The Felines of Pern Chapter 9

Rit spent the rest of the day sleeping in the tree, and all night as well. Healer Ballora worried that her patient might be dying. Tai and F'lessan had to reassure her (from their research that they'd done at Landing) that this was normal behavior for such cats, and the hunter would probably be ready to eat in the morning.

This turned out to be true, to F'lessan's chagrin. The cat was awake before sunrise, loudly snarling and calling for him via Golanth. He left Tai in bed, struggled into some clothes, and made his way down to the edge of the forest.

"Golanth, tell her it's early morning and we don't have any chopped meat ready to feed her."

She says she does not care if it is chopped. She just wants to eat.

Ballora joined them. "Our patient is making a lot of noise. Let me guess – she's hungry?"

"She's ravenous, and that's the one state I do not want her in!" F'lessan replied.

"Then I guess you'd better feed her," the Healer said. "What's the problem?"

"I don't have any feline food ready at this early hour," he said.

"She's a carnivore," Ballora reminded him. "You must have some livestock for your dragons to eat, right? Let her catch her own breakfast. I don't think she can re-injure herself if she's catching her prey inside a fenced enclosure."

F'lessan shrugged. "I guess that makes sense. I'll keep an eye on her, though, and I'll call you if she needs you. She can't be a messier eater than the dragons are." He beckoned with his hand for Rit to follow him, and he led her to the herdbeast pens.

She says those horned beasts are too large for her, Golanth told him. The hunters never hunt them solo unless they are old, young, or sick. Your beasts are all healthy and in their prime.

"Does she know what wherries are?" F'lessan asked him. "I've got plenty of those in pens, too."

She says wherries are good, but she cannot eat a whole one at a single sitting, so most of the meat will go bad. She wants to know if you have any smaller beasts.

"Well, I've got some wooly herdbeasts," F'lessan said after a moment's thought. "But they aren't in an enclosure; they're grazing in a pasture. Will Rit hurt herself chasing down one of those?"

"I don't think so," Ballora decided. "Those beasts don't move very fast, so catching them won't require much exertion from the patient. But it's like you said – we don't want her to get too hungry. She's been well-behaved so far, and it's in our best interest to keep her that way. If it was me, I'd take her to the pasture and I wouldn't waste any time about it." Again, F'lessan beckoned with his hand. Rit paced beside him as he made his way across the Honshu compound and down a trail to a grassy pasture. He greeted the shepherd and told him what was about to happen.

"I can't watch," the shepherd said sadly, and turned away.

F'lessan gestured at the shaggy creatures as they munched the green grass. "There's your breakfast, Rit," he said. It took half a second for Golanth to relay the message…

…and just like that, a tan-and-black blur shot toward the herdbeasts. The slow-moving, slow-thinking creatures never knew what hit them; they were just beginning to run away when the feline caught the first one. She knocked it off its feet with a swipe of her paw, doubled back on it, and locked her jaws around its throat until it stopped breathing. She then proceeded to devour it as though she hadn't eaten in days.

F'lessan and Ballora were staring in amazement, their mouths hanging open. The hunt was over almost before it began. The Healer finally said, "I did not think anything could run that fast! Her injury must be slowing her down, but that's still the fastest thing I've ever seen."

"The computers at Landing said that these cats are the fastest things on land," F'lessan said. "I didn't believe it." He shook his head.

"I don't think Lord Jaxom believes it, either," Ballora replied.

"I should warn him to hide his best breeding stock before he loses his bet," F'lessan said. Then he grinned. "Or maybe I shouldn't. Some lessons are best learned the hard way."

"That's your call to make," Ballora answered. "I'm a healer, not a bookmaker. I need to examine her and change her dressing."

"Let her eat. Please," F'lessan nearly pleaded with her. "Hungry felines make bad houseguests." They waited until Rit had finished her meal and finished grooming herself afterward.

"What's going to become of the remains of the dead wooly herdbeast?" she asked.

"We'll throw it to the wherries, just before we throw the wherries to the dragons," F'lessan answered. "The Southern continent may have more abundant food than the Northern, but we still don't waste anything. Golanth, please tell Rit that the healer has to examine her."

Rit ambled slowly over to them, her belly visibly bloated. She says that was very tasty. She thanks you.

"Tell her, 'You're welcome, and please don't bite the Healer while she treats your injury.'" The feline stood stiffly as Ballora rinsed out the wound with clean water, applied more of the yellow powder, and covered it with a dressing.

"Ask her if it feels any better," Ballora said to Golanth. After a moment, the dragon answered, She says it does not hurt as badly as it did.

"That's good news," the Healer said to F'lessan. "It means the yellow powder is working."

