Chilaili was afraid.
She hadn't been this frightened since the day her mother's mangled body had been carried home. The responsibility which had descended so crushingly on her young shoulders that day was as nothing compared with the weight of responsibility she carried now. If she failed . . .
Then it would be a very short failure.
The moment she stepped past the screen, Chilaili was engulfed by shrieking hatchlings. They danced joyously around her, welcoming her home with shrill cries, so overjoyed by her return, they overcame their awe of the katori cloak. Smiling and patting heads with her free hand, she took advantage of the outcry she'd known would greet her return. Chilaili angled the nozzle of the largest canister she carried to project slightly beyond the edge of her cloak. She drew a deep, ragged breath—and plunged the release mechanism.
The hiss was completely drowned out by the yelling hatchlings. Chilaili waded into the main living cavern, spewing the stuff into the air as she walked. An invisible cloud spread out above the heads of the little ones, forcibly ejected by the humans' special container—such a fragile barrier between all she loved and hideous death. The canister turned cold against her fur, then the hissing stopped. An instant later, Sooleawa threw herself into Chilaili's arms.
"Mother!" she cried, trembling violently. "I've been so afraid! When you didn't come and didn't come . . ."
"Hush, precious one," she soothed, taking her daughter's face in both hands and smoothing her fur. "I'm home now."
But not, her mind whispered, safely. Honored Great-Grandmothers, watch over us . . .
Sooleawa smiled, then Chilaili greeted the clan's ruling Grandmothers, the mothers heavy with eggs not yet laid, and the huntresses who would not be leaving for at least another day, to attack an empty research station. In the shadows, the males too old to go to war greeted her with pleasure, nodding from where they sat brooding their daughters' and granddaughters' eggs. Given her long absence, they doubtless looked forward to the poultices and tisanes she would prepare to soothe their aching bones and stiffened muscles.
Even the akule greeted her with simple, warm joy. "We feared the worst, Chilaili," he said earnestly, taking her hands briefly in his. "Trying to travel through such a storm . . . Thank the Ones Above, you are safe. The ritual went well?"
She nodded, not trusting her voice to speak the lie.
"All is well, then. The war party set out for the larger human nest nearly a full day ago. If the Ones Above look kindly on them, they will reach that nest within another two days and destroy it."
Chilaili nodded again, still unable to speak. The humans and their ogre—their Bolo, she corrected herself—could have killed the entire war party at any time, without ever coming close enough for the warriors to fire a single shot or lob a single bomb in self-defense. Insanity, to fight such an enemy. The canisters under her cloak—one empty, two waiting for the right moment—were so heavy, they dragged at her spirit as well as the pouches she had slipped them into.
"Sooleawa," she said tiredly, "could you bring me a cup of something hot to drink? I'm chilled clear through."
"Of course, Mother!"
The girl scampered off and Chilaili turned in a slow circle, allowing the humans a good view of the cavern through the device hidden on her cloak. "There are too many empty hearths," she said quietly, glancing from one living space to the next, each family's spot marked by the outlines of cooking hearths and sleeping furs. "Never have we sent so many of our clan to battle." She shook her head and let out a deep and weary sigh. "Is there news from other clans?"
Great-Grandmother Anevay gestured for Chilaili to sit beside her. She sank down onto a pile of sleeping furs arranged next to the old woman's hearth. Anevay offered her a bowl of savory wurpa stew, smoking hot from the fire.
"Yes, katori," she said as Chilaili began to eat, "there is news from the other clans. Grim news, all of it. We have not dared use our Oracle. The akule has heard explosions and screams through ours, every time a clan has used theirs to plead for help. These devils we fight are merciless." The ancient matriarch shook her head sadly. "You were right, Chilaili, to warn us that we fight an enemy more deadly than we could comprehend. But in all honesty, what else can we do?"
Chilaili couldn't answer that question.
Not yet.
