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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/24870-h.zip b/24870-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7b9ec2c --- /dev/null +++ b/24870-h.zip diff --git a/24870-h/24870-h.htm b/24870-h/24870-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d5c8aee --- /dev/null +++ b/24870-h/24870-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3891 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Stars, My Brothers, by Edmond Hamilton + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p {margin-top: .75em; text-align: justify; margin-bottom: .75em;} + h1,h2 {text-align: left; clear: both;} + h3 {text-align: center; clear: both; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} + hr {width: 45%; margin: 1em auto; visibility: hidden;} + .dfx {margin: 0em auto; clear: both;} + body {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .titl {background: url("images/001.png") top left no-repeat; width: 698px; height: 500px; margin: 0 auto;} + .bk1 {width: 348px;} + .figright {float: right; clear: right; margin: 1em 0 1em 1em; padding: 0; width: 331px;} + .figtran {float: left; text-align: justify; border: solid 1px; margin: 3em 15% 1em; padding: 1em;} + .figtran img {float: left; padding-right: 1em;} + img {border: none;} + a:link {text-decoration:none;} + a:visited {text-decoration:none;} + p.cap:first-letter {float: left; margin-right: .05em; padding-top: .05em; font-size: 300%; line-height: .8em;} + .cpq {float: left; margin-right: .05em; padding-top: .05em; font-size: 300%; line-height: .8em;} + .dcap {text-transform: uppercase;} + .illo {margin-top: 2em; font-size: small; font-weight: bold; text-align: right;} + .tease {margin: 2em auto; font-size: large; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; width: 20em;} + .theend {text-align: center; font-weight: bold; margin-top: 2em;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Stars, My Brothers, by Edmond Hamilton + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Stars, My Brothers + +Author: Edmond Hamilton + +Illustrator: Virgil Finlay + +Release Date: March 18, 2008 [EBook #24870] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STARS, MY BROTHERS *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="titl"><div class="bk1"> +<h1>THE STARS,<br /> +MY BROTHERS</h1> + +<h2>By<br /> +EDMOND<br /> +HAMILTON</h2> + +<p class="illo">Illustrated by FINLAY</p> +</div></div> + +<div class="tease"><p>He was afraid—not of the present or the future, +but of the past. He was afraid of the thing +tagged Reed Kieran, that stiff blind voiceless +thing wheeling its slow orbit around the Moon, +companion to dead worlds and silent space.</p></div> + +<h3>1.</h3> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Something</span> tiny went wrong, +but no one ever knew whether +it was in an electric relay or in +the brain of the pilot.</p> + +<p>The pilot was Lieutenant +Charles Wandek, UNRC, home +address: 1677 Anstey Avenue, Detroit. +He did not survive the +crash of his ferry into Wheel +Five. Neither did his three passengers, +a young French astrophysicist, +an East Indian expert +on magnetic fields, and a forty-year-old +man from Philadelphia +who was coming out to replace a +pump technician.</p> + +<p>Someone else who did not survive +was Reed Kieran, the only +man in Wheel Five itself to lose +his life. Kieran, who was thirty-six +years old, was an accredited +scientist-employee of UNRC. +Home address: 815 Elm Street, +Midland Springs, Ohio.</p> + +<p>Kieran, despite the fact that he +was a confirmed bachelor, was in +Wheel Five because of a woman. +But the woman who had sent him +there was no beautiful lost love. +Her name was Gertrude Lemmiken; +she was nineteen years old +and overweight, with a fat, stupid +face. She suffered from head-colds, +and sniffed constantly in +the Ohio college classroom where +Kieran taught Physics Two.</p> + +<p>One March morning, Kieran +could bear it no longer. He told +himself, "If she sniffs this morning, +I'm through. I'll resign and +join the UNRC."</p> + +<p>Gertrude sniffed. Six months +later, having finished his training +for the United Nations Reconnaissance +Corps, Kieran +shipped out for a term of duty in +UNRC Space Laboratory Number +5, known more familiarly as +Wheel Five.</p> + +<p>Wheel Five circled the Moon. +There was an elaborate base on +the surface of the Moon in this +year 1981. There were laboratories +and observatories there, too. +But it had been found that the +alternating fortnights of boiling +heat and near-absolute-zero cold +on the lunar surface could play +havoc with the delicate instruments +used in certain researches. +Hence Wheel Five had been built +and was staffed by research men +who were rotated at regular +eight-month intervals.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Kieran</span> loved it, from the +first. He thought that that +was because of the sheer beauty +of it, the gaunt, silver deaths-head +of the Moon forever turning +beneath, the still and solemn +glory of the undimmed stars, the +filamentaries stretched across the +distant star-clusters like shining +veils, the quietness, the peace.</p> + +<p>But Kieran had a certain intellectual +honesty, and after a while +he admitted to himself that +neither the beauty nor the romance +of it was what made this +life so attractive to him. It was +the fact that he was far away +from Earth. He did not even have +to look at Earth, for nearly all +geophysical research was taken +care of by Wheels Two and Three +that circled the mother planet. +He was almost completely divorced +from all Earth's problems +and people.</p> + +<p>Kieran liked people, but had +never felt that he understood +them. What seemed important to +them, all the drives of ordinary +day-to-day existence, had never +seemed very important to him. +He had felt that there must be +something wrong with him, +something lacking, for it seemed +to him that people everywhere +committed the most outlandish +follies, believed in the most incredible +things, were swayed by +pure herd-instinct into the most +harmful courses of behavior. +They could not all be wrong, he +thought, so he must be wrong—and +it had worried him. He had +taken partial refuge in pure science, +but the study and then the +teaching of astrophysics had not +been the refuge that Wheel Five +was. He would be sorry to leave +the Wheel when his time was up.</p> + +<p>And he was sorry, when the +day came. The others of the staff +were already out in the docking +lock in the rim, waiting to greet +the replacements from the ferry. +Kieran, hating to leave, lagged +behind. Then, realizing it would +be churlish not to meet this +young Frenchman who was replacing +him, he hurried along the +corridor in the big spoke when he +saw the ferry coming in.</p> + +<p>He was two-thirds of the way +along the spoke to the rim when +it happened. There was a tremendous +crash that flung him violently +from his feet. He felt a +coldness, instant and terrible.</p> + +<p>He was dying.</p> + +<p>He was dead.</p> + +<p>The ferry had been coming in +on a perfectly normal approach +when the tiny something went +wrong, in the ship or in the judgment +of the pilot. Its drive-rockets +suddenly blasted on full, +it heeled over sharply, it smashed +through the big starboard spoke +like a knife through butter.</p> + +<p>Wheel Five staggered, rocked, +and floundered. The automatic +safety bulkheads had all closed, +and the big spoke—Section T2—was +the only section to blow its +air, and Kieran was the only man +caught in it. The alarms went off, +and while the wreckage of the +ferry, with three dead men in it, +was still drifting close by, everyone +in the Wheel was in his pressure-suit +and emergency measures +were in full force.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Within</span> thirty minutes it became +evident that the Wheel +was going to survive this accident. +It was edging slowly out of +orbit from the impetus of the +blow, and in the present weakened +state of the construction its +small corrective rockets could not +be used to stop the drift. But Meloni, +the UNRC captain commanding, +had got first reports +from his damage-control teams, +and it did not look too bad. He +fired off peremptory demands for +the repair materials he would +need, and was assured by UNRC +headquarters at Mexico City that +the ferries would be loaded and +on their way as soon as possible.</p> + +<p>Meloni was just beginning to +relax a little when a young officer +brought up a minor but +vexing problem. Lieutenant Vinson +had headed the small party +sent out to recover the bodies of +the four dead men. In their pressure-suits +they had been pawing +through the tangled wreckage +for some time, and young Vinson +was tired when he made his report.</p> + +<p>"We have all four alongside, +sir. The three men in the ferry +were pretty badly mangled in the +crash. Kieran wasn't physically +wounded, but died from space-asphyxiation."</p> + +<p>The captain stared at him. +"Alongside? Why didn't you +bring them in? They'll go back in +one of the ferries to Earth for +burial."</p> + +<p>"But—" Vinson started to protest.</p> + +<p>Meloni interrupted sharply. +"You need to learn a few things +about morale, Lieutenant. You +think it's going to do morale here +any good to have four dead men +floating alongside where everyone +can see them? Fetch them in +and store them in one of the +holds."</p> + +<p>Vinson, sweating and unhappy +now, had visions of a black mark +on his record, and determined to +make his point.</p> + +<p>"But about Kieran, sir—he +was only frozen. Suppose there +was a chance to bring him back?"</p> + +<p>"Bring him back? What the +devil are you talking about?"</p> + +<p>Vinson said, "I read they're +trying to find some way of restoring +a man that gets space-frozen. +Some scientists down at +Delhi University. If they succeeded, +and if we had Kieran still +intact in space—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, hell, that's just a scientific +pipe-dream, they'll never +find a way to do that," Meloni +said. "It's all just theory."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir," said Vinson, hanging +his head.</p> + +<p>"We've got trouble enough +here without you bringing up +ideas like this," the captain continued +angrily. "Get out of here."</p> + +<p>Vinson was now completely +crushed. "Yes, sir. I'll bring the +bodies in."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">He</span> went out. Meloni stared at +the door, and began to think. +A commanding officer had to be +careful, or he could get skinned +alive. If, by some remote chance, +this Delhi idea ever succeeded, +he, Meloni, would be in for it for +having Kieran buried. He strode +to the door and flung it open, +mentally cursing the young snotty +who had had to bring this up.</p> + +<p>"Vinson!" he shouted.</p> + +<p>The lieutenant turned back, +startled. "Yes, sir?"</p> + +<p>"Hold Kieran's body outside. +I'll check on this with Mexico +City."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>Still angry, Meloni shot a message +to Personnel at Mexico City. +That done, he forgot about it. +The buck had been passed, let the +boys sitting on their backsides +down on Earth handle it.</p> + +<p>Colonel Hausman, second in +command of Personnel Division +of UNRC, was the man to whom +Meloni's message went. He snorted +loudly when he read it. And +later, when he went in to report +to Garces, the brigadier commanding +the Division, he took +the message with him.</p> + +<p>"Meloni must be pretty badly +rattled by the crash," he said. +"Look at this."</p> + +<p>Garces read the message, then +looked up. "Anything to this? +The Delhi experiments, I mean?"</p> + +<p>Hausman had taken care to +brief himself on that point and +was able to answer emphatically.</p> + +<p>"Damned little. Those chaps in +Delhi have been playing around +freezing insects and thawing +them out, and they think the +process might be developed someday +to where it could revive frozen +spacemen. It's an iffy idea. I'll +burn Meloni's backside off for +bringing it up at a time like +this."</p> + +<p>Garces, after a moment, shook +his head. "No, wait. Let me think +about this."</p> + +<p>He looked speculatively out of +the window for a few moments. +Then he said,</p> + +<p>"Message Meloni that this one +chap's body—what's his name, +Kieran?—is to be preserved in +space against a chance of future +revival."</p> + +<p>Hausman nearly blotted his +copybook by exclaiming, "For +God's sake—" He choked that +down in time and said, "But it +could be centuries before a revival +process is perfected, if it +ever is."</p> + +<p>Garces nodded. "I know. But +you're missing a psychological +point that could be valuable to +UNRC. This Kieran has relatives, +doesn't he?"</p> + +<p>Hausman nodded. "A widowed +mother and a sister. His father's +been dead a long time. No wife +or children."</p> + +<p>Garces said, "If we tell them +he's dead, frozen in space and +then buried, it's all over with. +Won't those people feel a lot better +if we tell them that he's <i>apparently</i> +dead, but might be +brought back when a revival-technique +is perfected in the future?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose they'd feel better +about it," Hausman conceded. +"But I don't see—"</p> + +<p>Garces shrugged. "Simple. +We're only really beginning in +space, you know. As we go on, +UNRC is going to lose a number +of men, space-struck just like +Kieran. A howl will go up about +our casualty lists, it always does. +But if we can say that they're +only frozen until such time as revival +technique is achieved, everyone +will feel better about it."</p> + +<p>"I suppose public relations are +important—" Hausman began to +say, and Garces nodded quickly.</p> + +<p>"They are. See that this is +done, when you go up to confer +with Meloni. Make sure that it +gets onto the video networks, I +want everyone to see it."</p> + +<p>Later, with many cameras and +millions of people watching, +Kieran's body, in a pressure-suit, +was ceremoniously taken to a selected +position where it would +orbit the Moon. All suggestions +of the funerary were carefully +avoided. The space-struck man—nobody +at all referred to him as +"dead"—would remain in this +position until a revival process +was perfected.</p> + +<p>"Until forever," thought Hausman, +watching sourly. "I suppose +Garces is right. But they'll have a +whole graveyard here, as time +goes on."</p> + +<p>As time went on, they did.</p> + +<h3>2.</h3> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">In his</span> dreams, a soft voice +whispered.</p> + +<p>He did not know what it was +telling him, except that it was +important. He was hardly aware +of its coming, the times it came. +There would be the quiet murmuring, +and something in him +seemed to hear and understand, +and then the murmur faded away +and there was nothing but the +dreams again.</p> + +<p>But were they dreams? Nothing +had form or meaning. Light, +darkness, sound, pain and not-pain, +flowed over him. Flowed +over—who? Who was he? He did +not even know that. He did not +care.</p> + +<p>But he came to care, the question +vaguely nagged him. He +should try to remember. There +was more than dreams and the +whispering voice. There was—what? +If he had one real thing to +cling to, to put his feet on and +climb back from— One thing like +his name.</p> + +<p>He had no name. He was no +one. Sleep and forget it. Sleep +and dream and listen—</p> + +<p>"Kieran."</p> + +<p>It went across his brain like a +shattering bolt of lightning, that +word. He did not know what the +word was or what it meant but it +found an echo somewhere and his +brain screamed it.</p> + +<p>"Kieran!"</p> + +<p>Not his brain alone, his voice +was gasping it, harshly and +croakingly, his lungs seeming on +fire as they expelled the word.</p> + +<p>He was shaking. He had a +body that could shake, that could +feel pain, that was feeling pain +now. He tried to move, to break +the nightmare, to get back again +to the vague dreams, and the +soothing whisper.</p> + +<p>He moved. His limbs thrashed +leadenly, his chest heaved and +panted, his eyes opened.</p> + +<p>He lay in a narrow bunk in a +very small metal room.</p> + +<p>He looked slowly around. He +did not know this place. The +gleaming white metal of walls +and ceiling was unfamiliar. +There was a slight, persistent +tingling vibration in everything +that was unfamiliar, too.</p> + +<p>He was not in Wheel Five. He +had seen every cell in it and none +of them were like this. Also, +there lacked the persistent susurrant +sound of the ventilation +pumps. Where—</p> + +<p><i>You're in a ship, Kieran. A +starship.</i></p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Something</span> back in his mind +told him that. But of course +it was ridiculous, a quirk of the +imagination. There weren't any +starships.</p> + +<p><i>You're all right, Kieran. +You're in a starship, and you're +all right.</i></p> + +<p>The emphatic assurance came +from somewhere back in his +brain and it was comforting. He +didn't feel very good, he felt +dopey and sore, but there was no +use worrying about it when he +knew for sure he was all right—</p> + +<p>The hell he was all right! He +was in someplace new, someplace +strange, and he felt half sick and +he was not all right at all. Instead +of lying here on his back +listening to comforting lies from +his imagination, he should get +up, find out what was going on, +what had happened.</p> + +<p>Of a sudden, memory began to +clear. What <i>had</i> happened? +Something, a crash, a terrible +coldness—</p> + +<p>Kieran began to shiver. He had +been in Section T2, on his way to +the lock, and suddenly the floor +had risen under him and Wheel +Five had seemed to crash into +pieces around him. The cold, the +pain—</p> + +<p><i>You're in a starship. You're +all right.</i></p> + +<p>For God's sake why did his +mind keep telling him things like +that, things he believed? For if +he did not believe them he would +be in a panic, not knowing where +he was, how he had come here. +There was panic in his mind but +there was a barrier against it, +the barrier of the soothing reassurances +that came from he knew +not where.</p> + +<p>He tried to sit up. It was useless, +he was too weak. He lay, +breathing heavily. He felt that +he should be hysterical with fear +but somehow he was not, that +barrier in his mind prevented it.</p> + +<p>He had decided to try shouting +when a door in the side of the little +room slid open and a man +came in.</p> + +<p>He came over and looked down +at Kieran. He was a young man, +sandy-haired, with a compact, +chunky figure and a flat, hard +face. His eyes were blue and intense, +and they gave Kieran the +feeling that this man was a +wound-up spring. He looked +down and said,</p> + +<p>"How do you feel, Kieran?"</p> + +<p>Kieran looked up at him. He +asked, "Am I in a starship?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"But there aren't any starships."</p> + +<p>"There are. You're in one." +The sandy-haired man added, +"My name is Vaillant."</p> + +<p><i>It's true, what he says</i>, murmured +the something in Kieran's +mind.</p> + +<p>"Where—how—" Kieran began.</p> + +<p>Vaillant interrupted his stammering +question. "As to where, +we're quite a way from Earth, +heading right now in the general +direction of Altair. As to how—" +He paused, looking keenly down +at Kieran. "Don't you know +how?"</p> + +<p><i>Of course I know. I was frozen, +and now I have been awakened +and time has gone by—</i></p> + +<p>Vaillant, looking searchingly +down at his face, showed a trace +of relief. "You do know, don't +you? For a moment I was afraid +it hadn't worked."</p> + +<p>He sat down on the edge of the +bunk.</p> + +<p>"How long?" asked Kieran.</p> + +<p>Vaillant answered as casually +as though it was the most ordinary +question in the world. "A +bit over a century."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">It was</span> wonderful, thought +Kieran, how he could take a +statement like that without getting +excited. It was almost as +though he'd known it all the +time.</p> + +<p>"How—" he began, when there +was an interruption.</p> + +<p>Something buzzed thinly in the +pocket of Vaillant's shirt. He +took out a thin three-inch disk of +metal and said sharply into it,</p> + +<p>"Yes?"</p> + +<p>A tiny voice squawked from the +disk. It was too far from Kieran +for him to understand what it +was saying but it had a note of +excitement, almost of panic, in it.</p> + +<p>Something changed, hardened, +in Vaillant's flat face. He said, "I +expected it. I'll be right there. +You know what to do."</p> + +<p>He did something to the disk +and spoke into it again. "Paula, +take over here."</p> + +<p>He stood up. Kieran looked up +at him, feeling numb and stupid. +"I'd like to know some things."</p> + +<p>"Later," said Vaillant. "We've +got troubles. Stay where you +are."</p> + +<p>He went rapidly out of the +room. Kieran looked after him, +wondering. Troubles—troubles +in a starship? And a century had +passed—</p> + +<p>He suddenly felt an emotion +that shook his nerves and tightened +his guts. It was beginning +to hit him now. He sat up in the +bunk and swung his legs out of it +and tried to stand but could not, +he was too weak. All he could do +was to sit there, shaking.</p> + +<p>His mind could not take it in. +It seemed only minutes ago that +he had been walking along the +corridor in Wheel Five. It seemed +that Wheel Five must exist, that +the Earth, the people, the time he +knew, must still be somewhere +out there. This could be some +kind of a joke, or some kind of +psychological experiment. That +was it—the space-medicine boys +were always making way-out experiments +to find out how men +would bear up in unusual conditions, +and this must be one of +them—</p> + +<p>A woman came into the room. +She was a dark woman who +might have been thirty years old, +and who wore a white shirt and +slacks. She would, he thought, +have been good-looking if she +had not looked so tired and so +edgy.</p> + +<p>She came over and looked down +at him and said to him,</p> + +<p>"Don't try to get up yet. +You'll feel better very soon."</p> + +<p>Her voice was a slightly husky +one. It was utterly familiar to +Kieran, and yet he had never +seen this woman before. Then it +came to him.</p> + +<p>"You were the one who talked +to me," he said, looking up at her. +"In the dreams, I mean."