Mother of Demons Read online

  Indira's idle musings vanished as Joseph came near. Tears, she suddenly realized, were pouring from the boy's eyes.

  She rose to her feet hastily.

  "What's the matter?"

  "There's something wrong with one of the maia!" cried Joseph. "With Wolugo!"

  She had time, before she started hurrying down the hillside, to wonder at Joseph's use of the name "Wolugo." Since they began playing with the maia, the children had begun imitating the creatures' hoots. Over time, they became adept at producing the strange sounds. They even began mixing maia hoots into their own conversations.

  The children began insisting that the hooting was a language. Excited, Julius had immediately experimented with his own attempts at hooting. But he had given up, after a few days, in total frustration.

  "There's no way I can do it," he'd grumbled to Indira. "I had a hard enough time with Spanish, and if that hooting's a language it's totally unlike any language on Earth. Although I think it's tonal, like Chinese."

  Then, snarling: "And if I have to listen to one more snotty little brat make fun of me, I'll commit mass infanticide."

  Indira's interest had been aroused. She herself, unlike Julius, had an extraordinary aptitude for languages. She was fluent in seven, including all four of the global tongues (English, Spanish, Arabic and Chinese), and could make her way fairly well in a number of others.

  But when she tried learning "hoot," she hit a brick wall. It did, in fact, remind her in a certain way of Chinese. (A very vague, generic, way.) But she couldn't wrap her mind around any concepts. More than once, she felt she was on the edge of grasping the inner logic of the hoots. But, always, the moment slipped away.

  In the end, she gave up. Had she been certain that the hoots were really a conscious language, she would have persevered to her last breath. But she was still not convinced that Julius was right.

  The children, on the other hand, for all that they had teased Julius' hopeless attempts at hooting, often expressed the opinion that—at least on the subject of the maia—Julius was the only adult in the colony who had any brains.

  And for the past three months, the children had started referring to individual maia with proper names.

  Even as she ran through the valley alongside Joseph, Indira could not help but smile at the memory of a conversation between the boy and Francis Adams the previous month.

  Joseph had casually referred to one of the maia as "Yuloc." Adams had smiled, in his condescending way, and remarked:

  "Is that what you've decided to call it?"

  Joseph had given the man a look which belied his years.

  "Yuloc's not an 'it.' She's a she—like almost all of the maia are. And I didn't give her the name. It's her own."

  Then:

  "People don't decide what to call other people. You call them by their own names."

  "Is that so?" mocked Adams.

  The next words, coming from a six-year-old, had astonished her.

  "Yes, Francis, it is."

  Adams shot to his feet like a rocket.

  "You will call me Doctor Adams, young man!"

  Joseph had said nothing. He had simply stared back, and up, at the man looming over him. Without a trace of fear or cringing, his face filled with a dignity she would never have imagined possible in a boy that age.

  Gasping for breath, she and Joseph reached the spot in the valley where the boy was leading her. As she drew near, she saw that a large number of maia, and what looked like every child in the colony, were clustered near a grove of tubular, fleshy plants. She recognized the plants. They were the favorite food of the maia. The humans had called it "sortasaguaro," until, beginning a few months earlier, the children had started calling it "oruc," insisting that that was the proper name for the plant according to the maia. Julius immediately adopted the name, with the other adults eventually following suit.

  She edged her way through the throng. At the center, she came upon a pitiable tableau. One of the maia had collapsed. The creature was lying on its side, hooting softly. Indira immediately knew the position was unnatural. She had never seen a maia lying on its side before. When the creatures slept, they simply lowered themselves straight to the ground.

  Brown tones rippled through the mantles of the maia observing the scene. If the children were to be believed—and the scene she was watching gave strong support to their opinion—brown was the color of misery. The stricken maia herself was also dappled with brown hues, although the predominant color was ochre. Then, as Indira watched, the ochre faded. A few brown stripes continued to move slowly across the maia's mantle, but now green rapidly appeared and spread.

