Luana Read online

  ON APRIL 15, 1960 A PLANE CRASHED IN

  THE UNTAMED AFRICAN JUNGLE

  THE SURVIVOR—A YOUNG GIRL

  Raised by fierce cats, Luana grows up

  to be as savage as her jungle habitat.

  And now she watches the winding

  overgrown paths for hapless humans on safari . . .

  Luana grew up in the mysterious African jungle—watched over and cared for by a panther, a lion and a chimp. She could hold her own tripping through the tree branches or even stalking animals. For fifteen years Luana led an idyllic life in her jungle habitat. Then suddenly she is drawn into the world of men—a world she does not understand. Heading into darkest Africa, a safari is set upon by the treacherous and deadly Wanderi tribesmen. When Luana rescues the party, she finds herself hopelessly enmeshed in the adventurer’s fortunes. She finds herself strangely drawn to Isabel Hardi, who is looking for her father—and dangerously attracted to George Barrett, who is searching for a city of gold . . .

  Also by

  ALAN DEAN FOSTER:

  The Tar-Aiym Krang

  Bloodhype

  Icerigger

  Available from Ballantine Books

  Copyright © 1974 by Capital Productions, Inc.

  All rights reserved under International and

  Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

  ISBN: 234-23793-5

  First Printing: February, 1974

  Printed in the United States of America

  Cover art by Frank Frazetta

  BALLANTINE BOOKS, INC.

  201 East 50th Street, New York, N.Y. 10022

  CONTENTS

  Books

  Title

  Copyright

  Dedication

  LUANA

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  Chapter VIII

  Chapter IX

  Chapter X

  Chapter XI

  Chapter XII

  For Frank Frazetta

  Engineer extraordinaire . . .

  Chapter I

  Hungry.

  Uma was hungry.

  Hunger was something that existed cool and separate, an entity complete and whole unto itself. There was neither need nor ability to define it. The pantheress thought with her belly and not with her brain. And the demands of that hunger were pressing ever stronger on her. There had been no game for two days now.

  A glance toward the light showed a fat medallion of royal orange already sunk low in the sky. The light turned the earth to blood and made trees and flowers glow as if on fire. A dull earthworm became as brilliant as a coral snake in the sun’s glare, and gritty gray tree barks and branches shimmered carnelian.

  Soon the daylight would be swallowed by the valley of the Great Rift and would drop steaming beyond the meandering waters of Lake Tanganyika.

  Until then, though, would Uma hunt.

  She was following a well-run trail towards the watering place near the river. Now the trail was cold, but she should find some sign near the water itself. It was a good place, and many animals came to drink in the late evening. Uma stepped and broke a twig. The sound was slight, a tiny cracking of dead wood. Nonetheless, she softly growled a pantheress curse. Such sloppy stalking would lead deservedly to slow starvation. She must take more care in the setting of paws, in the placement of weight.

  Behind her, Chaugh whimpered uncertainly at his mother’s displeasure and she growled again to hush the cub. He was still clumsy, but that was due more to his inordinate size than to his cubhood, for he had already proven a promising stalker.

  Once Chaugh had had sisters. Two fine, healthy shes, as startlingly big and sleek as himself. The memory was painful, and time had not yet succeeded in erasing the distant scar—only in blurring it.

  Uma had been away hunting. A pair of desperate hyenas had discovered the rock-bound den. Less luck for them. Uma had returned and the spotted laughers had died with broken necks. But it was too late to save Chaugh’s sisters. Only Chaugh’s un-cubbish ferocity saved him for last, saved him at all.

  Now, whenever Uma left the den on long hunting trips, she brought the cub along.

  Sliver of night.

  Obsidian carving.

  Coal vein insides, oil-smoke solidified. Black.

