Текст книги "Cuckoo's Egg"

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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Thorn had not been in it: therefore Thorn could not imagine it.

But Thorn's hands were not like Duun's. His skin was not. And Thorn had begun to take alarm, suspecting imbalance in the world.

Duun gathered him close, as he had done when Thorn was smaller, rolled him into his lap and poked him in the belly, which Thorn resisted for a moment, and writhed, and finally gave way to, in squeals and laughter and abortive attempts to retaliate in kind. Duun let him have that victory, sprawled backward on the sand before the fire, belly heaving under Thorn's slight weight, in laughter which was not reflexive, like Thorn's. To be touched on throat or belly went against instinct. There was a sense of peril in that abandonment.

But a child had to win. Sometimes. And lose sometimes. There was strength in both.

* * *

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"Follow, follow," he urged the child, looking downhill. The rocky incline was a great trial for small legs, and Duun's stride was long. Thorn stood with legs apart, arms hanging, and staggered a few more knock-kneed steps. "Keep climbing," Duun said. "You can."

A few more steps. Thorn fell and cried, a weak, breathless sobbing. "I can't."

"You have breath left to cry, you have breath to get up. Come on. Up!

Shall I be ashamed?"

"I hurt my knee!" Thorn sat up, clutching it and rocking.

"I hurt my hand once. Get up and come on. Someone is chasing us."

Thorn caught his breath and looked downtrail, still hiccuping.

"Perhaps it will eat us," Duun said. "Get up. Come on."

Thorn let go his reddened knee. Limbs struggled. Thorn got to his feet, wobbled, and came on desperately.

"I lied," said Duun. "But so did you. You could get up. Come on."

Sobs and snuffles. Wails of rage. Thorn kept walking. Duun walked with shorter strides, as if the way had gotten steeper for him as well.

* * *

"Again." Duun gave Thorn another small stone. Thorn threw. It hit a rock not so high up the cliffs as before. "Not so good. Again."

" Youdo it."

Duun threw. It sailed up and up and struck near the top of the sheer face.

The child's mouth stayed open in dismay.

"That is what I cando," Duun said. "Match that."

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Cuckoo's Egg

"I can't."

"My ears are bad. Something said can't."

Thorn took the rock. Tears welled up in his eyes. He threw. The stone fell ignominiously awry and lost itself among the rocks at the bottom of the cliff.

"Ah. I have frightened you. Thorn is scared. I hear can'tagain."

"I hate you!"

"Throw at me,then. I'm closer. Perhaps you can hit me." Duun gave Thorn another stone.

Thorn's face was red. His eyes watered and his lips trembled. He whirled and threw it at the cliff instead.

So.

"That was your highest yet," Duun said.

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Cuckoo's Egg

III

The meds came back. Ellud was with them. "Ellud." Duun said.

"You look well," Ellud said, with one long searching look. With a furtive sliding of the eyes toward Thorn, who stood his ground in the main hall of the house, where the hated meds prepared their discomforts. Thorn scowled. The sun had turned his naked skin a golden brown. His hair, which Duun cut to a length that did not catch twigs or blind him when he worked, was a clean and shining earth color. His eyes were as much white as blue. His nose had gotten more prominent, his teeth were strong, if blunt. He stood still. His poor ears could not move. Only the regular flaring of his nostrils betrayed his dislike.

"Thorn," Duun said. "Come here. This is Ellud. Be polite, Thorn."

"Is he a med?" Thorn asked suspiciously.

Ellud's ears sank. A rock might have spoken to him in plain accents and shocked him no less. He looked at Duun. Said nothing.

"No." said Duun. "A friend. Many years ago."

Thorn looked up and blinked. A med came and got him and prepared to take his pulse.

"Come back to town," Ellud said. "Duun, come back."

"Is that a request or an order?"

"Duun—"

"I'd remind you that you promised me anything. Not yet, Ellud."

That evening Thorn was silent, gloomy, thoughtful. He did not ask about Ellud. Did not discuss the meds.

20

Cuckoo's Egg

Thorn slept apart now. There were changes in his body which made this advisable. He went to his room of the many rooms in the house and curled up into his privacy. Duun came to check on him.

