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CHAPTER IV

Minos was full, drenching Freetoon with cold amber light, and the air had grown chill. Barbara Whitley walked through silent streets, between darkened buildings, to the cavalry barrack. It formed one side of a square around a courtyard, the stables and arsenal completing the ring. Her boots thudded on the cobbles as she led her orsper to its stall.

A stone lamp on a shelf gave dim light, and the snoring grooms—all Nicholsons, a stupid family used only for menial work—stirred uneasily on the straw when she tramped in. She nudged one of the stocky, tangle-haired women awake with her toe. "Food," she demanded. "And water for the bird. Beer for me."

"At this hour?" grumbled the Nicholson. "I know my rights, I do. You soldiers think you can barge in at all hours, when honest folk is asleep after a hard day's work, and—" Barbara smiled, drew her dagger, and felt its edge in an absent-minded way—"oh, very well, very well, ma'am."

Afterward Barbara undressed and washed herself in the courtyard trough. Not all the girls were so finicky, but she was a Whitley and had appearances to keep up. She regarded her face complacently in the water. The Minos-light distorted colors, ruddy hair and long green eyes became something else, but the freckled snub nose and the wide mouth and the small square chin were more pleasing than . . . oh, than that Dyckman build, supposed to be so female. The Dyckmans were just sloppy. Barbara hugged her own wide shoulders, ran hands over firm young breasts, down supple flanks and legs. She wasn't too thin, she reassured herself a little anxiously. Except around the high cheekbones, she hadn't an angle which wasn't properly rounded off. She shivered as the wind dried her skin, picked up her clothes and departed.

The dying hearthfire within the barrack led her to her place. She threaded a way between long-limbed forms sprawled on straw ticks, hung her harness on its peg and stowed her weapons in their chest, trying to be quiet. But Whitleys were light sleepers, and her cousin Valeria woke up.

"Oh, it's you. Two left feet as always," snarled Valeria, "and each one bigger than the other. Where did you park your fat rump all day?"

Barbara looked at the face which mirrored her own. They were the only Whitleys in Freetoon, their mothers and aunts died in the Greendale ambush fifteen years ago, and they should have been as close as cousins normally were. But theirs was a trigger-tempered breed, and when a new wing leader corporal was required, the sacred dice had chosen Barbara. Valeria could not forgive that.

"I took my two left feet and my fat rump—if you must describe yourself that way—into the valley and captured a Monster in a star ship," said Barbara sweetly. "Good night." She lay down on her pallet and closed her eyes.

But not long. Bee had not even risen when there was a clank of metal in the doorway and Ginny Latvala of the Udall bodyguard shouted: "Up, Corporal Maiden Barbara Whitley! You're wanted at the Big House."

"Do you have to wake everyone else on that account?" snapped Valeria, but not very loud. The entire company had been roused, and Captain Kim Trevor was a martinet.

Barbara got to her feet, feeling her heart knock. Yesterday seemed somehow unreal, like a wild dream . . .

Ginny leaned on her spear, waiting. "The Old Udall is pretty mad at you, dear," she confided. "We may have all sorts of trouble coming because you roped that Monster. Suppose it gets angry? Suppose it has friends?" The Latvalas were slim blonde girls, handy with a javelin and so made hereditary guards in most towns. They were pleasant enough, but inclined to snobbishness.

"I have my rights," said Barbara huffily. "All the scouts got their orders before witnesses, and I was never ordered not to lasso a Monster."

She let the barrack buzz around her while she dressed for the occasion: a short white skirt, an embroidered green cloak, sandals, and dagger. Nobody outside the Big House, except the few troopers she had met who helped her bring the Monster home, knew what had happened. Yet! Barbara and Ginny agreed silently that it would be good for their souls to wonder a while.

The air was still cold and the fields below the town white with mist when she came out. A pale rosy light lifted above the eastern Ridge, and Minos was waning. The moon Theseus was a wan red sickle caught in the sunrise.