</p> + +<p>She nodded. "I'm Paula Ray +and I'm a psychologist. You had +to be psychologically prepared +for your awakening."</p> + +<p>"Prepared?"</p> + +<p>The woman explained patiently. +"Hypnopedic technique—establishing +facts in the subconscious +of a sleeping patient. Otherwise, +it would be too terrific a +shock for you when you awakened. +That was proved when they +first tried reviving space-struck +men, forty or fifty years ago."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">The</span> comfortable conviction +that this was all a fake, an experiment +of some kind, began to +drain out of Kieran. But if it was +true—</p> + +<p>He asked, with some difficulty, +"You say that they found out +how to revive space-frozen men, +that long ago?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Yet it took forty or fifty years +to get around to reviving me?"</p> + +<p>The woman sighed. "You have +a misconception. The process of +revival was perfected that long +ago. But it has been used only +immediately after a wreck or disaster. +Men or women in the old +space-cemeteries have not been +revived."</p> + +<p>"Why not?" he asked carefully.</p> + +<p>"Unsatisfactory results," she +said. "They could not adjust psychologically +to changed conditions. +They usually became unbalanced. +Some suicides and a +number of cases of extreme +schizophrenia resulted. It was +decided that it was no kindness +to the older space-struck cases to +bring them back."</p> + +<p>"But you brought me back?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"There were good reasons." +She was, clearly, evading that +question. She went on quickly. +"The psychological shock of +awakening would have been devastating, +if you were not prepared. +So, while you were still +under sedation, I used the hypnopedic +method on you. Your unconscious +was aware of the main +facts of the situation before you +awoke, and that cushioned the +shock."</p> + +<p>Kieran thought of himself, lying +frozen and dead in a graveyard +that was space, bodies drifting +in orbit, circling slowly +around each other as the years +passed, in a macabre sarabande— A +deep shiver shook him.</p> + +<p>"Because all space-struck victims +were in pressure-suits, dehydration +was not the problem it +could have been," Paula was saying. +"But it's still a highly delicate +process—"</p> + +<p>He looked at her and interrupted +roughly. "What reasons?" +And when she stared +blankly, he added, "You said +there were good reasons why you +picked me for revival. What reasons?"</p> + +<p>Her face became tight and +alert. "You were the oldest victim, +in point of date. That was +one of the determining factors—"</p> + +<p>"Look," said Kieran. "I'm not +a child, nor yet a savage. You can +drop the patronizing professional +jargon and answer my question."</p> + +<p>Her voice became hard and +brittle. "You're new to this environment. +You wouldn't understand +if I told you."</p> + +<p>"Try me."</p> + +<p>"All right," she answered. "We +need you, as a symbol, in a political +struggle we're waging against +the Sakae."</p> + +<p>"The Sakae?"</p> + +<p>"I told you that you couldn't +understand yet," she answered +impatiently, turning away. "You +can't expect me to fill you in on a +whole world that's new to you, in +five minutes."</p> + +<p>She started toward the door. +"Oh, no," said Kieran. "You're +not going yet."</p> + +<p>He slid out of the bunk. He +felt weak and shaky but resentment +energized his flaccid muscles. +He took a step toward her.</p> + +<p>The lights suddenly went dim, +and a bull-throated roar sounded +from somewhere, an appalling +sound of raw power. The slight +tingling that Kieran had felt in +the metal fabric around him +abruptly became a vibration so +deep and powerful that it dizzied +him and he had to grab the +stanchion of the bunk to keep +from falling.</p> + +<p>Alarm had flashed into the +woman's face. Next moment, +from some hidden speaker in the +wall, a male voice yelled sharply,</p> + +<p>"Overtaken—prepare for extreme +evasion—"</p> + +<p>"Get back into the bunk," she +told Kieran.</p> + +<p>"What is it?"</p> + +<p>"It may be," she said with a +certain faint viciousness, "that +you're about to die a second +time."</p> + +<h3>3.</h3> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">The</span> lights dimmed to semi-darkness, +and the deep vibration grew worse. +Kieran clutched the woman's arm.</p> + +<p>"What's happening?"</p> + +<p>"Damn it, let me go!" she said.</p> + +<p>The exclamation was so wholly +familiar in its human angriness +that Kieran almost liked her, for +the first time. But he continued +to hold onto her, although he did +not feel that with his present +weakness he could hold her long.</p> + +<p>"I've a right to know," he said.</p> + +<p>"All right, perhaps you have," +said Paula. "We—our group—are +operating against authority. +We've broken laws, in going +to Earth and reviving you. And +now authority is catching up to +us."</p> + +<p>"Another ship? Is there going +to be a fight?"</p> + +<p>"A fight?" She stared at him, +and shock and then faint repulsion +showed in her face. "But of +course, you come from the old time +of wars, you would think that—"</p> + +<p>Kieran got the impression that +what he had said had made her +look at him with the same feelings +he would have had when he +looked at a decent, worthy savage +who happened to be a cannibal.</p> + +<p>"I always felt that bringing +you back was a mistake," she +said, with a sharpness in her +voice. "Let me go."</p> + +<p>She wrenched away from him +and before he could stop her she +had got to the door and slid it +open. He woke up in time to lurch +after her and he got his shoulder +into the door-opening before she +could slide it shut.</p> + +<p>"Oh, very well, since you insist +I'm not going to worry about +you," she said rapidly, and +turned and hurried away.</p> + +<p>Kieran wanted to follow her +but his knees were buckling under +him. He hung to the side of +the door-opening. He felt angry, +and anger was all that kept him +from falling over. He would not +faint, he told himself. He was not +a child, and would not be treated +like one—</p> + +<p>He got his head outside the +door. There was a long and very +narrow corridor out there, blank +metal with a few closed doors +along it. One door, away down +toward the end of the corridor, +was just sliding shut.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">He</span> started down the corridor, +steadying himself with his +hand against the smooth wall. +Before he had gone more than a +few steps, the anger that pushed +him began to ebb away. Of a sudden, +the mountainous and incredible +fact of his being here, in +this place, this time, this ship, +came down on him like an avalanche +from which the hypnopedic +pre-conditioning would +no longer protect him.</p> + +<p><i>I am touching a starship, I am +in a starship, I, Reed Kieran of +Midland Springs, Ohio. I ought +to be back there, teaching my +classes, stopping at Hartnett's +Drug Store for a soft drink on +the way home, but I am here in a +ship fleeing through the stars ...</i></p> + +<p>His head was spinning and he +was afraid that he was going to +go out again. He found himself +at the door and slid it open and +fell rather than walked inside. +He heard a startled voice.</p> + +<p>This was a bigger room. There +was a table whose top was translucent +and which showed a bewildering +mass of fleeting symbols +in bright light, ever changing. +There was a screen on one +wall of the room and that showed +nothing, a blank, dark surface.</p> + +<p>Vaillant and Paula Ray and a +tall, tough-looking man of middle +age were around the table and +had looked up, surprised.</p> + +<p>Vaillant's face flashed irritation. +"Paula, you were supposed +to keep him in his cabin!"</p> + +<p>"I didn't think he was strong +enough to follow," she said.</p> + +<p>"I'm not," said Kieran, and +pitched over.</p> + +<p>The tall middle-aged man +reached and caught him before +he hit the floor, and eased him +into a chair.</p> + +<p>He heard, as though from a +great distance, Vaillant's voice +saying irritatedly, "Let Paula +take care of him, Webber. Look +at this—we're going to cross another +rift—"</p> + +<p>There were a few minutes then +when everything was very jumbled +up in Kieran's mind. The +woman was talking to him. She +was telling him that they had +prepared him physically, as well +as psychologically, for the shock +of revival, and that he would be +quite all right but had to take +things more slowly.</p> + +<p>He heard her voice but paid little +attention. He sat in the chair +and blankly watched the two men +who hung over the table and its +flow of brilliant symbols. Vaillant +seemed to tighten up more +and more as the moments passed, +and there was still about him the +look of a coiled spring but now +the spring seemed to be wound to +the breaking-point. Webber, the +tall man with the tough face, +watched the fleeting symbols and +his face was stony.</p> + +<p>"Here we go," he muttered, +and both he and Vaillant looked +up at the blank black screen on +the wall.</p> + +<p>Kieran looked too. There was +nothing. Then, in an instant, the +blackness vanished from the +screen and it framed a vista of +such cosmic, stunning splendor +that Kieran could not grasp it.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Stars</span> blazed like high fires +across the screen, loops and +chains and shining clots of them. +This was not too different from +the way they had looked from +Wheel Five. But what was different +was that the starry firmament +was partly blotted out by +vast rifted ramparts of blackness, +ebon cliffs that went up to +infinity. Kieran had seen astronomical +photographs like this +and knew what the blackness +was.</p> + +<p>Dust. A dust so fine that its +percentage of particles in space +would be a vacuum, on Earth. +But, here where it extended over +parsecs of space, it formed a barrier +to light. There was a narrow +rift here between the titan cliffs +of darkness and he—the ship he +was in—was fleeing across that +rift.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">The</span> screen abruptly went black +again. Kieran remained sitting +and staring at it. That incredible +fleeting vision had finally +impressed the utter reality of +all this upon his mind. They, this +ship, were far from Earth—very +far, in one of the dust-clouds in +which they were trying to lose +pursuers. This was real.</p> + +<p>"—will have got another fix on +us as we crossed, for sure," Vaillant +was saying, in a bitter voice. +"They'll have the net out for us—the +pattern will be shaping +now and we can't slip through +it."</p> + +<p>"We can't," said Webber. "The +ship can't. But the flitter can, +with luck."</p> + +<p>They both looked at Kieran. +"He's the important one," Webber +said. "If a couple of us could +get him through—"</p> + +<p>"No," said Paula. "We couldn't. +As soon as they caught the +ship and found the flitter gone, +they'd be after him."</p> + +<p>"Not to Sako," said Webber. +"They'd never figure that we'd +take him to Sako."</p> + +<p>"Do I have a word in this?" +asked Kieran, between his teeth.</p> + +<p>"What?" asked Vaillant.</p> + +<p>"This. The hell with you all. +I'll go no place with you or for +you."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">He</span> got a savage satisfaction +from saying it, he was tired +of sitting there like a booby +while they discussed him, but he +did not get the reaction from +them he had expected. The two +men merely continued to look +thoughtfully at him. The woman +sighed,</p> + +<p>"You see? There wasn't time +enough to explain it to him. It's +natural for him to react with +hostility."</p> + +<p>"Put him out, and take him +along," said Webber.</p> + +<p>"No," said Paula sharply. "If +he goes out right now he's liable +to stay out. I won't answer for +it."</p> + +<p>"Meanwhile," said Vaillant +with an edge to his voice, "the +pattern is forming up. Have you +any suggestions, Paula?"</p> + +<p>She nodded. "This."</p> + +<p>She suddenly squeezed something +under Kieran's nose, a +small thing that she had produced +from her pocket without +his noticing it, in his angry preoccupation +with the two men. He +smelled a sweet, refreshing odor +and he struck her arm away.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, you're not giving me +any more dopes—" Then he +stopped, for suddenly it all +seemed wryly humorous to him. +"A bunch of bloody incompetents," +he said, and laughed. +"This is the one thing I would +never have dreamed—that a man +could sleep, and wake up in a +starship, and find the starship +manned by blunderers."</p> + +<p>"Euphoric," said Paula, to the +two men.</p> + +<p>"At that," said Webber sourly, +"there may be something in what +he says about us."</p> + +<p>Vaillant turned on him and +said fiercely, "If that's what you +think—" Then he controlled himself +and said tightly, "Quarrelling's +no good. We're in a box +but we can maybe still put it over +if we get this man to Sako. Webber, +you and Paula take him in +the flitter."</p> + +<p>Kieran rose to his feet. "Fine," +he said gaily. "Let us go in the +flitter, whatever that is. I am already +bored with starships."</p> + +<p>He felt good, very good. He +felt a little drunk, not enough to +impede his mental processes but +enough to give him a fine devil-may-care +indifference to what +happened next. So it was only the +spray Paula had given him—it +still made his body feel better +and removed his shock and worry +and made everything seem suddenly +rather amusing.</p> + +<p>"Let us to Sako in the flitter," +he said. "After all, I'm living on +velvet, I might as well see the +whole show. I'm sure that Sako, +wherever it is, will be just as full +of human folly as Earth was."</p> + +<p>"He's euphoric," Paula said +again, but her face was stricken.</p> + +<p>"Of all the people in that space-cemetery, +we had to pick one who +thinks like that," said Vaillant, +with a sort of restrained fury.</p> + +<p>"You said yourself that the +oldest one would be the best," +said Webber. "Sako will change +him."</p> + +<p>Kieran walked down the corridor +with Webber and Paula and +he laughed as he walked. They +had brought him back from nothingness +without his consent, violating +the privacy of death or +near-death, and now something +that he had just said had bitterly +disappointed them.</p> + +<p>"Come along," he said buoyantly +to the two. "Let us not lag. +Once aboard the flitter and the +girl is mine."</p> + +<p>"Oh for God's sake shut up," +said Webber.</p> + +<h3>4.</h3> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">It was</span> ridiculous to be flying +the stars with a bad hangover, +but Kieran had one. His head +ached dully, he had an unpleasant +metallic taste in his mouth, +and his former ebullience had +given way to a dull depression. +He looked sourly around.</p> + +<p>He sat in a confined little metal +coop of a cabin, hardly +enough in which to stand erect. +Paula Ray, in a chair a few feet +away was sleeping, her head on +her breast. Webber sat forward, +in what appeared to be a pilot-chair +with a number of crowded +control banks in front of it. He +was not doing anything to the +controls. He looked as though he +might be sleeping, too.</p> + +<p>That was all—a tiny metal +room, blank metal walls, silence. +They were, presumably, flying +between the stars at incredible +speeds but there was nothing to +show it. There were no screens +such as the one he had seen in +the ship, to show by artful scanning +devices what vista of suns +and darknesses lay outside.</p> + +<p>"A flitter," Webber had informed +him, "just doesn't have +room for the complicated apparatus +that such scanners require. +Seeing is a luxury you dispense +with in a flitter. We'll see when +we get to Sako."</p> + +<p>After a moment he had added, +"If we get to Sako."</p> + +<p>Kieran had merely laughed +then, and had promptly gone to +sleep. When he had awakened, it +had been with the euphoria all +gone and with his present hangover.</p> + +<p>"At least," he told himself, "I +can truthfully say that this one +wasn't my fault. That blasted +spray—"</p> + +<p>He looked resentfully at the +sleeping woman in the chair. +Then he reached and roughly +shook her shoulder.</p> + +<p>She opened her eyes and +looked at him, first sleepily and +then with resentment.</p> + +<p>"You had no right to wake me +up," she said.</p> + +<p>Then, before Kieran could retort, +she seemed to realize the +monumental irony of what she +had just said, and she burst into +laughter.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry," she said. "Go +ahead and say it. I had no right +to wake <i>you</i> up."</p> + +<p>"Let's come back to that," said +Kieran after a moment. "Why +did you?"</p> + +<p>Paula looked at him ruefully. +"What I need now is a ten-volume +history of the last century, +and time enough for you to read +it. But since we don't have either—" +She broke off, then after a +pause asked, "Your date was +1981, wasn't it? It and your +name were on the tag of your +pressure-suit."</p> + +<p>"That's right."</p> + +<p>"Well, then. Back in 1981, it +was expected that men would +spread out to the stars, wasn't +it?"</p> + +<p>Kieran nodded. "As soon as +they had a workable high-speed +drive. Several drives were being +experimented with even then."</p> + +<p>"One of them—the Flournoy +principle—was finally made +workable," she said. She +frowned. "I'm trying to give you +this briefly and I keep straying +into details."</p> + +<p>"Just tell me why you woke +me up."</p> + +<p>"I'm <i>trying</i> to tell you." She +asked candidly, "Were you always +so damned hateful or did +the revivification process do this +to you?"</p> + +<p>Kieran grinned. "All right. Go +ahead."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="cpq">"T</span><span class="dcap">hings</span> happened pretty +much as people foresaw back +in 1981," she said. "The drive +was perfected. The ships went +out to the nearer stars. They +found worlds. They established +colonies from the overflowing +population of Earth. They found +human indigenous races on a +few worlds, all of them at a rather +low technical level, and they +taught them.</p> + +<p>"There was a determination +from the beginning to make it +one universe. No separate nationalistic +groups, no chance of +wars. The governing council was +set up at Altair Two. Every +world was represented. There +are twenty-nine of them, now. +It's expected to go on like that, +till there are twenty-nine hundred +starworlds represented +there, twenty-nine thousand—any +number. But—"</p> + +<p>Kieran had been listening +closely. "But what? What upset +this particular utopia?"</p> + +<p>"Sako."</p> + +<p>"This world we're going to?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said soberly. "Men +found something different about +this world when they reached it. +It had people—human people—on +it, very low in the scale of +civilization."</p> + +<p>"Well, what was the problem? +Couldn't you start teaching them +as you had others?"</p> + +<p>She shook her head. "It would +take a long while. But that wasn't +the real problem. It was— You +see, there's another race on +Sako beside the human ones, and +it's a fairly civilized race. The +Sakae. The trouble is—the Sakae +aren't human."</p> + +<p>Kieran stared at her. "So +what? If they're intelligent—"</p> + +<p>"You talk as though it was the +simplest thing in the world," she +flashed.</p> + +<p>"Isn't it? If your Sakae are +intelligent and the humans of +Sako aren't, then the Sakae have +the rights on that world, don't +they?"</p> + +<p>She looked at him, not saying +anything, and again she had +that stricken look of one who +has tried and failed. Then from +up forward, without turning, +Webber spoke.</p> + +<p>"What do you think now of +Vaillant's fine idea, Paula?"</p> + +<p>"It can still work," she said, +but there was no conviction in +her voice.</p> + +<p>"If you don't mind," said +Kieran, with an edge to his voice, +"I'd still like to know what this +Sako business has to do with reviving +me."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="cpq">"T</span><span class="dcap">he</span> Sakae rule the humans on +that world," Paula answered. +"There are some of us who don't +believe they should. In the Council, +we're known as the Humanity +Party, because we believe +that humans should not be ruled +by non-humans."</p> + +<p>Again, Kieran was distracted +from his immediate question—this +time by the phrase "Non-human".</p> + +<p>"These Sakae—what are they +like?"</p> + +<p>"They're not monsters, if +that's what you're thinking of," +Paula said. "They're bipeds—lizardoid +rather than humanoid—and +are a fairly intelligent and +law-abiding lot."</p> + +<p>"If they're all that, and higher +in development than the humans, +why shouldn't they rule +their own world?" demanded +Kieran.</p> + +<p>Webber uttered a sardonic +laugh. Without turning he +asked, "Shall I change course +and go to Altair?"</p> + +<p>"No!" she said. Her eyes +flashed at Kieran and she spoke +almost breathlessly. "You're +very sure about things you just +heard about, aren't you? You +know what's right and you know +what's wrong, even though you've +only been in this time, this +universe, for a few hours!"</p> + +<p>Kieran looked at her closely. +He thought he was beginning to +get a glimmer of the shape of +things now.</p> + +<p>"You—all you who woke me +up illegally—you belong to this +Humanity Party, don't you? +You did it for some reason connected +with that?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she answered defiantly. +"We need a symbol in this political +struggle. We thought that +one of the oldtime space pioneers, +one of the humans who +began the conquest of the stars, +would be it. We—"</p> + +<p>Kieran interrupted. "I think I +get it. It was really considerate +of you. You drag a man back +from what amounts to death, for +a party rally. 'Oldtime space hero +condemns non-humans'—it +would go something like that, +wouldn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Listen—," she began.</p> + +<p>"Listen, hell," he said. He was +hot with rage, shaking with it. +"I am glad to say that you could +not possibly have picked a worse +symbol than me. I have no more +use for the idea of the innate +sacred superiority of one species +over another than I had for that +of one kind of man over another."