The Ugly Little Boy (22 page)

(She realized that her voice had been grow louder and louder as she spoke and now she was screaming. But she couldn't help it.)

Hoskins was looking at her in deep chagrin.

"I'm sorry," she said after a moment, in a much more temperate tone. "I didn't mean to yell that way."

"I understand that you're upset. I understand why you're upset."

"Thank you."

"Dr. Jacobs assures me that the boy's health is fine, that he's not in any way impaired by the program of research to which he's being-subjected."

"Then Dr. Jacobs ought to spend a night sleeping in here and he might have a different view," Miss Fellowes said. She saw a startled look come into Hoskins' eyes and her face blossomed with embarrassment at the unintended, implausible other meaning of what she had just said. -*'To listen to him crying in the dark. To watch me have to go into his bedroom and hold him and sing lullabies to him. Not impaired, Dr. Hoskins? If he hasn't been impaired by all this, it's because he spent the first few years of his life under the most dreadful conditions imaginable and somehow survived them. If a child can survive an ice-age winter, he can probably survive a lot of poking and testing by a pack of people in white coats. But that doesn't mean it's good for him."

"We'll need to discuss the research schedule at the next staff meeting."

"Yes. We will. Everyone is to be reminded that Tim-mie has a right to humane treatment. To human treatment."

Hoskins smiled. She gave him an interrogative look.

He said, "I was just thinking how you've changed since the first day, when you were so angry because I had foisted a Neanderthal on you. You were ready to quit, do you remember?"

"I would never have quit," Miss Fellowes said softly.

" Til stay with him-for a while,' you said. Those were your exact words. You seemed quite distraught. I had to convince you that you really would be taking care of a child and not some sort of little primate that belonged in a zoo."

Miss Fellowes lowered her eyes. She said in a low voice, "I suppose that at first glance I didn't quite understand-" and trailed off.

She glanced down at Timmie, who still clung to her. He was very much calmer now. She patted the little boy gently on his rump and sent him off toward his playroom. Hoskins looked in as Timmie opened the door, and smiled briefly at the display of toys that could be seen in there.

"Quite an array," he said.

"The poor child deserves them. They're all that he has and he earns them with what he goes through."

"Of course. Of course. We ought to get him even more. I'll send you a requisition form. Anything that you think he'd like to have-"

Miss Fellowes smiled warmly. "You do like Timmie, don't you?"

"How could I not like him? He's such a sturdy little fellow! He's so brave."

"Brave, yes."

"And so are you, Miss Fellowes."

She didn't know what to make of that. They stood facing each other in silence for a moment. Hoskins seemed to have his guard down: Miss Fellowes could see deep weariness in his eyes.

She said, with real concern, "You look worn out, Dr. Hoskins."

"Do I, Miss Fellowes?" He laughed, not very convincingly. "I'll have to practice looking more lifelike, then."

"Has some problem come up that I ought to know about?"

"Problem?" He seemed surprised. "No, no problem! Why would you think that? -I have a demanding job; that's all. Not because it's so complex, you understand. I don't mind complexity. But it's not the thing I'd be happiest doing. If I could simply get back into the laboratory end of things again-" He shook his head. "Well, that's neither here nor there. I've taken note of your complaint, Miss Fellowes. We'll see what we can do about easing up a little on Timmie's schedule of research interviews. In so far as we legitimately can, that is, considering the great importance of what we can learn from him. I'm sure you take my meaning."

"I'm sure that I do," said Miss Fellowes, in a tone of voice that was perhaps a shade too dry.

IT WAS DAWN, and the sky was a dead-looking gray, with a hard wind blowing from two directions at once. A little white piece of the moon was still showing, like a bone knife hanging in the sky. The men of the War Society were getting themselves ready to go down the sloping hill to the shrine of the shining rocks at the place where the three rivers met.

She Who Knows stood apart, watching them from a distance, wishing she could go down there with them.

It was always the men who got to do everything interesting, and always the same ones, the young ones full of juice. The old men like Silver Cloud and Stinking Musk Ox and Fights Like A Lion made the pronouncements and issued the orders, but it was the young ones, Tree Of Wolves and Broken Mountain and Blazing Eye and Caught Bird In Bush and three or four others, who actually did things. They were the ones who were truly alive, She Who Knows thought, envying them fiercely.

When there was game in the plains, they were the Hunting Society. They sharpened the tips of their spears and wrapped dark strips of wolf fur around their ankles to give them speed and ferocity, and they went out and stampeded the mammoths over cliffs, or gathered around some hapless stray rhinoceros and stabbed it until it fell, or threw the rocks-with-strings at the swift reindeer in the hope of entangling their legs and bringing them down. And afterward they carried or dragged their kill back to the camp, singing and dancing triumphantly, and everyone came out to praise them and chant their names, and they were given the first pick of the newly cooked meat: the heart and the brains and the other good parts.

And when someone had transgressed, or a chieftain had come to the end of his days and had to be sent to the next world, they became the Killing Society and donned the masks made of bearskin and brought forth the ivory club of death, and they went off with their victim out of the sight of the tribe and did what had to be done. And then solemnly returned, walking in line one by one and singing die Song of the Next World, which only the men of the Killing Society were permitted to sing.

