He couldn't help smiling back. “Is that sarcasm? I wouldn't know, Dolores.”
“It doesn't get drier. Gets noiser, gets windier, sometimes the air burns your throat. If there's windbirds you maybe have to hold the pose for half a day, and then the Board wants to know why your pack's light. You were a yutz?”
“Yeah.”
“The trader women, they teach you anything?”
Dolores Nogales's eyes were direct and speculative. Jemmy's instinct was to back up a few centimeters. He said, “I think your sister hates me. You don't?”
“Rita's being stupid. You're lucky. Talk to me later.”
He moved on, thinking pleasant thoughts.
What did trusties and probes get out of this? They got just as wet as the gatherers... but probes went home for lunch, and everyone took their orders.
Anyone but probes had to take a trusty's orders.
Of course you couldn't trust random felons to cook. There must be poisons to he found in the lava scrub, and cooking knives could kill, or a heavy pan. Might as well give the cook a gun and call him a trusty.
But cooking meant trusties stayed dry one day out of two. And anyone a trusty liked would also stay dry one day out of two.
It was Andrew's day outside and Barda's day in. They'd had to arrange something to get Shimon out here guiding “Andrew.” If Shimon wasn't with Barda, maybe Barda was rubbing up against another man?
She'd better be doing that. No wonder Shimon was irritable. But tomorrow would be “Andrew” 's day in. Was that what Dolores Nogales was thinking? “Andrew” didn't have to be with Willametta.
Willametta was with Andrew, and Jemmy-as-Andrew was outside, so one of these identical shapes must be Willametta. Jemmy stopped by each gatherer for a time, looking around conscientiously for a threat he couldn't describe. The real threat, the probes, had closed their wide circle around the gatherers. They talked, then separated and moved in staggered fashion toward the gatherers.
Here was Willametta. Jemmy looked into her bag and said casually, “I'm told I'm not going.”
Wiblametta had a couple of pounds of seeds in the bag with another three pounds of water. She said, “Going where, Andrew?”
“I have no idea.” She returned his grin, and he said, “I'm trying to think of a way we can all go.”
Wiblametta seemed to have the giggles. “Right.”
“Six of us in shorts and T-shirts. Lucky I came in summer! Someone comes by, 'We were swimming at the beach and a freak gust blew all our clothes out to sea.' Couldn't six of us in swimwear tell a tale while the rest hide? I'm a good storyteller.”
“Shoes and pack and all?”
“Freak wave?”
“Talk to Andrew.”
“I'm being Andrew. Let's see, along the Road from the barracks there's fields this way and molten lava beyond. That's no good. Other way is the Parole Board housing and then what? Civilization? If you get past the Parole Board, which will be a neat trick, I guess.”
Her hands were stripping speckles branches, head bent. He glimpsed a smile beneath the hood.
“But not if you leave seventeen gatherers behind you to answer questions.”
She looked up out of the hood and the smile was gone. She said nothing.
He walked casually on. Henry's grin was conspiratorial, or maybe proprietary. Rafik, last in line, looked starved and hunted, an aged youth who didn't want to meet Jemmy's eyes. His hand slipped twice, dropping seeds on the ground. Jemmy slapped his shoulder and said “Relax!” and walked on.
A slacking of rain moved across the field. Jemmy's eyes followed the wave across gatherers moving in an even line, one to a row. Well beyond, the two probes were walking toward them, the second behind and one row to the side. Behind them two speckles bushes stood up and streaked toward them.
Jemmy's gun was out before his mind caught up. What moved like that was lungsharks!
The probes' guns moved. They were going to shoot Jemmy! He fired his bird gun straight up and pointed with the other arm. One whirled around. Jemmy heard a brief ripping sound that wasn't thunder and wasn't a gunshot. The attackers slowed as if they'd plowed into invisible honey. Birds? Now they seemed to dance- Jemmy turned away, looking for more attackers: away from some terrible secret he'd almost guessed.
Much closer, two black-green-bronze darts streaked along two rows of black-green-bronze speckles bushes, near-invisible and too far to shoot even with decent bullets, but coming fast at the line of gatherers. Someone yelled, “Pose! Pose! Spectre birds!” Shimon's voice, that should have been “Andrew” 's.
Jemmy took the pose as he'd been taught.
One row over, Henry said quietly, “No birdfucking allowed.”
And a whispered chorus: “It's the law!'.'
He couldn't see anything else attacking. The probes had stopped firing. What had attacked them was gone. The gatherers were a row of statues, their ponchos drooping from raised arms, their hoods facing the oncoming pair of spectre birds. Jemmy stood last in line, arms raised high, a bird gun in one hand. Afield offirebirds spreads their wings to face an aggressor.
Spectre birds were fast. Like probes, they came in staggered stance. The range was too great for pellets. Jemmy held his fire while they closed. The birds slowed as if confused, then made for the middle of the line. Why weren't they veering? Jemmy held, held... aimed and fired at the lead bird.
He hit it. The bird flinched back and lifted its head. It was as big as a small man, with oversized ripping foreclaws, the forward-facing eyes of a predator, and a beak that was a hooked prybar on top, paired prongs underneath.
It came on. Jemmy shot it again, then shot the trailing bird. He had their attention now- The lead bird lunged at a gatherer's chest.
The gatherer whirled around at the last instant. The beak gashed his back, and he shrieked and tried to run. Then both birds were on him.
Jemmy yelled and charged them, firing. One ran. Jemmy fired at the other bird. Its beak was deep in the gatherer's torso. Four quick shots emptied Jemmy's gun before the bird dropped its prey and ran.
As each bird cleared the line of gatherers, Jemmy heard the nipsaw sound of the probes' weapons. Matter sprayed from the birds, blood and a chaff of feathers.
The probes' weapons didn't fire bullets: they fired streams of bullets. Jemmy tore his gaze away and ran to the fallen gatherer. Blood was flooding through holes in his poncho, and Jemmy couldn't doubt he was dead. When a probe shoved him aside, he gave way.
But he'd seen. It was Shimon.
Jemmy reloaded, looking about him. Where there were four spectre birds, there might be six or eight.
A hand snatched at his shoulder and pulled him around. The probe was a man with a full red beard. He snarled, “What did you think you were doing, shooting at a spectre? Bird guns aren't for things that big!”
Jemmy protested. “He was going after my man, man!”
“Take the pose!” The parole's chest heaved. He must have run flat out. “How often do you have to be taught? Take the pose and the bird thinks you're a firebird. Firebirds don't run, don't shout, don't shoot!”
“Shimon was posed! We were all posed. Why did it kill Shimon?” While I stood like a statue- “When the bird got close he tried to run.” The probe heaved in a ragged breath. “Lost his nerve. Yeah. They could have killed you all. That's why we're here.”
Jemmy had seen... but he said something safe. “Thanks, man. You took them out good.”
Redbeard turned without answering. He and the other probe spoke for a time. Jemmy waved the gatherers back to work; and they obeyed, fortunately; and he waited for orders.
Redbeard told him, “Take your people back to barracks. Four of you carry this one. Wait for us. We'll look around a little. There has to be a report.”