With Friends Like These... Part 22

"Perhaps. I like to think so. Would you like to hear something special? The repertoire of the forest is still limited, but there's the chance that-"

"I don't know," he answered. "I don't know much about music. But I'd like to learn, I think."

"All right then, John Caitland. You sit yourself down and relax."

She adjusted some switches in the console cabinet, then leaned back against her tree. "It was observing the way the slight movements caused by the vibrations seemed to complement each other that first gave me the clue to their reproductive system, John. We have a few hours left before supper." She touched the last switch.

"Now this was by another old Terran composer." Olympian strains rolled from the trees around them as the forest started the song of another world's singer.

"His name was Beethoven," she began.

Caitland listened to the forest and to her for many days. Exactly how many he never knew because he didn't keep track. He forgot a lot of things while he was listening to the music and didn't miss them.

He would have been happy to forget them forever, only they refused to be forgotten. They were waiting for him in-the form of three men-one day. He recognized them all, shut the cabin door slowly behind him.

"h.e.l.lo, John," said Morris softly. Wise, easygoing, ice-hard Morris, Three of them, his employer and two a.s.sociates. a.s.sociates of his, too, 226.

Ye Who Would Sing "We'd given you up for lost," Morris continued. "I was more than just pleased when the old lady here told us you were all right. That was a fine job you did, John, a fine job. We know because the gentleman in 'question never made his intended appointment."

"John." He looked over at Katherine. She was sitting quietly hi her rocking chair, watching them. "These gentlemen came down in a skimmer, after lunch. They said they were friends of yours. How did you do on the broadcast unit?"

"Fixed some wiring, put hi a new power booster," he said automatically. "They're business a.s.sociates, Katie."

"Rich business a.s.sociates," added Ari, the tall man standing by the stove. He was examining the remains of a skinned ascholite-dinner. He was almost as big as Caitland. Their similarities went further than size.

"It's not like you to keep something like this to yourself, John," Morris continued, in a reserved tone that said Caitland had one chance to explain things and it had better be good.

Caitland moved into the main room, put his backpack and other equipment carefully onto the floor. If his body was moving casually his mind was not. He's already noticed that neither Ari nor Hashin had any weapons out; but that they were readily available went without saying. Caitland knew Morris's operating methodology too well for that-he'd beenj a cog in it himself for three years now. A respected, well-paid cog.

He spoke easily, and why not, it was the truth.

"There's no fan or flitter here, not even a motorbike, Mr. Morris. You can find that out for yourself, if you want to check. Also no telecast equipment, no way of communicating with the outside world at all."

"I've seen enough electronic equipment to cannibalize a simple broadcast set," the leader of the little group countered.

"I guess maybe there is, if you're a com engineer,"

227.

Caitland retorted. Morris appeared to find that satisfactory, even smiled slightly.

"True enough. Brains aren't your department, after all, John." Caitland said nothing.

"Even so, John, considering a find like this," he shook his head, "I'm surprised you didn't try to hike out."

"Hike out how, Mr. Morris? The storm blew me to h.e.l.l and gone. I had no idea where I was, a busted leg, a bunch of broken ribs, plus a.s.sorted bruises, contusions, and strains. I wasn't in any shape to walk anyplace, even if I'd known where I was in relation to Vaanland. How did you find me, anyway? Not by the automatic com caster, or you'd have been here weeks ago."

"No, not by that, John." Morris helped himself to the remaining chair. "You're a good man. The best. Too good to let rot up here. We knew where you were to go to cancel the appointment. I had a spiral charted from there and a lot of autofliers out hunting for you. "They spotted the wreckage of your fan three days ago. I got here as fast as I could. Dropped the business, everything." He rose, walked to a window and looked outside, both hands resting on the sill.

"Now I see it was all worth waiting for. Any idea how many trees there must be in this valley, Caitland?" He ought to be overjoyed at this surprise arrival. He tried to look overjoyed.

"Thousands," Morris finished for him, turning from the window. "Thousands. We'll file a formal claim first thing back in Vaanland. You're going to be rich, John. Rich beyond dream. I hope you don't retire on it-I need you. But maybe we'll all retire, because we're all going to be rich.

"I've waited for something like this, hoped for it all my life, but never expected anything of this magnitude. Only one thing bothers me." He turned sharply to stare at the watching Katherine. "Has she filed a claim on it?"

228.

i Ye Who Would Sing "No," Caitland told him. "It should still be open land." Morris relaxed visibly.

"No problem, then. Who is she, anyway?"

"A research botanist," Caitland informed him, and then the words tumbled out in a rapid stream. "She's found a way to make the trees reproduce after transplanting, but you need a full forest group, at least two hundred and six trees for it. If you leave at least that many, out of the thousands, we'll be able to mine it like a garden, so there'll always be some trees avail-ble."

"That's a good idea, John, except that two hundred and six trees works out to about twenty million credits. What are you worrying about saving them for? They live two, sometimes three thousand years. I don't plan to be around then. I'd rather have my cash now, wouldn't you?"

