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minutes," he said, and he moved off to the right and de-
parted the room.
Billy set down the glass and rose. He paced the room,
regarded the titles on the bookshelves, felt the volumes'
spines, sniffed the air. Mingled with the smell of old leather,
a faint, almost acrid aroma he had not been able to place
earlier came to him again, a scent he had experienced upon
meeting Strageans in the past, in another place. They must
have been about this building for some time, he decided, or
have been in this room very recently, to mark it so with their
presence. He remembered them as humanoid, over two
meters in height, dark-skinned save for silvery faces, necks
and breasts; flat-headed, narrow-waisted beings with wide
shoulders, collarlike outgrowths of spiny material which
served as sound-sensors and small, feral eyes, slitted, usu-
ally yellow but sometimes cinnamon or amber in color;
hairless, graceful in a many-jointed, insectlike way, they
moved quietly and spoke a language that reminded him
vaguely of Greek, which he did not understand either.
It is language, he decided, that sets the sentients apart
from the animals. Isn't it?
Cat...?
He moved to the window, stared out across the lawn.
Difficult to cross there without being detected, he con-
cluded, with even the simplest security devices in operation.
And this place must have plenty. But she could assume
almost any guise, could penetrate the place in an innocuous
form....
Why be furtive, though? That is what they would be
expecting. While the defenders were concentrating on the
sophisticated, why not hijack a heavy vehicle, come barrel-
ing across the lawn, crash through a wall, jump down from
the cab and start shooting everything that moves?
He shook himself and turned away. This was not his
problem. There must be plenty of people more qualified than
himself to second-guess the alien, no matter what the com-
puter said.
He returned to his chair and took up his drink. Footsteps
were approaching now from the direction in which Tedders
had departed. Footsteps, and the soft sound of voices,
accompanied by a faint ringing in his ears. The language of
the Strageans ranged into the ultrasonic on the human scale,
and though they narrowed their focus when speaking Terran
tongues there were always some overtones. Too long a
conversation with a Stragean normally resulted in a head-
ache. He took another drink and lowered the glass as they
rounded the corner.
The two Strageans wore dark blue kilts and belts which
crossed their breasts like bandoliers. Ornamental pins or
badges of office were affixed to these latter. Between Ted-
ders and the aliens walked another man, short, heavy, with
just a fringe of dark hair; his eyes were jadelike under heavy
brows; he wore a green robe and slippers. Billy recognized
him as UN Secretary-General Milton Walford.
Tedders introduced him to Daltmar Stango and Orar Bo-
garthy as well as to Walford. Everyone was seated then, and
Tedders said, "They will tell you more about this."
Billy nodded.
The Stragean known as Daltmar Stango, staring at nothing
directly before him, recited: "It has to do with the coming of
your people to stay on our world. There is already a sizable
enclave of them there, just as there is of our kind here on
Earth. There has been very little trouble on either world
because of this. But now, with my present mission to negoti-
ate political and trade agreements, it appears that the settle-
ments will become permanent diplomatic posts."
He paused but a moment, as if to refocus his thoughts, and
then continued: "Now, there is a small religious group on
Strage which believes that when Terrans die there, their life
essences foul the place of the afterlife. Permanent posts will
guarantee that this group's fears will be realized with in-
creasing frequency as time goes on. Hence, they are against
any agreements with your people, and they would like all of
them off our world."
"How large a group are they?" Billy asked.
"Small. Fifty to a hundred thousand members, at most. It
is not their size which is important, though. They are an
austere sect, and many of them undertake a severe course of
training which sometimes produces spectacular effects in the
individual."
"So I've heard."
"One such individual has taken it upon herself to correct
matters. She commandeered a vessel and set a course for
Earth. She feels that an assassination at this level will
disrupt our negotiations to the point where there will be no
treaty - and that this will lead to the withdrawal of Terrans
from our world."
"How close is she to the truth?"
"It is always difficult to speculate in these matters, but it
would certainly slow things down."
"And she's due to arrive in a few days?"
"Yes. We received the information from other members of
her sect, and they could not be more precise. They did not
learn the story in its entirety until after her departure, when
they informed the authorities. They were anxious that it be
known she was acting on her own initiative and not under
orders."
Billy smiled.
"Who can say?" he said.
"Yes. At any rate, since a message can travel faster than a
ship, the warning was sent."
"You must know best how to stop one of your own
people."
"The problem seldom occurs," Daltmar said. "But the
customary method is to set a team of similarly endowed
adepts after a wrongdoer. Unfortunately..."
"Oh."
"So we must make do with what is at hand," the alien
went on. "Your people will try to intercept her in space, but
projections only give them a twenty-seven percent chance of
success. Have you any ideas?"
Cat?
"No," Billy replied. "If it were a dangerous animal, I'd
want to study it in its habitat for a time."
"There is no way and no time."
"Then I don't know what to tell you."
Walford produced a small parcel from the pocket of his
robe.
"There is a chip in here that I want you to take back with
you and run through your machine," he said. "It will tell you
everything we know about this individual and about others
of that sort. It is the closest thing we can give you to a life
study."
Billy rose and accepted the package.
"All right," he said. "I'll take it home and run it. Maybe
something will suggest itself."
Walford and the others rose to their feet. As Billy turned
toward the transporter, the Stragean called Orar Bogarthy
spoke.
"Yours is one of the aboriginal peoples of this continent?"
he said.
"Yes," Billy replied, halting but not turning.
"Have the jewels in your earlobes a special significance?
Religious, perhaps?"
Billy laughed.
"I like them. That's all."
"And the one in your hair?"
Billy touched it as he turned slowly.
"That one? Well... it is believed to protect one from
being struck by lightning."
"Does it work?"
"This one has. So far."
"I am curious. Being struck by lightning is not the most
common occurrence in life. Why do you wear it?"
"We Navajos have a thing about lightning. It destroys
taboos. It twists reality. Not a thing to fool around with."
He turned away, moved ahead, punched a series of num-
bers, stepped up into the unit. He glanced up at the expres-
sionless humans and aliens as the delay factor passed and his
body began to melt.
Traveling the distance from hill to hill,
passing from place to place as the wind passes,
trackless. There should be a song for it,
but I have never learned the words.
So I sing this one of my own making:
I am become a rainbow, beginning there
and ending here. I leave no mark
upon the land between as I arc
from there to here. May I go in beauty.
May it lie before, behind, above and below,
to the right and the left of me.
I pass cleanly through the gates of the sky.
WE CALL IT THE ENEMYWAY,
the old man said, but the white people came along and
started calling it a squaw danc - probably because they saw
the women dancing for it. You get a special name if you're
the one they're going to sing over, a warrior's name. It's a
sacred name you're just supposed to use in ceremonials, not
the kind you go around telling everybody or just letting
people call you by.
It all started, he said, back when Nayenezgani was pro-
tecting the People. He killed off a whole bunch of monsters
that were giving us a hard time. There was the Horned
Monster and Big God and the Rock Monster Eagle and the
Traveling Rock and a lot of others. That was why he got to
be called Monster-Slayer. His fourth monster, though, was
called Tracking Bear. It was a bear, but it looked more like a
lion the size of a floatcar. Once it came across your tracks, it
would start following them and it wouldn't stop until it had
found you and had you for dinner on the spot.
Nayenezgani went out and tracked the tracker and then let
it track him. But when it finally found him, he was ready. He
wasn't called Monster-Slayer for nothing. When it was all
over, the world was that much safer.
But at about that time, it started to get to him. He suffered
for it because of all those enemies he killed, and the bear just
added another one to their band. Their spirits followed him
around and made him pretty miserable. This is where the
word Anaa'ji, for the Enemyway, comes from. Naayee'
means an enemy, or something really bad that's bothering
you. Now, neezghani means "he has gotten rid of it," and
ana'i means an enemy that's been gotten rid of. So Anaa'ji is
probably really the best word to call it by. It's a ceremony
for getting rid of really bad troubles.
HE PACED. THE SCREEN STILL
glowed. He had not turned off the unit after viewing the
chip. The walls seemed to lean toward him, to press in upon
him. The wind was singing a changing song he almost
understood. He paused at various times, to inspect an old
basket, an ancient flaked spear point, the photograph of a
wild landscape beneath an indigo sky. He touched the barrel
of a high-powered rifle, took the weapon into his hands,
checked it, replaced it on its pegs. Finally he turned on his
heel and stepped outside into the night.
He stood upon the decking which surrounded the hogan.
He peered into the shadows. He looked up at the sky.
"I have no words..." he began, and a part of his mind
mocked the other part. He was, as always, conscious of this
division. When it had first occurred he could no longer say.
"... But you require an answer."
He was not even certain what it was that he addressed.
The Navajo language has no word for "religion." Nor was
he even certain that that was the category into which his
feelings fell. Category? The reason there was no word was
that in the old days such things had been inextricably boun
certain sentiments. Most of those around him even now did
not find this strange. But they had changed. He had also,
though he knew that his alteration was of a different order.
