GROUND / CH. 32: EPILOGUE 2

“Welcome to Ground." Vivian told the assembled students. They'd literally just landed from the Celestia, but that was OK, she wasn't going to lecture them for long. "My name is Vivian, I've lived on Ground since the Lab got here, and I'm part way through my PhD. Also, I'll be your lecturer on dangers you might meet here. This is a brief introduction, you'll get assigned to your rooms in oh, about half an hour I expect, but it was decided that you ought to get the safety briefing first. Just in case. The pictures you'll see in this lecture course were almost all taken by me, my fiance, or on trips where we were there. That's to say, the things I'm going to tell you about do not make an exhaustive list of dangerous things, but they are certainly the most common.

“The Mer say, 'not all sharks need killing.' But that doesn't go far enough. You wouldn't, I hope, go up to a sleeping bull, lion or bear and poke them in the privates or let off a firework under their noses. Nor, I hope, would you prepare to drop dynamite off the side of a boat in front of any Mer. That's called a stupid way of committing suicide. So, I'm going to start off with a special category of people. Some you just need to be very very respectful of, and then they'd be perfect babysitters. Others you need to run away from.

“This is Academician Takan with I can't remember whose baby, a few years ago.

You might see Takan around, you might even have heard him speaking. Takan's great, he might lecture some of you in astronomy, and he really knows his stuff. He's curiosity incarnate, there's basically nothing new he's not interested in and can give wonderful lectures. And as you see, he's given telescopic vision a new level of meaning. Just for terminology, the established term for the intelligent shape-shifting people of ground is Groundian. You might have heard other terms for them, but those are either two generic or rude. Be respectful to our hosts and precise in your language. If you mean a Groundian, don't say shape-shifter, there are other types out there who you wouldn't come to a lecture by.

Takan is about two hundred years old, and the reason he didn't die before he was thirty is that when he was a teen he entered what's called 'war-form'. War-form is a way that Groundians have of making themselves effective killers that are very hard to kill. The first time it can be voluntary or involuntary, and it is associated with a 'war-thought'. When someone has entered war-form, that thought totally dominates their thinking. Someone who first entered war-form voluntarily, like Takan, has some control of what they plan to do in war-form. Those who enter war-form as a result of abject terror or fury have no control at all. Takan's war-thought is 'stop the disrespect', and he can decide how he's going to stop it. Remember though, that you're talking about the last few seconds of fury before you lose control in a way that makes a toddler in a tantrum look calm and reasonable.

“The war-thought triggers the transition to war-form, at which point he becomes the perfect killing machine. In other words you do not want Takan to think you're being disrespectful. That's somewhere along the lines of creative suicide, though with Takan you might survive. His transition to war-form has almost happened once in the last five years. It gives him a horrible head-ache. Here's a photo of him part way through his transition, it takes about five seconds. What triggered it that time was an agitator being very impertinent to the president of the ruling council.

Fortunately Takan's wife, academician Lana was there and could soothe his bone organisms. Biologists among you might study with Lana, if you're really lucky. Bone organisms, she has found, do not understand the world in the same way that brain organisms do, but they do think. War-form is the bone organisms deciding that the brain organisms aren't doing a good enough job to protect those that need protecting, kill what needs killing, etcetera. So war form can accurately be described as a primal brain staging a take over, one that sees the world in very black and white terms, if you like. These people need protecting, those can be ignored and those rude students there need teaching a lesson they won't forget, say by having their muscle organisms mixed with dirt. That is an actual occurrence, by the way. Another occurrence, where the shift was involuntary, decided the colleague he was working with was a threat to existence, and must be killed. He transformed whenever he heard her voice or even smelt her.

“So, treat Takan with great respect, he deserves it, he's a war-hero and insightful scholar; and secondly, get behind a forcefield or steel door if you see these characteristic spikes on anyone's head."

