The Felines of Pern Chapter 17

I stared at Healer Ballora in shock. She had just announced a death sentence on my mate. "No," was all I could say.

"I wish I could be wrong about this," she sobbed. "I ran Oclo's test four times! There's no mistake. He has the madness."

Oclo bowed his head. "Give me mercy now," he said quietly. "Don't let it destroy my mind. Do it before I hurt someone I care about."

"Oclo, don't be ridiculous!" I burst out. "You're as sane as I am! There has to be some mistake."

"I've tried everything I can think of," Ballora said. Her hands were shaking. "Once I know what I'm looking for, there's no way to mistake it for anything else."

"But he doesn't have any of the symptoms!" I burst out. "His eyes aren't going in different directions. He isn't drooling or slurring his words. His night vision is still superb – he usually catches more tunnel snakes than I do. And he hasn't been talking about violence or hurting anyone, and he certainly hasn't done anything like that!"

"Do those symptoms always go with the onset of the madness?" she asked.

"Always," I said, and Oclo nodded. "Not every case shows every symptom, but every case shows some of them, especially the eyes and the violence."

"That doesn't make sense," Ballora told us. "My tests can't be wrong. Could something else be holding back the onset of the madness? Maybe it's something you've been eating."

"We've mostly been eating wherry," I said, "and hunters in the wild eat wherry on a regular basis. They get the madness, so eating wherry doesn't hold it back."

"We had some different animals while we were at Ruatha Hold," Oclo added. "Wooly herdbeasts, caprines, some young horned beasts, northern wherries… we tried a little of everything."

"I've got to look into this," she decided. "Speaking of which, Oclo, may I see your eyes?" She looked in his eyes from several angles. "You're right – there's nothing unusual about his eyes. I don't understand this." She stood up decisively. "I have to ask you to stay right here in Honshu and not visit any other places for a while. I don't want the madness to come upon you when you're surrounded by people who don't know what to expect. I need to do more research. There's no way you could come back to the Beastcrafthall with me, is there?"

"What would we do there?" Oclo asked.

"Sit in a caged room and stare at the walls," she answered sadly. "In this place, you have a life. You can be free to hunt and do the things that you enjoy. The Beastcrafthall isn't set up for intelligent beings, other than humans. I can try to change things for your sakes, but every minute I spend on a habitat for hunters is a minute I'm not researching your illness. If I can get others to make a decent place for you, then I'll send for you." She paused. "Are you sure you feel all right? Completely sure?"

"Yes, I feel the same way I always did," he answered.

"He's been acting completely normal," I added. "We're always together. If he said or did something strange, I'd notice it right away."

Ballora shook her head. "I couldn't have run the tests wrong. You have no idea how badly I want them to be wrong! Maybe there's something in the grass of Ruatha that gets into the herdbeasts there, and that's what's protecting you."

"If that was the case, then we'd have to live in Ruatha for the rest of our days," I realized.

"Lord Jaxom wouldn't object to that," Oclo noted. "It would be better than going mad."

"But what about all the other hunters who get the madness?" I burst out. "Would they all have to live in Ruatha in order to stay alive? I don't think Lord Jaxom has enough prey beasts to feed that many hunters!"

"We'll cross that bridge if we come to it," Ballora said. "For now… just enjoy your lives while you can. I hate to put it that way, but…"

"We understand," Oclo said gently.

She looked so miserable! I wanted to comfort her somehow. On an impulse, I rested my head against her leg. She reached down and rubbed behind my ears. It was an odd sensation, but a pleasant one. After a moment, Oclo rubbed up against her other leg. We all stood there like that for a minute or two. Finally, she straightened.

"I don't know why you're comforting me when you're the ones with the incurable sickness," she muttered. "I need to get back to the Beastcrafthall, and then I need to visit Ruatha. I have a lot of work to do." She glanced down. "Oh, dear – look at all the cat hair you've left on my skirt! Oh, what am I saying?" She burst into tears, then rushed for the door and disappeared.

"Now what?" I asked.

"Could she be wrong somehow?" he wondered.

