«Huh?»
«I broke my leg. I was lying trapped on the rail. She came and mended my leg, and set me free.»
«If you broke your leg you wouldn’t be able to stand on it now.»
«She healed it right away, with a stone.»
«Ah, what the hell.» He wasn’t going to argue.
But her sisters had already descended on Karina and the four girls had become a struggling, fighting mass on the deck; half-play, half-serious. «Broken leg, eh?» Teressa was shouting, twisting viciously at Karina’s ankle. Meanwhile Runa was dragging Karina’s alpaca tunic over her head and Saba, safe now Karina was effectively trussed and blinded, was pounding away at her body with her fists. The Estrella del Oeste rolled on through the night. Enriques de Jai’a turned away, checking the set of the sail. Felinas had no sense of decency, and Karina wore no pants, and how much was a man supposed to take?
«Har! Har! Haaaar!» he roared into the wind, acutely embarrassed by his own emotions.
The struggling mass rolled across the deck and brought up with a crash against the after rail. He stole a glance and saw that Karina, freed from the tunic and naked, was fighting back. She’d thrown an arm around Teressa’s neck from behind and was throttling her, meanwhile getting a devastating kick into Runa’s stomach. Saba, smaller than her sisters and weaker, left the battle and joined him on the foredeck. She was panting and her colour was not good. Enri put an arm around her.
«Too rough for you, sweetheart?»
«I just get tired so quickly, that’s all. I wish I was like Teressa, I really do.»
It had been a multiple birth, a normal occurence among felinos. More unusually, the babies had all been girls. Although male felino children generally leave the grupos at puberty, either to squire an unrelated grupo or to join the bachelors at the other end of the camp, their presence in the childhood grupo provides a steadying influence in the formative years. The death of the mother had not helped and, with the formidable El Tigre too involved with his revolutionary plotting to guide the four wild daughters of one of his five wives, the girls had gone their own way.
Now Runa was vomiting over the side, Teressa was leaning against the mast, mauve-faced and gagging, and Karina was getting dressed.
«Teressa doesn’t look very happy,” said the Pegman.
Saba looked round, smiled and said, «I’d change places with her even now. She’s strong.»
Karina joined them. The wind had freshened and her hair streamed like flames. «Aren’t you glad we’re here, Pegman? What would you do without us? That last gust would have taken the mast right out of this old tub, if we hadn’t reefed for you.» She made no mention of the fight. It was an everyday occurrence in the grupo, a part of growing up.
But Enri asked, curious, «Why do you always win, Karina?»
«Because nothing hurts her,” said Saba.
«No, I’m just better than them, that’s all,” said Karina. She had never told anyone about the Little Friends. That was her secret, and instinctively she knew she’d better keep it. Felinos with real peculiarities — as distinct from Saba who was simply not strong — had a habit of being found dead.
The sailcar reached the downgrade and roared through Camelback Funnel with the speed of a galloping horse, and the girls shouted and laughed with excitement as the craft bucked from side to side and the guiderails screamed a warning. Teressa stood guard over the brake lever, daring Enri to approach, knowing that this strange True Human friend of theirs would never get involved in a physical struggle with them.
«Karina — just go and put that brake on, will you?» Enri pleaded, hanging onto a stanchion with his one hand.
But Karina was yelling with the fun of it, standing on the prow of the Estrella del Oeste like a beautiful figurehead, braced against the handrails. «No way!» she shouted back against the bedlam screeching of tortured wood. Enri sniffed, smelling hot bearings.
Then he thought: what the hell. Just for a few moments he’d forgotten his need to rearrange the world’s history.
Too soon they reached Rangua South Stage, the shanty-town of vampiro tents at the foot of the hill on which stood Rangua Town. Teressa surrendered the brake, laughing at him with slanting eyes as he hauled on the handle and managed to bring the runaway car to a halt. The girls climbed down, calling to the felinos and showing their legs. The felinos, mostly bachelors but with a few fathers among them, muttered disapprovingly at the association between the girls and a True Human.
«He’ll kiss you while he stabs you in the back, Teressa!» one of them shouted, repeating the traditional saying about True Humans, although in expurgated form out of deference to her age.
Then they hitched up the shrugleggers for the two-kilometer climb to the town. The running rail descended to ground level for this purpose; the gradient was too steep for any sailcar to climb unassisted in anything but gale-force winds. Ten shrugleggers sufficed for the job, and with oaths and yells from the felinos the Estrella del Oeste was soon moving again.
Enri slackened off the halliard and furled the sail. Now that the girls were gone and the exhilarating ride over, he felt let down. A surly felino sat on deck, another led the shrugleggers. The wheels creaked, the car felt heavy and dead. The felino on deck had his back to him, sitting on the prow where the lovely Karina had stood, his legs dangling and his head bowed, half asleep, his neck vulnerable to an ax blow.…
Now that would change history.
That would be just the kind of open clash between True Human and felino which was needed to spark off the present tinder-box of relations.
There was an ax hanging from the shrouds for use in an emergency. Enri took it down and hefted it in his hand. It was heavy but well-balanced, and the blade was the keenest flaked stone. Enri often did illogical, crazy things.…
But the felino would bleed, and maybe hurt.
Enri put the ax back and stared at the eastern sky which was brightening with dawn.
«Haaaar!» he cried. «Har! Har! Har!» And he slapped his hand against the mast, again and again.
The felino looked round; a quick askance look.
Then Enri heard a noise below, a clatter and thump against the squeaking and rumbling of Estrella. Somebody was down there. An intruder, in his private domain. Somebody fooling with his things, robbing him, most likely — maybe even a bandido.
He took up the ax again and, yelling, descended the ladder into the cabin.
«I’m going to kill you!» he shouted, staring around the dark interior. «I can see you.» But he couldn’t. He was shouting to cover his own nervousness. A felini, however — with those catlike eyes — could see him.
«You wouldn’t kill me, would you, Pegman?» said a soft voice.
He dropped the ax. «Where are you, Karina?»
«Sitting on your bed.»
«Why?» He forced his mind away from the mental image of warm limbs, a slim body dressed in alpaca, and said, «I don’t need to kill you. Your father will do it for me, when he finds out where you’ve been. Now — what do you want?»
The car moved out of the trees and a pale glimmer of early daylight came through the porthole. Karina was a dark silhouette. She said, «Tonight I met a queer woman. She said she was the handmaiden of a bruja called the Dedo. You’re a wise man, Enri. You know more about the world than I do — and you’re a True Human too. You know the legends, and you sing songs of the past. Why would that woman have said I would become famous? And she did heal my leg; she really did.»
The Dedo.…
The word struck a chord in Enri’s memory.
.… There was a dense jungle and the harsh screaming of birds, and he’d left the other trackmen and gone exploring.…