She went on to the next picture. “Next biggest threat are these two species. We were inside a forcefield, happily filming this little cutie, on the left, who for obscure reasons we'll call Bun-bun, when this encounter with Mr and Miss Toothy happened. Mr Toothy is the bigger one. The Toothies are members of the Orange-Stripe clan of predators, or Preds as we call them. The stripes are clan-markings they paint one another with, as you see, hers are brand-new, and used to be blue spots. Mr Toothy is pack-leader. Now, as you see, Miss Toothy was having a little romantic walk in the snow with Mr Toothy, nuzzling him in all the right places, and experts tell me that from the state of his dangly bits he's about five seconds from welcoming her into his harem, and from hers we can tell she's never had pups. Hence I'm calling her Miss. She, however, has just spotted Bun-bun. She is possibly surprised to see him in the snow. We certainly were, hence the filming. Before I start the film, you get to submit a written guess as to what happens next? Oh, I forgot to say, Miss Toothy being newly painted over her old blue spot means that she was a daughter of the blue-spot tribe, either kicked out of her old happy home for misbehaviour, or the old pack-leader of the blue-spots has suffered a tragic loss of his internal organs and the tribe has disintegrated, or some other traumatic event in her life. Somehow she's managed to ingratiate herself into a new clan rather than getting eaten. What happens next? And who forgot to bring anything to write on or with?”

The answers varied: some said she'd sacrifice herself for him, others said that she'd attack Bun-bun and give his corpse to the leader. No one guessed the right answer. Vivian started the film. Miss Toothy leapt into the air, pushing the male towards the bone-eater, which leapt for the predator, sank it's claw into one eye, and hung on there while the pack-leader fell asleep. Miss Toothy then scrubbed her fresh paint off in the snow, used a stick to ensure it was all gone, and then checking where the bone-eater was still happily chewing, chewed most of the flesh off Mr Toothy's leg, and then bit off his masculinity and shot off into the woods carrying it, just before some more bone-eaters arrived.

Vivian stopped the film. “Mating seals the bond, it hadn't happened. She had no loyalty to him, he was just a meal-ticket. She took what she needed: food for herself and evidence that the Pack-leader of the orange-Stripe clan of Preds was well and truly dead. The probe followed her and she went straight to the blue-spot pack, and laid her gory burden down in front of her dad. He was very pleased, and re-painted her blue spots on himself. Then he called up his wives and children, and they went to invade the orange-Stripe clan territory. He killed any orange-Stripe females that were stupid enough to bear their teeth at him, and pinned down the semi-mature orange-stripe heir, who his daughters emasculated. His daughters held down females so he and his son could paint them and rape them. The son got most of the virgin daughters of the old pack-leader that were of breeding age. Male juveniles and puppies were carried to where the bone-eaters were having a feast of their dad. Watching the orange-stripe puppies taking on the bone-eaters apparently provided some entertainment for the blues, and served a practical purpose in that some bone-eaters got killed and the bone-eaters were so stuffed afterwards that they couldn't jump, which is their main defence mode. Some waddled off, including, we're pretty sure, Bun-Bun, who'd more than doubled in size. Other bone-eaters had been coming in to join in the feast, but when it ended they hopped away. As soon as there were no bones left, juvenile male orange-strips were forced to go in. Greedy bone-eaters who'd stayed stuffing themselves to the end were really slow and the juveniles got most of them, though maybe half a dozen escaped. Then one of the best hunters approached Miss Toothy and submitted to her. She obviously approved of him and took him to her dad, who painted him and he became her abject slave and eventual lover. His brothers tried that trick on her sisters, Miss Toothy gave a good report about one of them, apparently saying 'he kind, good hunter', and he got painted, the others got eaten. It's a pred-eat-pred world out there. Any questions?”

“When's the next flight home?” Someone asked.

“Are you joking, or genuinely scared?” Vivian asked.

“Urm, pass.”

“Good state to be in. No, I'm serious. That's one reason we call the little guys 'bun-bun' it helps us not give into terror. They are quite timid. They don't know that we're different to Groundians here: they count legs, and they know better than to try to harm Groundians; like you wouldn't take on a giant, they'd get chewed up or stamped on. They inject something that works like an opiate for the preds, but it just hurts Groundians. Chemically it's a bit like caffeine. Who knows? It might paralyse you or just wake you up, but no one's ever been injected, so we don't know. We do know they're collective organisms, poisoned by onion and garlic, so even if they bite you, they're not going to stuff themselves. The preds are actually rather slow compared to most animals on Earth. Is anyone here trained in the womanly arts? Yes? Well, I'm told if you can face a shark, these are easy meat, and any runners here, they can do fifty metres in about ten seconds at top speed, after which they slow down. Yes, they're dangerous, but they're not guaranteed death.

