West Of The Sun Part 15

Dorothy claimed: "Seven pounds at birth--that ain't hay, Mijok."

"Growing too," Elis said. The golden-furred girl Lisson tickled Helen's chest with the tip of a forefinger, and Mijok introduced the newcomers. One was timid. "Just a boy," Mijok explained. "Knows some words already, though. Danik?"

The giant boy whispered, "Good day." The other was older, black like Elis, trying to display stern indifference, but Surok eased him into relaxation with a few words in the old language.

For Mijok, speech had still the brilliance of newness but was wholly flexible; he reveled in colloquialisms, acquired mainly from Sears and Dorothy. "While the boys and I were out having a h.e.l.l of a time, what's with local industries? The island, gentlemen?"

"Good," Sears said. "Better than I dared dream."

"And those tough babies in the south--anything new?"

Sears winced. "That part ain't good."

Mijok fondled the fat man's arm with a hand mild as silk. "Now, Jock, now. We'll give 'em h.e.l.l, that's what we'll do. Hey, Paul?"

3

Abara trotted between Sears and Paul in the forest aisle, a silent ugly man with popeyes, bulging underlip, jutting ears; thirty inches tall. He was twenty-six. His potbellied softness had the beginning sag of middle age. There was politics, Paul guessed, in his presence at the camp--it was not because the queen had tired of him that he was temporarily detached from the harem. His body was agile for all its pokiness, his mind even more nimble; his English, when he stooped to use it, was good. After the noon meal Abara had appeared, crossing the drawbridge like a wisp of red smoke, ignoring the giants, reminding Sears obliquely that it was three days since he had visited the clearing near the camp, where the white olifants had learned to come.

Sears' love for the great leaf eaters had deepened with familiarity.

He had easily persuaded the others to guarantee their permanent protection in the laws. He had taught the pygmies to call them olifants, a shrewd stroke, conveying to the Neolithic mind that the animals were of Sears' totem. Even during the long ordeal of the rains he had gone alone for whole days and nights, following olifant trails, sitting in patience where a broad-leaf tree they enjoyed was abundant.

Deep forest was no place for a man who moved slowly and shrank from discomfort and danger, yet Sears held to this undertaking as stubbornly as Wright to his dreams of a community of good will under a government of laws. And before all except Paul and Wright, Sears was able to preserve a manner like the face of Lake Argo on a still morning. That calm gave him, in the eyes of the pygmies, more puzzling divinity than they found in the others. Abara worshiped from behind a mask of cynical blankness. Pakriaa seemed almost to love him openly.

She was not arrogant with him; when he spoke she listened. She a.s.signed soldiers to collect the insects, fish, small animals he wanted for study; she brought him gifts--an earthenware vessel with ritual painting, odd flowers, ornaments of wood and bone and clay. She liked to sit by him when he was at the microscope and peek, mystified, into the country of the lens.

Sears had let the olifants grow used to him. He talked to them. He learned they like to be rubbed above the tip of the trunk and on the vast flat tops of their heads--for this luxury they would kneel, rumbling and sighing. Eventually he dared climb into the natural saddle between hump and skull: they allowed it. They were never excited nor in a hurry. The kaksmas they probably avoided by keen scent and flight in times of danger; they kept clear of the omasha by going into open ground only at night.

The clearing was silent except for muted trilling of illuama. The ground was trodden; purple-leaf vines hung dead and brown, ripped out by trunks and tusks. Sears said that once, with no notion of conveying the idea, he had tugged peevishly at a vine under the nose of his favorite cow. "So, she came and fetched it loose--tired of watching me act like a d.a.m.n fool."

Abara said, "I will whistle, me...." Two came, spectrally calm.

"Susie!" Sears called. "Been a good girl, hey?" The old cow let down her many tons to have her head scratched. Another arrived on fog-silent feet; then two bulls together, munching leaves. The five were placid, enjoying the hot stillness and Sears' purring talk. The largest bull stood ten feet at the shoulder, Paul estimated, as Abara's two-feet-six approached him, seized a lowered ear, and climbed up. Abara piped: "We walk now, Mister Johnson."

Mister Johnson's pale eyes noted Paul's bulging jacket; the boneless finger of his trunk groped suggestively till Paul produced a melon-like fruit. "Hoo-hee!" Abara crowed. "We thank you." They vanished in the shadows.

"Susie, want to dig some vines?" But Sears halted in the act of climbing her neck. Spearman had joined them, with a good hunter's quiet.

"You really have something there." Spearman was cordial and flushed.

"Pygmies still make the best wine. Ours is no d.a.m.n good, yet."

"Meant to ask how the last turned out."

"Needs ripening, like everything else."

"In fact," said Paul, "you're slightly plastered."

"But slightly." Ed grinned. "How if I climb on one of those?"

Sears was doubtful. "Have to get acquainted first. Mister Smith over there--he shook me off the first time. Not rough--just wasn't ready."

"They pull vines at command? You can steer 'em?"

"Sure. If they like you. Knee pressure."

"Abara's good?"

"They prefer him to me. Arek is better still. I miss her."

"Mijok rides, doesn't he?"

"Mijok and Elis. Surok's a bit skittish. I guess Pak thinks it's undignified--or else the d.a.m.ned witches disapprove."

"Hm.... We have, maybe, three days before Lantis. .h.i.ts us--"

"Lantis--I'd succeeded in forgetting her for three minutes." Sears drooped his head against the column of Mister Smith's foreleg; eyes closed, he cursed without humor. He dredged up almost forgotten words from the old years of Earth, from bars, docks, dissecting rooms, at least four major religions. He cursed Lantis root and branch, ancestry and posterity, heart, body, and brain. Regaining a trace of mirth, he outlined a program of correction that would have kept h.e.l.l under forced draft for a thousand years. Still with closed eyes, he asked, "What's the point, Ed? What's the d.a.m.ned point?"

"How many of these critters have you tamed?"

"Five. There's another smelling around, not ready yet."

"And five riders--you ride 'em, don't you, Paul?" Paul nodded.

Abara and Mister Johnson returned in silence, under the trees behind Spearman, who was unaware of them. Sears said, "Paul's good. Good balance."

"So you have a rider for each mount.... Well, I talked it over with Doc--he says it's your department. What if a bunch of those animals, with armed riders--"

"No," said Sears. "Quite impractical."

"Why?"

"Well.... They won't go in the open--omasha."

"They will at night, you told me."

"They are not fighters."

"If they go where you order 'em--"

Sears said, "No. If Paul and I and the two strongest giants were trying that, what's left? You, Doc, Surok, and the giant women."

Spearman snapped: "Then use only three--Abara, Mijok, Elis."

"Mijok will fight beside Chris. You know that. So will I."

Spearman turned away, noticing Abara and Mister Johnson for the first time and ignoring them. Popeyes watched him from a mountain of white flesh. "All right. Oh, I almost forgot: Doc wants you back at the camp for another conference. It has just occurred to him that since we're about to be wiped off the planet we ought to have a military commander. For the look of the thing, you reckon? You know, I dreamed of s.p.a.ce travel from the time I was five. Never imagined I'd do it with a Sunday school. Don't hurry of course. Just come when it d.a.m.n well suits you."

Paul caught up with him on the trail. "Look, Ed--"