She also says that, if you had caused her pain that did not result in an improvement, she probably would have killed you. The dragon's mental tone was matter-of-fact, but F'lessan and Ballora were forcibly reminded that they were still dealing with a wild, dangerous animal.

"Well, then we're doubly glad that the powder is working," F'lessan finally said.

She says, 'Thank you, healer. Thank you for the meal, Modoc.'

"Are you still calling me Man On Dragon, Oblivious to Cats, even though I'm trying to save your life?" F'lessan felt miffed, and a bit hurt by her ingratitude.

She says it now stands for Man On Dragon who Obviously Cares.

"Oh," was all he could think of to say. The great cat went into the forest for a few minutes, then returned, took up her perch on the tree branch, and went back to sleep.

o

That was my first whole day among the humans. The next week went by very much like that first day. Sometimes they fed me with prepared meat on a platter, and sometimes they took me to the open field where the shaggy beasts fed on grass. There were days when my flank hurt, and it was good to eat without expending any effort. There were also days when the wild joy of the hunt was worth some discomfort.

When I came to the humans, I had no idea what they would do to heal me, assuming that they didn't kill me on sight. I didn't understand how something as insignificant as a dusting of yellow powder could heal an injury that had the power to kill me. But I could not argue with the fact that my injury felt better. If the dragons had spoken the truth about these humans' healing abilities, then maybe I would live.

When I approached the humans' place, I had begun to give up hope of living. Now, to have hope again… of course I wanted to live! But to be in the debt of these humans might be going too far. Was I paying too high a price for life? No, I'd gotten it right earlier – anything is better than being dead. The humans hadn't demanded anything of me except a request that I not attack them. If they were truly saving my life, then their request was a reasonable one. Did that mean that they were no longer my enemies? If they were truly a threat to my band, then shouldn't I strike at them if I got the chance? That would be the act of a terrible ingrate, but war is war.

As I thought this over, I finally realized that these humans weren't acting like they were at war with us. If they thought they were at war, then they would have either killed me the moment they saw me, or turned me away to die of my injury. They had done neither. They were offering me life and health, and demanding nothing in return. Clearly, they did not see me as an enemy.

I would have to rethink this situation.

The one called F'lessan became the one I turned to when I had questions about what was going on. He was called a "Weyrleader," which is something like a Ted for the dragons and their riders. I wondered why they allowed him to continue in his position when he was obviously injured and limited in function. He explained, through his dragon, that he had founded this "weyr" and he would continue to lead it until the first gold dragon rose to mate. Whoever rode the dragon that caught that gold in the air would become the next Weyrleader.

"Will they put you out of the Weyr at that time?" I asked him.

"Of course not!" he answered. "I'll still be the Holder, no matter what. I'll probably focus on my astronomy when that happens." He had to explain to me what "astronomy" was, and he had no luck explaining why it was important. He showed no rancor at the idea that his dragon had no chance of catching the gold anymore. This is very different from the way a hunting band chooses its Ted, but it seems to work for the humans, and the dragons don't complain in any way that I could see.

The healer, the one called Ballora, visited me once or twice a day to examine and treat my wound. Her manner was kind; she was clearly no warrior, no hunter. How could human society function if some of them did nothing except heal the injured? How did those healers provide for themselves and their cubs? The only answer that made sense was that the other humans provided food for the non-hunters as well as for themselves. If that was the case, then there must be huge numbers of those humans bringing in huge amounts of prey. That did not bode well for our plans to fight them and defeat them.

Sometimes the healer hurt me while cleaning out the wound, but everyone assured me that this was normal and inevitable. At first, I did not believe them. I thought they were tormenting me to even the score for the pain that my hunting band and I had inflicted on them. Then F'lessan and Golanth called to me one afternoon, waking me from my nap. You need to see this, Golanth told me.

They led me to the other end of the stone buildings, where humans were standing on rickety-looking wooden devices called "ladders" to clean and repair the stones. One man had fallen off his ladder. I could plainly see that his leg was broken. An injury like that in the hunting band would be incurable; the victim would be given mercy immediately to end their suffering. But F'lessan pointed to a man with gray hair on his face. "That's the Weyr Healer," he told me. "If you think that Ballora is hurting you on purpose, then you need to watch this."

As I watched, the other humans applied a sticky substance to the area around the injury. The man cried out briefly when they touched him, but after a minute, his pain seemed to subside. Then four men held him down while the Weyr Healer did something to the broken leg that made the man scream even louder. Then they surrounded the leg with thin wooden strips, tied them in place, and carried the man inside the building.

"Why did the Healer hurt him so badly?" I asked. F'lessan told me, through Golanth, that they had to set the broken bones straight so they would heal correctly. There was no other way to do this.

