Golden Dream: Fuzzy Odessey Read online

  Round and round run the Gashta.

  Small ones, big ones, golden ones, and the pale-furred ones.

  We laugh and push, tripping and scrambling.

  When we play hide-and-find we are happy.

  But we must be cautious or we may die…

  Fuzzy Books from Ace Science Fiction

  LITTLE FUZZY by H. Beam Piper

  FUZZY SAPIENS by H. Beam Piper

  FUZZY BONES by William Tuning

  GOLDEN DREAM: A FUZZY ODYSSEY by Ardath Mayhar

  Ace Science Fiction and Fantasy Books by Ardath Mayhar

  GOLDEN DREAM: A FUZZY ODYSSEY

  HOW THE GODS WOVE IN KYRANNON

  KHI TO FREEDOM

  THE SEEKERS OF SHAR-NUHN

  SOUL-SINGER OF TYRNOS

  ACE SCIENCE FICTION BOOKS

  NEW YORK

  Contents:-

  Foreword

  Personae

  BOOK I. - The Valley of the Gashta

  PROLOGUE

  BOOK II. - The Dry Times Come

  BOOK III. - The Hagga

  BOOK IV. - Toshki-Hagga

  BOOK V - Gashta and Hagga Make Talk

  BOOK VI. - Hoksu-Washa

  All characters in this book are fictitious.

  Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  This Ace Science Fiction Book contains the complete text of the original trade edition.

  It has been completely reset in a typeface designed for easy reading, and was printed from new film.

  GOLDEN DREAM: A FUZZY ODYSSEY

  An Ace Science Fiction Book I published by arrangement with the author

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Trade Original I October 1982

  Ace Mass Market edition I September 1983

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 1982 by Charter Communications, Inc.

  Cover art by Michael Whelan

  This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission. For information address:

  The Berkley Publishing Group,

  200 Madison Avenue, New York, N. Y. 10016

  ISBN: 0-441-29726-9

  Ace Science Fiction Books are published by

  The Berkley Publishing Group,

  200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016.

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  To H. Beam Piper and William Tuning, without whom this book would have been nonexistent.

  Note on Gashta Songs: The Gashta sang in the

  “upper mode,” meaning ultrasonic range.

  Though each Gashta invented his own melody as

  he went along, the words were always the same, as

  long as memory of the song survived.

  Foreword

  One dreadfully gray and frozen February day in early 1982, the telephone rang. This is more of an occasion for me than for most, as I live at the back of beyond, almost on Sam Rayburn Lake in the Big Thicket area of East Texas. My contacts with the world come, principally, from telephone and mailbox. It was one of those mornings when the feet are so cold that the brain works only spasmodically, so that ring interrupted nothing earthshaking.

  And it was an editor at ACE Books, Terri Windling, telling me that her copies of my first-ever paperback had just come in and were stunningly beautiful. After mutual congratulations and a modicum of small-talk, Terri asked, very diffidently, “May I ask you something?”

  Anybody can ask me anything. Of course, some things bring about black eyes, but from Terri 1 knew that would not be a problem. And the thing she asked was this: Was I familiar with H. Beam Piper’s books about the Fuzzies? And might I be interested in writing a new one…from the Fuzzies’ viewpoint?

  I was, on both counts. Later, when Susan Allison called me there was instant rapport. Particularly when she said (not in so many words—she is far more tactful than that), “We were knocking the problem of the new Fuzzy book about the office One day, asking who was very fast at writing, and who was partly alien, and naturally your name popped into our minds.”

  Being both very fast and partly alien, I was charmed.

  Then and there I agreed to reread my copies of the books (of course my personal Gremlin had devoured one of them, so Susan had to send me another posthaste), and to try writing a segment, both to see how I fit into a Fuzzy-skin and to see how well the result suited ACE. For my part, I found that golden fur and a two-foot-high elevation are strangely familiar. I hope that ACE was at least as happy.

  I hope that H. Beam Piper, in whatever dimension he now exists, is happy, too. I found that he had given fascinating clues to both Fuzzy language and development in his books Little Fuzzy and Fuzzy Sapiens. Moreover, I felt, more than once, that the Father of the Fuzzies might be standing at my elbow, reading over my shoulder, and giving subliminal suggestions.

  To Mr. William Tuning I also offer thanks for his interesting deep background on the Fuzzies, revealed in Fuzzy Bones. Without his concepts of the Valley and the Ship and the buried cavern, this history of the Gashta would not have been possible.