  Uma slipped silently through the undergrowth. The number of small bushes and reedy flowers increased. The jungle was thick here, so thick it gave the air an emerald hue, and the world was seen through glasses green. She glanced back. Chaugh was right behind her. He kept up well. Certainly his early brush with death had sharpened his instincts, made him ready and quick to learn.

  Uma’s head turned and dipped back to the trail. Then she paused suddenly, nose low to the moist earth. Early evening dew only blurred the spore, without destroying it. And it was fresh. Raising her head, she sniffed, sampling the air which blew right to left across her nostrils. Yes, the scent was there, mixed with the smell of water.

  Leaving the trail, she broke to the side and began to circle. Chaugh had to hurry to keep up, every branch and stick and rock seemingly located with the sole purpose to trip and block him.

  Now the water-smell and other, muskier scent was strong. Head and body low, ears flat, she crept slowly, patiently to the edge of the forest. She saw a single large fern and moved into it, froze motionless behind the light green veil. Her position was ideal, with sun at her back and breeze in her face.

  The watering place was just ahead. Where the river widened and slowed, a small shallow bay had formed on the near bank. To the right a small stream flowed into the bay, keeping scum and biting insects from the surface of one side. The bay itself was too shallow to let any but the smaller, harmless crocodiles sneak in unseen. Water reeds and cattails grew at its edges, but to the south the jungle was absent and a broad sandy bank gave running animals a clear path to the water.

  Looking at Uma then, a man would have been hard pressed to see any change. The eyes did not move. The claws tensed only slightly on the damp ground. The ears did not flicker. Only the broad chest gave evidence of increasing tension and excitement, the silky black fur rising and falling more rapidly now.

  At the edge of the watering place stood a single huge bull giraffe. The sentry head reconnoitered, taking quick nervous glances from side to side. The great neck swayed unnaturally, quivering. Clearly the big male was not well. It was taking much care before bending to the difficult task of taking a drink.

  Normally Uma would not have considered the bull as legitimate prey. Once under way, the big ungulate could move faster than she, and a kick from one of those towering hind legs could shatter a big cat’s jaw. But on the other hand, the bull definitely seemed unwell, perhaps fatally ill, and if it decided to drink . . .

  She forced herself not to panic charge. Instead she watched silently, finding anonymity in motionlessness. Chaugh moved up to lie silently alongside her. The cub tried to divide its attention between the swaying herbivore and its mother. He licked his lips. He’d already made kills of his own, but this strange yellow monster was something beyond his experience, well out of his killing range. So he was content merely to watch, and learn.

  Once more the bull surveyed its surroundings. Impatience and anticipation vied for time in the limited space of Uma’s mind. If the wind should change now—no, not yet, not yet.

  There! The pipe-metal forelegs began to spread, slowly, slowly, forming a tripodal support for the great neck. Then it dropped like a slow-motion crane and the bull began to lap at the cool fresh water.

  Uma shifted a paw forward—and froze, her head jerking to the side. A young she-chimp sat there in the tree, watching, a single ba
by at her breast. Uma stared anxiously, desperately. One screech from the primate now and the cautious giraffe would bolt for sure.

  The name of this chimpanzee was Wu. For whatever reason, she said nothing. Uma’s hunger far outweighed her curiosity.

  The ebony projectile seemed to cross the short grass and then the sand without ever touching any surface. A single choking roar sent a flock of flying foxes exploding from a nearby bean tree like gray popcorn. The bull’s forelegs came up and together, too late. The great mottled neck rose, too late. The knobby head turned, too late.

  Everything, too late.

  Before that magnificent living tower could rise halfway up from the water a hundred kilos of black death struck it just behind the head. Four ivory scimitars sank deep into spotted flesh, and powerful leg muscles dug paired sets of claws into the spine. The great bull took two tottering steps towards a gallop before crashing like a felled redwood into the sandy shore.

  Uma shifted her jaws and bit again, deeply. The second thrust was unneeded—the spine did not have to be severed; the neck could remain unbroken. The speed and suddenness of the attack had been enough, and the bull had died before it hit the ground, from shock.

