Eye of Cat Part 4

Billy waved his hand.

"Enough," he said. "The alien you are talking about is an intelligent being. I spent much of my life tracking animals - exotic ones, to be sure, some very crafty and with tricky behavior patterns - but animals nevertheless, not creatures capable of elaborate planning."

Cat...

"... So I don't see that my experience is really applicable in this situation," he concluded.

Tedders nodded.

"Perhaps, and perhaps not," he said at last. "But in a matter like this we should really be certain. Will you talk with the Stragean representatives who are visiting here?

They can probably give you a clearer picture than I can."

"Sure. I'll talk to anybody."

Tedders finished his drink and rose.

"May I get you another of those?"

"All right."

He replenished the snifter. Then, "I'll be back in a few minutes," he said, and he moved off to the right and de- parted the room.

Billy set down the gla.s.s and rose. He paced the room, regarded the t.i.tles on the bookshelves, felt the volumes'

spines, sniffed the air. Mingled with the smell of old leather,

a faint, almost acrid aroma he had not been able to place earlier came to him again, a scent he had experienced upon meeting Strageans in the past, in another place. They must have been about this building for some time, he decided, or have been in this room very recently, to mark it so with their presence. He remembered them as humanoid, over two meters in height, dark-skinned save for silvery faces, necks and b.r.e.a.s.t.s; flat-headed, narrow-waisted beings with wide shoulders, collarlike outgrowths of spiny material which served as sound-sensors and small, feral eyes, slitted, usu- ally yellow but sometimes cinnamon or amber in color; hairless, graceful in a many-jointed, insectlike way, they moved quietly and spoke a language that reminded him vaguely of Greek, which he did not understand either.

It is language, he decided, that sets the sentients apart from the animals. Isn't it?

Cat...?

He moved to the window, stared out across the lawn.

Difficult to cross there without being detected, he con- cluded, with even the simplest security devices in operation.

And this place must have plenty. But she could a.s.sume almost any guise, could penetrate the place in an innocuous form....

Why be furtive, though? That is what they would be expecting. While the defenders were concentrating on the sophisticated, why not hijack a heavy vehicle, come barrel- ing across the lawn, crash through a wall, jump down from the cab and start shooting everything that moves?

He shook himself and turned away. This was not his problem. There must be plenty of people more qualified than himself to second-guess the alien, no matter what the com- puter said.

He returned to his chair and took up his drink. Footsteps were approaching now from the direction in which Tedders had departed. Footsteps, and the soft sound of voices, accompanied by a faint ringing in his ears. The language of the Strageans ranged into the ultrasonic on the human scale, and though they narrowed their focus when speaking Terran tongues there were always some overtones. Too long a conversation with a Stragean normally resulted in a head- ache. He took another drink and lowered the gla.s.s as they rounded the corner.

The two Strageans wore dark blue kilts and belts which crossed their b.r.e.a.s.t.s like bandoliers. Ornamental pins or

badges of office were affixed to these latter. Between Ted- ders and the aliens walked another man, short, heavy, with just a fringe of dark hair; his eyes were jadelike under heavy brows; he wore a green robe and slippers. Billy recognized him as UN Secretary-General Milton Walford.

Tedders introduced him to Daltmar Stango and Orar Bo- garthy as well as to Walford. Everyone was seated then, and Tedders said, "They will tell you more about this."

Billy nodded.

The Stragean known as Daltmar Stango, staring at nothing directly before him, recited: "It has to do with the coming of your people to stay on our world. There is already a sizable enclave of them there, just as there is of our kind here on Earth. There has been very little trouble on either world because of this. But now, with my present mission to negoti- ate political and trade agreements, it appears that the settle- ments will become permanent diplomatic posts."

He paused but a moment, as if to refocus his thoughts, and then continued: "Now, there is a small religious group on Strage which believes that when Terrans die there, their life essences foul the place of the afterlife. Permanent posts will guarantee that this group's fears will be realized with in- creasing frequency as time goes on. Hence, they are against any agreements with your people, and they would like all of them off our world."

"How large a group are they?" Billy asked.

"Small. Fifty to a hundred thousand members, at most. It is not their size which is important, though. They are an austere sect, and many of them undertake a severe course of training which sometimes produces spectacular effects in the individual."

"So I've heard."

"One such individual has taken it upon herself to correct matters. She commandeered a vessel and set a course for Earth. She feels that an a.s.sa.s.sination at this level will disrupt our negotiations to the point where there will be no treaty - and that this will lead to the withdrawal of Terrans from our world."

"How close is she to the truth?"

"It is always difficult to speculate in these matters, but it would certainly slow things down."

"And she's due to arrive in a few days?"

"Yes. We received the information from other members of her sect, and they could not be more precise. They did not

learn the story in its entirety until after her departure, when they informed the authorities. They were anxious that it be known she was acting on her own initiative and not under orders."