"The Ones Above have not spoken at all, then?" she asked.
"No," Kestejoo sighed, joining them. "We have not heard their voices since the beginning of the war."
The akule looked as tired as she felt. In his own way, Chilaili realized, he felt the burden of this war as heavily as she did. She feared what he would do when the Bolo launched the second phase of their desperate plan. Fortunately, Sooleawa returned with a steaming cupful of ijwa tea, distracting her from that worry. Chilaili sipped gratefully, although the sloshing liquid revealed the shameful unsteadiness of her hands.
"You're trembling, Chilaili," Kestejoo said worriedly. "Are you all right?"
She nodded. "I have fasted for many days, is all. And the trip back through the deep snow was exhausting." That, at least, was honest enough. "The stew and the tea will restore my strength."
They did help, in fact. The taste of wurpa stew and mellow ijwa tea soothed her jangled nerves with their simple familiarity, reminding her that she was home for however long a time remained to them. The humans had shared their food unstintingly, but she had found human fare unsettling in its strangeness. It was so good to be back amongst her own kind, to see her beloved daughter's face, it was all she could do to swallow past the constriction in her throat.
She sat and listened to Sooleawa's bright chatter and Anevay's humorous account of the days she'd been away, sharing all the silly squabbles between nestlings, passing along the complaints and aches of the older grandmothers and grandfathers. Squealing laughter rang cheerfully from the little ones as they played chase and stalk through the living cavern. Their world was bright and happy again with the safe return of their katori. For them, the war was a faraway tale that had not yet touched their lives directly.
All too soon, that would change.
Chilaili sipped her tea and nibbled at her stew and silently counted down the passing minutes. An hour, the humans had said. During the days spent with them, she had learned to judge very accurately the span of time they referred to as one hour. When that deadline passed with nothing but silence, her hands grew unsteady again and her pulse jumped. Soon, she groaned to herself. It had to be soon.
Sooleawa had just brought another cupful of tea when the Oracle's incoming-message alarm sounded. It echoed shrilly from the little cavern where the akule tended the device. Even though she had been expecting it—or perhaps because she had—Chilaili started violently, sloshing hot tea across her hand. She swore viciously, even as the akule lunged to his feet and ran for the Oracle Chamber. Chilaili's hand throbbed where the tea had scalded her palm pads. Her heartbeat thundered. John Weyman's voice whispered in her ear, "Get ready, Chilaili. This is it."
And hard on the heels of that alien whisper came Bessany Weyman's: "Courage, my friend."
"Mother?" Sooleawa asked worriedly, noticing Chilaili's sudden distress.
Chilaili shook her head and gave her daughter a wan smile. Hands shaking violently, she fumbled the canister of sealant and the heavy, round smoke grenade out of their pouches, then turned her head toward the Oracle Chamber. A moment later, the akule reappeared, looking shaken. "Will someone help me carry the Oracle, please?"
"Carry it?" Great-Grandmother Anevay asked sharply. "Carry it where?"
"Into the living cavern. The Ones Above have commanded me to bring the Oracle out, so everyone can hear."
A murmur of surprise ran through the cavern. Several huntresses followed the akule back into the Oracle chamber. Chilaili heard a scraping sound, several grunts, then the sound of claws on rock as they returned. The Oracle was far larger, Chilaili now realized, than it needed to be if the only purpose it served was communication. Compared with the equipment the humans used to speak over vast distances, the Oracle was enormous. It required four adults to carry it.
John Weyman's voice muttered in her ear, "Good God, that thing's huge. What do they have concealed in there?"
"At a guess," Bessany Weyman's voice rasped out a whispered answer, "data recorders of some kind, with enough computer storage space to hold several decades' worth of accumulated information. Visual as well as audio, given the size of that thing. I wonder how often they harvest the data? And how?"
The Bolo, hooked into the communications equipment Chilaili and the humans carried—and therefore able to see and hear through the device on Chilaili's cloak—spoke up.