And when there were enemies lurking nearby, it was time for the men, these very same men, to become the War Society and paint themselves with the blue stripes across their shoulders and the red stripes around their loins, and wrap the yellow lion-mantles around their shoulders. That was what they were doing now, and She Who Knows was bitterly envious. The men were standing naked in a circle, edgily joking and laughing, while the old craftsman Mammoth Rider finished mixing the pigments. War was the only occasion on which the men of the tribe ever painted their bodies; and it had been a long time now since the last such occasion, so the pigments had to be mixed fresh. That took time. But Mammoth Rider knew how to grind the rocks and how to mix the antelope fat with the powder so that it would stick to the skin. He sat crosslegged, bending over his work. And the men of the Killing Society waited for him to be done.

He had brought forth the tubes of bone in which the pigments were stored and he was stirring the fat into the powder in a stone bowl. And now at last the colors were ready. Mammoth Rider handed the bowl of red color to Broken Mountain and the bowl of blue color to Young Antelope, and the other men lined up to be painted.

The laughing and joking grew even louder now. The men were frightened of what was to come: that was why they were laughing so much. The two painters used foxtail brushes to apply the color, and that in itself made them all laugh, because the brushes tickled so much. The shoulder-stripes were easy, one narrow blue one across the back, one wide one across the chest, and then a blue Goddess-dab right on the throat in the place where the hard part of the throat sticks out, and another one over the heart. It was painting the lower parts that caused all the amusement. First came a thick red stripe across the base of the belly just above the place where the man-parts are, going all the way around back and across the top of the buttocks; then a thin stripe encircling each diigh just below the man-parts; and then, what always made them laugh, the Goddess-stripe running the length of the man-organ and two more dots of red on the round parts that dangled below it. Broken Mountain put the paint down there on with a great flourish and the men made a pretense of rinding it unendurably ticklish. Or perhaps they weren't pretending.

Go on, She Who Knows thought. Paint me also! I have no man-parts but you can put the red stripes around my loins and on the tips of my breasts, and it will be just as good when the time of batde conies. Because I am every bit as much of a warrior as any of you. Every bit as much.

They were almost finished now. All die men were done except the two painters themselves. Now Broken

Mountain put the lower stripes on Young Antelope and Young Antelope put the upper stripes on Broken Mountain; and then they exchanged paint-bowls, and Young Antelope put the red on Broken Mountain, and Broken Mountain put the blue on Young Antelope. And they all tied their loincloths around their waists and their lion-mantles over their shoulders and picked up their spears and they were ready to make war.

Or almost ready. Goddess Woman had to say the war-words over them first, in front of the three bear-skulls. But even now She Who Knows could see the two younger Goddess Women setting out the skulls across the way, and Goddess Woman herself putting on the special robes that she had to wear when she administered the war-blessing.

She Who Knows looked down the hill, toward the shrine of shining rocks at the place where the rivers met. There was no one down there.

All this would be for nothing if the Other Ones had gone off somewhere else. Goddess Woman had reported that the footprints of the Other Ones around the shrine were fresh ones, but what did Goddess Woman know? She was no hunter. The footprints she had seen could have been three days old. The Other Ones might be far from here by now.

All that needed to be done was to go quickly down to the shrine and perform the rites that Silver Cloud seemed to think were necessary; and then the People could turn east again-getting away from this place and heading back into the flat cold empty country where the Other Ones rarely went-and go on with their lives. If there was in fact no need of sending the War Society down there first to sniff out the territory and make sure no Other Ones were skulking near the shrine, then Silver Cloud was wasting valuable time. The year was moving along. The days were shorter now. It would be snowing every day, soon. The People needed quickly to finish what they had come here to do, and find some safe place where they could settle in during the bad months that were coming.

But most likely Goddess Woman was right, and Other Ones uvre someplace nearby. And there would be war; and men would die, and perhaps not only men.

Keeps The Past, coming up behind her, said practically into her ear, "The Goddess is being very hard on us these days. We came here to worship Her; but first She takes the little boy, and then She brings us right into the midst of the Other Ones."

She Who Knows shrugged. "I see no Other Ones. We've been here two days and nobody has seen any Other Ones."

"But they're there. Waiting for us, hidden below, ready to attack. I know that."

"How do you know?"

"I dreamed it," said Keeps The Past. "They were invisible, like creatures of mist, and then they became half-solid like shadows, and then they were springing up out of the earth ail around us and they began to kill us."

She Who Knows laughed harshly. "Another dark dream."

"Another?"

"The night before last, Silver Cloud dreamed that he was a boy again and he went into the sea and when he came out of it he began to grow older with every step he took, until within a few moments he was withered and crooked and feeble. A dream of death, is what that was. And now you dream Other Ones waiting for us at the shrine."

Keeps the Past nodded. "And the Goddess has taken the boy Skyfire Face without giving us any sign of Her pleasure in return. We should leave this place, I think, without staying to perform any ceremonies at that shrine down there."

"But Silver Cloud says we must."

