Masters of Everon

  "I don't get it," he said. "You were all wound up back at the Constable's, now you're peaceful as a lamb. What's got into you —or I should say, what's got out of you?"

  Mikey only butted him again. Jef gave up and led the way toward the forest edge.

  As they came within the shade of the nearest trees—some were variform conifers, but mainly willy-trees, specimens of a cotton-woodlike plant that was native to these regions of Everon—the tall stems of the grass shrank until they were hardly centimeters in height, revealing the bright-green interlacing, ground-hugging part of the plant that gave it its local name of moss-grass. Back under the farther parts of the forest this green seemed to extend forever like an endless carpet. It was a brighter green than most of the more somber colors of the forest, but almost everything growing on Everon was green, including the trunks and branches of native plants such as the willy-tree. The only patches of non-green were occasional pastel patches of flowerlike vegetation and dustings of brown from the dried and fallen apart, fleshy extensions of the native trees, which took the place of leaves in the Everon vegetation.

  Jef stopped to check the mapcase the Constable had given him. It was a device about the size and shape of a pocket-sized book. A computer-loaded compass on the upperpart of its surface, however, pointed always in the direction of the destination it was set for; and just below the compass a section of map showed through the window, with a red line marking the direction and distance Jef had traveled since leaving the aircraft.

  The compass needle was now pointing straight ahead, and the red line was running nicely parallel to the black line indicating their desired route. Jef put the map back into one of his woods-jacket pockets with satisfaction. According to the map and to what the Constable had said, it would be a short two-day hike to Trading Post Fifty on the Voral River. He could look forward to finding a good camping spot tonight by the ford on the only other actual river between him and Post Fifty. Then at Post Fifty he would either find this Beau leCourboisier or someone who could tell him how to locate the man.

  His search seemed to be turning out to be more straightforward than he had thought—thanks to the Constable; or rather thanks to Martin Curragh, who had been responsible for the Constable's cooperation. For the first time in some months Jef's spirits began to rise as he strode along.

  The simple fact that the exercise was warming him, making him more alert and optimistic, could have been reason enough for his increase in cheerfulness. But it was also a fact that the country through which he was traveling was strangely pleasant and exciting. Jef looked about him as he walked, trying to pin down what it was that was so particularly stimulating to his feelings.

  There seemed to be no one specific cause. Overall, there was almost a fabled quality to the place he was in. Everything was as green as the Land of Oz, which gave the forest an unreal, magical appearance. But it was not just the green color alone, thought Jef, that produced the magical effect. It was the way the oversize yellow sun sent its light in amongst this verdant world, so that the greenness itself seemed touched with gold leaf and even the air was golden-green and particularly alive. Adding to all this was the occasional, musical sound of a clock-bird, a small native creature like a flying lizard with a cry like a small, silver chime, repeated at precise intervals four to seven times in succession. The sound, Jef knew, was actually a challenge to anyone passing through a particular clock-bird's territory; but the sweet, clear tone of it on the still air contributed to the magical-country impression.

  Still, even with all of this, it was strange to the point of absurdity that he would be feeling such an outward-bursting impulse of happiness and anticipation. It could only be that remarkable liking of his for this world running away with him, again—a jerk at his right hand, the one holding the leash of Mikey, brought his attention back to the maolot. Mikey was not merely leading the way. For some time now he had been straining to pull loose from Jef, which was amazing. Jef took a quick step forward and caught the maolot's head, turning it to see if Mikey had suddenly lost his infantile blindness and acquired the sense of sight that would come with male adulthood. But Mikey's eyelids were as firmly closed over his eyes as ever. The maolot pulled his head impatiently out of Jef's hands and jerked forward against the leash again, as if he could not wait to get to some long sought destination that was just over the next rise in the ground.

  The remarkable thing about this behavior was that Mikey had always been fearful of unknown territory. Until he had fully explored a place, he had always hung back, his head against Jef's leg, to pick up clues of directions and pace. But now the maolot plainly wanted to lead. Of course this was not unknown territory, in one sense. Instinct might be directing him. As an experiment, Jef pulled himself up close on the leash and unsnapped it from Mikey's collar.

  Mikey took off the second he was released, literally running. He loped forward, passing unerringly between two trees, and half-circled another, before he halted and turned his head back to look over his shoulder as if he could see as well as Jef, if not better.

  "I'm coming!" Jef called to him. "Just don't get lost."

  Mikey broke into a lope again, disappearing among the trees. For a moment Jef felt uneasiness. If Mikey did manage to lose himself... But, within seconds, the maolot reappeared, loping back unerringly almost to Jef, then turning and heading out once more like a frisky dog, unable to hold himself still, but unwilling to leave his owner too far behind.

  In all the years he had known him, Jef had never seen the maolot so happy and excited. He seemed to be bursting with happiness and anticip—

  Jef checked himself in mid-stride. He stood still. Three seconds later Mikey reappeared, galloping at top speed to skid to a halt before Jef and nuzzle his hand concernedly.

  "It's all right," said Jef absently. "All right. I'm just thinking."