"Are my ears going to grow?" Thorn asked, looking at him from the pillow as he stood in the doorway.

Ears. Maybe that was the easiest, least painful thing to ask. Duun stood silent. He had planned how he would answer about claws and hair and the shape of their faces and the difference of their loins. He had planned everything but ears.

"I don't think so," Duun said. "I don't care, do you?"

Silence, from the small shadow in the bedbowl.

"You're unusual," Duun said.

A snuffle.

"I like you that way," Duun said.

"I like you," came the small, disembodied voice. Another snuffle. "I like you, Duun." Lovewas, Duun recalled, not a word he had ever used in Thorn's hearing. Like you. As one liked a warm fire. The sun on one's back.

"I like you too, Thorn."

"I don't want any more meds."

"I'll talk to them about that. Do you want to go hunting tomorrow? I'll give you a knife of your own. I'll show you how to keep the blade."

"Hunting what?" Snuffle. Shadow-child wiped his eyes with a swipe of an arm; nose with another. There was interest in the voice.

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"I'm hatani, Thorn. That's something hard to be. That's why I push you hard."

"What's hatani?"

"I'll show you. Tomorrow. I'll teach you. You'll learn to do what I can do.

It's going to be hard, Thorn."

Another wipe of the eyes.

"Tomorrow, Thorn?"

"Yes."

"Get to sleep, then."

Duun went back to the fire. Wind howled outside, in cold. The fire leapt.

The last of the old countryfolk lumber was gone. They began to use an old log from downslope. He cut it with the power saw he had ordered with supplies and brought it up, bit by bit. None of the countryfolk from the valley would bother the pile he had made on the roadside below. They kept out of his sight and left no sign near the house. But he knew that they were there.

They would know hatani patience. Countryfolk had patience of their own.

Perhaps things would change. Perhaps the hatani would die. Perhaps the alien would meet with accident. Perhaps their title would become valid again.

Perhaps they had bad dreams, down in the valley, on the other side of the mountain, out of his sight and mind. Perhaps they dreamed nightmares, imagining that their woods were no longer their own.

Or that the woods might not be theirs again, forever.

He had asked for the house and lands of Sheon. He had not used the lands, till now.

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Cuckoo's Egg

He took his weapons from the top shelf of the locked cabinet where they had remained out of the way of curious young fingers. He had taken them out many times to care for them, and never let Thorn touch them, to Thorn's great frustration. A child should have unfulfilled ambitions; should know some things forbidden. Doubtless Thorn had tried. Children were not always virtuous. That was to be expected. And dealt with.

* * *

"Have you ever tried these?" Duun asked, when Thorn sat opposite him, across the blanket from the small array of knives, cord, wire, the two guns, one projectile-firing and one not. "Have you ever handled them?"

"No," Thorn said.

"Will you ever, if I tell you no?"

Alien eyes lifted to him, in startlement that at once dilated and contracted the irises: swift, furtive decision to agree, the easy course, swiftly to be violated– perhaps. If a child wished. There would be a quick flick of a reproving finger against an ear. Perhaps a cuff to make the eyes water.

Thorn could endure that. There was no permanency. Nothing was forever.

As he lacked a past, he lacked a true future, and believed nothing could thwart him forever.

There was no can'tfor Thorn. Duun had taught him so.

"I am not asking you," Duun said, holding up the solitary finger of his right hand. "I am telling you a thing. I want you to believe this. Will you ever pick these up if I tell you no?'

From childish excitement, from game to perplexity. Thorn's brow contracted in a spasm of anxiety. Perhaps Duun would break his promise?

Perhaps he was being teased?

Duun took off the cloak and dropped it behind him. He picked up the wer,a middling blade. He stretched out his bare left arm, fist clenched, and set the knife against his forearm.

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Cuckoo's Egg

"No!" Thorn cried suddenly. A game? A threat? Something he had done wrong? Duun was teasing him?

Duun slowly brought the blade down and down, deeply. Blood sprang out and rained in steady, heavy drops on the weapons and the blanket. He kept his fist clenched and held the arm steady, resting the knife butt on his knee. Thorn's eyes were wide, his mouth open with nothing coming out.

