The Ugly Little Boy (10 page)

Goddess Woman felt a pounding in her breast and heard a sound like diunder drumming in her ears. She felt weak and dizzy and she had to force herself with difficulty to remain upright and to keep her eyes level with those of She Who Knows. She drew her breath in deeply, filling her lungs, again, again, again, until some semblance of poise returned to her.

Icily she said, "This is madness, She Who Knows. The Goddess gives children. She doesn't want them back."

"Sometimes She takes diem back."

"Yes. Yes, I know," said Goddess Woman, her tone softening a little. "The Goddess moves in ways beyond our understanding. But we don't kill children and offer them to Her. Animals, yes. Never a child. Never. Such a thing has never been done."

"The Other Ones have never been a serious danger to us before, either."

"Sacrificing children isn't going to protect us from the Other Ones."

"They say diat you and Silver Cloud have decided that it will."

"They're lying, whoever they are," Goddess Woman said hotly. "I don't know anything about this plan. Nothing! -All this is nonsense, She Who Knows. It won't happen. I promise you that. There'll be no sacrifices of children around here. You can be completely sure of that."

"Swear it. Swear by the Goddess. -No." She Who Knows reached out and took Skyfire Face by one hand and Sweet Flower by the other. "Swear by the souls of this little boy and this little girl."

"My word should be enough," Goddess Woman said.

"You won't swear?"

"My word is sufficient," said Goddess Woman. "I don't owe you any oaths. Not by the Goddess, not by Sweet Flower's little backside, not by anything. We're civilized people, She Who Knows. We don't kill children. That should be good enough for you."

She Who Knows looked skeptical. But she gave ground and went away.

Goddess Woman stood by herself, thinking.

Sacrifice a child? Were they serious? Did they actually think it would serve any purpose? Could it possibly serve any purpose?

Would the Goddess countenance such a thing? She tried to think it through. To yield up a little life, to return to the Goddess that which the Goddess had given-was that any way of convincing Her that She must help the People in this time of need?

No. No. No. No. However Goddess Woman looked at it, she saw no sense in it.

Where was Silver Cloud? Ah, over there, looking through Mammoth Rider's new batch of arrow points. Goddess Woman went over to him and drew him aside. In a low voice she said, "Tell me something, and tell me honestly. Are you planning to sacrifice a child when we get to the Place of Three Rivers?"

"Have you lost your mind, Goddess Woman?"

"She Who Knows says that some of the men are talking about it. That you've already decided on it and that I've given my agreement."

"And have you given your agreement?" Silver Cloud asked.

"Of course not."

"Well, the rest of the story is just as true. Sacrifice a child, Goddess Woman? You couldn't possibly have believed that I would ever-"

"I wasn't certain."

"How can you say that?"

"You canceled the Summer Festival, didn't you?"

"What's wrong with you, Goddess Woman? You don't see any difference between putting off a festival and killing a child?"

"There are those who'd say that one is just as wrong as the other."

"Well, anyone who says something like that is crazy,"

Silver Cloud retorted. "I have no such intentions, and you can tell She Who Knows that I-" He paused. His expression altered strangely. -"You don't think that it could possibly do us any good, do you? You aren't suggesting-"

"No," said Goddess Woman. "Of course I don't. Now you sound like you've lost your mind. But don't be ridiculous. I'm not suggesting it in the slightest. I came over here to find out whether there was any truth to the rumor, that's all."

"And now you know. None. None whatever."

But there was an odd look in his eyes, still. Silver Cloud's outrage seemed to have softened and he had turned inward upon himself, somehow. Goddess Woman wasn't sure how to interpret that inward look. What could he be thinking of?

Goddess above, he couldn't seriously be considering the idea of sacrificing a child all of a sudden, could he? Did I put something monstrous into his mind just now?

No, she decided. No. That couldn't be it. She knew Silver Cloud well. He was tough, he was unswerving, he could be brutal-but not this. Not a child.

"I want you to understand my position very clearly," Goddess Woman said with all the force she could muster. "There may very well be some men in this tribe who think it could be useful to offer a child to the Goddess, and for all I know, Silver Cloud, they might be able to succeed in talking you into it before we reach the Place of Three Rivers. But I won't allow it. I'm prepared to bring the heaviest curse of the Goddess down on any man who even proposes such a thing. It'll be the bear-curse, the darkest one of all. I'll cut him off from every shred of Her mercy without any hesitation. I'll-"

"Easy, Goddess Woman. You're getting all worked up over nothing. Nobody's talking about sacrificing children.