</p> + +<p>Her face changed. From an +angry woman, she suddenly became +a professional psychologist, +coolly observing reactions.</p> + +<p>"It's not the political question +you really resent," she said. +"You've wakened to a strange +world and you're afraid of it, in +spite of all the pre-awakening +preparation we gave your subconscious. +You're afraid, and so +you're angry."</p> + +<p>Kieran got a grip on himself. +He shrugged. "What you say +may be true. But it doesn't +change the way I feel. I will not +help you one damned bit."</p> + +<p>Webber got up from his seat +and came back toward them, his +tall form stooping. He looked at +Kieran and then at the woman.</p> + +<p>"We have to settle this right +now," he said. "We're getting +near enough to Sako to go out of +drive. Are we going to land or +aren't we?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Paula steadily. +"We're landing."</p> + +<p>Webber glanced again at +Kieran's face. "But if that's the +way he feels—"</p> + +<p>"Go ahead and land," she said.</p> + +<h3>5.</h3> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">It was</span> nothing like landing in +a rocket. First there was the +business referred to as "going +out of drive". Paula made Kieran +strap in and she said, "You may +find this unpleasant, but just sit +tight. It doesn't last long." +Kieran sat stiff and glowering, +prepared for anything and determined +not to show it no matter +how he felt. Then Webber did +something to the control board +and the universe fell apart. +Kieran's stomach came up and +stuck in his throat. He was falling—up? +Down? Sideways? He +didn't know, but whichever it +was not all the parts of him were +falling at the same rate, or perhaps +it was not all in the same +direction, he didn't know that +either, but it was an exceptionally +hideous feeling. He opened his +mouth to protest, and all of a +sudden he was sitting normally +in the chair in the normal cabin +and screaming at the top of his +lungs.</p> + +<p>He shut up.</p> + +<p>Paula said, "I told you it +would be unpleasant."</p> + +<p>"So you did," said Kieran. He +sat, sweating. His hands and +feet were cold.</p> + +<p>Now for the first time he became +aware of motion. The flitter +seemed to hurtle forward at +comet-like speed. Kieran knew +that this was merely an ironic +little joke, because now they +were proceeding at something in +the range of normal velocity, +whereas before their speed had +been quite beyond his comprehension. +But he could comprehend +this. He could feel it. They +were going like a bat out of hell, +and somewhere ahead of them +was a planet, and he was closed +in, blind, a mouse in a nose-cone. +His insides writhed with helplessness +and the imminence of a +crash. He wanted very much to +start screaming again, but Paula +was watching him.</p> + +<p>In a few moments that desire +became academic. A whistling +shriek began faintly outside the +hull and built swiftly to a point +where nothing could have been +heard above it. Atmosphere. And +somewhere under the blind wall +of the flitter a rock-hard world-face +reeling and rushing, leaping +to meet them—</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">The</span> flitter slowed. It seemed to +hang motionless, quivering +faintly. Then it dropped. Express +elevator in the world's tallest +building, top to bottom—only +the elevator is a bubble and +the wind is tossing it from side +to side as it drops and there is no +bottom.</p> + +<p>They hung again, bounding +lightly on the unseen wind.</p> + +<p>Then down.</p> + +<p>And hang again.</p> + +<p>And down.</p> + +<p>Paula said suddenly, "Webber. +Webber, I think he's dying." She +began to unstrap.</p> + +<p>Kieran said faintly, "Am I +turning green?"</p> + +<p>She looked at him, frowning. +"Yes."</p> + +<p>"A simple old malady. I'm seasick. +Tell Webber to quit playing +humming-bird and put this +thing down."</p> + +<p>Paula made an impatient gesture +and tightened her belt +again.</p> + +<p>Hang and drop. Once more, +twice more. A little rocking +bounce, a light thump, motion +ceased. Webber turned a series +of switches. Silence.</p> + +<p>Kieran said, "Air?"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Webber</span> opened a hatch in +the side of the cabin. Light +poured in. It had to be sunlight, +Kieran knew, but it was a queer +color, a sort of tawny orange +that carried a pleasantly burning +heat. He got loose with +Paula helping him and tottered +to the hatch. The air smelled of +clean sun-warmed dust and some +kind of vegetation. Kieran +climbed out of the flitter, practically +throwing himself out in +his haste. He wanted solid +ground under him, he didn't care +whose or where.</p> + +<p>And as his boots thumped +onto the red-ochre sand, it occurred +to him that it had been +a very long time since he had +had solid ground underfoot. A +very long time indeed—</p> + +<p>His insides knotted up again, +and this time it was not seasickness +but fear, and he was +cold all through again in spite +of the hot new sun.</p> + +<p>He was afraid, not of the present, +nor of the future, but of the +past. He was afraid of the thing +tagged Reed Kieran, the stiff +blind voiceless thing wheeling +its slow orbit around the Moon, +companion to dead worlds and +dead space, brother to the cold +and the dark.</p> + +<p>He began to tremble.</p> + +<p>Paula shook him. She was +talking but he couldn't hear her. +He could only hear the rush of +eternal darkness past his ears, +the thin squeak of his shadow +brushing across the stars. Webber's +face was somewhere above +him, looking angry and disgusted. +He was talking to Paula, +shaking his head. They were far +away. Kieran was losing them, +drifting away from them on the +black tide. Then suddenly there +was something like an explosion, +a crimson flare across the black, +a burst of heat against the cold. +Shocked and wild, the physical +part of him clawed back to reality.</p> + +<p>Something hurt him, something +threatened him. He put his +hand to his cheek and it came +away red.</p> + +<p>Paula and Webber were yanking +at him, trying to get him to +move.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">A stone</span> whizzed past his +head. It struck the side of +the flitter with a sharp clack, +and fell. Kieran's nervous relays +finally connected. He jumped for +the open hatch. Automatically he +pushed Paula ahead of him, trying +to shield her, and she gave +him an odd startled look. Webber +was already inside. More +stones rattled around and one +grazed Kieran's thigh. It hurt. +His cheek was bleeding freely. +He rolled inside the flitter and +turned to look back out the +hatch. He was mad.</p> + +<p>"Who's doing it?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>Paula pointed. At first Kieran +was distracted by the strangeness +of the landscape. The flitter +crouched in a vastness of red-ochre +sand laced with some low-growing +plant that shone like +metallic gold in the sunlight. +The sand receded in tilted +planes lifting gradually to a +range of mountains on the right, +and dropping gradually to infinity +on the left. Directly in front +of the flitter and quite literally a +stone's throw away was the beginning +of a thick belt of trees +that grew beside a river, apparently +quite a wide one though he +could not see much but a tawny +sparkling of water. The course +of the river could be traced clear +back to the mountains by the +winding line of woods that followed +its bed. The trees themselves +were not like any Kieran +had seen before. There seemed to +be several varieties, all grotesque +in shape and exotic in color. +There were even some green +ones, with long sharp leaves that +looked like spearheads.</p> + +<p>Exotic or not, they made perfectly +adequate cover. Stones +came whistling out of the woods, +but Kieran could not see anything +where Paula was pointing +but an occasional shaking of +foliage.</p> + +<p>"Sakae?" he asked.</p> + +<p>Webber snorted. "You'll know +it when the Sakae find us. They +don't throw stones."</p> + +<p>"These are the humans," +Paula said. There was an indulgent +softness in her voice that +irritated Kieran.</p> + +<p>"I thought they were our dear +little friends," he said.</p> + +<p>"You frightened them."</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> frightened them?"</p> + +<p>"They've seen the flitter before. +But they're extremely alert +to modes of behavior, and they +knew you weren't acting right. +They thought you were sick."</p> + +<p>"So they tried to kill me. Nice +fellows."</p> + +<p>"Self-preservation," Webber +said. "They can't afford the luxury +of too much kindness."</p> + +<p>"They're very kind among +themselves," Paula said defensively. +To Kieran she added, "I +doubt if they were trying to kill +you. They just wanted to drive +you away."</p> + +<p>"Oh, well," said Kieran, "in +that case I wouldn't dream of +disappointing them. Let's go."</p> + +<p>Paula glared at him and turned +to Webber. "Talk to them."</p> + +<p>"I hope there's time," Webber +grunted, glancing at the sky. +"We're sitting ducks here. Keep +your patient quiet—any more of +that moaning and flopping and +we're sunk."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">He</span> picked up a large plastic +container and moved closer +to the door.</p> + +<p>Paula looked at Kieran's cheek. +"Let me fix that."</p> + +<p>"Don't bother," he said. At +this moment he hoped the Sakae, +whoever and whatever they +were, would come along and +clap these two into some suitable +place for the rest of their lives.</p> + +<p>Webber began to "talk".</p> + +<p>Kieran stared at him, fascinated. +He had expected words—primitive +words, perhaps resembling +the click-speech of Earth's +stone-age survivals, but words +of some sort. Webber hooted. It +was a soft reassuring sound, repeated +over and over, but it was +not a word. The rattle of stones +diminished, then stopped. Webber +continued to make his hooting +call. Presently it was answered. +Webber turned and nodded +at Paula, smiling. He +reached into the plastic container +and drew forth a handful of +brownish objects that smelled to +Kieran like dried fruit. Webber +tossed these out onto the sand. +Now he made a different sound, +a grunting and whuffling. There +was a silence. Webber made the +sound again.</p> + +<p>On the third try the people +came out of the woods.</p> + +<p>In all there were perhaps +twenty-five of them. They came +slowly and furtively, moving a +step or two at a time, then halting +and peering, prepared to run. +The able-bodied men came first, +with one in the lead, a fine-looking +chap in early middle age who +was apparently the chief. The +women, the old men, and the +children followed, trickling +gradually out of the shadow of +the trees but remaining where +they could disappear in a flash +if alarmed. They were all perfectly +naked, tall and slender +and large-eyed, their muscles +strung for speed and agility +rather than massive strength. +Their bodies gleamed a light +bronze color in the sun, and +Kieran noticed that the men +were beardless and smooth-skinned. +Both men and women +had long hair, ranging in color +from black to tawny, and very +clean and glistening. They were +a beautiful people, as deer are a +beautiful people, graceful, innocent, +and wild. The men came to +the dried fruits which had been +scattered for them. They picked +them up and sniffed them, bit +them, then began to eat, repeating +the grunt-and-whuffle call. +The women and children and old +men decided everything was safe +and joined them. Webber tossed +out more fruit, and then got out +himself, carrying the plastic box.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="cpq">"W</span><span class="dcap">hat</span> does he do next?" +whispered Kieran to Paula. +"Scratch their ears? I used to +tame squirrels this way when I +was a kid."</p> + +<p>"Shut up," she warned him. +Webber beckoned and she +nudged him to move out of the +flitter. "Slow and careful."</p> + +<p>Kieran slid out of the flitter. +Big glistening eyes swung to +watch him. The eating stopped. +Some of the little ones scuttled +for the trees. Kieran froze. Webber +hooted and whuffled some +more and the tension relaxed. +Kieran approached the group +with Paula. There was suddenly +no truth in what he was doing. +He was an actor in a bad scene, +mingling with impossible characters +in an improbable setting. +Webber making ridiculous noises +and tossing his dried fruit +around like a caricature of somebody +sowing, Paula with her +brisk professionalism all dissolved +in misty-eyed fondness, +himself an alien in this time and +place, and these perfectly normal-appearing +people behaving +like orang-utans with their fur +shaved off. He started to laugh +and then thought better of it. +Once started, he might not be +able to stop.</p> + +<p>"Let them get used to you," +said Webber softly.</p> + +<p>Paula obviously had been here +before. She had begun to make +noises too, a modified hooting +more like a pigeon's call. Kieran +just stood still. The people +moved in around them, sniffing, +touching. There was no conversation, +no laughing or giggling +even among the little girls. A +particularly beautiful young +woman stood just behind the +chief, watching the strangers +with big yellow cat-eyes. Kieran +took her to be the man's daughter. +He smiled at her. She continued +to stare, deadpan and +blank-eyed, with no answering +flicker of a smile. It was as +though she had never seen one +before. Kieran shivered. All this +silence and unresponsiveness became +eerie.</p> + +<p>"I'm happy to tell you," he +murmured to Paula, "that I +don't think much of your little +pets?"</p> + +<p>She could not allow herself to +be sharply angry. She only said, +in a whisper, "They are not pets, +they are not animals. They—"</p> + +<p>She broke off. Something had +come over the naked people. Every +head had lifted, every eye +had turned away from the strangers. +They were listening. Even +the littlest ones were still.</p> + +<p>Kieran could not hear anything +except the wind in the +trees.</p> + +<p>"What—?" he started to ask.</p> + +<p>Webber made an imperative +gesture for silence. The tableau +held for a brief second longer. +Then the brown-haired man who +seemed to be the leader made a +short harsh noise. The people +turned and vanished into the +trees.</p> + +<p>"The Sakae," Webber said. +"Get out of sight." He ran toward +the flitter. Paula grabbed +Kieran's sleeve and pushed him +toward the trees.</p> + +<p>"What's going on?" he demanded +as he ran.</p> + +<p>"Their ears are better than +ours. There's a patrol ship coming, +I think."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">The</span> shadows took them in, orange-and-gold-splashed +shadows +under strange trees. Kieran +looked back. Webber had +been inside the flitter. Now he +tumbled out of the hatch and ran +toward them. Behind him the +hatch closed and the flitter +stirred and then took off all by +itself, humming.</p> + +<p>"They'll follow it for a while," +Webber panted. "It may give us +a chance to get away." He and +Paula started after the running +people.</p> + +<p>Kieran balked. "I don't know +why I'm running away from anybody."</p> + +<p>Webber pulled out a snub-nosed +instrument that looked +enough like a gun to be very convincing. +He pointed it at Kieran's +middle.</p> + +<p>"Reason one," he said. "If the +Sakae catch Paula and me here +we're in very big trouble. Reason +two—this is a closed area, and +you're with us, so <i>you</i> will be in +very big trouble." He looked +coldly at Kieran. "The first reason +is the one that interests me +most."</p> + +<p>Kieran shrugged. "Well, now +I know." He ran.</p> + +<p>Only then did he hear the low +heavy thrumming in the sky.</p> + +<h3>6.</h3> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">The</span> sound came rumbling +very swiftly toward them. It +was a completely different sound +from the humming of the flitter, +and it seemed to Kieran to hold +a note of menace. He stopped in +a small clearing where he might +see up through the trees. He +wanted a look at this ship or flier +or whatever it was that had been +built and was flown by non-humans.</p> + +<p>But Webber shoved him +roughly on into a clump of squat +trees that were the color of sherry +wine, with flat thick leaves.</p> + +<p>"Don't move," he said.</p> + +<p>Paula was hugging a tree beside +him. She nodded to him to +do as Webber said.</p> + +<p>"They have very powerful +scanners." She pointed with her +chin. "Look. They've learned."</p> + +<p>The harsh warning barks of +the men sounded faintly, then +were hushed. Nothing moved, +except by the natural motion +of the wind. The people crouched +among the trees, so still that +Kieran would not have seen them +if he had not known they were +there.</p> + +<p>The patrol craft roared past, +cranking up speed as it went. +Webber grinned. "They'll be a +couple of hours at least, overhauling +and examining the flitter. +By that time it'll be dark, +and by morning we'll be in the +mountains."</p> + +<p>The people were already moving. +They headed upstream, going +at a steady, shuffling trot. +Three of the women, Kieran noticed, +had babies in their arms. +The older children ran beside +their mothers. Two of the men +and several of the women were +white-haired. They ran also.</p> + +<p>"Do you like to see them run?" +asked Paula, with a sharp note +of passion in her voice. "Does it +look good to you?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Kieran, frowning. +He looked in the direction in +which the sound of the patrol +craft was vanishing.</p> + +<p>"Move along," Webber said. +"They'll leave us far enough behind +as it is."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Kieran</span> followed the naked +people through the woods, +beside the tawny river. Paula +and Webber jogged beside him. +The shadows were long now, +reaching out across the water.</p> + +<p>Paula kept glancing at him +anxiously, as though to detect +any sign of weakness on his +part. "You're doing fine," she +said. "You should. Your body +was brought back to normal +strength and tone, before you +ever were awakened."</p> + +<p>"They'll slow down when it's +dark, anyway," said Webber.</p> + +<p>The old people and the little +children ran strongly.</p> + +<p>"Is their village there?" +Kieran asked, indicating the distant +mountains.</p> + +<p>"They don't live in villages," +Paula said. "But the mountains +are safer. More places to hide."</p> + +<p>"You said this was a closed +area. What is it, a hunting preserve?"</p> + +<p>"The Sakae don't hunt them +any more."</p> + +<p>"But they used to?"</p> + +<p>"Well," Webber said, "a long +time ago. Not for food, the Sakae +are vegetarians, but—"</p> + +<p>"But," said Paula, "they were +the dominant race, and the people +were simply beasts of the +field. When they competed for +land and food the people were +hunted down or driven out." She +swung an expressive hand toward +the landscape beyond the +trees. "Why do you think they +live in this desert, scraping a +miserable existence along the +watercourses? It's land the +Sakae didn't want. Now, of +course, they have no objection to +setting it aside as a sort of game +preserve. The humans are protected, +the Sakae tell us. They're +living their natural life in their +natural environment, and when +we demand that a program be—"</p> + +<p>She was out of breath and had +to stop, panting. Webber finished +for her.</p> + +<p>"We want them taught, lifted +out of this naked savagery. The +Sakae say it's impossible."</p> + +<p>"Is it true?" asked Kieran.</p> + +<p>"No," said Paula fiercely. "It's +a matter of pride. They want to +keep their dominance, so they +simply won't admit that the people +are anything more than animals, +and they won't give them +a chance to be anything more."</p> + +<p>There was no more talking +after that, but even so the three +outlanders grew more and more +winded and the people gained on +them. The sun went down in a +blaze of blood-orange light that +tinted the trees in even more +impossible colors and set the +river briefly on fire. Then night +came, and just after the darkness +shut down the patrol craft +returned, beating up along the +winding river bed. Kieran froze +under the black trees and the +hair lifted on his skin. For the +first time he felt like a hunted +thing. For the first time he felt +a personal anger.</p> + +<p>The patrol craft drummed +away and vanished. "They won't +come back until daylight," Webber +said.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">He</span> handed out little flat packets +of concentrated food +from his pockets. They munched +as they walked. Nobody said +anything. The wind, which had +dropped at sundown, picked up +from a different quarter and began +to blow again. It got cold. +After a while they caught up +with the people, who had stopped +to rest and eat. The babies and +old people for whom Kieran had +felt a worried pity were in much +better shape than he. He drank +from the river and then sat +down. Paula and Webber sat beside +him, on the ground. The +wind blew hard from the desert, +dry and chill. The trees thrashed +overhead. Against the pale glimmer +of the water Kieran could +see naked bodies moving along +the river's edge, wading, bending, +grubbing in the mud. Apparently +they found things, for +he could see that they were eating. +Somewhere close by other +people were stripping fruit or +nuts from the trees. A man +picked up a stone and pounded +something with a cracking +noise, then dropped the stone +again. They moved easily in the +dark, as though they were used +to it. Kieran recognized the leader's +yellow-eyed daughter, her +beautiful slender height outlined +against the pale-gleaming water. +She stood up to her ankles in the +soft mud, holding something +tight in her two hands, eating.</p> + +<p>The sweat dried on Kieran. He +began to shiver.</p> + +<p>"You're sure that patrol ship +won't come back?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Not until they can see what +they're looking for."</p> + +<p>"Then I guess it's safe." He +began to scramble around, feeling +for dried sticks.</p> + +<p>"What are you doing?"</p> + +<p>"Getting some firewood."</p> + +<p>"No." Paula was beside him in +an instant, her hand on his arm, +"No, you mustn't do that."</p> + +<p>"But Webber said—"</p> + +<p>"It isn't the patrol ship, +Kieran. It's the people. They—"</p> + +<p>"They what?"