  In fact, he was thinking very hard. It had been some years now since he had accepted as a fact the strong impression that at times he could sense what the maolot was feeling—and vice versa. Certainly he had come home from happenings that had upset or angered him and found Mikey apparently duplicating his emotions.

  But this faint indication of communication had never been backed up by any concrete evidence Jef could pin down. It was just a general impression he had gotten at times, something there was no way of proving; just as the Xenological Research Section had been unable to prove anything by studying Mikey for the eight years Jef had owned him.

  But here was Mikey, evidently intoxicated at being back on the home world he must only dimly remember. And here was Jef, also feeling intoxicated for no strongly apparent reason...

  Jef examined his inner sensations. They were still of a bounding excitement and joy... and there was no real reason for him to feel that violently happy. No reason at all, unless somehow he was picking up Mikey's emotions and duplicating them in himself.

  Jef began to hike forward again, but his feet moved automatically. He was still wrapped up in his thinking. If he really had some kind of an empathic link with Mikey that was going to become stronger now that they were here on Everon, that fact alone was worth investigation.

  The question then became—if there was such a link, how could he prove it was there? How to test it?

  Nothing came to mind to answer those questions. Jef strode along, going around and around the problem in his head, until his mind began to wander from the subject through sheer weariness at going over the same puzzle too long. Gradually he put his questions aside and became more aware of the forested upland he was passing through—giving himself over to the excitement and stimulation he assumed he was getting from Mikey, long since gone back to his running ahead and back again. Under the influence of the shared emotions, he found himself acutely aware of the wooded country through which he was passing; and he began to pick out both the ways in which it resembled a comparable Earthly forest, and the ways in which it was different. His mind shifted the basis of its observation, unconsciously beginning to cla
ssify as intruders on the scene all the familiar shapes of trees that were variforms of Earth's black oak, Scotch pine, Norway spruce and balsam fir; and the strange shapes of the native vegetation, which he had never seen before except in pictorial representation, began to feel like comfortable familiars.

  He discovered several parasol trees as he went along. They were a species of vegetation very like a low, spreading-limbed tree of Earth. Their difference lay in the fact that the Everon parasol tree did not have true leaves, but the same fleshy branch and twig extensions as the taller, slimmer willy-tree—and for that matter, all native Everon vegetation. Only, in the case of the parasol tree, these extensions were a brilliant green, and clustered thickly on the last half-meter or so of new branch growth, so that the parasol tree looked as if it was holding a thick umbrella-shape over whoever passed beneath it.

  Less frequently seen—but he passed one before lunch time-was a milepost: a short, thick-trunked specimen of Everon vegetation, which in the present dormant season of late summer in the northern hemisphere of Everon seldom seemed to be more than three meters tall. However, during the active, winter season, the top of the thick trunk would send up slender saplinglike branches with feathery tips to catch and feed on the pollens and microscopic spores released by the other Everon plants at that season. In a few short weeks the milepost would accumulate a year's supply of sustenance; then its saplinglike extensions would wither and die until next winter, while less than a centimeter was added to the height of the thick, central body.

  This, the willy-tree, the parasol tree, and some dozens of other lesser flora and fauna which Jef identified, had been part of a working ecosystem for Everon millennia before men thought of colonizing the world. Then when the decision was taken by the human race to move in, it had been the Ecolog Corps that had taken on the delicate and complex job of reseeding and restocking the planet with just those genetically adapted variforms of Earth fauna and flora that could integrate with the native forms to form a new, but viable, ecosystem. The fact that such a combination could be achieved at all was a miracle, to which the intermixture of Earthly and Everon forms now testified—from the simple variform earthworms through the complex and powerful maolots, themselves.

  But simply to put the two together would not be enough. It would require several hundred years of careful control of the colonists and careful watching of the blended ecology, to discover all the secrets of the planet's living forms, both native and imported. Even then, it would need at least several hundred years more to guard against something dangerous coming out of the blended system. Too many questions were still unanswered.

  For example, what was the benefit that the native system derived from the mileposts, which seemed, as far as study could tell, to operate as part of the Everon ecosystem, but brought nothing to it beyond the material of their stump after death? Why should the maolots remain blind until adulthood; and did the empathic contact he was ready to swear he was experiencing now with Mikey imply a similar communication between the immature members of that species and the adults with whom they associated? Did the adults also communicate in this fashion-He broke off in mid-thought, just in time to catch himself from falling over Mikey, who had planted himself crosswise to his path, firmly in the way. "Mikey! What are you doing?"

  He turned to go around the maolot, and Mikey moved to continue to present a barrier. "Stop that, Mikey!"

  Jef made another try to go around the maolot until it dawned on him that Mikey might have some other reason than mere playfulness for what he was doing. Jef ceased trying to go around him, stood still and looked about.

  He had come almost to the banks of a very small and shallow stream—not more than ten meters across and showing itself through the clear water to be only centimeters deep. He was in the center of a narrow winding glade, through which the stream ran, with forest behind him and forest in front, beyond the small open stretch of vine-covered ground that bordered the far side of the tiny stream. There seemed no reason not to wade the stream and go on; but clearly Mikey did not want him to do so.

  "Why?" he asked the maolot. "What is it, Mikey?"