"She was right about everything, when it came to healing me," I answered. "I trust her judgment, although she still has a lot to learn about us. If she says that the madness is in my blood, then I have to believe her. But if she says you've got it… that's wrong. It has to be wrong. We know more about the signs of the madness than she does. You don't have any of the signs."

"I feel fine," he said, "but I trust your judgment about her skills. For the moment, let's say that I've got the madness, but it isn't showing any signs yet. I don't know how much time I've got."

"Oclo, don't talk like that!" I burst out, and rested my head against his neck.

"I'm trying to be realistic," he said softly. "I want my life to count for something. I don't want to be just another hunter who was born, killed some prey, sired some cubs, and died. The most important thing I can do is to help the hunters and the humans learn to get along. And the biggest obstacle to that progress is Woo."

I tensed up. "What are you suggesting?" I asked. I suspected that I might not like the answer.

"I'm going into the forest tonight," he decided. "I'm going to sneak up on their meeting circle and find out what's going on. I'm going to learn who their new Ted is, and how much influence he has over Woo. I'm going to listen to their plans, and then I'll come home and tell you and F'lessan what I've learned. That's the best use of my remaining time that I can think of."

"Did you think of what they'll do to you if they catch you?" I asked sharply. "They put you out! There's death on your head if you return. They'll all attack you at once, and my cubs will be fatherless."

"That last part is probably going to happen anyway," he said resignedly. "If they kill me, it will probably be more merciful than if the madness destroys my mind first. But you need to stay out of this. If you think I'm going to let you go with me, then think again! You need to preserve yourself and those unborn cubs."

"What do you mean, 'if you're going to let me go with you?'" I asked indignantly. "You can't forbid me to go into my own forest!"

"Actually, I can," he answered. "You said that we were our own private hunting band, and you willingly accepted me as your Ted, right? Well, speaking as your Ted, I forbid you to follow me tonight."

I was at a loss for words. I tried to think of a justification for disobeying him, and I came up with nothing. A Ted's authority over his hunters, if he chose to use it, was nearly absolute. My only option was to reject him as my Ted, and I couldn't bring myself to do that, even if his life was at stake. If he really was being consumed by the madness, then he was entitled to end his life with dignity. I wasn't going to let his last days be filled with regret that his mate and only friend had rejected him.

I softly said, "I wish you good hunting and a safe return." I turned without another word and went to my resting place. He waited for a few seconds, then slipped away into the forest.

He knew exactly where to go, of course. The question was, would the band be having an evening meeting tonight? The answer turned out to be 'yes.' He got downwind of them and crept silently towards them until he could see the hunters gathered in a circle.

"I still say we're on the edge of a victory!" Woo exclaimed. "We've hit them and hurt them repeatedly, and what have they done to fight back? Nothing!"

"What they did to Dess is hardly 'nothing,'" Kur retorted.

"She pushed her luck too far," Woo said dismissively. "I've showed you how it should be done. Yes, they outnumber us, and yes, their dragons are bigger than we are, but they aren't fighters! Their strength is imaginary!"

"Is this imaginary?" San shot back. She stepped into the circle and turned all the way around, holding her tail high so they all could see how the hairs on the end of it had been burned off by dragon fire.

"They didn't kill you, did they?" Woo exclaimed. "All they do is fire warning shots! They have no stomach for battle." She turned to someone Oclo didn't recognize. "Would you back me up here? You're supposed to be the leader!"

"I will gladly lead," said a male voice, "as soon as I know where we're going. Woo, you made one successful attack. Dess tried to copy you, and she wound up very dead. The others have tried to copy you, and they have all been seen and chased away before they could strike. They even chased you away, the last time you tried it. Tell us why that first attack succeeded when all the others have failed."

"Courage and audacity," she said bluntly. "I didn't hesitate or worry about their defensive measures. I saw the opportunity and I took it."

"There was never an opportunist like Dess," San said, "and look at what happened to her! I think you succeeded because you got them before they realized they were under siege. Now they're expecting us and they're ready for us. If we're going to strike at all, then we need to leave them alone for a while so they'll get complacent and lower their defenses. These endless probing strikes are going to get us killed, one by one."