Nobody. When we get to the Place of Three Rivers we'll catch ourselves an ibex or a chamois or a good red elk, and we'll give its meat to the Goddess as we always do, and that will be that. So calm yourself. Calm yourself. You're kicking up a tremendous fuss about something that you know I'd never permit to be done. You know it, Goddess Woman."

"All right," she said. "An ibex. A chamois."

"Absolutely," said Silver Cloud.

He grinned at her and reached out to squeeze her shoulder fondly. She felt very foolish. How could she ever have imagined that Silver Cloud would entertain such a barbaric notion?

She went off by herself to kneel by a little stream and throw cold water against her aching forehead.

Later in the morning, when the tribe had resumed its march, Goddess Woman came up alongside She Who Knows and said, "I had a talk with Silver Cloud. He knew no more about this child-sacrifice scheme than I did. And he feels the same way about it that I do. That you do. He wouldn't ever allow it."

"There are those here who think otherwise."

"Who, for instance?"

She Who Knows shook her head vaguely.*'I won't name names. But they think the Goddess won't be satisfied unless we give Her one of our children."

"If they think that, they don't understand the Goddess at all. Forget all of this, will you, She Who Knows? It's just so much empty talk. The talk of fools."

"Let's hope so," said She Who Knows, her voice dark with foreboding.

They marched onward. Gradually Goddess Woman put the matter from her mind. She Who Knows' refusal to name names had aroused her suspicions. Very probably there was nothing to the story at all, and never had been.

Perhaps the woman had invented the whole thing; perhaps she was sick in the mind; perhaps it might be a good idea to send She Who Knows off on a little pilgrimage of her own to clear her troubled soul of such disturbed imaginings. Child sacrifice! It was unthinkable.

She forgot about it. And the weeks went by; and the People marched westward, back through the thinning warmth of summer toward the Place of Three Rivers.

And now at last they were on a sloping hillside overlooking the Three Rivers themselves. The long rearward march was almost over. The trail wound gradually downward through one level of hillside after another, and down below, in the misty valley, they could see the shining glint that the water of the Three Rivers made.

It was late in the day, and the People were starting to consider making camp for the evening. And then a strange thing happened.

Goddess Woman was near the front of the file, with Tree Of Wolves on one side of her and Blazing Eye on the other, to help her carry the packets of Goddess-things. Suddenly the air turned intensely bright just beside the path. There was a sparkling. Goddess Woman saw brilliant red and green flashes, glossy loops, a fiery whiteness at the core. The white light moved. It went up and down in the air, whirling as it traveled.

Looking at it was painful. She flung up one hand to shield her eyes. People were crying out in fear all around her.

Then it vanished-as abruptly as it had come. The air beside the path seemed empty. Goddess Woman stood blinking, her eyes aching, her mind aswirl with confusions.

"What was it?" someone asked.

"What will happen next?"

"Save us. Silver Cloud!"

"Goddess Woman? Goddess Woman, tell us what that thing was!"

Goddess Woman moistened her lips. "It was-the Goddess passing by," she improvised desperately. "The edge of Her robe; that was what it was."

"Yes," they said. "The Goddess. The Goddess, it was. It must have been."

Everyone was quiet for a time, wary, motionless, waiting to see if She intended to return. But nothing out of the ordinary happened.

Then She Who Knows cried out, "It was the Goddess, yes, and She has taken Skyfire Face!"

"What?"

"He was right here, just behind me, when the light appeared. Now he's gone."

"Gone? Where? How?"

"Look for him!" someone screamed. "Find him! Skyfire Face! Skyfire Face!"

There was a tremendous hubbub. People were scrabbling about, moving without purpose in every direction, movement just for the sake of movement. Goddess Woman heard Silver Cloud calling out for quiet, for calmness. The Mothers were the most excited: their shrill cries rose above everything else, and they ran about weeping and flailing their arms in the air.

For a moment Goddess Woman wasn't able to remember who the actual mother of Skyfire Face was; then she recalled that it was Red Smoke At Sunrise who had given birth to the little boy with the jagged lightning-bolt birthmark, four summers back. But the Mothers raised all the children of the tribe in common, and it made very little difference to them which one of them had brought a particular child into the world; Milky Fountain and Beautiful Snow and Lake Of Green Ice were just as troubled by his bewildering disappearance as was Red Smoke At Sunrise.

"He must have wandered off the path," Broken Mountain said. "I'll go look for him."

"He was right here," said She Who Knows acidly. "That light swallowed him up."

"You saw it, did you?"

"He was behind me when it happened. But not so far behind that he could have strayed. It was the light that took him. It was the light."

