* * *

"Have you ever tried these?" Duun asked, when Thorn sat opposite him, across the blanket from the small array of knives, cord, wire, the two guns, one projectile-firing and one not. "Have you ever handled them?"

"No," Thorn said.

"Will you ever, if I tell you no?"

Alien eyes lifted to him, in startlement that at once dilated and contracted the irises: swift, furtive decision to agree, the easy course, swiftly to be violated— perhaps. If a child wished. There would be a quick flick of a reproving finger against an ear. Perhaps a cuff to make the eyes water.

Thorn could endure that. There was no permanency. Nothing was forever.

As he lacked a past, he lacked a true future, and believed nothing could thwart him forever.

There was no can'tfor Thorn. Duun had taught him so.

"I am not asking you," Duun said, holding up the solitary finger of his right hand. "I am telling you a thing. I want you to believe this. Will you ever pick these up if I tell you no?'

From childish excitement, from game to perplexity. Thorn's brow contracted in a spasm of anxiety. Perhaps Duun would break his promise?

Perhaps he was being teased?

Duun took off the cloak and dropped it behind him. He picked up the wer,a middling blade. He stretched out his bare left arm, fist clenched, and set the knife against his forearm.

23

Cuckoo's Egg

"No!" Thorn cried suddenly. A game? A threat? Something he had done wrong? Duun was teasing him?

Duun slowly brought the blade down and down, deeply. Blood sprang out and rained in steady, heavy drops on the weapons and the blanket. He kept his fist clenched and held the arm steady, resting the knife butt on his knee. Thorn's eyes were wide, his mouth open with nothing coming out.

"That's what weapons are for," Duun said. The blood poured, soaked the blanket. "Each time you take them up, remember what they're for."

"Stop it," Thorn cried. "Duun, stop it bleeding!"

Duun held out the knife, the wounded arm still spurting. He turned it in his maimed hand and offered it hilt first to Thorn. "Can you do it?"

Thorn took the bloodied knife. His eyes still were wide. His lips set themselves, drawn in. He held out his own clenched fist and set the knife to his skin. He drew the blade down the same way, and his face was red and his eyes poured tears; his nostrils and his lips went pale. He drew the knife down. Blood began to drip. The small hand drew away, the knife wobbling in tremors that convulsed the knife-arm and began to involve the other. As Duun had done, he set the knife hand on his knee, and his face was all white and beaded with moisture, while the blood ran down and made another darkening of the blanket.

So. So. Duun had expected last-moment flinching. His own head grew light. His cut was deeper and bled abundantly. He held out his hand and took the knife back. He saw the terror in the child. (What more. Duun?

What else? What worse? I'm scared,Duun!)

"It is not a game," Duun said. He put down the knife and pressed his right hand to his wound. "You can hold it. Hold it tight." He got up from his cross-legged posture without using either hand. He went and opened the med kit and pressed a sealing film on the wound. He came back to Thorn with another square of the gel, and pressed the film to Thorn's arm and held it, warming it with his hand until it took and stayed, soft and blood-reddened, over a wound that would scar. Duun held the arm. Alien eyes 24

Cuckoo's Egg

looked up at him, white all round. He was tender in his grip. "You won't forget," Duun said. "You won't forget what weapons are. You will never pick them up when I tell you not."

"No." A small weak voice.

"You will use them when I say. And you'll set them down when I say."

"Yes."

"Good." He slid a bloodstained hand past Thorn's head and rubbed Thorn's nape in the vise of his maimed hand till the tension left and Thorn's body gave to and fro with that motion, his eyes still fixed on Duun. "Believe me, Thorn. Believe me in this. You hurt now. But you did what I asked.

That was brave."

Muscles in Thorn's face shook, as in some dire chill. His limbs convulsed.

Stopped. Duun kept on his massage until the shiver passed. Thorn's eyes lost their wild look. They were wide and moiled with forethought and calculations. (What else does he want? What did I win? What did I do?

What next?)

Duun let go. Motioned at the bloodstained weapons. "Clean them. I'll show you how."

Thorn stirred, edged closer to the array of weapons on the blanket. "You said—" he began.

"I said?"

"We'd go hunting. You said— we'd go hunting today."

"That we will. We won't eat tonight if we don't take something."

Thorn's eyes flicked up a second time; Thorn could do that, without turning his head. The look hoped for a joke and Duun made his face implacable.

25

Cuckoo's Egg

There was no question, of course. The place was full of unwary game. No one hunted it much. Yet. And a hatani could, in the most desolate place, find some sustenance.

But Thorn would discover this when he was hungry. When he had tried for himself and understood that he was too loud and too awkward.

When he had seen what was in the land, and what the wild things knew.

"I promised you a knife."

A glance upward, wary interest. A stare of white wide eyes.

"The wer-knife. The one you used. That would be a good one for you. You can have it if you like. It's a very good blade. You have to keep it spotless.

Even fingers stain it. I'll show you how to keep it."

Thorn picked it up again, by the hilt. Held it.

* * *

The gangling boy came up the trail, thinking he was alert: Duun knew.

Thorn looked this way and that: his callused feet made very little noise on the dusty track among the rocks.

"Up,"Duun hissed. "Look up."

Thorn's head came up. Duun had already moved, lost in the brush.

The boy was still looking up when Duun hit him in the back with a thrown stone. Thorn spun about and threw. Thorn's stone rattled away down among brush and rock. Duun had evaded it with a fluid shift of his hip, and stood untouched.

"Too late," Duun said. "You're dead. I'm not."

Thorn's shoulders slumped. He bent his head in shame.

26

Cuckoo's Egg

Whirled and sped another rock underhand.

Duun evaded that one too without more than shifting stance. Thorn did not look surprised, only exhausted. Beaten at last.

Duun grinned. "Better. That didsurprise me." The grin faded. "But your choosing this track up didn't. Thatwas your first mistake. How did I know? Can you figure that?"

Thorn gasped for breath. Hunkered down on the path, arms on scabbed knees. "Because I was tired. The climb's easier."

"Better still. You're right. Think ahead next time. And think in alldirections. You know this path. You should have seen these rocks in your head before you came to them."

No answer. Thorn knew. Duun knew that he knew. Thorn wiped his forearm across his face and smeared dust across the sweat. Even at this range he stank of heat.

"Also," Duun reminded him with delicacy, "when you came round the mountain the wind was coming at your shoulder, at an angle to the rocks.

Do you see why that should have warned you?"

Thorn blinked sweat and wiped again. He had grown rangier, longer of limb. The belly had gone hollow beneath the ribs, ridged with muscle above the wrap about his loins. Brushscars showed white on his skin.