The Practice Effect Part 5

3 Nom de Terre

1.

The next day the road began to descend into a broad river valley.

Riding on Dennis's shoulder, the pixolet peeped and grabbed a cl.u.s.ter of berries from an overhanging branch. It munched on a few of the purple fruits, and juice ran down its jaws. When it offered some to Dennis, he politely declined.

Dennis was feeling pretty good. His old camping skills had obviously come back. His backpack was snug now that he had found the right knots. His boots-broken in now-felt like supple extensions of his own feet as he stepped along the resilient highway. He was making good time.

But he could tell the forest would end soon. He still faced the problem of what he would do when he found civilization.

What sort of creatures were the autochthones? Would they have the technology to help him rebuild his half of the zievatron?

More important, would they decide to arrange his pieces neatly, by size and color, like someone had already done to the zievatron?

Maybe it might be a good idea to spy on the natives, as a first step.

"Easily suggested," Dennis mocked himself. If their facial features are a little different, I'll just use some river mud to make fake antennae and eye stalks and be in business! I might have to remove my nose and lengthen my neck a bit, of course, but only a few inches, at most.

"I wonder if I'll need scales As he hiked along, a number of fantasy scenarios occurred to him.

I know! I'll keep my eye out for the country estate of the eccentric squire scientist G'zvreep, I'll recognize it by the observatory dome protruding prominently from the west wing of his manor house.

Right, Dennis. When you knock, the kindly old native savant will answer the door himself, having sent the servants to bed while he scans the skies for comets. On seeing you he'll flap his thorax in momentary revulsion at your two hideously flat eyes, your millions of tiny cranial tendrils. But when you raise your hand in the universal gesture of peace, he'll hustle you inside and say, "Enter quickly!

Thank Gixgax you came here first!"

In a meadow by the road, Dennis found the remains of a campsite.

Coals were still warm in the firepit.

Dennis put down his pack. He set up the campwatch on one large stone and the pixolet on another. "All right, bright eyes," he said to the creature, "let's see if you're good for anything but company. You can keep a lookout while I do some serious detective work."

Pix c.o.c.ked its head quizzically, then yawned.

"Hmmph. Well, it just goes to show how little you know. I've found something already!" Dennis pointed to the ground. "Look.

Footprints!"

Pixolet sniffed, apparently unimpressed. Dennis sighed. Where was an appreciative audience when you needed one?

There were many deep impressions in the ground-apparently made by the large draft animals-and smaller hoofprints like those an unshod pony might leave. The droppings, too, indicated that this world must indeed have close a.n.a.logs to horses.

After finis.h.i.+ng with the animals, he searched for a clear set of bipedal prints and soon realized that everyone in the caravan had worn shoes.

From the sharp outlines of the corrugated tread, it was apparent these people used boots not unlike his own! Here certainly was evidence of technology. The tread patterns were all identical... as if some computer had come up with the perfect design that was ma.s.s- produced thereafter. He hurried about looking at the prints until a thought occurred to him.

Dennis grabbed his own left foot. Awkwardly, he tried to look at the sole of his own boot. Moving too quickly, he overbalanced and fell on his backside.

He stared at the pattern of his own boot and sighed. It was identical! Either the computers here had come up with the same design as those on Earth had, or...

He looked around. The bootprints were everywhere. No doubt nearly all of them were his own.

There was a peeping that sounded suspiciously like laughter.

Dennis turned and glared at the pixolet. It wore its accustomed grin.

"Don't you dare say one word!" Dennis warned the creature.

For once, Pix did as told.

There weren't many more clues. By the firepit he found a few crumbly sticks of dried meat. Over where the animals had been staked there were scatterings of spilled grain.

By a tall tree Dennis found a red stain in the earth. It felt sticky, like blood.

There were scuffmarks in the ground, and loose tufts of fur. Then he found one long golden strand that glinted in the morning light. He looked at it for a long moment, then carefully stuffed it into a b.u.t.ton- down shoulder pocket.

A bit closer to the forest, he found a dead animal.

It looked like a larger cousin of the pixolet's. It had the snub nose and needle teeth, but it was the size and build of a mastiff.

The head stared at him dully from a spot three feet from the rest of the body. It had been sheared off, along with part of the shoulder, as if by a guillotine-or a high-power laser.

He stared at the carnage until the buzzing of the watch-alarm carried over from the firepit. Dennis looked up anxiously. What was coming?

He turned just as six ragged doglike things suddenly emerged from the line of trees. He did not have time to form a more accurate impression. They snarled-a low, gravelly sound-then charged.

The needler was in his hand before he had time to think. He had practiced drawing and blasting knots in tree trunks during the past few days of hiking. The exercise probably saved his life.

Balanced, legs apart, Dennis aimed just ahead of the beasts and fired.

The ground in front of the pack exploded, but the crazed things charged straight through the spray of dirt and gra.s.s single-mindedly.

Dennis had no choice. He lifted his aim and fired again.

The pack tumbled into a howling ma.s.s. It divided almost instantly into the fleeing and the dead.

Dennis watched the survivors stumble away, howling in pain, their fellows b.l.o.o.d.y and still behind them. He looked down at the small weapon in his hand.

Powered by stored sunlight, the needler could peel tiny slivers off of any odd-shaped lump of metal he crammed into its ammo chamber, and fire them at high velocity. Dennis had thought it little better than a toy when he started out from the zievatron but he had begun to gain confidence in it with all the practice on the trail.

Now he stared at it in amazement.

What a killer, he thought.

