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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/39572-8.txt b/39572-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0d2e5be --- /dev/null +++ b/39572-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8754 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of West Of The Sun, by Edgar Pangborn + +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: West Of The Sun + +Author: Edgar Pangborn + +Release Date: April 29, 2012 [EBook #39572] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WEST OF THE SUN *** + + + + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Bruce Albrecht, and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + Transcriber's Note + + Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the + U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. + + + On earth it was 2056 A.D. + but on the red-green planet + it was + + THE YEAR ONE + + _There were only six human beings_-- + + + DR. CHRISTOPHER WRIGHT, anthropologist--he believed in man's + basic goodness ... but could he put his trust in an alien + race? + + PAUL MASON--he dutifully shared his wife with his best + friend. + + DOROTHY LEEDS--Paul was her husband, but she knew there were + some things more important than love. + + SEARS OLIPHANT--the gentle scientist who inspired love in an + alien. + + ANN BRYAN--the youngest of them all, she had to be taught + violence and passion. + + EDMUND SPEARMAN--the rebel who had to have his own tribe to + rule ... even though it meant war with his Earth companions. + + + _Six humans alone against the deadly forces of a strange and + distant planet._ + + * * * * * + + WEST OF THE SUN + + + EDGAR PANGBORN + + * * * * * + +To Mary C. Pangborn + + * * * * * + + + + +Contents + +PART ONE +_A.D. 2056_ 9 + +PART TWO +_The Year One_ 77 + +PART THREE +_The Year Ten_ 161 + + * * * * * + + + + +Part One + +A.D. 2056 + + + + +1 + + +Morning was flowing over the red-green planet. "What do we know?" The +delicate brown face of Dorothy Leeds kindled with questions. +"Summarize it." + +Edmund Spearman achieved casualness. "Diameter and mass a trifle more +than Earth's, larger orbit around a larger sun. A year of 458 days, +twenty-six hours each. Moderate seasonal changes, axial tilt less than +Earth's, orbit less elliptical. See the smallness of the north polar +ice cap? The equatorial region--much too hot; the rest is subtropical +to temperate. We should go down (if we do) near the 50th +parallel--north, I'd say. Too much desert in the southern hemisphere. +Might be hot winds, sandstorms." + +"The red-green _is_ vegetation?" Dr. Christopher Wright teetered on +long legs before the screen, a classroom mannerism unchanged by eleven +years in the wilderness of space. He pinched and pulled the skin on +his Adam's apple, his hawk's-beak, small-chinned head jutting forward +with an awkwardness not aggressive but intent. Paul Mason thought: +_You love him or hate him. In either case he's never quite grotesque._ +Wright's too-soft voice insisted: "It _is_, of course?" + +"It has to be, Doc," Spearman said, and rubbed his bluish cheeks, +looking older than his thirty-two years. Already he showed frontal +baldness, deeply bracketed mouth corners. On Spearman's big shoulders +was the burden of the ship. Watching him now, Paul Mason was troubled +by a familiar thought: _Captain Jensen should not have died_.... "It +has to be. The instruments show oxygen in Earth proportion, or +somewhat richer, plus nitrogen and carbon dioxide. The camera gives us +tree shadows in these latest photographs with the stronger lens. The +air may make us oxygen-happy--if we go down.... Well, Dorothy--two +continents, two oceans, both smaller than the Atlantic, connected +narrowly at north and south polar regions. Dozens of lakes bigger than +the Caspian. The proportion of land to water surface works out nearly +the same as on Earth. No mountains to match the Himalayas, but some +pretty high ranges. Unlimited forest, prairie, desert." He closed +bloodshot eyes, pressing the lids. Paul Mason thought: _I should never +try to paint Ed. The portrait would always come out as Hercules +Frustrated, and he wouldn't care for it...._ Spearman said, "Even most +of the tallest mountains look smooth--old. If there were glaciers it +was a long time ago." + +"Geologically a quiet phase," Sears Oliphant remarked. "As Earth +looked in the Jurassic and may look again." Born fifty years ago in +Tel Aviv, brought up in London, Rio, and New York because his parents +were medical trouble shooters for the Federation, and possessed of a +doctorate in biology (more exactly, taxonomy) from Johns Hopkins, +Sears Oliphant claimed that his original Polish name could not have +been spelled with the aid of two dictionaries and a crowbar. His fat +face blinked at Dorothy with little kind eyes. "I forget, sugar--you +weren't around in the Jurassic, were you?" + +"Maybe." Her slow smile was for Paul. "As a very early mammal." + +Wright said, "No artifacts.... At first it looked like Venus." His +crinkled asymmetrical face probed at them with a wistful half smile +like a child's. "May we call this planet Lucifer, son of the morning? +And if we land and found a city (or am I being ridiculous?)--let it be +Jensen City, in honor of a more-than-solar myth." + +Shading closed lids, Spearman said with harshness, "Myth?" + +"Why, Ed, yes--like all remembered heroes who continue in the love of +others, a love that magnifies. How else would you have it?" + +"But"--Ann Bryan was high-voiced, troubled--"Lucifer----" + +"My dear, Lucifer was an angel. Devils and angels have a way of +turning out to be the same organism. I noticed that first when I was a +damned interne. I noticed it again when I switched to anthropology. I +even noticed it on a space ship with the five persons I love best.... +No artifacts, huh?" + +Dorothy said, "You haven't seen these latest pictures, Doc." + +"Something?" Wright hurried over, gray eyes wide and sparkling. "I'd +quit hoping." Ann joined him, quick-motioned in her slimness, too +taut. Wright slipped an elderly arm around her. "Parallel lines, in +jungle? Ah.... Now, why none in the open ground?" + +Spearman suggested: "We could take more shots. But...." + +Paul Mason broke the darkening silence. "But what, Ed?" + +"We're falling, some. I could move us out into a self-sustaining orbit +by using more of the reaction mass. We have none to waste. Jensen's +death eleven years ago----" Spearman shook his gaunt but heavy head. +"Thirty pre-calculated accelerations--and the rest periods they +allowed us were insufficient, I think. You remember what wrecks we +were when it was finished; that's why I tried to allow more time in +deceleration." His brassy voice slowed, fetching out words with care: +"The last acceleration, as you know, was not pre-calculated. Jensen +was already dead (must have been heart) when his hand took us out of +automatic, made another acceleration that damn near flattened us----" + +"Still here though." Sears Oliphant chuckled and patted his middle. +"We made it, didn't we, boy?" It sounded a little forced. + +"In deceleration I had to allow for the big step Jensen never meant; +more of the mass was used to correct a deflection. Same allowance must +be made in returning, not to mention the biggest drain of all--getting +out of gravity here, a problem not present at the spaceport. Oh, it's +planned for--she's built to do it, even from a heavier planet than +this. But after she's done it the margin for return will be--narrower +than I care to think." + +Dorothy, small and soft, leaned back in Paul's arms. Her even voice +was for everyone in the control room: "Nevertheless we'll go down." + +Spearman gazed across at her without apparent comprehension. He went +on, deliberate, harassed: "Here's a thing I never told you. In that +accidental acceleration the ship did not respond normally: the +deflection happened then, and it may have been due to a defect in the +building of _Argo_, a fault in the tail jets. At the time, it was all +I could do to reach Jensen before I blacked out--I still don't know +how I ever managed it. Later I tried to think there could be no +defect. The forward jets took care of us nicely in deceleration. Until +we start braking, we can't know. Indicators _say_ everything's all +right down there. Instruments can lie. Lord, they've sweated out +atomic motors since before 1960, almost a century now--and we're still +kids playing with grown-up toys." + +Sears smiled into plump hands. "So I must be sure to pack my +microscope in one of the lifeboats--hey?" + +"You're for landing, then." + +Sears nodded. Ann Bryan thrust thin ivory fingers into her loose black +hair. "_I_ couldn't take another eleven years." She attempted a smile. +"Tell me, somebody--tell me there'll be music on Lucifer--a way to +make new strings for my violin before I forget everything...." + +Dorothy said, "Land." Gently, as one might say time for lunch. And she +added: "We'll find strings, Nan." + +"Land, of course," said Christopher Wright, preoccupied; his long +finger tapped on the photograph; his lips went on moving silently, +carrying through some private meditation. "Land. Give protoplasm a +chance." + +"Land," Paul Mason said. _Did anyone suppose the First Interstellar +would just turn around and go home? We're here, aren't we...?_ + +Through hours when spoken words were few, inner words riotous, Lucifer +turned an evening face. A morning descent might have been pleasanter +in human terms, but the calculator, churning its mathematical brew, +said the time was now. + +Paul Mason squirmed into his pilot's seat. It was good, he thought, +that they could at least meet the challenge of the unexplored with +adequate bodies. Wright was dryly indestructible; Ed Spearman a gaunt +monolith; the plumpness of Sears Oliphant had nothing flabby. The +women were in the warm vigor of a youth that had never known illness. +As for his own body, Paul felt for it now a twinge of amused +admiration, as if he were seeing an animated statue by an artist +better than himself: slender, tough, nothing too much, built for +endurance and speed--it would serve. Spearman was already talking in +the earphones: "Close lock. Retract shield." Paul responded from +ingrained training. Beyond the window that would give him forward +vision in the (impossible) event he had to fly the lifeboat, the +heavens opened. Withdrawal of the shield into the belly of the mother +ship _Argo_ was a dream motion within a wider dream. Dorothy and +Wright were strapped in the two seats behind him: half of _Argo's_ +human treasure was here. "Go over what you do if you have to drive +off. Over." + +"Lever for release. No action till wing-lock indicator is green. No +jet unless to correct position. In atmosphere handle as glider, jet +only in emergency. Over." After all, Paul considered, he had had a +thousand hours of atmospheric flying, and two years' drill on these +boats. Ed could worry less and save wind. Beautiful mechanisms in +their own right, Model L-46, lying eleven years secret but alert in +the streamlined blisters, powered by charlesite to avoid the ponderous +shielding still necessary for atomic motors--and charlesite, perfected +only thirty years ago in 2026, was obedient stuff. In space, the boats +were small rocket ships; in atmosphere, gliders or low-speed jet +planes. While _Argo_ had been in the long ordeal of building, Paul had +been shot from gleaming tubes like this into the atmosphere of Earth, +the blind depth at the spaceport, the desolate thin air of Mars. +Spearman said, "Turning in five minutes." + +In the port lifeboat Ann and Sears would be waiting, but that lock +would be open, for Ed must be in the control room. If they had to +abandon ship (ridiculous!) Ed's boat would be many moments behind. + +The stars moved. "Paul--check straps. Over." + +Paul glanced behind him. "All set. Over." + +The forward jets spoke once, and softly. Spearman said, "Out of orbit. +We start braking sooner than you think. Then we'll know...." + +The depth of quiet was a depth of eternity. Time to reflect--to +marvel, if you wished. One hundred and eleven years since Hiroshima, +which the inveterate insanity of history textbooks sometimes referred +to as a great experiment. Eighty-five years since the first-manned +spaceport; seventy since the founding of stations on Luna and Mars. +But to Paul Mason a greater marvel was the responding warmth of the +woman, the brooding charity of the old man, whose lives were upheld +with him in this silent nothing, dependent on the magic bundle of +muscle and nerve that was himself. _What is love?_ + +The greater spaceport had been twelve years in building. Then _Argo_. +More than a century from early rocket experiments to the mile-long +factories turning out charlesite. In that century man had even added +to his morsels of self-knowledge a trifle more than he possessed in +the days of flint ax and reeking cave. "We are in atmosphere," said +the earphones.... _Time: a cerebral invention? How long is a May fly's +life to a May fly...?_ "Braking starts in forty-five seconds. Warn the +others." + +Paul shoved down the mouthpiece, echoing the message. Wright said, +"Six pushed-around people. The arrogance of man! Doing fine, Paul." + +Pressure--not too bad. A long roaring. But then the stars.... + +The stars went mad. A glare--a cruel second of the light of the star +that was now the sun and a flicker of red-green, not real. The roaring +paused. Stopped. + +The earphones screamed: "Release! _Drive off!_" + +"Releasing." The amused voice was Paul's own. "Good luck, Ed." + +No answer. There was still such a thing as time. _Now, look: the +Federation was a grand thing, potentially, if only, as Doc insists, it +weren't for the damned cultural lag of the humanistic sciences, but +there is unfortunately no TIME to turn around and see if that little +brown cowlick is over her forehead the way it_----Meantime he said +aloud, "Doc, Dorothy, get ready for a big one." And his hand pulled +for release--nicely, as you might steer a road car for a turn. The +pressure torment.... + +Finished. He looked at a friendly green eye. So the retractile wings +were as good as eleven years ago--you hoped. Atmosphere--thin, said +the gauge. Never mind, thicker soon. _And down you go_---- + +_Too steep. Level off, if there's stuff to bite on. There is.... Thank +you, Machine Age Man, for a sweet boat. That thing gibbering in the +autonomic and voluntary nervous systems--merely fear. Overlook it...._ + +The ship was alien, far away. Turning, bright and deliberate, like a +mirror dropped in a well. The other lifeboat? But Ed would have to +reach it, close lock, strap in, open shield, while the ship went.... + +"Down"--lately an artificiality, now the plainest word in the +language. A gleaming disturbance in the air "down" yonder--something +streaking away from the dot that was a dying ship? "Ed, can you hear +me? Over." + +"Yes," said the voice in the earphones. + +Paul noticed himself weeping. "They made it! They made it!" + +The voice said coldly, "Quiet. Your altitude? Over." + +"Forty-six thousand. All under control. Over, jerk." + +"I'm going to head for----_Ah!_ Can you see the ship?" + +It was possible to find the silver dot of _Argo_ above an S-shaped +expanse of blue. The blue, Paul understood, was not becoming larger, +simply nearer. The dot changed to a white flower, which swelled and +hung tranquilly over the blue, a brief memorial. The radio carried a +groan, and then: "Better maybe. The lake may be shallow enough for +salvage. If it'd hit ground there'd be nothing at all. Get nearer, +Paul. Keep me in sight--not too damn' near." + +Time.... Delicately Paul asked the boat for a steeper glide. The +response was even. Was it? Some peevish sound. He flattened the glide +a thousand feet above Ed's boat. The red-green below--anything real +about it? Yes, if time was real, but one had to think that over.... + +Mild hills of dark red-green, in the--west? Yes, because now there was +a birth of sunset beyond them. Lighter green below, alongside the +lake: that would be meadow. Not one of the great lakes--no larger +than Lake Champlain, its outlet in the south blurred by marsh; only a +portion of its northwest shore adjoined the meadow--except in that +region the lake was a blue S written on red-green dark of jungle. A +winged brown thing slipped by, teasing the edge of vision. "Bird or +something...." + +In the earphones was a dazed note, like shame. "Power was out of control, +Paul--port motor. Had to be a defect in the building--something that +couldn't take the strain of what happened eleven years ago. All the +way--God!--and then to be loused up by a builder's error!" To Spearman, +Paul knew, a mechanical defect was the gravest of indecencies, beyond any +forgiveness. + +True sunset here. A world. And you don't climb out of gravity on +charlesite. Paul said, "Doc--parallel lines--I think." + +But the speed of the glide allowed no certainty, only a glimpse of +three dark bars, perhaps half a mile long in the jungle area northwest +of the meadow, and a hint of other groups further north. They _should_ +be there, according to a map Spearman had made in orbit from the final +photographs. And some fifty miles south of here was a great network of +them thirty miles long. The glide brought them out over meadow once +more. + +A thing was riding with them. A grumbling moan. Paul told himself: +_With Model L-46 it cannot happen--it cannot--Dorothy--Doc_---- + +Dorothy cried, "Specks--in the open ground. Moving, hundreds of 'em. +Oh, look! _Smoke_, Paul--campfires. How high are we?" + +"Under seven thousand. Check your compass by the sunset, Doc. See if +we have a magnetic north." + +"We do...." + +Spearman's far-off voice said, "Life all right. I can't make out----" + +Paul cut in with hurried precision: "Ed--vibration, port wing, bad. +I'm going to make one more circle over the woods if I can and try for +the north end of this meadow." + +A startled croak: "I'll jet off--give you room." Paul saw the squirt +of green flame. Ed's boat darted westward like a squeezed apple seed. +Paul dipped and leveled off as much as he dared. "We're--all right." + +He lived with it a timeless time. Knowing it would happen. They were +circling over jungle, pointed into sunset. The jet would only make +matters worse--rip the heart out. Soon the meadow would come around +again.... + +But the moment was now. An end of the moaning vibration. A lurch. +Paul's hand leaped stupidly for the charlesite ignition and checked +itself. + +Calm, but for the reeling of sunset. _I must tell Dorothy not to fight +the straps: L-46 is solid--is solid----_ + +Then the smash, the tearing and grinding. Somehow no death. Sky in the +window changed to a gloom of purple and green. No death. Elastic +branches? Metal whimpered and shrieked. _Is that us?_ They built them +solid.... + +There was settling into silence. The pressure on Paul's cheek, he +knew, was the wonderfully living pressure of Dorothy's hand, because +it moved, it pinched his ear, it groped for his mouth. A hiss. Through +the wrenched seams the old air of Earth yielded to the stronger weight +of Lucifer's. The starboard wing parted with a squeal like amusement, +letting the boat's body rest evenly on the ground, and Christopher +Wright said, "Amen." + + + + +2 + + +The Earphones Were Squawking: "Speak Up! Can you hear me? Can you----" + +"Not hurt. Seams open, and there goes Sears' thirty-six-hour test for +air-borne bacteria. Down and safe, Ed." + +"Listen." In relief, Ed Spearman was heavily didactic again. "You are +three quarters of a mile inside the jungle. I will land near the +woods. It will be dark in about an hour. Wait there until we----" + +"One minute," Paul said in sudden exhaustion. "We can find you, +easier. Sears' test is important. We're already exposed to the air, +but----" + +"What? Can't hear--damn it----" The voice dimmed and crackled. + +"Stay sealed up!" Nothing. "Can you hear?" Nothing. "Oh, well, good," +said Paul, discarding the headset, adding foolishly: "I'm tired." + +Dorothy unfastened his straps; her kiss was warm and quick. + +"Radio kaput, huh?" Wright flexed lean cautious legs. "Pity. I did +want to tell Sears one I just remembered after eleven years, about +poor lackadaisical Lou, who painted her torso bright blue, not for +love, not for money, not because it looked funny, but simply for +something to do." + +"You're not hurt, Doc," Dorothy said. "Not where it counts." + +"Can't kill an anthropologist. Ask my student Paul Mason. Leather +hides, pickled in a solution ten parts curiosity to one of statistics. +Doctors are mighty viable too. Ask my student Dorothy Leeds." + +Paul's forehead was wet. "Dark in an hour, he reminded me." + +"How close are we to the nearest of those parallel lines?" + +"Three or four miles, Doc, at a loose guess." + +"Remember that great mess of 'em fifty or sixty miles south of here? +Shows on Ed's map. We must be--mm--seventy miles from the smallest of +the two oceans--oh, let's call it the Atlantic, huh? And the other one +the East Atlantic? Anyway the ocean's beyond that range of hills we +saw on the way down." + +"I saw campfires in the meadow," Dorothy said. "Things running." + +"I thought so too.... Paul, I wonder if Sears can do any testing of +the air from the lifeboat? Some of the equipment couldn't be +transferred from _Argo_. And--how could they communicate with us? +They'll have to breathe it soon in any case." + +Paul checked a shuddering yawn. "I must have been thinking in terms of +_Argo_, which is--history.... You know, I believe the artificial +gravity was stronger than we thought? I feel light, not heavy." + +"High oxygen?" Dorothy suggested. "Hot, too." + +"Eighty-plus. Crash suits can't do us any more good." They struggled +out of them in the cramped space, down to faded jackets and shorts. + +Wright brooded on it, pinching his throat. "Only advantage in the +others' staying sealed up a while is that if we get sick, they'll get +sick a bit later. Could be some advantage. Paul--think we should try +to reach them this evening?" + +"Three quarters of a mile, dark coming on--no. But so far as I'm +concerned, Doc, you're boss of this expedition. In the ship, Ed had to +be--matter of engineering knowledge. No longer applies. I wanted to +say that." + +Wright turned away. "Dorothy?" + +She said warmly, "Yes. You." + +"I--oh, my dear, I don't know that it's--best." Fretfully he added: +"Shouldn't need a leader. Only six of us--agreement----" + +Dorothy held her voice to lightness: "I can even disagree with myself. +Sears will want you to take over. Ann too, probably." + +His gray head sank in his hands. "As for that," he said, "inside of me +I'm apt to be a committee of fifteen." Paul thought: _But he's not +old! Fifty-two. When did he turn gray, and we never noticing it...?_ +"For now," Wright said, "let's not be official about it, huh? What if +my dreams for Lucifer are--not shared?" + +"Dreams are never quite shared," Dorothy said. "I want you to lead +us." + +Wright whispered with difficulty, "I will try." + +Dorothy continued: "Ed may want things black and white. Not Ann, I +think--she hates discussions, being obliged to make up her mind. +You're elected, soldier.... Can you open the door, Paul?" + +It jammed in the spoiled frame after opening enough for a tight exit. +Wright stared into evening. "Not the leader kind. Academic." His white +hands moved in doubtful protest. "Hate snap decisions--we'll be forced +to make a lot of them." + +Paul said, "They're best made by one who hates making them." + +The lean face became gentle. "Taught you that myself, didn't I, +son...? Well--inventory. What've we got, right here?" + +"Thirty days' rations for three, packed eleven years ago. Two +automatic rifles, one shotgun, three automatic pistols, three hundred +rounds for each weapon. Should have transferred more from the ship, +but--we didn't. Three four-inch hunting knives, very good----" + +"They at least won't give out. With care." + +"Right. Two sealed cases of garden seeds--anybody's guess about them. +Six sets of overalls, shorts, and jackets. Three pairs of shoes +apiece--the Federation allowed that you and Ann might grow a little, +Dot--plasta soles and uppers, should last several years. Carpentry +tools. Ed's boat has the garden tools instead. Sears did pack his +microscope, didn't he?" + +"Oh my, yes," said Dorothy, in affectionate mimicry of the fat man's +turn of speech. + +"Each crash suit has first-aid kit, radion flashlight (good for two +years maybe), compass, field glasses, plus whatever else we had sense +enough to stuff in. Set of technical manuals, mostly useless without +the ship, but I think there's one on woodcraft, primitive tools and +weapons--survival stuff----" + +"Oh, the books!" Wright clutched his hair, groaning. "The books----" + +"Just that woodcraft----" + +"No, no, no--the books on _Argo_! Everything--the library--I've only +just understood that it's gone. The whole flowering of human +thought--man's best, uncorrupted--_Odyssey_--Ann's music, the art +volumes you selected, Paul, and your own sketches and paintings----" + +"No loss there----" + +"Don't talk like a damn fool! Shakespeare--_Divina commedia_----" + +Dorothy twisted in the narrowness to put both arms around him. +"Doc--quiet, dear--please----" + +"I can remember pages of _Huck Finn_--_a few pages_!" + +Dorothy was wiping his face with a loose comer of her jacket. +"Doc--subside! Please now--make it stop hurting inside yourself. Oh, +quiet...." + +After a time he said lifelessly, "Go on with the inventory, Paul." + +"Well--there's a duplicate of that map Ed made yesterday from orbit +photographs of this area, about a hundred miles square. We're near the +eastern edge of that square. There's the other map he made of the +whole globe. We didn't duplicate that one. I guess that's about it." + +"Knives," Wright muttered. "Knives and a few tools." + +"The firearms may make a difference while they last." + +"Yes, perhaps. But thirty years from now----" + +"Thirty years from now," said Dorothy, still sheltering his head, +"thirty years from now our children will be grown." + +"Oh." Wright groped for her fingers. "You almost wanted it like this, +didn't you? I mean, to land and not return?" + +"I don't know, Doc. Maybe. I'm not sure I ever quite believed in the +possibility of return. State Orphanage children like Ann and me, +growing up in a tiny world within a big one, we weren't quite human +ever, were we? Not that the big world didn't seep in plenty." She +smiled off at private shadows of memory. "We did learn things not in +the directors' curriculum. When they started grooming Ann and me for +this--Youth Volunteers! Stuffing our little heads with the best they +had--oh, it was fun too. By that time I think I had a fair idea of the +big world. The Orphanage was pleasant, you know--clean, humanitarian, +good teachers, all of them kind and more than a bit hurried. They did +try so hard never to let me hear the word 'nigger'! Ignorance is poor +insulating material, don't you think? And why, Doc, after all that's +been known and thought and argued for the last hundred years, couldn't +they select at least one Oriental for our little trip? Wouldn't have +had to come from Jenga's empire--our own states in the Federation had +plenty of 'em--scholars, technicians, anything you care to name." + +Wright had calmed. He said, "I argued for it and got told. They even +said that the spaceport rights and privileges recently given to +Jenga's empire would allow the Asiatics to build their own +ship--tacitly implying that humanity should stay in two camps world +without end. Ach! You can shove the political mind just so far, then +it stalls in its own dirt Even Jensen wasn't able to budge them." + +"It's history," said Dorothy, and Paul wondered: _How does she do it? +Speaking hands and voice, enough to shove away the black sorrow even +before it fairly had hold of him--and she'd try to do it for anyone, +loved or not. She was the first (and only one) who said to me there +are some things more important than love-and she herself would be +bothered to explain that in words._ "Well," Dorothy reflected, "I +believe the Orphanage slapped too much destiny of Man on the backs of +our little necks--they're just necks. Paul, why don't you sleep +awhile? You too, Doc. Let me keep watch. I'll wake you both if +anything stirs out there. Doze off, boys." + +Paul tried to, his mind restless in weary flesh. No permissible margin +of error, said the twenty-first century. But _Argo_ lay at the bottom +of a lake because of an error. Not an error like the gross errors +twenty-first century man still made in dealing with his own kind and +still noisily disregarded, but an engineering error--something +twenty-first-century man viewed with a horror once reserved, in not so +ancient times, for moral evil. The cardinal sin was to drop a decimal. +If, like Wright, or Paul himself, you were concerned with the agony +and growing pains of human nature, disturbed by the paralytic +sterility of state socialism and the worse paralysis of open tyranny, +you kept your mouth shut--or even yielded, almost unknowingly, to the +pressures that reduced ethical realities to a piddling checker game +perverting the uses of semantics. They said, "There won't be any war. +If there is, look what we've got!" If you were like the majority of +Earth's three billion, you hoped to get by with as much as the traffic +would bear and never stuck your neck out. They celebrated the turn of +the third millennium with a jolly new song: "Snuggle up, Baby--Uncle +pays the bill...." But for all that, you mustn't use the wrong bolt. + +Unreasonably quiet here. A jungle evening on Earth would have been +riotous with bird and insect noises.... He slept. + +It was dark when Wright's finger prodded him. "A visitor." + +The darkness was rose-tinged, not with sunset. There were two moons, +Paul remembered, one white and large and far away, one red and near. +Should the red moon be shining now? He gazed through the half-open +doorway, wondering why he was not afraid, seeing something pale and +vast, washed in--yes, surely in reddish moon-light. A thing swaying on +the pillars of its legs, perhaps listening, tasting the air for +strangeness. And scattered through the night, sapphires on black +velvet, were tiny dots of blue, moving, vanishing, reappearing. "Blue +fireflies," Dorothy whispered, "blue fireflies, that's all they are." +He felt her controlled breathing, forced down a foolish laugh. _We +could have done without a white elephant._ + +Nine or ten feet tall at the shoulder, a tapir-like snout, black tusks +bending more nearly downward than an elephant's, from milk-white +flesh. The ears were mobile, waving to study the night. There was an +oval hump near the base of the neck. The beast had been facing them; +it turned to pull down a branch, munch the leaves, casually drop the +stalk. In silence it drifted away, pausing to meditate, grumbling +juicily, but with no alarm. + +Wright whispered, "The planet Lucifer did not ask for us." + +"Paul--I stepped out for a minute, while you were both asleep. Firm +ground. A smell--flowers, I think--made me remember frangipani." + +"I'll try it." + +"Oh, but not with that thing----" + +"He didn't seem to mind us. I'll stay near the door." He knew Dorothy +would come with him. Feeling earth under legs that had nearly +forgotten it, he turned to help her down; her dark eyes played diamond +games with the moon-light. + +It could have been a night anywhere in the Galaxy, up there beyond +torn branches, stars, and red moon in a vagueness of cloud. Blue +fireflies.... + +But there was a child wailing somewhere. Far-off and weak, a dim rise +and fall of sound, grief and remoteness. A waterfall? Wind in upper +branches? But they were still, and the sound carried the timbre of +animal life. Dorothy murmured, "It's been crying that way ever since +moon-rise." She came closely into his arms. + +"I can read one thing inside of you--you're not scared." + +"I'm not, Paul?" + +"No." + +"But don't ever leave me--Adam." + + + + +3 + + +This was dawn: vision out of the dark: ripples of music coalescent in +one forest voice moving toward a crescendo of daytime. + +Paul watched a spreading of color in the leaves, a shift from black to +gray to a loveliness more green than red; the trees were massively +old, with varied bark of green or purple-brown. Phantoms in the more +distant shadows could be understood now that light was advancing: they +were thick trees with a white bark like that of the never-forgotten +birches of New Hampshire. Underfoot Paul felt a humus that might have +been a thousand years in growing; he prodded it with his knife--a +white worm curled in mimic death. + +Everywhere purple-leaved vines, vastly proliferating, climbed in a +riot of greed for the sunlight of the forest ceiling. Paul sensed a +mute cruelty in them, a shoving lust of growth. It might have been +these, elastically yielding, that had saved the lifeboat from total +ruin. + +Overnight the gravity of Lucifer had become natural. His close-knit +body accepted and relished it, finding a new pleasure in strength: +thirty-seven years old and very young. + +One tiny voice was near, persistent. Paul walked around the boat, +where Dorothy and Wright still slept. The starboard wing, parting from +the lifeboat, had gashed a tree trunk, littering the ground with +branches. The source of the voice was a brown lump, twenty feet up, +clinging head downward, a body small as a sparrow's, wings folded like +a bat's. As he watched they spread, quivered, and relaxed. Head and +ears were mousy, the neck long, with a hump at its base. The throat +pulsed at each cry. Near Paul's foot lay a fabric like an oriole's +nest, fastened to a twig that had been torn from the tree. Three +young had tumbled out. One was not mangled but all were dead, +hairless, poignantly ugly. "Sorry, baby--our first act on Lucifer." +The parent creature made another abortive motion as Paul took up the +young. + +Its high lament was not what he and Dorothy had heard in the night. +That had been continuing when he slipped out to watch for dawn, and it +had ended at some unnoticed moment--profoundly different, surely far +off.... + +He tried to study the dead things as Sears Oliphant would want to do. +Two were hopelessly torn; he dug a hole in the humus and dropped those +in, smoothing the surface, wondering at his need for an act which +could mean nothing to the unhappy morsel of perception on the tree +trunk. The third, and the nest, he carried around the boat where the +light was better. + +All seven digits of the forelimb spread into a membranous wing; the +hind leg divided at the ankle, three toes anchoring the wing, the +other four fused into a slim foot which had suction pads. He cradled +the bit of mortality in his palm, recalling a thing Wright had said +when they entered the lifeboat. Captain Jensen, waiting for take-off +at the spaceport, trying, as he drank sherry with Christopher Wright, +to look at the venture under the aspect of eternity, had said he liked +the philosophical implications of _Argo's_ converter, into which his +own body was strangely soon to pass. What was Wright's comment eleven +years later? "All life is cannibalism, benign or not: we are still +eating the dinosaurs." There had been more, which Paul could not +remember. So, man drove eleven years through space and killed three +babies. _But there was no element of malevolence_.... + +Perhaps there was none in most of man's actions over the millennia. + +Wright crawled out, stiff-limbed and unrested. + +"'Morning, Doc. Let me introduce _Enigma Luciferensis_." + +"'Luciferensis' won't do." Wright peered down. "Everything is +'Luciferensis,' including the posterity Dot mentioned. Well now, +what----" + +"A nestling. Our crash broke the nest and killed the young." + +Wright fingered the fabric. "Beautiful. Leaves gummed together with +some secretion." With a doctor's intentness he added: "How d'you +feel?" + +"Good." + +A shadow circled Paul, settled on his arm, hobbling toward his palm +and what it held. He felt the suction cups; with a careful mouth the +creature took up its dead and flew away. "I've been remembering +something you said: life eating life--without too much concern for the +second law of thermodynamics. Forgive us our trespasses.... Good +morning, lady." + +"What did I miss?" Dorothy had glimpsed the departure. + +"Lucifer's idea of a bat. I think that big flying thing I saw from the +lifeboat was shaped like this midget. Haven't seen any birds." + +Dorothy hugged his arm. "Not even one measly robin?" + +"Sorry, Whifflepuff--fresh out of robins." + +Wright blinked at his compass. "Meadow that way." Paul was +inattentive, needing the warm quiet of the woman beside him. Wright +added: "First, breakfast." He broke the seal of a ration package and +snarled. "Thirty days, I b'lieve you said. Antique garbage--dehydrated +hay." + +Dorothy said, "You're nicest when you're mad, Doc. We'll soon have to +try the local stuff, I suppose." + +"Uh-huh. But no guinea-pig work for you or Ann." + +She was startled. "Why not? I can digest boilerplate." + +"Two women on Lucifer: valuable livestock." Wright smiled with his +mouth full. "I'm boss, remember? For guinea-pig work, the men draw +lots." + +She was grave. "I won't argue. It so happens----" She peeked into the +nest. "Poor little fuzzies lined it with fur. Their own, I'll bet." + +"It so happens what, dear?" + +"Ah.... This eleven-year-old gookum claims to be coffee. Can we make a +fire? Looks like dead wood over there." + +The branches burned aromatically; the morning was growing into deep +warmth, but still with freshness. Wright said, "Coffee my shirt." + +Dorothy tasted it. "Brr...! I was about to say when I interrupted +myself, it so happens I'm six or seven weeks pregnant, I think." + +"Six----" Wright set his aluminum cup carefully upside down. Paul +mumbled, "That's what's been on your mind." + +Behind her eyes he glimpsed the primitive thing, deeper than thought, +not like a part of her but a force that sustained her, himself, all +others: the three billion of Earth, the small grieving spirit now +flown away into the trees. "Yes, Adam. I would have told you sooner, +but we all had a lot on our minds." + +"Even before we got in orbit, you saw us settling--staying----" + +Dorothy grinned then. "No-o, Paul. I just wanted the baby. Could have +been born on the ship. The Federation said no, but...." + +Gradually Paul began to realize it. "But you said yes." + +She leaned to him, no longer smiling. "I said yes...." + +The forest floor hushed footsteps; some coolness lingered. Paul walked +in front, then Dorothy, and Wright marked blazes on the tree trunks. +Paul glanced backward often, to capture the receding patterns. At the +third such pause the lifeboat was no longer visible--only a sameness +of trees and sparse young life groping through shadow for the food of +the sun. In this depth of forest there was no brush; the going was +easy except for the nuisance of purple vines that sometimes looped +from tree to tree. Paul searched for any change of light ahead. + +The boat held all but what they wore, the two rifles, the three +pistols holstered at their hips, the three knives, three sealed ration +packages. Damage had prevented locking the door of the boat: to rob, +an inhabitant of Lucifer would need only intelligence enough to solve +the sliding mechanism. They had seen no life but that huge nocturnal +leaf eater, the small fliers, a white worm, and now a few timid +ten-legged scuttlers on the warm ground and midge-like specks dancing +in shafts of sunlight. Too quietly, Wright said, "Stop." + +Paul raised his rifle as he turned. Only untroubled forest. Wright's +warning hand lowered. "Almost saw it. Heard nothing, just felt +a--watching. Might be in my head. Let's go on. And don't hurry." + +It would have been possible to hurry, even with an eye on the compass. +It would have been possible, Paul thought, to run in panic, fall +whimpering and waiting. But you wouldn't do it.... + +No shape in this dim region could be right or wrong; the trees +themselves were no sweetly familiar beech or pine. They halted at +sight of a new sprawling type of vine, uprooted where a break in the +forest ceiling admitted more sunshine. The earth displayed hoof-prints +like a pig's. Some scattered tuberous roots were marked by teeth; +Dorothy sniffed one. "Spud with garlic for a papa." Paul pocketed a +sample. She said, "Not that Lucifer cares, Doc, but what time is it?" + +"My watch says we've been walking fifteen minutes. Take it slow." +Wright presently added: "I've had another glimpse. Not a good one. +Furry, gray and white--white face, splashes of white on a gray body +seven or eight feet tall. Human shape. We may be all right if we don't +bother him." + +"Or blunder into territory where he doesn't want us." + +"There is that, Paul." + +"Human shape," said Dorothy evenly. "How human?" + +"Very. Upright. Good-sized head.... Ah--hear that?" It was Ann's +voice, calling, from someplace where there should be sunlight. "Don't +answer just yet--no sudden noises." + +Close to Paul, Dorothy whispered, "The baby--I don't want to tell the +others quite yet." + +That made it real--so real that in spite of a patch of beckoning blue +Paul had to turn to her. + +Behind Wright, he saw it, among the pillars of the trees, retreating +in fluid slowness till it was only a black ear, part of a white-furred +cheek, an iridescent green eye showing, like a cat's, no white. But +the blue was also real.... + +The edge of the forest was a mass of young growth fighting for the +gold coin of sunlight. "Shield your faces"--Wright was panting--"could +be poisonous leaves." They broke through to a red-green field, the +slim silver of the undamaged boat, the certainty of friends, an +expanse of lake no longer blue but sickly white. The boat's nose was +thrust under an overhang of branches. Ann Bryan was unsteady and wan, +but there was welcome in her gray eyes for Dorothy, who joined her at +once and whispered with her. Sears' fat affectionate face carried a +determined smile. Ed Spearman came forward, alert and commanding. +Wright asked, "How long have you been out in the air?" + +"An hour." Ed was impatient. "Sealed overnight. Nothing in the boat +for a test of the air, no point in waiting. You----" + +"Okay." Wright watched brown wings over the lake. "What are those?" + +"Birds or some damn thing. The white on the lake is dead fish. I +suppose the ship blew under water or the impact killed them. Our +Geiger says the water isn't radioactive. We haven't gone into the +meadow--been waiting for you." + +In the south the meadow reached the horizon--twenty miles of it, Paul +remembered from the air view, before jungle again took over. Near by, +threads of smoke were rising straight from the grass. "Abandoned +fires? We scared off----" + +"Maybe," Spearman said. "Seen no life except those birds." + +"Bat wings," Sears Oliphant remarked. "Mammalian, I think--oh my, yes. +Can't have furry birds, you know, with a taxonomist in the family, +hey?" + +Spearman shrugged. "Must get organized. How much damage, Paul?" + +"The boat itself. Both wings off, radio dead. Couldn't lock the +door...." It was like an Earth landscape. Tall grass carried oatlike +ruddy seed clusters on green stems. The lake was bordered by white +sand except close by, where jungle reached into water. There was +casual buzzing traffic above the grass, reminiscent of bees, wasps, +flies. Far up, something drifted on motionless wings, circling. And +ten or fifteen miles to the west there was the calm of hills--rounded, +old, more green than blue in a sleepy haze, but to paint them, Paul +thought, you would shade off into the purple. Paul went on, absently: +"We'll have the charlesite of the wrecked boat of course. That gives +this one a theoretical twenty hours of jet. We have ammunition for +long enough to learn how to use bow and arrow, I think." + +Ann muttered, "Paul, don't----" + +"What?" Spearman was disgusted. "Oh, you could be right at that, Paul. +Hard to realize.... Well, we must make some kind of camp." + +Wright began: "Some knowledge of the life around us----" + +"Oh my, yes----" + +"We'll have to make a camp before we can do any exploring, Doc. Here, +out in the open. See anything in the woods?" + +"Something followed. More or less human----" + +"So we know the camp has to be in the open." + +"Do we, Ed?" Wright watched the distant bat wings. Spearman stared. +"Can't chance a forest we don't know." + +"Still, I mean to look things over a bit. Feel not so good, Ann?" + +"All right," she said, glancing from Wright to Spearman, silently +begging to know: _Who is leader?_ "Slightly slap-happy, Doc." + +"Mm, sure." Wright hitched his rifle. "Going to look at that nearest +smoke. You come, Paul--or you, Ed. One of you should stay here." + +Spearman leaned against the lifeboat, still-faced. "Paul can go if he +wants to. I think it's a risk and a waste of time." + +Paul watched him a moment, frightened not by a man whom he had never +quite been able to like, but by the withdrawal itself, the sense of a +barrier to communication. _We start with a division on this first +morning of the world...?_ Paul hugged his own rifle and followed +Wright into the long whisper of the grass. + + + + +4 + + +Moist heat pressed down, but the air of the meadow was sweet. There +were marks of trampling as well as the swath the boat had cut--trails, +places where something might have crouched. Under his breath Wright +asked, "Feel all right, Paul?" + +Truth was more needed than a show of courage. "Not perfect, Doc. Am I +flushed? You are, a little." + +"Yes. Trace of fever; may wear off. Here's something----" + +They had not come far. Two red bodies barely three feet tall sprawled +near each other face down in the grass. Paul noticed oval bulges +between shoulder blades modified to accommodate them, the pathos of +fingers--seven-fingered hands--holding earth in a final grasp. The +male wore a loincloth of black fabric and a quiver almost full of +arrows; the female had a grass skirt, and her hand was tight on a +stone-headed spear longer than herself. A bow of carved wood lay some +distance away; one could see how the little man had crawled in his +agony after the bow was lost. Wright turned them over gently--bald +skulls, no trace of body hair on skin of a rich copper color exciting +to a painter's vision, green eyes with no visible whites in human +faces heavily tattooed, wide-open eyes, accusing no one. The bodies +were in rigor, a shaft in the man's neck, the woman pierced by an +arrow in the side. Blood colored the grass, dry but eloquent. + +"War too," said Wright, and pulled out the arrows, showing Paul the +stone heads, the intricate carving of the wood, thin-whittled wooden +vanes taking the place of feathers. "Stone Age war...." + +The male pygmy was the smaller of the two, and softer, his shape not +feminine but rounded and smooth. Both seemed mature, so far as age +could be guessed at all. The woman was rugged, with a coarser skin and +the scar tissue of old wounds; her two pairs of breasts were scarcely +more prominent than the ridged muscles of her midget chest. + +Wright mulled it over, kneading his wrinkled throat. "Physical +refinements of evolution as far along as our own. Straight thigh and +neck, perfect upright posture; there was no slouch or belly sag when +they were on their feet. Human jaw, big brain case. That furry giant I +saw in the woods had complete upright posture too. Oh, it's natural, +Paul. You stick fins on an ocean vertebrate, turn him into a +four-legged land animal, give him a few hundred million years. Almost +bound to free his front limbs if they've stayed unspecialized." In the +gaunt face, sadness and pity struggled with a bitter sort of mirth. +"The brain gets large, boy, and away you go, to--ach--to the +Federation versus the Asian Empire--Lincoln, Rembrandt, the state +papers of Abraham Brown. And to you and Dorothy and the baby." Wright +stood erect, brushing bony knees, calm again. "I'm almost pleased to +find it this primitive. I don't think it can have gone further +anywhere on the planet, or we'd have seen cities, farms, roads, in the +photographs. Unless----" + +"Unless what, Doctor?" + +"Oh--unless there might be forms with no Earth parallel. In the +forests perhaps--even underground. Thought of that? But that's +speculations, and our little soldiers here are fact. They have a +civilization--arrows say so, tattooing, garments. Rigid, +tradition-bound--or maybe not, depending on how much language they've +developed to tie 'emselves in knots with." + +"Bow and arrow--why, suh, almost as advanced as not being afraid to +end a sentence with a preposition." + +"Hell with you. Twenty thousand years ago, or whenever it was we +reached our present physique, if there'd been anything external to +teach men how to behave like grown-ups----. Well, we had to sweat it +out--tribal wars, bigger wars, venerated fears, errors, and +stupidities. But maybe here----" + +"Are _we_ big enough?" + +Wright shut his eyes. His thin cheeks were too bright; there was a +tremor in the rifle tip. "Wish I knew, Paul. We have to try." + +Ed Spearman yelled, "Look out!" A rifle banged, and a pistol. + +A brown darkness had come swooping from the lake. Others +followed--mud-brown, squealing. They had banked at the noise of the +shots to circle overhead. Paul fired; a near one tumbled, screeching, +thrashing a narrow wolfish head on a long neck, black teeth snapping +in the death throes--but even now it was trying to hobble forward and +get at them. The others wheeled lower until Wright's rifle spoke, and +Spearman's; there was the dry slap of Dorothy's automatic pistol. +"Back to the trees!" The wounded thing on the ground set up a bubbling +howl. + +More were coming, with weaving of pointed red-eyed heads on mobile +necks. Paul ran, Wright loping beside him, hearing the crash of their +friends' weapons. Something slammed Paul's shoulder, flopped against +his leg, tripping him. He tumbled over a shape furry and violent that +smelled of fish and carrion. He fought clear of it, sobbing in animal +wrath, and reached the shelter of the trees and Dorothy's embrace. +Sweat blinded him. Wright was clutching him too, getting his jacket +off. + +"Flesh wound. The hind foot got you----" + +"I saw it." Ann Bryan choked. "Saw it happen. Filthy claws----" + +Wright had a bottle of antiseptic. "Son, you ain't going to like this. +Hang on to the lady." But the pain was a welcome flare. Paul's eyes +cleared as Wright made him a bandage of gauze, with Dorothy's help. He +could look from the shelter of overhanging branches at a confusion of +wings. The creatures had not followed as far as the lifeboat; perhaps +its shining mass disturbed them. + +Spearman groaned: "You _would_ go out." + +Wright snapped at him. "Camp in the open--some disadvantages----" + +"Granted. But you sure learned it the hard way." "Eating"--Ann +pointed, nauseated--"their own wounded--" + +Wright stepped between her and the loud orgy in the meadow. "Wing +spread, fifteen feet. Well--sky's bad, woods maybe. What do you +suggest?" + +"Clear underbrush," Spearman said, "so we can see into the woods. Pile +it just beyond this overhang of branches for a barrier, leave a space +so we can reach the lifeboat. We can get to the lake for water without +going much in the open." + +"Good," said Wright. A peace offering. Spearman smiled neutrally. + +"If the water's safe," said Sears Oliphant. + +Wright grinned at the fat man. "Pal, it better be." + +"Miracles?" Sears' shoulders shot up amiably. "We can hope it is, with +boiling. Gotta have it. Canteens won't last the day, in this heat." + +Paul helped Ed unpack tools from the lifeboat. "One sickle," Spearman +noted. "No scythe. Garden gadgets. Pruning shears. One ax, one damned +hatchet. No scythe, no scythe----. There were two or three on the +ship." + +"Maybe the lake's not so deep." + +"Maybe we'll play hell trying to find out too. Those things weren't +much scared by the shooting...." + +Hot, tedious work created a circle of clear shaded ground which must +be called home. A fire was boiling lake water in the few aluminum +vessels. It had a fishy, mud-bottom taste and could not be cooled, but +it eased thirst. Paul had glimpsed Ann in the lifeboat, opening her +violin case, closing it, sick-faced. He had marveled again at the +mystery of a Federation governing two-thirds of a world, which had +genially allowed a fourteen-year-old musician to carry her violin on +man's greatest venture--with enough strings to last two or three years +and no means of restringing the bow. Later Ann threw herself into the +labor of clearing brush but tired quickly from her own violence. +Sears' microscope occupied a camp table; Paul and Dorothy joined him +in a pause for rest. "Got anything for the local news-paper?" + +"Unboiled lake water-assorted wrigglers." Sears mopped his cheeks. +"'Twas never meant my name should be Linnaeus. Have a look." The world +on the slide seemed not unlike what Sears had once shown him in water +from the hydroponics room of _Argo_: protoplasmic abundance no mind +could grasp. "So far, nothing basically different from what you'd find +in lake water on Earth--except for the trifle that every species is +unknown, hey? I suppose that's why they heaved a taxonomist into +space, to see what the poor cluck would do, hey? Now, those red dots +are something like algae. Notice a big ciliated schlemihl blundering +around? He could almost be old man paramecium, oh my, yes. Gi'me your +sickle, muscle man." + +"Hot work, Jocko. Take it slow and easy." + +"Believe me, Mistuh Mason, I will. What----" + +In undergrowth beyond the clearing there was deep-throated fury, a +crashing of branches. A gray and white man shape staggered out of +concealment, wrenching at what looked like swollen black rope. But the +rope had a head, gripping the giant's forearm; a black loop circled +the giant's loins and his free arm, tearing and pounding, could not +loosen it. A saurian hind leg groped, hooking for purchase into gray +fur. + +Paul's hunting knife was out; there was time only for recognition. The +gray and white being was everything human caught in a coil. Paul +forced himself through a barrier of fear, hearing Wright yell, "Don't +shoot, Ed! Put that away." There was no shot. Paul knew he was between +Spearman and the confusion of combat; someone was blundering behind +him. A black reptilian tail stretched into bushes, grasping something +for anchorage. Paul slashed at that. The mass of heaving life rolled +on the ground as the giant lost his footing, serpent teeth still +buried in his forearm. Green eyes were pleading in a universal +language. + +Wright was clutching a black neck, with no strength to move it, and +Paul stabbed at scaled hide behind a triangular head, but the skin was +like metal. The forelimbs were degenerate vestiges, the hind legs +cruelly functional. At last the steel penetrated; Paul twisted it, +probing for a brain. The giant had ceased struggling; the furred face +was close. Paul could feel the difficult breath, sense a rigid +waiting.... The teeth let go. The giant leaped free, returning at once +with a stone the size of Paul's chest, to fling it down on the +slow-dying body, repeating the action till his enemy was a smear of +black and red. + +Now in returning quiet a furred man eight feet tall watched them +openly. Wright said, "Ed, put away that gun. This man is a friend." + +"Man!" Spearman holstered his automatic, ready for a draw. "Your +daydreams will kill us all yet." + +"Smile, all of you--maybe his mouth does the same thing." Wright +stepped to the trembling monster, hands open. Ann was sobbing in +reaction, smothering the sound. Wright pointed at himself. "Man." He +touched the gray fur. "Man...." + +The giant drew back, not with violence. Paul felt Dorothy's small +fingers shivering on his arm. The giant sucked his wound and spat, +turning his head away from Wright to do it. "Man--man...." Wright's +hand, small and pale as an oyster shell, spread beside the huge palm, +six fingers, long four-jointed thumb. "Paul--your first-aid kit. I +want just the gauze." + +Spearman said, "Are you crazy?" + +"It's a chance," Sears Oliphant said in a level, careful voice. "Doc +knows what he's doing. Ed, you should know you can't stop him." + +Wright was pointing to Paul's bandaged shoulder and to the giant's +wound. The high furred forehead puckered in obvious effort. Dorothy +was choking on a word or two: "Doc--must you--" + +"He knows we're friends. He's been watching a long time. He saw Paul +get hurt and then bandaged." The giant's trembling was only a +spasmodic shuddering. "Man--man...." Wright snipped off gauze. "And he +knows that thing is a weapon, Ed. Will you put it away?" + +"He could break you in two. You know that, don't you?" + +"But he won't. Give protoplasm a chance." Now Wright was winding gauze +lightly, firmly, hiding the already clotting blood, and the giant made +no move of rejection. "Man--man." + +"Man." The giant murmured it cautiously, prolonging the vowel; he +touched his chest. "_Essa kana._" A finger ran exploringly over the +gauze. + +"Essa kana--man," said Wright, and swayed on his feet. + +The giant pointed at the bloody mess on the ground and rumbled: +"_Kawan_." He shuddered, and his arm swept in a loose gesture that +appeared to indicate the curving quarter mile where lake and jungle +met each other in a black-water marsh. Then he was staring out, +muttering, at the wings in the meadow, and presently he touched Paul's +bandage with fantastic lightness. "_Omasha_," he said, pointing at the +flying beasts. He indicated the rifle wobbling in Sears' arm and held +up two fingers. "Omasha." + +"Yes, we killed two omasha. Sears-man. Paul-man. Wright-man." + +The giant rumpled his chest fur. "Mijok." + +"Mijok-man.... Mijok, why didn't I have you in Anthropology IA fifteen +years ago? We'd've cleaned up the joint." Mijok knew laughter; his +booming in response to Wright's tone and smile could mean nothing +else. But Wright staggered and was breathing hard. Dorothy whispered, +"Paul--" + +It could not be pushed aside any more--the pain separate from the +smart of his shoulder, tightness in the eyeballs, chill, nausea. "The +air--" + +Wright's knees buckled. Sears had dropped the rifle and was helping +him to the lifeboat, Paul watching the action in a daze of stupidity. +Wright's eyes had gone empty.... Paul was uncertain how he himself +came to be sitting on the ground. Dorothy's face was somewhere; he +touched it. Her brown cheek was fire-hot, and she was trying to speak. +"Paul--take care of you--always--" + +The face of Mijok was there too--red vapor turning black. + + + + +5 + + +Paul Mason stared into blue calm: airy motion of branches against the +sky, a mystery remembered from long ago, in a place called New +Hampshire. Those years were not dead: secretly the mind had brought +them here. _What a small journey! Less than five light-years: on a +star map you could hardly represent it with the shortest of lines...._ +He was without pain, and cool. Time? Why, that amiable thud of a heart +in a firm, familiar body (his own, surely?), that was indicating time. +The boy in New Hampshire, after sprawling on his lazy back and +discovering the miracle of sky--hadn't he tried to paint it, even +then? Messed about with his uncle's palette, creating a daub that +had--oh, something, a little something. _Very well. Once upon a time +there was a painter named Paul Mason_.... Dorothy.... + +"You're back--oh, darling! No, Paul, don't sit up fast or your head'll +hurt. Mine did." Now she was curling into the hollow of his arm, +laughing and weeping. "You're back...." + +A thin old man sat cross-legged on gray moss. Paul asked him, "How +long?" + +Christopher Wright smiled, twisting and teasing the skin of his gaunt +throat, gray with a thick beard stubble. "A day and a night, the nurse +says. You know--the nurse? You were kissing her a moment ago. It's +early morning again, Paul. She was never quite unconscious, she +claims. I recovered an hour ago. No ill effects. It knocked out the +others at nightfall--predictable. They were exposed to Lucifer's air +thirteen hours later than we were." Paul saw them now, lying on beds +of the gray--moss? And where he and Dorothy clung to each other was +the same pleasant stuff--dry, spongy, with an odor like clover hay. +"Beds by courtesy of Mijok." Wright nodded toward the gray giant, who +had also brought moss for himself and now sprawled belly down, +breathing silently, the bulge between his shoulder blades lightly +rising and falling. Mijok's face was on his arm, turned away toward +the purple shadow of forest. + +Dorothy whispered, "He watched over us all night." + +"So you were conscious all the time? Tell me." + +Dorothy kept her voice low. Paul noticed the towering slimness of the +lifeboat beyond the barrier of branches, reversed--Ed Spearman's work, +he supposed. It pointed toward the west. Turned so, the jet would +blast toward the lake, harming nothing. Its shadow held away the heat +of the sun, a gleaming artifact of twenty-first century man, the one +alien thing in this wilderness morning. The sickness, Dorothy said, +had taken her with a sudden paralysis: she could see, hear, be aware +of boiling fever, but could not move. Then even the sense of heat left +her--she was only observing eyes, ears, and a brain. She had had a +fantasy that she was dead, no longer breathing. "But I breathed." Her +small brown face crinkled with a laughter rich in more than amusement. +"It's a habit I don't mean to abandon." + +"Neurotoxin," said Wright, "and a damn funny one. Back on Earth, when +I believed myself to be a doctor, I never heard of anything like it." + +The condition had lasted all day, she said; at nightfall her sense of +touch had gradually returned. She could move her hands, later her feet +and head. At length she had sat up, briefly blinded by pain in the +forehead, then she had given way to an overwhelming need for sleep. "I +got a glimpse of you, Paul, and tumbled off into a set of dreams that +were--not so bad, not so bad. I woke before sunrise. Different. Don't +ask me how. Never felt healthier. Not even weak, as you should be +after a fever. But Doc--what if the illness--" + +Wright looked away from the terror that had crossed her face. "If you +go on feeling all right, we can assume nothing's wrong with the baby. +Don't borrow trouble, sugarpuss--we've got enough." + +"Maybe," Paul suggested, "the illness was just--oh, some of our Earth +metabolism getting burned out of us. A stiff acclimation course." +Wright grunted, pinching his long nose. Paul said, "Wish it had burned +out the yen for a cigarette that I've had for eleven years." + +Sears Oliphant, the only other with some medical knowledge, had taken +charge immediately after their collapse. "He is--scared, Paul," +Dorothy murmured. "Of Lucifer, I mean. I could feel it when I was just +a pair of eyes and ears. More physical shrinking in him than in the +rest of us, and he's fighting it back with all he's got. He's a very +big man, Paul...." Sears looked peaceful enough now, in the dark sleep +of the sickness, his moon face bristling with black beard growth but +relaxed and bland. On another couch of moss, Spearman was more +restless, powerful arms twitching as if he needed to fight the +disaster even in sleep. Ann Bryan was deeply flushed and moaned a +little now and then. "Ed was all right too. Considerate. Took all +Sears' orders without any fuss or question; I don't think he's much +scared. He feels he can bull his way through anything, and maybe he's +right." Dorothy's helpless eyes had also seen Mijok bringing moss in +great armfuls. This, she thought, had helped Ed Spearman to accept the +giant as a man and perhaps as a friend. She remembered Mijok raising +Paul and herself in one careful swing of his arms to set them down +beside each other on the moss. Later she had watched him turning the +lifeboat under direction of Spearman's blunt gestures. Its length was +thirty-four feet, its weight over three tons Earth gravity--more here. +One gray-white arm had lifted the tail and swung the boat on its +landing gear as a man might push a light automobile. "I wasn't afraid. +After dark, when I knew the sickness had got the others, I still +wasn't afraid. Believe me? I could see Mijok moving around. Once I +heard him growl--I think he was driving something off. And then while +the red moon was coming up, he sat by us--his eyes are red in the +dark, Paul, not green. He smells musky at close range, but clean. I +wasn't afraid. Now and then he'd look us over and smile with his funny +black lips and touch the furry back of his finger to our foreheads.... +I could see the blue fireflies, Paul. Someday you'll make up stories +about them for the baby.... I heard that crying again--much nearer +than when we heard it that first night by the other lifeboat. Like a +group of children crying, if you can imagine that synchronized, almost +musical. Mijok growled and fretted when it began, but it came no +nearer. It had stopped when I woke." + +"Some of Earth's critters sounded human--panthers, owls, frogs--" + +"Ye-es. Just possibly something like tree frogs...." + +Wright said, "Mijok brought us raw meat this morning before he went to +sleep, something like a deer haunch. The fire bothers him--he +evidently didn't go near it last night after the others collapsed." + +"Ed tried to show him about fire," Dorothy said. "I remember. Mijok +was scared, and Sears told Ed to let it wait." + +"Meat was good too." Wright smirked. "We got the fire going, and Mijok +did try some cooked and liked it. You and Dorothy can have some +tomorrow if I don't turn purple." + +"Not guinea-pig," said Dorothy. "Just pig." + +"Hungry?" Wright tossed Paul a ration package. + +"Gah!" But he opened it. "Learned any more of Mijok's words?" + +"No. He won't have many. Nouns, simple descriptives. Must have some +continuing association with his own breed, or he'd have no words at +all. A hunter--with only nature's weapons, I think. That haunch was +torn, not cut--some hoofed animal smaller than a pony, fresh-killed +and well bled. He must have got it while Dorothy slept. It may have +strayed into the camp during the night. I think Mijok lives in the +woods, maybe not even a shelter or a permanent mate. Anthropology IA." +said Wright, and bowed in mimic apology to the sleeping giant. "Those +pygmies will be something else again--Neolithic. Wish I understood +that bulge between the shoulder blades. All the creatures we've seen +have it--even that damn black reptile, I believe, though things were +too mixed up to be sure." + +Mijok woke--all at once, like a cat. He stretched, extending his arms +twelve feet from wrist to wrist. He smiled down at Paul. He studied +the helpless ones, peering longest at Ann Bryan; the black-haired girl +was breathing harshly, fidgeting. Now and then her eyes flickered open +and perhaps they saw. Softly as smoke Mijok stepped into the shadow of +the trees and listened. Wright remarked, "Speaking of that reptile, +we should set up a monument to it. Nothing luckier could have happened +than that chance to lend Mijok a hand." His gray eyes fixed on Paul, +lids lowered in a speculative smile. "I'm not the only one who +remembers, Paul, that you were the first to go to his help. He hasn't +forgotten.... Dot, you're sure Ed understood that we have a friend +there?" + +"He seemed to, Doc. I watched them. They got along--practically +buddies." + +Paul saw the bandage was still on Mijok's arm, earth-stained and with +fragments of gray moss, but not disarranged; the bandage on his own +shoulder had been removed. The flying beast's attack had left only a +heavy scratch, which looked clean; there was no pain, only an itching. +The meadow was empty of brown wings. The dead fish were gone from the +lake. Perhaps other scavengers had been busy in the thirteen-hour +night. The water was an innocent blue, a luminous stillness under the +sun. + +Mijok stole out into the grass, gazing westward along the line where +meadow met jungle. Returning, he squatted by Wright and muttered, +"_Migan_." He spread a hand three feet above the ground; two fingers +drooped and indicated the motion of walking legs. Paul suggested: +"Pygmies?" + +"Could be." Mijok stared eloquently at Wright's rifle then crouched at +the barrier of branches, complaining in his throat. Taking up his own +rifle, Paul joined him. Dorothy hurried to the lifeboat and came back +with field glasses for him and Wright and herself. In spite of the +great planet's heavy pull, her body moved with even more light +easiness than it had shown in the unreal years of _Argo_. With the +glasses, vague motion a quarter mile away in the meadow leaped +shockingly into precision. + +The pygmies were not approaching but heading out from the edge of the +forest, a group of nine, barely taller than the grass, bald red heads +and shoulders in single file. The rearmost had a burden: seven others +carried bows, with quivers on the right hip. "Left-handed," Paul +observed aloud. The leader was the tallest--a woman, with a long +spear. All were sending anxious glances at the sky and toward the +human shelter; their motions suggested a fear so deep it must be pain, +yet something drew them out there in spite of it. The pygmy with the +burden, a rolled-up hide, was also a woman. The leader was bald as +the others, slender, muscular, her head round, with prominent forehead +and thin nose, tattooed cheeks. The bowmen had only simple loincloths, +and belts for their arrow quivers. The women's knee-length grass +skirts were like the Melanesian, but the leader's was dyed a brilliant +blue. Her two little pairs of breasts were youthfully firm and +pointed. Dorothy murmured, "American civilization would have gone mad +about those people." + +"What a girl!" Wright sighed. "I mean Dorothy--the Dope." + +"Even a dope can be jealous. Do you s'pose Mrs. Mijok has--Oh! Oh, +poor darling! Not funny after all, gentlemen----" + +The pygmy leader had turned full face, as the nine paused at trampled +grass. She wore a necklace of shell. These had no glitter, but their +yellow and blue made handsome splashes against the red of her skin. +Reason told Paul that she could see at most only dazzling spots where +sunlight might be touching the glasses he had thrust through wilted +leaves. It made no difference: she was staring directly into him, +making her grief a part of his life. A still-faced grief, too profound +for any tears, if she knew of tears. The green cat eyes lowered; she +stabbed her spear into the ground and lifted her arms, a giving, +yielding motion. Her lips moved--in prayer, surely, since all but one +of the men were bowed, performing ritual gestures toward whatever lay +on the ground. The one who did not bow never ceased to watch the sky. +The prayer was brief. The woman's left hand dropped meaningly, the +hide was unrolled, and its bearer raised what the grass had hidden--no +more than a skull and a few bones, a broken spear, a muddy scrap that +might have been a grass skirt. The hide was folded gently over these; +the group went on. + +"Dorothy--those things you saw running when we were circling down--I +missed 'em," Wright said. "Poor eyesight, and seems to me the air was +still misty from _Argo's_ crash in the lake. They were going south, +away from here? And they could have been--people like these?" + +"Yes. Hundreds or thousands of them. I suppose the crash of _Argo_ +must have seemed like the heavens falling. The lifeboats too." + +"I think we interrupted a war." + +"These would be survivors? Live in this part of the jungle maybe? +Looking for what's left after those--those flying beasts--" + +"It makes sense," Wright said. "They're more afraid of the sky than of +our setup over here. Maybe we're gods who came down to help them. If +we did help them. Look: they've found another.... Yes, now the +prayer.... Wish Mijok wasn't so afraid of them. Inevitable. To them I +suppose he's an ugly wild animal. Different species, similar enough to +be shocked at the similarity. 'Tain't good." + +"Do we try for a foot in both camps?" + +"Paul, I think I'll take a rain check on answering that.... Ach--if I +could go out there now--communicate--" + +"No!" Dorothy gasped. "Not while the others are still sick." + +"You're right of course." Wright fretted at his beard stubble. "I get +sillier all the time. As Ed would tell me if he were up and around. +It's the high oxygen...." + +There were brown splashes in the sky. The pygmies saw the peril first +and darted for the woods--an orderly flight however--the woman with +the hide in front, the blue-skirted woman next, then the bowmen. Three +of the latter turned bravely and shot arrows that glittered and +whined. The brown beasts wheeled and flapped angrily upward, though +the buzzing arrows dropped far short of them. The pygmies gained the +trees; the omasha scouted the edge of the woods, squawking, three of +them drifting toward the lifeboat, weaving heads surveying the ground. +Paul gave way to unfamiliar savage enjoyment. "Do we, Doc?" + +"Yes," said Wright, and took aim himself. + +All three were brought down, at a cost of four irreplaceable rifle +bullets and two shots from Dorothy's automatic. Mijok bellowed with +satisfaction but recoiled as Wright dragged a dirty brown carcass into +the clearing. "A dissection is in order." Mijok grumbled and fidgeted. +"Don't fret, Mijok." Wright pegged down the wings of the dead animal +with sharp sticks and drew an incision on the leathery belly with his +hunting knife. "Good head shot, Paul--this one's yours. We'll do a +brain job from one of the others, but I think we'll let that wait for +Sears--oh my, yes...! Doesn't weigh over thirty pounds. Hollow bones +like a bird's, very likely. Hope they'll keep." + +"You hope," Dorothy sniffed. "What do you do when I turn housewife and +instruct you to get that awful mess the hell off my nice clean floor?" + +"Dope! And you my best and only medical student." He worked at the +cutting dubiously, inexpertly. "Conventional mammalian setup, more or +less. Small lungs, big stomach. Hah--two pairs of kidneys?" He spread +the viscera out on the wing. "Short intestine, also like a bird. And +she was preparing a blessed event multiplied by--count 'em--six." + +"Too many," said Paul. "Altogether too industrious." + +"What I really want to know--Oh...?" With the lungs removed, it could +be seen that the hump on the back was caused by a great enlargement of +four thoracic vertebrae, which swelled into the chest cavity as well +as outward. Wright cut away spinal cartilage. "Damn, I _wish_ Sears +was doing this. Well, it's neural tissue, nothing else--a big swelling +of the spinal cord." He sliced at the ugly head, but the hermorrhage +from a .30-caliber bullet confused the picture. "The brain looks too +simple. Could that lump in the cord be the hind brain? I hereby leave +the theories to Sears. But, son, you might slit the stomach and see +what the old lady had for breakfast." + +Paul's clumsy cut on the slippery stomach bag made it plain what the +omasha had eaten--among other things, an almost complete +seven-fingered hand. Dorothy choked and walked away, saying, "I am +going to be--" + +"Cheer up." Paul held her forehead. "Never mind the clean floor--" + +"Go away. I mean stay very close. Sorry to be so physiological. Me a +medic student! Even blood bothers me." + +"Never mind, sugar--" + +"Sugar yourself, and wash your paws. We smell." + +Mijok was muttering in alarm. Wright had abandoned the dissection and +gone out in the meadow, cautious but swift, to the spot where +yesterday they had found the pygmy soldiers. He took up a small skull +and arm bone, pathetically clean--perhaps there were insect scavengers +that followed after the omasha--and the discarded bow. But instead of +bringing back these relics, Wright held them high over his head, +facing westward. Tall and gray in the heavy sun, he stepped twenty +paces further toward the region where the pygmies had entered the +jungle; then he set the bones down in the grass and strode back to the +shelter, fingers twitching, lips moving in his old habit of talking +half to himself, half to the world. "The omasha," he said, "cracked +the enlarged vertebrae--favorite morsel maybe." + +Mijok moaned, blinking and sighing. He stared long at the silent grace +of the lifeboat, then at Christopher Wright. He too was talking to +himself. Abruptly, something gave way in him. He was kneeling before +Wright, bending forward, taking Wright's hands and pressing them +against the gray-white fur of his face and his closed eyes. "Oh, now," +Wright said, "now, friend--" + +Paul remarked, "You're elected." + +"I will not be a god." + + + + +6 + + +Mijok released the hands of his deity and sat back on his haunches, +foggy-eyed. Wright stroked the great furry head, troubled and amazed. +"It won't do," Wright said. "We'll have no gods on this planet. Unless +human nature can make itself a little godlike. And no final +Armageddon--for that's within too, and always was. Well, he'll learn +language fast. As he does, the first thing he must discover is that +we're all one flesh." But Mijok was gazing up in adoration at the +sound of the voice, trembling, not in fear, smiling when he saw Wright +smile. "I believe he never had a god before--hadn't reached the stage +of personalizing the forces of nature. They're just forces, and +himself a bundle of perception, not even realizing that he's more +knowing and sensitive than other animals. Not arrogant yet, not +sophisticated enough to be cruel, or mean, or even ambitious...." + +Dorothy pushed her fists into her cheeks, brown eyes upturned to study +the old man: a way she had, carrying Paul back eleven years to the day +he had come aboard the ship and seen her for the first time and loved +the woman who was, even then, manifest in the leggy, awkward child. +"Doc, why did you do that, out there in the meadow?" + +"Why, Dorothy, we must make contact with those pygmies too. They +are--advanced. It'll be more difficult. They'll have traditions--maybe +some very ancient ones. But we must make contact." + +"Mijok hates them though. If they come here--" + +Wright grinned. "Temporary advantage of being little tin deities. I +think Mijok will do whatever we indicate--until we're able to teach +him independence." + +Paul said, "Don't think for a minute I'm not with you. But Doc, with +the others helpless we're only three--" + +"Four." + +"Yes, four. There's our own survival to think of. It's a big planet. +Seems to me you're taking it on all at once." + +Wright slouched, loose-limbed, at the barrier, where he could watch +the meadow, and Mijok stayed close to him. "I think we must, Paul. If +we start right perhaps we can go on right. A mistake at this point +could go on burning for a thousand years.... Why do you think he broke +out into worship when he did? Our superior achievements--lifeboat, +guns, the rescue from that reptile? The fact that I wasn't afraid of a +poor pygmy's bones? All that, sure, but something else. Ed would say I +was daydreaming--but I think Mijok's heart knows what his brain can't +yet interpret. Sears would agree, I think--his own heart's bigger than +Lucifer. Mijok hasn't the least conscious idea why I invited those +pygmies to come and get their dead. Down deeper, in the part of him +that made him bring the moss and the meat and take care of us, I think +he knows very well." + +"You're proposing," Dorothy said, "to take a chance on love?" + +Wright was tranquil, watching the meadow. "Whenever men put their +chips on the other thing they always lost, didn't they? Repeatedly, +for twenty or thirty thousand years? Did they ever create anything +good except in a milieu of co-operation, friendship, forbearance? One +of the oldest of commonplaces--the teachers all knew it. +Lao-tse--Buddha--or stated negatively: 'He who lives by the sword....' +And so on. Good is not the mere absence of evil, but the most positive +of human forces. The instruments of good are charity, patience, +courage, effort and self-knowledge, each unavailing without the +others; remember that. And that's all the basic ethics I know. The +rest is detail, solution of immediate problems as they arise. Even on +Earth the good tended to win out in the long run: at least it did +until the mechanical toys got out of hand. Then there was a century of +living under a question mark. There was also the Collectivist Party. +Yes, as a prime example of a part of my own philosophy totally +perverted, I give you the Collectivist Party." Wright was talking to +himself again, the bitterness of Earth's history goading him into +soft-spoken monotone, drawling and dark, on a planet nearly five +light-years distant from the ancient confusions. "The Collectivist +Party, which turns 'co-operation' into the same sort of word fetish +that 'democracy' was less than a hundred years ago--co-operation +_without_ charity, without patience, without courage and always, +always, without self-knowledge." + +Dorothy still watched him with sober upturned eyes. "Ed told me once +his father was a pilot in the Collectivist Army during the Civil War." + +"I know." Wright smiled at her in bashful half apology. "Some of the +old wounds still bleed too, I guess. I generally manage to keep my +political mouth shut when he's listening, if I can. Not that Ed could +be accused of still fighting the war that ended before he was born.... +Relax: I think they're coming." + +Paul joined Wright and the giant at the barrier, but Dorothy stayed a +moment with the sick, feeling their wrists, murmuring something close +to Ann's ear, although the girl could not respond. "Past the fever +stage, I believe," she said. "They're all breathing well. No chance +they'll be out of it before night, I suppose...." + +The pygmies were still some distance away, slipping along the edge of +the woods in plain sight. There were only three--the two women and one +bowman; perhaps the others were paralleling their course inside the +forest--perhaps a hundred others were. Wright whispered, "Have we +anything that would make a respectable gift?" + +Mijok was rumbling in misery and fright. Dorothy came over holding a +locket. "This--you remember, Doc--a matron at the Orphanage gave it to +me. I used to imagine it could be a portrait of my mother--" + +"But my dear--" + +The brown girl shook her head. "This ship-metal wedding ring Paul +hammered out for me--that's the only Earth jewelry I want to keep. +This face that might be like my mother's--Oh, Doc, I'm getting to be a +big girl now. Besides, Lucifer will have plenty of pretties for us +later on. And Doc--let me do this, will you? They've got a woman +leading 'em, so--wouldn't she be less afraid of another woman? I'll +uncover, so she--" Dorothy shrugged out of her jacket. "Please, Doc? +I'm scared, but--" + +Wright glanced helplessly at Paul. "We--" + +Dorothy said quickly, "_My_ decision." Holding the locket up for the +sun to gleam on it, she walked into the meadow and waited in the +brightness. Paul's hand sweated on the rifle stock. He saw Wright +patting Mijok's arm, heard his restraining murmur: "Quiet, Mijok--keep +your shirt on, Mijok, old man--man...." Mijok searched the face of his +god with a mute desperation and remained as he was. + +The pygmy woman halted fifty feet away in still-faced musing. As Paul +had seen through the binoculars, she was elaborately tattooed and +young. The pause was long. Dorothy stepped nearer to the place where +Wright had left the bones, displaying the locket, her open left hand +waving down at her body to demonstrate that she carried no weapons. +For the first time Paul realized she had left her holster belt behind. + +The blue-skirted woman shrilled a word; her two followers fell back. +She thrust the blunt end of her spear in the ground and came forward +steadily until she was only a few feet from the woman of the +twenty-first century; mask-faced, she met Dorothy's smile with a long +scrutiny. Now and then the green eyes shifted to study the clearing, +the lifeboat, the quiet shapes of Paul and Wright. And Mijok. Perhaps +she stared longest at Mijok, but by some heavy discipline her face +refused to tell of anything but dignity and caution. + +She spoke at last. It was complex, in a tone like the piping of a tree +frog. There were pauses, studied inflections, no gestures: her +seven-fingered hands hung limp against the blue grass skirt. The +closing words seemed to have a note of questioning and of sternness; +she waited. + +Dorothy's contralto was startlingly deep in contrast: "Darling, I +would like to know where you picked up that perfectly adorable +wrap-around, only I don't think it would suit me. I'm, to put it +frankly, a shade too hippy for such. In case you're wondering, I'm a +female sample of man"--she touched herself and pointed to the pygmy +lady--"man--" + +"Oh!" Wright whispered. "Good girl, good--" + +"--and it does seem to me us girls ought to stick together, +because"--she held out the locket--"well, just because. And anyway +look: I have only ten toes, fastened on to the ends of my feet, and if +I had more, Heaven knows (just count 'em and _see_ how each grows!) +I'd have trouble in keeping them neat. Pome. There now, sweetie pie, +please take it, huh?" And she opened the locket--Paul remembering in +lessening panic how much the unknown portrait did resemble her--and +held it face out to the woman of Lucifer. A tiny palm came up +dubiously; Dorothy placed the locket in it. "It won't bite, baby." The +pygmy woman turned it about, puzzling at the hinge. Dorothy stooped to +demonstrate the mechanism a few times. "I'm Dorothy, by the way, more +widely known as the Dope, which is a title of uncommon distinction +among my people, achieved only after long study of the art of saying +the right thing at the wrong time, burning the bacon, and preserving +at all times an air of sweet and addled dignity--Dorothy...." She +indicated herself plainly and pointed, with questioning eyebrows. + +The tree-frog voice, with no sternness, but a hint of friendliness: +"Tor-o-thee...?" She imitated Dorothy's motions. "Abro Pakriaa--" + +"Pakriaa." + +"Abro Pakriaa." There was sternness again in that correction. + +"Abro Pakriaa...." + +Wright muttered, "Royalty, I believe. Don't dare do any coaching. +Trust Dot's instinct. Ah, here we go--" + +The pygmy woman had taken off her shell necklace. She crushed the +dainty blue and yellow against her upper right breast; she set it for +a moment on her shining hairless skull, and then offered it. Wright +sighed, shaken, "It _had_ to work--exchange of gifts--a universal--" + +When Dorothy dropped on one knee to take it, the mask relaxed for the +first time in a wintry smile. Over the proud bald head went the chain +of the locket, and Abro Pakriaa watched Dorothy put the necklace +on--fortunately it was long, even drooping a little below Dorothy's +throat. A flutter of red hands seemed to mean that Dorothy was to +stand back; another motion brought forward the woman who carried the +hide, her face a chip of red stone. The hide was unrolled, and the +bones placed on it. There was more intricate speech, with touching of +the locket and graceful, apparently kindly waving of thin arms. +Dorothy responded: "Four score and seven years ago...." She went on to +the end without mirth or hesitation, fondling the shell necklace, +giving the words the power of music that belongs to them even apart +from knowledge of their meaning. When she was silent, Abro Pakriaa +motioned the woman with the hide to go and held up her two hands +clasped together, the Chinese salutation. She waited