</p> + +<p>"I told you they were low on +the social scale. This is one of +the basic things they have to be +taught. Right now they still regard +fire as a danger, something +to run from."</p> + +<p>"I see," Kieran said, and let +the kindling fall. "Very well, if +I can't have a fire, I'll have you. +Your body will warm me." He +pulled her into his arms.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">She</span> gasped, more in astonishment, +he thought, than +alarm. "What are you talking +about?"</p> + +<p>"That's a line from an old +movie. From a number of old +movies, in fact. Not bad, eh?"</p> + +<p>He held her tight. She was +definitely female. After a moment +he pushed her away.</p> + +<p>"That was a mistake. I want +to be able to go on disliking you +without any qualifying considerations."</p> + +<p>She laughed, a curiously flat +little sound. "Was everybody +crazy in your day?" she asked. +And then, "Reed—"</p> + +<p>It was the first time she had +used his given name. "What?"</p> + +<p>"When they threw the stones, +and we got back into the flitter, +you pushed me ahead of you. +You were guarding me. Why?"</p> + +<p>He stared at her, or rather at +the pale blur of her standing +close to him. "Well, it's always +been sort of the custom for the +men to— But now that I think +of it, Webber didn't bother."</p> + +<p>"No," said Paula. "Back in +your day women were still taking +advantage of the dual standard—demanding +complete equality +with men but clinging to their +special status. We've got beyond +that."</p> + +<p>"Do you like it? Beyond, I +mean."</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said. "It was good +of you to do that, but—"</p> + +<p>Webber said, "They're moving +again. Come on."</p> + +<p>The people walked this time, +strung out in a long line between +the trees and the water, where +the light was a little better and +the way more open. The three +outlanders tagged behind, clumsy +in their boots and clothing. +The long hair of the people blew +in the wind and their bare feet +padded softly, light and swift.</p> + +<p>Kieran looked up at the sky. +The trees obscured much of it so +that all he could see was some +scattered stars overhead. But he +thought that somewhere a moon +was rising.</p> + +<p>He asked Paula and she said, +"Wait. You'll see."</p> + +<p>Night and the river rolled behind +them. The moonlight became +brighter, but it was not at +all like the moonlight Kieran remembered +from long ago and +far away. That had had a cold +tranquility to it, but this light +was neither cold nor tranquil. It +seemed somehow to shift color, +too, which made it even less adequate +for seeing than the white +moonlight he was used to. Sometimes +as it filtered through the +trees it seemed, ice-green, and +again it was reddish or amber, +or blue.</p> + +<p>They came to a place where +the river made a wide bend and +they cut across it, clear of the +trees. Paula touched Kieran's +arm and pointed. "Look."</p> + +<p>Kieran looked, and then he +stopped still. The light was not +moonlight, and its source was +not a moon. It was a globular +cluster of stars, hung in the sky +like a swarm of fiery bees, a +burning and pulsing of many +colors, diamond-white and gold, +green and crimson, peacock blue +and smoky umber. Kieran +stared, and beside him Paula +murmured, "I've been on a lot of +planets, but none of them have +anything like this."</p> + +<p>The people moved swiftly on, +paying no attention at all to the +sky.</p> + +<p>Reluctantly Kieran followed +them into the obscuring woods. +He kept looking at the open sky +above the river, waiting for the +cluster to rise high so he could +see it.</p> + +<p>It was some time after this, +but before the cluster rose clear +of the trees, that Kieran got the +feeling that something, or someone, +was following them.</p> + +<h3>7.</h3> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">He</span> had stopped to catch his +breath and shake an accumulation +of sand out of his +boots. He was leaning against a +tree with his back to the wind, +which meant that he was facing +their back-trail, and he thought +he saw a shadow move where +there was nothing to cast a shadow. +He straightened up with the +little trip-hammers of alarm +beating all over him, but he +could see nothing more. He +thought he might have been +mistaken. Just the same, he ran +to catch up with the others.</p> + +<p>The people were moving steadily. +Kieran knew that their +senses were far keener than his, +and they were obviously not +aware of any danger other than +the basic one of the Sakae. He +decided that he must have been +seeing things.</p> + +<p>But an uneasiness persisted. +He dropped behind again, this +time on purpose, after they had +passed a clearing. He stayed hidden +behind a tree-trunk and +watched. The cluster-light was +bright now but very confusing +to the eye. He heard a rustling +that he did not think was wind, +and he thought that something +started to cross the clearing and +then stopped, as though it had +caught his scent.</p> + +<p>Then he thought that he heard +rustlings at both sides of the +clearing, stealthy sounds of +stalking that closed in toward +him. Only the wind, he told himself, +but again he turned to run. +This time he met Paula, coming +back to look for him.</p> + +<p>"Reed, are you all right?" she +asked. He caught her arm and +pulled her around and made her +run. "What is it? What's the +matter?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know." He hurried +with her until he could see Webber +ahead, and beyond him the +bare backs and blowing hair of +the people. "Listen," he said, +"are there any predators here?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," Paula said, and Webber +turned sharply around.</p> + +<p>"Have you seen something?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know. I thought I did. +I'm not sure."</p> + +<p>"Where?"</p> + +<p>"Behind us."</p> + +<p>Webber made the harsh barking +danger call, and the people +stopped. Webber stood looking +back the way they had come. The +women caught the children and +the men fell back to where Webber +stood. They looked and listened, +sniffing the air. Kieran +listened too, but now he did not +hear any rustlings except the +high thrashing of the branches. +Nothing stirred visibly and the +wind would carry away any +warning scent.</p> + +<p>The men turned away. The +people moved on again. Webber +shrugged.</p> + +<p>"You must have been mistaken, +Kieran."</p> + +<p>"Maybe. Or maybe they just +can't think beyond the elementary. +If they don't smell it, it isn't +there. If something is after us +it's coming up-wind, the way any +hunting animal works. A couple +of the men ought to circle around +and—"</p> + +<p>"Come on," said Webber wearily.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">They</span> followed the people beside +the river. The cluster +was high now, a hive of suns reflected +in the flowing water, a +kaleidoscopic rippling of colors.</p> + +<p>Now the women were carrying +the smaller children. The ones +too large to be carried were lagging +behind a little. So were the +aged. Not much, yet. Kieran, +conscious that he was weaker +than the weakest of these, looked +ahead at the dim bulk of the +mountains and thought that +they ought to be able to make it. +He was not at all sure that he +would.</p> + +<p>The river made another bend. +The trail lay across the bend, +clear of the trees. It was a wide +bend, perhaps two miles across +the neck. Ahead, where the trail +joined the river again, there was +a rocky hill. Something about +the outlines of the hill seemed +wrong to Kieran, but it was too +far away to be sure of anything. +Overhead the cluster burned +gloriously. The people set out +across the sand.</p> + +<p>Webber looked back. "You +see?" he said. "Nothing."</p> + +<p>They went on. Kieran was beginning +to feel very tired now, +all the artificial strength that +had been pumped into him before +his awakening was running +out. Webber and Paula walked +with their heads down, striding +determinedly but without joy.</p> + +<p>"What do you think now?" she +asked Kieran. "Is this any way +for humans to live?"</p> + +<p>The ragged line of women and +children moved ahead of them, +with the men in the lead. It was +not natural, Kieran thought, for +children to be able to travel so +far, and then he remembered +that the young of non-predacious +species have to be strong and +fleet at an early age.</p> + +<p>Suddenly one of the women +made a harsh, shrill cry.</p> + +<p>Kieran looked where she was +looking, off to the left, to the +river and the curving line of +trees. A large black shadow +slipped across the sand. He +looked behind him. There were +other shadows, coming with long +easy bounds out of the trees, fanning +out in a shallow crescent. +They reminded Kieran of some +animal he had once seen in a zoo, +a partly catlike, partly doglike +beast, a cheetah he thought it +had been called, only the cheetah +was spotted like a leopard +and these creatures were black, +with stiff, upstanding ears. They +bayed, and the coursing began.</p> + +<p>"Nothing," said Kieran bitterly. +"I count seven."</p> + +<p>Webber said, "My God, I—"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">The</span> people ran. They tried to +break back to the river and +the trees that could be climbed +to safety, but the hunters turned +them. Then they fled blindly forward, +toward the hill. They ran +with all their strength, making +no sound. Kieran and Webber +ran with them, with Paula between +them. Webber seemed absolutely +appalled.</p> + +<p>"Where's that gun you had?" +Kieran panted.</p> + +<p>"It's not a gun, only a short-range +shocker," he said. "It +wouldn't stop these things. Look +at them!"</p> + +<p>They bounded, sporting +around them, howling with a +sound like laughter. They were +as large as leopards and their +eyes glowed in the cluster-light. +They seemed to be enjoying +themselves, as though hunting +was the most delightful game in +the world. One of them ran up +to within two feet of Kieran and +snapped at him with its great +jaws, dodging agilely when he +raised his arm. They drove the +people, faster and faster. At first +the men had formed around the +women and children. But the +formation began to disintegrate +as the weaker ones dropped behind, +and no attempt was made +to keep it. Panic was stronger +than instinct now. Kieran looked +ahead. "If we can make it to that +hill—"</p> + +<div class="figright"> +<img src="images/002.png" width="331" height="500" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>Paula screamed and he stumbled +over a child, a girl about +five, crawling on her hands and +knees. He picked her up. She bit +and thrashed and tore at him, +her bare little body hard as +whalebone and slippery with +sweat. He could not hold onto +her. She kicked herself free of +his hands and rushed wildly out +of reach, and one of the black +hunters pounced in and bore her +away, shrieking thinly like a +fledgling bird in the jaws of a +cat.</p> + +<p>"Oh my God," said Paula, and +covered her head with her arms, +trying to shut out sight and +sound. He caught her and said +harshly, "Don't faint, because I +can't carry you." The child's +mother, whichever of the women +it might have been, did not look +back.</p> + +<p>An old woman who strayed +aside was pulled down and +dragged off, and then one of the +white-haired men. The hill was +closer. Kieran saw now what +was wrong with it. Part of it was +a building. He was too tired and +too sick to be interested, except +as it offered a refuge. He spoke +to Webber, with great difficulty +because he was winded. And then +he realized that Webber wasn't +there.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Webber</span> had stumbled and +fallen. He had started to get +up, but the hunters were on him. +He was on his hands and knees +facing them, screaming at them +to get away from him. He had, +obviously, had little or no experience +with raw violence. Kieran +ran back to him, with Paula +close behind.</p> + +<p>"Use your gun!" he yelled. He +was afraid of the black hunters, +but he was full of rage and the +rage outweighed the fear. He +yelled at them, cursing them. He +hurled sand into their eyes, and +one that was creeping up on +Webber from the side he kicked. +The creature drew off a little, not +frightened but surprised. They +were not used to this sort of +thing from humans. "Your +gun!" Kieran roared again, and +Webber pulled the snub-nosed +thing out of his pocket. He stood +up and said unsteadily, "I told +you, it's not a gun. It won't kill +anything. I don't think—"</p> + +<p>"Use it," said Kieran. "And +get moving again. Slowly."</p> + +<p>They started to move, and +then across the sky a great iron +voice spoke like thunder. "Lie +down," it said, "please. Lie down +flat."</p> + +<p>Kieran turned his head, startled. +From the direction of the +building on the hill a vehicle was +speeding toward them.</p> + +<p>"The Sakae," said Webber +with what was almost a sob of +relief. "Lie down."</p> + +<p>As he did so, Kieran saw a +pale flash shoot out from the +vehicle and knock over a hunter +still hanging on the flanks of +the fleeing people. He hugged +the sand. Something went whining +and whistling over him, +there was a thunk and a screech. +It was repeated, and then the +iron voice spoke again.</p> + +<p>"You may get up now. Please +remain where you are." The vehicle +was much closer. They +were bathed in sudden light. The +voice said, "Mr. Webber, you are +holding a weapon. Please drop +it."</p> + +<p>"It's only a little shocker," +Webber said, plaintively. He +dropped it.</p> + +<p>The vehicle had wide tracks +that threw up clouds of sand. It +came clanking to a halt. Kieran, +shading his eyes, thought he distinguished +two creatures inside, +a driver and a passenger.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">The</span> passenger emerged, +climbing with some difficulty +over the steep step of the track, +his tail rattling down behind him +like a length of thick cable. Once +on the ground he became quite +agile, moving with a sort of oddly +graceful prance on his powerful +legs. He approached, his attention +centered on Kieran. But +he observed the amenities, placing +one delicate hand on his +breast and making a slight bow.</p> + +<p>"Doctor Ray." His muzzle, +shaped something like a duck's +bill, nevertheless formed Paula's +name tolerably well. "And you, +I think, are Mr. Kieran."</p> + +<p>Kieran said, "Yes." The star-cluster +blazed overhead. The +dead beasts lay behind him, the +people with their flying hair had +run on beyond his sight. He had +been dead for a hundred years +and now he was alive again. Now +he was standing on alien soil, +facing an alien form of life, communicating +with it, and he was +so dog-tired and every sensory +nerve was so thoroughly flayed +that he had nothing left to react +with. He simply looked at the +Saka as he might have looked at +a fence-post, and said, "Yes."</p> + +<p>The Saka made his formal little +bow again. "I am Bregg." He +shook his head. "I'm glad I was +able to reach you in time. You +people don't seem to have any +notion of the amount of trouble +you make for us—"</p> + +<p>Paula, who had not spoken +since the child was carried off, +suddenly screamed at Bregg, +"Murderer!"</p> + +<p>She sprang at him, striking +him in blind hysteria.</p> + +<h3>8.</h3> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Bregg</span> sighed. He caught +Paula in those fine small +hands that seemed to have amazing +strength and held her, at +arm's length. "Doctor Ray," he +said. He shook her. "Doctor +Ray." She stopped screaming. "I +don't wish to administer a sedative +because then you will say +that I drugged you. But I will if +I must."</p> + +<p>Kieran said, "I'll keep her +quiet."</p> + +<p>He took her from Bregg. She +collapsed against him and began +to cry. "Murderers," she whispered. +"That little girl, those old +people—"</p> + +<p>Webber said, "You could exterminate +those beasts. You +don't have to let them hunt the +people like that. It's—it's—"</p> + +<p>"Unhuman is the word you +want," said Bregg. His voice was +exceedingly weary. "Please get +into the car."</p> + +<p>They climbed in. The car +churned around and sped back +toward the building. Paula shivered, +and Kieran held her in his +arms. Webber said after a moment +or two, "How did you happen +to be here, Bregg?"</p> + +<p>"When we caught the flitter +and found it empty, it was obvious +that you were with the people, +and it became imperative to +find you before you came to +harm. I remembered that the +trail ran close by this old outpost +building, so I had the patrol ship +drop us here with an emergency +vehicle."</p> + +<p>Kieran said, "You knew the +people were coming this way?"</p> + +<p>"Of course." Bregg sounded +surprised. "They migrate every +year at the beginning of the dry +season. How do you suppose +Webber found them so easily?"</p> + +<p>Kieran looked at Webber. He +asked, "Then they weren't running +from the Sakae?"</p> + +<p>"Of course they were," Paula +said. "You saw them yourself, +cowering under the trees when +the ship went over."</p> + +<p>"The patrol ships frighten +them," Bregg said. "Sometimes +to the point of stampeding them, +which is why we use them only +in emergencies. The people do +not connect the ships with us."</p> + +<p>"That," said Paula flatly, "is +a lie."</p> + +<p>Bregg sighed. "Enthusiasts +always believe what they want to +believe. Come and see for yourself."</p> + +<p>She straightened up. "What +have you done to them?"</p> + +<p>"We've caught them in a +trap," said Bregg, "and we are +presently going to stick needles +into them—a procedure necessitated +by your presence, Doctor +Ray. They're highly susceptible +to imported viruses, as you +should remember—one of your +little parties of do-gooders succeeded +in wiping out a whole +band of them not too many years +ago. So—inoculations and quarantine."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Lights</span> had blazed up in the +area near the building. The +car sped toward them.</p> + +<p>Kieran said slowly, "Why +don't you just exterminate the +hunters and have done with +them?"</p> + +<p>"In your day, Mr. Kieran—yes, +I've heard all about you—in +your day, did you on Earth exterminate +the predators so that +their natural prey might live +more happily?"</p> + +<p>Bregg's long muzzle and sloping +skull were profiled against +the lights.</p> + +<p>"No," said Kieran, "we didn't. +But in that case, they were all +animals."</p> + +<p>"Exactly," said Bregg. "No, +wait, Doctor Ray. Spare me the +lecture. I can give you a much +better reason than that, one even +you can't quarrel with. It's a +matter of ecology. The number +of humans destroyed by these +predators annually is negligible +but they do themselves destroy +an enormous number of small +creatures with which the humans +compete for their food. If +we exterminated the hunters the +small animals would multiply so +rapidly that the humans would +starve to death."</p> + +<p>The car stopped beside the +hill, at the edge of the lighted +area. A sort of makeshift corral +of wire fencing had been set up, +with wide wings to funnel the +people into the enclosure, where +a gate was shut on them. Two +Sakae were mounting guard as +the party from the car approached +the corral. Inside the +fence Kieran could see the people, +flopped around in positions +of exhaustion. They did not seem +to be afraid now. A few of them +were drinking from a supply of +water provided for them. There +was food scattered for them on +the ground.</p> + +<p>Bregg said something in his +own language to one of the +guards, who looked surprised +and questioned him, then departed, +springing strongly on +his powerful legs. "Wait," said +Bregg.</p> + +<p>They waited, and in a moment +or two the guard came back leading +one of the black hunting +beasts on a chain. It was a female, +somewhat smaller than the +ones Kieran had fought with, +and having a slash of white on +the throat and chest. She howled +and sprang up on Bregg, butting +her great head into his shoulder, +wriggling with delight. He +petted her, talking to her, and +she laughed doglike and licked +his cheek.</p> + +<p>"They domesticate well," he +said. "We've had a tame breed +for centuries."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">He</span> moved a little closer to the +corral, holding tight to the +animal's chain. Suddenly she became +aware of the people. Instantly +the good-natured pet +turned into a snarling fury. +She reared on her hind legs and +screamed, and inside the corral +the people roused up. They were +not frightened now. They spat +and chattered, clawing up sand +and pebbles and bits of food to +throw through the fence. Bregg +handed the chain to the guard, +who hauled the animal away by +main force.</p> + +<p>Paula said coldly, "If your +point was that the people are not +kind to animals, my answer is +that you can hardly blame them."</p> + +<p>"A year ago," Bregg said, +"some of the people got hold of +her two young ones. They were +torn to pieces before they could +be saved, and she saw it. I can't +blame her, either."</p> + +<p>He went on to the gate and +opened it and went inside. The +people drew back from him. They +spat at him, too, and pelted him +with food and pebbles. He spoke +to them, sternly, in the tone of +one speaking to unruly dogs, and +he spoke words, in his own +tongue. The people began to +shuffle about uneasily. They +stopped throwing things. He +stood waiting.</p> + +<p>The yellow-eyed girl came sidling +forward and rubbed herself +against his thigh, head, +shoulder and flank. He reached +down and stroked her, and she +whimpered with pleasure and +arched her back.</p> + +<p>"Oh, for God's sake," said +Kieran, "let's get out of here."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Later</span>, they sat wearily on +fallen blocks of cement inside +a dusty, shadowy room of +the old building. Only a hand-lamp +dispelled the gloom, and +the wind whispered coldly, and +Bregg walked to and fro in his +curious prance as he talked.</p> + +<p>"It will be a little while before +the necessary medical team can +be picked up and brought here," +he said. "We shall have to wait."</p> + +<p>"And then?" asked Kieran.</p> + +<p>"First to—" Bregg used a +word that undoubtedly named a +city of the Sakae but that meant +nothing to Kieran, "—and then +to Altair Two. This, of course, is +a council matter."