  For anyone interested, I will insert here that I am well over two feet tall (my husband would chuckle and say that five-feet-two isn’t all that much over, but I ignore such snide remarks); my fur, what there is of it, is gray, not golden. But I think I’d swing a mean zatku-hodda, given the chance.

  Personae

  THE GASHTA

  Book I

  i., ii

  Breaks-Twigs, Teacher

  Sun-Blossom, his daughter

  Speaks-Well, his permanent mate

  Stargazer (formerly Root-Digger), his brother

  Fire-Bringer, a young hunter .

  iii.

  Fears-Nothing, former leader

  Fast-Foot, his mate

  Big-Voice, present leader

  Many-Winters, Teacher of this village

  Cricket-Catcher, who spoke in the Circle

  iv.

  Sun-Blossom as an adult, now Teacher in the Valley

  Stargazer, son of Root-Digger, now Haigun

  v., vi., vii.

  Bad-Thing-Killer, great hunter

  Sharp-Teeth, his mate

  Axe-Maker, his brother

  Snail-Catcher, Axe-Maker’s mate

  Nut and Shell, Bad-Thing-Killer’s sons

  Fruit, daughter of Snail-Catcher

  viii.

  Zatku-Cracker, who learned that he must go home

  Fruit-Finder, his mate

  Seed, their son

  Spear-Maker, Fruit-Finder’s brother

  ix.

  Teacher, daughter of Sun-Blossom

  • • •

  Book II

  i.

  Stargazer, descendant of the earlier Stargazers

  Cord-Maker, young Stargazer-in-training

  ii., iii.

  Remembers-Things, patriarch of his family

  Climbs-Rocks, who has traveled in the south

  Runs-Fast, his mate

  Sees-Far and Pulls-Weeds, son-in-law and daughter

  Petal, child of Climbs-Rocks and Runs-Fast

  iv.

  Root-Grower, discontented gardener

  Leaf, her daughter

  Swift-Stone-Thrower, her mother, now dead

  Climbs-Swiftly (who was later called Silver-Fur)

  v.

  Stands-Fast, leader of his family

  Golden-Eyes, his mate, Net-Weaver, his second mate

  Knows-Much, his grandmother

  Hunts-Zeeto, his brother

  Weaves-Cords-Together, his grandfather

  Sprout, his son

  Plum, his daughter

  • • •


  Book III

  i., ii., iii.

  Leaf, now an adult

  Whistle, her baby son

  vi.

  Dark-Fur, who later became Little Fuzzy

  Mama-Fuzzy, his mate (Gashta name “Tells-Things”)

  Baby

  ix.

  Mike, Mitzi, KoKo, the other members of “Dark-Fur’s family

  xii.

  Golden-Fur (later Goldilocks)

  Soft-Voice, her sister (later Cinderella)

  Book IV

  iii.

  Silver-Fur, Root-Grower’s long-ago mate, father to

  Leaf, now patriarch of a family

  Bud, the only female in the group

  Ku and Ik, the other two males in the family

  one black and white kitten, who became Bud’s very own

  Book V

  iv.

  a family whose names are not mentioned at their own request

  • • •

  THE HAGGA

  Book III

  ii.,-ix.

  August and Lemuel Mirabeau, family of Leaf, squatters on Beta Continent

  Jack Holloway (Pappy Jack), prospector, champion of Gashta, and later Commissioner of Native Affairs

  x., xi.

  Bennett Rainsford, naturalist, later Governor of Zarathustra

  Two policemen

  xii., xiii.

  Ruth Ortheris, Lt., j.g., Navy, on secret duty, working for the Zarathustra Company under Ernst Mallin

  Gerd Van Riebeek, Company scientist, later married to Ruth

  Leonard Kellogg, who kills Goldilocks

  Kurt Borch, gunman killed by Jack Holloway

  Juan Jimenez, Company employee and scientist

  xiv.

  Augustus Brannhard (Unca Gus), lawyer and friend to Jack Holloway and preserver of Baby from the sack

  • • •

  Book IV

  Ernst Mallin, charged with proving the Gashta non-sapient

  Victor Grego, President of the Chartered Zarathustra Company

  Leslie Coombes, Company attorney

  • • •

  Book V

  i.

  Pancho Ybarra, Navy psychologist who worked with Gashta on Xerxes

  Alex Napier, Navy Commander on Xerxes

  iii

  Luis J. Camber, Chief Petty Officer, T.F.N., hearing-aid expert

  GOLDEN DREAM: A FUZZY ODYSSEY

  BOOK I.

