The Rebel Worlds by Poul Anderson

Author:Poul Anderson [Anderson, Poul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction
ISBN: 9780451057143
Publisher: Hodder And Stoughton
Published: 1972-01-01T23:00:00+00:00

IX

The forest opened abruptly on cleared land. Stepping out, Flandry saw ordered rows of bushes. On three sides the farm was hemmed in by jungle, on the fourth it dropped into a valley full of vapors. The trend of his six Didonian days of travel had been upward.

He didn't notice the agriculture at once. "Hold!" he barked. The blaster jumped into his grasp. A rhinoceros herd?

No … not really … of course not. Lord Advisor Mulele's African preserve lay 200 light-years remote. The half-dozen animals before him had the size and general build of rhinos, though their nearly hairless slate-blue skins were smooth rather than wrinkled and tails were lacking. But the shoulders of each protruded sidewise to make a virtual platform. The ears were big and fanlike. The skull bulged high above a pair of beady eyes, supported a horn on the nose, then tapered to a muzzle whose mouth was oddly soft and flexible. The horn offset that effect by being a great ebony blade with a saw-toothed ridge behind it.

"Wait, Dominic!" Kathryn sped to join him. "Don't shoot. Those're nogas."

"Hm?" He lowered the gun.

"Our word. Humans can't pronounce any Didonian language."

"You mean they are the—" Flandry had encountered curious forms of sophont, but none without some equivalent of hands. What value would an intelligence have that could not actively reshape its environment?

Peering closer, he saw that the beasts were not at graze. Two knelt in a corner of the field, grubbing stumps, while a third rolled a trimmed log toward a building whose roof was visible over a hillcrest. The fourth dragged a crude wooden plow across the newly acquired ground. The fifth came behind, its harness enabling it to steer. A pair of smaller animals rode on its shoulders. That area was some distance off, details hard to make out through the hazy air. The sixth, nearer to Flandry, was not feeding so much as removing weeds from among the bushes.

"C'mon!" Kathryn dashed ahead, lightfoot under her pack.

The trip had been day-and-night trudgery. In camp, he and she had been too occupied—the only ones with wilderness experience—for any meaningful talk before they must sleep. But they were rewarded; unable to mourn, they began to mend. Now eagerness made her suddenly so vivid that Flandry lost consciousness of his surroundings. She became everything he could know, like a nearby sun.

"Halloo!" She stopped and waved her arms.

The nogas halted too and squinted nearsightedly. Their ears and noses twitched, straining into the rank dank heat. Flandry was jolted back to the world. They could attack her. "Deploy," he rapped at those of his men who carried weapons. "Half circle behind me. The rest of you stand at the trailhead." He ran to Kathryn's side.

Wings beat. A creature that had been hovering, barely visible amidst low clouds, dropped straight toward the sixth noga. "A krippo." Kathryn seized Flandry's hand. "I wish I could've told you in advance. But watch. 'Tis wonderful."

The nogas were presumably more or less mammalian, also in their reproductive pattern: the sexes were obvious, the females had udders.

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