“Now tell us-what does it mean? What is your plan? How will it help us?”
Guilt leaned on Jason and stifled his mouth. A fragment of an andent legend cut across his mind, about the jona who wrecked the spacer so all in it died, yet he lived. Was that he? Had he wrecked a world? Could he dare admit to these people that he had taken the lifeboat only to save his own life?
The three Pyrrans leaned forward, waiting for his words. Jason closed his eyes so he wouldn’t see their faces. What could he tell them? If he admitted the truth, they would undoubtedly kill him on the spot, considering it only justice. He wasn’t fearful for his own life anymore, but if he died the other deaths would all have been in vain. And there still was a way to end this planetary war. All the facts were available now, it was just a matter of putting them together. If only he wasn’t so tired, he would see the solution. It was right there, lurking around a corner in his brain, waiting to be dragged out.
There was the sudden sound of heavy feet stamping outside the cabin, and a man’s muffled shouting. No one except Jason seemed to notice. They were too intent on his answer. He groped in his mind, but couldn’t find words to explain. Whatever he did, he couldn’t admit the truth now. If he died all hope died. He had to lie to gain time, then find the correct solution that seemed so tantalizingly near. Yet he was too tired even to phrase a plausible lie.
The sound of the door bursting open crashed through the stillness of the room. A gnarled, stubby man stood there, his anger-red face set off by a full white beard.
“Everyone deaf?” he snarled. “I ride all night and shout my lungs out and you just squat here like a bunch a’ egg-hatching birds. Get out! Quake! A big quake on the way!”
They were all standing now, shouting questions. Plies’s voice cut through the uproar. “Hananas! How much time do we have?”
“Time! Who knows about time!” the greybeard cursed. “Get out or you’re dead, s’all I know.”
No one stopped to argue now. There was a furious rush and within a minute Jason was being strapped into a litter on one of the doryms.
“What’s happening?” he asked the man who was tying him into place.
“Earthquake coming,” he answered, his fingers busy with the knots. “Hananas is the best quakeman we have. He always knows before a quake is going to happen. If the word can be passed quick enough we get away. Quakemen always know, say they can feel them coming.” He jerked the last knot tight and was gone.
Night cameas they were starting, the red of sunset matched by a surly scarlet glow in the northern sky. There was a distant rumbling, more felt than heard, and the ground stirred underfoot. The doryms hurried into a shambling run without being prodded. They splashed through a swamp and on the other side Hananas changed their course abruptly. A little later, when the southern sky exploded, Jason knew why. Flames lit the scene brightly, ashes sifted down and hot lumps of rock crashed into the trees. They steamed when they hit, and if it hadn’t been for the earlier rain they would have been faced with a forest fire as well.
Something large loomed up next to the line of march, and when they crossed an open space Jason looked at it in the reflected light from the sky.
“Rhes-” he choked, pointing. Plies, riding next to him, looked at the great beast, shaggy body and twisted horns as high as their shoulders, then looked away. He wasn’t frightened or apparently even interested. Jason looked around then and began to understand.
All of the fleeing animals made no sound, that’s why he hadn’t noticed them before. But on both sides dark forms ran between the trees. Some he recognized, most of them he didn’t. For a few minutes a pack of wild dogs ran near them, even mingling with the domesticated dogs. No notice was taken. Flying things flapped by overhead. Under the greater threat of the volcanoes all other battles were forgotten. Life respected life. A herd of fat, pig-like beasts with curling tusks blundered through the line. The doryms slowed, picking their steps carefully so they wouldn’t step on them. Smaller animals sometimes clung to the backs of the bigger ones, riding untouched awhile, before they leaped off.