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train, they rode whooping around and around it.
The plants were about ten feet high and coniferous, shaped like Christmas trees with
extraordinarily broad trunks which bulged out at the bottom. About two-thirds of the way up, eyes ringed
the boles, and four very long and thin greenish tentacles extended from their centers. When the tribesmen
got close, the whole unit stopped, and those on the perimeter turned on four barky legs to face outward.
Anana had noticed that a herd of wild moosoids had ignored them. There must be a reason for
this. And as the men rode by, about twenty feet from the outguards, she saw why. Streams of heavy
projectiles shot from holes in the trunks. Though a long way from the scene, she could hear the hissing of
released air.
From much experience with these plants, the humans knew what the exact range of the darts
were. They stayed just outside it, the riders upwind closer than those on the downwind side.
She deduced that they knew what the ammunition count for a tree was. They were shouting short
words-undoubtedly numbers-as they rode by. Then the chief, who'd been sitting to one side and listening,
yelled an order. This was passed on around the circle so that those out of hearing of his voice could be
informed. The riders nearest him turned their beasts and headed toward the perimeter. Meanwhile, as if
the plants were a well-trained army, those who'd discharged their missiles stepped backward into spaces
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afforded by the moving aside of the second rank.
It was evident that those behind them would take their places. But the riders stormed in, swung,
and cast their lariats. Some of them missed. The majority caught and tightened around a branch or a
tentacle. The mounts wheeled, the ropes stretched, the nooses closed, and the unlucky plants were
jerked off their feet. The riders urged their beasts on until the trees had been dragged out of range of the
missiles. The other end of the lariats were fastened to pegs stuck into the rear of the saddles. All but one
held. This snapped, and the plant was left only ten feet from the square. No matter. It couldn't get up
again.
The mounts halted, the riders jumped down and approached the fallen plants. Taking care to
keep out of the way of the waving tentacles, they loosened the lariats and returned to their saddles.
Once more, the procedure was repeated. After that the riders ignored the upright trees. They
took their flint or chert tools and chopped off the tentacles. Their animals, now safe from the darts-which
she presumed were poisoned-attacked the helpless plants. They grabbed the tentacles between their
teeth and jerked them loose. After this, while the moosoids were stripping a branch, their owners
chopped away branches with flint or chert tools.
The entire tribe, men, women, children, swarmed around the victims and piled the severed
branches upon travois or tied bundles of them to the backs of the beasts.
Later, when she'd learned some vocabulary, Anana asked the youth, Nurgo, if the missiles were
poisoned. He nodded and grinned and said, "Yu, messt gwonaw dendert assessampt."
She wasn't sure whether the least word meant deadly or poison. But there was no doubt that it
would be better not to be struck by the darts. After the plants had been stripped, the men carefully
picked up the missiles. They were about four inches long, slim-bodied, with feathery construction of
vegetable origin at one end and a needdle-point at the other. The point was smeared with a blue-greenish
substance.
These were put into a rawhide bag or fixed at the ends of spearshafts.
After the work was done, the caravan resumed marching. Anana, looking back, saw half of the
surviving plants ranged alongside the channel. From the bottom of each a thick greenish tube was
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extended into the water, which was being sucked up into these. The other half stood guard.
"You must have had a lot of fun designing those," Anana said to Urthona.
"It was more amusing designing them than watching them in action," her uncle said. "In fact,
designing this world entertained me more than living on it. I got bored in less than four years and left it.
But I have been back now and then during the past ten thousand years to renew my acquaintance with
it."
"When was the last time?"
"Oh, about five hundred years ago, I think."
"Then you must have made another world for your headquarters. One more diversified, more
beautiful, I'd imagine."
Urthona smiled. "Of course. Then I also am Lord of three more, worlds which I took over after
I'd killed their owners. You remember your cousin Bromion, that bitch Ethinthus, and Antamon? They're
dead now, and I, I rule their worlds!"
"Do you indeed now?" Anana said. "I wouldn't say you were sitting on any thrones now. Unless
you call captivity, the immediate danger of death and torture, thrones."
Urthona snarled, and said, "I'll do you as I did them, my leblabbiy-loving niece! And I'll come
back here and wipe out these miserable scum! In fact, I may just wipe out this whole world! Cancel it!"
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ANANA SHOOK HER head. "Uncle, I was once like you. That is, utterly unworthy of life. But
there was something in me that gave me misgivings. Let us call it a residue of compassion, of empathy.
Deep under the coldness and cruelty and arrogance was a spark. And that spark fanned into a great fire,
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fanned by a leblabbiy called Kickaha. He's not a Lord, but he is a man. That's more than you ever were
or will be. And these brutish miserable creatures who've captured you, and don't know they hold the
Lord of their crazy world captive ... they're more human than you could conceive. That is, they're
retarded Lords ..."
Urthona stared and said, "What in The Spinner's name are you talking about?"
Anana felt like hitting him. But she said, "You wouldn't ever understand. Maybe I shouldn't say
ever. After all, I came to understand. But that was because I was forced to be among the leblabbiy for a
long time."
"And this leblabbiy, Kickaha, this descendant of an artificial product, corrupted your mind. It's
too bad the Council is no longer in effect. You'd be condemned and killed within ten minutes."
Anana ran her gaze up and down him several times, her expression contemptuous. "Don't forget,
uncle, that you, too, may be the descendant of an artificial product. Of creatures created in a laboratory.
Don't forget what Shambarimen speculated with much evidence to back his statement. That we, too, the
Lords, the Lords, may have been made in the laboratories of beings who are as high above us as we are
above the leblabbiy. Or I should say as high above them as we are supposed to be.
"After all, we made the leblabbiy in our image. Which means that they are neither above nor
below us. They are us. But they don't know that, and they have to live in worlds which we created.
Made, rather. We are not creators, any more than writers of fiction or painters are creators. They make
worlds, but they are never able to make more than what they know. They can write or paint worlds
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