Three times did the gar sound his cry and then he turned, the other two falling in behind him, and they walked slowly and purposefully to me, Witol lowering his head now so that I could lay my flattened palm on the smooth hide between his great eyes as was also customary when one of his kind chose to serve a man of his own free will.
For near ten years of my life I had known Witol, yet never had he given me this salute. We had often speculated, my father and I, as to the intelligence of the gars—now I believed I had proof that they were indeed more than just the bearers of burdens which off-worlders classed them as being. Now I spoke to Witol and the others, greeting them by name as gravely and with as much courtesy as if they had been the people of some holding, thanking them for the offering of their service.
Thus we slept that night within the light of the lanterns, but more secure, for the gars could and did keep patrol. I thought earlier that I might never sleep well again, that memory would come to plague me with the knowledge of all I had lost. Only that was not so—perhaps the fatigue of my body won the battle with my mind, for I sank into a darkness which even dreams did not trouble.
Chapter 5
Among the gear which I had salvaged from the wagon were two things which I made use of in the morning. Though I was left with no way of transporting the heavy crates which had been ordered by the off-worlders, still I, now by force of circumstances made trekmaster, must take what precautions that I could concerning the consigned cargo. So I set on the top of that small hillock beyond the lip of the gully a detect taken from the miner's own order. Sooner or later they would be in search, and that sound broadcast into the sky would register on the instruments of their flyers though it would not summon any other wanderers.
With the detect I left a tape recording of what had happened to us so that my father, even in death, would be cleared of unfair dealing or refusal to carry out a contract. Since loper's pride demanded this by their small but rigid code, I made sure this was done to the best of my ability.
We worked through the morning dividing all I had brought from the wagon, choosing that which was the most useful for what might lie ahead. I set aside tools, such off-world gadgets, which, if they failed in the wilderness of the plains, would be only useless burdens. For example, we needed no coms, for there would be no one in the north land to pick up any cry for help. So what we took were the necessities to which a loper could pare his packing when it was necessary.
There were the trail rations—the hard cakes of pressed and dried meats and grains produced nourishing food. I made another raid upon the wagon, detached two of the water carriers which were slung on the upward side I was still able to reach. Illo strained the rapidly dwindling water of the gully through a length of cloth and filled both of these as well as the supply would let her. Together they made a single load, one slung on either side of her back, for Dru.
Blankets folded into packs held extra charges for the stunners, our two tanglers, some simple tools, such as the hatchet which I had used to clear the brush in the gully, a coil of the rope which was so thin and could be looped into small lengths and yet remain so tough even my belt knife had difficulty in slicing it through. We decided against the lanterns, taking instead all units for the two torches that my father had worn on his belt and my own. Illo shouldered her own compact pack, and I had another like it put together with all I could think of which might be of use in the field. There was a second sling of packs for Wodru, and Witol bent to the harness I had cobbled together for the sled which held my father.
We ate a hasty meal when the sun was noon high and then started onward. One thing I had taken with me which might be considered as unnecessary burden were those tapes my father had dictated after each exploration of one of the deserted holdings, together with the reader. They had no like, I was sure, anywhere on Voor and if we could learn anything more of what lay before us, it might come only from those.
Across the gully we went. Nor did I look back at the wreck of the wagon. It was as if that part of my life was now finished, complete, and there was no need to think of any loss—save the greatest one of all and that we carried with us.
Our goal was that distant shadow of the Tangle, the ugly blot of which stretched across the far horizon. I had a map of my father's make, which I carried in my belt pocket, and I knew each marking on that as well as I knew the lines appearing on the palm of my own hand. For I had been with him when most of them had been set down. I had shown this chart to Illo before we broke camp and she had pointed to the northwest where there was only vacancy.
"Voor's Grove lies so—" she spoke with such conviction I did not doubt her. "Where is Mungo's?"
To my knowledge my father had never returned to that lost town once he had taken me out of it. Still he had marked it and in a separate way with a small sign like the blade of a drawn knife done in red. To my plains-wise observation it lay a little to the east from where we had crossed the gully. Nor would it be as close to the Tangle as Voor's Grove.
On this wide land there were few marks one could sight on as guides. The Tangle was the most obvious one, being the end of any march or penetration in this direction. So that we need only head on towards that and then prospect a little from our main trail to strike Mungo's. Or so I hoped—and made myself believe.
The gars moved onward at a steady pace which was not difficult for either of us to match. I had made no provision to lead any of the animals as a loper sometimes sets guide rope to the fore yoke of a wagon. Somehow I accepted that Witol understood what we chose to do and would himself willingly follow the same path.
The grass was lifting upright once more under the pull of the sun as the heaviness of the rain damp was loosed. As it brushed against us and the hides of the gars, we were soon wet to our knees, with patches of damp well up the animals' legs.