All the same, Broken Mountain insisted on going back to look for him. But it was useless. There was no sign of the boy anywhere. An hour's search produced nothing, not even a footprint; and now it was growing very dark.

"We have to move on," Silver Cloud said. "There's no place here for camping."

"But Skyfire Face-"

"Gone," Silver Cloud said inexorably. "Vanished into the Goddess-light."

"The Goddess-light! The Goddess-light!"

They moved along. Goddess Woman felt numb. She had looked right into the shimmering light, and there was still an ache behind her eyes, and when she closed them she saw patterns of floating purple spots. But had it been the Goddess? She couldn't say. She had never seen anything like that light before. She hoped she never saw it again.

"So the Goddess wanted one of our children after all," She Who Knows said. "Well, well, well."

"You know nothing about these matters!" Goddess Woman told her furiously. "Nothing!"

But what if she was right? Goddess Woman wondered. It was altogether possible that she was. Likely, even. So powerful a light could only have been a manifestation of the Goddess.

The Goddess had claimed a child? Why? What sense did that make?

We can never understand Her, Goddess Woman decided, after wrestling with the strange event far into the night. She is the Goddess, and we are only Her creatures. And Skyfire Face is gone. It is beyond all comprehension, but so be it. She remembered now the rumor there had been that Silver Cloud had been planning to sacrifice a child when they reached the Place of the Three Rivers. Well, at least there would be no more talk of such things. They were almost at their destination, and the Goddess had claimed a child without their having had to give it to her. Goddess Woman hoped that She would be content with that. There were not so many children in the tribe that they could afford to let Her have another one just now.

A NEANDERTHAL? A sub-human Neanderthal? Miss Fellowes thought in disbelief and bewilderment, with anger and a keen sense of betrayal rising right afterward. Was that really what the child was? If what Deveney had said was true, her worst fear had been confirmed.

She turned on Hoskins, glaring at him with a kind of controlled ferocity.

"You might have told me, doctor."

"Why? What difference does it make?"

"You said a child, not an animal."

"This is a child, Miss Fellowes. Don't you think so?"

"A Neanderthal child."

Hoskins looked puzzled. "Yes, yes, of course. You know what sort of experimentation Stasis Technologies has been involved in. Certainly you aren't going to tell me that you didn't realize the child would be drawn from a prehistoric era. We discussed all that with you."

"Prehistoric, yes. But Neanderthal? I expected to be looking after a human child."

"Neanderthals were human," Hoskins said, showing some signs of annoyance now. "More or less."

"Were they? Is that true?"

She looked toward Candide Deveney in appeal.

Deveney said, "Well, according to the thinking of most paleoanthropologists over the past sixty or seventy years, the Neanderthals certainly must be considered to be a form of Homo sapiens, Miss Fellowes-an archaic branch of the species, perhaps, or a subspecies, a kind of backwoods cousin, so to speak, but definitely close kin, definitely to be considered human-"

Impatiently Hoskins cut in. "Let that point go for a moment, Deveney. There's another issue to address here. -Miss Fellowes, have you ever had a puppy or a kitten?"

"When I was a young girl, yes. But what does that have to do with-"

"Back when you had this puppy of yours, this kitten, did you care for it? Did you love it?"

"Of course. But-"

"Was it human, Miss Fellowes?"

"It was a pet, doctor. We're not talking about pets now. This is a professional matter. You're asking a highly trained nurse with a considerable background in advanced pediatric medicine to take care of-of-"

"Suppose this child here were a baby chimpanzee," Hoskins asked. "Would you be repelled? If I asked you to care for it, would you do so or would you turn away in disgust? And this isn't a chimpanzee. It isn't any sort of anthropoid ape. It's a young human being."

"A Neanderthal child."

"Just as I said. A young human being. Strange-looking and wild, precisely as I told you it would be. A difficult case. You're an experienced nurse, Miss Fellowes, with a superb record of achievement. Do you shy away from difficult cases? Have you ever refused to take care of a deformed infant?"

Miss Fellowes felt her argument slipping away. She said, with much less vehemence, "You might have told me."

"And you would have refused the position, is that it?"

"Well-"

"You knew we were dealing with a range of thousands of years here."

" 'Thousands' could mean three thousand. It wasn't until this evening, when you and Mr. Deveney were discussing the project and the phrase 'forty thousand years' suddenly entered it, that I began to realize what was really going on here. And even then I didn't fully understand that a Neanderthal would be involved. I'm no expert in- in- What was it you said, paleoanthropology, Mr. Deveney? I'm not familiar with the rime-scale of human evolution the way you people are."

