Changer of Worlds woh-3 Read online

  Wind of Memory considered that, then flicked her ears in agreement.

  Golden Voice continued, she used the human word, for the mind voices of the People had no matching reference, yet all who heard it knew of what she spoke <—with an enemy with far more nests, far more people, than our humans. Laughs Brightly and I have met some of those enemies.> The tail wrapped about her mate tightened again, and his tail slipped comfortingly about her, as well.

  A cold mental silence answered her, and Branch Leaper felt that same icy chill at his own heart. He had never even considered such a possibility, yet he knew now that he should have. He, too, had heard the memory songs, tasted the very mind glows, of Laughs Brightly and his human as they faced the terrible weapons Golden Voice had just described. And in those songs, Laughs Brightly had always known that such terrible human tools might be unleashed even here on the world of the People. Yet somehow the connection had never made itself for Branch Leaper, for such devices were too utterly beyond his own ken. And as he tasted the stunned silence about him, he knew he was not alone in that. That perhaps even the memory singers themselves had not recognized—or admitted to themselves that they did—the implications of all Laughs Brightly and others like him from other clans had reported to their memory singers.

  Golden Voice went on with that same terrible, unflinching honesty and awareness,

  Bark Master pointed out. His mind voice was no longer stubborn. It was half-stunned and frightened, yet his response was not one of simple panic. He spoke as a clan elder, one whose responsibility it was to recognize the dangers which beset Bright Water and to avert them… and who knew now that there was a danger he could not avert, however hard he might seek to do so.

  Golden Voice told him.

  Bark Master stared at her in disbelief, and she flicked her ears with just a hint of impatience.

  she said firmly, with all the authority of the memory singer she had never become.

  Wind of Memory pointed out, raising a true-hand to gesture at the dense green leaves and broad picketwood branches about them.

  Golden Voice agreed.

  Wind of Memory began to reply hotly, then stopped, and Branch Leaper tasted her sense of surprise as she made herself consider Golden Voice’s words and found a bitter strain of truth behind them.

  Golden Voice went on into the silence.

  Wind of Memory replied.

  Golden Voice said. again that burst of curiously serene, bottomless sorrow flowed from her, but this time without the jagged, knifelike edges <—and I will never regret it. Yet I tell you that Laughs Brightly’s bond with Dances on Clouds is as much stronger than was mine with Hunter of Stars as a memory singer’s voice is stronger than that of a hunter or a scout. I do not think Dances on Clouds realizes even now how much like one of the People she is, for she tastes Laughs Brightly’s mind glow almost as one of the People would. You who have sung their songs know this, but you know only what Laughs Brightly has been able to tell you of it, while I have seen it as another looking in through my own bond to him, and I tell you that Dances on Clouds can actually hear his thoughts.>

  one of the other elders said flatly. <
Humans are mind-blind. Even Darkness Foe could hear the thoughts of a memory singer only because hands of hunters and scouts aided her!>

  Golden voice said calmly. She turned and looked up at her mate, and he flicked his ears.

  he said. the tenderness and love in his mind voice flowed through them all like a gentle wind as he named his human <—does not hear me as the People would, does not hear my thoughts as thoughts. I do not know precisely how she does hear them, for it had not occurred to me until the last few hands of turnings that she might do so at all.>

  Mental ear flicks of assent flowed through his audience, for this was Bright Water Clan, and all of its people had heard the memory songs of how Laughs Brightly had made Dances on Clouds taste the mind glow of the evil-doers from whom she and he had saved the elders of Dances on Cloud’s other world from murder.

  Laughs Brightly went on. He cocked his head, and the other People tasted his pride and wonder at what his human had achieved. He sent a wave of love and tenderness to his mate, but his eyes met those of his clan’s elders.

  His mind voice trailed off, and Golden Voice took up the discussion once more.

 

  She fell silent, and a great stillness seemed to hover in the central nesting place of Bright Water Clan. It lingered endlessly, and then Wind of Memory shook herself like a kitten caught in the rain. She turned and gazed about her at the assembled elders and all the other adults who listened and watched, then looked back to Golden Voice.

  she observed in a mind voice made of mingled worry, resignation, hope, and deep amusement.

  Golden Voice replied so demurely that even many of those she had shocked most deeply bleeked with laughter.

  Wind of Memory said much more seriously.

  Crooked Tail, another of the elders, put in,

  Wind of Memory replied. she darted a humorous glance at Golden Voice <—I have no intention of attempting to convince a mated female, with kittens of her own, who has also bonded to a human, to do what all of Sun Leaf Clan’s elders could not convince an untried kitten to do so many turnings ago! And there must be hunters and scouts… three hands, at least, I would say. But it is not the numbers that matter in this—not truly. What matters is the change. I would not think it would come immediately, for I would still advise moving with caution, yet such a move would require the People to show our true cleverness to the humans. And that will change the entire relationship between all humans and all People, everywhere, forever.>

  Golden Voice agreed.

  Wind of Memory asked in a mind voice from which all hostility had faded.

  Golden Voice replied.

  Bark Master said slowly.

 

  Bark Master conceded,

  Golden Voice told him.

  Laughs Brightly put in, his pride in his mate burning bright in his mind glow as he tucked an arm about her. There was not as much shock or surprise at hearing such an announcement from a scout as there might have been in other clans. This wa
s Bright Water Clan, after all… and its elders knew Laughs Brightly of old.

  Wind of Memory told him now, her mind voice and mind glow rich with resigned laughter,

  Laughs Brightly assured her with a bleek of amusement.

  Honor Harrington looked up from her book viewer as the oldest ’cat door on Sphinx opened. Her great-great-great-etc.-grandmother Stephanie and Lionheart had first used that door hundreds of T-years before, and she smiled as the two latest treecats to use it flowed through it.

  “Hi, Stinker!” she said, setting down her mug of cocoa. “Have a nice visit with the folks?”

  “Bleek!” Nimitz agreed, flowing across the floor to her with an air of almost unbearable complacency. He looked like someone who had just discovered he owned an entire celery patch of his own, Honor thought, and shook her head with a grin.

  “He really can be sort of full of himself, can’t he?” she asked the smaller, dappled treecat who had accompanied him, and Samantha bleeked an agreement of her own. She crossed to the couch and hopped lightly up on it to peer down into the basket at Honor’s side. Four adorable balls of fluffy fur slept deeply in it—one of them snoring faintly—and Samantha bleeked again, softer and more gently, and reached out a wiry, true-hand to stroke one of her children tenderly.