "Native

Aventinian predators that we've been fighting ever since we landed."

"It wasn't always that way here," Ingliss said, shaking his head. "The old legends say that krisjaws used to be relatively peaceful, avoiding our first settlements and willing to share the bololin herds with us. It was only later, perhaps as they realized we intended to stay, that they began to turn on us."

"Or as they found out humans were good to eat," York suggested. "Did this happen all at once or gradually?"

Ingliss exchanged glances with Moff, who shrugged. "I don't know," the latter said. "Records of those early years are spotty-the malfunction that stranded us here ruined much of our electronic recording equipment, and interim historical records did not always survive."

Nnamdi's voice clicked in on the circuit. "Pursue this point, Yuri; everyone," he said. "If the krisjaws are really showing signs of intelligence we need to know that."

"The reason I asked," Cerenkov said, "was that if they really did 'realize' you were settling here, they might be a sentient species."

"Our own biologists have studied that question," Moff said, "and they think that unlikely."

"They don't show any great ability to learn, for example," Ingliss offered. "All the villages-and some of the cities, too-hold periodic hunts in which often as many as fifty villagers and visitors partic.i.p.ate. Yet the krisjaws haven't learned to stay away from civilized areas."

The light dawned. "Ah-so that's why you post a krisjaw hunt notice by the gate,"

Joshua said. "So anyone pa.s.sing through will know about it, as well as just the local population."

Ingliss nodded. "Yes. It's an opportunity to practice the human predator's own hunting skill, and all who wish to come are welcome. Krisjaw hides are also very prestigious, and many people find the meat superior to that of bololins. If you'd arrived an hour sooner-but, no, you haven't got mojos, of course. Nor weapons, I see."