«No, I meant it would be easier in daylight. We could —”
«If you think I’m spending the night out in this cold, you’re dumber than this crazy vampiro.»
«Listen, Tess, I wish you’d stop calling me dumb. People can hear, you know. And anyway, I’m a sight cleverer than you. Everyone knows that. You’re just a quarrelsome brat. That’s what they all say!»
A scuffling broke out, and the sound of heavy blows. «I’m going to kill you, Runa!» Teressa screamed.
It was too much for Saba. «Stop it!» she shouted, rushing up to the dim figures thrashing in the dirt. «Karina’s here!»
«Huh?» The fighting stopped. The combatants stood, dusting themselves off. «Oh, it’s you, is it,” said Teressa as Karina stepped forward.
«Want some help with the vampiro?»
«Wouldn’t mind.»
Teressa stood by sullenly as Karina examined the creature who lay, trussed as though ready for the sun-oven, on the floor of the cart. Karina placed her palms on either side of the vampiro’s head. «Be quiet,” she said to the others. The vampiro lay still.
The sounds of the evening seemed to fade away, leaving Karina and the vampiro in a private world, small and walled with silence. Karina waited, concentrating. Little Friends .… she thought.
She felt the strange force flow down her arms.
And later, a minute or a microsecond later, she felt it return.
And she knew.
«Well?»
«It’s.… It’s time for this vampiro to mate. He needs to be set free. We’ll.… You’ll have to get another.»
«Yes, and what about tonight? What about that, huh?»
«He’ll shelter you tonight, if you’re kind to him.»
«Thank you so much, Karina,” said Saba. «You’re so clever. Isn’t she, Teressa?»
«Huh. Just a trick. She isn’t getting round me. She deserted the grupo when we needed her most, remember?»
Suddenly, this ingratitude merged with her recent unhappiness, and Karina felt a flash of temper. «Oh, so I’m not getting round you, Tess? Want to bet?»
«None of that stuff,” said Teressa nervously, backing away.
But Karina pinned her arms. «Want to bet?» She thrust her face close to the other, forcing her sister to meet her eyes. «Watch me, Tess. Watch me!»
«Let me go!»
«Look at my eyes.… That’s right. Now. You don’t really hate me, do you? Of course you don’t. Keep looking at me, or I’ll break your goddamned spine.… I could, you know. You love me, Tess. You don’t believe I ran out on you. You love me. You always have. You’d do anything for me. Wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t you? ”
«I’d do anything for you,” repeated Teressa woodenly.
«Okay. Now, let’s get this vampiro untied and set up.» Karina let Teressa go and she blinked, then smiled.
«I’ve been a fool,” she said.
«Wait a moment,” said Runa. «Just wait a goddamned moment. You don’t convince me as easily as that. Why the hell did you run out on us, anyway?»
«I didn’t. It was important to the felinos that I found out what was happening at the delta. And if you don’t believe me, then by Mordecai I’ll convince you!»
«No, that’s all right,” said Runa hastily, edging away.
«Convince me ,” purred Saba, moving up against Karina and gazing at her round-eyed.
The tension broke, they laughed and hugged, and the El Tigre grupo was united again.
«Now,” said Karina after a while. «Let me tell you how we can get back at that lousy Iolande grupo.…»
The hemitrex and the victory
«We are nothing,” said Haleka into the afternoon air. «We are less than the mountain, less than the sea. We are ants, without understanding, without effect. We move through a brief instant of Time like a puff of wind, and are gone, leaving nothing.»
«Aren’t you glad I’m back, Haleka?»
«Gladness does not enter into it. You were sent here as a punishment, and since you have performed adequately I saw fit to allow you a brief respite. So now you’re back. When do you leave us permanently?»
«Father says I can’t go back until after the Festival. I really wanted to see the Festival, Haleka.»
«Another example of your desire for corruption. El Tigre has more sense than I’d have given a felino credit for. The Festival is a disgusting bacchanal; a drunken, brawling exhibition of gluttony, lust and other pleasures of the flesh.»
«What others are there?» asked Karina innocently; then, seeing Haleka’s frown deepening, she said hastily, «I’m hungry. I haven’t eaten all day. Can we stop, now?»
He looked down at her and found himself saying, «All right. But hurry. The tump must receive his full daily intake.» He reached into a large sack and took out a portable sun-oven, banding it down to her.
«That’s all right. I can eat it raw.»
«Certainly not! I shall not encourage you to eat raw flesh except in an emergency. I took the trouble to have this oven made for you, and so long as you are in the tumpfields you will use it.»
Karina set the complex of hemitrexes on the ground and focussed the sunlight on a strip of tumpmeat, which soon began to crackle and emit a delicious aroma. Haleka slid down the tump’s flank and joined her, squatting on his skinny haunches. He watched her eat while he chewed thoughtfully on herbs and reflected on the unseemly coarseness of her nature. Feeling himself in the mood for lecturing, and judging Karina to be a worthy victim, he cast around in his mind for some parable fitting to the occasion.
«I am going to tell you a story, Karina.»
«But won’t the tump lose out on its daily intake?»
«Sit down.» He directed a skeletal forefinger at her, and she resumed her seat with every sign of reluctance.
Haleka then told her the story known as The Dead People of Arbos — which, millennia later, passed into the Song of Earth as the Second Kikihuahua Allegory.…
The Isle of Arbos lies thirty kilometers off the coast, and people say it floated out to sea on the waters of the Rio Plata. It is quite barren, and uninhabited — although it was not always that way.
Once it was peopled by a tribe of Wild Humans some forty strong. They arrived by raft, having been driven from the mainland by a hostile tribe. When they arrived, the Isle of Arbos was covered with forest, much of which they cut down to build huts. The fishing was good, so although the trees did not bear fruit there was no shortage of food. In the mornings the men would depart in dugout canoes, and in the evenings they would return with fish. They would kindle the Wrath of Agni, and the fires burned into the night as the fish were cooked and eaten. The tribe grew fat.
But the trees became sparse. In a hundred years every tree had been cut, and since none were planted the island became a dusty waste. The islanders were reduced to eating their fish raw; and they became like animals as their art and culture declined.
A hundred and fifteen years after they arrived, the waters around Arbos turned red. A tiny organism, carried by the waters of the Rio Plata, had found salt water to its liking and had multiplied prodigiously. The fish ate the organism, and the shellfish ate it too, and they thrived.
But any humans who ate the fish, died.
They died slowly, over a period of months, but they died nonetheless — and in some agony at the end, as the organism ate into their flesh.
One day a kikihuahua came by.
He saw the people lying sick on the beach, and he guessed the cause.
«Our God has deserted us,” said the chief. «He has left us on this barren island to die.»
«No,” said the kikihuahua. «That is not God’s way. He is displeased with the kind of creatures you have become, and he has sent hardship your way so that you may improve. It is God’s way of weeding out the people who do not use the wits he gave them.»
«But there is nothing we can do! We have no fire and no food!»