“Oh, when I said meat, don't try eating them, you'd want to drink some thunderbolt to get rid of the taste. I see blank faces... thunderbolt is a Martian delicacy: think extra-hot chilli-Tabasco expertly cooked to maximum strength with all-natural flavour enhancers. I'm probably exaggerating to say that you'd want to do that to yourself, but anyway, the meat is allegedly nutritious but tastes like someone imagined rotting meat and mouldy bread marinated in swamp water would taste like. On the other hand, Groundians think the meat's a delicacy, but don't do what we'd call hunting them because they're talking animals. If one attacks then it can be killed and if it's dead it can become lunch, for someone.

"There are some people who do what the Groundians call hunting: they wander into pred territory and hope they're only attacked by one, that they survive, and that they can get back to sell the meat before any more come. It's high risk, and any kill has to be self-defence.

“So, the risk of living here. I've been here since I was fourteen, no-one's died yet. Are you feeling a little less like going home?”

“How many people have been attacked?”

“Here in the home cave? None. Our on field trips, we sleep in force-field tents and, have a forcefield groundsheet. When we're sitting down working, we're under a dome. We have emergency personal forcefields in case something leaps at us when we're setting up, or tunnels up into a work-dome. We've had a couple of close calls, and one guy — my fiance — got bitten by danger number four, here. It was about the diameter of his wrist. A fairly nasty wound but they're not venomous. The preds are everywhere, the snake-things are mostly found on south-facing hills, above five hundred metres, bun-bun and chums basically don't like the so-called heat of the plane, but you'll find them on wooded hills or soil hillsides from five hundred meters to the permafrost line - they're tunnellers like the snakes, and hunt snakes.

The snakes are where they are because they like eating these guys. I've put them in not because they're dangerous, but because they're the third indigenous intelligent species on the planet. They don't like the heat of the plain either, and they've got songs about when it was all marshland down here. These guys, as a species, are dangerous.”

She showed a picture of herself and the others on their first day, and the students laughed. “And that's doubly true when they're jits like we were in this picture, and you are. They've caused all sorts of accidents, dropping things, falling over, misunderstanding one another, forgetting to do important things, failing to take enough drink with them, not wearing their humidity masks, breaking each other's toys, or delicate instruments. Picking up a mer knife by the wrong end. No I'm not joking. On a couple of notable occasions, there have been fights and rows and broken hearts. Some people went home, disappointed, miserable, and feeling misunderstood because they misread cultural signals plain for everyone to see except, apparently, them. But so far, we've pulled through it. You're jits here, remember. You might not be when you're on Mars, or down-town Restoration or wherever, but here the gravity is wrong, the social norms are a different mix, and you've just doubled the population of humans here, so there's a bit of extra stress. Our culture here is a mixture of Atlantis, Mars, Russia and the Restored Kingdom. We use Mer idioms, English, Mer, Russian or Groundian vocab depending on the context, and us long-term residents are all citizens of Atlantis. We all understand all of those languages to some extent, but an oath must be kept. We have no sharks here with two legs, and the laws of Atlantis prevail here in the cavern and in all human-to-human interactions outside. If you don't know what that means, then urm, how did you get here? Read up on it and ask questions. Otherwise, the laws of Ground prevail. The laws of ground say you may not teach a foreign faith, nor hunt any talking-beast, puncture anyone's skin, wound anyone's organisms or take what is not yours. You will report the slightest sniffle, sore throat or other medical complaint to the medical staff, and will obey instructions to quarantine yourselves without exception or delay. Groundian medics are the best in the known universe but the common cold is deadly to their organisms. Who knows what new infectious diseases you've brought with you? As to your safety... eating garlic and onion is the only way we know to not become slime-creature food, but if you really can't stand eating it every day, then you can eat some when you find you've got itchy feelings and little grey putty-like stuff on you. You might be fine, and as long as you're not totally dumb you'll probably survive even a bad case, but don't expect to be offered free skin-grafts or plastic surgery. Any other questions?

“Not about the health stuff, I was wondering if there was more you could tell us about the Toothy family?”

