Michael Coney
Cat Karina
One
The Song of Earth
Step out of your shroud,
Alan-Blue‑Cloud,
And sing us a Song of Earth.
When everything else had run down, we will still have the legends of Old Earth.
There is a giant computer which straddles the world. It has its roots deep in the Fifty-second Millennium; that so‑distant past when Man discovered electricity. It walked through history hand‑in-hand with Man; it saw the building of the first Domes, it survived the reversal of the Earth’s magnetic field, it watched the Age of Resurgence, it fought Man’s wars for him and even, in the Domes, lived his life for him. It became so powerful that it was able to observe practically everything that happened on Earth and, from this, project what was going to happen in the future — or the If along, as it is more correctly called. Now, in these Dying Years, the computer is still there, still observing, thinking and predicting, in countless solar-powered centers all over Earth.
It is called the Rainbow.
I am called Alan-Blue‑Cloud. In a way I am the Rainbow’s interpreter. I am one of the few remaining beings who is able to operate a terminal, and I use this ability to draw true stories out of the computer; stories of True Humans and Specialists, of aliens and Bale Wolves and the sad neotenites known cruelly as Blubbers.
But true stories do not give the whole picture. During the later years of Earth people became dissatisfied with bare facts, which are always a little dull when compared with fictions and legends. So, when it seemed that Mankind was doomed forever to listen to the Truth, because that was all he could get out of his terminals and cassettes, an old art-form was rediscovered.
And Romance returned to Earth.
It started with a few bards and minstrels — I will shortly tell you about one named Enriques de Jai’a. They ignored the Rainbow and they used their eyes and ears, listened to rumors and legends and dying old men. And they used their imagination, and their essential humanness. With these ingredients they created a whole new history of Mankind; a tapestry of events which was passed on by word of mouth — and so could never become dull, inflexible, or accurate.
It is called the Song of Earth.
HERE BEGINS THAT PART OF THE SONG OF EARTH KNOWN TO MEN AS «THE GIRL BORN TO GREATNESS»
Where a young felina
meets a wise woman,
hears of her future
and meets a young True Human whose name
will be linked with hers in the Ifalong.
Two
The World of Karina
The fastest sailcar is the first to the rotted rail
Instantly, Karina knew her leg was broken.
Her body swung downwards and she grabbed the log with her right arm, checking her fall. As she hung there, the pain began. The dark night brightened with her pain, so that for a moment she could see nothing except a blinding redness, flaring like a furnace from a core of agony just below her knee.
She made no sound. Felinas don’t cry.
So they were tears of pain in her eyes, not weakness. She blinked and her vision cleared, and she wriggled carefully, working her way onto the log until she lay along it, her foot trapped in the supporting crutch, her legs outstretched. She saw the moon reflected from the long, smooth timber rail of the sailway and, far in the distance on top of a hill, the bright glow of a signal tower. As she watched, the signal blinked with moonlight.
That meant there was a sailcar coming.
For a moment she visualized the great car, white sails spread to catch the night breeze, trundling down the track while she lay helpless. She tried to tug her foot free, but the movement sent a screaming current of pain through her body and, for a moment, she blacked out.
She came to with a sense of great loneliness. Her alpaca tunic was wrapped around her waist, the ground was three meters below, and the wind blew coldly over her as she lay exposed to the night’s silence. She was lonely for her sisters but they were some distance down the track, far out of earshot, preparing a harmless ambush for the Pegman. A joke which would cost Karina her life. Lying there in pain, she did something which only she could.
She concentrated all her thoughts on her leg and she said, «Please don’t hurt so much. Pain, please go away. Little Friends, wherever you are, please make my leg not hurt so much.…»
And her Little Friends helped her, whispering through the cells of her body, gathering about the wounded nerve endings and the torn flesh and bone, and soothing. Not mending, because this was beyond their power, but soothing so that the pain faded and Karina could think straight again.…
The sailway track consisted of three parallel rows of trimmed logs forming a simple monorail system linking the coastal towns. The middle rail was the thickest and supported the weight of the cars. The other two rails were placed higher, one on either side, and the lateral guidewheels of the sailcars pressed against these. The whole structure marched along the coastal plains on X-shaped gantries; the running rail resting in the crutch of the X and the guiderails pegged to the upper arms.
Karina’s foot was jammed between the running rail and the crutch. She pulled at it and twisted it until warning twinges told her that even the Little Friends could not perform miracles. She lay back in despair. Even if she had been able to free her foot, she could still die. She was a felina, and felino bones do not heal readily.
So Karina the cat-girl lay on the sailway track and waited to die. She was eighteen years old and, by human standards, very beautiful. She had the long supple limbs, the oval face and the slanting amber eyes of her people. Only her hair was different, a startling rarity among felinos; red-gold, it fell about her shoulders like fire. Karina, concentrating on her Little Friends to dull the pain, waited.
Then she felt measured footsteps pacing along the rail towards her.
«Karina? You are Karina, daughter of El Tigre?»
Karina sat up, staring at the tall figure which seemed to float towards her dressed all in black so that for one fanciful moment she thought it was Death come to get her. It was a woman’s voice, soft yet with a strangely lifeless quality as though the speaker had seen all the sadness of the Universe, and had been unable to help.
«Yes, I’m Karina.»
As the woman stepped forward, the moonlight fell upon her face — and Karina flinched with horror. The pallid flesh was seared and puckered with the Mark of Agni, the Fire-God.
«Give me your hand.»
But Karina jerked away, her stomach churning at the awful, unnatural evil of that face. The woman was Cursed. Agni only touched those who sinned, and he made sure they stayed touched. So ran the Kikihuahua Examples.… «No.… Get away from me,” she said. The woman was a True Human. She could tell. There was an imperiousness about her manner.
«You’re trapped on a sailway track and you’ll die unless you can get free — and you won’t let me help you.» The woman’s tone was wondering. «Do I frighten you that much?»
«I’m not afraid of anything!»
«Is it my face? It’s only a burn, you know. You see much stranger things in the jungle.»
«Go away!»
«So it’s because I’m a True Human.»
«All right — so it is! I’m a Specialist and you’re a True Human. There’s nothing we can do for each other. Nothing we can say.»
«That’s your father speaking.»
«True Humans killed my mother!»
Now the woman said an odd thing. «It is beyond our powers to change the facts of the present, and even the possibilities of the Ifalong can seldom be affected. But Karina — on certain happentracks of the Ifalong you will be famous, and the minstrels will sing of you.»