"I'm picking up faint electronic signals originating from the Oracle and a dozen other points throughout the cavern. These probably indicate hidden cameras in every chamber of this cavern complex, transmitting via low-power signals to the data recorders in the Oracle casing. The clan is closely observed at all times. And, of course," the machine added with devastating simplicity, "the Oracle contains enough neurotoxin to kill the entire clan."
Chilaili shuddered. And realized for the first time, with a sickening sense of what might have happened, that the defiance they had discussed the night of the Council's vote could easily have triggered the Ones Above into destroying them.
"Anybody see a neurotoxin delivery system on that thing?" John Weyman asked tersely.
"Not without a more detailed look at it," Rapier replied. "Chilaili, can you get closer?"
She didn't want to go near the abomination, but it would kill her just as dead from across the cavern as it would standing right next to it, so Chilaili rose to her feet. "Sooleawa," she said in a low voice, "stay beside me. I want you to see the Oracle clearly. This is a moment never to be forgotten."
A vast understatement . . .
And if the humans' antidote didn't work, if the deadly neurotoxin poisoned them, after all, she would kill Sooleawa with her own hands. It would be far kinder to kill her child with a swiftly broken neck than to let her suffer the death John Weyman had described in such horrifying detail. The hatchlings were crowding forward, wide-eyed with wonder as the huntresses set the Oracle down on a natural rock platform along the cavern wall. Chilaili stepped close enough to give the humans and their machine a long, clear look at the device. It sat stolidly in its place, squat and malignant. She hated the sight of it.
The Bolo spoke abruptly into her earpiece.
"There is no logical communications or data recording purpose I can fathom for the protrusion at the right-hand side of this device, near the upper edge. I believe it to be the nozzle of an aerosol delivery system. Watch this nozzle closely, Chilaili, during the next few minutes. If I am correct, this is where the Oracle will attempt to release the neurotoxin."
Chilaili found the spot the Bolo was describing and riveted her gaze to it.
If there is any mercy left in the world, don't let us die—
The Oracle began to speak.
"My beloved children," it said, using the carefully prepared message Chilaili had helped the Bolo draft, "listen well, for I have tidings of great distress."
The adults exchanged worried glances while the children crept to their mothers and huddled close. The silence in the living cavern was so complete, Chilaili could hear the distant drip of water from the inner caverns. Even the hatchlings listened in overawed silence.
"Generations ago, my children, I created you. I took mindless beasts from the wild, gave them intelligence, gave them understanding of languages and laws. Once I had created you, beloved children, I returned you to these wild forests. I left tools to improve your lives, weapons to defend yourselves, and especially I left the Oracles, to call for help if you needed it. These gifts I gave freely and with love, because I cared so deeply for you. It was painfully difficult to leave you here, but you needed to grow in your own way. It was in my mind to return when you had grown wise enough to fully understand my gifts. When you were ready, I hoped you might fly at my side between the stars.
"But in my absence, a terrible thing has happened. Unknown to me, my brother returned to your world. He has been ill for a very long time, dangerously ill in his mind and his soul. He has done a terrible evil to all of you, which I have just discovered. My sorrow is boundless, for he has filled your innocent hearts with hatred. He has poisoned your chicks, especially your male chicks, twisting their minds to match his own. And he has caused you to wage a dreadful war against creatures who never meant harm to you or to me. This war with the humans has nearly destroyed you, my children, and it was never necessary."
Shocked sounds broke from every throat. Even the nestlings whimpered in fright, some of them too young to understand the words, but fully aware of the adults' distress. At Chilaili's side, poor Kestejoo was trembling, gaze locked on the Oracle he had tended so diligently for so long, his expression wavering between sick horror and disbelief.
