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- Jack L. Chalker Rings 2 Pirates Of The Thunder
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done before or even thought about it. I had to work pretty hard to prevent
them from showing their disgust.
"You have to have real guts," I told them, 'like you did back in the escape.
If they offer any to us, take it and eat it. You don't have to like it, and
you can be disgusted by it, but we need them."
"I don't know why we need anybody," Ching protested. "We were doing pretty
good, I think, and we were happy."
"Vettas are happy until they're caught and killed," I retorted. "We're more
than animals, Ching. We're human beings and human beings have to grow and
learn. That's why we need them."
We were offered some of the kill, after the rest had taken their pick of the
best cuts, and I complimented them on their great skill as hunters which also
seemed to please them. I think they knew that my three city-dwelling
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companions were upset by the hunt and kill, and were vastly amused by their
reactions as they tried to bite into the chunks of meat. Angi, whose motto
seemed to be "I'll try anything once" was the most successful; Bura ate as
little as she thought she could get away with and looked extremely
uncomfortable; Ching finally forced a mouthful down, but she just couldn't
conceal her disgust and refused to eat any more. I didn't press her; I thought
throwing up would be in the worst of taste.
I was relieved to see that our tribal hosts were taking things so well, and I
began to suspect that some of them, at least, were neither as naive nor as
ignorant as they pretended to be.
They had a ceremony at the end of the meal that seemed to have solemn
religious overtones. Dead vetta would not keep; only the skin was savable, and
you had to strip off the meat and bone from it completely and "cure" the skin
in the thermal pool. When the host died, the Wardens began to die as well, and
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Medusa decomposition was swift. I had found this the case with fruit and
berries, although not with cut wood and leaves. It was almost as if the
Wardens were determined to keep a very clean, almost antiseptic, wilderness,
yet knew enough to leave behind those that were useful to man.
The ceremony itself was interesting and, as usuz such rites, incomprehensible
to me. It involved prayi:
chanting over the remains, with the leader eventuall ing what couldn't be
saved into the thermal pool manner of an offering, or sacrifice. I wanted very
m know more about such ceremonies and beliefs, if c keep from stepping on
toes, but didn't dare ask righ There was time enough, for that later.
Two more days of travel to the northwest, wh eluded some more hunting, lay the
camp. On the w approached and actually crossed the tracks of our ok it brought
a twinge of nostalgia to Bura, at least, ai tainly to Ohing.
The camp was far more than that Nestled up the mountains, invisible from
anywhere on the beyond, it was in every sense a small city. A large of stones,
some placed by humans, some natural, fi an area more than a kilometer in
diameter insi "walls," guarded the camp from the ground and fr
the roofless area inside was open to t ments. A small stone amphitheater was
carved out rock floor in the center of the interior with what training told me
might be an altar at the bottom. T a fire pit dominated the place, but there
were man cal small dwellings made of skin and supported by but temporary
wooden beams all over. The bulk population was not below in the common yard,
but actually within the sheer rock wall behind, in wl peared to be dozens of
caves. They were all over th high and low, and there were no ladders only
well-worn hand- and footholds carved into the si the wall. Tribal members,
however, scurried up and that wall and in and out of the caves as if they wer
to it.
At the base of the cliff, at ground level was a cave, a bit larger than the
others. Through obviousl; made channels, streams from the snow melt above down
in small matched waterfalls to holding pools o sides of the camp. From there
the water was for use within the compound or allowed to overflow and run off
through outlets in the protective wall.
Angi, in particular, was impressed. 'This is one hell of a job of civil
engineering, mostly done by hand."
"Remember, we're not dealing with a long time period here," I reminded her and
the others as well. "The two Medusas were only really completely closed off to
each other forty or fifty years ago. It's entirely possible that some of the
original pioneers are still alive here.
It was, in fact, this dichotomy between the inevitable pioneer resourcefulness
and the primitive, religion-
based lifestyle of these people that bothered me the most.
We were told to wait near the amphitheater, and we could only stand there and
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look around.
"How many people would you say live here?" I asked our engineer.
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