Foster, Alan Dean Life Form(1)

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"Oh, yes!" Her response was brightened by the familiar childlike Xican enthusiasm. "There
was a big fight. Though we made lots of noise as we approached their village I think we
surprised them a little, like you said we should. We didn't mean to, but we did." As she
spoke she gestured emphatically, her two opposable thumbs crossing repeatedly behind
the pair of long middle fingers.
"Several Quwanga were slain."
"And the Pendju?" Simna inquired. "Did you have casualties?"
"Two wounded. They are recovering still. And two dead. Tumati, and Boutu."
Simna sat up straight on his mat, unsure he'd heard correctly. "Boutu? The Boutu who
always went with us and who showed us around the forest? Your Boutu?" She responded
affirmatively.
His companions had immediately picked up on his emotional shift. Simna often appeared
preoccupied, but dazed was another matter.
"What is it, Jack?" Lejardin inquired anxiously. "What's wrong?"
His voice was slightly unsteady. "It's Boutu. Boutu's dead. He was killed in the raid on the
Quwanga village."
Halstead didn't speak. Instead he wrenched off his wide-brimmed hat and threw it angrily
at his pack. Prentice picked at a loose mat fiber between his legs and sighed heavily.
"Not Boutu." Millie Carnavon's face expressed the unexpected sense of loss they all felt.
"He was so sweet. I always had the feeling that he not only wanted to help us, but that he
actually cared about us."
"He was a good .. . person," her husband added.
Mahd'ji sensed their concern even if she couldn't understand their words. "He fought well.
He brought credit and honor to the Pendju." She did not seem particularly distraught.
"So what happens now?" Carnavon's tone was uncharacteristically bitter. "The Quwanga
attacked you, you've retaliated against the Quwanga. Is it their turn again? Should we
expect an attack tomorrow, or the next day?"
She looked startled, as if the very notion was utterly alien. "Oh, no! Of course not. The
fighting is over for the Season."
"What season?" a baffled Prentice inquired.
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"Why, the Fighting Season, of course. They have made their raid, and we have made ours.
Both sides have suffered loss. Now there is the time to rest and recover. You were not here
to greet us upon our return, but we only just came home. We were helping the Quwanga to
repair the damage we did to their village. Soon they will come here, to help us with ours."
Carnavon frowned. "So after you get through killing and maiming and burning, you all go
out hunting and fishing together?"
"Some of your words are not right." It was her way of politely deferring to Carnavon's less
than ideal pronunciation. "But I think I understand most of what you are saying. Yes, after
the fighting is over we help each other."
"Then why fight in the first place?" Carnavon doubted she could sense his exasperation.
"We have talked about this before. Fighting is what gives life its flavor. It stimulates and
invigorates."
"Unless you get killed." Simna raised his voice as he addressed his colleagues. "You all hear
that?"
"You know we don't, Jack," said Lejardin. "We don't have your command of the idiom."
"Sorry. Mahd'ji says that now that they've done their best to beat one another's brains in,
they're going to get together like old buddies and help repair each other's war damage." He
shifted his backside on the rug. "See, nonhu-man sociology isn't that hard. You slaughter
your neighbors and when you've done an adequate job of it, you get together and party."
"Barbaric," she murmured.
"Not at all," he corrected her. "It's just an alien intelligence at work. That's what we keep
forgetting here. We don't have to empathize with their ways; just accept them.
Understanding can come later."
Lastwell had selected a shady spot beneath a Ch 'civ tree and, after checking the ground for
crawling things, had settled down for a long sip from his pack cooler.
"I don't see evidence of much intelligence at work here. Me, I wouldn't be lifting a second
thumb to help these Quwanga. They killed Boutu, the best friend we had among the
Pendju. How can Mahd'ji think of workin' with them? Wasn't he her mate, or something?"
"That's how I understood the relationship." Simna hesitated. "I could have been wrong."
"Well, even if he was her fucking occasional boyfriend," Lastwell continued in the same
even tone of voice, "I wouldn't have left that Quwanga village until I'd gutted every last one
of the sneaky four-fingered bastards."
Simna commented with his usual dryness. "That is hardly a scientific attitude, Frank."
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"It's not how they work it here, Captain." Prentice adjusted his own rug. "Remember what
we decided after Cody died? Assume that nothing here is quite what it seems? That goes
for the Pendju and the Quwanga as much as for the rest of the fauna and flora."
"No shit." Lastwell punctuated his understanding with a sardonic smile.
"When we go to help the Quwanga," Mahd'ji informed them, "you could come with us. I
am sure they could help you as much as we have."
Carnavon shifted until he was sitting on his knees. "But they killed your mate. They killed
Boutu. How can you be friends with them, much less work alongside them?"
Her response was somber. "There are not that many Pendju or Quwanga. We must help
each other. This is an important principle."
"I agree, I agree," Carnavon replied impatiently. "So why kill each other and make fewer of
each tribe?"
"Because it stimulates and ..."
"We know." A thoroughly vexed Simna interrupted her as readily as he would have one of
his own colleagues. "I don't know if we're ready to meet the Quwanga, Mahd'ji. I don't
know if I want to meet the people who killed Boutu."
"Why not?" She was genuinely perplexed. "I know they would greet you as we have and try
to help you in your work. We have already spoken to them of you."
Lastwell caught enough of her declamation to sit away from the trunk of the tree and look
around nervously. "The Quwanga know that we're here?" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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