"He behaves as if he had no relatives" - this was the worst
thing one Navajo might say of another, and he knew that it
applied to him. The gulf was deeper than his absence, his
marriage, anything he had done. Others had gone away for
long times, had married outside the clans, and had still come
back. But for him it was part of a temporal experience,
literally as well as spiritually true. He had no relatives. A
part of him wanted it that way. The other part...
"I may have done a great wrong," he continued. "If I took
him from his land, as the People were taken to Fort Sumner.
If I took him from his own kind, who are no more. If I left
him alone in a strange place, like a captive among the Utes.
Then I have done a wrong. But only if he is a real person."
He scanned the skies. "May he not be," he said then. "May
it all be a dream of possibility, a nothingness - that which
has troubled me across the years." He circled the hogan,
staring off into the trees. "I had thought that not knowing
was best - which may make me a coward. Yet I would have
gone on this way for the rest of my days. Now -"
An owl fled past him, making a soft whooing noise.
An evil omen, a part of his mind decided, for the owl is the
bird of death and ill things.
An owl, the other part affirmed. They hunt at night. It is
nothing more.
"We have heard one another," he called after the bird. "I
will find out what I have done and know what I must do."
He went back inside and reached up among cobwebs to
where a key hung from a viga. He took it into his hand and
rubbed it. He ran his finger along it as if it were as unusual an
item as the spear point. Then, abruptly, he dropped it into
his pocket. He crossed the room and switched off the
glowing screen.
Turning, he then stepped among the bars of the trip-box,
activated the control unit and punched a code. He focused
his eyes upon the red Ganado rug and watched it turn pink
and go away.
Darkness amid the tiny streetlights, and the sound of
crickets outside the booth...
He stepped out of the shelter and sniffed the damp air'.
Large, shadow-decked trees; enviable quantities of grass
furring hillsides; heavy, squat, monolithic buildings, dark
now, save for little entranceway lights providing tiny grot-
toes which only accentuated the blackness elsewhere; no
people in sight.
He moved along the sidewalk, crossed the street, cut up a
hillside. There were guards about, but he avoided them
without difficulty. Balboa Park was quiet now, its spectacles
closed to the public until morning. The lights of San Diego
and the traffic along its trailways were visible from various
high points he crossed, but these seemed distant, part of
another world. He moved soundlessly from shadow to
shadow. He had chosen a public booth he had sometimes
liked to use long ago, when he had come on normal, daytime
business, enjoying the walk rather than tripping directly into
the place with which he was associated. That place, of
course, was now closed for the night, its trip-box also shut
down.
For fifteen minutes he continued his trek, climbing and
hiking toward the vast, sprawling complex that was the
Interstellar Life Institute. He avoided sidewalks, parking
lots and roads as much as possible. Mixed animal smells
from the San Diego Zoo were occasionally borne to him in
open areas by vagrant currents of wind. Rich and jungley,
the smells of some of the zoo foliage also came to him. These
sensations stirred memories of other exotic creatures in
other places. He recalled the capture of the wire-furred
wullabree in a pen of ultrasonics, the twilpa in an ice pit, four
outan in a vortex of odors....
The ILI complex came into sight and he slowed. For a
long while he stood halted, simply watching the place. Then,
slowly, he circled it, pausing often to watch again.
Finally he stood at the rear of the building near a small
parking lot containing but a single car. He crossed and used
his key in the door of the employees' entrance which ad-
joined it.
Inside, he moved without the need for light, traversing a
series of corridors, then mounting a small stair. He came to a
watchman's station he remembered, then used his passkey
to let himself into a nearby maintenance supply closet. There
he waited for twenty minutes until a uniformed old man
shuffled by, halted, inserted a key into the alarm unit and
moved on.
Shortly thereafter, he emerged and entered the first hall.
Some of the life units at either hand were eerily illuminated,
simulating the natural. lighting cycles of their inhabitants'
homes, tinged by odd atmospheric compounds or reflecting
meteorological peculiarities necessary for the creatures'
well-being. He passed drifting gas balloons, crawling coral
branches, slimy Maltese crosses, pulsating liver-colored
logs, spiny wave-snakes, a Belgarde simoplex gruttling in its
tangle-hole, a striped mertz, a pair of divectos, a compacted
tendron in a pool of ammonia. The stalked eyes of a wormsa
marakye followed his passage as they had that day on the
wind barrens when it had almost collected him. He did not
pause to return this regard, nor to inspect any of those
others he knew so well.
He traversed the entire hall, departed it, entered another.
The faint hum of generators was with him always. Despite
the hermetic quality of the life units, unusual odors reached
him from somewhere. He ignored all of the signs, knowing
what they said. The specimens in this second hall were
larger, fiercer-looking than those in the one through which
he had just passed. Here he glanced at several with some-
thing almost like affection, muttering quietly in the language
of the People. He began humming very softly as he entered
the third hall.
After only a few paces, he began to slow.
Rocks on a plain of fused silicates... No visible partition
between that place and the rest of the hall, as in a few others
he had passed. Atmospheric equivalence...
He continued to slow. He halted.
A weak, pointless light suffused that plain. He seemed to
hear a sighing sound.
His humming ceased and his mouth grew dry.
"I have come," he whispered, and then he approached the
exhibit placarded TORGLIND METAMORPH.
Sand and rock. Yellow and glassy and orange. Streaks of
black. Nothing stirred.
"Cat...?" he said.
He drew nearer and continued to stare. It was no use.
Even his eyes could not tell for certain. It was not just the
He searched his memory of the manner in which the
display had originally been set up. Yes. That rock, to the
left...
The rock moved, even as he recalled the disposition of the
environment. It rolled toward the center. It changed shape,
growing more spherical as it negotiated a dip.
"There is a thing I must say, a thing I must try to do...."
It elongated, unfolded a pair of appendages, propped itself
upon them.
"I have wondered, wondered whether you might really
understand me, if I tried - hard enough."
It grew another pair of appendages toward its rearward
extremity, formulated a massive head, a fat, triangular tail.
"If you know anyone, you know me. I brought you here.
The scars of our battle have been erased from my body, but
none gave me a greater fight than yourself."
Its outline flowed. It became sleek and glistening, a thing
of rippling cords beneath a glassy surface. Its head devel-
oped a single faceted eye at its center.
"I have come to you. I must know whether you have
understanding. For a time I thought that you might. But you
have never shown it since. Now I must know. Is there sense
in that brute head of yours?"
The creature stretched and turned away from him.
"If you can communicate with anyone, in any fashion, let
it be me, now. It is very important,"
It paced across the area toward his right.
"It is not just idle curiosity that brings me here. Give me
some sign of intelligence, if you possess it."
It looked at him for a moment through that cold, unblink-
ing gem at its head's center. Then it turned away once again,
its color darkening until it could go no further. Coal, inky,
absolute blackness filled its outline.
The shadow slid away toward the rear of the area and
vanished.
"In a way, you have pleased me," he said then. "Good-
bye, great enemy."
He turned, headed back through the hall.
Billy Blackhorse Singer. Man of the People. Last warrior
of your kind. You have taken your time in coming.
He halted. He stood absolutely still.
Yes. The words come into your head. I can formulate
some likeness of a human tongue and utter them if I choose,
but we may as well be more intimate, who are closer than
friends, farther than affection.
Cat?
That is right. Just think it. I will know. Cat serves well to
name me - a lithe and independent creature, alien in senti-
ments. I read only the thoughts you choose to surface, not
your entire mind. You must tell me all of the things you wish
for me to know. Why have you come?
To see whether you are what I now see you to be.
That is all?
It has bothered me that you might be so. Why did you not
communicate sooner?
At first I could not. My kind transmitted only images - of
the hunt - to others like ourselves. But the power slowly grew
as I regarded the thoughts of those who carne to view me
this half-century past. Now I know much of your world and
your kind. You, though - you are different from the others.
In what way?
Like me, a predator.
Cat! Why did you not tell someone, once you knew how,
that you are a sentient, intelligent being?
I have learned many things. And I have been waiting.
For what?
I have learned hate. I have been waiting for the chance
to escape, to track you as you once tracked me, to destroy
you.
It need not have gone this far. I am sorry for the pain I
have caused you, Now that we know what you are, amends
can be made.
The sun of my world has since gone nova. The world and
all others of my kind are no more. I have seen this in the
minds of my attendants. How can you restore it to me?
I cannot.
I have learned hate. I did not know hate before I came to
this place. The predator does not hate the prey. The wolf
actually loves the sheep, in its way. But I hate you, Billy
Blackhorse Singer, for what you have done to me, for having
turned me into a thing. This sophistication I learned from
your own kind. Since then I have lived only for the day when
I might tell you this and act upon it.
I am sorry. I will speak with the people who run this place.
I will not respond to them. They will think you demented in
your allegations.
Why?
That is not my wish. I have told you my wish.
He turned back toward the area, moving to the place
where force fields contained the dark, larger-than-man-sized
creature which now sat nearby, studying him.