“I can tell you that father and son didn't share the same females, and when one of the older ones allocated to the son tried to get herself into dad's harem, who have slightly higher status, he pinned her to the ground and called to Miss Toothy, who came and chewed her throat out, then the rest of them ate what was left. Miss Toothy, well, let's call her Mrs now, is some kind of highest-rank female. She can boss anyone apart from dad and brother around. She and her sister are the only females who have slaves, and the slave-boys are obviously subservient to anyone, but only mates for their mistresses. They've not grown to the size of even sub-adult males, and Mrs Toothy has a single daughter, her sister was looking pregnant, last report I saw, but not heavily so. In other words it looks like these slaves are marginally fertile, but no-where near as fertile as brother and dad, who regularly sire five or six pups without fail.

"Mortality among cubs by fratricide of half-siblings is pretty common, as long as one of mums isn't around to stop it. Older-cubs on younger cubs, too. If Dad sees an older cub attacking a younger, then the older cub gets pinned to the ground and younger gets a few free bites, depending on the size difference. That's supposed to make the fight more equal, it seems. “Daughters outrank wives, wives outrank cubs, and cubs outrank slaves. So the slaves stay next to their owner-mates. What the experts wonder is whether Mrs Toothy is actually the daughter of Dad, or if she was a daughter of his sister, sent away when her mother died. There seem to be some similarities between her relationship to 'Dad' and her daughter's relationship to 'brother', anyway. It's possible that what we're seeing is some kind of matriarchal line alongside a patriarchal line, in other words. She certainly has always shown more initiative than any other female in the pack. In other packs there's often a similar lead-female, and those packs that have this second-in-command structure seem to do a lot better than those where it's just a pack-leader. Oh, one big danger if you ever move a dead pred — do not, ever put dead preds next to each other if they're from different clans. That violates some kind of deep-seated taboo. If they see two dead preds who have fought to mutual death, they'll immediately separate them. If you do the opposite of that, then both clans will basically declare peace for the purpose of conducting a holy war against you.”

“You use religious-like language about them, are they genuinely religious?”

“They have no special religious activities apart from this separation of clan members in death. But separation of clan members in life is very much practised too,” Lana said from the back of the room. “They have no special religious vocabulary we've recorded. Their lexicon is about six hundred words, which is quite a lot. When 'Miss Toothy' as Vivian has so charmingly renamed her, brought back the mating appendage, she probably said she'd made the owner bone-eater food, and who the owner was, and could describe where. They have a lot of words to describe places and different creatures. They also have a some words for things like good and bad in the sense of abilities, clever and stupid, and they have a concept of things that do and don't need punishing, but not much to express them. The language is very limited in terms of concepts, and there seems to be no concept of mercy. When Miss Toothy's slave submitted, he said 'your slave or your food, clever Garal' — that's her name And she said to the pack-leader 'my slave, good hunter, make daughters. You paint?', and the pack-leader said 'clever daughters grow pack. I paint.' Her daughter is called Garlal, her sister's daughter is called Ral. Most cubs are called 'ga' which means 'you'. Most of the pack use a much smaller vocabulary. Some get to adulthood without understanding that they ought to use 'me' about themselves. The language has no conjunctions, tenses or words for logical connectors. It's all sequence.”

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“Thank you, Academician Lana, of the frontier biology unit. Can I ask, Lana, while we're roughly on the subject, what would be the conditions need to be that would let you talk to Garal?”

“You mean, what would have to happen for me to walk into their grounds and have a conversation with her? Other than me being suicidally insane?”

“Yes. That sort of thing.”

“I think... if she was injured, I might talk to her. If she was just trapped, I expect she'd be raging, but if she was injured and expecting death, it might be possible. Especially if she could see I was protecting her, say from Ral's fangs.”

“Are you tempted to try?” Vivian asked.

“Garal is the most intelligent female I've ever observed, except Garlal might be her match. Of course I'm tempted!”

“Does she never hunt alone?” the student who'd been asking the questions pressed.

“You're thinking I ought to go and introduce myself before it gets to her being at death's door?”

“Yes.”

“She hunts with Garlal, and sometimes with Lag, her mate. Alone, the other sisters might hunt her.”

“I've got a crazy plan, Lana.” Vivian said. “Blame it on my youthful idiocy, and feel free to not even listen. But since I've got a little smidgen of pride though, I don't really want to say it in front of everyone.”

“Would it come under the general category of a possible doctoral thesis, Vivian?”

“Not for me, I don't even speak Groundian well enough, let alone Pred. But can I run it past you for Seth?”

“Certainly.”

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“I love Vivian, but she's totally crazy.” Seth responded to Vivian's idea.

“And?” Lana prompted.

“I can actually imagine all the bits that depend on us working.”