  The maia surrounding the scene began hooting. There seemed, somehow, a questioning tone to the hoots.

  The stricken maia herself had stopped hooting. Suddenly, to Indira's astonishment, the color of her mantle deepened—first to dark green, and then to midnight black. She had never seen that color on a maia before.

  As if it were a signal, three of the maia moved to the fallen one's side. Using their cowls like great shovels, they levered the creature upright. Two other maia moved forward, one on each side of the stricken one, and leaned into her. Then, most of her weight being carried by the two helpers—

  No, realized Indira suddenly, pall-bearers.

  —the trio began making their slow way north. Everyone followed, maia and human, the maia softly hooting and the children sobbing.

  On the way, they met Julius and Korecz, who had come to see what the commotion was about. The biologist and the doctor fell in with Indira.

  "What—" Julius started to say, but fell silent at the sight of Indira's sharply upthrust hand.

  Slowly, the procession made its way north, until they arrived at a grove of striking green plants, twisting vine-like things that curled and wove into each other like an enormous free-standing ball of spaghetti. The color of the stricken maia's mantle, Indira noted, was now very close to that of the vine-plants.

  The "bearers" gently set the stricken maia—

  Wolugo, thought Indira fiercely. Her name is Wolugo.

  —down to the ground. Then, they edged back. Silence followed, for minutes. Wolugo was motionless, except for a faint movement of the fleshy flaps deep within the recesses of her mantle cavity, back of the octopoid head. Julius had often speculated that these were the inhaling orifices for some kind of lungs (or their equivalent).

  The rest of the colony's adults arrived at the scene during the course of that long wait. Adams was the last to appear. The metallurgist examined the scene for a moment, then said loudly:

  "Yes, of course. The elephant's graveyard."

  Indira was shocked at the expression which flooded Julius' face. For a brief moment, she thought the biologist was actually going to strike the man with his fist.

  She was even more shocked when she discovered that she was hoping he would.

  But the moment passed.

  Not long after, Wolugo died. Indira had no doubt of the moment. Deep within the mantle cavity, she could see the maia's flaps stop moving. And, in the space of but a few seconds, all color fade from her mantle, until there was nothing but gray. It seemed, to Indira, the dullest gray she had ever seen.

  She found herself fighting back tears. When she realized what she was doing, she stopped fighting, and let the tears flow freely. All the humans, adult and children alike (except Adams), were doing likewise. And she saw that, across the mantles of the living maia, stately waves of brown and green were slowly moving.

  A few minutes later, the maia began behaving strangely. Several of the maia left, heading back toward the oruc grove. One of those remaining began a peculiar movement on a patch of soil next to the vines—a kind of slow side-to-side two-step, dragging its peds.

  After a minute or so, Indira saw that two mounds of earth were slowly piling up on either side of the patch.

  Understanding struck her like a bolt of lightning. Her mouth agape, she turned to Julius.

  Bu
t Julius was not there. He was already striding up the slope of the mountainside, heading toward the shell of the shattered landing boat. The place where the colony stored its tools.

  Not long after, she saw him return. He was carrying a shovel in each of his hands. And over his shoulder were draped strips of various types of cloth and fabric. Green fabric. Brown fabric.

  He smiled at her crookedly, but said nothing. He made a gesture to Koresz with one of the shovels. Koresz took the shovel without hesitation. And the doctor did not have to be told to drape strips of colored fabric over his shoulders.

  That done, the two men advanced slowly onto the patch of cleared soil, facing the maia who was creating it.

  The maia stopped, stared. Ochre bands were added to its coloration. Julius made shoo-ing motions with his hands, which, to a human, would have signaled: "Move back."

  When he saw that the maia wasn't moving, Julius sighed heavily.

  "Ever play football?" he asked Koresz.

  "Please! I am not a barbarian."

  "Well, rookie, lend me a shoulder anyway."