  Its head fell into the shallow water, and minnows commenced playing around the caverns of the skull. Panting contentedly, Uma walked down the path formed by the unmoving neck. Here was food enough for days—if she could keep it from the lions and leopards, the hyenas, the jackals and vultures and small carrion birds. And the crocodiles too, yes, for blood was already seeping from the gaping neck wounds into the pure water. But for now, at least, there was meat a-plenty. She and her cub could gorge themselves.

  Other eyes had watched the seconds-long war, but Uma had nothing to fear from them. They surveyed the angular corpse intelligently and without envy. Wu had no use for the huge mass of meat.

  She shifted her position on the branch and cuddled her child closer. Little Ohoh clung to the thick fur on his mother’s breast and leaned his eyes, to learn. The impressions they conveyed to his baby-mind were profound.

  Uma selected a flank and began to tear leisurely at the carcass. After selecting the softest piece for Chaugh, a luxury permitted only because of the vast supply of food, she gave full attention to filling her own empty belly. Chaugh made amusing growling sounds, now half mew, half roar, as he went through preliminary motions of “killing” his own meat. Then he began to rip and tear at the fresh steak with as much enthusiasm as his mother.

  Mother and cub were well into their meal when it happened.

  Abruptly, a nervous buzzing filled the air. It was a totally alien, previously unencountered sound—a faint rasping at the sensitive ears of the panthers. Nervously, Uma looked up and around. There was nothing to be seen that might produce such a sound.

  The odd buzzing grew louder. Uma growled at Chaugh. Despite his continuing hunger there was no thought of protest at that particular warning. He immediately left the bone he had been gnawing and shot off into the nearby jungle. Uma was nearly sated, but still reluctant to abandon her kill merely to a new sound. It grew louder, suddenly seemed to come from all around. She backed slowly off the carcass, snarling defiance.

  Suddenly she saw it. It was a huge bird, the largest she had ever seen. It made strange sounds in its throat, and sun fire was coming from its beak.

  And it was diving straight at her.

  She whirled, and a few strides took her into the underbrush. By all reason she ought to have taken Chaugh and made for the safety of the distant den. Only a reluctance to abandon so fine a kill, especially one still untouched by scavengers, kept her by the watering place. She crouched nervously and held her ground. Nearby, Chaugh mewed puzzlement.

  The bird of fire struck the distant lake once, wrapping itself in a sparkling curtain of sun-dappled water. It continued to charge towards Uma at terrific speed. At the last possible second she turned and ran, Chaugh close on her heels. In the branches above Wu clung tightly to Ohoh and made for the topmost limbs.

  Then all was quiet. Somewhere a hornbill guffawed raucously. Already crickets essayed long-distance weather reports, and small furry things crunched leaves and worried for their own tiny lives. The night sounds were beginning.

  They had no business going back. There was no need for such recklessness. But after so many days of hunger, Uma was not ready to go back to living on rats. She made a decision, turned, and started back the way they’d come. Chaugh followed cautiously at her heels, ready to run at the first warning growl.

  The bird was there, all right. Now shaded to a rich red, sunlight washed its wings in molten copper. One of those wings was broken, bent and dangling unnaturally from the body proper. The great bird had slid all the way across the river, over the watering place, and into the first trees. Behind it the river ran somnolent as before, and the first fish of night were beginning to jump.

  To Uma’s relief the bird had not touched the carcass of the bull. In fact, the monstrous flier seemed quite dead. Besides the badly broken wing, its beak no longer spouted sun fire and it was badly crushed in on itself. Now Uma’s curiosity came to the fore. She moved forward slowly, still ready to bolt into the bushes at the first hint of life. Truly, it was far larger than any bird she had ever seen.

  She halted in mid-step.

  The thing smelled not of the sweet soft odor of bird, but rather the powerful, heady, rarely encountered scent of man. Here indeed was time for caution!

