James H. Schmitz Dangerous Territory

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and nine tenths of the factory. Ilf owned the remaining tenth of both.
He scrambled up the shell, grabbing the moss-fur to haul himself along, until
he stood beside her. Sam, awkward as he looked when walking, was moving at a
good ten miles an hour, clearly headed for the Queen Grove. Ilf didn t know
whether it was Sam or Auris who had decided to go back to the house. Whichever
it had been, he could feel the purpose of going there.
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They re nervous about something, he told Auris, meaning the whole farm.
Think there s a big storm coming?
Doesn t look like a storm, Auris said.
Ilf glanced about the sky, agreed silently. Earthquake, maybe?
Auris shook her head. It doesn t feel like earthquake.
She hadn t turned her gaze from the factory. Ilf asked, Something going on
down there?
Auris shrugged. They re cutting a lot today, she said. They got in a limit
order.
Sam swayed on into the next grove while Ilf considered the information. Limit
orders were fairly unusual; but it hardly explained the general uneasiness. He
sighed, sat down, crossed his legs, and looked about. This was a grove of
young trees, fifteen years and less. There was plenty of open space left
between them. Ahead, a huge tumbleweed was dying, making happy, chuckling
sounds as it pitched its scarlet seed pellets far out from its slowly
unfolding leaves. The pellets rolled hurriedly farther away from the old weed
as soon as they touched the ground. In a twelve-foot circle about their
parent, the earth was being disturbed, churned, shifted steadily about. The
clean-up squad had arrived to dispose of the dying tumble-
weed; as Ilf looked, it suddenly settled six or seven inches deeper into the
softened dirt. The pellets were hurrying to get beyond the reach of the
clean-up squad so they wouldn t get hauled down, too. But half-grown
tumbleweeds, speckled yellow-green and ready to start their rooted period,
were rolling through the grove towards the disturbed area. They would wait
around the edge of the circle until the clean-up squad finished, then move in
and put down their roots. The ground where the squad had worked recently was
always richer than any other spot in the forest.
Ilf wondered, as he had many times before, what the clean-up squad looked
like. Nobody ever caught so much as a glimpse of them. Riquol Cholm, his
grandfather, had told him of attempts made by scientists to catch a member of
the squad with digging machines. Even the smallest ones could dig much faster
than the machines could dig after them, so the scientists always gave up
finally and went away.
* * *
Ilf, come in for lunch! called Ilf s grandmother s voice.
Ilf filled his lungs, shouted, Coming, grand
He broke off, looked up at Auris. She was smirking.
Caught me again, Ilf admitted. Dumb humbugs! He yelled, Come out, Lying
Lou! I know who it was.
Meldy Cholm laughed her low, sweet laugh, a silverbell called the giant
greenweb of the Queen Grove sounded its deep harp note, more or less all
together. Then Lying Lou and Gabby darted into sight, leaped up on the
mossback s hump. The humbugs were small, brown, bobtailed animals, built with
spider leanness and very quick. They had round skulls, monkey faces, and the
pointed teeth of animals who lived by catching and killing other animals.
Gabby sat down beside Ilf, inflating and deflating his voice pouch, while Lou
burst into a series of rattling, clicking, spitting sounds.
They ve been down at the factory? Ilf asked.
Yes, Auris said. Hush now. I m listening.
Lou was jabbering along at the rate at which the humbugs chattered among
themselves, but this sounded like, and was, a recording of human voices played
back at high speed. When Auris wanted to know what people somewhere were
talking about, she sent the humbugs off to listen. They remembered everything
they heard, came back and repeated it to her at their own speed, which saved
time. Ilf, if he tried hard, could understand scraps of it. Auris understood
it all. She was hearing now what the people at the factory had been saying
during the morning.
Gabby inflated his voice pouch part way, remarked in Grandfather Riquol s
strong, rich voice, My, my! We re not being quite on our best behavior today,
are we, Ilf?
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Shut up, said Ilf.
Hush now, Gabby said in Auris voice. I m listening. He added in Ilf s
voice, sounding crestfallen, Caught me again! then chuckled nastily. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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