</p> + +<p>He stopped and looked with +bright, shrewd eyes at Kieran. +"You are quite the sensation already, +Mr. Kieran. The whole +community of starworlds is already +aware of the illegal resuscitation +of one of the pioneer +spacemen, and of course there is +great interest." He paused. +"You, yourself, have done nothing +unlawful. You cannot very +well be sent back to sleep, and +undoubtedly the council will +want to hear you. I am curious +as to what you will say."</p> + +<p>"About Sako?" said Kieran. +"About—them?" He made a gesture +toward a window through +which the wind brought the +sound of stirring, of the gruntings +and whufflings of the corralled +people.</p> + +<p>"Yes. About them."</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you how I feel," +Kieran said flatly. He saw Paula +and Webber lean forward in the +shadows. "I'm a human man. +The people out there may be savage, +low as the beasts, good for +nothing the way they are—but +they're human. You Sakae may +be intelligent, civilized, reasonable, +but you're not human. +When I see you ordering them +around like beasts, I want to +kill you. That's how I feel."</p> + +<p>Bregg did not change his bearing, +but he made a small sound +that was almost a sigh.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said. "I feared it +would be so. A man of your +times—a man from a world +where humans were all-dominant—would +feel that way." He +turned and looked at Paula and +Webber. "It appears that your +scheme, to this extent, was successful."</p> + +<p>"No, I wouldn't say that," said +Kieran.</p> + +<p>Paula stood up. "But you just +told us how you feel—"</p> + +<p>"And it's the truth," said +Kieran. "But there's something +else." He looked thoughtfully at +her. "It was a good idea. It was +bound to work—a man of my +time was bound to feel just this +way you wanted him to feel, and +would go away from here crying +your party slogans and believing +them. But you overlooked something—"</p> + +<p>He paused, looking out the +window into the sky, at the faint +vari-colored radiance of the cluster.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="cpq">"Y</span><span class="dcap">ou</span> overlooked the fact that +when you awoke me, I would +no longer be a man of my own +time—or of any time. I was in +darkness for a hundred years—with +the stars my brothers, and +no man touching me. Maybe that +chills a man's feelings, maybe +something deep in his mind lives +and has time to think. I've told +you how I feel, yes. But I haven't +told you what I think—"</p> + +<p>He stopped again, then said, +"The people out there in the corral +have my form, and my instinctive +loyalty is to them. But +instinct isn't enough. It would +have kept us in the mud of Earth +forever, if it could. Reason took +us out to the wider universe. Instinct +tells me that those out +there are my people. Reason tells +me that you—" he looked at +Bregg, "—who are abhorrent to +me, who would make my skin +creep if I touched you, you who +go by reason—that you are my +real people. Instinct made a hell +of Earth for millennia—I say +we ought to leave it behind us +there in the mud and not let it +make a hell of the stars. For you'll +run into this same problem over +and over again as you go out into +the wider universe, and the old +parochial human loyalties must be +altered, to solve it."</p> + +<p>He looked at Paula and said, +"I'm sorry, but if anyone asks +me, that is what I'll say."</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry, too," she said, +rage and dejection ringing in +her voice. "Sorry we woke you. I +hope I never see you again."</p> + +<p>Kieran shrugged. "After all, +you did wake me. You're responsible +for me. Here I am, +facing a whole new universe, +and I'll need you." He went over +and patted her shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Damn you," she said. But she +did not move away from him.</p> + +<p class="theend">THE END</p> + +<div class="figtran"> +<a href="images/003-2.jpg"><img src="images/003-1.jpg" width="142" height="200" alt="" title="" /></a> +<b><big>Transcriber's Note:</big></b><br /><br /> +This etext was produced from <i>Amazing Stories Fact and Science Fiction</i> May +1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. +copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and +typographical errors have been corrected without note.</div> + +<hr class="dfx" /> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Stars, My Brothers, by Edmond Hamilton + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STARS, MY BROTHERS *** + +***** This file should be named 24870-h.htm or 24870-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/8/7/24870/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Stars, My Brothers + +Author: Edmond Hamilton + +Illustrator: Virgil Finlay + +Release Date: March 18, 2008 [EBook #24870] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STARS, MY BROTHERS *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + THE STARS, + MY BROTHERS + + By + EDMOND + HAMILTON + + Illustrated by FINLAY + + + _He was afraid--not of the present or the future, + but of the past. He was afraid of the thing + tagged Reed Kieran, that stiff blind voiceless + thing wheeling its slow orbit around the Moon, + companion to dead worlds and silent space._ + + +[Illustration] + + +1. + +Something tiny went wrong, but no one ever knew whether it was in an +electric relay or in the brain of the pilot. + +The pilot was Lieutenant Charles Wandek, UNRC, home address: 1677 +Anstey Avenue, Detroit. He did not survive the crash of his ferry into +Wheel Five. Neither did his three passengers, a young French +astrophysicist, an East Indian expert on magnetic fields, and a +forty-year-old man from Philadelphia who was coming out to replace a +pump technician. + +Someone else who did not survive was Reed Kieran, the only man in Wheel +Five itself to lose his life. Kieran, who was thirty-six years old, was +an accredited scientist-employee of UNRC. Home address: 815 Elm Street, +Midland Springs, Ohio. + +Kieran, despite the fact that he was a confirmed bachelor, was in Wheel +Five because of a woman. But the woman who had sent him there was no +beautiful lost love. Her name was Gertrude Lemmiken; she was nineteen +years old and overweight, with a fat, stupid face. She suffered from +head-colds, and sniffed constantly in the Ohio college classroom where +Kieran taught Physics Two. + +One March morning, Kieran could bear it no longer. He told himself, "If +she sniffs this morning, I'm through. I'll resign and join the UNRC." + +Gertrude sniffed. Six months later, having finished his training for the +United Nations Reconnaissance Corps, Kieran shipped out for a term of +duty in UNRC Space Laboratory Number 5, known more familiarly as Wheel +Five. + +Wheel Five circled the Moon. There was an elaborate base on the surface +of the Moon in this year 1981. There were laboratories and observatories +there, too. But it had been found that the alternating fortnights of +boiling heat and near-absolute-zero cold on the lunar surface could play +havoc with the delicate instruments used in certain researches. Hence +Wheel Five had been built and was staffed by research men who were +rotated at regular eight-month intervals. + + * * * * * + +Kieran loved it, from the first. He thought that that was because of the +sheer beauty of it, the gaunt, silver deaths-head of the Moon forever +turning beneath, the still and solemn glory of the undimmed stars, the +filamentaries stretched across the distant star-clusters like shining +veils, the quietness, the peace. + +But Kieran had a certain intellectual honesty, and after a while he +admitted to himself that neither the beauty nor the romance of it was +what made this life so attractive to him. It was the fact that he was +far away from Earth. He did not even have to look at Earth, for nearly +all geophysical research was taken care of by Wheels Two and Three that +circled the mother planet. He was almost completely divorced from all +Earth's problems and people. + +Kieran liked people, but had never felt that he understood them. What +seemed important to them, all the drives of ordinary day-to-day +existence, had never seemed very important to him. He had felt that +there must be something wrong with him, something lacking, for it seemed +to him that people everywhere committed the most outlandish follies, +believed in the most incredible things, were swayed by pure +herd-instinct into the most harmful courses of behavior. They could not +all be wrong, he thought, so he must be wrong--and it had worried him. +He had taken partial refuge in pure science, but the study and then the +teaching of astrophysics had not been the refuge that Wheel Five was. He +would be sorry to leave the Wheel when his time was up. + +And he was sorry, when the day came. The others of the staff were +already out in the docking lock in the rim, waiting to greet the +replacements from the ferry. Kieran, hating to leave, lagged behind. +Then, realizing it would be churlish not to meet this young Frenchman +who was replacing him, he hurried along the corridor in the big spoke +when he saw the ferry coming in. + +He was two-thirds of the way along the spoke to the rim when it +happened. There was a tremendous crash that flung him violently from his +feet. He felt a coldness, instant and terrible. + +He was dying. + +He was dead. + +The ferry had been coming in on a perfectly normal approach when the +tiny something went wrong, in the ship or in the judgment of the pilot. +Its drive-rockets suddenly blasted on full, it heeled over sharply, it +smashed through the big starboard spoke like a knife through butter. + +Wheel Five staggered, rocked, and floundered. The automatic safety +bulkheads had all closed, and the big spoke--Section T2--was the only +section to blow its air, and Kieran was the only man caught in it. The +alarms went off, and while the wreckage of the ferry, with three dead +men in it, was still drifting close by, everyone in the Wheel was in his +pressure-suit and emergency measures were in full force. + + * * * * * + +Within thirty minutes it became evident that the Wheel was going to +survive this accident. It was edging slowly out of orbit from the +impetus of the blow, and in the present weakened state of the +construction its small corrective rockets could not be used to stop the +drift. But Meloni, the UNRC captain commanding, had got first reports +from his damage-control teams, and it did not look too bad. He fired +off peremptory demands for the repair materials he would need, and was +assured by UNRC headquarters at Mexico City that the ferries would be +loaded and on their way as soon as possible. + +Meloni was just beginning to relax a little when a young officer brought +up a minor but vexing problem. Lieutenant Vinson had headed the small +party sent out to recover the bodies of the four dead men. In their +pressure-suits they had been pawing through the tangled wreckage for +some time, and young Vinson was tired when he made his report. + +"We have all four alongside, sir. The three men in the ferry were pretty +badly mangled in the crash. Kieran wasn't physically wounded, but died +from space-asphyxiation." + +The captain stared at him. "Alongside? Why didn't you bring them in? +They'll go back in one of the ferries to Earth for burial." + +"But--" Vinson started to protest. + +Meloni interrupted sharply. "You need to learn a few things about +morale, Lieutenant. You think it's going to do morale here any good to +have four dead men floating alongside where everyone can see them? Fetch +them in and store them in one of the holds." + +Vinson, sweating and unhappy now, had visions of a black mark on his +record, and determined to make his point. + +"But about Kieran, sir--he was only frozen. Suppose there was a chance +to bring him back?" + +"Bring him back? What the devil are you talking about?" + +Vinson said, "I read they're trying to find some way of restoring a man +that gets space-frozen. Some scientists down at Delhi University. If +they succeeded, and if we had Kieran still intact in space--" + +"Oh, hell, that's just a scientific pipe-dream, they'll never find a way +to do that," Meloni said. "It's all just theory." + +"Yes, sir," said Vinson, hanging his head. + +"We've got trouble enough here without you bringing up ideas like this," +the captain continued angrily. "Get out of here." + +Vinson was now completely crushed. "Yes, sir. I'll bring the bodies in." + + * * * * * + +He went out. Meloni stared at the door, and began to think. A commanding +officer had to be careful, or he could get skinned alive. If, by some +remote chance, this Delhi idea ever succeeded, he, Meloni, would be in +for it for having Kieran buried. He strode to the door and flung it +open, mentally cursing the young snotty who had had to bring this up. + +"Vinson!" he shouted. + +The lieutenant turned back, startled. "Yes, sir?" + +"Hold Kieran's body outside. I'll check on this with Mexico City." + +"Yes, sir." + +Still angry, Meloni shot a message to Personnel at Mexico City. That +done, he forgot about it. The buck had been passed, let the boys sitting +on their backsides down on Earth handle it. + +Colonel Hausman, second in command of Personnel Division of UNRC, was +the man to whom Meloni's message went. He snorted loudly when he read +it. And later, when he went in to report to Garces, the brigadier +commanding the Division, he took the message with him. + +"Meloni must be pretty badly rattled by the crash," he said. "Look at +this." + +Garces read the message, then looked up. "Anything to this? The Delhi +experiments, I mean?" + +Hausman had taken care to brief himself on that point and was able to +answer emphatically. + +"Damned little. Those chaps in Delhi have been playing around freezing +insects and thawing them out, and they think the process might be +developed someday to where it could revive frozen spacemen. It's an iffy +idea. I'll burn Meloni's backside off for bringing it up at a time like +this." + +Garces, after a moment, shook his head. "No, wait. Let me think about +this." + +He looked speculatively out of the window for a few moments. Then he +said, + +"Message Meloni that this one chap's body--what's his name, Kieran?--is +to be preserved in space against a chance of future revival." + +Hausman nearly blotted his copybook by exclaiming, "For God's sake--" He +choked that down in time and said, "But it could be centuries before a +revival process is perfected, if it ever is." + +Garces nodded. "I know. But you're missing a psychological point that +could be valuable to UNRC. This Kieran has relatives, doesn't he?" + +Hausman nodded. "A widowed mother and a sister. His father's been dead a +long time. No wife or children." + +Garces said, "If we tell them he's dead, frozen in space and then +buried, it's all over with. Won't those people feel a lot better if we +tell them that he's _apparently_ dead, but might be brought back when a +revival-technique is perfected in the future?" + +"I suppose they'd feel better about it," Hausman conceded. "But I don't +see--" + +Garces shrugged. "Simple. We're only really beginning in space, you +know. As we go on, UNRC is going to lose a number of men, space-struck +just like Kieran. A howl will go up about our casualty lists, it always +does. But if we can say that they're only frozen until such time as +revival technique is achieved, everyone will feel better about it." + +"I suppose public relations are important--" Hausman began to say, and +Garces nodded quickly. + +"They are. See that this is done, when you go up to confer with Meloni. +Make sure that it gets onto the video networks, I want everyone to see +it." + +Later, with many cameras and millions of people watching, Kieran's body, +in a pressure-suit, was ceremoniously taken to a selected position where +it would orbit the Moon. All suggestions of the funerary were carefully +avoided. The space-struck man--nobody at all referred to him as +"dead"--would remain in this position until a revival process was +perfected. + +"Until forever," thought Hausman, watching sourly. "I suppose Garces is +right. But they'll have a whole graveyard here, as time goes on." + +As time went on, they did. + + +2. + +In his dreams, a soft voice whispered. + +He did not know what it was telling him, except that it was important. +He was hardly aware of its coming, the times it came. There would be the +quiet murmuring, and something in him seemed to hear and understand, and +then the murmur faded away and there was nothing but the dreams again. + +But were they dreams? Nothing had form or meaning. Light, darkness, +sound, pain and not-pain, flowed over him. Flowed over--who? Who was he? +He did not even know that. He did not care. + +But he came to care, the question vaguely nagged him. He should try to +remember. There was more than dreams and the whispering voice. There +was--what? If he had one real thing to cling to, to put his feet on and +climb back from-- One thing like his name. + +He had no name. He was no one. Sleep and forget it. Sleep and dream and +listen-- + +"Kieran." + +It went across his brain like a shattering bolt of lightning, that word. +He did not know what the word was or what it meant but it found an echo +somewhere and his brain screamed it. + +"Kieran!" + +Not his brain alone, his voice was gasping it, harshly and croakingly, +his lungs seeming on fire as they expelled the word. + +He was shaking. He had a body that could shake, that could feel pain, +that was feeling pain now. He tried to move, to break the nightmare, to +get back again to the vague dreams, and the soothing whisper. + +He moved. His limbs thrashed leadenly, his chest heaved and panted, his +eyes opened. + +He lay in a narrow bunk in a very small metal room. + +He looked slowly around. He did not know this place. The gleaming white +metal of walls and ceiling was unfamiliar. There was a slight, +persistent tingling vibration in everything that was unfamiliar, too. + +He was not in Wheel Five. He had seen every cell in it and none of them +were like this. Also, there lacked the persistent susurrant sound of the +ventilation pumps. Where-- + +_You're in a ship, Kieran. A starship._ + + * * * * * + +Something back in his mind told him that. But of course it was +ridiculous, a quirk of the imagination. There weren't any starships. + +_You're all right, Kieran. You're in a starship, and you're all right._ + +The emphatic assurance came from somewhere back in his brain and it was +comforting. He didn't feel very good, he felt dopey and sore, but there +was no use worrying about it when he knew for sure he was all right-- + +The hell he was all right! He was in someplace new, someplace strange, +and he felt half sick and he was not all right at all. Instead of lying +here on his back listening to comforting lies from his imagination, he +should get up, find out what was going on, what had happened. + +Of a sudden, memory began to clear. What _had_ happened? Something, a +crash, a terrible coldness-- + +Kieran began to shiver. He had been in Section T2, on his way to the +lock, and suddenly the floor had risen under him and Wheel Five had +seemed to crash into pieces around him. The cold, the pain-- + +_You're in a starship. You're all right._ + +For God's sake why did his mind keep telling him things like that, +things he believed? For if he did not believe them he would be in a +panic, not knowing where he was, how he had come here. There was panic +in his mind but there was a barrier against it, the barrier of the +soothing reassurances that came from he knew not where. + +He tried to sit up. It was useless, he was too weak. He lay, breathing +heavily. He felt that he should be hysterical with fear but somehow he +was not, that barrier in his mind prevented it. + +He had decided to try shouting when a door in the side of the little +room slid open and a man came in. + +He came over and looked down at Kieran. He was a young man, +sandy-haired, with a compact, chunky figure and a flat, hard face. His +eyes were blue and intense, and they gave Kieran the feeling that this +man was a wound-up spring. He looked down and said, + +"How do you feel, Kieran?" + +Kieran looked up at him. He asked, "Am I in a starship?" + +"Yes." + +"But there aren't any starships." + +"There are. You're in one." The sandy-haired man added, "My name is +Vaillant." + +_It's true, what he says_, murmured the something in Kieran's mind. + +"Where--how--" Kieran began. + +Vaillant interrupted his stammering question. "As to where, we're quite +a way from Earth, heading right now in the general direction of Altair. +As to how--" He paused, looking keenly down at Kieran. "Don't you know +how?" + +_Of course I know. I was frozen, and now I have been awakened and time +has gone by--_ + +Vaillant, looking searchingly down at his face, showed a trace of +relief. "You do know, don't you? For a moment I was afraid it hadn't +worked." + +He sat down on the edge of the bunk. + +"How long?" asked Kieran. + +Vaillant answered as casually as though it was the most ordinary +question in the world. "A bit over a century." + + * * * * * + +It was wonderful, thought Kieran, how he could take a statement like +that without getting excited. It was almost as though he'd known it all +the time. + +"How--" he began, when there was an interruption. + +Something buzzed thinly in the pocket of Vaillant's shirt. He took out a +thin three-inch disk of metal and said sharply into it, + +"Yes?" + +A tiny voice squawked from the disk. It was too far from Kieran for him +to understand what it was saying but it had a note of excitement, almost +of panic, in it. + +Something changed, hardened, in Vaillant's flat face. He said, "I +expected it. I'll be right there. You know what to do." + +He did something to the disk and spoke into it again. "Paula, take over +here." + +He stood up. Kieran looked up at him, feeling numb and stupid. "I'd like +to know some things." + +"Later," said Vaillant. "We've got troubles. Stay where you are." + +He went rapidly out of the room. Kieran looked after him, wondering. +Troubles--troubles in a starship? And a century had passed-- + +He suddenly felt an emotion that shook his nerves and tightened his +guts. It was beginning to hit him