They looked at each other, and the Herdmaster knew at once that other sleepers held dissident views. Later. “There are sleepers in charge of guarding the airlocks. The drive is more powerful than the pull of the Foot’s mass. A corpse would drop behind, but would not disintegrate. The drive flame is hot but not dense. Our telescopes have searched for traces of a corpse in our wake.” Pause. “There is none.
“Shall we consider murder, then? By dissidents seeking a martyr, or conservative sleepers avoiding future embarrassment? Or did Fathisteh-tulk learn something that some fi’ wanted hidden? Or is he alive, hiding somewhere for his own purposes? Rashinggith, what did Fathisteh-tulk plan to tell you?” The Herdmaster looked about him. “Do any of you know? Did he leave hints? Did he even have interesting questions when last you saw him?”
“We don’t know he’s dead,” Rashinggith said uneasily.
“Enough,” the Herdmaster said. “We will find him. I hope to ask him where he has been.” That was a half-truth, Fathisteh-tulk would cause minimal embarrassment by being dead. On to other matters. The Herdmaster had remembered a name.
“Chintithpit-mang, you had someting to say?”
Nervous but dogged, the injured warrior got his mouth working. “The prey, the humans, they don’t know how to surrender.”
“They can be taught.”
“There was a-a burly one, bigger than most. I whipped his toy weapon from his hand and knocked him down and put my foot on his chest and he clawed at me with his bony digits until I pushed harder. I think I crushed him. Of the prisoners we brought back, only the scarlet-headed exotic would help us select human food! Even after we take their surrender they do not cooperate. Must we teach them to surrender, four billion of them, one at a time? We must abandon the target world. If we kill them all, the stink will make Winterhome like one vast funeral pit!”
Chintithpit-mang was one of six officers under Siplisteph.
Siplisteph’was a sleeper; his mate had not survived frozen sleep, and he had not mated since. He had reached Winterbome as eightcubed leader of the intelligence group. It was an important post, and Siplisteph had risen higher still due to deaths among his superiors. The Herdmaster intended to asic him to become his Advisor, subject to the approval of the females of the sleeper herd-and Fistarteh-thuktun, as keeper of the teqthuktun.
Chintithpit-mang was among those who might have Siplisteph’s post.
“Why did you seek me?” the Herdmaster demanded.
The response was unexpected: first one, then others, began a keening wail. The rest joined.
It was the sound made by lost children.
Frightening. Why do I feel the urge to join my voice to theirs?
“We no longer know who we are, Herdmaster,” Chintithpitmang blurted. “Why are we here?”
“We bear the thuktunthp.”
“The creatures do not seek the thuktunthp. They have their own way.” Chintithpit-mang insisted.
“If they do not know the thuktunthp, how can they know they do not seek them?” Could this one be worthy of promotion? Are any? Shall I ask him to remain? No. Now is not the time to judge him, fresh from battle and still twitching, injured, and plunged suddenly into the scents of blooming Winter Flower and sleeper females in heat. “Chintithpit-mang, you need time and rest to recover from your experience. Go now. All of you, go.”
For one moment they stood. Then they filed away.
The Herdmaster remained in the Garden, trying to savor its peace.
Chintithpit-mang did not now seem a candidate for high office. Another dissident! Yet he had fought well on Winterhome; his record was exemplary. Give him a few days. Meanwhile, interview his mate. Then see if she could pull him together. He didn’t remember Shreshleemang well… though the mang family was a good line. At a Shipmaster’s rank the female muss be suitable and competent.
Where was Fathisteh-tulk? Murdered or kidnapped. He had suspected the Year Zero Fithp, but that now seemed unlikely. They were nervous, disturbed, as well they should be; but not nervous enough. They could not have hidden that from him. Who, then, had caused the Herdmaster’s Advisor to vanish? How many? Of what leaning? He might face a herd too large to fear the justice of the Traveler Herd; though the secrecy with which they had acted argued against it.
There were herds within herds within the Traveler Herd. It must have been like this on the Homeworld too, though in greater, deeper, more fantastical variety. Even here: sleepers, spaceborn, dissidents; Fistarteh-thuktun’s core of tradition-minded historians, the Breakers’ group driving themselves mad while trying to think like alien beings: the Herdmaster must balance them like a pyramid of smooth rocks in varying thrust.
“He is late,” Dmitri whispered. “We must go.”
“Not yet. We will wait for him,” Arvid Rogachev said.
“But—”
“We will wait.”
Dmitri shrugged.
He obeys me because he has no choice, ye: he considers himself my superior. Perhaps he is. He is a better sn-ate gist.