I do not see how your wishes will be realized, but I am
willing to try to help you in any other way.
I see something.
What do you mean?
I see that you want something of me.
It is nothing, I now realize, that you would care to give.
Try me.
I came to learn whether I had wronged you.
You have.
To see whether you are truly intelligent.
I am.
To ask your assistance, then, in preventing a political
assassination.
There followed something like laughter - hollow, without
humor.
Tell me about it.
He described the situation. There was a long silence when
he had finished.
Then, Supposing I were to locate this being and thwart
her? What then?
Your freedom would of course be restored to you. There
would be reparations, probably a reward, a new home.
Some equivalent world might be found....
The dark form rose, changing shape again, becoming
bearlike, bipedal. It extended a forelimb until it came into
contact with the field. A rush of sparks cascaded about the
area.
That, Cat told him, is all that stands between you and
death.
That is all you have to say - that now that we can commu-
nicate we have nothing to talk about?
Do you not recall that long week you stalked me?
Yes.
It was only by a puke that you captured me.
Perhaps.
Perhaps? You know it is so. I almost had you there at the
end.
You came close.
I have relived that hunt for fifty long years. I should have
won!
He slammed against the field and sparks outlined his entire
figure. Billy did not move. After a time, Cat drew back,
shaking himself. He seemed smaller now, and his body
coiled around and around upon itself, sinking to the ground.
Finally, You have already offered me my liberty, without
conditions, Cat.said.
Yes.
The reward and reparations of which you spoke mean
nothing to me.
I see.
No, you do not.
I see that you will not help in this. Very well. Good night to
you.
He turned away again.
I did not say that I would not help.
When he looked back it was a swaying, hooded, horned
thing which regarded him.
What is it that you do say, Cat?
I will help you - for a price.
And what is that price?
Your life.
Preposterous.
I have waited this long. It is the only thing that I want.
It is an insane offer.
It is my only offer. Accept it or not, as you choose.
Do you really think you can stop a Stragean adept?
If I fail and she destroys me, then you are free and no
worse off than before. But I will not fail.
It is unacceptable.
Again the laugh.
Billy Singer turned and walked from the hall. The laughter
followed him. Its range was approximately a quarter of a
mile.
DISK II
BODY OF UNION LEADER FOUND IN ORBIT
Would have been incinerated upon reentry several days
EIGHTEEN INDICTED IN LUNAR DEALS
GULF HURRICANE ABORTED
he climbed Mount Taylor, birthplace of Changing Woman,
sacred peak of the turquoise south. The clouds were heavy
in the north, but the sun shone to his left. A cold wind sang a
fragile song. He cast a pinch of pollen to each of the world's
four quarters. As his existential mood deepened a yei came
to him in the form of a drifting black feather
GENEFIX - REVLON MERGER HINTED
EUTHANASIA VICTIM TELLS ALL
CALL FOR PARANORMALS
The UN Secretary-General's office early this morning
...I feel like H-E-I-L5!
CHURCH OF CHRISTIAN RELATIVITY TAKES STAND
Her sensors held as the ship banked. Running the defense
system would not be so difficult after all, her instruments
informed her. She meditated for half a minute upon the flame
and the water, visible mutabilities symbolizing the change-
flame. Flow, she imaged, into the ancient forms
FLOODING IN L.A.-PHOENIX TUNNEL
MAN CARRIED TWO MILES
"Your horses are yours again, grandchild," he says as he
sits down beside me.
"Your sheep are yours again, grandchild," he says as he
sits down beside me.
"All your possessions are yours again, grandchild," he
says as he sits down beside me.
"Your country is yours again, grandchild," he says as he
sits down beside me.
"Your springs that flow are yours again, grandchild," he
says as he sits down beside me.
"Your mountain ranges are yours again, grandchild," he
says as he sits down beside me.
Blessed again it has become, blessed again it has become,
Blessed again it has become, blessed again it has become!
HE HAD CROSSED THE DRIED
lava flow, which in his day everyone had known to be the
congealed blood of Yeitso, a monster slain by Nayenezgani.
And then he had continued upward along the slopes of
Mount Taylor, its heights hidden today by a great, rolling
bank of fog. A nagging wind clutched at his garments with
many hands, a black wind from out of the north. A holy
place was necessary for the thoughts he wished to think on
this bleak day. It had been over a century since he had
visited Mount Taylor, but its nature was such that it had been
left undisturbed through all these years.
Climbing...
Cat my chindi... Ever at my back...
Climbing, his hair gleaming from a recent shampoo with
yucca roots...
...All things past come together in you.
Climbing, into the fog now, the wind abruptly dying,
stones dark and slippery...
...And how shall I face you?
... Mountain held to the earth by a great stone knife,
pierced through from top to bottom, female mountain, you
have seen all things among the People. But do you know the
stranger stars I have looked upon? Let me tell you of
them....
The climb was slow and the mists pressed upon him,
dampening his garments until they clung. He sang as he
ascended, pausing at several places, for this was the home of
Turquoise Boy and Yellow Corn Girl, and in some versions
of the story it was here that Changing Woman had been
born.
...I have lost myself among bright stars.
He passed a group of stone people who seemed to nod
behind their veil of mist. The fleecy whiteness which sur-
rounded him made him think of his mother's sheep, which he
had herded as a boy. His thoughts followed them from their
old winter hogan, its forage exhausted, to the high summer
camp, where meals were cooked and eaten outdoors and the
women set up their looms between the trees. His uncle, the
singer, would gather herbs and dry them in the sun. The old
man held a medicine bundle for Female Shootingway, of the
five-night chantway. He also did the five-night Blessingway
chant and knew minor Shootingway ceremonies, as well as
the five nights of Evilway. And he knew the Restorationway
of every living thing.
When the word came that the government inspectors were
waiting at the sheep-dips, a festive spirit danced among the
settlements like a humpbacked piper. The camp was broken,
and the sheep bells clunked as the animals were herded
down from the mountains to the place of the dips. The dips
themselves stank of sulphur, and the smell of sheep dung
was everywhere, not least of all upon one's boots. It was a
slow, dirty business, as the sheep were run through the dips
one by one, counted, collected together, certified as free of
ticks and disease.for another season. The air was filled with
dust from the moving animals. Soon flocks of them covered
the hills like fallen clouds, barking dogs moving among
them.
As the day progressed, a holiday atmosphere would
spread among the stench and the noises. The smells of
mutton stew, fry bread and coffee, mingled with the fra-
grance of pinon smoke, began to move through the air.
Laughter would rise with greater frequency. Gambling
would begin. Songs would be heard. Here or there, a horse
race, a chicken-pull...
And the garments would improve as the work was done.
The woman who might have worn a wool shawl and carried
a sun umbrella while herding her sheep from the pen to the
dip now had on her best bright three-tiered skirt, a satin shirt
and velvet overblouse with silver collar points and silver
buttons running down each shoulder seam to the wrist, silver
bowknot buttons down the front, a heavy squash blossom
necklace, several strands of turquoise within it. The men
appeared in velveteen shirts with silver buttons, silver and
turquoise bands about their black hats, green and blue
bracelets, rings, necklaces - from Pilot Mountain, Morinci,
Kingman, Royston. And there were jokes and dancing,
though no stories of the supernatural variety, for the thunder
and the serpents were awake. Re remembered his first
squaw dance on such an occasion. He had had nothing with
which to pay, and so he had danced and danced for most of
the night, listening to the girls' laughter, moving finally like a
man 'in a dream, until an opportunity - perhaps inten-
tional? - presented itself, and he fled.
And now...
This past summer he had visited a contemporary sheep-
dipping. The genetically tailored animals were immune to
most of the old diseases. Still, a few parasites could cause
annoyance. The sheep were run through a quickly assem-
bled, lightweight, odorless aerosol tunnel, counted and
sorted by computer and penned behind a series of UHF
walls broadcast from tiny units dropped casually upon the
ground. For the most part, meals were prepared in quick,
efficient - if a bit old-fashioned - portable microwave units.
The evening's music was chip-recorded or satellite-broad-
cast. Most of the dancing that followed he did not recognize.
There seemed to be fewer traditional garments in sight,
fewer people doing things in the right manner. Not too many
horses about. And a young man actually came up to him and
asked him his name....
... Mountain held to the earth by a great stone knife,
pierced through from top to bottom, blade decorated with
turquoise, color of the blue south, female mountain, upon
your summit a bowl of turquoise containing two bluebird
eggs covered with sacred buckskin, mountain dressed in
turquoise, eagle plumes upon your head, you have seen all
things among the People. For a man, however, to see too
much of change may damage his spirit. I have seen
much....
He climbed a lightening way, through the houses made of
dark cloud, rainbow and crystal. When he emerged onto the
high slopes, into brightness beneath an unscreened sun, it
was as if he stood upon an island in the midst of a frothing
sea. The land was covered over in every direction by a
cottony whiteness. He faced each of the world's corners and
he sang, making offerings of cornmeal and pollen. Then he
seated himself and opened his unwounded deerskin pouch,
removing certain items. For a long while he thought upon
the things that came to him then....