2 Soon he could tell he was drawing near civilization.

The highway perceptibly widened as it dropped from the mountain pa.s.s. Some of the hillside meadows now showed signs of cultivation.

A thick hedgerow now separated the highway from open fields on both sides. Through the branches he could see herds of grazing animals on the slopes.

He would run into traffic soon. A happenstance encounter on the road wasn't the best kind of first contact. He didn't want to face the sort of weapon that had severed the head of the beast back at the campsite. Dennis decided it might be best to continue his travels off the road for a while.

He searched for a break in the hedge, Pix awakened from its nap atop his backpack when Dennis drew his machete and started to chop at a thin spot in the windbreak.

The little beast leaped for a high branch, then crouched and looked down at Dennis reproachfully for interrupting its siesta.

Dennis didn't find the going easy. The heavy blade bounced back from the branches, barely chipping them.

He looked at it in disgust. He had not used the machete much until now. It was covered with rust spots and the edge was dull. Dennis cursed Bernald Brady, taking what consolation he could from the fact that he had not misjudged the fellow after all.

As he sucked at scratches on the back of his right hand, he had an idea. What about the beautiful native knife he had found by the airlock? He shrugged out of his pack and retrieved the cloth-wrapped artifact from one of the bottom pouches. With a wary glance up and down the highway, he laid the cloth on the ground and unfolded it.

His eyes went wide.

A week ago he had put away a beautiful, sharp, resilient knife, an obvious product of high-tech craftsmans.h.i.+p.

What lay before him was still impressive, but it looked a lot more like a finely chipped piece of obsidian tied to a wooden handle by tightly wound leather strips. It was sharp and well made, but a far cry from the advanced tool he remembered first picking up.

His head felt light. A phenomenon, he remarked internally, touching the object lightly.

He was brought back to the present by a peeping cry from above.

The pixolet chirped at him twice, shaking its head vigorously. Then it soared off into the thicket.

Dennis reached into his thigh pocket and pulled out the camp- watch. The little screen showed red lights on the road, coming this way.

He rewrapped the artifact. The mystery would keep. He hefted the pack once more and set to hacking in earnest with the machete. He had to get off the road!

Brambles caught at his pack and at the arm he kept up to protect his face as he bulled his way through the thicket. Finally, like a pip squeezed from a melon, he flew into the meadow and sprawled onto the gra.s.s.

Dennis rolled over, breathing heavily.

At least this time I'll get a good look at them, he thought as he crawled away from the break in the hedge. At last I'll find out what the natives look like!

He drew out the camp-watch again. The display showed a great many yellow lights, apparently depicting the herds of grazing animals Dennis had seen on the hillsides. To one side of the screen he saw two red dots and two yellow, coming this way down the road.

A pair of riders.

Pix's green marker was nowhere to be seen. The fickle creature must have left him again.

He was concentrating so hard on the red dots on the road that it took him a moment to notice that two small pink lights had detached themselves from a nearby herd of yellows to the south. They were moving rapidly toward the center of the screen.

Toward the center, Dennis realized. . . that's me.

"Haaaa-aayy-oooaaoo!!"

It came from behind him, a high, shrill cry that sent a s.h.i.+ver down his back. With the ululation came the sound of running footsteps.

Someone was charging down on him from the rear!

Dennis clawed at his holster, holding little hope he could scramble about in time., At any instant he expected the sudden flash of some alien death ray to cut him down.

"Haaayyoo-oh!"

Enc.u.mbered by the pack, he rolled over onto his stomach, trying to bring his weapon up. He held the needler out in two shaky hands ready to fire at... the dog.

He blinked, poised to shoot. . . the small dog that growled at him, then hopped back to take cover behind a pair of small legs... the stubby, scuff-kneed legs of a small boy.

Dennis looked up and stared. The most ominous weapon in sight was a shepherd's crook held by a four-foot-tall towhead with a dirty face.

The first sapient extraterrestrial with whom Dennis had made contact wiped a lock of untidy brown hair out of his eyes and panted.

". . .Ayoo-missuh. . ." The boy breathed excitedly. "Ooowan'

seem'pop?"

A bit numb from surprise, Dennis realized he probably looked silly laying there. Slowly, so as not to frighten the child; he picked himself up.

He decided not even to think about the incongruity of finding a human boy-apparently about eight years old- here on an alien world. There was no profit in it. He made himself concentrate on the language problem. Something about the sounds spoken by the boy had sounded strangely familiar, as if he had heard them somewhere before.

He tried to remember a few facts from the linguistics course he had taken in college in order to get out of the infamous Professor LaBelle's English 7. There were a few sounds, he had learned, that were nearly universal in meaning among human beings.

Anthropologists used to use them at the beginning of contact with newly discovered tribes, He swallowed, then ventured one of them.

"Huh?" he said.

By now the boy had caught his breath. With a sigh of exaggerated patience he repeated himself.

"You wanna see my pop, misser?"

Dennis gulped. He did manage, at last, to make his head go up and down in a nod.

3 The pup ran around them, yapping about their feet. The boy-who said his name was Tomosh-walked earnestly beside Dennis, leading him over the hilly meadow toward his home.

As they walked, Dennis saw a pair of riders pa.s.s by on the highway.

Seen through breaks in the hedge, the sources of the threatening red dots that had sent him plunging into hiding minutes before turned out to be a couple of farmers cantering past on s.h.a.ggy ponies.

He was just starting to adjust to all this. Of all possible first contacts, this one had to be the most benign and the most confusing.

Dennis couldn't even begin to imagine how there had come to be humans here.

"Tomosh," he began.