Billy smiled.

"Who can say?" he said.

"Yes. At any rate, since a message can travel faster than a ship, the warning was sent."

"You must know best how to stop one of your own people."

"The problem seldom occurs," Daltmar said. "But the customary method is to set a team of similarly endowed adepts after a wrongdoer. Unfortunately..."

"Oh."

"So we must make do with what is at hand," the alien went on. "Your people will try to intercept her in s.p.a.ce, but projections only give them a twenty-seven percent chance of success. Have you any ideas?"

Cat?

"No," Billy replied. "If it were a dangerous animal, I'd want to study it in its habitat for a time."

"There is no way and no time."

"Then I don't know what to tell you."

Walford produced a small parcel from the pocket of his robe.

"There is a chip in here that I want you to take back with you and run through your machine," he said. "It will tell you everything we know about this individual and about others of that sort. It is the closest thing we can give you to a life study."

Billy rose and accepted the package.

"All right," he said. "I'll take it home and run it. Maybe something will suggest itself."

Walford and the others rose to their feet. As Billy turned toward the transporter, the Stragean called Orar Bogarthy spoke.

"Yours is one of the aboriginal peoples of this continent?"

he said.

"Yes," Billy replied, halting but not turning.

"Have the jewels in your earlobes a special significance?

Religious, perhaps?"

Billy laughed.

"I like them. That's all."

"And the one in your hair?"

Billy touched it as he turned slowly.

"That one? Well... it is believed to protect one from being struck by lightning."

"Does it work?"

"This one has. So far."

"I am curious. Being struck by lightning is not the most common occurrence in life. Why do you wear it?"

"We Navajos have a thing about lightning. It destroys taboos. It twists reality. Not a thing to fool around with."

He turned away, moved ahead, punched a series of num- bers, stepped up into the unit. He glanced up at the expres- sionless humans and aliens as the delay factor pa.s.sed and his body began to melt.

Traveling the distance from hill to hill, pa.s.sing from place to place as the wind pa.s.ses, trackless. There should be a song for it, but I have never learned the words.

So I sing this one of my own making: I am become a rainbow, beginning there and ending here. I leave no mark upon the land between as I arc from there to here. May I go in beauty.

May it lie before, behind, above and below, to the right and the left of me.

I pa.s.s cleanly through the gates of the sky.

WE CALL IT THE ENEMYWAY,.

the old man said, but the white people came along and started calling it a squaw danc - probably because they saw the women dancing for it. You get a special name if you're the one they're going to sing over, a warrior's name. It's a sacred name you're just supposed to use in ceremonials, not the kind you go around telling everybody or just letting people call you by.

It all started, he said, back when Nayenezgani was pro-

tecting the People. He killed off a whole bunch of monsters that were giving us a hard time. There was the Horned Monster and Big G.o.d and the Rock Monster Eagle and the Traveling Rock and a lot of others. That was why he got to be called Monster-Slayer. His fourth monster, though, was called Tracking Bear. It was a bear, but it looked more like a lion the size of a floatcar. Once it came across your tracks, it would start following them and it wouldn't stop until it had found you and had you for dinner on the spot.

Nayenezgani went out and tracked the tracker and then let it track him. But when it finally found him, he was ready. He wasn't called Monster-Slayer for nothing. When it was all over, the world was that much safer.

But at about that time, it started to get to him. He suffered for it because of all those enemies he killed, and the bear just added another one to their band. Their spirits followed him around and made him pretty miserable. This is where the word Anaa'ji, for the Enemyway, comes from. Naayee'

means an enemy, or something really bad that's bothering you. Now, neezghani means "he has gotten rid of it," and ana'i means an enemy that's been gotten rid of. So Anaa'ji is probably really the best word to call it by. It's a ceremony for getting rid of really bad troubles.

HE PACED. THE SCREEN STILL.

glowed. He had not turned off the unit after viewing the chip. The walls seemed to lean toward him, to press in upon him. The wind was singing a changing song he almost understood. He paused at various times, to inspect an old basket, an ancient flaked spear point, the photograph of a wild landscape beneath an indigo sky. He touched the barrel of a high-powered rifle, took the weapon into his hands, checked it, replaced it on its pegs. Finally he turned on his heel and stepped outside into the night.

He stood upon the decking which surrounded the hogan.

He peered into the shadows. He looked up at the sky.

"I have no words..." he began, and a part of his mind mocked the other part. He was, as always, conscious of this division. When it had first occurred he could no longer say.

"... But you require an answer."

He was not even certain what it was that he addressed.

The Navajo language has no word for "religion." Nor was he even certain that that was the category into which his feelings fell. Category? The reason there was no word was that in the old days such things had been inextricably boun

PART II.