“So can I. That's the scary thing. The lone-injured sub-adult male isn't even hard to find, we've got enough data from watching them that we can even spot which of them is an intelligent hunter.”

“The ethics... Is it ethically OK?”

“Kidnap a wounded male who expects to die — Acceptable. Pin him down, and scrub off his clan-mark — no idea, it might be torture, but we don't know that yet. Talk to him — that's fine. Transport him across the country and offer him to Garal and Garlal as Garlal's slave? I'm OK with slave, not as food. And it could be seen as treason for her to accept.”

“And even if things go wrong for the male, it might spark a really good conversation.”

“You'd need a field base somewhere near Garal's patch.” Lana said.

“No villages that way, of either people, so that's fine. And Garal has seen us before, she did nose the forcefield, so it won't be a total shock to her if she sees Viv and me there again.”

“Exploratory phase one is to see if she even understands you, isn't it?”

“Yes. Vivian's a good pilot and probe-controller, I'd like to try.”

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GARAL'S HUNTING GROUND.

“Clever hunter Garal, good hunter Lag, daughter Garlal.” Seth said. “Garal bite clan-leader here. Lag slave not food here. Me not food, me clever.”

“Hard wind.” Garal said, nosing the forcefield and suddenly alert. “Bone-eater here?”

“Clan-leader bone-eater food here. Bone-eater Lag food here.” Seth replied.

“Food?” Garlal said, prowling around the forcefield.

“Me not food. Me clever.”

“Food,” Garlal said.

“Garlal not clever. Clever Garal, no eat Lag, make daughter. Garlal not clever, no slave, no pup.”

“Garlal clever. Find slave, make pup. Garlal not clever, Garlal food.” Garal said, unconcerned, also prowling around the forcefield.

“Me clever. Me make hard wind. Hard wind make you food. Me not food.”

“You two-legs. Two-legs soft-bone. Soft-bone good food.” Garlal said.

“Me hard-bone two-legs. Hard-bone two-legs make hard wind. Hard wind make four-legs soft-bone food.”

“Hard-bone two-legs?” Garal asked, plucking up her interest.

“Hard-bone two-legs. Come long walk. Me not food, me clever. Soft-bone two-legs clever. Four-legs hunt four-legs, four-legs food. Four-legs hunt soft-bone two-legs, four-legs two-legs food, stupid two-legs four-legs food. Garal clever clever four-legs. Garal hunt hard-bone two-legs, Garal food! Garal-meat four-legs food, Garal-meat soft-bone two-legs food. Garal-meat not me food. Garal-meat taste bad me. Two-legs not food, Garal not food. Two-legs Garal talk. Garlal not find slave. No clever hunter here.”

“Me hungry.” Garal said.

“Me hungry talk.” Seth replied. “Garal hungry deer? Garlal hungry slave?”

“Where deer?” Garal asked

“Where slave?” Garlal asked.

“Me mate find deer, bring Garal Garlal. Garal Garlal talk.”

“Where slave?” Garlal asked, looking around.

“Long walk. No clever hunter here.”

“Me clever, clever hunter where?”

“Garlal blue spot. Orange stripe Garal food. Larag red line, no clever hunter.”

“Red line food.” Garlal asserted.

“Garlal go red line, Garlal Larag food.” Garal reprimanded her daughter.

“No clever red-line hunter.” Seth said, “Larag stupid, Larag make daughter, Larag eat slave, cubs eat daughter. Larag eat cub, Larag eat cub-mother.”

“Larag stupid.” Garal agreed. “Me no eat Lag. Lag good mate.”

“Lag not mate. Lag Garal slave.” Lag said, showing submission.

“Lag Garal mate.” Garal replied, quite deliberately arousing him. “Eat deer, make two daughters, four daughters.”

“Garlal hungry slave,” she said, not wanting to get into politics.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Vivian said, “But there's a couple of the junior sisters closing in to launch an attack.”

“Slice them if they spring,” Seth said, without hesitation, “and bring the deer, please. They've accepted that my mate will bring a deer.”

“Your mate, eh? We'd better set a date for our wedding.”

“Interestingly, Garal has just been telling Lag he's her mate again, not her slave.”

“You talk you mate?” Garal asked, not at all phased by the voice from the air.

