Part 18 (1/2)

A noise clicked through Collins' hearing, and he jerked his head toward it. The sudden movement sent vertigo crus.h.i.+ng down on him and a lead weight of pain slamming through his head. Suddenly, he felt even less sure about his a.s.sessment; he might also have a skull fracture. That thought brought a trickle of fear. He could not forget his anatomy professor's warning that knocking someone out was not the benign process action/adventure movies would have viewers believe. If a man blacked out for longer than a minute, he might well have sustained a lethal injury. I couldn't have been out long, or that d.a.m.ned cat would have eaten me by now.

Collins raised his arm to consult his watch, only to find the puppy staring at him from behind the rock.

Woolly with youth, it had a short, rounded snout, ears that stuck up in sharp triangles, and enormous brown eyes. Cowlike patches of black and white splattered its ribby body. All Barakhain dogs are guards, Collins reminded himself. And only absolute carnivores live here. He looked at the animal, trying to discern some feature that might reveal it as the equivalent of an African or Indian wild dog, but it looked more like a husky- or malamute-cross, perhaps three months old.

With slow, deliberate motions, Collins freed himself from his backpack and crouched.

The puppy watched him, head tipped sideways. It remained still, its back half hidden behind the boulder.

Collins' mind lurched through details he had already considered. Any kind of Random breedings could have happened here through the centuries. He fumbled in his pocket, freeing a dog biscuit which he held out toward the pup.The dog's nose twitched. It did not otherwise move, continuing to study Collins.

Breaking the biscuit in half, Collins tossed one piece in a gentle arc. It fell to the uneven floor, sliding toward the puppy, who backpedaled farther behind the stone. Its nose wiggled again, and it craned its neck toward the offering. It raised a paw with obvious caution, then eased forward. Another wary step followed. It reached its muzzle as far forward as possible to sniff at the biscuit piece. It glanced at Collins one more time, seeming rea.s.sured by his stillness. Finally, it scooped the biscuit into its jaws and crunched it down, lapping up every last crumb. It looked expectantly at Collins.

Smiling, Collins held out the rest of the biscuit. The dog trotted toward him, gait slowing as it drew nearer. It stopped just beyond his reach, sat, and waited.

Collins stretched out his arm as far as possible. The puppy s.n.a.t.c.hed the biscuit from his hand, then retreated a few steps to eat it. While it did, Collins reached into his pocket again, drawing out a piece of jerky. He offered it to the dog.

This time, the puppy took the meat from Collins' hand, bolting it down without any visible chewing. Its oversized, underfurred tail waved wildly, overbalancing the puppy in a wobbly dance. As it worked down the food, Collins ran a hand along its head, scratching behind the fuzzy ears. In clear ecstasy, the puppy sat, tipping its head toward the man's touch. It sniffed Collins' fingers, then licked off the remaining grease and spices.

Collins looked up to find a full-sized version of the puppy watching quietly from the entryway. He swallowed hard, searching for the sword Ialin had insisted he bring. He had not thought to use it against the cougar; its a.s.sault had immediately separated him from his backpack and the blade thrust through the strap. He did not see the weapon and dared not make the necessary visual sweep to find it, which would require losing track of the full-grown dog. He groped blindly at his belt, but the knife had apparently also gone missing. Left with nothing but his wits, Collins debated whether to try to stare down the beast. The dominance maneuver might backfire if the dog chose to accept what amounted to a challenge.

Collins swallowed his terror. The dog might sense it, and that, too, could drive it to attack. Trying to appear in control, he casually reached back into the pocket for another stick of jerky. The puppy lunged for the treat; but, before its sharp little teeth closed around the jerky, Collins lobbed it toward the adult dog. The puppy skittered after the meat, nails scratching against stone, barking furiously.

Collins cringed. The sound might draw others. Or, he realized, it might drive some, like the cougar, away.

