The Ugly Little Boy (29 page)

"Yes. Yes."

She seemed to be working up her courage.

"Timmie?" the woman said, in a thin, tense voice. "Hello, Timmie. I'm Mrs. Hoskins."

"Hello," Timmie said.

He put out his hand to her. That was what Miss Fellowes had taught him to do.

Annette Hoskins glanced quickly at her husband. He rolled his eyes toward the ceiling and nodded.

She reached out uncertainly and took Timmie's hand as though she were shaking hands with a trained chimpanzee at the circus. She gave it a quick unenthusiastic shake and let go of it in a hurry.

Timmie said, "Hello, Mrs. Hoskins. Pleased to meet you."

"What did he say?" Annette Hoskins asked. "Was he saying something to me?"

"He said hello," Miss Fellowes told her. "He said he was pleased to meet you."

"He speaks"? English?"

"He speaks, yes. He can understand easy books. He eats with a knife and a fork. He can dress and undress himself. It shouldn't be any surprise that he can do all those things. He's a normal little boy, Mrs. Hoskins, and he's something more than five years old. Maybe five and a half."

"You don't know?"

"We can only guess," Miss Fellowes said. "He didn't have his birth certificate in his pocket when he came here."

Mrs. Hoskins looked at her husband again. "Gerald, I'm not so sure about this. Jerry isn't quite five yet."

"I know how old our son is, dear," Hoskins said stonily. "He's big and sturdy for his age, though. Bigger than Timmie is. -Look, Annette, if I thought there was any risk at all-the slightest possibility of-"

"I don't know. I just don't know. How can we be certain that it's safe?"

Miss Fellowes said at once, "If you mean is Timmie safe to be with your son, Mrs. Hoskins, the answer is yes, of course he is. Timmie's a gentle little boy."

"But he's a sav-savage."

(The ape-boy label from the media, again! Didn't people ever think for themselves?)

Miss Fellowes said emphatically, "He is not a savage, not in the slightest. Does a savage come out of his room carrying his book, and put out his hand for a handshake? Does a savage smile like that and say hello and tell you that he's pleased to meet you? You see him right in front of you. What does he really look like to you, Mrs. Hoskins?"

"I can't get used to his face. It's not a human face."

Miss Fellowes would not let herself explode in wrath. Tautly she said, "As I've already explained, he's as human as any of us. And not a savage at all. He is just as quiet and reasonable as you can possibly expect a five-and-some-months-year-old boy to be. It's very generous of you, Mrs. Hoskins, to agree to allow your son to come here to play with Timmie, but please don't have any fears about it."

"I haven't said that I've agreed," Mrs. Hoskins replied with some mild heat in her voice.

Hoskins gave her a desperate glare. "Annette-"

"I haven't!"

(Then why don't you get out of here and let Timmie go back to his book?)

Miss Fellowes struggled to keep her temper.

(Let Dr. Hoskins handle this. She's his wife.)

Hoskins said, "Talk to the boy, Annette. Get to know him a litde. You did agree to do that much."

"Yes. Yes, I suppose." She approached the boy again. "Timmie?" she said tentatively. Timmie looked up. He wasn't doing the ear-to-ear smile this time. He had already learned, stricdy from the verbal intonations he was picking up, that this woman was no friend of his.

Mrs. Hoskins did smile, but it wasn't a very convincing one. -"How old are you, Timmie?"

"He's not very good at counting," Miss Fellowes said quietly.

But to her astonishment Timmie held up the five fingers of his left hand, splayed out distinctly.

"Five!" the boy cried.

"He put up five fingers and he said five," Miss Fellowes said, amazed. "You heard him, didn't you?"

"I heard it," said Hoskins. -"I think."

"Five," Mrs. Hoskins said, grimly continuing. She was working at making contact with Timmie now. "That's a very nice age. My boy Jerry is almost five himself. If I bring Jerry here, will you be nice to him?"

"Nice," Timmie said.

"Nice," Miss Fellowes translated. "He understood you. He promised to be nice."

Mrs. Hoskins nodded. Under her breath she said, "He's small, but he looks so strong."

"He's never tried to hurt anyone," Miss Fellowes said, conveniently allowing herself to overlook the frantic battles of the long-ago first night. "He's extremely gentle. Extremely. You've got to believe that, Mrs. Hoskins." To Timmie she said, "Take Mrs. Hoskins into your room. Show her your toys and your books. And your clothes closet." Make her see that you're a real little boy, Timmie. Make her look past your brow ridges and your chinless chin.