“Me talk me mate.” There was a rustle from the bush, and two predators leapt to the attack. Garal and Garlal whirled to greet the attack, and were stunned when they landed in pieces, sliced in half by Vivian's rock-cutter. “Rude four-legs hunt Garal, my mate make hard wind, make they meat. No hunt two-legs. Hard-bone two-legs not food.”

“Hard-bone two-legs not food.” Garlal agreed, looking at the corpses.

“Come on in, Viv.” Seth called. This was the risky part, would they try to attack Vivian? The 'deer' — a fast-running herbivore that wasn't found on the plains, was on the disk of the probe. Vivian had trapped and hobbled it earlier, scenting the predators, it tried desperately to struggle off, and Vivian didn't want to torture it, so its head fell off. They'd discussed delivering it dead, but wanted to get Garlal used to the idea they could take tied up animals places. That was, after all, how her potential mate would arrive. The simple motion that had performed that act stunned the predators once more. They were used to blood and death, of course, but the ease at which Vivian had accomplished it put thoughts of their own mortality into their minds.

“Two-legs not food.” Lag echoed, getting up. He sniffed at the nearest dead predator's genital region. This one had only had its head cut off. He looked at Garal “Me Garal mate?”

“Mate.” Garal said. Another pred entered the clearing, a third one of the sisters, one of the weakest. Garal approached her growling, and she submitted. Then Garal casually pinned the female to the ground with her claws and cast a look at her daughter. Without a word, Garlal got the message, and took over.

Then, saying, “me hungry,” Garal ignored the whimpering female behind her and went to Vivian and the deer. Briefly, she lay before Vivian in formal submission, and then began to eat. “Good food.”

Lag looked at his mate, eating the deer daintily without a care in the world, and his daughter, holding down this female. He understood at least part of his mate's plans, and did what two of the females in the clearing clearly expected him to do, taking her throat gently in his mouth and mounting her. When he'd finished, he held his grip. The female begged him “you paint?” Was he somehow planning to establishing a new clan? Would he make her his first concubine?

“No paint. Eat!.” Garal decreed, obviously deciding that trying to start a clan right now was suicidal. Lag wasn't surprised, and bit through the little sister's throat. “Come Lag. Good Food.” Garal said and as they ate, she rubbed herself against him, making it clear that she wanted his attention after their meal.

“What's happening here, and is it our fault?” Vivian asked.

“Murder. I don't think it's our fault, she's been saying 'mate' to Lag for a while. I guess the point was that she wants to stimulate him to full maturity. It's got to be a high-risk strategy, and it doesn't win favours.” To Garlal, before she could start eating from her mother's victim, he said, “Garlal! No eat that one. Garal not clever. Two make they food. That one, no make she food. Garal Lag make they food, not hungry.

Garlal eat deer. Garal bad. Garal stupid, make slave food. Gag strong. Garal make puppies now, puppies Gag food. Lag grow big, Lag Gag food. That small one bite udder. Him make sky, him make rain, him make tree, him see.” Gag was the name of the pack-leader, biting the udder was what a fallen opponent might do for revenge. He had no idea if they had any concept of God, but he had to try.

Garal was surprised and confused. The words didn't have much meaning to her, but she'd obviously upset this strange food-giver. Once more, she backed away and lay down in submission, rather than face the deadly cutter. A deep growl came from the woods.

“Garlal clever? Deer come, Garlal come, find clever hunter.” Seth said. Then turning to Vivian he said, “Time to go, we'll leave Garal to the fate she's just earned, I think. I've told Garlal to come with us and the deer.”

“Garlal had her part too.”

“I'm not sure you can call it rape. The little one would have gone with them. She asked them to paint her.”

“Garlal come?” Garlal asked, confused.

“Garlal climb. Eat.”

“Gag come.”

“Gag not eat Garlal. Garlal not bad, Garlal not eat little one, Garlal not eat two-legs.” Seth said, turning on his personal forcefield, just in case, and collapsing the dome. Vivian hopped on board and Seth turned the dome back on, and then they piloted the little transport to tree-top height above the clearing.

On the probe, Garlal whimpered, as the probe lifted her above the trees.

“Slight change of plans, as you saw, Lana.”

“You mean the way you pronounced divine judgement on Garal? Or the way you're moving the wrong Pred?”

“Yes. Any idea where we take Garlal?”

“Just past old Yasfort. You know Magdalena's cave?”

“Yes.”