"I concur," said the male. "They have done much less hunting in our grounds lately. There is no immediate threat that's worth dying for. My advice is –"

"Advice!" Woo spat. "We need action, not advice! What happened to the Teds we used to know, the ones who weren't afraid of shadows and pale pink humans?"

"I resent that," the male growled. "I will gladly lead you to victory, but don't ask me to lead you to death!"

"We're asking you to lead us, period!" Woo said smugly.

"That's exactly what I'm trying to do," he answered, trying to be patient. "The problem is that you won't follow where I'm trying to lead."

"You're leading us nowhere!" Woo shouted. "You're leading us to extinction! Everything is going wrong. I should have come into season last month, but nothing happened. San should be in season, but nothing is happening. Our numbers are falling instead of rising. If we don't take decisive action against the humans, then the day will come when they can just walk over and take our lands, and we'll be too weak to do anything about it!"

"Nothing would make me happier than you coming into season!" the male challenged her. "Are you trying to blame me for the fact that your time hasn't come?"

"Talad, I'm blaming you for the fact that we're not relaxing in those ruins, crunching on human bones," Woo retorted. "The only thing holding us back is your refusal to say 'go.'"

"And dragon fire," San recited, thumping the ground with her paw with each phrase, "and spears, and the dragons' invisible attacks, and sheer numbers, and –"

"Shut up, coward!" Woo turned and struck San across the face with her paw. She didn't use her claws and she didn't draw blood, but it was a shocking, abusive moment nonetheless. Oclo growled in spite of himself, and Talad, the male, overheard him.

"There's someone hiding over there!" he exclaimed.

"I'm not hiding," Oclo said proudly as he stood up and showed himself. "I've got nothing to hide."

Woo and several of the others, including Dess' grown cubs, growled menacingly. They moved to surround him.

"Do we know this male?" Talad demanded.

"We cast you out by majority vote," Woo hissed to Oclo. "You have no right to be here again, you fool!"

"I came here to speak for reason," Oclo answered, "but it sounds like my replacement is already doing that."

"You chose the same policies that I favor?" Talad asked, surprised. "The hunters told me you were put out for cowardice."

"And that's what they'll do to you, too," Oclo said, "if you don't give Woo her way. She'll settle for nothing less than a war of annihilation, and I don't think she cares who gets annihilated."

Woo snarled a battle challenge at that. The others tensed to leap at him –

…and that was when I jumped down from my tree branch into the circle, landing between Oclo and Woo. The others gave ground, surprised at my sudden entrance.

"Rit, I forbade you to come here!" Oclo burst out.

"No, you forbade me to follow you," I said, rather proud of myself for the solution I'd found, "and I didn't follow you. I took my own route through the forest, nowhere near the route you took."

"Well, well, look who's here," purred Woo. "It's the human-lover, the one who collaborates with the enemy. You're even wearing their collar, Pussy-Poo! Are you here to protect your monogamous boyfriend? Didn't you notice that you're in the middle of a circle of hunters who don't like you?"

"According to tradition, the circle can't touch me," I answered tensely. "I wasn't put out of the band. I walked away freely, and tradition says I can return if I fight my way back in. That means single combat against one representative of the band, not a fight against the whole group."

"She's right," Kur realized, and San nodded. The others were just staring at the two of us.

Woo turned to Talad. "Will you do the honors and teach this human-loving ex-hunter a good lesson?"

Talad looked doubtful. "I have no quarrel with this hunter," he said. He looked me over. "Why did you leave the band?"

"She left," Woo interrupted, "because she's a –"

"Silence!" Talad ordered. "She can speak for herself."

"She'll tell you nothing but lies!" Woo protested.

"I'll decide that," he shot back. "Hunter, why did you leave your band?"

"My name is Rit, and I went to the humans to get a healing for a serious injury to my flank. I would have died if not for their skill at healing."

"And why didn't you return after you were healed?" he asked.

"Because Hunter Woo is leading this band to disaster, and I wanted no part of that."

Without answering, he turned to Oclo. "Why were you cast out?"