"That's what weapons are for," Duun said. The blood poured, soaked the blanket. "Each time you take them up, remember what they're for."

"Stop it," Thorn cried. "Duun, stop it bleeding!"

Duun held out the knife, the wounded arm still spurting. He turned it in his maimed hand and offered it hilt first to Thorn. "Can you do it?"

Thorn took the bloodied knife. His eyes still were wide. His lips set themselves, drawn in. He held out his own clenched fist and set the knife to his skin. He drew the blade down the same way, and his face was red and his eyes poured tears; his nostrils and his lips went pale. He drew the knife down. Blood began to drip. The small hand drew away, the knife wobbling in tremors that convulsed the knife-arm and began to involve the other. As Duun had done, he set the knife hand on his knee, and his face was all white and beaded with moisture, while the blood ran down and made another darkening of the blanket.

So. So. Duun had expected last-moment flinching. His own head grew light. His cut was deeper and bled abundantly. He held out his hand and took the knife back. He saw the terror in the child. (What more. Duun?

What else? What worse? I'm scared,Duun!)

"It is not a game," Duun said. He put down the knife and pressed his right hand to his wound. "You can hold it. Hold it tight." He got up from his cross-legged posture without using either hand. He went and opened the med kit and pressed a sealing film on the wound. He came back to Thorn with another square of the gel, and pressed the film to Thorn's arm and held it, warming it with his hand until it took and stayed, soft and blood-reddened, over a wound that would scar. Duun held the arm. Alien eyes 24

Cuckoo's Egg

looked up at him, white all round. He was tender in his grip. "You won't forget," Duun said. "You won't forget what weapons are. You will never pick them up when I tell you not."

"No." A small weak voice.

"You will use them when I say. And you'll set them down when I say."

"Yes."

"Good." He slid a bloodstained hand past Thorn's head and rubbed Thorn's nape in the vise of his maimed hand till the tension left and Thorn's body gave to and fro with that motion, his eyes still fixed on Duun. "Believe me, Thorn. Believe me in this. You hurt now. But you did what I asked.

That was brave."

Muscles in Thorn's face shook, as in some dire chill. His limbs convulsed.

Stopped. Duun kept on his massage until the shiver passed. Thorn's eyes lost their wild look. They were wide and moiled with forethought and calculations. (What else does he want? What did I win? What did I do?

What next?)

Duun let go. Motioned at the bloodstained weapons. "Clean them. I'll show you how."

Thorn stirred, edged closer to the array of weapons on the blanket. "You said—" he began.

"I said?"

"We'd go hunting. You said– we'd go hunting today."

"That we will. We won't eat tonight if we don't take something."

Thorn's eyes flicked up a second time; Thorn could do that, without turning his head. The look hoped for a joke and Duun made his face implacable.

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Cuckoo's Egg

There was no question, of course. The place was full of unwary game. No one hunted it much. Yet. And a hatani could, in the most desolate place, find some sustenance.

But Thorn would discover this when he was hungry. When he had tried for himself and understood that he was too loud and too awkward.

When he had seen what was in the land, and what the wild things knew.

"I promised you a knife."

A glance upward, wary interest. A stare of white wide eyes.

"The wer-knife. The one you used. That would be a good one for you. You can have it if you like. It's a very good blade. You have to keep it spotless.

Even fingers stain it. I'll show you how to keep it."

Thorn picked it up again, by the hilt. Held it.

* * *

The gangling boy came up the trail, thinking he was alert: Duun knew.

Thorn looked this way and that: his callused feet made very little noise on the dusty track among the rocks.

"Up,"Duun hissed. "Look up."

Thorn's head came up. Duun had already moved, lost in the brush.

The boy was still looking up when Duun hit him in the back with a thrown stone. Thorn spun about and threw. Thorn's stone rattled away down among brush and rock. Duun had evaded it with a fluid shift of his hip, and stood untouched.

"Too late," Duun said. "You're dead. I'm not."

Thorn's shoulders slumped. He bent his head in shame.