"You haven't answered my question," said Hoskins. "If you had known all the data ahead of time, would you have refused the position or wouldn't you?"

"I'm not sure."

"Do you want to refuse it now? There were other qualified candidates, you know. Is this a resignation?"

Hoskins gazed at her coolly, while Deveney watched from the other side of the room, and the Neanderthal child, having finished the milk and licked the plate dry, looked up at her with a wet face and wide longing eyes.

She stared at the boy. The ugly little boy. She heard her own voice saying, But Neanderthal? I expected to be looking after a human child.

The boy pointed to the milk, and to the plate. And suddenly he burst out in a short series of brusque, harsh sounds repeated over and over: sounds made up of weirdly strangled gutturals and elaborate tongue-clickings. Miss Fellowes said in surprise, "Why, he talks!" "Apparendy he does," said Hoskins. "Or at least he can make A feed me again sound. -Which any cat is capable of doing, of course."

"No-no, he was talking," said Miss Fellowes.

"That's yet to be determined. There's plenty of controversy over whether Neanderthals were capable of true speech. That's one of the things we hope we're going to be able to settle during the span of this experiment."

The child made the clicking, gargling sounds again. Looked at Miss Fellowes. Looked at the milk, and at the empty plate.

"There's your answer," she said. "He's definitely talking!"

"If that's so, then he's human, wouldn't you say, Miss Fellowes?"

She let the question pass without responding. The issue was too complex to consider just now. A hungry child was calling to her. She reached for the milk.

Hoskins caught her by the wrist and pulled her upward so that she was facing him. "Wait a moment, Miss Fellowes. Before we go any further, I have to know whether you're planning to stay on the job."

She shook free of him in annoyance. "Will you starve him if I don't? He's asking for more milk, and you're preventing me from giving it to him."

"Go ahead. But I need to know your answer."

"I'll stay with him-for a while."

She poured the milk. The boy crouched down and plunged his face into it, lapping and slurping as if he hadn't had anything to drink or eat in days. He made little crooning noises deep in his throat as he licked the plate.

He's nothing but a little beast, Miss Fellowes thought. A little beast!

She came close to shuddering. She repressed it with a struggle.

Hoskins said, "We're going to leave you with the boy, Miss Fellowes. He's been through a considerable ordeal and it's best to clear everyone out of here and allow you to try to settle him down for some rest."

"I agree."

He gestured toward the oval metal doorway, much like the hatch of a submarine, that stood open at the entrance to the dollhouse. "This is the only door to Stasis Section One, and it's going to be elaborately locked and guarded at all times. We'll seal it when we leave here. Tomorrow I'll want you to learn the details of operating the lock, which will, of course, be keyed to your fingerprints as they are already keyed to mine. The spaces overhead"-he looked upward toward the open ceilings of the dollhouse-"are also guarded by a network of sensors, and we'll be warned immediately if anything untoward takes place in here."

"Untoward?"

"An intrusion."

"Why should there be-"

"We have a Neanderthal child from the year 40,000 B.C. in these chambers," Hoskins said, with barely concealed impatience. "It may sound unlikely to you, but there are all sorts of possibilities for intrusion here, anyone ranging from Hollywood producers to rival scientific groups to one of those self-styled advocates for children's rights that you and I were discussing at our first meeting."

Bruce Mannheim, Miss Fellowes thought. He really is worried about trouble with Mannheim. It wasn't just a hypothetical question, wanting to know if I had ever had any run-ins with Mannheim in my career.

"Well, of course," she said. "The child needs to be protected." Then something occurred to her. She glanced up toward the topless ceiling, remembering how she had been able to see into the little rooms of the dollhouse from the balcony. -"You mean I'll be in full view of any observers who might be looking down from up there?" she asked indignantly.

"No, no," said Hoskins. He smiled. A benign smile, perhaps a little condescending, she thought. The prudish spinster lady is worried about Peeping Toms, But there was no reason why she should have to dress and undress under the scrutiny of strangers. "Your privacy will be respected completely, Miss Fellowes. I assure you of that. Trust me. Miss Fellowes."

There he went. Trust me again. He liked to use that phrase; he probably used it all the time, with everyone he dealt with. It wasn't a phrase that inspired much trust. The more often he used it, the less she trusted him.

"If anybody at all can walk onto that balcony and look down into these rooms, I fail to see how-"

"Access to the balcony is going to be strictly restricted -strictly," Hoskins said. "The only ones going up there will be technicians who may have to work on the power core, and you'll be given ample notice if they do. The sensors that I spoke about will be conducting purely electronic surveillance, which only a computer will deal with. We won't be spying on you. -You'll stay with him tonight, Miss Fellowes, is that understood? And every night thereafter, until further notice."

