Page 17 of The Howling Stones

  So he checked every burrow, every overhanging branch, every coarse leaf and stem, while his sweatcap struggled silently to cool his head and the back of his neck. In the rugged terrain the humidity seemed magnified. Accli­mated he might be, but his body was less persuaded than his mind.

  He could have chosen an easier route to more accessible targets, but the same topography that was presently mak­ing him curse under his breath would help to conceal him when he fled. Occasionally he was forced to change di­rection when confronted by a grade too steep to ascend or ground too broken to cross, but the handheld always brought him back on line.

  The first stone was kept in a well‑built but that was lo­cated slightly upslope and isolated from a community of less than a dozen buildings. As he crept toward the back of the structure, he could hear the villagers' gentle bark­ing speech rising from below. From its tone he inferred the presence of only infirm elders and immature cubs.

  Vegetation grew right up against the hut, ideal for his purposes. He searched for a tractable section of wall, care­ful to watch where he put his feet. Seeking shelter from sun and weather, aggressively large arthropods with dis­agreeable demeanors often made their homes beneath the shady undersides of raised native dwellings. Neither querulous native nor inimical fauna materialized to inter­dict his efforts, however.

  The back wall being high and well made, and having heard not a sound from within, he decided to try around front. The typical traditional wooden porch was likewise deserted. Still, he advanced with caution. Might be some­one sleeping late inside, he knew, or an enfeebled oldster, or a sickling at rest.

  With a glance in the direction of the village, he whis­pered a generic Parramati greeting. No response was forth­coming. Stepping through the open portal, he took note of sleeping quarters off to the left, living space in the center, and storage to the right. Hygienic facilities would be located elsewhere, somewhere deeper in the forest. It was a standard floor plan, repeated with minimal varia­tion throughout the archipelago.

  Heading to his right, he found himself in the family storeroom. There was no food. Dried seafood, meat, flour, fruits, vegetables, and other comestibles were kept in special communal storage buildings. What he did find were personal effects, fancy attire and accouterments carefully hung or laid out for use on ceremonial occasions, fishing gear, eating utensils, and cooking ware. There were no cabinets or drawers, everything being neatly placed on intricately woven Parramati floor mats.

  Only at the far end of the room near the back wall did the building differ from those he frequented in Torrelauapa.

  In stunning contrast to its simple surroundings, a meter­high wooden pedestal shone with the skill and craftsman­ship of which only the best Parramati carvers were capable. Light brown and black‑banded, every centimeter of the solid piece of toka root had been carved in relief. Bend­ing close, Pulickel saw representations of village life, an­cient clan battles, landscapes, seascapes, and wonderfully detailed portraits of unknown but obviously revered indi­vidual Parramati. The pedestal was a testament not only to the proficiency of its carver but to the shining spirit of the Parramati themselves.

  To their kusum, he thought.

  Resting atop this rousing work, which would have commanded a fortune from any of the many crafts deal­ers in Ophhlia, was‑a rock. A distinctly green‑hued, ir­regularly shaped, singularly uninspiring lump of what appeared to be volcanic glass. It was not fastened, glued, or otherwise attached to the pedestal.

  Nor was it especially heavy, he found when he plucked it from its stand and slipped it into one of the empty sacks in his backpack. As he did so he found himself wondering what kind of stone it was. Externally, except for shape there was nothing to distinguish one sacred stone from another. His prize might be a healing stone, a growing or drying stone, or even a stone called upon to aid in resolving domestic disputes.

  He checked the porch and its immediate environs care­fully before fleeing the hut. Hastily he dashed to his right, cleared the edge of the porch, and disappeared into the jungle behind the building. As far as he could tell, no one had seen him arrive or depart. He was much pleased with himself. Whatever it was that he'd just added to the weight of his pack, it wasn't a burglar‑alarm stone.

  One more, he decided firmly. One more and he'd be away. After only his first try he was already ahead of schedule.

