Night of the Eagle
Chapter Four:
The howling of the storm was a hushed murmur, the steady inch-by-inch scraping of the fur noiseless. Keetah nearly jumped out of her skin when the hacking cough broke the silence. She whirled, a striking snake, knife out and ready.
The Vulcan coughed again, a harsh, dry sound, and a thin trickle of blood seeped from the corner of his mouth. Keetah's earlier fear returned. She stooped over him. Breathing without the protecting facemask meant breathing in ice crystals that would bring swift lung disorders and almost certain death. And this man had been endless, fatal minutes outside. Nor had he undergone the rigorous conditioning needed to sustain his race against the biting cold of Hiemal wolf-world.
Moving the furs aside, she pressed her ear to the exposed chest, and the sound she most dreaded to hear was there: an ominous dry rustling crackle. A wave of primitive, superstitious terror swept her. Whether she willed it or no, she was going to share her cave with a dead man. Apache custom and teaching insisted she put him outside – now, before he died. She would be defiled, unclean, if she laid hand to the dead. Shivering a little, Keetah forced her mind away from tradition. There was a slim chance, and she could not be alone again with the ghosts of her fallen teammates; she could not.
Much would depend on his will to live, on the strength in the long, hard body. Resolutely ignoring the little voice shrilling and hammering unspeakable horrors, she dragged and tugged heavy rocks, breaking nails and tearing fingers bloody to build a low rampart about the sleeping furs.
Grimly she stripped furs and the rest of the Vulcan's clothes away and wrapped him in the still wet folds of the strung up, green hide, ignoring the sound of his continuous coughing, the deadly trickle of blood seeping from his lips with every labored breath.
Steadily she raised the phaser, set it on maximum and methodically blasted the low barricade. The backlash of heat drove her reeling across the cave to crouch with her arms over her face and head against the furthermost wall. For uncounted minutes, the heat beat at her before subsiding to a more bearable level.
Judging from the heat in the cave, the temperature now hovered somewhere near Vulcan norm, and she thought the rocks could stand another raying before crumbling into useless dust. Nothing in the small medical kit she had was of any use for this. Main Base had the necessary drugs and equipment, but Main Base was gone. Nothing remained there but a curdled nightmare of melted rock and metal. And five Vulcans.
Keetah pushed away that thought. To say their names, even to think of them, was forbidden. She must keep the pain and grief within decent bounds until she had fulfilled her vow. That was why no one ever spoke the names of the unavenged aloud; best she did not even think of them. But it was so hard – White Painted Lady, it was so hard.
It took all her will and concentration to open her hid bundle. Once more she made a selection of leaves, unhealthy-looking moss, and herbs. Thinking only of what she was doing, Keetah shredded each piece finely, dropped it into the freshly cleaned pot and set it at the back of the fire to steep.
Not for the first time, she felt an overwhelming surge of love and gratitude to Cuchillo, Shaman of the Eagle People and her father, for the challenging months and years he had patiently devoted to teaching her the herbal lore of the Apache nation.
Pagan sorcery, the pale-faced pinda-lick-o-yi invaders into the ancestral lands – had called it. But the white-eyes had not known everything. Those seemingly childish remedies often worked where their more sophisticated medicines and drugs failed. That had been truth over four hundred years ago: it was still truth, though the panda-lick-o-yi no longer sneered or doubted.
When the mixture was ready, then… then she would balance the old knowledge against new once more. Keetah laughed softly, laughed again, aware she was behaving disgracefully, uncaring since there was none here to witness. Only within the tightly knit bond of family and kin did Apache ever display emotion.
Her potion, a rather nauseating shade of rusty brown, was ready. Keetah dipped a finger, touched it to tongue tip, and nodded in satisfaction. It was use this or condemn the unconscious Vulcan to certain death, for she had no specific Vulcan medicine in the things she had salvaged from Main Base.
It was necessary to prop his head up; then she needs must straddle the limp body, it being impossible to stand near the glowing rocks. She eyed him with a mixture of repressed exasperation for the obligation he had unwittingly imposed on her and a deep-seated, profound relief that she was no longer alone without dalaanbiyat'i - an ally on the wolf-world.