The adult walked toward the jerky as the puppy came careening after it. The youngster missed, lost its footing, and crashed into the larger dog with a startled yelp. Seeming not to notice the collision, the adult hefted the meat in gentle jaws, bit off half, then dropped the rest. The puppy snapped up its share.

The grown dog yapped out a single bark, paused, then barked twice more.

Collins stiffened at what sounded frighteningly like a signal. He knew canines of every sort hunted in packs.

As if to confirm his worst suspicions, movement rustled and rattled through the cavern, filled with the click of nails on stone, the swish of fur or fabric, and other small sounds he found harder to identify. His torch had burned out, so he reached with a measured, fluid motion into the backpack for another. A flick of a match set it aflame to reveal a grim semicircle of creatures hemming him against the rock formation.

Humans of both genders interspersed with a surprising variety of animals, including a lioness, an orangutan, and a ma.s.sive tortoise.

Collins nearly dropped the torch. He pressed his back against the stones, studying the crowd of creatures around him. Even at full strength, he could not fight all of them; the lion alone would do him in.

A lean, bearded man standing between the lioness and the tortoise cleared his throat. ”You...understand... me?” He enunciated each word, as if addressing a deaf foreigner of dubious mental functioning, and he held Collins' sword in his hand.

Collins kept the torch in front of him, mind racing, trying to decide his best course of action. He could feign confusion but doubted anything good would come of that. They might speak freely in front of someone they believed didn't know what they were saying, but he would rather know his fate sooner and directly. ”Every word,” he responded.

Murmurs swept the human members of the group. Collins glanced around at them, realizing that what at first had seemed like a hundred was probably more like twelve. Besides the two dogs, the lioness, the ape, and the tortoise, he saw a bat dangling from the ceiling. Seven humans, four male and three female, closed the ranks. Though some sported well-defined muscles, they all appeared slender; and one woman looked as if she suffered from anorexia nervosa, a walking skeleton. Some wore tattered loincloths while others stood brazenly naked. They all had long hair, lank and uneven, though reasonably clean.

”Come with us,” the speaker said.

Nodding, Collins secured his backpack and hefted it. The strap rubbed against an open wound, and he cringed. Getting fully to his feet proved harder. Dizziness a.s.sailed him in a rush of swirling spots and squiggles. He took an awkward step, uncertain of directions, not even sure about up and down. He struggled against gravity.

More incomprehensible whispers swept the group, and the animals stirred restlessly.

Collins held utterly still as his vision stabilized. Barely trusting himself to speak, he managed, ”I'm hurt.”

”Yes.” The speaker revealed nothing with his tone. ”Come.”

Collins walked toward the bearded man, and the mixed group filled in the growing gap behind him.

The circle tightened, though not enough to keep him from escaping under normal circ.u.mstances. The idea of running now incited a raw bubble of nausea. His balance would surely fail him.

The creatures nearest the speaker turned, glancing over their shoulders as they slid, in single file, through an opening Collins had not yet explored. He soon found himself in a small, rough-hewn cave filled with the obligatory stony growths on floor and ceiling. The bearded man led the way through one of that cavern's several exits and into a grotto. There, Collins saw an unusually large number of ledges shadowing a network of low, tunnellike openings and three larger entrances, including the jagged hole they had glided through. A stream wound along one edge, disappearing into a hole on the same side.

Each entrance had a guard, one a man holding a pole, another a ma.s.sive, grizzled wolf, the third a pet.i.te woman who looked as if she could not defend herself from her own shadow.

The man who had spoken gestured at a rocky prominence. Though free of slime or moss, it looked s.h.i.+ny with damp. Collins' aching body begged him to rest, but he dared take no chance of offending.

”May I sit down, please?”

”Please do,” said a voluptuous naked woman with the darkest skin and hair Collins had ever seen.

She might have pa.s.sed for an aboriginal African in his world except that she had threadlike lips, a long, narrow nose, and eyes that appeared more yellow than brown. Her inky hair fell in knotty straightness nearly to her knees, though it covered nothing women of his world would have considered significant for modesty.

