C. Cherryh: Cuckoo's Egg

"Add nine. Subtract four, eighty-two. Six."

The hands came down. Eyes blinked. "I'm sorry, Duun, I lost it, I forgot-"

"No. You didn't remember. Think. Name me the numbers." "I-"

"Am I about to hear can't? "

"Didn't"

"Didn't. Didn't. There was a nest of maganin; here and here and here! How many were they? Which groups? Where? They've eaten you, fool!"

"Maganin don't come in fifties!"

"I am ashamed." Duun thrust his hands into the waist of his kilt and walked away.

"Duun-"

Duun turned, ears pricked. "You've remembered."

"No! No, I haven't remembered! I can't remember! I don't remember!"

"Then I'm still ashamed." Duun laid his ears back, turned and walked on.

"Duun-"

Duun did not look back. There were tears back there. Rage. It was Thorn's nature.

So was it Thorn's nature to come trailing back into the house, finally, when it was dark, when Duun had made a fire and sat on the sand before the hearth. Duun had cooked food. He had eaten. He had brought Thorn's supper outside and set it wordlessly on the step. Thorn was not to be seen. But it was in Thorn's nature to admit defeat when night came.

Thorn came and stood on the sand beside him. "Two hundred twenty-four," Thorn said.

Duun's ears pricked. "Plus nine. Minus four. Eighty-two. Six."

"One forty-one."

"Ah. You can."

Thorn knelt. Leaned on his hands. "What in the world comes in two hundred twenty-fours?"

"Stars. Trees. Kinds of grass. The ways of a river. The stubbornness of a child. The world is wide, young Thorn. I can reckon the speed of the wind, name the stars, the cities of the world. I can read a man's intent in the pupils of his eyes."

Duun swung around and struck, open palmed. Thorn's open palm was there to meet it, stopped it, held and trembled.

"Ah. You are hatani, are you? Back away, little fish. You're not ready to take me. Drop the hand."

It was a trap. Thorn refused it. Thorn held still, eyes wide and white-rimmed, palm trembling against his palm, and Duun lowered his ears.

"Now what will you do?" Duun asked.

"Let me go." The tremor grew. "Let me go, Duun."

Duun reached out his maimed right hand and encircled Thorn's wrist gently with the span of his two fingers. Pulled. The hand refused to leave contact with his palm. The arm shook. Thorn's eyes were dilated, watched his feverishly.

"What are you going to do now, little fish? You have a problem now, don't you? You've let me get two hands into it."

Thorn lifted his other hand. It froze in that lifting, trembling.

"Not wise. Not wise at all," Duun said. "You're overmatched. You'd better stop. Don't you think?" "Let go,."

"Relax. Relax and trust me." "No!"

"There was a time I told you, do you remember?-when you took up the knife, I said that you would take it up when I told you; and when I told you, you would lay it down. This is the time, Thorn. Now I tell you to let go. Do you hear me? I tell you to lay it down, Thorn." The tremor grew. The palm slowly left his palm. Duun clenched his hand on Thorn's wrist and jerked him against his chest. Thorn, utterly off his balance, collapsed against him. Duun grinned, grasped him by both arms, claws out, shook him back in that grip and stared into eyes face to face. "I would have torn your throat out just then. Do you believe it?" "No."

"Why would I not?" "I don't know, Duun!"

Duun let him go. Thorn collapsed onto his rump and sat up and rubbed his arms. There would be bruises and clawmarks. Duun knew. "Are you a fool, then?" Duun asked. "Why did you do that?"

"You would have hit me," Thorn said, perfect logic.

"Yes," Duun said.

Another change. Thorn sat with his jaw loose, stunned silence in his watering eyes. The boy discovered chaos in the world, sums that had no right answer. "The world's full of two-way bad choices," Duun said. "Numbers always work out. You can trust them. That's why we learn numbers. To set some order in the world. There's no other part of life where things work out. Do you see that?"

"Yes." Thorn's teeth chattered. "I see."

"You are hatani. Wei-na-hatani, little fish. A small one. A hatani is not the weapons. Is not the knife, the gun. A hatani is not these things. I told you that the time would come to lay these things down. Now you have no need of them. You can pick up the knife and lay it down again. A hatani is not the knife. Do you understand? Not the skin or the claws or the eyes. Do you understand? I teach you. You become hatani. Inside."

Thorn blinked rapidly. Gasped for breath. "Duun, where did you get me?"

"Where do you think?"

"I don't know."

"But you trust me. Don't go to every morsel, little fish. Some are traps. Don't I teach you? Use your wits. Add only what can be added.

Remember all the figures, even so. Never lose one. That one will surely come from behind and kill you. There are no second tries in the world. Nothing is twice."

"How can you know anything?"

"Remember all the numbers. Even the long-ago ones. Never drop any. You don't know when they'll be needed. Reject nothing. You don't know what you might need. I give you these things."

"Where did you get me?"

"I pulled you from the river, little fish. You were drowning and I saved you."

"Is that truth, Duun?"

"I lied." Duun reached out the finger of his hand and brushed Thorn's cheek, where a light down had grown. Hair began to grow and darken elsewhere on Thorn's body. Thorn's hope and his despair. (It's worse than nothing, Thorn cried, before the mirror in the bath. I'm all in patches, Duun!) Other signs were on him. "I tell you, I think you should cut this, little fish; you're right: it's here and there-I'd make it even."

"Stop it. Don't distract me! I want an answer, Duun."

"Ah. You uncover my tricks, do you?" "I want an answer, Duun." "The minnow has hatani tricks." "I want an answer, Duun."

Duun pursed his lips. Laid his ears back. "Put that answer with my hand. Beat me and I'll answer you."

Thorn's shoulders slumped. His head bowed. True defeat. Then he glanced up with a piercing, anxious look.

"Duun-Duun, tell me the truth. One truth. Be fair to me. Do you know?"

"Yes," Duun said, and gazed at him steadily until Thorn turned his face away.

Faith am I when all you trust has died;

Truth am I when all you know has lied.

Choice I bring when the choice you had is sped;

Promise am I when all other faith has fled.

Vengeance am I but I come to you at cost;

One gain am I when all else you want is lost.

Thorn sang. It was a hatani song. Duun listened, as to the other lessons, listened half-dreaming as he played. There was a sweetness in Thorn's voice, all unsuspected, a skill in his hands which ran upon the strings. Perhaps it was a native fierceness that made the boy love this song; perhaps it was the innocence of that downlands child who questioned a hatani's scars, happy in ignorance. Perhaps Thorn only loved the tune. He sang it well.

Duun took over the dkin and strummed out a new rhythm with his two-fingered right hand. Rapped the beat on the sounding-board, and Thorn with native skill took the beat on the small drum.

The young head bent to the music, young eyes looked up slyly from beneath a fall of dark hair, lately shaven lips widened in a grin. Thorn had given up on the hair of his face. That on his body he still cultivated. Besides, the razor burned. (You look better, Duun had told him, when Thorn had done the deed and crept out for approval. And Thorn looked profoundly relieved.)

Vulnerable. Oh, vulnerable, young Thorn.

Green beneath the summer sun,

White beneath the snow,