The Kin by Peter Dickinson Read Free Book Online Page B

a rat. She makes good traps.”
    â€œHow can you know it is Baga?” said Suth.
    â€œThere is her mark,” said Sula, pointing to a little pattern of pebbles beside the trap, three in a line and one below. “All her family use this mark. This is Jun’s mark. He catches nothing. Do you make a trap? What mark do you choose?”
    â€œTell me,” said Suth.
    â€œGood. You have four like so, and one to the side. You may set your trap here, or in any warren where you see traps. The rats are stupid. They do not learn soon, but when many are caught, the others know not to take the bait. Then we leave that warren and go to another.
    â€œNow I must go back,” she added. “I must be with my mother at the birthing. I show you where the others forage.”
    She led them further up the hill and turned. From here Suth could see that the forest didn’t in fact fill the whole of the bottom of the bowl between the circling ridges. It lay in two wide belts on either side of the lake, which was now visible for most of its length. It stretched a whole day’s journey into the distance, an immense, deep crack in the mountaintop, filled with water.
    To the left, though, the ground rose and became grassland with patches of open scrub and scattered, flat-topped trees.
    â€œThey are there,” said Sula.
    He looked along her pointing arm and in the far distance saw a line of dark dots. He recognized them at once. No other creatures move or hold themselves in the same way as people.
    â€œMy thanks,” said Suth.
    He didn’t have any bait for a trap, so he and Tinu set out, while Sula returned to the camp. As soon as they were picking their way between the areas of scrub, he saw signs of recent foraging. These people were not at all as thorough as the Kin would have been. This was rich country, as good as any of the old Good Places, but there were clumps of grass not stripped of their seed heads, termite nests not dug out, dead branches not stripped for the grubs beneath the bark. But he and Tinu didn’t stop for any of the possible pickings. It was important only to do what the others did, and forage where they foraged.
    They found the people not working, but resting in the shade of a group of trees. Someone had already come from the cave with news of the Moonhawks’ arrival, so they weren’t challenged. Several children did rush out to meet them, and then instead of greeting them, stood silent and staring and followed them back to the trees.
    A few men were on one side, sitting in a circle and playing some kind of game, and a larger group of women were talking quietly among themselves while they husked seed or fed babies.
    The men glanced up and went back to their game. Suth waited, watching them as they in turn tossed pebbles onto a pattern of lines they had drawn in the dust. He assumed that after a while whoever was leader would look up and nod or beckon to him. Then he would kneel and patter his hands on the ground in sign of submission, and ask to be allowed to forage in this people’s Place.
    Nothing happened. The men continued their game. Tinu, at Suth’s side, stood with her head bowed and her eyes down, as if thinking that if she couldn’t see anyone then she herself couldn’t be seen.
    Suth looked around, and a young woman who was sitting against a tree, feeding her baby, smiled at him.
    â€œWho is leader?” he asked her.
    She shrugged and frowned, puzzled.
    â€œMosu?” she suggested.
    â€œWho then do I ask, May I forage in this Place?”
    â€œMosu spoke to Pagi,” she said. “Pagi came to us. You may forage with us.”
    â€œI thank.”
    He squatted beside her and Tinu crouched by him, shielding herself from the others with his body. He looked around the group. There were ten and ten and ten of them, and a few more. This was a big Kin. Moonhawk at its most had been only ten and ten and one more. The Crocodile Kin, when