till Dorothy had +done the same and strode away, recovering her spear without a backward +look, vanishing under the trees. + +Dorothy collapsed in the shadow of the barrier. Tentatively she +groaned: "How'm I doing?" + +Wright snarled; "Suppose you know that damn bowman had an arrow +trained on you the whole time?" + +She glanced at him, lips quivering. "I was kind of aware of it." + +"Can I," said Paul, "touch the hand that touched the hand--" + +"Oh no. I ain' gonna 'sociate with no common scum no mo'." + +Mijok stared in wonder at their sudden paroxysms of hysterical +laughter. He rumbled in doubt. Then the contagion caught him. Whatever +his own interpretation might be, he was bellowing, hammering his +chest, rolling over on the moss and scattering handfuls of it while he +roared. + +He did not sober until he saw Wright drawing pictures on the +earth--three stylized but obvious human figures, one small, one +medium-sized, one large. Only the middle one had five fingers. Wright +gouged a circle around all three. He said, "C'm'on, Mijok--language +lesson." + + + + +7 + + +The trail was obvious only to the pygmies, through a border region of +meadow and forest that was full of dappled light, a warm hurry of life +feeding, struggling, wandering. Aware of his own power and readiness, +able now to enjoy the shifting scents and noises of this new trail, +Paul watched Ann's quick slenderness and the swing of Spearman's solid +shoulders. They, and Sears Oliphant, had emerged unharmed from the +illness. During a week unmeasurably long in retrospect, all six of the +party had found the ease and sureness of physical acclimation. Their +bodies rejoiced in the hot clean air of day and the moist moderate +nights; the only rebel was the Earth-born brain--grudging, frightened, +trailing, making endless reservations and timid of shadows. In Sears +Oliphant it was an almost open battle between a brave and curious mind +and flesh that could not hide its wincing from pain and danger. His +"Oh my, yes" had a tremor which angered himself and oppressed his +natural garrulity. + +When Ann Bryan had drifted out of the sleep of illness, Ed Spearman +was petting her hands, sponging her forehead. Paul had seen something +happen in Ann at that moment, like an innocent putting forth of leaves +when winter is not surely gone. Ann had never taken a lover. On the +ship, not so much unawakened as unwilling, she had rejected all that; +Spearman, making no secret of wanting her, had not been insistent. Nor +had he seemed outwardly much distressed, but (at a time when +Earth-harbored youth of his nature would have been in their liveliest +and most demanding prime) he had buried himself in _Argo's_ technical +library to the point of red-eyed exhaustion, a desperation of +unceasing study in the technologies that Captain Jensen would have +helped him explore if Jensen had lived. Ann had read other matters +after the violin strings were gone, read and daydreamed. If she'd wept +(and Paul thought she had) she had done it alone, in that pocket of a +room sacred to herself. To the others, she was a passionately silent +adolescent turning into a tiredly silent woman, who made too much +point of doing her own work and asking for nothing. + +Yes, Ann was different now. The thin beauty of her face, vivid white +under heavy black hair, was still too quiet, but with a troubled +radiance. During this long week she had talked much with Dorothy--talk +superficially inconsequential, but Paul assumed it had a meaning below +words, as if Ann had only just realized, probably without envy, that +the brown girl was a thousand years older in heart and mind. + +Beyond Ann and Spearman were the six bowmen of the escort, bodies +bright with a sour-smelling oil, grouped around Abro Pakriaa at a +deferential distance. The princess wore Dorothy's locket. "Abro," Paul +had learned, was best translated as "princess" or "queen." A flame-red +flower behind her ear caught sunlight from the early afternoon. Five +others were following Paul--women, with skirts of every tint but +Pakriaa's blue, taller than the men, carrying spears with blades of a +white stone resembling quartz. The men were unvaryingly soft, rounded +in contour, lacking the women's tough-sinewed vigor. It was plain, +merely from the manner of Abro Pakriaa and her spear bearers, that +among this people to be a woman was to be a leader and soldier, no +doubt a hunter and head of the household by virtue of size and +strength. In muscular power, a male pygmy was to a female as the +weakest of Earth's women was to the toughest male athlete. These of +the bodyguard were soldiers of a sort: the bows were small, the arrows +only big darts. The bowmen never spoke except meekly in response to +some patronizing word of the princess. Pakriaa's height topped forty +inches; none of the bowmen was quite three feet tall. Paul's fingers +itched for brush and palette. They were available in the lifeboat. The +fact that he had not even unpacked them he blamed on a preoccupation +with the daily work needed for mere survival, but there was a deeper +reason: perhaps a fear of finding his moderate ability vanished if he +should once try to hint with oil at the welling profusion of color and +line that was Lucifer. Now he found himself trying to measure the +quality of Pakriaa's rich copper against the softness of leaves that +were burnt umber, malachite green, saffron, purple, and he thought: _I +must be recovering. Wake up, ego, and look around._ + +Spearman was carrying rifle and automatic; Paul had preferred to leave +his rifle behind; Ann, hating firearms, had only her knife. + +Abro Pakriaa had entered the camp at noon, her fourth visit in the +week. Her gloomy majesty unchanging, she had indicated that she wished +them to come to her village. But Dorothy had turned her ankle the +evening before and it still pained her. Wright, no doubt hungering +more than any of the others for a sight of Pakriaa's way of living, +had fretted and bumbled and elected to remain with Dorothy and Sears, +urging Paul needlessly to remember his anthropology. Sears, sweating +out a microsection of a water insect from Lake Argo, had flapped a fat +hand and boomed: "You be sure 'n' telephone, damn it, if you're +staying for dinner, hey?" + +Remaining uneasily close to Wright, as he did whenever the pygmies +appeared, Mijok had said carefully, "Telephone?" + +"Word without meaning," said Wright gently, patting the huge arm. +"Noise word for fun." + +The attitude of Pakriaa's people to Mijok suggested the studious +ignoring of an indecency. They would not harm the ugly animal, their +manner said, so long as he was the property of the important sky +people.... + +Life was generously abundant in this thinner forest. Things buzzed and +flew; Paul noticed a few webs cunningly extended before burrows in the +humus. Ann's ocean-gray eyes glanced back, brave and uncertain. "Those +girls are too quiet. Paul, how much _do_ they know of our language?" + +"Not much." He moved up to walk on her other side. "Doc and I have +made only those two efforts to swap languages. A lot of that time had +to be wasted on theirs, a dead end for us." + +Spearman grunted, "Why? They've got a civilization, as Doc says." + +"Our voices are wrong. Pitch effects meaning for them. You've noticed +there's no pitch difference between their male and female voices. +Their language is tied to one section of the scale; a full octave of +it is above the range of even Ann's voice. They can shape our words +though, if they're willing. Basic English may appeal to the princess +when she condescends to take it seriously." + +"They could have picked up more than we suspect. They could have been +eavesdropping outside the camp." + +"No, Ed. Mijok would have known and told us." + +"Yeah--Fido. Can hardly speak freely in front of him now." + +"Don't think anything you wouldn't want him to hear." + +"Paul, I swear, sometimes you're worse than Doc." But Spearman wanted +to cancel the ill temper of the remark, and added: "You know, I +thought _I_ knew something about Basic English--we all had drill +enough in it. Beats me, the things Doc can do with it--the man's a +wizard." + +Paul was silent with unappeased annoyance. It was true: Mijok appeared +to be a natural student too, already far beyond Basic English in a +week of keen listening. "Nan," Paul said, "how did you like Mijok's +humming when you were singing for us yesterday evening?" + +"Good." She flashed him an almost cheerful smile. But when Ann spoke +of her singing--and in the singing itself--there was, in spite of her, +an aching wordless reminder of the violin gone silent. Her voice was +sweet but without strength or resonance, and she took no ardent +pleasure in using it. Her love was the violin--covered as well as +might be in the comparative safety of the lifeboat, waiting for a +distant day. If the day ever came (Sears had already dissected out, +dried, and oiled some long leg-tendon fibers of a deerlike animal in a +humble experiment aimed chiefly at Ann's morale)--if the day came, +there would still be no piano, no answering of other strings, no +splendid cry of brass. Crude wood winds, perhaps, sometime.... "Yes, +he was good," said Ann, smiling. "Organ point in the tonic, and right +in our own scale. Once he even upped to the dominant. Instinct, huh? +Sounded good, Paul, even with you trying to fill in the middle." + +"Hell, I didn't think you heard me," Spearman snorted. + +"You kind of stood out," she said, "because Mijok was much better on +pitch, my good man. It did sound hollow without something to fill in. +He was on A-flat below the bass clef and no fooling.... _Why_ haven't +we seen other giants?" + +"We got something on that this morning. I guess it was while you were +in swimming. Each giant male has an inviolate hunting territory, and +they don't trespass. Definite breeding season: the month before the +rains. That was five or maybe six red-moon changes ago. Mijok wasn't +too clear on the count--doesn't like mathematics much better than I +do. The women go where they please, in small groups, with the children +who still need care, but I gather the males are expected to stay in +their own private grounds until the Red-Moon-before-the-Rains." + +Spearman wondered: "Will the pygmies have a season too?" + +"Doubt it. Probably like us--except that women are the bosses. The +clothes suggest a continuing sex consciousness." + +The pygmy leaders halted. A murmuring explained itself as the music of +a stream. Paul consulted his memory of the map made from orbit +photographs and of his one solo exploration flight in the lifeboat. +There could be few such flights: the charlesite, even with the surplus +salvaged from the wrecked boat, must be hoarded. Ann and Ed had flown +over the lake on the day after their recovery, searching for any sign +of _Argo_. Returning, Ed's face had been a leather mask of grief, and +neither had wanted to talk of it. Later they explained: the lake was a +profundity of secret blue; a shelf of sand or possibly white stone ran +out some yards offshore, under water marvelously clear, and ended +abruptly. Beyond it, where _Argo_ must have fallen, no bottom could +even be guessed at; the lifeboat's camera confirmed the presence of an +abyss that would have thwarted the most complex twenty-first-century +machinery. + +This stream, Paul knew, came from the western hills, flowing east and +slightly north until it entered the lake northeast of the clearing +called home. Another creek joined it east of the spot where they now +stood, and Pakriaa's village--if the parallel lines did represent its +location--was not far upstream from that junction. + +Worn boulders rose above noisy water. The stream was twenty yards +wide, sluggish even here in the shallows. A steppingstone crossing. + +Nearly all the rivers on the map passed through jungle for most of +their length; numberless smaller streams would be hidden from the sky. +There was grassland for fifteen to twenty miles on the eastern side of +every range of hills. The prevailing winds were from the west; perhaps +a dryness in the lee of the hills favored the grass. The broadest +stretch of such open land lay east of a rugged coastal range seventy +miles to the southwest; some of the mountains in that seacoast +formation were mighty enough to hold a blur of snow at their summits. +The base of the coastal range was narrow--hardly more than twenty +miles. From this the peaks shot up with incredible sheerness to great +heights of bare rock that glittered in morning sun like black and red +glass. This grandeur, like nothing known on Earth, was clearly visible +from the camp above the near hills, especially at midday, when the +mists were gone. + +And ten miles offshore from that dizzy range, Paul remembered a +mountainous island. On his solo exploration two days ago, with the +lifeboat's panoramic camera and a head full of puzzled dreams, he had +soared above it, noting a peninsular strip of red sand at its southern +end, sheltered mountain valleys--one framing a jewel of lake. In the +north was a white beach where landing should be easy, and this was +protected by a low headland of red cliffs running out to the very tip +of the island. Surely a place to carry in the mind, it seemed to +invite human living as did no other near region in this continent of +Lucifer. Wright thought so: he listened to Paul's description and +named the island Adelphi.... + +North of the camp, the range of low western hills dwindled to rolling +land and was lost in a tremendous expanse of unbroken jungle, which +ended only at the shore of one of the great lakes four hundred miles +away--an inland sea fourteen hundred miles long. Sixty-odd miles to +the south there was that large cluster of parallel lines in jungle, +and beyond it the forest gave way to more open ground, prairie, red +desert, and bare mountains. + +Abro Pakriaa dipped her spear in the water; she lifted a handful, +letting it trickle away while she spoke a rippling invocation; then +she was lithely crossing on the stones after the bowmen. The bottom +was pale sand with varicolored pebbles. + +Beyond the stream, Pakriaa followed a path a short way and pressed +into undergrowth. Spearman grumbled, "Good path for once, and we have +to--" + +"Path's probably booby-trapped. She expects us to know that." + +"Hell...." It was difficult passage, stooping on a trail meant for +little folk; it ended at a ditch six feet wide and five deep. The +ditch made a right angle, both lines stretching away straightly as far +as the eye could go; the inner side of the ditch was heaped with dry +sticks and bundles of grass. Pakriaa trilled orders to an old +black-skirted woman with a whip, in charge of a gang of four women and +three men, all totally naked. They were struggling to shove a movable +bridge into place across the ditch--two logs bearing a mat of vines +and bark. It was grunting work for them, and when the end of the +bridge was in reach, Pakriaa's escort made no motion to help. Spearman +started to; Paul interfered. "We'd lose face. Those are slaves. Women +tied together at the ankles--one of the men a eunuch. Look at the +brands on their cheeks. Nan, you're the dominant sex--try to look more +like the president of a women's club." + +Her finely modeled face had dignity enough, he thought, if she could +keep the worry out of it.... The old woman in the black skirt bowed +arrogantly to Pakriaa; the slaves cringed, with the hating stare of +the trapped. All were scarred and young except for the eunuch, who was +wrinkled and flabby. One female had a recent chest wound; the effort +at the bridge had made it bleed, but she ignored it. Paul saw +Spearman's face settle into lines of poker blankness and thought: +_Good_. _And if, to patience and courage, he could add (I hear you, +Doc) charity and self-knowledge--Oh, be quiet, critic, be quiet._... + +Trees had been felled--some time ago, for the stumps were rotted--and +the spacing was such that the tops of the trees left standing provided +a gap twenty feet wide, the entire length of the village. There would +be two other such gaps, visible from the sky as parallel lines, +admitting full midday sunlight but shutting out the omasha. +"Nan--let's try to learn something about that big settlement in the +south--the other parallel lines." + +It was surprisingly easy to convey the question to Pakriaa with the +help of signs, but her response when she understood it was a shrill +snarl and shaking of her spear, a repetition of a name, "Vestoia," +which seemed to be the place, and of another name, "Lantis," a name +that caught in her throat and made her spit. Paul said, "We make faces +at the south too, and do it fast." It seemed to appease the princess: +she even smiled. + +The area bordering the ditch had been left wild, a barrier of vines, +brush, untended trees. Inside were orderly rows of plants, some +broad-leaved, resembling beets, some bushy; another type was rangy +with cosmos-shaped blooms of startling emerald green. Near the row of +trees was a path which Pakriaa followed; under the trees stood +grass-thatched structures. Paul counted thirty, well separated, before +the princess left the path, and no sound came from them. The trees +were mostly of the same species, thin-trunked towers with dark +serrated leaves, blazing with scarlet blossoms like the one Pakriaa +wore. They were the source of an odor like frangipani which filled the +village, heady and sweet but clean. It was no primitive agriculture in +this part-sunny corridor: rich darkness of earth was drawn up about +the plants; there was not a weed in sight. And there was no trace of +the strangling purple vines. + +Pakriaa's male attendants had slipped away; her spearwomen accompanied +her through an opening into the next corridor, where her people were +waiting for her, the soldier women in three formal ranks. There were +about fifty in each rank, and here again were dyed skirts of every +color but the regal blue that was Abro Pakriaa's. Small faces +maintained the flat indifference of the unliving copper they +resembled. + +Pakriaa's intricate oratory flowed over them. More than two thirds of +the stiff soldiers were gashed with recent wounds, ranging from +scratches to lost hands or breasts or eyes. Some had deep body wounds +so ugly it was amazing that they could stand upright, but there +seemed to be no evidence of infection and there was no wavering in the +lines while Pakriaa declaimed. Her right hand soared with spread +fingers. The lifeboat? The name Torothee occurred; when it was +repeated the women swayed with unchanging faces, murmuring it in +unison like a breath of wind. Pakriaa faced her guests. Tears were not +unknown to her; laughter might be. She clenched and relaxed her hands, +the fourteen fingers rising and falling until Paul lost count of the +motions--more than twenty. She pointed to the soldiers, repeating the +display more slowly and only ten times; then one hand rose alone with +the thumb curled under. Paul muttered, "I think she's saying only 146 +are left after the war, from--maybe three hundred." + +Pakriaa laid her spear at Ann's feet. Paul advised: "Give her your +knife, same way." Pakriaa took it and placed it across the spear and +stood back, motioning to Ann to do the same. When the three had +withdrawn, Pakriaa still made impatient gestures. Paul whispered, "Ed, +you and I are trifling males. We stand further back." + +"We do like hell," said Spearman in his throat. + +"We do, just the same. It's nothing but ceremony. Safety's off on my +.38. We can handle anything. Stand back." + +Ed Spearman stood back, muttering. At a shrill summons from Pakriaa, a +shuffling procession swung out from the tree shadows. These were all +men, decrepit, ancient, dirty; some limped and two had empty eye +sockets and one, from a pathological fatness, could barely waddle. +They were striped and splotched with paint in elaborate designs, +mostly of white and yellow, and their skins, either with dirt or age, +had darkened to dull mahogany. They formed a hobbling circle around +the crossed knife and spear; each grotesque, as he passed the weapons, +spat on them and scattered on them a handful of earth until the place +became a low mound. As they did this, they muttered and howled and +squeaked, performing precise evolutions with twiddling fingers. They +carried white thigh-bones like clubs, and shell ornaments jangled on +their raddled throats and ankles. It was, on the surface, a simple +ceremony of peace and friendship, but the casual contempt of these +male witches cast a foulness over it. Their sidelong glances at the +strangers were poisonous with furtive malignancy. "Medicine men," +said Paul under his breath. "Distant equivalent of the wise women in +some patriarchal groups. Ed, we stay on the good side of those loopy +scarecrows, or it's just too bad." And with a certain hunger he +studied the mask of the man who had never offered the relaxation of +friendship, wondering how far it was physically possible for Spearman +to accept a world in which engineering science was the dream and crude +survival the reality. + +The ceremony ended in a dribble of anticlimax. The hideous old men +merely shambled away from the mound toward the shadows after a +ceremonial whoop that caused the soldiers to relax. But they did not +quite go. They huddled and squatted under the trees. They stared. They +spat and scratched and consulted together. Some of the green eyes were +close-lidded, veiled; others were wide, making no effort to conceal a +hatred compounded of jealousy and fear. The fat monster nursed his +obscene belly between scrawny knees and whispered a stream of +information into the close ear of a witch with empty eye sockets, and +the whispering dark lips wore a destroying smile. + + + + +8 + + +Abro Pakriaa motioned her guests to be seated before a large building; +the fibers of this structure were dyed the blue of her skirt. The +soldiers stalked about in a show of nonchalance. Young men and naked +children had come timidly from the houses. The youngest children were +disproportionately tiny, large-headed but no bigger than house cats. +Perhaps childbirth for this race was no more than a passing +inconvenience. There were many pairs of obviously identical twins. The +children stayed near the protective men, all but the older girls, who +ventured somewhat closer. + +It was a village without laughter. No scampering, no horseplay, no +evidence of any tenderness except between the men and the smallest +children. Curiosity burned in all of them, but its overt expression +was limited to the dead-pan stare. + +Pakriaa entered her blue building alone, greeted by a flutter of +voices from within, and she was gone several minutes. When Pakriaa had +seated her guests, most of the ancient painted males had shuffled +across the clearing--even the fat horror whose walking must have been +pain--to settle in the shadows on the other side and continue their +baleful watching. Paul noticed that even the spear-carrying women +skipped clear to give them elbow-room and never looked directly at +them. The fat witch found a place to squat that gave him a clear view +of all three visitors; as he gazed he sucked toothlessly at the knob +of his thighbone club. + +The houses were lightly framed of wood, with walls of interwoven fiber +two thirds of the way to the eaves, joints bound and roofs thatched +with the same material, a design similar to what Paul remembered from +a year spent in the Republic of Oceania. The modern citizens of that +many-islanded republic, Paul recollected, still preferred the +ancestral savage building pattern to stone or plastic; it suited the +climate and the friendly, unpretentious way of life. But none of the +buildings here was raised on supports: snakes and vicious insects were +evidently no problem. There were no domestic animals, apparently no +parasites nor self-evident diseases; except for wounds and the dirt of +the old men, the pygmy skins looked clear and healthy. There were not +even any bad smells except the mildly disagreeable oil the males used +to anoint their bodies. + +Pakriaa returned, with her make-up on. She had flowers behind both +ears, and one tied by its stem to Dorothy's locket. Heavy white +circles were drawn about the lady's eyes and breasts and navel; blue +bracelets dangled at her wrists; her skirt had been replaced by an +innocently unconcealing fringe of shells--similar to snail shells, +Paul thought. Pakriaa's anklets of wooden beads were orange. The top +of her bald head was robin's-egg blue. Two males, with the brand marks +that must mean slavery, followed her with a seat--a block of wood, +cleverly carved with stylized animal figures. It brought her face on a +level with Ann's. Ann said politely, "Why the hell can't I be handsome +too?" And Pakriaa inclined her head. A boy without the slave brand +came with a wooden bowl; Pakriaa sipped the greenish liquid and +offered the bowl to Ann. Spearman rumbled. Paul said, "Protocol. You +gotta, Nan, but don't offer us any--we're meek males." + +Ann swallowed some; her eyes watered; she repressed choking. +"Alcoholic, I do mean...." + +Feasting followed--a laborious hour of it, as food arrived without +pause in the hands of branded men from the other side of the +sheltering trees. Wood smoke drifted from that direction, and a hum of +voices. All the dishes included meat cut in tiny cubes--stewed, fried, +boiled, or smothered in unknown vegetables. Only one course was +aggressively horrid, carrion swimming in peppery sauce, clearly a +favorite of Pakriaa's, for she belched wonderfully and patted her +stomach in self-applause. Ann remarked, "Another go at that and I +start looking for another planet." + +In time even Pakriaa had had enough. She clapped her broad hands. +Greasy-mouthed and bulging, the soldiers formed a swaying, stamping +line. Spearman burped helplessly. "All that inside, and they can +dance?" + +Ann suggested: "Maybe it helps...." + +It was an hour-long narrative dance, vastly monotonous, a picture of +war. Some of those most cruelly wounded pranced into solo pantomimes +bragging of how the injuries had been received. In climax, a straw +figure of a woman was dragged to the center of the clearing: an image +carefully made, brightly painted, the face hideous, the sexual +features grossly exaggerated. Shrilling what seemed to be a name +("Lantis! Lantis!"), the soldiers swarmed on this effigy, squealing, +stabbing, defiling, tearing it into shreds, which they carried away as +treasures or mementos. + +When the soldier women had finished in yawning exhaustion, a crowd of +dainty men performed another sort of dance, purely an erotic show, +indicating that the role of the male was seductive, half infantile, +submissive all the way. Occasionally a soldier pulled a dancer out of +the line, slapping his face until he stopped the squealing that was +evidently required of him, and wandered away with him; but most of the +soldiers were too tired, gorged, or wounded to be interested. Later, +some twenty soldiers formed a group, and men brought them babies to be +nursed, morsels of humanity, quite silent, far smaller in proportion +than Earth's newborn. The mothers' arms were careful and competent, +without tenderness; they held the infants two at a time, examining +them shrewdly, often exchanging them with other soldiers. There were a +few cooing demonstrations of affection by the men toward these +infants, demonstrations which the soldiers ignored. Ann whispered, "I +could spend a lot of time hating these little devils." + +"Try not to." + +"I know, Paul, but--" + +"At least they have a civilization." Spearman was arguing with +himself. "A potential technology. That's good gardening. Good tools, +weapons." + +"Nan, see if you can ask Mrs. President to show us the town." + +Pakriaa caught on swiftly and was delighted.... + +The first of the tree-sheltered areas contained all the dwelling +houses, dulled by the splendor of Pakriaa's. Ann was invited to enter +this blue palace, Pakriaa making it clear that the men must not +follow. Ann emerged, red-faced. Later, when it would not be so patent +that she was talking of Pakriaa's house, Ann said, "Couldn't make out +much detail. Dim, and no lamps burning, though I think I saw some clay +things like old Roman lamps. Clean, funny perfume smells. I met--her +mother maybe. Incredibly old anyway, and almost black. Their skin must +change color with age." + +"Dirt more likely," Spearman said. + +"Not a bit of it. Very clean. Just a dry little ghost in a fancy room +of her own, with a--a male slave manicuring her toenails. We haven't +seen any old women out in the open." + +"Sheltered and reverenced, maybe," Paul said. "Natural." + +"Her Highness has a--I suppose you'd have to call it a harem. Ten +little husbands, or maybe eleven." + +"What a girl!" said Spearman. + +Ann was amused, though her cheeks were flaming. "I was offered one." + +"Hope you explained the rejection implied no lack of merit." + +"Tried to, Paul. I think I got over the idea that there was a taboo +involved--something like that. Her Majesty didn't insist...." + +The ditch enclosed the village. One side of its square paralleled the +river, not more than thirty feet from it but making no connection. It +would have been easy to flood the ditch, but that was evidently not +the intention. When Ann conveyed curiosity, Pakriaa was astonished +that anyone could be ignorant of its function. "_Kaksma!_" she said, +and pointed west. "Kaksma...!" Convinced at last that Ann's puzzlement +was genuine, she drew a picture on the earth, with such vigorous art +that she herself feared the image and drew back. It was a profile view +of an animal larger than a rat, long-headed with a hump on the back. +She had given it a tiny eye and a forward-thrusting tooth nothing like +a rodent's; the forefoot was broad and flattened, a digger's foot. +Giving Ann only a brief time to study it, Pakriaa spat on the image +and wiped it out with a violent heel. She muttered an angry +incantation and pointed to the dry wood heaped by the ditch, while her +dancing fingers told of flames that would defend the village.... + +In the second tree-sheltered area were the industries. Men, not +slaves, glanced up from the shaping of earthenware vessels. They had +no potter's wheel, only their hands, but there was a kiln of baked +earth. Pakriaa called a favorite over, hugged him, and sent him back +with a pat on the rump. He was quite old, toothless, and giggling. +They passed a row of dye pots, three women braiding fiber into flat +sheets, a square of ground with part-finished spearheads, arrow +points, other devices, a rack where deerlike hides were stretched in +some curing process. "They sleep on those," Ann said, "and use 'em for +rugs. The palace was full of 'em...." + +In the rear of the village was a stockade of stripped logs, guarded by +two soldier women. In the space before it, but facing away from it so +that the painted eyes brooded over the village, stood a monstrous +wooden idol, eight feet tall, raised on a low platform. Pakriaa led +her guests before the image and knelt. It was necessary to do the +same, and Ann imitated her gracefully enough. As he knelt himself, +Paul saw in a backward glance that three gangling male witches had +followed and were observing every motion with a rigid malevolence. It +was difficult to kneel with his back to them; Spearman, he hoped, had +not seen them. + +The idol was exaggeratedly female, with huge carnivorous teeth +indicated in white paint. A slot representing the left hand carried a +nine-foot spear upright. The right arm, a natural branch of the log, +reached forward and spread into a rugged table; more wood had been +neatly joined to make the table five feet long, but the whole gave the +effect of a swollen accepting hand, and it was foul with bloodstains +old and new. Pakriaa's long murmured prayer repeated the name Ismar +many times. At the end she seemed satisfied; her glance at Ann was +almost a smile. Paul saw that the witches had drifted away, but the +pressure of their watching remained. + +Pakriaa now took them into the stockade. It seemed to Paul that the +guards were scarcely needed.... + +These naked men, women, and children had no danger in them. No life. +They moved and functioned as if in life: walked, spat, scratched, +yawned; a woman nursed a baby mechanically; a man strolled to a trough +in the center of the compound and ate a handful of damp stuff like +poultry mash, then rubbed his side against the wooden edge as a pig +might. Beyond such elemental motions there was no life. A woman +followed a man for several paces; both flight and pursuit were dull, +unfinished, a fumbling response to a sluggish stimulus. They paid no +attention to Pakriaa and the strangers. The slack emptiness of their +faces denied the possibility of any thought more than a flurry in +response to physical need. They were all over-plump; some of the +females were scarred, but the wounds were old and healed. Paul could +see no anatomical differences between them and their lively free +kindred. A drug...? + +Pakriaa walked among them like a farmer in a flock of chickens. She +lifted a young girl, who made no effort to escape, and showed her to +Ann with contented pride, pinching a fat thigh and middle. The child +was limp, unexcited, mumbling a mouthful of the mash. Fighting back a +retching, Ann muttered, "Paul, when can we get out of here?" + +Abro Pakriaa caught the tone. She tossed the little girl away and led them +out of the stockade. She seemed hurt rather than angry--disappointed that +her important friends had shown no admiration at this thriving industry.... + +The soldiers had gathered again in the clearing, but now there was a +waiting, a tension with the descent of twilight, and a gloom. A long +fire had been built; Pakriaa's wave at her guests appeared to mean +that they should sit where they pleased. Ann had not been able to +convey the wish for an escort home, and Pakriaa's mind was plainly +filled with some other, graver concern, having no more time for +hospitality. Pakriaa entered her blue house. While she was gone, the +soldiers seated beyond the fire scattered handfuls of earth in +synchronized motions and the witches grouped behind them set up a +monotone of chanting. Pakriaa returned wearing a white skirt, bare of +all her paint and jewelry; she walked back and forth along the line of +the fire, praying, until daylight was wholly gone. At her call, old +men, neither painted nor grotesque, carried out burdened hides and +laid them open beside the fire: white bones, broken weapons, skirts, +loincloths, necklaces, arrows, little earthen pots and wooden bowls, +many images of clay. The soldiers threw themselves face down, their +foreheads on their arms, and wailed. + +Spearman's voice was tortured with perplexity: "Eat some, mourn for +others. Murder them and love them--" + +"Yes, they're human." + +"Oh, shut up, Paul. What do you mean, human? These animals?" + +"Human mourning, isn't it? Listen to it." + +Ann spoke with held-in fury: "At least we're not cannibals. There may +still be war back on Earth, but after all--" + +"Better to murder in groups of a thousand at long distance? Just +listen to it, Ann...." + +It was music, becoming after a time the only thing existing under the +red moon and the delicate unceasing dance of blue fireflies. It was +the music they had heard on the first night in the jungle, a pouring +forth of lamentation, wonder, supplication, whatever the spirit may +feel in the contemplation of death and its troubling counterpart. A +music that was meant to go on unchanging as the song of tree frogs for +the thirteen hours of a night of Lucifer.... Pakriaa took no vocal +part in the ritual, but sat alone, guarding the relics of the fallen. +From time to time small man shapes carried new fuel to the fire. And +there were stern sidelong glances from the princess: she had not +forgotten her guests. Once or twice Paul caught himself dozing off, +dragged into a partial hypnosis by the endless lamentation.... + +"Paul?" + +"Yes, Nan. I'm awake." He saw Spearman's head jerk upright. + +"Doc asked me yesterday--if I would bear him a child." + +Spearman's arm sought for her gently. "Why bring that up now? Can't +think with all this damn caterwauling." + +"I--did get to thinking.... Everything we used to live by--it's so +far away. Paul, you're close to Doc. You understand him, I guess." + +Two troubled faces were turned to Paul in the mystery of firelight. A +glance from Pakriaa conveyed annoyance at the sound of voices. +"Dorothy told me she wants Sears to be the father of her second. It +won't take her away from me. Not natural perhaps, but right under the +circumstances. Some of the most important laws and customs can't be +started by us. They'll be established by our grandchildren, if we can +have them." + +"I know." But her upward look at Spearman's worried, half-angry face +said that her decision would be made by him, no other. + +"He mustn't talk. The queen no like...." + +It might have been an hour later that Paul saw Spearman's head sag +down on his chest. Ann leaned against him, but his arm around her had +gone slack. Paul searched for the cause of a sense of danger that +prickled his skin. Not the witches: they were grouped as before, +chanting a faint counterpoint to the soldiers' wailing. No--it was Ed +Spearman himself, and Paul came broad awake in a certainty of what +would happen. Too late. Spearman's head twitched, and his unconscious +throat let loose a resonant, uncompromising snore, a snore that had +been famous on the great ship _Argo_. Sears Oliphant had always +claimed that if only Ed could be harnessed in sleep to the reaction +chamber.... But this was not going to be funny.... + +Pakriaa leaped up and shrieked a raging order. The wailing ceased. The +soldiers were staggering upright, grabbing spears, forming a circle of +violence around the guests before Spearman could even rise. He gasped, +"Wha's matter?" and ten pygmy women were hauling him away by wrists +and ankles, clear of the ground. + +Paul shouted. "Don't fight 'em, Ed! Keep quiet!" Two soldiers were +clinging to each of his own arms, there was a ring of shivering spears +around him, and others had dragged Ann out of sight, but she was +screaming as if they could understand: "Don't hurt him! He didn't do +anything! Let him go!" + +Without twitching his hampered arms, Paul moved slowly against the +circle of spears. They had no quarrel with him, he sensed, but only +meant to restrain him: it was at least the only action worth a gamble. +The spearwomen stepped backward away from him. The whole circle moved +in slow motion, following where Spearman had been carried--through the +tree shelter, on across the next clearing, and into the space before +the looming god. + +Ed had not been able to snatch his rifle; he still had his holstered +automatic. Paul could not see Ann, nor Pakriaa. He could see +Spearman's face, a concentration of craft and fighting fury. The pygmy +women lifted him and flung him on the table before the idol. He was +ready. He bounced like a great cat, gained his feet, and twitched out +the pistol, which banged once--at the huge blade of the idol's spear. +The stone blade crumbled; the crash of the little gun made his captors +wince back in shocked reaction. Then Ed Spearman stooped, grasped the +reaching wrist of the idol, and heaved upward with the whole of his +strength. + +The god swayed, groaned like a thing of life, and toppled over, +squashing one of the howling witches--a blind one--like a red bug. + +The village dropped into total silence. Paul could see Ann now. The +pygmies had let her go. The whiteness of her face had more than terror +in it: it had exultation, a glory of excitement and wrath. Paul's own +captors had lurched away; his automatic had slipped into his hand +without conscious effort; he searched in desperation for something +that might restore his friends to steadier sanity. "Walk," he said. +"Walk, don't run, to the nearest exit...." + +The pygmies allowed it. The god had fallen. They even stood back, too +profoundly dazed for any thought or protest.... At the edge of the +village Spearman jumped in the ditch, reached for Ann, swung her up on +the other side. "Did anyone bring a flashlight?" + +"Oh, I--I did," said Ann, and began to cry. "Brought +flashlight--'stead of gun...." + +Paul stayed in the rear. "They won't follow, I think. Not for a +while." + +The stooping passageway was hard to find. But when they won clear of +it there was the guiding sound of the stream. Paul held the +flashlight on the line of stepping stones until the others had +crossed. Ann was still weeping in reaction. "We'll never win. It's all +madness--the ship, everything. All human beings are crazy, crazy--" + +"Hush, dear," Spearman said. "We got out, didn't we?" + +Now, where was the trail? A madness of groping, blundering, where +there was no path, no guidance, and even their little thread of light +a mockery and confusion. + +Abruptly, ahead of them, there were other lights, then voices--Mijok's +soft rumbling, Wright's clear outcry: "There they are! All three, +Mijok--" + +Paul ran to him. "The others--Dorothy? Sears?" + +"Right as rain, son," Wright mumbled. "Except Dot's been frantic about +you since we heard the shot. We left Sears practically sitting on +her--well, figuratively. Women are odd, you know: they don't like +shots in the night when the best boy friend is out on the tiles." + +"Had a little trouble. They may come after us--don't know...." + +Ann was quiet. Paul saw her white hands starfished on the gray of +Mijok's chest. She said, "Mijok, I'm tired and sick. Will you carry +me?" + +Spearman groaned: "Ann, what--Use your head...." + +But Mijok knelt at once to make a cradle of his arms, and Christopher +Wright said, "Why not? Why shouldn't we need each other?" Mijok went +ahead with her on the blind trail. + +Paul heard Spearman choke: "I would have carried her." It was not +meant to be heard. Paul looked away, hearing also the deep precision +of the giant's voice exploring the mystery of words: "You are my +people. I will not ever be much time far from you." + + + + +Part Two + +The Year One + + + + +1 + + +"This island is Eden." Sears Oliphant spoke drowsily. Toy bat wings +flickered from the woods crowning the hillside, hovered over a pond: +_illuama_. In a scant year of Lucifer time (seventeen months of the +calendar of Earth) native names had become natural, mostly Mijok's +names. + +Two red-moon changes ago, in the final jading month of the rains, the +pygmy word "kaksma" had been only a symbol. Now it woke the image of a +village desolate, bones scraped and scarred. The mind's eye winced in +pity--a sentry careless, a bridge left in place after dark; thousands +of ratty bodies rustling down from the wet hills, over open ground, +swimming swollen streams, finding the bridge before oil on the rain +water in the ditch could be ignited. Small bodies, not swift, leaping +or humping along like furry worms, sniffing, squeaking, their stabbing +teeth dark with the blood of any flesh that moved. The northernmost of +the villages allied with Pakriaa's had already returned to jungle. + +But here, ten miles offshore from the coastal range, no kaksmas lived; +Sears and Paul, in two days of study on this second visit, had +established that. No wide wings lurked in the sky. The hilly island +had no large meadows where omasha could hunt. Three giants had been +flown to the island a month ago--the girl Arek, her mother Muson, and +old Rak. They said it was a place of calm. Their soft talk could be +heard up the slope, where a log building was growing. Paul stretched, +lean and comfortable, on the grass, glad to be alone for a while with +this least demanding of his friends. + +Sears was fatter, but hardened, a round block of man, with a coarse +black beard, kindness of brown eyes unaltered. Christopher Wright, +waiting at the "fortress" by Lake Argo and no doubt frantic for word +of this exploration, had let his beard grow too, sandy gray. Spearman +and Paul had stayed clean-shaven, with soap made from fat and wood +ashes. "The others must come here, Paul. I suppose Chris won't consent +till Pakriaa agrees--damn, you'd think she could see it. She knows her +enemies fear the ocean as she does. Lantis' two-by-four army would +never chase after us in their lake boats." + +"Wait a minute, Jocko. Lantis is no two-by-four proposition." + +"Damn pint-size Napoleon with four teats and a grass skirt." + +"Lookee: that settlement south of Lake Argo is thirty miles long. +Equivalent of two hundred villages, to Pakriaa's six. Say twenty +thousand warriors who got their pride hurt a year ago when the crash +of _Argo_ swamped their fleet and scared the pants off 'em. They'll +have replaced the fleet. They'll come overland too. Lantis, Queen of +the World." + +"If they do"--Sears' heavy voice had the tremor that he himself +hated--"the firearms should be at least one ace in the hole." + +"Ye--es. Ed's pistol helped in our one bad scrape with Pakriaa +herself. But it was his smashing the idol that stalled 'em, not the +gun." + +"Poor little Abro Pakriaa!" Sears spoke with tenderness. "If ever a +lady was pulled seven ways from Sunday! Wants our way of life, doesn't +want it. Wants to grasp Chris' ethics, doesn't want to. Afraid of Ed's +strength and aggressiveness, admires 'em too, oh my, yes. Tries to +believe the god Ismar died or never lived--but can't, quite." + +"And can't understand why our women are gentle--Dorothy anyway----" + +"Nan's toughening up is conscious effort, Paul. Superficial. She's +made herself hunt, shoot well, act hard, because her brain tells her +she should. If we could only find something to restring her violin! I +think she's given up hope of it: nothing I've found so far has been +any good. She doesn't see that Dorothy does more for us by remaining +the person she always was.... You know, when I go alone to Pak's +village, I just set. Even the witches have got used to me, not that +they wouldn't gut me if they could." + +"Jocko"--Paul looked away--"you told me once you were scared all the +time. When you go there alone--or when you tame the olifants for that +matter--are you sort of grasping the nettle? And does it work?" + +"Don't ask me, friend. Because I don't exactly know. I was never a +brave man." Brown eyes misted in what was partly laughter. "Oy, the +witches! There's the big enemy in the battle for Pakriaa's mind. Chris +may claim they aren't real witch doctors, just advisers, low-grade +magicians. I'm not so sure. Priests of Ismar, and when Ed clobbered +the idol Pakriaa did consider having 'em all burned alive. Point is, +she didn't do it. They gnaw away in the dark at all we try to teach +her. That proposed bonfire, by the way, is gossip passed on to me in +confidence by Abara." + +"There's a dear little man." + +"Ain't he though?" Smiling into late sky, Paul envisaged the wizened +red midget riding the white monsters that Sears had tamed and insisted +on naming olifants-with-an-f. A painting might grow out of that, he +thought, squat coppery lump astride of massive white--it might, if the +desire to paint should ever wake again and be as strong as it once was +on _Argo_, when his mind's eye could remember Earth without +distortion. Abara, popeyed and potbellied, a favorite in Pakriaa's +harem, had been commissioned by her as a student and go-between at the +lakeside camp; Sears had not only adopted him as an olifant trainer, +but suspected him of furtively possessing a sense of humor. "Well--the +giants. Lantis will always have thought of them as wild animals----" + +"Sears"--Paul rolled over and pressed his face in the grass--"can we +ask or even permit the giants to tangle in a pygmy war?" + +"Ah.... It's tormenting Chris too, ever since Lantis sent that +ultimatum." He snarled in his beard, "Thirty fat meat slaves every two +months! There's politics for you. Dirtiest way she could answer Pak's +challenge to personal combat, and the automatic refusal makes an +excuse to come and clean up. Sounds like home.... Mijok wants to help +fight--says he does." + +"It's still our responsibility." Paul sat up. His eyes kept returning +to the towering courage of the trees. Brave as any cathedral spire, +scarcely one was free from the clutch of the purple-leaf vine. "As +for moving here to the island, Pak sees it, but the idea's too new. +You just don't pull up stakes, venture on the Big Water, crossing +forbidden kaksma country." + +Sears chewed a grass blade. "Anyway we've got to bring Dorothy and the +baby here, and Ann. Dorothy won't fuss, will she, son?" + +"Since there _is_ Helen--no, she won't. I still dream sometimes, as I +did during her first pregnancy. Things, shapes, trying to pull her +away--or she's where I can't find her, can't push through the leaves." + +"She told me. It's something else that's made you blue lately." + +"No." + +Sears watched him. "Yes.... Want to start back tomorrow?" + +"Might as well. We've learned all we need." + +"Mm.... Second thoughts about the daddy of Dorothy's second----" + +"No no. We settled that. She's proud to be carrying it." + +"Good genetics could be damn bad psychology." + +"No, Jocko. Don't think that. She's close to me as ever." + +Sears waited and spoke softly: "New York late on a rainy night, a few +car lights moving, street-lamp reflections like golden fish----" + +"Orange paintbrush in New Hampshire meadows----We'd better stop." + +"We better. I want boat whistles--floating city coming out of the fog. +Call it a slow-healing wound.... And look across the channel." + +Paul saw it presently: a cliff formation in the coastal range made a +brow, nose, and chin. Below this, rounded rock could be a shoulder +straining in heroic effort; then, tumbled reality of mountain-fancy +must supply whatever held the figure in bondage. "Yes. He looks west. +Past us, at the sun." + +"Why, no, Paul. I think he looks west of the sun...." + +A red-furred girl wandered down from the woods. "I got tired." Arek +had lived twenty-two years; she was seven feet tall, not yet +adolescent but near it. In the next Red-Moon-before-the-Rains, ten +months away, she might take adult part in the frenzy of love if her +body demanded it: if not, she would go apart with the other children, +whose play also became innocently erotic at that time, and help care +for the youngest. Sears grinned as she sat down with them. "Tired or +lazy?" + +"Both. You Charins are never lazy enough." The name Charin, Paul +thought, was almost natural now, a pygmy word for "halfway," intended +by Pakriaa merely to convey that Wright and his breed were halfway in +size between her people and the giants, but Wright took sardonic +satisfaction in it as a generic name. "Work and loafing are both good. +Why can Ed Spearman never sit still in the sun? Or maybe I like to +talk too much." + +"Never," Sears chuckled. "Well--his best pleasure is in action. Maybe +it's the technician in him--he must always be doing something." + +"Like always waking, never sleeping." She sprawled in comfort; her +broad hands plucked grass, scattered it over the furry softness of her +four breasts. "Green rain.... I want to stay on this island. Will they +come?" + +"We hope so. Mijok will as soon as Doc does." + +She sighed. "Mijok is a beautiful male. I think I'll take him for my +first when I'm ready.... And soon the pretty boat will be no more +good. It's sad we can't make another. Tell me again about Captain +Jensen. He was as tall as me? He had hair on his head, red like my +fur. He spoke----" + +"Like storm wind," said Paul, supplying the wanted note in a favorite +fairy tale, remembering a brother on Earth who was--perhaps--not dead. + +"Hear the ocean," Arek whispered. Paul could hardly separate the sound +from the mutter of the pond's outlet. This ridge of high ground ended +short of the island's northern limit. A white beach, where the +lifeboat was shaded from late sun, faced the mainland. West of the +beach a red stone cliff ran to the tip of the island, shouldering away +the sea. Wind out of the west allowed no soil to gather on it. Now and +then a rainbow flashed and died above the rock, when a wave of +uncommon grandeur spent itself in a tower of foam. "Hear what it says? +'I--will--try--aga-a-ain....' Why must the others wait to come here?" + +"Pakriaa's people are not ready." + +"Oh, Sears!" Arek laughed unhappily and sat up. "I think of how my +mother taught me the three terrors. She took me to the hills, beat two +stones before a burrow till one blundered out maddened, afraid of +nothing but the light. She crushed it, made me smell it. I was sick; +then we fled. I think of how she flung an _asonis_ carcass into meadow +grass, so the omasha came. She wounded one with a stone, made me watch +while the others tore it apart. Later still, when I could run +fast--ah, through night to a village of the Red Bald----" + +"Please, dear--pygmies. That's a name they accept." + +"I'm sorry, Sears.... Yes, we hid in the dark, waited until a sentry +moved--careless.... It was wrong. You've shown us how such things are +wrong. And memory's someone talking behind you, out of the big dark." + +"The laws we've agreed on----" + +"I do honor them," she said gently. "The law against murder was my +first writing lesson. But--what if Pakriaa's tribe--" + +"They're slower," Sears said in distress, and the distress would be as +much a message to Arek as any words. There was no hiding the heart +from these people: green eyes and black ears missed no smallest +nuance. + +"When will they know they must not dig pits, with poisoned stakes--" + +"But Pakriaa's tribe don't do that now. Do they?" + +Arek admitted: "I suppose not. But the six other villages----" + +"Five, dear. The kaksmas. And only two months ago, Arek." + +She stared at Paul with shock. "I _had_ almost forgotten. But they do +still hate us. The day before you flew us here, Paul, I met Pakriaa +and two of her soldiers in the woods. I gave them the good-day +greeting. Oh, if one of you had been there she would have answered +it.... Wouldn't the island be better without them? Some of _you_ don't +like them. Even Dorothy only tries to like them. Since the baby was +born, Paul, she--shrinks when they come to the fortress. They don't +know it, but I do." + +Dimly, Paul had known it, known also that it was a thing Dorothy would +consciously reject. "Time, Arek. You'll live a hundred and fifty +years or better--more than three pygmy lifetimes. You'll see them +change." + +Speaking almost like a Charin, Arek said, "They'd better." + +They strolled up the hill; the other giants' labor had ceased. The +building was a sturdy oblong, intended as storehouse and temporary +communal dwelling for them all, including (Wright hoped) some of +Pakriaa's people. Rafters were not yet in place. For that, Rak needed +the strength of another like himself: chubby Muson tired easily. +Someday a road would climb from the beach, traversing the ridge which +was the backbone of the northern half of the island. Here, where +spring water filled the pond and rushed on down to carve a small +harbor below the beach, would be Jensen City, and the three races of +Lucifer would learn to live there in good will and pleasure under a +government of laws. So Wright said--peering at photographs, teasing +his gray beard, tapping thin fingers on the map drawn on the paper of +Earth, on the new maps of whitebark. Paul could see it too--sometimes; +glimpse the houses, gardens, open places. South of the pond, a wheat +field, for on Lucifer the wheat of Earth grew to four feet and bore +richly. Near the field, perhaps the house for Dorothy and himself, +with no doorway lower than ten feet. + +At other times he could see only defeat--the arrogance and blind drive of +genus _Charin_, species _Semisapiens_ beating against the indifference of +nature, the resentment of other life. He could see his people destroyed, by +accident or anger, the giant friends adrift with only hints of the new life +and spoiled for the old. Then he would stop trying to foresee and would +make his mind's ear listen to Wright insisting: "_Give protoplasm a chance. +Patience is the well-spring._..." + +The walls were eleven feet in height. Rak and Muson rested on the +coolness of bare ground within; Rak pointed at the top of the walls +where rafters would rest. "Slow," he said, "and good." Rak could not +be sure how old he was. When Mijok had first persuaded him to the camp +ten months ago, Rak had won his English with the grave precision of a +mason selecting fieldstone. His language had none of the flexibility +and scope that Mijok and others had achieved, but it served him. +After absorbing basic arithmetic, Rak had deliberated on the problem +of his age--squatting at the gate of the stone fortress by Lake Argo, +spreading out rows of colored pebbles to indicate years, rainy +seasons, episodes of hunting or fear or passion too keen to forget. At +last he had come up with the figure of 130 years. "But," he said, +"there are two times. In here"--he patted an ancient scar on his +belly--"and there." He pointed at the red crescent moon. + +"I'll cook supper," Arek said. Muson bubbled and shadowboxed with her +daughter. Muson would laugh at anything--the flutter of a leaf, a +breath of breeze on her red-brown fur. Paul followed to help Arek trim +the carcass of an asonis killed the night before. Hornless, +short-legged, fat, the bovine animal was abundant on the island; its +one enemy here was what Arek called _usran_, a catlike carnivore the +size of a lynx, which could tackle only the young asonis or feeble +stragglers. Rak hunted in the old way. Bow, club, spear, even rifle, +had been explained to him, but the stalk, the single rush and leap, +the grasp of a muzzle and backward jerk that snapped the neck before +the prey could even struggle--these were Rak's way still. In the old +life, Rak's age would have led him eventually to a few dim years with +a band of women, who would have fed him until he chose to wander into +deep jungle, preventing any from following. When far away, he would +have sat in the shadows to wait--for starvation or the black marsh +reptiles or a great mainland cat, _uskaran_, which never attacked a +giant in the prime of strength. Rak would have taken no harm from the +young men in this weakness: his own territory would have been +inviolate, and he would have joined the women, in a taciturn farewell +to life, only when teeth and arms had failed. ("We're gentle people," +Mijok said, puzzled at it himself. "In the Red-Moon-before-the-Rains +we only play at fighting. It's not like what we see the other +creatures do at that time. How could one 'possess' a woman? Do I +possess the wind because I like to run against the touch of it...?") + +The meat hung from a makeshift tripod; Arek jumped back, startled, as +a furry thing scampered down. It was like a kinkajou except for the +hump on the back (a true hindbrain in the spine: Sears had long ago +verified that guess of Wright's). "Little rascal," Paul said. "Let's +tame it." + +"What?" Arek was bewildered. "Do what?" + +"Do these live on the mainland?" + +"I never saw one till I came here. Too small to eat. Tame it?" + +"Watch." Paul tossed a bit of meat. The visitor's chatter changed to a +whistling whine; it elongated itself, grabbed, sat back on stubby hind +legs to eat in clever paws; it washed itself with a squirrel's +pertness. Arek chuckled, examining the idea, and went on with her +work; she had become a hypercritical cook, under Dorothy's guidance. +"Jocko, biologist, stand by: I propose to name an animile. Genus +_Kink_, species _quasikinkajou_." Genus Kink did not retreat at Sears' +quiet approach, but wriggled a black nose. + +Rak asked in solemn curiosity, "For what is it good?" + +"To make us laugh," Paul said, "so long as we're kind to it." + +"Ah?" Rak moved his fingers to aid the patient mill of his mind. + +"Dance-Nose," said Muson, who already understood. She shook all over. +"Come, Funny-Nose." It would not--yet, but Muson could be patient too. + +Sears whispered in his beard, "Less homesick?" + +"Yes...." + +After the meal Arek wanted Paul to come out on the cliffs. Though +there seemed no danger from the omasha, she carried a long stick and +Paul took his pistol. The slope leveled out to the bare rock of the +headland; the ocean voice was the humming of a thousand giants. The +way was easy, with no crevasses, no peril while the wind was mild. +Arek had often been out here alone. Yesterday Paul had seen her +standing for an hour, watching the west where unbroken water met a +sun-reddened horizon. In her earlier years there might have been dim +mention of the sea by her almost wordless people, but no true +knowledge: the mainland coast was steaming vine-choked jungle, or +tidal marsh, and shut away by the kaksma hills. Paul wondered what +member of his race could stand for an hour in contemplation like a +thinking tree, not shifting a foot nor raising an arm...? + +"Paul, why did you leave Earth?" Arek patted the rock beside her. + +Below the troubled water laughed, endlessly defeated and returning. +Cloud fantasies gathered below a lucid green, and the wind was a +friend. "I have doubted sometimes whether we ought to have done so." + +"That wasn't my meaning. We love you. Didn't you know? But I've +wondered what sent you away from such a place. Ann says it was +beautiful." + +"A--drive of restlessness. We took boundaries as a challenge. I used +to think that a great virtue. Now I call it neither good nor evil." + +"I think it is good." + +"Everywhere, we carry good _and_ evil." + +"What you do here is good. You teach us. You do kind things." + +"We can be bad. But for Doc Wright and his dreams that Ed Spearman +finds so impractical, we'd have done you harm." Helpless at her +innocence, Paul saw she did not believe him. "On Earth, we fought each +other. We hunted for lies to make ourselves feel big. We created great +institutions built on vanity--tickling lies: imperialism, +communism--most of the isms you find so puzzling when we talk of Earth +history. The anger of Charins rarely focused itself on the actual +causes of unhappiness or injustice. Instead we hunted for scapegoats, +easy solutions. We wouldn't study ourselves. Always we itched for +something external to take the blame for our own follies and crimes." + +"I don't understand." + +"As if you stumbled on a root, Arek, and then banged your fist on the +tree that grew it, to blame it for your own clumsiness." + +"But Paul--only a very small child would act like that." + +"Darling, let's watch the sunset." She felt his pain, touched his +knee, and was silent until he said, "A poor naughty child...." + +"There was a thing Ed Spearman said to me--what I wanted to talk to +you about. I've never gone to Pakriaa's village. You know, even Mijok +won't go there except with one of you. I asked Ed if Pakriaa still +kept that stockade for drugging and fattening prisoners--in spite of +her agreeing to the laws. He said yes, she did. I said it was not +right. I said we made a law against slavery too. He said, 'Forget it, +baby--one thing at a time.' I am not a baby. How can the laws govern +us unless all obey them?" + +"Ed--meant no harm, Arek. He only meant it does take time. The pygmies +have more to unlearn. You--started clean. And--well--with the army of +Lantis likely to come back at any time--we can't afford--" + +Yet it seemed natural that this giant child, who had herself done +murder in the old days, should answer his troubled evasions not only +with reproach but with command: "If the laws are to govern us they +must be respected by everyone. I wish I had gone to that village and +torn down the stockade with my hands." + +"And they would have killed you with a hundred spears and Pakriaa's +people would hate us forever, learning nothing but more hatred." + +Arek cried a little, rubbing at the unfamiliar wetness. "Maybe I begin +to see, how difficult.... The sun's going." But they sat quietly in +the warm and undemanding wind until the first sapphire glint of +fireflies dotted the slope where Jensen City might one day shine. Arek +stood, reaching down an affectionate hand. + + + + +2 + + +Paul glanced down at sunrise-tinted snow on the highest peak of the +coastal range, thirteen thousand feet above the sea. Prairie spread +for thirty miles east of its base; then came a region of forest and +small lakes fed by the outlet of Lake Argo, which was the core of the +empire of Lantis, Queen of the World. + +Pakriaa's information on Lantis was a murky blend of truth and +fantasy. Lantis claimed birth from Ismar-Creator-and-Destroyer. +Pakriaa had different theories. Originally ruler of a single village, +Lantis consolidated by conquest. Instead of annihilating defeated +villages she took their populations captive, sorting out three +categories: potential followers, slave laborers, and meat. Many in the +first class became fanatically converted; those in the second provided +a year or so of work before dying of whippings and other abuse; +captives of the third class were forced to eat the green-flowered weed +that numbed the brain and were bled out at the right stage of fatness. +In fifteen years one riverside village had swollen to a city of sixty +thousand, fed by expeditions far to the east, and Lantis named her +city Vestoia--Country of Freedom and Joy. "Got anything new in the +'scope?" + +Sears groaned: "There _are_ more boats above the falls." + +The boats, they knew, were broad canoes roofed like sampans against +the omasha, but with no sail. "Not moving, are they?" + +"No--anchored maybe." Sears mopped his round face. + +Without the telescope, Paul could see brownness on the water of Lake +Argo's southern end, near the spot where the outlet tumbled over a +high falls to a smaller lake. It meant that hundreds more must have +been portaged past the falls from Vestoia during his two days on the +island.... + +The fifty red-green flowing miles became a pain of delay. Sears too +would be aching for the gray square of their "fortress" to claim the +eye in the north, touched by early sunlight, a brave structure twelve +feet high, fifty square, built of split stone by the labor of giant +friends. Outside it ran a moat twenty feet wide, ten deep, with a +drawbridge of logs, bark matting, grass-fiber ropes, the bottom +flooded with lake water. There was room within for living quarters, a +supply of smoked meat, dried vegetables. + +Lantis understood scaling ladders, Pakriaa said. Lantis had patience +for a siege. There was no defense, Pakriaa said, in these measures. +The only defense was to attack, to retreat, and attack again. It had +always been so in the old wars. It was still so with this Lantis and +her Big-Village-Vestoia, this bastard begotten of a red worm and +Inkar, goddess of kaksmas. It would always be so--at least, until.... +Paul remembered Dorothy, cherishing Helen at her brown breast, asking +neutrally, "Until what, Abro Pakriaa?" + +Pakriaa had studied the giants' walls with contempt. "Until I shame +this worm spawn Lantis into meeting me alone. She must respect custom. +Her first answer is a--what word?--rejection, because she has fear. I +have sent a second challenge. She will meet me, or her own people will +condemn her. I will pin her belly to the ground. Her government will +be mine." There had been no mistaking it: for the first time in the +year since the idol of Ismar fell and was not restored, Pakriaa was +making vast decisions wholly her own, with only perfunctory interest +in what the Charins might think. In her wrath against the mighty +soldier ruler in the south there was natural grief at the outrages of +past years, but something else too. Her red face glaring southward +said: _She has what I desire; she is doing what I would do_. Pakriaa +had finished her answer quietly: "It is _I_ who will be Queen of the +World." + +Three days ago. It could have been a mistake to leave the camp at all. +Now--a streak of sunshine on gray at the end of familiar meadow. With +fuel for only a few more flights, Paul knew he had never made a better +landing. The drawbridge was down. Dorothy ran to meet him. Sears was +shouting, "Chris! It's perfect--no kaksmas--everything Paul said it +was--" + +Paul stammered, "You look like a million dollars." + +"Dollars. What're those?" + +"I forget. What's news?" + +"Your funny mouth is tickling my ear." + +"That isn't news, Dope. Helen--" + +"Full of the best gurgles. Come and see." He thought: _How do I tell +her of the boats, the thirty-mile hive of savage hatreds_--but Sears +was already talking of it. Wright had no smile for Paul, only a warm +gray-eyed stare and pressure of the hand. Paul asked, "Where's Ed? +Mijok and the boys?" + +Ann looked up from cutting a square of hide. She had not come to meet +them. Ann's way nowadays; one's mind insisted: _It doesn't mean +anything_. "Ed's hunting. Should have been back last night." + +Dorothy added: "Mijok's off missionarying, with Elis and Surok. They +took Blondie--Lisson, I mean: moral support." + +Wright was hag-ridden. "Sears, if it were only Pakriaa's +tribe--but--not fuel enough to fly all the giants over. We cannot +abandon _them_." + +"Then let's get the women there and the rest of us go overland." + +Ann said, "I'm going overland." + +Wright muttered, "Damn it, Nancy--" + +Sears patted her shoulder and ignored her speech as she ignored the +touch. "Chris, I've labored, myself, over that damn knotty little +brain of Pakriaa's. She can't see things our way. We need a hundred +years." + +The conference lengthened into the morning. Sometimes it seemed to +Paul that his teacher's stubbornness degenerated into the obsession of +a man who won't leave a blazing house until the rugs are saved. Wright +longed for the island, which he had seen only in photographs. There +had always been some compelling reason why he must stay by the +fortress, if only to hoe voracious weeds out of the gardens. Yet to +Wright it was unthinkable that the island community should start +without the pygmies: he returned to it with haggard insistence. "I +know--I can't actually like Pakriaa--she's got a mind like a greased +eel; but we've made a beginning. They speak our tongue--well. A people +intelligent as they are--" + +Paul thought: _It's not Lucifer that's aged him--it's us. We are not +big enough_. Aloud he suggested: "Doc, can't we make a start without +them and just keep the door open? Bring them in when we're stronger +ourselves?" + +"Oh, son, if we desert Pak now, she's finished. Over-confidence. +Lantis will go over her like a tide. We might just turn that tide. If +not, we _must_ be ready to help her escape with--whatever's left.... +Well, at least we agree on this: Helen and the women must go to the +island, at once." + +"Tomorrow." Dorothy choked. "If the boats haven't started yet--" + +"All right, dear. Tomorrow. And one man should go with them." + +"You," Paul said. "You." + +Wright said inexorably, "No." His stare groped at Sears Oliphant. + +Sears was nakedly desperate. "Chris, I beg of you--you must not ask me +to go away from this battle." He was sweating, white. "I am--in a +sense--a religious man. The--Armageddon within, your own +phrase--please understand without my saying any more. Don't ask me to +go." + +"Ed won't go.... Paul?" + +_Leave him, with Sears' inner torments and Ed's arrogance?_ "No, Doc." + +Ann Bryan said, "I'm staying for the show." + +Dorothy lowered her cheek to the brown fuzz of Helen's head; the +baby's absurd square of palm found Paul's finger. Helen was almost +eight months old--Lucifer months. The new life in Dorothy had been +conceived in the last month of the rains. Dorothy said, "I'm going, +Nancy, with Helen. As a valuable brood mare, I can't afford heroism. +Neither can you." + +The giant women crossed the bridge; they had lingered outside, knowing +the Charins needed to talk alone. Ann said, "I've heard the argument. +I'm not pregnant yet. I've learned to shoot damn' well." + +Wright asked, "Will you abide by a vote when Ed gets back?" + +Ann pushed her fingers into black hair, cut short as a man's. "I +suppose I must.... If no men get to the island, how do two women and a +girl child increase and multiply, or shouldn't I ask?" + +Wright mumbled inadequately, "We'll reach the island." + +Ann said, "Then you already see it as a retreat?" + +Wright was silent. He tried to smile with confidence at the giant +women and children, who were sober with reflected unhappiness--all but +nine-year-old Dunin, who trotted to Paul and hugged him with her large +arms and announced: "I learned six words while you were gone. Hi, +listen! 'Brain': that's here and here. 'Me-di-tation': that happens in +the brain when it's quiet. Mm-mm.... 'Breast': that's these. And +'breath': that's ooph, like that. 'Breeze': that's a breath with +nobody blowing it.... I forgotten six." + +Dorothy murmured. "Tem--tem--" + +Dunin hopped up and down. "'Tempest!' Big _big_ breeze--" + +"That's perfect," said Paul. "Perfect...." + +Before the five-month rainy season had made travel on the sodden, +gasping ground too miserable, Mijok had explored a half circle of +territory forty miles in radius east of the hills, for others who +might be willing to learn new ways. It was slow work, often +discouraging. He had located two bands of free-wandering women and +children--twenty in all--and stirred their curiosity and friendliness. +But he had been able to recruit only three other males. There was Rak. +Blackfurred Elis and tawny Surok were in vigorous middle years, hard +to convince but quick to learn once the barrier was down. + +Kamon was accepted leader of the women. White with age, gaunt, +flat-breasted, stooped but quick on her feet, Kamon rarely smiled, but +her good nature was profound. "Ann," she said, "you ought to go. +We--if we cannot fight off these southern pygmies, we can escape. But +you? One of us would have to carry you. And as Mashana Dorothy says, +your womb is needed." (Mashana--sweetheart, mother, hunting companion, +friend.) + +Wright said, "You, Dorothy, Helen, and the giant children." + +That brought murmuring. Kamon checked it: "Only four children still +need milk. You, Samis, your breasts are big: you will go." Kamon +turned with gentle deference to one authority she felt to be stronger +than her own under the laws: "Doc?" Paul found it comfortable, no +longer even amusing, that Wright should be known to the giants by his +inevitable nickname. The pygmies disliked the short sound, and initial +_D_ always bothered them. To them he was Tocwright, or more often +Tocwright-Who-Plays-with Gray-Fur-at-His-Throat. + +"Yes, Kamon. Samis too. Paul, how many trips will that take?" + +"Three--leaving fuel for about three more of the same length." + +Wright nodded. "Ed has a notion of using the lifeboat for a weapon. +Hedgehop, scare 'em to hell. But with fuel so low--" + +There was shadow at the drawbridge. Ed Spearman flung aside the +carcass he had brought. Ann's white face was still, though she clung +to him briefly when he kissed her. It had occurred to Paul that Ann's +image of love would not be given reality anywhere in the galaxies: she +wished moments to be eternities and a human self to be a mirror of +desire. _But Dorothy and I--somehow we've learned to let each other +live...._ "More news," Spearman said. "I stopped at the village. A spy +of Pakriaa's came home last night--must be a sharp article: did the +sixty-odd miles up the lake shore in nothing flat, with facts and +figures." + +"Lantis is moving." Wright dropped his hands to his bony knees. + +"No, Doc, but will in a day or so." Spearman sat down, holding Ann's +fingers till she pulled them away. He nodded to Sears and Paul. "Good +trip?" He had grown even more rugged in a year of Lucifer. He wore +only shorts and Earth-made shoes; months of handling a heavy bow had +made his upper arms almost as thick as the narrow part of Mijok's +forearm. His face had deepened its lines; he had never smiled easily. + +"Very good," Sears said. "The island is--" He was silent. + +Spearman grunted. "You're sold too? Well, here's the news. One: you +remember Pakriaa's second challenge, sent by two warriors, correct and +formal--trust Pak for that. One of those messengers is returning. The +spy ran on ahead--with part of the body of the other ambassador." He +studied the sickened faces. "Two: the spy says Lantis plans to send +four thousand on the lake boats, another six thousand overland. +Pakriaa--who is in a state of mind I don't know how to describe, not +jitters exactly--Pakriaa thinks we may feel the lake-boat drums +tomorrow. She doesn't know what they are, by the way--invention of +Lantis, I guess. From her description they must be drums, maybe hollow +logs mounted on boats. She heard them last year in the war we +interrupted. You feel them before you hear them, she says: she thinks +it was a lake devil consulting with the Queen of the World. Three: the +spy wasn't sure, but thinks Lantis has already sent six hundred east +of the lake to make a big circle, come down on the settlement from the +northeast." + +"Smart," Paul said. "To drive us into the kaksma hills?" + +"The kaksma hills." Spearman's gray eyes squinted in a sort of +laughter. "They're not so bad. The critters may be all they say, after +dark, but--I'd better own up: I've gone that way on my last three solo +trips. Safe enough in daylight, when they're half blind. I killed a +few today." + +Sears asked quickly, "Bring back specimens?" + +Spearman teased the fat man with waiting and chuckled and nodded at +the asonis carcass. "Tied to one of the hoofs. Don't look so worried, +Doc--I waded plenty of streams on the way back." He rose with heavy +grace and strolled out on the bridge. "Come a minute, some of you." +Paul joined him; Wright stayed as he was; Sears was examining the +kaksma's gray, thick-tailed body, holding back its pinkish lip. Paul +caught a repellent glimpse of the jutting upper canines; the molars +were shearing tools like a cat's. He saw the spade claws of the +forefeet. The jet eyes were like a mole's. "Look," Spearman said, "the +hills. Notice that hogback at the southern end--it's five miles long. +Riddled with burrows. They must live on small game on the meadow below +and hunt the other side of the hills too, where it's jungle." His +fingers dug at Paul's shoulder. He spoke loudly enough to be heard by +all: "Listen: the earth at the burrows is red ocher. Understand? +Hematite." + +Wright let out his breath sharply. "So--" + +"Yeah. Just a five-mile mountain of iron ore. Merely what I've been +looking for ever since we crashed. For a start. From iron to steel +to--ah.... And just when we've _got_ it--God! with organized pygmy +labor--" He strode back into the fortress, glancing obliquely at the +silent giant women. "The pygmies do understand work, you know. Well, +never mind it now. Of course we must get the baby and the women to +your island right away. As a temporary refuge, we must use it." He +watched Wright with unqualified sadness. "Apart from that, you know +what I think of your Island of Lotos-Eaters--" + +"That's not just, Ed." + +"Adelphi then. Well, the women and Helen--" + +"And the giant children, with Samis to nurse the youngest." + +Spearman asked evenly, "Paul, how's the charlesite?" + +"After the trips Doc mentioned, enough for three more." + +Ann's keen ears caught a far-off sound. "Mijok's coming back." + +The music grew slowly manifest: Mijok, in an Earth song more than two +hundred years old. Long-flowing chanteys and slower spirituals suited +him. He had teased Ann to teach him all she knew, even after she lost +interest. Swift melodies and rapid syllables were beyond him--the +depth of his tone rendered them grotesque. More than a mile away, he +was wallowing in "Shenandoah"--Mijok, to whom the ocean was only a +word and a river steamboat the cloudiest of legends. Other voices, +true on pitch, followed his solo: + +"_Away--we're bound away...._" + +Paul asked, "How many, Nan?" + +Ann shut her eyes. "Four, besides Mijok and--yes, Lisson's singing. At +least two new recruits. Ah--they can sing before they talk." She +hurried into that thatched house-within-a-house which was her comer of +privacy on Lucifer. The giant women were smiling, though Kamon's eyes +followed Ann with trouble and pity. They hummed in three-part +counterpoint. Their voices had the range of a Charin baritone; Paul +missed Muson, who could approach the tenor. Sears' bass moved in, a +well-behaved trombone teasing a crowd of bassoons. Dorothy's alto +added a warm thread of sound.... + +The tall children and women poured out over the bridge when Mijok and +his companions were still distant. Musical thunder in the woods pulsed +along the ground. Spearman smiled indulgently. "Just like a bunch of +kids." + +"Yes," Wright said. "The pygmies are more serious. They have wars." + +Sears stopped humming and mumbled, "Don't, Chris...." + +Mijok brought in his triumph, beaming and warm. "And my smallest +woman?" Dorothy placed the naked morsel that was Helen in his waiting +hands. Mijok was bemused. "How can anything be so small?" + +Dorothy claimed: "Seven pounds at birth--that ain't hay, Mijok." + +"Growing too," Elis said. The golden-furred girl Lisson tickled +Helen's chest with the tip of a forefinger, and Mijok introduced the +newcomers. One was timid. "Just a boy," Mijok explained. "Knows some +words already, though. Danik?" + +The giant boy whispered, "Good day." The other was older, black like +Elis, trying to display stern indifference, but Surok eased him into +relaxation with a few words in the old language. + +For Mijok, speech had still the brilliance of newness but was wholly +flexible; he reveled in colloquialisms, acquired mainly from Sears and +Dorothy. "While the boys and I were out having a hell of a time, +what's with local industries? The island, gentlemen?" + +"Good," Sears said. "Better than I dared dream." + +"And those tough babies in the south--anything new?" + +Sears winced. "That part ain't good." + +Mijok fondled the fat man's arm with a hand mild as silk. "Now, Jock, +now. We'll give 'em hell, that's what we'll do. Hey, Paul?" + + + + +3 + + +Abara trotted between Sears and Paul in the forest aisle, a silent +ugly man with popeyes, bulging underlip, jutting ears; thirty inches +tall. He was twenty-six. His potbellied softness had the beginning sag +of middle age. There was politics, Paul guessed, in his presence at +the camp--it was not because the queen had tired of him that he was +temporarily detached from the harem. His body was agile for all its +pokiness, his mind even more nimble; his English, when he stooped to +use it, was good. After the noon meal Abara had appeared, crossing the +drawbridge like a wisp of red smoke, ignoring the giants, reminding +Sears obliquely that it was three days since he had visited the +clearing near the camp, where the white olifants had learned to come. + +Sears' love for the great leaf eaters had deepened with familiarity. +He had easily persuaded the others to guarantee their permanent +protection in the laws. He had taught the pygmies to call them +olifants, a shrewd stroke, conveying to the Neolithic mind that the +animals were of Sears' totem. Even during the long ordeal of the rains +he had gone alone for whole days and nights, following olifant trails, +sitting in patience where a broad-leaf tree they enjoyed was abundant. +Deep forest was no place for a man who moved slowly and shrank from +discomfort and danger, yet Sears held to this undertaking as +stubbornly as Wright to his dreams of a community of good will under a +government of laws. And before all except Paul and Wright, Sears was +able to preserve a manner like the face of Lake Argo on a still +morning. That calm gave him, in the eyes of the pygmies, more puzzling +divinity than they found in the others. Abara worshiped from behind a +mask of cynical blankness. Pakriaa seemed almost to love him openly. +She was not arrogant with him; when he spoke she listened. She +assigned soldiers to collect the insects, fish, small animals he +wanted for study; she brought him gifts--an earthenware vessel with +ritual painting, odd flowers, ornaments of wood and bone and clay. She +liked to sit by him when he was at the microscope and peek, mystified, +into the country of the lens. + +Sears had let the olifants grow used to him. He talked to them. He +learned they like to be rubbed above the tip of the trunk and on the +vast flat tops of their heads--for this luxury they would kneel, +rumbling and sighing. Eventually he dared climb into the natural +saddle between hump and skull: they allowed it. They were never +excited nor in a hurry. The kaksmas they probably avoided by keen +scent and flight in times of danger; they kept clear of the omasha by +going into open ground only at night. + +The clearing was silent except for muted trilling of illuama. The +ground was trodden; purple-leaf vines hung dead and brown, ripped out +by trunks and tusks. Sears said that once, with no notion of conveying +the idea, he had tugged peevishly at a vine under the nose of his +favorite cow. "So, she came and fetched it loose--tired of watching me +act like a damn fool." + +Abara said, "I will whistle, me...." Two came, spectrally calm. +"Susie!" Sears called. "Been a good girl, hey?" The old cow let down +her many tons to have her head scratched. Another arrived on +fog-silent feet; then two bulls together, munching leaves. The five +were placid, enjoying the hot stillness and Sears' purring talk. The +largest bull stood ten feet at the shoulder, Paul estimated, as +Abara's two-feet-six approached him, seized a lowered ear, and climbed +up. Abara piped: "We walk now, Mister Johnson." + +Mister Johnson's pale eyes noted Paul's bulging jacket; the boneless +finger of his trunk groped suggestively till Paul produced a +melon-like fruit. "Hoo-hee!" Abara crowed. "We thank you." They +vanished in the shadows. + +"Susie, want to dig some vines?" But Sears halted in the act of +climbing her neck. Spearman had joined them, with a good hunter's +quiet. + +"You really have something there." Spearman was cordial and flushed. +"Pygmies still make the best wine. Ours is no damn good, yet." + +"Meant to ask how the last turned out." + +"Needs ripening, like everything else." + +"In fact," said Paul, "you're slightly plastered." + +"But slightly." Ed grinned. "How if I climb on one of those?" + +Sears was doubtful. "Have to get acquainted first. Mister Smith over +there--he shook me off the first time. Not rough--just wasn't ready." + +"They pull vines at command? You can steer 'em?" + +"Sure. If they like you. Knee pressure." + +"Abara's good?" + +"They prefer him to me. Arek is better still. I miss her." + +"Mijok rides, doesn't he?" + +"Mijok and Elis. Surok's a bit skittish. I guess Pak thinks it's +undignified--or else the damned witches disapprove." + +"Hm.... We have, maybe, three days before Lantis hits us--" + +"Lantis--I'd succeeded in forgetting her for three minutes." Sears +drooped his head against the column of Mister Smith's foreleg; eyes +closed, he cursed without humor. He dredged up almost forgotten words +from the old years of Earth, from bars, docks, dissecting rooms, at +least four major religions. He cursed Lantis root and branch, ancestry +and posterity, heart, body, and brain. Regaining a trace of mirth, he +outlined a program of correction that would have kept hell under +forced draft for a thousand years. Still with closed eyes, he asked, +"What's the point, Ed? What's the damned point?" + +"How many of these critters have you tamed?" + +"Five. There's another smelling around, not ready yet." + +"And five riders--you ride 'em, don't you, Paul?" Paul nodded. + +Abara and Mister Johnson returned in silence, under the trees behind +Spearman, who was unaware of them. Sears