House of Tribes by Garry Kilworth

Author:Garry Kilworth
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Science Fiction
ISBN: 9780575114333
Publisher: Orion Publishing Group
Published: 2013-06-27T07:00:00+00:00

PIPO CRÉME

In the woodshed, there was another council meeting going on, between the three mice at the head of the 13-K gang. They had been arguing for at least an hour. It was two against one. The three quarrelling mice were Ulf, Drenchie and Gunhild.

Gunhild had recently had enough of the Savage Tribe, and had run away to join the 13-K on the promise that she would be put in charge of discipline and drill, the two things she loved most in life. On learning of her defection Gorm had voiced an order to the effect that if ‘that treacherous grunt was found’, the finders were to tear off her legs and drag the limbless body into his presence, so that he could finish the job himself. Gorm hated traitors, almost as much as he hated his son.

Gunhild did not intend to go back, and was now in the same position as Ulf and his band.

Ulf was explaining his decision not to join the other mice tribes in uniting against the nudniks.

‘It’s not that I have any love for nudniks,’ he said to his audience, draped as usual around the logs and kindling, ‘but this Revolution is against everything we stand for.’

‘What do we stand for?’ asked his mate Drenchie, her low-nose stance suggesting she would rather bite his ears off than converse with him. ‘If we’re not in favour of revolution, just exactly what do we stand for?’

‘We’re rebels,’ Ulf stated passionately. ‘That’s why the original thirteen of us, the founder knights of the gang, left the other tribes in the first place – because we don’t agree with all those old greywhiskers. We left because we stand for New Ideas, New Thoughts, New Ways. If we join with them again, what will we be protesting against? How can we be revolutionaries if we join with the very society we hold in contempt?’

Drenchie snarled, ‘But, you dumb-cluck, a Nudnik Drive is a New Idea. If we’re for New Ideas, we ought to be able to recognize what they are and support them.’

Gunhild said, ‘You’re missing the point, Drenchie. It has to be our New Idea, not Gorm’s. Gorm is the Old Guard, the epitome of outmoded tactics and strategies. It doesn’t matter what he comes up with, we have to set our teeth against it.’

Gunhild saw everything in military terms. She had left the Savage Tribe because it was ‘a mob, a horde’ and not a well-organized army. Unfortunately, though the 13-K were not such barbarian fighters, they still lacked order themselves. They were full of the laziness, ineptness and thoughtlessness of youth. If she had her way, the 13-K would be arranged in regiments and battalions. They would sit to attention, unless she ordered them to sit at ease. She was a strict disciplinarian, and she detested the sloppiness of Drenchie, who was completely the opposite in nature. Drenchie was a loose, languid sort of creature, not even given to organizing herself personally, let alone the tribe.

Drenchie however had one thing going for her.

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