"Very well."

"You'll be relieved during the day according to whatever schedule you find convenient. We'll arrange that with you tomorrow. Mortenson, Elliott, and Ms. Stratford will make themselves available on a rotating schedule to fill in for you whenever you're away from the froy. He'll have to be guarded by one of you at all times. It's absolutely essential that he remain within the Stasis area and that you be constantly aware of his whereabouts."

Miss Fellowes peered about die dollhouse with a puzzled expression. "But why is all that necessary, Dr. Hoskins? Is the boy so dangerous?"

"It's a matter of energy, Miss Fellowes. There are conservation laws involved that I can explain to you if you like, but I think you have more important things to deal with just now. The point to bear in mind is simply that he must never be allowed to leave these rooms. Never. Not for an instant. Not for any reason. Not to save his life. Not even to save your life, Miss Fellowes. -Is that clear?"

Miss Fellowes raised her chin in something of a theatrical way. "I'm not sure what you mean by a conservation law, but I do understand the orders, Dr. Hoskins. The boy stays in his rooms, if there's some good and sufficient reason for it, and evidently there is. Even if my own life is at stake, melodramatic as that sounds, I'm prepared to abide by that. -The nursing profession is accustomed to placing its duties ahead of self-preservation."

"Good. You can always signal via the intercom system if you need anyone. Good night, Miss Fellowes."

And the two men left. Everyone else had already gone out. The hatch swung shut and Miss Fellowes thought she heard the sound of electronic devices clicking into place.

She was locked in. With a wild child from the year 40,000 B.C.

She turned to the boy. He was watching her warily and there was still milk in the saucer. Laboriously Miss Fellowes tried to show him in pantomimed gestures how to lift the saucer and place it to his lips. The pantomime had no effect. He simply stared but made no attempt to imitate her. She acted it out instead, as she had before, lifting the saucer to her own face and pretending to lick the milk from it.

"Now you," she said. "Try it." Still he stared. He was trembling. "It isn't hard," she said. "I'll show you how to do it. Here. Let me have your hands."

Gently-very gently-she put her hands to his wrists. He growled, a terrifying sound coming out of a child so small, and pulled his arms away from her with startling force. His face blazed with rage and fear. The lightning-bolt birthmark stood out fiercely against his newly cleansed skin.

Dr. Hoskins had seized him by the wrists only a little while ago. And had pulled his arms together across his body and dangled him in mid-air. No doubt the boy still could remember the sensation of those big male hands roughly grasping his wrists.

"No," Miss Fellowes said, in her softest tone. "I'm not trying to hurt you. I just want to show you how to hold your milk saucer."

His frightened eyes were on her, watching, watching for any false move. Slowly she reached for his wrists again, but he shook his head and jerked them out of her reach. "All right," she said. "I'll hold the saucer. You just lick from it. But at least you won't be crouching on the floor like a little animal."

She poured a little more milk into the plate, lifted it, held it out to him at his own level. And waited. Waited.

He made the clicking sounds and the guttural gargles that meant hunger. But he didn't move toward the plate. He looked up at her, big-eyed. He made a sound, one which she didn't think that she had heard him make before.

What did this one mean? Put the plate down, you stupid old creature, so I can lick some milk! Was that it?

"Come on, child. Drink it without going down on the floor, the way a decent little human child should."

He stared. Clicked again, a little mournfully.

"Do it like this," Miss Fellowes said. Practically bending double, she thrust her face forward-it was hard; she didn't have a jutting muzzle-like mouth like his-and kpped a little milk from her side of the saucer as she held it in front of him. He peered solemnly at her from the other side, just a short distance away.

How huge his eyes are, she thought.

"Like this-"

She lapped a little more of the milk.

He moved forward. Kept his hands at his sides, so that she had to continue to hold the plate; but he let his tongue flicker out tentatively, then with more enthusiasm, and began to drink, still standing.

Miss Fellowes started to lower the plate toward the floor.

He grunted in displeasure as it descended and brought his own hands up to maintain it at his level. She took hers quickly away. Now the boy was holding the saucer all by himself. Lapping eagerly.

(Well done, child. Magnificent!)

The plate was empty. Now that he was through drinking, he casually let it drop to the floor, and it smashed into half a dozen pieces. The boy looked up at her in what seemed almost certainly an expression registering dismay, chagrin, maybe even fear. Something like a whimper came from him.

Miss Fellowes smiled.

"It's only a plate, boy. Plates are of no importance. There are plenty more where that one came from. And plenty more milk, too."