Cuckoo’s Egg by C.J. Cherryh

Thorn came and stood on the sand beside him. “Two hundred twenty-four,” Thorn said.

Duun’s ears pricked. “Plus nine. Minus four. Eighty-two. Six.”

“One forty-one.”

“Ah. You can.”

Thorn knelt. Leaned on his hands. “What in the world comes in two hundred twenty-fours?”

“Stars. Trees. Kinds of grass. The ways of a river. The stubbornness of a child. The world is wide, young Thorn. I can reckon the speed of the wind, name the stars, the cities of the world. I can read a man’s intent in the pupils of his eyes.”

Duun swung around and struck, open palmed. Thorn’s open palm was there to meet it, stopped it, held and trembled.

“Ah. You are hatani, are you? Back away, little fish. You’re not ready to take me. Drop the hand.”

It was a trap. Thorn refused it. Thorn held still, eyes wide and white-rimmed, palm trembling against his palm, and Duun lowered his ears.

“Now what will you do?” Duun asked.

“Let me go.” The tremor grew. “Let me go, Duun.”

Duun reached out his maimed right hand and encircled Thorn’s wrist gently with the span of his two fingers. Pulled. The hand refused to leave contact with his palm. The arm shook. Thorn’s eyes were dilated, watched his feverishly.

“What are you going to do now, little fish? You have a problem now, don’t you? You’ve let me get two hands into it.”

Thorn lifted his other hand. It froze in that lifting, trembling.

“Not wise. Not wise at all,” Duun said. “You’re overmatched. You’d better stop. Don’t you think?” “Let go,.”

“Relax. Relax and trust me.” “No!”

“There was a time I told you, do you remember?-when you took up the knife, I said that you would take it up when I told you; and when I told you, you would lay it down. This is the time, Thorn. Now I tell you to let go. Do you hear me? I tell you to lay it down, Thorn.” The tremor grew. The palm slowly left his palm. Duun clenched his hand on Thorn’s wrist and jerked him against his chest. Thorn, utterly off his balance, collapsed against him. Duun grinned, grasped him by both arms, claws out, shook him back in that grip and stared into eyes face to face. “I would have torn your throat out just then. Do you believe it?” “No.”

“Why would I not?” “I don’t know, Duun!”

Duun let him go. Thorn collapsed onto his rump and sat up and rubbed his arms. There would be bruises and clawmarks. Duun knew. “Are you a fool, then?” Duun asked. “Why did you do that?”

“You would have hit me,” Thorn said, perfect logic.

“Yes,” Duun said.

Another change. Thorn sat with his jaw loose, stunned silence in his watering eyes. The boy discovered chaos in the world, sums that had no right answer. “The world’s full of two-way bad choices,” Duun said. “Numbers always work out. You can trust them. That’s why we learn numbers. To set some order in the world. There’s no other part of life where things work out. Do you see that?”

“Yes.” Thorn’s teeth chattered. “I see.”

“You are hatani. Wei-na-hatani, little fish. A small one. A hatani is not the weapons. Is not the knife, the gun. A hatani is not these things. I told you that the time would come to lay these things down. Now you have no need of them. You can pick up the knife and lay it down again. A hatani is not the knife. Do you understand? Not the skin or the claws or the eyes. Do you understand? I teach you. You become hatani. Inside.”

Thorn blinked rapidly. Gasped for breath. “Duun, where did you get me?”

“Where do you think?”

“I don’t know.”

“But you trust me. Don’t go to every morsel, little fish. Some are traps. Don’t I teach you? Use your wits. Add only what can be added.

Remember all the figures, even so. Never lose one. That one will surely come from behind and kill you. There are no second tries in the world. Nothing is twice.”

“How can you know anything?”

“Remember all the numbers. Even the long-ago ones. Never drop any. You don’t know when they’ll be needed. Reject nothing. You don’t know what you might need. I give you these things.”

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