Apache clung to family and clan. To move apart as she had done, driven by her thirst for knowledge, was to die a little death. Sirak, the other Vulcans, had accepted her as colleague and equal, asking nothing she did not choose to give freely, respecting her customs and beliefs even when they could not share them. For all their alien ways, she had felt akin to them. The quest for knowledge had led her to strange worlds and stranger companions, and she had been content that this should be so. To be alone again – that she could no longer endure.
Drop by drop she fed the unconscious Vulcan the bitter draught, not daring to give more lest she choke him. Finally, she paused, bathed in perspiration, half a cup remaining. There would be no sleep for her this night . He was no longer coughing so frequently, the burning rocks and the heat in the untreated fur that of mid-summer on Vulcan, easing the strain on laboring lungs. But he also needed the inner heat the brew would provide, that the ice crystals in his lungs be absorbed the more speedily.
Hour followed dragging hour as Keetah nodded over the fire, jerking awake repeatedly to force another few drops down his throat. It began to assume the proportions of a monstrous dream. Slide one drop, two, between his lips, tilt his head back, massage his throat - for the intervals when he swallowed automatically were few and far between - persevere until another half-cupful was gone. Keetah would then stagger over to the fire, reheat the medicine, fight the numbing urge to sleep, before following the entire sequence of events again.
Towards morning the dry cough finally stopped. When she pressed her ear to his chest, the crackling rustle was still present, but she could doubt no more. It was easing. His breathing changed even as she listened, slowing, the lines of pain fading magically as she watched. Shaking with relief and exhaustion, Keetah stared down at the now peaceful face. He had managed to initiate the healing trance.
The furs and their occupant were a wavering blur and the phaser dipped and trembled in unsteady fingers. Somehow she was able to focus her eyes long enough to ignite the rocks again. Dragging herself across the cave on rubbery legs, Keetah slumped onto the furs she had earlier spread. The last thing she remembered before sleep finally claimed her were the waves and waves of heat and how strange it felt to be hot on the wolf-world.
She woke from a dream in which she rode the deserts of her home, wild and free, the sun burning overhead. The storm had not yet blown itself out, she noted as she padded softly over to the Vulcan. There was no change in the wound when she lifted a corner of the bandages, but the crackling rustle had faded still more. Only by pressing her ear to his chest and listening intently could she even hear it.
"Yat-ta-hay, that is very good." He did not wake and it was high time she attended to her own needs. First she must eat: the meat proved soft and juicy in its protective seaweed. She chewed on it ravenous with hunger. Afterwards she put snow in a pan with a niggardly spoonful of powdered leaves added. While that heated, she decided to bathe. Keetah did not enjoy the present state of her person. Dirty, covered in sweat and dried blood, her own smell disgusted her.
The crudely primitive steam lodge she had constructed out of tanned grazer hides over green sticks. A handful of soapweed, the last of the melted snow, and a red-hot stone was all she needed. After using the bone scrape that just fitted her hand, she allowed ten minutes to luxuriate in the heat.
Later she would bathe the Vulcan, see to his other needs. For now, rest was essential. Her herb tea was ready, and as as she sipped it slowly, she planned. A couple of days to smoke the meat, and during that time she would fashion clothing for him. The smaller furs would do for gloves and boots, and there was her sky-blue woolen shirt with its vivid black, orange and red designs hand-woven far away on Mistai'ai. As with all Apache garments, it was loose, billowy, needing a belt at the waist to confine it, and it would fit the slimly built Vulcan. There was the spare thermal suit she had brought from the dome, planning to alter it later. And when she had tanned and prepared the Lur-skin, he would have outdoor wear.
Food was going to be a problem. Apache had thrived on lands so harsh other races starved to death there. She could survive on meat alone… but this Vulcan could not eat flesh, he would not. And the stores she had brought with her…Keetha's eyes went to the bundles on a high, rocky shelf. They had been meant to tide her over when the hunt was bad, as it so frequently proved. That they would suffice him…she did not believe it.
