The Iron Breed Read Online Free PDF Page A

face.
    “Baby!” She raised her hand slowly, touched fingertip to the tiny cheek.
    Jony jerked back, dropping the leaf. He did not know just why, but he felt lost when he saw the way Rutee looked at the newcomer. Rutee—she was the bigger part of Jony's life, she always had been. Now there were the two babies . . .
    “You got two,” he said harshly. “Two babies!”
    Rutee looked surprised as her gaze followed his gesture to the other side.
    “Two—?” she repeated wonderingly. “But, Jony—how . . . ?”
    “It was the—the good thing who came—” he answered in a rush of words, content again that Rutee was now looking straight at him and not at either of those intruders. “It came and—and helped . . .” He was not sure just what the stranger had done, only that it had been there, licked the babies, bedding them down at last beside Rutee.
    “The good thing?” she repeated his words again. “What do you mean, Jony?”
    He used what words he could to describe the half-seen furred creature who had answered his cry for help.
    “I don't understand,” Rutee said when he had done. “You are sure, Jony, this isn't just something you thought about? Oh, Jony, what—who—could it have been? And—Jony!” Her eyes were big, frightened. She was no longer looking at Jony, but over his shoulder. A twitch of fear of the unknown arose in him to answer. He screwed his head far enough around to see outside.
    The stranger was back, crouched down, peering in at them.
    “It's the one, Rutee—the one who came to help!” Jony's fear was gone the moment he sighted those shining eyes.
    However, the woman watched the creature warily. Slowly she began to sense the feeling it brought with it: comfort, help. And she, who had learned through terror, horror, and continued fear, to look upon the whole world as a potential enemy, relaxed. Rutee did not know what—who—this being was, but she was sure within her that the creature meant her and the children no harm, quite the reverse. Now she lay back weakly in her nest of leaves and left action to it.
    Though its body seemed clumsy, perhaps because of its solid bulk, it moved briskly. But it did not try to insert itself into their refuge this time; instead, it dropped a mass which it had carried looped in one forearm close to its breast, shoving it at Jony.
    Obedient to its manifest signal, the boy pulled the offering to him. Branches had been broken, leaving sharp, bark-peeled ends. But still clinging to those boughs were a number of bright green balls. The creature snapped a single one of those from the stem and put it into its gaping mouth. The meaning was plain: this was food.
    Food to Jony had always been the squares of dull brown substance which the Big Ones had dropped into the feeding slot of his cage at regular intervals. Now, at the sight of the creature's eating, he was immediately aware that he was hungry. In fact his hunger was an ache which was close to pain. He grabbed at the nearest of the balls for himself.
    “No, Jony!” Rutee protested. How could she make him understand that what might be meat or drink to an alien whose world this was, could in turn be deadly poison to someone from another planet? She should have warned him, she should have . . .
    The globe was already in Jony's mouth. He bit down hard. A little juice dribbled from between his lips to glisten on his grimy chin. He swallowed before she could snatch it from him.
    “Rutee—” he beamed at her. “Good! Better than cage food. Good!”
    He was breaking balls recklessly from the branches, and those in one hand he forced upon her.
    “Eat, Rutee!”
    The woman looked longingly at the fruit. It had been a long time since she had tasted anything but the dry and flavorless rations which had kept her alive but had no savor in them. Now she resigned herself. There would be no more of those cakes given to the caged ones; the ship had taken off and they were here now. Either they could live on native