The Felines of Pern Chapter 5

I waited, motionless, until I could no longer hear the dragon crashing through the forest. I had to be sure that he would leave and not come back. I had another motive for not moving – when the dragon threw me to the ground, he reopened the wound on my flank, and any motion caused me pain now.

When the forest was quiet again, I had to decide what to do next. I was shaken by this encounter, and not merely by the physical pain. The intruders had spoken to me! They had treated me as an equal! I had no frame of reference to even begin to understand this. A few minutes later, Oclo and Hunter San crept out of the forest from different directions and saw me.

Oclo was the first to respond. "Rit! You're injured again. What happened?" Hunter San quickly approached me to see how bad it was.

"I met the large dragon and his rider," I began. "They –"

"And you attacked them alone?" San burst out. "I thought we agreed that we needed strength in numbers before we tried that again!"

"Please listen," I pleaded. "Yes, I attacked alone. I had a clear shot at the human. I was very close to them and I didn't think they could react in time. I was wrong about that; they're very quick. But that isn't the important part. They talked to me!"

"They talked to you?" Oclo repeated. "How? They don't speak the language of hunters, do they?"

"I heard a voice inside my head," I answered. "I could understand it perfectly, and their responses showed that they could understand me as well."

"What did they say?" San wanted to know.

"Mostly, he just kept saying that he wanted to talk to us," I replied. "I kept telling him to leave and not return, but he was very stubborn."

Oclo found the dragon's footprints and put his nose to them. "The scent is strong and the footprints are huge. Hunter San, follow that trail until you find their lair. Do not let yourself be seen! I want to know where they live, and if possible, how many of them there are. Return quickly and tell us what you find."

"I will," she said earnestly, and set off at an easy trot, her nose near the ground.

He turned to me. "Rit, make your way back to our clearing. Tell your story there, to as many of us as possible. This is important, and I want everyone to be involved."

I nodded and set out towards the clearing. It was slow going; every step hurt. Oclo walked beside me, matching his pace to mine so he didn't get ahead of me. As we went, he repeatedly made the "Come in" call. By the time we reached the clearing, eight of us were there. Hunter San was still tracing the intruders' route home, and Hunter Dess had not answered the Ted's call yet. She was probably delayed because she had to round up her cubs; it usually took her a while because she had seven of them this year.

Oclo stepped into the middle of the circle. "I called you in because something has happened to Hunter Rit. I'm going to let her tell her story, and then we're going to discuss it," he said. He stepped back and sat down. I took his place in the center of the circle, sat to ease the pain in my flank, and told them all what had happened, from the moment my nap was interrupted by the sounds of the approaching dragon to the moment when it backed away and left. I returned to the circle and waited for Oclo to speak.

He stepped back to the middle of the circle and looked at each of us in turn. "Never in our history has prey tried to talk to us," he began.

"If they can talk, then should we consider them prey?" I asked.

"Of course!" Woo burst out. "There are hunters and there is prey – there is nothing in between!"

"The dragons have claws and sharp teeth," I reminded them. "We know that they hunt the same kinds of prey that we hunt. Perhaps the dragons are a different kind of hunter."

"The humans are not hunters!" Woo shot back. "They have the teeth of plant-eaters and no claws. They are helpless before us."

"Then why don't the dragons eat the humans?" Dess called as she joined the circle. Her litter of cubs lay down nearby and went to sleep.

"That's a good question," Oclo nodded, "and it is one of many things I would like to know about these strange creatures who are invading our hunting grounds."

"We may not have the luxury of learning all there is to know about them," Woo retorted. "If they keep coming, then we'll have to do something about them, whether we have appeased our curiosity or not."

"True," the Ted agreed. "But if we keep attacking in ignorance of what these dragons are like, then we will probably see defeat after defeat, until our numbers are so reduced that we can no longer defend our grounds against other hunting bands. Hunter San will return soon with more information."

"It seems to me," I said hesitantly, "that there are two questions before us. One is what to do about them. The other is to find the significance of the fact that they can talk to us."

Oclo agreed. "There is also a third question, which is the relationship between the dragons and the humans. We never see one without the other. I want to know more about that."