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Cuckoo's Egg

Whirled and sped another rock underhand.

Duun evaded that one too without more than shifting stance. Thorn did not look surprised, only exhausted. Beaten at last.

Duun grinned. "Better. That didsurprise me." The grin faded. "But your choosing this track up didn't. Thatwas your first mistake. How did I know? Can you figure that?"

Thorn gasped for breath. Hunkered down on the path, arms on scabbed knees. "Because I was tired. The climb's easier."

"Better still. You're right. Think ahead next time. And think in alldirections. You know this path. You should have seen these rocks in your head before you came to them."

No answer. Thorn knew. Duun knew that he knew. Thorn wiped his forearm across his face and smeared dust across the sweat. Even at this range he stank of heat.

"Also," Duun reminded him with delicacy, "when you came round the mountain the wind was coming at your shoulder, at an angle to the rocks.

Do you see why that should have warned you?"

Thorn blinked sweat and wiped again. He had grown rangier, longer of limb. The belly had gone hollow beneath the ribs, ridged with muscle above the wrap about his loins. Brushscars showed white on his skin.

"Scent," he said. He gasped for breath. There was chagrin in his half-drowned face. "Sorry. I'm sorry, Duun."

"Sorry won't save you. Scent-deaf doesn't mean the world is. You're dead, Thorn."

"Yes, Duun." A faint, hoarse voice. Shoulders slumped again. "You won't catch me again."

"Won't I?"

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Cuckoo's Egg

"Duun– I'm hungry, Duun!"

Duun spun around the other side of the tree, leaned there looking at him and scowling. "Hunt, then. Fool. Don't tell me what your needs are. I'll know where to find you. Don't trust me, Thorn."

"I'm not playing, Duun!"

"Then neither will I be." Duun spun round again. Headed downslope. "I'll hurt you this time, Thorn!"

"Duun!"

* * *

Fire crackled, there in the clearing. They made peace. Thorn nursed bruises. It was Duun's catch Duun divided with him, meat which Thorn took gingerly, dancing it from one hand to the next while it cooled down.

"You do well," Duun said.

"For someone who can't smell," Thorn said hoarsely. "Who falls into traps."

Duun flicked his ears. "Good, you worry about your lacks. You'll think of them. You won't forget again."

" Duun, what's wrong with me?"

The question stopped him. The meat burned Duun's fingers and he shifted it in haste, back and forth again, and laid it on a rock. "Wrong. Who said wrong?"

Silence from the other side of the fire. Grievous silence.

"You're different," Duun said. "Or maybe Iam. Does that occur to you?"

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It had not. Thorn blinked in shock. Then disbelief crept in. There were the meds. There was Ellud. Thorn was not diverted. Duun was pleased with that, too.

"You're smart," Duun said. "You're quick, you're clever. Brave. All those things. You're Thorn. What if you were the only one? What if? What if I were the only Duun? Would that make a difference? You're all you can be.

You don't need anything else. I don't."

"Make sense, Duun!"

"The world's wide, boy. Wide. There's nine seas. There's cities. There's roads and highways. People in a hurry. Cities are full of noise. Sheon's best. That's this place, Sheon. The gods made this whole world and they made Sheon first. You talk to the winds, Thorn. You hear the gods talk back? Do you?"

"I don't know."

"You can't hear that in a city. Cityfolk are scent-deaf. Too many smells.

Gives you a headache." Duun tore off a bit of meat and swallowed. "The gods made the world and they made shonunin last, out of the leftovers; and they were missing some. And they were sorry, so one of them gave up a bit and another gave another bit and they filled up the gaps till there were parts enough. That's what we are, all scraps and a bit of the gods'

own selves. All patchwork. With good parts and bad. So you can't smell.

I've got just six fingers. And you've got five on just one hand."

"How did you—?"

Ah. The fish bit. Duun had thought that bait would lead him astray. Duun shrugged. "I made a mistake. See? Even I make mistakes. And I'm good, Thorn, I'm very good. You don't know how good."

Thorn choked down a bite. He had to chew more than Duun did.

Sometimes in his haste he forgot this. He struggled. Stayed silent after.

