Retawan Jonovel stood above the brood hole, looking down from the entrance foyer onto the mothermud and his six offspring. They were his first brood in fifty-one years. And, damnit, there should have been nine of them!
Nine. Not six!
But Hunters had to come from somewhere
Shortly after his mate and Retawan had come forth from sixteen days in the warren, the central committee had authorized the Hunters' Guild to treat three of the barely fertilized foetuses and to withdraw them from the woman's womb for development in the artificial wombs beneath the Hunters' Monastery.
He should have expected it sooner or later. The Jonovel's were ancient, pure stock, just the sort the Hunters liked to use. If they had not come for part of this brood, they would have come the next time.
Still
The six below cluttered and squealed mindlessly.
Retawan Jonovel cursed the Hunters and the need for them that made their existence a reality. He left the brood hole, closing the iron door behind. The heat, smell, and noise was getting to him
A white-haired man stood in a cleft of rock, letting the wind flap his clothes and uncomb his frosted mane. It felt good to stand here in the open on his own world after so long in the depths of the fortress, so long in artificial light and darkness. He watched the foamy breakers toiling in toward shore, cresting, battering, spraying up on the rocks three hundred feet below at the foot of the mountain. It was a truly wonderful sight.
Taken from them now. As everything had been.
Unconsciously, he scanned the sky for sign of a naoli copter. But the skies were clear.
The sea rolled in crashing, spitting up, frothing.
The sea had great strength. Perhaps the world could survive this. Perhaps man could. No, not perhaps. They would survive. There could be no doubt! For doubt would be the end of them
The scattered clouds burned away. The sun was full and radiant. It felt warm on his face, even though the wind was cool. A long while later, he turned and went into the channel in the cliffside, followed the twist in it until he came to the well-known spot. He made the recognition signal, waited for reply. The door in the rock slid slowly open. He stepped into the Haven and returned to the dismal burden of his duties
Chapter Nine
Hulann pushed the access door up and away to his right. Instantly, the booming storm winds rushed down the hole he had made, swept by him, made Leo, who was standing at the foot of the rungs, shiver and hold himself with his arms to contain his heat. Hulann went up two more steps until he could see above the roof of the cab. He inspected the suspension bracket for damage, though he was not certain he would recognize any if he saw it. As the cold bit at him and the wind decided to take off the flat flaps of his ears, he tried to think of some way to avoid crawling onto the roof-and decided there was none. He climbed the rest of the way out, staying on his hands and knees to offer as little resistance as possible to the wind.
He edged his way over the icy roof toward the suspension bracket, grabbed hold of it with both arms when he reached it. He was breathing heavily, and he felt as if he had traveled a dozen miles instead of eight or nine feet.
He looked back the way they had come, at the endless length of swinging cable. Nothing wrong behind them. He turned, looked forward the dozen feet to the header station. There it was. Two feet before the car wheels, there was a lump of dark-cored ice a little more than four inches thick, perhaps half a foot long. The wheels had come up against that, repeatedly, and had been forced back.
It was a minor miracle that they had not been bumped off the cable to crash on the rocky slopes below.
Below…
He looked down, over the edge of the cab, then quickly looked back up. The distance down had seemed frightening from inside the cabin. Unenclosed as he now was, it was perfectly terrifying. He realized, with little surprise, that he was never meant to be a rebel. He was never designed, emotionally, to be on the run, to take risks, to be an outlaw. How had he gotten into this? Guilt, yes. He hadn't wanted to turn the boy in to be slaughtered. But that all seemed so petty now. He was willing to turn a hundred boys in if necessary. Just so he would not have to do what he was beginning to understand he must do if they were to survive.
"What is it?" Leo called.
Hulann turned. The boy had climbed the rungs and had poked his head out of the hole in the roof. His yellow hair seemed almost white now, fluttering above him, sweeping down now and then to blot out his features.
"Ice on the cable. A huge chunk of it. I don't know what caused it. Very unnatural."
"We'll have to go back," Leo said.
"No."
"What?"
The car began swaying slightly more than usual as a stronger gust of wind caught it broadside.
"We can't go back," Hulann said. "I might have tried climbing half the mountain before. Not now. We both got battered around in the cab. We've lost more strength. I'm afraid I'm getting too cold. I have no feeling in my feet at all. We have to get there by cableway or not at all."
"But we'll be thrown loose trying to cross the ice."
"I'm going to break it loose."
The boy, even with his face distorted in the cold, looked incredulous. "How close to the car is it?"
"A couple of feet."
"Can you stand on the roof?"
"I don't think so," he said.
"You mean you plan on-" — "hanging on the cable," Hulann finished.
"You'll fall. You're scared of heights even inside the cab."
"You have any better ideas?"
"Let me," the boy said.
For answer, Hulann stood, gripping the cable, and held it as he walked gingerly along the roof toward the edge.
"Hulann!"
He did not answer.
It was not that he was heroic or that he indulged in acts of foolish courage. At this moment, it was abject fear which drove him, not courage of any stripe. If he did not break that ice, they would die. They would have to go back to the boarding station at the middle of the mountain and make their way up the slopes to the top. Though the storm had not increased in strength, it seemed to have gained thirty miles an hour in velocity, for he could not withstand its battering as well as before. And the wearier they became, the more fierce the storm would seem-until they would collapse in it, go to sleep, and die. There was no sense in sending the boy out on the cable to do the job, for he would surely be blown loose, fall, and shatter upon the rocks. And then there would be no point in going on. It would be as good to die.
He left the roof, holding to the cable with both hands, the muscles of his brawny arms corded and thumping under the strain.