C. Cherryh: Cuckoo's Egg

"Thorn," Duun said. "Come here. This is Ellud. Be polite, Thorn."

"Is he a med?" Thorn asked suspiciously.

Ellud's ears sank. A rock might have spoken to him in plain accents and shocked him no less. He looked at Duun. Said nothing.

"No." said Duun. "A friend. Many years ago."

Thorn looked up and blinked. A med came and got him and prepared to take his pulse.

"Come back to town," Ellud said. "Duun, come back."

"Is that a request or an order?"

"Duun-"

"I'd remind you that you promised me anything. Not yet, Ellud."

That evening Thorn was silent, gloomy, thoughtful. He did not ask about Ellud. Did not discuss the meds.

Thorn slept apart now. There were changes in his body which made this advisable. He went to his room of the many rooms in the house and curled up into his privacy. Duun came to check on him.

"Are my ears going to grow?" Thorn asked, looking at him from the pillow as he stood in the doorway.

Ears. Maybe that was the easiest, least painful thing to ask. Duun stood silent. He had planned how he would answer about claws and hair and the shape of their faces and the difference of their loins. He had planned everything but ears.

"I don't think so," Duun said. "I don't care, do you?"

Silence, from the small shadow in the bedbowl.

"You're unusual," Duun said.

A snuffle.

"I like you that way," Duun said.

"I like you," came the small, disembodied voice. Another snuffle. "I like you, Duun." Love was, Duun recalled, not a word he had ever used in Thorn's hearing. Like you. As one liked a warm fire. The sun on one's back.

"I like you too, Thorn."

"I don't want any more meds."

"I'll talk to them about that. Do you want to go hunting tomorrow? I'll give you a knife of your own. I'll show you how to keep the blade."

"Hunting what?" Snuffle. Shadow-child wiped his eyes with a swipe of an arm; nose with another. There was interest in the voice.

"I'm hatani, Thorn. That's something hard to be. That's why I push you hard."

"What's hatani?"

"I'll show you. Tomorrow. I'll teach you. You'll learn to do what I can do. It's going to be hard, Thorn."

Another wipe of the eyes.

"Tomorrow, Thorn?"

"Yes."

"Get to sleep, then."

Duun went back to the fire. Wind howled outside, in cold. The fire leapt. The last of the old countryfolk lumber was gone. They began to use an old log from downslope. He cut it with the power saw he had ordered with supplies and brought it up, bit by bit. None of the countryfolk from the valley would bother the pile he had made on the roadside below. They kept out of his sight and left no sign near the house. But he knew that they were there.

They would know hatani patience. Countryfolk had patience of their own. Perhaps things would change. Perhaps the hatani would die. Perhaps the alien would meet with accident. Perhaps their title would become valid again.

Perhaps they had bad dreams, down in the valley, on the other side of the mountain, out of his sight and mind. Perhaps they dreamed nightmares, imagining that their woods were no longer their own.

Or that the woods might not be theirs again, forever.

He had asked for the house and lands of Sheon. He had not used the lands, till now.

He took his weapons from the top shelf of the locked cabinet where they had remained out of the way of curious young fingers. He had taken them out many times to care for them, and never let Thorn touch them, to Thorn's great frustration. A child should have unfulfilled ambitions; should know some things forbidden. Doubtless Thorn had tried. Children were not always virtuous. That was to be expected. And dealt with.

"Have you ever tried these?" Duun asked, when Thorn sat opposite him, across the blanket from the small array of knives, cord, wire, the two guns, one projectile-firing and one not. "Have you ever handled them?"

"No," Thorn said.

"Will you ever, if I tell you no?"

Alien eyes lifted to him, in startlement that at once dilated and contracted the irises: swift, furtive decision to agree, the easy course, swiftly to be violated-perhaps. If a child wished. There would be a quick flick of a reproving finger against an ear. Perhaps a cuff to make the eyes water. Thorn could endure that. There was no permanency. Nothing was forever. As he lacked a past, he lacked a true future, and believed nothing could thwart him forever.

There was no can't for Thorn. Duun had taught him so.

"I am not asking you," Duun said, holding up the solitary finger of his right hand. "I am telling you a thing. I want you to believe this. Will you ever pick these up if I tell you no?"

From childish excitement, from game to perplexity. Thorn's brow contracted in a spasm of anxiety. Perhaps Duun would break his promise? Perhaps he was being teased?

Duun took off the cloak and dropped it behind him. He picked up the wer , a middling blade. He stretched out his bare left arm, fist clenched, and set the knife against his forearm.

"No!" Thorn cried suddenly. A game? A threat? Something he had done wrong? Duun was teasing him?

Duun slowly brought the blade down and down, deeply. Blood sprang out and rained in steady, heavy drops on the weapons and the blanket. He kept his fist clenched and held the arm steady, resting the knife butt on his knee. Thorn's eyes were wide, his mouth open with nothing coming out.

"That's what weapons are for," Duun said. The blood poured, soaked the blanket. "Each time you take them up, remember what they're for."

"Stop it," Thorn cried. "Duun, stop it bleeding!"

Duun held out the knife, the wounded arm still spurting. He turned it in his maimed hand and offered it hilt first to Thorn. "Can you do it?"

Thorn took the bloodied knife. His eyes still were wide. His lips set themselves, drawn in. He held out his own clenched fist and set the knife to his skin. He drew the blade down the same way, and his face was red and his eyes poured tears; his nostrils and his lips went pale. He drew the knife down. Blood began to drip. The small hand drew away, the knife wobbling in tremors that convulsed the knife-arm and began to involve the other. As Duun had done, he set the knife hand on his knee, and his face was all white and beaded with moisture, while the blood ran down and made another darkening of the blanket.

So. So. Duun had expected last-moment flinching. His own head grew light. His cut was deeper and bled abundantly. He held out his hand and took the knife back. He saw the terror in the child. (What more, Duun? What else? What worse? I'm scared , Duun!)

"It is not a game," Duun said. He put down the knife and pressed his right hand to his wound. "You can hold it. Hold it tight." He got up from his cross-legged posture without using either hand. He went and opened the med kit and pressed a sealing film on the wound. He came back to Thorn with another square of the gel, and pressed the film to Thorn's arm and held it, warming it with his hand until it took and stayed, soft and blood-reddened, over a wound that would scar. Duun held the arm.

Alien eyes looked up at him, white all round. He was tender in his grip. "You won't forget," Duun said. "You won't forget what weapons are. You will never pick them up when I tell you not."

"No." A small weak voice. "You will use them when I say. And you'll set them down when I say." "Yes."

"Good." He slid a bloodstained hand past Thorn's head and rubbed Thorn's nape in the vise of his maimed hand till the tension left and Thorn's body gave to and fro with that motion, his eyes still fixed on Duun. "Believe me, Thorn. Believe me in this. You hurt now. But you did what I asked. That was brave."

Muscles in Thorn's face shook, as in some dire chill. His limbs convulsed. Stopped. Duun kept on his massage until the shiver passed. Thorn's eyes lost their wild look. They were wide and moiled with forethought and calculations. (What else does he want? What did I win? What did I do? What next?)