Motherstone by Maurice Gee Page B

pouch and flask. That was all she wanted. She did not want to take the woman’s blanket or her cap, though both would be useful. Then she remembered Steen. She looked into the desert and shivered. She did not want to go, but knew she must. Slarda might have wounded him, not killed him. He might be lying there, dying slowly. She had to make sure.
    ‘Cat,’ she said, ‘I’m going to find my friend. Are you coming?’ It seemed best to pretend he was safe. He padded along behind her, and although he might be waiting his time to kill she would behave as though he was friendly. She followed Slarda’s steps back into the dunes. They kept a straight line, and her own trail lay alongside, denting the sand. Then she came to a place where they had parted – or rather, where Slarda’s had joined hers again. The woman had angled across from a crowd of little conical hills. A good place for an ambush, though they’d done Steen no good. She went into them and found the sand packed harder, mixed with earth and pebbles. She lost the trail. ‘Where?’ she said to the Bloodcat. It stood behind whipping its tail. ‘Help me,’ she said. ‘You can find him.’ She made a picture of Steen lying on the sand, with his arms outflung. It galvanized the cat, made it leap into the air as though stung. It growled and advanced on her. She saw the way its joints worked under its hide, so beautifully. It made her feel clumsy; but she formed the picture again, and tried to show herself and the animal there too.
    The cat understood. It seemed to nod, and it raised its nose, sniffing the air, and started off round the nearest hill. It led her a long way, further than she thought Steen could have gone. But there he was – and just has she had shown him in her picture, arms out-stretched. It was as if she had known. She walked towards him beside the cat. He was in a little hollow, like something dead lying in a basin. She felt tears of pity for him, and of anger at the waste. Steen dead. Slarda too. There was no need, they should be alive. She knelt beside him and said, ‘Steen, I’m sorry.’ And suddenly she seemed to be speaking with a voice not her own – an O voice not an Earth voice, and words she had not thought. ‘I’ll try to stop it all, I promise you. No more killing.’ His mouth was wide in his shout of pain. His eyes stared blindly at the sun. She tried to close them but could not make the lids go all the way.
    The cat sniffed at him and turned away. It sat on the sand and yawned. It did not want Steen for food – but ants would pick him clean. Scouts had already found him. She saw them busy underneath, by the broken shaft of Slarda’s bolt. Steen would be a skeleton, dry bones in the desert. She did not see anything wrong with that, it might be an end he would have chosen. But she wanted some way of saying goodbye. So she picked up a handful of sand and let it trickle on his chest – a kind of burial. No prayers; O had had more than enough of that. She said, ‘Goodbye, Steen. Thank you for helping me. I’m glad you were your own man, not Osro’s.’ It seemed enough. She turned away and walked towards the jungle. The cat padded easily, two or three steps ahead.
    They took a new way and did not see Slarda again. It was further to the jungle than Susan had thought and she wondered if the cat knew where it was going. Perhaps it preferred to stay in the desert. In that case she would have to get away. She must reach the coast and find the Birdfolk. ‘Cat,’ she said, ‘jungle.’ She made a picture of creepers and trees. The cat growled. Did that mean yes? It did not change its course but kept straight on; and soon she saw the dark line of trees. ‘Good,’ she said, stepping faster, coming up to the animal’s side. Without thinking, she let her hand fall on its neck.
    The cat’s reaction was so swift she never knew what had happened. She felt a blow on her side that knocked the breath out of her and sent her spinning