“Speak slowly,” Liliha was continuing. “We can understand Demon speech, but our tongues cannot twist to answer it.”
He saw the Demon’s tongue tip on her lower lip. She could not move; they had bound her after peeling off her coverings. For it seemed that the Demons had no fur but wore loose outer skins to be stripped off.
“You-are-cats—“ Even he could understand those queerly accented words.
“Cats? No, People,” Liliha corrected her. “Why come you here?”
“What-are-you-to-do-with-me?” The Demon looked beyond Liliha to Jir-Haz. “He-was-in-the-healing-chamber. I-let-him-go—“
“Who knows a Demon’s purpose?” Jir-Haz demanded of them all. “Yes, I was healed, as was Tiz-Zon, and A-San and the Barker. After we were near to death, she had the Rations put us there. That they might return us to life and then once more rend us for their pleasure! Is that not so. Demon?” He leaned closer to hiss at her.
“I-could-have-killed—“ the Demon said. “But-I-let-him-go.”
“That is the truth?” Liliha asked Jir-Haz.
His tail lashed. “We told our story to the Elders. Yes, she let us go. Doubtless that the Rations might have the sport of once more hunting us! Why else would a Demon heal our bodies and then release us?”
Liliha spoke into the disk. “Jir-Haz says that you did this for the Rattons, that they might once more torment our people. Such was what the Demons did in the old days.”
“The-Rattons—“ The Demon’s face was flushed.
She tried to loose her hands, struggled against the ties. “I-was-with-the-Rattons-against-my-will—“
“There was another Demon, a male,” Jir-Haz cut in. “He was not with her when she came to look in upon us during the healing. Nor was he there when she loosed us. Ask her concerning him!” Liliha relayed the question. The Demon lay still as if she knew the folly of battling those bonds.
“I-left-him-with-Shimog. I-put-them-all-to-sleep-so-I-might-escape-and-your-people-also—“
“Why?” Liliha asked, almost, Furtig thought, as if she could believe what must be a false answer. For why should a Demon turn against one of her own kind to aid the People? No, she was false and would betray them if they believed her.
“Because-I-saw-Shimog-and-what-they-had-done-to-your-people. I-am-a-healer-of-hurts-not-one-to-give-them!”
“All Demons are false!” burst out Jir-Haz. “The other Demon, the Rattons, stayed out of sight that she might play friend and later point out our trail.”
Fur Furtig had been thinking, and Jir-Haz’s last accusation bothered him.
“When you captured this one,” he asked, “was she not alone? Were there any Rations or the other Demon with her?”
“Yes,” Liliha added. “If she was alone, why was that so, supposing that she hunted you? Your story is that you had sent A-San ahead, and the Barker had gone his own way. She had three trails to follow, which did she seek?”
Jir-Haz’s tail twitched. “None,” he said slowly. “The Demon was taking a fourth way, going from our part of the lairs. And it is true she was alone. Also, after we had taken her we waited for a space, but none followed.”
“So, we can believe that this Demon was not hunting you. She was alone when she watched you in the healing chamber, she was alone when she opened the door of that and bid you go. These are all the truth?”
“It is so,” Jir-Haz acknowledged.
“Then what you yourself saw and report being so much the truth, must we not begin to believe that this Demon was not engaged in any hunt devised by Rat-tons, and that perhaps she too speaks the truth?”
“But she is a Demon!” Jir-Haz protested.
For the first time Eu-La broke silence. She had gone to stand close beside the bed on which they had laid the Demon.
“She does not look like one who kills. See—“ Eu-La leaned over to set claw-tip to the Demon’s middle.
“She is all softness, easily torn. And, though like all Demons she is large, yet I do not believe that our warriors need look upon her as an ever-ready enemy. If she loosed Jir-Haz and the others from the Rattons, perhaps she had some reason. Why not ask her? She said she heals not harms, ask her how she does this and why. And how she came among the Rattons—“
“Also, to some purpose,” Furtig cut in “ask her why she came to the lairs and if more Demons are on the way.” Of course the answer to that might not be true, but it would do no harm to ask it.
