Evan thought nothing. He used his mind to push back against Foul. It was easier than it had been with Jordan. The connection to the Vit was weak. For a minute there was silence.
You cannot keep us out for long, Brode.
Again he pushed, and again his mind was silent.
You are still human inside.
He pushed and this time he held on. His body went rigid with the effort, and he stared into the empty water. A minute went by. Two minutes. Ten. He took a long, deep breath.
They will tell Brode all you need to know.
Foul's voice was mocking, but it sounded far away.
He breathed out. Silence again. He stood up from his blocks abruptly. It was the first time he had stood by himself since he had been attacked. He held himself in place and focused on the water. His back was sore, but it no longer burned.
I just need more time,
he thought. The air inside his brain opened. He could feel the Vitfly, imagine its flapping wings.
I'll get what you need. Just don't hurt her. If you do, I'll never tell you anything. I'll tell everyone you talk to me.
If you speak a word, she dies.
Evan saw Rayden watching from across the cave. He held a strip of membrane, ready to flip and beat and stretch it into a new kind of rod that he'd invented. Evan nodded a little, but Rayden didn't turn away. Evan's mind was silent again. Foul had made its point. They weren't going away.
He twisted his arms, then slid his legs through the cool sewage. They were stiff at first, but after a few minutes of this the arms twisted firmly and he felt like he could walk. He hoped he would be able to fight.
Rayden was still watching him. Rolling the membrane around his arm, the old one slid across the cave. “Young one, you are not ready to walk,” Rayden said gravely. “A Vitfly attack is no small matter. You were cut deeply with both claws and fangs.”
“Master Rayden,” said Evan. His voice had trouble coming out. His throat was too dry. He bent down and took a drink of water. It took much too long to stand up again.
Rayden continued to regard him gravely.
“Master Rayden, I want to fight. Can you teach me how to use the weapon?” He did not say that he might have to fight sooner than expected. That he might have to beat Vits off his mother rather than tell the Wuftoom's secrets. Rayden would not care about his mother.
Rayden examined Evan, looking him up and down with glowing eyes.
Evan tried not to shake. He had to look like he was strong enough to handle anything. He had to
be
strong enough.
Rayden broke into a wide, thick-fanged grin and clapped Evan on the back. “Standing tall and solid,” said Rayden. “That's a Wuftoom!” He sloshed briskly across the cave and returned with one of the weapons. “We call them Feeders,” Rayden said, “because they are designed to bring down dinner.” The old one's eyes glowed brighter, and he showed a little fang. He held the Feeder out on top of both his nubs. It looked much like a rod, with its bumpy, membrane skin and half a Wuftoom length. But it was thicker on one end. Rayden wrapped both arms around it at the lower end and took a swing. The thick end curved as it slid through the air, and Evan imagined its bend slamming a Vitfly head.
“I designed them myself,” said Rayden. “They are membrane filled with flesh. Strong and flexible, like a living Wuftoom!”
Evan pulled back a little. Membrane was one thing, but flesh? How long had its owner been dead for?
Rayden pulled his lips back from his long, thick fangs and laughed. “It is an honor for the dead to be used in this way. There is nothing sacred about our bodies. We don't waste them rotting in the ground.”
Like the humans,
thought Evan. Inwardly he kicked himself. He had acted human again.
“Let's try it on something real.” Rayden nodded toward the place where the targets were hanging.
Evan slowly followed Rayden over. His legs felt like frozen jelly, ready to crack.
The old battered creatures had recently been replaced with fresh skins. Rayden pointed to a Gibben hanging by rope made of its own hair. Because its flesh had been sucked out and eaten, its large eyes took up most of the space on its tiny, shriveled body. In life the Gibben would have been covered in hair, but the Wuftoom had removed that to make the ropes, so it hung naked, staring up at the ceiling and out at Evan all at once. Evan tried not to show the disgust he felt.
“Watch,” said Rayden. He showed Evan how to hold the Feeder so that its hump would face the target, and how to twist the weapon just so, to change the way the best part faced. “You can hit anything coming from any direction, if you learn to manipulate the membrane.” The Feeder seemed to twist and turn on its own under Rayden's expert nubs. Evan could not even see what the old one was doing to make it turn and flex.