Timmie held out his hand. Mrs. Hoskins, after only a moment of hesitation, took it. For the first time since she had entered the Stasis bubble something like a genuine smile appeared on her face.

She and Timmie went into Timmie's room. The door closed behind them.

"I think it's going to work," Hoskins said in a low voice to Miss Fellowes, the moment his wife was gone. "He's winning her over." "Of course he is."

"She's not an unreasonable woman. Trust me on that. Or an irrational one. But Jerry's very precious to her."

"Naturally so."

"Our only child. We'd been married for several years, and there were fertility problems in the beginning, and then we managed-we were finally able-"

"Yes," Miss Fellowes said. "I understand." She wasn't enormously interested in hearing about the fertility problems of Dr. and Mrs. Hoskins. Or how they had finally been able to overcome them.

"So you see-even though I've been over this thoroughly with her, even though she understands the problems that Mannheim and his crowd has been making for me and the importance of ending Timmie's isolation, she's still somewhat hesitant about exposing Jerry to the risk that-"

"There is no risk, Dr. Hoskins."

"I know that. You know that. But until Annette knows that, too-"

The door of Timmie's playroom opened. Mrs. Hoskins emerged. Miss Fellowes saw Timmie hanging back, peering out in that wary way he sometimes adopted. Her breath stopped. Something must have gone wrong in there, she thought.

But no. Annette Hoskins was smiling.

"It's a very cute little room," she said. "He can fold his own clothes. He showed me. I wish Jerry could do it half as well. And he keeps his toys so neatly-"

Miss Fellowes let her breath out.

"So we can give it a try?" Hoskins asked his wife.

"Yes. I think we can give it a try."

SMOKE WAS RISING above the camp of the Other Ones by the bank of the smallest river, off to the west of the Goddess-shrine. When Silver Cloud looked the other way he saw the white smoke of his own people's fire rising from their campfire, back against the gently sloping hill that they had descended when they emerged out of the mountains of the east. There was no one in front of the shrine itself. During this interminable time of stalemate a tacit agreement had sprung up between the two tribes: the shrine was neutral territory. Nobody from either party could go close to it. Each side kept sentries posted day and night at the edge of the shrine area to make sure there were no transgressions.

Silver Cloud stood by himself, leaning on his spear. Darkness was falling already, though it seemed to him that the day had only just begun. The year was gliding quickly along. Night came sooner and sooner all the time. Morning arrived later and later. The daylight hours were being squeezed from both sides. Soon it would be the season of the long snows, when only a fool would go outside: time to hunker down in some sheltered place, living on trie autumn's stored food and waiting for spring.

But we still have not made our peace with the Goddess and received Her guidance, thought Silver Cloud disconsolately. And how can we, when the Other Ones hover constantly near the shrine, keeping us away from it?

"Silver Cloud! Is it going to snow again?"

The voice of She Who Knows came drifting to him on the wind. She was standing across the way, near the riverbank, with Goddess Woman and Keeps The Past. The three women had been talking for a long while. Silver Cloud frowned. They were nothing but trouble, those diree. Three powerful women, full of Goddess-strength. They made him uneasy. And yet he knew how important they were, each in her own way, to the life of the tribe.

"Will it snow, Silver Cloud? Tell us!"

He shrugged. Then he tapped his knee and nodded.

The old wound in his leg was aching fiercely. It always did, when a snowy time was coming on. But now it was throbbing worse than ever.

Yesterday snow had fallen for nearly an hour, and there had been snow the day before yesterday also, for just a little while. Now it would do it again. That was bad, when the snow started to come every day. Much of yesterday's snow was still on the ground. The wind-it was blowing from the north, the demon-wind-scooped it up and whipped it around, throwing it in Silver Cloud's face.

We should leave here, he thought. We should be finding our winter camp.

She Who Knows had turned away from Keeps The Past now, and was coming over to talk with him. That meant trouble, most likely. Since her bold exploit before the shrine, She Who Knows had moved with such self-assurance and majesty that it almost seemed as though she were chieftain in his place. No one dared jeer at her, no one dared so much as look at her the wrong way, since that remarkable day when she had covered her body with war-paint and gone forth to defy the entire group of Other Ones warriors. She had always been strange; she had always been fierce; but now she had moved on into some new kind of ferocious strangeness that made her seem to walk in realms of her own.

She said, "This goes on and on, Silver Cloud, and nothing ever changes. And the snowy time is coming."

"I know that."

"We should attack and be done with it."

"They are too many for us," Silver Cloud told her. "You know that." This was not the first time that they had had this discussion.

