I led Ninc over and as I bent to pick it up, there was a loud noise of something moving in the bushes. I turned to look. The thing that stood poised there was nothing short of startling. It stood on two legs and was covered with gray-green hair. It had a square, flat animal mask for a face. I had a feeling that I had just killed its intended dinner.
We looked at each other. Ninc snorted and started backing away. I dropped the reins and hoped Ninc wouldn’t run. I took a deep breath to quiet my pounding heart, and then I walked straight at it with my pistol in hand. I yelled, “Shoo. Get out of here,” and waved my arms. I yelled again, and after an uncertain moment, the thing shook its head and plunged away.
I turned back and grabbed Ninc, feeling surprisingly good. I’d been thinking about my general misery, my feeling I’d just had a shot. It struck me that if I had a choice, I’d be better off without a gun than without immunization. I’ll bet more explorers on old Earth died from the galloping whatdoyoucallits than were killed by animals, accidents and aborigines put together.
I kept going until the light began to fade. The animal I shot turned out to be edible. It’s all a matter of luck. In the course of Survival Training I’d had occasion to eat things that were so gruey that I wonder how anybody could choke them down (the point under demonstration, of course, being that the most astounding guck will keep you alive). I’d done better than just find something that would keep me alive, so I hadn’t done badly at all. By the time I had eaten, I was thoroughly tired, and I had no trouble at all in falling asleep.
It was the next day that I found the road. I was riding along and singing. I don’t like the idea of people who don’t sing to themselves when they’re all alone. They’re too sober for me. At least hum — anybody can do that. So I was riding and singing as I came to the crest of a hill. I looked down and through the trees I saw the road.
I brought Ninc down the hill, losing sight of the road for a time in the trees and rocks, and then coming clear of the welter of brown and gray and green to find the road. It curved before and behind, following the roll of the land with no attempt made to cut the land for a straighter, more even way. It was a narrow dirt road with marks of wagons and horses and other tracks I couldn’t identify. There were droppings, too, that weren’t horse droppings.
We had come in over the ocean from the west and I knew we weren’t terribly far from it now. It seemed likely that one of the ends of this road was the ocean. I, of course, had no intention of going in that direction since I had already seen one ocean and counted that sufficient. My quota of oceans had been filled. It is an axiom that roads lead somewhere, so I oriented myself and headed eastwards — inland.
I came on my first travelers three hours later. I rounded a tree-lined bend, and pulled Ninc to a stop. Ahead of me on the road, going in the same direction that I was, were five men on horseback herding a bunch of the ugliest creatures alive. The creatures were making a wordless, chilling, lowing sound as they milled and plodded along.
I looked after them, my heart suddenly fluttering. For a brief moment I wanted to turn and head back the way I had come. But I knew I had to face these locals sometime if I was going to be a tiger, and after all, they were only Mudeaters. Only Mudeaters.
Ninc set into a walk as I kicked him. I got a better look at the creatures as we approached, and it seemed likely to me that they were brothers of the thing I had encountered in the woods the day before. They were quite unhuman. They were green and grotesque with squat bodies, knobby joints, long limbs and square heads. But they did walk on their hind legs and had paws that were prehensile — hands — and that was enough to give an impression of humanity. A caricature.
All the men on horseback had guns in saddle boots and looked as nervous as cats with kittens. One of them had a string of packhorses on a line, and he saw me and called to another who seemed to be the leader. That one wheeled his black horse and rode back toward me.
He was a middle-aged man, whatever middle age was here. He was a large man and he had a hard face. It was a normal enough face, but it was hard. He pulled to a halt when we reached each other, but I didn’t. I kept riding and he had to come around and follow me.
I believe in judging people by their faces, myself. A man can’t help the face he owns, but he can help the expression he wears on it. If a man looks mean, I generally believe he is unless I have reason to change my mind. This one looked mean, and that was why I kept riding. He made me feel nervous.
He said, “What be you doing out here, boy? Be you out of your head? There be escaped Losels in these woods.”
I had short-cut hair and I was wearing my cloth coat against the bite in the air, but still I wondered. I wasn’t ready to dispute the point with him, though. I had no desire to linger around him. I didn’t say anything. I believe I said once that I don’t talk easily in strange company or large crowds.
“Where be you from?” he asked.
I pointed to the road behind us.
“And where be you going?”
I pointed ahead. No other way to go except crosscountry. He seemed exasperated. I have that effect sometimes.
We had caught up to the others and the animals by then, and the man said, “Maybe you’d better ride on from here with us. For protection.”
He had an odd way of twisting his sounds, almost as though he had a mouthful of mush. It was imprecise, but I could understand him well enough. He wanted me to do something I didn’t want to.
One of the other outriders came easing by then. I suppose they’d been watching us all the while. He called to the hard man.
“He be awfully small, Horst. I doubt me a Losel’d even notice him at all. We mought as well throw him back again.”
The rider looked at me. When I didn’t dissolve in obvious terror — I was frightened, but I wasn’t about to show it — he shrugged and one of the other men laughed.
The hard man said to the others, “This boy will be riding along with us to Midland for protection.” He smiled, and the impression I had of a cat, a predatory cat, was increased.
I looked down at the plodding, unhappy creatures they were driving along. One of them looked back at me with dull, expressionless golden eyes. I felt uncomfortable to look at it.
I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”
What the man did then surprised me. He said, “I do think so,” and reached for the gun in his saddle boot.
I whipped my sonic pistol out from under my coat so fast that he was caught leaning over with the rifle half out. His jaw dropped. He recognized the pistol for what it was and he had no desire to be fried.
I said, “Ease your guns out and drop them gently to the ground.”
They did, watching me all the while with wary expressions. When all the rifles were on the ground, I said, “All right, let’s go.”
They didn’t want to move. They didn’t want to leave the rifles. I could see that. Horst didn’t say anything. He just watched me with narrowed eyes and made me anxious to be done and gone.
One of the others held up a hand and in wheedling tones said, “Look here, kid…”
“Shut up,” I said in as mean a voice as I could muster, and he did. It surprised me a little. I didn’t think I sounded that mean. Perhaps he just didn’t trust that crazy kid not to shoot him if he prodded too hard.
After twenty minutes of easy riding for us and harder walking for the creatures, I said, “If you want your rifles, you can go back and get them now.”
I dug my heels into Ninc’s sides and rode on. At the next bend I looked back and saw four of them holding the packhorses and creatures, while the last beat a dust raising retreat down the road.