That line of clouds... so like a curved dirt altar. A
mushroom in its nest upon it. Night. He had eaten the bitter
medicine and listened to the singing and the drumming. The
rattle and the feather fan were passed. Each person sang
four songs before handing on the regalia. A feeling of ex-
treme weariness had come over him even before it was his
turn. He understood that John Rave had once said that this
was the effect of the peyote struggling against a person's
vices. His throat felt constricted and very dry. He wondered
how much of this was spiritual and how much physiological.
He had been going through a very unusual period in his
life. He had been away to school. The old ways no longer
seemed right, but neither did the new ones. He understood
that the Native American Church had appealed to many who
felt themselves between worlds. But he had also, already,
taken anthropology courses, and he felt a thin edge of
estrangement - like a knifeblade - inserting itself between
him and the experience even now, after only a few weeks of
Peyoteway. The brilliantly colored hallucinations were often
fascinating, yet he and his thirst had stood apart.
But this night was somehow different from other nights.
... He felt this as he passed the rattle and the fan and,
looking up, saw that a rainbow was forming. It did not seem
at all out of place, and he watched it with interest. It seemed
simultaneously distant and near, and as he stared there was
movement upon it. Two figures - and he knew them - were
passing along its crest as upon the arch of a great bridge.
They halted and looked down at him. They were the Warrior
Twins - Tobadzischini, Born-of-Water, and Nayenezgani,
Monster-Slayer. For a long while they simply stared, and
then he realized that it might not really be himself that they
were regarding. From a sudden movement, he became
aware of a great black bird, a raven, perched upon his left
shoulder. Fleetingly, beneath the rainbow, a coyote passed.
Nayenezgani strung his bow with lightning and raised it, but
his brother placed his hand upon his arm and he lowered
it.
When he looked again to his left, the raven had vanished.
When he returned his gaze forward, the rainbow was
smaller, fading....
The next day he was weak, and he rested and drank
liquids. His thought processes seemed sluggish. But the
vision was somehow very important. The more he examined
it the more puzzling it became. Was it the raven that Nay-
enezgani had been about to shoot, or was it himself? Was the
bird protecting him against the Warrior Twins? Or were the
brothers trying to protect him from the bird?
In the light of his recent anthropological studies, it became
even more involved. Raven did figure in some of the Peo-
ple's stories - particularly around the Navajo Mountain,
Rainbow Bridge, Piute Canyon area - as a demonic force.
Yet this had not always been so, though the time when things
were otherwise lay beyond the memory of anyone alive.
Raven was a principal deity among the Tlingit-Haida
people of the Pacific Northwest, and these people spoke a
language of the Athabascan group. The Navajo and their
relatives, the Apache, also spoke an Athabascan tongue and
were the only people to do so outside the Northwest. In
ancient times there had been a migration which had finally
led the People to the canyons and mesas of Arizona, Utah,
Colorado, New Mexico. In the days of their wanderings they
had followed hunters' deities, such as Raven, Mountain
Lion and Wolf, who had accompanied them on the long trek
southward. But the People had changed when they had
settled, attaching themselves to a particular area, learning
agriculture from the Zuni and the Pueblo, weaving from the
Hopi and, later, sheepherding from the Spaniard. With the
passing of a way of life, gods of the old days were eclipsed.
Raven - or Black-god, as he was now known - had even
fought an inconclusive duel with Nayenezgani between San
Francisco Peaks and Navajo Mountain. So Raven was a
figure out of the very distant past. He had been honored
when the People had been hunters rather than herders,
farmers, weavers, silversmiths.
The Peyoteway, he knew, was an even newer thing,
learned from the Utes. And it was new, in many ways, also
for those who were lost, though it might touch upon ancient
chords. The crossed lines on the ground behind the altar
were said to be the footprints of Christ. He chose to regard
them as giant bird-tracks. He knew that he would never go
back to the Peyote hogan, for this way was not his way,
though it had served to bring him an important message. For
good or ill, he saw that he was marked to be a hunter.
He would finish school and he would learn the songs his
uncle wished to teach him. He knew without knowing how
he knew that both of these things would be important in the
hunting he must one day do. He would venerate the old ways
yet learn the new - the very old ways, and the very new -
and in this there was no contradiction, for a Navajo was one
of the most adaptable creatures on Earth. The nearby Hopis
danced and prayed for rain. His people did not. They sought
to live with their environment rather than to control it. The
Pueblos, the Zunis, the Hopis lived clustered together like
bellicanos in condominiums. His people did not. They lived
apart from one another and families took care of themselves.
Other tribes incorporated bellicano words into their lan-
guage to explain new things; Even in the twentieth century
the Navajo language had evolved to cover the changing
times, with over two hundred new words just to name the
various parts of the internal combustion engine. They had
learned from the Anglos, the Spaniards, the Pueblos, the
Zunis, the Hopis. They had flowed, they had adapted, yet
had remained themselves. Not for nothing did they consider
themselves descendants of Changing Woman.
Yes. He would learn both the new and the old, he had told
himself. And Black-god would accompany him on the hunt.
And this had come to pass. Yet he had not counted on so
much change on the part of the People in the time-twisted
times he had been away. They were still the People, different
from all others. But their rate of change and his had been
different.
Now, looking across the world from atop Mount Taylor,
he saw that Black-god, who had chosen him, had kept his
promise, making him into the mightiest hunter of his time.
But now he was retired and those days were past. It seemed
too much of an effort for an individual to adapt any further.
The People as a whole were an organic thing and had had
much time to adjust, slowly. Let it be. His design was
drawn. Perhaps it was right to walk away from it now in
beauty and die like the legend he had become.
He began the mountaintop song for this place. The stac-
cato words rolled out across his world.
As the day wore on the clouds became colored smoke
below him. Something passed overhead, uttering a single
cawing note. Later he discovered a black feather which had
fallen nearby. As he added it to his jish in the unwounded
deerskin pouch, he wondered at its ambiguous character.
Black, the color of the north, the direction in which the
spirits of the departed travel. Black north, from which the
chindi returns, along with other evil things. Black for north,
for death. Yet Raven might cast a black feather, send it to
him. And what might that imply?
Whatever... Though he could not read its depths, he
could see its surface. He drew circles in the dust with his
forefinger, and then he rubbed them out. Yes. He knew.
But still he sat there, on his island in the sky, and the day
drifted through noon. Finally the call he had been expecting
came. He knew that it would be Edwin Tedders before he
heard the voice.
"Billy, we are getting very nervous here. Have you gone
over the data?"
"Yes."
"Did you come up with anything?"
"Yes."
"Can you trip through now?"
"No. There's no box anywhere near here."
"Well, get to one! We've got to know,' and I don't want it
on the phone."
"Can't do that," he said.
"Why not?"
"If the lady in question numbers among her other virtues
the ability of knowing what people have on their minds, I
don't want her getting this from you."
"Wait a minute. I'll call you back."
A little later, the second call came through.
"Okay. This is the tightest fit. Listen, Thrgetman will be a
skip and a jump away from a box to no one here knows
where. And it blows immediately after tripping."
"If she can kill its juice -"
"Maybe yes, maybe no. We're also calling in human
psis.
"There aren't all that many and they aren't all predictable.
Right?"
"A few are very good. And some are here already."
"They find you anything?"
"Nothing yet. Now, what do you have in mind? Can you
state it in such a general fashion that we'll have an idea
without details she can use?"
"No."
There was a pause. Then, "Christ! We've got to have
something, Billy! We might be falling over each other."
"You won't even know I'm around."
"You will be in the area?"
"No detail's, remember? Your own psis might even get it
from you - then she might get it from them if she misses
you.
"If you're going to be in the neighborhood a psi might just
as easily get it from you."
"I don't think so. Primitive people can sometimes go
black on a telepath. I've seen it happen on other worlds. I've
gone primitive again."
"Well, how soon will.you be on the job?"
Billy regarded the sinking sun.
"Soon," he said.
"You can't just state simply what you're going to do?"
"We're going to stop her."
"You've become royalty or an editor? Or acquired a
tapeworm? What's this 'we'? You have to let us know if
you're bringing other people in on this."
"I'm not bringing other people in on it."
"Billy, I don't like this -"
"Neither do I, but it will be done. You won't be able to
reach me after this."
"Well, good-bye.... That's it, then. Good luck."
"Good-bye."
He faced the white east, the blue south, the yellow west
and the black north and bade them good-bye; also, the Holy
People of the mountain. Then he climbed back from one
world to the other.
The Iroquois called you
the Being without a Face.
I go to look and see if this is true,
great Destroyer
who goes about menacing
with couched lance and raised hatchet.
I put my feet down with pollen
as I walk.
I place my hands so,
with pollen.
I move my head with pollen.
My feet, my hands, my body
are become pollen,
and my mind, even my voice.
parted the room.