"What happened?" Thorn asked finally. "Duun– what did happen to your—?"

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"Ah. Well. I hunted something that bit back, you see?" He held up the maimed hand. "You put your hand into things, young Thorn, you may not get back what you want."

"What was it?"

Duun took another bite. Swallowed. "Eat. It's getting cold."

"Duun."

"Maybe I'll tell you. When you can beat me, fair or foul."

"I never will!"

"Ah. Maybe you won't. But you're several fingers ahead of me. You're younger than I am. My knee aches when it rains."

"Couldn't the meds—?"

"Maybe I didn't want them to."

Thorn's mouth was open. He closed it and stopped asking. His eyes were muddled with unasked questions and too many answers. He had become too wary a hunter to go down a trail that likely to have snares. Thorn took another bite and ate in silence.

"I'll teach you to shoot," Duun said. "You almost hit me with that stone."

Thorn looked up. Distracted again, lured on and promised. (O young fool.

Fool who loves me. Thorn.)

* * *

"Another sequence," Duun said. "Base ten this time. The numbers are sixteen, forty-nine, fifty-two, ninety-seven, eight and two."

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Thorn sat on the back porch of the house. The hiyi flowers bloomed. The insects hummed and made pink petals fall in delirium. Thorn shut his eyes.

His brow knit. "Two hundred twenty four."

"Divide by the third in sequence."

Thorn put his hands against his eyes. Pressed hard. "Four point three." He looked up. "Can't we go hunting. Duun? I'm tired of—"

"More decimals."

Another shutting of the eyes. Hands pressed to shut out the light. "Point three zero eight."

"Add nine. Subtract four, eighty-two. Six."

The hands came down. Eyes blinked. "I'm sorry, Duun, I lost it, I forgot—

"

"No. You didn't remember. Think. Name me the numbers."

" I—"

"Am I about to hear can't?"

"Didn't"

"Didn't. Didn't. There was a nest of maganin; here and here and here! How many were they? Which groups? Where? They've eaten you, fool!"

"Maganin don't come in fifties!"

"I am ashamed." Duun thrust his hands into the waist of his kilt and walked away.

"Duun—"

Duun turned, ears pricked. "You've remembered."

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"No! No, I haven't remembered! I can't remember! I don't remember!"

"Then I'm still ashamed." Duun laid his ears back, turned and walked on.

" Duun—"

Duun did not look back. There were tears back there. Rage. It was Thorn's nature.

So was it Thorn's nature to come trailing back into the house, finally, when it was dark, when Duun had made a fire and sat on the sand before the hearth. Duun had cooked food. He had eaten. He had brought Thorn's supper outside and set it wordlessly on the step. Thorn was not to be seen.

But it was in Thorn's nature to admit defeat when night came.

Thorn came and stood on the sand beside him. "Two hundred twenty-four," Thorn said.

Duun's ears pricked. "Plus nine. Minus four. Eighty-two. Six."

"One forty-one."

"Ah. You can."

Thorn knelt. Leaned on his hands. "What in the world comes in two hundred twenty-fours?"

"Stars. Trees. Kinds of grass. The ways of a river. The stubbornness of a child. The world is wide, young Thorn. I can reckon the speed of the wind, name the stars, the cities of the world. I can read a man's intent in the pupils of his eyes."

Duun swung around and struck, open palmed. Thorn's open palm was there to meet it, stopped it, held and trembled.

"Ah. You are hatani, are you? Back away, little fish. You're not ready to take me. Drop the hand."

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It was a trap. Thorn refused it. Thorn held still, eyes wide and white-rimmed, palm trembling against his palm, and Duun lowered his ears.

"Now what will you do?" Duun asked.

"Let me go." The tremor grew. "Let me go, Duun."

Duun reached out his maimed right hand and encircled Thorn's wrist gently with the span of his two fingers. Pulled. The hand refused to leave contact with his palm. The arm shook. Thorn's eyes were dilated, watched his feverishly.

"What are you going to do now, little fish? You have a problem now, don't you? You've let me get two hands into it."

