Free Howling Stones by Alan Dean Foster Page B

yet. I’m not sure they ever will heal completely. I’ve tried half a dozen different reseptics.”
    “Another vine?” he asked as they resumed climbing.
    “No. A tree-dwelling arthropod about a hundred centimeters long. It’s got a dozen legs and a real interesting bite. I was picking jeru fruit and didn’t see it until it was right on my leg. I must’ve disturbed its lair, or nest, or maybe I just caught it in a bad mood. The pain was so severe I thought I was going to fall out of the tree.”
    “Trouble in paradise.” After first checking them for occupants, he pushed leaves out of the way.
    “Senisran isn’t paradise and neither is Torrelau. Since it was on me I couldn’t get a safe angle with my gun. Had to cut its head off with my knife. Then I had to dig the head out of my leg. Strong fangs.” She held up one little finger. “About half this long.
    “Fortunately, the toxin works slowly. I’m sure that if I didn’t have access to modern adaptive antivenins I would’ve died, or at least lost the leg.”
    “Sounds to me like you handled it admirably.”
    “The hell I did. I was screaming and flopping around like a burned baby. I’m surprised they didn’t hear me all the way back in Ophhlia. I cried all the way back to the station and most of the rest of the day, until the analgesics started to bite. It felt like somebody was using my quadriceps for kindling. So watch where you put your hands and feet. This environment may look beautiful, but it isn’t entirely benign.”
    “So even though indigenous dangers are abundant and modern weapons would help them cope, the Parramati won’t accept them?”
    “That’s right.” She ducked beneath an overhanging cluster of vines. “The big persons say it would violate kusum. This isn’t a culture that allows for a lot of flexibility. Either you adhere to kusum or you abandon it. There doesn’t seem to be much middle ground.”
    “Every primitive society hews to an inviolate set of moral imperatives. Flexibility comes in the interpretation. If we persist I bet that sooner or later we’ll run into a big person or two who’ll find a way to bend the absolutes to their advantage—and to ours.”
    She shrugged. “I hope you have better luck than I have. I understand that alien semantics is a specialty of yours.”
    He nodded. “There are times when I think that I get along better with aliens than with other humans.”
    “Due, no doubt, to your carefully moderated sense of humor.”
    He glanced up sharply, but she was turned away from him, her attention fixed on the trail, and he couldn’t gauge the amount of sarcasm just from her tone.
    “If it’s any consolation,” she went on, “the AAnn are even more frustrated than I am. I don’t know that they’ve ever encountered aboriginals before who wouldn’t accept free weapons. They’re also frustrated because the Parramati don’t do things quickly. Everything takes time since all the big persons have to be consulted on any major decision.” She halted, took a deep breath, and gestured through the trees.
    “We’re almost there. No more climbing.”
    “It doesn’t matter,” he replied a little too quickly. “I’m not tired.”
    The ground leveled off and the forest began to thin. Raising her voice, Fawn called out in the singsong Parramati dialect. Stepping up alongside her, Pulickel was rewarded with his first glimpse of a live seni.
    It looked exactly like the recorded images he’d been studying for the past several months. Smaller than expected, it exhibited all the specified characteristics of a juvenile of the species.
    “This is Kirtra’a.” Fawn made an elaborate rolling gesture of greeting with her forearms. “He’s a young male on the cusp of sexual maturity.”
    “I can see that.” While Pulickel studied the young seni, it gazed back at him out of narrow, solemn eyes.
    Not yet fully grown, Kirtra’a’s head barely reached Pulickel’s chest. To the young native, Fawn