COLENE found herself in a horse stall, with Nona talking at her. But the words weren’t making sense. Was this another bad vision sponsored by the mind predator, with Nona about to turn into a horse and claim to be Seqiro? Or something more believable but insidious? Such as offering to enter into a mutual suicide pact? Colene had been trying to fight, but the battle had exhausted her, and she knew she couldn’t last much longer.
Then Nona pointed to her head, and Colene realized that she wanted the telepathy. Where was Seqiro? Had something happened to him? If so, Colene hoped that this was a dream, so she could move on to the next horror, and the horse would be safe. So she used her mind. What’s wrong?
Then she got it in a fast summary, and made sense of the situation. This was reality. They had brought her to Seqiro’s Mode, where Seqiro’s enemies held sway, so Seqiro didn’t dare use his telepathy lest it give away his presence here. Colene understood that problem; she had been stunned by another horse here before. They had to hide from the horses here, until the mind predator departed the Virtual Mode.
But what was this about a mind-blasted mare? Quickly Colene got the details from Nona. It seemed a lot like what the mind predator was trying to do to Colene herself. Oh, yes, she would help the mare!
She went to the mare. The horse was in a pitiful state. Her dark coat was soiled, her mane tangled, and her eyes were dull. Every so often she kicked randomly at the side of her stall, and sometimes she banged her head into it. Streaks of blood on her neck suggested prior hangings.
As Colene tried to enter the stall, the mare went wild. She threw herself from side to side, and foam appeared at her mouth. Her eyes were wide and her ears flat back. She was a fair-sized mare, about sixteen hands, much larger than Colene, but she was terrified.
Yet there was no evidence of any injury that was not self-inflicted. No one had been physically brutalizing this horse. She was merely in a nearly mindless state, afraid of any other creature. She was not rational. Her awareness was chaos.
She had, in effect, been raped. Savagely.
Colene could relate well enough to that. She started at the beginning. You are Maresy, she thought firmly. Because nothing remained of the mare’s former personality; she was a frightened foal in a grown body. Like a crashed computer, she had to be restructured, given new organization. She had to be given a new identity, and trained in its ways. Colene had borrowed the name of her imaginary horse from one in an old popular song dating from her grandparents’ days she remembered as Latnzy Divy, which seemed like gibberish until pronounced carefully: “Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy, and a kid’ll eat ivy too. Wouldn’t you?” Later she had learned that the name was spelled Marezy, but in her mind it remained with the s. She couldn’t be responsible for the spelling of prior ages.
The mare had no other source of information. She became Maresy.
I am your friend.
The mare calmed. She was no longer being threatened.
Follow me.
Colene opened the stall and Maresy stepped out. Colene walked toward the other members of the hive. She kept her communications brief, because she wasn’t sure that the other horses couldn’t tune in on her thoughts as well as Seqiro’s. She hoped that her telepathic power was so small that it was beneath the threshold of background mental noise, and therefore invisible at a distance. But she was taking no unnecessary chances. Ignore all others; just stay with me.
Darius nodded approvingly as Colene and Maresy joined them. He had opened the outer gate. But before they left, they had to change clothing. Nona was returning with an armful of it; Seqiro must have explained the need to her before they went through the anchor.
They changed, donning loincloths, capes, sandals, and beanie-type hats with tassels. Colene made sure the tassels fell in the right direction; they were an indication of status, and an error could lead to immediate trouble. Such as proclaiming sexual interest in a stranger one happened to pass on a path. Darius and Nona seemed dubious about the clothing, but Colene donned hers, assuring them that this was in order. So they followed her example.
They walked out and away from the prison complex. There were fields of growing grain, with human laborers. They wore similar costumes, vaguely resembling Chinese coolies. Seqiro, Maresy, and the three humans rated only cursory glances; obviously the horses were taking them on some errand. Now if no horse sought mind contact, they might be home free. For a while.
Who?
The query was imperative, and not friendly. Definitely not Seqiro. Trouble.
Colene caught Darius’ eye. She pointed to her head. He nodded, pointing to his own; he had received it too. It was probably a routine query because someone didn’t know what the party was doing in this vicinity.
They didn’t answer. They walked rapidly for the edge of the cultivated region. With luck there would not be any quick follow-up, and they could reach the wild section before the pursuit began. As Colene understood it, to exert control a horse had either to know the mind of a person or another horse, or know that person’s location. In the wild place, location would be concealed, and the enemy horses would not be able to get a proper fix on strange minds. As long as Seqiro kept mental silence, he remained anonymous, and perhaps almost invisible, in that sense.
Who? This time the query was more insistent.
Still they did not answer. It was better to be anonymous than known, however suspicious that might be. A horse was not supposed to mess with the minions of another horse, and as long as they remained anonymous, they could be taken for such minions.
Then a man appeared at the edge of the field. His tassel was in an unfamiliar position. Colene suspected that he was a minion of the querying horse. He would surely recognize Maresy by sight, and realize that the trap had sprung. He had to be stopped before he made that connection and relayed it mentally to his master.
Colene ran to Burgess, who was floating along between the two horses, shielded from general view by their bodies. She clapped a hand on a contact point. “Burg! Can you shoot that far? Take that man out!”
Burgess lifted his trunk, aimed it, settled to the ground for better purchase, and let fly a single small stone. He had certainly recovered; the stone arced way over the field, and struck the man on the head. He fell.
“Great shot, airhead!” she exclaimed. On Shale the humans had been as effective as the floaters, throwing stones, but this was a shot whose range and accuracy was beyond the power of most humans. Burgess was healthier than normal, thanks to the magnesium. Maybe he was hinging on too much of it, and should ease off. But not right now!
They broke into a run, because now it was obvious that they were not a routine party on routine business. But the workers in the field ignored them; they must be under the direction of horses who weren’t paying attention, or perhaps were working on their own, unmonitored.
They left the field and came to a path leading into a river valley. Seqiro abruptly cut away from this and moved across a sloping fallow field toward a forested mountain. He knew where to go, and did not need to use his mind to show them.
But here Burgess had trouble. The slope and roughness were too great. They had to pause while Nona expanded the artificial path—and Nona spread her hands helplessly. Oh, no! Her magic didn’t work here!
Seqiro cut to the side, finding a contour. Darius took a stick and bashed down weeds and bushes. They made a crude path for Burgess, and the floater was able to use it, slowly.
Men appeared in the field behind. These were definitely minions of a dominant horse. They were armed with clubs and knives and were approaching purposefully. It would not be possible to outrun those, with Burgess so slow, and a beaten path left behind.