said, "Paul's good. Good +balance." + +"So you have a rider for each mount.... Well, I talked it over with +Doc--he says it's your department. What if a bunch of those animals, +with armed riders--" + +"No," said Sears. "Quite impractical." + +"Why?" + +"Well.... They won't go in the open--omasha." + +"They will at night, you told me." + +"They are not fighters." + +"If they go where you order 'em--" + +Sears said, "No. If Paul and I and the two strongest giants were +trying that, what's left? You, Doc, Surok, and the giant women." + +Spearman snapped: "Then use only three--Abara, Mijok, Elis." + +"Mijok will fight beside Chris. You know that. So will I." + +Spearman turned away, noticing Abara and Mister Johnson for the first +time and ignoring them. Popeyes watched him from a mountain of white +flesh. "All right. Oh, I almost forgot: Doc wants you back at the camp +for another conference. It has just occurred to him that since we're +about to be wiped off the planet we ought to have a military +commander. For the look of the thing, you reckon? You know, I dreamed +of space travel from the time I was five. Never imagined I'd do it +with a Sunday school. Don't hurry of course. Just come when it damn +well suits you." + +Paul caught up with him on the trail. "Look, Ed--" + +"I'll recite it for you: mustn't lose my temper. We mustn't divide; +mustn't quarrel; Doc's word is holy at all times--" + +"No one says that." + +Spearman wasn't listening. "Goddamn it, why do you think I've gone +away alone so often? To explore, sure, to find things we need. By God +I've found 'em too, haven't I? Also to get away from the Sunday +school. Beating my brains out to win a little advance--you people +can't see--" + +"What do _you_ think we should do? I mean right now--Lantis." + +Spearman fretted in silence, striding as if speed and heavy steps +could ease his distress. "Why, we ought to have gone to live at +Pakriaa's village a year ago, after the reconciliation, while they +were still dizzy from the fall of the idol. You remember--Pak was +almost humble. Ready for big changes. We could have done anything with +her--then. Eliminated the witches. Taught and trained the best of her +followers. We'd have ironworking now. We'd have a competent army. Why, +we could take the initiative, drive south, break up anything Lantis +may have while she's on the march. Yeah--a year ago. Sure--Mijok +wouldn't approach the village, so _we_ mustn't move there. Every day +is an opportunity thrown away, wasted." + +"You think we should have abandoned the giants?" + +"What've they _got_?" Spearman cried. "Don't even understand +work--throw things around at a great rate, and then somebody sees a +new bug or has a funny idea or starts singing. Or asks Doc to explain +a point in philosophy. Or they decide to just sit and look at nothing +for two hours. Fight? Mijok talks a good fight. You couldn't make 'em +fight with a kick in the rear." + +"Never tried it." + +Spearman smiled miserably. "One doesn't, with a critter eight feet +tall.... All right, they're people. They're intelligent. If we had all +the time in the world and nothing threatening I'd like to study 'em +myself. But look at the numbers. Three on the island. Six grown women +here. Twelve flutterbrained children. Elis, Surok, Mijok, and the two +tenderfeet they brought in today. Is that an army? As for right +now--Hell, I've given up making suggestions." He tensed and stopped +short. Paul glanced behind; Sears and Abara were catching up. "Thought +I heard something." + +"What?" + +"Drums.... Guess I imagined it.... Lantis must have a terrific +organization. Bound to, Paul, in a community of sixty thousand. Hadn't +you thought of that at all? Communications, laws, disciplined army, a +forest agriculture at least as good as Pakriaa's. Why, from something +Pak said, I think they even have a monetary system--anyway something +more elaborate than the barter that's good enough for Pak's little +cluster of villages. Stone Age--but that's partly an accident of +ecology, isn't it? I mean, they have to avoid the hills and open +ground--wouldn't be easy to get a start in metalworking when you have +to stay in the woods. I believe they're a people under strong internal +pressure toward the next stage of civilization. With labor, +organization, a few modern ideas, there would be ways to clean the +kaksmas out of the hills. Then metals. We know the omasha breed on +rock ledges wherever the kaksmas can't climb. They could be +exterminated too. There's a whole world for the taking. Doc is right +that the new culture has to be a blend of ours and theirs. Oh, the +giants too, maybe, sometime. But it won't be done by piddling around +with the kind of pretty idealism that never worked even on Earth." + +Paul groped for the unspoken thing. "You'd have us join forces with +Lantis?" + +Spearman halted to stare at him. There was a flush of blood around his +eyes, the visible pain of frustration that never gave him rest. He +waited till Sears and Abara had come up. "I'm a minority. I haven't +suggested a damned thing." He was silent until they reached the camp. + +Abro Pakriaa was there, with seven of her soldiers. All seven wore +purple skirts, insignia of leadership--"captains" was the nearest +word. With makeshift pigments and brittle whitebark, Paul had recently +painted such a group. The effort was for Pakriaa; she had been gravely +delighted with it, seeing how prominent in it were her own vivid blue +skirt and taller stature. To Paul's eyes the colors had sworn +horribly, and he had been glad when the princess carried the daub +away, balanced joyfully on her bald head. + +Pak's seven captains made it a visit of state. Wright was soberly +intent, and Ann stood by him, regally silent; play-acting for +Pakriaa's benefit, but Ann sardonically enjoyed the pose. Pakriaa had +gradually accepted the fact of Tocwright's leadership, but her view of +the status of Charin women remained addled by contradictions; the idea +of social and mental equality between the sexes eluded her completely. +Dorothy sat watchful at the opening of the "home" room--Helen would be +sleeping inside; Dorothy's fists were pushed into her cheeks, dark +eyes upturned to Pakriaa's explanatory monologue. Abara effaced +himself. Mijok loomed with folded arms on Wright's other side. The +rest of the giants kept to the background. + +"Abro Samiraa, Abro Kamisiaa, Abro Brodaa--" Pakriaa was naming the +heads of the five northern villages. A loose alliance, but those +villages had fought powerfully against Lantis a year ago and each +could provide a hundred and fifty first-line soldiers and fifty of the +skittish male bowmen. "They are with me, my sisters," Pakriaa said, +with sad gravity and not much of her natural swagger. "The wormseed +Lantis has broken custom--her own people must spit on her. For the +death of my messenger I spit on her heart and loins, I spit on her +footprints." + +The arithmetic was simple, Paul thought. A scant twelve hundred +fighters against a three-sided attack from over ten thousand. Four +Charin men with rifles, automatics, scanty ammunition, heavy bows. A +handful of giants who knew nothing of war but theory and whose basic +nature would revolt at the reality. Spitting wouldn't help. He forced +himself to attend to what Wright was saying: "There must be one +commander." + +"I give no orders to Abro Samiraa and her sisters, my equals." + +"Would you and she and the others accept direction from one of us?" + +Pakriaa murmured, "I have never seen you fight." + +Spearman laughed. Wright said, "You will, Abro Pakriaa. If you will +accept one of us as commander, the army can strike as one soldier. +There would be less confusion. And Lantis will not expect it." + +That brought shrewdness to the little red face. "But you can do +nothing hiding behind this pile of stones." + +"A temporary shelter while we shoot. You know our fire sticks. This +building commands the upper part of the lake and this end of the +meadow. We will not be trapped here. There will be no siege. If it is +necessary to retreat, we'll know the right moment to do it." + +The oldest captain, Nisana, a wiry, quiet woman, said, "Abro Kamisiaa +herself spoke of a thing like this." + +Pakriaa murmured absently, "Did I give you leave to speak?" But she +was not angry; she was considering it. "This is better, Tocwright, +what you say now. I will send, learn if my sisters agree. But who will +be the leader?" + +"That should be decided now," Wright said, and Paul thought: _Here it +comes, Ed--you get what you want at last._ And he remembered that +obscure thing which might not have been in Spearman's mind at all: +_desertion_--the thing was a dirty word, and the mind would not speak +it. But Wright was staring at him--at him, not at Spearman. "There's +only one of us," Wright said, "who ought to lead, in this trouble. +That is _my_ feeling, Abro Pakriaa, but I alone cannot decide it. All +of us here should vote on it." + +Pakriaa understood the nature of a vote. Under her iron monarchy, +minor village matters were often decided by that method if her own +attitude happened to be neutral. Once made, and approved by herself, a +pygmy vote was binding as magic. Her gaze touched the giants with a +sour smile. She was visibly counting; then she was studying Paul with +new curiosity. + +Of the giants, only the two new recruits were not in evidence. Paul +glimpsed the red-furred boy peering from the doorway of Mijok's +private room; Surok went in to soothe him. Pakriaa said, "I will +consent. After the vote I will inform my sisters as quickly as I can." + +Wright's fingers were frozen in his gray beard. "Then I ask that Paul +Mason take command, his orders to be followed without question." + +Paul could not speak. _How did this happen? How can I...._ He heard +Ann, imitating the formality of Wright's words, but with an undertone +of passionate protest: "I ask for the leadership of Edmund Spearman." + +Spearman frowned at her, flushed, proud, perhaps amazed. He said +doubtfully, "Other nominations...? Voice vote?" + +"Voice vote, as you wish," Wright said. + +"M-make it voice vote," Dorothy whispered, and her face was begging: +_Is it too much? Can you stand it? Is it what I ought to do..._? + +"Satisfactory," Spearman said. Paul nodded helplessly. + +Dorothy said, "Paul Mason." + +Wright glanced at Pakriaa. When Spearman was nominated she had +abandoned her patronizing air; she said with enthusiasm, "Spearman." + +Mijok's voice rumbled in the depths: "Paul Mason." + +The voting went quickly after that. Abara slipped into shadow and +shook his head before Wright could call his name. Sears voted for Paul +with a wry attempt at a grin. Surok hesitated; his tawny face smiled +at Paul with apology and he said, "Spearman." Golden Lisson voted the +same way. The other giant women and Elis voted for Paul. The children +were quiet, not needing to be told that this was grown-up business. +When one of the smallest boys started to hum, little Dunin squatted +behind him and covered his mouth. + +All the pygmy captains but one had followed Pakriaa's lead, after a +pantomime of meditation, probably for the record. Now, with a vote of +10-10, this one captain was full of trouble. She understood that she +would be the last to vote and must break the tie. This was Nisana, +taciturn, with the white scar of a wound that had destroyed her lower +left breast and run jaggedly down her side; Paul had seen her often +but knew little of her. She was studying the candidates with a +manifestly honest, tormenting effort to decide, and she avoided +Pakriaa's astounded glare. The green eyes fixed themselves at last on +one candidate with a blinding innocence. + +"Paul Mason." + +Pakriaa started as if slapped, but recovered quickly. She said, +"Tocwright, is Abara not to vote?" + +Abara shuffled a step backward, two steps forward. It brought him +nearer the bulk of Sears Oliphant. His bulging eyes tried to escape +Wright's look, and Pakriaa's; his ugly lips wobbled. He squeaked: +"Paul Mason." + +"Twelve-ten," Wright said. "Abro Pakriaa, I am grateful--" + +Pakriaa ignored him. She was saying with acid sweetness, "Abroshin +Nisana, perhaps you wish to remain here?" + +It seemed to Paul that a mechanical force within him was taking over, +unsought, at a moment of greatest need. "That would be excellent, Abro +Pakriaa. If I am commander, I need one of you here: I am glad to +select Abroshin Nisana." + +The princess faced him. Her eyelids flickered--usually a sign of pygmy +amusement more revealing than laughter, but one never knew, exactly. +The machine labored, weighing dangers and advantages. A direct order +now might win over Pakriaa or lose her completely and all the twelve +hundred. She understood and admired aggressiveness; she was also a +bundle of touchy personal pride. And--the slim spear in her hand could +strike like a cobra. Paul said, "Abro Pakriaa, you will tell the other +leaders our decision, and if they agree, have them come here at +once." There was a gray-white shadow at his left. The balance, +swinging delicately, was visible in Pakriaa's almost sleepy eyes. He +thought: _One thing quicker than a pygmy's arm--a giant's_. At least +he would not be pierced with white-stone, while Mijok stood there. + +Pakriaa's arm swung--the harmless right arm, a harmless beckoning +gesture to six of her captains, who followed her out of the fortress, +leaving Abroshin Nisana staring at the ground and very much alone. + +Spearman came alive. He spoke plainly, cheerfully: "Paul, count on me +for anything. Do whatever I can." His voice had full sincerity. If his +eyes were a little too steady, too candid--never mind it. It was a +pleasure to take his hand, thank him, turn to immediate needs. + +"Two lifeboat trips right away, Ed, in what's left of daylight. Ann, +Samis, and the four smallest giant children on the first. All the +carpentry and garden tools. Third trip in the morning." Wright's +sudden relaxation was praise.... + +Ann left, with no more protest than a backward look. But at the last +moment she ran back to kiss Wright on the mouth.... + +And when Ed was returning from the second flight, which had carried +Dunin and four other giant children to the island--when it was night +and the red eye of the lifeboat was slipping down from above the +hills, then the drums began. + + + + +4 + + +Paul heard the drums from within the room that was his and +Dorothy's--merely a section of the thatched lean-to inside the +fortress wall, but Dorothy had given it the reality of a living place. +There were no chairs: one sat on a rug which was a cured uskaran pelt, +a gift from Abro Brodaa, whose people had hunted down the tigerish +beast after it raided her village. The bed was only a clumsy framework +with an asonis hide stretched across it. But the shelter had become +dear with use, and Dorothy had hung a few of Paul's paintings on the +walls--a portrait of Mijok, one of Christopher Wright which had caught +something of the old man's brooding alertness. The red jungle flowers +were too cloyingly rich to be kept here, but Dorothy had found a blue +meadow shrub, and a white bloom that hid in shady ground and recalled +the scent of jonquils.... + +It was too dark to see her plainly; Paul knew her eyes were open on +him. Barely audible against his shoulder, she said, "I thought I'd be +insatiable. I only want to be near and not think." Nevertheless +thought goaded her. "Ten thousand--ten thousand--What can you _do_?" + +All he could say was rehearsed, mechanical, and she had heard it +before. "Frontal attack first, because the pygmies couldn't be led +into anything else. But I shall turn it into an ordered retreat--to +the island. Drive south, skirt the southern end of the hills, then +straight for the coast. We'll be at the island in--oh, soon--" + +"But the range--the coastal mountains opposite the island--you can't +cross them--they rise so sheer--" + +"Remember the river that flows almost due west from these little +hills? It comes to the sea north of the range. We'll make rafts to get +down that, I think. There aren't any falls. At the coast we'll +contrive something--dugouts with outriggers. I've already shown old +Rak how to make one; he may be working on it now." + +Dorothy pressed a hand over his mouth. She stammered, "Make this +moment last." But even during the fine sharp agony there were words: +"I shall keep--a bonfire on that beach--night and day...." and when +his hand was slack in her hair and she seemed to be hardly breathing, +Paul heard the drums. + +They were far off and everywhere. Only the remembering brain insisted they +were on the lake. They were not sound at all, at first. A pressure pain in +the back of the skull, a rasping of nerve endings. Nothing but drums. +Hollow logs with a hide membrane, rubbed and pounded by tiny painted +savages. "You must go tonight after all." Dorothy could not speak. He put +Helen in her fumbling arms; he hurried out to the open space, saw the eye +of the lifeboat returning. The drums took on a rhythm, a throbbing in 5/8 +time, rapid, venomous. But far away. Still not quite +sound--_Ah_-ah-ah-ah-ah, _ah_-ah-ah-ah-ah--growing no nearer, no louder, +but gaining in vicious urgency, relentless as a waterfall, a runaway +machine. _Ah_-ah-ah-ah-ah.... + +Paul hoped that Wright and Sears might be sleeping. It would be an +hour yet before Pakriaa could return with the other leaders, if indeed +she ever did. Elis and Abara were on sentry duty. The three giant +children still at the camp--would they be sleepless, keyed up to vivid +fantasies of the island, like Charin children before a great journey? + +Kamon sat alone by the gate. A small figure drooped at the other end +of the enclosure. Since there was no immediate task for her, Paul had +told Abroshin Nisana to rest, but he knew her little bald head turned +to follow him. "Kamon--I'm going to have the third flight made +tonight. There would be room for you too in the boat. Will you go?" + +Black lips and ancient white face smiled up at him. "If you wish." + +"I do. Stay close to Dorothy. That will leave four of you giant women +here. I wish they could all go. Tejron's sober and wise--she'll keep +them together. You're more needed on the island. Don't let Dorothy be +much alone." + +The old woman mused: "This Charin love is a strange thing. It isn't +our natures for two persons to come so close. But I see something good +in it, I think...." Paul struggled to hear her over the almost +subsonic yammer of the drums. _Ah_-ah-ah-ah-ah--it seemed not to +trouble Kamon much, though she would be hearing it even more plainly. +"I will stay with her, Paul," she said, and watched the long glide as +Spearman brought the boat in. + +On the drawbridge Spearman cocked his head at the drums. "That's it." +He read Paul's thought: "The rest tonight, huh? Better, I'd think." + +"Yes. Get something to eat, why don't you? Kamon is going too." + +Spearman nodded, unsurprised. "Not hungry.... Wonder how long they +keep it up...." + +Wright came from his room with sleepless eyes. "Till they attack, +probably. All night, maybe all tomorrow. To soften us up. Damn +them...." + +Somehow Paul was walking to the boat, carrying the baby for Dorothy. +He climbed in with her, adjusted the straps. Helen waked and was +fretful till she found the breast "You bore her alone--without any--" + +"Alone!" Dorothy was astonished. "I had you. Doc's a fine medical man, +whatever he says. Don't you remember how Mijok held out his arm for me +to grab when it got tough? He said, 'I am a tree.'" Now she was +holding his look with an indestructible smile until the rest came and +Paul had to back out of the cramped cabin to give them room; then had +to stand aside while the bright relic of twenty-first-century man spat +its green flame and hot gases at the lake and leaped to soaring and +slid into moonless darkness above the hills. The drums wept, raved, +obscenely whispered. + +Paul did not know Sears Oliphant was with him till he heard the voice: +"I think, Paul--the drums defeat their purpose. They make me sore +instead of scared. I think you won't need to worry about me, Paul." + +"I never have." He glanced at the fat man's holstered automatic, +remembered the cleanness of the rifle hanging in Sears' room. "My +father used to say most men are good watchdogs, who know they're +scared but stand guard in spite of it; only a few are rabbits and +possums." Paul turned his back on the hills. Nothing was there to +see, nothing at all. "I wish you'd known my father. He was a tall man. +Nuts about animals--always brought 'em into the talk--illustration, +example. Couldn't stand to see even a wasp beating against the glass; +you never knew when a deer mouse would climb out of his pocket and run +down his pants leg." Paul laughed. The drums fretted in 5/8, +passionate, soft, cruel. + +Sears watched blue fireflies over a lake so peacefully still that the +sapphire reflections were as real as their cause. "A teacher, wasn't +he?" + +"For a while, till he settled in New Hampshire. They wouldn't let him +teach nineteenth and twentieth-century history as he saw it. He saw it +in terms of ethical conflict, the man versus the state, self-reliance +versus the various dreary socialisms, enlightened altruism versus +don't-stick-your-neck-out, and he didn't give a good god-damn whether +the first atomic submersible was built in 1952 or '53. Doc would have +loved him too: he knew what was meant by a government of laws. He made +his students search out not only theory but the actual dismal +consequences of the doctrine that the end justifies the +means--Alexander, Augustus, Napoleon, Lenin, Hitler. That was regarded +as 'wilfully minimizing the significance of technological advance.' He +didn't minimize it; he just recognized that other matters were vastly +more important, and he didn't care to see the machine built up into +one more mumbo jumbo. So he sent me through college by breeding +children's riding ponies and selling hatching eggs. Not a bad life, or +so he said.... Jocko, will Pakriaa come back?" + +"I believe so.... Ah, Chris--nice evening for the month of Charin." + +Wright was a paleness in the dark; stern, weary, tall, watching the +lake, talking to himself: "The month we named for ourselves--end of +Year One--oh, I do call that a pardonable vanity.... Paul, I was +wholly selfish in choosing you. I've given you a burden no one should +have to carry." + +"We're all carrying it." + +"Thank you, son." Wright moved away to stand alone at the rim of the +lake, listening to the crawling thunder of the drums. Twice, Paul +heard him speak, with an intensity beyond pain: "No one is expendable. +No one is expendable...." + +Sears exclaimed, "Look!" There were five white cloud-like shapes at +the edge of the woods. "Oh, they've never done this before. Susie! +What's the matter? There now, girl, come tell the old man--" + +Paul followed him. "It's the drums--don't you think?" + +The five had been complaining softly, but that ceased as Sears moved +among them, patting their legs, soothing them. "But Paul--their +grounds are mostly north of here--there now, Mister Smith, you old +bastard--so why didn't they travel away from the sound? Take it easy, +Millie, Miss Ponsonby--" + +"The wild ones probably did. But these had to come to you." + +"Oh.... That detachment of Lantis--the one in the northeast--" + +"Don't think so, Jocko. Pakriaa's spies are all around up there--we'll +have warning. Elis is posted half a mile north of us--he'd know--smell +'em if he didn't hear 'em. However, I'll go talk with him...." + +The depth of forest muted the drums--a little; they were still a +cumulative torture of anger in the inner darkness of the mind. Paul +saved the fading power of his Earth-made radion flashlight by +following his sense of the trail. He had learned to move as softly in +the jungle as any Charin could hope to do--more softly than Spearman, +softly enough to steal within spear range of the asonis. There was not +much danger here, unless it might be from the uskaran, a beast Paul +had glimpsed alive only once and then dimly, a striped thing slipping +snakily out of his vision in a sun-striped afternoon; the rug in his +and Dorothy's room could almost have been a tiger pelt. The black +reptiles were lovers of hot sun and shallow water, never going inland. +The squeak and rustle of a kaksma horde, it was said, could be heard +far off except during the rains, when all noises were smothered in the +long rush and whispering of waters. For all his silence, black Elis +was aware of him before Paul knew he had reached the sentry post. +"Paul--isn't it?" The night vision of the giants was better than the +Charins' but not like a cat's; they hunted at night only if the moon +was strong. + +"Yes. Everything quiet?" + +"Quieter than my heart." + +Paul still could not see him. "Saving my flashlight. Where are you?" +Elis chuckled and slipped an invisible hand around Paul's. "The +olifants came to the meadow. We wondered what disturbed them." + +"Drums. Nothing in the northeast yet. But a great many of the pygmies +are moving from the upper villages. I heard, and smelled the red +flowers." The people of Lantis, Pakriaa said, never wore those +flowers, and it would not be the nature of Elis to exaggerate his +powers of smell and hearing. + +"I think the animals wanted Sears. Could that be, Elis?" + +"Alojna--" Elis murmured the old word for them: it meant "white +cloud." "Two things nobody knows--the thoughts of Alojna and the +journeys of the red moon and the white moon when we cannot see them. +So we used to say. You give us a hint of knowledge of both things, and +more than a hint of much greater mysteries." Elis had always been +tireless in questioning Wright; more than Mijok, he was haunted by a +need to grope after intangibles, push outward the uneasy border +between known and unknown. "So there's never an end of mystery?" + +"Never." The hand was warm. "What is the nature of courage?" + +The giant's breathing was too quiet to be heard. "To go out, away from +a world, in a little shell--that must have needed courage." + +"Perhaps only a response to a drive of uncomprehended forces. But I +think courage is a known thing, Elis, an achievement of flesh and +blood--to hear the drums in the dark and stay at the post as you are +doing, as I hope I can do myself. I must go back. Lisson will come and +relieve you soon...." + +Pakriaa had returned, with her five equals. Wright had lit one of the +clay lamps. It burned pleasantly with an oil from the carcasses of the +same reptile that had once nearly destroyed Mijok, a thing which +pleased Mijok, for he liked to think that a creeping danger could also +be a source of light; and the use of this oil had been taught them by +the pygmies, who made almost monthly expeditions to marshy regions and +butchered the beasts by the dozens for the oil alone. + +Pakriaa was almost meek. Her smile for Paul could have been a Charin +smile; there was a tremor in her hands, and once they flew up to cover +her ears. The drums, he thought, might be a worse pain for her than +for his own breed. There was unconscious pathos in the precision of +her English: "I did not make clear that I will obey you. I may have +been angry; for that I am sorry--it is past. My sisters have agreed." + +Squat Abro Samiraa; lame, thin Abro Kamisiaa; sober Abro Brodaa--these +three Paul had met before. Abro Duriaa and Abro Tamisraa were from the +farthest villages, and shy; Duriaa was fat, with a foolish giggle; +Tamisraa had a feral furtiveness--the painted bones of her necklace +looked like human vertebrae. In Abro Samiraa Paul saw competence as +well as smoldering violence: the green of her eyes was dark jade; she +was a flat pillar of muscle from shoulder to hip. Paul guessed her to +be a devil of bravery, good in the front line and intelligent. Lame +Kamisiaa's bravery would be shrewd, vicious, and careful. In fat +Duriaa he thought he saw a politician, not a fighter; in Abro +Brodaa--there might be a thinker, even a dreamer, in Abro Brodaa. + +The princesses had brought news. A scout from Brodaa's village had +succeeded in locating the northeastern detachment of Lantis' army; it +was camped twelve miles to the northeast, on the far side of a deep +but narrow stream. The scout had shown the kind of nerve the pygmies +took for granted: she had crossed the creek to listen in the reeds and +had drifted downstream the entire length of the encampment. The +Vestoians were careless, overconfident, their dialect enough like her +own so that she could grasp the essentials; their unit was six hundred +strong, with no bowmen. The scout had heard discontented soldiers' +talk: the spearwomen missed their subject males, who were camp +followers as well as second-line fighters. Returning, the scout had +located and stalked a Vestoian sentry, stunned and gagged her, and +brought her to Brodaa's camp, where she was made to talk. Brodaa had +been about to describe this when Pakriaa glanced at Sears and +interrupted: "They plan to cross the stream before daylight, move +straight west, and try to push us down into the open ground, where the +rest of the army will roll over us." + +_The sentry is probably dead. I don't want to know, not now...._ The +machine in Paul took charge of the council of war, rejecting +compassion, rejecting everything beyond immediate need. "Abro +Samiraa--take the soldiers of your village and of Abro Duriaa's. Abro +Duriaa, you will be in command of your own people, but accept Abro +Samiraa's orders as if they were mine." Pakriaa intervened to +translate for the fat woman, who showed no hostility but rather +relief, and placed her hands formally under the spread fingers of Abro +Samiraa in token of subordination. "Abro Samiraa, take those three +hundred and the bowmen to the stream as quickly as you can with +silence, and attack. The important thing is to scatter them before +they are ready to move. If they retreat, follow them only enough to +confuse them and then return here at once. If you can take prisoners, +bring them here, unharmed. But do not be drawn into any long pursuit. +There are still eleven hours of darkness. I hope to see you return +long before sunrise." + +"Good!" Pakriaa exclaimed, and Samiraa grunted with pleasure. Brodaa +said, "Take my scout, sister. I have given her the purple skirt; she +is Abroshin now, and my friend." Duriaa waddled behind, and Paul sent +Abroshin Nisana to relieve Abara from sentry duty. Nisana was glad to +go, for Pakriaa still sent her sour glances, remembering the election. + +Sears was fretting: "My pets. Damn it, Paul, I dunno--they're huddled +out there in the meadow--just get in the way, get hurt." + +"Would they follow Abara?" + +"I think so...." Abara slipped in and puffed with pride when he +learned what was wanted. "Certainly they will follow Mister Johnson, +and Mister Johnson will follow me." + +Pakriaa laughed. She caught him by a prominent ear and hugged him to +her leanness, grinning at Brodaa over his head. "So ugly!" Pakriaa +nibbled his neck. "And he leads olifants! Don't be afraid, little +husband--I was never angry with you. Look at him!" She spun him +around for the lewd admiration of the other royalty. "I couldn't do +without him. When the war is over I'll have him back in my bed. But +now he leads olifants. Hurry, Abara--and don't hurt yourself." And she +sent him off with a pinch. + +"Keep them in the woods," Paul told him. "And stay with them." + +"Good." Pakriaa sobered. "He could do nothing. He never learned the +bow.... Ah, look!" The red dot of the lifeboat had caught her eye. +"Look, Abro Tamisraa--you never saw it fly at night." It moved with +apparent slowness, like a mad star, not toward them but toward the +lake, perhaps ten miles away; it was still high when the searchlight +beam stabbed down, probing from northeast to southwest, and vanished. +"It's all right," Paul said, "I suggested he scout the lake on the way +back...." The red eye silently tumbled; Wright gasped. "Still all +right," said Paul. "A dive. He can make it talk." But the moment +dragged out into an ugliness of waiting. + +Then orange fury glared against the underside of clouds and the clamor +of drums abruptly ceased. Paul said loudly, mechanically, "I think he +gave 'em the jet--set a few boats afire. I didn't order it, Doc. And +wouldn't try it myself...." Now the red dot was shooting upward, +disappearing as the boat circled once, then growing larger. Briefly +the searchlight illuminated the meadow, and Spearman came in, +overshooting slightly, driving almost to the moat before he checked. +He swaggered in, satisfied. "See it?" + +"Uh-huh. What did you learn?" + +"Those were drum boats. Why, my God, they opened out like little +orange flowers...! Well--the main fleet is 'way behind them, say +thirty miles down the lake, coming slow. Couldn't spot the land +army--no campfires." + +"All right. Sit in on this, Ed...." And the plan was drawn up, so far +as there could be a plan when the odds were ten to one in a world that +never asked for them. + +Paul, with Mijok and Pakriaa, would lead three hundred spearwomen and +a hundred bowmen south before daylight, in the hope of disorganizing +the advance with surprise and gunfire, but unless the Vestoians were +demoralized beyond expectation, this could be only a skirmish. They +would fall back, try to avoid losses. The remainder of the army would +stay at the edge of the woods until Lantis was in sight: Wright at the +fortress with the giant women, now only four, who could handle rifles; +Abro Kamisiaa and Abro Brodaa in the center; Sears and Abro Tamisraa +on the right flank in the west, with Elis and Surok. Spearman in the +lifeboat would follow the advance party at first-light. Paul said +nothing of the second drive, to the southeast, the retreat that would +seem like attack. When the time came for that, he must have in one +unit all that remained after the first wrath had spent itself--and +even then the pygmies would have to believe that they were attacking +single-heartedly, or they could not reach the southern end of the +range, but would probably be driven into the trap of the kaksma hills. + +The drums began again. They began after the council was ended and +Sears had gone to take charge of his command on the right flank, with +Elis and Surok and shifty Tamisraa. The other small red sovereigns had +gone too, and Wright had stalked into his room--to sleep, he said--and +Paul had followed Spearman out to the boat, where Spearman would sleep +until it was time to go. Spearman tapped his elbow. "You're surprising +me, boy. Better than I could have done, I think. We'll knock 'em +over." And the drums began. + +Spearman stared off at the lake; after a while he grinned, and the +lamp burning in the fortress caught the grimace. "Yeah," he sighed, +"well, I knew I only singed 'em." He climbed into the boat and glanced +down with a half salute, which Paul answered mechanically. But as Paul +walked away the thought stirred: _That was like goodbye...._ + +Paul went along the path at the edge of the woods. It was wide and +easy, broadened during the Year One by much travel between the camp +and Pakriaa's village. There were occasional small-voiced greetings +from the woods: these were Kamisiaa's and Brodaa's people, who knew +him. Brodaa cherished a painting he had made of the singing waterfall +above her village in return for that uskaran pelt. Many of these +soldiers would be chosen by Pakriaa to bring up the number of the +advance party to four hundred. + +There was no red moon tonight. The white moon was half the size of the +planet Earth, so far away that its glow was scarcely more than that of +a star, but Paul knew that by what light it gave the pygmies could see +him smile in response to their greetings. They would be studying him, +trying to weigh the tone of his answer. _One of them might save my +life tomorrow; certainly I shall have to see some of them die. They +are people._ + +There were two visible planets to follow the wandering of the no +longer alien star that was the sun. One was hidden tonight; the other, +red like Mars, hung over the eastern jungle in tranquillity. A little +shape detached itself from the trees to meet him. Abro Pakriaa. "Will +you not sleep tonight, Paul, before we go?" It was a human question, +sweetly spoken and meant kindly. + +"Later, I think." He stood by her awhile; in the blackness from which +she had come there was a steady mumbling, and Paul knew what it was: +the witches also had their part to play in these heavy hours, although +long before battle was joined they would be cowering in the villages. +Somewhere in the tree shadows they were squatting, muttering the +antique prayers. He wondered whether to go on and visit with Sears +awhile. _No: Elis is a rock, better company than I would be at the +moment...._ There was much, he thought, that would be good to talk +about with Pakriaa tonight; there ought to be words that would reach +her. Perhaps on this night a glimpse of Wright's vision would meet +with something better than amusement and distrust. But in the end he +only said, "We'll always be good friends, you and I." + +He thought she might take hold of his hand in the Charin gesture. She +did not--undignified perhaps. But she said, "Tocwright says we are all +one flesh." She said it thoughtfully, without contempt. + +"Yes. We are all one flesh." And lest he become a true Charin and +spoil a moment of truth with unnecessary words, Paul turned back to +the camp, seeing that she remained there in the open, looking south, +the grumbling witches behind her, before her the long night of drums +and no red moon. + +Mijok was not asleep. He sat cross-legged by the lamp. "I wanted to +thank you. Doc's gone to sleep at last, and before I could find the +words I wanted. It will be difficult to talk in the morning." + +Paul sat by him, puzzled. "To thank me?" + +"Because I've learned so much. And had so much pleasure in the +learning." Mijok yawned amiably, stretching his arms. "To thank you +for that, in case you or I should be dead tomorrow." + +It would have been easy to say: "Oh, we'll be all right--" Something +like that. Paul buried the words unspoken, knowing their triviality +would be a discourtesy, a dismissal of the insight and patience which +made it possible for Mijok to speak so casually. Mijok loved to be +alive; there was no moment of day or night that he did not relish, if +only for its newness and from his sense that every gift of time is a +true gift. "I thank you for being with us." Mijok accepted the words +without embarrassment or second thought. + +"Why, you know," he said, "in the old days I never even knew that +plants were alive. But look at this--" He lifted one of Dorothy's +white flowers from his knee. "It was in your room, Paul. She put it +beside that painting you made of me, before she left." He peered into +the white mouth of the flower, touched the fat stamens, and stroked +the slim stalk. "Everything it needs. Like ourselves. But I never knew +that. We are all one flesh." + +Paul glanced over his shoulder. The red planet like Mars was still +high over the jungle. He thought: _When that is hidden, it will be +time to go._ + + + + +5 + + +All night Paul heard the distant barbarous thunder of the drums. In +the hour before first-light his advance company formed; a furious +serpent, it stole two miles south through grassland following the +pallor of the beach. Near first-light, Paul knew, they would see a +thread of new moon. In this present darkness the Vestoians might be +slipping north on the lake; there would be no betraying sound above +the passion of the drums. As for the land army, that could be miles to +the south or over the next rise of ground. + +His mind fought a pressure of alternatives. Better to have kept the +army in one unit? To wait in the forest for news of Abro Samiraa's +thrust in the northeast? _Never mind: no time now._ At least his body +was meeting the challenge without rebellion. His wiry legs carried him +in silence; his senses were whetted to fineness. Rifle, pistol, field +glasses, hunting knife made a light load. Ahead of him Mijok loomed +against a division of two shadows, sky and earth. Not first-light: +only a sign that five thousand miles away on the eastern shore of this +continent there might be the shining of a star now called the sun. +Mijok carried a shield of doubled asonis hide; his only weapon was a +seven-foot club, since his smallest finger was too large to pass the +trigger guard of a rifle. Though keeping watch with Paul, Mijok had +spoken little during the night--brooding perhaps, trying (Paul +imagined) to see a new world in the matrix of the old. But there was +no guessing a giant's thoughts. Lacking the stale burden of human +guilt and compromise, they had the strength as well as the weakness of +innocence; the country of their minds must wait on the explorations of +centuries. + +Abro Pakriaa, close to Paul's right, moved like a breeze in the +grass. She and her small soldiers despised the use of shields, +despised the arrows of their own bowmen as fit only for timid males. +They never threw their spears but kept them for close quarters; their +only other weapon was a white-stone dagger.... The army groped through +the meadow in three ranks, widely spaced at Paul's order; beyond the +right flank the archers were concentrated. Four hundred fighters +altogether--against six thousand. + +A wooded knoll grew into silhouette fifty yards from the beach, ten +feet above the level of the meadow. "We meet them here," Paul said. By +prearrangement Pakriaa halted a hundred of her spearwomen between the +knoll and the beach, the other two hundred on the west side, the +hundred bowmen out beyond. Paul and Mijok penetrated the blackness of +the knoll, pushing through to its southern side, where Pakriaa joined +them. Even in that short passage the heaviness of dark had altered +with a promise. There were few clouds. The day (if it ever came) would +be hot, windless, and beautiful. No more blue fireflies were +wandering. The planet Lucifer had become three gray enigmas of lake +and meadow and sky, but in this blind hush when morning was still the +supposition of a dream, the shapes of the trees were attaining a +separate reality; in the west Paul could find a hint of the low hills +standing between him and the West Atlantic. + +Seventy or eighty miles over yonder Dorothy's brown eyes would be +watching for first-light on the sea, watching for it not on the great +sea, he knew, but on the channel that shut her away from the mainland, +from himself. With his child at her breast, another unknown life in +the womb. Ann Bryan too, her troubled secret mind still full of +protest at the contradictions and unfulfilled promises which made up +the climate of life on Lucifer as well as elsewhere; and the ancient +giantess Kamon, and Rak and Muson, Samis, Arek, and those giant +children perennially puzzling and lovable.... _No time._ Mijok was +peering out on the west side of the knoll. "Nicely hidden. Your +soldiers are very good, Abro Pakriaa," said the giant, whose knowledge +of war was almost as dim a product of theory as his knowledge of the +planet Earth, where his Charin friends had been born. + +The pygmy princess did not answer. Paul thought with held-in anger: +_Can't she understand even now that Mijok is one of us, the best of +us...?_ But Pakriaa was staring south; she might not have heard. She +pointed. + +Thus, after a year of waiting, wonder, rumor; a year when Lantis of +Vestoia, Queen of the World, had been a half-mythical terror, symbol +of tyranny and danger but not a person; a year that Ed Spearman spoke +of as "lost to the piddlings of philosophy"--Paul saw them at last. + +Saw rather a waving of the grass, a cluster of dots shifting, bobbing, +advancing. Pakriaa's tree-frog voice was calm: "They come fast. They +want to reach our forest before the light makes the omasha fly. Your +plan is good, Paul: we hold them in the open, the omasha have good +meat." + +A man could dourly accept it, somehow. Bred to gentleness, +undestructive labor, study, contemplation, Paul could tell himself +that a certain spot (even as it bloomed like a nodding flower in the +telescopic sights) was not flesh and blood and nerve, only a target. +_Would it be so if I were fighting only for myself...?_ He held the +spot in focus; he said, "Your soldiers are prepared for the fire +stick? They know they must not charge till they have the order from +you?" + +Her voice had warmth: "And they know you are my commander." + +Paul squeezed the trigger. + +_Too soon--and too damned quiet._ The clever makers of +twenty-first-century firearms on Earth had cut down the shout of a .30 +caliber to a trivial snap. The savage eyes out there might not even +have caught the flash at the muzzle. There ought to have been the +glare and circumstance of a rocket. How could they be panicked by a +silly pop and a spark? Even though--well, one of the dots had +vanished, true enough. Maybe he had killed his first human being. + +He glanced westward, wondering how soon the gray must change to +saffron and crimson. The new red moon--there it was. A bloody sliver +of a sword above the far shore of the lake. + +And he saw the boats. + +They were half a mile out. No others were visible north of them, but +that meant nothing: these might or might not be the lead canoes of +the fleet. The noise of drum boats in the south was constant: those +would stay anchored in hiding, letting their wrath appear to come from +all parts of the world. + +The leading boat jumped to clarity in the sights. Forward the bark +roofing reached the gunwale; aft, the sides were open to leave space +for two paddlers. Paul saw the tight mouth of the one on the port +side: she could have been Pakriaa's blood sister. Now it was necessary +to think of Abro Pakriaa's ambassador torn in quarters, head and arms +sent back as a message from the Queen of the World--until the mind of +the student of Christopher Wright rebelled: _Vengeance was one of the +ape's first discoveries._ It became more necessary to think: _Make it +a good head shot--she won't feel it...._ + +It was not a very good shot. The scream came weakly across the water. +The paddler tumbled, an arm dangling. The starboard paddler seemed not +to understand and labored stupidly, making the canoe lurch to port. +The prow of a following boat rammed it, tore away the matting, +revealed the huddled soldiers who became splashing legs and arms in a +sudden foam. While the land army came on.... + +Dots that were bald red heads, white specks that were spear blades. A +simple arithmetic: less than a hundred rounds for the rifle; four +hundred soldiers; a heart divided but angry, and the devotion of an +eight-foot giant with a big stick. Against six thousand in the land +army alone. "Pakriaa, it's a single column--the fools! Send your +bowmen out west, catch them on the flank." Pakriaa ran down the knoll. + +Paul shot twice at the head of the column. A flurry. No halt. Some of +the boats were no longer sliding north, but driving down on the beach, +forty or fifty, like hornets from a torn nest. _Another mistake--no, +not if it diverts them from the camp._ Pakriaa's hundred on this side +of the knoll were holding firm for an order. Paul's wave was enough: +they spread out in the grass at the edge of the beach, quivering like +waiting cats. The light was changing their bodies from vagueness to +familiar copper, black skirts, white body paint.... Mijok tore a +half-buried rock from the ground and hurled it out to splinter the +nearest boat. But the soldiers would merely swim ashore. "Mijok! Stay +with me!" + +The head of that column was less than two hundred yards away. Paul +fired mechanically, seeing life tumble backward and lie still. "Let +them see us now, Pakriaa, Mijok----" + +They strode down the south slope of the knoll in plain sight under the +beginning of morning as the bowmen in the meadow released a harsh +flight. The beach on the left became a seething of yells, snarling, +trampling, clash of white stone. _First-light--first-light--and where +in damnation is Ed Spearman with the lifeboat...?_ + +The column was confused by the many pressing up from behind. A few +dozen spearwomen streamed out toward Pakriaa's archers; a second and +third flight downed most of them--the little men had skill. No +Vestoian bowmen had appeared. "Now, Pakriaa----" + +Her one cry brought the spearwomen out of the grass west of the knoll, +skimming forward like red bullets, spears low in the left hand until +they crashed into the column; then weapons rose and plunged and rose. + +The Vestoians wore no white paint. Their leaders had caps of green. +Their grass skirts were mere fringes. They died easily. They killed +easily. + +Some distance down the column--for it was still a column, still a +rolling machine that could not halt--a tall structure was swaying, +hard to assess in this tortured twilight. A litter? Lantis of Vestoia, +the Queen of the World herself? Paul checked his own running advance +to send two shots at it. Then he and Mijok were surrounded by a +writhing of arms, white-stone, and blood, Mijok raging but bewildered. +Paul saw Pakriaa's spear drive down below naked ribs and withdraw from +what sprawled on the ground. She was untouched. Her lean little body +dripped with sweat, her teeth gleamed in a devil's grin. Two +purple-skirted captains joined her; the three smashed into a cluster +of shrieking souls who only began to understand what was happening. + +Arithmetic still ruled. This column might be only one of many pushing +up between lake and hills, bent on reaching Pakriaa's forest before +the omasha soared in from those hills to feed on living and dead. + +Mijok brushed through the fighters with his shield and down the line +till he was clear of Pakriaa's white-painted demons. His stick swung, +destroying everything in a half circle before him. He was not confused +now, not even shouting, but saving breath. He worked stolidly, like a +man beating at a swarm of rats.... Pakriaa jumped on a fallen thing to +point at that clumsy framework down the line. "Lantis! That is +Lantis----" + +The litter wobbled toward the center of confusion on the shoulders of +six women. Paul fired twice again at it. He had a glimpse of a scrawny +figure with a high green headdress leaping down, snatching a spear, +vanishing in an improvised protective phalanx. He shot into that, +dropping one of the outer soldiers. Mijok saw; he changed the course +of his attack, a bulldozer aiming at a new clump of brush. Pakriaa +screamed in frenzy, without meaning. Her spear was still a part of +her. She was bleeding from a thigh wound; her bright blue skirt had +been torn away; she glittered with sweat and paint and blood, a +dancing devil mindlessly happy. Then she was down once more in the +press, squirming toward the phalanx, and Paul could not shoot. + +But it was the toiling giant, Paul thought, who made Lantis break. +Again he saw the snarling face of the Queen of the World and heard her +squeal an order. Before Mijok could cut his way to her the phalanx was +running, sheltered by the mere mass of soldiers. It was necessary to +call Mijok back. + +The whole Vestoian army was running. "Pakriaa!" Paul plunged after +her, caught her shoulder. "No pursuit!" Her eyes glazed in mad +rejection; he thought she would bite his wrist. "Turn your soldiers! +Bring them down on the Vestoians from the boats--_the boats_!" + +She could understand that. Her order was the shriek of a rusty nail on +glass, and it turned them. It brought them howling down to the beach +to aid what was left of the first hundred. The water was a jumble of +abandoned boats--even the paddlers had struggled ashore to kill and +die. + +Mijok ploughed in a second time.... That ended it. Some of the +Vestoians might have glimpsed what he did to the land soldiers. A few +forgot all custom and threw their spears, which Mijok's shield +carelessly turned; then they stared with sickness at their empty +hands and waited for the club. Meanwhile the strengthened crowd of +pygmies worked on till the sand was redder than the sky and there was +no more to be done. "Back!" + +Pakriaa screamed "No!" and pointed south. Paul stumbled on something +slippery. He stooped to her, yelling, _"Omasha!_ The sky will be full +of them. Let them fight Lantis. We've lost a hundred already----" + +Her face became sane and blank in agony. "My people--my people----" + +"Yes! And other boats are still going north. Your soldiers must pick +up the hurt and run for it." + +There were not many living wounded in this sudden quiet. A spear has +scant mercy. And the lifeboat had not come.... Mijok was holding out +his shield on both arms; he had tossed his stick aside. "Put them on +this. I can carry six--seven." When the shield could hold no more he +lifted it, his face contorted and changed. "Paul--I told myself I was +back in the old life, when we always killed them if we could. But the +new laws--oh, Paul, _the laws_----" + +"War perverts all laws. But the laws are true. It is--climbing a +mountain, Mijok: we slip, fall back, try again. Nothing good in war, +only necessity, choice of evils. Now make the best speed you can, +friend--don't wait for us." Mijok ran with his vast strides, holding +the shield out in front so that the motion of his body would not +jounce it. + +Pakriaa would not move till the last of the survivors had stumbled +past her. They were disciplined. Already some of the soft bowmen had +taken out arrows of the whining, glittering type that sometimes +frightened off the omasha. They were ready. Paul tried to count, gave +it up. Less than three hundred. The archers had not suffered much. +Paul said, "Your leg is hurt, Abro Pakriaa. I'll carry you." + +She was indifferent. "I thank you." He slung his rifle and caught her +up, naked and slippery with blood and acrid-smelling paint. Her weight +was less than forty pounds. Her head lolled back; she whispered to the +sky, "No one should call me Abro. I am Pakriaa the child, weak as a +male, a fool. I could have followed. I could have brought her to the +ground. I let her go. I am a red worm. I blame you for it, Paul-Mason. +You and your friends. All of you--except Sears, who is a god with a +window on another world." + +"Hush! The world Sears shows you in the microscope is this world, +Pakriaa. He tells you so himself. And I tell you there'll be a new +way----" + +She was not listening. Still he saw no threat of brown wings, and no +lifeboat. But time was a deception; dawn on Lucifer was abrupt on +cloudless mornings. The battle which had seemed long as heart-break +had been a skirmish, a brush of advance parties lasting perhaps ten +minutes from his first shot to the retreat. Pakriaa's head twitched +from side to side; her eyes were dry. "I have betrayed Ismar, +Creator-and-Destroyer-Who-Speaks-Thunder-in-the-Rains----" + +"Pakriaa----" + +"My people are to burn me in the pit for the kaksmas with lamp oil. I +will order it. I would have been Queen of the World." Making no effort +to escape from his arms, she burst into rage at him; a rage pitiable, +not dangerous: "Why have you come, you sky people, you speakers of new +words? We had our life, no need of you. We were brave--you weaken us +with words, with words. Your friendship is the green-flower weed that +kills the self. You make children of us. You break our beautiful image +of the god and tell us she never lived. You say that now?" She slashed +her fingers down her side, drawing blood. + +Firing? Firing at the camp? + +She clung to him, wailing: "And now you carry me. I cannot even hate +you. You steal our strength. The priests were right--the +priests----Ismar, help me! _Ismar!_" + +Paul forced himself into a run. It was firing, rapid and sharp, +pistols and rifles. The ammunition would melt fast at that rate. He +could hear yelling. Catching up with the running soldiers, leaving +them behind, he could see Mijok, far ahead, swerve to the left. + +And the lifeboat was in action. + +It curved grandly from near the surface of the lake, which was dim +with smoke. It circled over jungle, descended in another swoop at the +canoes. Red bodies tumbled overside; the silver nose tilted as if in +disdain; the jet spoke for one second, blasting the near canoes into +nothing, sending up the further ones in yellow fire, driving the +lifeboat into its seeming-careless leap. But there was still firing +from the gray stone fortress, a human tangle on the beach before it, a +high long screaming. + +Forward detachments of the lake fleet must have passed in the dark. +Paul ran on, only his arms remembering Pakriaa. She slipped down, +grabbed a spear as her soldiers caught up with her, and ran straight +for the beach. + +That part of the agony was almost done. No more boats were coming +in--Ed Spearman's sky weapon had seen to that. There were more canoes, +many more, but they were holding off, grouping clumsily at a distance. +Paul waited for the lifeboat to slip over him and waved to the south. +Spearman altered the course of the glide, dropping after one more +group of panicked boats but heading south. A longer burst of the jet, +and Spearman's weapon lifted, straightened, shot out of sight across +the meadow. + +Paul could picture the big man's intent and mirthless grin, the cold +gray eye alert on the fuel gauge. And when this fuel was gone--no +more. It might stand for a while, somewhere, a decaying artifact.... + +Those left alive on the beach were bringing in casualties. The boats +were still withdrawing. Christopher Wright was in the fortress with +the wounded, his narrow face tight in the misery of a doctor who can +do almost nothing. "Doc--how many have we lost here?" + +"You! I had almost--Oh, Mijok, what've you got there...? Paul, they +jumped us at first-light. No time even to remind Ed to go after +you----" + +"No, he did right. More needed here. We've stalled the land army, but +they'll come on. They have to." In the sky the brown dots had appeared +at last, pouring from their foul rock ledges in the hills. All of them +were flying south. "Pakriaa, look! Lantis has two wars now." + +She stood naked and stiff, watching, her underlip thrust out, despair +giving way to a glare of satisfaction at the far-off wings, the beasts +who ate everything, feared nothing. The southwestern sky was heavy +with them. Paul had been right; he sickened at his own cleverness. +"How many, Doc?" + +"Forty or worse. This defense on the beach was by Kamisiaa's people +and our giant girls--who can shoot." Paul saw the golden-furred girl +Lisson smile uneasily at him; there was a sober stare from brown +Tejron. The other two giant women, old Karison and young Elron, seemed +more deeply disturbed, Elron studying her rifle as if it were a living +thing. Wright said, "With Abro Brodaa's help I made the others stay in +the woods where you posted 'em. Surok ran over from the right flank--I +had him run back and tell Sears and the rest to sit tight.... +Pakriaa"--Wright strode out to her--"let me bind that up--you're +bleeding." She permitted it.... + +The boats were clustering a quarter mile away. Paul fumbled for his +field glasses; they were lost. Little Abroshin Nisana, whom he had +ordered to remain at the fortress, spoke beside him, slowly and +carefully because her English was not good: "Commander, Abro Samiraa +is return. The plan--good. She crossed the stream, catch them in +blackness. A few escape. We lose twenty. One was Abro Duriaa--I am not +know how she is killed." She scuffed her little seven-toed foot in the +dust; there was nothing alien in her smile. "Those who return +Tocwright is send west." She was puzzled, not disapproving. "Why are +we most strong in the west? The Vestoians follow lake shore." + +He said, not quite honestly, "Their straightest approach to Abro +Pakriaa's village--your village--is in the west. Were there +prisoners?" + +"Abro Samiraa is not like to take prisoners. We took not any on the +beach. Wrong?" + +He smothered a sigh of exhaustion. "It may not matter." With Mijok, +the stout giantess Tejron was moving among the wounded. Paul noticed a +heap of torn cloth, all that remained of Earth-made shorts and jackets +and overalls, ripped for bandages. Wright's idea, no doubt, and good: +the pygmies' pounded-bark fabric was a poor second best. _After the +war we can go naked--fair enough...._ He saw a pygmy woman shrink from +Tejron's approach; she might be from one of the northern villages, her +stoicism unequal to accepting the touch of the huge beings she would +always have regarded as wild animals. Paul knelt, hoping to reassure +her, as Tejron eased a bandage around a pierced abdomen. There would +be internal bleeding. "You are from the north?" + +She looked hurt that he did not know her face. "I am of Abro Brodaa's +village." Then in spite of her shrinking her question was directed at +Tejron: "Abro Brodaa has say to us--we are all one flesh. +That--that----" + +Tejron was able to say, "That is true." And while Paul searched for +other words that might affirm, comfort, explain, the soldier died. + +The only omasha now visible were soaring stragglers. The swarm would +have found the army of Lantis--which must and would continue to +advance. There was a limit to the gorging of the bat-winged beasts; +they too could die on the spears. Meantime the lifeboat was gone, the +boats were landing, in a moment of darkly sweet quiet which was the +eye of the storm. + +Paul checked the giant girl Lisson from firing at the landing party. +"Save ammunition." He indicated a tall blue-flowered shrub a hundred +yards out in the meadow. "We wait at the edge of the woods until they +pass that bush, then charge them. If they break us down here, everyone +is to fight west, away from the lake--_west_. Now run down the line, +pass on these two orders." Lisson sped away, her golden fur bright and +unstained. "Doc--get the wounded together, have the other women and +Mijok take them west, beyond Sears' group, well back in the woods. Try +to find out where Abara's got to with the olifants but send a runner +back (if there's time)--don't come back yourself. And keep Mijok with +you. I don't want him to do any more fighting if we can help it--it's +tearing him up inside." + +"I----" Wright checked himself, nodded, hurried back into the +fortress. + +"Pakriaa, Abro Kamisiaa, get your soldiers at the edge of the woods." + +They vanished. The meadow was empty of life; the many open eyes on the +beach would not see what was to come. Wright's party left the +enclosure, Mijok carrying the shield. Wright could not look back nor +wave, for his own arms were full, his head bent in some consoling +speech. Paul was striding for the woods when Pakriaa met him and +murmured in contempt, "We hide too, Commander?" + +He answered out of a moment of black indifference. (_Probably we all +die and everything I have done is a mistake._) "Pakriaa, they may +break easier if they don't see us till we charge." She shrugged, +following him into the obscurity, pointedly ignoring Nisana, who came +to his other side, perhaps still hating the little captain for her +independence of yesterday, when Paul was chosen commander of this +grotesque army. + +The Vestoians from the boats were rising out of the grass and coming +forward. Steadily now, with no more apparent haste than the first +breakers leading a destroying wave. It was possible to think with +amazing leisure of the high meadows and wooded roads of New Hampshire. +Paul's brother had always been a little too fat and fond of ice cream. +There was a bookstore in Brattleboro. And the waves of the South China +Sea were moving mountains with snowcaps of foam as they came in on +Lingayen. Why, there was a war there once, more than a hundred years +ago, when the Republic of Oceania was hardly even a thought. Yes: they +called it a Second World War.... + +The Vestoians passed the blue shrub. The breaker was red, with a foam +of white-tipped spears. + +Paul was swept into the open, not only by the howling drive of his own +pygmy army, but by the machine within, relentless again, briefly free +from the compromise of thought. He was firing with precision in the +scant time available before the white-painted bodies crashed into the +unpainted and churned up a froth of battle. + +He had time to wonder why Nisana was here with him a few yards back of +the hand-to-hand frenzy. She was not afraid; her spear was balanced. A +break in the line of fighters let through a Vestoian soldier, dark +mouth squared in a yell. Nisana's spear widened the mouth to a death +mask and withdrew. Paul stepped into the breach and sent a few shots +toward a trio of green-capped leaders. Something slapped and gouged at +his chest--_nothing serious_. But his own fighters to the left of him +were going down, outnumbered. He shouted at a brief gleam of Pakriaa's +face, "West! Fight _west!_" + +Golden Lisson was running back from her errand, her rifle waving, her +lips straining in wild laughter. She passed him, trying to bring her +rifle into use as she ran; it did not fire. A Vestoian was forcing +Nisana away from Paul and beating down her spear. "Why, damn you!" The +Vestoian face dissolved in pulp and strangeness under his rifle butt, +and Paul reeled back, believing for an unbounded second that ghosts +from a place only a few light-years away had swirled across this +stinking battlefield to shriek at him: "_Yes! Your people always +fought that way--the ape picked up a stone...._" But Nisana was alive; +Nisana was unhurt and alive. He could look up again and see the girl +Lisson also using her rifle as a flail. + +She was between him and the beach. Three pygmies had caught the butt, +and now she swung them absurdly high; she had almost shaken them off +when a spear pierced her arm and hung there. The rifle dropped. She +was down, under the leaping spears and red bodies. She did not even +cry out again; the golden fur was reddened and defiled. Paul beat his +way toward her, scarcely seeing what his swinging rifle hit, knowing +it was too late, forgetting his own order to drive west. Aware too of +another tawny shape flashing toward him. + +Surok, who had loved Lisson, who would have been her playmate in the +next Red-Moon-before-the Rains. Paul tried to stop him--but if any +sound came out of his own throat it would have been lost against +Surok's mindless crying. The giant tore into the press around Lisson's +body and fell almost at once, crushing a few as he rolled.... + +"_West!_ Stay behind my rifle, Nisana---" + +It had become a methodical insanity like Mijok's, a cutting of red hay +that spouted blood. He noticed blood on his right hand too--nothing: +front sights of the rifle gouging him. The Vestoians in this direction +were thinning out and giving way. He caught up with a white-splashed +back and bandaged thigh--Pakriaa, ploughing her way west. Abro Samiraa +drove across his path in the wrong direction, chasing an isolated +group of three; squat and heavy-faced, she looked happy and more than +life-size in the moment of her death, as she took a spear thrust over +her heart and lay down with the enemy to grin at the sky and cease +hating. + +A rifle barked ahead of him. That could only be Sears Oliphant: Wright +would surely follow orders and keep Mijok and the giant women with him +to protect the wounded.... Abro Brodaa was fighting through to aid +Pakriaa, not yelling, not excited, keeping somehow an air of dreamy +contemplation, as if the arms driving her spear and dagger were not +quite hers. Nisana cried out, "They are not following! They go +back----" + +It was true. Partly true. Here in this patch of bloody meadow there +was not much left to fight. The defenders had functioned like a single +organism, forming a new semicircular line. Behind it was a quiet, +where Pakriaa was gasping, pounding her foot into a body that felt +nothing. + +And this dear monster, this fat naked grotesque, panting and smeared +with red--this must be Sears Oliphant, late of John Hopkins +University. The monster smiled in a black beard. "Few got by, oh my, +yes. Tamisraa's girls fixed 'em--had to club m' rifle--dirty cave +man--no fear, Paul--_no fear!_ Muscle man with an empty head. They +had--couple bowmen with 'em--no harm done." No harm? Was he unaware of +the broken arrow shaft below his ribs, deeply bedded, with dark blood +oozing around the wood? "They quit, Paul?" + +"They haven't quit." He looked south, seeing why they wouldn't quit. + +"Tamisraa got a bad one--throat." Sears coughed painfully. "I sent her +to Doc--he's just back of those trees. And my pets, Paul, my olifants, +why, they're standing fast, boy. With Abara, bless him--'bout half +mile north. You can't beat 'em. We must figure some way to ferry 'em +over to the island--must--they're people, those olifants----" + +"You go to Doc yourself, Jocko, and fast. That----" + +"Oh, that, that. Mere prac'l dem'stration nobody loves fat man----" + +The Vestoians would not quit because of what was coming half a mile +away in the south under a cloud of brown wings, coming fast. The horde +would be ignoring the omasha, striking them aside, spearing them when +there was time, granting them the necessary toll for passage, and +coming fast. Oh, they would be less than six thousand now--somewhat +less. Meanwhile the remnant from the boats was waiting, regrouping, +drawing breath, readying itself for the climax of massacre, maybe +deliberately postponing it until Lantis of Vestoia, Queen of the +World, could arrive to enjoy it. Paul tried again to count his people +in the sturdy half circle. Black Elis was striding among them, a +great stick in each hand, rumbling comfort and encouragement, and none +of them shrank away from him. + +It looked like less than seven hundred. A hundred lost at the knoll; +forty, Wright said, in the first skirmish at the camp; twenty in +Samiraa's night expedition. Perhaps three hundred in this last wave of +the battle. And Samiraa herself; Duriaa; Tamisraa wounded, Pakriaa +insane with grief; Lisson and Surok dead. Lame Kamisiaa--Paul could +not find her. Abro Brodaa--still calm, unhurt, competent. Very +well--seven hundred against somewhat less than six thousand of the +land army, somewhat less than four thousand from the boats. + +_How I dreamed!_ There would be no southward drive to the island. The +omasha alone made it an absurdity. He had been idiotic to imagine it. + +Pakriaa broke her spear across her knee. She walked out into the +meadow toward the advancing swarm. She looked back stupidly at Paul's +shout, and Nisana ran to her, crying out in the old language. Pakriaa, +with no change of expression, lunged at the captain, striking +flat-handed across her face, forcing her back until Paul reached them +to interfere and Sears caught Pakriaa's wrist, mumbling, "Come +now--come with me, princess." + +"I am no princess." + +"I call you so," Sears said clearly, and speaking with sternness for +possibly the first time in his life. "Now come with me." + +Paul stammered, "Have Doc get that damned arrow out of you. Then he's +to start north with the wounded--at once." + +"North." Sears nodded. + +"There are no gods," said Pakriaa. + +"Yes, north. We'll catch up with you." + +"I thought of you as a god." + +"Think of me as a friend who loves you. It is better." She went with +him, stumbling as Paul had never seen her do, and when the leaves +closed behind them it seemed to Paul that there was surely the cloud +of another world. She might have been a small girl going for a walk in +the woods with her grandfather.... + +There was no lifeboat above that rolling swarm. Ed Spearman must +have----_No time to think about it_. + +But he had to, a little. Spearman was forced down by lack of fuel and +killed. Or forced down, isolated somewhere, miles away. Or he had kept +good watch of the fuel gauge until there was just enough for another +trip to the island and had gone--right, reasonable, what he ought to +have done, what Paul would have ordered him to do if he could have.... +Paul turned to Brodaa. "Your sister Kamisiaa--I don't see her----" + +"My lame sister is dead." Her eyes were shrewd, counting. "We have +more than seven hundred. Two hundred of them bowmen." + +"Bring them all to the woods. Spread the bowmen at the edge: they will +meet the first charge with arrows, nothing else, and then join our +retreat. Send a hundred spearwomen to guard and help Tocwright's +group: they will go straight north. Send another hundred through the +villages to save what they can--the children, the old--and take them +west and north to join the others. All the rest will stay with you and +me and Elis to fight in the rear--delay and confuse--fighting retreat, +Brodaa. I see nothing else." + +"Nothing else," she said evenly. "As you say...." + +Elis was with him, waiting under the trees, and Nisana, who said, "No +gods? There must be other gods. Not Ismar...." + +Elis watched the meadow over the crouching bowmen. "Within you, +Captain. The god within you made you save the life of my friend. I saw +that. I even think I begin to understand. But that might be vanity." + + + + +6 + + +A sorry day moved into evening, and when evening became an approach to +moonless dark, this day of retreat was in Paul's mind a passage of +distorted images, true or false. + +True that he was now limping through forest stillness between Nisana +and a skinny ghost who was Christopher Wright and Wright carried +Pakriaa, who moaned at times like a child with a nightmare, and up +ahead were five white drifting mountains, one of them ridden by a man +who was silent in pain, Sears Oliphant. It might or might not be true +that at some time during the day Paul had thrashed on the ground with +a broken head in front of some squalling danger until black arms swept +him up away from--whatever it was. + +Tejron and the two other giant women Karison and Elron, and Mijok, +still lived. Elis was walking behind Paul, unhurt; therefore the mind +of Elis would still be probing at the borderland of known and unknown, +searching and incorruptible. All true. Apparently true that the gash +in Paul's side had stiffened, his right leg was knotting itself in +some unimportant distress, and his bandaged forehead no longer +throbbed. + +The first contact with the Vestoian land army had been a swift +skirmish and ordered withdrawal. Abro Brodaa's archers had crumpled +the first enemy charge. After that the Vestoians had crashed into the +woods with no caution, driven by the horror of brown wings that still +pursued them. Paul had had a final glimpse of the green headdress of +Lantis, Queen of the World; his two shots before the rifle jammed had +not touched her. Once, under cover of the trees, the Vestoians had +paused to reorganize, giving Paul's retreating force a little time +and distance and the help of forest obscurity. + +The spearwomen sent ahead to clear the villages had poured through +Pakriaa's settlement and Brodaa's, rounding up old people, children, +and the chattering pack of male witches, sending them west to join +Wright's group of wounded--if they could find it. But at the third +village upstream--it had been Abro Samiraa's--there was delay. Perhaps +the people had refused to go where there were giants. Paul's rear +guard had halted south of the village to protect the evacuation; here +the Vestoians caught up with them. + +They had fought it out for two hours in the misery of bush and brier +and purple vine outside the village ditch, while the jungle world +steamed in the growth of mid-morning. Paul's horizon had narrowed to +the knot of fighters who stayed with him--Nisana, Brodaa, Elis, an +unknown black-skirted soldier who fell at his feet with a bleeding +mouth. Somewhere in that hell he had lost his rifle. It was Brodaa +(this must be true, for it was Elis who told him of it)--Brodaa who +had guided them out of the trap, regrouped the remnant of the rear +guard north of Samiraa's village while the Vestoians paused to set +that village afire and rejoice over its dying. + +Paul could remember that regrouping: black Elis had set him on his +feet, supporting him till he could walk. There were many twittering, +mad-eyed bowmen among the survivors. Brodaa had sent runners to give +the other three villages a final warning; she herself decided against +trying to reach them with this fragment of an army numbering less than +three hundred. The only way to save anything at all was to flee north, +join Wright's group, hope that the remaining villages would delay the +conquerors and that at least some of their non-combatants could +scatter before Lantis, Queen of the World, took them for slaves, meat, +and sacrifice. + +The rest of the day had been a running, a harsh drive into country +unknown even to Elis. There had been, for Paul and Elis at least, a +breath of second wind when they found the tracks of the olifants. They +had caught up with Wright's refugees in the early afternoon, but there +could be no pause, even though it was quiet here at the edge of +forest and western meadow and the sound of screaming in the villages +was an hour behind them.... + +Paul noticed that he was naked except for ammunition belt and an empty +holster. Perhaps his present clarity of mind was the true madness, the +earlier fog of pain and anger the mind's more natural climate. But one +might as well reason and take stock. He remembered the map. Was it +saved? No matter: a copy had been flown to the island with Dorothy and +the baby. + +_I have a woman who loves me; I have a daughter. I have my life._ + +On his left, just visible in twilight beyond a meadow turning +brilliant with blue fireflies, there were the low western hills, the +hills rotten with the burrows of kaksmas, and they were nearer, much +nearer than he had ever seen them except from the lifeboat. (_But Ed +Spearman went there; he walked in the hills alone and found iron ore, +and now he is----Never mind where he is. If the charlesite was giving +out he did right to fly to the island and abandon us. What else could +he do?_) Well, it was right too that the hills should be nearer: the +edge of the forest slanted northwest, narrowing the meadow. And this +far north the hills were smaller, more broken up. Yet it would not do +to approach them closely: even the least of the hills (so pygmy and +giant tradition said) could be the dwelling place of day-blind ratlike +killers numerous enough to destroy this entire party and still be +hungry. The retreat must struggle north until the hills were well +behind, shut away by level jungle--where the kaksmas still might come, +to be sure, but only to the distance of half a night's journey from +their burrows. "Doc--can you estimate what distance we've made since +we caught up with you?" + +"Maybe twenty miles," the old man said. "In more time than _Argo_ once +needed to travel twenty million miles. What is man?" + +"Man? A mathematical absurdity.... Aren't you tired? I could carry +Pakriaa a while." + +"No, I'm not tired, son. I like to have her...." + +Rifles--in the beginning there had been only five, and one shotgun. +The shotgun had been taken to the island. Dorothy and Ann had their +pistols there, too. Paul's rifle was lost. Lisson's had been lost when +she died. That should leave three. Wright had one slung at his back. +Peering up ahead, Paul saw another in the red-brown hand of the young +giantess Elron. Sears must have lost his. So two at least remained. +And one automatic--Wright's. "Those two new recruits Mijok +brought----I'm in a fog--I only just remembered----" + +"Lost," said Wright, staring ahead. "The boy didn't understand. He ran +into the mess on the beach like a horse running into a fire. That was +before you got back from the south. The other had more sense. Saw the +pygmies spilling out of the boats and ran for the woods. Naturally we +didn't try to hold him. Perhaps he's reached his home territory. I +hope so." + +Behind him Elis spoke softly: "It was not very far, Doc. When we reach +the island and start the new settlement----" + +"Oh, Elis----" + +"When that has been done I'll come back and find him, give him the +words--him and many others. I promise you that. Let me believe it." + +"Believe it, Elis. But the boy Danik is dead. He was bright, curious. +He should have lived 150 years." + +"We overtake mystery," Elis said, "and leave it behind." + +"Men have never overtaken the mystery of untimely death." + +"There is chaos," said Elis. "Chance. Mystery is great jungle around a +small clearing. I accept that. We make a wider clearing." + +Paul felt Nisana's finger hook over his. Pakriaa groaned, perhaps in +sleep. The darkness had blotted away the hills; even the small shape +of Nisana was growing too dim. Elis said, "You're limping, Paul. +Abroshin Nisana is tired. There are still three of the animals without +riders. You and Doc----" + +"Yes," Wright said. "We might make better time." Nisana trilled an +order to Abara, who rode the colossal bulk of Mister Johnson at the +head of the line. The animals halted without sound. "We must go on all +night, Paul--right? What became of your--prisoner?" + +"My----" the mental clarity must be a fraud, Paul thought, if new +memories could flash into it so abruptly. At some time--it must have +been after Elis had carried him clear of the nightmare at Samiraa's +village--he had stumbled on a Vestoian soldier unconscious from a head +wound and loss of blood but not dead. He had still been carrying her +when they caught up with Wright. With this, the memory of that reunion +became whole--the wordless suffering on the shield that Mijok carried, +the improvised stretchers, the bewilderment and exhaustion in the red +faces, the very smell of defeat--with this also a picture of the +horribly fat witch from Pakriaa's village carried on a litter by two +spearwomen, and one other witch, a lank skeleton with white and purple +lines emphasizing the prominence of his ribs, striding beside his +colleague and shooting glances of wrath from left to right and back. +Someone had gently taken the unconscious soldier. "She's safe, Doc. +Tejron took her--still has her, I'm sure." + +"Good." Wright added with a harshness canceling humor: "Now if only +friend Lantis will initial a copy of the Geneva Convention...." He was +fumbling in the twilight before one of the white beasts, uncertain +what to do. + +The old cow olifant Susie, carrying Sears, fretted at the delay, +sampling the air and rumbling. Paul petted her trunk to soothe her; +Sears' voice came down to him: "Paul? Take this, will you?" He was +reaching down the case that held his microscope, safe somehow out of +the inferno of the day. "My grip's not too good, got nothing to tie it +to--bare's a baby's bottom, like you. We look like the last days of a +Turkish bath, hey?" + +"How d'you feel?" Nisana tore shreds from what remained of her purple +skirt; she looped them about the case, fastened it to Paul's +ammunition belt. + +"Feel good," Sears said. Each word was a thick struggle for normal +speech. "Arrowhead came off; Chris got it out. Manicure scissors for +forceps; you may slice me cross-ways and call me ham and eggs if it +ain't so. Right, Chris? You there?" + +"I'm here, Jocko," Wright said, and under his breath to Paul: "Medical +kit lost. I don't think the spleen is injured, but----" Aloud he said, +"Of course, with your gut what I needed was a hook and line. Paul, how +do you make one of these ten-foot roller coasters kneel down?" + +"Let me--that's Miss Ponsonby--she knows me." At Paul's order, tons of +gentleness knelt on the earth; Paul held Pakriaa while Wright +struggled into the hollow between hump and head, and Pakriaa was +either asleep or not caring.... "Abro Brodaa?" + +"Here, Commander." + +"Form your people in three lines with linked hands. The giant women +Karison and Elron, and Elis, will guide them at the head, because +their night vision is better than yours and mine. Mijok and Tejron +will walk beside us. We must travel all night. I think the Vestoians +will not." + +"They will not," the princess Brodaa said. He wished he could see +truly what was happening in her little face. "They will not because +they have no giants or Charins to help them." It carried no hint of +the obsequious. + +"Thank you, Abro Brodaa. Wait here a moment." He patted Millie's +trunk--she was a young beast, nervous but fond of him--and made her +kneel. "Help Nisana climb up to me.... Abro Brodaa--the people of your +village----" + +"Most of them lost." It might have been the oncoming night itself +speaking temperately. "These remaining are a few from all the +villages. I think they will follow me. And I will go with you...." + +In the rest of the night--a silence and a drifting, on the surge and +thrust of the great animal under him--it was possible to reach a kind +of sleep, knowing his body would not relax enough to fall or to weaken +his hold on Nisana, who trusted him. She was deeply asleep in the +first part of the night, occasionally snoring, a comic noise like a +puppy's whine. All day she had never been out of his sight; she had +fought like a hellcat, but singlemindedly, saving her strength to deal +with those who threatened him. + +It would have been possible to abandon these people; at one time, Paul +remembered, he had almost favored it himself, and Ed Spearman had very +nearly hinted that it might be better to join forces with the tyranny +in the south.... Life seemed cheap to Pakriaa's tribe--others' life. +Devil-worshipping cannibals, capable of every cruelty, committed for +thousands of years to all the superstitions that ever crippled +intelligence. You had to look beyond that, said Christopher Wright the +theorist, the doctor, the anthropologist, the impractical daydreamer. +_Anyway I saved a Vestoian--if she lives. One balanced against how +many that I destroyed...? No answer.... Unless you can see a world +where the ways of destruction become obsolete under a government of +laws. With the devils of human nature--the vanities, the greeds, the +follies and needless resentments, the fear of self-knowledge, dread of +the unfamiliar, the power lust of the morally blind, the passion for +easy solutions, scapegoats, panaceas--how do you see such a world...? +You say, Christopher Wright, that no one is expendable. I believe you. +But--when I must choose between the life of myself or my friends and +the life of the one whom the stream of history has tossed against me +as my enemy----_ + +_When I do that, I only discover once more that I am caught in the +same net with the rest of my kind and cannot escape until all of them +escape--escape into a region of living where men do not set traps for +each other and the blind do not lead._ + +_Therefore----_ + +"Are you awake, Nisana?" Her even breathing quickened. It seemed to +Paul that there was faint color in his glimpses of sky; he remembered +the silver moon that had appeared over the jungle with first-light so +long ago--yesterday morning. The passage of the red moon around +Lucifer was swift: tonight it would be rising two hours before +first-light and would be something broader than the gory scimitar he +had seen from the knoll. + +"I am awake." + +"I think the red moon has come back." + +"Yes." She pointed over his shoulder; he glimpsed it through a gap in +the leaves. "A good moon. Begins the Moon of Little Rains. The small +rains make no harm, make the ground sweet. Is better than the moon +past--that we call the Moon of Beginnings." She moved restlessly +against him. "This country--all forest? How long have I sleep?" + +"Most of the night. We're past the open land." + +She whispered, "No one has ever come here. We have think always there +are bad--what word?