"Not that many. We could handle them. But instead we simply sit here. They're afraid of us and we're afraid of them and nobody budges. How much longer will you keep us here?"

"Until we've gone before the Goddess at Her shrine and learned Her will."

"Then we have to attack," She Who Knows said.

Silver Cloud stared steadily at her. Her eyes were frightening, not a woman's eyes at all, not even a warrior's eyes. They were like eyes of polished stone.

"You were down there with the men," Silver Cloud said. "You saw that the men would not attack. Do you want to fight the Other Ones all alone, She Who Knows?"

"You're the chieftain. Order them to fight. I'll fight alongside them."

"Everyone will die."

"And if we stay here and wait for winter? Everyone will die in that case too, Silver Cloud."

He nodded gloomily. True enough: they couldn't stay here much longer. He realized dial as well as she did.

It was probably a mistake to have come here at all,

Silver Cloud knew. But that was something he could never admit to anyone else.

He said, "We can't go, She Who Knows. Not until we've been to the shrine."

"We can't go and we can't stay. And we can't get to the shrine. This is very bad trouble, Silver Cloud."

"Perhaps."

"I said that we should never come here. Right at the beginning, when you announced that the Summer Festival was going to be canceled, I told you that."

"I remember that, She Who Knows. But we are here. And here we stay, until we perform the rite that we have come here for. We can't simply walk away without having heard the voice of the Goddess."

"No," She Who Knows said. "I agree with you about that. I didn't want to come here; but now that we're here, we must go before the Goddess, just as you say. I have no quarrel with you on that point."

He was grateful for that much.

"But if we can't stay here much longer because of the snow, and we can't go without performing the rite, and the Other Ones prevent us from performing the rite because they are here and defile the shrine by their presence, then we have to drive them away," said She Who Knows. "It's as simple as that."

"They'll kill us if we attack them."

"Winter will kill us if we don't."

"This goes in circles," Silver Cloud said. "This brings us to no place at all."

He looked at her somberly. Her face was inexorable. But She Who Knows was offering him no answers except the answer of certain death at the hands of the enemy.

Around and around in circles, yes. We cannot leave and we cannot stay. He had canceled the Summer Festival for the sake of the rite that he believed it was necessary to perform here. If he canceled that rite, too, because of the presence of Other Ones close by the shrine, then there would have been no rite at all either in summer or autumn, which surely would bring the anger of the Goddess down upon the People in full measure. The People would starve; and they would blame the chieftain for that. Silver Cloud knew that he was in danger of being removed from office if he didn't repair matters soon. And there was no such thing as a living ex-chieftain, among the People. The custom was very clearly understood by all. To give up the chieftainship meant saying goodbye to life itself.

There was hot fire running along the wounded part of his leg. Perhaps it wouldn't be such a bad thing, Silver Cloud thought, to step aside and let someone else bear the burden. And make an end to this pain and weariness forever.

Goddess Woman joined them now. "Has She Who Knows convinced you that we should attack?"

"No."

"Are you so much afraid to die?"

Silver Cloud laughed. "The question is more foolish than you realize, Goddess Woman. What I'm afraid of is that you will die, and Milky Fountain and Fights Like A Lion and Beautiful Snow and everyone else. My task is to keep the People alive, not to lead them into certain death."

"The snowy rime is coming. That will kill us also, if we stay out here in the open."

With a sigh he said, "Yes, yes, I know that, too."

"I didn't want to make this pilgrimage," Goddess Woman said. "Do you remember? I said there was no need to come all the way back here to learn the will of the Goddess. But Keeps The Past talked me into letting you have your way."

"I remember," said Silver Cloud patiently. "It makes no difference now. We are here. Can we leave, do you think, without speaking with the Goddess?"

"Perhaps the Goddess has already spoken," said Goddess Woman, "and what She has said is that we are fools led by a fool, and therefore we deserve to die. Better to die fighting against the enemy, in that case, than to die standing here, endlessly talking to one another while the snow piles up around us. Or perhaps you think-"

"Look," She Who Knows broke in. "One of the Other Ones is coming to talk to us!"

Silver Cloud swung around, startled. Yes, it was so: a tall young warrior carrying a spear that had a strip of red fur tied around its point had left the other camp and was heading toward them. As the envoy passed the area in front of the shrine, Broken Mountain, who was on sentry duty, bristled at him and presented his weapon. The Other One made an Other One sound at Broken Mountain and kept on going, striding past him without pausing.

