Drrm was standing in the doorway of the longhouse, the floodwater lapping almost to his knees. As Brad and his grudging entourage neared the building, he saw almost a dozen others standing behind Drrm, peering over his shoulders.
“Brrd killed the monster!” Lnng shouted as they approached.
“Killed it?” asked Drrm.
Excitedly, Lnng said, “Brrd pointed his hand at the monster and a bright red light sprang from his hand and killed the monster.”
Drrm turned toward Brad. “Is this true?”
“Yes. I can save you. You don’t have to die.”
Drrm backed away from Brad. “But we must die! That is the way we prepare the world for the new Folk.”
A flash of light and a crack of thunder. Brad couldn’t tell if it was the storm returning or another vehicle streaking in from Beta.
“Come inside, Brrd,” said Drrm, beckoning with one of his tentacle-fingered hands. Brad shivered involuntarily at the coiling, ropy appendages, but forced himself to follow the village’s Rememberer.
The interior of the building was one single room, sloshing with rainwater. Drrm gestured to a staircase that curved around the circular wall.
“No need to stay in the wet,” Drrm said as he led the entire group to the upper level. There were about twenty more Gammans up there, Brad saw. He recognized Mnnx and waved to him.
The upper floor was furnished with beds and a few tables and chairs. As the group spread across the space, Drrm asked, “You truly killed one of the monsters?”
“With this.” Brad pulled the laser pistol from his belt.
“This is very bad,” Drrm said. “The Sky Masters will be angry.”
“You’d rather be killed yourself?”
“That is our way. It is necessary. Otherwise there will be no room for the new Folk.”
“But this world has plenty of room!” Brad said, noticing that the Gammans were slowly clustering around him and Drrm. Pointing toward the room’s one window, he told them, “You could build new villages, plenty of them. There’s room enough—”
“No, no, no,” Drrm countered, like a grandfather instructing a wayward child. “We must die. The Sky Masters send the monsters from Beta to kill us.”
“You want to die?”
Drrm hesitated. Brad could hear the wind rising again outside, the rain pelting harder on the roof of branches and twigs above his head.
At last Drrm admitted, in a softer tone, “It is hard to die, Brrd. It is very hard to face the monsters and not try to run away. But it is necessary. It is the way we have always been. If we do not die, the new Folk will have no place to live.”
Feeling halfway between sympathetic and angry at their obtuseness, Brad said, “I have seen much of your world. Most of it is empty of villages. There is plenty of space for you and the new Folk.”
“That is not our way,” said Drrm. “We must offer ourselves to the monsters from Beta.”
“But I can kill the monsters from Beta.”
“No! You must not interfere.”
Mnnx stepped forward and asked, “Brrd, don’t the others of your village offer themselves to the monsters from Beta when the dying time comes?”
“My village is so far away that the monsters from Beta don’t come to it.”
The whole crowd of them seemed to gasp and take a step backward, away from Brad.
“The monsters don’t come to your village?”
“You don’t die?”
Brad said, “We don’t have a death time. We live and grow and explore.”
They buzzed among themselves. Brad realized he had just confronted them with something totally new to them, totally alien. How will they react? Will they think I’m a wizard? A witch? Will they attack me as a blasphemer?
And outside, the wind’s relentless roar was getting deeper, stronger. Brad saw a drop of rain spatter on his helmet and trickle down its length. And now another sound was added to the clamor outside: the howling of several hungry monsters from Beta.
“You don’t have a death time?” Drrm asked, clear disbelief plain even in the computer’s translation.
“No, we don’t.”
“You don’t die?” asked Mnnx, awed.
“We die,” Brad answered. “But not all at the same time. We live long lives. We die one at a time.”
Before any of them could reply to that, another flash of lightning turned the room ghastly bright. Thunder boomed, and the roof abruptly caved in, covering them all with soggy branches and debris and driving, pouring rain.
A heavy branch banged into Brad’s shoulder, buckling his knees. Several of the Gammans were knocked to the floor.
“Out!” cried Drrm. “Out to face your fate.”
Dutifully, the Gammans shuffled toward the stairs.
“Stop!” Brad shouted. “You don’t have to die. Stay here, safe from the monsters.”
As if to mock his words, a cat suddenly appeared on the rim of the shattered roof, staring down through the broken branches at the terrified Gammans. Without thinking, Brad shot it through the throat, swinging the laser beam back and forth to sever its head from its body.
The Gammans moaned, whether in awe or fear or anger, Brad could not tell.
“You don’t have to die!” Brad repeated.
Drrm pushed past him and headed for the stairs, insisting, “It is our way, Brrd.”
“Then your way must change.”
“No, the Sky Masters have ordained it.”
The Gammans lined up behind Drrm and started down the stairs. Some seemed more reluctant than others, Brad thought. He saw that Mnnx was dawdling toward the rear of the line.
Desperate, Brad shouted, “The Sky Masters have changed! I bring you their new commands!”