He wished Gammage was here. Of them all, certainly the Ancestor was best suited to deal with a Demon and weigh truth against not truth. But the lair leader had departed to a truce flag meeting with the Barkers —since that hard-voiced people had sent a message and a flag to stand beside the first, thus agreeing to the meet. The second Barker, whom this Demon had freed, was he another scout of the same pack? And if so was he now making his way back to his people? What influence would his report have on the negotiations?
Slowly the Demon answered their questions. Yes, she had come from the sky—she was one of four—
All that they knew. So they were learning nothing. But when they questioned her about the Rations—then they could not check her story. She had come from the ship at a call for help from one of her companions; She had found him injured and had treated him. Then the other, the Ration friend (if anyone could friend that scum) had ordered her to treat a Ratton leader, had threatened her if she did not.
The longer Furtig listened to her halting, slowly spoken words, the easier it was to understand them. And somehow they sounded true. In spite of Jir-Haz, his own inborn distrust of Demons, everything, he could not say this was false.
When she spoke of Shimog the very tone of her voice (now that he was more familiar with it) bore out her aversion to the Ratton leader. But it was Liliha who brought home with a question the strange point in the whole tale.
“So they told you that Rattons were the comrades of Demons? But we have not learned it so. In fact, it is recorded that until the final days when the Demons went mad, Rattons were enemies to all. My people, the Barkers—we once lived in friendly company with Demons. Then the evil which the Demons themselves wrought seized upon them. They turned against all other living creatures, hunted them—“..
“This evil.” There was such urgency in the Demon’s voice as made them all stare. “What manner of evil? I tell you—we came searching for the reason we left this world, why my people long ago lifted to the stars and then hid all mention of the past from us. Tell me, if you know, why did they go? What happened to them here, to you—to this place?”
She looked from side to side as if begging one or another to answer. Such was the power of the emotion which flowed from her that Furtig believed in her wholly—that she had come seeking just what she said. Liliha did not answer at once. She spoke to Fur-tig.
“Cut her loose!”
His hand slipped into fighting claws in obedience. Then he hesitated. Jir-Haz growled wamingly. It would seem that he still clung to his suspicions.
“Loose her,” Liliha repeated. “What do you fear?” she asked Jir-Haz. “Look, she has no weapons, not even claws. Do you believe she can overcome us all?”
Furtig went forward and, seeing his hand so armed, the Demon shrank back with a cry, trying to free herself before he could reach her. Liliha spoke swiftly.
“He will not harm you, he comes to loose you.”
She quieted then, and he cut swiftly through the cords.
“What would you do with me?”
“We can show you better than we can tell. Come.”
So they brought the Demon to the room of learning, and there Liliha started the tape readers, those records which had given them the information concerning the last days of the Demons. Though these were faulty and lacking in many details, as if those who had made them had lost the skill to do so properly. Afterward Liliha explained even more of the traditions of the People and of what Gammage and the Inborn had learned.
But that took some time. And Furtig was not long a part of it. He had other duties, and it was true that the Demon female did not need such guarding—she was weaponless and surrounded by Choosers who were certainly as keen-eyed as any warrior.
There was still the matter of the Demon male and the Rattons. How deep into Ratton territory they dared send their own scouts was a question to bother even Dolar. But before night their numbers began to be augmented by an inflow of People. Not Furtig’s as yet, but Ku-La’s forces.
What these brought with them, as well as their weapons and supplies, was information, some bits held from the days of the Demons, some gathered by investigation in those parts of the northeastern lairs where Gammage’s explorers had never done any real searching. Once their Choosers and younglings were established in the safe heart of Gammage’s territory, their warriors spread out to join the In-born and the handful of newcomers such as Furtig.