  He held the tracker out in front of him and checked it frequently. There was no sign of any pursuit or indeed that the theft had been discovered. With luck it might be evening before the stone was even missed.

  A passing shower was welcomed. Rain could not in­crease the humidity but did somewhat alleviate the oppres­sive heat. Of course, it was worse when the rain ceased and the sun came back out, but he enjoyed it while it lasted. Disdaining the best efforts of his tropical cap and clothes, perspiration poured off him in thin, salt‑rich rivulets.

  Despite his caution he did encounter a tesamau, hunt­ing alone, and had to fire a couple of bursts from his pistol to discourage it. Later he thought he heard a party of female Parramati berry‑picking close by but couldn't be certain of it. Nevertheless, he waited until the dis­tant murmur had faded completely before resuming his march.

  The second stone proved much more of a challenge. For a long moment he considered passing on it and con­tinuing on to the third of the six locations he had pre­selected. But there was no guarantee the next locale would be any easier, nor the ones after that. If he waited until he was down to the last one, he'd find himself trying to snatch a stone from the middle of a good‑size village.

  At first glance it didn't appear that difficult. There was no formal community, only three huts. Two of them were situated some distance from the house of the stone mas­ter. This sat on a small plateau that overlooked the sea. Hard as he strained, he couldn't hear a soul: not elders, not cubs at play, not females attending to domes­tic tasks.

  The problem was the lack of cover for his approach. Thinned by the wind, the forest in which the huts sat was full of gaps where a strolling human could easily be spot­ted. Furthermore, the stone master's residence could be reached only by a series of a dozen or so steps cut into a rocky slope. The steps were wide and easy to negotiate. They would have to be, to accommodate the long seni foot. But they were completely exposed. Anyone ascend­ing would be visible over a broad area.

  A comfortable place to live, Pulickel thought as he tried to sketch out an approach. The same wind that thinned the foliage would cool the houses. On Senisran, any breeze was a welcome one.

  Clearly he couldn't use the front steps. Even though there was no one around at the moment, it would take only one returnee to spot him leaving the house to ruin everything. Sacrificing some skin, he forced his way up the steep back of the plateau. Half the time he was tree ­climbing instead of hiking. Branches and thorns ripped at him.

  It was with considerable relief that he arrived at the level rear of the building. Since it caught the ocean breeze from the front, it had not been raised very high on supporting posts. Almost immediately, he found a frayed section of back wall and set about enlarging it until it was big enough for his purpose. The weathered fibers came away easily in his hands.

  Crawling through the opening he'd made, he found himself in the familiar central living quarters. These were more spacious than the one he had visited earlier, this but having been built to a larger floor plan. But the layout and design were the same. A curving bench fronted the cooking area, and thick, intricately patterned sleeping mats were piled outside the entrance to the bedroom.

  Rising and moving to his left, he found a storage room that, like the rest of the structure, was larger than the one he'd previously explored. The usual utensils, bowls, and hand‑carved household goods lined the walls or were piled on the floor.

  The stone pedestal at the rear of the room was short, almost stumpy. Instead of wood, it had been hewn from the bone of some unknown creature. From the size alone Pulickel knew it had belonged
to some large ocean= dweller. From base to top it was inlaid with highly pol­ished strips of wood and the Senisrani equivalent of mother‑of‑pearl. It was another remarkable piece of Par­ramati craftsmanship, completely different from the one he'd seen earlier but executed with equal skill and love.

  He allowed himself a moment to admire it before reaching down to pluck the fist‑size stone from its apex. Into an empty sack this went, carefully placed alongside the first stone in the top of his pack.

  Finished, he thought with satisfaction, and well ahead of flee schedule he'd set for himself. He turned to depart the way he'd come.

  Perhaps he shouldn't have spent so much time admir­ing the inlaid pedestal. With his mission nearly accom­plished it was possible that he let down his guard, or that after the difficult climb he was more tired than he real­ized and not as aware of his surroundings.