Thorn lifted his other hand. It froze in that lifting, trembling.

"Not wise. Not wise at all," Duun said. "You're overmatched. You'd better stop. Don't you think?"

"Let go,."

"Relax. Relax and trust me."

"No!"

"There was a time I told you, do you remember?– when you took up the knife, I said that you would take it up when I told you; and when I told you, you would lay it down. This is the time, Thorn. Now I tell you to let go. Do you hear me? I tell you to lay it down, Thorn."

The tremor grew. The palm slowly left his palrn. Duun clenched his hand on Thorn's wrist and jerked him against his chest. Thorn, utterly off his balance, collapsed against him. Duun grinned, grasped him by both arms, claws out, shook him back in that grip and stared into eyes face to face. "I would have torn your throat out just then. Do you believe it?"

"No."

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"Why would I not?"

"I don't know, Duun!"

Duun let him go. Thorn collapsed onto his rump and sat up and rubbed his arms. There would be bruises and clawmarks. Duun knew.

"Are you a fool, then?" Duun asked. "Why did you do that?"

"You would have hit me," Thorn said, perfect logic.

"Yes," Duun said.

Another change. Thorn sat with his jaw loose, stunned silence in his watering eyes. The boy discovered chaos in the world, sums that had no right answer. "The world's full of two-way bad choices." Duun said.

"Numbers always work out. You can trust them. That's why we learn numbers. To set some order in the world. There's no other part of life where things work out. Do you see that?"

"Yes." Thorn's teeth chattered. "I see."

"You are hatani. Wei-na-hatani, little fish. A small one. A hatani is not the weapons. Is not the knife, the gun. A hatani is not these things. I told you that the time would come to lay these things down. Now you have no need of them. You can pick up the knife and lay it down again. A hatani is not the knife. Do you understand? Not the skin or the claws or the eyes. Do you understand? I teach you. You become hatani. Inside."

Thorn blinked rapidly. Gasped for breath. "Duun, where did you get me?"

"Where do you think?"

"I don't know."

"But you trust me. Don't go to every morsel, little fish. Some are traps.

Don't I teach you? Use your wits. Add only what can be added. Remember all the figures, even so. Never lose one. That one will surely come from behind and kill you. There are no second tries in the world. Nothing is twice."

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"How can you know anything?"

"Remember all the numbers. Even the long-ago ones. Never drop any.

You don't know when they'll be needed. Reject nothing. You don't know what you might need. I give you these things."

" Where did you get me?"

"I pulled you from the river, little fish. You were drowning and I saved you."

"Is that truth, Duun?"

"I lied." Duun reached out the finger of his hand and brushed Thorn's cheek, where a light down had grown. Hair began to grow and darken elsewhere on Thorn's body. Thorn's hope and his despair. (It's worse than nothing, Thorn cried, before the mirror in the bath. I'm all in patches, Duun!) Other signs were on him. "I tell you, I think you should cut this, little fish; you're right: it's here and there– I'd make it even."

"Stop it. Don't distract me!I want an answer, Duun."

"Ah. You uncover my tricks, do you?"

"I want an answer, Duun."

"The minnow has hatani tricks."

"I want an answer, Duun."

Duun pursed his lips. Laid his ears back. "Put that answer with my hand.

Beat me and I'll answer you."

Thorn's shoulders slumped. His head bowed. True defeat. Then he glanced up with a piercing, anxious look.

"Duun– Duun, tell me the truth. One truth. Be fair to me. Do you know?"

"Yes," Duun said, and gazed at him steadily until Thorn turned his face away.

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IV

Faith am I when all you trust has died;

Truth am I when all you know has lied.

Choice I bring when the choice you had is sped; Promise am I when all other faith has fled.

Vengeance am I but I come to you at cost;

One gain am I when all else you want is lost.

Thorn sang. It was a hatani song. Duun listened, as to the other lessons, listened half-dreaming as he played. There was a sweetness in Thorn's voice, all unsuspected, a skill in his hands which ran upon the strings.

Perhaps it was a native fierceness that made the boy love this song; perhaps it was the innocence of that downlands child who questioned a hatani's scars, happy in ignorance. Perhaps Thorn only loved the tune. He sang it well.