“There's just been a big battle there. Two tribes almost battled each other to death. Orange dots and Yellow stripe. There are pups from both sides, a few wounded females — orange dot daughters, on the same side as one heir. He's a clever lad, semi-adult, he got a wound and played dead for most of it and then took out his father's killer and claimed victory, but he's probably no match for her in the state he's in. I suggest you tell her.”

“Garlal, Two tribes fight. Orange dots, yellow stripe. Orange dot meat, yellow dot meat. Two pack-leaders meat, one son hurt, son-sisters hurt. Mates dead. Orange-spot son good hunter. Good slave. Garlal go there. No hunt two-legs, no hunt pups. No eat slave.”

“Son-mates meat?”

“No son-mates. Garlal hungry slave, Him good hunter, hurt. You Garlal, me Seth. Seth mate Viv. Him make sky, him make rain, him make trees, him see. Him Seth big pack-leader, Him Viv pack-leader, him Garlal pack-leader. Him say, they talk, you no hunt. They talk hunt you? They make them food, you eat. They talk no hunt you, you no hunt they. You not they food, they not you food. Big pack-leader, him make you clever, you slave make clever daughters, clever son.”

“Slave no make son.”

“Garlal listen? Him see, Him see, Him listen. Him strong Him give? Slave make son, Him no give? Slave no make son.”

“Him see — Sky father?”

“Sky father say? Sky father make? Sky father listen? Sky father strong?”

“Sky father no say, one snow sun two... lots snow sun ... trees, sand snow sun!”

“Viv, they do have a concept of God!” Seth said excitedly. Turning back to Garlal, he asked. “Sky father say two-legs food?”

“No. Sky father say one mate, say four-legs, two legs, two wings one tribe. We say two legs two wings good food. We say we no one tribe, we lots tribe. He say: we one tribe, he say, he see. He say: we lots tribe, he no say, he no see, we meat. We flee. We no one tribe, we flee sky-father, he no see, no make he meat.” She let out a groan, and put her paws over her nose like a puppy. “Here sky! Sky father angry, sky-father see me. Sky father catch me! Me sky father food.”

“Food? No. You listen sky-father, sky-father happy. Make you sky-father daughter. Sky father see you.”

“You stupid. Same me see deer, make deer meat, same sky-father see four-legs, make meat.”

“Oh wow, she can do comparative analogies!” Seth exclaimed. “Garlal know sky-father? No! Me know sky-father. Garlal stupid. Garlal listen sky-father, Same mother see daughter-pup, same sky-father see you.”

“We one-tribe, sky-father mother-see we?” Garlal asked, shocked.

“Garlal clever.”

“Garlal meat.” she corrected him a little later. “Me sky-father daughter, say four-legs, four-legs make me meat. Me no sky-father daughter, sky father make me meat. Me no fight sky-father. Me sleep.”

“Did you hear all that conversation, Lana?”

“I did.” Lana replied “And now we know why they don't like the dead of different tribes next to each other: because they don't want God to see them and punish them. She's probably right though: a would-be evangelist who explains things badly is going to be meat very quickly.”

“It's a good job we've got forcefields available, then.” Vivian said. “What's happened to Garal?”

“Meat, like Seth predicted. All it took was one sniff for Gag to know what had happened to his sister, and the pack was hungry.”

----------------------------------------

Garlal looked at the male. He'd obviously been in a fight, but he was well built. “You clever fighter?” she asked.

“Clan you?”

“No. You clever?”

“Fight?”

“Me fight, you meat. Me no hungry fight. Me no hungry meat. You clever?”

“Me clever.”

“Say me.”

“Me kill pack-leader. Me pack-leader.”

“You young, you hurt, no pack. Hurt sisters, orange dot puppies, yellow stripe puppies.”

“Clan you?” He asked, struggling to his feet.

“Stupid! You no lie, you make you meat. You lie down, me lick you heal.

Me leave blue spot. Me no clan. You no paint me. One clan.”

“One clan?” he asked, sinking back down, confused. Just standing up had exhausted him.

“You clever?”

“Me clever!” He asserted.

“What say sky-father?” she asked as she started to lick his wounds clean.

“Sky father!” he would have jumped up in panic. But her weight was on him.

“What say sky-father?” She repeated.

“Me meat?” he asked, terrified.

“You no meat. You heal. You clever, you make me puppies. You slave me. You mate me slave me. No wives. We listen sky-father.”