  Whatever the reason, he nearly knocked down the young female Parramati who entered the storeroom just as he was leaving. The seni of the Vounea Peninsula might have encountered Fawn once or twice before, but this was their first exposure to another human.

  "Hey!" he blurted in involuntary counterpoint to her startled "sarkk!"

  She started to twist forward; head bending, snout aim­ing for the floor, the powerful hind legs contracting preparatory to boosting her into the familiar forward flip that served as a formal greeting among her kind. Before she could follow through with the gesture it suddenly smack her who, or rather what, she was confronting.

  "Pardon me." By this time his mastery of the local dia­lect was as complete as it was possible for any human to manage. "I did not mean to startle."

  Not yet mature, unsure of herself, and fascinated by the bipedal apparition that she had encountered unex­pectedly, she had yet to notice that the stone was missing from its place of honor atop the pedestal. Shifting his stance to block her view, he used an arm to gently ease her out of the room.

  Realizing that any attempt to explain himself would only further incriminate his presence while consuming valuable time, he departed in haste. If he hadn't been so rattled by the collision/confrontation, it might have oc­curred to him that in leaving by the way he'd entered he damned himself more thoroughly than he could have with any number of words. Had he fled via the unbarred front portal, it was just possible that she might have con­sidered him an invited guest, however unusual. That chance vanished when he took off through the hole he'd made in the rear wall.

  He could hear her shrill, staccato yips of alarm as he plunged back the way he'd come, throwing himself heed­lessly into the tangle of branches and bushes behind the house. Was she sounding the alert over the presence of an intruder, or had she discovered that the stone was miss­ing? If he had shoved tier bodily back into the living area, would it have gained him enough time to set the stone back on its pedestal?

  None of that mattered now. He could hear the voices of other seni joining that of the young female. They were full of uncertainty, concern, and something else. Some­thing new. Something that until now he hadn't heard in a Parramati voice. It took him a moment to identify it.

  Anger.

  He tried to put it out of his mind as he concentrated on the difficult descent. All he had to do was retrace his path back to the inlet. Shoving and striking at obstructing branches as he ran, he forced himself to ignore the rising chorus behind as he concentrated on following the route laid out by the tracker.

  He'd make it easily, he told himself. By the time any kind of formal pursuit was organized he'd be halfway back to the inlet. Brush crashed behind him but he heard no voices. Surely they wouldn't just connect the missing stone with his unannounced presence? It would be most un‑Parramatilike to account a visitor a thief without some sort of proof.

  It struck him that he'd left many voices in his wake. More than would normally be found inhabiting three iso­lated huts. A fishing or hunting party come to pay their respects, perhaps, or a clutch of visiting relatives. Bad luck for him. He tried to increase his pace, wishing he had Fawn's stride.

  Better contact her while he still had enough breath to do so, he thought. The sensitive autocontext had her on line in less than a minute.

  "Well, that was quick." Her tone confirmed that she was blissfully unaware of the sudden downturn in his present fortunes. "How did it go?"

  Panting hard, he tried to maintain his pace while reply­ing. It was a good thing he was in decent shape. He gave silent thanks for all the marathons he'd competed in.

  "The first stone was no problem." He cleared a small creek in a single leap.

  The handheld was of excellent thranx manufacture. It conveyed every nuance of his speech, including his la­bored respiration. "Pulickel, what's wrong with you? You sound like you're out of breath."

  "Not yet, but I'm going to be. I need you to meet me at the pickup point. Right now"

  "What the hell's going on? What's wrong?"

  He ducked an overhanging branch, pleased that he was able to do so without either slowing or decapitating him­self. "What makes you think anything's wrong?"

  "Oh, I don't know. Maybe the fact that you sound like a diver sucking his last lungfull of air. So you got the first stone okay. Then what?"