now. He sat up in the bunk and swung +his legs out of it and tried to stand but could not, he was too weak. +All he could do was to sit there, shaking. + +His mind could not take it in. It seemed only minutes ago that he had +been walking along the corridor in Wheel Five. It seemed that Wheel Five +must exist, that the Earth, the people, the time he knew, must still be +somewhere out there. This could be some kind of a joke, or some kind of +psychological experiment. That was it--the space-medicine boys were +always making way-out experiments to find out how men would bear up in +unusual conditions, and this must be one of them-- + +A woman came into the room. She was a dark woman who might have been +thirty years old, and who wore a white shirt and slacks. She would, he +thought, have been good-looking if she had not looked so tired and so +edgy. + +She came over and looked down at him and said to him, + +"Don't try to get up yet. You'll feel better very soon." + +Her voice was a slightly husky one. It was utterly familiar to Kieran, +and yet he had never seen this woman before. Then it came to him. + +"You were the one who talked to me," he said, looking up at her. "In the +dreams, I mean." + +She nodded. "I'm Paula Ray and I'm a psychologist. You had to be +psychologically prepared for your awakening." + +"Prepared?" + +The woman explained patiently. "Hypnopedic technique--establishing facts +in the subconscious of a sleeping patient. Otherwise, it would be too +terrific a shock for you when you awakened. That was proved when they +first tried reviving space-struck men, forty or fifty years ago." + + * * * * * + +The comfortable conviction that this was all a fake, an experiment of +some kind, began to drain out of Kieran. But if it was true-- + +He asked, with some difficulty, "You say that they found out how to +revive space-frozen men, that long ago?" + +"Yes." + +"Yet it took forty or fifty years to get around to reviving me?" + +The woman sighed. "You have a misconception. The process of revival was +perfected that long ago. But it has been used only immediately after a +wreck or disaster. Men or women in the old space-cemeteries have not +been revived." + +"Why not?" he asked carefully. + +"Unsatisfactory results," she said. "They could not adjust +psychologically to changed conditions. They usually became unbalanced. +Some suicides and a number of cases of extreme schizophrenia resulted. +It was decided that it was no kindness to the older space-struck cases +to bring them back." + +"But you brought me back?" + +"Yes." + +"Why?" + +"There were good reasons." She was, clearly, evading that question. She +went on quickly. "The psychological shock of awakening would have been +devastating, if you were not prepared. So, while you were still under +sedation, I used the hypnopedic method on you. Your unconscious was +aware of the main facts of the situation before you awoke, and that +cushioned the shock." + +Kieran thought of himself, lying frozen and dead in a graveyard that was +space, bodies drifting in orbit, circling slowly around each other as +the years passed, in a macabre sarabande-- A deep shiver shook him. + +"Because all space-struck victims were in pressure-suits, dehydration +was not the problem it could have been," Paula was saying. "But it's +still a highly delicate process--" + +He looked at her and interrupted roughly. "What reasons?" And when she +stared blankly, he added, "You said there were good reasons why you +picked me for revival. What reasons?" + +Her face became tight and alert. "You were the oldest victim, in point +of date. That was one of the determining factors--" + +"Look," said Kieran. "I'm not a child, nor yet a savage. You can drop +the patronizing professional jargon and answer my question." + +Her voice became hard and brittle. "You're new to this environment. You +wouldn't understand if I told you." + +"Try me." + +"All right," she answered. "We need you, as a symbol, in a political +struggle we're waging against the Sakae." + +"The Sakae?" + +"I told you that you couldn't understand yet," she answered impatiently, +turning away. "You can't expect me to fill you in on a whole world +that's new to you, in five minutes." + +She started toward the door. "Oh, no," said Kieran. "You're not going +yet." + +He slid out of the bunk. He felt weak and shaky but resentment energized +his flaccid muscles. He took a step toward her. + +The lights suddenly went dim, and a bull-throated roar sounded from +somewhere, an appalling sound of raw power. The slight tingling that +Kieran had felt in the metal fabric around him abruptly became a +vibration so deep and powerful that it dizzied him and he had to grab +the stanchion of the bunk to keep from falling. + +Alarm had flashed into the woman's face. Next moment, from some hidden +speaker in the wall, a male voice yelled sharply, + +"Overtaken--prepare for extreme evasion--" + +"Get back into the bunk," she told Kieran. + +"What is it?" + +"It may be," she said with a certain faint viciousness, "that you're +about to die a second time." + + +3. + +The lights dimmed to semi-darkness, and the deep vibration grew worse. +Kieran clutched the woman's arm. + +"What's happening?" + +"Damn it, let me go!" she said. + +The exclamation was so wholly familiar in its human angriness that +Kieran almost liked her, for the first time. But he continued to hold +onto her, although he did not feel that with his present weakness he +could hold her long. + +"I've a right to know," he said. + +"All right, perhaps you have," said Paula. "We--our group--are operating +against authority. We've broken laws, in going to Earth and reviving +you. And now authority is catching up to us." + +"Another ship? Is there going to be a fight?" + +"A fight?" She stared at him, and shock and then faint repulsion showed +in her face. "But of course, you come from the old time of wars, you +would think that--" + +Kieran got the impression that what he had said had made her look at him +with the same feelings he would have had when he looked at a decent, +worthy savage who happened to be a cannibal. + +"I always felt that bringing you back was a mistake," she said, with a +sharpness in her voice. "Let me go." + +She wrenched away from him and before he could stop her she had got to +the door and slid it open. He woke up in time to lurch after her and he +got his shoulder into the door-opening before she could slide it shut. + +"Oh, very well, since you insist I'm not going to worry about you," she +said rapidly, and turned and hurried away. + +Kieran wanted to follow her but his knees were buckling under him. He +hung to the side of the door-opening. He felt angry, and anger was all +that kept him from falling over. He would not faint, he told himself. He +was not a child, and would not be treated like one-- + +He got his head outside the door. There was a long and very narrow +corridor out there, blank metal with a few closed doors along it. One +door, away down toward the end of the corridor, was just sliding shut. + + * * * * * + +He started down the corridor, steadying himself with his hand against +the smooth wall. Before he had gone more than a few steps, the anger +that pushed him began to ebb away. Of a sudden, the mountainous and +incredible fact of his being here, in this place, this time, this ship, +came down on him like an avalanche from which the hypnopedic +pre-conditioning would no longer protect him. + +_I am touching a starship, I am in a starship, I, Reed Kieran of Midland +Springs, Ohio. I ought to be back there, teaching my classes, stopping +at Hartnett's Drug Store for a soft drink on the way home, but I am here +in a ship fleeing through the stars ..._ + +His head was spinning and he was afraid that he was going to go out +again. He found himself at the door and slid it open and fell rather +than walked inside. He heard a startled voice. + +This was a bigger room. There was a table whose top was translucent and +which showed a bewildering mass of fleeting symbols in bright light, +ever changing. There was a screen on one wall of the room and that +showed nothing, a blank, dark surface. + +Vaillant and Paula Ray and a tall, tough-looking man of middle age were +around the table and had looked up, surprised. + +Vaillant's face flashed irritation. "Paula, you were supposed to keep +him in his cabin!" + +"I didn't think he was strong enough to follow," she said. + +"I'm not," said Kieran, and pitched over. + +The tall middle-aged man reached and caught him before he hit the floor, +and eased him into a chair. + +He heard, as though from a great distance, Vaillant's voice saying +irritatedly, "Let Paula take care of him, Webber. Look at this--we're +going to cross another rift--" + +There were a few minutes then when everything was very jumbled up in +Kieran's mind. The woman was talking to him. She was telling him that +they had prepared him physically, as well as psychologically, for the +shock of revival, and that he would be quite all right but had to take +things more slowly. + +He heard her voice but paid little attention. He sat in the chair and +blankly watched the two men who hung over the table and its flow of +brilliant symbols. Vaillant seemed to tighten up more and more as the +moments passed, and there was still about him the look of a coiled +spring but now the spring seemed to be wound to the breaking-point. +Webber, the tall man with the tough face, watched the fleeting symbols +and his face was stony. + +"Here we go," he muttered, and both he and Vaillant looked up at the +blank black screen on the wall. + +Kieran looked too. There was nothing. Then, in an instant, the blackness +vanished from the screen and it framed a vista of such cosmic, stunning +splendor that Kieran could not grasp it. + + * * * * * + +Stars blazed like high fires across the screen, loops and chains and +shining clots of them. This was not too different from the way they had +looked from Wheel Five. But what was different was that the starry +firmament was partly blotted out by vast rifted ramparts of blackness, +ebon cliffs that went up to infinity. Kieran had seen astronomical +photographs like this and knew what the blackness was. + +Dust. A dust so fine that its percentage of particles in space would be +a vacuum, on Earth. But, here where it extended over parsecs of space, +it formed a barrier to light. There was a narrow rift here between the +titan cliffs of darkness and he--the ship he was in--was fleeing across +that rift. + + * * * * * + +The screen abruptly went black again. Kieran remained sitting and +staring at it. That incredible fleeting vision had finally impressed the +utter reality of all this upon his mind. They, this ship, were far from +Earth--very far, in one of the dust-clouds in which they were trying to +lose pursuers. This was real. + +"--will have got another fix on us as we crossed, for sure," Vaillant +was saying, in a bitter voice. "They'll have the net out for us--the +pattern will be shaping now and we can't slip through it." + +"We can't," said Webber. "The ship can't. But the flitter can, with +luck." + +They both looked at Kieran. "He's the important one," Webber said. "If a +couple of us could get him through--" + +"No," said Paula. "We couldn't. As soon as they caught the ship and +found the flitter gone, they'd be after him." + +"Not to Sako," said Webber. "They'd never figure that we'd take him to +Sako." + +"Do I have a word in this?" asked Kieran, between his teeth. + +"What?" asked Vaillant. + +"This. The hell with you all. I'll go no place with you or for you." + + * * * * * + +He got a savage satisfaction from saying it, he was tired of sitting +there like a booby while they discussed him, but he did not get the +reaction from them he had expected. The two men merely continued to look +thoughtfully at him. The woman sighed, + +"You see? There wasn't time enough to explain it to him. It's natural +for him to react with hostility." + +"Put him out, and take him along," said Webber. + +"No," said Paula sharply. "If he goes out right now he's liable to stay +out. I won't answer for it." + +"Meanwhile," said Vaillant with an edge to his voice, "the pattern is +forming up. Have you any suggestions, Paula?" + +She nodded. "This." + +She suddenly squeezed something under Kieran's nose, a small thing that +she had produced from her pocket without his noticing it, in his angry +preoccupation with the two men. He smelled a sweet, refreshing odor and +he struck her arm away. + +"Oh, no, you're not giving me any more dopes--" Then he stopped, for +suddenly it all seemed wryly humorous to him. "A bunch of bloody +incompetents," he said, and laughed. "This is the one thing I would +never have dreamed--that a man could sleep, and wake up in a starship, +and find the starship manned by blunderers." + +"Euphoric," said Paula, to the two men. + +"At that," said Webber sourly, "there may be something in what he says +about us." + +Vaillant turned on him and said fiercely, "If that's what you think--" +Then he controlled himself and said tightly, "Quarrelling's no good. +We're in a box but we can maybe still put it over if we get this man to +Sako. Webber, you and Paula take him in the flitter." + +Kieran rose to his feet. "Fine," he said gaily. "Let us go in the +flitter, whatever that is. I am already bored with starships." + +He felt good, very good. He felt a little drunk, not enough to impede +his mental processes but enough to give him a fine devil-may-care +indifference to what happened next. So it was only the spray Paula had +given him--it still made his body feel better and removed his shock and +worry and made everything seem suddenly rather amusing. + +"Let us to Sako in the flitter," he said. "After all, I'm living on +velvet, I might as well see the whole show. I'm sure that Sako, wherever +it is, will be just as full of human folly as Earth was." + +"He's euphoric," Paula said again, but her face was stricken. + +"Of all the people in that space-cemetery, we had to pick one who +thinks like that," said Vaillant, with a sort of restrained fury. + +"You said yourself that the oldest one would be the best," said Webber. +"Sako will change him." + +Kieran walked down the corridor with Webber and Paula and he laughed as +he walked. They had brought him back from nothingness without his +consent, violating the privacy of death or near-death, and now something +that he had just said had bitterly disappointed them. + +"Come along," he said buoyantly to the two. "Let us not lag. Once aboard +the flitter and the girl is mine." + +"Oh for God's sake shut up," said Webber. + + +4. + +It was ridiculous to be flying the stars with a bad hangover, but Kieran +had one. His head ached dully, he had an unpleasant metallic taste in +his mouth, and his former ebullience had given way to a dull depression. +He looked sourly around. + +He sat in a confined little metal coop of a cabin, hardly enough in +which to stand erect. Paula Ray, in a chair a few feet away was +sleeping, her head on her breast. Webber sat forward, in what appeared +to be a pilot-chair with a number of crowded control banks in front of +it. He was not doing anything to the controls. He looked as though he +might be sleeping, too. + +That was all--a tiny metal room, blank metal walls, silence. They were, +presumably, flying between the stars at incredible speeds but there was +nothing to show it. There were no screens such as the one he had seen in +the ship, to show by artful scanning devices what vista of suns and +darknesses lay outside. + +"A flitter," Webber had informed him, "just doesn't have room for the +complicated apparatus that such scanners require. Seeing is a luxury you +dispense with in a flitter. We'll see when we get to Sako." + +After a moment he had added, "If we get to Sako." + +Kieran had merely laughed then, and had promptly gone to sleep. When he +had awakened, it had been with the euphoria all gone and with his +present hangover. + +"At least," he told himself, "I can truthfully say that this one wasn't +my fault. That blasted spray--" + +He looked resentfully at the sleeping woman in the chair. Then he +reached and roughly shook her shoulder. + +She opened her eyes and looked at him, first sleepily and then with +resentment. + +"You had no right to wake me up," she said. + +Then, before Kieran could retort, she seemed to realize the monumental +irony of what she had just said, and she burst into laughter. + +"I'm sorry," she said. "Go ahead and say it. I had no right to wake +_you_ up." + +"Let's come back to that," said Kieran after a moment. "Why did you?" + +Paula looked at him ruefully. "What I need now is a ten-volume history +of the last century, and time enough for you to read it. But since we +don't have either--" She broke off, then after a pause asked, "Your date +was 1981, wasn't it? It and your name were on the tag of your +pressure-suit." + +"That's right." + +"Well, then. Back in 1981, it was expected that men would spread out to +the stars, wasn't it?" + +Kieran nodded. "As soon as they had a workable high-speed drive. Several +drives were being experimented with even then." + +"One of them--the Flournoy principle--was finally made workable," she +said. She frowned. "I'm trying to give you this briefly and I keep +straying into details." + +"Just tell me why you woke me up." + +"I'm _trying_ to tell you." She asked candidly, "Were you always so +damned hateful or did the revivification process do this to you?" + +Kieran grinned. "All right. Go ahead." + + * * * * * + +"Things happened pretty much as people foresaw back in 1981," she said. +"The drive was perfected. The ships went out to the nearer stars. They +found worlds. They established colonies from the overflowing population +of Earth. They found human indigenous races on a few worlds, all of them +at a rather low technical level, and they taught them. + +"There was a determination from the beginning to make it one universe. +No separate nationalistic groups, no chance of wars. The governing +council was set up at Altair Two. Every world was represented. There are +twenty-nine of them, now. It's expected to go on like that, till there +are twenty-nine hundred starworlds represented there, twenty-nine +thousand--any number. But--" + +Kieran had been listening closely. "But what? What upset this particular +utopia?" + +"Sako." + +"This world we're going to?" + +"Yes," she said soberly. "Men found something different about this world +when they reached it. It had people--human people--on it, very low in +the scale of civilization." + +"Well, what was the problem? Couldn't you start teaching them as you had +others?" + +She shook her head. "It would take a long while. But that wasn't the +real problem. It was-- You see, there's another race on Sako beside the +human ones, and it's a fairly civilized race. The Sakae. The trouble +is--the Sakae aren't human." + +Kieran stared at her. "So what? If they're intelligent--" + +"You talk as though it was the simplest thing in the world," she +flashed. + +"Isn't it? If your Sakae are intelligent and the humans of Sako aren't, +then the Sakae have the rights on that world, don't they?" + +She looked at him, not saying anything, and again she had that stricken +look of one who has tried and failed. Then from up forward, without +turning, Webber spoke. + +"What do you think now of Vaillant's fine idea, Paula?" + +"It can still work," she said, but there was no conviction in her voice. + +"If you don't mind," said Kieran, with an edge to his voice, "I'd still +like to know what this Sako business has to do with reviving me." + + * * * * * + +"The Sakae rule the humans on that world," Paula answered. "There are +some of us who don't believe they should. In the Council, we're known as +the Humanity Party, because we believe that humans should not be ruled +by non-humans." + +Again, Kieran was distracted from his immediate question--this time by +the phrase "Non-human". + +"These Sakae--what are they like?" + +"They're not monsters, if that's what you're thinking of," Paula said. +"They're bipeds--lizardoid rather than humanoid--and are a fairly +intelligent and law-abiding lot." + +"If they're all that, and higher in development than the humans, why +shouldn't they rule their own world?" demanded Kieran. + +Webber uttered a sardonic laugh. Without turning he asked, "Shall I +change course and go to Altair?" + +"No!" she said. Her eyes flashed at Kieran and she spoke almost +breathlessly. "You're very sure about things you just heard about, +aren't you? You know what's right and you know what's wrong, even though +you've only been in this time, this universe, for a few hours!" + +Kieran looked at her closely. He thought he was beginning to get a +glimmer of the shape of things now. + +"You--all you who woke me up illegally--you belong to this Humanity +Party, don't you? You did it for some reason connected with that?" + +"Yes," she answered defiantly. "We need a symbol in this political +struggle. We thought that one of the oldtime space pioneers, one of the +humans who began the conquest of the stars, would be it. We--" + +Kieran interrupted. "I think I get it. It was really considerate of you. +You drag a man back from what amounts to death, for a party rally. +'Oldtime space hero condemns non-humans'--it would go something like +that, wouldn't it?" + +"Listen--," she began. + +"Listen, hell," he said. He was hot with rage, shaking with it. "I am +glad to say that you could not possibly have picked a worse symbol than +me. I have no more use for the idea of the innate sacred superiority of +one species over another than I had for that of one kind of man over +another." + +Her face changed. From an angry woman, she suddenly became a +professional psychologist, coolly observing reactions. + +"It's not the political question you really resent," she said. "You've +wakened to a strange world and you're afraid of it, in spite of all the +pre-awakening preparation we gave your subconscious. You're afraid, and +so you're angry." + +Kieran got a grip on himself. He shrugged. "What you say may be true. +But it doesn't change the way I feel. I will not help you one damned +bit." + +Webber got up from his seat and came back toward them, his tall form +stooping. He looked at Kieran and then at the woman. + +"We have to settle this right now," he said. "We're getting near enough +to Sako to go out of drive. Are we going