Evan took the Feeder from Rayden.
Rayden gave him another back clap and then went back across the cave to continue making more weapons.
Foul pressed against Evan's mind. He pushed it out, but it came back. He pushed again. Over and over again Foul tried. Evan tried to shut off his thoughts, to focus on nothing but the swing of his Feeder against the targets. He tried to feel how he had moved his membranes to pull himself through the tiny pipes. How they moved separate from his flesh but with it, how they had strength in even tiny movements.
Whack!
The Feeder knocked the Gibben off its rope. It went flying into the back wall. As it slid into the water, its giant eyes still stared at Evan. He gripped the Feeder harder and swung again.
Whack! Splash!
An Orpa fell from its string into the water. Evan's arms ached and his head pounded, but he kept whacking with all his strength.
Suddenly, Tret was next to him. “It's time you see what we are doing,” Tret said. “I'm told you are feeling better. Master Rayden, is it true?”
Rayden was sitting nearby with the membrane he was working. Evan had not noticed that he'd come back. Now the old leader looked up from his work, taking both Evan and Tret in.
“He is much better,” said Rayden. “The Vitflys have gained a formidable enemy.” His lips twisted into a smile. Evan was growing to value that smile. There was something precious in it, since it carried the approval of the whole clan.
Evan felt a surge of pride. “Let's go!” he said, smiling bigger than Rayden. He hurt, but he wanted to see the dig.
They slid a little way down the main passage until they reached a fork that went off to the left. It was smaller than the main passage, so that the Wuftoom had to crawl. Evan had seen this passage before and had wondered what was down it.
Before long, they came to a hole in the pipe that did require some smooshing to get through. It opened into a cave in the ground. It was maybe a fifth as large as the main cave, and its floor was dirt rather than water. Several Wuftoom worked, lifting piles of dirt, packing dirt into the walls. In the middle of the cave was a hole. It was several feet wide, with a few blocks piled around it as a warning.
Evan felt it. It went down to where he was supposed to be. To where the air was pure, the dark darker. He looked down on it, leaning over the blocks. Tret put both nubs on Evan's shoulders to hold him back.
“I know,” he said. “We'll be there soon, and they'll be the ones hiding.”
There were three Wuftoom at the bottom, digging and dropping the dirt onto a platform that looked like a child's sandbox. The platform was hanging from a contraption set up near the edge. It looked as if it was made like the rods, completely out of membrane. Membrane was also plastered down the inside of the hole.
Tret put his nub to his mouth in a shushing motion and walked around the edges of the cave. He examined the walls, sometimes poking at a spot.
“Okay, looks clear,” said Tret. “You have to check every time you want to talk. Since it's near our cave, we don't get many of the things we eat hanging around. But you can never be too careful. There are some fools who'd rather take their chances with the Vits.” Then he grinned wide. “Their cave is straight beneath us. We got that information from a smarter race. The Gibbens will be glad they sided with us!”
Evan said nothing. He doubted the Gibben whose skin he'd just whacked would have thought so.
“How far down is it?” Evan asked finally. It seemed like they'd gone down far just to get to the passage they called Yellow, and he knew there were much lower places.
“It's far,” said Tret. “But we're combining our human memories with Wuftoom engineering.” He plucked at his membrane with another grin. “Some Wuftoom think everything human should be suppressed. But we know how to read. We know how to make things that the humans make. Why shouldn't we use them against the Vits?”
Why shouldn't we care about our mothers?
Evan thought. Was it possible that Tret would understand after all?
“Using what we know isn't going to suddenly make us feel human,” Tret continued. “It isn't going to make us rush off to be with our human friends. We're still Wuftoom!”
Evan's hope faded. He looked more closely at the membraned hole. The setup really looked like it might work. “And what happens when we get all the way down?”
“We come before the day ends, when most of them will be together. And we drop it! It explodes and spreads poison through their cave.” Tret gave his biggest smile of the day. Rasps of approval came from the Wuftoom working nearby.
