They fled. He struck at those who supported him, and they joined the others in flight. He could not long stand, but sank down on his weakened legs, panting.
"Honor, reverend Nagn," he said.
"Honor, bai Suth." She struggled to sit. He had deprived her of younglings to help her, but she was female and would always be more mobile than he save in the final stage of carrying.
And she had not near attained his dignity of bulk, nor suffered the several skin changes. Those were, for her, only beginning.
"Favor," said Suth, "Nagn Alagn-ni.
"Favor, Suth Horag-gi.
She came to him, the order of their age of Change, although it was established by mere moments. He mated her, with dispatch and twice, for honor to her precedence of the others. She was next eldest and would hold that rank while he held the ship. He moved then, necessity, and mated the other two, which likely would produce no young, but which would Impress them with more haste, painful as it was for them. He would mate them until all three were with as many young as they could carry. These were his officers; it was economical, his maleness. There was need of rapid reproduction of Horag young; eldest claimed all young in any mating. As other younglings aboard Shirug sexed, they would sex under his Impress, female.
Horag young would increase on the ship at first by the factor of the litters these three would bear; and more, with more females. Had he sexed female as he had first tended, the Alagn youngling Nagn would have sexed male in complement, and the next two would have sexed randomly, with himself bearing three to five young as female, some by Nagn, some by any other young male that might develop, and though he could claim such young as Horag, as female he could make only a small nest of Horag young on an otherwise Alagn ship.
It was indeed nature's logic and politics but Suth was smug in it, suffused with a feeling of power and tightness after his long suffering. There would be a new order on this ship, his ship. And for Horag to succeed in an operation where great Alagn had failed miserably. Ambitions occurred to him, incredible in scope.
"It is not necessary," he said, "that humans know we exist.
"No," Nagn agreed, "but until they realize we have an elder on this ship, they will be continuing on their own course of action. They will do what pleases them without consulting us.
"If all witnesses die," said Suth, " there is no event
"Eldestr
"We are far from human bases; we can do what pleases us.
"Strike at elders?
"Secure ourselves.
Nagn considered this, her nostrils flaring and shutting in agitation. Finally they remained open. "With their rider ship and their probe as well, they have mobility we do not
"Mri could even the balance.
"Even mri have some memory, eldest They will not hire to us."
"On that world, Nagn Akgn-ni, there is power. It struck back at our ship; we experienced it and we know the sites of it. If both mri and human witnesses perish then regul worlds are freed of an inestimable danger; and humans can ask questions but regul need give no answers.
Nagn grinned, a slow relaxation of her jaws and a narrowing of her eyes.
Chapter Five
Yet again the beasts shifted position, not to be buried, shaking the sand off with a vengeance. The gale had fallen off markedly, and Na'i'in shone brighter this morning than it had yesterday noon. Duncan stumbled to his feet, muscles aching. He had slept finally, when the dusei no longer roused so often; and he was stiff, the more so that the great beasts had pressed on him and leaned on him; instinct, he reckoned, to keep his chilling body up to their fever warmth. They milled about now, blew and sneezed wetly, clearing their noses. Duncan shivered, folding his arms about him, for the cold wind threatened to steal what warmth he had gathered.
Time to move. Anxiety settled on him as he realized he could see horizon through the curtain-like gusts; if he could see, so could others, and he had lingered too long. He should have been on his way in the night, when the sand had ceased to come so heavily; he should have realized, and instead he had settled down to sleep.
Stupidity, his mri brother had been wont to tell him on other occasions, is not an honorable death.
"Hai," he murmured to the dusei, gathered up bis pack, shrugged into it, started off, with a protest of every muscle in his body, making what haste he could.
He took a little more of the dried food, with a last bite of the pipe, and that was breakfast, to quiet his hunger pangs. The dusei tried to cajole their share, and he gave to his own, but when he offered to the others, his began a rumbling that boded trouble.
He at once flung the handful wide, and die two stranger dusei paused, themselves rumbling threats, letting the pace separate them. After a moment they lowered their heads and took the food, and the curtaining sand began to come between. The storm-night was over, truces broken. His heart still beat rapidly from the close call, the injudiciousness of his own dus to start a quarrel while he had his hand full of something the others wanted. He glanced back; one of them stood up on its hind legs, a towering shadow, threatening their backs; but his own whuffed disgust and plodded on, having evidently dismissed the seriousness of the threat. His was tame only in the sense it wanted to stay with him, which dusei had done with the mri of Kesrith for two thousand years, coming in out of their native hills, choosing only kel-caste, bonding lifelong; and not even the mri knew why. Kath'ein had no need and sen'ein minds were too complex and cold for the dusei's taste; so the mri said. But for some mad reason, this one had chosen a human its only existing choice, perhaps, when mri on Kesrith had perished.
He had a dread of it someday departing his side, deserting him for the species it preferred; truth be told, that parting would be painful beyond bearing, and lonely after, incredibly lonely. He needed it, he suspected, with a crippled need a kel'en of the mri might never have. And perhaps the dus knew it
He walked, his hand on the beast's back, looked over his shoulder. The other two were only the dimmest shadows now. They would choose, perhaps, other kel'ein. ... He hoped not the kel'ein who followed him now; that was a dread thought
His rumbled with pleasure, blowing at the sand occasionally, shambling along at his pace, turning its face as much as might be from the wind.
But after a time that pleasure-sound died, and something else came into its mood, a pricklish anxiety.
The skin contracted between his shoulders. He looked back, searching for shadows in the amber haze coughed, bund for a moment.
The dus had stopped too, began that weaving which accompanied ward-impulse, back and forth, back and forth between him and some presence not far distant
"Hush," he bade it, dropped to his knees to fling his arms about its neck and distract it, for a determined pursuer could use that impulse to locate them.
A mri who pursued could well do that.
The impulse and the weaving stopped; the beast stood still and shivered against him, and he scrambled up and started it moving again, facing the wind, blind intermittently in the gusts, and with the beast's disturbance sawing at his nerves like primal fear.
The land did not permit mistakes. He had made one, this morning, out of weakness.
Turn, he thought, and meet his pursuers, plead that he carried a message that might mean life or death for all the mri?
One look at his habit and his weapons and his human-brown eyes would be enough. Mri meant the People; outsiders and higher beasts were tsi'mri; not-People. He and the dus were equal in their eyes; it was built into the hal'ari that way, and no logic could argue without words to use.
It was a stranger behind him, no one of the tribe he knew; they would have showed themselves long since if that were the case; there was more than curiosity involved, if pursuit continued after the storm. He was sure of it now, with a gut-deep knowledge that he was in serious trouble.