  The Valley

  of the Gashta

  Ja ‘aki-fessi—I was hungry

  Thol T’hol—Yes! Yes!

  Zatku bizzo keef-i—A land-prawn came quietly

  T’ho! T’ho!—Yes Yes!

  Zatku-hodda ne’ti—My weapon talked to it

  T’ho! T’ho!—Yes! Yes!

  Hoksu zatku-fusso!—Wonderful zatku-food!

  PROLOGUE

  i.

  Breaks-Twigs (Etza-T’ra in his own Gashta tongue) climbed into the feather tree, found a comfortable spot, and settled himself to his task of watching the young ones. He was grunting with effort, and his old heart was patting in his chest as he looked downward, through the concentric layers of plumed branches that rayed, spokelike, from the treetrunk. His daughter sat directly below him.

  Sun-Blossom was making a beautiful thing. Though all the Gashta spent some of their precious time at such things, she seemed most preoccupied with the activity. The sun touched her golden fur, her bare pink ears, and her tiny hands as they moved surely to place bright pebbles, green and gold leaves, and bits of moss and twig in the pattern that she was forming.

  Breaks-Twigs could see, even from so far above, that her version of the Spiral was more accurate than most. It was strange, he knew, how the shape of the Home System remained in the minds of its children, even on this distant, alien world. Even stranger, it continued to persist, even after memories of the ship and its equipment became dim among the elders and entirely lost among the children.

  He looked away from his child, out into the glades of the forest. Only here in the valley could the young be allowed to roam at will, and even then one adult must watch over them. The gotza were sharp-eyed, even from the high places where they flew, and could swoop, unseen, to grab an unsuspecting Gashta who wandered into a clearing. And the toshki-washa prowled even here, though hunters kept their numbers down as best they could. So he counted his charges and reminded himself that he must give a lesson, when all paused in their mushroom-eating and insect-catching. They were forgetting how to count, among many other things that were slipping away from his kind.

  Breaks-Twigs mused, as his eyes pierced shadows and studied motions. So many things were going, since the earthquake had covered over the cave and the ship. But it was so very hard to live here, with only bare hands and natural things and what could be managed between the two. Even their language…the piercing voices from the wood irritated his sensitive ears…was going. The necessity for raising the pitch to levels that the predators couldn’t hear had made a change in the tongue itself.

  He stilled, his head cocking, his eyes focusing upon a movement in the brush off to his left. Forgetting his age and the awkwardness at hunting that had given him his name, he slipped down the tree silently, retrieved his wooden zatku-hodda from the low branch where he had left it, and dropped beside Sun-Blossom.

  She looked up from her patterning. Her eyes went even wider, their jade-green depths sparkling with fright. He tossed her up into the tree, gave an ultrasonic cry that warned all the frolicking young ones, and slid into the brush, moving at an angle toward the spot that had roused his suspicion.

  The young Gashta froze where they were. The wood was suddenly filled with plump golden-furred statues, for the danger might be anywhere. To hide might be to go into the waiting jaws of a toshki-washa.

  Breaks-Twigs was no longer the clumsy-foot that he had been in his youth. No leaf flicked against another as he snaked along the pathways that his people had worn into the lower fabric of the forest. His small hand was steady on the haft of the zatku-hodda, though the longer hair of the golden mane about his head and neck was standing out from his skin in response to the danger-impulse.

  The sound of the beast’s breathing was clear, now, in his ears. He could hear the thumping of its heart and the faint riffling of its fur as it moved to scent him. His voice rose in a shout for assistance, for the creature ahead of him was at least four times his size. To its ears, he knew, that shout was inaudible, and he heard a distant answer with much relief. He slowed his pace, waiting for the other hunters to draw near enough to be of help.

  There came a tiny clicking sound. Others were in position. He lifted his zatku-hodda and rushed toward the big, hot body of the animal, driving the blunt, paddleshaped weapon ahead of him as if it were a spear.

  With a yelping grunt, the beast broke from cover. Concentrating on the young Gashta beyond the bushy place, it had not heard any sound to indicate the approach of the hunters, and the wind had been in their favor. Now it was surrounded by small warriors wielding an array of wooden tools and weapons. As it charged one of them, that one retreated and those on either side attacked, piercing the beast’s hairy hide with pebble-tipped spears or beating at it with the thinner edges of the zatku-hodda.