  A protuberant buttressing root appeared and threatened to send him sprawling. He escaped it with only a minor bruise, one of many that had begun to festoon his lower legs.

  "Nobody saw me get the first stone, nobody heard me, and I didn't see or hear anyone, either. Same thing on the second attempt‑except that in leaving I all but ran over an adolescent female. She must have entered the building while I was concentrating on acquiring the stone. With­out thinking, I left the same way I'd entered‑through a hole I made in the back wall. Stupid. I should have sim­ply walked out the front, hands tucked in my suspenders, looking like I belonged."

  "You don't have any suspenders," she snapped.

  "If you're not waiting for me at the rendezvous, I may not have any fingers to tug them with, either." He stole a quick glance back over his shoulder. Nothing untoward disturbed the forest behind him.

  "I think they're after me, but I don't see anyone yet."

  "Keep moving. You may be able to outdistance them. On a beach or other open flat you wouldn't have a chance. I've seen competing young adult males clear ten meters with every bound, but in dense jungle those big feet slow them up and it's harder for them to hop. They're not so good at dodging trees, either. Maybe you can shake them."

  "I don't have to shake them. Just beat them to the inlet."

  "So they saw you." Seaforth's voice was resigned.

  "Only the one adolescent. Given time, maybe we can cast doubt on her story. Insist in the face of all accusation that both of us have been back at the station all the time. Try to convince the local big persons that what she saw was a spirit and not a visiting human."

  "But the stone is missing."

  "She didn't see me with it. Unless they catch and search me they can only suspect. They have no proof."

  "Then you'd better not let them catch up with you."

  "What do you think I'm trying to do here?"

  Understandingly, she ignored his angry retort. "I'm on my way."

  Severing the connection, he returned his attention to the handheld's readout and the forest ahead. He was making good time, his small stature allowing him to dart around and under obstacles that would have slowed a larger man. His body was insisting that he rest, but he continued to push himself. Just because he couldn't hear or see any pursuers didn't mean they weren't a literal hop, skip, and jump behind him. If so, they were certainly conserving their voices.

  On the handheld, the location of the inlet was coming up fast. He allowed himself to feel a measure of confi­dence. They could make up some kind of story, express their outrage at being accused of the crime, call on the in­fluence and friendship of the Torrelauapan big persons they knew well, and generally do everything possible to cast doubt on the aspersions of the adolescent female. It would be
his word against hers.

  And in a few days, when they'd completed the lab work on the stones and had built up sufficient computer models for further research, both missing stones would mysteriously reappear at the appropriate venues. With the stones returned, any rising anger among the Parramati in general would dissipate before it could reach dangerous proportions. Polite as they were, they would probably point the finger of blame at one another before formally accusing the visiting humans.

  Such a theft would make even less sense to them than if the stones had been taken by one of their own kind, for what use had an alien for a sacred stone? For example, no human knew how to manipulate the stones to locate roads. The whole idea was absurd.

  There was a flash of color and light behind him and he nearly stumbled, but it was only a pair of harmless oronai darting through the trees. Always curious, they remained by his side, pacing him as he ran. As long as they re­mained relatively silent and didn't cry out, he welcomed their company. They would alert him to the presence of any truly dangerous predators. One turned in midair and continued flying on its back, bringing a smile to his face despite his increasing exhaustion.

  His attention on it, he overlooked the hole and went down hard, his left leg plunging into the opening, his head slamming sideways into the dirt. The impact jarred his teeth and shook colors loose behind his eyes.

  Rolling over, he sat up and took stock of his stunned form. Nothing broken. His left foot throbbed a little and he tested it gingerly, putting more and more weight on it until he was standing without pain. He thought he might have pulled something, but the leg was just sore.

  Something was warming his back. It didn't feel like liquid. Not blood, then. Looking over a shoulder, he saw the glow. Pale green tinged with blue, it was strong enough to penetrate the tough material of his backpack, emanat­ing strongly from within.