"The first question is the most important," Woo said firmly.

"I'm not sure about that," Oclo said. "As I just said, I have to know more about them if I'm going to lead you to victory over them. If we follow them and observe them, we can learn some things and guess at others. But if they want to talk to us, we could learn a great deal."

"And they could learn about us as well," Kur pointed out. "Do we want them to know how small our band has become?"

"We don't need to tell them everything," I said. "We can spray them with questions and keep them too busy answering to ask any questions of their own. I think the Ted's idea is a good one."

"Those creatures have hurt you twice!" Woo retorted. "Why would you even want to go near them a third time?"

I gazed at her levelly. "Because I don't want a third failed attack," I said. "The voice I heard in my head was an intelligent voice, not the voice of frightened prey. I want to find out what they want, so we can decide what to do about it. They might even reveal a weakness that we can exploit. The Ted is right – if we continue to fight in ignorance, then we will continue to lose." I stopped and took a deep breath. "I'm willing to seek out one of these dragons and talk to it."

"What if it attacks you again?" Dess asked.

"Some of us will follow Hunter Rit," Oclo decided. "If she finds a dragon, we will hide nearby. If the dragon attacks, then we'll have the strength in numbers that we need. Our tactics will not be to overcome the adversary, but to distract him, rescue our hunter, and get away."

Woo was shocked. "You're already planning a retreat? In our own hunting grounds? What kind of a Ted are you?"

Oclo whirled to face her, ears back, his tail lashing the air. "I'm the kind of Ted who doesn't want to lose any more hunters! Until some more cubs have grown to adulthood and joined the hunting band, we will have to be defensive, not offensive. The idea of running away from a fight is as repulsive to me as it is to you, but until we know how to fight and win, that's the smartest thing we can do."

"I don't like it," Kur said, "but it makes sense." I dipped my head in agreement, as did several of the others. Woo and Dess were unconvinced.

"But I have another concern," Dess went on. "If we're going to follow Hunter Rit while she's looking for a dragon, will we still have time to hunt?"

"That's an important question," Woo agreed.

I stepped forward. "We hunt in the morning. We can look for a dragon in the afternoon, when our hunting is done."

"You're assuming that we'll all have success in the morning," Woo said. "What if we have to keep hunting in the afternoon because we find nothing in the morning?"

"And what about my cubs?" Dess argued. "They'll stay where I put them for a while, but if I have to leave them all day, some of them will definitely wander off. The feathered flyers love to pounce on stray cubs."

"Then train them to obey, like I do!" Kur retorted. Dess was about to get angry when Oclo coughed to get our attention.

"This project of looking for a dragon, and talking to it, will not become our first priority at this time," he decided. "Hunting and caring for cubs must always come first, and if there isn't enough time to do everything, then Rit will seek her dragon some other day. We will learn what we can about these intruders without disrupting our normal lives, and if they oblige us by meeting with us in the afternoon when our hunting is done, then Rit will question them on our terms." That pleased the entire band. We scattered to our resting places. Oclo followed me.

"That injury worries me," he said quietly.

"Give it time," I replied. "It will heal."

"Not if you keep re-injuring yourself," he answered. "I can see that you're in pain. How can you overtake fast-moving prey?"

"What do you suggest, Ted? Shall I lie down here and give up hunting so I can rest? Shall I hope that I heal before I starve to death?" My tone was sharper than I had intended.

"I suggest that you hunt as best you can," he replied mildly, "and if you cannot catch your prey, then the rest of the band will provide for you."

"No!" I snarled. "I'm not a helpless cripple. I will provide for myself, and if I can't, then the right thing to do is to give me the hunting band's mercy!"

He backed away, startled at my outburst. "I don't think the time has come for that," he said.

"Neither do I," I answered, "so please don't suggest that I should become a burden on the band. That would start the others wondering if, perhaps, the time has come for mercy."

After a long pause, he said, "All right. Hunt as best you can, but please don't make your injury worse. I'm not willing to lose you."

