01 Taxilas Children

TAXILA'S CHILDREN
"What are their intentions?"
"Inconclusive - "
"Don't provoke them - "
"It was not my intention to do so."
Steve slowly eased down to the ground and rested his back against a tree. It gave him a
feeling of security to know that he had one side covered. The Bole was good, but he doubted
whether it could cope with a concerted rush of three hundred and thirty-seven crazed semiapes,
who might not have eaten in days. There was an inner surge of amusement. Steve wasn't
sure whether it was an asset or otherwise, to have the awakened presence of his alter-ego
acting as an audience.
After an interminable time, there was a movement in the undergrowth to one side of the
clearing. A huge male stepped out a few paces, to be followed by about a dozen more. They
stared mutely at the sitting figure. Steve remained motionless - he doubted whether his legs
would have supported him if he had tried to stand. He murmured to the Bole.
"Stand ready at my signal."
"My status is readiness for defensive activity."
"A simple OK, would have been enough!"
"OK"
The undergrowth parted and one after the other, the Scarn emerged from their hiding
places. His tension began to ease when he saw the females and the young ones standing
behind the phalanx of males. The inner man said:
"The Children of Taxila have rejected him, but the brutes of the forest have come to give
him escort!"
Steve stood and stared into the vacant eyes of the dominant male. There was no
acknowledgement, no reaching out, not even curiosity.
"You expect too much."
The Scarn kept their distance, moving back as the Bole led the way through the clearing
and re-entered the trees. They followed but always on the fringe of his awareness. The Bole
made good progress and Steve followed, with one eye nervously watching the moving shapes
all around them in the trees. By the time they emerged from the woods, the tribe had grown
considerably and as they walked through the fields of oil-crop in the heat of the afternoon,
those in the fields dropped their tools and instinctively joined with the others, so that, by the
time he approached the Thanehold in the early evening, he estimated he led a force of three
thousand. Danyk met him alone.
"Why do you come with an army, Steve Holt?"
"Look into my mind. Do you see belligerence?"
"I'm not sure what I see. I ask again, why are the Scarn with you? Why have our labourers
thrown down their tools?"
"Perhaps, they recognise what the Men of Lynxe do not."
"Taxila was never their god!"
"And Taxila is no longer honoured by the Men of Lynxe!"
"So - they are honouring Taxila?"
"It would seem that their brute minds have a greater understanding than the refined
intellect of the Children of Taxila!"
"Do you intend to have them camping around the Thanehold?"
"They come and they go as they please."
Steve turned and faced the shambling herd who had followed him. He said nothing, but
slowly they began to drift aimlessly away, as if they had suddenly lost interest. Danyk's
thought was sardonic in his mind.
"Perhaps, they were more interested in your wonder box, than in the great Taxila!"
156