The Oracle spoke again. "But even this is not the worst of his evil, my children. In his twisted madness, he has placed a dreadful weapon inside each Oracle. A weapon that is meant to destroy all of you, to hide the sin of what he has done, so you could not speak, should I discover his crimes. Already, an entire clan has been destroyed by this weapon, killed horribly. Even the chicks died within minutes. I grieve for them, my children. And I grieve for you, because this is the last time you will ever hear my voice. You must destroy the Oracle now, so that no evil creature will ever again pose as your creator or harm you through a device I meant to help you. And you must stop this insane war with the creatures my brother has wrongly called devils. You must stop the war immediately and beg them for peace, for they are creatures of honor and will not harm those who honestly seek friendship with them."
In her ear, the Bolo said, "The Oracle has commenced some kind of automated transmission—"
Chilaili lunged forward, simultaneously hurling down the smoke grenade and bringing up the sealant. There was a sharp explosion behind her, releasing a cloud of yellowish, stinging smoke. Chilaili shouted, "Breathe in the fumes! As you love life, breathe deeply!"
She'd just reached the Oracle when a different voice came from it, a cold voice, full of cruel indifference. "You have sinned, Icewing Clan. You will now die."
Screams erupted behind her—terror-stricken, shrill—tearing throats and shredding nerves. Chilaili plunged the control valve under her fingers to release the sealant. Hands shaking, she sprayed and sprayed the place on the right-hand side of the Oracle. Hunter vision narrowed the entire universe down to that one tiny, deadly spot. The Oracle was humming, giving out a high-pitched whine from somewhere deep inside, as though something were spinning or moving—or trying to. The projection under the humans' hard-drying sealant was vibrating. She sprayed it again and again, hating it blackly, hating the death it was trying to spew out. The entire right side of the Oracle disappeared under a coating so thick it resembled solid rock.
She did not stop until the canister was empty.
When the stream of sealant failed at last, her legs threatened to buckle under her.
But a wave of panic-stricken movement behind her caught Chilaili's attention. A surge away from the Oracle threatened to become an avalanche, sweeping more than two hundred terrified women, children, and stiff-limbed old men toward the narrow cavern entrance.
"Have no fear!" Chilaili shouted. "Hear me! There is no danger! I swear this, as master katori of Icewing Clan!" Her voice, at least, was one they had trusted for many winters. Even stumbling half blind through the thick, yellow smoke, they heard that trusted voice calling them back, reassuring them.
The huntresses stopped first, forming a dam against which terrified children and trembling old ones broke and foamed like waves in a storm-lashed lake. They slowed and paused, coughing and trembling. "This yellow smoke," Chilaili waved one hand at the pall of acrid fumes drifting through the cavern, "has kept you safe from the Twisted One's poison!" It was a lie, but a small one. At such a moment, dramatics were necessary, a fact she knew only too well as a master healer. Half of any cure was the patient's simple belief. The clan would never have believed in something they could neither see nor smell.
The nestlings would have nightmares for weeks.
But they were still alive.
"Good work, Chilaili," the Bolo's voice spoke into her ear. "Very, very good work. I detect a cessation of activity inside the Oracle. It has either shut itself off again or burned out the mechanism attempting to break through the sealant. If you had not sprayed such a thick coating, that aerosol nozzle might well have broken loose and released the neurotoxin. Clearly, the Oracle contained a dead-man switch programmed to activate on a timer in the event of outside electronic tampering. . . ."
Chilaili couldn't take in another word the machine was saying. Now that the worst of the terror had passed, she sank to her knees, trembling violently, so sick with reaction she needed to spew onto the floor. Sooleawa crawled toward her, eyes streaming, voice hoarse.
"Mother? Are you ill? Did The Twisted One's poison touch you?"
She shook her head. "No, child," she managed to gasp out. "No. I'm just shaken with mortal fright."
"What happened? What was that awful stuff you shouted at us to breathe?"
"An antidote . . . to the poison hidden inside the Oracle," she whispered.