By mid-afternoon we came to a wallow-cupping and this brimmed full with the bounty left by the storm. The three gars drank their fill from one side of that already dropping level of water, while we did the same from the other. Nor were we alone. There was a scuttling in that grass, a fleeing of small things we could not see. In the muddy rim about the wallow was such a tracery of tracks it looked as if this had been a point of meeting for both birds and animals. I picked up those of species I knew, inspecting the mud patch carefully all the way around for any prints which might be left by the few predators hunting in the grass lands. Luckily I saw no claw prints of the scrowers—those sharp-beaked screaming furies who could outrace a running man and were ready to feed on anything smaller or weaker than themselves.
However it was only wise to put as much distance as possible between us and that pool before the coming of night. For that which would drink by day was in the main harmless. The true hunters emerged after dark. Witol might have been able to read my mind, for, once his thirst and that of his companions was quenched, he quickened pace to a trot and I broke into the loper's run to keep abreast of him. Twice I glanced at Illo, but she seemed able to keep up well with the other two gars and I was fast losing any fear that she would be a drag upon me. She could have well been trained by the same schooling as I had known for so many years.
There was no shelter on the plains. One felt naked, I discovered, without the wagon which had always served as the center part of any camp I had known. Still we must select a site before the coming of dark, having no lanterns to give us that small protection our own species find from fire or light as dusk closes in.
At length I settled on place backed by a ridge, one of those small conformations which the height of the grass half hid. That grass itself I hacked away to bare a stretch of ground. The sun had dried it sufficiently that it might be heaped into small mounds on which we could spread our blankets. Only I would set no fire to be a signal in the night.
The gars, loosed of their packs, grazed in a circle, now and then lifting a head with nostrils expanded to catch the rising night wind which carried no sickly taint in warning. We sat side by side, munching
each on a single pressed cake of the journey food, discovering that every bite must be chewed a long time before it was soft enough to swallow.
During all the journey we had exchanged very few words. Now I wanted desperately to forget—if only for a short space—the mission which sent us north. Perhaps I should bring out the tapes and their reader, listen to my father's words in preparation for what might face us tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after that. For I could not calculate as to how long it would be before we would chance on what was left of Mungo's. Only, in that hour, I dared not do that. To listen so might break through the metal-hard resolve which kept me going. So, in a kind of desperation, I asked a question:
"You travel like a loper—have you gone far?"
She retorted with another question:
"This north land is not strange to you, is it?"
"No, if you have heard of my father you must also know what men say—said—of him. That he hunts what he cannot find and pushes into places better left alone."
"I know. That is why I sought him—and you—out. You ask if I have traveled far—yes—both in body and in mind—"
"I do not understand—" If one traveled in body, then certainly one's mind also went the same distance, I thought foggily. I was becoming aware now of my fatigue. Perhaps I still could not think clearly as I had before the storm had struck and changed my life.
"What do you know of healers?" She sat crosslegged on her blanket-spread sleeping mound. The sun was down but we still had twilight so I could see her face. That was smooth of expression; now it seemed to me as if she wore a mask, and what lay behind that mask might be very different from what men thought.
"As much as anyone who lopes Voor. What you have is a talent which cannot be learned, for the seeds of it are in you at birth. Though you must also stay with an elder of your kind from childhood, learning all she may teach, so that your talent is refined, as the miners reduce raw ore into metal."
"Well said," she answered. "All of it true—to a point. Only this we also know—that our healing does not work with an off-worlder, for a man, woman, or child must believe before the cure begins. While the off-worlders who visit us, even some settlers of the first generation, cannot accept what we have to offer. Therefore, a part of our talent grows out of Voor itself, has roots here and perhaps this gift has other purposes of which we are still ignorant."
"So you seek for an answer to such another purpose in the Shadow doomed places?"
"A year ago," she did not answer me directly, nor even look at me, instead turned her head a fraction so that her eyes were on the fast-falling dark and the grazing gars who were near formless bulks moving slowly in their circle about us. "I was at the holding of Bethol s'Theo—I had gone there on a call reaching me while I was beside the sea gathering the kor weed from which we make a soothing drink for the very young. Only another had been close enough to answer the calling first. She—her name was Catha and she also came from the north and from one of the Shadowed places—it was named Uthor's hold."
She paused as if expecting some word of recognition from me but I could not give it. We had visited seven of the Shadow ruins. Two had been old and even my father could not put name to them, though he grasped quickly at any hint of lore concerning such.
