“But they haven’t destroyed you” Felice said. “They gave you a golden torc. Why?”
“Because they hope to use me, of course. I am to be a tool, a weapon, c’est-a-dire, against their most deadly foe: the Tanu, their brothers.”
Amerie said, “And now you hope to use us.”
Madame’s thin lips lifted in a small smile. “It is obvious, is it not, ma Soeur? You do not know how poor we are, what odds we have faced. The Tanu call us Lowlives… and we have assumed the name proudly. Over many years our people have managed to escape from captivity and were hardly thought to be worth pursuing. Most of us have no special talents that can be used against the exotics. But you in your Group are different. The Tanu would take revenge upon you, but we Lowlives see you as invaluable allies. You must join us! Felice, even without a torc, can control animals, even influence certain humans. She is physically strong and an experienced game-playing tactician. You, Amerie, are a doctor and a priest. My people have struggled for years without either. Richard is a navigator, a former commander of starships. For him there may be a key role in the liberation of humanity…”
“Now just a damn minute!” bellowed the pirate, waving his soup ladle.
Claude flipped bits of wood into the fire. “Don’t forget me. As an old fossil hunter, I can tell you exactly what Pliocene beast will be cracking your bones for the marrow after the Tanu and Firvulag get finished with you.”
“You are quick with a jest, Monsieur le Professeur,” said Madame tartly. “Perhaps the old fossil hunter will tell us his age?”
“A hundred and thirty-three.”
“Then you are two years my senior,” she retorted, “and I will expect you to render good advice to our company as a result of your vast experience. As I lay before you my grand design, the plan for the liberation of humanity, give us your invaluable counsel. Correct any youthful impulsiveness that I may show.”
“Gotcha, Claude,” Richard said, snickering, “Say… if anybody cares, this vat of slumgulion is as ready as it will ever be.”
“Then we will eat,” said Madame, “and shortly Peo and the fighters will join us.” She raised her voice. “Mes enfants! You will all come to supper!”
Slowly, all of the people from the smaller fires approached, carrying bowls and drinking vessels. The total number of Lowlives included perhaps two hundred, far more men than women, with a handful of children as quiet and alert as the adults. Most of the people were dressed in buckskin or homespun peasant garb. They did not seem to be outstanding physical specimens, nor were any of them decked out in the wildly eccentric fashion of certain timefarers in the Finiah caravan. The Lowlives did not look beaten or desperate or fanatical. In spite of the fact that they had just fled for their lives at Madame’s mental alarm, they did not seem afraid. They saluted the old woman gravely or cheerfully, and many of them had a smile or even a joke for Richard and the other cooks dishing out the hastily prepared fare. If one word could be used to describe the guerrilla contingent, it might be “ordinary.”
Amerie searched the faces of these free people, wondering what had inspired this relative handful to defy the exotics. Here were exiles whose dream had come alive again. Was it possible that this small nucleus could grow, even prevail?
“Good friends,” Madame was saying, “we have among us newcomers whom all of you have seen but few as yet have met. It is on their account that we have had to gather here. But we may hope, with their help, to reach our precious goal that much sooner.” She paused and looked about the company. There was no sound except the snap and sizzle of the firelogs. “As we eat, I will ask these new arrivals to tell us how they came from the prison of Castle Gateway to this free place.” Turning to the remnant of Group Green, she asked, “Who will be your speaker?”
“Who else?” Richard said, pointing the ladle at Claude.
The old man rose to his feet. He spoke for nearly a quarter of an hour without interruption until his narrative reached the point where Felice was about to initiate the attack upon Epone. Then there was a loud hiss. Amerie’s little cat sprang from her arms and struck a stiff pose, facing the door of the Tree like a miniature puma at bay.
“It is Peo,” said Madame.
Ten people, all heavily armed with bows and blades, came stamping and dripping into the shelter. They were led by a gigantic middle-aged man nearly as massive as Stein who wore the shell ornaments and fringed deerskin clothing of a Native American. Claude held off continuing his tale until these people were served with food and given a place close to the big fire. Then the paleontologist resumed and told the story to the end. He sat down and Madame handed him a cup of hot wine.
Nobody spoke until the gray-haired Native American said, “And it was iron, iron that killed the Lady Epone?”
“Nothing but,” Richard declared. “She was chewed to pieces and I let her have a couple of good ones with the bronze sword, but she still just about nailed me. Then something made me try Felice’s little dagger.”
The red man turned to the girl and demanded, “Give it to me.”
“And who the hell do you think you are?” she said coolly.
He roared with laughter and the sound of it boomed in the hollow trunk of the Tree as in an empty cathedral “I’m Peopeo Moxmox Burke, last chief of the Wallawalla tribe and former justice of the Washington State Supreme Court. I’m also the one-time leader of this gang of paskudnyaks and its present Sergeant at Arms and Warlord in Chief. Now may I please examine your dagger?”
He smiled at Felice and held out a great hand. She smacked the golden scabbard into it smartly. Burke drew out the leaf-shaped little blade and held it up in the firelight.
“Stainless steel alloy with an eversharp edge,” the girl said. “A common toy on Acadie, useful for picking teeth, cutting sandwiches, pricking out transponders from rustled cattle, and putting out the lights of casual assaulters.”
“It seems quite ordinary except for the gold of the hilt,” Burke said.
“Amerie has a theory about it,” Claude said. “Tell him, child.”
Burke listened thoughtfully as the nun set forth her hypothesis on the possible deadly effect of iron on torc-bearing exotics, then murmured, “It could be. The iron disrupting the life-force almost like a neural poison.”
“I wonder…” Felice began, staring at Madame with an innocent expression.
The old woman went to Chief Burke and took the knife from him. As the assembled crowd gasped, she held it to her own throat below the golden neck-ring and pricked the skin. A pearl-sized drop of dark blood appeared. She handed the dagger back to Burke.
“It seems,” Felice said gently, “that Madame is made of sterner stuff than the Tanu.”
“Sans doute,” was the old woman’s dry reply.
Burke mused over the small blade. “It’s incredible that we never thought to try iron against them. But vitredur and bronze weapons were so easily available. And we never tumbled to the reasons why they confiscated steel items back at the Castle… Khalid Khan!”
One of the crowd, a gaunt man with burning eyes, a scraggly beard, and an immaculate white turban, got to his feet. “I can smelt iron as readily as copper, Peo. All you have to do is furnish the ore. The religious prohibition that the Tanu put on ironwork among their human subjects simply led us to carry on with copper and bronze out of sheer inertia.”