Duun took over the dkin and strummed out a new rhythm with his two-fingered right hand. Rapped the beat on the sounding-board, and Thorn with native skill took the beat on the small drum.

The young head bent to the music, young eyes looked up slyly from beneath a fall of dark hair, lately shaven lips widened in a grin. Thorn had given up on the hair of his face. That on his body he still cultivated.

Besides, the razor burned. (You look better, Duun had told him, when Thorn had done the deed and crept out for approval. And Thorn looked profoundly relieved.)

Vulnerable. Oh, vulnerable, young Thorn.

Green beneath the summer sun,

White beneath the snow,

All fair my land,

And fair the one I know

Whose paths run down

To mine in evenglow.

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Love and women and things of the world.

"A hatani has no kin," Duun said while his hands played on. "When you are hatani to the heart you will not have me."

The drum stopped. But there was no question. Thorn had betrayed himself and Duun had gone no further; Thorn kept his own counsel, grown wary in his years. And having done that much, Duun kept the melody going, gentle harmony. "When I lost the most of my hand, I thought I would never play. I recovered that. Other things I lost. You gain no virtue from loss you never know. There will never be love, Thorn. Never. Do you know that word?– Take up the beat."

Thorn picked it up, bowed his head till his eyes were hid.

"I tell you," Duun said in the low beat of the strings, the counterpoint of the drum. "There's always something left to lose. When you think there's nothing more you're a fool, Thorn; there's something till you're dead. And after that– gods know. Do you know how old you are?"

Thorn looked up. The beat skewed. recovered itself.

"They know in the city. I know. The meds don't come. Half a year and they don't come. You know why, Thorn?"

A move of the head. No. There was dread in Thorn's eyes.

"Well," Duun said, "they don't. Maybe they know what you are."

The beat kept up, regular as heartbeat and as painful.

"What am I?"

Duun looked at him sidelong. "Hatani. Like me. Self-sufficient."

Thorn only stared at him, knowing his tricks. (Foul, Duun-hatani. Wicked and foul.)

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"You have a wound, little fish. You bleed into the water. Don't you know this?"

Thorn's jaw set. His eyes were alive with thoughts. "I didn't feel the wind, Duun-hatani. You caught me."

"—again."

"Meds."

Duun looked up.

"You talked about meds, Duun, and cities. What about them?"

"Oho. The minnow takes to deeper water."

"You mean to say something, Duun-hatani. You never say anything you don't want to say."

"Deeper still."

"You called them. Did you?"

"No." The music grew under Duun's fingers, shifted and changed.

"They called you."

"Ellud called."

"Why?"

"To ask how you are. I told them. Improving, I said. Growing. They were satisfied."

"What's Ellud? Why does he want to know? Why do the meds care? Why do they look at me and never at you?"

"Ssss. There's time. There's a little time, isn't there?"

38

Cuckoo's Egg

"Time for what?"

"Tksss. Fool. Walk and breathe at once, can you?"

The beat picked up again, changed, became another thing, strong and temperful.

"Defy me, do you?" Duun launched into a thing more complex.

The beat followed. "Time for what?" Thorn asked. Duun shrugged.

"For Sheon."

"The city? The meds?" Thorn's eyes grew wild, dilate. "Gods– go there?"

"Did I teach you profanity? No. I taught you respect. You're still a child.

What a leap of reason. Did I say go to the city?"

"What do you mean– time?"

"That." And Duun launched out on another tune. "Time was, I thought you might beat me, little fish. I thought you might come at me in my sleep.

Fair or foul, I said. You ever think of that?"

"I thought of it."

"Why didn't you?"

A long hesitation. "I like my own sleep, Duun-hatani."

"Ah."

Thorn gave him a wary look. Duun grinned at him in no merry way. So Thorn got the joke as well. Jaw set. Eyes flickered in alarm.

(Guard your sleep, little fish. The rules just changed.) 39

Cuckoo's Egg

Thorn smiled suddenly, darkly, without humor, and complicated the drum-pulse, making irreverent changes in hatani songs.