Anana knew that the situation was just the reverse, and her pride must have been pierced deeply. But she was not stupid in her arrogance. She replied, “I believe so. I do not know my origin. I have just been, that’s all. For some fifty years, I think.”
A PRIVATE COSMOS
147
“Poor infant! Then you were the plaything of that monster Jadawin! How did you get away from him! Did he tire of you and let you loose on this evil world, to live or die as events determined?”
“I do not know,” Anana said. “It may be. Kickaha thinks that Jadawin was merciful in that he removed part of my memory, so that I do not remember him or my life in his palace, if indeed I had one.”
Kickaha approved of her story. She was as adept at lying as he. And then he thought, Oh! Oh! She tripped up! Fifty years ago, Jadawin wasn’t even in the palace or in this universe. He was living in America as a young amnesiac who had been adopted by a man named Wolff. The Lord in the palace was Arwoor then.
But, he reassured himself, this made no difference. If Anana pretended to have no memory of her origin or palace, then she wouldn’t know who had been Lord.
Podarge apparently wasn’t thinking about this. She said to Kickaha, “Dewiwanira has told me of how you freed her and Antiope from the cage in Talanac.”
“Did she also tell you that she tried to kill me in payment for having given her her freedom?” he said.
She raised her wings a little and glared. “She had her orders! Gratitude had nothing to do with it! You were the right-hand man of Jadawin, who now calls himself Wolff!”
She folded her wings and seemed to relax, but Kickaha was not deceived. “By the way, where is Jadawin? What is happening in Talanac? Who are these Drachelanders?” she asked.
Kickaha told her. He left out the two Lords,
148
A PRIVATE COSMOS
Nimstowl and Judubra, and made it appear that Anana had been gated through a long time ago to the Amerind level and had been a slave in Talanac. Podarge was insanely hostile to the Lords. If she found out that Anana was one, and especially if she suspected that Anana might be Wolffs sister, she would have ordered her killed. This would have put Kickaha into a predicament which he would have to settle within one or two seconds. He wduld either chose to live and so be able to fight the Sellers but have to let Anana die, or he could back Anana and so die himself. That the two of them could slaughter many eagles before they were overwhelmed was no consolation.
Or perhaps, he thought Just perhaps, we might be able to escape. // / were to shoot Podarge quickly enough and so create confusion among the eagles and then get into the craft quickly enough and bring the big projectors to bear, maybe we could fight our way out.
Kickaha knew in that moment that he had chosen for Anana.
Podarge said, “Then Jadawin may be dead? I would not like that, because I have planned for a long time on capturing him. I want him to live for a long long time while he suffers! While he pays! And pays! And pays!”
Podarge was standing up on her bird legs, her talons outspread, and she was screeching at Kickaha. He spoke from the corner of his mouth to Anana. “Oh, oh! I think she’s cracked! Get ready to start shooting!”
But Podarge stopped yelling and began striding back and forth, like a great nightmare bird in a cage. Finally, she stopped and said, “Trickster! Why should I help you in your war against the
A PRIVATE COSMOS
149
enemies of Jadawin! Aside from the fact that they may have cheated me of my revenge?”
“Because they are your enemies, too,” he said. “It is true that, so far, they have used only human bodies as hosts. But do you think that the Sellers won’t be thinking of eagles as hosts? Men are earthbound creatures. What could compare with being housed in the body of a green eagle, of flying far above the planet, into the house of the sun, of hovering godlike above all beasts of earth and the houses and cities of man, of being unreachable, yet seeing and knowing all, taking in a thousand miles with one sweep of the eye?