He would need hot food and plenty of it; far more than he was accustomed to eating. Hiemal sucked vitality from the body, leeching strength and energy, and he was already weak. There was seaweed, when one could find it along the shores of the great frozen ocean stretching endlessly to the east; mosses; certain types of fungi; reeds boiled and pounded ot remove corrosive and toxic elements; a few berries but no fruits; nothing resembling vegetation.
Kindling a row of peat fires along one wall, sprinkling herbs to impart a delicate favor to the meat, Keetah strung the joints up on thongs. That done, she settled down cross-legged in front of her own small fire with furs, bone needles, sinews, her big hunting knife - she had no awl and had to use it to punch holes in the skins that she might sew them together. With one brief pause to measure hand and foot, she worked steadily, halting only when gloves and boots were ready.
Whether it was now day or night, she had no way of knowing. To venture out into a blanket-storm was to court a death that would flay still-living flesh from bone. Her inner time sense indicated it was late perhaps night. No matter; time had no meaning in the secure fastness of the cave.
Best she see to the Vulcan. Resignedly she climbed into her outer furs. To go outside, that was madness; to bring a little of the storm inside was one way to replenish the melted snow.
All of her store, save one tiny pocket had melted in the above-hundred heat needed to save the Vulcan's life. Even through the massive boulder, Keetah could feel as well as hear the storm. Taking a deep breath, she tugged it forcibly to one side, the snow banked outside making it all but impossible to shift it more than a bare inch or two - which was all she needed.
A shrieking maelstrom of whit-drift blasted into the cave, almost drowning out the howl of the wind. Once the rock was back in position, there was a hillock of snow taller than herself to be shoveled into a far corner. Panting, Keetah shed her furs, breathing deeply of the sharp, clean air, which, for a moment, overwhelmed the other stenches.
The floor of the cave sloped into a deep hollow by the sleeping furs. Pile snow in there, add a heated rock, and she would have near-boiling water. Keetah hefted the phaser uneasily. Twice now she had recharged it, and there were only four charges remaining. She had not forgotten the snow packed gorge or the path she would need to melt through it. If there had only been more time. She had taken only those things that would betray the presence of a human on the wolf-world, her possessions; the supply of herbs, fungi, the medicines she had collected and tested over the past two years; the weapons she had made; furs; for the rest, tools and supplies the Klingons would not readily notice were missing.
Sirak had ordered the team armed, much against Vulcan custom and belief. Predators had early been attracted to their bases and venturing out unarmed was to invite a swift death. Those in the Vulcan team had disliked the order but accepted the unpleasant necessity with Vulcan sang-froid. Respecting their reverence for life as they respected her own beliefs, Keetah had taken upon herself the task of discouraging the prowling hunters.
Keetah smiled faintly. Sirak had disapproved but was unable to deny she was the best suited for the task – just as she had been the best at trapping and snaring the animals they needed for their research. Try as he might, Sirak had not been able to find a logical reason forbidding her exploits – though he had tried.
Another phaser, more charges would have been useful, but she had her own reasons for preferring the weapons she had made rather than a more modern arsenal. And she knew without false pride that a lifetime of use and training in those weapons of the Apache made her a formidable and deadly opponent – as many luckless Klingons had already learned in the weeks since she had fled the devastated lab. As more would learn in the future, she vowed as she went about her preparations with the quiet efficiency natural to her.
The Vulcan was a mess, covered from head to foot in green and red blood, sweat and dirt. It took time, most of the hot water and a good lathering of soapweed to get him clean.; the green hide was soaked before she had finished. That would make it softer, easier to cure, Keetah thought as she dressed him, lifting each limp and heavy limb before sliding the blue shirt over his head and tying it loosely at the Vulcan's slim waist. The neck thongs she left undone, having sacrificed an inner garment to replace soiled and stained bandages.
Finished at last, she subjected him to a minute examination. He remained deep in the healing trance. With complete detachment, she slapped him briefly, but stingingly across the cheek. There was no response; not that she had really expected any. He would need perhaps another full night and day for the trance to complete its healing. At least she need not sit up with him this night.