Anderson, Poul - Psychotechnic League 04 Page 2

  The being from Javartenan was always ready to drop what he was doing and talk to a fellow, always glad to make some little thing for you or show you how to do a job in the best and easiest way, letting you help him so you could learn. And he was even more fun to listen to than Uncle Gunnar, with his odd accent and his exciting stories. He’d told Pete a lot in the last few days.

  Of course, when you considered how Uncle Gunnar had taken him from Javartenan as a servant to begin with, and how they’d been together ever since, it was funny how many adventures he’d had all by himself, how many planets he’d been on that Uncle Gunnar never mentioned—but Cosmos, he was sure a fine story-teller and he wouldn’t lie to a fellow.

  “Well, what I do?” said Tobur now. “There I was, trapped ’gainst clitf of frozen nitrogen, spaccsuit leaking, powerpack near gone, blaster 'most empty, and all those hundreds of natives coming up at me. What I do? I give up Sacred Jewel of Pashtu? Save my life that way?” He looked hard at Pete.

  “Cosmos, what else could you do but surrender?” asked Pete, since that was the answer Tobur seemed to expect.

  “And betray trust in me? Go back on oath? Not Tobur! Die is little thing, small Pete, but honor much. Also, I began to have idea. I began thinking mighty hard there, you bet. I had Jewel to defend, near out of blaster charges, but still plenty brains, yes. I—”

  “Tobur!”. .

  The Javartenanian started guiltily as Uncle Gunnar’s voice bellowed through the still air.

  “Tobur! Where in the name of Valdaoth are you— Oh, there!” Uncle Gunnar came around the corner of the shed and saw them. His cold blue eyes flashed under his bristling red eyebrows.

  “Loafing again, huh? I told you we had to get that bottom land fenced in before the harvest starts. Which means today. Where’s the truck? What’ve you been doing besides sitting on your fat tail?”

  “Been watching small Pete like you told me,” said Tobur sulkily.

  “Nothing to stop you working while you did, was there? Now get up and help me, or before Cosmos I’ll bounce you out of here. Up!”

  Tobur rose, scowling, and slouched into the shed. Uncle Gunnar lingered behind with Pete to whisper with a twinkle: “He’s a good old cuss, but if I didn’t blow my top once in a while and yell at him he’d never get anything done.” He added, “You might as well come with us and watch.”

  “All right,” said Pete, though he wras a little mad himself at being pulled out of the shade and having the story broken off that way. Now Tobur would be too grouchy to finish it for the rest of the day.

  They went into the shadowy cavern of the shed after the truck.

  Machinery filled it, the semirobot machinery that made it possible for three beings to run this enormous place alone. But most of the things still needed intelligent beings at the controls; Uncle Gunnar couldn’t afford too many automatics yet.

  The truck had a small plastic cab and a long flat back. Tobur had the sides off by now, and he and Uncle Gunnar grunted as they lifted the fencing machine up and bolted it in place. They racked as many of the metal posts as they thought they’d need on it, added three big rolls of wire, and got into the cab. Pete said he’d rather ride in back.

  So they bounced off over the fields, around trees and low hillocks, till the house was out of sight and they reached the bottom land. This was a forty-hectare patch of low-lying meadow on the edge of the great forest, covered with high lush grass that rippled in a faint wind. Uncle Gunnar wanted to make a pasture of it.

  “I’ll drive for a while and you guide the machine, Tobur,” he said. “Pete, keep in sight of us.”

  It was fun to watch at first. The truck went slowly along the boundary, while the machine rammed down a long spike to make a hole, drove in the post, tamped down the earth around it, and strung three taut lines of wire, all in one dazzle of metal arms. Tobur had to walk alongside the truck, guiding the rammer and the post-setter. Pete brought up the rear.

  But it got tiresome after a while, the same thing over and over again, and the day was warm and quiet, not meant for working. Pete yawned and lagged.

  “I’ll spell you there,” said Uncle Gunnar presently.

  “No need. Not tired,” said Tobur, still sulky. Uncle Gunnar shrugged and drove on.