--tev--tevils in the north." + +"Tomorrow--rather, today--we turn west and then south on the other +side of the hills, to the island." + +"Ah, the island.... I cannot see this island." + +"You'll like it, Nisana. You'll be happy there." + +"Happy?" And he remembered that the old pygmy language had no word for +happiness. + +Wright's voice came thinly in the dark: "Abara, stop them! Sears----" + +Millie halted and knelt without an order: Nisana jumped down. Paul saw +the shapes of Elis and Sears suddenly bright under Wright's +flashlight--the only radion light left. "Easy," Elis said. "I have +you." And he lowered the man's bulk to the ground as Susie moaned and +shifted her feet. Sears had said nothing, but he was smiling, his face +red and vague above the disorder of the black beard. + +"Paul, hold the light for me." Wright removed the stained bandage. +There was a wide area of inflammation; the lips of the arrow wound +were purple. "Pakriaa! You said once you never heard of poison on the +arrows----" + +Pakriaa gaped, rubbing her eyes. It was Brodaa who answered: "Our +people never had it on the arrows. But in the war with Lantis last +year some of our soldiers had wounds like this." + +"And what happened?" + +"Ismar--" Pakriaa stumbled forward. "Ismar took----" + +"My sister," said Brodaa, "be quiet, my sister." + +"Elis," Paul whispered, "have Tejron and the other women keep +watch--we must stay here a while. Where is Mijok?" + +"Here." Mijok spoke behind him. "I have put my shield--over there." +His voice became a whisper for Paul: "There are only three on it now. +One little man, two women. They might live. Paul--is it happening, +Paul?" + +"I can't say it. I don't know...." Sears was talking, ramblingly, very +far from this patch of earth. One could only listen till he was +silent. Then Paul said, "I think so, Mijok. He needs to speak; we need +to remember." + +"What is this--Tel Aviv----" + +"The place on the other planet where he was born." + +"And there were the vineyards, oh my, yes--the little white and tan +goats----" Sears could see it, Paul thought, that small country, a +quiet corner of the Federation, where every grain of sand might +remember blood spilled in the follies of hatred, where a teacher of +mercy had been crucified. But now for Sears it was not a place of +history: he saw gardens defying wasteland, the homes and farms, +centers of music and learning where he moved, thoroughly at home, +discovering the country of his own science, himself a citizen of no +one place except the universe. Later he was recalling the hot white +streets of Rio, the genial clutter of London, Baltimore, the majestic +contradictions of New York. + +"Why, yes, Doctor," he said--and he did not mean Christopher Wright, +but some friend or instructor whose image might be standing in front +of the shadows of Lucifer, "yes, Doctor, you could say I've traveled a +great deal, in my sort of blundering fashion. And I would not exactly +say that people are the same everywhere, but you'll have noticed +yourself--the many common denominators are much more interesting than +the seeming-great differences, aren't they, hey...? What? Sorry, +Doctor, I've got no damned use for your abstraction Man, and why? +Because he doesn't exist, except as a device in a brain that wants to +prove something--which may or may not be useful. In any case it's not +my dish. There are only men and women. They get born and love and +suffer and work and grow old and die; or sometimes, Doctor, they die +young. Men and women I can love and touch; sometimes I can even teach +them the few things I know. You may take Man to the library; feed him +back into your electronic brain and don't bother me with the results +so long as I'm alive to see a child discovering his own body--or for +that matter a bird coming out of the egg, a minnow in a spot of +sunlight, a blade of grass." + +Pakriaa wailed: "What is he saying? He is not here." She squirmed past +Wright, dropped to the ground, her cheek pressed on Sears' tangled +hair, her free arm wandering over his face and shoulder as if she +wanted to cover him like a shield. "He talked to me once. Sears, you +said--you said----" + +He was back among them, gazing around in sane bewilderment. "I should +be riding.... Pakriaa--why Pak, I'm all right." Paul moved the torch +here and there to pick out his own face, Wright's, Mijok's, the white +bulk of Susie looming close by, the pouting ugly mask of Abara, who +had stolen up close, his underlip wobbling in an effort to speak. "I +fell asleep--took a tumble?" + +"Almost," Wright muttered. "Just lucky chance I saw you tottering. You +need to rest a bit." + +"Oh no." Sears frowned. "Can't stop." He smiled at Pakriaa, who had +lifted herself to watch him pleadingly. "What's the matter, Pakriaa? +What's the time?" + +"First-light before long," Paul said. "We made good distance, Jocko. +The Vestoians won't have traveled in the dark. Plenty of time and we +all need rest. Take it easy a while." + +But Pakriaa could not hide her knowledge that he was dying; Sears +touched her cheek with a curious wandering finger. "You liked looking +in the microscope, didn't you?" She nodded. "Remember--must be sure +you've got the best focus you can before you make up your mind about +anything. But this is more serious, Pak--because I think you love me +and you have trouble. I tell you again, you must go to the island with +the others. You must live. Now I expect to go there too, but--" + +Abara moved away. Paul glimpsed him striding back and forth, striking +the air with little fists. When he returned, Paul made way for him. + +"--for a teaching is a gift, Pakriaa, not to be thrown away--" + +Abara stammered. "You have talk to me too, Sears--" + +"Why, to all of you. Certainly to you, Abara.... What's the profit of +any effort if the result is thrown away in a time of weakness? You +discard only if what you have is proven false. We haven't much--we +never have much. Some things appear to be empirically certain. Not +many.... You know, I believe I've given a few people--call it a +wakening of curiosity. I think that's good. Curiosity and patience. +Good as far as it goes. I'm not ashamed." He was trying to see +Wright's gaunt face. "You picked a tougher subject, didn't you, Chris? +Don't worry--give you an A for something more than effort.... Now +look, this hanging around here won't do." He caught Paul's hand and +heaved himself upright. "I remember--map--damn it. Need another whole +day before we pass the hills. Susie--down, Susie--" + +But Susie, fumbling at him with her trunk, would not kneel. Paul heard +Mijok's agonized whisper: "She knows." + +Sears laughed. "All right, make the old man climb." And before anyone +could stop him he had tottered a few steps and burned out the last of +his strength in a heaving jump toward her neck, which barely lifted +him from the ground and dropped him at Paul's feet. Groping for him, +Paul saw that he was dead, saw also, above the arching of the trees, a +lucid cruelty of morning. + + + + +7 + + +Twice that day Elis dropped far behind to listen and reported there +was no pursuit. It was hard to judge their distance from the foothills +of the western range, for now there was no open ground--only Wright's +compass, the memory of the map, and treetop surveys that Mijok made +from time to time. Abara rode Mister Johnson in the lead, making the +beasts travel slowly since the pygmies were faint with weariness. +Susie trailed forlornly; she had not been willing to abandon the grave +till the others went on without her. + +The pygmies carried only half a dozen makeshift stretchers; the number +of unwounded had diminished too. "They slip away," Brodaa said to +Paul. He saw three men carrying children too small to walk; no old +women. The fat witch rode his litter, unconcerned at the fatigue of +its bearers; the other old man, smeared with white and purple paint, +stalked beside him. Brodaa said, "My sister Tamisraa ended life with +the white-stone dagger. While Elis and Mijok made the--what +word?--grave. We left her body looking north to help the spirit +journey. There are many lost who will have no prayers--bad--they may +follow us. What is this--burial, Paul-Mason?" + +"A Charin custom. Most of us believe the spirit dies with the body: +different parts of the same thing." + +"Ah?" She did not seem shocked. "Maybe true for your people." + +"We live in others," Paul said. "Sears lives so long as we remember +him. That will be always...." It seemed to Paul there were scarcely a +hundred in this worn line. "We mustn't try to hold them if they want +to go. If you, Brodaa, or any others want to leave us, you know you +are free." + +Her answer was firm and considered: "I will not leave you...." + +Wright had not spoken since the burial, nor had Pakriaa. They kept +together; Paul was with them sometimes. Behind them Mijok carried his +shield. It was Elis who heard the bleat of asonis and stole off to +bring back meat for an afternoon meal. It was Elis, before that, who +said, "We have done what we could, Paul. We could not have made these +people retreat in time to save themselves. If we had abandoned them +Lantis would have left no more than a fire leaves in the +Red-Moon-of-Dry-Days. Pakriaa is too sick to understand that, yet. She +carries a grief like a little one swelling in the womb: it must grow +greater before she is delivered of it." + +In the afternoon halt, it was Elis who tried to make Wright eat +something and sleep, but Wright could do neither. + +The giant women Elron and Karison also refused the meat. They sat +apart with stout brown Tejron. She was eating, keeping close to her +the still unconscious Vestoian, whom the pygmies had given no more +than disgusted glares. Tejron might be listening to Karison's +undertone--it was in the monosyllables of the old language. The girl +Elron held her eyes downcast, fondling the rifle. She and Karison had +been much together in a peculiar loneliness since the children were +flown to the island: Karison was old, her children grown and gone away +before the Charins came; Elron was too young to have given birth. +Three of the children at the island were Tejron's; the others were +children of Muson and Samis and of a mother who had died in the old +life. Tejron wiped her lips and grunted impatiently; she took up her +charge in careful arms and left the two. Paul sensed what was to come +when Elron set her cherished rifle at his feet. Karison approached +Wright, humble but determined: "We must leave you." + +Before Wright could speak, Mijok answered her with a sullen anger Paul +had never heard from him: "I brought you from the jungle with empty +heads. We gave you the words, the beginning of the laws we must make +together. You lived like the uskaran, furtive and cruel--" + +"No," Wright said. "Mijok, no...." + +Karison had winced, but she repeated: "We must go. The old way--we +need it." + +"Then you must go," Wright said, his spread fingers white-nailed on +the ground. "And remember always that you go with our good will." + +"That is so." She was torn two ways. "But the old life--" + +Elis rumbled: "Elron, come here." The girl would not. "I hoped that in +the next Red-Moon-before-the-Rains--" + +She muttered, "When the change comes you will return to us--" + +Elis laughed, roaring at her, "You're a fool, a child!" The harshness, +Paul knew, was calculated, in the hope of changing her mind by shaming +her. "You think the old life was a freedom. Freedom to live like an +animal without an animal's peace, Elron, because of the thing in you +that struggles for knowledge--oh yes, in spite of yourself, and +always. Freedom to hunt all day or else sleep on an empty stomach, +jump with fear at every creaking branch. Freedom to cram yourself with +moss root and slugs from the streams--never enough--in the bad moons +when the asonis go north. Freedom to kill the pygmies and be hunted by +them, never an end to it--that's your freedom without the laws, +without the words. No, so long as you're a fool I don't want you." She +turned away, speechless; he shouted after her in a different voice, +"He said you go with our good will. That is true. You can't forget us, +Elron. You're not the wild thing Mijok brought out of the woods. +You'll feel us pulling you back--you feel it now--and you will come +back." But she was gone in the shadows, Karison following her, and +Elis rubbed his broad forehead on his arms. + +Wright whispered, "If they wanted it--it had to be so." + +Elis waited for his angry breathing to calm. "Mijok, do you remember? +In the old days I couldn't even have been your friend. Remember how +angry _I_ was--only a year ago? You stepping over the border of my +territory, telling me--I've wondered how you did it with our few +stumbling words--telling me every being should be free to go as he +pleased anywhere in the world? You were in danger, Mijok. I am older, +bigger, heavier--I nearly went for your throat. Long ago. So--don't be +angry with these two." + +Tejron sat by Wright, holding the Vestoian like a nursing baby. +"Maybe," she said, "maybe they will take some of what you teach us to +others. Maybe it will be like the thing you showed us, how a little +seed no bigger than the eye of illuama can become a tree...." + +Pakriaa had watched indifferently; Paul hoped he was right, that her +face was not quite so tightly set in lines of rejection and despair. +Wright came stiffly to his feet, a hand on Tejron's shoulder, the +other wandering into his gray beard. "Abro Brodaa, interpret for +me--some of them have no English. Tell them we turn west soon, then +south through bad country--swamp, heat, uskaran, marsh reptiles maybe, +maybe the kaksmas swarm on the west side of the hills. Tell them we go +through that. When we reach a river we have seen from the air--it has +no falls and flows southwest--we shall make boats." + +Brodaa put it into the high music of the pygmy tongue. Paul could see +no change in the saddened faces; by rumor, most of them would already +know this much. But the thin witch was muttering to his gross +colleague, and some soldier faces turned to overhear that instead of +attending to Brodaa. + +"Tell them, Brodaa, this river will take us to Big-Water. We go south +along the coast, to the island where our friends are, where we believe +Spearman has gone in the winged boat. Tell them, on this island there +are no kaksmas, the omasha never come, nor the lake boats of Lantis. +There is game, good ground, room for all. Tell them--No, wait.... Oh, +Brodaa, tell them in your own way that we hope to live there in +peace." + +The lean witch interrupted Brodaa's translation with a wailing +diatribe, twitching his twigs of arms, lashing the battered soldiers +with his oratory. Brodaa turned to Wright in misery: "He says--he saw +Ismar change Spearman back to a marsh lizard and the boat to an +omasha." + +Mijok laughed savagely. "When did he see that? Ask him." + +Brodaa did, on a thin shout. The scarecrow flashed her a glare of +resentment and a snapping answer.... "He says he saw it in sleep +picture." + +Paul snarled, "Yes, a dream's as near as he came to a battlefield." + +Brodaa was shocked, but Nisana laughed. The fat witch on the litter was +fuming. Coming from Pakriaa's village, he probably had enough English to +understand it; he leaned forward, embracing his hideous belly, croaking at +the soldiers. Nisana translated in swift whispers: "Says--you Charins all +marsh lizards, changed by Inkar-Goddess-of-Kaksmas.... Says we lose to +Vestoians because image was broke; Ismar punishes.... Will I kill him, +Paul-Mason?" + +Brodaa choked: "You cannot touch Amisura. Your spear will turn--" + +"My spear is lost," said Nisana, loudly enough for all to hear. "But +Aksona, Amana, two other men of magic--those I saw killed at Abro +Samiraa's village. Vestoian spears was not turn in the hand--I saw." +She stepped forward, fingering her white-stone knife, and the fat +Amisura cringed, squeaking. + +Wright cried, "I forbid it, Nisana. Let them go. Brodaa!" + +Brodaa said quickly, "He asks sacrifice--you, Paul, Pakriaa--" + +Nisana laughed again. She dropped her white-stone dagger on the ground +and slapped the thin witch in the face. The crowd gasped and shrank +back. Such a man, Paul knew, was altogether holy, never to be touched; +one must not even look him in the eye. But Nisana slapped him again +and shoved him sprawling. She caught a pole of Amisura's litter, +heaved at it, and he tumbled like a red melon. "_Now_ let them +choose!" She came back to Paul with grin and swagger, patting her +scarred chest. "I am little Spearman. I break images too." + +And the pygmies were choosing, not as she or the witches had +hoped--choosing headlong retreat from this sacrilege, dissolving away +into the forest with sick-eyed backward looks. Paul saw Amisura +weeping, humping pitiably back to his litter on all fours, and heard +Pakriaa laugh. The two soldiers who had carried Amisura brought the +litter nearer, not daring to touch him; when he flopped on it they +bore him away. The other witch had run blindly, covering his insulted +face, and Wright said like a machine, "Let them go--let them--" + +Sardonically, Pakriaa had watched the whole incident without rising; +now she seemed to want to catch Wright's eye, lifting a skinny +shoulder as if to say: "What can you do with fools?" + +When the panic was over, thirty followers remained.... + +In the early evening Mijok reported, after another treetop survey, +that the last of the kaksma hills was about three miles southwest. +West of them the jungle was level; it was time to turn. Elis had +slipped away and returned with two heavy carcasses like wild boars. +Sears had named these stodgy animals pigmors. The _mor_ suffix, he had +insisted, was an intensely scientific shorthand for "more or less, +damn it." The meat was high-flavored and coarse but safe.... Hearing +Mijok's news, Brodaa sighed, thinking perhaps of the long history of +her people, the groping for a narrow path of survival among endless +perils. "We say the great uskaran hears a leaf fall to earth from a +thousand paces away but the kaksma hears the leaf divide the air as it +falls. Oh--three of your Charin miles, that is great length. Maybe +enough." + +The tremendous sheer spires of the coastal range, Mijok said, were +visible in the southwest though nearly a hundred miles off; it would +be a clear sweet night, he thought, with no clouds and many stars. +They should go at least fifteen miles due west; then the course would +be southwest rather than south, to miss the hills.... + +In the crowding darkness Mister Johnson's leading was again a thing of +wisdom; his lifted trunk and sensitive eyes avoided dense growth and +drooping vines that could endanger the riders. From each necessary +detour he came back willingly to the course, under guidance of Abara's +sense of compass direction, and the other four followed him as the arm +follows the hand. Tonight Paul rode old Susie--she seemed to feel +happier for it--carrying Nisana again; Wright was on Miss Ponsonby, +with Pakriaa. Tejron, unfamiliar with the beasts but ready to learn, +had climbed on Millie's back and kept her balance without trouble, +holding the wounded Vestoian, who stirred and whimpered but was not +truly conscious. Behind Paul was the more nervous bull Mister Smith +without a rider, and Elis and Mijok walked beside him, Mijok with his +shield, Elis holding Brodaa's hand. The thirty who had dared to choose +the forbidden unknown trailed behind Brodaa with linked fingers, nine +bowmen among them; there were few weapons, no wounded except on +Mijok's shield, and this held only two, for one of the women had died. +The wounded archer was yellow-faced with loss of blood from a hip +injury, but that was clean and closed; he was free from the signs of +fear, almost cheerful. The woman was a sturdy black-skirted soldier of +the ranks, gashed in the face and with a leg torn from knee to ankle. + +Another night of silence and of drifting--for a while. Wright's voice +floated back: "I am thinking of Dorothy and Ann, and your daughter." + +"And not of Ed Spearman?" + +"Oh.... The fuel must have been getting low, Paul. Nothing the boat +could do for us after we were back in the woods. He must be at the +island." + +Paul could only say, "I hope so." The thing Spearman had almost said +when his anger and disappointment were high, the hint at joining +forces with Lantis in abandonment of everything thus far +achieved--nothing could be gained by speaking of that now. But some of +Spearman's words murmured on in darkness: "_Lantis--terrific +organization ... monetary system ... whole world for the taking ... +pretty idealism that never worked even on Earth...._" + +There had always been strain and mutual exasperation in argument with +Ed Spearman--long ago, on the ship _Argo_. The Collectivist Party, +surviving as an innocuous political group after the horrors of the +Civil War of 2010-13, lived strongly in Spearman's mind, not only +because his father had fought for it. Lacking the frenzied dogmatism +of the antique communism it resembled, it was nevertheless communism's +natural heir, a party of iron doctrines simplified for minds that +resented analysis and magnified Man out of a dislike for men. Like +communism, it needed to imagine a class war and felt that it had a +tight vested monopoly of the underdog. The C.P., said one of its late +twentieth-century prophets as humorless as his predecessors, "believed +in Man." You could always fluster a collectivist by asking for a +logical breakdown of that--and make an enemy: they were usually good +haters and made a virtue of it. The years following the Civil War had +been troubled though materially prosperous, darkened by the build-up +of yet another monolithic state under Jenga the Mongol, who had +inherited the desolation of the Russo-Chinese war of 1970-76; in those +years the Collectivist Party in the Federation, unsupported by any +conveniently foreign deity, had become not much more than a +serio-comic decayed socialism with a dash of bitters. But it was +alive; at the time _Argo_ left the spaceport it had had ten senators +and a larger handful of delegates in the Federation Congress. It was +respectable, no longer subversive, and owned a small hard core of the +aggressively sincere.... Not Wright nor Sears nor anyone had ever been +able to convince Edmund Spearman that evil means breed a further evil, +which swallows up any good that may have been imagined in the +beginning. Spearman could admit that (himself in no way an evil man) +he would not do evil--if he could help it. But in the region of theory +Spearman held quite simply that you can't make an omelette without +breaking eggs, and that settled it.... + +"They should be safe," Wright said. "You and Jocko saw the island." + +"It's beautiful. I know they're all right." + +"Yes.... Would you say it was a place where Ann might--oh, how shall I +say it?--might attain tranquillity? Not cry too much for the moon?" + +"If there is any such place in the Galaxy." + +"Time," Elis said. "Little Black-Hair needs time. She is like grass I +have seen growing in too much shade. She is not like our Mashana +Dorothy who will make sunshine if the other sun is clouded." + +"Listen!" Brodaa's voice. "Listen...." + +Paul heard nothing, at first. Up ahead Abara sputtered: "Mister +Johnson--hoo-hee--be quiet. Is nothing--be quiet--" + +Nisana came broad awake in Paul's arms. Wright's mount halted, as did +Susie, but Susie was trembling, raising and swinging her head in a way +to make balance difficult; Paul saw the white writhing of her trunk +lifted to explore for a scent.... He heard it then: a long rustling, +like a repeated tearing of paper behind a closed door; nothing +else.... A wet howl from Mister Johnson sent a spasm through Susie's +mass; her muscles bunched; Abara's voice wailed back: "Mister Joh--I +cannot hold him--_kaksmas_!" + +Transition from realization to stampede was a flash like the pain of a +blow. Paul heard Mijok: "My shield--it will hold more." Elis cried +something to Brodaa. Then Susie had plunged ahead, uncontrollable; +Paul could only bend low above the clinging of Nisana, hold on with +hands and knees, hope that no trailing vine or branch would sweep them +off into death. Mister Johnson could make no careful choice of a trail +now--he would be parting the jungle like a six-ton bullet. "Don't be +afraid, Nisana--we can outrun them--" + +"My people--" + +"Elis and Mijok can outrun them too. They'll carry all they can." In +spite of the agony of mere hanging on, mere straining to stay alive, +he had to think: _They were loyal and we got them into this...._ +Branches slashed across his back, stinging and scraping. Once Susie +stumbled and recovered as the group went splattering across some +invisible mud, and Paul wondered if Mister Johnson in his terror would +run them into quicksand or marsh. + +That ended; there was more thick jungle whipping his back for--five +minutes?--an hour...? This too ended. + +Crazed or purposeful, the beasts charged out into open land through a +soft roaring of torn grass. Paul could twist his head to glance upward +at a field of stars. He could not win a backward look for Elis and +Mijok: his neck and arm muscles were stiffened in his grasp of Susie's +ears, and he dared not risk disturbing Nisana's clutch of him. But to +left and right he could make out other shapes under starlight and hear +a frantic thudding of hoofs--fleeing asonis, other innocent woodland +cattle with a hunger to live. Once he glimpsed a long-bodied thing +pass off to the left in wild leaps lifting it above the grass tops: +uskaran, he thought, the huge tiger cat, no enemy but a brother in +panic. + +The open ground ended at water; here at last the olifants slowed to a +halt, unlike the lesser desperate brutes, for Mister Johnson was still +wise, considering the stream, aware of his leadership. Paul could +shout to the others now, and they all answered. But his backward +staring found only the stars, the white mass of Mister Smith, the +disturbed darkness that must be meadow. "Elis! Mijok!" + +No answer could have reached him above the bleating and thunder of +terrorized harmless things crossing the field and hurtling blindly +into the river. Mister Johnson was wading in deliberately. There was +splashing at first, then silence, as cool water came up around Paul's +knees and Susie's motion changed to a smooth throbbing and heaving; he +saw small foam where the curve of her lifted trunk cut the water. He +whispered to Nisana, "We're safe, dear. Big river. Kaksmas won't cross +it...." Mister Johnson was leading them in an upstream slant, bearing +well to the right while the bobbing frantic heads of other creatures +let the moderate current press them away to the left. This +way--whether by Mister Johnson's wisdom or Abara's guidance--they +might be able to come ashore clear of the dangerous passage of the +stampede. + +"My people cannot go through the water. We never--" + +"Elis and Mijok can swim. They'll get them across somehow. Maybe the +shield will float, Nisana." + +The madness behind them dwindled into the faraway. In growing quiet, +Wright's voice came back, not loudly: "I am a murderer." + +Paul wondered what insight made him call out words not his own: +"'What's the profit of any effort if the result is thrown away in a +time of weakness?'" + +The even motion became a clumsiness of wading in mud. Then there was +solid ground. Paul said, "Halt them here if you can, Abara." Mister +Johnson must have shared the sense of safety; they all calmed, heads +drooping, shaken breathing slowing to sighs. "Down, Susie...." All but +Abara descended. This was still open grassland, but there was a black +velvet curtain of jungle not far off. "Doc--still got your +flashlight?" + +"Eh? No--lost somewhere." The old man spoke vacantly; he stumbled to the +edge of the water, sat with his head on his knees. "Mijok-Mijok...." + +Tejron still had her Vestoian, but now the pygmy woman was panting, +fully conscious in Tejron's arms and witless with fear. Tejron said, +"She's trying to break away. Can't someone talk to her?" + +"Pakriaa!" Paul searched for the princess. "Here--please." + +Nisana whispered, "I will talk to the Vestoian--yes?" + +"Not yet. If Pakriaa--" + +Pakriaa said thickly, "I am here. What to say? She is nothing." + +"She is nothing to you, Pakriaa? Then Sears chose a poor student. +Brodaa would have spoken to her. I ask you to tell her the war is over +and she is among friends." + +"Friends? She is Vestoian." Pakriaa approached Wright, who did not +look up. "Tocwright--I must speak to the Vestoian kaksma? I owe you my +life--will obey you." + +He groaned: "I do not want you to obey me. If there is nothing inside +to tell you what you should do, then I have nothing to say to you." + +Pakriaa flung up her arm across her eyes as if struck. Tejron +muttered, "I can't restrain her much longer without hurting her." It +was Nisana who gave the Vestoian the message in the pygmy tongue, a +ripple of sound that must have conveyed some reassurance, for the +struggling ceased. + +"Look!" Paul dug his fingers in Wright's shoulder. "Over there--" + +The dark spot under starlight was surely the floating shield; behind +it, another purposeful splashing, rise and fall of a driving arm. + +"Mijok!" Wright was on his feet. "This way! A little upstream--" + +Both giants were bleeding from small double stab wounds of the kaksma +teeth. There were four pygmies on Mijok's shield. Elis had carried +Brodaa and another in his arms and one on his back; they had clung to +his fur as he swam the river. Mijok plucked a sodden thing from his +thigh; its jaws had clenched in flesh when he smashed its body. He +flipped the ratty thing into the water and remarked like a Charin, +"Damned if I could ever care for 'em." + +"The others--" + +"We tried to help them into the trees," said Elis. "Could be some +safety in that if the swarm passes by. But most of them ran blindly, +so--beyond that, Doc, don't ever ask us. We must forget some things. +We've all done what we could, so--let's rest a while and go on." + +"Oh, we go on," Wright said. "Chaos, or maybe a little bit of light +from time to time. What--sixteen of us now...? Which way was the swarm +going?" + +"North. Our flight was west. I think this place is safe." + +Abara called down: "Mister Johnson says it is safe." + +Paul said, "No more travel tonight. Wait here for daylight. This is +not the river we wanted, but we know it reaches the sea somehow. Let's +think about that in the morning. And--if you will, Doc--I'd like to +make that my last order. Let Elis be our commander till we reach the +island." + +"I!" Elis was shocked. "But Paul.... I am a big baby, I wonder and +wonder and never find the answer to anything." + +Wright laughed; it sounded like laughter. At any rate when his voice +found words it was warm, relieved, more like his own than it had been +at any time since the drums sounded on Lake Argo. "That doesn't +matter, Elis. Paul has done all anyone could, done it well, and +leadership's a wearing thing. But you can carry it." + +Paul wished he could see the black face in the dark; he might learn +from it, he thought, so far as a Charin was capable of learning. Elis +said dazedly, "If you all wish it--" + +"I wish it," said Abro Brodaa. + +"Yes," Mijok said. "Let's not trouble to vote. We know you, Elis." + +"I'll do my best...." + +Most of the pygmies collapsed in sleep. The bites the giants had +received were not numerous enough to be a danger, but both were in +some pain, and wakeful; Abara also said he would prefer to watch out +the night and not sleep. Paul stretched on the damp grass, aware of +Nisana, sitting near him. He tried to make a mental refuge of Dorothy +and the island; for a time it was possible, but twice, as he thought +he was drifting into true healing sleep, the present pulled at him and +the thought was not of Dorothy, but of Pakriaa, throwing up her arm +across her eyes as if Wright's words had been a deeper wound than any +she had received in these days of calamity and defeat. + +He woke while it was still night. The red moon had risen, changing the +river to deep purple; the stampede was all ended, and stillness was +everywhere, underlying the low voices of Wright and Elis. He saw the +small silhouette of Nisana beside him; he could make out none of the +others, but he heard the soft breathing of the olifants, and at least +some of them must have gone to the jungle and returned, for there was +a steady munching of coarse leaves. He thought: _Sears' pets--one of +his ten thousand gifts we can never live long enough to assess. His +laughter was another...._ + +Wright was talking placidly: "We suppose it must have been a similar +story on this planet, Elis. The major patterns are the same. The small +and simple forms must have grown to greater complexity through their +millions of years, undoubtedly in the seas, the good saline medium for +our kind. Then other millions of years, while the first creatures to +try the land were clumsy amphibians, still needing the sea but +developing ways to carry it with them, venture a little further. +There's no hurry in history." + +"And before the beginning of life?" + +"Difficult, Elis. We think (there are other theories) that each star +with planets was once two--a binary, our astronomers called it--" + +Someone thin and small came near to Paul, speaking delicately, in an +extremity of pain, and not to him. "Nisana," Pakriaa said. "Nisana--" + +Nisana was looking up, a little afraid, uncertain. "Princess?" + +"Only Pakriaa.... Nisana--I saw how you spoke to the Vestoian, how she +was quiet. If you will bring her--and Tejron too? And we go and +listen--Tocwright is talking about the stars--the world--I think, +maybe, we tell her what he says? Will you come with me, Nisana?" + + + + +Part Three + +The Year Ten + + + + +1 + + +_Argo IV_ answered Dunin's brown hand at the tiller, sliding south +under a following breeze. Her chief designer Paul Mason liked to call +her a sloop, admitting that on no planet would any sloop have cared to +be found dead with a pair of twelve-foot oars amidships. She was +thirty-six feet fore and aft. Without a sawmill, shaping boards for +her strakes had been harder than trimming and placing the single tree +trunk that was her keel. Much of her joining was with wooden pegs; +there was iron in her too, from the single deposit of ore on the +island of Adelphi. Her building had started seventeen months ago in +the Year Nine. One month ago Paul's daughter Helen had cracked across +her bow an earthen flask of wine brought to maturity by Nisana and +_Argo IV_ had slipped out of the mouth of the Whitebeach River for a +maiden voyage--a forty-mile circuit of the island, including the +passage of a strait where a current from open ocean ran formidably +between Adelphi and a small nameless island in the south. Since then +she had journeyed short distances up and down the coast, learning her +own fussy ways and teaching them to her makers. + +_Argo II_ had been a clumsy oared raft of heroic history. Nine Lucifer +years ago, roughly the equivalent of twelve Earth years, _Argo II_ had +not only brought fifteen survivors of a war to the island, she had +also, broadened and repaired, returned to the mainland over the +ten-mile channel to pick up a sixteenth survivor, Abara, and the +gentle white beasts he had refused to abandon. He had guided them +south, through seventy miles of unknown terrors, and ten miles further +along the beach, until it came to an end at sheer cliffs; here _Argo +II_ found him. One by one--probably no one but Abara could have +coaxed them aboard--_Argo II_ had ferried all five of the olifants +across. During the rains that came for a dark ending of Year Two, the +swollen Whitebeach River had torn _Argo II_ from her moorings and she +had been swept away down the channel. Now she would be driftwood +scattered over the infinity of the unexplored; she was remembered. + +_Argo III_, still in existence and more often called Betsy, was only a +boxed platform with outriggers and two pairs of oars. With four giants +at the oars and a favorable current she could approximate three miles +an hour and carry several tons. She had been built in the Year Four +and was still busily bringing slabs of building stone from the base of +the coastal range. The stone was red and black or sometimes purple, +heavy, already smoother than marble without polishing; unlike any +common stone of Earth, it was so hard that wind and sun and water over +the centuries had done little with it. Wright believed that was why +the coastal range could rise to such heights from a narrow base. While +the years in their millions had turned other mountains to level +ground, the glassy rock remained: it could be broken for use but +defied erosion like a diamond. + +_Argo IV_ was unequivocally a ship; after her trial Paul had carved +for her bow a figurehead with the dreaming face of Pakriaa. + +"Maybe," Dunin said, "with a few more like this the first explorations +could be around the coast instead of overland? If we had two or three +more ships when Kris-Mijok is old enough to go?" + +Paul knew Dorothy had winced, though her face was turned to the +evening-reddened field of water. "If he still wants it, when he's old +enough to go...." + +Kris-Mijok Wright, her third-born child and only son, had been born in +the Year Three; in Earth years he was only nine. His hunger for the +long journeying might be mainly a reflection of his devotion to Dunin, +herself full of visions and not yet a woman. A tentative half joke, a +means of channeling a child's fantasy into patience, had somehow +become a sober adult plan: that the first major explorations would +begin when Kris-Mijok would have a man's strength to take part in +them. + +"We might have such ships by then." Paul tried to sound judicial. "Say +the Year Eighteen or Nineteen. Yes, a coastal exploration might be +better than trying to cross the continent. Not a circumnavigation +though, at first." + +Dunin's big face blossomed in a grin. "Only about thirty-six thousand +miles by the old map made from the air. Open water at north and south +poles, plenty of it. Could do it in less than a year." + +"More like fifty thousand, allowing for deflections, tacking, pull of +currents we don't know. Storms, flat calms, contrary winds, repairs, +expeditions ashore for provisions. You pull your horns in just a bit, +my girl. Do you remember a desert plateau the map shows in the +southern hemisphere? Solid cliff rising out of the sea for over seven +hundred miles, and on top of it roasting sand all the way across the +continent--and that plateau is only a small part of the coastal +desolation down there. From the equator to the 30th parallel I don't +think you'd have a chance to go ashore--and nothing to help you if you +did." + +Dunin still grinned. "Just sail past it." + +"Yes--well out to sea, with the equatorial sun at work on you. Very +few islands in that region, some of them bare rock." And he thought: +_If I might go myself...! I am fifty now, in Earth years, a young +fifty...._ + +He knew also that Dorothy would not prevent him. She would not go +herself: she would remain at Adelphi, faithful to the daily things, +undramatic labors and loyalties that make civilization something more +than a vision. She was a young thirty-eight, though she had already +borne five children. If he went away, she would mind the watch fires +on the beaches, as she had done nine years ago; she would work in the +school, the house, the gardens, stand by Christopher Wright during the +depressions that sometimes overcame him. She would grow old waiting. +Therefore, Paul knew, he would never leave her. "The explorations will +come in good time, Dunin," he said. "You'll have 150 years to watch +and take part. I think you'll live to see the other continent too, and +the great islands in the southwest. In the meantime--there's so much +exploring to be done right here!" He watched the water too, aware of +Dorothy's face turned to him, sober and appraising. "You know, +Dunin--that island we visited today--that could hold a community of a +thousand between its two little hills. And I'm remembering the one +forty miles north of us. _Argo II_ was swept ashore there: get Doc to +tell you that story sometime. I was sick for a week and laid up in one +of the limestone caves while the others repaired the raft. A round +island less than five miles across. We might sail there next trip." + +"The other continent," Dunin murmured, and she watched the rising +blue-green mound of Adelphi in the south. "The islands of the +southwest...." + +Dorothy leaned against the hand-hewn rail, looking northeast, saying +lightly, "There he is...." The stone figure in the coastal range grew +visible as the channel current pressed them a little too far eastward. +The vast features were not clear; one could find the line of shoulder. +"And Sears said, 'He looks west of the sun.' Was it long ago you told +me that, Paul?" + +"In a way it was.... Penny for 'em, Dorothy?" + +"Oh----" Her brown face crinkled in the way he hoped for. "I was +climbing down off philosophy with my usual bump--wondering what hell +the twins have been raising while we're away. Brodaa's patience with +them passes belief. With her own three sets of twins she's had +practice. I wish Pak could have had children. Twenty-nine--late middle +age for her people.... Helen's going to make a better med student than +ever I was--don't you think, Paul? Seems like more than just a kid's +enthusiasm." + +"I think so." And Sears' plump daughter Teddy (Theodora-Pakriaa) would +no doubt find herself too, sometime: there was no hurry. Even +Christopher Wright no longer seemed to feel that time was hounding +him, though his years by the Earth calendar were sixty-five, his hair +and beard were white, his wiry thinness moved deliberately to save the +strength he had once been able to spend like unconsidered gold.... +"Look!" + +Dorothy said carefully, "But that is impossible." A column of smoke on +the flank of the coastal range, above one of the beaches where +building stone was found. Blue-gray against the red and black, it rose +straight in untroubled air. "They weren't taking Betsy out till we got +back." + +"Too high anyway," Dunin said. "No need to climb so high for the +stone." + +Dorothy whispered, "I have _never_ quite believed that Ed and Ann----" + +"Oh, Dorothy! Well, we----" + +"Yes, I saw the lifeboat go down on the channel. It didn't sink." She +shut her eyes. "It was a misty evening, lover, more ways than one. +Remember, Dunin?" + +"I'll always remember." + +"Paul, I know that when the open-sea current below the island took the +lifeboat it must have been smashed against the cliffs--oh, of +course--and for nine years the sea spiders will have used the pieces +of it for their little castles and hideaways. All the same--Ed and Ann +could have managed to swim ashore. Cross the range somehow or go +around it." + +"Nothing to eat. Barren rock straight up from the beaches, where there +are any beaches, for ninety miles south of the only place where they +could have landed and for twenty miles north of it." + +"But no kaksmas in the coast range either; no omasha, this side. There +_are_ beaches here and there. They might have found--shellfish--blue +seaweed." + +"Nine years----" + +"It _is_ smoke. Our people wouldn't be up there...." + +"You've never wanted to talk much about that day." + +"No, I--haven't. I didn't behave too well myself. Yes, there are +things I've never told.... Paul, Ed Spearman was like somebody I +didn't know. He did say in so many words that he planned to go to +Vestoia, not to--to throw himself on the mercy of Lantis, but to 'give +her civilization'--he said. We tried, Ann and I, tried to reason with +him against that. I think he had some alternative plan--maybe flying +south of Vestoia as far as the fuel would take him and starting a +community of his own--with Ann and me, you know, and himself the old +man of the tribe." + +"And without us," said Dunin mildly. + +"Yes, dear, I recall that. He put that in words...." In a way, Paul +did not want her to go on, living it over again, but she had a need to +speak of it. "I suppose his plans made a kind of sense if you accepted +the premise. As I couldn't, of course. When he said you were all +lost, I believed (I had to believe) that he was--not lying perhaps, +but telling something he hadn't truly seen. I know that was where I +let go--I raged and screamed, and when he grabbed my arm (probably +just wanting to quiet me down)--well, if he's living he'll have two or +three white scars down his cheek. Uh-huh: the Dope comes clean. I ever +think I was trying to get hold of my pistol when Arek took it away, +and took his away too. After that she forced him to give a precise +account of everything that had happened, every detail. She made him +tell it five or six times, watching for contradictions. She +was--justice embodied. I was afraid of her myself even while I loved +her for it. I knew what he told us then was the truth: the fuel was +low, he'd come direct to the island with no real knowledge of what had +happened to you. He was saner after the telling. He lost a--a certain +look of exalted listening, as if somebody behind Arek's shoulder were +telling him what to do. Arek never gave back his pistol. We were on +the beach. The giants had been bringing wood all day for a beacon +fire. I remember the exact shape of a big shell at my feet, the look +of a bit of driftwood tossed in by the channel breakers...." + +"And Ann--" + +"Oh, Ann! Tom two or three ways as usual. She was very much in love +with him, you know, from our first days on Lucifer. But her mind was a +battleground with no armistice. I think Ed always knew that. When he +pleaded with her--reasonably too--she couldn't think, she could only +cry and say: 'I won't go with you--I won't go.' He stopped +trying--suddenly, as if he'd knowingly turned off a light inside +himself--unsteady light and the only one he had, I reckon. He said, +'So much for the human race: but I'll see what one man can do here +before I'm dead without issue.' And he walked off to the lifeboat, +while Arek let his pistol dangle from her finger--and, Paul, I shall +always think he knew Ann would run after him. I saw her tugging, +trying to pull him out of the boat--but she was pulled in and it was +gone." + +"And I remember," said Dunin, "what you did after we lost sight of +it." + +"What I did...? What was that, Dunin? I'm blank there." + +"You went to the beacon fire and put on more wood." + +"Well," she said vaguely, "of course. We all did.... That _is_ smoke, +Paul. Lantis' pygmies or the wild giants couldn't be there on the +cliffs." + +Dunin said, "Oh, there are no giants in that country, Dorothy. Those +low hills I remember west of the first camp--those kaksma hills were +an impassable boundary in the old days. The country west of +them--nobody went there, ever. And south of them--Vestoia. My wild +kindred are all very far north of here...." + +_Argo IV_ eased up to the wharf, where Elis and Arek handled her like +a toy, making her fast with ropes of a fabric as good as linen. Wright +was there with them, and Tejron, and Pakriaa and Nisana, who were +inseparable. "Too far," said Wright, and handed Paul the field +glasses. "Just smoke." + +Elis grumbled, "What's up there to burn? No vegetation. Rock." + +The smoke seemed to be thinning. "How long since our last trip over?" + +"Eight days, Paul," Tejron recalled. "My impatient eldest wanted to +see if he could handle Betsy's oars, remember?" + +"He could, too." Paul remembered. "Sears-Danik pulled his weight, my +lady. Yes, that was the last time. And we saw nothing unusual." + +Only Nisana thought to ask, "Good voyage today, Paul?" + +"Fine, darling. You should have come." + +Wright was carefully calm. "I'll go over, with Paul, Elis--and--" + +"And me," said Dorothy, not smiling. + +"Well.... Okay, Dope." + +Pakriaa's thin wrinkled face turned to him. "Nisana and I? +Miniaan--she would remember the Vestoian dialect--but she is at the +city. It would need an hour to send for her, and then it would be +getting dark." + +"Yes, come with us...." + +The site of Jensen City was not where Wright and Paul had originally +dreamed of it but two miles south, where the radiance of Sears Lake +hung in the hills. A gap in the west admitted ocean winds; the outlet +of the lake ran for a mile to the edge of a red stone cliff and +tumbled over in a waterfall five hundred feet high. There would one +day be houses along that mile of river. Already, near the waterfall, +there was a temple of red and black stone devoted to quiet without +ritual, thought of sometimes as a memorial to Sears and to the other +dead, more often simply as a place to go for the satisfactions of +silence. It had no name; Paul hoped it would never have one. + +Miniaan of Vestoia was an eager citizen. The old wound had left one +side of her head cruelly scarred; from the other side she was +beautiful, by Charin as well as pygmy standards. Younger than Pakriaa, +she was the mother of four, by Kajana--the archer whom Mijok had once +carried on his shield, who would never walk again nor live a day +without pain, and who was more cheerful as a permanent habit of mind +than any of the other pygmy survivors of that war. The fifty-four +pygmy children of Jensen City were all fathered by Abara and Kajana--a +fact which caused old Abara to draw dead-pan comparisons between +himself and Mister Johnson and to grow darkly desperate when Kajana +wistfully asked him to explain why it was a joke.... + +Elis shipped the oars; Paul let down the anchor, a heavy block of +stone, in two fathoms of blackening water; Elis lifted the dugout over +the side and held it for them. He himself swam the short distance to +the beach and eased the canoe through the shallows. Even now at low +tide there was barely a quarter mile of gray sand between water and +cliffs. Chipping away of building stone had created a fair path a +hundred feet up; beyond, natural irregularities made it possible to +climb another two hundred to the first setback of the great sea +wall--a ledge which ran only as far as the next patch of beach, five +miles south. Sunset had been ending when _Argo IV_ came home; here +there was a depth of evening quiet, no sign of smoke or life, no sound +but the long hiss and moaning of small waves. "We might make a fire +here," Wright said. "But there's enough light. They--they?--must have +seen _Argo_." + +"There," Dorothy said, and ran up the sand. + +The others watched in frozen helplessness as the woman came down the +crude cliff path, gaunt, seeming tall only because of the +gauntness--flaring ribs, thighs fallen in, every arm bone visible. Her +hair was black disorder to her waist, her body a battleground of +bruises, dirt, scars old and new, and she winced away from Dorothy +with protesting hands. "You mustn't touch me because I'm very dirty, +but I know who you are. Besides, I had to burn the last of my clothes. +My baby died. I know who you are. You see, my milk stopped. You're +Dorothy Leeds. I left him on the cliff. Matron would not approve. You +see----" + +"Ann--Ann----" + +"I have two other sons, but this one died. On the cliff. I used to +know a man who called me Miss Sarasate, but that was just his way of +talking--I don't happen to be in practice." Still trying to fend off +Dorothy's arms, Ann fell on her face.... + +Pakriaa was speaking softly, in the room where Ann was +sleeping--Wright's room. "She will be healed," Pakriaa said. "I can +remember--and you remember it too, Paul--how my own mind refused to be +my servant for a while." Since Ann had been brought to Jensen City, +Pakriaa and Nisana had never left her: the little women, both now far +from youth, took on the duties of nursing with a fierce +protectiveness, so that there was little for even Dorothy to do. Ann +had slept heavily all night and morning. At noon the stone-walled +house remained cool; mild air entered at the screenless window +openings, stirring the wall map of Adelphi and the three of Paul's +paintings which were the only decorations Wright allowed in this +ascetic shelter. There was glass-making now, but in such a climate, +with no serious insect pests, it seemed a waste of effort to make +windows; a long overhang of the eaves was sufficient against the +rains. The house was large, U-shaped around a garden courtyard open +toward Sears Lake; the walls were of black stone, the roof of a +material indistinguishable from slate, carried by hardwood timbers. +Wright shared this house with Mijok and Arek, Pakriaa, Nisana, +Miniaan, and their children and Arek's. There were five other such +communal houses overlooking the lake; a seventh was building. The +children were everywhere: it was, and would be for many years, a city +of the young. Rak had died in the Year Four, a matter of falling +asleep without waking, but Kamon lived, sharing a house with Tejron, +Paul and Dorothy, Brodaa and Kajana. Lately Sears' daughter had taken +over the task of caring for Kajana in his helplessness, lifting him to +and from a wheel chair that Paul and Mijok had contrived or carrying +him to a hammock slung near the waterfall, where he could watch the +ocean and its changes. In middle age, Kajana had taught himself to +write, and kept a journal of the colony with a sober passion for +detail. + +Ann had not waked when Dorothy and Nisana washed her and clipped the +dreadful tangle of her hair. "She will be healed," Pakriaa insisted. +"Maybe in the next waking." And when Ann's gray eyes came open an hour +later, they did show a measuring sanity, recognizing Dorothy and Paul, +but wincing away when Nisana smiled and touched her. + +"Do not be afraid of us," Pakriaa whispered. "We are still proud. But +our pride now is that no one is afraid of us.... You came to my house +in the old old days, remember? My blue house, and I thinking I would +be Queen of the World? I laugh at that now. Do not look at what I was, +Ann." + +"Pakriaa.... Paul, you haven't changed much." + +"One of our other friends is about to bring a man-sized meal----" + +"Why, Paul, you must be----" + +"Fifty, Earth calendar----" + +Dorothy said, "We measure it in Lucifer years, pretty please." + +"Nicer," Paul admitted. "That way I'm around thirty-seven. Ann, +you--let's see: one Earth year, one point three eight--damn mental +arithmetic--let's call you half past twenty-seven." + +"Imagine that." Ann achieved a smile. "And--Pakriaa?" + +"Twenty-nine. See--already I am an old woman and ugly." + +"Don't be absurd, Pak," Dorothy said. "And this lady----" + +"You would not remember me," said Nisana. + +"Oh, but I do, I do. You--voted for Paul----" + +Pakriaa chuckled with unforced gaiety. "Politics," Nisana chirped. +"P.S., I got the job." Paul pinched her tiny ear lobe and stepped out +to the kitchen, where he found Wright with Arek. The children were at +school, with Brodaa, Mijok, and Miniaan: ordinarily Wright would have +been there too. When the youngest of this house were through with +lessons they would go wandering in the hills with Mijok and Muson, so +that Ann might have quiet, with only distant sounds of the laughter +and playing in sunlight. "She's awake," Paul said, and Wright hurried +to the bedroom, but Arek lingered, filling a tray. + +Arek had grown almost to Mijok's height, filling out, a red mother +goddess still bemused by inner discoveries. Her fine soft-furred +fingers fussed at the earthen dishes on the wooden tray. "No ambition, +no achievement--nothing, I think, could be worth the price of what's +happened to her. Whether she recovers completely or not. There's human +right and wrong. I think sometimes, Paul, it's not necessary to do +much wondering. You can look straight at a thing and say: 'This ought +not to be.'" + +"Granted," Paul said, watching the garden through the broad kitchen +window. His eldest, Helen, must have elected to do a little work after +school instead of strolling away with the others. She was weeding, her +brown head sheltered from the sun by an improvised hat of leaves; but +for that she was prettily naked as the day she was born, and though +she was humming to herself, she restrained the sound so that Paul +could hardly hear it. She saw him in the window and grinned and waved. +She had most of Dorothy's warm coloring, with Paul's long-legged +slimness. + +Arek saw her too and smiled. "What Ann should have had too.... Paul, I +told you once, we love you. All the good new things we have--your +work. All the same there's a devil in--some of you. As in us too, of +course. Need of the laws is obvious. If Spearman is responsible--the +Vestoians too, maybe?--then I think we live in too much seclusion +here." She took up the tray. "Too easy to live all the time in +Paradise and--leave things undone." + +"Yes. Vestoia is big, Arek--or was, when it almost destroyed us." + +"True. But you tell me that over there on the beach she said, 'I have +two other sons.' Living, did she mean? We must find them, and Spearman +too." + +"I believe she can tell us about it soon." + +"Understood that I go with you when you find them." + +"Yes. Yes, Arek...." + +In the bedroom Arek's manner was altogether changed. "Observe: this is +asonis _rôti à la mode Versailles_, whatever that means. All I did was +roast it. These are (Paul says) lima beans Munchausen, and here we +have could-be asparagus. And by the way, the cheese tastes better'n it +smells." + +"Cheese----" + +"Asonis milk," said Wright. "They moo, too." + +"Oh, you've tamed them." Pain fought with interest in the haggard +face. "Yes, Ed wanted to do that, but we--somehow we never----" + +"If you're good," Arek said, "and eat all that, there's cake." + +"You found something for sugar?" + +"Can't tell it from terrestrial," Dorothy chattered, "only it's pink. +From a tree fruit sort of like a plum. We have a plantation of 'em +across the lake. You boil it down to nothing and the sugar +crystallizes out. We make another kind from sap, not as good as maple. +Flour--that's from the same old wheat that came from Earth. +Miniaan--oh, you don't know her yet--Miniaan and Paul have +experimented around with the local grass grains--nothing yet that +measures up to wheat." Ann picked at the food, crying weakly at the +first mouthful. "Ah, don't do that," said Dorothy, looking away. "You +came home, that's all." + +Later she ate ravenously. "I want to tell you----" + +It took a long time in telling. Once she fell asleep but woke an hour +later, obsessed with a need to continue.... + +The lifeboat drifted south, its last remnant of fuel gone in a mad +effort to leap the coastal range. Water sneaked in at the seal of the +floor window, damaged in an earlier landing, and Ed Spearman talked to +himself. "Fugitives from a Sunday school--we'll live." Like a hurt boy +he said, "We'll show 'em...." When the current beyond the island swept +them toward the cliffs, he opened the door and pulled Ann into the +water, dragging her, forgetting that she was herself a strong swimmer. +Later, on the beach, he was tender, trying to comfort and reassure her +with a vision of the future abundantly real to him. They had no food, +no way to light a fire of driftwood. They would go to Vestoia, he +said, convince Lantis that they were friends, with something to offer +her empire; they would "bring her civilization." + +From this beach there seemed to be no passage north. They could have +found one by climbing high into the range--Ann did so, nine years +later. But Spearman found a ledge of sorts running south: it might +take them the eighty-odd miles to the lower end of the range or give +out at any point, trapping them. It did give out twice; both times, +rather than clamber higher on the cliffs, Spearman hurled his famished +body through the breakers and swam south, aided by the current until +it was possible to continue along the rocks. Ann followed, not quite +wishing for the death the ocean could have given easily. They kept +alive with shellfish and seaweed washed ashore and small crustaceans +that hid in the tide lines and in crannies of wet rock; there were +pools of rain water and violent small streams plunging down the range. +It took them fifty days to cover the eighty miles. ("I think I spent a +hundred coming back," Ann said. "Couldn't swim, with the baby. It +would have been against the current anyway. Climbed--sometimes went +back miles from a dead end to try again.") In the afternoons the sun +pressed on them with total fury; then they could only crawl into what +shadow the rocks gave and wait for the torture to cease. + +But at last there were trees. Level ground. In a few miles, a rapid +friendly river. ("Are there rivers here? I've forgotten. Nothing +prettier in the world. I let that one close over me. Ed pulled me +out--we had to go on.") + +There were five more of those bright leaping coastal streams in a +journey of another fifty miles southeast through good country, where +the great range thinned out into rolling jungle and meadowland. There +were asonis and small game. Spearman made himself weapons. Ann could +remember these days almost with pleasure. They had, she said, +something the flavor of a delayed childhood, a glimpse of Eden. +Spearman was for a time simply a strong and intelligent man measuring +himself against nature for survival, master of a simple environment +with none to question his decisions and no social complexities to warp +them. ("I wished we could settle in that country, the two of us. I +even begged for it. He had to go on.") + +From the remembered map, Spearman knew there was an obscure pygmy +settlement south of the end of the range, some fifty miles below +Vestoia: merely a cluster of parallel lines that had appeared in the +photographs, it might or might not be a part of the empire of Lantis. +It was near the headwaters of a seventh river, which flowed, not to +the coast, but eastward, into the deep, wide, violent outlet of Lake +Argo. ("He never told me why he was following that river so +cautiously, until we reached the villages. And history repeated +itself.") + +The villages were a furtive, chronically frightened community. They +knew of Vestoia but believed, correctly, that the groping tentacles of +empire had not yet found them. Lantis' drive was mainly to the east, +where the country was easier and pygmy settlements were numerous; even +her war against Pakriaa's people had been a diversion, more a matter +of hurt pride than gainful conquest. Between these hidden villages and +Vestoia there were meadows, dangerous with omasha, and some swampland; +below the two small Vestoian lakes the current of the river Argo was +too fierce for the flimsy boats of Lantis. So the villages of the +seventh river, under a sly but feeble queen, waited like a rabbit in a +hedge. With sharply calculated drama--but smiling this time, Ann said, +like a pleased teacher at a blackboard--Ed Spearman overturned another +idol and became a god. + +At the end of two years, when Spearman's goddess had borne him twin sons, +there was industry in the villages. There was an army of a thousand spears, +bladed with iron from certain small hills in the north between Vestoia and +Spearman City. These hills were dangerous with burrows, but workers of a +particular kind could be made to go there. The soldiers overcame their +distaste for the bow when they had watched the course of arrows properly +vaned and tipped with iron or bronze. They did not need to be taught how to +hate Vestoia--nevertheless they relished it when Spearman decided that +political realities demanded he should tell them an epic tale, the tale of +a war he and companion gods had waged against that place. Vengeance, divine +or human, was a thing the pygmies had understood from the first biting and +scratching of infancy. + +Ann had been bewildered by that first gust of oratory against Vestoia. +Spearman had neglected to prepare her for it during the long two years +spent in teaching the pygmies a limited English and the beginnings of +industry: it might not have been clear to himself that such a move +would be necessary in order to hold his people's enthusiasm and +devotion. Ann wondered. "You had thought once of going to Vestoia----" +Spearman turned on her with an anger partly cynical humor: "They hurt +us, didn't they? Oh, I might have toyed with the idea as a choice of +evils before we found our real friends. They killed Doc, didn't they? +And Paul and Sears and those milky giant friends of ours." + +"But you didn't see----" + +"_What?_" + +Spearman believed now that he had seen the full end of that war. Ann +got it through her head after a while. When he said that Vestoia must +be punished for past wrongs, there was a smiling half admission of +disingenuous policy. "It'll work," he said. "We can get away with it." +But the death of all the others except Dorothy had become for him +something like an article of faith, not to be examined. At this +moment, Ann said, she had begun to think of a northward journey, but +the odds were darkly against it. The twins were still nursing and +sickly; the demands of mere daily living are heavy on a goddess who +must also supervise housekeeping. There was, for instance, the endless +squabbling treachery of the household slaves. At that time also, Ann +hoped to soften or divert some changes that seemed to be taking place +in Spearman himself. ("I wonder if they were really changes....") + +Spearman detested slavery, he said. But in a primitive economy how +else could you get the work done? Even in daylight, when the kaksmas +were half helpless, only the bravest soldiers would go into those +hills--not to work, but only as guards for the chained lines of +laborers, guards who could run fast if the kaksmas came out for a +day-blind attack and leave the slaves to be consumed. Bad: Spearman +was sorry such things had to be. Still, the slaves were poor or +sometimes dangerous material at best; besides that, they hated +responsibility and were therefore really happier in slavery and +received better care than they could otherwise have had. So you had to +see it as almost a eugenic, even a humanitarian measure as well as an +unavoidable transitional phase, and in any case you can't make an +omelette without breaking eggs. At the use of meat slaves for the +palace household, Spearman had to draw the line, and he instituted +laws against the custom for the rest of his little kingdom, but they +were difficult to enforce without compromising matters of greater +political importance. "Transitional" became a somewhat sacred word for +Spearman over the years, a sustaining conception when things went +badly and when his ingrained sensitivities brought from Earth were +violated by the brisk egg-breaking of a Neolithic culture. + +Even the first war against Vestoia, in the third year of Spearman's +deification, was part of a transitional phase, although Spearman did +not feel that his pygmies were advanced enough to be troubled with +fine distinctions. It is better for a god to resist pressures for +explanation. + +That first war was well planned, with limited objective. Six hundred +spearwomen and archers crossed the Argo below Vestoia and fell on the +city from the east, so that there was no clue to their southern +origin; they set afire a mile of the lake settlement, took three +hundred captives, and vanished--again eastward, leaving a few crippled +defenders to convey the message that they would come again. It had the +desired effect: the armies of Lantis foamed eastward like crazed +hornets, while Spearman's force slipped home across the Argo without a +trace. In the following year they struck again, again from the east, +but with a larger force, laying waste nearly a third of that part of +the city on the eastern shores of the Vestoian lakes. The palace of +Lantis, nerve center of empire, was on the west shore. Probably the +queen knew nothing of what had happened until she saw the far shore +buried in smoke, and by the time she crossed over, she would have +learned only that Spearman's army had promised to come a third time +and take Lantis herself and assume command of the empire. + +They did, just six years after that lonely journey along the rocks. +Ann's twin sons were five years old, five Lucifer years. In the first +two campaigns, Spearman had not shown himself in person to the +Vestoians. In this third battle he was at the head of his army, +massive and tall; with a cold, unhappy precision, he was using a long +hardwood stick with a razor-edge semicircular blade. And this time his +legion had driven in out of the west, directly against the palace and +the temples and sacred places of the Queen of the World. + +Lantis was aging then, and sick, and bewildered; she probably never +understood that it was merely a question of her own methods being used +against her. Even when her city was in flames around her and her +people were scattering into forest and swamp and lake, she could +neither yield nor destroy herself; thus it was her misfortune to be +taken alive. + +A week later Ann and the children were brought by litter from Spearman +City; Spearman recognized the political advantage, almost necessity, +of their presence at the triumph. Lantis was ceremonially dragged +through the still-smoldering and stinking streets and forced to drink +an infusion of the green-flower weed that destroyed the self: this was +pygmy custom, which Spearman watched in regretful disgust, anxious +that his small sons should preserve the impassive dignity proper to +gods. "They're far from human, you know--they don't feel things as we +do...." The boys were puzzled and curious. + +So far as Ann knew, however, Lantis was not eaten at the festival. "He +told me she was mercifully put away after the excitement died down, +and another meat slave was sacrificed, made up to look like +Lantis--not deception, but ritual substitution; Ed felt he'd achieved +quite a step in progress there. It showed, he said, they were +beginning to accept ritual for reality under the influence of----Oh, +the devil with it.... He moved his capital to Vestoia. The palace was +restored--modernized. I lived there--two and a half years. That's +where I bore him another son. I'll never know how I came to allow +it--a kind of madness, hate close to love--something.... He didn't +want me any more, you know. He had some ideas about--ascetic +discipline--purity--I don't know what exactly--and he didn't try to +explain it to me. I'd hated him with all my mind for years--before the +Vestoian wars--but I'm not a good hater. I even still imagined I +could influence him a little--until the baby was born and he was in +black despair because it wasn't a daughter. I had to escape. I could +feel my mind, my self, rotting away--dissolving, as the Vestoian +empire was dissolving, for that matter. He couldn't hold them. It +began to fall apart right away. They were terrified of him and of his +Spearman City bodyguards--weasels.... They simply drifted away into +the woods and didn't come back. I doubt if they've organized anywhere +else. Lantis must have had a rare sort of skill--the city was all +hers: she built it out of Stone Age villagers, and it died with her. +Ed tried everything to keep them--bribes, threats, endless spying and +public executions by his guard. Bread and circuses, meaningless +offices for favorites with fancy clothes and no duties. It didn't +work. At the time I escaped, the population was down to--he'd never +tell me, but my guess is under ten thousand for the whole city. There +was an epidemic--rather like flu. I used that as a reason to take the +baby back to Spearman City, knowing Ed would need to stay and go on +trying to hold things together. I thought he would let me take the +twins--John--David----" + +"Rest awhile," said Arek. "We're going to bring them home too." Ann +could not speak. "How would you like to bathe again in our lake? I'll +hold you up. Water's warm with the sun--best part of the day----" + +"I'd like it. It's so pretty. What do you call it?" + +"Sears Lake." + +"Sears.... What am I made of? I haven't thought or asked----" + +"It was a Vestoian arrow," Wright said. "At the end he enjoyed +remembering Earth." + + + + +2 + + +"The city is a desolation." Miniaan slipped out of shadow into the +clearing, where the others waited for her without a fire; she was shaken, +short of breath. No longer young, she had hurried on the ten-mile return +journey from Vestoia through high-noon heat of jungle. "I could not even +find the house where I was born. Oh, Pakriaa--Paul--of every ten houses, +seven are empty. The streets are dirt and rubbish. No one knew me. Well, +that's not strange. Those I met supposed I was a stranger, probably from +the east. But the ones who were suspicious did not challenge me--they +slipped into their sorry houses and stared at me through the cracks." She +sat down in weariness, wiping sweat from her scarred head and shoulder. +"Word of what I said will travel quickly. But not one followed me here. I +made sure of that." + +Arek asked, "Have you had anything to eat?" + +"No, I--only walked through the streets.... Doc, some had English +words--a few, badly spoken. No one could pronounce _d_ at the +beginning of a word, and they had absurd turns of speech I don't +understand. One woman said to me, 'One fella goddamn skirt belong you +what name?' I thought she was asking about this skirt I made in the +old fashion, but then we spoke in the old tongue: I found she only +wanted to know who I was and where I came from. It seems that now, +under Spearman-abron-Ismar, they indicate--what word do I +want?--social--social levels----" + +"Castes?" + +"Castes, that is it, Paul--they indicate castes by the color of a skirt. In +the old days there were only two castes--soldiers and voluntary laborers, +not considering the family of Lantis or the slaves at the bottom. Now +there are--oh, ten, twenty, I don't know. Those who work at the dye pots +must never do anything else, and they can look down on the workers in +hides; this woman was a maker of arrowheads and despised both.... I told +her (and some others) that I was a stranger from a distant village, and I +said I had heard by rumor of other gods and giants, who would come one day +soon to talk with Spearman-abron-Ismar--yes, they call him that, +Spearman-male-issue-of-Ismar. It frightened her: she made excuses and ran +away. I told it to another, an old woman, who broke out cursing and +weeping. She said, Oh, no more of them! No more----' And sat down in the +street and scattered dust on her head." + +"Did you see--him?" + +"No, Paul. I saw the palace--changed, with new tall doors. There were +soldiers at the entrance, so I did not dare go near. They wore a +headdress--it was the old bark fabric, I think, but a shape I never +saw. I saw the great stockade--always the biggest thing on the shore +of North Lake--still in repair; there was the same sluice, to wash +away the blood of the meat slaves. There is still a ferry near it, +where the crossing is narrow at the lake's inlet; I could see +across--streets and tree-sheltered houses. And outside the city I saw +a mound, very foul. Once the city was clean. There was a boy playing +near it--ran when he saw me, but I caught him and asked him about that +mound. I could hardly understand his gabble. It seems that nowadays in +Vestoia children have reason to be afraid of grown women. When we +could talk he told me the mound was the grave of the False Empress, +the Wicked One--everyone who passes is required to defile it. A law." + +Pakriaa laced her wrinkled hands at her throat, smiling at Christopher +Wright, quoting a few of his own words: "'The laws are living things: +let men guard them against crippling and disease.'" + +Nisana asked, "What is next to do?" + +"We sleep on it," Wright said. "Long journey. We're tired. We'll go +there in the morning. With our weapons of course, but...." + +Mijok said softly, "First-light is a good time." + +"I think there won't be any fighting," Miniaan said, and she relaxed +and leaned happily against Muson's plump knee and ate the meal Arek +had ready for her in fastidious birdlike bites. "If they're troubled +by the rumors I scattered they'll slip away and hide, not fight. +They're weary, bewildered, disillusioned people--at least that is the +temper of the city as I felt it." + +Nisana murmured, "With Spearman's bodyguard it could be different." + +"Why," said Wright, "he'd never turn them against us. Not if he's the +man I used to know, or anything like that man. He came a long way with +us once." But Paul had to wonder: _Was he ever with us?_ + +There were six giants in the party: Mijok, Arek, Muson, Elis, +Sears-Danik, Dunin. Elis was the year's Governor at Adelphi, but +Dorothy had held that position the year before and would assume its +simple duties in his absence. Nisana's eldest twin daughters had +wanted to come, but Nisana had not allowed it, requiring them to stay +in school under Brodaa's temperate discipline; the only pygmies here +were herself, Pakriaa, and Miniaan. The group had come 120 miles +overland, after _Argo IV_ set them on a beach north of the coastal +range: this had seemed better than taking the sloop south, where +harbor would be uncertain and the winds and currents unknown. The +first twenty miles ashore had been a retracing of Abara's long-ago +journey with the olifants, through swampy and treacherous jungle. +After rounding the range they could follow the eastern edge of the +grassland that spread on its lee side, traveling in the open only at +night, to avoid omasha. For all of one day they were bedeviled by a +swarm of biting flies, and since there were brown wings circling they +could not escape into full sunlight, where the flies would not follow. +Eventually Pakriaa found an evil-smelling plant and remembered its use +from old times. The juice of the root was a protection; the smell was +almost as distressing as the bites but less dangerous. Miniaan of +Vestoia had never heard of the plant's use: perhaps that explained why +Vestoia had never exploited the otherwise pleasant region due west of +Lake Argo. + +There was fitful sleep in the daylight following Miniaan's return, and +then an evening meal. Arek and Muson and the two young giants seemed +untroubled by tomorrow, full of speculative curiosity. Mijok was +uneasy, though he would not put it in words; Elis, too, would be +remembering. Wright said again, "He came a long way with us.... Jensen +chose him--remember that: chose him from among seven hundred other +physically fine youths who had the same training, the same kind of +courage, who wanted the--privilege, as he did." + +"I can always wonder what Jensen himself would have made of Lucifer." + +Wright said, almost with reproach, "Jensen was a great engineer, Paul, +but he was also a student of history. Compared with what his +leadership would have been, mine has been weak, vacillating, +academic--it was bound to be. I take credit for some achievements. +I've said give protoplasm a chance. We have done that. We've +established the climate of liberty under law (for our very small +group) and proved that a human mind can by-pass twenty thousand years +of blundering, with no other help than a flexible language and the few +basic rules of civilized action--as the so-called savages of Earth +always proved it whenever they had a chance to secure a genuine +education and fair treatment. But--in our material development there +must have been a thousand lost opportunities--things Jensen (and +probably Ed Spearman) would have seen at once." + +Paul laughed. "Ed could have designed a better sloop." + +Wright dismissed that with a chuckle. "Ach--she floats, boy. She +sails.... When I get angry or impatient or discouraged--when I stick +too tight to a plan of my own and fail to hear the opposing +argument--then I remember that Jensen had a charity, a patience, a +kindliness, almost as great as Sears had--" + +"Tocwright," said Pakriaa, half amused, "why do you search yourself? +Must you always be sitting in judgment on your own mind?" + +"Why, yes, dear, I must." His fingers played in his white beard. +"Cod-and-baked-beans origin.... Remember my fussy little _History of +the Americas_, the first book Dorothy and Nisana copied out for me +when we found how to make good paper from the marsh grass...? But +self-searching is a vice-and-virtue not limited to the Charin tribe, +Pakriaa--ask yourself. And ask Elis." The black giant smiled. +"So--I'll go on with it just a little. Paul, is it weakness in me to +ask that when we find Ed Spearman, you do most of the talking? I want +to be--merely friendly if I can, not say much. At least until we know +what sort of man he's become. Nine years ago, I don't think he ever +had much resentment against you. You hear both sides--usually the +surest way to make an extremist hate you bitterly, but somehow people +don't. You're a--kindly listener; I only try to be, pushing down a big +part of my natural temperament to do it.... Why, I think I never even +appreciated the full nastiness of sarcasm until one time (it's not +such a small matter)--one time on the space ship, when Sears +reproached me for it: something that went against his own nature, by +the way, because he was always too afraid of finding fault with +others." + +"I'll talk with him first, Doc, if you want me to. But I wonder what I +can say. I keep seeing Ann. The things she told us--he things Miniaan +has told us today." + +"A city that never was," said Miniaan sleepily, "never was even in the +old times. Maybe I dreamed it. If you are quiet, maybe I will allow us +to wake up in a moment on the island of Adelphi...." + +"Ann is not changed," Muson reflected, "even though the baby died." + +Mijok said, "I'm not sure. I think she is. In what way I can't define. +But she's not the same sad little thing I watched when she was +sleeping in that fever. Well now, that was truly long ago. She puzzled +me more than the rest of you, and you were all a great mystery--and I +with a dozen words and the old terrors crawling on my skin like lice. +Maybe it was her seeming weakness, her secret look of listening--which +I thought I began to understand when she taught me the Earth music, +but I don't suppose I ever did understand it." Mijok laughed and +looked away. "Doc, it was very difficult for me to grasp that you were +not begotten out of the west wind by a thunderbolt. You'll never know +how difficult, because you were never a savage. You were born to be +articulate. Those twenty thousand years of blundering--bad I don't +doubt they were, but they gave you something. I am as if the forest +had generated me, with no past." + +Miniaan murmured and rolled over on her back to look up into the +leaves. "I too. I was never born. Someone with no father nor mother +looked at that filthy mound they say is the grave of the Queen of the +World. The mind of a white-furred Charin is my father and my mother." + +Elis suggested: "Ann has come neater to the immediate present." + +"Why, Elis--" Pakriaa was surprised. "She said something like that to +me herself, a short while before we came away. She said, 'My +yesterdays became tomorrows before I lived them. I want to find today, +Pakriaa. Where is today?'" + +Miniann pursued the dark stream of her own thought, which now seemed +to be giving her pleasure and not pain: "This morning I found how +yesterday can bury itself with only the smallest scattering of years. +There will be other cities. Never again Vestoia." + +Wright asked gently, "But you can remember good and pleasant things of +the old city, the way it was when you were young there?" + +"Oh, I can, I can. But I'll have today, too. I think I found it first +when I bore my little sons, at Adelphi." She sat up, leaning on +Pakriaa's shoulder. "I've had good todays at Adelphi. I don't +understand how it could have been abandoned by this Spearman I've +never seen." + +"In a way," Paul said, "you did see him. You were one of those who +came on the canoes up Lake Argo. You saw the boat set your fleet +afire." + +"Yes. That was war.... And before I was wounded I killed, I think, +seven of your people, Pakriaa. One with a blue skirt. I wounded her in +the throat, and I have heard she died in the forest, looking north." + +"Yes, Tamisraa. My sister Tamisraa was a bitter woman," Pakriaa said, +"and quite brave. Miniaan, all that was over long ago, in a forgotten +country. Now we pull weeds in the same garden." + +Night came tranquilly. Elis, who kept the last quarter of the watch, +waked them before first-light. There was the help of a full red moon, +and they followed the sound of a swift river which flowed into North +Lake through the palace district of Vestoia. + +For more than a mile outside the city the jungle was like a park, +undergrowth removed, vines cut away. But the vines were coming back. +Greedy purple fingers curled to recapture and reclaim.... + +In the outskirts no one halted or questioned them. They saw no armed +women; here and there a man crouched in a weedy doorway with staring +children half hidden behind him. Mijok, Elis, Sears-Danik and Arek +walked on the outside, with shields upheld against a possible arrow or +thrown spear. Rifles and pistols were now history, all ammunition +spent; they lay in a closet off Wright's room at Adelphi which he +called the Terrestrial Museum. Paul, Wright, and Elis had Earth-made +hunting knives, still keen. Miniaan, leading them, held a spear, but +there was a blue-flower garland below its blade, symbol of peace. +Pakriaa and Nisana preferred to carry no weapons; Muson and young +Dunin had never handled one in their lives. Miniaan said over her +shoulder, "There is the old stockade. Here we turn right, toward the +palace." + +There was scurrying and disturbance now. Beyond Mijok's shield Paul saw a +few lean women running; one of them halted at Miniaan's call and approached +uneasily. There were questions, dubious replies. At the far end of the +shaded avenue was a growing cluster of red bodies before a thatched +building with one tall doorway. Miniaan explained: "I told her that we come +peacefully and want to talk with Spearman-abron-Ismar. And she says she +thinks he would be asleep at this hour." + +"So?" Wright frowned and fretted. "But the word you left yesterday +would certainly have reached him." The Vestoian twittered a last word +or two and ran away down the street; Paul saw her elbowing through the +crowd in front of the palace. "We might go forward a little...." + +Most of the group melted away; some forty armed women remained, in a +ragged formation blocking the entrance. They made no threatening or +even warning gestures, but their staring was heavy and cold. The +volunteer messenger returned, pushing through them to speak again with +Miniaan; once or twice a halting gabble of something like pidgin +English made Miniaan wave her hand impatiently. She turned to Paul. +"It seems Spearman told her to say that he is under the--the climate? +The weather? Is this meaningful?" + +Wright said, "Tell him his third-born son is dead and the doorway of +his palace is too narrow for our friends. Wait.... He asked nothing +about Ann?" + +"She does not say so." + +"I can send him no message. You see what I meant, Paul? +Paul--you--send whatever word you think best." + +"Well.... Miniaan, ask her to tell him that--Ann could not come with +us. That we want to talk with him and, as Doc said, that his door is +too narrow for some of us." + +The soldiers seemed to catch a glimmering of it; they made way for the +messenger, and it might be there was less suspicion in them, more +curiosity. Sears-Danik, Tejron's dreamy eldest boy, whispered to Paul, +"I am trying to remember him. Not much hair on his head--it was brown. +I was only seven when he flew us to Adelphi. His voice--heavy." + +"Yes. His hair may be gray now, Danny, as mine is. His face will look +older--it never had a young look. His body will not have changed +much." + +Dunin asked, "He is older than you?" + +"No, dear, a little younger." + +But Spearman seemed older by far, appearing abruptly in the doorway, +arms spread against its frame, face thrust intently forward and eyes +squinting as if they troubled him. He wore a black loincloth of bark +fabric, nothing else. His sparse hair was wholly gray with streaks of +white at the temples, his cheeks, leathery, deeply grooved, and +flushed. "I didn't believe her," he said. Seeing him, the guards held +their spears as if they were Earth-born soldiers presenting arms, then +grounded the butts; they remained rigidly at attention when Spearman +paid them no heed. "I didn't suppose...." Spearman hiccuped; he rubbed +both hands across his face. + +Seeing tormented uncertainty in Christopher Wright, Paul stepped +forward. "Sears died, long ago. Doc and I got through, with--some of +our friends." He paused, short of the guards, and held out his hand, +and Spearman stared at it, communing somehow with himself, approaching +at last, clumsily, to take hold of it in the old Earth gesture. There +was alcohol on his breath; his bloodshot eyes fought an open struggle +with bewilderment; his handclasp was damp, unsteady, quickly +withdrawn. + +"Sorry," he said, "not well. Hard to get it through my head. +Well--Christ, I'm a bit drunk. Not strange, is it...? Mijok." His +glance traveled over Pakriaa and Nisana without recognition; it +lingered at Arek, but he did not speak her name. There was the +beginning of a stiff smile, unreadable, as his eyes fixed on +Christopher Wright. + +"Ann--reached us," Wright said, hardly audible. "She--" + +"Why don't you speak up, man?" + +"She came along the coast," Wright said, not much more clearly. "The +baby died--a little while before she reached us." + +Spearman blinked, glanced at his hands, let them drop. He noticed the +tight soldiers; in the antique military manner of Earth he said, "At +ease...." The spearwomen relaxed part way, eyes front. "Maybe," +Spearman said, "maybe you came too soon." + +"What do you mean?" Paul asked. "We had to come as soon as we knew you +were alive.... Are your other children well, Ed? Are they here?" + +"Oh...? Yes, I see.... You came too soon. I still have a little town +of seven or eight thousand and some very loyal followers." + +Wright struck his fist into his palm. "We are not your enemies. We +never were. There was a place for you at Adelphi. There is now." + +"Oh...? I can imagine it. So--Ann--" + +"Ann came back to us. It took her a hundred days, she says. She +was--is--skin and bone--" + +Paul said, "She'll recover, Ed. Only needs rest and food. She wants +John and David--naturally. They're her children too, Ed." + +Spearman said almost absently, "Are they?" + +"What!" + +"I don't exactly believe your story, you know.... You must have +been--watching--for a long time." + +Behind him Paul heard Nisana's miserable whisper: "What is it? What is +it?" And Wright's muffled answer: "A sickness." + +"There's no truth in that, Ed," Paul said. "Five days ago we still +supposed that you and Ann were lost when the lifeboat went down in the +channel." + +Spearman shrugged. "Yes--I think you've come too soon. You should +have worked longer in the dark. We had an epidemic here. Many died. +And another trouble--mental--well, you've kept track of that, of +course: the way they've fallen away from me, gone back to the forest +and the old life, when I could have given them a golden age. A prophet +without honor." He coughed and straightened heavy shoulders. "My God, +I can't blame the poor fools--now that I know how it was done." His +voice did not rise. "Without the conspiracy and interference, I could +soon have started them in building a ship that--Never mind that now. I +have the designs, of course. That what you came for?" + +Mijok broke in, utterly bewildered: "What are you saying?" + +Spearman dismissed the giant with a stare and a voice of cold +politeness: "I don't blame you either. I remember you well. I suppose +you had to do whatever your god ordered, without question...." + +The twin boys had appeared in the doorway, dressed like their father +in bark fabric: slim, well-knit children, thin-faced like Ann, nine +Earth years old. They halted uncertainly, perhaps driven by curiosity +to violate an order of their father's. Paul tried to smile at them, +and one responded but then blushed and looked worriedly away with a +hand over his mouth; the other stared like a pygmy without expression. +Spearman did not appear to notice them, though Paul's smile must have +told him of their presence. Elis broke the silence: "Mijok and the +others of my people do not create gods. We live by our own light so +far as it reaches, without fear of the mysteries beyond it." His +voice, so seldom loud in anything but laughter, boomed and echoed back +from the thatched walls. "At Adelphi, orders derive from the laws, +which are made by all of us and understood by all of us." + +"Yes," Spearman nodded, upper lip drawn in, as one who saw his saddest +predictions verified. "Yes, he would teach you to say that." + +Arek said disgustedly, "There's no conversation here. He listens to +his own mind, no other's. As it was on the beach, years ago--I +remember--" + +Spearman said sharply, "Wright, be careful! You've brought your +bullies here, but I ought to warn you, this is the country where I +still rule. There are some left who love me and understand me." + +Dunin muttered to Paul, "Bullies--what word is that?" Paul squeezed +her wrist, a warning to be silent. + +Speaking with care and difficulty, Wright said, "Ed, your boys are +about nine, Earth time. Would you say that is old enough to make +certain decisions? Would you be willing, Ed, to ask them whether they +want to go to Adelphi and see their mother again?" + +Spearman glanced back at them. He would be seeing, Paul knew, how the +boy who had smiled was staring at Wright with his mouth fallen open, +how the other's blank look had crumpled into a grimace foretelling +tears. "Now I really understand it!" Spearman said softly. "So it was +a kidnaping--a real kidnaping. I simply would not believe it when my +messengers came from Spearman City--but I should have known, I should +have known. You stole Ann in order to get my children too, for your--" + +There was a murmuring among the guard and in the crowd of pygmy +spectators who had gathered at a safe distance. Uncomprehendingly, +Paul saw a few wildly pointing arms, saw one of the guards throw away +her spear and run blindly down the street. Others were doing the same. +The swelling murmur was broken by thin screams. Those of the guard who +remained were staring into the northeast quarter of the sky, where a +break in the trees permitted a view of it, and they were +transfixed--the guard and Spearman's boys and now Spearman himself, +glaring at that blue patch of morning heaven with total unbelief. But +then Spearman did believe it, was perhaps the first to believe it, +tears starting from his gray eyes and running unregarded down the hard +channels of his face. "From home! Home--oh, my God, so long a +time...!" + +The spot seemed small and slow in its descent, riding on a cushion of +flame brighter than sunlight.... + +The Vestoian pygmies were all running now. Not into their houses, nor +the palace, but away down the tree-sheltered streets, a mindless +stampede, weapons tossed away with an agonized crying of tiny voices. + +Paul's eyes found it, held it, saw the white flame change to a vast +outpouring of brilliant green like the burning of copper. +"Charlesite!" Spearman cried. "They've found how to use charlesite for +braking! No radioactivity." + +The ship must be aiming for the open ground twenty miles away. They +could hear the roaring now, almost gentle with distance. + +Arek's red arm became a warmth over Paul's shoulders. She said, "I'm +afraid." + + + + +3 + + +The gap in the leaves was blank, the green flame gone. Edmund Spearman +gazed at the spot where the descending ship had been, unaware of his +sons, unaware that his pygmy followers had been scattered by fear as +swallows are scattered by a storm; unaware, Paul guessed, of the two +men who had been friends and now were strangers--but these he +presently saw again. His gray eyes measured Paul and Wright, the +unspeaking giants, the small shaken figures of Pakriaa and Nisana and +Miniaan, as if they were rocks or tree stumps and his only problem how +to step around them. Addressing Wright and Arek, whose big arm was +still warm around his shoulders, Paul said carefully, "It will come +down on the meadow ground about twenty miles from here. They must have +seen Vestoia from the air; they probably made sure there was no +settlement in the open land." + +Wright whispered, "It may not even have been from Earth." + +"Oh!" Mijok's black lips smiled. "It is, Doc. I forget our eyes are +better at distance. You didn't see the letters? Black on silver, +reaching halfway up the body of the ship. J-E-N-S-E-N." + +"So?" In Wright's face was a sudden blaze of belief. + +Spearman stared. He said, "Quite an imagination. Glad it was you who +made it up, and not one of the men who knew the real Jensen--a name +that ought not to be taken in vain." + +"I have good eyes," said Mijok gently. "I made up nothing." + +Spearman's eyebrows lifted, a fury of mimic politeness. He stepped +around the group as if they were not rocks but dangerous animals. He +passed down the street in long strides, not looking back even for his +sons. Paul stupidly watched him go, saw him reach the turning by the +meat-slave stockade and break into a loping run. Stout Muson muttered, +"So changed! What sickness could make such a change?" + +Wright said, "It is not likely to pass. In the old days of Earth they +sometimes ruled nations. Or they were put away in institutions, +usually after others had been injured. Or they were fanatics of one +sort and another, ridden by the devil of one idea. My profession +learned a little about them--never enough. The law met them more often +and learned less." He watched Paul, perhaps needing contact with a +Charin mind, since the innocence of the others gave them no frame of +reference. "I dare say Ed is paranoid only on the one point, +technically: all his troubles are caused by me and my--what did he +say?