"What was the sticky stuff they put on his leg?" They said it was called "numbweed" and it helped to deaden the pain. If they had not used the numbweed, it would have hurt even worse. I recalled the man's screams and wondered how it possibly could have been worse. But they assured me that, after about eight weeks, he could begin walking again, and he would eventually be perfectly healed. I contrasted that to the fate of a hunter who broke her leg, and I was forced to admit that, even though the humans' ways inflicted terrible pain for a short time, they yielded a much better result in the end.

The next day, it was my turn. Ballora said that my wound had healed well enough that she wanted to "stitch" it. I asked what that meant, and when she told me, I nearly ran away.

"Why should I allow you to hurt me so badly?" I demanded.

"It is necessary if you want to fully heal," she told me through Golanth. "The muscles will not mend themselves until the wound is closed up."

"Is there no other way?" I asked fearfully.

"There is no other way," she assured me.

"Will you use your 'numbweed' on me?" I was nearly pleading with her, which was humiliating, but the pain...

"Yes, I will," she promised. "Also, I'll only use familiar people to help me. I won't subject you to the care of strangers."

The "familiar people" turned out to be F'lessan and Tai. One of them stood close on either side of me; Ballora said it was to help me stay in one place while she worked. She also offered me a piece of a wooden log. "Hold this in your mouth," she told me, "and if it really hurts, then bite down on the log as hard as you can. For some reason, it helps with the pain."

I declined the log. Biting on plant matter seemed unworthy of a hunter somehow. I stood stiffly, enduring the proximity of F'lessan and Tai. When the numbweed went on, it felt cool, and after the space of a few breaths, I felt nothing at all in that area. It was the first time since we attacked the dragons that I had been pain-free. The healer waited several minutes for the numbweed to take full effect, then gathered her implements. Some of them looked dangerously sharp.

"Here we go," said Ballora. I braced myself.

To my complete astonishment, I felt almost nothing. I could not watch what she was doing (F'lessan and Tai were in my way), but she talked to me continuously, telling me that I was doing well and that everything was going normally. I stood there quivering, unwilling to show weakness in front of these humans even though I was terrified at the idea of her metal thorns piercing me. It seemed like she took all day, but it could not have been very long at all.

At last, she was finished. She covered her work with another dressing so I couldn't see it. "If you were an unintelligent beast," she began, "I'd have to keep the stitches covered until they were ready to be removed, or else you'd lick them, rub them against things, and pull them out. But you're intelligent, so I'll just say, 'Don't touch the stitches.' I don't get to do that very often in the Beastcraft. You're a good patient."

"How long must those 'stitches' stay in me?" I asked.

"If you're still a good patient at the end of one week, and if nothing unexpected happens, that's when I'll take them out," the Healer told me. "That part will be nearly painless; you won't even need the numbweed. In the meantime, you need to take it easy for a week and not stretch that part of your skin, or the muscles beneath it. That means no high-speed hunting, and I'm afraid that also means you're grounded; no leaping up into the trees."

"Then how will I live?" I demanded.

"F'lessan will give orders for someone to bring you food every day. As for sleeping places, I'm sure you'll find something that doesn't require you to jump."

"I do not share your optimism," I muttered to myself. But Golanth overheard me somehow and translated my words anyway.

"I'd like to suggest something, if I could," F'lessan said.

"What would you know about a hunter's choice in sleeping places?" I snarled.

"This isn't about sleeping places; it's about living arrangements," he answered. "Some of the dragon riders are asking me why we're putting so much effort into keeping you alive when your kind are so hostile to us. I need a reason to keep you here until you're fully healed, and I think I came up with something."

"He came up with something, with a little help," Tai added. She bared her teeth, which I had learned meant she was happy or making a joke, not challenging someone for dominance.

"Okay, she definitely helped," F'lessan admitted. "But here's what I'm… I mean, here's what we're thinking. The original felines of your kind were bred by Ted Tubberman to hunt tunnel snakes." I asked what a tunnel snake was, and he described the long digging creatures that are poisonous to eat. "Anyway, we were wondering if you'd be willing to try hunting some tunnel snakes around here. That would become our reason to keep you around. The riders won't complain about that – everybody hates tunnel snakes!"

"I am willing, in principle," I said slowly. "I think I can kill small animals without re-injuring myself. Where are these tunnel snakes?"

"Inside Honshu Weyrhold," he said simply.

I stood there for several seconds, lashing my tail back and forth. "You are asking me to go into your human building?" I finally said.

"Only while you're actually hunting," he reassured me. "You won't be locked inside, or anything like that. You'll be free to come and go as you please. Just leave a small pile of dead tunnel snakes by the doorway, as proof that you're doing your job and earning your keep. It will make life easier for all of us while we're looking out for you."