to land or aren't we?" + +"Yes," said Paula steadily. "We're landing." + +Webber glanced again at Kieran's face. "But if that's the way he +feels--" + +"Go ahead and land," she said. + + +5. + +It was nothing like landing in a rocket. First there was the business +referred to as "going out of drive". Paula made Kieran strap in and she +said, "You may find this unpleasant, but just sit tight. It doesn't last +long." Kieran sat stiff and glowering, prepared for anything and +determined not to show it no matter how he felt. Then Webber did +something to the control board and the universe fell apart. Kieran's +stomach came up and stuck in his throat. He was falling--up? Down? +Sideways? He didn't know, but whichever it was not all the parts of him +were falling at the same rate, or perhaps it was not all in the same +direction, he didn't know that either, but it was an exceptionally +hideous feeling. He opened his mouth to protest, and all of a sudden he +was sitting normally in the chair in the normal cabin and screaming at +the top of his lungs. + +He shut up. + +Paula said, "I told you it would be unpleasant." + +"So you did," said Kieran. He sat, sweating. His hands and feet were +cold. + +Now for the first time he became aware of motion. The flitter seemed to +hurtle forward at comet-like speed. Kieran knew that this was merely an +ironic little joke, because now they were proceeding at something in the +range of normal velocity, whereas before their speed had been quite +beyond his comprehension. But he could comprehend this. He could feel +it. They were going like a bat out of hell, and somewhere ahead of them +was a planet, and he was closed in, blind, a mouse in a nose-cone. His +insides writhed with helplessness and the imminence of a crash. He +wanted very much to start screaming again, but Paula was watching him. + +In a few moments that desire became academic. A whistling shriek began +faintly outside the hull and built swiftly to a point where nothing +could have been heard above it. Atmosphere. And somewhere under the +blind wall of the flitter a rock-hard world-face reeling and rushing, +leaping to meet them-- + + * * * * * + +The flitter slowed. It seemed to hang motionless, quivering faintly. +Then it dropped. Express elevator in the world's tallest building, top +to bottom--only the elevator is a bubble and the wind is tossing it from +side to side as it drops and there is no bottom. + +They hung again, bounding lightly on the unseen wind. + +Then down. + +And hang again. + +And down. + +Paula said suddenly, "Webber. Webber, I think he's dying." She began to +unstrap. + +Kieran said faintly, "Am I turning green?" + +She looked at him, frowning. "Yes." + +"A simple old malady. I'm seasick. Tell Webber to quit playing +humming-bird and put this thing down." + +Paula made an impatient gesture and tightened her belt again. + +Hang and drop. Once more, twice more. A little rocking bounce, a light +thump, motion ceased. Webber turned a series of switches. Silence. + +Kieran said, "Air?" + + * * * * * + +Webber opened a hatch in the side of the cabin. Light poured in. It had +to be sunlight, Kieran knew, but it was a queer color, a sort of tawny +orange that carried a pleasantly burning heat. He got loose with Paula +helping him and tottered to the hatch. The air smelled of clean +sun-warmed dust and some kind of vegetation. Kieran climbed out of the +flitter, practically throwing himself out in his haste. He wanted solid +ground under him, he didn't care whose or where. + +And as his boots thumped onto the red-ochre sand, it occurred to him +that it had been a very long time since he had had solid ground +underfoot. A very long time indeed-- + +His insides knotted up again, and this time it was not seasickness but +fear, and he was cold all through again in spite of the hot new sun. + +He was afraid, not of the present, nor of the future, but of the past. +He was afraid of the thing tagged Reed Kieran, the stiff blind voiceless +thing wheeling its slow orbit around the Moon, companion to dead worlds +and dead space, brother to the cold and the dark. + +He began to tremble. + +Paula shook him. She was talking but he couldn't hear her. He could only +hear the rush of eternal darkness past his ears, the thin squeak of his +shadow brushing across the stars. Webber's face was somewhere above him, +looking angry and disgusted. He was talking to Paula, shaking his head. +They were far away. Kieran was losing them, drifting away from them on +the black tide. Then suddenly there was something like an explosion, a +crimson flare across the black, a burst of heat against the cold. +Shocked and wild, the physical part of him clawed back to reality. + +Something hurt him, something threatened him. He put his hand to his +cheek and it came away red. + +Paula and Webber were yanking at him, trying to get him to move. + + * * * * * + +A stone whizzed past his head. It struck the side of the flitter with a +sharp clack, and fell. Kieran's nervous relays finally connected. He +jumped for the open hatch. Automatically he pushed Paula ahead of him, +trying to shield her, and she gave him an odd startled look. Webber was +already inside. More stones rattled around and one grazed Kieran's +thigh. It hurt. His cheek was bleeding freely. He rolled inside the +flitter and turned to look back out the hatch. He was mad. + +"Who's doing it?" he demanded. + +Paula pointed. At first Kieran was distracted by the strangeness of the +landscape. The flitter crouched in a vastness of red-ochre sand laced +with some low-growing plant that shone like metallic gold in the +sunlight. The sand receded in tilted planes lifting gradually to a range +of mountains on the right, and dropping gradually to infinity on the +left. Directly in front of the flitter and quite literally a stone's +throw away was the beginning of a thick belt of trees that grew beside a +river, apparently quite a wide one though he could not see much but a +tawny sparkling of water. The course of the river could be traced clear +back to the mountains by the winding line of woods that followed its +bed. The trees themselves were not like any Kieran had seen before. +There seemed to be several varieties, all grotesque in shape and exotic +in color. There were even some green ones, with long sharp leaves that +looked like spearheads. + +Exotic or not, they made perfectly adequate cover. Stones came whistling +out of the woods, but Kieran could not see anything where Paula was +pointing but an occasional shaking of foliage. + +"Sakae?" he asked. + +Webber snorted. "You'll know it when the Sakae find us. They don't throw +stones." + +"These are the humans," Paula said. There was an indulgent softness in +her voice that irritated Kieran. + +"I thought they were our dear little friends," he said. + +"You frightened them." + +"_I_ frightened them?" + +"They've seen the flitter before. But they're extremely alert to modes +of behavior, and they knew you weren't acting right. They thought you +were sick." + +"So they tried to kill me. Nice fellows." + +"Self-preservation," Webber said. "They can't afford the luxury of too +much kindness." + +"They're very kind among themselves," Paula said defensively. To Kieran +she added, "I doubt if they were trying to kill you. They just wanted to +drive you away." + +"Oh, well," said Kieran, "in that case I wouldn't dream of disappointing +them. Let's go." + +Paula glared at him and turned to Webber. "Talk to them." + +"I hope there's time," Webber grunted, glancing at the sky. "We're +sitting ducks here. Keep your patient quiet--any more of that moaning +and flopping and we're sunk." + + * * * * * + +He picked up a large plastic container and moved closer to the door. + +Paula looked at Kieran's cheek. "Let me fix that." + +"Don't bother," he said. At this moment he hoped the Sakae, whoever and +whatever they were, would come along and clap these two into some +suitable place for the rest of their lives. + +Webber began to "talk". + +Kieran stared at him, fascinated. He had expected words--primitive +words, perhaps resembling the click-speech of Earth's stone-age +survivals, but words of some sort. Webber hooted. It was a soft +reassuring sound, repeated over and over, but it was not a word. The +rattle of stones diminished, then stopped. Webber continued to make his +hooting call. Presently it was answered. Webber turned and nodded at +Paula, smiling. He reached into the plastic container and drew forth a +handful of brownish objects that smelled to Kieran like dried fruit. +Webber tossed these out onto the sand. Now he made a different sound, a +grunting and whuffling. There was a silence. Webber made the sound +again. + +On the third try the people came out of the woods. + +In all there were perhaps twenty-five of them. They came slowly and +furtively, moving a step or two at a time, then halting and peering, +prepared to run. The able-bodied men came first, with one in the lead, a +fine-looking chap in early middle age who was apparently the chief. The +women, the old men, and the children followed, trickling gradually out +of the shadow of the trees but remaining where they could disappear in a +flash if alarmed. They were all perfectly naked, tall and slender and +large-eyed, their muscles strung for speed and agility rather than +massive strength. Their bodies gleamed a light bronze color in the sun, +and Kieran noticed that the men were beardless and smooth-skinned. Both +men and women had long hair, ranging in color from black to tawny, and +very clean and glistening. They were a beautiful people, as deer are a +beautiful people, graceful, innocent, and wild. The men came to the +dried fruits which had been scattered for them. They picked them up and +sniffed them, bit them, then began to eat, repeating the +grunt-and-whuffle call. The women and children and old men decided +everything was safe and joined them. Webber tossed out more fruit, and +then got out himself, carrying the plastic box. + + * * * * * + +"What does he do next?" whispered Kieran to Paula. "Scratch their ears? +I used to tame squirrels this way when I was a kid." + +"Shut up," she warned him. Webber beckoned and she nudged him to move +out of the flitter. "Slow and careful." + +Kieran slid out of the flitter. Big glistening eyes swung to watch him. +The eating stopped. Some of the little ones scuttled for the trees. +Kieran froze. Webber hooted and whuffled some more and the tension +relaxed. Kieran approached the group with Paula. There was suddenly no +truth in what he was doing. He was an actor in a bad scene, mingling +with impossible characters in an improbable setting. Webber making +ridiculous noises and tossing his dried fruit around like a caricature +of somebody sowing, Paula with her brisk professionalism all dissolved +in misty-eyed fondness, himself an alien in this time and place, and +these perfectly normal-appearing people behaving like orang-utans with +their fur shaved off. He started to laugh and then thought better of it. +Once started, he might not be able to stop. + +"Let them get used to you," said Webber softly. + +Paula obviously had been here before. She had begun to make noises too, +a modified hooting more like a pigeon's call. Kieran just stood still. +The people moved in around them, sniffing, touching. There was no +conversation, no laughing or giggling even among the little girls. A +particularly beautiful young woman stood just behind the chief, watching +the strangers with big yellow cat-eyes. Kieran took her to be the man's +daughter. He smiled at her. She continued to stare, deadpan and +blank-eyed, with no answering flicker of a smile. It was as though she +had never seen one before. Kieran shivered. All this silence and +unresponsiveness became eerie. + +"I'm happy to tell you," he murmured to Paula, "that I don't think much +of your little pets?" + +She could not allow herself to be sharply angry. She only said, in a +whisper, "They are not pets, they are not animals. They--" + +She broke off. Something had come over the naked people. Every head had +lifted, every eye had turned away from the strangers. They were +listening. Even the littlest ones were still. + +Kieran could not hear anything except the wind in the trees. + +"What--?" he started to ask. + +Webber made an imperative gesture for silence. The tableau held for a +brief second longer. Then the brown-haired man who seemed to be the +leader made a short harsh noise. The people turned and vanished into the +trees. + +"The Sakae," Webber said. "Get out of sight." He ran toward the flitter. +Paula grabbed Kieran's sleeve and pushed him toward the trees. + +"What's going on?" he demanded as he ran. + +"Their ears are better than ours. There's a patrol ship coming, I +think." + + * * * * * + +The shadows took them in, orange-and-gold-splashed shadows under strange +trees. Kieran looked back. Webber had been inside the flitter. Now he +tumbled out of the hatch and ran toward them. Behind him the hatch +closed and the flitter stirred and then took off all by itself, humming. + +"They'll follow it for a while," Webber panted. "It may give us a chance +to get away." He and Paula started after the running people. + +Kieran balked. "I don't know why I'm running away from anybody." + +Webber pulled out a snub-nosed instrument that looked enough like a gun +to be very convincing. He pointed it at Kieran's middle. + +"Reason one," he said. "If the Sakae catch Paula and me here we're in +very big trouble. Reason two--this is a closed area, and you're with us, +so _you_ will be in very big trouble." He looked coldly at Kieran. "The +first reason is the one that interests me most." + +Kieran shrugged. "Well, now I know." He ran. + +Only then did he hear the low heavy thrumming in the sky. + + +6. + +The sound came rumbling very swiftly toward them. It was a completely +different sound from the humming of the flitter, and it seemed to Kieran +to hold a note of menace. He stopped in a small clearing where he might +see up through the trees. He wanted a look at this ship or flier or +whatever it was that had been built and was flown by non-humans. + +But Webber shoved him roughly on into a clump of squat trees that were +the color of sherry wine, with flat thick leaves. + +"Don't move," he said. + +Paula was hugging a tree beside him. She nodded to him to do as Webber +said. + +"They have very powerful scanners." She pointed with her chin. "Look. +They've learned." + +The harsh warning barks of the men sounded faintly, then were hushed. +Nothing moved, except by the natural motion of the wind. The people +crouched among the trees, so still that Kieran would not have seen them +if he had not known they were there. + +The patrol craft roared past, cranking up speed as it went. Webber +grinned. "They'll be a couple of hours at least, overhauling and +examining the flitter. By that time it'll be dark, and by morning we'll +be in the mountains." + +The people were already moving. They headed upstream, going at a steady, +shuffling trot. Three of the women, Kieran noticed, had babies in their +arms. The older children ran beside their mothers. Two of the men and +several of the women were white-haired. They ran also. + +"Do you like to see them run?" asked Paula, with a sharp note of passion +in her voice. "Does it look good to you?" + +"No," said Kieran, frowning. He looked in the direction in which the +sound of the patrol craft was vanishing. + +"Move along," Webber said. "They'll leave us far enough behind as it +is." + + * * * * * + +Kieran followed the naked people through the woods, beside the tawny +river. Paula and Webber jogged beside him. The shadows were long now, +reaching out across the water. + +Paula kept glancing at him anxiously, as though to detect any sign of +weakness on his part. "You're doing fine," she said. "You should. Your +body was brought back to normal strength and tone, before you ever were +awakened." + +"They'll slow down when it's dark, anyway," said Webber. + +The old people and the little children ran strongly. + +"Is their village there?" Kieran asked, indicating the distant +mountains. + +"They don't live in villages," Paula said. "But the mountains are safer. +More places to hide." + +"You said this was a closed area. What is it, a hunting preserve?" + +"The Sakae don't hunt them any more." + +"But they used to?" + +"Well," Webber said, "a long time ago. Not for food, the Sakae are +vegetarians, but--" + +"But," said Paula, "they were the dominant race, and the people were +simply beasts of the field. When they competed for land and food the +people were hunted down or driven out." She swung an expressive hand +toward the landscape beyond the trees. "Why do you think they live in +this desert, scraping a miserable existence along the watercourses? It's +land the Sakae didn't want. Now, of course, they have no objection to +setting it aside as a sort of game preserve. The humans are protected, +the Sakae tell us. They're living their natural life in their natural +environment, and when we demand that a program be--" + +She was out of breath and had to stop, panting. Webber finished for her. + +"We want them taught, lifted out of this naked savagery. The Sakae say +it's impossible." + +"Is it true?" asked Kieran. + +"No," said Paula fiercely. "It's a matter of pride. They want to keep +their dominance, so they simply won't admit that the people are anything +more than animals, and they won't give them a chance to be anything +more." + +There was no more talking after that, but even so the three outlanders +grew more and more winded and the people gained on them. The sun went +down in a blaze of blood-orange light that tinted the trees in even more +impossible colors and set the river briefly on fire. Then night came, +and just after the darkness shut down the patrol craft returned, beating +up along the winding river bed. Kieran froze under the black trees and +the hair lifted on his skin. For the first time he felt like a hunted +thing. For the first time he felt a personal anger. + +The patrol craft drummed away and vanished. "They won't come back until +daylight," Webber said. + + * * * * * + +He handed out little flat packets of concentrated food from his pockets. +They munched as they walked. Nobody said anything. The wind, which had +dropped at sundown, picked up from a different quarter and began to blow +again. It got cold. After a while they caught up with the people, who +had stopped to rest and eat. The babies and old people for whom Kieran +had felt a worried pity were in much better shape than he. He drank from +the river and then sat down. Paula and Webber sat beside him, on the +ground. The wind blew hard from the desert, dry and chill. The trees +thrashed overhead. Against the pale glimmer of the water Kieran could +see naked bodies moving along the river's edge, wading, bending, +grubbing in the mud. Apparently they found things, for he could see that +they were eating. Somewhere close by other people were stripping fruit +or nuts from the trees. A man picked up a stone and pounded something +with a cracking noise, then dropped the stone again. They moved easily +in the dark, as though they were used to it. Kieran recognized the +leader's yellow-eyed daughter, her beautiful slender height outlined +against the pale-gleaming water. She stood up to her ankles in the soft +mud, holding something tight in her two hands, eating. + +The sweat dried on Kieran. He began to shiver. + +"You're sure that patrol ship won't come back?" he asked. + +"Not until they can see what they're looking for." + +"Then I guess it's safe." He began to scramble around, feeling for dried +sticks. + +"What are you doing?" + +"Getting some firewood." + +"No." Paula was beside him in an instant, her hand on his arm, "No, you +mustn't do that." + +"But Webber said--" + +"It isn't the patrol ship, Kieran. It's the people. They--" + +"They what?" + +"I told you they were low on the social scale. This is one of the basic +things they have to be taught. Right now they still regard fire as a +danger, something to run from." + +"I see," Kieran said, and let the kindling fall. "Very well, if I can't +have a fire, I'll have you. Your body will warm me." He pulled her into +his arms. + + * * * * * + +She gasped, more in astonishment, he thought, than alarm. "What are you +talking about?" + +"That's a line from an old movie. From a number of old movies, in fact. +Not bad, eh?" + +He held her tight. She was definitely female. After a moment he pushed +her away. + +"That was a mistake. I want to be able to go on disliking you without +any qualifying considerations." + +She laughed, a curiously flat little sound. "Was everybody crazy in your +day?" she asked. And then, "Reed--" + +It was the first time she had used his given name. "What?" + +"When they threw the stones, and we got back into the flitter, you +pushed me ahead of you. You were guarding me. Why?" + +He stared at her, or rather at the pale blur of her standing close to +him. "Well, it's always been sort of the custom for the men to-- But now +that I think of it, Webber didn't bother." + +"No," said Paula. "Back in your day women were still taking advantage of +the dual standard--demanding complete equality with men but clinging to +their special status. We've got beyond that." + +"Do you like it? Beyond, I mean." + +"Yes," she said. "It was good of you to do that, but--" + +Webber said, "They're moving again. Come on." + +The people walked this time, strung out in a long line between the trees +and the water, where the light was a little better and the way more +open. The three outlanders tagged behind, clumsy in their boots and +clothing. The long hair of the people blew in the wind and their bare +feet padded softly, light and swift. + +Kieran looked up at the sky. The trees obscured much of it so that all +he could see was some scattered stars overhead. But he thought that +somewhere a moon was rising. + +He asked Paula and she said, "Wait. You'll see." + +Night and the river rolled behind them. The moonlight became brighter, +but it was not at all like the moonlight Kieran remembered from long ago +and far away. That had had a cold tranquility to it, but this light was +neither cold nor tranquil. It seemed somehow to shift color, too, which +made it even less adequate for seeing than the white moonlight he was +used to. Sometimes as it filtered through the trees it