Woo stomped the ground with her forefeet. "Oh, for the love of Tubberman, would you stop asking so many questions and just do something?! We've got two unwelcome outcasts here – take your pick! You do know what you're supposed to do with outcasts, right?" She got muzzle-to-muzzle with me. "You know what's going to happen to you, right?"

I stared back in her eyes… and suddenly it all made sense. I quietly said, "Woo, you've got the madness."

"Lies, lies, human-poisoned lies!" she screeched. "I'm not the one who turned to the humans for help! She's sold herself to them! Her every word is a lie! Don't listen to her! Don't trust her!"

"Woo, the humans are working on a cure!" I urged her. "They can help you."

Woo turned to the others who still surrounded us. "She wants us to turn to the enemy for help!"

"Woo, let me see your eyes," Talad ordered.

"Let me see your retreating tail, you coward!" she shouted. "Don't any of you know what we're supposed to do to outcasts? Well, I still know!" Without warning, she swung her paw at my face with claws out.

I partially dodged the blow, but her dewclaw raked my nose painfully. I backed off; she held her pose. "I drew first blood!" she crowed. "Rit, you're defeated! Now run away before we all draw blood on you."

"A fight like this goes until surrender, not first blood," Kur reminded them all. No one else moved against me.

"I haven't surrendered," I growled, "and I don't plan to surrender."

"Maybe you should," Woo said gleefully. "Do I see the bulge of cubs in you? You're heavy and you're slow. You can't outfight me now."

"We'll see about that," I snarled. "I've done a lot more fighting than you have, and those cubs motivate me to stay alive."

"Rit, be careful," Oclo urged me.

We circled each other within the circle of hunters. Woo was smaller than me and she had been in fewer fights, but she was crafty and quick, and she was right about how my unborn cubs would slow me down. Before I had decided on my tactics, she sprang.

I ducked and rolled under her claws, and she didn't expect that. She dropped one paw as she passed over me, and her claws caught nothing but my fur. I raised a forefoot, in the same way I'd brought down the flyer for Oclo, and raked her belly as she passed over me. She snarled in pain, landed, and spun to face me as I rolled to my feet. She sprang again, and it was all I could do to dodge to the side. My whiskers felt her paw as it whipped past my face – she came that close. I realized that I might lose this battle.

Woo braced for another spring. "Are you afraid yet, Rit?" she growled. "I'm not going to let you surrender. It's too late for that. No, I'm going to break your forelegs with two good bites, then hamstring you, then disembowel you and watch you die slowly. Then I'm going to take out our coward of a Ted, then our ex-Ted who came back here to die, and then I'll take out every one of you who voted that Oclo should stay. Even if I'm the last one left, I'll still fight the good fight for this band and our hunting grounds! Even if every one of you forgets what it means to be a hunter, I'll –"

…and that was all. Hunter Kur had crept up from behind her, sprang, and administered the hunting band's mercy. Woo's lifeless form fell to the ground.

For a few seconds, we all just stared at each other in shock, wondering what should happen next. Oclo finally took the initiative. He stepped over to Woo's fallen body and snapped his jaws over her.

"She wasn't selfish. She wanted what was best for the band," he said solemnly. One by one, the rest of us fulfilled our obligation to the memory of a fallen hunter.

When we were done, Oclo faced the new Ted. "It's true that I should not be here," he said. "I'll leave, if you'll let me."

"Wait," Talad urged him. "I still want to know why you were cast out."

"For the same reason you were about to be cast out. I opposed Woo's mindless belligerence. Didn't any of you think to look in her eyes?"

"I checked the eyes of all the hunters when they accepted me as their Ted," Talad replied. "That was weeks ago. They all looked normal. I haven't done any one-on-one checks since then. The change in Woo's eyes must have happened very recently."

"Sometimes the outer signs of the madness strike suddenly," Kur observed.

"It must have been growing in her mind all this time, but without any signs on the outside," San commented.

"Except for her irrational insistence on attacking at any cost," I added.

"I feel like a fool," Talad said, shaking his head. "I've been letting a mad hunter call the shots in my band."

"The mad hunter is no more," I reminded him.

