“When we beat the Rattons—say rather if we beat the Rattons!” commented someone else. Furtig saw that speaker was Fal-Kan.
“Be that as it may, there is knowledge here that they seek,” Furtig answered with not quite the deference due an Elder. “Gammage made a bargain with this Demon. But she must persuade those in the ship to honor it.”
“The one called Massa”—Liliha signalled for silence—“says she will do nothing until Ayana aids the sickness of her mate. If he is helped, then she will think of this.”
“If the Demon goes inside the ship we shall have no way to watch her!” Dolar instantly objected.
“She will not go alone.” Liliha arose. “I go with her.”
Into the private lair of the Demons? Furtig moved. He had already slipped his left hand into his fighting claws. And in the other he had the lightning thrower.
“Not alone!” He thought his tone was not his usual one, but no one seemed to notice. Dolar twitched tail in assent.
Liliha handed the second corn to the tough old Elder. “Set it so.” She fitted it into his ear. “I do not know whether it will reach into the ship for you to hear. We can only hope it does.”
Without glancing at Furtig, she stepped gracefully out of the doorway, her tail curled upward a little as if she went with pleasure. Pride brought him level with her, trying to assume the same appearance of unconcern.
The Demon Massa saw them first, gave a cry, and Ayana turned her head. Liliha, having no interpreter box, pointed to her, the ship, and used hand language.
Ayana nodded her head. Furtig, with the other interpreter, caught fragments of speech. She spoke much faster than she did with the People, and so was difficult to understand.
“We will go to Jacel.”
Massa turned, all those extra layers of loose skin making her move slowly. Ayana walked behind her, Liliha and Furtig keeping pace. So they climbed the ramp to the ship. Furtig’s nostrils expanded, took in the many odors, most of them new, some disagreeable. There were strange pole steps one must climb. He set the lightning thrower between his jaws, for he must use all four limbs here. He hated the closed-in feeling of a trap which the cramped interior gave him.
Yet he stared carefully about him, intent on making good use of, this chance to see the marvels of the Demons, wishing he could understand it all better.
In the small side chamber where the other male Demon lay in a niche within the wall, there was room for only the two females. But Furtig and Liliha could watch through the doorway. The Demon’s face was flushed, his head turned restlessly from side to side, his eyes were half open. But, though they rested on Furtig, there was no sign that the Demon really saw the warrior.
Ayana was busy. She used a box from which wires ran to pads she held against the Demon’s head, against his chest, watching the top of the machine where there sounded a steady clicking. Then she took up two small rods, opened them to slide in even thinner tubes in which liquid moved as she turned them. The ends of the outer rods she pressed to the bare skin of the Demon, on his arm, on his chest, at one point on his throat.
Before she had finished, his head no longer rolled, but lay quiet, his eyes closed. Then she spoke to Massa, slowly, as if she wanted the People to hear and understand.
“He will sleep, and wake all right. It is an infection from his wound, but not serious. This place is poisonous in more ways than one, Massa.” Massa had settled down beside the sleeping male, her hand over his, watching his face intently.
“Tan—Tan did this to him,” she said. “What happened to Tan?”
“The same thing which destroyed those who remained here.” Ayana put away the instruments. “Madness. And now Tan is about to destroy even more. You will have to help stop him, Massa, help us—“
“Us? Us, Ayana? You are helping these—these animals?” The Demon Massa looked to Furtig and Liliha, and there was fear in her eyes.
“Not animals, Massa—people—the People. This is Liliha, Furtig.” She motioned from one to the other. “They have their lives and more than their lives at stake here. Our ancestors made them—“
“Robos?”
Ayana shook her head at that queer word. “No. Remember the old learning tapes, Massa? Remember ‘cat’ and ‘dog’ and ‘rat’—and Putti, a dear friend?”
Furtig saw a little of the fear fade from the other’s eyes, a wonderment take its place.
“But those were animals!”
“Were once. Just as we were once also. I do not know what really happened here, besides the spread of a madness which wrecked a whole species and altered others past recognition. But whatever our ancestors loosed, or tried to do deliberately, out of it grew the People who were cats, the Barkers who were dogs, and the Rattons—rats. And it is the latter Tan deals with—the filthy, merciless, torturing latter! He uses their aid to start old war machines, planning to wreck this world. Our ancestors left the company of those who began this grim wastage; we must stop it now.”
“I do not know how you have learned all this.” Massa raised the hand of the sleeping Demon and held it to her cheek. “But Tan—he turned those evil Rations on Jacel. I owe him for that!”
Beside Furtig, Liliha stirred. She spoke in a small whisper. “This one did not have a mate chosen for her, or if she did, then her choice was the same. She will join us, I think, because she hates the ones who harmed him.”
Thus when they came forth from the ship again they were not three but four. And all of them carried boxes and containers Ayana and Massa had chosen from supplies.
They transported these to the place where Gammage had gathered his battle leaders. Not only were Elders of the Barkers there, keeping to themselves, watching the People from eye corners (as the People surveyed them in return), but also Broken Nose brought in the pick of his warriors and they stood snuffling and grunting in one corner, their heavy-tusked leader in the circle about Gammage.
While the Ancestor made hand and speech talk, deft-fingered Inborn moved small blocks here and there on the floor.
“The passages run so.” Gammage gestured to the collection of blocks. “Walls stand thus. They can bring out the war machines only here, and here. We have scouts at each exit to warn of their coming—“
“But will we have time for such a message to reach us?” The Barker Elder’s hand signs were awkward by the People’s standard but effective enough to be understood.
“Yes—he will do it.” Gammage pointed to Furtig.
“He is here—the scouts are there—“ The gestures of the Barker were impatient.
“He can see—in his head—“
Furtig only hoped that Gammage was right, that his ability to contact the scouts would work. Poskatt was one, having with him the box to step up their communication. A second warrior, a small, very agile follower from Ku-La’s tribe, had tested out well in box-Furtig contact too. It was the best they could, do, for Foskatt could not cover both exits at once.
The Barker chief stared at Furtig. If he did not believe Gammage, at least he did not say so. Perhaps he had been shown enough inside the lairs to lead him to accept any wild statement.
“Only two ways for them to come,” Gammage continued vocally for his own people and the Demon females. “And it is near to those that they must be stopped. We have taken all the servant machines and set them at the beginning of each way, ready to put into action. Though those will only cause a little delay. And with such fire shooters”—she looked now to Ayana—“as you say those are, perhaps the delay will be a very short one.”
“Massa?” Ayana spoke the name of her sister Demon like a question.
The other was studying a picture projected on the wall, the one showing the details of what Tan and the Rattons were doing. “Those are storage powered.”
Her words made little sense to Furtig. “If the power could be shorted, or stepped up by feed radiation—“
“They would blow themselves up!“ Ayana joined her. “Could we do that?”
“With a strong enough transmitter hook-up. But to do it underground— The backlash would be so powerful—there is no way of measuring what might happen.”
“Yet if they bring those out—use them—“
Massa looked from Ayana to the mixed company of allies. “To whom here do we owe a debt? And remember, Tan would be lost, too.”
Ayana turned her head also, looked from Liliha to Furtig, to Gammage, old Broken Nose, the people of Ku-La, those of the lair, the caves, the Barkers. It was as if she studied them all to make sure she knew them.