  Pete sat down on a hummock and looked around him. From here you couldn’t see the house. There was just the meadowland, sloping upward toward the cultivated fields on one side. On the other side was the forest. It was very still and lonely.

  He lay down, feeling the soft turf give under his weight like a mattress. He crossed his hands under his head and looked upward. Tall white clouds walked through a sky of far clear blue, the sun wheeled on its slow horizonward way, the grass whispered and rustled around him, there was a drowsy murmur and buzz in the air. For a while he picked shapes out of the clouds, a spaceship, a horse, a robot, Uncle Gunnar with his nose getting longer— He giggled and looked around him.

  Only the grass waving above his head, its smell rich and green and not quite like the smell of grass on Earth. There was a little patch of wild flowers too, blue as if they were fallen pieces of sky, sweet and nose-tickling in their scent. An insect flew past his face with its wings a million colored shards of broken sunlight. Somewhere a bird was singing.

  Pete wriggled deeper down into the grass and the earth and the summer warmth.

  All of a sudden he heard the bells again, very near, high and thin and sweet. He sat up and looked wildly around.

  The truck was far down the line, almost out of sight behind a jutting neck of trees. Otherwise he couldn’t see anything—no, wait—

  Pete sat very still, hardly breathing, and in a moment the tinkler came into view. It was no bigger than a rabbit, fat and pale-green and fuzzy, with little black eyes that twinkled merrily. It.skipped around him, twitching its nose and going ding-ding-ding and then breaking into a rain of crystal chiming.

  Pete thought back to what he’d asked Uncle Gunnar about the tinklers, the first morning after he’d seen one. What were they, where did they come from, why did they make that noise and how? “Nobody knows, or cares very much either, Pete,” Uncle Gunnar had said. “There are a lot of them, running around all over this part of the continent. I shot and dissected one once, to find how its vocal organs work—a matter of tympani and vibrating strings—but it wasn’t very good eating and its hide was too thin to be useful either. So now I just let them alone.”

  “You shouldn’t ’a killed it, Uncle Gunnar,” said Pete, shocked. “That’s like shooting a—an elf.”

  “Sure, an elf,” put in Tobur. “And there a big old troll in the woods too, and fairy castles. I know.”

  “You know too damn many things, Tobur,” said Uncle Gunnar. “No, this is just another little animal.”

  “But what do the tinklers do?” Pete asked.

  “I don’t know,” said Uncle Gunnar. “They have the teeth and digestive system of meat-eaters, but they’re too small and weak to kill anything for themselves, and in fact I should think a fat juicy tinkler would be in some danger from carnivores itself. Especially with that silly music it makes—you can hear it half a kilometer away. Offhand, I should think they cat carrion, and reproduce like fury to keep up their numbers and keep their natural enemies fed.”

  That was all, except that Pete had seen them often, and heard them still more often, and never had a close look at one—till now.

  He sat still, not daring to move, and pretty soon the tinkler quieted down and crouched less than a meter from him, wiggled its impudent nose and twinkled with its eyes.

  “Hello,” whispered Pete. “Hello, there.”

  The tinkler skipped to its feet and let go a happy carillon.

  “Come here,” said Pete. “Come here, fella. I won’t hurt you.”

  The tinkler danced closer. Almost, Pete’s outstretched hand touched it, the whiskers brushed his fingers, and then it was away and laughing at him.

  Pete had to laugh too. He got up, very soft
ly and slowly so as not to scare it. The tinkler waited for him and then skipped another meter away.

  He walked slowly toward it. The tinkler wriggled with delight and jumped over the wild hedge at the boundary of the woods.

  Without thinking, Pete followed it in under the trees. It danced close to him, brushed its soft nose against his leg, and then before he could grab it was off again, deeper into the forest.

  Pete hesitated, looking around him. He wasn’t supposed to go in here—

  The trees stood tall around him, their trunks reaching up and up to a whispering vaulted roof of green and gold. It was cool and shadowy under them, speckled with sunlight and small bright flowers. A bird was trilling its gladness, and only the faint rustle of leaves answered it through the quiet—that, and the happy peal of elfin bells as the tinkler came back to Pete.

  It circled around him, chiming and dancing, a little figure of laughter. It wanted him to follow it—yes, there it went, off again, stopping to look back over its shoulder at him.