There were not many people up. A patrol tramped past Barbara and Ginny in full harness, all of them husky Macklins, and the farmhand caste yawned out of their barracks on the way to a day's hoeing. The street climbed steeply upward from the cavalry house, and Barbara took it with a mountaineer's long slow stride, too worried to heed Ginny's chatter. They went past the weavery; she glimpsed looms and spinning wheels within the door, but it didn't register on her mind—low-caste work. The smithy, a highly respected shop, lay beyond, also empty; the Holloways still slept in their adjoining home.

Sickbay was not on this street, but the maternity hospital was, on the other side of the broad plaza. Hard by it were the nurseries. Both stood just under the walls of the Big House, so the children could be moved into its shelter first in case of attack.

Passing the shuttered window of one of the rooms into which the nurseries were divided, Barbara heard a small wail. It grew, angrily, and then stopped.

The sound broke through her worry with an odd little tug at her soul. In another year or so, she would be an initiate, and make the journey to the Ship. And when she came back, no longer called Maiden, there would be another redhaired Whitley beneath her heart. Babies were a nuisance, in a way; she'd have to stay within town till hers was weaned, and—and—it was hard to wait.

The stockade bulked above her, great sharp stakes lashed together and six Latvalas on guard at the gate. They dipped their spears and Barbara went through.

Inside, there was a broad cobbled yard with several buildings neatly arrayed: barracks, stables, storehouses, emergency shelters, the Father chapel. All were in the normal Freetoon style, long log houses with peaked sod roofs and a fireplace at one end. The hall, in the middle, was much the same, but immensely bigger, its beam ends carved into birds of prey.

Henrietta Udall stood at its door. She was the oldest of Claudia's three daughters: big and blocky, with harsh black hair, small pale eyes under tufted brows. The finery of embroidered skirt and feather cloak was wasted on her, Barbara thought, and the axe she carried didn't help matters much. None of the Udalls could ever be handsome. But they could lead!

"Halt!"

Barbara came to a stop, spread her hands and lowered her head.

"Your hair is a mess," said Henrietta. "Do those braids over."

"But your mother wants to see me now," protested Barbara.

Henrietta hefted her axe. Ginny looked uneasy. "You heard me."

Barbara bit her lip and began uncoiling the bronze mane. It was hacked off just below her shoulders.

Spiteful blowhard, she thought. Wants to get me in trouble. Come the day, Henrietta, and you won't find me on your side. 

The death of an Udall was always the signal for turmoil. Theoretically, the power went to her oldest daughter. In practice, the sisters were as likely as not to fight it out between themselves; a defeated survivor fled into the wilderness with her followers and tried to start a new settlement. Freetoon was old, almost a hundred years, and had already begotten Newburh. Now the population was up again to nearly eight thousand, about as many as the arable land within a safe distance could support.

Daydreams of heading into unknown country for a fresh start drove the sulkiness from Barbara. If, say, she rose high in the favor of Gertrude or Anne . . . she might become more than a noncom, and her daughters would inherit the higher caste, and . . .

"Hurry it up! The Old Udall is waiting."

Barbara used some choice cavalry language under her breath. The chance of reaching her dream was very little, after all. Whitleys just weren't politicians. It wasn't worth it.

"All right," said Henrietta as Bee rose. She led the way inside. Barbara followed, her face still hot.

The main room of the Big House was long, and despite the fire and the opened windows and the bright tapestries itwas gloomy. Sconced torches guttered above the Old Udall's seat, and the conifer boughs strewn on the dirt floor rustled as Barbara walked over them. Servants scurried around, ignored by the middle-aged, high-caste women seated on the bench below the throne. They were having breakfast, gnawing the drumsticks of runners and tossing the bones to the aquils which swooped from the rafters.

"Well!" said Claudia. "It took you long enough."

Barbara had learned the hard way never to blame an Udall for anything. "I'm sorry, ma'am," she muttered. It was an effort to get the words out and to bend the knee.

The Old Udall finished a bone and snapped her fingers. While an adolescent Craig ran up with a wooden plate of choice pieces, she leaned back and let her chambermaid comb the stiff gray hair.