Billy set down the glass and rose. He paced the room,
regarded the titles on the bookshelves, felt the volumes'
spines, sniffed the air. Mingled with the smell of old leather,
a faint, almost acrid aroma he had not been able to place
earlier came to him again, a scent he had experienced upon
meeting Strageans in the past, in another place. They must
have been about this building for some time, he decided, or
have been in this room very recently, to mark it so with their
presence. He remembered them as humanoid, over two
meters in height, dark-skinned save for silvery faces, necks
and breasts; flat-headed, narrow-waisted beings with wide
shoulders, collarlike outgrowths of spiny material which
served as sound-sensors and small, feral eyes, slitted, usu-
ally yellow but sometimes cinnamon or amber in color;
hairless, graceful in a many-jointed, insectlike way, they
moved quietly and spoke a language that reminded him
vaguely of Greek, which he did not understand either.
It is language, he decided, that sets the sentients apart
from the animals. Isn't it?
Cat...?
He moved to the window, stared out across the lawn.
Difficult to cross there without being detected, he con-
cluded, with even the simplest security devices in operation.
And this place must have plenty. But she could assume
almost any guise, could penetrate the place in an innocuous
form....
Why be furtive, though? That is what they would be
expecting. While the defenders were concentrating on the
sophisticated, why not hijack a heavy vehicle, come barrel-
ing across the lawn, crash through a wall, jump down from
the cab and start shooting everything that moves?
He shook himself and turned away. This was not his
problem. There must be plenty of people more qualified than
himself to second-guess the alien, no matter what the com-
puter said.
He returned to his chair and took up his drink. Footsteps
were approaching now from the direction in which Tedders
had departed. Footsteps, and the soft sound of voices,
accompanied by a faint ringing in his ears. The language of
the Strageans ranged into the ultrasonic on the human scale,
and though they narrowed their focus when speaking Terran
tongues there were always some overtones. Too long a
conversation with a Stragean normally resulted in a head-
ache. He took another drink and lowered the glass as they
rounded the corner.
The two Strageans wore dark blue kilts and belts which
crossed their breasts like bandoliers. Ornamental pins or
badges of office were affixed to these latter. Between Ted-
ders and the aliens walked another man, short, heavy, with
just a fringe of dark hair; his eyes were jadelike under heavy
brows; he wore a green robe and slippers. Billy recognized
him as UN Secretary-General Milton Walford.
Tedders introduced him to Daltmar Stango and Orar Bo-
garthy as well as to Walford. Everyone was seated then, and
Tedders said, "They will tell you more about this."
Billy nodded.
The Stragean known as Daltmar Stango, staring at nothing
directly before him, recited: "It has to do with the coming of
your people to stay on our world. There is already a sizable
enclave of them there, just as there is of our kind here on
Earth. There has been very little trouble on either world
because of this. But now, with my present mission to negoti-
ate political and trade agreements, it appears that the settle-
ments will become permanent diplomatic posts."
He paused but a moment, as if to refocus his thoughts, and
then continued: "Now, there is a small religious group on
Strage which believes that when Terrans die there, their life
essences foul the place of the afterlife. Permanent posts will
guarantee that this group's fears will be realized with in-
creasing frequency as time goes on. Hence, they are against
any agreements with your people, and they would like all of
them off our world."
"How large a group are they?" Billy asked.
"Small. Fifty to a hundred thousand members, at most. It
is not their size which is important, though. They are an
austere sect, and many of them undertake a severe course of
training which sometimes produces spectacular effects in the
individual."
"So I've heard."
"One such individual has taken it upon herself to correct
matters. She commandeered a vessel and set a course for
Earth. She feels that an assassination at this level will
disrupt our negotiations to the point where there will be no
treaty - and that this will lead to the withdrawal of Terrans
from our world."
"How close is she to the truth?"
"It is always difficult to speculate in these matters, but it
would certainly slow things down."
"And she's due to arrive in a few days?"
"Yes. We received the information from other members of
her sect, and they could not be more precise. They did not
learn the story in its entirety until after her departure, when
they informed the authorities. They were anxious that it be
known she was acting on her own initiative and not under
orders."
Billy smiled.
"Who can say?" he said.
"Yes. At any rate, since a message can travel faster than a
ship, the warning was sent."
"You must know best how to stop one of your own
people."
"The problem seldom occurs," Daltmar said. "But the
customary method is to set a team of similarly endowed
adepts after a wrongdoer. Unfortunately..."
"Oh."
"So we must make do with what is at hand," the alien
went on. "Your people will try to intercept her in space, but
projections only give them a twenty-seven percent chance of
success. Have you any ideas?"
Cat?
"No," Billy replied. "If it were a dangerous animal, I'd
want to study it in its habitat for a time."
"There is no way and no time."
"Then I don't know what to tell you."
Walford produced a small parcel from the pocket of his
robe.
"There is a chip in here that I want you to take back with
you and run through your machine," he said. "It will tell you
everything we know about this individual and about others
of that sort. It is the closest thing we can give you to a life
study."
Billy rose and accepted the package.
"All right," he said. "I'll take it home and run it. Maybe
something will suggest itself."
Walford and the others rose to their feet. As Billy turned
toward the transporter, the Stragean called Orar Bogarthy
spoke.
"Yours is one of the aboriginal peoples of this continent?"
he said.
"Yes," Billy replied, halting but not turning.
"Have the jewels in your earlobes a special significance?
Religious, perhaps?"
Billy laughed.
"I like them. That's all."
"And the one in your hair?"
Billy touched it as he turned slowly.
"That one? Well... it is believed to protect one from
being struck by lightning."
"Does it work?"
"This one has. So far."
"I am curious. Being struck by lightning is not the most
common occurrence in life. Why do you wear it?"
"We Navajos have a thing about lightning. It destroys
taboos. It twists reality. Not a thing to fool around with."
He turned away, moved ahead, punched a series of num-
bers, stepped up into the unit. He glanced up at the expres-
sionless humans and aliens as the delay factor passed and his
body began to melt.
Traveling the distance from hill to hill,
passing from place to place as the wind passes,
trackless. There should be a song for it,
but I have never learned the words.
So I sing this one of my own making:
I am become a rainbow, beginning there
and ending here. I leave no mark
upon the land between as I arc
from there to here. May I go in beauty.
May it lie before, behind, above and below,
to the right and the left of me.
I pass cleanly through the gates of the sky.
WE CALL IT THE ENEMYWAY,
the old man said, but the white people came along and
started calling it a squaw danc - probably because they saw
the women dancing for it. You get a special name if you're
the one they're going to sing over, a warrior's name. It's a
sacred name you're just supposed to use in ceremonials, not
the kind you go around telling everybody or just letting
people call you by.
It all started, he said, back when Nayenezgani was pro-
tecting the People. He killed off a whole bunch of monsters
that were giving us a hard time. There was the Horned
Monster and Big God and the Rock Monster Eagle and the
Traveling Rock and a lot of others. That was why he got to
be called Monster-Slayer. His fourth monster, though, was
called Tracking Bear. It was a bear, but it looked more like a
lion the size of a floatcar. Once it came across your tracks, it
would start following them and it wouldn't stop until it had
found you and had you for dinner on the spot.
Nayenezgani went out and tracked the tracker and then let
it track him. But when it finally found him, he was ready. He
wasn't called Monster-Slayer for nothing. When it was all
over, the world was that much safer.
But at about that time, it started to get to him. He suffered
for it because of all those enemies he killed, and the bear just
added another one to their band. Their spirits followed him
around and made him pretty miserable. This is where the
word Anaa'ji, for the Enemyway, comes from. Naayee'
means an enemy, or something really bad that's bothering
you. Now, neezghani means "he has gotten rid of it," and
ana'i means an enemy that's been gotten rid of. So Anaa'ji is
probably really the best word to call it by. It's a ceremony
for getting rid of really bad troubles.
HE PACED. THE SCREEN STILL
glowed. He had not turned off the unit after viewing the
chip. The walls seemed to lean toward him, to press in upon
him. The wind was singing a changing song he almost
understood. He paused at various times, to inspect an old
basket, an ancient flaked spear point, the photograph of a
wild landscape beneath an indigo sky. He touched the barrel
of a high-powered rifle, took the weapon into his hands,
checked it, replaced it on its pegs. Finally he turned on his
heel and stepped outside into the night.
He stood upon the decking which surrounded the hogan.
He peered into the shadows. He looked up at the sky.
"I have no words..." he began, and a part of his mind
mocked the other part. He was, as always, conscious of this
division. When it had first occurred he could no longer say.
"... But you require an answer."
He was not even certain what it was that he addressed.
The Navajo language has no word for "religion." Nor was
he even certain that that was the category into which his
feelings fell. Category? The reason there was no word was
that in the old days such things had been inextricably boun
certain sentiments. Most of those around him even now did
not find this strange. But they had changed. He had also,
though he knew that his alteration was of a different order.