He turned and walked away to his resting place, leaving me to wonder exactly what he meant by that last comment.

o

T'gellan had been placed in charge of the delivery of the first batch of drug-laden herdbeast carcasses. He was speaking to the green riders who would be carrying them.

"Remember, spread them out at least ten miles apart," he told them. "We don't have many carcasses yet, we want to affect as many of those felines as we can, and Southern is a very big place, so until we know where they gather, we have to cast a wide net."

S'len raised his hand. "Is it true that F'lessan made contact with one of those felines, and his dragon talked to it?"

"Yes," Tai answered, "and the thing almost killed him! I'll be glad when those felines start eating these carcasses and reducing their numbers."

Mirrim had a question. "Is this going to completely wipe the felines out?"

"I wish," Tai muttered.

"Probably not," T'gellan answered. "This anti-reproduction agent is aimed at the females, not the males. There will be a few females that won't eat enough to get the full effect of the drug, or who eat it at the wrong time of the year so it doesn't affect their cycle. We also have to remember that it will take years for the change in population to take effect, and the Southern continent is just too big to cover with drugged herdbeasts. Everyone in Southern will still have to be careful when they go out in the woods for the next generation or two. Don't get careless, even if your dragon goes with you. Any other questions? Okay, riders, mount your dragons and take those dead herdbeasts far away from here!"

Tai and the others strapped themselves onto their dragons' necks, while the dragons took the carrying lines for the catch-nets in their claws. Each net held one herdbeast. The plan was for a dragon to release the lines on one side of the net and hang onto the other side, so the net would dump the carcass onto the ground without losing the net. By using nets instead of carrying the carcasses in their claws, they hoped to keep the carcasses from smelling like dragon.

Zaranth glanced at the shaggy herdbeast that lay on the net before her. What a waste of a good meal, she complained.

o

Hunter San returned to the band later that night. Most of the other hunters were asleep, but Oclo had waited up for her. "I'm sorry I returned so late," she began, "but I learned a lot and I wanted to be sure of what I was seeing."

"Did they see you?" the Ted asked.

"No, they didn't. I'm sure of it."

"You did well," Oclo reassured her. "Don't try to tell me everything now. You're tired and you need sleep. Get some rest; you can tell the entire band about it tomorrow."

"Thank you," she sighed, and quickly found her resting place.

San could not give her report right away, of course, because as soon as the hunters woke up, they spread out to hunt. It wasn't a good day for some of them, including me. My injury didn't hold me back; I simply found no prey to chase. I know that Kur would have shared her kill with me, but all she found was a young four-legged runner that was too small to feed herself, her cubs, and me as well. Woo took an adult horned beast that was far too large for her alone, but she flatly refused to share with me. That was disturbing, even worse than going hungry.

Was our band splitting into two factions? Some, like Woo, favored immediate action against the dragons. Others, including Oclo and me, wanted to learn more before we risked another battle. Ideally, we would all reach agreement on some course of action, but hot-heads like Woo didn't want to wait for that to happen. If the disagreement grew strong enough, the minority might be cast out of the band, one at a time. At the moment, it was hard to tell who that minority might be; most of the hunters had not expressed their views either way. I did not want to see things reach that point – all of these hunters were my friends, and some of them were family.

We gathered in our clearing shortly after high noon. I wasn't the only one who came back hungry. These things just happen sometimes. We sat in our circle and listened to San as she told us about what she'd done yesterday.

"The Ted told me to follow the dragon back to its lair," she began. "The scent trail was obvious, the footprints were unmistakable, and I could distantly hear it crashing through the undergrowth, so following it was easy. But I did have to hide and freeze for a few minutes when another dragon flew right over my head. It was a smaller green one, and I got the impression it was looking for me. If it saw me, it gave no sign, and I resumed my tracking after it was gone.

"This dragon lives in the stony ruins about half a day's travel toward the ocean from here. The humans are cleaning up the ruins, and they live there as well. There are many, many dragons and humans there, far more than I could count. They also keep herds of the horned beasts; I think they feed them to the dragons."

"The dragons don't hunt their own food?" Woo sounded disappointed.