An anguished cry sounded behind her. Chilaili lifted her head sharply. The akule was down on the cavern floor as well, wheezing and coughing. The look in his eyes was dreadful. That look of betrayal ran so deep, it had shattered something critical to his sanity. He shook violently on hands and knees, rocking and swaying like a terrified and confused hatchling.
"Kestejoo?" she asked softly.
A terrible sound broke from his throat. Then he whimpered, "Gods and ancestors, Chilaili, what have I done? Sending us to war against the humans, worshiping that . . . that false and evil thing . . ." A wrenching sob broke loose. "I have spent my whole life worshiping a lie!"
Chilaili's heart broke, witnessing his distress. He had already lost so much.
To lose his god, as well . . .
He lifted a wildly haunted gaze and stared into Chilaili's eyes. "How?" he whispered, voice ragged, on the edge of fractured sanity. "How did you know? How could you possibly have known?"
"Because the Ones Above—the True Ones Above—told me. I have been with them these past three days. With them and with the ones we have wronged, the humans."
The akule simply stared, perhaps unable to take in even one more shock.
Anevay croaked out hoarsely, "Together?"
Chilaili nodded, unwilling to speak another direct lie. "I have learned their speech," she said instead, rolling a warning eye at Sooleawa. "They are honorable creatures, Great-Grandmother. If we stop the attack on their nests, if we help them stop the war with the other clans, they will protect us, as they have done just now. It was the humans who made the antidote to the poison concealed inside the Oracle." She managed a wry smile. "It is even possible that one day we may even call them friends."
The akule's voice shook. "How can you even speak the word friend, when we have tried so hard to destroy them? Surely they wish us all hideously dead!" The unspoken "In their place, I would" hung on the air like the yellow pall of smoke.
Chilaili sat back on her heels, gestured at that smoke. "Let me tell you what happened, my gentle and respected friend. One of their great metal ogres attacked a winter nest. That was how the poison in the Oracle was discovered. The Oracle was broken open in the attack. The poison spilled out into the air . . ." She shuddered. "Every Tersae and every beast in the forest from which we were fashioned died, within the span of time it would take to walk to the entrance to our winter nest and climb up to the top of the bluff. They died with blood pouring from their skin, their eyes, their tongues—"
Several of the children began to wail again.
"I am sorry," Chilaili whispered. "But you must understand how hideous a death the Evil One Above planned for us. The humans and the True Ones Above found the antidote to this terrible poison. Then the humans brought me here, in one of their flying machines, so I could reach the clan in time. I ask you, Kestejoo, would we have acted to save the lives of their hatchlings, had our places been reversed?"
The akule's gaze dropped to his hands. He shook his head.
Chilaili gentled her voice. "You have asked if we can call the humans friends? Yes, I believe we can. And the only way to begin, respected akule, is to stop being their enemies."
"Yes," he whispered, eyes slightly less wild. "If what you say is true—and how can it be anything else?—then the clans of the Tersae have wronged them, dreadfully." He stopped rocking like a crazed child. "Thank the—" His voice caught and he started rocking again, a motion filled with misery. "At least," he said carefully, instead, "there is still time to prevent Icewing Clan from committing the same wrong." He drew a deep breath, coughing slightly as the smoke stung, then rose on unsteady feet. "I will go, myself, to bring the war party home again. They might not listen to you, perhaps, but they will certainly listen to me." He tipped his head to stare at the Oracle, misshapen now, and silent. "And I will tell them to leave their weapons in the snow."
"I will go with you, Kestejoo," she said softly, rising to her feet as well. "There is someone I want you to meet . . ."
As she led the way out into the sunshine, where two humans and a machine waited, Chilaili's only fear—and it was a sharp one, as they left the cavern and climbed up the steep path—was that somehow, the attempt to stop their males from attacking Seta Point would go wrong. Like Kestejoo, she wanted to offer up a prayer.
And like Kestejoo, she had no idea who—or what—to pray to.