--conspiracy. A means to help him believe that only he is right +and virtuous and the universe wrong.... It is not so much a sickness, +Muson, as the sum of years of mental bad habits. Vanity and dislike of +one's own kind make most of the seed, and this is the fruit." + +Elis said, "We can overtake him. Six of us giants--we can carry you, +overtake him in a walk, if you think best." + +"Yes." Wright watched the empty street and Spearman's palace that +already seemed haunted and forlorn. "I believe there's no need for +haste. Twenty miles...." The Vestoian pygmies were not returning; the +street was a desolation of rubbish and loneliness with the dull smell +of neglect. One of Spearman's boys was whimpering; the other watched +the place where his father had disappeared, a tension in his small +face, without forgiveness. Wright said, "Who's John and who's David?" + +The crying one muttered, "I'm John." + +David spoke as if the words had been shaken out: "He said she wouldn't +ever come back. Where is she?" + +"At our island," Paul told him. "She's all right, David, and we're +going to take you to her. You want that, don't you?" + +"Is _he_ going there?" + +"We don't know, David. You want to go with us, don't you?" + +"He hit her face. When she said it was his fault that they were all +giving up the city. He always had the guards. Six sat around his bed +every night. John and me, we tried. We made a grass picture like the +priest Kona told us to do, and did things with it and burned it. It +was no good." + +Arek said, "Let's forget that for now. We're going to the new ship and +then the island. Shall I carry you? I've got two boys your age." + +"Who're you? I never saw anybody like you." + +She dropped on one knee, not too close to him. "I'm like you, David. +Just big and furry, that's all." + +"Your mother, David"--said Wright, and swallowed--"your mother is +living in my house now. She was our friend long before you were born, +you know. She came from Earth with us.... You're with us, aren't you?" + +The boy scuffed his bare feet in the dust. John was still crying. +David slapped him savagely. "You stop yakking, y'son of a bitch." The +words could have no meaning for him, Paul thought, beyond the +generalized stink of profanity. John stopped and rubbed his cheek +without apparent anger, gulping and then nodding. When Arek reached, +David let her pick him up, and he relaxed and buried his face in her +fur.... + +The giants made little of the miles. Mijok had Pakriaa and Nisana in +his arms and Miniaan perched on his shoulder. They had traveled often +that way on the troublesome journey to Vestoia. Elis carried Wright's +trifling 140 pounds, and Muson had John, her slow voice establishing +cautious friendship. Paul preferred to walk on his own feet, but +before long Sears-Danik stole up behind and swept him into a living +cradle. "Slow legs. Don't mind, do you, Pop?" + +"Pop, huh? No, I don't mind, Danny. I was getting fifty-year-old +cramps and too dumb to admit it." + +Dunin chuckled. "That's Danny: knows all, sees all, says nuf'n'. I'd +live with him awhile when he grows up if only he wasn't so lazy." + +"What's wrong with being lazy?" + +"Not a thing, rockhead. Only if you're going to explore, the way I am, +you can't be lazy, the way you are." She twisted a branch into a leaf +crown and walked backward before them, trying the crown on the boy's +head at different angles. "Ah, wonderful! Charging asonis--whuff +whuff--and now you look just like the kink that chewed up my diary to +make a nest." + +"Which was your fault for leaving it on a shelf and not writing in it. +Explorers have to keep diaries. Doc said so--didn't he, Paul?" + +"I'm strictly neutral, to avoid bouncing." + +"So anyway, Dunin, when you trip over a root and smack your fanny, I'm +going to laugh." + +She did. He did.... + +It was an hour before they overtook Spearman, who glanced back without +expression, without halting his powerful strides, his tanned body +gleaming with sweat and effort. Dunin sobered; she caught Paul's eyes. +She said, "May I carry you, Spearman? Then we can all reach the ship +at the same time." + +Spearman gave no sign of hearing her. He drew up at the side of the +trail, staring at the ground, arms folded. David's face was hidden +again at Arek's breast; John seemed to be asleep. Dunin said, "Please? +Why should we leave you behind?" + +Remote and desolate, Spearman watched the ground. Dunin moved on, +reluctantly, no more laughter in her. "What _is_ he thinking?" + +Wright said, "At this moment he's probably thinking it's brutally +unfair that we should go on ahead of him." + +"But I asked--" + +"You did. What's more he hasn't anything against you. All the same, +that's about what he'll be thinking. Don't try too hard to understand +it, Dunin--I'm not sure it's worth it. Let's think about the ship. +Paul, is it possible, what he said about charlesite?" + +"I reckon so, Doc. The flame certainly did change to green. I think I +remember, long ago, hearing some engineers discuss the possibility of +stepping up charlesite enough so it could be used in braking a big +ship for descent, instead of keeping the atomics on all the way down. +It would char everything over a wide area, but at least it wouldn't +make radioactive desert...." + +"I can't feel it," Wright mumbled. "Mirage...." + +It was no mirage. The ship _Jensen_ stood high above blackened ground +half a mile away; even here at the edge of forest there was a +lingering smell, anciently familiar. Paul felt himself grinning +stupidly. "Plain carbon tet or something like it. Must have shot it +out to kill any grass fires. No mirage." + +Towering silver-white above a hundred-foot tripod, it flaunted the +letters of a great name, and David Spearman rubbed his eyes at it, +leaning against Arek's knee, accepting the protective touch of her +hand. Arek said, "What--Oh Paul, what will they be like?" + +Wright shook his head, plainly feeling it now--the thought, the +memories, the pleasure, and something far from pleasure. Paul +answered, "They will--look like us, Arek." + +Pakriaa pointed up. "There! That we remember. Oh, the beautiful--" + +"A boat out already?" Paul searched and found the silver flight. + +Wright chattered: "Have we anything, anything white? No--you and I out +in the open, Paul--rest of you keep back. They need to recognize what +we are--" He was shaking, and Paul embraced his shoulders to steady +him as they moved into the open ground. Wright giggled hysterically. +"Damn white flag myself--my whiskers--" + +The boat swooped, swelling from a dot to keen familiar lines; it +circled above them twice and came to earth in a perfect landing a +hundred feet away. A blank pallor in the pilot's window would be a +human face; there would be a human brain shocked into new wonder. It +was still necessary for Paul to help his teacher through the grass, +for Wright was swaying and stumbling. Paul reminded him: "They'll be +sealed up, afraid of the air." + +"Ah, yes. I say they needn't be--we have good air on Lucifer...." + +Paul was aware of his own struggle for sanity, for clarity in the +beginning of this impossible joy which was not pure joy. He heard +himself shout at the top of his strong lungs: "'Ahoy the _Jensen_!' +No, they won't hear it. Yes--they did, they did." + +The door slid open for a meeting of two worlds. A square little bald +man, a tall gray-haired woman who fussed at her ears, troubled by the +change in atmospheric pressure. Faded overalls, the human look, +incredulous stares changing to belief. The bald man gulped and +stumbled; he grinned and held out his hand. "Dr. Christopher Wright, I +presume?" + +Wright could neither speak nor let go the hand. The woman said, "You +must be--well, who could forget the photographs?--you're Paul Mason." + +"Yes, We never--for years we haven't even thought--" "Mark Slade," +said the bald man, "Captain Slade. This is Dr. Nora Stern.... Sir, +I--you are well? You look well--" + +"We are well," said Wright. + +"I'm afraid to ask--the others? Dr. Oliphant? Captain Jensen? The--the +little girls? And there was a young engineer--Edmund Spearman...." + +Paul managed to say, "Both little girls are mothers. Dr. Oliphant and +Captain Jensen died--Jensen on the ship, in the last acceleration. +Spearman is--will be here before long, I think. You may find him +somewhat changed--" Wright said, "We must let Ed speak for himself, +Paul." In spite of the shock, the newness, Dr. Stern was sensitive to +nuances. She said too loudly, "Beautiful country." She pressed both +hands to her ears and took them away and spoke in a normal voice: +"There...! Oh, what strange steep hills...!" + +"N-not like any rock of Earth," Paul stammered. "Defies erosion." _And +I am speaking with the pride of a home lover...._ "The open ground is +a little dangerous--flying carnivores. Come and meet our friends." + +Captain Slade had already seen the giants and pygmies at the edge of +the woods; his small monkey face was ablaze with friendly curiosity +and the startled amusement that will wake at anything new, but he +said, "In just a moment. Let me take this in. If I can.... We've done +it, Nora." He filled his lungs deeply, blinking at a few tears of +pleasure. "A world like ours--a new world. Oh, Nora, it'll be a long +time before we can believe this, you and I.... High oxygen, we +noticed--feels like it. Sir, your ship--" + +"Lost," said Wright, tranquilly now, no longer shaking from head to +foot. "Out of control in descent, fell in a lake"--he motioned over +his shoulder--"a few miles over there. We call it Lake Argo. Too deep +even to think of salvage. One of the lifeboats cracked up; we used the +other for about a year. Our friends, Captain--you'll like our +friends--" + +Slade murmured, "Speculation on parallel evolution seems to have been +sound--here anyway. Humanoid, I see. Two species?" + +"Human," said Wright. "Their English, by the way, is better than mine. +They are close to us, Captain--very dear to us." + +"I--see," said Captain Slade kindly. Paul thought: _He can't see--it's +too new. But maybe he will try to see_. + +"How many in your party, Captain?" + +Slade grinned. "Only four, Mr. Mason." _Heavens! Mister? That's me._ +"A smaller crew, bigger ship. Federation thought best. We left +thirteen years after you. Twelve years on the journey. Of course we've +had to double in brass considerably. The other two are a young +couple--Jimmy Mukerji; he's from Calcutta--Oh, and by the way, Dr. +Wright, his mother was Sigrid Hoch, anthropologist, one of your +students." + +"Sigrid--" Wright groped in the past. "Of course. I remember." But +Paul guessed that he did not. + +"Jimmy's a botanist _and_ engineer _and_--oh, general technician, good +anywhere. Sally Marino--another good technician. Frankly I didn't want +specialists--wanted kids who could turn a hand to anything, and I got +'em." Slade's friendly face saddened; he and Dr. Stern were walking +clumsily to the woods, feeling the change in gravity. "Ours was to be +the last interstellar ship, Dr. Wright, until either you or we came +home. There'll be no building going on now. A Federation +decision--matter of public opinion as well as economics. Well, the old +lady over there did cost twice as much as your _Argo_, upped the +Federation poll tax three per cent just to pay for her on paper. Could +have got around that, maybe, but there was a beginning of public +hysteria, protest--resentment at the idea of throwing lives and +billions into space with nothing to show for it for many years. +Fanatics on both sides, and both noisy, plus the war scare of course. +Short-term thinking. Human." + +"You can't blame them," said Nora Stern. + +"I do blame them, Nora, now that we know it can be done...." + +Elis had tried to be ready with a little speech of welcome, but +shyness made him stiff with dignity, and it was evident that Dunin +would break loose in nervous giggling. Elis said only, "You're very +welcome. We hope you'll enjoy it here." Pakriaa might have been back +in the days of tribal grandeur, but her control too was only a result +of shyness and wonder as she echoed the Governor's words. It was +unfairly difficult for the newcomers, Paul could see--the giants' +furry nakedness and majesty, the pygmies' tininess and wrinkled +baldness; even the Charin-like beauty of Miniaan's features might be +invisible to new Charin eyes. But Slade and Dr. Stern behaved well, +with a natural friendliness. "Why," said Slade, "these boys--" + +"John and David Spearman," Paul explained. "Ann's boys. Spearman--we +think he'll be here shortly." + +Arek asked evenly, "You've come to stay, I hope?" + +"To--stay?" Slade shot a startled glance at Wright, who avoided it, +giving him no help. + +Paul said quickly, "Captain, we ought to have warned you, but neither +Doc nor I could get our wits together until you'd opened the door. +About thirteen or fourteen hours from now you'll have a fever and a +period of unconsciousness. Not too much discomfort and, so far as we +know, no danger--anyhow all of us recovered in fine shape and we've +had excellent health ever since. We decided it's just a part of +acclimation to--we call this planet Lucifer. But if you think the two +others should stay in the ship till you recover--" + +Dr. Stern was measuring him shrewdly. "You look very healthy, both of +you, and I know we can take your word for anything. Jimmy and Sally +are pretty rugged. They'll be wild to join us. Sally will be at the +intercom right now, tearing her pretty hair out in handfuls. They +might as well chance it with us.... Where do you people live? We saw +a--settlement? Over there south of the lake." + +Wright glanced at Paul with vague entreaty. It was Miniaan who spoke, +the small silver of her voice a music in the sun-streaked shadow: +"The settlement below the lake is a thing of the past, an empire that +died. We live on a warm island over yonder, the other side of those +mountains, the island Adelphi. We are returning there now, after +a--journey with some trouble in it." + +"Adelphi," said Dr. Stern, savoring the name. "Mark--our two boats +could fly them all there with us, couldn't they? Take out the +emergency stuff to make room." + +"It would be wise," said Paul. "We could take better care of you +during the illness, at Adelphi. We have houses there. Here it's not +very safe--biting flies and some dangerous animals." + +Slade was doubtful. "Anything here that could interfere with the ship +if we leave it unguarded?" + +Miniaan laughed. "Certainly the people of Vestoia will not go near +it." + +"Nothing could harm it," said Wright. "Too big. How in hell do you get +down out of it?" + +Slade chuckled and made up his mind. "Electronic lock. Can work it +from a transmitter in the lifeboat; only other way's from inside. Lets +down a ladder. Automatic derricks in the side blisters to hoist the +lifeboats if, as, and when. They thought of--_nearly_ everything." He +hugged the gray-haired woman. "Even briefing on how to get along with +each other for ten-plus years." + +"Learning love can be difficult," said Pakriaa. Dr. Stern stared at +the tiny woman with new intentness. Pakriaa's seamed face had taken on +its dreamy look. "You must see our island. Last year Mashana Dorothy +was Governor of our island. This year it is this man." She touched +Elis' knee. + +"A sinecure," Elis chuckled. "A sinecure, ladies'n' gentlemen." + +Captain Slade laughed, standing five feet five, peering up at the +Governor's eight feet seven--half a head more than Mijok's height. +Paul thought he saw there the raw materials of friendship. Dr. Stern +said, "And you call this planet Lucifer?" + +"Light-bringer," said Nisana; there was grief in her face not evident +in any of the others. "Son of the morning," Paul moved toward her, +wondering. + +Slade had missed the overtone, and cocked a dark eyebrow. +"Industries?" + +Wright shrugged. "A few, sir. All we seem to need at present in such a +small community." + +"Oh." Slade touched the old man's jacket. "This is fine fabric. I +couldn't tell it from linen. Is it?" + +"Very similar." Wright took Nisana's hand on his palm. "This lady is +our best weaver because her hands are so small and sure. Our loom is +clumsy because, of course, our metalworking is not far advanced. But +it does good work for Nisana." + +"I like to weave," Nisana whispered, looking here and there and not at +Paul. "I like to make new things." + +Paul glimpsed the twitch of Mijok's ears, the beckoning curve of a +gray finger; Mijok whispered, "He's coming, Paul. A few hundred yards +away in the woods, breathing hard and limping. Is there nothing we can +do for him?" + +"I don't know, Mijok. I'm afraid whatever is done he must do for +himself, and it's late for that, very late." He saw that Mijok was +trying to understand and could not. "His mind is--living in another +country...." + +But outwardly at least, Edmund Spearman was changed. He even searched +out Dunin's worried face and apologized. "Should have accepted your +offer--stupid of me." He smiled. "Wanted to show what a walker I was, +I guess." John and David slipped behind Muson's back, tense and cold. +Spearman shook Slade's hand, and Dr. Stern's. "My God, it doesn't seem +possible. I can't take it in. Slade, you said? And Dr. Stern. We've +wondered, dreamed, prayed for it. I can't tell you--I don't know what +to say.... Good trip?" + +"Excellent." Slade hugged himself. "Excellent beyond description. Ah, +all the Federation needed was proof. They've got it now! Rather, they +will have it in twelve years. Lordy! I'll be fifty-one." He pounded +Paul on the back, and Spearman, giving way to a bubbling overflow of +good nature. "There'll be a new President, whole new Council I +guess--and they won't be looking for us either, man." He danced a few +steps and jabbed Paul in the ribs. "Think of it! Why, it's a Tom +Sawyer job. You know? You remember? When you and I walk up the middle +aisle in the Federation Hall--oh, man, man...." + +Paul had to find Nisana's face again, and the devastation of sorrow in +it, before he understood. He stooped quickly to whisper, "I am not +going back to Earth." The radiance in the aging red face was like a +Charin girl's. + +And he heard Dr. Stern remark dryly, "Mark, I believe we've got some +nearer bridges to cross." + + + + +4 + + +One of the soft lizard-oil lamps gleamed in Kajana's room, though it +was late and the house was hushed. Paul had not been able to find +sleep; Dorothy would be watching at the bedsides of the four +unconscious newcomers from Earth for another hour, until Tejron +relieved her. Paul tapped at Kajana's never-closed doorway. "May I +come in?" + +"Yes, please do." The little man smiled up from his pillows: they were +filled with a stuff like dandelion down, almost as good as feathers. +"Will you lift me a little?" Paul fussed over him, glad of something +to do. "I was not sleepy. I finished transcribing from the shorthand, +but my thought remains with it." + +"Shorthand--" + +"The talk of this afternoon. You didn't know I was recording it. You +were all speaking somewhat beyond yourselves, in a way I wanted to +preserve. I wish we had better pencils. These last are not bad, blue +clay mixed with the graphite, but they still crumble too easily and +the wood is big for my hand. I used the brown ink for the +transcription." He shuffled the gray marsh-reed pages together. "You +might like to look at it." + +"Yes. Tonight, I think. Doc did say some things worth remembering." + +Kajana smiled. "So did you." + +"Did I...? Pencils are one thing they must have had on the ship in +abundance. The library too. Poor Doc, he'd have given anything for the +books--so would I...." + +Kajana patted his hand. "Maybe it doesn't matter too much, Paul? We +have our own books to make.... Besides--don't you think Spearman may +have unloaded some things for us before he took off?" + +"Not a chance. His mind wouldn't work that way." + +"No? Well, you knew him better. Still, he had time, Paul. He knew we +couldn't go after him: you told me he drained the fuel out of one +lifeboat before he stole the other. And it was three hours, after you +found he was gone, before you saw the big ship go up over the range." + +"And down," Paul said, still physically shaken with the memory, the +sound, the sight of it. "Down into the sea forever." + +"What happened, do you think?" + +"We'll never know. It was a new type of ship. His knowledge of such +things was ten years old, Lucifer years. Likely the take-off was too +complex for one man to handle it. After we saw it climb past the +range, we stayed there--Doc and Dorothy and Miniaan and I--near the +temple, just stayed there mind-sick and wondering. We saw it +reappear--a dot, then a flame. He never quit trying. He had the +atomics blazing all the way down. Sometimes they'd lift the ship a +little, and we--I suppose we weren't breathing--we'd think yes--no, +yes--no. I even thought: is he going to crash it _here_? But he was +really many miles to the west, only seemed near, so bright in that +darkness. A meteor--yes, call him a meteor--burned out and lost. Up to +the very end, until we saw it strike the water near the western +horizon, he was still trying, a mad insect heaving against the web of +gravity. And we'll never know what he really wanted, either. I have an +idea he may not have meant to go back to Earth. I think perhaps he +wanted another star--one that never was." + +And Paul wondered: _Should I tell Kajana what Doc said when it was all +over? No, not now--not till I understand it myself._ ("I consider +myself to blame." "What do you mean?" "Remember when Arek noticed he +was gone? I saw him slip away ten minutes before she spoke. He looked +at me, too. I think I may have known what he meant to do: I said +nothing. Earth is a very distant place, Paul. The Federation is +building no more interstellar ships, for a while--for a while." "But +you--" "I may therefore be to blame. I look within and am confused, as +so often. But all the same, here in our world I have helped to +establish a few practical certainties." During that murmured +interchange by the temple, Dorothy had been quite silent, as if she +needed no question and answer, and Miniaan had ended it, saying, +"Let's go back, and tell the others that something has ended.") + +Kajana's old mind was roving after other matters, to him more +important than Spearman or the beautiful lost ship from Earth. +"Teddy," he said, "do you know, Paul, when the two silver boats came +slipping down out of the sky Teddy only glanced at them once, and came +running to carry me outdoors so that I could see them too. It was her +first thought. Her father and mother in her, and what a new self +too...!" Kajana was having pain, from the old hip-joint injury that +would never heal. "That transcription, Paul--it's quite verbatim, even +to a little hemming and hawing." + +"Good." Paul studied the wizened red face, regretful that his +painter's power could never record what was really Kajana--too much +that must escape, even if the portrait were faithful to the small +patient hands, the groove in the left fingers caused by years of +effort with makeshift writing materials. Sears--and Paul could think +it now without too much distress--Sears could have understood Kajana +better. "Can I get you anything?" + +"No, thank you, Paul. I'm very well tonight." But some other thought +stirred in him, and Paul lingered, knowing what it was: a need for a +particular reassurance, Kajana's only outward concession to his +frailty. "Paul, what do you really think? When the time comes, will it +be something like a sleep?" + +"I believe so, Kajana. But not soon. We need you." + +The mild face showed gratitude, then calm; it glanced beyond him. +"Why, Abara--you should be snoring." + +Abara followed his comfortable potbelly into the room; his fluty voice +was indignant: "I never snore." He sank cross-legged by the bed, +rocking lightly with a foot in each hand. + +"I've heard you, old man." + +"Lizard-fur!" said Abara. "Hear yourself snoring, of course." + +Paul stretched. "You gentlemen settle down to a good soothing quarrel. +I'll take off." Abara's left eyelid lowered and lifted gravely. "Good +night." "Good night," said the little voices. Leaving the room, Paul +heard Abara murmur, "Do you remember...." + +Paul carried a taper from the permanent fire in the common room to +relight the lamp in his and Dorothy's bedroom. It was late indeed, +near to the time of the rising of the red moon, seen only the night +before from the jungle west of Vestoia--what had been Vestoia. Here in +the long room there was still a friendly disorder from the impromptu +banquet of the evening. Because of the disturbance when Spearman's +flight was discovered and preoccupation with the illness of the +newcomers, the common room had received only a few housekeeping +flurries. Mats were still scattered in the center of the floor; +earthen wine cups stood about. Carrying the taper, Paul saw by his +foot a graded series of round faces drawn on the earth with a twig. +Helen was apt to do that when most of her mind was elsewhere: the +faces were made of neat circles, even nose and mouth. Subject to a +pinch on the bottom from her half-sister, Helen called them teddies. +Paul smiled sleepily and stepped around. + +Kajana took pride in the sharp printlike quality of his writing; under +lamplight, the brown ink shifted into gold. Kajana had not recorded +the casual beginning of the banquet: the idea had evidently come to +him after some remark of Kamon's. Paul could not remember it clearly, +but the old giantess had been roused to it by a thing the rather +sad-faced, brown-haired girl Sally Marino had mentioned: the prospect +of war on the planet Earth. Kajana had taken down what followed as +direct dialogue; riffling through the gray pages, Paul noticed that +Kajana had inserted no comment of his own at all. The phonetic +shorthand, Paul knew, was Kajana's invention--ideal for his own use, +but he had not been able to teach it even to Nisana. Too intricate, +she said, needing the hyperacute ear which was a gift Kajana could not +share. + + SLADE: There seems never to be a single cause of war, only a + group of causes coming to a particular focus in time. Our + world, madam-- + + WRIGHT: Just Kamon. Somehow we've never formed the habit of + courtesy titles, Captain. Names, nicknames, and a few titles + of function--as for instance, if Elis were conducting one + of our meetings, we'd address him as Governor. + + SLADE: Oh. Pleasant, I should think. Our world, Kamon, is + still divided in two parts. An ideological division. There + is the Asian Empire of Jenga. Let me show you--the map-- + + DUNIN: Here. I grabbed it. And what a map! If only we could + make such things! + + DOROTHY: In time, sugar. Takes mighty complex machinery to + make such a map. + + SLADE: One of the things that must come on the next trip + from Earth. Well--here is the Asian Empire. You can see the + vastness of it, one land mass, almost all of a continent-- + + MUKERJI: Except my country. + + NORA STERN: Well, naturally, Jimmy-- + + MUKERJI: I tend to be sensitive on the point since we joined + the Federation somewhat belatedly. + + SLADE: That's the Asian Empire. And there they believe, and + have long believed, that individual man is nothing--an ant + in a colony--the state is everything, a sole reason for + existence. The state-- + + WRIGHT: Which exists only in the minds of individual men. + + SLADE: Ye-es.... For them the state takes the place of God, + of reason, of ethics, of--Oh, it's be-all and end-all, so + far as an individualist like myself can understand their + doctrine. A hundred years ago this empire was two great + states; they had the same doctrine then but called it by a + less honest name, communism, derived from certain naïve + social theories of about a hundred years earlier-- + + SPEARMAN: Naïve? + + SLADE: Before I went in for engineering, sir, I majored in + history at McGill. With the help of a great deal of coffee, + I even read _Das Kapital_. It is not logical even from its + own dogmatic premises. Incidentally I think it can still be + found in secondhand bookstores. + + SPEARMAN: As a matter of fact, when I left Earth, it was + quite readily available in up-to-date editions from the + Collectivist Press. + + SLADE: Oh. Yes, I dare say it was.... Well, Kamon, about a + hundred years ago those two Asian states, still paying lip + service to the--debatable doctrine of communism + (satisfactory, Mr. Spearman?)--attacked each other in a long + war, making use of recently discovered atomic weapons as + well as man-made pestilence and other devices. It was not + actually a doctrinal war, but simply a power struggle + between two tyrannies. It was hideous, incredibly + destructive, and the only saving thing about it was that it + prevented them from visiting the same disaster on the rest + of the world. Neither side won, of course; a few decades + later a new dictator--a little one-eyed zealot from + Mongolia--inherited the desolation and built on the ruins a + new monolithic state, which still exists. + + AREK: But what actually was this theory--this communism? + + SLADE: Oh, the theory. Originally an appeal to the + dispossessed. In the nineteenth century and earlier there + were masses of poor, widespread suffering and injustice, too + much economic and political power in the hands of a few, who + abused their power with stupidity and cruelty. Marx and + other theorists imagined, or said they imagined, that the + situation could be remedied by reversal--give power to the + dispossessed (the proletariat, as they called them) and + injustice would right itself. Why they imagined that the + proletariat was any more fitted to rule than its + oppressors--why they supposed it would not abuse power quite + as viciously--they never bothered to explain. Naturally the + realists among them weren't concerned with any Utopian + outcome: they simply saw the doctrine as a means to personal + power for themselves and used it accordingly. The first + important one of these was a furious little man named Lenin. + He may have believed his own theories for a while--there + seems to have been some short-lived experimentation with the + contradictions of actual communism when he first won power + in Russia--but absolute power corrupts absolutely, as + somebody said. The foundations of an old-new despotism were + well established before he died--and was unofficially + deified and kept in a glass case for the consolation of the + atheist faithful. Matter of fact, Arek, a good many things + in Earth history would make a cat laugh.... The actual cure + for the ugly situation that existed turned out to be a + gradual economic leveling combined with the (very slow and + difficult) growth of representative government--so that + there would be no swollen fortunes, no severe poverty, and + no heavy concentrations of unchecked political power. But + that was most undramatic procedure: it needed the work of + centuries. No bloody revolution could ever achieve such an + end, nor could any other evil means ever bring it any + nearer. In the Federation we begin to have--an approximation + of it. The Asian Empire is merely despotism, old and stale, + old as the Pharaohs, committed to the policy of violence and + carrying the burden of slavery under modern names: the + natural product of fanatic doctrine after the power-hungry + have taken it over and made use of it. + + SPEARMAN: Jenga's empire is not collectivism. It is a + perversion of it. + + ANN: If you'll excuse me-- + + DOROTHY: Honey, of course! I think you got up too soon. The + boys are in bed. Come on--let me tuck you in and fuss at + you.... + + STERN: She's been ill? + + WRIGHT: Yes. For a long time. But now I think she-- + + SPEARMAN: What-- + + AREK: Captain, tell us about the other part of Earth, the + part you come from. + + SLADE: Canada? Oh, you mean the Federation itself. It's very + great, miss--I mean, Arek. Let's have the map again, my + dear. All of North America--here--parts of South America, + the United States of Europe, Union of Islam, Japan, India, + parts of Africa outside of Islam--then over here there's + Australia and New Zealand, and here's the Republic of + Oceania. Almost all the rest of the world, you see. Here's + Federal City. Find it? Follow my finger east of + Winnipeg--lake country, and very lovely: I was born near + there. The city was planned and built new in 1985; seems + long ago, isn't really. And then, Arek, there are some small + countries which have preferred to keep their national unity + outside of the Federation instead of inside it, although + they're affiliated with us and there aren't any barriers to + travel and other intercourse. A somewhat technical + distinction, since local sovereignties are well enough + preserved within the Federation. + + WRIGHT: Not entirely a technicality. At the time we left + Earth, there were some tendencies in the Federation that + could lead to overcentralization, even with the recognition + of limited powers. And too much emphasis on the admitted + glories of machine civilization. I think it's an excellent + thing that some parts of the world should be a little + insulated from the enthusiasms of material progress. The + Federation itself will be the better for it. + + SLADE: Perhaps. I think I know what you mean, Doctor. I was + always a small-government man, myself. Still, under the + threat of Jenga-- + + STERN: I can't see it as much of a threat. + + SALLY MARINO: I don't know.... + + STERN: The empire will break down sooner or later, of its + own rigidity. + + SLADE: But while we wait for that, the Federation has to be + strong, in the military as well as other senses. + + MUKERJI: If we do just wait for it. + + STERN: Preventive war is an absurdity, Jimmy. + + MUKERJI: Yes, but-- + + STERN: Gradualist methods. The Federation can afford to + wait. The same gradualist methods that made the Union of + Islam possible, so long ago. + + PAUL: I don't think the leadership of Turkey was gradualist + exactly, Dr. Stem. It took thirty years after 1960, but + considering the problem, that was great speed. Only a people + with immense moral courage and good sense would have dared + to undertake it at all. They weren't fanatics; they weren't + ridden by the devil of one idea; they had to work with + intelligent compromise, temperate adjustments, yielding here + and sternness there and patience all the time--but once they + took up the task they didn't rest or let go, and by 1990 + there was a healthy union ready for full membership in the + Federation. + + SLADE: Yes, that was speed. I expect you've given your + friends here a pretty good account of Earth history? + + PAUL: We've tried. I don't know if we can allow ourselves + more than a B-plus. The subject is too enormous, and all we + had were imperfect memories. In the midst of our own work + for Lucifer, which is--paramount. + + WRIGHT: Not even books. Captain, when you showed us over the + ship, it was very difficult for my fingers not to steal a + lens and a pocketful of those microtexts.... + + SLADE: My dear friend! Why didn't you say so? All you want. + That's for your friends here, entirely. No need to take any + of our library back to Earth if they can use it. + + WRIGHT: I--excuse me--I don't know what to say. + + SLADE: And by the way, Doctor, before I forget again to + mention it: after you left--I think it was in 2060--they + perfected a new drug which actually makes the accelerations + quite bearable. I don't know too much about it. Muscular + relaxation is a factor, and Nora can tell you more about it. + But I understand that even for persons past the--optimum + age-- + + WRIGHT: A moment, please.... I cannot go back to Earth, + Captain Slade. You mean it with the greatest kindness but it + is impossible. + + SLADE: Why, forgive me, I supposed--I took it for granted-- + + WRIGHT: My place is here. This is my work. These are my + people. + + TEJRON: I knew--I knew-- + + WRIGHT: What, my dear? I don't understand. + + TEJRON: Oh, I should keep silent: this is for you to decide. + But you've said it. You won't leave us. + + WRIGHT: No. No, I won't ever leave you. This is my home. + + SLADE: But-- + + SPEARMAN: Can't argue with the passion of an expatriate. The + grass is always greener-- + + PAUL: It could be no other way, Captain, at least for Dr. + Wright and me, and I'm certain my wife will say the same + when she comes back. + + WRIGHT: In some ways, Captain, the distance between Earth + and Lucifer is greater than the simple light years between + our two stars. + + SLADE: I'm--sorry. Wasn't expecting it, that's all. Let me + get used to the idea a little. + + SPEARMAN: You can consider me neutral, Captain Slade. I have + no place on Lucifer. One more utopia. Idealism running + contrary to obvious facts. It will break up--fine-spun + intellectual quarrels--no central control. + + PAUL: Until, sometime, a strong man takes over and makes an + empire out of it...? + + WRIGHT: Please-- + + SPEARMAN: No comment.... + + STERN: If I might differ with you, Mr. Spearman, it seems to + me--after being shown over this lovely island--the + domesticated cattle and those wonderful white beasts--the + plantations and the houses--the perfect English and adult + thinking of our new friends--above all, the school--it seems + to me that Dr. Wright and his colleagues are realists of the + first water. Of course I'm strongly prejudiced in their + favor, because--well, during the twelve years of our journey + I dreamed constantly of some such achievement as this + myself. So it's like coming home. I'm a doctor, Mr. + Spearman; before I was chosen for the journey, I ran a + clinic. As an intern, I had a lot of ambulance and emergency + service at one of the big hospitals in Melbourne; I saw a + superabundance of--let's call them obvious facts. Now I + think the sunny quiet here, the good health and intelligence + of the children, the gardens, the devotion of these people + to each other and to their work, the searching thought + they've given to their laws and their future--I fancy those + are obvious facts too...? + + WRIGHT: Man is neither good nor bad, but both. But he can + swing the balance. + + STERN: Too right. I think I understand you, Doctor--why you + want to stay here. I think I understand it very well. + + SLADE: I wouldn't urge you. It's only that I--took something + else for granted. Foolishly. Let me be just a listener. + + ELIS: And let me fill your cup. You're behind us, Captain. + + MINIAAN: The big jug is empty. How'd'at happen? + + MUSON: Portrait of a fat woman going away with another big + jug. + + PAUL: Bless you, lady. + + MUSON: It was you that finished emptying it. I think. + + NISANA: Couldn't have been me.... + + STERN: Are there any important physiological differences? + + WRIGHT: Nothing of first importance. Minor differences in + blood chemistry, shape of hands and feet. Our friends have + the hind brain in the spinal column, which may be the + reason for their better muscular co-ordination and--you + know, Doctor, I have often wished that the human race of + Earth, which we call Charin, had more room in its head for + the expansion of the frontal lobes. + + ELIS: I have a very high opinion of your frontal lobes, + Christopher Wright. I have noticed that sometimes a large + skull merely rattles. + + STERN: Just the same the point is well taken. + + PAUL: Might call it the miracle of the lobes and wishes. + + PAKRIAA: Why don't you wait till Muson comes back...? + + SALLY MARINO: Don't you--now, maybe this is a foolish + question--don't you have to work awfully hard--I mean, with + so few technical aids? The--oh, oil lamps, the necessarily + primitive--of course, you've done miracles to have as much + as you do have, starting from almost nothing. What I'm + trying to say, doesn't mere survival take up so much time + and effort that it--well, wears you down? + + PAUL: We have shelter, clothing, enough to eat-- + + MINIAAN: And drink. + + PAUL: What we call a family, Sally, is made up of members of + all three races. Such a unit may have seven or eight adults + or more. Shelter, food--the basic needs are supplied by each + family working for itself; the large family unit distributes + the labor pretty well; and, if any family was stricken with + misfortune (none has been so far) the others would all help + as a matter of course. Now, we do have the germs of + beginning industries in textiles, sugar-- + + MINIAAN: Wine making. + + ABARA: The lady is pied. + + MINIAAN: The lady is not pied. Only very happy, and Vestoia + is a dead city, and the little illuama will be making their + nests where--Oh, Abara, you venerable ruin, I love you, I + love you.... + + ABARA: Well, not right here in front of all these nice + people.... + + MUKERJI: Beautiful way of life. Oh, here's Muson. Have we + drunk to everybody? Seems as though we must have overlooked + somebody, earlier. + + NISANA: I don't think so. Yes, we have. Let's drink to the + olifants. + + WRIGHT: And their seven calves.... + + PAUL: In textiles, for instance--Nisana does no housework + because her worktime is at the loom; each household sends + somebody over to work in the fiber and sugar plantations + across the lake. The system works, Sally, in this very tiny + community where everyone knows and respects everyone else, + where all the laws and customs encourage the ironing out of + differences before they become serious. And so far, work has + never become oppressive. Most of it we enjoy; the boring, + unpleasing jobs are shared because we know they have to be + done and we don't want anyone to have to carry too much of + their weight. And so far, we don't hunger for the complex + and fascinating possessions we knew on Earth. Such hungers + will come. Communities will grow. The best laws will fail + sometimes; there will be disputes, mistakes, injustices. But + we are forewarned by memories of Earth. Doc, I'm trying to + say things you could say better-- + + WRIGHT: No. Go on. + + PAUL: Well.... We plan, tentatively, a hundred family units + here at Jensen City, a population of maybe a thousand + adults, no larger. When that point is reached (several years + away) then we must plan and build another town, probably + here on the island. At that point we add new problems and + perplexities. We may not need a monetary system until there + are several towns; when we do, it will not develop + haphazardly, but with the aid of all past knowledge we + possess, for safeguard and guidance. + + SLADE: And when there are fifteen or twenty such + communities? + + PAUL: They will want an over-all government; a miniature of + a federal system, we suppose. A republic, with fully + functional representative procedures, checked and + safeguarded against every abuse of power. Because in all our + study and memories of history, we've found no other type of + government that can operate with fairness to majorities and + minorities alike and leave men as free as any social animal + can ever be free. For that matter, Captain, we sometimes + glance ahead to a time when there will be hundreds or + thousands of towns: a time when our great-grandchildren of + all three races may want to experiment with large cities, + elaborate industries. Such things will bring their own heavy + difficulties, but we have reason to hope that our + great-grandchildren will have the patience and courage to + solve them as they arise. Brodaa, tell them about the + school. + + BRODAA: I am not good in exposition, Paul.... We + are--strict, Captain, that the children should learn all the + tested factual knowledge we can give them. They must read, + speak, write--clearly, precisely, honestly. We do not allow + them to leave a method half learned, a task half done. If + there is a question, they must search for an answer; if + there is no sufficient answer known, they must learn to test + the insufficient answers and wait judgment. My own language + has flaws--I am an old woman--I still go to school, to Paul, + Mashana Dorothy, Dr. Wright, to learn more for my own sake + and for the little ones I teach. They must learn the + fundamental methods and facts as soon as they can start to + think at all. We are never afraid of teaching any child too + much or too soon--we respect them. Oh, Mashana, I was + wishing you would return. + + DOROTHY: Need has arisen for the Dope? What goes on more or + less? + + ELIS: Education. + + PAUL: How is-- + + SPEARMAN: How is she? + + DOROTHY: She is asleep, Ed. Nothing to worry about. + + PAKRIAA: She will be healed. + + MIJOK: Education on Lucifer. Pakriaa and I have the + pleasantest part of the teaching, I think. We show them the + ways of the forest and the open ground, the plants and other + living things, how to hunt without cruelty or waste, how to + be safe and happy alone in the woods at night, when to fear + and not to fear. As Samis shows them the care of the tame + beasts, and the work in the plantations.... + + WRIGHT: I'll add a little too, though Brodaa could do it + better-- + + MUKERJI: Come here, kink. + + DOROTHY: Why, he loves you! That one won't usually go to + anybody but Muson. His wife is due to have kittens and he's + blue about it. + + MUKERJI: Kittens--kinkens-- + + DOROTHY: Just kittens. Seven at one whack. Oof--shet ma + mouf. + + HELEN: Mother, if you looked at seven kittens now they'd be + fourteen. + + DOROTHY: Such comment, from a lady allowed to sit up late. + Such, I might add, perfectly accurate comment. Sleepy, baby? + + HELEN: Not a bit. + + DOROTHY: You are too. You snuggle like a kitten half full of + milk. Half an hour, huh? + + HELEN: Mm. + + WRIGHT: We see to it, Captain, that our children are not + stuffed with inflated words, equivocal words. When you talk + with them, they won't be chattering to you about freedom, + democracy, truth, justice. They learn these words closely; + we see to it that they learn them with caution. When they + use them we say--define, define. Democracy by what means, + within what limits, toward what end? Freedom from what, for + what? For what's the profit if I rattle on about freedom in + a semantic vacuum? I am free to speak, not free to kill and + wound; I must be free from slavery to the whims of others. I + can never be free from the bonds of a hundred duties, + responsibilities, loyalties to persons I love and principles + I cherish. Words without definition are sheer noise, and + noise never drummed any race into Paradise. Oh, the thing's + obvious as a child's building blocks--but I recall how on + Earth men tended to forget it twenty-four hours a day, and + here on Lucifer we forget it often enough--myself included. + But we do not forget it when we teach our children.... One + other thing--before this wine takes me back to second + childhood--as soon, Captain, as their minds are old enough-- + + AREK: Where did Spearman go? + + WRIGHT: Oh, he--he just stepped out, I think. Stretch his + legs or something. As soon as their minds are old enough to + think with some independence and explore, we insist that + they start the lifetime struggle with man's primary + dilemma-- + + ELIS: I hoped you would speak of that, my brother. + + WRIGHT: That he is an individual, his self-hood precious and + inviolate, yet he must live in harmony with other + individuals whose right to life and welfare is as certain as + his own. Approach the study of society from any direction + you will, that problem is at the heart of it, and must be a + thousand generations from now, because it must be met anew + with every infant born. We think, here, that the most + rewarding answer is in the old virtues of self-knowledge, + charity, honesty, forbearance, patience. Now, those are all + words that demand definition and multiple definition; on + that basis we have our children study them, search the depth + and height of them, in the not so simple problems of + childhood through the tougher ones of adolescence and + maturity. We make them understand that lip service will not + do: if one is to make himself honest he must eat honesty + with breakfast, sweat with it in the sun, laugh and play and + suffer with it and lie down with it at night until it's near + as the oxygen in his blood. Yes, we aim high. Cruelly high, + would you say? We don't think so. Perfection is a cold spot + on top of a mountain, and nobody ever climbed there. We have + trouble and fun and arguments; sometimes the garden weeds + grow until tomorrow or the day after, but we sleep well. + + DOROTHY: Speaking of perfection and goodness and things and + stuff--I know it was Paul who put those violin strings by + Nan's bed, but which one of you supplied them? + + SLADE: Well, he told me-- + + DOROTHY: Will it be all right if I reach over this daughter + of mine and kiss you? + + SLADE: They did brief us, back on Earth, that we must + respect local customs-- + + MIJOK: And perhaps even another drink could do him no harm. + + PAKRIAA: He's pied. + + ELIS: I would not say that. Speaking as Governor, I say that + the local wine industry deserves every encouragement it can + get--and has, ever since Samis' favorite kink had kittens in + the bottom of the vest bat. + + SAMIS: Correction. + + MIJOK: Best vat. Speaking as Lieutenant Governor. Just + elected--did it myself. + + MUSON: The toastmistress has been quiet lately. + + NISANA: Who, me? + + PAUL: By acclamation, yes. + + NISANA: Le'me think. We did drink to the children--those in + bed and those who ought to be-- + + HELEN: 'Ception. + + DOROTHY: Great big woman. You weigh a ton, sweet stuff, 'n' + so do your eyelids, they do. + + NISANA: And we drank to the olifants. No no--I am too + happy--my mind is a lake without a breeze. You propose the + toast, Pakriaa. + + SALLY: Matter of fact I'm already sort of whooliollicky--I + think-- + + DOROTHY: Hey--maybe it's not just the wine. Paul--Doc--it + must be almost thirteen hours-- + + PAUL: Yes--yes, almost. Maybe you'd better-- + + SALLY: No, let's have one more toast. At least one more, + Pakriaa? + + WRIGHT: I'll drink with you, Pakriaa. + + PAKRIAA: Oh--let us be happy. Friends, I give you the wine + itself and the earth that made it. I give you birth and + death and the journey of our days and nights between them, + the shining of green fields, the patience of the forest, the + little stars, the great stars, the love and the thought, the + labor and the laughter, the good morning sky. + + * * * * * + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of West Of The Sun, by Edgar Pangborn + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WEST OF THE SUN *** + +***** This file should be named 39572-8.txt or 39572-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/9/5/7/39572/ + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Bruce Albrecht, and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://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: West Of The Sun + +Author: Edgar Pangborn + +Release Date: April 29, 2012 [EBook #39572] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WEST OF THE SUN *** + + + + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Bruce Albrecht, and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="tr"><p class="center">Transcriber's Note</p> +<p class="center">Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.</p></div> + +<h4>On earth it was 2056 A.D.<br /> + + but on the red-green planet<br /> + +it was</h4> +<h1>THE YEAR ONE</h1> + +<h4><i>There were only six human beings</i>—</h4> +<div class="blockquot"><p><b>DR. CHRISTOPHER WRIGHT</b>, anthropologist—he believed in man's +basic goodness ... but could he put his trust in an alien +race?</p> + +<p><b>PAUL MASON</b>—he dutifully shared his wife with his best +friend.</p> + +<p><b>DOROTHY LEEDS</b>—Paul was her husband, but she knew there were +some things more important than love.</p> + +<p><b>SEARS OLIPHANT</b>—the gentle scientist who inspired love in an +alien.</p> + +<p><b>ANN BRYAN</b>—the youngest of them all, she had to be taught +violence and passion.</p> + +<p><b>EDMUND SPEARMAN</b>—the rebel who had to have his own tribe to +rule ... even though it meant war with his Earth companions.</p></div> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Six humans alone against the deadly forces of a strange and +distant planet.</i></p></div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> +<img src="images/image_01.jpg" width="600" height="310" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<h1>WEST OF THE SUN</h1> +<p> </p> +<h2>EDGAR PANGBORN</h2> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>To Mary C. Pangborn</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>Contents</h2> + + + +<table summary="Contents"> + +<tr><td colspan="8" class="center"><a href="#part_one">PART ONE</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td><i>A.D. 2056</i></td> + <td class="tocpg"> </td> + <td class="tocpg"> </td> + <td class="tocpg"> </td> + <td class="tocpg"> </td> + <td class="tocpg"> </td> + <td class="tocpg"> </td> + <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_9">9</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td colspan="8" class="center"><a href="#part_two">PART TWO</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td><i>The Year One</i></td> + <td class="tocpg"> </td> + <td class="tocpg"> </td> + <td class="tocpg"> </td> + <td class="tocpg"> </td> + <td class="tocpg"> </td> + <td class="tocpg"> </td> + <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_77">77</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td colspan="8" class="center"><a href="#part_three">PART THREE</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td><i>The Year Ten</i></td> + <td class="tocpg"> </td> + <td class="tocpg"> </td> + <td class="tocpg"> </td> + <td class="tocpg"> </td> + <td class="tocpg"> </td> + <td class="tocpg"> </td> + <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_161">161</a></td> +</tr> +</table + + + + +> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> +<img src="images/image_02.jpg" width="600" height="583" alt="" title="" /> +</div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="part_one" id="one"></a>Part One</h2> + +<h3>A.D. 2056</h3> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>1</h2> + + +<p>Morning was flowing over the red-green planet. "What do we know?" The +delicate brown face of Dorothy Leeds kindled with questions. +"Summarize it."</p> + +<p>Edmund Spearman achieved casualness. "Diameter and mass a trifle more +than Earth's, larger orbit around a larger sun. A year of 458 days, +twenty-six hours each. Moderate seasonal changes, axial tilt less than +Earth's, orbit less elliptical. See the smallness of the north polar +ice cap? The equatorial region—much too hot; the rest is subtropical +to temperate. We should go down (if we do) near the 50th +parallel—north, I'd say. Too much desert in the southern hemisphere. +Might be hot winds, sandstorms."</p> + +<p>"The red-green <i>is</i> vegetation?" Dr. Christopher Wright teetered on +long legs before the screen, a classroom mannerism unchanged by eleven +years in the wilderness of space. He pinched and pulled the skin on +his Adam's apple, his hawk's-beak, small-chinned head jutting forward +with an awkwardness not aggressive but intent. Paul Mason thought: +<i>You love him or hate him. In either case he's never quite grotesque.</i> +Wright's too-soft voice insisted: "It <i>is</i>, of course?"</p> + +<p>"It has to be, Doc," Spearman said, and rubbed his bluish cheeks, +looking older than his thirty-two years. Already he showed frontal +baldness, deeply bracketed mouth corners. On Spearman's big shoulders +was the burden of the ship. Watching him now, Paul Mason was troubled +by a familiar thought: <i>Captain Jensen should not have died</i>.... "It +has to be. The instruments show oxygen in Earth proportion, or +somewhat richer, plus nitrogen and carbon dioxide. The camera gives us +tree shadows in these latest photographs with the stronger lens.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> The +air may make us oxygen-happy—if we go down.... Well, Dorothy—two +continents, two oceans, both smaller than the Atlantic, connected +narrowly at north and south polar regions. Dozens of lakes bigger than +the Caspian. The proportion of land to water surface works out nearly +the same as on Earth. No mountains to match the Himalayas, but some +pretty high ranges. Unlimited forest, prairie, desert." He closed +bloodshot eyes, pressing the lids. Paul Mason thought: <i>I should never +try to paint Ed. The portrait would always come out as Hercules +Frustrated, and he wouldn't care for it....</i> Spearman said, "Even most +of the tallest mountains look smooth—old. If there were glaciers it +was a long time ago."</p> + +<p>"Geologically a quiet phase," Sears Oliphant remarked. "As Earth +looked in the Jurassic and may look again." Born fifty years ago in +Tel Aviv, brought up in London, Rio, and New York because his parents +were medical trouble shooters for the Federation, and possessed of a +doctorate in biology (more exactly, taxonomy) from Johns Hopkins, +Sears Oliphant claimed that his original Polish name could not have +been spelled with the aid of two dictionaries and a crowbar. His fat +face blinked at Dorothy with little kind eyes. "I forget, sugar—you +weren't around in the Jurassic, were you?"</p> + +<p>"Maybe." Her slow smile was for Paul. "As a very early mammal."</p> + +<p>Wright said, "No artifacts.... At first it looked like Venus." His +crinkled asymmetrical face probed at them with a wistful half smile +like a child's. "May we call this planet Lucifer, son of the morning? +And if we land and found a city (or am I being ridiculous?)—let it be +Jensen City, in honor of a more-than-solar myth."</p> + +<p>Shading closed lids, Spearman said with harshness, "Myth?"</p> + +<p>"Why, Ed, yes—like all remembered heroes who continue in the love of +others, a love that magnifies. How else would you have it?"</p> + +<p>"But"—Ann Bryan was high-voiced, troubled—"Lucifer——"</p> + +<p>"My dear, Lucifer was an angel. Devils and angels<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> have a way of +turning out to be the same organism. I noticed that first when I was a +damned interne. I noticed it again when I switched to anthropology. I +even noticed it on a space ship with the five persons I love best.... +No artifacts, huh?"</p> + +<p>Dorothy said, "You haven't seen these latest pictures, Doc."</p> + +<p>"Something?" Wright hurried over, gray eyes wide and sparkling. "I'd +quit hoping." Ann joined him, quick-motioned in her slimness, too +taut. Wright slipped an elderly arm around her. "Parallel lines, in +jungle? Ah.... Now, why none in the open ground?"</p> + +<p>Spearman suggested: "We could take more shots. But...."</p> + +<p>Paul Mason broke the darkening silence. "But what, Ed?"</p> + +<p>"We're falling, some. I could move us out into a self-sustaining orbit +by using more of the reaction mass. We have none to waste. Jensen's +death eleven years ago——" Spearman shook his gaunt but heavy head. +"Thirty pre-calculated accelerations—and the rest periods they +allowed us were insufficient, I think. You remember what wrecks we +were when it was finished; that's why I tried to allow more time in +deceleration." His brassy voice slowed, fetching out words with care: +"The last acceleration, as you know, was not pre-calculated. Jensen +was already dead (must have been heart) when his hand took us out of +automatic, made another acceleration that damn near flattened us——"</p> + +<p>"Still here though." Sears Oliphant chuckled and patted his middle. +"We made it, didn't we, boy?" It sounded a little forced.</p> + +<p>"In deceleration I had to allow for the big step Jensen never meant; +more of the mass was used to correct a deflection. Same allowance must +be made in returning, not to mention the biggest drain of all—getting +out of gravity here, a problem not present at the spaceport. Oh, it's +planned for—she's built to do it, even from a heavier planet than +this. But after she's done it the margin for return will be—narrower +than I care to think."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span></p> + +<p>Dorothy, small and soft, leaned back in Paul's arms. Her even voice +was for everyone in the control room: "Nevertheless we'll go down."</p> + +<p>Spearman gazed across at her without apparent comprehension. He went +on, deliberate, harassed: "Here's a thing I never told you. In that +accidental acceleration the ship did not respond normally: the +deflection happened then, and it may have been due to a defect in the +building of <i>Argo</i>, a fault in the tail jets. At the time, it was all +I could do to reach Jensen before I blacked out—I still don't know +how I ever managed it. Later I tried to think there could be no +defect. The forward jets took care of us nicely in deceleration. Until +we start braking, we can't know. Indicators <i>say</i> everything's all +right down there. Instruments can lie. Lord, they've sweated out +atomic motors since before 1960, almost a century now—and we're still +kids playing with grown-up toys."</p> + +<p>Sears smiled into plump hands. "So I must be sure to pack my +microscope in one of the lifeboats—hey?"</p> + +<p>"You're for landing, then."</p> + +<p>Sears nodded. Ann Bryan thrust thin ivory fingers into her loose black +hair. "<i>I</i> couldn't take another eleven years." She attempted a smile. +"Tell me, somebody—tell me there'll be music on Lucifer—a way to +make new strings for my violin before I forget everything...."</p> + +<p>Dorothy said, "Land." Gently, as one might say time for lunch. And she +added: "We'll find strings, Nan."</p> + +<p>"Land, of course," said Christopher Wright, preoccupied; his long +finger tapped on the photograph; his lips went on moving silently, +carrying through some private meditation. "Land. Give protoplasm a +chance."</p> + +<p>"Land," Paul Mason said. <i>Did anyone suppose the First Interstellar +would just turn around and go home? We're here, aren't we...?</i></p> + +<p>Through hours when spoken words were few, inner words riotous, Lucifer +turned an evening face. A morning descent might have been pleasanter +in human terms, but the calculator, churning its mathematical brew, +said the time was now.</p> + +<p>Paul Mason squirmed into his pilot's seat. It was good, he thought, +that they could at least meet the challenge of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> the unexplored with +adequate bodies. Wright was dryly indestructible; Ed Spearman a gaunt +monolith; the plumpness of Sears Oliphant had nothing flabby. The +women were in the warm vigor of a youth that had never known illness. +As for his own body, Paul felt for it now a twinge of amused +admiration, as if he were seeing an animated statue by an artist +better than himself: slender, tough, nothing too much, built for +endurance and speed—it would serve. Spearman was already talking in +the earphones: "Close lock. Retract shield." Paul responded from +ingrained training. Beyond the window that would give him forward +vision in the (impossible) event he had to fly the lifeboat, the +heavens opened. Withdrawal of the shield into the belly of the mother +ship <i>Argo</i> was a dream motion within a wider dream. Dorothy and +Wright were strapped in the two seats behind him: half of <i>Argo's</i> +human treasure was here. "Go over what you do if you have to drive +off. Over."</p> + +<p>"Lever for release. No action till wing-lock indicator is green. No +jet unless to correct position. In atmosphere handle as glider, jet +only in emergency. Over." After all, Paul considered, he had had a +thousand hours of atmospheric flying, and two years' drill on these +boats. Ed could worry less and save wind. Beautiful mechanisms in +their own right, Model L-46, lying eleven years secret but alert in +the streamlined blisters, powered by charlesite to avoid the ponderous +shielding still necessary for atomic motors—and charlesite, perfected +only thirty years ago in 2026, was obedient stuff. In space, the boats +were small rocket ships; in atmosphere, gliders or low-speed jet +planes. While <i>Argo</i> had been in the long ordeal of building, Paul had +been shot from gleaming tubes like this into the atmosphere of Earth, +the blind depth at the spaceport, the desolate thin air of Mars. +Spearman said, "Turning in five minutes."</p> + +<p>In the port lifeboat Ann and Sears would be waiting, but that lock +would be open, for Ed must be in the control room. If they had to +abandon ship (ridiculous!) Ed's boat would be many moments behind.</p> + +<p>The stars moved. "Paul—check straps. Over."</p> + +<p>Paul glanced behind him. "All set. Over."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span></p> + +<p>The forward jets spoke once, and softly. Spearman said, "Out of orbit. +We start braking sooner than you think. Then we'll know...."</p> + +<p>The depth of quiet was a depth of eternity. Time to reflect—to +marvel, if you wished. One hundred and eleven years since Hiroshima, +which the inveterate insanity of history textbooks sometimes referred +to as a great experiment. Eighty-five years since the first-manned +spaceport; seventy since the founding of stations on Luna and Mars. +But to Paul Mason a greater marvel was the responding warmth of the +woman, the brooding charity of the old man, whose lives were upheld +with him in this silent nothing, dependent on the magic bundle of +muscle and nerve that was himself. <i>What is love?</i></p> + +<p>The greater spaceport had been twelve years in building. Then <i>Argo</i>. +More than a century from early rocket experiments to the mile-long +factories turning out charlesite. In that century man had even added +to his morsels of self-knowledge a trifle more than he possessed in +the days of flint ax and reeking cave. "We are in atmosphere," said +the earphones.... <i>Time: a cerebral invention? How long is a May fly's +life to a May fly...?</i> "Braking starts in forty-five seconds. Warn the +others."</p> + +<p>Paul shoved down the mouthpiece, echoing the message. Wright said, +"Six pushed-around people. The arrogance of man! Doing fine, Paul."</p> + +<p>Pressure—not too bad. A long roaring. But then the stars....</p> + +<p>The stars went mad. A glare—a cruel second of the light of the star +that was now the sun and a flicker of red-green, not real. The roaring +paused. Stopped.</p> + +<p>The earphones screamed: "Release! <i>Drive off!</i>"</p> + +<p>"Releasing." The amused voice was Paul's own. "Good luck, Ed."</p> + +<p>No answer. There was still such a thing as time. <i>Now, look: the +Federation was a grand thing, potentially, if only, as Doc insists, it +weren't for the damned cultural lag of the humanistic sciences, but +there is unfortunately no TIME to turn around and see if that little +brown cowlick is over her forehead the way it</i>——Meantime he said +aloud, "Doc, Dorothy, get ready for a big one." And his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> hand pulled +for release—nicely, as you might steer a road car for a turn. The +pressure torment....</p> + +<p>Finished. He looked at a friendly green eye. So the retractile wings +were as good as eleven years ago—you hoped. Atmosphere—thin, said +the gauge. Never mind, thicker soon. <i>And down you go</i>——</p> + +<p><i>Too steep. Level off, if there's stuff to bite on. There is.... Thank +you, Machine Age Man, for a sweet boat. That thing gibbering in the +autonomic and voluntary nervous systems—merely fear. Overlook it....</i></p> + +<p>The ship was alien, far away. Turning, bright and deliberate, like a +mirror dropped in a well. The other lifeboat? But Ed would have to +reach it, close lock, strap in, open shield, while the ship went....</p> + +<p>"Down"—lately an artificiality, now the plainest word in the +language. A gleaming disturbance in the air "down" yonder—something +streaking away from the dot that was a dying ship? "Ed, can you hear +me? Over."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said the voice in the earphones.</p> + +<p>Paul noticed himself weeping. "They made it! They made it!"</p> + +<p>The voice said coldly, "Quiet. Your altitude? Over."</p> + +<p>"Forty-six thousand. All under control. Over, jerk."</p> + +<p>"I'm going to head for——<i>Ah!</i> Can you see the ship?"</p> + +<p>It was possible to find the silver dot of <i>Argo</i> above an S-shaped +expanse of blue. The blue, Paul understood, was not becoming larger, +simply nearer. The dot changed to a white flower, which swelled and +hung tranquilly over the blue, a brief memorial. The radio carried a +groan, and then: "Better maybe. The lake may be shallow enough for +salvage. If it'd hit ground there'd be nothing at all. Get nearer, +Paul. Keep me in sight—not too damn' near."</p> + +<p>Time.... Delicately Paul asked the boat for a steeper glide. The +response was even. Was it? Some peevish sound. He flattened the glide +a thousand feet above Ed's boat. The red-green below—anything real +about it? Yes, if time was real, but one had to think that over....</p> + +<p>Mild hills of dark red-green, in the—west? Yes, because now there was +a birth of sunset beyond them. Lighter green below, alongside the +lake: that would be meadow. Not one of the great lakes—no larger +than<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> Lake Champlain, its outlet in the south blurred by marsh; only a +portion of its northwest shore adjoined the meadow—except in that +region the lake was a blue S written on red-green dark of jungle. A +winged brown thing slipped by, teasing the edge of vision. "Bird or +something...."</p> + +<p>In the earphones was a dazed note, like shame. "Power was out of control, +Paul—port motor. Had to be a defect in the building—something that +couldn't take the strain of what happened eleven years ago. All the +way—God!—and then to be loused up by a builder's error!" To Spearman, +Paul knew, a mechanical defect was the gravest of indecencies, beyond any +forgiveness.</p> + +<p>True sunset here. A world. And you don't climb out of gravity on +charlesite. Paul said, "Doc—parallel lines—I think."</p> + +<p>But the speed of the glide allowed no certainty, only a glimpse of +three dark bars, perhaps half a mile long in the jungle area northwest +of the meadow, and a hint of other groups further north. They <i>should</i> +be there, according to a map Spearman had made in orbit from the final +photographs. And some fifty miles south of here was a great network of +them thirty miles long. The glide brought them out over meadow once +more.</p> + +<p>A thing was riding with them. A grumbling moan. Paul told himself: +<i>With Model L-46 it cannot happen—it cannot—Dorothy—Doc</i>——</p> + +<p>Dorothy cried, "Specks—in the open ground. Moving, hundreds of 'em. +Oh, look! <i>Smoke</i>, Paul—campfires. How high are we?"</p> + +<p>"Under seven thousand. Check your compass by the sunset, Doc. See if +we have a magnetic north."</p> + +<p>"We do...."</p> + +<p>Spearman's far-off voice said, "Life all right. I can't make out——"</p> + +<p>Paul cut in with hurried precision: "Ed—vibration, port wing, bad. +I'm going to make one more circle over the woods if I can and try for +the north end of this meadow."</p> + +<p>A startled croak: "I'll jet off—give you room." Paul saw the squirt +of green flame. Ed's boat darted westward<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> like a squeezed apple seed. +Paul dipped and leveled off as much as he dared. "We're—all right."</p> + +<p>He lived with it a timeless time. Knowing it would happen. They were +circling over jungle, pointed into sunset. The jet would only make +matters worse—rip the heart out. Soon the meadow would come around +again....</p> + +<p>But the moment was now. An end of the moaning vibration. A lurch. +Paul's hand leaped stupidly for the charlesite ignition and checked +itself.</p> + +<p>Calm, but for the reeling of sunset. <i>I must tell Dorothy not to fight +the straps: L-46 is solid—is solid——</i></p> + +<p>Then the smash, the tearing and grinding. Somehow no death. Sky in the +window changed to a gloom of purple and green. No death. Elastic +branches? Metal whimpered and shrieked. <i>Is that us?</i> They built them +solid....</p> + +<p>There was settling into silence. The pressure on Paul's cheek, he +knew, was the wonderfully living pressure of Dorothy's hand, because +it moved, it pinched his ear, it groped for his mouth. A hiss. Through +the wrenched seams the old air of Earth yielded to the stronger weight +of Lucifer's. The starboard wing parted with a squeal like amusement, +letting the boat's body rest evenly on the ground, and Christopher +Wright said, "Amen."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span></p> +<h2>2</h2> + + +<p>The Earphones Were Squawking: "Speak Up! Can you hear me? Can you——"</p> + +<p>"Not hurt. Seams open, and there goes Sears' thirty-six-hour test for +air-borne bacteria. Down and safe, Ed."</p> + +<p>"Listen." In relief, Ed Spearman was heavily didactic again. "You are +three quarters of a mile inside the jungle. I will land near the +woods. It will be dark in about an hour. Wait there until we——"</p> + +<p>"One minute," Paul said in sudden exhaustion. "We can find you, +easier. Sears' test is important. We're already exposed to the air, +but——"</p> + +<p>"What? Can't hear—damn it——" The voice dimmed and crackled.</p> + +<p>"Stay sealed up!" Nothing. "Can you hear?" Nothing. "Oh, well, good," +said Paul, discarding the headset, adding foolishly: "I'm tired."</p> + +<p>Dorothy unfastened his straps; her kiss was warm and quick.</p> + +<p>"Radio kaput, huh?" Wright flexed lean cautious legs. "Pity. I did +want to tell Sears one I just remembered after eleven years, about +poor lackadaisical Lou, who painted her torso bright blue, not for +love, not for money, not because it looked funny, but simply for +something to do."</p> + +<p>"You're not hurt, Doc," Dorothy said. "Not where it counts."</p> + +<p>"Can't kill an anthropologist. Ask my student Paul Mason. Leather +hides, pickled in a solution ten parts curiosity to one of statistics. +Doctors are mighty viable too. Ask my student Dorothy Leeds."</p> + +<p>Paul's forehead was wet. "Dark in an hour, he reminded me."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span></p> + +<p>"How close are we to the nearest of those parallel lines?"</p> + +<p>"Three or four miles, Doc, at a loose guess."</p> + +<p>"Remember that great mess of 'em fifty or sixty miles south of here? +Shows on Ed's map. We must be—mm—seventy miles from the smallest of +the two oceans—oh, let's call it the Atlantic, huh? And the other one +the East Atlantic? Anyway the ocean's beyond that range of hills we +saw on the way down."</p> + +<p>"I saw campfires in the meadow," Dorothy said. "Things running."</p> + +<p>"I thought so too.... Paul, I wonder if Sears can do any testing of +the air from the lifeboat? Some of the equipment couldn't be +transferred from <i>Argo</i>. And—how could they communicate with us? +They'll have to breathe it soon in any case."</p> + +<p>Paul checked a shuddering yawn. "I must have been thinking in terms of +<i>Argo</i>, which is—history.... You know, I believe the artificial +gravity was stronger than we thought? I feel light, not heavy."</p> + +<p>"High oxygen?" Dorothy suggested. "Hot, too."</p> + +<p>"Eighty-plus. Crash suits can't do us any more good." They struggled +out of them in the cramped space, down to faded jackets and shorts.</p> + +<p>Wright brooded on it, pinching his throat. "Only advantage in the +others' staying sealed up a while is that if we get sick, they'll get +sick a bit later. Could be some advantage. Paul—think we should try +to reach them this evening?"</p> + +<p>"Three quarters of a mile, dark coming on—no. But so far as I'm +concerned, Doc, you're boss of this expedition. In the ship, Ed had to +be—matter of engineering knowledge. No longer applies. I wanted to +say that."</p> + +<p>Wright turned away. "Dorothy?"</p> + +<p>She said warmly, "Yes. You."</p> + +<p>"I—oh, my dear, I don't know that it's—best." Fretfully he added: +"Shouldn't need a leader. Only six of us—agreement——"</p> + +<p>Dorothy held her voice to lightness: "I can even disagree with myself. +Sears will want you to take over. Ann too, probably."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span></p> + +<p>His gray head sank in his hands. "As for that," he said, "inside of me +I'm apt to be a committee of fifteen." Paul thought: <i>But he's not +old! Fifty-two. When did he turn gray, and we never noticing it...?</i> +"For now," Wright said, "let's not be official about it, huh? What if +my dreams for Lucifer are—not shared?"</p> + +<p>"Dreams are never quite shared," Dorothy said. "I want you to lead +us."</p> + +<p>Wright whispered with difficulty, "I will try."</p> + +<p>Dorothy continued: "Ed may want things black and white. Not Ann, I +think—she hates discussions, being obliged to make up her mind. +You're elected, soldier.... Can you open the door, Paul?"</p> + +<p>It jammed in the spoiled frame after opening enough for a tight exit. +Wright stared into evening. "Not the leader kind. Academic." His white +hands moved in doubtful protest. "Hate snap decisions—we'll be forced +to make a lot of them."</p> + +<p>Paul said, "They're best made by one who hates making them."</p> + +<p>The lean face became gentle. "Taught you that myself, didn't I, +son...? Well—inventory. What've we got, right here?"</p> + +<p>"Thirty days' rations for three, packed eleven years ago. Two +automatic rifles, one shotgun, three automatic pistols, three hundred +rounds for each weapon. Should have transferred more from the ship, +but—we didn't. Three four-inch hunting knives, very good——"</p> + +<p>"They at least won't give out. With care."