"He behaves as if he had no relatives" - this was the worst
thing one Navajo might say of another, and he knew that it
applied to him. The gulf was deeper than his absence, his
marriage, anything he had done. Others had gone away for
long times, had married outside the clans, and had still come
back. But for him it was part of a temporal experience,
literally as well as spiritually true. He had no relatives. A
part of him wanted it that way. The other part...
"I may have done a great wrong," he continued. "If I took
him from his land, as the People were taken to Fort Sumner.
If I took him from his own kind, who are no more. If I left
him alone in a strange place, like a captive among the Utes.
Then I have done a wrong. But only if he is a real person."
He scanned the skies. "May he not be," he said then. "May
it all be a dream of possibility, a nothingness - that which
has troubled me across the years." He circled the hogan,
staring off into the trees. "I had thought that not knowing
was best - which may make me a coward. Yet I would have
gone on this way for the rest of my days. Now -"
An owl fled past him, making a soft whooing noise.
An evil omen, a part of his mind decided, for the owl is the
bird of death and ill things.
An owl, the other part affirmed. They hunt at night. It is
nothing more.
"We have heard one another," he called after the bird. "I
will find out what I have done and know what I must do."
He went back inside and reached up among cobwebs to
where a key hung from a viga. He took it into his hand and
rubbed it. He ran his finger along it as if it were as unusual an
item as the spear point. Then, abruptly, he dropped it into
his pocket. He crossed the room and switched off the
glowing screen.
Turning, he then stepped among the bars of the trip-box,
activated the control unit and punched a code. He focused
his eyes upon the red Ganado rug and watched it turn pink
and go away.
Darkness amid the tiny streetlights, and the sound of
crickets outside the booth...
He stepped out of the shelter and sniffed the damp air'.
Large, shadow-decked trees; enviable quantities of grass
furring hillsides; heavy, squat, monolithic buildings, dark
now, save for little entranceway lights providing tiny grot-
toes which only accentuated the blackness elsewhere; no
people in sight.
He moved along the sidewalk, crossed the street, cut up a
hillside. There were guards about, but he avoided them
without difficulty. Balboa Park was quiet now, its spectacles
closed to the public until morning. The lights of San Diego
and the traffic along its trailways were visible from various
high points he crossed, but these seemed distant, part of
another world. He moved soundlessly from shadow to
shadow. He had chosen a public booth he had sometimes
liked to use long ago, when he had come on normal, daytime
business, enjoying the walk rather than tripping directly into
the place with which he was associated. That place, of
course, was now closed for the night, its trip-box also shut
down.
For fifteen minutes he continued his trek, climbing and
hiking toward the vast, sprawling complex that was the
Interstellar Life Institute. He avoided sidewalks, parking
lots and roads as much as possible. Mixed animal smells
from the San Diego Zoo were occasionally borne to him in
open areas by vagrant currents of wind. Rich and jungley,
the smells of some of the zoo foliage also came to him. These
sensations stirred memories of other exotic creatures in
other places. He recalled the capture of the wire-furred
wullabree in a pen of ultrasonics, the twilpa in an ice pit, four
outan in a vortex of odors....
The ILI complex came into sight and he slowed. For a
long while he stood halted, simply watching the place. Then,
slowly, he circled it, pausing often to watch again.
Finally he stood at the rear of the building near a small
parking lot containing but a single car. He crossed and used
his key in the door of the employees' entrance which ad-
joined it.
Inside, he moved without the need for light, traversing a
series of corridors, then mounting a small stair. He came to a
watchman's station he remembered, then used his passkey
to let himself into a nearby maintenance supply closet. There
he waited for twenty minutes until a uniformed old man
shuffled by, halted, inserted a key into the alarm unit and
moved on.
Shortly thereafter, he emerged and entered the first hall.
Some of the life units at either hand were eerily illuminated,
simulating the natural. lighting cycles of their inhabitants'
homes, tinged by odd atmospheric compounds or reflecting
meteorological peculiarities necessary for the creatures'
well-being. He passed drifting gas balloons, crawling coral
branches, slimy Maltese crosses, pulsating liver-colored
logs, spiny wave-snakes, a Belgarde simoplex gruttling in its
tangle-hole, a striped mertz, a pair of divectos, a compacted
tendron in a pool of ammonia. The stalked eyes of a wormsa
marakye followed his passage as they had that day on the
wind barrens when it had almost collected him. He did not
pause to return this regard, nor to inspect any of those
others he knew so well.
He traversed the entire hall, departed it, entered another.
The faint hum of generators was with him always. Despite
the hermetic quality of the life units, unusual odors reached
him from somewhere. He ignored all of the signs, knowing
what they said. The specimens in this second hall were
larger, fiercer-looking than those in the one through which
he had just passed. Here he glanced at several with some-
thing almost like affection, muttering quietly in the language
of the People. He began humming very softly as he entered
the third hall.
After only a few paces, he began to slow.
Rocks on a plain of fused silicates... No visible partition
between that place and the rest of the hall, as in a few others
he had passed. Atmospheric equivalence...
He continued to slow. He halted.
A weak, pointless light suffused that plain. He seemed to
hear a sighing sound.
His humming ceased and his mouth grew dry.
"I have come," he whispered, and then he approached the
exhibit placarded TORGLIND METAMORPH.
Sand and rock. Yellow and glassy and orange. Streaks of
black. Nothing stirred.
"Cat...?" he said.
He drew nearer and continued to stare. It was no use.
Even his eyes could not tell for certain. It was not just the
He searched his memory of the manner in which the
display had originally been set up. Yes. That rock, to the
left...
The rock moved, even as he recalled the disposition of the
environment. It rolled toward the center. It changed shape,
growing more spherical as it negotiated a dip.
"There is a thing I must say, a thing I must try to do...."
It elongated, unfolded a pair of appendages, propped itself
upon them.
"I have wondered, wondered whether you might really
understand me, if I tried - hard enough."
It grew another pair of appendages toward its rearward
extremity, formulated a massive head, a fat, triangular tail.
"If you know anyone, you know me. I brought you here.
The scars of our battle have been erased from my body, but
none gave me a greater fight than yourself."
Its outline flowed. It became sleek and glistening, a thing
of rippling cords beneath a glassy surface. Its head devel-
oped a single faceted eye at its center.
"I have come to you. I must know whether you have
understanding. For a time I thought that you might. But you
have never shown it since. Now I must know. Is there sense
in that brute head of yours?"
The creature stretched and turned away from him.
"If you can communicate with anyone, in any fashion, let
it be me, now. It is very important,"
It paced across the area toward his right.
"It is not just idle curiosity that brings me here. Give me
some sign of intelligence, if you possess it."
It looked at him for a moment through that cold, unblink-
ing gem at its head's center. Then it turned away once again,
its color darkening until it could go no further. Coal, inky,
absolute blackness filled its outline.
The shadow slid away toward the rear of the area and
vanished.
"In a way, you have pleased me," he said then. "Good-
bye, great enemy."
He turned, headed back through the hall.
Billy Blackhorse Singer. Man of the People. Last warrior
of your kind. You have taken your time in coming.
He halted. He stood absolutely still.
Yes. The words come into your head. I can formulate
some likeness of a human tongue and utter them if I choose,
but we may as well be more intimate, who are closer than
friends, farther than affection.
Cat?
That is right. Just think it. I will know. Cat serves well to
name me - a lithe and independent creature, alien in senti-
ments. I read only the thoughts you choose to surface, not
your entire mind. You must tell me all of the things you wish
for me to know. Why have you come?
To see whether you are what I now see you to be.
That is all?
It has bothered me that you might be so. Why did you not
communicate sooner?
At first I could not. My kind transmitted only images - of
the hunt - to others like ourselves. But the power slowly grew
as I regarded the thoughts of those who carne to view me
this half-century past. Now I know much of your world and
your kind. You, though - you are different from the others.
In what way?
Like me, a predator.
Cat! Why did you not tell someone, once you knew how,
that you are a sentient, intelligent being?
I have learned many things. And I have been waiting.
For what?
I have learned hate. I have been waiting for the chance
to escape, to track you as you once tracked me, to destroy
you.
It need not have gone this far. I am sorry for the pain I
have caused you, Now that we know what you are, amends
can be made.
The sun of my world has since gone nova. The world and
all others of my kind are no more. I have seen this in the
minds of my attendants. How can you restore it to me?
I cannot.
I have learned hate. I did not know hate before I came to
this place. The predator does not hate the prey. The wolf
actually loves the sheep, in its way. But I hate you, Billy
Blackhorse Singer, for what you have done to me, for having
turned me into a thing. This sophistication I learned from
your own kind. Since then I have lived only for the day when
I might tell you this and act upon it.
I am sorry. I will speak with the people who run this place.
I will not respond to them. They will think you demented in
your allegations.
Why?
That is not my wish. I have told you my wish.
He turned back toward the area, moving to the place
where force fields contained the dark, larger-than-man-sized
creature which now sat nearby, studying him.
