Raising her head, she sniffed the air delicately.
«Are you sure you don’t mind?» asked Tonio. «Four fish would probably be enough, but five would be better. They’re quite small. My wife, she must learn to eat.…»
«The valley will be in balance again before long,” Leitha said. «When you arrived there was a certain imbalance, but that will right itself. Meanwhile you can keep the fish.»
She looked at him in a way which he might have thought calculating — but dead eyes cannot calculate. His gaze strayed to the water. Today the fishing had been good — and there was another big fish there. He’d seen it. Not so big as Torpad, but big enough.
Yet the blood lust had left him. When he’d successfully shot his first small fish and laid it on the grass there had been no elation; just a relief that his hunger would be appeased.
Suddenly, the Dedo stood, glanced around, then walked off up the trail without a word. He watched her go. It was warm in the sun and he was drowsy. He’d lost all sense of time, but figured he ought to be getting back. The signal cabin had begun to feel like home; although Astrud’s mood had become unpredictable, and Raoul was showing signs of youthful rebelliousness.…
In fact Astrud was close by at that moment, having tired of fixing up the cabin, and having begun to wonder, not for the first time, just what Tonio spent his days doing.
She emerged from the trees in time to see the Dedo disappearing up the trail. Tonio sat by the stream as though in a trance. He’d taken off most of his clothes and he looked pale and flabby. Rage began to gnaw at her. She stormed down to the riverbank.
«You’ve been with that girl!»
«Yes.»
«Well, it’s not right! I’ve been working back there while you spend your time idling about with some forest girl!»
«I wasn’t idling. I caught some fish.» He indicated them.
«I won’t have you playing around with that girl! Listen, Tonio, I haven’t stuck by you all this time for you to run off into the woods with some Specialist.»
«Leitha isn’t a Specialist.»
«And you know all about Specialists, don’t you? After all, you killed plenty of them!»
«What’s happening here?» Raoul pushed his way out of the bush. «I could hear you a kilometer away.»
«Your father’s running out on us, that’s what!»
There was a strange expression on Tonio’s face, and he was blinking rapidly. «I thought I told you not to come this way,” he said. «It’s dangerous. You could cause an imbalance.»
«A what?»
«It’s claptrap,” said Astrud furiously. «Claptrap he teamed from that girl. Since he met her he’s been coming out with all kinds of queer things!»
Tonio was blinking at the water. «Nothing to be done.…»
«There’s one thing to be done. You come with us back to the cabin, right now!»
«Two happentracks. I do, or I don’t.» A tic was twitching in Tonio’s cheek. Soon Astrud might start screaming. It was in the nearby Ifalong.
«Come on, Tonio,” she said, suddenly more gentle. «You’re not yourself. It’s the reaction. The humidity. Come —”
She broke off, staring.
Tonio had picked up one of the fish. It had been dead for a couple of hours and it was stiff. He clutched it in his fist with the head uppermost.
He regarded it thoughtfully.
Astrud was still. Raoul was still. The forest was silent.
Tonio put the head in his mouth and bit it off, with a crunch, just as though he was eating a stick of celery.
Astrud screamed.
Blood trickled down Tonio’s chin as he chewed, watching her vacantly. He took another bite, stripping flesh from the backbone. He chewed with his mouth open. His teeth shone crimson with blood while his tongue rolled a wad of flesh and bones.
Raoul uttered a bellow of despair and ran, pushing his way blindly through the undergrowth.
«Listen.… What’s that?» said Karina.
Away to the left they could hear a crashing as a heavy body plunged through the forest.
«A tapir,” said Enri. «There are lots of them around these parts. They get scared by a noise, and they just run off into the bush.»
They heard a woman’s voice; a low, breathless sobbing.
«Tapir, huh?» said Karina. «Come on. This way. She’s headed back to the signal cabin.»
«Just Astrud?» The Pegman stayed where he was. «She’s not so important, is she? Tonio’s still up ahead. He’s the one you really want.»
As Karina stood irresolute, staring this way and that into the dense foliage, she caught sight of movement. «Quiet.…» she whispered, and began to creep forward, one careful step at a time.
There was the flick of a black cloak, half-seen. Karina crept on, her heart pounding, her fingers hooked into talons. It was Tonio — it had to be. It was too tall for Astrud. A twig snapped under her foot and she swore under her breath; but, a moment later, she saw the quarry again, crossing a clearing where water flowed.
On the ground beside the river lay some dead fish, one of them half-eaten. «See this?» she said to the Pegman as he hurried up. «They’re eating meat, now. Hunting, kindling the Wrath of Agni — it shows the kind of things True Humans will do, when they think nobody’s watching.»
«I’m a True Human,” Enri reminded her, not for the first time.
Now Karina began to run, plunging through brush which slashed at her legs, climbing rocks, clawing her way up through the jungle and wondering at her quarry’s speed. She climbed on, the Pegman puffing behind her with no pretence at stealth, and emerged into, sudden sunshine.
She was standing on a ridge of short grass and rocky outcroppings which marked the northern boundary of the valley. Fifty meters away the cloaked figure stood in the sun.
And between Karina and this figure lay a ravine with sheer walls, a hundred meters deep.
She stared. «How …?» It never occurred to her that there might have been two cloaked figures and the Dedo, calculating happentracks, slipped away unseen.
The Pegman uttered a wordless exclamation.
The figure was turning round, slowly, to look at them. The cloak fell away from the face, and the sunlight shone on pale skin, jet black hair. It wasn’t Tonio.
It was the handmaiden.
The sun lit the eroded fissures of her burned face and the wind caught her hair, lifting it. Karina’s eyes narrowed as the light seemed to intensify painfully — and suddenly the handmaiden was beautiful. Karina couldn’t see the Marks of Agni any more; only the eyes and the oval outlines of the face; the tall, slim figure and the lifting hair.
And the Pegman was shouting a name, over and over.
«Corriente! Corriente!»
The imbalance resolved
Astrud ran. She blundered through thickets, flung herself across streams, and burst out of the jungle onto the slopes of the ridge. Her mind was afire with horror and disgust. Every rock, every tree was Tonio, his face an animal’s face as he munched raw flesh, snorting with gratification. She stumbled up the slope and down the other side, falling several times, picking herself up and plunging on, scratched and bruised, the heat burning the strength out of her.
She had to get back among real people.
She would pick up a few things from the cabin, then follow the track down to Palhoa. She stumbled on, reached the cabin at last, threw herself at the ladder and began to climb.
The ninth rung split.
She fell, seeing Tonio’s face in the ground as it rushed up to hit her. Later she climbed again, dragging herself up with arms shaking from the effort, one leg almost useless. She crawled across the cabin floor, caught hold of the control arms and pulled herself to her feet. Holding onto her last glimmer of consciousness she worked the arms, catching the sun’s rays in the battery of hemitrexes, directing the beam downhill, noting the way the jungle shadows brightened and following the line until she was sure the people in Palhoa must see the distant blaze of light.…
She fell to the floor, and prayed that someone was looking her way. Some kindly mountain-woman, long-necked with head held high, her eye caught by the sudden glare.…