"The dragons catch their food from the herd, but the herd is not allowed to run free. So the dragons are hunters, but not skillful hunters like us."

"What do the humans eat?" Oclo wondered.

"I didn't see them eating, so I don't know. I was observing from a safe distance, to be sure they didn't see me, so I couldn't make out many details. There was much coming and going for as long as I stayed there, so I feel safe in saying that they live their lives during the day and sleep at night, as we do. I also noticed that there are differences between the dragons. The smaller ones are green and blue, while the big ones are brown and bronze-colored. I saw a very large gold-colored dragon, but only one, so that kind must be unusual for some reason."

"The ones we attacked the first time were bronze and green," Kur noted.

"The one that spoke to me was bronze," I added, "and I think it was the same one we attacked the first time."

"Maybe the greens and the blues are their cubs," Kur suggested, "and they change colors as they get older and larger."

"That's very possible," Oclo nodded. "We know that our cubs change color as they age. So, if we want to attack a dragon, we'll have better luck against a green or a blue, because they're small, young, and inexperienced. That's useful to know. What else did you see?"

"I saw many humans doing many different things," San went on. "I didn't understand much of what I was seeing. Some of them were cleaning the stone walls where they live. Others were cutting down trees and slicing them into long, flat sections. They used some kind of implements that they held with their forepaws. The implements enabled them to do things that their weak forepaws could not do."

"Did any of those implements look like they could be dangerous to us?" Oclo asked.

San snorted. "If we held still and let them hit us, then yes. Otherwise, I saw nothing that frightened me."

Woo stepped forward. "Ted, you wanted to learn more about them. Thanks to San, we've done that. Now we know that they sleep at night. Why don't we just attack them while they sleep, and rid ourselves of them?"

"For one thing, they greatly outnumber us," San replied. "For another, we haven't solved the problem of them throwing us through the air without touching us. Finally, I noticed that the dragons' eyes are large and work differently than ours. I worry that they might see better in the dark than we do. Attacking them at night could be foolish, even dangerous."

"We need to do something," Dess muttered.

"Yes, we do need to do something," Oclo nodded, "but if we charge ahead blindly, we'll be defeated again, and this band is too small to survive another defeat like the last one. If anyone has a better idea than 'pounce blindly in the dark and hope for the best,' then I will gladly listen." He waited. No one had any suggestions.

"In that case," he went on, "I think it's best if we continue with Rit's plan to talk to one of them, so we can learn what they want. If any of you comes up with a good idea, please tell me about it. I know as little about these creatures as you do, and I'd like to –"

"Oh, would you stop over-analyzing them?!" Woo burst out. "We don't need to understand why another band is intruding on our grounds; we just drive them out. We don't need to understand what makes one kind of prey different from another kind; we just kill them and eat them. These creatures are intruders, and they might be prey as well. I say, let's drive them out!" A few murmurs from the circle showed that others agreed.

"And how are we going to do that?" Oclo asked softly.

"If all we do is sit in a circle and talk, nothing will change!" Woo protested. "The dragons will take food from our grounds, our cubs will go hungry, and we'll be driven out with no place to go!" Others nodded. "One swift rush in the night, and it will be all over. Even if some of us get hurt, it will be worth it to cast the intruders out of our hunting grounds!"

Oclo stood and stepped out of the middle of the circle. "Very well. If any of you want to attack the human place tonight, I will not forbid it. You've heard San's report, and apparently, you think your anger is a good answer to the enemy's advantages in numbers and their invisible throws. I ask one thing of you before you go: please choose someone else to care for your cubs after you are dead."

That thought took all the belligerence out of Dess and the others. Only Woo still favored immediate action, and she, like me, had no cubs this year. She glanced around the circle in frustration, but no one would support her. Her rebellion against the Ted had failed… for now, at least. Most of the band found our sleeping places and rested in the afternoon sun. Those of us who had failed at hunting in the morning went out again in search of prey. Two of them found a good-sized horned beast, lying dead in a clearing, and filled themselves on it. I still found nothing.

o

A/N
At some point on August 21, 2021, this story received its 1000th view. Thank you! There's plenty more story to come.