</p> + +<p>"Right. Two sealed cases of garden seeds—anybody's guess about them. +Six sets of overalls, shorts, and jackets. Three pairs of shoes +apiece—the Federation allowed that you and Ann might grow a little, +Dot—plasta soles and uppers, should last several years. Carpentry +tools. Ed's boat has the garden tools instead. Sears did pack his +microscope, didn't he?"</p> + +<p>"Oh my, yes," said Dorothy, in affectionate mimicry of the fat man's +turn of speech.</p> + +<p>"Each crash suit has first-aid kit, radion flashlight (good for two +years maybe), compass, field glasses, plus whatever else we had sense +enough to stuff in. Set of technical<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> manuals, mostly useless without +the ship, but I think there's one on woodcraft, primitive tools and +weapons—survival stuff——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, the books!" Wright clutched his hair, groaning. "The books——"</p> + +<p>"Just that woodcraft——"</p> + +<p>"No, no, no—the books on <i>Argo</i>! Everything—the library—I've only +just understood that it's gone. The whole flowering of human +thought—man's best, uncorrupted—<i>Odyssey</i>—Ann's music, the art +volumes you selected, Paul, and your own sketches and paintings——"</p> + +<p>"No loss there——"</p> + +<p>"Don't talk like a damn fool! Shakespeare—<i>Divina commedia</i>——"</p> + +<p>Dorothy twisted in the narrowness to put both arms around him. +"Doc—quiet, dear—please——"</p> + +<p>"I can remember pages of <i>Huck Finn</i>—<i>a few pages</i>!"</p> + +<p>Dorothy was wiping his face with a loose comer of her jacket. +"Doc—subside! Please now—make it stop hurting inside yourself. Oh, +quiet...."</p> + +<p>After a time he said lifelessly, "Go on with the inventory, Paul."</p> + +<p>"Well—there's a duplicate of that map Ed made yesterday from orbit +photographs of this area, about a hundred miles square. We're near the +eastern edge of that square. There's the other map he made of the +whole globe. We didn't duplicate that one. I guess that's about it."</p> + +<p>"Knives," Wright muttered. "Knives and a few tools."</p> + +<p>"The firearms may make a difference while they last."</p> + +<p>"Yes, perhaps. But thirty years from now——"</p> + +<p>"Thirty years from now," said Dorothy, still sheltering his head, +"thirty years from now our children will be grown."</p> + +<p>"Oh." Wright groped for her fingers. "You almost wanted it like this, +didn't you? I mean, to land and not return?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know, Doc. Maybe. I'm not sure I ever quite believed in the +possibility of return. State Orphanage children like Ann and me, +growing up in a tiny world within a big one, we weren't quite human +ever, were we? Not that the big world didn't seep in plenty." She +smiled<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> off at private shadows of memory. "We did learn things not in +the directors' curriculum. When they started grooming Ann and me for +this—Youth Volunteers! Stuffing our little heads with the best they +had—oh, it was fun too. By that time I think I had a fair idea of the +big world. The Orphanage was pleasant, you know—clean, humanitarian, +good teachers, all of them kind and more than a bit hurried. They did +try so hard never to let me hear the word 'nigger'! Ignorance is poor +insulating material, don't you think? And why, Doc, after all that's +been known and thought and argued for the last hundred years, couldn't +they select at least one Oriental for our little trip? Wouldn't have +had to come from Jenga's empire—our own states in the Federation had +plenty of 'em—scholars, technicians, anything you care to name."</p> + +<p>Wright had calmed. He said, "I argued for it and got told. They even +said that the spaceport rights and privileges recently given to +Jenga's empire would allow the Asiatics to build their own +ship—tacitly implying that humanity should stay in two camps world +without end. Ach! You can shove the political mind just so far, then +it stalls in its own dirt Even Jensen wasn't able to budge them."</p> + +<p>"It's history," said Dorothy, and Paul wondered: <i>How does she do it? +Speaking hands and voice, enough to shove away the black sorrow even +before it fairly had hold of him—and she'd try to do it for anyone, +loved or not. She was the first (and only one) who said to me there +are some things more important than love-and she herself would be +bothered to explain that in words.</i> "Well," Dorothy reflected, "I +believe the Orphanage slapped too much destiny of Man on the backs of +our little necks—they're just necks. Paul, why don't you sleep +awhile? You too, Doc. Let me keep watch. I'll wake you both if +anything stirs out there. Doze off, boys."</p> + +<p>Paul tried to, his mind restless in weary flesh. No permissible margin +of error, said the twenty-first century. But <i>Argo</i> lay at the bottom +of a lake because of an error. Not an error like the gross errors +twenty-first century man still made in dealing with his own kind and +still noisily disregarded, but an engineering error—something<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> +twenty-first-century man viewed with a horror once reserved, in not so +ancient times, for moral evil. The cardinal sin was to drop a decimal. +If, like Wright, or Paul himself, you were concerned with the agony +and growing pains of human nature, disturbed by the paralytic +sterility of state socialism and the worse paralysis of open tyranny, +you kept your mouth shut—or even yielded, almost unknowingly, to the +pressures that reduced ethical realities to a piddling checker game +perverting the uses of semantics. They said, "There won't be any war. +If there is, look what we've got!" If you were like the majority of +Earth's three billion, you hoped to get by with as much as the traffic +would bear and never stuck your neck out. They celebrated the turn of +the third millennium with a jolly new song: "Snuggle up, Baby—Uncle +pays the bill..." But for all that, you mustn't use the wrong bolt.</p> + +<p>Unreasonably quiet here. A jungle evening on Earth would have been +riotous with bird and insect noises.... He slept.</p> + +<p>It was dark when Wright's finger prodded him. "A visitor."</p> + +<p>The darkness was rose-tinged, not with sunset. There were two moons, +Paul remembered, one white and large and far away, one red and near. +Should the red moon be shining now? He gazed through the half-open +doorway, wondering why he was not afraid, seeing something pale and +vast, washed in—yes, surely in reddish moon-light. A thing swaying on +the pillars of its legs, perhaps listening, tasting the air for +strangeness. And scattered through the night, sapphires on black +velvet, were tiny dots of blue, moving, vanishing, reappearing. "Blue +fireflies," Dorothy whispered, "blue fireflies, that's all they are." +He felt her controlled breathing, forced down a foolish laugh. <i>We +could have done without a white elephant.</i></p> + +<p>Nine or ten feet tall at the shoulder, a tapir-like snout, black tusks +bending more nearly downward than an elephant's, from milk-white +flesh. The ears were mobile, waving to study the night. There was an +oval hump near the base of the neck. The beast had been facing them; +it turned to pull down a branch, munch the leaves, casually<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> drop the +stalk. In silence it drifted away, pausing to meditate, grumbling +juicily, but with no alarm.</p> + +<p>Wright whispered, "The planet Lucifer did not ask for us."</p> + +<p>"Paul—I stepped out for a minute, while you were both asleep. Firm +ground. A smell—flowers, I think—made me remember frangipani."</p> + +<p>"I'll try it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, but not with that thing——"</p> + +<p>"He didn't seem to mind us. I'll stay near the door." He knew Dorothy +would come with him. Feeling earth under legs that had nearly +forgotten it, he turned to help her down; her dark eyes played diamond +games with the moon-light.</p> + +<p>It could have been a night anywhere in the Galaxy, up there beyond +torn branches, stars, and red moon in a vagueness of cloud. Blue +fireflies ...</p> + +<p>But there was a child wailing somewhere. Far-off and weak, a dim rise +and fall of sound, grief and remoteness. A waterfall? Wind in upper +branches? But they were still, and the sound carried the timbre of +animal life. Dorothy murmured, "It's been crying that way ever since +moon-rise." She came closely into his arms.</p> + +<p>"I can read one thing inside of you—you're not scared."</p> + +<p>"I'm not, Paul?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"But don't ever leave me—Adam."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span></p> +<h2>3</h2> + + +<p>This was dawn: vision out of the dark: ripples of music coalescent in +one forest voice moving toward a crescendo of daytime.</p> + +<p>Paul watched a spreading of color in the leaves, a shift from black to +gray to a loveliness more green than red; the trees were massively +old, with varied bark of green or purple-brown. Phantoms in the more +distant shadows could be understood now that light was advancing: they +were thick trees with a white bark like that of the never-forgotten +birches of New Hampshire. Underfoot Paul felt a humus that might have +been a thousand years in growing; he prodded it with his knife—a +white worm curled in mimic death.</p> + +<p>Everywhere purple-leaved vines, vastly proliferating, climbed in a +riot of greed for the sunlight of the forest ceiling. Paul sensed a +mute cruelty in them, a shoving lust of growth. It might have been +these, elastically yielding, that had saved the lifeboat from total +ruin.</p> + +<p>Overnight the gravity of Lucifer had become natural. His close-knit +body accepted and relished it, finding a new pleasure in strength: +thirty-seven years old and very young.</p> + +<p>One tiny voice was near, persistent. Paul walked around the boat, +where Dorothy and Wright still slept. The starboard wing, parting from +the lifeboat, had gashed a tree trunk, littering the ground with +branches. The source of the voice was a brown lump, twenty feet up, +clinging head downward, a body small as a sparrow's, wings folded like +a bat's. As he watched they spread, quivered, and relaxed. Head and +ears were mousy, the neck long, with a hump at its base. The throat +pulsed at each cry. Near Paul's foot lay a fabric like an oriole's +nest, fastened to a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> twig that had been torn from the tree. Three +young had tumbled out. One was not mangled but all were dead, +hairless, poignantly ugly. "Sorry, baby—our first act on Lucifer." +The parent creature made another abortive motion as Paul took up the +young.</p> + +<p>Its high lament was not what he and Dorothy had heard in the night. +That had been continuing when he slipped out to watch for dawn, and it +had ended at some unnoticed moment—profoundly different, surely far +off....</p> + +<p>He tried to study the dead things as Sears Oliphant would want to do. +Two were hopelessly torn; he dug a hole in the humus and dropped those +in, smoothing the surface, wondering at his need for an act which +could mean nothing to the unhappy morsel of perception on the tree +trunk. The third, and the nest, he carried around the boat where the +light was better.</p> + +<p>All seven digits of the forelimb spread into a membranous wing; the +hind leg divided at the ankle, three toes anchoring the wing, the +other four fused into a slim foot which had suction pads. He cradled +the bit of mortality in his palm, recalling a thing Wright had said +when they entered the lifeboat. Captain Jensen, waiting for take-off +at the spaceport, trying, as he drank sherry with Christopher Wright, +to look at the venture under the aspect of eternity, had said he liked +the philosophical implications of <i>Argo's</i> converter, into which his +own body was strangely soon to pass. What was Wright's comment eleven +years later? "All life is cannibalism, benign or not: we are still +eating the dinosaurs." There had been more, which Paul could not +remember. So, man drove eleven years through space and killed three +babies. <i>But there was no element of malevolence</i>....</p> + +<p>Perhaps there was none in most of man's actions over the millennia.</p> + +<p>Wright crawled out, stiff-limbed and unrested.</p> + +<p>"'Morning, Doc. Let me introduce <i>Enigma Luciferensis</i>."</p> + +<p>"'Luciferensis' won't do." Wright peered down. "Everything is +'Luciferensis,' including the posterity Dot mentioned. Well now, +what——"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span></p> + +<p>"A nestling. Our crash broke the nest and killed the young."</p> + +<p>Wright fingered the fabric. "Beautiful. Leaves gummed together with +some secretion." With a doctor's intentness he added: "How d'you +feel?"</p> + +<p>"Good."</p> + +<p>A shadow circled Paul, settled on his arm, hobbling toward his palm +and what it held. He felt the suction cups; with a careful mouth the +creature took up its dead and flew away. "I've been remembering +something you said: life eating life—without too much concern for the +second law of thermodynamics. Forgive us our trespasses ... Good +morning, lady."</p> + +<p>"What did I miss?" Dorothy had glimpsed the departure.</p> + +<p>"Lucifer's idea of a bat. I think that big flying thing I saw from the +lifeboat was shaped like this midget. Haven't seen any birds."</p> + +<p>Dorothy hugged his arm. "Not even one measly robin?"</p> + +<p>"Sorry, Whifflepuff—fresh out of robins."</p> + +<p>Wright blinked at his compass. "Meadow that way." Paul was +inattentive, needing the warm quiet of the woman beside him. Wright +added: "First, breakfast." He broke the seal of a ration package and +snarled. "Thirty days, I b'lieve you said. Antique garbage—dehydrated +hay."</p> + +<p>Dorothy said, "You're nicest when you're mad, Doc. We'll soon have to +try the local stuff, I suppose."</p> + +<p>"Uh-huh. But no guinea-pig work for you or Ann."</p> + +<p>She was startled. "Why not? I can digest boilerplate."</p> + +<p>"Two women on Lucifer: valuable livestock." Wright smiled with his +mouth full. "I'm boss, remember? For guinea-pig work, the men draw +lots."</p> + +<p>She was grave. "I won't argue. It so happens——" She peeked into the +nest. "Poor little fuzzies lined it with fur. Their own, I'll bet."</p> + +<p>"It so happens what, dear?"</p> + +<p>"Ah ... This eleven-year-old gookum claims to be coffee. Can we make a +fire? Looks like dead wood over there."</p> + +<p>The branches burned aromatically; the morning was growing into deep +warmth, but still with freshness. Wright said, "Coffee my shirt."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span></p> + +<p>Dorothy tasted it. "Brr...! I was about to say when I interrupted +myself, it so happens I'm six or seven weeks pregnant, I think."</p> + +<p>"Six——" Wright set his aluminum cup carefully upside down. Paul +mumbled, "That's what's been on your mind."</p> + +<p>Behind her eyes he glimpsed the primitive thing, deeper than thought, +not like a part of her but a force that sustained her, himself, all +others: the three billion of Earth, the small grieving spirit now +flown away into the trees. "Yes, Adam. I would have told you sooner, +but we all had a lot on our minds."</p> + +<p>"Even before we got in orbit, you saw us settling—staying——"</p> + +<p>Dorothy grinned then. "No-o, Paul. I just wanted the baby. Could have +been born on the ship. The Federation said no, but...."</p> + +<p>Gradually Paul began to realize it. "But you said yes."</p> + +<p>She leaned to him, no longer smiling. "I said yes...."</p> + +<p>The forest floor hushed footsteps; some coolness lingered. Paul walked +in front, then Dorothy, and Wright marked blazes on the tree trunks. +Paul glanced backward often, to capture the receding patterns. At the +third such pause the lifeboat was no longer visible—only a sameness +of trees and sparse young life groping through shadow for the food of +the sun. In this depth of forest there was no brush; the going was +easy except for the nuisance of purple vines that sometimes looped +from tree to tree. Paul searched for any change of light ahead.</p> + +<p>The boat held all but what they wore, the two rifles, the three +pistols holstered at their hips, the three knives, three sealed ration +packages. Damage had prevented locking the door of the boat: to rob, +an inhabitant of Lucifer would need only intelligence enough to solve +the sliding mechanism. They had seen no life but that huge nocturnal +leaf eater, the small fliers, a white worm, and now a few timid +ten-legged scuttlers on the warm ground and midge-like specks dancing +in shafts of sunlight. Too quietly, Wright said, "Stop."</p> + +<p>Paul raised his rifle as he turned. Only untroubled forest. Wright's +warning hand lowered. "Almost saw it. Heard<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> nothing, just felt +a—watching. Might be in my head. Let's go on. And don't hurry."</p> + +<p>It would have been possible to hurry, even with an eye on the compass. +It would have been possible, Paul thought, to run in panic, fall +whimpering and waiting. But you wouldn't do it....</p> + +<p>No shape in this dim region could be right or wrong; the trees +themselves were no sweetly familiar beech or pine. They halted at +sight of a new sprawling type of vine, uprooted where a break in the +forest ceiling admitted more sunshine. The earth displayed hoof-prints +like a pig's. Some scattered tuberous roots were marked by teeth; +Dorothy sniffed one. "Spud with garlic for a papa." Paul pocketed a +sample. She said, "Not that Lucifer cares, Doc, but what time is it?"</p> + +<p>"My watch says we've been walking fifteen minutes. Take it slow." +Wright presently added: "I've had another glimpse. Not a good one. +Furry, gray and white—white face, splashes of white on a gray body +seven or eight feet tall. Human shape. We may be all right if we don't +bother him."</p> + +<p>"Or blunder into territory where he doesn't want us."</p> + +<p>"There is that, Paul."</p> + +<p>"Human shape," said Dorothy evenly. "How human?"</p> + +<p>"Very. Upright. Good-sized head ... Ah—hear that?" It was Ann's +voice, calling, from someplace where there should be sunlight. "Don't +answer just yet—no sudden noises."</p> + +<p>Close to Paul, Dorothy whispered, "The baby—I don't want to tell the +others quite yet."</p> + +<p>That made it real—so real that in spite of a patch of beckoning blue +Paul had to turn to her.</p> + +<p>Behind Wright, he saw it, among the pillars of the trees, retreating +in fluid slowness till it was only a black ear, part of a white-furred +cheek, an iridescent green eye showing, like a cat's, no white. But +the blue was also real....</p> + +<p>The edge of the forest was a mass of young growth fighting for the +gold coin of sunlight. "Shield your faces"—Wright was panting—"could +be poisonous leaves." They broke through to a red-green field, the +slim silver of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> undamaged boat, the certainty of friends, an +expanse of lake no longer blue but sickly white. The boat's nose was +thrust under an overhang of branches. Ann Bryan was unsteady and wan, +but there was welcome in her gray eyes for Dorothy, who joined her at +once and whispered with her. Sears' fat affectionate face carried a +determined smile. Ed Spearman came forward, alert and commanding. +Wright asked, "How long have you been out in the air?"</p> + +<p>"An hour." Ed was impatient. "Sealed overnight. Nothing in the boat +for a test of the air, no point in waiting. You——"</p> + +<p>"Okay." Wright watched brown wings over the lake. "What are those?"</p> + +<p>"Birds or some damn thing. The white on the lake is dead fish. I +suppose the ship blew under water or the impact killed them. Our +Geiger says the water isn't radioactive. We haven't gone into the +meadow—been waiting for you."</p> + +<p>In the south the meadow reached the horizon—twenty miles of it, Paul +remembered from the air view, before jungle again took over. Near by, +threads of smoke were rising straight from the grass. "Abandoned +fires? We scared off——"</p> + +<p>"Maybe," Spearman said. "Seen no life except those birds."</p> + +<p>"Bat wings," Sears Oliphant remarked. "Mammalian, I think—oh my, yes. +Can't have furry birds, you know, with a taxonomist in the family, +hey?"</p> + +<p>Spearman shrugged. "Must get organized. How much damage, Paul?"</p> + +<p>"The boat itself. Both wings off, radio dead. Couldn't lock the +door...." It was like an Earth landscape. Tall grass carried oatlike +ruddy seed clusters on green stems. The lake was bordered by white +sand except close by, where jungle reached into water. There was +casual buzzing traffic above the grass, reminiscent of bees, wasps, +flies. Far up, something drifted on motionless wings, circling. And +ten or fifteen miles to the west there was the calm of hills—rounded, +old, more green than blue in a sleepy haze, but to paint them, Paul +thought, you would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> shade off into the purple. Paul went on, absently: +"We'll have the charlesite of the wrecked boat of course. That gives +this one a theoretical twenty hours of jet. We have ammunition for +long enough to learn how to use bow and arrow, I think."</p> + +<p>Ann muttered, "Paul, don't——"</p> + +<p>"What?" Spearman was disgusted. "Oh, you could be right at that, Paul. +Hard to realize ... Well, we must make some kind of camp."</p> + +<p>Wright began: "Some knowledge of the life around us——"</p> + +<p>"Oh my, yes——"</p> + +<p>"We'll have to make a camp before we can do any exploring, Doc. Here, +out in the open. See anything in the woods?"</p> + +<p>"Something followed. More or less human——"</p> + +<p>"So we know the camp has to be in the open."</p> + +<p>"Do we, Ed?" Wright watched the distant bat wings. Spearman stared. +"Can't chance a forest we don't know."</p> + +<p>"Still, I mean to look things over a bit. Feel not so good, Ann?"</p> + +<p>"All right," she said, glancing from Wright to Spearman, silently +begging to know: <i>Who is leader?</i> "Slightly slap-happy, Doc."</p> + +<p>"Mm, sure." Wright hitched his rifle. "Going to look at that nearest +smoke. You come, Paul—or you, Ed. One of you should stay here."</p> + +<p>Spearman leaned against the lifeboat, still-faced. "Paul can go if he +wants to. I think it's a risk and a waste of time."</p> + +<p>Paul watched him a moment, frightened not by a man whom he had never +quite been able to like, but by the withdrawal itself, the sense of a +barrier to communication. <i>We start with a division on this first +morning of the world...?</i> Paul hugged his own rifle and followed +Wright into the long whisper of the grass.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span></p> +<h2>4</h2> + + +<p>Moist heat pressed down, but the air of the meadow was sweet. There +were marks of trampling as well as the swath the boat had cut—trails, +places where something might have crouched. Under his breath Wright +asked, "Feel all right, Paul?"</p> + +<p>Truth was more needed than a show of courage. "Not perfect, Doc. Am I +flushed? You are, a little."</p> + +<p>"Yes. Trace of fever; may wear off. Here's something——"</p> + +<p>They had not come far. Two red bodies barely three feet tall sprawled +near each other face down in the grass. Paul noticed oval bulges +between shoulder blades modified to accommodate them, the pathos of +fingers—seven-fingered hands—holding earth in a final grasp. The +male wore a loincloth of black fabric and a quiver almost full of +arrows; the female had a grass skirt, and her hand was tight on a +stone-headed spear longer than herself. A bow of carved wood lay some +distance away; one could see how the little man had crawled in his +agony after the bow was lost. Wright turned them over gently—bald +skulls, no trace of body hair on skin of a rich copper color exciting +to a painter's vision, green eyes with no visible whites in human +faces heavily tattooed, wide-open eyes, accusing no one. The bodies +were in rigor, a shaft in the man's neck, the woman pierced by an +arrow in the side. Blood colored the grass, dry but eloquent.</p> + +<p>"War too," said Wright, and pulled out the arrows, showing Paul the +stone heads, the intricate carving of the wood, thin-whittled wooden +vanes taking the place of feathers. "Stone Age war...."</p> + +<p>The male pygmy was the smaller of the two, and softer,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> his shape not +feminine but rounded and smooth. Both seemed mature, so far as age +could be guessed at all. The woman was rugged, with a coarser skin and +the scar tissue of old wounds; her two pairs of breasts were scarcely +more prominent than the ridged muscles of her midget chest.</p> + +<p>Wright mulled it over, kneading his wrinkled throat. "Physical +refinements of evolution as far along as our own. Straight thigh and +neck, perfect upright posture; there was no slouch or belly sag when +they were on their feet. Human jaw, big brain case. That furry giant I +saw in the woods had complete upright posture too. Oh, it's natural, +Paul. You stick fins on an ocean vertebrate, turn him into a +four-legged land animal, give him a few hundred million years. Almost +bound to free his front limbs if they've stayed unspecialized." In the +gaunt face, sadness and pity struggled with a bitter sort of mirth. +"The brain gets large, boy, and away you go, to—ach—to the +Federation versus the Asian Empire—Lincoln, Rembrandt, the state +papers of Abraham Brown. And to you and Dorothy and the baby." Wright +stood erect, brushing bony knees, calm again. "I'm almost pleased to +find it this primitive. I don't think it can have gone further +anywhere on the planet, or we'd have seen cities, farms, roads, in the +photographs. Unless——"</p> + +<p>"Unless what, Doctor?"</p> + +<p>"Oh—unless there might be forms with no Earth parallel. In the +forests perhaps—even underground. Thought of that? But that's +speculations, and our little soldiers here are fact. They have a +civilization—arrows say so, tattooing, garments. Rigid, +tradition-bound—or maybe not, depending on how much language they've +developed to tie 'emselves in knots with."</p> + +<p>"Bow and arrow—why, suh, almost as advanced as not being afraid to +end a sentence with a preposition."</p> + +<p>"Hell with you. Twenty thousand years ago, or whenever it was we +reached our present physique, if there'd been anything external to +teach men how to behave like grown-ups——. Well, we had to sweat it +out—tribal wars, bigger wars, venerated fears, errors, and +stupidities. But maybe here——"</p> + +<p>"Are <i>we</i> big enough?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span></p> + +<p>Wright shut his eyes. His thin cheeks were too bright; there was a +tremor in the rifle tip. "Wish I knew, Paul. We have to try."</p> + +<p>Ed Spearman yelled, "Look out!" A rifle banged, and a pistol.</p> + +<p>A brown darkness had come swooping from the lake. Others +followed—mud-brown, squealing. They had banked at the noise of the +shots to circle overhead. Paul fired; a near one tumbled, screeching, +thrashing a narrow wolfish head on a long neck, black teeth snapping +in the death throes—but even now it was trying to hobble forward and +get at them. The others wheeled lower until Wright's rifle spoke, and +Spearman's; there was the dry slap of Dorothy's automatic pistol. +"Back to the trees!" The wounded thing on the ground set up a bubbling +howl.</p> + +<p>More were coming, with weaving of pointed red-eyed heads on mobile +necks. Paul ran, Wright loping beside him, hearing the crash of their +friends' weapons. Something slammed Paul's shoulder, flopped against +his leg, tripping him. He tumbled over a shape furry and violent that +smelled of fish and carrion. He fought clear of it, sobbing in animal +wrath, and reached the shelter of the trees and Dorothy's embrace. +Sweat blinded him. Wright was clutching him too, getting his jacket +off.</p> + +<p>"Flesh wound. The hind foot got you——"</p> + +<p>"I saw it." Ann Bryan choked. "Saw it happen. Filthy claws——"</p> + +<p>Wright had a bottle of antiseptic. "Son, you ain't going to like this. +Hang on to the lady." But the pain was a welcome flare. Paul's eyes +cleared as Wright made him a bandage of gauze, with Dorothy's help. He +could look from the shelter of overhanging branches at a confusion of +wings. The creatures had not followed as far as the lifeboat; perhaps +its shining mass disturbed them.</p> + +<p>Spearman groaned: "You <i>would</i> go out."</p> + +<p>Wright snapped at him. "Camp in the open—some disadvantages——"</p> + +<p>"Granted. But you sure learned it the hard way." "Eating"—Ann +pointed, nauseated—"their own wounded—"</p> + +<p>Wright stepped between her and the loud orgy in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span> meadow. "Wing +spread, fifteen feet. Well—sky's bad, woods maybe. What do you +suggest?"</p> + +<p>"Clear underbrush," Spearman said, "so we can see into the woods. Pile +it just beyond this overhang of branches for a barrier, leave a space +so we can reach the lifeboat. We can get to the lake for water without +going much in the open."</p> + +<p>"Good," said Wright. A peace offering. Spearman smiled neutrally.</p> + +<p>"If the water's safe," said Sears Oliphant.</p> + +<p>Wright grinned at the fat man. "Pal, it better be."</p> + +<p>"Miracles?" Sears' shoulders shot up amiably. "We can hope it is, with +boiling. Gotta have it. Canteens won't last the day, in this heat."</p> + +<p>Paul helped Ed unpack tools from the lifeboat. "One sickle," Spearman +noted. "No scythe. Garden gadgets. Pruning shears. One ax, one damned +hatchet. No scythe, no scythe——. There were two or three on the +ship."</p> + +<p>"Maybe the lake's not so deep."</p> + +<p>"Maybe we'll play hell trying to find out too. Those things weren't +much scared by the shooting...."</p> + +<p>Hot, tedious work created a circle of clear shaded ground which must +be called home. A fire was boiling lake water in the few aluminum +vessels. It had a fishy, mud-bottom taste and could not be cooled, but +it eased thirst. Paul had glimpsed Ann in the lifeboat, opening her +violin case, closing it, sick-faced. He had marveled again at the +mystery of a Federation governing two-thirds of a world, which had +genially allowed a fourteen-year-old musician to carry her violin on +man's greatest venture—with enough strings to last two or three years +and no means of restringing the bow. Later Ann threw herself into the +labor of clearing brush but tired quickly from her own violence. +Sears' microscope occupied a camp table; Paul and Dorothy joined him +in a pause for rest. "Got anything for the local news-paper?"</p> + +<p>"Unboiled lake water-assorted wrigglers." Sears mopped his cheeks. +"'Twas never meant my name should be Linnaeus. Have a look." The world +on the slide seemed not unlike what Sears had once shown him in water +from the hydroponics room of <i>Argo</i>: protoplasmic abundance no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> mind +could grasp. "So far, nothing basically different from what you'd find +in lake water on Earth—except for the trifle that every species is +unknown, hey? I suppose that's why they heaved a taxonomist into +space, to see what the poor cluck would do, hey? Now, those red dots +are something like algae. Notice a big ciliated schlemihl blundering +around? He could almost be old man paramecium, oh my, yes. Gi'me your +sickle, muscle man."</p> + +<p>"Hot work, Jocko. Take it slow and easy."</p> + +<p>"Believe me, Mistuh Mason, I will. What——"</p> + +<p>In undergrowth beyond the clearing there was deep-throated fury, a +crashing of branches. A gray and white man shape staggered out of +concealment, wrenching at what looked like swollen black rope. But the +rope had a head, gripping the giant's forearm; a black loop circled +the giant's loins and his free arm, tearing and pounding, could not +loosen it. A saurian hind leg groped, hooking for purchase into gray +fur.</p> + +<p>Paul's hunting knife was out; there was time only for recognition. The +gray and white being was everything human caught in a coil. Paul +forced himself through a barrier of fear, hearing Wright yell, "Don't +shoot, Ed! Put that away." There was no shot. Paul knew he was between +Spearman and the confusion of combat; someone was blundering behind +him. A black reptilian tail stretched into bushes, grasping something +for anchorage. Paul slashed at that. The mass of heaving life rolled +on the ground as the giant lost his footing, serpent teeth still +buried in his forearm. Green eyes were pleading in a universal +language.</p> + +<p>Wright was clutching a black neck, with no strength to move it, and +Paul stabbed at scaled hide behind a triangular head, but the skin was +like metal. The forelimbs were degenerate vestiges, the hind legs +cruelly functional. At last the steel penetrated; Paul twisted it, +probing for a brain. The giant had ceased struggling; the furred face +was close. Paul could feel the difficult breath, sense a rigid +waiting.... The teeth let go. The giant leaped free, returning at once +with a stone the size of Paul's chest, to fling it down on the +slow-dying body, repeating the action till his enemy was a smear of +black and red.</p> + +<p>Now in returning quiet a furred man eight feet tall<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> watched them +openly. Wright said, "Ed, put away that gun. This man is a friend."</p> + +<p>"Man!" Spearman holstered his automatic, ready for a draw. "Your +daydreams will kill us all yet."</p> + +<p>"Smile, all of you—maybe his mouth does the same thing." Wright +stepped to the trembling monster, hands open. Ann was sobbing in +reaction, smothering the sound. Wright pointed at himself. "Man." He +touched the gray fur. "Man...."</p> + +<p>The giant drew back, not with violence. Paul felt Dorothy's small +fingers shivering on his arm. The giant sucked his wound and spat, +turning his head away from Wright to do it. "Man—man...." Wright's +hand, small and pale as an oyster shell, spread beside the huge palm, +six fingers, long four-jointed thumb. "Paul—your first-aid kit. I +want just the gauze."</p> + +<p>Spearman said, "Are you crazy?"</p> + +<p>"It's a chance," Sears Oliphant said in a level, careful voice. "Doc +knows what he's doing. Ed, you should know you can't stop him."</p> + +<p>Wright was pointing to Paul's bandaged shoulder and to the giant's +wound. The high furred forehead puckered in obvious effort. Dorothy +was choking on a word or two: "Doc—must you—"</p> + +<p>"He knows we're friends. He's been watching a long time. He saw Paul +get hurt and then bandaged." The giant's trembling was only a +spasmodic shuddering. "Man—man...." Wright snipped off gauze. "And he +knows that thing is a weapon, Ed. Will you put it away?"</p> + +<p>"He could break you in two. You know that, don't you?"</p> + +<p>"But he won't. Give protoplasm a chance." Now Wright was winding gauze +lightly, firmly, hiding the already clotting blood, and the giant made +no move of rejection. "Man—man."</p> + +<p>"Man." The giant murmured it cautiously, prolonging the vowel; he +touched his chest. "<i>Essa kana.</i>" A finger ran exploringly over the +gauze.</p> + +<p>"Essa kana—man," said Wright, and swayed on his feet.</p> + +<p>The giant pointed at the bloody mess on the ground and rumbled: +"<i>Kawan</i>." He shuddered, and his arm swept in a loose gesture that +appeared to indicate the curving<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> quarter mile where lake and jungle +met each other in a black-water marsh. Then he was staring out, +muttering, at the wings in the meadow, and presently he touched Paul's +bandage with fantastic lightness. "<i>Omasha</i>," he said, pointing at the +flying beasts. He indicated the rifle wobbling in Sears' arm and held +up two fingers. "Omasha."</p> + +<p>"Yes, we killed two omasha. Sears-man. Paul-man. Wright-man."</p> + +<p>The giant rumpled his chest fur. "Mijok."</p> + +<p>"Mijok-man.... Mijok, why didn't I have you in Anthropology IA fifteen +years ago? We'd've cleaned up the joint." Mijok knew laughter; his +booming in response to Wright's tone and smile could mean nothing +else. But Wright staggered and was breathing hard. Dorothy whispered, +"Paul—"</p> + +<p>It could not be pushed aside any more—the pain separate from the +smart of his shoulder, tightness in the eyeballs, chill, nausea. "The +air—"</p> + +<p>Wright's knees buckled. Sears had dropped the rifle and was helping +him to the lifeboat, Paul watching the action in a daze of stupidity. +Wright's eyes had gone empty.... Paul was uncertain how he himself +came to be sitting on the ground. Dorothy's face was somewhere; he +touched it. Her brown cheek was fire-hot, and she was trying to speak. +"Paul—take care of you—always—"</p> + +<p>The face of Mijok was there too—red vapor turning black.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span></p> +<h2>5</h2> + + +<p>Paul Mason stared into blue calm: airy motion of branches against the +sky, a mystery remembered from long ago, in a place called New +Hampshire. Those years were not dead: secretly the mind had brought +them here. <i>What a small journey! Less than five light-years: on a +star map you could hardly represent it with the shortest of lines....</i> +He was without pain, and cool. Time? Why, that amiable thud of a heart +in a firm, familiar body (his own, surely?), that was indicating time. +The boy in New Hampshire, after sprawling on his lazy back and +discovering the miracle of sky—hadn't he tried to paint it, even +then? Messed about with his uncle's palette, creating a daub that +had—oh, something, a little something. <i>Very well. Once upon a time +there was a painter named Paul Mason</i> ... Dorothy....</p> + +<p>"You're back—oh, darling! No, Paul, don't sit up fast or your head'll +hurt. Mine did." Now she was curling into the hollow of his arm, +laughing and weeping. "You're back...."</p> + +<p>A thin old man sat cross-legged on gray moss. Paul asked him, "How +long?"</p> + +<p>Christopher Wright smiled, twisting and teasing the skin of his gaunt +throat, gray with a thick beard stubble. "A day and a night, the nurse +says. You know—the nurse? You were kissing her a moment ago. It's +early morning again, Paul. She was never quite unconscious, she +claims. I recovered an hour ago. No ill effects. It knocked out the +others at nightfall—predictable. They were exposed to Lucifer's air +thirteen hours later than we were." Paul saw them now, lying on beds +of the gray—moss? And where he and Dorothy clung to each other was +the same pleasant stuff—dry, spongy, with an odor like clover hay.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> +"Beds by courtesy of Mijok." Wright nodded toward the gray giant, who +had also brought moss for himself and now sprawled belly down, +breathing silently, the bulge between his shoulder blades lightly +rising and falling. Mijok's face was on his arm, turned away toward +the purple shadow of forest.</p> + +<p>Dorothy whispered, "He watched over us all night."</p> + +<p>"So you were conscious all the time? Tell me."</p> + +<p>Dorothy kept her voice low. Paul noticed the towering slimness of the +lifeboat beyond the barrier of branches, reversed—Ed Spearman's work, +he supposed. It pointed toward the west. Turned so, the jet would +blast toward the lake, harming nothing. Its shadow held away the heat +of the sun, a gleaming artifact of twenty-first century man, the one +alien thing in this wilderness morning. The sickness, Dorothy said, +had taken her with a sudden paralysis: she could see, hear, be aware +of boiling fever, but could not move. Then even the sense of heat left +her—she was only observing eyes, ears, and a brain. She had had a +fantasy that she was dead, no longer breathing. "But I breathed." Her +small brown face crinkled with a laughter rich in more than amusement. +"It's a habit I don't mean to abandon."</p> + +<p>"Neurotoxin," said Wright, "and a damn funny one. Back on Earth, when +I believed myself to be a doctor, I never heard of anything like it."</p> + +<p>The condition had lasted all day, she said; at nightfall her sense of +touch had gradually returned. She could move her hands, later her feet +and head. At length she had sat up, briefly blinded by pain in the +forehead, then she had given way to an overwhelming need for sleep. "I +got a glimpse of you, Paul, and tumbled off into a set of dreams that +were—not so bad, not so bad. I woke before sunrise. Different. Don't +ask me how. Never felt healthier. Not even weak, as you should be +after a fever. But Doc—what if the illness—"</p> + +<p>Wright looked away from the terror that had crossed her face. "If you +go on feeling all right, we can assume nothing's wrong with the baby. +Don't borrow trouble, sugarpuss—we've got enough."</p> + +<p>"Maybe," Paul suggested, "the illness was just—oh, some of our Earth +metabolism getting burned out of us.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> A stiff acclimation course." +Wright grunted, pinching his long nose. Paul said, "Wish it had burned +out the yen for a cigarette that I've had for eleven years."</p> + +<p>Sears Oliphant, the only other with some medical knowledge, had taken +charge immediately after their collapse. "He is—scared, Paul," +Dorothy murmured. "Of Lucifer, I mean. I could feel it when I was just +a pair of eyes and ears. More physical shrinking in him than in the +rest of us, and he's fighting it back with all he's got. He's a very +big man, Paul...." Sears looked peaceful enough now, in the dark sleep +of the sickness, his moon face bristling with black beard growth but +relaxed and bland. On another couch of moss, Spearman was more +restless, powerful arms twitching as if he needed to fight the +disaster even in sleep. Ann Bryan was deeply flushed and moaned a +little now and then. "Ed was all right too. Considerate. Took all +Sears' orders without any fuss or question; I don't think he's much +scared. He feels he can bull his way through anything, and maybe he's +right." Dorothy's helpless eyes had also seen Mijok bringing moss in +great armfuls. This, she thought, had helped Ed Spearman to accept the +giant as a man and perhaps as a friend. She remembered Mijok raising +Paul and herself in one careful swing of his arms to set them down +beside each other on the moss. Later she had watched him turning the +lifeboat under direction of Spearman's blunt gestures. Its length was +thirty-four feet, its weight over three tons Earth gravity—more here. +One gray-white arm had lifted the tail and swung the boat on its +landing gear as a man might push a light automobile. "I wasn't afraid. +After dark, when I knew the sickness had got the others, I still +wasn't afraid. Believe me? I could see Mijok moving around. Once I +heard him growl—I think he was driving something off. And then while +the red moon was coming up, he sat by us—his eyes are red in the +dark, Paul, not green. He smells musky at close range, but clean. I +wasn't afraid. Now and then he'd look us over and smile with his funny +black lips and touch the furry back of his finger to our foreheads.... +I could see the blue fireflies, Paul. Someday you'll make up stories +about them for the baby.... I heard that crying again—much nearer +than when we heard it that first night by the other lifeboat. Like a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> +group of children crying, if you can imagine that synchronized, almost +musical. Mijok growled and fretted when it began, but it came no +nearer. It had stopped when I woke."</p> + +<p>"Some of Earth's critters sounded human—panthers, owls, frogs—"</p> + +<p>"Ye-es. Just possibly something like tree frogs...."</p> + +<p>Wright said, "Mijok brought us raw meat this morning before he went to +sleep, something like a deer haunch. The fire bothers him—he +evidently didn't go near it last night after the others collapsed."</p> + +<p>"Ed tried to show him about fire," Dorothy said. "I remember. Mijok +was scared, and Sears told Ed to let it wait."</p> + +<p>"Meat was good too." Wright smirked. "We got the fire going, and Mijok +did try some cooked and liked it. You and Dorothy can have some +tomorrow if I don't turn purple."</p> + +<p>"Not guinea-pig," said Dorothy. "Just pig."</p> + +<p>"Hungry?" Wright tossed Paul a ration package.</p> + +<p>"Gah!" But he opened it. "Learned any more of Mijok's words?"</p> + +<p>"No. He won't have many. Nouns, simple descriptives. Must have some +continuing association with his own breed, or he'd have no words at +all. A hunter—with only nature's weapons, I think. That haunch was +torn, not cut—some hoofed animal smaller than a pony, fresh-killed +and well bled. He must have got it while Dorothy slept. It may have +strayed into the camp during the night. I think Mijok lives in the +woods, maybe not even a shelter or a permanent mate. Anthropology IA." +said Wright, and bowed in mimic apology to the sleeping giant. "Those +pygmies will be something else again—Neolithic. Wish I understood +that bulge between the shoulder blades. All the creatures we've seen +have it—even that damn black reptile, I believe, though things were +too mixed up to be sure."</p> + +<p>Mijok woke—all at once, like a cat. He stretched, extending his arms +twelve feet from wrist to wrist. He smiled down at Paul. He studied +the helpless ones, peering longest at Ann Bryan; the black-haired girl +was breathing harshly, fidgeting. Now and then her eyes flickered open +and perhaps they saw. Softly as smoke Mijok stepped into the shadow of +the trees and listened. Wright remarked,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> "Speaking of that reptile, +we should set up a monument to it. Nothing luckier could have happened +than that chance to lend Mijok a hand." His gray eyes fixed on Paul, +lids lowered in a speculative smile. "I'm not the only one who +remembers, Paul, that you were the first to go to his help. He hasn't +forgotten.... Dot, you're sure Ed understood that we have a friend +there?"</p> + +<p>"He seemed to, Doc. I watched them. They got along—practically +buddies."</p> + +<p>Paul saw the bandage was still on Mijok's arm, earth-stained and with +fragments of gray moss, but not disarranged; the bandage on his own +shoulder had been removed. The flying beast's attack had left only a +heavy scratch, which looked clean; there was no pain, only an itching. +The meadow was empty of brown wings. The dead fish were gone from the +lake. Perhaps other scavengers had been busy in the thirteen-hour +night. The water was an innocent blue, a luminous stillness under the +sun.</p> + +<p>Mijok stole out into the grass, gazing westward along the line where +meadow met jungle. Returning, he squatted by Wright and muttered, +"<i>Migan</i>." He spread a hand three feet above the ground; two fingers +drooped and indicated the motion of walking legs. Paul suggested: +"Pygmies?"</p> + +<p>"Could be." Mijok stared eloquently at Wright's rifle then crouched at +the barrier of branches, complaining in his throat. Taking up his own +rifle, Paul joined him. Dorothy hurried to the lifeboat and came back +with field glasses for him and Wright and herself. In spite of the +great planet's heavy pull, her body moved with even more light +easiness than it had shown in the unreal years of <i>Argo</i>. With the +glasses, vague motion a quarter mile away in the meadow leaped +shockingly into precision.</p> + +<p>The pygmies were not approaching but heading out from the edge of the +forest, a group of nine, barely taller than the grass, bald red heads +and shoulders in single file. The rearmost had a burden: seven others +carried bows, with quivers on the right hip. "Left-handed," Paul +observed aloud. The leader was the tallest—a woman, with a long +spear. All were sending anxious glances at the sky and toward the +human shelter; their motions suggested a fear so deep it must be pain, +yet something drew them out there in spite of it. The pygmy with the +burden, a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> rolled-up hide, was also a woman. The leader was bald as +the others, slender, muscular, her head round, with prominent forehead +and thin nose, tattooed cheeks. The bowmen had only simple loincloths, +and belts for their arrow quivers. The women's knee-length grass +skirts were like the Melanesian, but the leader's was dyed a brilliant +blue. Her two little pairs of breasts were youthfully firm and +pointed. Dorothy murmured, "American civilization would have gone mad +about those people."</p> + +<p>"What a girl!" Wright sighed. "I mean Dorothy—the Dope."</p> + +<p>"Even a dope can be jealous. Do you s'pose Mrs. Mijok has—Oh! Oh, +poor darling! Not funny after all, gentlemen——"</p> + +<p>The pygmy leader had turned full face, as the nine paused at trampled +grass. She wore a necklace of shell. These had no glitter, but their +yellow and blue made handsome splashes against the red of her skin. +Reason told Paul that she could see at most only dazzling spots where +sunlight might be touching the glasses he had thrust through wilted +leaves. It made no difference: she was staring directly into him, +making her grief a part of his life. A still-faced grief, too profound +for any tears, if she knew of tears. The green cat eyes lowered; she +stabbed her spear into the ground and lifted her arms, a giving, +yielding motion. Her lips moved—in prayer, surely, since all but one +of the men were bowed, performing ritual gestures toward whatever lay +on the ground. The one who did not bow never ceased to watch the sky. +The prayer was brief. The woman's left hand dropped meaningly, the +hide was unrolled, and its bearer raised what the grass had hidden—no +more than a skull and a few bones, a broken spear, a muddy scrap that +might have been a grass skirt. The hide was folded gently over these; +the group went on.</p> + +<p>"Dorothy—those things you saw running when we were circling down—I +missed 'em," Wright said. "Poor eyesight, and seems to me the air was +still misty from <i>Argo's</i> crash in the lake. They were going south, +away from here? And they could have been—people like these?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Hundreds or thousands of them. I suppose the crash of <i>Argo</i> +must have seemed like the heavens falling. The lifeboats too."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I think we interrupted a war."</p> + +<p>"These would be survivors? Live in this part of the jungle maybe? +Looking for what's left after those—those flying beasts—"</p> + +<p>"It makes sense," Wright said. "They're more afraid of the sky than of +our setup over here. Maybe we're gods who came down to help them. If +we did help them. Look: they've found another.... Yes, now the +prayer.... Wish Mijok wasn't so afraid of them. Inevitable. To them I +suppose he's an ugly wild animal. Different species, similar enough to +be shocked at the similarity. 'Tain't good."</p> + +<p>"Do we try for a foot in both camps?"</p> + +<p>"Paul, I think I'll take a rain check on answering that.... Ach—if I +could go out there now—communicate—"</p> + +<p>"No!" Dorothy gasped. "Not while the others are still sick."</p> + +<p>"You're right of course." Wright fretted at his beard stubble. "I get +sillier all the time. As Ed would tell me if he were up and around. +It's the high oxygen...."</p> + +<p>There were brown splashes in the sky. The pygmies saw the peril first +and darted for the woods—an orderly flight however—the woman with +the hide in front, the blue-skirted woman next, then the bowmen. Three +of the latter turned bravely and shot arrows that glittered and +whined. The brown beasts wheeled and flapped angrily upward, though +the buzzing arrows dropped far short of them. The pygmies gained the +trees; the omasha scouted the edge of the woods, squawking, three of +them drifting toward the lifeboat, weaving heads surveying the ground. +Paul gave way to unfamiliar savage enjoyment. "Do we, Doc?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Wright, and took aim himself.</p> + +<p>All three were brought down, at a cost of four irreplaceable rifle +bullets and two shots from Dorothy's automatic. Mijok bellowed with +satisfaction but recoiled as Wright dragged a dirty brown carcass into +the clearing. "A dissection is in order." Mijok grumbled and fidgeted. +"Don't fret, Mijok." Wright pegged down the wings of the dead animal +with sharp sticks and drew an incision on the leathery belly with his +hunting knife. "Good head shot, Paul—this one's yours. We'll do a +brain job from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> one of the others, but I think we'll let that wait for +Sears—oh my, yes...! Doesn't weigh over thirty pounds. Hollow bones +like a bird's, very likely. Hope they'll keep."</p> + +<p>"You hope," Dorothy sniffed. "What do you do when I turn housewife and +instruct you to get that awful mess the hell off my nice clean floor?"</p> + +<p>"Dope! And you my best and only medical student." He worked at the +cutting dubiously, inexpertly. "Conventional mammalian setup, more or +less. Small lungs, big stomach. Hah—two pairs of kidneys?" He spread +the viscera out on the wing. "Short intestine, also like a bird. And +she was preparing a blessed event multiplied by—count 'em—six."</p> + +<p>"Too many," said Paul. "Altogether too industrious."</p> + +<p>"What I really want to know—Oh...?" With the lungs removed, it could +be seen that the hump on the back was caused by a great enlargement of +four thoracic vertebrae, which swelled into the chest cavity as well +as outward. Wright cut away spinal cartilage. "Damn, I <i>wish</i> Sears +was doing this. Well, it's neural tissue, nothing else—a big swelling +of the spinal cord." He sliced at the ugly head, but the hermorrhage +from a .30-caliber bullet confused the picture. "The brain looks too +simple. Could that lump in the cord be the hind brain? I hereby leave +the theories to Sears. But, son, you might slit the stomach and see +what the old lady had for breakfast."</p> + +<p>Paul's clumsy cut on the slippery stomach bag made it plain what the +omasha had eaten—among other things, an almost complete +seven-fingered hand. Dorothy choked and walked away, saying, "I am +going to be—"</p> + +<p>"Cheer up." Paul held her forehead. "Never mind the clean floor—"</p> + +<p>"Go away. I mean stay very close. Sorry to be so physiological. Me a +medic student! Even blood bothers me."</p> + +<p>"Never mind, sugar—"</p> + +<p>"Sugar yourself, and wash your paws. We smell."</p> + +<p>Mijok was muttering in alarm. Wright had abandoned the dissection and +gone out in the meadow, cautious but swift, to the spot where +yesterday they had found the pygmy soldiers. He took up a small skull +and arm bone, pathetically clean—perhaps there were insect scavengers +that followed after the omasha—and the discarded bow.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> But instead of +bringing back these relics, Wright held them high over his head, +facing westward. Tall and gray in the heavy sun, he stepped twenty +paces further toward the region where the pygmies had entered the +jungle; then he set the bones down in the grass and strode back to the +shelter, fingers twitching, lips moving in his old habit of talking +half to himself, half to the world. "The omasha," he said, "cracked +the enlarged vertebrae—favorite morsel maybe."</p> + +<p>Mijok moaned, blinking and sighing. He stared long at the silent grace +of the lifeboat, then at Christopher Wright. He too was talking to +himself. Abruptly, something gave way in him. He was kneeling before +Wright, bending forward, taking Wright's hands and pressing them +against the gray-white fur of his face and his closed eyes. "Oh, now," +Wright said, "now, friend—"</p> + +<p>Paul remarked, "You're elected."</p> + +<p>"I will not be a god."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span></p> +<h2>6</h2> + + +<p>Mijok released the hands of his deity and sat back on his haunches, +foggy-eyed. Wright stroked the great furry head, troubled and amazed. +"It won't do," Wright said. "We'll have no gods on this planet. Unless +human nature can make itself a little godlike. And no final +Armageddon—for that's within too, and always was. Well, he'll learn +language fast. As he does, the first thing he must discover is that +we're all one flesh." But Mijok was gazing up in adoration at the +sound of the voice, trembling, not in fear, smiling when he saw Wright +smile. "I believe he never had a god before—hadn't reached the stage +of personalizing the forces of nature. They're just forces, and +himself a bundle of perception, not even realizing that he's more +knowing and sensitive than other animals. Not arrogant yet, not +sophisticated enough to be cruel, or mean, or even ambitious...."</p> + +<p>Dorothy pushed her fists into her cheeks, brown eyes upturned to study +the old man: a way she had, carrying Paul back eleven years to the day +he had come aboard the ship and seen her for the first time and loved +the woman who was, even then, manifest in the leggy, awkward child. +"Doc, why did you do that, out there in the meadow?"</p> + +<p>"Why, Dorothy, we must make contact with those pygmies too. They +are—advanced. It'll be more difficult. They'll have traditions—maybe +some very ancient ones. But we must make contact."</p> + +<p>"Mijok hates them though. If they come here—"</p> + +<p>Wright grinned. "Temporary advantage of being little tin deities. I +think Mijok will do whatever we indicate—until we're able to teach +him independence."</p> + +<p>Paul said, "Don't think for a minute I'm not with you.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> But Doc, with +the others helpless we're only three—"</p> + +<p>"Four."</p> + +<p>"Yes, four. There's our own survival to think of. It's a big planet. +Seems to me you're taking it on all at once."</p> + +<p>Wright slouched, loose-limbed, at the barrier, where he could watch +the meadow, and Mijok stayed close to him. "I think we must, Paul. If +we start right perhaps we can go on right. A mistake at this point +could go on burning for a thousand years.... Why do you think he broke +out into worship when he did? Our superior achievements—lifeboat, +guns, the rescue from that reptile? The fact that I wasn't afraid of a +poor pygmy's bones? All that, sure, but something else. Ed would say I +was daydreaming—but I think Mijok's heart knows what his brain can't +yet interpret. Sears would agree, I think—his own heart's bigger than +Lucifer. Mijok hasn't the least conscious idea why I invited those +pygmies to come and get their dead. Down deeper, in the part of him +that made him bring the moss and the meat and take care of us, I think +he knows very well."</p> + +<p>"You're proposing," Dorothy said, "to take a chance on love?"</p> + +<p>Wright was tranquil, watching the meadow. "Whenever men put their +chips on the other thing they always lost, didn't they? Repeatedly, +for twenty or thirty thousand years? Did they ever create anything +good except in a milieu of co-operation, friendship, forbearance? One +of the oldest of commonplaces—the teachers all knew it. +Lao-tse—Buddha—or stated negatively: 'He who lives by the sword....' +And so on. Good is not the mere absence of evil, but the most positive +of human forces. The instruments of good are charity, patience, +courage, effort and self-knowledge, each unavailing without the +others; remember that. And that's all the basic ethics I know. The +rest is detail, solution of immediate problems as they arise. Even on +Earth the good tended to win out in the long run: at least it did +until the mechanical toys got out of hand. Then there was a century of +living under a question mark. There was also the Collectivist Party. +Yes, as a prime example of a part of my own philosophy totally +perverted, I give you the Collectivist Party." Wright was talking to +himself again, the bitterness of Earth's history goading<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> him into +soft-spoken monotone, drawling and dark, on a planet nearly five +light-years distant from the ancient confusions. "The Collectivist +Party, which turns 'co-operation' into the same sort of word fetish +that 'democracy' was less than a hundred years ago—co-operation +<i>without</i> charity, without patience, without courage and always, +always, without self-knowledge."</p> + +<p>Dorothy still watched him with sober upturned eyes. "Ed told me once +his father was a pilot in the Collectivist Army during the Civil War."</p> + +<p>"I know." Wright smiled at her in bashful half apology. "Some of the +old wounds still bleed too, I guess. I generally manage to keep my +political mouth shut when he's listening, if I can. Not that Ed could +be accused of still fighting the war that ended before he was born.... +Relax: I think they're coming."</p> + +<p>Paul joined Wright and the giant at the barrier, but Dorothy stayed a +moment with the sick, feeling their wrists, murmuring something close +to Ann's ear, although the girl could not respond. "Past the fever +stage, I believe," she said. "They're all breathing well. No chance +they'll be out of it before night, I suppose...."</p> + +<p>The pygmies were still some distance away, slipping along the edge of +the woods in plain sight. There were only three—the two women and one +bowman; perhaps the others were paralleling their course inside the +forest—perhaps a hundred others were. Wright whispered, "Have we +anything that would make a respectable gift?"</p> + +<p>Mijok was rumbling in misery and fright. Dorothy came over holding a +locket. "This—you remember, Doc—a matron at the Orphanage gave it to +me. I used to imagine it could be a portrait of my mother—"</p> + +<p>"But my dear—"</p> + +<p>The brown girl shook her head. "This ship-metal wedding ring Paul +hammered out for me—that's the only Earth jewelry I want to keep. +This face that might be like my mother's—Oh, Doc, I'm getting to be a +big girl now. Besides, Lucifer will have plenty of pretties for us +later on. And Doc—let me do this, will you? They've got a woman +leading 'em, so—wouldn't she be less afraid of another woman? I'll +uncover, so she—" Dorothy shrugged out of her jacket. "Please, Doc? +I'm scared, but—"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span></p> + +<p>Wright glanced helplessly at Paul. "We—"</p> + +<p>Dorothy said quickly, "<i>My</i> decision." Holding the locket up for the +sun to gleam on it, she walked into the meadow and waited in the +brightness. Paul's hand sweated on the rifle stock. He saw Wright +patting Mijok's arm, heard his restraining murmur: "Quiet, Mijok—keep +your shirt on, Mijok, old man—man...." Mijok searched the face of his +god with a mute desperation and remained as he was.</p> + +<p>The pygmy woman halted fifty feet away in still-faced musing. As Paul +had seen through the binoculars, she was elaborately tattooed and +young. The pause was long. Dorothy stepped nearer to the place where +Wright had left the bones, displaying the locket, her open left hand +waving down at her body to demonstrate that she carried no weapons. +For the first time Paul realized she had left her holster belt behind.</p> + +<p>The blue-skirted woman shrilled a word; her two followers fell back. +She thrust the blunt end of her spear in the ground and came forward +steadily until she was only a few feet from the woman of the +twenty-first century; mask-faced, she met Dorothy's smile with a long +scrutiny. Now and then the green eyes shifted to study the clearing, +the lifeboat, the quiet shapes of Paul and Wright. And Mijok. Perhaps +she stared longest at Mijok, but by some heavy discipline her face +refused to tell of anything but dignity and caution.</p> + +<p>She spoke at last. It was complex, in a tone like the piping of a tree +frog. There were pauses, studied inflections, no gestures: her +seven-fingered hands hung limp against the blue grass skirt. The +closing words seemed to have a note of questioning and of sternness; +she waited.</p> + +<p>Dorothy's contralto was startlingly deep in contrast: "Darling, I +would like to know where you picked up that perfectly adorable +wrap-around, only I don't think it would suit me. I'm, to put it +frankly, a shade too hippy for such. In case you're wondering, I'm a +female sample of man"—she touched herself and pointed to the pygmy +lady—"man—"</p> + +<p>"Oh!" Wright whispered. "Good girl, good—"</p> + +<p>"—and it does seem to me us girls ought to stick together, +because"—she held out the locket—"well, just<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> because. And anyway +look: I have only ten toes, fastened on to the ends of my feet, and if +I had more, Heaven knows (just count 'em and <i>see</i> how each grows!) +I'd have trouble in keeping them neat. Pome. There now, sweetie pie, +please take it, huh?" And she opened the locket—Paul remembering in +lessening panic how much the unknown portrait did resemble her—and +held it face out to the woman of Lucifer. A tiny palm came up +dubiously; Dorothy placed the locket in it. "It won't bite, baby." The +pygmy woman turned it about, puzzling at the hinge. Dorothy stooped to +demonstrate the mechanism a few times. "I'm Dorothy, by the way, more +widely known as the Dope, which is a title of uncommon distinction +among my people, achieved only after long study of the art of saying +the right thing at the wrong time, burning the bacon, and preserving +at all times an air of sweet and addled dignity—Dorothy...." She +indicated herself plainly and pointed, with questioning eyebrows.</p> + +<p>The tree-frog voice, with no sternness, but a hint of friendliness: +"Tor-o-thee...?" She imitated Dorothy's motions. "Abro Pakriaa—"</p> + +<p>"Pakriaa."</p> + +<p>"Abro Pakriaa." There was sternness again in that correction.</p> + +<p>"Abro Pakriaa...."</p> + +<p>Wright muttered, "Royalty, I believe. Don't dare do any coaching. +Trust Dot's instinct. Ah, here we go—"</p> + +<p>The pygmy woman had taken off her shell necklace. She crushed the +dainty blue and yellow against her upper right breast; she set it for +a moment on her shining hairless skull, and then offered it. Wright +sighed, shaken, "It <i>had</i> to work—exchange of gifts—a universal—"</p> + +<p>When Dorothy dropped on one knee to take it, the mask relaxed for the +first time in a wintry smile. Over the proud bald head went the chain +of the locket, and Abro Pakriaa watched Dorothy put the necklace +on—fortunately it was long, even drooping a little below Dorothy's +throat. A flutter of red hands seemed to mean that Dorothy was to +stand back; another motion brought forward the woman who carried the +hide, her face a chip of red stone. The hide was unrolled, and the +bones placed on it. There was more intricate speech, with touching of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> +the locket and graceful, apparently kindly waving of thin arms. +Dorothy responded: "Four score and seven years ago...." She went on to +the end without mirth or hesitation, fondling the shell necklace, +giving the words the power of music that belongs to them even apart +from knowledge of their meaning. When she was silent, Abro Pakriaa +motioned the woman with the hide to go and held up her two hands +clasped together, the Chinese salutation. She waited till Dorothy had +done the same and strode away, recovering her spear without a backward +look, vanishing under the trees.</p> + +<p>Dorothy collapsed in the shadow of the barrier. Tentatively she +groaned: "How'm I doing?"</p> + +<p>Wright snarled; "Suppose you know that damn bowman had an arrow +trained on you the whole time?"</p> + +<p>She glanced at him, lips quivering. "I was kind of aware of it."</p> + +<p>"Can I," said Paul, "touch the hand that touched the hand—"</p> + +<p>"Oh no. I ain' gonna 'sociate with no common scum no mo'."</p> + +<p>Mijok stared in wonder at their sudden paroxysms of hysterical +laughter. He rumbled in doubt. Then the contagion caught him. Whatever +his own interpretation might be, he was bellowing, hammering his +chest, rolling over on the moss and scattering handfuls of it while he +roared.</p> + +<p>He did not sober until he saw Wright drawing pictures on the +earth—three stylized but obvious human figures, one small, one +medium-sized, one large. Only the middle one had five fingers. Wright +gouged a circle around all three. He said, "C'm'on, Mijok—language +lesson."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span></p> +<h2>7</h2> + + +<p>The trail was obvious only to the pygmies, through a border region of +meadow and forest that was full of dappled light, a warm hurry of life +feeding, struggling, wandering. Aware of his own power and readiness, +able now to enjoy the shifting scents and noises of this new trail, +Paul watched Ann's quick slenderness and the swing of Spearman's solid +shoulders. They, and Sears Oliphant, had emerged unharmed from the +illness. During a week unmeasurably long in retrospect, all six of the +party had found the ease and sureness of physical acclimation. Their +bodies rejoiced in the hot clean air of day and the moist moderate +nights; the only rebel was the Earth-born brain—grudging, frightened, +trailing, making endless reservations and timid of shadows. In Sears +Oliphant it was an almost open battle between a brave and curious mind +and flesh that could not hide its wincing from pain and danger. His +"Oh my, yes" had a tremor which angered himself and oppressed his +natural garrulity.</p> + +<p>When Ann Bryan had drifted out of the sleep of illness, Ed Spearman +was petting her hands, sponging her forehead. Paul had seen something +happen in Ann at that moment, like an innocent putting forth of leaves +when winter is not surely gone. Ann had never taken a lover. On the +ship, not so much unawakened as unwilling, she had rejected all that; +Spearman, making no secret of wanting her, had not been insistent. Nor +had he seemed outwardly much distressed, but (at a time when +Earth-harbored youth of his nature would have been in their liveliest +and most demanding prime) he had buried himself in <i>Argo's</i> technical +library to the point of red-eyed exhaustion, a desperation of +unceasing study in the technologies that Captain Jensen would have +helped him explore if<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span> Jensen had lived. Ann had read other matters +after the violin strings were gone, read and daydreamed. If she'd wept +(and Paul thought she had) she had done it alone, in that pocket of a +room sacred to herself. To the others, she was a passionately silent +adolescent turning into a tiredly silent woman, who made too much +point of doing her own work and asking for nothing.</p> + +<p>Yes, Ann was different now. The thin beauty of her face, vivid white +under heavy black hair, was still too quiet, but with a troubled +radiance. During this long week she had talked much with Dorothy—talk +superficially inconsequential, but Paul assumed it had a meaning below +words, as if Ann had only just realized, probably without envy, that +the brown girl was a thousand years older in heart and mind.</p> + +<p>Beyond Ann and Spearman were the six bowmen of the escort, bodies +bright with a sour-smelling oil, grouped around Abro Pakriaa at a +deferential distance. The princess wore Dorothy's locket. "Abro," Paul +had learned, was best translated as "princess" or "queen." A flame-red +flower behind her ear caught sunlight from the early afternoon. Five +others were following Paul—women, with skirts of every tint but +Pakriaa's blue, taller than the men, carrying spears with blades of a +white stone resembling quartz. The men were unvaryingly soft, rounded +in contour, lacking the women's tough-sinewed vigor. It was plain, +merely from the manner of Abro Pakriaa and her spear bearers, that +among this people to be a woman was to be a leader and soldier, no +doubt a hunter and head of the household by virtue of size and +strength. In muscular power, a male pygmy was to a female as the +weakest of Earth's women was to the toughest male athlete. These of +the bodyguard were soldiers of a sort: the bows were small, the arrows +only big darts. The bowmen never spoke except meekly in response to +some patronizing word of the princess. Pakriaa's height topped forty +inches; none of the bowmen was quite three feet tall. Paul's fingers +itched for brush and palette. They were available in the lifeboat. The +fact that he had not even unpacked them he blamed on a preoccupation +with the daily work needed for mere survival, but there was a deeper +reason: perhaps a fear of finding his moderate ability vanished if<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span> he +should once try to hint with oil at the welling profusion of color and +line that was Lucifer. Now he found himself trying to measure the +quality of Pakriaa's rich copper against the softness of leaves that +were burnt umber, malachite green, saffron, purple, and he thought: <i>I +must be recovering. Wake up, ego, and look around.</i></p> + +<p>Spearman was carrying rifle and automatic; Paul had preferred to leave +his rifle behind; Ann, hating firearms, had only her knife.</p> + +<p>Abro Pakriaa had entered the camp at noon, her fourth visit in the +week. Her gloomy majesty unchanging, she had indicated that she wished +them to come to her village. But Dorothy had turned her ankle the +evening before and it still pained her. Wright, no doubt hungering +more than any of the others for a sight of Pakriaa's way of living, +had fretted and bumbled and elected to remain with Dorothy and Sears, +urging Paul needlessly to remember his anthropology. Sears, sweating +out a microsection of a water insect from Lake Argo, had flapped a fat +hand and boomed: "You be sure 'n' telephone, damn it, if you're +staying for dinner, hey?"</p> + +<p>Remaining uneasily close to Wright, as he did whenever the pygmies +appeared, Mijok had said carefully, "Telephone?"</p> + +<p>"Word without meaning," said Wright gently, patting the huge arm. +"Noise word for fun."</p> + +<p>The attitude of Pakriaa's people to Mijok suggested the studious +ignoring of an indecency. They would not harm the ugly animal, their +manner said, so long as he was the property of the important sky +people....</p> + +<p>Life was generously abundant in this thinner forest. Things buzzed and +flew; Paul noticed a few webs cunningly extended before burrows in the +humus. Ann's ocean-gray eyes glanced back, brave and uncertain. "Those +girls are too quiet. Paul, how much <i>do</i> they know of our language?"</p> + +<p>"Not much." He moved up to walk on her other side. "Doc and I have +made only those two efforts to swap languages. A lot of that time had +to be wasted on theirs, a dead end for us."</p> + +<p>Spearman grunted, "Why? They've got a civilization, as Doc says."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Our voices are wrong. Pitch effects meaning for them. You've noticed +there's no pitch difference between their male and female voices. +Their language is tied to one section of the scale; a full octave of +it is above the range of even Ann's voice. They can shape our words +though, if they're willing. Basic English may appeal to the princess +when she condescends to take it seriously."</p> + +<p>"They could have picked up more than we suspect. They could have been +eavesdropping outside the camp."</p> + +<p>"No, Ed. Mijok would have known and told us."</p> + +<p>"Yeah—Fido. Can hardly speak freely in front of him now."</p> + +<p>"Don't think anything you wouldn't want him to hear."</p> + +<p>"Paul, I swear, sometimes you're worse than Doc." But Spearman wanted +to cancel the ill temper of the remark, and added: "You know, I +thought <i>I</i> knew something about Basic English—we all had drill +enough in it. Beats me, the things Doc can do with it—the man's a +wizard."</p> + +<p>Paul was silent with unappeased annoyance. It was true: Mijok appeared +to be a natural student too, already far beyond Basic English in a +week of keen listening. "Nan," Paul said, "how did you like Mijok's +humming when you were singing for us yesterday evening?"</p> + +<p>"Good." She flashed him an almost cheerful smile. But when Ann spoke +of her singing—and in the singing itself—there was, in spite of her, +an aching wordless reminder of the violin gone silent. Her voice was +sweet but without strength or resonance, and she took no ardent +pleasure in using it. Her love was the violin—covered as well as +might be in the comparative safety of the lifeboat, waiting for a +distant day. If the day ever came (Sears had already dissected out, +dried, and oiled some long leg-tendon fibers of a deerlike animal in a +humble experiment aimed chiefly at Ann's morale)—if the day came, +there would still be no piano, no answering of other strings, no +splendid cry of brass. Crude wood winds, perhaps, sometime.... "Yes, +he was good," said Ann, smiling. "Organ point in the tonic, and right +in our own scale. Once he even upped to the dominant. Instinct, huh? +Sounded good, Paul, even with you trying to fill in the middle."</p> + +<p>"Hell, I didn't think you heard me," Spearman snorted.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You kind of stood out," she said, "because Mijok was much better on +pitch, my good man. It did sound hollow without something to fill in. +He was on A-flat below the bass clef and no fooling.... <i>Why</i> haven't +we seen other giants?"</p> + +<p>"We got something on that this morning. I guess it was while you were +in swimming. Each giant male has an inviolate hunting territory, and +they don't trespass. Definite breeding season: the month before the +rains. That was five or maybe six red-moon changes ago. Mijok wasn't +too clear on the count—doesn't like mathematics much better than I +do. The women go where they please, in small groups, with the children +who still need care, but I gather the males are expected to stay in +their own private grounds until the Red-Moon-before-the-Rains."</p> + +<p>Spearman wondered: "Will the pygmies have a season too?"</p> + +<p>"Doubt it. Probably like us—except that women are the bosses. The +clothes suggest a continuing sex consciousness."</p> + +<p>The pygmy leaders halted. A murmuring explained itself as the music of +a stream. Paul consulted his memory of the map made from orbit +photographs and of his one solo exploration flight in the lifeboat. +There could be few such flights: the charlesite, even with the surplus +salvaged from the wrecked boat, must be hoarded. Ann and Ed had flown +over the lake on the day after their recovery, searching for any sign +of <i>Argo</i>. Returning, Ed's face had been a leather mask of grief, and +neither had wanted to talk of it. Later they explained: the lake was a +profundity of secret blue; a shelf of sand or possibly white stone ran +out some yards offshore, under water marvelously clear, and ended +abruptly. Beyond it, where <i>Argo</i> must have fallen, no bottom could +even be guessed at; the lifeboat's camera confirmed the presence of an +abyss that would have thwarted the most complex twenty-first-century +machinery.</p> + +<p>This stream, Paul knew, came from the western hills, flowing east and +slightly north until it entered the lake northeast of the clearing +called home. Another creek joined it east of the spot where they now +stood, and Pakriaa's village—if the parallel lines did represent its +location<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>—was not far upstream from that junction.</p> + +<p>Worn boulders rose above noisy water. The stream was twenty yards +wide, sluggish even here in the shallows. A steppingstone crossing.</p> + +<p>Nearly all the rivers on the map passed through jungle for most of +their length; numberless smaller streams would be hidden from the sky. +There was grassland for fifteen to twenty miles on the eastern side of +every range of hills. The prevailing winds were from the west; perhaps +a dryness in the lee of the hills favored the grass. The broadest +stretch of such open land lay east of a rugged coastal range seventy +miles to the southwest; some of the mountains in that seacoast +formation were mighty enough to hold a blur of snow at their summits. +The base of the coastal range was narrow—hardly more than twenty +miles. From this the peaks shot up with incredible sheerness to great +heights of bare rock that glittered in morning sun like black and red +glass. This grandeur, like nothing known on Earth, was clearly visible +from the camp above the near hills, especially at midday, when the +mists were gone.</p> + +<p>And ten miles offshore from that dizzy range, Paul remembered a +mountainous island. On his solo exploration two days ago, with the +lifeboat's panoramic camera and a head full of puzzled dreams, he had +soared above it, noting a peninsular strip of red sand at its southern +end, sheltered mountain valleys—one framing a jewel of lake. In the +north was a white beach where landing should be easy, and this was +protected by a low headland of red cliffs running out to the very tip +of the island. Surely a place to carry in the mind, it seemed to +invite human living as did no other near region in this continent of +Lucifer. Wright thought so: he listened to Paul's description and +named the island Adelphi....</p> + +<p>North of the camp, the range of low western hills dwindled to rolling +land and was lost in a tremendous expanse of unbroken jungle, which +ended only at the shore of one of the great lakes four hundred miles +away—an inland sea fourteen hundred miles long. Sixty-odd miles to +the south there was that large cluster of parallel lines in jungle, +and beyond it the forest gave way to more open ground, prairie, red +desert, and bare mountains.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span></p> + +<p>Abro Pakriaa dipped her spear in the water; she lifted a handful, +letting it trickle away while she spoke a rippling invocation; then +she was lithely crossing on the stones after the bowmen. The bottom +was pale sand with varicolored pebbles.</p> + +<p>Beyond the stream, Pakriaa followed a path a short way and pressed +into undergrowth. Spearman grumbled, "Good path for once, and we have +to—"</p> + +<p>"Path's probably booby-trapped. She expects us to know that."</p> + +<p>"Hell...." It was difficult passage, stooping on a trail meant for +little folk; it ended at a ditch six feet wide and five deep. The +ditch made a right angle, both lines stretching away straightly as far +as the eye could go; the inner side of the ditch was heaped with dry +sticks and bundles of grass. Pakriaa trilled orders to an old +black-skirted woman with a whip, in charge of a gang of four women and +three men, all totally naked. They were struggling to shove a movable +bridge into place across the ditch—two logs bearing a mat of vines +and bark. It was grunting work for them, and when the end of the +bridge was in reach, Pakriaa's escort made no motion to help. Spearman +started to; Paul interfered. "We'd lose face. Those are slaves. Women +tied together at the ankles—one of the men a eunuch. Look at the +brands on their cheeks. Nan, you're the dominant sex—try to look more +like the president of a women's club."</p> + +<p>Her finely modeled face had dignity enough, he thought, if she could +keep the worry out of it.... The old woman in the black skirt bowed +arrogantly to Pakriaa; the slaves cringed, with the hating stare of +the trapped. All were scarred and young except for the eunuch, who was +wrinkled and flabby. One female had a recent chest wound; the effort +at the bridge had made it bleed, but she ignored it. Paul saw +Spearman's face settle into lines of poker blankness and thought: +<i>Good</i>. <i>And if, to patience and courage, he could add (I hear you, +Doc) charity and self-knowledge—Oh, be quiet, critic, be quiet.</i>...</p> + +<p>Trees had been felled—some time ago, for the stumps were rotted—and +the spacing was such that the tops of the trees left standing provided +a gap twenty feet wide, the entire length of the village. There would +be two other<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span> such gaps, visible from the sky as parallel lines, +admitting full midday sunlight but shutting out the omasha. +"Nan—let's try to learn something about that big settlement in the +south—the other parallel lines."</p> + +<p>It was surprisingly easy to convey the question to Pakriaa with the +help of signs, but her response when she understood it was a shrill +snarl and shaking of her spear, a repetition of a name, "Vestoia," +which seemed to be the place, and of another name, "Lantis," a name +that caught in her throat and made her spit. Paul said, "We make faces +at the south too, and do it fast." It seemed to appease the princess: +she even smiled.</p> + +<p>The area bordering the ditch had been left wild, a barrier of vines, +brush, untended trees. Inside were orderly rows of plants, some +broad-leaved, resembling beets, some bushy; another type was rangy +with cosmos-shaped blooms of startling emerald green. Near the row of +trees was a path which Pakriaa followed; under the trees stood +grass-thatched structures. Paul counted thirty, well separated, before +the princess left the path, and no sound came from them. The trees +were mostly of the same species, thin-trunked towers with dark +serrated leaves, blazing with scarlet blossoms like the one Pakriaa +wore. They were the source of an odor like frangipani which filled the +village, heady and sweet but clean. It was no primitive agriculture in +this part-sunny corridor: rich darkness of earth was drawn up about +the plants; there was not a weed in sight. And there was no trace of +the strangling purple vines.</p> + +<p>Pakriaa's male attendants had slipped away; her spearwomen accompanied +her through an opening into the next corridor, where her people were +waiting for her, the soldier women in three formal ranks. There were +about fifty in each rank, and here again were dyed skirts of every +color but the regal blue that was Abro Pakriaa's. Small faces +maintained the flat indifference of the unliving copper they +resembled.</p> + +<p>Pakriaa's intricate oratory flowed over them. More than two thirds of +the stiff soldiers were gashed with recent wounds, ranging from +scratches to lost hands or breasts or eyes. Some had deep body wounds +so ugly it was amazing that they could stand upright, but there<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> +seemed to be no evidence of infection and there was no wavering in the +lines while Pakriaa declaimed. Her right hand soared with spread +fingers. The lifeboat? The name Torothee occurred; when it was +repeated the women swayed with unchanging faces, murmuring it in +unison like a breath of wind. Pakriaa faced her guests. Tears were not +unknown to her; laughter might be. She clenched and relaxed her hands, +the fourteen fingers rising and falling until Paul lost count of the +motions—more than twenty. She pointed to the soldiers, repeating the +display more slowly and only ten times; then one hand rose alone with +the thumb curled under. Paul muttered, "I think she's saying only 146 +are left after the war, from—maybe three hundred."</p> + +<p>Pakriaa laid her spear at Ann's feet. Paul advised: "Give her your +knife, same way." Pakriaa took it and placed it across the spear and +stood back, motioning to Ann to do the same. When the three had +withdrawn, Pakriaa still made impatient gestures. Paul whispered, "Ed, +you and I are trifling males. We stand further back."</p> + +<p>"We do like hell," said Spearman in his throat.