seemed, +ice-green, and again it was reddish or amber, or blue. + +They came to a place where the river made a wide bend and they cut +across it, clear of the trees. Paula touched Kieran's arm and pointed. +"Look." + +Kieran looked, and then he stopped still. The light was not moonlight, +and its source was not a moon. It was a globular cluster of stars, hung +in the sky like a swarm of fiery bees, a burning and pulsing of many +colors, diamond-white and gold, green and crimson, peacock blue and +smoky umber. Kieran stared, and beside him Paula murmured, "I've been on +a lot of planets, but none of them have anything like this." + +The people moved swiftly on, paying no attention at all to the sky. + +Reluctantly Kieran followed them into the obscuring woods. He kept +looking at the open sky above the river, waiting for the cluster to rise +high so he could see it. + +It was some time after this, but before the cluster rose clear of the +trees, that Kieran got the feeling that something, or someone, was +following them. + + +7. + +He had stopped to catch his breath and shake an accumulation of sand out +of his boots. He was leaning against a tree with his back to the wind, +which meant that he was facing their back-trail, and he thought he saw a +shadow move where there was nothing to cast a shadow. He straightened up +with the little trip-hammers of alarm beating all over him, but he could +see nothing more. He thought he might have been mistaken. Just the same, +he ran to catch up with the others. + +The people were moving steadily. Kieran knew that their senses were far +keener than his, and they were obviously not aware of any danger other +than the basic one of the Sakae. He decided that he must have been +seeing things. + +But an uneasiness persisted. He dropped behind again, this time on +purpose, after they had passed a clearing. He stayed hidden behind a +tree-trunk and watched. The cluster-light was bright now but very +confusing to the eye. He heard a rustling that he did not think was +wind, and he thought that something started to cross the clearing and +then stopped, as though it had caught his scent. + +Then he thought that he heard rustlings at both sides of the clearing, +stealthy sounds of stalking that closed in toward him. Only the wind, he +told himself, but again he turned to run. This time he met Paula, coming +back to look for him. + +"Reed, are you all right?" she asked. He caught her arm and pulled her +around and made her run. "What is it? What's the matter?" + +"I don't know." He hurried with her until he could see Webber ahead, and +beyond him the bare backs and blowing hair of the people. "Listen," he +said, "are there any predators here?" + +"Yes," Paula said, and Webber turned sharply around. + +"Have you seen something?" + +"I don't know. I thought I did. I'm not sure." + +"Where?" + +"Behind us." + +Webber made the harsh barking danger call, and the people stopped. +Webber stood looking back the way they had come. The women caught the +children and the men fell back to where Webber stood. They looked and +listened, sniffing the air. Kieran listened too, but now he did not hear +any rustlings except the high thrashing of the branches. Nothing stirred +visibly and the wind would carry away any warning scent. + +The men turned away. The people moved on again. Webber shrugged. + +"You must have been mistaken, Kieran." + +"Maybe. Or maybe they just can't think beyond the elementary. If they +don't smell it, it isn't there. If something is after us it's coming +up-wind, the way any hunting animal works. A couple of the men ought to +circle around and--" + +"Come on," said Webber wearily. + + * * * * * + +They followed the people beside the river. The cluster was high now, a +hive of suns reflected in the flowing water, a kaleidoscopic rippling of +colors. + +Now the women were carrying the smaller children. The ones too large to +be carried were lagging behind a little. So were the aged. Not much, +yet. Kieran, conscious that he was weaker than the weakest of these, +looked ahead at the dim bulk of the mountains and thought that they +ought to be able to make it. He was not at all sure that he would. + +The river made another bend. The trail lay across the bend, clear of the +trees. It was a wide bend, perhaps two miles across the neck. Ahead, +where the trail joined the river again, there was a rocky hill. +Something about the outlines of the hill seemed wrong to Kieran, but it +was too far away to be sure of anything. Overhead the cluster burned +gloriously. The people set out across the sand. + +Webber looked back. "You see?" he said. "Nothing." + +They went on. Kieran was beginning to feel very tired now, all the +artificial strength that had been pumped into him before his awakening +was running out. Webber and Paula walked with their heads down, striding +determinedly but without joy. + +"What do you think now?" she asked Kieran. "Is this any way for humans +to live?" + +The ragged line of women and children moved ahead of them, with the men +in the lead. It was not natural, Kieran thought, for children to be able +to travel so far, and then he remembered that the young of +non-predacious species have to be strong and fleet at an early age. + +Suddenly one of the women made a harsh, shrill cry. + +Kieran looked where she was looking, off to the left, to the river and +the curving line of trees. A large black shadow slipped across the sand. +He looked behind him. There were other shadows, coming with long easy +bounds out of the trees, fanning out in a shallow crescent. They +reminded Kieran of some animal he had once seen in a zoo, a partly +catlike, partly doglike beast, a cheetah he thought it had been called, +only the cheetah was spotted like a leopard and these creatures were +black, with stiff, upstanding ears. They bayed, and the coursing began. + +"Nothing," said Kieran bitterly. "I count seven." + +Webber said, "My God, I--" + + * * * * * + +The people ran. They tried to break back to the river and the trees that +could be climbed to safety, but the hunters turned them. Then they fled +blindly forward, toward the hill. They ran with all their strength, +making no sound. Kieran and Webber ran with them, with Paula between +them. Webber seemed absolutely appalled. + +"Where's that gun you had?" Kieran panted. + +"It's not a gun, only a short-range shocker," he said. "It wouldn't stop +these things. Look at them!" + +They bounded, sporting around them, howling with a sound like laughter. +They were as large as leopards and their eyes glowed in the +cluster-light. They seemed to be enjoying themselves, as though hunting +was the most delightful game in the world. One of them ran up to +within two feet of Kieran and snapped at him with its great jaws, +dodging agilely when he raised his arm. They drove the people, faster +and faster. At first the men had formed around the women and children. +But the formation began to disintegrate as the weaker ones dropped +behind, and no attempt was made to keep it. Panic was stronger than +instinct now. Kieran looked ahead. "If we can make it to that hill--" + +[Illustration] + +Paula screamed and he stumbled over a child, a girl about five, crawling +on her hands and knees. He picked her up. She bit and thrashed and tore +at him, her bare little body hard as whalebone and slippery with sweat. +He could not hold onto her. She kicked herself free of his hands and +rushed wildly out of reach, and one of the black hunters pounced in and +bore her away, shrieking thinly like a fledgling bird in the jaws of a +cat. + +"Oh my God," said Paula, and covered her head with her arms, trying to +shut out sight and sound. He caught her and said harshly, "Don't faint, +because I can't carry you." The child's mother, whichever of the women +it might have been, did not look back. + +An old woman who strayed aside was pulled down and dragged off, and then +one of the white-haired men. The hill was closer. Kieran saw now what +was wrong with it. Part of it was a building. He was too tired and too +sick to be interested, except as it offered a refuge. He spoke to +Webber, with great difficulty because he was winded. And then he +realized that Webber wasn't there. + + * * * * * + +Webber had stumbled and fallen. He had started to get up, but the +hunters were on him. He was on his hands and knees facing them, +screaming at them to get away from him. He had, obviously, had little or +no experience with raw violence. Kieran ran back to him, with Paula +close behind. + +"Use your gun!" he yelled. He was afraid of the black hunters, but he +was full of rage and the rage outweighed the fear. He yelled at them, +cursing them. He hurled sand into their eyes, and one that was creeping +up on Webber from the side he kicked. The creature drew off a little, +not frightened but surprised. They were not used to this sort of thing +from humans. "Your gun!" Kieran roared again, and Webber pulled the +snub-nosed thing out of his pocket. He stood up and said unsteadily, "I +told you, it's not a gun. It won't kill anything. I don't think--" + +"Use it," said Kieran. "And get moving again. Slowly." + +They started to move, and then across the sky a great iron voice spoke +like thunder. "Lie down," it said, "please. Lie down flat." + +Kieran turned his head, startled. From the direction of the building on +the hill a vehicle was speeding toward them. + +"The Sakae," said Webber with what was almost a sob of relief. "Lie +down." + +As he did so, Kieran saw a pale flash shoot out from the vehicle and +knock over a hunter still hanging on the flanks of the fleeing people. +He hugged the sand. Something went whining and whistling over him, there +was a thunk and a screech. It was repeated, and then the iron voice +spoke again. + +"You may get up now. Please remain where you are." The vehicle was much +closer. They were bathed in sudden light. The voice said, "Mr. Webber, +you are holding a weapon. Please drop it." + +"It's only a little shocker," Webber said, plaintively. He dropped it. + +The vehicle had wide tracks that threw up clouds of sand. It came +clanking to a halt. Kieran, shading his eyes, thought he distinguished +two creatures inside, a driver and a passenger. + + * * * * * + +The passenger emerged, climbing with some difficulty over the steep step +of the track, his tail rattling down behind him like a length of thick +cable. Once on the ground he became quite agile, moving with a sort of +oddly graceful prance on his powerful legs. He approached, his attention +centered on Kieran. But he observed the amenities, placing one delicate +hand on his breast and making a slight bow. + +"Doctor Ray." His muzzle, shaped something like a duck's bill, +nevertheless formed Paula's name tolerably well. "And you, I think, are +Mr. Kieran." + +Kieran said, "Yes." The star-cluster blazed overhead. The dead beasts +lay behind him, the people with their flying hair had run on beyond his +sight. He had been dead for a hundred years and now he was alive again. +Now he was standing on alien soil, facing an alien form of life, +communicating with it, and he was so dog-tired and every sensory nerve +was so thoroughly flayed that he had nothing left to react with. He +simply looked at the Saka as he might have looked at a fence-post, and +said, "Yes." + +The Saka made his formal little bow again. "I am Bregg." He shook his +head. "I'm glad I was able to reach you in time. You people don't seem +to have any notion of the amount of trouble you make for us--" + +Paula, who had not spoken since the child was carried off, suddenly +screamed at Bregg, "Murderer!" + +She sprang at him, striking him in blind hysteria. + + +8. + +Bregg sighed. He caught Paula in those fine small hands that seemed to +have amazing strength and held her, at arm's length. "Doctor Ray," he +said. He shook her. "Doctor Ray." She stopped screaming. "I don't wish +to administer a sedative because then you will say that I drugged you. +But I will if I must." + +Kieran said, "I'll keep her quiet." + +He took her from Bregg. She collapsed against him and began to cry. +"Murderers," she whispered. "That little girl, those old people--" + +Webber said, "You could exterminate those beasts. You don't have to let +them hunt the people like that. It's--it's--" + +"Unhuman is the word you want," said Bregg. His voice was exceedingly +weary. "Please get into the car." + +They climbed in. The car churned around and sped back toward the +building. Paula shivered, and Kieran held her in his arms. Webber said +after a moment or two, "How did you happen to be here, Bregg?" + +"When we caught the flitter and found it empty, it was obvious that you +were with the people, and it became imperative to find you before you +came to harm. I remembered that the trail ran close by this old outpost +building, so I had the patrol ship drop us here with an emergency +vehicle." + +Kieran said, "You knew the people were coming this way?" + +"Of course." Bregg sounded surprised. "They migrate every year at the +beginning of the dry season. How do you suppose Webber found them so +easily?" + +Kieran looked at Webber. He asked, "Then they weren't running from the +Sakae?" + +"Of course they were," Paula said. "You saw them yourself, cowering +under the trees when the ship went over." + +"The patrol ships frighten them," Bregg said. "Sometimes to the point of +stampeding them, which is why we use them only in emergencies. The +people do not connect the ships with us." + +"That," said Paula flatly, "is a lie." + +Bregg sighed. "Enthusiasts always believe what they want to believe. +Come and see for yourself." + +She straightened up. "What have you done to them?" + +"We've caught them in a trap," said Bregg, "and we are presently going +to stick needles into them--a procedure necessitated by your presence, +Doctor Ray. They're highly susceptible to imported viruses, as you +should remember--one of your little parties of do-gooders succeeded in +wiping out a whole band of them not too many years ago. So--inoculations +and quarantine." + + * * * * * + +Lights had blazed up in the area near the building. The car sped toward +them. + +Kieran said slowly, "Why don't you just exterminate the hunters and have +done with them?" + +"In your day, Mr. Kieran--yes, I've heard all about you--in your day, +did you on Earth exterminate the predators so that their natural prey +might live more happily?" + +Bregg's long muzzle and sloping skull were profiled against the lights. + +"No," said Kieran, "we didn't. But in that case, they were all animals." + +"Exactly," said Bregg. "No, wait, Doctor Ray. Spare me the lecture. I +can give you a much better reason than that, one even you can't quarrel +with. It's a matter of ecology. The number of humans destroyed by these +predators annually is negligible but they do themselves destroy an +enormous number of small creatures with which the humans compete for +their food. If we exterminated the hunters the small animals would +multiply so rapidly that the humans would starve to death." + +The car stopped beside the hill, at the edge of the lighted area. A sort +of makeshift corral of wire fencing had been set up, with wide wings to +funnel the people into the enclosure, where a gate was shut on them. Two +Sakae were mounting guard as the party from the car approached the +corral. Inside the fence Kieran could see the people, flopped around in +positions of exhaustion. They did not seem to be afraid now. A few of +them were drinking from a supply of water provided for them. There was +food scattered for them on the ground. + +Bregg said something in his own language to one of the guards, who +looked surprised and questioned him, then departed, springing strongly +on his powerful legs. "Wait," said Bregg. + +They waited, and in a moment or two the guard came back leading one of +the black hunting beasts on a chain. It was a female, somewhat smaller +than the ones Kieran had fought with, and having a slash of white on the +throat and chest. She howled and sprang up on Bregg, butting her great +head into his shoulder, wriggling with delight. He petted her, talking +to her, and she laughed doglike and licked his cheek. + +"They domesticate well," he said. "We've had a tame breed for +centuries." + + * * * * * + +He moved a little closer to the corral, holding tight to the animal's +chain. Suddenly she became aware of the people. Instantly the +good-natured pet turned into a snarling fury. She reared on her hind +legs and screamed, and inside the corral the people roused up. They were +not frightened now. They spat and chattered, clawing up sand and pebbles +and bits of food to throw through the fence. Bregg handed the chain to +the guard, who hauled the animal away by main force. + +Paula said coldly, "If your point was that the people are not kind to +animals, my answer is that you can hardly blame them." + +"A year ago," Bregg said, "some of the people got hold of her two young +ones. They were torn to pieces before they could be saved, and she saw +it. I can't blame her, either." + +He went on to the gate and opened it and went inside. The people drew +back from him. They spat at him, too, and pelted him with food and +pebbles. He spoke to them, sternly, in the tone of one speaking to +unruly dogs, and he spoke words, in his own tongue. The people began to +shuffle about uneasily. They stopped throwing things. He stood waiting. + +The yellow-eyed girl came sidling forward and rubbed herself against his +thigh, head, shoulder and flank. He reached down and stroked her, and +she whimpered with pleasure and arched her back. + +"Oh, for God's sake," said Kieran, "let's get out of here." + + * * * * * + +Later, they sat wearily on fallen blocks of cement inside a dusty, +shadowy room of the old building. Only a hand-lamp dispelled the gloom, +and the wind whispered coldly, and Bregg walked to and fro in his +curious prance as he talked. + +"It will be a little while before the necessary medical team can be +picked up and brought here," he said. "We shall have to wait." + +"And then?" asked Kieran. + +"First to--" Bregg used a word that undoubtedly named a city of the +Sakae but that meant nothing to Kieran, "--and then to Altair Two. This, +of course, is a council matter." + +He stopped and looked with bright, shrewd eyes at Kieran. "You are quite +the sensation already, Mr. Kieran. The whole community of starworlds is +already aware of the illegal resuscitation of one of the pioneer +spacemen, and of course there is great interest." He paused. "You, +yourself, have done nothing unlawful. You cannot very well be sent back +to sleep, and undoubtedly the council will want to hear you. I am +curious as to what you will say." + +"About Sako?" said Kieran. "About--them?" He made a gesture toward a +window through which the wind brought the sound of stirring, of the +gruntings and whufflings of the corralled people. + +"Yes. About them." + +"I'll tell you how I feel," Kieran said flatly. He saw Paula and Webber +lean forward in the shadows. "I'm a human man. The people out there may +be savage, low as the beasts, good for nothing the way they are--but +they're human. You Sakae may be intelligent, civilized, reasonable, but +you're not human. When I see you ordering them around like beasts, I +want to kill you. That's how I feel." + +Bregg did not change his bearing, but he made a small sound that was +almost a sigh. + +"Yes," he said. "I feared it would be so. A man of your times--a man +from a world where humans were all-dominant--would feel that way." He +turned and looked at Paula and Webber. "It appears that your scheme, to +this extent, was successful." + +"No, I wouldn't say that," said Kieran. + +Paula stood up. "But you just told us how you feel--" + +"And it's the truth," said Kieran. "But there's something else." He +looked thoughtfully at her. "It was a good idea. It was bound to work--a +man of my time was bound to feel just this way you wanted him to feel, +and would go away from here crying your party slogans and believing +them. But you overlooked something--" + +He paused, looking out the window into the sky, at the faint +vari-colored radiance of the cluster. + + * * * * * + +"You overlooked the fact that when you awoke me, I would no longer be a +man of my own time--or of any time. I was in darkness for a hundred +years--with the stars my brothers, and no man touching me. Maybe that +chills a man's feelings, maybe something deep in his mind lives and has +time to think. I've told you how I feel, yes. But I haven't told you +what I think--" + +He stopped again, then said, "The people out there in the corral have my +form, and my instinctive loyalty is to them. But instinct isn't enough. +It would have kept us in the mud of Earth forever, if it could. Reason +took us out to the wider universe. Instinct tells me that those out +there are my people. Reason tells me that you--" he looked at Bregg, +"--who are abhorrent to me, who would make my skin creep if I touched +you, you who go by reason--that you are my real people. Instinct made a +hell of Earth for millennia--I say we ought to leave it behind us there +in the mud and not let it make a hell of the stars. For you'll run into +this same problem over and over again as you go out into the wider +universe, and the old parochial human loyalties must be altered, to +solve it." + +He looked at Paula and said, "I'm sorry, but if anyone asks me, that is +what I'll say." + +"I'm sorry, too," she said, rage and dejection ringing in her voice. +"Sorry we woke you. I hope I never see you again." + +Kieran shrugged. "After all, you did wake me. You're responsible for me. +Here I am, facing a whole new universe, and I'll need you." He went over +and patted her shoulder. + +"Damn you," she said. But she did not move away from him. + + +THE END + + + + +Transcriber's Note: + + This etext was produced from _Amazing Stories Fact and Science + Fiction_ May 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence + that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor + spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Stars, My Brothers, by Edmond Hamilton + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STARS, MY BROTHERS *** + +***** This file should be named 24870.txt or 24870.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/8/7/24870/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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