I do not see how your wishes will be realized, but I am
willing to try to help you in any other way.
I see something.
What do you mean?
I see that you want something of me.
It is nothing, I now realize, that you would care to give.
Try me.
I came to learn whether I had wronged you.
You have.
To see whether you are truly intelligent.
I am.
To ask your assistance, then, in preventing a political
assassination.
There followed something like laughter - hollow, without
humor.
Tell me about it.
He described the situation. There was a long silence when
he had finished.
Then, Supposing I were to locate this being and thwart
her? What then?
Your freedom would of course be restored to you. There
would be reparations, probably a reward, a new home.
Some equivalent world might be found....
The dark form rose, changing shape again, becoming
bearlike, bipedal. It extended a forelimb until it came into
contact with the field. A rush of sparks cascaded about the
area.
That, Cat told him, is all that stands between you and
death.
That is all you have to say - that now that we can commu-
nicate we have nothing to talk about?
Do you not recall that long week you stalked me?
Yes.
It was only by a puke that you captured me.
Perhaps.
Perhaps? You know it is so. I almost had you there at the
end.
You came close.
I have relived that hunt for fifty long years. I should have
won!
He slammed against the field and sparks outlined his entire
figure. Billy did not move. After a time, Cat drew back,
shaking himself. He seemed smaller now, and his body
coiled around and around upon itself, sinking to the ground.
Finally, You have already offered me my liberty, without
conditions, Cat.said.
Yes.
The reward and reparations of which you spoke mean
nothing to me.
I see.
No, you do not.
I see that you will not help in this. Very well. Good night to
you.
He turned away again.
I did not say that I would not help.
When he looked back it was a swaying, hooded, horned
thing which regarded him.
What is it that you do say, Cat?
I will help you - for a price.
And what is that price?
Your life.
Preposterous.
I have waited this long. It is the only thing that I want.
It is an insane offer.
It is my only offer. Accept it or not, as you choose.
Do you really think you can stop a Stragean adept?
If I fail and she destroys me, then you are free and no
worse off than before. But I will not fail.
It is unacceptable.
Again the laugh.
Billy Singer turned and walked from the hall. The laughter
followed him. Its range was approximately a quarter of a
mile.
DISK II
BODY OF UNION LEADER FOUND IN ORBIT
Would have been incinerated upon reentry several days
EIGHTEEN INDICTED IN LUNAR DEALS
GULF HURRICANE ABORTED
he climbed Mount Taylor, birthplace of Changing Woman,
sacred peak of the turquoise south. The clouds were heavy
in the north, but the sun shone to his left. A cold wind sang a
fragile song. He cast a pinch of pollen to each of the world's
four quarters. As his existential mood deepened a yei came
to him in the form of a drifting black feather
GENEFIX - REVLON MERGER HINTED
EUTHANASIA VICTIM TELLS ALL
CALL FOR PARANORMALS
The UN Secretary-General's office early this morning
...I feel like H-E-I-L5!
CHURCH OF CHRISTIAN RELATIVITY TAKES STAND
Her sensors held as the ship banked. Running the defense
system would not be so difficult after all, her instruments
informed her. She meditated for half a minute upon the flame
and the water, visible mutabilities symbolizing the change-
flame. Flow, she imaged, into the ancient forms
FLOODING IN L.A.-PHOENIX TUNNEL
MAN CARRIED TWO MILES
"Your horses are yours again, grandchild," he says as he
sits down beside me.
"Your sheep are yours again, grandchild," he says as he
sits down beside me.
"All your possessions are yours again, grandchild," he
says as he sits down beside me.
"Your country is yours again, grandchild," he says as he
sits down beside me.
"Your springs that flow are yours again, grandchild," he
says as he sits down beside me.
"Your mountain ranges are yours again, grandchild," he
says as he sits down beside me.
Blessed again it has become, blessed again it has become,
Blessed again it has become, blessed again it has become!
HE HAD CROSSED THE DRIED
lava flow, which in his day everyone had known to be the
congealed blood of Yeitso, a monster slain by Nayenezgani.
And then he had continued upward along the slopes of
Mount Taylor, its heights hidden today by a great, rolling
bank of fog. A nagging wind clutched at his garments with
many hands, a black wind from out of the north. A holy
place was necessary for the thoughts he wished to think on
this bleak day. It had been over a century since he had
visited Mount Taylor, but its nature was such that it had been
left undisturbed through all these years.
Climbing...
Cat my chindi... Ever at my back...
Climbing, his hair gleaming from a recent shampoo with
yucca roots...
...All things past come together in you.
Climbing, into the fog now, the wind abruptly dying,
stones dark and slippery...
...And how shall I face you?
... Mountain held to the earth by a great stone knife,
pierced through from top to bottom, female mountain, you
have seen all things among the People. But do you know the
stranger stars I have looked upon? Let me tell you of
them....
The climb was slow and the mists pressed upon him,
dampening his garments until they clung. He sang as he
ascended, pausing at several places, for this was the home of
Turquoise Boy and Yellow Corn Girl, and in some versions
of the story it was here that Changing Woman had been
born.
...I have lost myself among bright stars.
He passed a group of stone people who seemed to nod
behind their veil of mist. The fleecy whiteness which sur-
rounded him made him think of his mother's sheep, which he
had herded as a boy. His thoughts followed them from their
old winter hogan, its forage exhausted, to the high summer
camp, where meals were cooked and eaten outdoors and the
women set up their looms between the trees. His uncle, the
singer, would gather herbs and dry them in the sun. The old
man held a medicine bundle for Female Shootingway, of the
five-night chantway. He also did the five-night Blessingway
chant and knew minor Shootingway ceremonies, as well as
the five nights of Evilway. And he knew the Restorationway
of every living thing.
When the word came that the government inspectors were
waiting at the sheep-dips, a festive spirit danced among the
settlements like a humpbacked piper. The camp was broken,
and the sheep bells clunked as the animals were herded
down from the mountains to the place of the dips. The dips
themselves stank of sulphur, and the smell of sheep dung
was everywhere, not least of all upon one's boots. It was a
slow, dirty business, as the sheep were run through the dips
one by one, counted, collected together, certified as free of
ticks and disease.for another season. The air was filled with
dust from the moving animals. Soon flocks of them covered
the hills like fallen clouds, barking dogs moving among
them.
As the day progressed, a holiday atmosphere would
spread among the stench and the noises. The smells of
mutton stew, fry bread and coffee, mingled with the fra-
grance of pinon smoke, began to move through the air.
Laughter would rise with greater frequency. Gambling
would begin. Songs would be heard. Here or there, a horse
race, a chicken-pull...
And the garments would improve as the work was done.
The woman who might have worn a wool shawl and carried
a sun umbrella while herding her sheep from the pen to the
dip now had on her best bright three-tiered skirt, a satin shirt
and velvet overblouse with silver collar points and silver
buttons running down each shoulder seam to the wrist, silver
bowknot buttons down the front, a heavy squash blossom
necklace, several strands of turquoise within it. The men
appeared in velveteen shirts with silver buttons, silver and
turquoise bands about their black hats, green and blue
bracelets, rings, necklaces - from Pilot Mountain, Morinci,
Kingman, Royston. And there were jokes and dancing,
though no stories of the supernatural variety, for the thunder
and the serpents were awake. Re remembered his first
squaw dance on such an occasion. He had had nothing with
which to pay, and so he had danced and danced for most of
the night, listening to the girls' laughter, moving finally like a
man 'in a dream, until an opportunity - perhaps inten-
tional? - presented itself, and he fled.
And now...
This past summer he had visited a contemporary sheep-
dipping. The genetically tailored animals were immune to
most of the old diseases. Still, a few parasites could cause
annoyance. The sheep were run through a quickly assem-
bled, lightweight, odorless aerosol tunnel, counted and
sorted by computer and penned behind a series of UHF
walls broadcast from tiny units dropped casually upon the
ground. For the most part, meals were prepared in quick,
efficient - if a bit old-fashioned - portable microwave units.
The evening's music was chip-recorded or satellite-broad-
cast. Most of the dancing that followed he did not recognize.
There seemed to be fewer traditional garments in sight,
fewer people doing things in the right manner. Not too many
horses about. And a young man actually came up to him and
asked him his name....
... Mountain held to the earth by a great stone knife,
pierced through from top to bottom, blade decorated with
turquoise, color of the blue south, female mountain, upon
your summit a bowl of turquoise containing two bluebird
eggs covered with sacred buckskin, mountain dressed in
turquoise, eagle plumes upon your head, you have seen all
things among the People. For a man, however, to see too
much of change may damage his spirit. I have seen
much....
He climbed a lightening way, through the houses made of
dark cloud, rainbow and crystal. When he emerged onto the
high slopes, into brightness beneath an unscreened sun, it
was as if he stood upon an island in the midst of a frothing
sea. The land was covered over in every direction by a
cottony whiteness. He faced each of the world's corners and
he sang, making offerings of cornmeal and pollen. Then he
seated himself and opened his unwounded deerskin pouch,
removing certain items. For a long while he thought upon
the things that came to him then....