  Then there was a thump on the bird’s soaring back, and Uma looked up. Wu had landed there, swinging down from a drooping vine. She chittered curiously at the pantheress. Two days ago Uma’s sole interest in Wu would have been to regard her as a possible snack. But tonight she was stuffed on giraffe haunch and curious about everything. She ignored the chimp.

  She moved closer to the head of the bird. Chaugh followed at her heels, now somewhat bored. Any danger was apparently past. His belly was fuller, and he was growing drowsy.

  Wu put a hand on the skull of the bird and swung inside. A moment later Uma put both front paws on the edge of a crack in the skull and peered in. What they saw inside the head of the dead bird had no meaning for Wu or Uma.

  Broken cases of books were scattered about. Flasks and beakers and other glassware, some still intact, most broken in place, spilled from soft packing containers. Other chemical research equipment lay clumped in odd piles about the cabin. The man smell was powerful and fresh in here.

  Only the smell of death was stronger.

  Two large man-things sat in the front of the skull, unmoving. One was a female man-thing, but only Wu guessed at that. To the left, silhouetted in the last light firing in through the broken eyes of the great bird, was a third man-thing. It sat quietly, perched on the edge of a metal ledge, and it did not seem to be dead.

  Even so, Uma was puzzled. It was a man-thing, that was clear, but much smaller than the other two. Its color, like those of the two dead man-things, was different from the few man-things she had seen. It was a very light brown, though its long fur was as black as Uma’s own. Scraps of cloth-skin trailed from the small man-thing, and dark bruises showed about the body. There was little blood and what there was came from the other man-things.

  From outward appearance, it was also a female.

  “Coop-chi?” said Wu, and Uma snorted, startled at the sudden sound.

  The man cub moved then. Its mouth went very round and it said, “Oh!” Then it performed a strange motion, putting one paw to its mouth and hissing at them.

  “Shussh . . . be very quiet. Mummy and Daddy are asleep.” Then the man cub’s eyes rolled up and it fell to the floor. It made little noise, for it wasn’t much bigger than Chaugh.

  A slight tensing of muscles brought Uma effortlessly into the cabin. Wu, very bold now, did not leave. Below, on the cooling sand, Chaugh waited and mewed impatiently. Uma could only sniff uncertainly at the man cub, but Wu went directly to it, prodded and tapped curiously here and there. Clearly the man cub was not dead
. Both Uma and Wu knew this immediately.

  Wu put a powerful arm around the cub’s waist and started to pull. That was when Uma growled warningly. She shook her great head and blinked, dazed at her own actions. Distant events were confusing themselves with present ones. Wu paused and looked up. Clear simian brown met unfathomable panther black in locked exchange. A unique, freak spark jumped between them.

  The female chimpanzee had lost a second infant to a marauding black eagle. And Uma also remembered. When her other cubs had been killed she’d left that den forever, never to return. It had been better for Chaugh. Perhaps it would be better for this cub also. She growled again, but approvingly this time, and turned.

  With the man cub under one arm, Wu moved into the forest. Uma paced alongside and a very curious Chaugh brought up the rear, sniffing occasionally at the strange long fur that trailed from the man cub.

  At first, the man cub proved impossible. Despite Uma and Wu’s best efforts, it would only sit in one place and make strange mewing sounds and wet its face. This attitude changed slowly. When it finally began to eat the bananas and nuts and other fruits that Wu had gathered from the forest, Uma shared in the chimp’s pleasure. And then there was that first, hesitant day when it tried the meat that Uma always brought and prepared for it.

  They were forced to move slowly with the new cub—Uma guarding the man cub while Wu gathered food from the jungle, Wu taking her turn on watch when hunger forced Uma and Chaugh to hunt. There was no conscious sense of partnership between the two, only an unwavering feeling of rightness, mixed with satisfaction neither could express.