“Listen sky father?”

“Me mother-see cubs. Me mother-see sisters you. Me lick you well. Sky father mother-see you. Him no hunt you. Sky father see lots. You listen me? You listen sky father. One mate. One clan.”

“Me hungry.”

“Viv bring meat.”

“Viv?”

“One clan. Viv hard-bone two-legs. Hard-bone two-legs make hard wind. Hard wind bring me here. You hunt Viv? Hard wind make you meat. Two-legs no food. Two wings no food. One clan.”

“You stupid. You make you meat.”

“You fight sky-father? Me one-clan. Clan sky-father. Me listen sky-father. Viv mother-see me. Seth mother-see me. Sky father mother-see me.”

“Here meat,” Viv said, depositing the deer carcass in front of her.

“You no bite. Hard wind bite. You see meat. Viv?”

“Vivian, I think she wants you to cut it up, show him how easy it is.” Seth said from his viewpoint above.

“I got that. Vivian the butcher's assistant to the rescue.” Vivian said, and chopped the remaining legs off the carcass (Garlal had eaten one off on the journey), then with a few more actions, she'd skinned the deer except for the portion on the ground.

“Viv clever,” Garlal said approvingly. “Happy puppies.”

“Puppies?” the male asked.

“You eat. Me Garlal. Garlal bring puppies.” And at that she did. First she brought the yellow stripe pups, washing off their stripes, then she brought the orange dot pups and their older sisters. Some couldn't walk, and she asked Seth and Viv to help.

Seeing this, the male said “Garlal clever, Garlal kind. Me Rul.”

“Rul listen Garlal?”

“Rul listen. Rul heal. Rul make pups?” he asked, wondering about her plans for him.

She lay down beside him and licked his wounds clean again.

“Moon come, sun come. Rul heal? Garlal see,” she replied, settling down beside him like a mate would. “One tribe. One mate.” Rul said and his sisters agreed.

They never knew about the prowling neighbours that stumbled into pits, decided to attack snakes and lost, or the dozen other fates that befell them. Sometimes, in the following months though, single males and females, refugees from battles or maltreated by their pack-mates, woke up at night feeling refreshed and restless with an urge to go somewhere else, to hear about a better way to live. And they found themselves drawn to a piece of land on one of the great migration routes of game-creatures, where they were met by an ever-more equal mixture of males and females, talking about listening to the sky-father.

Half a year after Rul and Garlal's first litter of cubs — two daughters and three sons, the neighbouring clan tried a sneak attack on a cool day under a threatening sky. To their shock, the foremost disturbed a pair of two-wings who were visiting, who shot into the air giving an alarm bugle that brought four males, almost the size of pack-leaders, and six two-legs. One of the two-legs held a yellowish knife that the four-legs recognised from the rumours that slowly spread from tribe to tribe. A yellow make-meat, they called such a knife. Another rumour spoke about two-legs that carried strange glowing sticks. Those, the rumour called hard wind make-meat. The shocked vanguard saw both sorts of make-meat, the two legs, the two-wings and the pack-leaders not competing for wives. It made no sense to three of the four, and they panicked, turning and fleeing. The fourth didn't panic, instead as the first drops of rain fell, and distant rumbles of thunder echoed around she joyfully bounded forward calling “One tribe! One tribe!” like an excited puppy.

Long ago, she had been waking up from a doze when she saw Viv and Seth flying Garlal to her new home. She hadn't been sure if it had just been a crazy dream, but she'd thought about what it might mean on and off since.

The main force, with the pack-lader behind them, saw first the vanguard panicking, and then the reason, and then they heard her and saw her behaviour.

Instantly realising she was joining the enemy they'd set out to destroy, they charged towards her in a tight pack, determined to put an end to her treason. The defenders watched, their hearts torn by what seemed inevitable unless she either stopped dancing and sprinted towards them or dropped to the ground to let them use a rock-cutter at long range — she was too far away for them to make any sane move that would defend her but not leave them too exposed to the charging mass of teeth and claws.

But they needn't have worried. As the pack-leader roared his fury at her cry a third time, lightning struck. It left the watchers blinking, and killed all of the charging attackers. The rescued female kept bouncing, her ears ringing, adding extra lines to her joyful song. “Sky father /see/ me! One mate, one tribe! Sky father see /me/! Me listen him!”