That line of clouds... so like a curved dirt altar. A
mushroom in its nest upon it. Night. He had eaten the bitter
medicine and listened to the singing and the drumming. The
rattle and the feather fan were passed. Each person sang
four songs before handing on the regalia. A feeling of ex-
treme weariness had come over him even before it was his
turn. He understood that John Rave had once said that this
was the effect of the peyote struggling against a person's
vices. His throat felt constricted and very dry. He wondered
how much of this was spiritual and how much physiological.
He had been going through a very unusual period in his
life. He had been away to school. The old ways no longer
seemed right, but neither did the new ones. He understood
that the Native American Church had appealed to many who
felt themselves between worlds. But he had also, already,
taken anthropology courses, and he felt a thin edge of
estrangement - like a knifeblade - inserting itself between
him and the experience even now, after only a few weeks of
Peyoteway. The brilliantly colored hallucinations were often
fascinating, yet he and his thirst had stood apart.
But this night was somehow different from other nights.
... He felt this as he passed the rattle and the fan and,
looking up, saw that a rainbow was forming. It did not seem
at all out of place, and he watched it with interest. It seemed
simultaneously distant and near, and as he stared there was
movement upon it. Two figures - and he knew them - were
passing along its crest as upon the arch of a great bridge.
They halted and looked down at him. They were the Warrior
Twins - Tobadzischini, Born-of-Water, and Nayenezgani,
Monster-Slayer. For a long while they simply stared, and
then he realized that it might not really be himself that they
were regarding. From a sudden movement, he became
aware of a great black bird, a raven, perched upon his left
shoulder. Fleetingly, beneath the rainbow, a coyote passed.
Nayenezgani strung his bow with lightning and raised it, but
his brother placed his hand upon his arm and he lowered
it.
When he looked again to his left, the raven had vanished.
When he returned his gaze forward, the rainbow was
smaller, fading....
The next day he was weak, and he rested and drank
liquids. His thought processes seemed sluggish. But the
vision was somehow very important. The more he examined
it the more puzzling it became. Was it the raven that Nay-
enezgani had been about to shoot, or was it himself? Was the
bird protecting him against the Warrior Twins? Or were the
brothers trying to protect him from the bird?
In the light of his recent anthropological studies, it became
even more involved. Raven did figure in some of the Peo-
ple's stories - particularly around the Navajo Mountain,
Rainbow Bridge, Piute Canyon area - as a demonic force.
Yet this had not always been so, though the time when things
were otherwise lay beyond the memory of anyone alive.
Raven was a principal deity among the Tlingit-Haida
people of the Pacific Northwest, and these people spoke a
language of the Athabascan group. The Navajo and their
relatives, the Apache, also spoke an Athabascan tongue and
were the only people to do so outside the Northwest. In
ancient times there had been a migration which had finally
led the People to the canyons and mesas of Arizona, Utah,
Colorado, New Mexico. In the days of their wanderings they
had followed hunters' deities, such as Raven, Mountain
Lion and Wolf, who had accompanied them on the long trek
southward. But the People had changed when they had
settled, attaching themselves to a particular area, learning
agriculture from the Zuni and the Pueblo, weaving from the
Hopi and, later, sheepherding from the Spaniard. With the
passing of a way of life, gods of the old days were eclipsed.
Raven - or Black-god, as he was now known - had even
fought an inconclusive duel with Nayenezgani between San
Francisco Peaks and Navajo Mountain. So Raven was a
figure out of the very distant past. He had been honored
when the People had been hunters rather than herders,
farmers, weavers, silversmiths.
The Peyoteway, he knew, was an even newer thing,
learned from the Utes. And it was new, in many ways, also
for those who were lost, though it might touch upon ancient
chords. The crossed lines on the ground behind the altar
were said to be the footprints of Christ. He chose to regard
them as giant bird-tracks. He knew that he would never go
back to the Peyote hogan, for this way was not his way,
though it had served to bring him an important message. For
good or ill, he saw that he was marked to be a hunter.
He would finish school and he would learn the songs his
uncle wished to teach him. He knew without knowing how
he knew that both of these things would be important in the
hunting he must one day do. He would venerate the old ways
yet learn the new - the very old ways, and the very new -
and in this there was no contradiction, for a Navajo was one
of the most adaptable creatures on Earth. The nearby Hopis
danced and prayed for rain. His people did not. They sought
to live with their environment rather than to control it. The
Pueblos, the Zunis, the Hopis lived clustered together like
bellicanos in condominiums. His people did not. They lived
apart from one another and families took care of themselves.
Other tribes incorporated bellicano words into their lan-
guage to explain new things; Even in the twentieth century
the Navajo language had evolved to cover the changing
times, with over two hundred new words just to name the
various parts of the internal combustion engine. They had
learned from the Anglos, the Spaniards, the Pueblos, the
Zunis, the Hopis. They had flowed, they had adapted, yet
had remained themselves. Not for nothing did they consider
themselves descendants of Changing Woman.
Yes. He would learn both the new and the old, he had told
himself. And Black-god would accompany him on the hunt.
And this had come to pass. Yet he had not counted on so
much change on the part of the People in the time-twisted
times he had been away. They were still the People, different
from all others. But their rate of change and his had been
different.
Now, looking across the world from atop Mount Taylor,
he saw that Black-god, who had chosen him, had kept his
promise, making him into the mightiest hunter of his time.
But now he was retired and those days were past. It seemed
too much of an effort for an individual to adapt any further.
The People as a whole were an organic thing and had had
much time to adjust, slowly. Let it be. His design was
drawn. Perhaps it was right to walk away from it now in
beauty and die like the legend he had become.
He began the mountaintop song for this place. The stac-
cato words rolled out across his world.
As the day wore on the clouds became colored smoke
below him. Something passed overhead, uttering a single
cawing note. Later he discovered a black feather which had
fallen nearby. As he added it to his jish in the unwounded
deerskin pouch, he wondered at its ambiguous character.
Black, the color of the north, the direction in which the
spirits of the departed travel. Black north, from which the
chindi returns, along with other evil things. Black for north,
for death. Yet Raven might cast a black feather, send it to
him. And what might that imply?
Whatever... Though he could not read its depths, he
could see its surface. He drew circles in the dust with his
forefinger, and then he rubbed them out. Yes. He knew.
But still he sat there, on his island in the sky, and the day
drifted through noon. Finally the call he had been expecting
came. He knew that it would be Edwin Tedders before he
heard the voice.
"Billy, we are getting very nervous here. Have you gone
over the data?"
"Yes."
"Did you come up with anything?"
"Yes."
"Can you trip through now?"
"No. There's no box anywhere near here."
"Well, get to one! We've got to know,' and I don't want it
on the phone."
"Can't do that," he said.
"Why not?"
"If the lady in question numbers among her other virtues
the ability of knowing what people have on their minds, I
don't want her getting this from you."
"Wait a minute. I'll call you back."
A little later, the second call came through.
"Okay. This is the tightest fit. Listen, Thrgetman will be a
skip and a jump away from a box to no one here knows
where. And it blows immediately after tripping."
"If she can kill its juice -"
"Maybe yes, maybe no. We're also calling in human
psis.
"There aren't all that many and they aren't all predictable.
Right?"
"A few are very good. And some are here already."
"They find you anything?"
"Nothing yet. Now, what do you have in mind? Can you
state it in such a general fashion that we'll have an idea
without details she can use?"
"No."
There was a pause. Then, "Christ! We've got to have
something, Billy! We might be falling over each other."
"You won't even know I'm around."
"You will be in the area?"
"No detail's, remember? Your own psis might even get it
from you - then she might get it from them if she misses
you.
"If you're going to be in the neighborhood a psi might just
as easily get it from you."
"I don't think so. Primitive people can sometimes go
black on a telepath. I've seen it happen on other worlds. I've
gone primitive again."
"Well, how soon will.you be on the job?"
Billy regarded the sinking sun.
"Soon," he said.
"You can't just state simply what you're going to do?"
"We're going to stop her."
"You've become royalty or an editor? Or acquired a
tapeworm? What's this 'we'? You have to let us know if
you're bringing other people in on this."
"I'm not bringing other people in on it."
"Billy, I don't like this -"
"Neither do I, but it will be done. You won't be able to
reach me after this."
"Well, good-bye.... That's it, then. Good luck."
"Good-bye."
He faced the white east, the blue south, the yellow west
and the black north and bade them good-bye; also, the Holy
People of the mountain. Then he climbed back from one
world to the other.
The Iroquois called you
the Being without a Face.
I go to look and see if this is true,
great Destroyer
who goes about menacing
with couched lance and raised hatchet.
I put my feet down with pollen
as I walk.
I place my hands so,
with pollen.
I move my head with pollen.
My feet, my hands, my body
are become pollen,
and my mind, even my voice.