I had never been inside anything, ever. The hunters shun caves or anything else that might trap us with no way out. The idea of being surrounded by walls, a floor, and a ceiling… I would never admit it to the humans, but it was frightening. F'lessan's request was reasonable, but at the same time, it was something I probably could never agree to. Could I?

For some reason, I suddenly recalled one of my last successful hunts. I had brought down an elderly horned beast, and it was far too big for me to eat by myself. Hunter Kur had come back empty, and she had a large litter of cubs this year. I had willingly shared my kill with her and her cubs. That was how hunters took care of each other. A while later, it was I who came back empty and Kur who shared her kill with me.

"It will make life easier for all of us while we're looking out for you." That was what F'lessan had said, and the principle was the same. If he did something good for me, then it was only fair that I do something good for him. And he had done many good things for me – he had fed me, he had brought a healer to save my life, he had allowed me to hunt his wooly herdbeasts… It was reasonable for him to ask me for something in return.

But to go inside a human dwelling…?

"I must think about this," I finally said.

"Think all you want," F'lessan replied. "There's no hurry, or at least, not today. Today, you need to take it easy."

"That's good advice," Ballora added. "The numbweed will wear off in an hour or so, and you may feel some mild pain for a while. I'd suggest taking a good drink of water, and then taking one of your long naps. Try to find a place where no one will disturb you."

"I will do that," I replied; it was what I would normally do at this time of day anyway. After my drink, I began prowling the grounds of Honshu in search of a resting place that did not require a leap. I passed other humans as they went about their business; they gave me a wide berth but did not run away. Apparently, my presence was no longer as alarming to them as it had been a week ago.

I finally found a good resting place atop a small wooden human building, set apart from the main rocky building. It had a flat-stone roof to protect it against the gray rain, it was full of slabs of wood and woodworking tools, and it had no door that anyone could open or close to wake me up. I made a short jump onto the stump of a nearby tree, another short jump onto the roof, and there I was. The stone roof was warm from being in the sun all morning. I found the sunniest part of the roof, made myself comfortable, and soon fell asleep. My last conscious thought was, "It's not a tree branch, but it's not bad, either."

I awoke to the light of the two moons. My flank hurt slightly; evidently I had rolled onto that side in my sleep, and that was what woke me up. I looked around for a few moments, getting my bearings while sleeping in an unfamiliar place. Everything was quiet except for the soft, heavy breathing of the horned beasts, asleep in their enclosure of the human building.

That reminded me of F'lessan's request. He never said I had to start tonight. But if I put it off tonight, then I would probably put it off tomorrow night as well, and it would never get done. I jumped easily to the tree stump and then to the ground. Was I really going to do this? Was I going to become the first of my kind to enter a human building? What if I couldn't get out? What if the tunnel snakes were all hiding tonight, or hunting elsewhere, and I was about to waste my time for no benefit?

Most of the doors in the building were closed, and I did not have human hands to open them. I finally found a partially open door off to the side. It was narrow compared to the others, which seemed to mean it was of lesser importance than the big ones. I took two deep breaths, gathered myself, and stepped inside.

It was very, very dark, darker than an overcast night when the moons and the stars can't be seen. It took me a minute just to gather the courage to take another step. Were the walls closing in on me? What if the roof fell? What if someone shut the door and trapped me inside? I went very slowly, finding my way by scent and by the feelings of my whiskers when they approached a wall. The floors of this place were made of stone, but they were polished very flat and smooth. Every few steps, I stopped and listened to see if I could learn anything from the sounds of this place. Silence was all that came back. There were many, many unfamiliar smells here, in addition to the strong scent of humans.

I soon came to a side hallway that seemed wider than the one I was following. If this hall was more important, then I would follow it instead. There were multiple rooms that branched off from this hall. They were all closed off by wooden doors, but I could smell various kinds of human food inside – tree fruits, vegetables from the ground, nuts, roots, herbs of various sorts. How do humans get so big eating food of this kind?

Then I heard a scratching sound. It came from a room on my left that smelled strongly of food, and there was no door. I slid in, staying close to the wall so I would know where it was. The scratching sound was definitely in here, somewhere to my right. By careful listening, I figured out the source. It was some kind of small creature creeping along the base of the walls. It might be a tunnel snake, but even if it wasn't, it had no business here.

It took a few more steps, and now I was sure. It was about eight feet away – an easy leap. I gathered myself, sprang… and crashed head-first into a hollow wooden object that I hadn't seen in the dark. The unknown creature scurried away to safety as I sat and shook my head. I wasn't hurt, but I was very glad that the humans hadn't seen my foolish mistake. They might think I was an incompetent hunter.

I prowled for another hour or so, but I found nothing. I retraced my steps by scent and returned to my sleeping place. If I was going to hunt by night in the human building, then I needed a better technique, or a better plan.