  Well, gollikers, it wouldn’t hurt to go just a ways onward. Maybe it wanted to show him something. And it was nice here in the woods.

  The bells chimed eagerly as Pete started off. The tinkler came back, nudged him, bounded in a gleeful circle around his feet, and shot away into the farther shadows.

  He trudged on for a while under the trees. It was like an enchanted forest, cool and dim and green, little spots and shafts of sunlight streaming down to pick out mossy rocks and colored fungi, and flowers hiding under fallen logs. Once in a while a strange thing would streak off from his path, and there was a sudden rush of birdsong as he approached a gnarled old tree. Cosmos, what could go wrong in here, what were the grownups afraid of?

  The tinkler bounded eagerly ahead, shaking sound out of its throat like a snowstorm turned to music, stopping now and then to look after him and wait for him with a shivering impatience. Come on, Pete, come on, come on!

  But where was it going, anyway, what was it leading him to?

  The notion came suddenly to Pete, so suddenly that he stopped in his tracks with the awe and amazement of it. Why, sure—sure— that could be it—what else could it be?

  Nerthus wasn’t uninhabited, and man wasn’t alone on it. There was a native race, a race of little furry elves who spoke in silver chimes, only the humans who roared out of the sky in their great steel ships frightened them. They hid away, deep in the shadowy quiet of their forests, they waited and watched—

  Intelligent life!

  And he had discovered it!

  He hurried after his guide now, running, scrambling over logs and dodging past thickets. The tinkler darted ahead, a white streak in the shades; you’d never have thought the fat little fellow could move that quick. But when it saw he couldn’t keep up, it stopped and waited.

  Pete had to slow down after a while. He was panting and his heartbeat was loud in his cars. But he still shivered with the excitement of his tremendous discovery.

  Sure, the tinklers were intelligent. Why else would this one bei so plainly guiding him on? Intelligent, with a dancing, joyous, fairy mind that sang like its voice, a mind of moonlight and magic remote from the slow ponderous brain of man. They had been frightened, they had hidden away, but had spied out the newcomers simply by pretending to be animals. And now they had decided the time was ripe to reveal themselves.

  Only they wouldn’t approach just anybody. It had to be someone they could trust, someone who would understand. A human who could tell them about his race with an insider’s viewpoint, and who could still fed the way they did, keep their secrets, act as a go-between—a kid. Sure!

  Wilson Pete, first ambassador of man to the tinklers of Nerthus!

  He went on, deeper and deeper into the woods, and the tinkler rang and pealed and leaped before him. And what was it saying in its own strange language?

  Welcome, Pete, welcome to Nerthus and the Old Dwellers, welcome to the realms of Faerie.

  Another tinkler popped out of the dripping underbrush. The two of them gamboled together, darted back toward Pete, and ran on, tinkling furiously. Two of them—! Why, that must mean he was approaching their village.

  It couldn’t be far now. They’d lead him into the ring of little thatch houses; the whole population would swarm out in joy, torches and fireflies would bob and flare in the dark. They’d dance around him, singing their songs of welcome to the stranger from the stars, they’d bring him food in a golden dish and put him to bed on sweetsmelling moss. And when he came back next day with his tremendous news, the folks would forget they were mad at him.

  The ground squished under his feet. Shadows were rising out of the earth, shadows and a thin steaming mist. He stumbled over logs and splashed into pools. Two more tinklers came out of the deeper darkness and frolicked around him.

  They sure picked a nasty swamp to live in. Only maybe they had to do that, for protection from their enemies. Pete groped his way on, too weary to think straight any more. He only wanted sleep.

  The sun was down now, darkness was whelming the world, but a last sullen ember glowed red between the trees. As he came out on the bank of the lake, it gleamed like a pool of blood.

  He couldn’t sec far over it. The water was thick and scummy, and trees and hummocks grew out of it. He plodded squashily along the muck of the bank, feeling a little ill from the dank smell of swamp and rot. The fog was thickening, swirling its tendrils around him. Here and there, phosphorescent fungi glowed blue in the murky twilight. The tinklers led the way, dancing and skipping over the dreary mudbanks—there was a whole crowd of them, pushing and jostling, swarming about him. Their belling filled the heavy air with a harsher note than he had heard before.