"The one for whom the call was made was not born in Bethol's hold, nor was his name even known. He was found on the shore after a great storm, and the belief was that he was thrown or had crawled out of the fury of the sea. Yet no one ventures out upon the sea at that season—and at other times there is no reason for going far beyond the shore with the fishing fleet—"
She was very right. On other worlds there were stretches of sea between masses of land. I had seen such configurations on the tapes my father used to teach me something of the past of our species. But Voor was different—here was one great mass of land which extended completely around the world and the two seas framing it were narrow and dangerous, rent by sudden storms which churned them into death traps. Men only traveled on land—as yet so thinly settled there was not much need for the stretching out—and there was always the Shadow menace to be feared in new places.
"His hurts of body were not so serious," Illo was continuing. "Catha laid the healing on him and those wounds closed cleanly, were beginning to renew fresh, unharmed flesh. But his mind was rent worse than any blow to a skull could have made it. So—just as she reached into the wounds to drive out the infection and bring healing, so did Catha enter his mind—"
I drew a sharp breath. There was something in me which recoiled instinctively from such an action as Illo described. Now the girl turned to me full face, and there was no longer a mask upon her features, rather her mouth was stern set, a spark shone deep in her eyes, a spark which might have been the seed of anger.
"Where there is a need, there the healer serves. Does it matter if it is a shattered body—or a shattered mind?" she demanded.
"Perhaps that is so. Still—would you if you could throw open your mind to another, make all your thoughts plain? I cannot believe that many would say 'yes' if you asked them that."
She sat silent for a long moment and then nodded slowly. "So one who is not a healer would answer so, to that I will agree. But minds can be healed, and if we know this to be true, then should we not also use our talent to accomplish that? Think about it, Bart s'Lorn. Would you want to go on living with a broken mind, babbling incoherently, perhaps rising to a fury which would set you to kill the innocent?
"However, Catha did try to apply to this man the healing power of the mind. I was there and I followed where I could, giving also of my strength and will. And she was succeeding," excitement had crept now into Illo's voice, "I tell you she was doing what she willed. Then—it came—a shadow, a darkness—it struck—both at the man—and at Catha—so that she herself had to withdraw swiftly into unconsciousness. The man lay screaming of monstrous things which he saw gathered around him, tormenting him. Catha remained for hours in her own withdrawal sleep. When she came again to knowledge—she was changed.
"In her there was a purpose as strong as any healing power. She knew something she would not share with us—even with me who had tried to sustain her. She went to the man and she—killed!"
I was as startled as if the Shadows came down upon us. For what Illo had said was against all right, all reason, all sanity. No healer could kill. One could use her talent to ward off physical danger—but to kill—no!
"It is true," the girl cried now as if I had denied her story. "For I saw it. She killed, and then she went out of the holding, and she would speak to no one. Also—there was that clinging to her as might a journey cloak which made all whom she met turn aside and give her room. Nor was she seen or heard of again. Until—"
"Until—" I prompted when she had been some time silent.
"Until I dreamed. I think that she learned something in that broken mind, something of so great a horror that when it came alive or awake at her striving to heal, it was a threat to everything which moves a healer. She fled from it at first, and then she knew that it had risen because of what she had tried to do and perhaps she alone could put it to flight. So she turned against her nature and it died. After that she must seek—"
"For what?" I was deep into the spell of her story. No man knows his world wholly, nor does he so know himself. What seemed an act of blasphemy might have been indeed one of courage as upstanding as a feast candle flame.
"For the answer. I tried to find her for I feared that after her act she might choose to die also. Twice I had word of a woman seen by Voorlopers—though never close enough that they could hail her. She was heading north. Then—I was at Styn's Settlement where there was a child with a broken leg and there the dream came. I saw Catha as if she stood beside my bed, clear and bright.
"Her face was anxious as if she faced some great task and she looked to me. It was a calling, a true calling, though it came in a way which I never heard tell before that a calling might. I waited two days
until I knew that the child was healing and then I started north—"
"And you think this was all a thing connected with the Shadows?"
Illo shrugged. "How can I tell? Save the calling is still with me and it leads north. I thought first of the only Shadow doomed place I knew—that of Voor's Grove. So it was there I planned to go—but it may not be any place I yet know. And Mungo's Town was also Shadow rent."
"What do you believe this Catha is doing—or trying to do?"
"Again I do not know. Only I cannot deny her—or the calling. Have we not all long hunted some answer to the Shadow doom? Fifty planet years have those of our blood settled here. The first years—they were good—you have heard the stories of those, many times—all children listen. Then—something happened—there are no records of what it was or where the ill began. One by one the northern holds and settlements were Shadowed—died—except for such as you and I—a few children—babies—who were Voor born—who lived—but could not remember. If Catha has found a beginning or even a path which will lead to the answer—"
"Such a search is madness!" I interrupted her sharply. "You know what doom the Shadows bring—" As had my father who had also spent his life in such a search.