Finally, she said, "I think that the Gaol may have been getting too close to the trail. They had to hide me someplace else before they fled. Or, I don't know, not really, they weren't going to send me to the institution. They knew that I didn't have time to mature.
The Gaol would catch me before I did if I stayed on Earth. They had to take a chance, send me back to this planet. First, though, they advertised for someone to transport me to Vermont. I do know they interviewed at least a score of would-be drivers for me, and they rejected all. Until you came by, that is."
"Why me?"
"The paintings," she said, halting to look into his eyes. Beneath the mud was a face almost shining with exultance. Or exaltation.
"The paintings?"
But he knew before she spoke what she was going to say.
"The paintings in the Makers' burial chamber. They showed a male youth holding a painter's brush in his hand. You. You were a painter, and you were a young man. I think that they thought maybe were absolutely sure-that you were the one the Makers pioplie:,Ied. Predicted, anyway."
He snorted. and he said, "Prophecy! Pred'ct'on!"
She shagged before speaking. "It seems farfetched. But who knows how much the Makers knew or how powet-fully their predictions could be. Maybe they figured out something on a probability basis. Maybe they counted on someone fulfilling the prophecy.
Maybe they could see into the future. Or maybe the paintings have been wrongly read. They might've meant something other than the anti-Gaol honkers and humans thought it meant. But the anti-Gaols brought it about that what they thought had to happen did happen, even if they'd misread the paintings. After all, what we thank is a pa*nter's brush in the youth's hand in the Maker painting might be something else."
"You've gone a long way since I first met you," he said.
"You've grown up fast. No thirteen-year-old I know could reason like you do."
"I'm fourteen now," she said. "Not counting the pseudo-years you implanted in my mind."
He had many more questions based on the fragments she'd muttered. But they had to get going. They walked toward a long double line of tall plants and found a creek between them.
Though the water was very cold, they plunged into it and did not leave it until their bodies and clothes were clean. The Imaget stayed in the creek only long enough to wash the mud off.
After that, it waited on the bank until the humans spread the wet garments out in the sun and then sprawled naked in its warmth. It crawled onto Tappy and snuggled between her beasts.
After about twenty minutes, all three were dry and beginning to toast.
Jack was about to open his eyes and get up when he heard a ilglonking. He jumped up, staring around. Tappy rose and stood by his side.
"We'd better find them," he said.
"But we'd better make sure they're friendly," she said. . "There are traitors among the honkers just as there are among humans.
Not many, I've been told. But we can't be too careful."
He listened, trying to determine the direction from which the honking came. Halfway around in his turning, he jumped with alarm. A honker had stepped out from behind a tree.
Tappy cried out with relief and welcome. She followed this with a series of blasts.
The honker was the Integrator but not in the condition he had been in at the Gaol spaceship. One eye had been gouged out.
One hip tentacle was waving wildly, but the other was missing.
A bandage concealed its stump. Dark bruises were scattered over his face and body, and his chest had long bright red rakemarks on it.
The snake around his neck bore a wound close to its head, though this did not keep it from extending part of its body toward Tappy and hissing loudly. The navel-beast's mouth and paws were caked with dried blood.
The shaman had suffered grievous wounds during some struggle, but he had not been defeated. Raised high in one hand was the severed head of a Gaol. He honked loudly, and Tappy murmured, "It's the head of the Gaol captain."
Behind him came Candy, then other Latest, some limping or being supported by their fellows.
A moment later, an aircraft, a vessel designed to carry a score or more, floated from the brush.
JACK strode toward the shaman. "What happened?*' he cried.
"What happened?"
The Integrator, of course, did not understand him. Jack asked Tappy, who was behind him, to interpret for him. But the shaman dropped the Gaol head, hobbled to her, fell on his knees, and put his bloodied arms around her legs. His head was bent back as he stared up at her and honked loudly.
She said, "He's dumbfounded. How did we get out of the Land of the Shadow? He says that no one who goes through the deathshadow ever returns to this land. He cannot understand it."
The other Latest, fallen silent, listened while she told her story to the shaman. Then he got up to his feet, somewhat shakily, and he began to dance. The others joined him. Jack waited until the jubilation had died down somewhat.
"Now," he said, "ask him what happened back there."
She did so, but, first, the shaman had the head brought to him.
While he issued a long series of blasts, he waved the ghastly head around and his tentacle thrashed. His one good eye glared, and the snake and the navel-beast twisted frenziedly. These two had aided the Integrator greatly in his struggle with the captain, and the shaman's tentacles had spurted poison into him. The Gaol must have felt as if he had been attacked by five people, not just one aged honker. Nevertheless, the captain had fought well.
The other honkers interspersed their comments or encouragement while the shaman "talked." Perhaps, these were their equivalent of "Right on!" or "Hallelujah! Amen!" Toward the end, the shaman's excitement swept through them, and they began a war dance, waving their spears, stomping their feet, mockfighting, and whirling around and around. The sun glistened on the fungus-deterrent grease they had smeared on their bodies;
their feet, slamming onto the hard earth, made a primitive beat which echoed in the ears and the blood. Even Jack was not unaffected by it.
When the shaman had finished, his warriors continued making a hullabaloo. Candy had come up to Jack meanwhile but stood without speaking. Her right shoulder and left leg had been wounded, but these were healing swiftly.
"They saw us escape through the death-shadow," Tappy said.
"However, they're too strongly conditioned against going through the shadows. Millennia of taboos keep them from even getting close to them, plus horror stories about them. They would die before they'd enter one."
And, dying, would go to that world, anyway, Jack thought.
The airboat, which the honkers had appropriated from the spaceship, was speeding across the plain. It contained only one person, the pilot. Apparently, it was simple to operate. Otherwise, the untrained honker wouldn't be able to handle it.
"As soon as we jumped through the shadow, they fled into the woods, only two of them being hit, one killed, one wounded," Tappy continued. "When they got there, they released the venomous flies they hadn't had a chance to let loose in the ship because the bubbles had enclosed them too swiftly. Then the three with beamers shot at the robots. The flies injected their venom in the human Gaol who followed the robots, and the Gaol dropped where they stood. Cyborgs came out, too, and the flies bit their metal coverings in vain. But enough stung the few areas of exposed flesh surface to paralyze them, too. This discouraged the few surviving Gaol.
"Candy and the Latest could have gotten away down the shaft inside the tree. But the shaman feared that the ship's heavy rays would be used to excavate the earth and pursue the warriors until they were caught and wiped out. So, he gave the order to charge.