  Mikey pressed against him. He was radiating—if that was the right word—something very like a strong warning. Not the sort of warning that goes with a violent sense of imminent danger; but the sort that goes with a stem caution to engage only in right conduct.

  "All right," said Jef. "I'm just standing here, Mikey. Now what?"

  Mikey pressed reassuringly but still warningly against him.

  "All right, I'll wait. For a bit, anyway," said Jef.

  He stood, waiting... and became suddenly aware that no clock-birds were sounding. In fact, there was no noise from the forest about him at all. Even the breeze seemed to have decided to hold its breath.

  Without warning a galusha trotted out from the forest on the far side of the stream. This was one of the smaller predators of Everon, in appearance something like a heavy-shouldered fox with a green-black pelt; but much larger than a fox—about the size of a small wolf. It trotted down to the far edge of the stream and looked across at Jef and Mikey. Behind it two more galushas— adult but slightly smaller—emerged from the wood and stood, looking but not approaching the edge of the water.

  The galusha by the streamside bobbed its head suddenly, with a motion in which Jef recognized a similarity to one of Mikey's, when the maolot was inviting him to play. Then the smaller predator turned and galloped back to its two fellows, who broke out of their immobility and raced upstream in the open area, dodged as the first galusha caught up with them, and then raced downstream again.

  For several minutes as Jef watched, the galushas in perfect silence played up and down the opposite bank of the stream. Then, breaking off their actions for no apparent reason, they turned and disappeared into the forest beyond; the largest galusha running fast and the two smaller ones racing after him.

  Jef was left standing with Mikey, staring across the water at an empty streamside. He woke to the fact that the clock-birds were sounding again. Mikey moved away from his legs, out of his path.

  "It's all right to go on now, is that it?" Jef asked him.

  Mikey bobbed his head as the galusha had done. Turning, he ran across the stream and paused on the far side, looking back over his shoulder and waiting.

  Bemused, Jef followed. The water, as he had expected, came barely above his ankles; and the bed of the stream was pebbly and firm. He emerged and went on into the forest beyond, with Mikey racing ahead of him once more, as the maolot had done all day.

  "What was all that about, Mikey?" Jef asked him as he caught up with the Everon native momentarily, under the trees.

  Mikey nuzzled him affectionately. To Jef's empathically sensitized emotions there seemed to be an air of indulgent laughter about the other. Mikey chased off ahead, again.

  Jef followed thoughtfully. He checked his compass, but he was right on course. Another puzzle had been added to the long list that Everon had already visited on him since his landing from the spaceship. Some clue to what had happened undoubtedly lay in the behavior of the galushas. Jef wished that he had his reference tapes on Everon life forms, but these of course were with the equipment that was to follow him later. He tried to remember what he knew about the galushas, in hope of turning up some insight—but nothing came. The galushas were merely upland predators who made the staple of their diet out of the oversize insect life forms of Everon. There was no help in that knowledge to an understanding of what had just taken place.

  All the same, as he went along, now it seemed to Jef that he was conscious, in a way he had not been before, of being watched.

  There was not the slightest visible or auditory sign to justify this feeling, but it persisted. He could almost feel himself being watched as he went, of being at the center of a ring of eyes that viewed him from all angles and traveled with him as he moved, so that he was continually under observation.

  He could not shake this feeling. Still ... he look
ed at Mikey gamboling on ahead and then dashing back occasionally to touch base briefly with Jef before taking off again. Mikey was showing no awareness of such a watch upon them, or in fact any awareness of any difference in things since they had started. If something was going on, Mikey certainly ought to be able to sense it.

  Or should he?

  Could it be that Mikey's being raised on Earth had deprived him of some Everon-normal sensitivity ... Jef made an effort to shake the whole question out of his mind. He was getting away from the area of reasonable speculation and into such areas that he might as well be dealing in fantasies.

  Still, these and similar questions continued to throng his mind as he and Mikey made their way through the gold-tinged greenness of the Everon forest. But by the end of the day he still had answers to none of them. He had, in fact, even stopped watching Mikey's dashes and runs by the time they came to the ford of the Voral River and set up camp on the near bank. It was already growing dark, and while the map showed the ford was nowhere more than a meter deep, and with a level, gravel bottom, the idea of crossing the considerable width of that dark stream once the sun had gone down did not appeal to Jef.

  So, by the time the light had completely gone and before one of Everon's two small moons had risen, he had his shelter tent up and his fire built. He fed Mikey and himself with the concentrated rations he was carrying. There was not enough bulk in such for Mikey, but it would do for the two days they were taking to walk to the first supply post. Once there he could buy some eland meat, if nothing else—and if Mikey did not rediscover a hunting ability in the meantime.

  With Mikey curled up across the fire from him, Jef sat, staring into the flames. His sleeping bag was laid out and waiting, but it was barely past sunset and he did not feel ready for sleep yet, in spite of the long day's walk. The curious sensation of being observed was still with him, but now it was as if the observer or observers had drawn back, respecting his small circle of privacy marked out by the firelight. Strangely the feeling had not, from the start, been one of being watched by anything inimical. It was more as if a circle of shy but curious woodland animals had become fascinated by him.