  So saying, Julius stooped and lowered his upper body until his shoulder was butted gently against the cowl of the maia. Koresz, uncertainly, followed suit.

  Then, slowly but with as much strength as he could muster, Julius attempted to push the creature back.

  It might have moved an inch. Maybe. But the hoot which it emitted carried a clear tone of surprise.

  Julius straightened up, grimacing, rubbing his lower back.

  "As I feared," he muttered. "It's like trying to block Lawrence Taylor."

  "Who?" asked Koresz.

  "An ancient legend from the dawn of time, Vladimir, whose name is known only to barbarians like me who happen to be the few football fans left on Earth in these effete modern days. A hero, from the Golden Past. A demi-god. Think of Hercules, or Theseus. Or both rolled into one. Sorta like that."

  He stared at the maia, chewing his upper lip.

  "I guess we'll just have to try to dig around—"

  Suddenly, the maia edged back until it was clear of the patch.

  "Well. Thank you. Took you long enough, dimbulb."

  He started digging. He and Koresz.

  It took a long time to dig a grave big enough to accommodate the body of Wolugo, especially since Julius insisted on what he called "the regulation six feet." Indira, when she took her turn with the shovel (all the adult humans took a turn in the grave, even Adams—although he only lasted fifteen minutes), suggested to Julius that the maia were probably accustomed to shallow graves. But Julius had been unmoved.

  "Yeah, probably so. But I finally found something that humans can do for them that they can't do very well for themselves, and I'm not about to do a slipshod job of it."

  Despite her aching muscles, she found herself suddenly in agreement with his point of view.

  By the time they were finished, it was late in the day. Indira was not surprised to see that, while the humans had dug the grave, the maia had been gathering clumps of oruc.

  Food, to sustain the dead in their voyage.

  Nor was she surprised to see that Joseph had organized the children to provide their own gifts. And so it was that when the body of the maia Wolugo was lowered into her grave, she was accompanied not only by clumps of oruc but by strips of cloth, small tools (whose use she would not have understood), toys, trinkets, and several of the small bowls that the colonists had made to eat the maia-food.

  It was those last gifts, more than anything else, which brought tears to Indira's eyes.

  Bowls. So that the gentle giant, if she encountered starving children in the afterworld, could once again give life to the dead.

  The next day, Indira left the human camp and went to live with the maia. She remained there for months, refusing all contact with adult humans (even Julius; but he was not hurt, because he understood), and refusing to speak to the children if they used any Terran language.

  When she returned, the adults gathered about the evening campfire. Her first words were simply:

  "The name 'maia' is wrong. They are called owoc."

  When she told Joseph, he nodded, and corrected her pronunciation.

  Interlude: Nukurren

  For Nukurren, the first two days after her capture were a blur. She recovered consciousness briefly, at several intervals. But beyond a vague awareness of Dhowifa, she recognized nothing before lapsing again into darkness.

  Then, just after dawn on what she would learn was the third day since the massacre of the caravan, she awoke clear-headed. Very, very weak. But clear-headed.

  The first thing she saw, out of her good eye, was Dhowifa. He was nestled under her cowl. From his closed eyes, and the way his beak and arms twitched, she thought he was dreaming.

  "You're so cute when you're asleep," she whispered softly.

  His eyes popped open, glaring at her balefully.

  "I am not asleep. I'm thinking."

  She began a retort to the effect that, the last time she remembered, he was as mindless as a snail. But the look of love in the curl of his arms, and the green hues which rippled across his mantle, stopped the words in her sac.

  "Where are we?" she asked. Then, feeling a strange motion, she looked around.

  She could only see to one side, but she saw that she and Dhowifa were being carried on a litter held by two of the hunnakaku. They seemed to be part of a caravan of demons and hunnakaku, climbing a trail on the side of a mountain. On the slopes above, she could see three demons stick-pedding alongside.

  Those strange peds are very effective in rough terrain, she thought. Then, seeing the shades of brown in their skins: But why are they so miserable?

