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not . . ." He shrugged. "We must try to stop them."
"I believe you, Losting," Bom confessed hesitantly.
"But I would have final proof." He indicated Cohoma
and Logan. "And I think it would speed our return if
the giants were to see the sign of Akadi passing."
Losting nodded agreement and rose. "It is not far,
not as far as I would wish. We can be near and
return before the water falls."
Both hunters started off down the limb. Cohoma
and Logan had to hurry to follow. Logan stumbled and
twisted her way through the clutching thorns and
branches and saw-edged leaves. Ruumahum paced be-
low her as a precaution. The first two days had ac-
customed her to living the death of a thousand cuts
every sunrise to sunset, and she was getting tough-
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ened. She marveled at how Bom never seemed to get
cut or scratched despite the thickness of the brambles
he led them through. It was positively uncanny. No
doubt, she reasoned, it was his smaller size, his lithe
build, coupled with the innate knowledge of the
hylaea's construction that enabled him to slip smoothly
between the most closely packed webs of leaves and
stems and twigs.
A bulky green shape appeared next to her. She
didn't jump this time, just quivered a little inside. She
82
was growing used to the furcot's size and silent ap-
proach.
"Ruumahum, what are the Akadi?"
The furcot sniffed. "A thing that eats."
"One thing, or many?"
"There are thousands of them, and there is one of
them," Ruumahum replied.
"How can there be thousands and only one?"
Ruumahum growled irritably. "Ask Akadi." He
plunged off the branch and downward.
Logan followed his path in her mind's eye, repeating
to herself theatrically, "into the foliage below! . . .
foliage below . . . foliage below . . . foliage. Fol
emfolEmpathetic foliation?" Precise terminology for
an acquired superstition, she mused. That might ex-
plain the term, but not the rationale for the belief's
intensity. She was missing something. It would have
to wait. Losting had been right, they did not have
far to go.
Now they were moving through a densely packed
thicket of aerial greenery striped with bright yellow.
It grew at right angles, forming a living checkerboard.
Losting indicated they would have to pass around it,
a detour of some dozens of meters.
Cohoma put out a hand and grasped the nearest
of the interlocking, finger-thick stems. "Why go
around?" he asked Bom, with a gesture at the lat-
ter's broad-bladed knife. He squeezed the branch.
"This stuff is herbaceous, soft, pulpy. If we're in a
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hurry, why not cut our way through?"
"You consider death with such indifference," Bom
told him, eyeing him in much the way Cohoma would
study a bug under a microscope. "Can it be that on
your own world you are a hunter of sorts, too?" There
was a certain unidentifiable stress laid on the word
sorts.
It was Cohoma's turn to stare at Bom. "It's just
some big succulent."
"It is alive," Bom said patiently. "If we cut through
it, it will become not-alive. Why? To save time?"
"Not only that. If there's some kind of multiple
omnivore around here, I'd rather not be caught in
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tight quarters. The more spase cleared around me,
,the better."
Bom and Losting exchanged glances. The two fur-
cots waited nearby. "He would kill for a few minutes
of better light," Bom observed wonderingly. "Your
priorities are strange, Jancohoma. We will go around."
Cohoma had additional questions, and Logan as well.
However, neither Bom nor Losting would answer them
now.
Eventually they rounded the copse of the checker-
board succulents. In another minute they were walk-
ing in dense jungle. A turn, cut, and suddenly they
entered an unexpected open space, much as Cohoma
had wished for, tunneled out of the forest. The tunnel
was taller than a man, taller than Logan or Cohoma.
It was a good five meters wide, stretching in a
straight line to left and right until it merged into
green.
"Akadi made this. They are mindless and of
one purpose. They eat their way through the world,
leavingthis." He indicated the clear space. Within
that tunnel, life had ceased to exist. It had simply
disappeared into ... what?
"Is the line always so straight?" Logan asked.
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"No. The column sends out scouts. If the food lies
thicker in another direction, the Akadi swerve and
eat in a new path. Once started, nothing turns them
but their own hunger. See." He pointed down the tun-
nel. "They will eat through anything, consuming any-
thing living in their path that cannot get out of their
way. I have seen them eat through the heart of a Pil-
lar tree and come out the other side. It is said that
one can stand by the very edge of their, tunnel and,
though one could reach out and pull you in, they will
not deviate from their chosen path. As those in front
are sated, they drop back, letting new members eat
themselves full. By the time the last has eaten, the first
are hungry again. They stop only to rest and breed."
Cohoma looked relieved. "No problem, then, is
there? Don't tell me you're concerned because they
seem to be heading toward your village?" Born
nodded.
The giant spread his hands. "What's the trouble?
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All you have to do is pack up your kids and furcots
and get out of the way until they've eaten their way [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]