Elinor Dyckman had gotten that job. The Dyckmans were good at flattery. There weren't many of them in any town; they had small mother instinct and neglected their children, so that the youngsters often died. But they were said to be shrewd advisers. Certainly they did well enough for themselves. A Dyckman nearly always became the lover of someone influential; Elinor had latched onto Claudia herself. Barbara's scornful reflection, I wouldn't be a parasite like that, was tinged with wistfulness. No Whitley ever had a sweetheart. Their breed was too independent and uncompromising—or too huffy, if you wanted a more common description of them.

Elinor was in her middle twenties; her own baby was dead and she hadn't asked for another. She was medium tall, with a soft curving body and soft bluish-black hair. Her small heart-shaped face smiled sweetly on the chief, and she combed with long slow strokes.

"You'll have to be punished for that," said the Old Udall. "Suggestions, Elinor dear?" She laughed.

Elinor blinked incredible lashes over melting dark eyes and said: "Not too severe, ma' am. Babs means well. A little KP ought to . . ."

Barbara's hand fell to her dagger. "I'm in the army, you milk-livered trull!"

"Watch your language," said the Counselor Marian Burke, white-haired and rheumatic.

Barbara stamped her foot. Since she wasn't wearing boots, it hurt, and tears stung her eyes. "Ma'am, you know the law," she said thickly. "If I'm to be so disgraced—dishwashing, by Father!—I demand a courtmartial."

"You'll demand nothing!" snapped Claudia.

Elinor smiled and went on combing. "It was only a joke," she murmured. "Hadn't we better get down to business?"

The Old Udall gazed at Barbara. Trying to stare me down, are you? thought the girl savagely. She would not look away. There was a silence that stretched.

Then an aquil stooped, to snatch a piece of meat off the table, and the serving girls screamed indignantly. Claudia chuckled. "Enough," she said. "Yes, Elinor, you're right as usual, we can't stop to quarrel now."

She leaned ponderously forward. "I've heard reports from the scouts," she went on. "Most of them, of course, saw nothing, and returned by nightfall. There were about half a dozen in your vicinity who saw you and helped you bring the Monster back. Their ranking officer has told me what you did."

Barbara remained silent, not trusting her tongue. Captain Janet Lundgard had emerged from the woods and taken charge: set a guard on the ship, slung the unconscious Monster on a spare orsper, and ridden to town with the rest of them for escort. She had reported directly to the Big House while the others went back to barracks. But what had she told?

"Apparently you attacked the Monster unprovoked," said Claudia Udall coldly. "Father knows what revenge it may take."

"It had drawn a weapon on me, Ma'am," answered Barbarn. "If I hadn't lassoed it, maybe it would have destroyed all Freetoon. As it is, we have the thing a prisoner now, don't we?"

"It may have friends," whispered Elinor, her eyes very large. A shiver went through the hall.

"Then we have a hostage," snapped Barbara.

The Old Udall nodded. "Yes . . . there is that. I've had relays of guards sent to its ship. None of them report any sign of life. It, the Monster, must have been alone."

"How many other ships have landed, all over Atlantis?" wondered Henrietta.

"That's what we have to find out," said Claudia. You had to admit the Udalls were brave enough;. they faced a situation and made a swift decision and stuck by it. "I'm sending a party to the Ship—the Ship of Father—to ask the Doctors about this. We'll also have to send scouts to the nearest other towns, find out if they've been visited too."

Both missions would be dangerous enough. Barbara thought with a tingling what her punishment would be. As a non-initiate, she couldn't go to the Ship, but she would be sent on a mission toward Greendale, Highbridge, or Blockhouse, to spy. But that's terrific! When do we start? 

The Udall smiled grimly. "And meanwhile, for weeks perhaps, we'll have the Monster to deal with . . . and our own people. This can't be hushed up. The whole town must already be getting into a panic.

"We have to learn the truth about the Monster . . . yes, and all the people had better know the facts. We'll do it this way. The carpenters will set up a cage for the Monster, right in the plaza, and while everybody not on duty watches, someone will go into that cage and we'll see what happens."

Barbara felt sweat on her skin, and there was a brief darkness before her eyes.

"Who's going to volunteer for that job?" grumbled Marian Burke.

Elinor smiled. "Why, who but our brave Corporal Whitley?" she answered.

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