</p> + +<p>"We do, just the same. It's nothing but ceremony. Safety's off on my +.38. We can handle anything. Stand back."</p> + +<p>Ed Spearman stood back, muttering. At a shrill summons from Pakriaa, a +shuffling procession swung out from the tree shadows. These were all +men, decrepit, ancient, dirty; some limped and two had empty eye +sockets and one, from a pathological fatness, could barely waddle. +They were striped and splotched with paint in elaborate designs, +mostly of white and yellow, and their skins, either with dirt or age, +had darkened to dull mahogany. They formed a hobbling circle around +the crossed knife and spear; each grotesque, as he passed the weapons, +spat on them and scattered on them a handful of earth until the place +became a low mound. As they did this, they muttered and howled and +squeaked, performing precise evolutions with twiddling fingers. They +carried white thigh-bones like clubs, and shell ornaments jangled on +their raddled throats and ankles. It was, on the surface, a simple +ceremony of peace and friendship, but the casual contempt of these +male witches cast a foulness over it. Their sidelong glances at the +strangers were poisonous with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span> furtive malignancy. "Medicine men," +said Paul under his breath. "Distant equivalent of the wise women in +some patriarchal groups. Ed, we stay on the good side of those loopy +scarecrows, or it's just too bad." And with a certain hunger he +studied the mask of the man who had never offered the relaxation of +friendship, wondering how far it was physically possible for Spearman +to accept a world in which engineering science was the dream and crude +survival the reality.</p> + +<p>The ceremony ended in a dribble of anticlimax. The hideous old men +merely shambled away from the mound toward the shadows after a +ceremonial whoop that caused the soldiers to relax. But they did not +quite go. They huddled and squatted under the trees. They stared. They +spat and scratched and consulted together. Some of the green eyes were +close-lidded, veiled; others were wide, making no effort to conceal a +hatred compounded of jealousy and fear. The fat monster nursed his +obscene belly between scrawny knees and whispered a stream of +information into the close ear of a witch with empty eye sockets, and +the whispering dark lips wore a destroying smile.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span></p> +<h2>8</h2> + + +<p>Abro Pakriaa motioned her guests to be seated before a large building; +the fibers of this structure were dyed the blue of her skirt. The +soldiers stalked about in a show of nonchalance. Young men and naked +children had come timidly from the houses. The youngest children were +disproportionately tiny, large-headed but no bigger than house cats. +Perhaps childbirth for this race was no more than a passing +inconvenience. There were many pairs of obviously identical twins. The +children stayed near the protective men, all but the older girls, who +ventured somewhat closer.</p> + +<p>It was a village without laughter. No scampering, no horseplay, no +evidence of any tenderness except between the men and the smallest +children. Curiosity burned in all of them, but its overt expression +was limited to the dead-pan stare.</p> + +<p>Pakriaa entered her blue building alone, greeted by a flutter of +voices from within, and she was gone several minutes. When Pakriaa had +seated her guests, most of the ancient painted males had shuffled +across the clearing—even the fat horror whose walking must have been +pain—to settle in the shadows on the other side and continue their +baleful watching. Paul noticed that even the spear-carrying women +skipped clear to give them elbow-room and never looked directly at +them. The fat witch found a place to squat that gave him a clear view +of all three visitors; as he gazed he sucked toothlessly at the knob +of his thighbone club.</p> + +<p>The houses were lightly framed of wood, with walls of interwoven fiber +two thirds of the way to the eaves, joints bound and roofs thatched +with the same material, a design similar to what Paul remembered from +a year spent<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> in the Republic of Oceania. The modern citizens of that +many-islanded republic, Paul recollected, still preferred the +ancestral savage building pattern to stone or plastic; it suited the +climate and the friendly, unpretentious way of life. But none of the +buildings here was raised on supports: snakes and vicious insects were +evidently no problem. There were no domestic animals, apparently no +parasites nor self-evident diseases; except for wounds and the dirt of +the old men, the pygmy skins looked clear and healthy. There were not +even any bad smells except the mildly disagreeable oil the males used +to anoint their bodies.</p> + +<p>Pakriaa returned, with her make-up on. She had flowers behind both +ears, and one tied by its stem to Dorothy's locket. Heavy white +circles were drawn about the lady's eyes and breasts and navel; blue +bracelets dangled at her wrists; her skirt had been replaced by an +innocently unconcealing fringe of shells—similar to snail shells, +Paul thought. Pakriaa's anklets of wooden beads were orange. The top +of her bald head was robin's-egg blue. Two males, with the brand marks +that must mean slavery, followed her with a seat—a block of wood, +cleverly carved with stylized animal figures. It brought her face on a +level with Ann's. Ann said politely, "Why the hell can't I be handsome +too?" And Pakriaa inclined her head. A boy without the slave brand +came with a wooden bowl; Pakriaa sipped the greenish liquid and +offered the bowl to Ann. Spearman rumbled. Paul said, "Protocol. You +gotta, Nan, but don't offer us any—we're meek males."</p> + +<p>Ann swallowed some; her eyes watered; she repressed choking. +"Alcoholic, I do mean ..."</p> + +<p>Feasting followed—a laborious hour of it, as food arrived without +pause in the hands of branded men from the other side of the +sheltering trees. Wood smoke drifted from that direction, and a hum of +voices. All the dishes included meat cut in tiny cubes—stewed, fried, +boiled, or smothered in unknown vegetables. Only one course was +aggressively horrid, carrion swimming in peppery sauce, clearly a +favorite of Pakriaa's, for she belched wonderfully and patted her +stomach in self-applause. Ann remarked, "Another go at that and I +start looking for another planet."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span></p> + +<p>In time even Pakriaa had had enough. She clapped her broad hands. +Greasy-mouthed and bulging, the soldiers formed a swaying, stamping +line. Spearman burped helplessly. "All that inside, and they can +dance?"</p> + +<p>Ann suggested: "Maybe it helps...."</p> + +<p>It was an hour-long narrative dance, vastly monotonous, a picture of +war. Some of those most cruelly wounded pranced into solo pantomimes +bragging of how the injuries had been received. In climax, a straw +figure of a woman was dragged to the center of the clearing: an image +carefully made, brightly painted, the face hideous, the sexual +features grossly exaggerated. Shrilling what seemed to be a name +("Lantis! Lantis!"), the soldiers swarmed on this effigy, squealing, +stabbing, defiling, tearing it into shreds, which they carried away as +treasures or mementos.</p> + +<p>When the soldier women had finished in yawning exhaustion, a crowd of +dainty men performed another sort of dance, purely an erotic show, +indicating that the role of the male was seductive, half infantile, +submissive all the way. Occasionally a soldier pulled a dancer out of +the line, slapping his face until he stopped the squealing that was +evidently required of him, and wandered away with him; but most of the +soldiers were too tired, gorged, or wounded to be interested. Later, +some twenty soldiers formed a group, and men brought them babies to be +nursed, morsels of humanity, quite silent, far smaller in proportion +than Earth's newborn. The mothers' arms were careful and competent, +without tenderness; they held the infants two at a time, examining +them shrewdly, often exchanging them with other soldiers. There were a +few cooing demonstrations of affection by the men toward these +infants, demonstrations which the soldiers ignored. Ann whispered, "I +could spend a lot of time hating these little devils."</p> + +<p>"Try not to."</p> + +<p>"I know, Paul, but—"</p> + +<p>"At least they have a civilization." Spearman was arguing with +himself. "A potential technology. That's good gardening. Good tools, +weapons."</p> + +<p>"Nan, see if you can ask Mrs. President to show us the town."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span></p> + +<p>Pakriaa caught on swiftly and was delighted....</p> + +<p>The first of the tree-sheltered areas contained all the dwelling +houses, dulled by the splendor of Pakriaa's. Ann was invited to enter +this blue palace, Pakriaa making it clear that the men must not +follow. Ann emerged, red-faced. Later, when it would not be so patent +that she was talking of Pakriaa's house, Ann said, "Couldn't make out +much detail. Dim, and no lamps burning, though I think I saw some clay +things like old Roman lamps. Clean, funny perfume smells. I met—her +mother maybe. Incredibly old anyway, and almost black. Their skin must +change color with age."</p> + +<p>"Dirt more likely," Spearman said.</p> + +<p>"Not a bit of it. Very clean. Just a dry little ghost in a fancy room +of her own, with a—a male slave manicuring her toenails. We haven't +seen any old women out in the open."</p> + +<p>"Sheltered and reverenced, maybe," Paul said. "Natural."</p> + +<p>"Her Highness has a—I suppose you'd have to call it a harem. Ten +little husbands, or maybe eleven."</p> + +<p>"What a girl!" said Spearman.</p> + +<p>Ann was amused, though her cheeks were flaming. "I was offered one."</p> + +<p>"Hope you explained the rejection implied no lack of merit."</p> + +<p>"Tried to, Paul. I think I got over the idea that there was a taboo +involved—something like that. Her Majesty didn't insist...."</p> + +<p>The ditch enclosed the village. One side of its square paralleled the +river, not more than thirty feet from it but making no connection. It +would have been easy to flood the ditch, but that was evidently not +the intention. When Ann conveyed curiosity, Pakriaa was astonished +that anyone could be ignorant of its function. "<i>Kaksma!</i>" she said, +and pointed west. "Kaksma...!" Convinced at last that Ann's puzzlement +was genuine, she drew a picture on the earth, with such vigorous art +that she herself feared the image and drew back. It was a profile view +of an animal larger than a rat, long-headed with a hump on the back. +She had given it a tiny eye and a forward-thrusting tooth nothing like +a rodent's; the forefoot was broad and flattened, a digger's foot. +Giving Ann only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> a brief time to study it, Pakriaa spat on the image +and wiped it out with a violent heel. She muttered an angry +incantation and pointed to the dry wood heaped by the ditch, while her +dancing fingers told of flames that would defend the village....</p> + +<p>In the second tree-sheltered area were the industries. Men, not +slaves, glanced up from the shaping of earthenware vessels. They had +no potter's wheel, only their hands, but there was a kiln of baked +earth. Pakriaa called a favorite over, hugged him, and sent him back +with a pat on the rump. He was quite old, toothless, and giggling. +They passed a row of dye pots, three women braiding fiber into flat +sheets, a square of ground with part-finished spearheads, arrow +points, other devices, a rack where deerlike hides were stretched in +some curing process. "They sleep on those," Ann said, "and use 'em for +rugs. The palace was full of 'em...."</p> + +<p>In the rear of the village was a stockade of stripped logs, guarded by +two soldier women. In the space before it, but facing away from it so +that the painted eyes brooded over the village, stood a monstrous +wooden idol, eight feet tall, raised on a low platform. Pakriaa led +her guests before the image and knelt. It was necessary to do the +same, and Ann imitated her gracefully enough. As he knelt himself, +Paul saw in a backward glance that three gangling male witches had +followed and were observing every motion with a rigid malevolence. It +was difficult to kneel with his back to them; Spearman, he hoped, had +not seen them.</p> + +<p>The idol was exaggeratedly female, with huge carnivorous teeth +indicated in white paint. A slot representing the left hand carried a +nine-foot spear upright. The right arm, a natural branch of the log, +reached forward and spread into a rugged table; more wood had been +neatly joined to make the table five feet long, but the whole gave the +effect of a swollen accepting hand, and it was foul with bloodstains +old and new. Pakriaa's long murmured prayer repeated the name Ismar +many times. At the end she seemed satisfied; her glance at Ann was +almost a smile. Paul saw that the witches had drifted away, but the +pressure of their watching remained.</p> + +<p>Pakriaa now took them into the stockade. It seemed to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span> Paul that the +guards were scarcely needed....</p> + +<p>These naked men, women, and children had no danger in them. No life. +They moved and functioned as if in life: walked, spat, scratched, +yawned; a woman nursed a baby mechanically; a man strolled to a trough +in the center of the compound and ate a handful of damp stuff like +poultry mash, then rubbed his side against the wooden edge as a pig +might. Beyond such elemental motions there was no life. A woman +followed a man for several paces; both flight and pursuit were dull, +unfinished, a fumbling response to a sluggish stimulus. They paid no +attention to Pakriaa and the strangers. The slack emptiness of their +faces denied the possibility of any thought more than a flurry in +response to physical need. They were all over-plump; some of the +females were scarred, but the wounds were old and healed. Paul could +see no anatomical differences between them and their lively free +kindred. A drug...?</p> + +<p>Pakriaa walked among them like a farmer in a flock of chickens. She +lifted a young girl, who made no effort to escape, and showed her to +Ann with contented pride, pinching a fat thigh and middle. The child +was limp, unexcited, mumbling a mouthful of the mash. Fighting back a +retching, Ann muttered, "Paul, when can we get out of here?"</p> + +<p>Abro Pakriaa caught the tone. She tossed the little girl away and led them +out of the stockade. She seemed hurt rather than angry—disappointed that +her important friends had shown no admiration at this thriving industry....</p> + +<p>The soldiers had gathered again in the clearing, but now there was a +waiting, a tension with the descent of twilight, and a gloom. A long +fire had been built; Pakriaa's wave at her guests appeared to mean +that they should sit where they pleased. Ann had not been able to +convey the wish for an escort home, and Pakriaa's mind was plainly +filled with some other, graver concern, having no more time for +hospitality. Pakriaa entered her blue house. While she was gone, the +soldiers seated beyond the fire scattered handfuls of earth in +synchronized motions and the witches grouped behind them set up a +monotone of chanting. Pakriaa returned wearing a white skirt,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span> bare of +all her paint and jewelry; she walked back and forth along the line of +the fire, praying, until daylight was wholly gone. At her call, old +men, neither painted nor grotesque, carried out burdened hides and +laid them open beside the fire: white bones, broken weapons, skirts, +loincloths, necklaces, arrows, little earthen pots and wooden bowls, +many images of clay. The soldiers threw themselves face down, their +foreheads on their arms, and wailed.</p> + +<p>Spearman's voice was tortured with perplexity: "Eat some, mourn for +others. Murder them and love them—"</p> + +<p>"Yes, they're human."</p> + +<p>"Oh, shut up, Paul. What do you mean, human? These animals?"</p> + +<p>"Human mourning, isn't it? Listen to it."</p> + +<p>Ann spoke with held-in fury: "At least we're not cannibals. There may +still be war back on Earth, but after all—"</p> + +<p>"Better to murder in groups of a thousand at long distance? Just +listen to it, Ann...."</p> + +<p>It was music, becoming after a time the only thing existing under the +red moon and the delicate unceasing dance of blue fireflies. It was +the music they had heard on the first night in the jungle, a pouring +forth of lamentation, wonder, supplication, whatever the spirit may +feel in the contemplation of death and its troubling counterpart. A +music that was meant to go on unchanging as the song of tree frogs for +the thirteen hours of a night of Lucifer.... Pakriaa took no vocal +part in the ritual, but sat alone, guarding the relics of the fallen. +From time to time small man shapes carried new fuel to the fire. And +there were stern sidelong glances from the princess: she had not +forgotten her guests. Once or twice Paul caught himself dozing off, +dragged into a partial hypnosis by the endless lamentation....</p> + +<p>"Paul?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Nan. I'm awake." He saw Spearman's head jerk upright.</p> + +<p>"Doc asked me yesterday—if I would bear him a child."</p> + +<p>Spearman's arm sought for her gently. "Why bring that up now? Can't +think with all this damn caterwauling."</p> + +<p>"I—did get to thinking.... Everything we used to live<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> by—it's so +far away. Paul, you're close to Doc. You understand him, I guess."</p> + +<p>Two troubled faces were turned to Paul in the mystery of firelight. A +glance from Pakriaa conveyed annoyance at the sound of voices. +"Dorothy told me she wants Sears to be the father of her second. It +won't take her away from me. Not natural perhaps, but right under the +circumstances. Some of the most important laws and customs can't be +started by us. They'll be established by our grandchildren, if we can +have them."</p> + +<p>"I know." But her upward look at Spearman's worried, half-angry face +said that her decision would be made by him, no other.</p> + +<p>"He mustn't talk. The queen no like...."</p> + +<p>It might have been an hour later that Paul saw Spearman's head sag +down on his chest. Ann leaned against him, but his arm around her had +gone slack. Paul searched for the cause of a sense of danger that +prickled his skin. Not the witches: they were grouped as before, +chanting a faint counterpoint to the soldiers' wailing. No—it was Ed +Spearman himself, and Paul came broad awake in a certainty of what +would happen. Too late. Spearman's head twitched, and his unconscious +throat let loose a resonant, uncompromising snore, a snore that had +been famous on the great ship <i>Argo</i>. Sears Oliphant had always +claimed that if only Ed could be harnessed in sleep to the reaction +chamber ... But this was not going to be funny....</p> + +<p>Pakriaa leaped up and shrieked a raging order. The wailing ceased. The +soldiers were staggering upright, grabbing spears, forming a circle of +violence around the guests before Spearman could even rise. He gasped, +"Wha's matter?" and ten pygmy women were hauling him away by wrists +and ankles, clear of the ground.</p> + +<p>Paul shouted. "Don't fight 'em, Ed! Keep quiet!" Two soldiers were +clinging to each of his own arms, there was a ring of shivering spears +around him, and others had dragged Ann out of sight, but she was +screaming as if they could understand: "Don't hurt him! He didn't do +anything! Let him go!"</p> + +<p>Without twitching his hampered arms, Paul moved<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span> slowly against the +circle of spears. They had no quarrel with him, he sensed, but only +meant to restrain him: it was at least the only action worth a gamble. +The spearwomen stepped backward away from him. The whole circle moved +in slow motion, following where Spearman had been carried—through the +tree shelter, on across the next clearing, and into the space before +the looming god.</p> + +<p>Ed had not been able to snatch his rifle; he still had his holstered +automatic. Paul could not see Ann, nor Pakriaa. He could see +Spearman's face, a concentration of craft and fighting fury. The pygmy +women lifted him and flung him on the table before the idol. He was +ready. He bounced like a great cat, gained his feet, and twitched out +the pistol, which banged once—at the huge blade of the idol's spear. +The stone blade crumbled; the crash of the little gun made his captors +wince back in shocked reaction. Then Ed Spearman stooped, grasped the +reaching wrist of the idol, and heaved upward with the whole of his +strength.</p> + +<p>The god swayed, groaned like a thing of life, and toppled over, +squashing one of the howling witches—a blind one—like a red bug.</p> + +<p>The village dropped into total silence. Paul could see Ann now. The +pygmies had let her go. The whiteness of her face had more than terror +in it: it had exultation, a glory of excitement and wrath. Paul's own +captors had lurched away; his automatic had slipped into his hand +without conscious effort; he searched in desperation for something +that might restore his friends to steadier sanity. "Walk," he said. +"Walk, don't run, to the nearest exit...."</p> + +<p>The pygmies allowed it. The god had fallen. They even stood back, too +profoundly dazed for any thought or protest.... At the edge of the +village Spearman jumped in the ditch, reached for Ann, swung her up on +the other side. "Did anyone bring a flashlight?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I—I did," said Ann, and began to cry. "Brought +flashlight—'stead of gun...."</p> + +<p>Paul stayed in the rear. "They won't follow, I think. Not for a +while."</p> + +<p>The stooping passageway was hard to find. But when they won clear of +it there was the guiding sound of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span> stream. Paul held the +flashlight on the line of stepping stones until the others had +crossed. Ann was still weeping in reaction. "We'll never win. It's all +madness—the ship, everything. All human beings are crazy, crazy—"</p> + +<p>"Hush, dear," Spearman said. "We got out, didn't we?"</p> + +<p>Now, where was the trail? A madness of groping, blundering, where +there was no path, no guidance, and even their little thread of light +a mockery and confusion.</p> + +<p>Abruptly, ahead of them, there were other lights, then voices—Mijok's +soft rumbling, Wright's clear outcry: "There they are! All three, +Mijok—"</p> + +<p>Paul ran to him. "The others—Dorothy? Sears?"</p> + +<p>"Right as rain, son," Wright mumbled. "Except Dot's been frantic about +you since we heard the shot. We left Sears practically sitting on +her—well, figuratively. Women are odd, you know: they don't like +shots in the night when the best boy friend is out on the tiles."</p> + +<p>"Had a little trouble. They may come after us—don't know ..."</p> + +<p>Ann was quiet. Paul saw her white hands starfished on the gray of +Mijok's chest. She said, "Mijok, I'm tired and sick. Will you carry +me?"</p> + +<p>Spearman groaned: "Ann, what—Use your head...."</p> + +<p>But Mijok knelt at once to make a cradle of his arms, and Christopher +Wright said, "Why not? Why shouldn't we need each other?" Mijok went +ahead with her on the blind trail.</p> + +<p>Paul heard Spearman choke: "I would have carried her." It was not +meant to be heard. Paul looked away, hearing also the deep precision +of the giant's voice exploring the mystery of words: "You are my +people. I will not ever be much time far from you."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span></p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> +<img src="images/image_03.jpg" width="600" height="569" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<h2><a name="part_two" id="part_two"></a>Part Two</h2> +<h3>The Year One</h3> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span></p> +<h2>1</h2> + + +<p>"This island is Eden." Sears Oliphant spoke drowsily. Toy bat wings +flickered from the woods crowning the hillside, hovered over a pond: +<i>illuama</i>. In a scant year of Lucifer time (seventeen months of the +calendar of Earth) native names had become natural, mostly Mijok's +names.</p> + +<p>Two red-moon changes ago, in the final jading month of the rains, the +pygmy word "kaksma" had been only a symbol. Now it woke the image of a +village desolate, bones scraped and scarred. The mind's eye winced in +pity—a sentry careless, a bridge left in place after dark; thousands +of ratty bodies rustling down from the wet hills, over open ground, +swimming swollen streams, finding the bridge before oil on the rain +water in the ditch could be ignited. Small bodies, not swift, leaping +or humping along like furry worms, sniffing, squeaking, their stabbing +teeth dark with the blood of any flesh that moved. The northernmost of +the villages allied with Pakriaa's had already returned to jungle.</p> + +<p>But here, ten miles offshore from the coastal range, no kaksmas lived; +Sears and Paul, in two days of study on this second visit, had +established that. No wide wings lurked in the sky. The hilly island +had no large meadows where omasha could hunt. Three giants had been +flown to the island a month ago—the girl Arek, her mother Muson, and +old Rak. They said it was a place of calm. Their soft talk could be +heard up the slope, where a log building was growing. Paul stretched, +lean and comfortable, on the grass, glad to be alone for a while with +this least demanding of his friends.</p> + +<p>Sears was fatter, but hardened, a round block of man, with a coarse +black beard, kindness of brown eyes unaltered. Christopher Wright, +waiting at the "fortress" by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span> Lake Argo and no doubt frantic for word +of this exploration, had let his beard grow too, sandy gray. Spearman +and Paul had stayed clean-shaven, with soap made from fat and wood +ashes. "The others must come here, Paul. I suppose Chris won't consent +till Pakriaa agrees—damn, you'd think she could see it. She knows her +enemies fear the ocean as she does. Lantis' two-by-four army would +never chase after us in their lake boats."</p> + +<p>"Wait a minute, Jocko. Lantis is no two-by-four proposition."</p> + +<p>"Damn pint-size Napoleon with four teats and a grass skirt."</p> + +<p>"Lookee: that settlement south of Lake Argo is thirty miles long. +Equivalent of two hundred villages, to Pakriaa's six. Say twenty +thousand warriors who got their pride hurt a year ago when the crash +of <i>Argo</i> swamped their fleet and scared the pants off 'em. They'll +have replaced the fleet. They'll come overland too. Lantis, Queen of +the World."</p> + +<p>"If they do"—Sears' heavy voice had the tremor that he himself +hated—"the firearms should be at least one ace in the hole."</p> + +<p>"Ye—es. Ed's pistol helped in our one bad scrape with Pakriaa +herself. But it was his smashing the idol that stalled 'em, not the +gun."</p> + +<p>"Poor little Abro Pakriaa!" Sears spoke with tenderness. "If ever a +lady was pulled seven ways from Sunday! Wants our way of life, doesn't +want it. Wants to grasp Chris' ethics, doesn't want to. Afraid of Ed's +strength and aggressiveness, admires 'em too, oh my, yes. Tries to +believe the god Ismar died or never lived—but can't, quite."</p> + +<p>"And can't understand why our women are gentle—Dorothy anyway——"</p> + +<p>"Nan's toughening up is conscious effort, Paul. Superficial. She's +made herself hunt, shoot well, act hard, because her brain tells her +she should. If we could only find something to restring her violin! I +think she's given up hope of it: nothing I've found so far has been +any good. She doesn't see that Dorothy does more for us by remaining +the person she always was.... You know, when I go alone to Pak's +village, I just set. Even the witches have got used to me, not that +they wouldn't gut me if they could."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Jocko"—Paul looked away—"you told me once you were scared all the +time. When you go there alone—or when you tame the olifants for that +matter—are you sort of grasping the nettle? And does it work?"</p> + +<p>"Don't ask me, friend. Because I don't exactly know. I was never a +brave man." Brown eyes misted in what was partly laughter. "Oy, the +witches! There's the big enemy in the battle for Pakriaa's mind. Chris +may claim they aren't real witch doctors, just advisers, low-grade +magicians. I'm not so sure. Priests of Ismar, and when Ed clobbered +the idol Pakriaa did consider having 'em all burned alive. Point is, +she didn't do it. They gnaw away in the dark at all we try to teach +her. That proposed bonfire, by the way, is gossip passed on to me in +confidence by Abara."</p> + +<p>"There's a dear little man."</p> + +<p>"Ain't he though?" Smiling into late sky, Paul envisaged the wizened +red midget riding the white monsters that Sears had tamed and insisted +on naming olifants-with-an-f. A painting might grow out of that, he +thought, squat coppery lump astride of massive white—it might, if the +desire to paint should ever wake again and be as strong as it once was +on <i>Argo</i>, when his mind's eye could remember Earth without +distortion. Abara, popeyed and potbellied, a favorite in Pakriaa's +harem, had been commissioned by her as a student and go-between at the +lakeside camp; Sears had not only adopted him as an olifant trainer, +but suspected him of furtively possessing a sense of humor. "Well—the +giants. Lantis will always have thought of them as wild animals——"</p> + +<p>"Sears"—Paul rolled over and pressed his face in the grass—"can we +ask or even permit the giants to tangle in a pygmy war?"</p> + +<p>"Ah ... It's tormenting Chris too, ever since Lantis sent that +ultimatum." He snarled in his beard, "Thirty fat meat slaves every two +months! There's politics for you. Dirtiest way she could answer Pak's +challenge to personal combat, and the automatic refusal makes an +excuse to come and clean up. Sounds like home.... Mijok wants to help +fight—says he does."</p> + +<p>"It's still our responsibility." Paul sat up. His eyes kept returning +to the towering courage of the trees. Brave as any cathedral spire, +scarcely one was free from the clutch<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span> of the purple-leaf vine. "As +for moving here to the island, Pak sees it, but the idea's too new. +You just don't pull up stakes, venture on the Big Water, crossing +forbidden kaksma country."</p> + +<p>Sears chewed a grass blade. "Anyway we've got to bring Dorothy and the +baby here, and Ann. Dorothy won't fuss, will she, son?"</p> + +<p>"Since there <i>is</i> Helen—no, she won't. I still dream sometimes, as I +did during her first pregnancy. Things, shapes, trying to pull her +away—or she's where I can't find her, can't push through the leaves."</p> + +<p>"She told me. It's something else that's made you blue lately."</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>Sears watched him. "Yes.... Want to start back tomorrow?"</p> + +<p>"Might as well. We've learned all we need."</p> + +<p>"Mm ... Second thoughts about the daddy of Dorothy's second——"</p> + +<p>"No no. We settled that. She's proud to be carrying it."</p> + +<p>"Good genetics could be damn bad psychology."</p> + +<p>"No, Jocko. Don't think that. She's close to me as ever."</p> + +<p>Sears waited and spoke softly: "New York late on a rainy night, a few +car lights moving, street-lamp reflections like golden fish——"</p> + +<p>"Orange paintbrush in New Hampshire meadows——We'd better stop."</p> + +<p>"We better. I want boat whistles—floating city coming out of the fog. +Call it a slow-healing wound.... And look across the channel."</p> + +<p>Paul saw it presently: a cliff formation in the coastal range made a +brow, nose, and chin. Below this, rounded rock could be a shoulder +straining in heroic effort; then, tumbled reality of mountain-fancy +must supply whatever held the figure in bondage. "Yes. He looks west. +Past us, at the sun."</p> + +<p>"Why, no, Paul. I think he looks west of the sun...."</p> + +<p>A red-furred girl wandered down from the woods. "I got tired." Arek +had lived twenty-two years; she was seven feet tall, not yet +adolescent but near it. In the next Red-Moon-before-the-Rains, ten +months away, she might take adult part in the frenzy of love if her +body demanded it:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span> if not, she would go apart with the other children, +whose play also became innocently erotic at that time, and help care +for the youngest. Sears grinned as she sat down with them. "Tired or +lazy?"</p> + +<p>"Both. You Charins are never lazy enough." The name Charin, Paul +thought, was almost natural now, a pygmy word for "halfway," intended +by Pakriaa merely to convey that Wright and his breed were halfway in +size between her people and the giants, but Wright took sardonic +satisfaction in it as a generic name. "Work and loafing are both good. +Why can Ed Spearman never sit still in the sun? Or maybe I like to +talk too much."</p> + +<p>"Never," Sears chuckled. "Well—his best pleasure is in action. Maybe +it's the technician in him—he must always be doing something."</p> + +<p>"Like always waking, never sleeping." She sprawled in comfort; her +broad hands plucked grass, scattered it over the furry softness of her +four breasts. "Green rain.... I want to stay on this island. Will they +come?"</p> + +<p>"We hope so. Mijok will as soon as Doc does."</p> + +<p>She sighed. "Mijok is a beautiful male. I think I'll take him for my +first when I'm ready.... And soon the pretty boat will be no more +good. It's sad we can't make another. Tell me again about Captain +Jensen. He was as tall as me? He had hair on his head, red like my +fur. He spoke——"</p> + +<p>"Like storm wind," said Paul, supplying the wanted note in a favorite +fairy tale, remembering a brother on Earth who was—perhaps—not dead.</p> + +<p>"Hear the ocean," Arek whispered. Paul could hardly separate the sound +from the mutter of the pond's outlet. This ridge of high ground ended +short of the island's northern limit. A white beach, where the +lifeboat was shaded from late sun, faced the mainland. West of the +beach a red stone cliff ran to the tip of the island, shouldering away +the sea. Wind out of the west allowed no soil to gather on it. Now and +then a rainbow flashed and died above the rock, when a wave of +uncommon grandeur spent itself in a tower of foam. "Hear what it says? +'I—will—try—aga-a-ain....' Why must the others wait to come here?"</p> + +<p>"Pakriaa's people are not ready."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, Sears!" Arek laughed unhappily and sat up. "I think of how my +mother taught me the three terrors. She took me to the hills, beat two +stones before a burrow till one blundered out maddened, afraid of +nothing but the light. She crushed it, made me smell it. I was sick; +then we fled. I think of how she flung an <i>asonis</i> carcass into meadow +grass, so the omasha came. She wounded one with a stone, made me watch +while the others tore it apart. Later still, when I could run +fast—ah, through night to a village of the Red Bald——"</p> + +<p>"Please, dear—pygmies. That's a name they accept."</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry, Sears.... Yes, we hid in the dark, waited until a sentry +moved—careless.... It was wrong. You've shown us how such things are +wrong. And memory's someone talking behind you, out of the big dark."</p> + +<p>"The laws we've agreed on——"</p> + +<p>"I do honor them," she said gently. "The law against murder was my +first writing lesson. But—what if Pakriaa's tribe—"</p> + +<p>"They're slower," Sears said in distress, and the distress would be as +much a message to Arek as any words. There was no hiding the heart +from these people: green eyes and black ears missed no smallest +nuance.</p> + +<p>"When will they know they must not dig pits, with poisoned stakes—"</p> + +<p>"But Pakriaa's tribe don't do that now. Do they?"</p> + +<p>Arek admitted: "I suppose not. But the six other villages——"</p> + +<p>"Five, dear. The kaksmas. And only two months ago, Arek."</p> + +<p>She stared at Paul with shock. "I <i>had</i> almost forgotten. But they do +still hate us. The day before you flew us here, Paul, I met Pakriaa +and two of her soldiers in the woods. I gave them the good-day +greeting. Oh, if one of you had been there she would have answered +it.... Wouldn't the island be better without them? Some of <i>you</i> don't +like them. Even Dorothy only tries to like them. Since the baby was +born, Paul, she—shrinks when they come to the fortress. They don't +know it, but I do."</p> + +<p>Dimly, Paul had known it, known also that it was a thing Dorothy would +consciously reject. "Time, Arek.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span> You'll live a hundred and fifty +years or better—more than three pygmy lifetimes. You'll see them +change."</p> + +<p>Speaking almost like a Charin, Arek said, "They'd better."</p> + +<p>They strolled up the hill; the other giants' labor had ceased. The +building was a sturdy oblong, intended as storehouse and temporary +communal dwelling for them all, including (Wright hoped) some of +Pakriaa's people. Rafters were not yet in place. For that, Rak needed +the strength of another like himself: chubby Muson tired easily. +Someday a road would climb from the beach, traversing the ridge which +was the backbone of the northern half of the island. Here, where +spring water filled the pond and rushed on down to carve a small +harbor below the beach, would be Jensen City, and the three races of +Lucifer would learn to live there in good will and pleasure under a +government of laws. So Wright said—peering at photographs, teasing +his gray beard, tapping thin fingers on the map drawn on the paper of +Earth, on the new maps of whitebark. Paul could see it too—sometimes; +glimpse the houses, gardens, open places. South of the pond, a wheat +field, for on Lucifer the wheat of Earth grew to four feet and bore +richly. Near the field, perhaps the house for Dorothy and himself, +with no doorway lower than ten feet.</p> + +<p>At other times he could see only defeat—the arrogance and blind drive of +genus <i>Charin</i>, species <i>Semisapiens</i> beating against the indifference of +nature, the resentment of other life. He could see his people destroyed, by +accident or anger, the giant friends adrift with only hints of the new life +and spoiled for the old. Then he would stop trying to foresee and would +make his mind's ear listen to Wright insisting: "<i>Give protoplasm a chance. +Patience is the well-spring.</i>..."</p> + +<p>The walls were eleven feet in height. Rak and Muson rested on the +coolness of bare ground within; Rak pointed at the top of the walls +where rafters would rest. "Slow," he said, "and good." Rak could not +be sure how old he was. When Mijok had first persuaded him to the camp +ten months ago, Rak had won his English with the grave precision of a +mason selecting fieldstone. His language had none of the flexibility +and scope that Mijok and others had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span> achieved, but it served him. +After absorbing basic arithmetic, Rak had deliberated on the problem +of his age—squatting at the gate of the stone fortress by Lake Argo, +spreading out rows of colored pebbles to indicate years, rainy +seasons, episodes of hunting or fear or passion too keen to forget. At +last he had come up with the figure of 130 years. "But," he said, +"there are two times. In here"—he patted an ancient scar on his +belly—"and there." He pointed at the red crescent moon.</p> + +<p>"I'll cook supper," Arek said. Muson bubbled and shadowboxed with her +daughter. Muson would laugh at anything—the flutter of a leaf, a +breath of breeze on her red-brown fur. Paul followed to help Arek trim +the carcass of an asonis killed the night before. Hornless, +short-legged, fat, the bovine animal was abundant on the island; its +one enemy here was what Arek called <i>usran</i>, a catlike carnivore the +size of a lynx, which could tackle only the young asonis or feeble +stragglers. Rak hunted in the old way. Bow, club, spear, even rifle, +had been explained to him, but the stalk, the single rush and leap, +the grasp of a muzzle and backward jerk that snapped the neck before +the prey could even struggle—these were Rak's way still. In the old +life, Rak's age would have led him eventually to a few dim years with +a band of women, who would have fed him until he chose to wander into +deep jungle, preventing any from following. When far away, he would +have sat in the shadows to wait—for starvation or the black marsh +reptiles or a great mainland cat, <i>uskaran</i>, which never attacked a +giant in the prime of strength. Rak would have taken no harm from the +young men in this weakness: his own territory would have been +inviolate, and he would have joined the women, in a taciturn farewell +to life, only when teeth and arms had failed. ("We're gentle people," +Mijok said, puzzled at it himself. "In the Red-Moon-before-the-Rains +we only play at fighting. It's not like what we see the other +creatures do at that time. How could one 'possess' a woman? Do I +possess the wind because I like to run against the touch of it...?")</p> + +<p>The meat hung from a makeshift tripod; Arek jumped back, startled, as +a furry thing scampered down. It was like a kinkajou except for the +hump on the back (a true<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> hindbrain in the spine: Sears had long ago +verified that guess of Wright's). "Little rascal," Paul said. "Let's +tame it."</p> + +<p>"What?" Arek was bewildered. "Do what?"</p> + +<p>"Do these live on the mainland?"</p> + +<p>"I never saw one till I came here. Too small to eat. Tame it?"</p> + +<p>"Watch." Paul tossed a bit of meat. The visitor's chatter changed to a +whistling whine; it elongated itself, grabbed, sat back on stubby hind +legs to eat in clever paws; it washed itself with a squirrel's +pertness. Arek chuckled, examining the idea, and went on with her +work; she had become a hypercritical cook, under Dorothy's guidance. +"Jocko, biologist, stand by: I propose to name an animile. Genus +<i>Kink</i>, species <i>quasikinkajou</i>." Genus Kink did not retreat at Sears' +quiet approach, but wriggled a black nose.</p> + +<p>Rak asked in solemn curiosity, "For what is it good?"</p> + +<p>"To make us laugh," Paul said, "so long as we're kind to it."</p> + +<p>"Ah?" Rak moved his fingers to aid the patient mill of his mind.</p> + +<p>"Dance-Nose," said Muson, who already understood. She shook all over. +"Come, Funny-Nose." It would not—yet, but Muson could be patient too.</p> + +<p>Sears whispered in his beard, "Less homesick?"</p> + +<p>"Yes...."</p> + +<p>After the meal Arek wanted Paul to come out on the cliffs. Though +there seemed no danger from the omasha, she carried a long stick and +Paul took his pistol. The slope leveled out to the bare rock of the +headland; the ocean voice was the humming of a thousand giants. The +way was easy, with no crevasses, no peril while the wind was mild. +Arek had often been out here alone. Yesterday Paul had seen her +standing for an hour, watching the west where unbroken water met a +sun-reddened horizon. In her earlier years there might have been dim +mention of the sea by her almost wordless people, but no true +knowledge: the mainland coast was steaming vine-choked jungle, or +tidal marsh, and shut away by the kaksma hills. Paul wondered what +member of his race could stand for an hour in contemplation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span> like a +thinking tree, not shifting a foot nor raising an arm...?</p> + +<p>"Paul, why did you leave Earth?" Arek patted the rock beside her.</p> + +<p>Below the troubled water laughed, endlessly defeated and returning. +Cloud fantasies gathered below a lucid green, and the wind was a +friend. "I have doubted sometimes whether we ought to have done so."</p> + +<p>"That wasn't my meaning. We love you. Didn't you know? But I've +wondered what sent you away from such a place. Ann says it was +beautiful."</p> + +<p>"A—drive of restlessness. We took boundaries as a challenge. I used +to think that a great virtue. Now I call it neither good nor evil."</p> + +<p>"I think it is good."</p> + +<p>"Everywhere, we carry good <i>and</i> evil."</p> + +<p>"What you do here is good. You teach us. You do kind things."</p> + +<p>"We can be bad. But for Doc Wright and his dreams that Ed Spearman +finds so impractical, we'd have done you harm." Helpless at her +innocence, Paul saw she did not believe him. "On Earth, we fought each +other. We hunted for lies to make ourselves feel big. We created great +institutions built on vanity—tickling lies: imperialism, +communism—most of the isms you find so puzzling when we talk of Earth +history. The anger of Charins rarely focused itself on the actual +causes of unhappiness or injustice. Instead we hunted for scapegoats, +easy solutions. We wouldn't study ourselves. Always we itched for +something external to take the blame for our own follies and crimes."</p> + +<p>"I don't understand."</p> + +<p>"As if you stumbled on a root, Arek, and then banged your fist on the +tree that grew it, to blame it for your own clumsiness."</p> + +<p>"But Paul—only a very small child would act like that."</p> + +<p>"Darling, let's watch the sunset." She felt his pain, touched his +knee, and was silent until he said, "A poor naughty child...."</p> + +<p>"There was a thing Ed Spearman said to me—what I wanted to talk to +you about. I've never gone to Pakriaa's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span> village. You know, even Mijok +won't go there except with one of you. I asked Ed if Pakriaa still +kept that stockade for drugging and fattening prisoners—in spite of +her agreeing to the laws. He said yes, she did. I said it was not +right. I said we made a law against slavery too. He said, 'Forget it, +baby—one thing at a time.' I am not a baby. How can the laws govern +us unless all obey them?"</p> + +<p>"Ed—meant no harm, Arek. He only meant it does take time. The pygmies +have more to unlearn. You—started clean. And—well—with the army of +Lantis likely to come back at any time—we can't afford—"</p> + +<p>Yet it seemed natural that this giant child, who had herself done +murder in the old days, should answer his troubled evasions not only +with reproach but with command: "If the laws are to govern us they +must be respected by everyone. I wish I had gone to that village and +torn down the stockade with my hands."</p> + +<p>"And they would have killed you with a hundred spears and Pakriaa's +people would hate us forever, learning nothing but more hatred."</p> + +<p>Arek cried a little, rubbing at the unfamiliar wetness. "Maybe I begin +to see, how difficult.... The sun's going." But they sat quietly in +the warm and undemanding wind until the first sapphire glint of +fireflies dotted the slope where Jensen City might one day shine. Arek +stood, reaching down an affectionate hand.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span></p> +<h2>2</h2> + + +<p>Paul glanced down at sunrise-tinted snow on the highest peak of the +coastal range, thirteen thousand feet above the sea. Prairie spread +for thirty miles east of its base; then came a region of forest and +small lakes fed by the outlet of Lake Argo, which was the core of the +empire of Lantis, Queen of the World.</p> + +<p>Pakriaa's information on Lantis was a murky blend of truth and +fantasy. Lantis claimed birth from Ismar-Creator-and-Destroyer. +Pakriaa had different theories. Originally ruler of a single village, +Lantis consolidated by conquest. Instead of annihilating defeated +villages she took their populations captive, sorting out three +categories: potential followers, slave laborers, and meat. Many in the +first class became fanatically converted; those in the second provided +a year or so of work before dying of whippings and other abuse; +captives of the third class were forced to eat the green-flowered weed +that numbed the brain and were bled out at the right stage of fatness. +In fifteen years one riverside village had swollen to a city of sixty +thousand, fed by expeditions far to the east, and Lantis named her +city Vestoia—Country of Freedom and Joy. "Got anything new in the +'scope?"</p> + +<p>Sears groaned: "There <i>are</i> more boats above the falls."</p> + +<p>The boats, they knew, were broad canoes roofed like sampans against +the omasha, but with no sail. "Not moving, are they?"</p> + +<p>"No—anchored maybe." Sears mopped his round face.</p> + +<p>Without the telescope, Paul could see brownness on the water of Lake +Argo's southern end, near the spot where the outlet tumbled over a +high falls to a smaller lake. It meant that hundreds more must have +been portaged past<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span> the falls from Vestoia during his two days on the +island....</p> + +<p>The fifty red-green flowing miles became a pain of delay. Sears too +would be aching for the gray square of their "fortress" to claim the +eye in the north, touched by early sunlight, a brave structure twelve +feet high, fifty square, built of split stone by the labor of giant +friends. Outside it ran a moat twenty feet wide, ten deep, with a +drawbridge of logs, bark matting, grass-fiber ropes, the bottom +flooded with lake water. There was room within for living quarters, a +supply of smoked meat, dried vegetables.</p> + +<p>Lantis understood scaling ladders, Pakriaa said. Lantis had patience +for a siege. There was no defense, Pakriaa said, in these measures. +The only defense was to attack, to retreat, and attack again. It had +always been so in the old wars. It was still so with this Lantis and +her Big-Village-Vestoia, this bastard begotten of a red worm and +Inkar, goddess of kaksmas. It would always be so—at least, until.... +Paul remembered Dorothy, cherishing Helen at her brown breast, asking +neutrally, "Until what, Abro Pakriaa?"</p> + +<p>Pakriaa had studied the giants' walls with contempt. "Until I shame +this worm spawn Lantis into meeting me alone. She must respect custom. +Her first answer is a—what word?—rejection, because she has fear. I +have sent a second challenge. She will meet me, or her own people will +condemn her. I will pin her belly to the ground. Her government will +be mine." There had been no mistaking it: for the first time in the +year since the idol of Ismar fell and was not restored, Pakriaa was +making vast decisions wholly her own, with only perfunctory interest +in what the Charins might think. In her wrath against the mighty +soldier ruler in the south there was natural grief at the outrages of +past years, but something else too. Her red face glaring southward +said: <i>She has what I desire; she is doing what I would do</i>. Pakriaa +had finished her answer quietly: "It is <i>I</i> who will be Queen of the +World."</p> + +<p>Three days ago. It could have been a mistake to leave the camp at all. +Now—a streak of sunshine on gray at the end of familiar meadow. With +fuel for only a few more flights, Paul knew he had never made a better +landing.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span> The drawbridge was down. Dorothy ran to meet him. Sears was +shouting, "Chris! It's perfect—no kaksmas—everything Paul said it +was—"</p> + +<p>Paul stammered, "You look like a million dollars."</p> + +<p>"Dollars. What're those?"</p> + +<p>"I forget. What's news?"</p> + +<p>"Your funny mouth is tickling my ear."</p> + +<p>"That isn't news, Dope. Helen—"</p> + +<p>"Full of the best gurgles. Come and see." He thought: <i>How do I tell +her of the boats, the thirty-mile hive of savage hatreds</i>—but Sears +was already talking of it. Wright had no smile for Paul, only a warm +gray-eyed stare and pressure of the hand. Paul asked, "Where's Ed? +Mijok and the boys?"</p> + +<p>Ann looked up from cutting a square of hide. She had not come to meet +them. Ann's way nowadays; one's mind insisted: <i>It doesn't mean +anything</i>. "Ed's hunting. Should have been back last night."</p> + +<p>Dorothy added: "Mijok's off missionarying, with Elis and Surok. They +took Blondie—Lisson, I mean: moral support."</p> + +<p>Wright was hag-ridden. "Sears, if it were only Pakriaa's +tribe—but—not fuel enough to fly all the giants over. We cannot +abandon <i>them</i>."</p> + +<p>"Then let's get the women there and the rest of us go overland."</p> + +<p>Ann said, "I'm going overland."</p> + +<p>Wright muttered, "Damn it, Nancy—"</p> + +<p>Sears patted her shoulder and ignored her speech as she ignored the +touch. "Chris, I've labored, myself, over that damn knotty little +brain of Pakriaa's. She can't see things our way. We need a hundred +years."</p> + +<p>The conference lengthened into the morning. Sometimes it seemed to +Paul that his teacher's stubbornness degenerated into the obsession of +a man who won't leave a blazing house until the rugs are saved. Wright +longed for the island, which he had seen only in photographs. There +had always been some compelling reason why he must stay by the +fortress, if only to hoe voracious weeds out of the gardens. Yet to +Wright it was unthinkable that the island community should start +without the pygmies: he returned<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span> to it with haggard insistence. "I +know—I can't actually like Pakriaa—she's got a mind like a greased +eel; but we've made a beginning. They speak our tongue—well. A people +intelligent as they are—"</p> + +<p>Paul thought: <i>It's not Lucifer that's aged him—it's us. We are not +big enough</i>. Aloud he suggested: "Doc, can't we make a start without +them and just keep the door open? Bring them in when we're stronger +ourselves?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, son, if we desert Pak now, she's finished. Over-confidence. +Lantis will go over her like a tide. We might just turn that tide. If +not, we <i>must</i> be ready to help her escape with—whatever's left.... +Well, at least we agree on this: Helen and the women must go to the +island, at once."</p> + +<p>"Tomorrow." Dorothy choked. "If the boats haven't started yet—"</p> + +<p>"All right, dear. Tomorrow. And one man should go with them."</p> + +<p>"You," Paul said. "You."</p> + +<p>Wright said inexorably, "No." His stare groped at Sears Oliphant.</p> + +<p>Sears was nakedly desperate. "Chris, I beg of you—you must not ask me +to go away from this battle." He was sweating, white. "I am—in a +sense—a religious man. The—Armageddon within, your own +phrase—please understand without my saying any more. Don't ask me to +go."</p> + +<p>"Ed won't go.... Paul?"</p> + +<p><i>Leave him, with Sears' inner torments and Ed's arrogance?</i> "No, Doc."</p> + +<p>Ann Bryan said, "I'm staying for the show."</p> + +<p>Dorothy lowered her cheek to the brown fuzz of Helen's head; the +baby's absurd square of palm found Paul's finger. Helen was almost +eight months old—Lucifer months. The new life in Dorothy had been +conceived in the last month of the rains. Dorothy said, "I'm going, +Nancy, with Helen. As a valuable brood mare, I can't afford heroism. +Neither can you."</p> + +<p>The giant women crossed the bridge; they had lingered outside, knowing +the Charins needed to talk alone. Ann said, "I've heard the argument. +I'm not pregnant yet. I've learned to shoot damn' well."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span></p> + +<p>Wright asked, "Will you abide by a vote when Ed gets back?"</p> + +<p>Ann pushed her fingers into black hair, cut short as a man's. "I +suppose I must.... If no men get to the island, how do two women and a +girl child increase and multiply, or shouldn't I ask?"</p> + +<p>Wright mumbled inadequately, "We'll reach the island."</p> + +<p>Ann said, "Then you already see it as a retreat?"</p> + +<p>Wright was silent. He tried to smile with confidence at the giant +women and children, who were sober with reflected unhappiness—all but +nine-year-old Dunin, who trotted to Paul and hugged him with her large +arms and announced: "I learned six words while you were gone. Hi, +listen! 'Brain': that's here and here. 'Me-di-tation': that happens in +the brain when it's quiet. Mm-mm ... 'Breast': that's these. And +'breath': that's ooph, like that. 'Breeze': that's a breath with +nobody blowing it.... I forgotten six."</p> + +<p>Dorothy murmured. "Tem—tem—"</p> + +<p>Dunin hopped up and down. "'Tempest!' Big <i>big</i> breeze—"</p> + +<p>"That's perfect," said Paul. "Perfect...."</p> + +<p>Before the five-month rainy season had made travel on the sodden, +gasping ground too miserable, Mijok had explored a half circle of +territory forty miles in radius east of the hills, for others who +might be willing to learn new ways. It was slow work, often +discouraging. He had located two bands of free-wandering women and +children—twenty in all—and stirred their curiosity and friendliness. +But he had been able to recruit only three other males. There was Rak. +Blackfurred Elis and tawny Surok were in vigorous middle years, hard +to convince but quick to learn once the barrier was down.</p> + +<p>Kamon was accepted leader of the women. White with age, gaunt, +flat-breasted, stooped but quick on her feet, Kamon rarely smiled, but +her good nature was profound. "Ann," she said, "you ought to go. +We—if we cannot fight off these southern pygmies, we can escape. But +you? One of us would have to carry you. And as Mashana Dorothy says, +your womb is needed." (Mashana—sweetheart, mother, hunting companion, +friend.)<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span></p> + +<p>Wright said, "You, Dorothy, Helen, and the giant children."</p> + +<p>That brought murmuring. Kamon checked it: "Only four children still +need milk. You, Samis, your breasts are big: you will go." Kamon +turned with gentle deference to one authority she felt to be stronger +than her own under the laws: "Doc?" Paul found it comfortable, no +longer even amusing, that Wright should be known to the giants by his +inevitable nickname. The pygmies disliked the short sound, and initial +<i>D</i> always bothered them. To them he was Tocwright, or more often +Tocwright-Who-Plays-with Gray-Fur-at-His-Throat.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Kamon. Samis too. Paul, how many trips will that take?"</p> + +<p>"Three—leaving fuel for about three more of the same length."</p> + +<p>Wright nodded. "Ed has a notion of using the lifeboat for a weapon. +Hedgehop, scare 'em to hell. But with fuel so low—"</p> + +<p>There was shadow at the drawbridge. Ed Spearman flung aside the +carcass he had brought. Ann's white face was still, though she clung +to him briefly when he kissed her. It had occurred to Paul that Ann's +image of love would not be given reality anywhere in the galaxies: she +wished moments to be eternities and a human self to be a mirror of +desire. <i>But Dorothy and I—somehow we've learned to let each other +live....</i> "More news," Spearman said. "I stopped at the village. A spy +of Pakriaa's came home last night—must be a sharp article: did the +sixty-odd miles up the lake shore in nothing flat, with facts and +figures."</p> + +<p>"Lantis is moving." Wright dropped his hands to his bony knees.</p> + +<p>"No, Doc, but will in a day or so." Spearman sat down, holding Ann's +fingers till she pulled them away. He nodded to Sears and Paul. "Good +trip?" He had grown even more rugged in a year of Lucifer. He wore +only shorts and Earth-made shoes; months of handling a heavy bow had +made his upper arms almost as thick as the narrow part of Mijok's +forearm. His face had deepened its lines; he had never smiled easily.</p> + +<p>"Very good," Sears said. "The island is—" He was silent.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span></p> + +<p>Spearman grunted. "You're sold too? Well, here's the news. One: you +remember Pakriaa's second challenge, sent by two warriors, correct and +formal—trust Pak for that. One of those messengers is returning. The +spy ran on ahead—with part of the body of the other ambassador." He +studied the sickened faces. "Two: the spy says Lantis plans to send +four thousand on the lake boats, another six thousand overland. +Pakriaa—who is in a state of mind I don't know how to describe, not +jitters exactly—Pakriaa thinks we may feel the lake-boat drums +tomorrow. She doesn't know what they are, by the way—invention of +Lantis, I guess. From her description they must be drums, maybe hollow +logs mounted on boats. She heard them last year in the war we +interrupted. You feel them before you hear them, she says: she thinks +it was a lake devil consulting with the Queen of the World. Three: the +spy wasn't sure, but thinks Lantis has already sent six hundred east +of the lake to make a big circle, come down on the settlement from the +northeast."</p> + +<p>"Smart," Paul said. "To drive us into the kaksma hills?"</p> + +<p>"The kaksma hills." Spearman's gray eyes squinted in a sort of +laughter. "They're not so bad. The critters may be all they say, after +dark, but—I'd better own up: I've gone that way on my last three solo +trips. Safe enough in daylight, when they're half blind. I killed a +few today."</p> + +<p>Sears asked quickly, "Bring back specimens?"</p> + +<p>Spearman teased the fat man with waiting and chuckled and nodded at +the asonis carcass. "Tied to one of the hoofs. Don't look so worried, +Doc—I waded plenty of streams on the way back." He rose with heavy +grace and strolled out on the bridge. "Come a minute, some of you." +Paul joined him; Wright stayed as he was; Sears was examining the +kaksma's gray, thick-tailed body, holding back its pinkish lip. Paul +caught a repellent glimpse of the jutting upper canines; the molars +were shearing tools like a cat's. He saw the spade claws of the +forefeet. The jet eyes were like a mole's. "Look," Spearman said, "the +hills. Notice that hogback at the southern end—it's five miles long. +Riddled with burrows. They must live on small game on the meadow below +and hunt the other side of the hills too, where it's jungle." His +fingers dug at Paul's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span> shoulder. He spoke loudly enough to be heard by +all: "Listen: the earth at the burrows is red ocher. Understand? +Hematite."</p> + +<p>Wright let out his breath sharply. "So—"</p> + +<p>"Yeah. Just a five-mile mountain of iron ore. Merely what I've been +looking for ever since we crashed. For a start. From iron to steel +to—ah.... And just when we've <i>got</i> it—God! with organized pygmy +labor—" He strode back into the fortress, glancing obliquely at the +silent giant women. "The pygmies do understand work, you know. Well, +never mind it now. Of course we must get the baby and the women to +your island right away. As a temporary refuge, we must use it." He +watched Wright with unqualified sadness. "Apart from that, you know +what I think of your Island of Lotos-Eaters—"</p> + +<p>"That's not just, Ed."</p> + +<p>"Adelphi then. Well, the women and Helen—"</p> + +<p>"And the giant children, with Samis to nurse the youngest."</p> + +<p>Spearman asked evenly, "Paul, how's the charlesite?"</p> + +<p>"After the trips Doc mentioned, enough for three more."</p> + +<p>Ann's keen ears caught a far-off sound. "Mijok's coming back."</p> + +<p>The music grew slowly manifest: Mijok, in an Earth song more than two +hundred years old. Long-flowing chanteys and slower spirituals suited +him. He had teased Ann to teach him all she knew, even after she lost +interest. Swift melodies and rapid syllables were beyond him—the +depth of his tone rendered them grotesque. More than a mile away, he +was wallowing in "Shenandoah"—Mijok, to whom the ocean was only a +word and a river steamboat the cloudiest of legends. Other voices, +true on pitch, followed his solo:</p> + +<p>"<i>Away—we're bound away....</i>"</p> + +<p>Paul asked, "How many, Nan?"</p> + +<p>Ann shut her eyes. "Four, besides Mijok and—yes, Lisson's singing. At +least two new recruits. Ah—they can sing before they talk." She +hurried into that thatched house-within-a-house which was her comer of +privacy on Lucifer. The giant women were smiling, though Kamon's eyes +followed Ann with trouble and pity. They hummed in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span> three-part +counterpoint. Their voices had the range of a Charin baritone; Paul +missed Muson, who could approach the tenor. Sears' bass moved in, a +well-behaved trombone teasing a crowd of bassoons. Dorothy's alto +added a warm thread of sound....</p> + +<p>The tall children and women poured out over the bridge when Mijok and +his companions were still distant. Musical thunder in the woods pulsed +along the ground. Spearman smiled indulgently. "Just like a bunch of +kids."</p> + +<p>"Yes," Wright said. "The pygmies are more serious. They have wars."</p> + +<p>Sears stopped humming and mumbled, "Don't, Chris...."</p> + +<p>Mijok brought in his triumph, beaming and warm. "And my smallest +woman?" Dorothy placed the naked morsel that was Helen in his waiting +hands. Mijok was bemused. "How can anything be so small?"</p> + +<p>Dorothy claimed: "Seven pounds at birth—that ain't hay, Mijok."</p> + +<p>"Growing too," Elis said. The golden-furred girl Lisson tickled +Helen's chest with the tip of a forefinger, and Mijok introduced the +newcomers. One was timid. "Just a boy," Mijok explained. "Knows some +words already, though. Danik?"</p> + +<p>The giant boy whispered, "Good day." The other was older, black like +Elis, trying to display stern indifference, but Surok eased him into +relaxation with a few words in the old language.</p> + +<p>For Mijok, speech had still the brilliance of newness but was wholly +flexible; he reveled in colloquialisms, acquired mainly from Sears and +Dorothy. "While the boys and I were out having a hell of a time, +what's with local industries? The island, gentlemen?"</p> + +<p>"Good," Sears said. "Better than I dared dream."</p> + +<p>"And those tough babies in the south—anything new?"</p> + +<p>Sears winced. "That part ain't good."</p> + +<p>Mijok fondled the fat man's arm with a hand mild as silk. "Now, Jock, +now. We'll give 'em hell, that's what we'll do. Hey, Paul?"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span></p> +<h2>3</h2> + + +<p>Abara trotted between Sears and Paul in the forest aisle, a silent +ugly man with popeyes, bulging underlip, jutting ears; thirty inches +tall. He was twenty-six. His potbellied softness had the beginning sag +of middle age. There was politics, Paul guessed, in his presence at +the camp—it was not because the queen had tired of him that he was +temporarily detached from the harem. His body was agile for all its +pokiness, his mind even more nimble; his English, when he stooped to +use it, was good. After the noon meal Abara had appeared, crossing the +drawbridge like a wisp of red smoke, ignoring the giants, reminding +Sears obliquely that it was three days since he had visited the +clearing near the camp, where the white olifants had learned to come.</p> + +<p>Sears' love for the great leaf eaters had deepened with familiarity. +He had easily persuaded the others to guarantee their permanent +protection in the laws. He had taught the pygmies to call them +olifants, a shrewd stroke, conveying to the Neolithic mind that the +animals were of Sears' totem. Even during the long ordeal of the rains +he had gone alone for whole days and nights, following olifant trails, +sitting in patience where a broad-leaf tree they enjoyed was abundant. +Deep forest was no place for a man who moved slowly and shrank from +discomfort and danger, yet Sears held to this undertaking as +stubbornly as Wright to his dreams of a community of good will under a +government of laws. And before all except Paul and Wright, Sears was +able to preserve a manner like the face of Lake Argo on a still +morning. That calm gave him, in the eyes of the pygmies, more puzzling +divinity than they found in the others. Abara worshiped from behind a +mask of cynical blankness. Pakriaa seemed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span> almost to love him openly. +She was not arrogant with him; when he spoke she listened. She +assigned soldiers to collect the insects, fish, small animals he +wanted for study; she brought him gifts—an earthenware vessel with +ritual painting, odd flowers, ornaments of wood and bone and clay. She +liked to sit by him when he was at the microscope and peek, mystified, +into the country of the lens.</p> + +<p>Sears had let the olifants grow used to him. He talked to them. He +learned they like to be rubbed above the tip of the trunk and on the +vast flat tops of their heads—for this luxury they would kneel, +rumbling and sighing. Eventually he dared climb into the natural +saddle between hump and skull: they allowed it. They were never +excited nor in a hurry. The kaksmas they probably avoided by keen +scent and flight in times of danger; they kept clear of the omasha by +going into open ground only at night.</p> + +<p>The clearing was silent except for muted trilling of illuama. The +ground was trodden; purple-leaf vines hung dead and brown, ripped out +by trunks and tusks. Sears said that once, with no notion of conveying +the idea, he had tugged peevishly at a vine under the nose of his +favorite cow. "So, she came and fetched it loose—tired of watching me +act like a damn fool."</p> + +<p>Abara said, "I will whistle, me...." Two came, spectrally calm. +"Susie!" Sears called. "Been a good girl, hey?" The old cow let down +her many tons to have her head scratched. Another arrived on +fog-silent feet; then two bulls together, munching leaves. The five +were placid, enjoying the hot stillness and Sears' purring talk. The +largest bull stood ten feet at the shoulder, Paul estimated, as +Abara's two-feet-six approached him, seized a lowered ear, and climbed +up. Abara piped: "We walk now, Mister Johnson."</p> + +<p>Mister Johnson's pale eyes noted Paul's bulging jacket; the boneless +finger of his trunk groped suggestively till Paul produced a +melon-like fruit. "Hoo-hee!" Abara crowed. "We thank you." They +vanished in the shadows.</p> + +<p>"Susie, want to dig some vines?" But Sears halted in the act of +climbing her neck. Spearman had joined them, with a good hunter's +quiet.</p> + +<p>"You really have something there." Spearman was cordial<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span> and flushed. +"Pygmies still make the best wine. Ours is no damn good, yet."</p> + +<p>"Meant to ask how the last turned out."</p> + +<p>"Needs ripening, like everything else."</p> + +<p>"In fact," said Paul, "you're slightly plastered."</p> + +<p>"But slightly." Ed grinned. "How if I climb on one of those?"</p> + +<p>Sears was doubtful. "Have to get acquainted first. Mister Smith over +there—he shook me off the first time. Not rough—just wasn't ready."</p> + +<p>"They pull vines at command? You can steer 'em?"</p> + +<p>"Sure. If they like you. Knee pressure."</p> + +<p>"Abara's good?"</p> + +<p>"They prefer him to me. Arek is better still. I miss her."</p> + +<p>"Mijok rides, doesn't he?"</p> + +<p>"Mijok and Elis. Surok's a bit skittish. I guess Pak thinks it's +undignified—or else the damned witches disapprove."</p> + +<p>"Hm ... We have, maybe, three days before Lantis hits us—"</p> + +<p>"Lantis—I'd succeeded in forgetting her for three minutes." Sears +drooped his head against the column of Mister Smith's foreleg; eyes +closed, he cursed without humor. He dredged up almost forgotten words +from the old years of Earth, from bars, docks, dissecting rooms, at +least four major religions. He cursed Lantis root and branch, ancestry +and posterity, heart, body, and brain. Regaining a trace of mirth, he +outlined a program of correction that would have kept hell under +forced draft for a thousand years. Still with closed eyes, he asked, +"What's the point, Ed? What's the damned point?"</p> + +<p>"How many of these critters have you tamed?"</p> + +<p>"Five. There's another smelling around, not ready yet."</p> + +<p>"And five riders—you ride 'em, don't you, Paul?" Paul nodded.</p> + +<p>Abara and Mister Johnson returned in silence, under the trees behind +Spearman, who was unaware of them. Sears said, "Paul's good. Good +balance."</p> + +<p>"So you have a rider for each mount.... Well, I talked it over with +Doc—he says it's your department. What if a bunch of those animals, +with armed riders—"</p> + +<p>"No," said Sears. "Quite impractical."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"Well ... They won't go in the open—omasha."</p> + +<p>"They will at night, you told me."</p> + +<p>"They are not fighters."</p> + +<p>"If they go where you order 'em—"</p> + +<p>Sears said, "No. If Paul and I and the two strongest giants were +trying that, what's left? You, Doc, Surok, and the giant women."</p> + +<p>Spearman snapped: "Then use only three—Abara, Mijok, Elis."</p> + +<p>"Mijok will fight beside Chris. You know that. So will I."</p> + +<p>Spearman turned away, noticing Abara and Mister Johnson for the first +time and ignoring them. Popeyes watched him from a mountain of white +flesh. "All right. Oh, I almost forgot: Doc wants you back at the camp +for another conference. It has just occurred to him that since we're +about to be wiped off the planet we ought to have a military +commander. For the look of the thing, you reckon? You know, I dreamed +of space travel from the time I was five. Never imagined I'd do it +with a Sunday school. Don't hurry of course. Just come when it damn +well suits you."</p> + +<p>Paul caught up with him on the trail. "Look, Ed—"</p> + +<p>"I'll recite it for you: mustn't lose my temper. We mustn't divide; +mustn't quarrel; Doc's word is holy at all times—"</p> + +<p>"No one says that."</p> + +<p>Spearman wasn't listening. "Goddamn it, why do you think I've gone +away alone so often? To explore, sure, to find things we need. By God +I've found 'em too, haven't I? Also to get away from the Sunday +school. Beating my brains out to win a little advance—you people +can't see—"</p> + +<p>"What do <i>you</i> think we should do? I mean right now—Lantis."</p> + +<p>Spearman fretted in silence, striding as if speed and heavy steps +could ease his distress. "Why, we ought to have gone to live at +Pakriaa's village a year ago, after the reconciliation, while they +were still dizzy from the fall of the idol. You remember—Pak was +almost humble. Ready for big changes. We could have done anything with +her—then. Eliminated the witches. Taught and trained the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span> best of her +followers. We'd have ironworking now. We'd have a competent army. Why, +we could take the initiative, drive south, break up anything Lantis +may have while she's on the march. Yeah—a year ago. Sure—Mijok +wouldn't approach the village, so <i>we</i> mustn't move there. Every day +is an opportunity thrown away, wasted."</p> + +<p>"You think we should have abandoned the giants?"</p> + +<p>"What've they <i>got</i>?" Spearman cried. "Don't even understand +work—throw things around at a great rate, and then somebody sees a +new bug or has a funny idea or starts singing. Or asks Doc to explain +a point in philosophy. Or they decide to just sit and look at nothing +for two hours. Fight? Mijok talks a good fight. You couldn't make 'em +fight with a kick in the rear."</p> + +<p>"Never tried it."</p> + +<p>Spearman smiled miserably. "One doesn't, with a critter eight feet +tall.... All right, they're people. They're intelligent. If we had all +the time in the world and nothing threatening I'd like to study 'em +myself. But look at the numbers. Three on the island. Six grown women +here. Twelve flutterbrained children. Elis, Surok, Mijok, and the two +tenderfeet they brought in today. Is that an army? As for right +now—Hell, I've given up making suggestions." He tensed and stopped +short. Paul glanced behind; Sears and Abara were catching up. "Thought +I heard something."</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"Drums.... Guess I imagined it.... Lantis must have a terrific +organization. Bound to, Paul, in a community of sixty thousand. Hadn't +you thought of that at all? Communications, laws, disciplined army, a +forest agriculture at least as good as Pakriaa's. Why, from something +Pak said, I think they even have a monetary system—anyway something +more elaborate than the barter that's good enough for Pak's little +cluster of villages. Stone Age—but that's partly an accident of +ecology, isn't it? I mean, they have to avoid the hills and open +ground—wouldn't be easy to get a start in metalworking when you have +to stay in the woods. I believe they're a people under strong internal +pressure toward the next stage of civilization. With labor, +organization, a few modern ideas, there would be ways to clean the +kaksmas out of the hills. Then metals.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> We know the omasha breed on +rock ledges wherever the kaksmas can't climb. They could be +exterminated too. There's a whole world for the taking. Doc is right +that the new culture has to be a blend of ours and theirs. Oh, the +giants too, maybe, sometime. But it won't be done by piddling around +with the kind of pretty idealism that never worked even on Earth."</p> + +<p>Paul groped for the unspoken thing. "You'd have us join forces with +Lantis?"</p> + +<p>Spearman halted to stare at him. There was a flush of blood around his +eyes, the visible pain of frustration that never gave him rest. He +waited till Sears and Abara had come up. "I'm a minority. I haven't +suggested a damned thing." He was silent until they reached the camp.</p> + +<p>Abro Pakriaa was there, with seven of her soldiers. All seven wore +purple skirts, insignia of leadership—"captains" was the nearest +word. With makeshift pigments and brittle whitebark, Paul had recently +painted such a group. The effort was for Pakriaa; she had been gravely +delighted with it, seeing how prominent in it were her own vivid blue +skirt and taller stature. To Paul's eyes the colors had sworn +horribly, and he had been glad when the princess carried the daub +away, balanced joyfully on her bald head.</p> + +<p>Pak's seven captains made it a visit of state. Wright was soberly +intent, and Ann stood by him, regally silent; play-acting for +Pakriaa's benefit, but Ann sardonically enjoyed the pose. Pakriaa had +gradually accepted the fact of Tocwright's leadership, but her view of +the status of Charin women remained addled by contradictions; the idea +of social and mental equality between the sexes eluded her completely. +Dorothy sat watchful at the opening of the "home" room—Helen would be +sleeping inside; Dorothy's fists were pushed into her cheeks, dark +eyes upturned to Pakriaa's explanatory monologue. Abara effaced +himself. Mijok loomed with folded arms on Wright's other side. The +rest of the giants kept to the background.</p> + +<p>"Abro Samiraa, Abro Kamisiaa, Abro Brodaa—" Pakriaa was naming the +heads of the five northern villages. A loose alliance, but those +villages had fought powerfully against Lantis a year ago and each +could provide a hundred and fifty first-line soldiers and fifty of the +skittish<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span> male bowmen. "They are with me, my sisters," Pakriaa said, +with sad gravity and not much of her natural swagger. "The wormseed +Lantis has broken custom—her own people must spit on her. For the +death of my messenger I spit on her heart and loins, I spit on her +footprints."</p> + +<p>The arithmetic was simple, Paul thought. A scant twelve hundred +fighters against a three-sided attack from over ten thousand. Four +Charin men with rifles, automatics, scanty ammunition, heavy bows. A +handful of giants who knew nothing of war but theory and whose basic +nature would revolt at the reality. Spitting wouldn't help. He forced +himself to attend to what Wright was saying: "There must be one +commander."</p> + +<p>"I give no orders to Abro Samiraa and her sisters, my equals."</p> + +<p>"Would you and she and the others accept direction from one of us?"</p> + +<p>Pakriaa murmured, "I have never seen you fight."</p> + +<p>Spearman laughed. Wright said, "You will, Abro Pakriaa. If you will +accept one of us as commander, the army can strike as one soldier. +There would be less confusion. And Lantis will not expect it."</p> + +<p>That brought shrewdness to the little red face. "But you can do +nothing hiding behind this pile of stones."</p> + +<p>"A temporary shelter while we shoot. You know our fire sticks. This +building commands the upper part of the lake and this end of the +meadow. We will not be trapped here. There will be no siege. If it is +necessary to retreat, we'll know the right moment to do it."</p> + +<p>The oldest captain, Nisana, a wiry, quiet woman, said, "Abro Kamisiaa +herself spoke of a thing like this."</p> + +<p>Pakriaa murmured absently, "Did I give you leave to speak?" But she +was not angry; she was considering it. "This is better, Tocwright, +what you say now. I will send, learn if my sisters agree. But who will +be the leader?"</p> + +<p>"That should be decided now," Wright said, and Paul thought: <i>Here it +comes, Ed—you get what you want at last.</i> And he remembered that +obscure thing which might not have been in Spearman's mind at all: +<i>desertion</i>—the thing was a dirty word, and the mind would not speak +it. But Wright was staring at him—at him, not at Spearman.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> "There's +only one of us," Wright said, "who ought to lead, in this trouble. +That is <i>my</i> feeling, Abro Pakriaa, but I alone cannot decide it. All +of us here should vote on it."</p> + +<p>Pakriaa understood the nature of a vote. Under her iron monarchy, +minor village matters were often decided by that method if her own +attitude happened to be neutral. Once made, and approved by herself, a +pygmy vote was binding as magic. Her gaze touched the giants with a +sour smile. She was visibly counting; then she was studying Paul with +new curiosity.</p> + +<p>Of the giants, only the two new recruits were not in evidence. Paul +glimpsed the red-furred boy peering from the doorway of Mijok's +private room; Surok went in to soothe him. Pakriaa said, "I will +consent. After the vote I will inform my sisters as quickly as I can."</p> + +<p>Wright's fingers were frozen in his gray beard. "Then I ask that Paul +Mason take command, his orders to be followed without question."</p> + +<p>Paul could not speak. <i>How did this happen? How can I ...</i> He heard +Ann, imitating the formality of Wright's words, but with an undertone +of passionate protest: "I ask for the leadership of Edmund Spearman."</p> + +<p>Spearman frowned at her, flushed, proud, perhaps amazed. He said +doubtfully, "Other nominations...? Voice vote?"</p> + +<p>"Voice vote, as you wish," Wright said.</p> + +<p>"M-make it voice vote," Dorothy whispered, and her face was begging: +<i>Is it too much? Can you stand it? Is it what I ought to do...</i>?</p> + +<p>"Satisfactory," Spearman said. Paul nodded helplessly.</p> + +<p>Dorothy said, "Paul Mason."</p> + +<p>Wright glanced at Pakriaa. When Spearman was nominated she had +abandoned her patronizing air; she said with enthusiasm, "Spearman."</p> + +<p>Mijok's voice rumbled in the depths: "Paul Mason."</p> + +<p>The voting went quickly after that. Abara slipped into shadow and +shook his head before Wright could call his name. Sears voted for Paul +with a wry attempt at a grin. Surok hesitated; his tawny face smiled +at Paul with apology and he said, "Spearman." Golden Lisson voted the +same way. The other giant women and Elis voted for Paul. The children +were quiet, not needing to be told that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span> this was grown-up business. +When one of the smallest boys started to hum, little Dunin squatted +behind him and covered his mouth.</p> + +<p>All the pygmy captains but one had followed Pakriaa's lead, after a +pantomime of meditation, probably for the record. Now, with a vote of +10-10, this one captain was full of trouble. She understood that she +would be the last to vote and must break the tie. This was Nisana, +taciturn, with the white scar of a wound that had destroyed her lower +left breast and run jaggedly down her side; Paul had seen her often +but knew little of her. She was studying the candidates with a +manifestly honest, tormenting effort to decide, and she avoided +Pakriaa's astounded glare. The green eyes fixed themselves at last on +one candidate with a blinding innocence.</p> + +<p>"Paul Mason."</p> + +<p>Pakriaa started as if slapped, but recovered quickly. She said, +"Tocwright, is Abara not to vote?"</p> + +<p>Abara shuffled a step backward, two steps forward. It brought him +nearer the bulk of Sears Oliphant. His bulging eyes tried to escape +Wright's look, and Pakriaa's; his ugly lips wobbled. He squeaked: +"Paul Mason."</p> + +<p>"Twelve-ten," Wright said. "Abro Pakriaa, I am grateful—"</p> + +<p>Pakriaa ignored him. She was saying with acid sweetness, "Abroshin +Nisana, perhaps you wish to remain here?"</p> + +<p>It seemed to Paul that a mechanical force within him was taking over, +unsought, at a moment of greatest need. "That would be excellent, Abro +Pakriaa. If I am commander, I need one of you here: I am glad to +select Abroshin Nisana."</p> + +<p>The princess faced him. Her eyelids flickered—usually a sign of pygmy +amusement more revealing than laughter, but one never knew, exactly. +The machine labored, weighing dangers and advantages. A direct order +now might win over Pakriaa or lose her completely and all the twelve +hundred. She understood and admired aggressiveness; she was also a +bundle of touchy personal pride. And—the slim spear in her hand could +strike like a cobra. Paul said, "Abro Pakriaa, you will tell the other +leaders our decision, and if they agree, have them come here at +once."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span> There was a gray-white shadow at his left. The balance, +swinging delicately, was visible in Pakriaa's almost sleepy eyes. He +thought: <i>One thing quicker than a pygmy's arm—a giant's</i>. At least +he would not be pierced with white-stone, while Mijok stood there.</p> + +<p>Pakriaa's arm swung—the harmless right arm, a harmless beckoning +gesture to six of her captains, who followed her out of the fortress, +leaving Abroshin Nisana staring at the ground and very much alone.</p> + +<p>Spearman came alive. He spoke plainly, cheerfully: "Paul, count on me +for anything. Do whatever I can." His voice had full sincerity. If his +eyes were a little too steady, too candid—never mind it. It was a +pleasure to take his hand, thank him, turn to immediate needs.</p> + +<p>"Two lifeboat trips right away, Ed, in what's left of daylight. Ann, +Samis, and the four smallest giant children on the first. All the +carpentry and garden tools. Third trip in the morning." Wright's +sudden relaxation was praise....</p> + +<p>Ann left, with no more protest than a backward look. But at the last +moment she ran back to kiss Wright on the mouth....</p> + +<p>And when Ed was returning from the second flight, which had carried +Dunin and four other giant children to the island—when it was night +and the red eye of the lifeboat was slipping down from above the +hills, then the drums began.