He straightened. "Then it's time I retook control of my band." He took a deep breath and looked all around. "Oclo, you were put out lawfully, even though the reason was unjustified. I can't allow another male in my hunting grounds."

"I will leave immediately," Oclo promised, "as soon as I know the welfare of my mate."

"That could be a problem," Talad said. He turned to me. "You were in the middle of a fight to return to your band when that fight was ended by someone else. Technically, you didn't win, so you're not entitled to return."

"I never intended to return," I told him. "I just wanted to protect Oclo and unmask Woo."

"That unmasking could have killed you!" Oclo said, and Talad nodded.

I looked around at the other hunters, then stepped into the circle. "I was fighting for something far more important than the survival of this hunting band," I said. "Oclo and I have lived with the humans, and we've learned some amazing things about them. The most amazing thing is that we don't have to fight them to survive."

"Explain that," Talad demanded, and most of the others edged closer to hear my answer.

"They don't hate us and they don't want to take our land away," I began. "Their dragons hunted on our grounds because they had no idea we were here, or what the land meant to us. They don't want a war with us."

"Are they afraid to fight us?" one of Dess' cubs demanded.

"They respect what we hunters can do," I told her, "but they can do much, much worse to us. You've noticed that none of you are coming into season?"

"Are the humans taking credit for that?" Talad asked.

"Seriously?" Dess' cub demanded.

"They've been dropping dead prey carcasses all over the land," I told them. "I know you've seen them. Those carcasses are full of a human-made substance that keeps a female from coming into season."

"How can they do that?" Kur wondered.

"They have understanding of things that we can't even imagine," I responded.

"Is that an honorable way to wage war?" Talad asked.

"To them, this isn't a war!" I burst out. "They don't want a victory over us. They just want an end to the attacks. All you have to do is agree to that, and the treated carcasses will end."

"No more fighting the humans and the dragons? Just like that?" San said.

"Just like that," I nodded.

"Will they still hunt on our hunting grounds?" Talad wanted to know.

"That will be up to you and them," Oclo said. "They're willing to negotiate with you. The fact that they have carcasses to spare means that they aren't lacking in food, so they don't have to hunt on your grounds."

"Then why do they do it?" Kur demanded.

"For the same reason we hunt instead of scavenge," I answered. "For the thrill of the hunt and the joy of the kill. Their domesticated herdbeasts fill their bellies, but they don't satisfy that inner urge to chase down their prey and catch it. Sometimes they just want to eat something different. In ways like those, the dragons are hunters, very much like us."

Talad remained skeptical. "Nothing like this has ever been done before. If we reach an agreement with them, how do I know the humans and the dragons can be trusted to keep their word?"

"Choose a sign that the humans can give you, as evidence of their good intentions," Oclo decided. "We'll communicate that to them, they'll do it, and that will be your proof."

"You seem to have a lot of confidence in those humans," Kur commented.

"They've earned our confidence several times over," I told her, and Oclo nodded firmly.

"All right," the Ted said. "Here's what I want to see. Let the humans deliver something new for us to eat, something that we haven't eaten before. Something with nothing in it that will keep our hunters from coming into season!"

Oclo and I thought for a moment. "Have you tasted caprine before?" Oclo asked.

"What's a caprine?" Talad asked. We described the medium-sized horned creatures we'd eaten in Ruatha Hold.

"I've never seen one of those," Talad admitted, and the others shook their heads in agreement.

"Give us three days," I told them. "We'll bring you some caprines – not treated carcasses, but live ones that you can hunt. Then you'll know that we, and the humans, are telling you the truth."

"Three days," Talad nodded. "We shall see."

The next morning, we told F'lessan and Tai everything that had happened. They sent urgent messages north with their flying lizards. It was only a day later that five northern dragons appeared over Honshu, each bearing a net with a struggling caprine beast in it. Tai and Zaranth led them to the band's hunting grounds, where they landed and released their living cargo.

A day and a night later, we heard Talad's voice in the forest nearby, calling for us. We woke F'lessan and warned him that wild hunters were approaching and they should not be attacked, then went out to meet him.

He and San stepped out of the forest. "We have come," he said proudly, "to arrange a fair peace between our band and yours."