  Her attention was drawn by another demon, who was stick-pedding alongside the litter. The demon was very large. Not as tall as the demonlord, but heavier. Nukurren was mostly struck by its color. The demon's skin was almost pure white, under the strange yellow armor which covered the top of its head and the rear of its upper torso.

  That armor looks too soft to be much good. And this seems a strange time and place to be consumed by passion.

  She voiced the last thought aloud. Hearing the sound, the demon looked down at her. The bright blue color of its eyes made her instinctively tighten her muscles. Only pure fury could turn a gukuy's eyes that color. But the creature did not seem enraged, and the tension brought pain to her ravaged body. She slowly relaxed.

  "I don't think their emotions show on their mantles," said Dhowifa softly. "I have been watching them for days. They all looked the same to me, at first, except the big one. The terrible one who hurt you so badly. But now I can tell them apart, and their colors never change. Most of them are brown-colored, of one shade or another. But there is this big one"—he whistled amusement— "who looks like it's in perpetual heat. Some of the others are like that, although none is as white as this one. And there is the other big demon, who is always pure black. Nobody can be that implacable. Not even that monster."

  "The demonlord."

  Dhowifa glowed ochre.

  "I am not sure they are demons, Nukurren."

  Nukurren started to whistle amusement, but the rippling in her sac caused a wave of pain.

  "And what do you know about demons?"

  Exquisite turquoise—irritation, leavened by affection—rippled across Dhowifa.

  "Would demons be friends with hunnakaku?" he demanded.

  Nukurren pondered the question.

  "It does seem unlikely," she admitted.

  "And there's more, Nukurren. The—demons, whatever they are—you won't believe this, but I've seen it with my own eyes. They eat the hunnakaku ogoto. In fact, as far as I can tell, that's all they ever eat."

  Nukurren was stunned into silence. "Ogoto" was the Anshaku word. The Kiktu called it "putoru." The hunnakaku themselves, in their own language, called it "childfood."

  Gukuy spawn only lived on ogoto when they were newly born. Within a few eightdays, they were able to feed on so
ft meat. But the tough plants which were the exclusive diet of hunnakaku were much too difficult for the young sub-gukuy to chew and digest. So they lived on childfood—the regurgitated contents of the adults' stomachs—for years. Until they were half-grown.

  "Are you saying these monsters are children?"

  "I'm not sure, Nukurren. It would seem so—but if there's one thing I've decided, these past two days, it's that there are too many peculiar things about these—demons—to jump to any conclusions. But I'm sure I'm right about the ogoto. For one thing, there are seven hunnakaku in this party. They freed the four who were in the cages, but where did the other three come from? They must have brought the hunnakaku with them. Why would they do that if not for the ogoto? Hunnakaku can't fight."

  A sharp pain stabbed through Nukurren's ruined eye. She reached up an arm, felt a strange thing covering it.

  To her surprise, Dhowifa pulled her arm away.

  "Don't touch that!" he cried.

  "What is it?"

  "I don't know. Some kind of thing made of plants." He hesitated. "One of the demons put it there. On the first day. It put similar ones on your other wounds. I tried to pull the things off, of course, because I thought it was trying to poison you. But it wouldn't let me, and it's much stronger than I am. Then, it got this other one—" Dhowifa gestured toward the large white demon who was still stick-pedding alongside the litter "—to talk to me. It speaks Kiktu. I don't understand Kiktu as well as you do, and it's got a horrible accent, but as near as I can make out, it was telling me that the things will help you heal. And I noticed that it's wearing one too. I think it's one of the ones you injured."

  Nukurren looked again at the white demon. On one of its upper—tentacles? no, they were jointed like its peds—its upper limbs, a large poultice was strapped.

  "So I decided to leave them there," continued Dhowifa. "I think you should leave them alone."

  He doesn't understand, Nukurren realized. Oh, Dhowifa, now I must cause you more pain. But better that than to lie.