Collins plopped heavily down on the ledge, feeling as if he had survived a journey through a wood chipper. He adjusted the crude bandage on his head and dropped the backpack beside him. ”My name is Benton Collins,” he said. ”You can call me Ben.”

”Ben,” the original speaker repeated. The man held the sword awkwardly. Clearly, he knew or had surmised its purpose, but he had no experience with such a weapon. ”Who are you, Ben?”Collins thought he had already answered that question with his name. He tried to guess the reason for the question, what he would want to know were he the captor. But, first, he needed to figure out the purpose of this mismatched group; and his thoughts slogged through light-headedness and pain for an answer. ”I'm from another world. One without switchers and switch-forms.”

The way-too-skinny woman piped in, ”Are you a royal?”

Collins bit his lower lip, uncertain of the consequences of answering with truth or various lies. He had no way of knowing whether this group held royalty in awed esteem or despised them for inflicting this life of anarchy and imprisonment upon them. The king's ancestors had literally visited the sins of the parents onto the sons and daughters; yet, the current king and his relatives were also innocent descendants. Not that that simple, clearheaded and obvious reasoning prevents wars and resentment in my own world. Preferring to die for honesty than deceit, Collins stuck with the truth. ”My world... ”he recognized the fallacy of the statement he was about to make and amended it even as he spoke, ”... at least my part of it, doesn't have royalty.”

Glances circ.u.mnavigated the room. They seemed surprised by Collins' p.r.o.nouncement, which made sense. Having lived under no other form of government, they might find it difficult to understand how others could. Even in his own world, Collins sometimes found it hard to see how communism had flourished and countries continued to accept monarchs, even if only as figureheads. On the other hand, he had loved science and math and suffered through subjects like history, geography, and social studies. He did not consider himself a stereotypical scientist who saw the whole world in black and white: provable theories versus ungrounded superst.i.tion. He had even dated a psychology student, albeit unsuccessfully.

The original speaker summed up the modic.u.m of information they had gathered. ”So you're not a royal, and yet you also have no switch-form.”

”Correct.” The snail's pace of the interview ground on Collins, who suddenly remembered the limitations on his time. He finally glanced at his watch. It read 11:08 a.m., to his horror. ”Oh, my G.o.d!

I've got to get moving.” He would never have guessed how long he had lain unconscious, curled around his backpack, on the stones. The presence of this gang of switchers, including the dogs, must have kept the cougar from returning to finish him.

Humans and animals alike stared at Collins. Clearly, they believed his ability to go or stay depended wholly on them. And, Collins realized, they were essentially right. He could only attempt to prod them along.

Collins wrenched open his backpack. ”Listen, you all seem nice enough, but the life of a man and a cause depend on me hauling a.s.s out of here right now.” He seized the Snickers bars and held them up.

”Here. You'll like these.” Even as he tossed them, Collins had a sudden wild thought. He had read that chocolate was poisonous to most of the animals people kept as pets. On the other hand, he had fed candy to his cat and hamster without any harmful effects that he knew of, and the animals he now faced spent half their lives as humans.

The puppy ran toward the bounty, but its father stopped it with a well-placed paw. The lioness sniffed one candy bar carefully, and a short, sinewy man who had not yet spoken hefted the other two. As he studied them, Collins remembered to add through his pounding headache, ”Take the paper off first. The good stuff's inside.”

Using his teeth, the man ripped the wrapper and sent it floating to the ground. He took a bite of the Snickers, and a smile lit his face. ”This is... great!” He hefted it like a trophy. ”Best food I've ever eaten.”

He handed the one he had tasted to the scrawny girl, who took a delicate nibble.

Her eyes widened. ”Delicious.”

The short man opened the other two candy bars and pa.s.sed them around the group while Collins emptied his pockets of dog biscuits and jerky. ”You can have all of these, too.” No longer worryingabout an attack, he went through his pack, emptying it of everything he could spare. Not only could those things work as bribes, but shedding them would lighten his load tremendously. ”Here're some clothes.