Julian May - The Many-Coloured Land

“I’ve been working on a new plan,” said Felice. “I’ve considered different possibilities and decided that the best place to get another torc would be near Finiah, where there are plenty of Tanu. They might even have a storehouse or a factory for the things. What we have to do is hide out until Amerie is healed, cross the Vosges, then hole up outside the city. We can rustle supplies from caravans or outlying settlements.”

Richard choked on his coffee.

Felice went on serenely, “And then, after we’ve analyzed their defenses and learned more about the actual technology of the torcs, we can work out plans for the strike.”

Richard set his little cup down on a tree root with great care. “Kid, you’ve conned us and bullied us into going along with your plans so far, and I’m not saying you didn’t do a damned good job getting us away from Epone and her stooges. But there is no way you’re gonna force me into a four-man invasion of a whole city full of exotic mind mashers!”

“You’d prefer to hide in the woods until they hunt you down?” she sneered. “They won’t stop searching, you know. And the Tanu will be coming out themselves instead of just sending human Slavics. If we follow my plan, if I get a golden torc, I’ll be a match for any of them!”

“That’s what you say. How do we know you’ll be able to get it up? And what’s in it for us? Do we get to be your loyal spear carriers while you’re playing Madam Commander? No friggerty golden torcs are going to do the rest of us poor normals any good. Sure as shit some of us’d get chopped by these freaks before your private guerrilla war was over, win or lose. You want to know what my plans are, bull-dolly?”

She sipped her drink, eyes hooded.

I’ll tell you!” Richard blustered. “I’m gonna rest up here for another day or two and repair my footgear, and then I’m heading north to the big rivers and the ocean, just like Yosh did. A little luck and I might even meet up with him. When I get to the Atlantic I’m sailing southward along the coast. While you’re doing your bandit-princess routine, I’ll be getting pissed on good wine and bouncing broads in my pirate shack in Bordeaux.”

“And the rest of us?” Claude kept his tone neutral.

“Come with me! Why not? I’ll be marching easy, not breaking my butt climbing to hell and gone over the Vosges. Listen, Claude, you and Amerie stick with me and I’ll help you find some nice peaceful place the Tanu never heard of. You’re kinda old to get mixed up in this crazy kid’s battles. And what life would it be for a nun, for God’s sake? This one kills people for fun.”

Felice said, “You’re wrong, Richard,” and drank coffee.

The old paleontologist turned from one to the other, then shook his head. “I’ve got to think about this. And there’s something else I’ve been meaning to do. If you don’t mind, I’ll just go a little farther into this grove of oak trees and spend some time alone.” He got to his feet, felt briefly in the big pocket of his bush jacket, and walked off.

“Take as long as you like, Claude,” Felice called. “I’ll see to Amerie. And keep a lookout, too.”

“Don’t get lost,” Richard added. Felice muttered an expletive under her breath.

Claude wandered along, automatically noting landmarks as he had done for so many years on freshly tamed planets. An oak with two massively drooping branches like ogre arms. A reddish pinnacle standing out amidst the gray granite. A dry meadow with a maple, one branch turned anomalously golden too early in the season. A little pool dotted with pink water-lilies, with a pair of ordinary mallard ducks swimming lackadaisically about. A spring issuing from the rocks, adorned with lacy ferns and shaded by a magnificent beech.

“How’s this, Gen?” the old man inquired.

He knelt down and held out his palms to the trickle, drank, then laved his forehead and the sunburnt back of his neck. Asperges me, Domine, hyssopo, et mundabor. Lavabis me, et super nivem dealbabor.

“Yes, I think this will do very well.”

He took a thin flat stone from the basin of the spring and went to the foot of the beech tree. After carefully removing a pad of moss, he dug a hole, set the carved wooden box into it, and replaced the soil and plants, patting them firm. He marked her resting place with no stone nor cross; those who cared about her knew where her dust lay. When he was finished he went back to the spring for a handful of water to refresh the disturbed moss, then sat down with his back against the tree trunk and closed his eyes.

When he awoke it was late afternoon. Something crouched at the spring and watched him with a wary light-green gaze.

Claude held his breath. It was one of the most beautiful little animals he had ever seen, its graceful and sinuous body not much longer than his hand, with a slender tail adding another twenty centimeters to its length. Its underparts were pale orange and the upper fur tan with subtle black shading rather like a kit fox. The feline face was full of intelligence, mild and unthreatening, for all that it resembled that of a miniaturized cougar.

It had to be Felis zitteli, one of the earliest of the true cats. Claude pursed his lips and whistled a soft, undulating call. The animal’s large ears cupped toward the sound. With infinite slowness, Claude slipped his hand into his pocket and withdrew a small piece of cheeselike algiprote.

“Pss-pss-pss,” he invited, placing the food on the mossy sward beside him.

Calmly, the little cat came to him, nostrils quivering, white whiskers pointing forward. It sniffed the food discreetly, tested it with a dainty pink tongue, and ate it. Eyes proportionally larger than those of a domestic cat and outlined in black looked at Claude in an unmistakably friendly fashion. There was a faint humming sound. Felis zitteli was purring.

The old man gave it more food, then ventured to touch it. The cat accepted his stroking, arching its back and curling its black-tipped tail into an interrogative curve. It came closer to Claude and butted its forehead against the side of his leg.

“Oh, you are a cutie, aren’t you? Tiny little teeth. Do you eat insects and little rock critters, or do you fish for minnows?” The cat tilted its head and bestowed a melting glance, then leaped into his lap, where it settled down with every evidence of familiarity. Claude petted the pretty thing and spoke softly to it while shadows purpled and a chill breeze stole through the grove.

“I’ll have to be going,” he said reluctantly, slipping one hand beneath the warm little belly and lifting the cat to the ground. He got to his feet, expecting the animal to take fright at the movement and flee. But it only sat down and watched him, and when he moved away, it followed.

He chuckled and said “Shoo,” but it persisted. “Are you an instant domestic?” he asked it, and then thought of Amerie, who would face a long stint of convalescence with him and Richard on their way north. If they left Felice behind (and there seemed no alternative), the nun would fret about her as well as brood over her own guilt. Perhaps this charming little cat would be a distraction.

“Will you ride in my pocket? Or do you prefer shoulders?” He picked it up and inserted it into the bellows like pocket of his jacket. It turned about several times and then settled down with its head out, still purring.

“That’s that, then.” The old man lengthened his stride, passing from landmark to landmark until he came back into the open part of the oak grove where they had set up camp.

The two decamole cabins were gone.

Throat constricted, heart racing, Claude staggered back behind a huge tree bole, leaning with his back to the trunk until his pulse slowed. He peered cautiously out, studying the clearing where the camp had been. It was empty of their equipment. Even the fire trench and the remains of the roasted deer were gone. There were no footprints, no broken ferns or shrubs to indicate a scuffle (take Felice without a fight?), nothing to show there had ever been human beings among the big old trees.