"Silver Cloud grows timid and weak with age," said Keeps The Past.

She Who Knows turned furiously to the chronicler. "Would you like to be chieftain in his place?"

"Me?" Keeps The Past smiled. "Not I, She Who Knows. I want no part of being chieftain. If there's any woman in the world who yearns in her heart to be a chieftain, She Who Knows, I think it's you. But I have no appetite for such burdens. -Even so, I think the time may have come for Silver Cloud to put down his wand and cap and mantle."

"No."

"He's old and getting feeble. You can see the weariness in his eyes."

"He's strong and wise," said She Who Knows, without much conviction.

"You know that you are saying that which isn't true."

"Am I, Keeps The Past? Am I?"

"Go easy, woman. If you hit me, I'll have you thrown down the hill."

"You called me a liar."

"I told you that you said that which isn't true."

"It's the same thing."

"A liar who lies even to herself is no true liar, but a fool. You know and I know and Goddess Woman knows that Silver Cloud is no longer fit to be chieftain. Each of us has thought it and said it in her own way. -And when the men begin to realize that too, the Killing Society will have to do its work."

"Perhaps so," said She Who Knows uneasily.

"Then why do you defend him?"

"I feel sorry for him. 1 don't want him to have to die."

"How tender of you. But the chieftain knows how things are done. Do you remember the days when Black Snow was chieftain, and he fell sick with the green bile and norfring could heal him, and he stood up before us all and said his time had come? Did he hesitate even a moment? And it was the same with Tall Tree before him, Silver Cloud's father, when I was a girl. You weren't born then. Tall Tree was a great chieftain; but one day he said, I am too old, I can no longer be chieftain, and by nightfall he was dead. As must happen to Silver Cloud."

"Not yet. Not yet."

Coolly, Keeps The Past said, "Even if he leads us into disaster? Which perhaps he is doing right now. It was a mistake to come to this place: I see that now, though at first I didn't. Why are you so strong in his defense? He means nothing to you. I didn't diink you even liked him."

"If Silver Cloud dies, who will be chieftain in his place, do you think?"

"Blazing Eye, I suppose."

"Exactly. Blazing Eye!" She Who Knows grinned vindictively. "I tell you, Keeps The Past, I'd rather stay with bumbling old Silver Cloud and die beneath the spears of the Other Ones than have to live another ten years with Blazing Eye as chieftain of this tribe!"

"Ah," said Keeps The Past. "Aha! Now I understand. You put your own little personal resentments ahead of common sense-even ahead of life itself, She Who Knows. How absurd you are! How foolish!"

"You're going to make me hit you, after all."

"But don't you see-"

"No," said She Who Knows. "No, I don't see at all. -But enough of this. Look, look, down there!"

While the two women had been talking, Goddess Woman had finished performing the War Society blessing and the men of the War Society, properly painted and outfitted, had descended the hill to take up positions around the shrine of the shining rocks. There they stood now in front of it, shoulder to shoulder, brandishing their spears and glaring defiantly in all directions.

And there were the Other Ones, materializing out of nowhere like the creatures of mist who had turned solid in Keeps The Past's dream.

Where had they come from? They must have been crouching in the dense bushes alongside one of the three rivers, down out of sight, perhaps hiding themselves in some magical way so that they had looked like bushes themselves until the time came for them to emerge.

There were eight or ten of them. No, more than ten. She Who Knows tried to count them, but she used up both her hands and there were still more of them to count. There might be at least another full hand of them besides. Whereas the War Society numbered only nine warriors.

It was going to be a massacre. Silver Cloud had sent all the young men of the tribe to their deaths.

"How hideous they are!" Keeps The Past whispered harshly, clutching She Who Knows' forearm so hard that her grip was painful. "Like monsters! Like nightmare things! When I saw them in my dream they were nothing as disgusting as this!"

"They look just like themselves," said She Who Knows- "That is how the Other Ones look."

"You've seen them before. I haven't. Foh, die flat faces of diem! Their skinny necks. Their arms, their legs -so long. Like spider legs!"

"Like spiders, yes."

"Look. Look."

Everyone in the tribe was clustering together now at the little overlook point above the shrine of the three rivers. All eyes were on the scene below. She Who Knows heard Silver Cloud's rough, heavy breathing nearby. A child was crying. A couple of the Mothers seemed to be crying too.

A strange thing was happening down below. It was almost like a dance.

The men of the War Society were still standing shoulder-to-shoulder, in a straight line in front of the shrine. They looked uneasy, but they were holding their ground, however eager they might be inside to bolt and run.

The Other Ones had formed a line facing them, perhaps twenty paces away. They too stood shoulder to shoulder: tall strange-looking flat-faced men, holding long spears.

But there was no attack.

The two groups of warriors simply stood there, glaring at each other across the area of no-man's-land that separated them. Nobody moved. The men didn't even seem to be breathing. They were as still as rocks. Could it be that the Other Ones were just as frightened as the men of the War Society must be? They were supposed to be such ruthless killers, the Other Ones were. And they outnumbered the War Society men by at least one hand's worth. But nothing was happening. No one was willing to make a move.