Blazing Eye and Tree Of Wolves came out of the encampment and pointed to the Other One as if they thought Silver Cloud had not noticed him. They brandished their spears and indicated that they were ready to jump forward and attack. Silver Cloud angrily gestured at them to get back. What did they think, that this was a one-man war party? Obviously the man was coming here to talk. Obviously.

But how am I supposed to talk with an Other One? Silver Cloud wondered.

The envoy took a zigzag path over the snowy ground, going around the places where underground water made the surface marshy, and came across to the place along the riverbank where Silver Cloud was standing with She Who Knows and Goddess Woman. He elevated his spear in what could only have been some sort of gesture of greeting and waved it solemnly from side to side.

Silver Cloud lifted his own spear a little way from the ground by way of acknowledgment and lowered it again, and waited to see what would happen next.

The Other One made Other One sounds. To Silver Cloud they were like the groaning of an animal in pain.

"Do you think there's something wrong with him?" he asked She Who Knows.

"He's saying something. That's how they speak."

"That? Speaking? It's just noise."

"It's the way they speak," She Who Knows said, "I'm certain of that."

"All right," said Silver Cloud. "Tell me what he's trying to say, then."

"Ah. Ah. How can I do that?"

"You are She Who Knows. You say so yourself."

"I only know what I know. The language of the Other Ones is not something I know."

"Ah," said Silver Cloud. "So there's something you don't know! I've never heard you say a diing like that before, She Who Knows."

She gave him a sour smile and did not reply.

The Other One was speaking again. His voice was pitched very high, and he seemed to be straining as he spoke, pushing the sounds out, working hard to make his meaning clear, as though he were speaking to children. But there was no meaning. Silver Cloud stared intently, watching the man's mouth, and he could not make out a single intelligible word. The sounds that the Other One was making were not the sounds of speech.

Silver Cloud said, "Can't you speak properly? I can't understand you if you moan like that."

The Other One leaned forward and thrust his head outward to bring it closer to Silver Cloud and put ojie hand behind his ear, the way a deaf man does, although Silver CJoud had been speaking very loudly indeed. It was a strange pose. The Other One was very tall, unbelievably tall, head halfway to the sky, and when he leaned forward he looked like some long-legged bird of the marsh country. Silver Cloud stared at him with utter fascination. How did he keep his balance? How was it that he didn't fall over, standing on legs so thin and long? Or break in half when he moved? And the ugliness of him-that pale skin, like a ghost's-the way his face jutted out below his mouth, and the weird tininess of his features"I said, can't you speak properly? Speak in words if you want to talk to me!"

"Those are his words," She Who Knows said suddenly. "He has his own words." She had an odd look on her face, the look of one who has been struck by a strange new truth. "The Other Ones have a language of their own, different from ours."

"What?" Silver Cloud said, mystified. "What does that mean? There's only one language, She Who Knows. There are words that can be understood, and there are noises that can't. We can't understand what he's saying, and therefore his sounds are only noises. How can there be more than one language? The sky is the sky. A mountain is a mountain. Water is water, snow is snow. Everybody knows that. How can anyone call them by other names?"

"Two peoples-two languages. One language for us -a different one for them-"

The thought made Silver Cloud's head ache. There might actually be some sense to it, he had to admit-two peoples, two languages, why not? -but it was very difficult to think about such a thing now. Ideas like that needed careful contemplation at a quiet time. He pushed the problem aside and looked back toward the Other One.

He was speaking again, as unintelligibly as before.

This time he was making gestures too, perhaps trying to act out the message he had come here to deliver, seeing that speech was not turning out to be very useful. He pointed with his fur-wrapped spear at the shrine; he pointed at the hill country to the east out of which the People had come; he pointed westward, to the lands that ran toward the sea, which now belonged entirely to the Other Ones. He pointed to the shrine again. He pointed to Silver Cloud; he pointed to himself. He pointed to the shrine.

"Goddess Woman?" Silver Cloud said. "Do you make any sense of this?"

"He wants us to leave, so they can have the shrine!" Goddess Woman said immediately.

Silver Cloud wasn't so sure of that. There was too much back-and-forth pointing. If he were the one who had gone to the Other Ones to tell them to leave, he would simply have pointed to the shrine and to the Other Ones, and then to the western lands, and made a nicking gesture with his hand to tell them that they should go back where they had come. Anyone with any intelligence ought to be able to understand diat.

In fact, why not try it now? And he did.

The Other One watched him with the sort of look on his face that one might give a child who was stammering through some long-winded interruption of a perfectly sensible adult conversation. When Silver Cloud was done, the Other One responded by going through his whole point-at-this-point-at-that routine all over again.