Evan smiled back, but he found it hard to pay attention. The pressing in his mind grew stronger. He pushed and his head pounded. He was so tired of pushing. He was tired from training all night with the Feeder. He was hungry.
You have been stronger than we thought,
Foul hissed,
but we are stronger than you. You will listen to us now.
Evan froze, his smile plastered to his face.
She hears us in the walls. She cries and cries,
the Vit hissed.
He pushed against it, as hard as he ever had before, but he could still feel the presence. He could not think. He could not show them where he was.
“Think you're up for it?” asked Tret. He grinned and nodded toward the hole.
Tell us now and we will let her go.
“Yes,” said Evan, too loudly. He tried to keep on smiling. Tret took it for eagerness.
“I knew you'd say that!” Tret clapped him, shoving Evan forward toward the edge, so that he had to throw his nubs over the blocks to keep from falling. Tret grabbed on to his shoulders.
“Sorry, buddy,” he said. “Maybe you need a couple more days.”
“Yeah, maybe,” said Evan. He willed the thoughts out of his mind.
Tell us,
Foul hissed.
Evan pushed. How was it still there? He felt a vibration in his mind. Laughter.
Then you will come to us. Tomorrow. Or we come out of the walls to eat her.
It laughed a moment longer, and the vibration made Evan stumble into Tret.
Tret's eyes glowed with concern. “Let's get you back.”
Evan shook his head. The presence was gone. “I'm fine,” he said. “I can start tomorrow.”
“I don't think so,” said Tret. He kept his nub on Evan's back and guided him up through the hole into the crawler.
Evan's thoughts flooded back in. He couldn't go tomorrow. He wouldn't do it. The Wuftoom were too close. But the Vits would kill her. Or maybe they wouldn't. Maybe they'd eat her piece by piece. They could hurt her in a million ways.
She would never let anyone hurt me,
he thought.
She'd die first.
But Tret and the other Wuftoom wouldn't let anyone hurt him either. They cared about him too. He couldn't help the Vits destroy them. Evan moved faster through the crawler, ignoring Tret's protests. He couldn't face Tret anymore, not with what he had to do.
T
HE CAVE WAS STILL AND SILENT.
The sentries were facing outward toward the passage. Slowly, Evan lifted himself off of his blocks. He looked carefully around him, but the cave was filled with sleeping puddles. The day shift would return from the dig before long. He had to move now.
Cautiously, he began sliding through the water. As he went, he couldn't help sliding near other Wuftoom. With each tiny slosh, his heart beat faster. But no one woke.
They sleep so deeply because they have full trust in each other,
Evan thought.
It's in their genes and the way their brains are wired. Only my brain didn't get rewired right. They can't count on me.
He had a sudden urge to wake them, to scream out the truth. Let them decide what would happen next. But he knew they didn't care about their mothers. He couldn't take that chance. It would be his fault, just as if he had killed her himself.
On the far side of the cave from where Evan slept, the scholars slept together. They slept near the products of their labor, the Feeders and rods and other tools made of the precious membrane, which were stacked on shelves made of extra sleeping blocks. But Evan was not only going for a weapon to fight the Vitflys. He would take one, of course. But he also needed something that would hurt a Wuftoom, and there was only one weapon that would do that.
Evan pulled out a Feeder and set it in the water. Carefully, he pulled more of them out and set them softly against the cave wall, until he had created a space large enough for him to push his whole arm through.
He reached through and felt around behind the stack of weapons. For a minute he began to worry. What if Rayden had moved them, afraid of the discord from the lack of food? But no, for one Wuftoom to hurt another was unthinkable. He had not hidden them. Very carefully, so as not to poke himself, Evan slid his nub under a Vit claw. Almost without breathing, he slowly pulled his arm back.
Soon he was staring down at it. This thing that had hurt him so badly that it might have killed him. It was so small, it seemed impossible that it could kill. Yet as he touched it, he felt the moment it had cut into his back and he squirmed, causing the water to ripple around him.