  Something stirred, out there in the crimson water. Pete couldn’t see very well what it was. But after a moment he made out a vague bulk by the shore, something looming and dark and misshapen. A dead stump? A small hummock? A—

  The tinklers darted all around, Shoving, crowding, pushing him now, and their eager noise drowned his thoughts. Only—they were urging him toward that thing—

  Suddenly, Pete didn’t want to go any farther. He stopped, and his heart was like a lump in him. “No,” he gulped. “No.”

  The tinklers swarmed around, thrusting him on by their weight, and the last red light glistened on their eyes and their little sharp fangs.

  Something closed around Pete's ankle, cold and hard and rubbery. He screamed. The tinklers danced with glee, ting-ting-ting-a-ting- ting!

  The monster’s tentacle dragged Pete through the mud, up toward the beak that snapped and grinned in its black lump of a body. He screamed and screamed. Help, help, help. Uncle Gunnar, Mother, help, help, wake me up—

  It slid from the bank and pulled him under water. He drew a breath to howl and the rotten water rushed in, filled his lungs, his head roared and swam and whirled down into darkness, down and down and down.

  Something else, a hand closing around his arm, a wild moment of struggle—Pete kicked out, lashing in a crazy howling darkness of thunder and horror, and then he was gulping air into his lungs, coughing and choking with fire in his chest.

  He came to himself on the bank, and Uncle Gunnar’s shape, huge and dark in the gloom, was holding him. He screamed and shuddered himself against the man’s breast.

  “There, Pete.” The deep voice sobbed, vibrating through his shivering body. “All right, fella, it’s all right now—”

  Something of his training in self-integration came back, psycho-physiological habits, a shaking sort of calm. He huddled in his uncle’s arms and watched where the lake roiled and bubbled.

  “Why did you do it?” groaned the man. “Why did you do it? We trailed you as soon as we saw you were gone, Tobur and I, we followed you and guessed our way and came here in time to see that thing dragging you under water—but why?”

  “The—t-t-t-tinkler—”

  “What?”

  “The-the t-t-t-tinkler—it led me—I th-thought it w-w-was int
el—” Pete began crying.

  “So—” Uncle Gunnar’s voice was soft and cold and terrible. “So that’s it. That’s how they live. When we arrived, a whole pack of the little fiends was crouched on the bank watching—

  “They lure animals out here, carnivores, curious ones, and then that thing in the water kills the prey and shares with them— Maybe that’s where some of those other kids went, to that devil’s symbiosis —Tobur!” The last word was wrenched out of him.

  “T-tobur?” whispered Pete.

  The lake seethed and churned with struggle. “He’s down there, fighting it,” said Uncle Gunnar. “He leaped after you, got you free —passed you over to me, and then the monster dragged him under— He’s fighting for his life down there, and I can’t go help him. If the thing got both of us, there’d be no one to take you home. I can’t help him, oh Cosmos, I can’t help him!”

  They sat waiting for a long time as night closed in on the swamp. Once a little bell tinkled in the dark. Pete screamed and huddled against Uncle Gunnar.

  The man swore softly, brokenly.

  The lake quieted. In the last gleam of light, Pete thought he could see blood on its surface.

  Nothing came out of it.

  Uncle Gunnar stood up. “I'm going down,” he said in a harsh, strange voice. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

  He stepped into the lake and his head went under. Pete shivered on the bank and tried not to scream. Another little chime pealed, he clutched the muddy ground with his hands and held his jaws shut with all the strength that was in him.

  Uncle Gunnar came up again and waded back to shore. He moved slowly and wearily, like an old man, and flopped down as if all the strength had gone from him.

  “They’re both dead,” he whispered. “I felt them down there. Tobur knifed it to death, but it broke his neck in the last struggle. They’re both dead.” Suddenly he rolled over and buried his face in his hands.

  “Oh, Tobur, Tobur, you old windbag, it’s going to be an empty world without you!”

  Pete sat very quiet, for he had never seen a man cry before.