"Ari?" Caitland's counterpart looked alert. "Go to the skimmer and call Nohana back at the lodge; Give him the details, but just enough so that he'll know what piece of land to register. Tell him to hop down to Vaanland and buy it up on the sly. No one should ask questions about a piece of territory this remote, anyway."

The other nodded, started for the door but found a small, gray-haired woman blocking his way.

"I'm sorry, young man," she said tightly, looking up at him, "I can't let you do that." She glanced frantically at Caitland, then at Morris and Hashin. "You can't do this, gentlemen. I won't permit it. Future generations-"

"Future generations will survive no matter what happens today," Morris said easily.

"That's not the point. It's what they'll survive in that-"

"Lady, I work hard for my money.. I do a lot of things I'd rather not do for it, if I had my druthers. Now, it seems, I do. Don't lecture me. I'm not in the mood."

"You mustn't do this."

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WITH FMENDS LIKE THESE . .. "Get out of my way, old woman," rumbled Ari warningly.

"Katie, get out of his way," Caitland said quietly.

"It'll be all right, you'll see."

She glared at him, azure eyes wild, tears starting. "These are subhumans, John. You can't talk to them, you can't reason with them. Don't you understand? They don't think like normal human beings, they haven't the same emotions. Their needs spring from vile depths that-"

"Warned you," Ari husked. A ma.s.sive hand hit her on the side of the head. The thin body slammed into the doorsill, head meeting wood loudly, and crumpled soundlessly to the floor. Ari stepped over one bent withered leg and reached for the handle. Caitland broke his neck.

There was no screaming, no yells, no sounds except for the barely articulate inhuman growl that might have come from Caitland's throat. Hashin's gun turned a section of the wall where Caitland had just stood into smoking charcoal. As he spun, he threw the huge corpse of the dead Ari at the gunman.

It hit with terrible force, broke his jaw and nose. Splinters from the shattered nose bone pierced the brain. Morris had a high-powered projectile weapon. He put four of the tiny missiles into Caitland's body before the giant beat him into permanent silence.

It was still in the room for several minutes. Eventually, one form stirred, rose slowly to its feet. A bruise mark the size of a small plate forming on her temple, Katherine staggered over to where Caitland lay draped across the bulging-eyed, barely human form of Morris. She rolled the big man off the distorted corpse. None of the projectiles had struck anything vital. She stopped the bleeding, removed the two metal cylinders still in the body, wrestled the enormous limp form into bed.

It was time to wait for him again.

Caitland stayed with her in the mountains for an-230 Ye Who Would Stng other sixteen years. It was only during the last two that she grew old with a speed that appalled and stunned him. When the final disease took hold, it was nothing exotic or alien, just oldness. The overworked body was worn out.

She'd been on the bed for days now, the silvered hair spread out like steel powder behind her head, the wrinkles uncamoufiaged by smiles anymore, the energy in the glacier-blue eyes fading slowly.

"I think I'm going to die, John."

He didn't reply. What could one say?

"I'm scared." He took the flimsy hand in his own. "I want it to be outside. I want to hear the forest again, John."

He scooped up the frighteningly thin form, blankets and all, and took her outside. There was a lounge chair he'd built for her a year ago, next to the young tree by the control cabinet.

"... hear the forest again, John..." He nodded and went to the console (which he'd long since become as expert at operating as she), thought a moment, then set the instrumentation. They'd added a lot of programming these past years, from her endless crates of tapes.

The alien chant faded, to be replaced by a familiar melody, one of his and her favorites.

"I can't reach the tree, John," came the whispery, paper-thin voice. He moved the lounge a little nearer to the tree, took her arm, and pressed her hand against the expanding, contracting trunk. She had to touch the tree, of course. Not only because she loved the forest and its music, but for the reason he'd discovered fifteen years ago.

The reason why she always followed him with her eyes-so she could see his face, his throat ... his lips.

She'd been completely deaf since the age of twelve. No wonder she'd been so sensitive to the vibrations of the trees. No wonder she'd been so willing to isolate herself, to leave the rest of a forever incomprehensible mankind behind. No wonder.

There was a cough after an hour or so. Gradually cold crept into the other hand, the one he held. He folded it over the shallow chest, brought the other one across, too. Crying he'd have none of. He was too familiar with death to cry in its presence.

Instead he watched as the music played out its end and the sun went down and the stars appeared, foam-like winking friends of evening looking down at them.

Someday soon he would go down and tell the rest of mankind what lived and thrived and sang up here in a deep notch of the Silver Spars. Someday when he thought they were hungry and deserving enough. But for a little while longer he would stay. He and the sh.e.l.l of this remarkable woman, and Freia's daughter, and listen to the music.

He sat down, his back against the comforting ma.s.sage of the pulsing bark, and stared up into the out-flung branches where loose seeds rang like bells inside hard-sh.e.l.led nuts and the towering trunk exhaled magnificence into the sky.

This part coming up now, this part he knew well. The tree expanded suddenly, shuddered and moaned, and the thunder of the rising crescendo echoed down the valley as thrice a thousand chimers piled variation and chorus and life into it Beethoven, it was.

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