Cuckoo's Egg Read Online Free PDF Page B

Pressed hard. "Four point three." He looked up. "Can't we go hunting. Duun? I'm tired of—"
    "More decimals."
    Another shutting of the eyes. Hands pressed to shut out the light. "Point three zero eight."
    "Add nine. Subtract four, eighty-two. Six."
    The hands came down. Eyes blinked. "I'm sorry, Duun, I lost it, I forgot—
    "
    "No. You didn't remember. Think. Name me the numbers."
    " I —"
    "Am I about to hear can't ?"
    "Didn't"
    "Didn't. Didn't. There was a nest of maganin; here and here and here! How many were they? Which groups? Where? They've eaten you, fool! "
    "Maganin don't come in fifties!"
    "I am ashamed." Duun thrust his hands into the waist of his kilt and walked away.
    "Duun—"
    Duun turned, ears pricked. "You've remembered."

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    "No! No, I haven't remembered! I can't remember! I don't remember!"
    "Then I'm still ashamed." Duun laid his ears back, turned and walked on.
    " Duun —"
    Duun did not look back. There were tears back there. Rage. It was Thorn's nature.
    So was it Thorn's nature to come trailing back into the house, finally, when it was dark, when Duun had made a fire and sat on the sand before the hearth. Duun had cooked food. He had eaten. He had brought Thorn's supper outside and set it wordlessly on the step. Thorn was not to be seen.
    But it was in Thorn's nature to admit defeat when night came.
    Thorn came and stood on the sand beside him. "Two hundred twenty-four," Thorn said.
    Duun's ears pricked. "Plus nine. Minus four. Eighty-two. Six."
    "One forty-one."
    "Ah. You can."
    Thorn knelt. Leaned on his hands. "What in the world comes in two hundred twenty-fours?"
    "Stars. Trees. Kinds of grass. The ways of a river. The stubbornness of a child. The world is wide, young Thorn. I can reckon the speed of the wind, name the stars, the cities of the world. I can read a man's intent in the pupils of his eyes."
    Duun swung around and struck, open palmed. Thorn's open palm was there to meet it, stopped it, held and trembled.
    "Ah. You are hatani, are you? Back away, little fish. You're not ready to take me. Drop the hand."

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    It was a trap. Thorn refused it. Thorn held still, eyes wide and white-rimmed, palm trembling against his palm, and Duun lowered his ears.
    "Now what will you do?" Duun asked.
    "Let me go." The tremor grew. "Let me go, Duun."
    Duun reached out his maimed right hand and encircled Thorn's wrist gently with the span of his two fingers. Pulled. The hand refused to leave contact with his palm. The arm shook. Thorn's eyes were dilated, watched his feverishly.
    "What are you going to do now, little fish? You have a problem now, don't you? You've let me get two hands into it."
    Thorn lifted his other hand. It froze in that lifting, trembling.
    "Not wise. Not wise at all," Duun said. "You're overmatched. You'd better stop. Don't you think?"
    "Let go,."
    "Relax. Relax and trust me."
    "No!"
    "There was a time I told you, do you remember?— when you took up the knife, I said that you would take it up when I told you; and when I told you, you would lay it down. This is the time, Thorn. Now I tell you to let go. Do you hear me? I tell you to lay it down, Thorn."
    The tremor grew. The palm slowly left his palrn. Duun clenched his hand on Thorn's wrist and jerked him against his chest. Thorn, utterly off his balance, collapsed against him. Duun grinned, grasped him by both arms, claws out, shook him back in that grip and stared into eyes face to face. "I would have torn your throat out just then. Do you believe it?"
    "No."

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    "Why would I not?"
    "I don't know, Duun!"
    Duun let him go. Thorn collapsed onto his rump and sat up and rubbed his arms. There would be bruises and clawmarks. Duun knew.
    "Are you a fool, then?" Duun asked. "Why did you do that?"
    "You would have hit me," Thorn said, perfect logic.
    "Yes," Duun said.
    Another change. Thorn sat with his jaw loose, stunned silence in his watering eyes. The boy discovered chaos in the