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span></p> +<h2>4</h2> + + +<p>Paul heard the drums from within the room that was his and +Dorothy's—merely a section of the thatched lean-to inside the +fortress wall, but Dorothy had given it the reality of a living place. +There were no chairs: one sat on a rug which was a cured uskaran pelt, +a gift from Abro Brodaa, whose people had hunted down the tigerish +beast after it raided her village. The bed was only a clumsy framework +with an asonis hide stretched across it. But the shelter had become +dear with use, and Dorothy had hung a few of Paul's paintings on the +walls—a portrait of Mijok, one of Christopher Wright which had caught +something of the old man's brooding alertness. The red jungle flowers +were too cloyingly rich to be kept here, but Dorothy had found a blue +meadow shrub, and a white bloom that hid in shady ground and recalled +the scent of jonquils....</p> + +<p>It was too dark to see her plainly; Paul knew her eyes were open on +him. Barely audible against his shoulder, she said, "I thought I'd be +insatiable. I only want to be near and not think." Nevertheless +thought goaded her. "Ten thousand—ten thousand—What can you <i>do</i>?"</p> + +<p>All he could say was rehearsed, mechanical, and she had heard it +before. "Frontal attack first, because the pygmies couldn't be led +into anything else. But I shall turn it into an ordered retreat—to +the island. Drive south, skirt the southern end of the hills, then +straight for the coast. We'll be at the island in—oh, soon—"</p> + +<p>"But the range—the coastal mountains opposite the island—you can't +cross them—they rise so sheer—"</p> + +<p>"Remember the river that flows almost due west from these little +hills? It comes to the sea north of the range. We'll make rafts to get +down that, I think. There aren't<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span> any falls. At the coast we'll +contrive something—dugouts with outriggers. I've already shown old +Rak how to make one; he may be working on it now."</p> + +<p>Dorothy pressed a hand over his mouth. She stammered, "Make this +moment last." But even during the fine sharp agony there were words: +"I shall keep—a bonfire on that beach—night and day ..." and when +his hand was slack in her hair and she seemed to be hardly breathing, +Paul heard the drums.</p> + +<p>They were far off and everywhere. Only the remembering brain insisted they +were on the lake. They were not sound at all, at first. A pressure pain in +the back of the skull, a rasping of nerve endings. Nothing but drums. +Hollow logs with a hide membrane, rubbed and pounded by tiny painted +savages. "You must go tonight after all." Dorothy could not speak. He put +Helen in her fumbling arms; he hurried out to the open space, saw the eye +of the lifeboat returning. The drums took on a rhythm, a throbbing in 5/8 +time, rapid, venomous. But far away. Still not quite +sound—<i>Ah</i>-ah-ah-ah-ah, <i>ah</i>-ah-ah-ah-ah—growing no nearer, no louder, +but gaining in vicious urgency, relentless as a waterfall, a runaway +machine. <i>Ah</i>-ah-ah-ah-ah....</p> + +<p>Paul hoped that Wright and Sears might be sleeping. It would be an +hour yet before Pakriaa could return with the other leaders, if indeed +she ever did. Elis and Abara were on sentry duty. The three giant +children still at the camp—would they be sleepless, keyed up to vivid +fantasies of the island, like Charin children before a great journey?</p> + +<p>Kamon sat alone by the gate. A small figure drooped at the other end +of the enclosure. Since there was no immediate task for her, Paul had +told Abroshin Nisana to rest, but he knew her little bald head turned +to follow him. "Kamon—I'm going to have the third flight made +tonight. There would be room for you too in the boat. Will you go?"</p> + +<p>Black lips and ancient white face smiled up at him. "If you wish."</p> + +<p>"I do. Stay close to Dorothy. That will leave four of you giant women +here. I wish they could all go. Tejron's sober and wise—she'll keep +them together. You're more needed on the island. Don't let Dorothy be +much alone."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span></p> + +<p>The old woman mused: "This Charin love is a strange thing. It isn't +our natures for two persons to come so close. But I see something good +in it, I think...." Paul struggled to hear her over the almost +subsonic yammer of the drums. <i>Ah</i>-ah-ah-ah-ah—it seemed not to +trouble Kamon much, though she would be hearing it even more plainly. +"I will stay with her, Paul," she said, and watched the long glide as +Spearman brought the boat in.</p> + +<p>On the drawbridge Spearman cocked his head at the drums. "That's it." +He read Paul's thought: "The rest tonight, huh? Better, I'd think."</p> + +<p>"Yes. Get something to eat, why don't you? Kamon is going too."</p> + +<p>Spearman nodded, unsurprised. "Not hungry.... Wonder how long they +keep it up...."</p> + +<p>Wright came from his room with sleepless eyes. "Till they attack, +probably. All night, maybe all tomorrow. To soften us up. Damn +them...."</p> + +<p>Somehow Paul was walking to the boat, carrying the baby for Dorothy. +He climbed in with her, adjusted the straps. Helen waked and was +fretful till she found the breast "You bore her alone—without any—"</p> + +<p>"Alone!" Dorothy was astonished. "I had you. Doc's a fine medical man, +whatever he says. Don't you remember how Mijok held out his arm for me +to grab when it got tough? He said, 'I am a tree.'" Now she was +holding his look with an indestructible smile until the rest came and +Paul had to back out of the cramped cabin to give them room; then had +to stand aside while the bright relic of twenty-first-century man spat +its green flame and hot gases at the lake and leaped to soaring and +slid into moonless darkness above the hills. The drums wept, raved, +obscenely whispered.</p> + +<p>Paul did not know Sears Oliphant was with him till he heard the voice: +"I think, Paul—the drums defeat their purpose. They make me sore +instead of scared. I think you won't need to worry about me, Paul."</p> + +<p>"I never have." He glanced at the fat man's holstered automatic, +remembered the cleanness of the rifle hanging in Sears' room. "My +father used to say most men are good watchdogs, who know they're +scared but stand guard in spite of it; only a few are rabbits and +possums." Paul<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span> turned his back on the hills. Nothing was there to +see, nothing at all. "I wish you'd known my father. He was a tall man. +Nuts about animals—always brought 'em into the talk—illustration, +example. Couldn't stand to see even a wasp beating against the glass; +you never knew when a deer mouse would climb out of his pocket and run +down his pants leg." Paul laughed. The drums fretted in 5/8, +passionate, soft, cruel.</p> + +<p>Sears watched blue fireflies over a lake so peacefully still that the +sapphire reflections were as real as their cause. "A teacher, wasn't +he?"</p> + +<p>"For a while, till he settled in New Hampshire. They wouldn't let him +teach nineteenth and twentieth-century history as he saw it. He saw it +in terms of ethical conflict, the man versus the state, self-reliance +versus the various dreary socialisms, enlightened altruism versus +don't-stick-your-neck-out, and he didn't give a good god-damn whether +the first atomic submersible was built in 1952 or '53. Doc would have +loved him too: he knew what was meant by a government of laws. He made +his students search out not only theory but the actual dismal +consequences of the doctrine that the end justifies the +means—Alexander, Augustus, Napoleon, Lenin, Hitler. That was regarded +as 'wilfully minimizing the significance of technological advance.' He +didn't minimize it; he just recognized that other matters were vastly +more important, and he didn't care to see the machine built up into +one more mumbo jumbo. So he sent me through college by breeding +children's riding ponies and selling hatching eggs. Not a bad life, or +so he said.... Jocko, will Pakriaa come back?"</p> + +<p>"I believe so.... Ah, Chris—nice evening for the month of Charin."</p> + +<p>Wright was a paleness in the dark; stern, weary, tall, watching the +lake, talking to himself: "The month we named for ourselves—end of +Year One—oh, I do call that a pardonable vanity.... Paul, I was +wholly selfish in choosing you. I've given you a burden no one should +have to carry."</p> + +<p>"We're all carrying it."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, son." Wright moved away to stand alone at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span> the rim of the +lake, listening to the crawling thunder of the drums. Twice, Paul +heard him speak, with an intensity beyond pain: "No one is expendable. +No one is expendable...."</p> + +<p>Sears exclaimed, "Look!" There were five white cloud-like shapes at +the edge of the woods. "Oh, they've never done this before. Susie! +What's the matter? There now, girl, come tell the old man—"</p> + +<p>Paul followed him. "It's the drums—don't you think?"</p> + +<p>The five had been complaining softly, but that ceased as Sears moved +among them, patting their legs, soothing them. "But Paul—their +grounds are mostly north of here—there now, Mister Smith, you old +bastard—so why didn't they travel away from the sound? Take it easy, +Millie, Miss Ponsonby—"</p> + +<p>"The wild ones probably did. But these had to come to you."</p> + +<p>"Oh ... That detachment of Lantis—the one in the northeast—"</p> + +<p>"Don't think so, Jocko. Pakriaa's spies are all around up there—we'll +have warning. Elis is posted half a mile north of us—he'd know—smell +'em if he didn't hear 'em. However, I'll go talk with him...."</p> + +<p>The depth of forest muted the drums—a little; they were still a +cumulative torture of anger in the inner darkness of the mind. Paul +saved the fading power of his Earth-made radion flashlight by +following his sense of the trail. He had learned to move as softly in +the jungle as any Charin could hope to do—more softly than Spearman, +softly enough to steal within spear range of the asonis. There was not +much danger here, unless it might be from the uskaran, a beast Paul +had glimpsed alive only once and then dimly, a striped thing slipping +snakily out of his vision in a sun-striped afternoon; the rug in his +and Dorothy's room could almost have been a tiger pelt. The black +reptiles were lovers of hot sun and shallow water, never going inland. +The squeak and rustle of a kaksma horde, it was said, could be heard +far off except during the rains, when all noises were smothered in the +long rush and whispering of waters. For all his silence, black Elis +was aware of him before Paul knew he had reached the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span> sentry post. +"Paul—isn't it?" The night vision of the giants was better than the +Charins' but not like a cat's; they hunted at night only if the moon +was strong.</p> + +<p>"Yes. Everything quiet?"</p> + +<p>"Quieter than my heart."</p> + +<p>Paul still could not see him. "Saving my flashlight. Where are you?" +Elis chuckled and slipped an invisible hand around Paul's. "The +olifants came to the meadow. We wondered what disturbed them."</p> + +<p>"Drums. Nothing in the northeast yet. But a great many of the pygmies +are moving from the upper villages. I heard, and smelled the red +flowers." The people of Lantis, Pakriaa said, never wore those +flowers, and it would not be the nature of Elis to exaggerate his +powers of smell and hearing.</p> + +<p>"I think the animals wanted Sears. Could that be, Elis?"</p> + +<p>"Alojna—" Elis murmured the old word for them: it meant "white +cloud." "Two things nobody knows—the thoughts of Alojna and the +journeys of the red moon and the white moon when we cannot see them. +So we used to say. You give us a hint of knowledge of both things, and +more than a hint of much greater mysteries." Elis had always been +tireless in questioning Wright; more than Mijok, he was haunted by a +need to grope after intangibles, push outward the uneasy border +between known and unknown. "So there's never an end of mystery?"</p> + +<p>"Never." The hand was warm. "What is the nature of courage?"</p> + +<p>The giant's breathing was too quiet to be heard. "To go out, away from +a world, in a little shell—that must have needed courage."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps only a response to a drive of uncomprehended forces. But I +think courage is a known thing, Elis, an achievement of flesh and +blood—to hear the drums in the dark and stay at the post as you are +doing, as I hope I can do myself. I must go back. Lisson will come and +relieve you soon...."</p> + +<p>Pakriaa had returned, with her five equals. Wright had lit one of the +clay lamps. It burned pleasantly with an oil from the carcasses of the +same reptile that had once nearly destroyed Mijok, a thing which +pleased Mijok, for he liked to think that a creeping danger could also +be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span> a source of light; and the use of this oil had been taught them by +the pygmies, who made almost monthly expeditions to marshy regions and +butchered the beasts by the dozens for the oil alone.</p> + +<p>Pakriaa was almost meek. Her smile for Paul could have been a Charin +smile; there was a tremor in her hands, and once they flew up to cover +her ears. The drums, he thought, might be a worse pain for her than +for his own breed. There was unconscious pathos in the precision of +her English: "I did not make clear that I will obey you. I may have +been angry; for that I am sorry—it is past. My sisters have agreed."</p> + +<p>Squat Abro Samiraa; lame, thin Abro Kamisiaa; sober Abro Brodaa—these +three Paul had met before. Abro Duriaa and Abro Tamisraa were from the +farthest villages, and shy; Duriaa was fat, with a foolish giggle; +Tamisraa had a feral furtiveness—the painted bones of her necklace +looked like human vertebrae. In Abro Samiraa Paul saw competence as +well as smoldering violence: the green of her eyes was dark jade; she +was a flat pillar of muscle from shoulder to hip. Paul guessed her to +be a devil of bravery, good in the front line and intelligent. Lame +Kamisiaa's bravery would be shrewd, vicious, and careful. In fat +Duriaa he thought he saw a politician, not a fighter; in Abro +Brodaa—there might be a thinker, even a dreamer, in Abro Brodaa.</p> + +<p>The princesses had brought news. A scout from Brodaa's village had +succeeded in locating the northeastern detachment of Lantis' army; it +was camped twelve miles to the northeast, on the far side of a deep +but narrow stream. The scout had shown the kind of nerve the pygmies +took for granted: she had crossed the creek to listen in the reeds and +had drifted downstream the entire length of the encampment. The +Vestoians were careless, overconfident, their dialect enough like her +own so that she could grasp the essentials; their unit was six hundred +strong, with no bowmen. The scout had heard discontented soldiers' +talk: the spearwomen missed their subject males, who were camp +followers as well as second-line fighters. Returning, the scout had +located and stalked a Vestoian sentry, stunned and gagged her, and +brought her to Brodaa's camp, where she was made to talk. Brodaa had +been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span> about to describe this when Pakriaa glanced at Sears and +interrupted: "They plan to cross the stream before daylight, move +straight west, and try to push us down into the open ground, where the +rest of the army will roll over us."</p> + +<p><i>The sentry is probably dead. I don't want to know, not now....</i> The +machine in Paul took charge of the council of war, rejecting +compassion, rejecting everything beyond immediate need. "Abro +Samiraa—take the soldiers of your village and of Abro Duriaa's. Abro +Duriaa, you will be in command of your own people, but accept Abro +Samiraa's orders as if they were mine." Pakriaa intervened to +translate for the fat woman, who showed no hostility but rather +relief, and placed her hands formally under the spread fingers of Abro +Samiraa in token of subordination. "Abro Samiraa, take those three +hundred and the bowmen to the stream as quickly as you can with +silence, and attack. The important thing is to scatter them before +they are ready to move. If they retreat, follow them only enough to +confuse them and then return here at once. If you can take prisoners, +bring them here, unharmed. But do not be drawn into any long pursuit. +There are still eleven hours of darkness. I hope to see you return +long before sunrise."</p> + +<p>"Good!" Pakriaa exclaimed, and Samiraa grunted with pleasure. Brodaa +said, "Take my scout, sister. I have given her the purple skirt; she +is Abroshin now, and my friend." Duriaa waddled behind, and Paul sent +Abroshin Nisana to relieve Abara from sentry duty. Nisana was glad to +go, for Pakriaa still sent her sour glances, remembering the election.</p> + +<p>Sears was fretting: "My pets. Damn it, Paul, I dunno—they're huddled +out there in the meadow—just get in the way, get hurt."</p> + +<p>"Would they follow Abara?"</p> + +<p>"I think so...." Abara slipped in and puffed with pride when he +learned what was wanted. "Certainly they will follow Mister Johnson, +and Mister Johnson will follow me."</p> + +<p>Pakriaa laughed. She caught him by a prominent ear and hugged him to +her leanness, grinning at Brodaa over his head. "So ugly!" Pakriaa +nibbled his neck. "And he leads olifants! Don't be afraid, little +husband—I was never angry<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span> with you. Look at him!" She spun him +around for the lewd admiration of the other royalty. "I couldn't do +without him. When the war is over I'll have him back in my bed. But +now he leads olifants. Hurry, Abara—and don't hurt yourself." And she +sent him off with a pinch.</p> + +<p>"Keep them in the woods," Paul told him. "And stay with them."</p> + +<p>"Good." Pakriaa sobered. "He could do nothing. He never learned the +bow.... Ah, look!" The red dot of the lifeboat had caught her eye. +"Look, Abro Tamisraa—you never saw it fly at night." It moved with +apparent slowness, like a mad star, not toward them but toward the +lake, perhaps ten miles away; it was still high when the searchlight +beam stabbed down, probing from northeast to southwest, and vanished. +"It's all right," Paul said, "I suggested he scout the lake on the way +back...." The red eye silently tumbled; Wright gasped. "Still all +right," said Paul. "A dive. He can make it talk." But the moment +dragged out into an ugliness of waiting.</p> + +<p>Then orange fury glared against the underside of clouds and the clamor +of drums abruptly ceased. Paul said loudly, mechanically, "I think he +gave 'em the jet—set a few boats afire. I didn't order it, Doc. And +wouldn't try it myself...." Now the red dot was shooting upward, +disappearing as the boat circled once, then growing larger. Briefly +the searchlight illuminated the meadow, and Spearman came in, +overshooting slightly, driving almost to the moat before he checked. +He swaggered in, satisfied. "See it?"</p> + +<p>"Uh-huh. What did you learn?"</p> + +<p>"Those were drum boats. Why, my God, they opened out like little +orange flowers...! Well—the main fleet is 'way behind them, say +thirty miles down the lake, coming slow. Couldn't spot the land +army—no campfires."</p> + +<p>"All right. Sit in on this, Ed...." And the plan was drawn up, so far +as there could be a plan when the odds were ten to one in a world that +never asked for them.</p> + +<p>Paul, with Mijok and Pakriaa, would lead three hundred spearwomen and +a hundred bowmen south before daylight, in the hope of disorganizing +the advance with surprise and gunfire, but unless the Vestoians were +demoralized beyond expectation, this could be only a skirmish.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span> They +would fall back, try to avoid losses. The remainder of the army would +stay at the edge of the woods until Lantis was in sight: Wright at the +fortress with the giant women, now only four, who could handle rifles; +Abro Kamisiaa and Abro Brodaa in the center; Sears and Abro Tamisraa +on the right flank in the west, with Elis and Surok. Spearman in the +lifeboat would follow the advance party at first-light. Paul said +nothing of the second drive, to the southeast, the retreat that would +seem like attack. When the time came for that, he must have in one +unit all that remained after the first wrath had spent itself—and +even then the pygmies would have to believe that they were attacking +single-heartedly, or they could not reach the southern end of the +range, but would probably be driven into the trap of the kaksma hills.</p> + +<p>The drums began again. They began after the council was ended and +Sears had gone to take charge of his command on the right flank, with +Elis and Surok and shifty Tamisraa. The other small red sovereigns had +gone too, and Wright had stalked into his room—to sleep, he said—and +Paul had followed Spearman out to the boat, where Spearman would sleep +until it was time to go. Spearman tapped his elbow. "You're surprising +me, boy. Better than I could have done, I think. We'll knock 'em +over." And the drums began.</p> + +<p>Spearman stared off at the lake; after a while he grinned, and the +lamp burning in the fortress caught the grimace. "Yeah," he sighed, +"well, I knew I only singed 'em." He climbed into the boat and glanced +down with a half salute, which Paul answered mechanically. But as Paul +walked away the thought stirred: <i>That was like goodbye....</i></p> + +<p>Paul went along the path at the edge of the woods. It was wide and +easy, broadened during the Year One by much travel between the camp +and Pakriaa's village. There were occasional small-voiced greetings +from the woods: these were Kamisiaa's and Brodaa's people, who knew +him. Brodaa cherished a painting he had made of the singing waterfall +above her village in return for that uskaran pelt. Many of these +soldiers would be chosen by Pakriaa to bring up the number of the +advance party to four hundred.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span></p> + +<p>There was no red moon tonight. The white moon was half the size of the +planet Earth, so far away that its glow was scarcely more than that of +a star, but Paul knew that by what light it gave the pygmies could see +him smile in response to their greetings. They would be studying him, +trying to weigh the tone of his answer. <i>One of them might save my +life tomorrow; certainly I shall have to see some of them die. They +are people.</i></p> + +<p>There were two visible planets to follow the wandering of the no +longer alien star that was the sun. One was hidden tonight; the other, +red like Mars, hung over the eastern jungle in tranquillity. A little +shape detached itself from the trees to meet him. Abro Pakriaa. "Will +you not sleep tonight, Paul, before we go?" It was a human question, +sweetly spoken and meant kindly.</p> + +<p>"Later, I think." He stood by her awhile; in the blackness from which +she had come there was a steady mumbling, and Paul knew what it was: +the witches also had their part to play in these heavy hours, although +long before battle was joined they would be cowering in the villages. +Somewhere in the tree shadows they were squatting, muttering the +antique prayers. He wondered whether to go on and visit with Sears +awhile. <i>No: Elis is a rock, better company than I would be at the +moment....</i> There was much, he thought, that would be good to talk +about with Pakriaa tonight; there ought to be words that would reach +her. Perhaps on this night a glimpse of Wright's vision would meet +with something better than amusement and distrust. But in the end he +only said, "We'll always be good friends, you and I."</p> + +<p>He thought she might take hold of his hand in the Charin gesture. She +did not—undignified perhaps. But she said, "Tocwright says we are all +one flesh." She said it thoughtfully, without contempt.</p> + +<p>"Yes. We are all one flesh." And lest he become a true Charin and +spoil a moment of truth with unnecessary words, Paul turned back to +the camp, seeing that she remained there in the open, looking south, +the grumbling witches behind her, before her the long night of drums +and no red moon.</p> + +<p>Mijok was not asleep. He sat cross-legged by the lamp. "I wanted to +thank you. Doc's gone to sleep at last, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span> before I could find the +words I wanted. It will be difficult to talk in the morning."</p> + +<p>Paul sat by him, puzzled. "To thank me?"</p> + +<p>"Because I've learned so much. And had so much pleasure in the +learning." Mijok yawned amiably, stretching his arms. "To thank you +for that, in case you or I should be dead tomorrow."</p> + +<p>It would have been easy to say: "Oh, we'll be all right—" Something +like that. Paul buried the words unspoken, knowing their triviality +would be a discourtesy, a dismissal of the insight and patience which +made it possible for Mijok to speak so casually. Mijok loved to be +alive; there was no moment of day or night that he did not relish, if +only for its newness and from his sense that every gift of time is a +true gift. "I thank you for being with us." Mijok accepted the words +without embarrassment or second thought.</p> + +<p>"Why, you know," he said, "in the old days I never even knew that +plants were alive. But look at this—" He lifted one of Dorothy's +white flowers from his knee. "It was in your room, Paul. She put it +beside that painting you made of me, before she left." He peered into +the white mouth of the flower, touched the fat stamens, and stroked +the slim stalk. "Everything it needs. Like ourselves. But I never knew +that. We are all one flesh."</p> + +<p>Paul glanced over his shoulder. The red planet like Mars was still +high over the jungle. He thought: <i>When that is hidden, it will be +time to go.</i></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span></p> +<h2>5</h2> + + +<p>All night Paul heard the distant barbarous thunder of the drums. In +the hour before first-light his advance company formed; a furious +serpent, it stole two miles south through grassland following the +pallor of the beach. Near first-light, Paul knew, they would see a +thread of new moon. In this present darkness the Vestoians might be +slipping north on the lake; there would be no betraying sound above +the passion of the drums. As for the land army, that could be miles to +the south or over the next rise of ground.</p> + +<p>His mind fought a pressure of alternatives. Better to have kept the +army in one unit? To wait in the forest for news of Abro Samiraa's +thrust in the northeast? <i>Never mind: no time now.</i> At least his body +was meeting the challenge without rebellion. His wiry legs carried him +in silence; his senses were whetted to fineness. Rifle, pistol, field +glasses, hunting knife made a light load. Ahead of him Mijok loomed +against a division of two shadows, sky and earth. Not first-light: +only a sign that five thousand miles away on the eastern shore of this +continent there might be the shining of a star now called the sun. +Mijok carried a shield of doubled asonis hide; his only weapon was a +seven-foot club, since his smallest finger was too large to pass the +trigger guard of a rifle. Though keeping watch with Paul, Mijok had +spoken little during the night—brooding perhaps, trying (Paul +imagined) to see a new world in the matrix of the old. But there was +no guessing a giant's thoughts. Lacking the stale burden of human +guilt and compromise, they had the strength as well as the weakness of +innocence; the country of their minds must wait on the explorations of +centuries.</p> + +<p>Abro Pakriaa, close to Paul's right, moved like a breeze<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span> in the +grass. She and her small soldiers despised the use of shields, +despised the arrows of their own bowmen as fit only for timid males. +They never threw their spears but kept them for close quarters; their +only other weapon was a white-stone dagger.... The army groped through +the meadow in three ranks, widely spaced at Paul's order; beyond the +right flank the archers were concentrated. Four hundred fighters +altogether—against six thousand.</p> + +<p>A wooded knoll grew into silhouette fifty yards from the beach, ten +feet above the level of the meadow. "We meet them here," Paul said. By +prearrangement Pakriaa halted a hundred of her spearwomen between the +knoll and the beach, the other two hundred on the west side, the +hundred bowmen out beyond. Paul and Mijok penetrated the blackness of +the knoll, pushing through to its southern side, where Pakriaa joined +them. Even in that short passage the heaviness of dark had altered +with a promise. There were few clouds. The day (if it ever came) would +be hot, windless, and beautiful. No more blue fireflies were +wandering. The planet Lucifer had become three gray enigmas of lake +and meadow and sky, but in this blind hush when morning was still the +supposition of a dream, the shapes of the trees were attaining a +separate reality; in the west Paul could find a hint of the low hills +standing between him and the West Atlantic.</p> + +<p>Seventy or eighty miles over yonder Dorothy's brown eyes would be +watching for first-light on the sea, watching for it not on the great +sea, he knew, but on the channel that shut her away from the mainland, +from himself. With his child at her breast, another unknown life in +the womb. Ann Bryan too, her troubled secret mind still full of +protest at the contradictions and unfulfilled promises which made up +the climate of life on Lucifer as well as elsewhere; and the ancient +giantess Kamon, and Rak and Muson, Samis, Arek, and those giant +children perennially puzzling and lovable.... <i>No time.</i> Mijok was +peering out on the west side of the knoll. "Nicely hidden. Your +soldiers are very good, Abro Pakriaa," said the giant, whose knowledge +of war was almost as dim a product of theory as his knowledge of the +planet Earth, where his Charin friends had been born.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span></p> + +<p>The pygmy princess did not answer. Paul thought with held-in anger: +<i>Can't she understand even now that Mijok is one of us, the best of +us...?</i> But Pakriaa was staring south; she might not have heard. She +pointed.</p> + +<p>Thus, after a year of waiting, wonder, rumor; a year when Lantis of +Vestoia, Queen of the World, had been a half-mythical terror, symbol +of tyranny and danger but not a person; a year that Ed Spearman spoke +of as "lost to the piddlings of philosophy"—Paul saw them at last.</p> + +<p>Saw rather a waving of the grass, a cluster of dots shifting, bobbing, +advancing. Pakriaa's tree-frog voice was calm: "They come fast. They +want to reach our forest before the light makes the omasha fly. Your +plan is good, Paul: we hold them in the open, the omasha have good +meat."</p> + +<p>A man could dourly accept it, somehow. Bred to gentleness, +undestructive labor, study, contemplation, Paul could tell himself +that a certain spot (even as it bloomed like a nodding flower in the +telescopic sights) was not flesh and blood and nerve, only a target. +<i>Would it be so if I were fighting only for myself...?</i> He held the +spot in focus; he said, "Your soldiers are prepared for the fire +stick? They know they must not charge till they have the order from +you?"</p> + +<p>Her voice had warmth: "And they know you are my commander."</p> + +<p>Paul squeezed the trigger.</p> + +<p><i>Too soon—and too damned quiet.</i> The clever makers of +twenty-first-century firearms on Earth had cut down the shout of a .30 +caliber to a trivial snap. The savage eyes out there might not even +have caught the flash at the muzzle. There ought to have been the +glare and circumstance of a rocket. How could they be panicked by a +silly pop and a spark? Even though—well, one of the dots had +vanished, true enough. Maybe he had killed his first human being.</p> + +<p>He glanced westward, wondering how soon the gray must change to +saffron and crimson. The new red moon—there it was. A bloody sliver +of a sword above the far shore of the lake.</p> + +<p>And he saw the boats.</p> + +<p>They were half a mile out. No others were visible north of them, but +that meant nothing: these might or might not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span> be the lead canoes of +the fleet. The noise of drum boats in the south was constant: those +would stay anchored in hiding, letting their wrath appear to come from +all parts of the world.</p> + +<p>The leading boat jumped to clarity in the sights. Forward the bark +roofing reached the gunwale; aft, the sides were open to leave space +for two paddlers. Paul saw the tight mouth of the one on the port +side: she could have been Pakriaa's blood sister. Now it was necessary +to think of Abro Pakriaa's ambassador torn in quarters, head and arms +sent back as a message from the Queen of the World—until the mind of +the student of Christopher Wright rebelled: <i>Vengeance was one of the +ape's first discoveries.</i> It became more necessary to think: <i>Make it +a good head shot—she won't feel it....</i></p> + +<p>It was not a very good shot. The scream came weakly across the water. +The paddler tumbled, an arm dangling. The starboard paddler seemed not +to understand and labored stupidly, making the canoe lurch to port. +The prow of a following boat rammed it, tore away the matting, +revealed the huddled soldiers who became splashing legs and arms in a +sudden foam. While the land army came on....</p> + +<p>Dots that were bald red heads, white specks that were spear blades. A +simple arithmetic: less than a hundred rounds for the rifle; four +hundred soldiers; a heart divided but angry, and the devotion of an +eight-foot giant with a big stick. Against six thousand in the land +army alone. "Pakriaa, it's a single column—the fools! Send your +bowmen out west, catch them on the flank." Pakriaa ran down the knoll.</p> + +<p>Paul shot twice at the head of the column. A flurry. No halt. Some of +the boats were no longer sliding north, but driving down on the beach, +forty or fifty, like hornets from a torn nest. <i>Another mistake—no, +not if it diverts them from the camp.</i> Pakriaa's hundred on this side +of the knoll were holding firm for an order. Paul's wave was enough: +they spread out in the grass at the edge of the beach, quivering like +waiting cats. The light was changing their bodies from vagueness to +familiar copper, black skirts, white body paint.... Mijok tore a +half-buried rock from the ground and hurled it out to splinter the +nearest boat. But<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span> the soldiers would merely swim ashore. "Mijok! Stay +with me!"</p> + +<p>The head of that column was less than two hundred yards away. Paul +fired mechanically, seeing life tumble backward and lie still. "Let +them see us now, Pakriaa, Mijok——"</p> + +<p>They strode down the south slope of the knoll in plain sight under the +beginning of morning as the bowmen in the meadow released a harsh +flight. The beach on the left became a seething of yells, snarling, +trampling, clash of white stone. <i>First-light—first-light—and where +in damnation is Ed Spearman with the lifeboat...?</i></p> + +<p>The column was confused by the many pressing up from behind. A few +dozen spearwomen streamed out toward Pakriaa's archers; a second and +third flight downed most of them—the little men had skill. No +Vestoian bowmen had appeared. "Now, Pakriaa——"</p> + +<p>Her one cry brought the spearwomen out of the grass west of the knoll, +skimming forward like red bullets, spears low in the left hand until +they crashed into the column; then weapons rose and plunged and rose.</p> + +<p>The Vestoians wore no white paint. Their leaders had caps of green. +Their grass skirts were mere fringes. They died easily. They killed +easily.</p> + +<p>Some distance down the column—for it was still a column, still a +rolling machine that could not halt—a tall structure was swaying, +hard to assess in this tortured twilight. A litter? Lantis of Vestoia, +the Queen of the World herself? Paul checked his own running advance +to send two shots at it. Then he and Mijok were surrounded by a +writhing of arms, white-stone, and blood, Mijok raging but bewildered. +Paul saw Pakriaa's spear drive down below naked ribs and withdraw from +what sprawled on the ground. She was untouched. Her lean little body +dripped with sweat, her teeth gleamed in a devil's grin. Two +purple-skirted captains joined her; the three smashed into a cluster +of shrieking souls who only began to understand what was happening.</p> + +<p>Arithmetic still ruled. This column might be only one of many pushing +up between lake and hills, bent on reaching Pakriaa's forest before +the omasha soared in from those hills to feed on living and dead.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span></p> + +<p>Mijok brushed through the fighters with his shield and down the line +till he was clear of Pakriaa's white-painted demons. His stick swung, +destroying everything in a half circle before him. He was not confused +now, not even shouting, but saving breath. He worked stolidly, like a +man beating at a swarm of rats.... Pakriaa jumped on a fallen thing to +point at that clumsy framework down the line. "Lantis! That is +Lantis——"</p> + +<p>The litter wobbled toward the center of confusion on the shoulders of +six women. Paul fired twice again at it. He had a glimpse of a scrawny +figure with a high green headdress leaping down, snatching a spear, +vanishing in an improvised protective phalanx. He shot into that, +dropping one of the outer soldiers. Mijok saw; he changed the course +of his attack, a bulldozer aiming at a new clump of brush. Pakriaa +screamed in frenzy, without meaning. Her spear was still a part of +her. She was bleeding from a thigh wound; her bright blue skirt had +been torn away; she glittered with sweat and paint and blood, a +dancing devil mindlessly happy. Then she was down once more in the +press, squirming toward the phalanx, and Paul could not shoot.</p> + +<p>But it was the toiling giant, Paul thought, who made Lantis break. +Again he saw the snarling face of the Queen of the World and heard her +squeal an order. Before Mijok could cut his way to her the phalanx was +running, sheltered by the mere mass of soldiers. It was necessary to +call Mijok back.</p> + +<p>The whole Vestoian army was running. "Pakriaa!" Paul plunged after +her, caught her shoulder. "No pursuit!" Her eyes glazed in mad +rejection; he thought she would bite his wrist. "Turn your soldiers! +Bring them down on the Vestoians from the boats—<i>the boats</i>!"</p> + +<p>She could understand that. Her order was the shriek of a rusty nail on +glass, and it turned them. It brought them howling down to the beach +to aid what was left of the first hundred. The water was a jumble of +abandoned boats—even the paddlers had struggled ashore to kill and +die.</p> + +<p>Mijok ploughed in a second time.... That ended it. Some of the +Vestoians might have glimpsed what he did to the land soldiers. A few +forgot all custom and threw their spears, which Mijok's shield +carelessly turned; then they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span> stared with sickness at their empty +hands and waited for the club. Meanwhile the strengthened crowd of +pygmies worked on till the sand was redder than the sky and there was +no more to be done. "Back!"</p> + +<p>Pakriaa screamed "No!" and pointed south. Paul stumbled on something +slippery. He stooped to her, yelling, <i>"Omasha!</i> The sky will be full +of them. Let them fight Lantis. We've lost a hundred already——"</p> + +<p>Her face became sane and blank in agony. "My people—my people——"</p> + +<p>"Yes! And other boats are still going north. Your soldiers must pick +up the hurt and run for it."</p> + +<p>There were not many living wounded in this sudden quiet. A spear has +scant mercy. And the lifeboat had not come.... Mijok was holding out +his shield on both arms; he had tossed his stick aside. "Put them on +this. I can carry six—seven." When the shield could hold no more he +lifted it, his face contorted and changed. "Paul—I told myself I was +back in the old life, when we always killed them if we could. But the +new laws—oh, Paul, <i>the laws</i>——"</p> + +<p>"War perverts all laws. But the laws are true. It is—climbing a +mountain, Mijok: we slip, fall back, try again. Nothing good in war, +only necessity, choice of evils. Now make the best speed you can, +friend—don't wait for us." Mijok ran with his vast strides, holding +the shield out in front so that the motion of his body would not +jounce it.</p> + +<p>Pakriaa would not move till the last of the survivors had stumbled +past her. They were disciplined. Already some of the soft bowmen had +taken out arrows of the whining, glittering type that sometimes +frightened off the omasha. They were ready. Paul tried to count, gave +it up. Less than three hundred. The archers had not suffered much. +Paul said, "Your leg is hurt, Abro Pakriaa. I'll carry you."</p> + +<p>She was indifferent. "I thank you." He slung his rifle and caught her +up, naked and slippery with blood and acrid-smelling paint. Her weight +was less than forty pounds. Her head lolled back; she whispered to the +sky, "No one should call me Abro. I am Pakriaa the child, weak as a +male, a fool. I could have followed. I could have brought her to the +ground. I let her go. I am a red worm. I blame you for it, Paul-Mason. +You and your friends. All of you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span>—except Sears, who is a god with a +window on another world."</p> + +<p>"Hush! The world Sears shows you in the microscope is this world, +Pakriaa. He tells you so himself. And I tell you there'll be a new +way——"</p> + +<p>She was not listening. Still he saw no threat of brown wings, and no +lifeboat. But time was a deception; dawn on Lucifer was abrupt on +cloudless mornings. The battle which had seemed long as heart-break +had been a skirmish, a brush of advance parties lasting perhaps ten +minutes from his first shot to the retreat. Pakriaa's head twitched +from side to side; her eyes were dry. "I have betrayed Ismar, +Creator-and-Destroyer-Who-Speaks-Thunder-in-the-Rains——"</p> + +<p>"Pakriaa——"</p> + +<p>"My people are to burn me in the pit for the kaksmas with lamp oil. I +will order it. I would have been Queen of the World." Making no effort +to escape from his arms, she burst into rage at him; a rage pitiable, +not dangerous: "Why have you come, you sky people, you speakers of new +words? We had our life, no need of you. We were brave—you weaken us +with words, with words. Your friendship is the green-flower weed that +kills the self. You make children of us. You break our beautiful image +of the god and tell us she never lived. You say that now?" She slashed +her fingers down her side, drawing blood.</p> + +<p>Firing? Firing at the camp?</p> + +<p>She clung to him, wailing: "And now you carry me. I cannot even hate +you. You steal our strength. The priests were right—the +priests——Ismar, help me! <i>Ismar!</i>"</p> + +<p>Paul forced himself into a run. It was firing, rapid and sharp, +pistols and rifles. The ammunition would melt fast at that rate. He +could hear yelling. Catching up with the running soldiers, leaving +them behind, he could see Mijok, far ahead, swerve to the left.</p> + +<p>And the lifeboat was in action.</p> + +<p>It curved grandly from near the surface of the lake, which was dim +with smoke. It circled over jungle, descended in another swoop at the +canoes. Red bodies tumbled overside; the silver nose tilted as if in +disdain; the jet spoke for one second, blasting the near canoes into +nothing, sending up the further ones in yellow fire, driving the +lifeboat<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span> into its seeming-careless leap. But there was still firing +from the gray stone fortress, a human tangle on the beach before it, a +high long screaming.</p> + +<p>Forward detachments of the lake fleet must have passed in the dark. +Paul ran on, only his arms remembering Pakriaa. She slipped down, +grabbed a spear as her soldiers caught up with her, and ran straight +for the beach.</p> + +<p>That part of the agony was almost done. No more boats were coming +in—Ed Spearman's sky weapon had seen to that. There were more canoes, +many more, but they were holding off, grouping clumsily at a distance. +Paul waited for the lifeboat to slip over him and waved to the south. +Spearman altered the course of the glide, dropping after one more +group of panicked boats but heading south. A longer burst of the jet, +and Spearman's weapon lifted, straightened, shot out of sight across +the meadow.</p> + +<p>Paul could picture the big man's intent and mirthless grin, the cold +gray eye alert on the fuel gauge. And when this fuel was gone—no +more. It might stand for a while, somewhere, a decaying artifact....</p> + +<p>Those left alive on the beach were bringing in casualties. The boats +were still withdrawing. Christopher Wright was in the fortress with +the wounded, his narrow face tight in the misery of a doctor who can +do almost nothing. "Doc—how many have we lost here?"</p> + +<p>"You! I had almost—Oh, Mijok, what've you got there...? Paul, they +jumped us at first-light. No time even to remind Ed to go after +you——"</p> + +<p>"No, he did right. More needed here. We've stalled the land army, but +they'll come on. They have to." In the sky the brown dots had appeared +at last, pouring from their foul rock ledges in the hills. All of them +were flying south. "Pakriaa, look! Lantis has two wars now."</p> + +<p>She stood naked and stiff, watching, her underlip thrust out, despair +giving way to a glare of satisfaction at the far-off wings, the beasts +who ate everything, feared nothing. The southwestern sky was heavy +with them. Paul had been right; he sickened at his own cleverness. +"How many, Doc?"</p> + +<p>"Forty or worse. This defense on the beach was by Kamisiaa's people +and our giant girls—who can shoot." Paul saw the golden-furred girl +Lisson smile uneasily at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span> him; there was a sober stare from brown +Tejron. The other two giant women, old Karison and young Elron, seemed +more deeply disturbed, Elron studying her rifle as if it were a living +thing. Wright said, "With Abro Brodaa's help I made the others stay in +the woods where you posted 'em. Surok ran over from the right flank—I +had him run back and tell Sears and the rest to sit tight.... +Pakriaa"—Wright strode out to her—"let me bind that up—you're +bleeding." She permitted it....</p> + +<p>The boats were clustering a quarter mile away. Paul fumbled for his +field glasses; they were lost. Little Abroshin Nisana, whom he had +ordered to remain at the fortress, spoke beside him, slowly and +carefully because her English was not good: "Commander, Abro Samiraa +is return. The plan—good. She crossed the stream, catch them in +blackness. A few escape. We lose twenty. One was Abro Duriaa—I am not +know how she is killed." She scuffed her little seven-toed foot in the +dust; there was nothing alien in her smile. "Those who return +Tocwright is send west." She was puzzled, not disapproving. "Why are +we most strong in the west? The Vestoians follow lake shore."</p> + +<p>He said, not quite honestly, "Their straightest approach to Abro +Pakriaa's village—your village—is in the west. Were there +prisoners?"</p> + +<p>"Abro Samiraa is not like to take prisoners. We took not any on the +beach. Wrong?"</p> + +<p>He smothered a sigh of exhaustion. "It may not matter." With Mijok, +the stout giantess Tejron was moving among the wounded. Paul noticed a +heap of torn cloth, all that remained of Earth-made shorts and jackets +and overalls, ripped for bandages. Wright's idea, no doubt, and good: +the pygmies' pounded-bark fabric was a poor second best. <i>After the +war we can go naked—fair enough....</i> He saw a pygmy woman shrink from +Tejron's approach; she might be from one of the northern villages, her +stoicism unequal to accepting the touch of the huge beings she would +always have regarded as wild animals. Paul knelt, hoping to reassure +her, as Tejron eased a bandage around a pierced abdomen. There would +be internal bleeding. "You are from the north?"</p> + +<p>She looked hurt that he did not know her face. "I am of Abro Brodaa's +village." Then in spite of her shrinking<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span> her question was directed at +Tejron: "Abro Brodaa has say to us—we are all one flesh. +That—that——"</p> + +<p>Tejron was able to say, "That is true." And while Paul searched for +other words that might affirm, comfort, explain, the soldier died.</p> + +<p>The only omasha now visible were soaring stragglers. The swarm would +have found the army of Lantis—which must and would continue to +advance. There was a limit to the gorging of the bat-winged beasts; +they too could die on the spears. Meantime the lifeboat was gone, the +boats were landing, in a moment of darkly sweet quiet which was the +eye of the storm.</p> + +<p>Paul checked the giant girl Lisson from firing at the landing party. +"Save ammunition." He indicated a tall blue-flowered shrub a hundred +yards out in the meadow. "We wait at the edge of the woods until they +pass that bush, then charge them. If they break us down here, everyone +is to fight west, away from the lake—<i>west</i>. Now run down the line, +pass on these two orders." Lisson sped away, her golden fur bright and +unstained. "Doc—get the wounded together, have the other women and +Mijok take them west, beyond Sears' group, well back in the woods. Try +to find out where Abara's got to with the olifants but send a runner +back (if there's time)—don't come back yourself. And keep Mijok with +you. I don't want him to do any more fighting if we can help it—it's +tearing him up inside."</p> + +<p>"I——" Wright checked himself, nodded, hurried back into the +fortress.</p> + +<p>"Pakriaa, Abro Kamisiaa, get your soldiers at the edge of the woods."</p> + +<p>They vanished. The meadow was empty of life; the many open eyes on the +beach would not see what was to come. Wright's party left the +enclosure, Mijok carrying the shield. Wright could not look back nor +wave, for his own arms were full, his head bent in some consoling +speech. Paul was striding for the woods when Pakriaa met him and +murmured in contempt, "We hide too, Commander?"</p> + +<p>He answered out of a moment of black indifference. (<i>Probably we all +die and everything I have done is a mistake.</i>) "Pakriaa, they may +break easier if they don't see us<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span> till we charge." She shrugged, +following him into the obscurity, pointedly ignoring Nisana, who came +to his other side, perhaps still hating the little captain for her +independence of yesterday, when Paul was chosen commander of this +grotesque army.</p> + +<p>The Vestoians from the boats were rising out of the grass and coming +forward. Steadily now, with no more apparent haste than the first +breakers leading a destroying wave. It was possible to think with +amazing leisure of the high meadows and wooded roads of New Hampshire. +Paul's brother had always been a little too fat and fond of ice cream. +There was a bookstore in Brattleboro. And the waves of the South China +Sea were moving mountains with snowcaps of foam as they came in on +Lingayen. Why, there was a war there once, more than a hundred years +ago, when the Republic of Oceania was hardly even a thought. Yes: they +called it a Second World War....</p> + +<p>The Vestoians passed the blue shrub. The breaker was red, with a foam +of white-tipped spears.</p> + +<p>Paul was swept into the open, not only by the howling drive of his own +pygmy army, but by the machine within, relentless again, briefly free +from the compromise of thought. He was firing with precision in the +scant time available before the white-painted bodies crashed into the +unpainted and churned up a froth of battle.</p> + +<p>He had time to wonder why Nisana was here with him a few yards back of +the hand-to-hand frenzy. She was not afraid; her spear was balanced. A +break in the line of fighters let through a Vestoian soldier, dark +mouth squared in a yell. Nisana's spear widened the mouth to a death +mask and withdrew. Paul stepped into the breach and sent a few shots +toward a trio of green-capped leaders. Something slapped and gouged at +his chest—<i>nothing serious</i>. But his own fighters to the left of him +were going down, outnumbered. He shouted at a brief gleam of Pakriaa's +face, "West! Fight <i>west!</i>"</p> + +<p>Golden Lisson was running back from her errand, her rifle waving, her +lips straining in wild laughter. She passed him, trying to bring her +rifle into use as she ran; it did not fire. A Vestoian was forcing +Nisana away from Paul and beating down her spear. "Why, damn you!" The +Vestoian<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span> face dissolved in pulp and strangeness under his rifle butt, +and Paul reeled back, believing for an unbounded second that ghosts +from a place only a few light-years away had swirled across this +stinking battlefield to shriek at him: "<i>Yes! Your people always +fought that way—the ape picked up a stone....</i>" But Nisana was alive; +Nisana was unhurt and alive. He could look up again and see the girl +Lisson also using her rifle as a flail.</p> + +<p>She was between him and the beach. Three pygmies had caught the butt, +and now she swung them absurdly high; she had almost shaken them off +when a spear pierced her arm and hung there. The rifle dropped. She +was down, under the leaping spears and red bodies. She did not even +cry out again; the golden fur was reddened and defiled. Paul beat his +way toward her, scarcely seeing what his swinging rifle hit, knowing +it was too late, forgetting his own order to drive west. Aware too of +another tawny shape flashing toward him.</p> + +<p>Surok, who had loved Lisson, who would have been her playmate in the +next Red-Moon-before-the Rains. Paul tried to stop him—but if any +sound came out of his own throat it would have been lost against +Surok's mindless crying. The giant tore into the press around Lisson's +body and fell almost at once, crushing a few as he rolled....</p> + +<p>"<i>West!</i> Stay behind my rifle, Nisana—-"</p> + +<p>It had become a methodical insanity like Mijok's, a cutting of red hay +that spouted blood. He noticed blood on his right hand too—nothing: +front sights of the rifle gouging him. The Vestoians in this direction +were thinning out and giving way. He caught up with a white-splashed +back and bandaged thigh—Pakriaa, ploughing her way west. Abro Samiraa +drove across his path in the wrong direction, chasing an isolated +group of three; squat and heavy-faced, she looked happy and more than +life-size in the moment of her death, as she took a spear thrust over +her heart and lay down with the enemy to grin at the sky and cease +hating.</p> + +<p>A rifle barked ahead of him. That could only be Sears Oliphant: Wright +would surely follow orders and keep Mijok and the giant women with him +to protect the wounded.... Abro Brodaa was fighting through to aid +Pakriaa, not yelling, not excited, keeping somehow an air<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span> of dreamy +contemplation, as if the arms driving her spear and dagger were not +quite hers. Nisana cried out, "They are not following! They go +back——"</p> + +<p>It was true. Partly true. Here in this patch of bloody meadow there +was not much left to fight. The defenders had functioned like a single +organism, forming a new semicircular line. Behind it was a quiet, +where Pakriaa was gasping, pounding her foot into a body that felt +nothing.</p> + +<p>And this dear monster, this fat naked grotesque, panting and smeared +with red—this must be Sears Oliphant, late of John Hopkins +University. The monster smiled in a black beard. "Few got by, oh my, +yes. Tamisraa's girls fixed 'em—had to club m' rifle—dirty cave +man—no fear, Paul—<i>no fear!</i> Muscle man with an empty head. They +had—couple bowmen with 'em—no harm done." No harm? Was he unaware of +the broken arrow shaft below his ribs, deeply bedded, with dark blood +oozing around the wood? "They quit, Paul?"</p> + +<p>"They haven't quit." He looked south, seeing why they wouldn't quit.</p> + +<p>"Tamisraa got a bad one—throat." Sears coughed painfully. "I sent her +to Doc—he's just back of those trees. And my pets, Paul, my olifants, +why, they're standing fast, boy. With Abara, bless him—'bout half +mile north. You can't beat 'em. We must figure some way to ferry 'em +over to the island—must—they're people, those olifants——"</p> + +<p>"You go to Doc yourself, Jocko, and fast. That——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, that, that. Mere prac'l dem'stration nobody loves fat man——"</p> + +<p>The Vestoians would not quit because of what was coming half a mile +away in the south under a cloud of brown wings, coming fast. The horde +would be ignoring the omasha, striking them aside, spearing them when +there was time, granting them the necessary toll for passage, and +coming fast. Oh, they would be less than six thousand now—somewhat +less. Meanwhile the remnant from the boats was waiting, regrouping, +drawing breath, readying itself for the climax of massacre, maybe +deliberately postponing it until Lantis of Vestoia, Queen of the +World, could arrive to enjoy it. Paul tried again to count his people +in the sturdy half circle. Black Elis was striding<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span> among them, a +great stick in each hand, rumbling comfort and encouragement, and none +of them shrank away from him.</p> + +<p>It looked like less than seven hundred. A hundred lost at the knoll; +forty, Wright said, in the first skirmish at the camp; twenty in +Samiraa's night expedition. Perhaps three hundred in this last wave of +the battle. And Samiraa herself; Duriaa; Tamisraa wounded, Pakriaa +insane with grief; Lisson and Surok dead. Lame Kamisiaa—Paul could +not find her. Abro Brodaa—still calm, unhurt, competent. Very +well—seven hundred against somewhat less than six thousand of the +land army, somewhat less than four thousand from the boats.</p> + +<p><i>How I dreamed!</i> There would be no southward drive to the island. The +omasha alone made it an absurdity. He had been idiotic to imagine it.</p> + +<p>Pakriaa broke her spear across her knee. She walked out into the +meadow toward the advancing swarm. She looked back stupidly at Paul's +shout, and Nisana ran to her, crying out in the old language. Pakriaa, +with no change of expression, lunged at the captain, striking +flat-handed across her face, forcing her back until Paul reached them +to interfere and Sears caught Pakriaa's wrist, mumbling, "Come +now—come with me, princess."</p> + +<p>"I am no princess."</p> + +<p>"I call you so," Sears said clearly, and speaking with sternness for +possibly the first time in his life. "Now come with me."</p> + +<p>Paul stammered, "Have Doc get that damned arrow out of you. Then he's +to start north with the wounded—at once."</p> + +<p>"North." Sears nodded.</p> + +<p>"There are no gods," said Pakriaa.</p> + +<p>"Yes, north. We'll catch up with you."</p> + +<p>"I thought of you as a god."</p> + +<p>"Think of me as a friend who loves you. It is better." She went with +him, stumbling as Paul had never seen her do, and when the leaves +closed behind them it seemed to Paul that there was surely the cloud +of another world. She might have been a small girl going for a walk in +the woods with her grandfather....</p> + +<p>There was no lifeboat above that rolling swarm. Ed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span> Spearman must +have——<i>No time to think about it</i>.</p> + +<p>But he had to, a little. Spearman was forced down by lack of fuel and +killed. Or forced down, isolated somewhere, miles away. Or he had kept +good watch of the fuel gauge until there was just enough for another +trip to the island and had gone—right, reasonable, what he ought to +have done, what Paul would have ordered him to do if he could have.... +Paul turned to Brodaa. "Your sister Kamisiaa—I don't see her——"</p> + +<p>"My lame sister is dead." Her eyes were shrewd, counting. "We have +more than seven hundred. Two hundred of them bowmen."</p> + +<p>"Bring them all to the woods. Spread the bowmen at the edge: they will +meet the first charge with arrows, nothing else, and then join our +retreat. Send a hundred spearwomen to guard and help Tocwright's +group: they will go straight north. Send another hundred through the +villages to save what they can—the children, the old—and take them +west and north to join the others. All the rest will stay with you and +me and Elis to fight in the rear—delay and confuse—fighting retreat, +Brodaa. I see nothing else."</p> + +<p>"Nothing else," she said evenly. "As you say...."</p> + +<p>Elis was with him, waiting under the trees, and Nisana, who said, "No +gods? There must be other gods. Not Ismar...."</p> + +<p>Elis watched the meadow over the crouching bowmen. "Within you, +Captain. The god within you made you save the life of my friend. I saw +that. I even think I begin to understand. But that might be vanity."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span></p> +<h2>6</h2> + + +<p>A sorry day moved into evening, and when evening became an approach to +moonless dark, this day of retreat was in Paul's mind a passage of +distorted images, true or false.</p> + +<p>True that he was now limping through forest stillness between Nisana +and a skinny ghost who was Christopher Wright and Wright carried +Pakriaa, who moaned at times like a child with a nightmare, and up +ahead were five white drifting mountains, one of them ridden by a man +who was silent in pain, Sears Oliphant. It might or might not be true +that at some time during the day Paul had thrashed on the ground with +a broken head in front of some squalling danger until black arms swept +him up away from—whatever it was.</p> + +<p>Tejron and the two other giant women Karison and Elron, and Mijok, +still lived. Elis was walking behind Paul, unhurt; therefore the mind +of Elis would still be probing at the borderland of known and unknown, +searching and incorruptible. All true. Apparently true that the gash +in Paul's side had stiffened, his right leg was knotting itself in +some unimportant distress, and his bandaged forehead no longer +throbbed.</p> + +<p>The first contact with the Vestoian land army had been a swift +skirmish and ordered withdrawal. Abro Brodaa's archers had crumpled +the first enemy charge. After that the Vestoians had crashed into the +woods with no caution, driven by the horror of brown wings that still +pursued them. Paul had had a final glimpse of the green headdress of +Lantis, Queen of the World; his two shots before the rifle jammed had +not touched her. Once, under cover of the trees, the Vestoians had +paused to reorganize, giving Paul's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span> retreating force a little time +and distance and the help of forest obscurity.</p> + +<p>The spearwomen sent ahead to clear the villages had poured through +Pakriaa's settlement and Brodaa's, rounding up old people, children, +and the chattering pack of male witches, sending them west to join +Wright's group of wounded—if they could find it. But at the third +village upstream—it had been Abro Samiraa's—there was delay. Perhaps +the people had refused to go where there were giants. Paul's rear +guard had halted south of the village to protect the evacuation; here +the Vestoians caught up with them.</p> + +<p>They had fought it out for two hours in the misery of bush and brier +and purple vine outside the village ditch, while the jungle world +steamed in the growth of mid-morning. Paul's horizon had narrowed to +the knot of fighters who stayed with him—Nisana, Brodaa, Elis, an +unknown black-skirted soldier who fell at his feet with a bleeding +mouth. Somewhere in that hell he had lost his rifle. It was Brodaa +(this must be true, for it was Elis who told him of it)—Brodaa who +had guided them out of the trap, regrouped the remnant of the rear +guard north of Samiraa's village while the Vestoians paused to set +that village afire and rejoice over its dying.</p> + +<p>Paul could remember that regrouping: black Elis had set him on his +feet, supporting him till he could walk. There were many twittering, +mad-eyed bowmen among the survivors. Brodaa had sent runners to give +the other three villages a final warning; she herself decided against +trying to reach them with this fragment of an army numbering less than +three hundred. The only way to save anything at all was to flee north, +join Wright's group, hope that the remaining villages would delay the +conquerors and that at least some of their non-combatants could +scatter before Lantis, Queen of the World, took them for slaves, meat, +and sacrifice.</p> + +<p>The rest of the day had been a running, a harsh drive into country +unknown even to Elis. There had been, for Paul and Elis at least, a +breath of second wind when they found the tracks of the olifants. They +had caught up with Wright's refugees in the early afternoon, but there +could be no pause, even though it was quiet here at the edge of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span> +forest and western meadow and the sound of screaming in the villages +was an hour behind them....</p> + +<p>Paul noticed that he was naked except for ammunition belt and an empty +holster. Perhaps his present clarity of mind was the true madness, the +earlier fog of pain and anger the mind's more natural climate. But one +might as well reason and take stock. He remembered the map. Was it +saved? No matter: a copy had been flown to the island with Dorothy and +the baby.</p> + +<p><i>I have a woman who loves me; I have a daughter. I have my life.</i></p> + +<p>On his left, just visible in twilight beyond a meadow turning +brilliant with blue fireflies, there were the low western hills, the +hills rotten with the burrows of kaksmas, and they were nearer, much +nearer than he had ever seen them except from the lifeboat. (<i>But Ed +Spearman went there; he walked in the hills alone and found iron ore, +and now he is——Never mind where he is. If the charlesite was giving +out he did right to fly to the island and abandon us. What else could +he do?</i>) Well, it was right too that the hills should be nearer: the +edge of the forest slanted northwest, narrowing the meadow. And this +far north the hills were smaller, more broken up. Yet it would not do +to approach them closely: even the least of the hills (so pygmy and +giant tradition said) could be the dwelling place of day-blind ratlike +killers numerous enough to destroy this entire party and still be +hungry. The retreat must struggle north until the hills were well +behind, shut away by level jungle—where the kaksmas still might come, +to be sure, but only to the distance of half a night's journey from +their burrows. "Doc—can you estimate what distance we've made since +we caught up with you?"</p> + +<p>"Maybe twenty miles," the old man said. "In more time than <i>Argo</i> once +needed to travel twenty million miles. What is man?"</p> + +<p>"Man? A mathematical absurdity.... Aren't you tired? I could carry +Pakriaa a while."</p> + +<p>"No, I'm not tired, son. I like to have her...."</p> + +<p>Rifles—in the beginning there had been only five, and one shotgun. +The shotgun had been taken to the island. Dorothy and Ann had their +pistols there, too. Paul's rifle was lost. Lisson's had been lost when +she died. That<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span> should leave three. Wright had one slung at his back. +Peering up ahead, Paul saw another in the red-brown hand of the young +giantess Elron. Sears must have lost his. So two at least remained. +And one automatic—Wright's. "Those two new recruits Mijok +brought——I'm in a fog—I only just remembered——"</p> + +<p>"Lost," said Wright, staring ahead. "The boy didn't understand. He ran +into the mess on the beach like a horse running into a fire. That was +before you got back from the south. The other had more sense. Saw the +pygmies spilling out of the boats and ran for the woods. Naturally we +didn't try to hold him. Perhaps he's reached his home territory. I +hope so."</p> + +<p>Behind him Elis spoke softly: "It was not very far, Doc. When we reach +the island and start the new settlement——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Elis——"</p> + +<p>"When that has been done I'll come back and find him, give him the +words—him and many others. I promise you that. Let me believe it."</p> + +<p>"Believe it, Elis. But the boy Danik is dead. He was bright, curious. +He should have lived 150 years."</p> + +<p>"We overtake mystery," Elis said, "and leave it behind."</p> + +<p>"Men have never overtaken the mystery of untimely death."</p> + +<p>"There is chaos," said Elis. "Chance. Mystery is great jungle around a +small clearing. I accept that. We make a wider clearing."</p> + +<p>Paul felt Nisana's finger hook over his. Pakriaa groaned, perhaps in +sleep. The darkness had blotted away the hills; even the small shape +of Nisana was growing too dim. Elis said, "You're limping, Paul. +Abroshin Nisana is tired. There are still three of the animals without +riders. You and Doc——"</p> + +<p>"Yes," Wright said. "We might make better time." Nisana trilled an +order to Abara, who rode the colossal bulk of Mister Johnson at the +head of the line. The animals halted without sound. "We must go on all +night, Paul—right? What became of your—prisoner?"</p> + +<p>"My——" the mental clarity must be a fraud, Paul thought, if new +memories could flash into it so abruptly. At some time—it must have +been after Elis had carried<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span> him clear of the nightmare at Samiraa's +village—he had stumbled on a Vestoian soldier unconscious from a head +wound and loss of blood but not dead. He had still been carrying her +when they caught up with Wright. With this, the memory of that reunion +became whole—the wordless suffering on the shield that Mijok carried, +the improvised stretchers, the bewilderment and exhaustion in the red +faces, the very smell of defeat—with this also a picture of the +horribly fat witch from Pakriaa's village carried on a litter by two +spearwomen, and one other witch, a lank skeleton with white and purple +lines emphasizing the prominence of his ribs, striding beside his +colleague and shooting glances of wrath from left to right and back. +Someone had gently taken the unconscious soldier. "She's safe, Doc. +Tejron took her—still has her, I'm sure."</p> + +<p>"Good." Wright added with a harshness canceling humor: "Now if only +friend Lantis will initial a copy of the Geneva Convention...." He was +fumbling in the twilight before one of the white beasts, uncertain +what to do.</p> + +<p>The old cow olifant Susie, carrying Sears, fretted at the delay, +sampling the air and rumbling. Paul petted her trunk to soothe her; +Sears' voice came down to him: "Paul? Take this, will you?" He was +reaching down the case that held his microscope, safe somehow out of +the inferno of the day. "My grip's not too good, got nothing to tie it +to—bare's a baby's bottom, like you. We look like the last days of a +Turkish bath, hey?"</p> + +<p>"How d'you feel?" Nisana tore shreds from what remained of her purple +skirt; she looped them about the case, fastened it to Paul's +ammunition belt.</p> + +<p>"Feel good," Sears said. Each word was a thick struggle for normal +speech. "Arrowhead came off; Chris got it out. Manicure scissors for +forceps; you may slice me cross-ways and call me ham and eggs if it +ain't so. Right, Chris? You there?"</p> + +<p>"I'm here, Jocko," Wright said, and under his breath to Paul: "Medical +kit lost. I don't think the spleen is injured, but——" Aloud he said, +"Of course, with your gut what I needed was a hook and line. Paul, how +do you make one of these ten-foot roller coasters kneel down?"</p> + +<p>"Let me—that's Miss Ponsonby—she knows me." At Paul's order, tons of +gentleness knelt on the earth; Paul<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span> held Pakriaa while Wright +struggled into the hollow between hump and head, and Pakriaa was +either asleep or not caring.... "Abro Brodaa?"</p> + +<p>"Here, Commander."</p> + +<p>"Form your people in three lines with linked hands. The giant women +Karison and Elron, and Elis, will guide them at the head, because +their night vision is better than yours and mine. Mijok and Tejron +will walk beside us. We must travel all night. I think the Vestoians +will not."</p> + +<p>"They will not," the princess Brodaa said. He wished he could see +truly what was happening in her little face. "They will not because +they have no giants or Charins to help them." It carried no hint of +the obsequious.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Abro Brodaa. Wait here a moment." He patted Millie's +trunk—she was a young beast, nervous but fond of him—and made her +kneel. "Help Nisana climb up to me.... Abro Brodaa—the people of your +village——"</p> + +<p>"Most of them lost." It might have been the oncoming night itself +speaking temperately. "These remaining are a few from all the +villages. I think they will follow me. And I will go with you...."</p> + +<p>In the rest of the night—a silence and a drifting, on the surge and +thrust of the great animal under him—it was possible to reach a kind +of sleep, knowing his body would not relax enough to fall or to weaken +his hold on Nisana, who trusted him. She was deeply asleep in the +first part of the night, occasionally snoring, a comic noise like a +puppy's whine. All day she had never been out of his sight; she had +fought like a hellcat, but singlemindedly, saving her strength to deal +with those who threatened him.</p> + +<p>It would have been possible to abandon these people; at one time, Paul +remembered, he had almost favored it himself, and Ed Spearman had very +nearly hinted that it might be better to join forces with the tyranny +in the south.... Life seemed cheap to Pakriaa's tribe—others' life. +Devil-worshipping cannibals, capable of every cruelty, committed for +thousands of years to all the superstitions that ever crippled +intelligence. You had to look beyond that, said Christopher Wright the +theorist, the doctor, the anthropologist, the impractical daydreamer. +<i>Anyway I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span> saved a Vestoian—if she lives. One balanced against how +many that I destroyed...? No answer.... Unless you can see a world +where the ways of destruction become obsolete under a government of +laws. With the devils of human nature—the vanities, the greeds, the +follies and needless resentments, the fear of self-knowledge, dread of +the unfamiliar, the power lust of the morally blind, the passion for +easy solutions, scapegoats, panaceas—how do you see such a world...? +You say, Christopher Wright, that no one is expendable. I believe you. +But—when I must choose between the life of myself or my friends and +the life of the one whom the stream of history has tossed against me +as my enemy——</i></p> + +<p><i>When I do that, I only discover once more that I am caught in the +same net with the rest of my kind and cannot escape until all of them +escape—escape into a region of living where men do not set traps for +each other and the blind do not lead.</i></p> + +<p><i>Therefore——</i></p> + +<p>"Are you awake, Nisana?" Her even breathing quickened. It seemed to +Paul that there was faint color in his glimpses of sky; he remembered +the silver moon that had appeared over the jungle with first-light so +long ago—yesterday morning. The passage of the red moon around +Lucifer was swift: tonight it would be rising two hours before +first-light and would be something broader than the gory scimitar he +had seen from the knoll.</p> + +<p>"I am awake."</p> + +<p>"I think the red moon has come back."</p> + +<p>"Yes." She pointed over his shoulder; he glimpsed it through a gap in +the leaves. "A good moon. Begins the Moon of Little Rains. The small +rains make no harm, make the ground sweet. Is better than the moon +past—that we call the Moon of Beginnings." She moved restlessly +against him. "This country—all forest? How long have I sleep?"</p> + +<p>"Most of the night. We're past the open land."</p> + +<p>She whispered, "No one has ever come here. We have think always there +are bad—what word?—tev—tevils in the north."</p> + +<p>"Tomorrow—rather, today—we turn west and then south on the other +side of the hills, to the island."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Ah, the island.... I cannot see this island."</p> + +<p>"You'll like it, Nisana. You'll be happy there."</p> + +<p>"Happy?" And he remembered that the old pygmy language had no word for +happiness.</p> + +<p>Wright's voice came thinly in the dark: "Abara, stop them! Sears——"</p> + +<p>Millie halted and knelt without an order: Nisana jumped down. Paul saw +the shapes of Elis and Sears suddenly bright under Wright's +flashlight—the only radion light left. "Easy," Elis said. "I have +you." And he lowered the man's bulk to the ground as Susie moaned and +shifted her feet. Sears had said nothing, but he was smiling, his face +red and vague above the disorder of the black beard.</p> + +<p>"Paul, hold the light for me." Wright removed the stained bandage. +There was a wide area of inflammation; the lips of the arrow wound +were purple. "Pakriaa! You said once you never heard of poison on the +arrows——"</p> + +<p>Pakriaa gaped, rubbing her eyes. It was Brodaa who answered: "Our +people never had it on the arrows. But in the war with Lantis last +year some of our soldiers had wounds like this."</p> + +<p>"And what happened?"</p> + +<p>"Ismar—" Pakriaa stumbled forward. "Ismar took——"</p> + +<p>"My sister," said Brodaa, "be quiet, my sister."</p> + +<p>"Elis," Paul whispered, "have Tejron and the other women keep +watch—we must stay here a while. Where is Mijok?"</p> + +<p>"Here." Mijok spoke behind him. "I have put my shield—over there." +His voice became a whisper for Paul: "There are only three on it now. +One little man, two women. They might live. Paul—is it happening, +Paul?"</p> + +<p>"I can't say it. I don't know...." Sears was talking, ramblingly, very +far from this patch of earth. One could only listen till he was +silent. Then Paul said, "I think so, Mijok. He needs to speak; we need +to remember."</p> + +<p>"What is this—Tel Aviv——"</p> + +<p>"The place on the other planet where he was born."</p> + +<p>"And there were the vineyards, oh my, yes—the little white and tan +goats——" Sears could see it, Paul thought, that small country, a +quiet corner of the Federation, where every grain of sand might +remember blood spilled in the follies of hatred, where a teacher of +mercy had been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span> crucified. But now for Sears it was not a place of +history: he saw gardens defying wasteland, the homes and farms, +centers of music and learning where he moved, thoroughly at home, +discovering the country of his own science, himself a citizen of no +one place except the universe. Later he was recalling the hot white +streets of Rio, the genial clutter of London, Baltimore, the majestic +contradictions of New York.</p> + +<p>"Why, yes, Doctor," he said—and he did not mean Christopher Wright, +but some friend or instructor whose image might be standing in front +of the shadows of Lucifer, "yes, Doctor, you could say I've traveled a +great deal, in my sort of blundering fashion. And I would not exactly +say that people are the same everywhere, but you'll have noticed +yourself—the many common denominators are much more interesting than +the seeming-great differences, aren't they, hey...? What? Sorry, +Doctor, I've got no damned use for your abstraction Man, and why? +Because he doesn't exist, except as a device in a brain that wants to +prove something—which may or may not be useful. In any case it's not +my dish. There are only men and women. They get born and love and +suffer and work and grow old and die; or sometimes, Doctor, they die +young. Men and women I can love and touch; sometimes I can even teach +them the few things I know. You may take Man to the library; feed him +back into your electronic brain and don't bother me with the results +so long as I'm alive to see a child discovering his own body—or for +that matter a bird coming out of the egg, a minnow in a spot of +sunlight, a blade of grass."</p> + +<p>Pakriaa wailed: "What is he saying? He is not here." She squirmed past +Wright, dropped to the ground, her cheek pressed on Sears' tangled +hair, her free arm wandering over his face and shoulder as if she +wanted to cover him like a shield. "He talked to me once. Sears, you +said—you said——"</p> + +<p>He was back among them, gazing around in sane bewilderment. "I should +be riding.... Pakriaa—why Pak, I'm all right." Paul moved the torch +here and there to pick out his own face, Wright's, Mijok's, the white +bulk of Susie looming close by, the pouting ugly mask of Abara, who +had stolen up close, his underlip wobbling in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span> an effort to speak. "I +fell asleep—took a tumble?"</p> + +<p>"Almost," Wright muttered. "Just lucky chance I saw you tottering. You +need to rest a bit."</p> + +<p>"Oh no." Sears frowned. "Can't stop." He smiled at Pakriaa, who had +lifted herself to watch him pleadingly. "What's the matter, Pakriaa? +What's the time?"</p> + +<p>"First-light before long," Paul said. "We made good distance, Jocko. +The Vestoians won't have traveled in the dark. Plenty of time and we +all need rest. Take it easy a while."</p> + +<p>But Pakriaa could not hide her knowledge that he was dying; Sears +touched her cheek with a curious wandering finger. "You liked looking +in the microscope, didn't you?" She nodded. "Remember—must be sure +you've got the best focus you can before you make up your mind about +anything. But this is more serious, Pak—because I think you love me +and you have trouble. I tell you again, you must go to the island with +the others. You must live. Now I expect to go there too, but—"</p> + +<p>Abara moved away. Paul glimpsed him striding back and forth, striking +the air with little fists. When he returned, Paul made way for him.</p> + +<p>"—for a teaching is a gift, Pakriaa, not to be thrown away—"</p> + +<p>Abara stammered. "You have talk to me too, Sears—"</p> + +<p>"Why, to all of you. Certainly to you, Abara.... What's the profit of +any effort if the result is thrown away in a time of weakness? You +discard only if what you have is proven false. We haven't much—we +never have much. Some things appear to be empirically certain. Not +many ... You know, I believe I've given a few people—call it a +wakening of curiosity. I think that's good. Curiosity and patience. +Good as far as it goes. I'm not ashamed." He was trying to see +Wright's gaunt face. "You picked a tougher subject, didn't you, Chris? +Don't worry—give you an A for something more than effort.... Now +look, this hanging around here won't do." He caught Paul's hand and +heaved himself upright. "I remember—map—damn it. Need another whole +day before we pass the hills. Susie—down, Susie—"</p> + +<p>But Susie, fumbling at him with her trunk, would not kneel. Paul heard +Mijok's agonized whisper: "She knows."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span></p> + +<p>Sears laughed. "All right, make the old man climb." And before anyone +could stop him he had tottered a few steps and burned out the last of +his strength in a heaving jump toward her neck, which barely lifted +him from the ground and dropped him at Paul's feet. Groping for him, +Paul saw that he was dead, saw also, above the arching of the trees, a +lucid cruelty of morning.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span></p> +<h2>7</h2> + + +<p>Twice that day Elis dropped far behind to listen and reported there +was no pursuit. It was hard to judge their distance from the foothills +of the western range, for now there was no open ground—only Wright's +compass, the memory of the map, and treetop surveys that Mijok made +from time to time. Abara rode Mister Johnson in the lead, making the +beasts travel slowly since the pygmies were faint with weariness. +Susie trailed forlornly; she had not been willing to abandon the grave +till the others went on without her.</p> + +<p>The pygmies carried only half a dozen makeshift stretchers; the number +of unwounded had diminished too. "They slip away," Brodaa said to +Paul. He saw three men carrying children too small to walk; no old +women. The fat witch rode his litter, unconcerned at the fatigue of +its bearers; the other old man, smeared with white and purple paint, +stalked beside him. Brodaa said, "My sister Tamisraa ended life with +the white-stone dagger. While Elis and Mijok made the—what +word?—grave. We left her body looking north to help the spirit +journey. There are many lost who will have no prayers—bad—they may +follow us. What is this—burial, Paul-Mason?"</p> + +<p>"A Charin custom. Most of us believe the spirit dies with the body: +different parts of the same thing."</p> + +<p>"Ah?" She did not seem shocked. "Maybe true for your people."</p> + +<p>"We live in others," Paul said. "Sears lives so long as we remember +him. That will be always...." It seemed to Paul there were scarcely a +hundred in this worn line. "We mustn't try to hold them if they want +to go. If you, Brodaa, or any others want to leave us, you know you +are free."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span></p> + +<p>Her answer was firm and considered: "I will not leave you...."</p> + +<p>Wright had not spoken since the burial, nor had Pakriaa. They kept +together; Paul was with them sometimes. Behind them Mijok carried his +shield. It was Elis who heard the bleat of asonis and stole off to +bring back meat for an afternoon meal. It was Elis, before that, who +said, "We have done what we could, Paul. We could not have made these +people retreat in time to save themselves. If we had abandoned them +Lantis would have left no more than a fire leaves in the +Red-Moon-of-Dry-Days. Pakriaa is too sick to understand that, yet. She +carries a grief like a little one swelling in the womb: it must grow +greater before she is delivered of it."</p> + +<p>In the afternoon halt, it was Elis who tried to make Wright eat +something and sleep, but Wright could do neither.</p> + +<p>The giant women Elron and Karison also refused the meat. They sat +apart with stout brown Tejron. She was eating, keeping close to her +the still unconscious Vestoian, whom the pygmies had given no more +than disgusted glares. Tejron might be listening to Karison's +undertone—it was in the monosyllables of the old language. The girl +Elron held her eyes downcast, fondling the rifle. She and Karison had +been much together in a peculiar loneliness since the children were +flown to the island: Karison was old, her children grown and gone away +before the Charins came; Elron was too young to have given birth. +Three of the children at the island were Tejron's; the others were +children of Muson and Samis and of a mother who had died in the old +life. Tejron wiped her lips and grunted impatiently; she took up her +charge in careful arms and left the two. Paul sensed what was to come +when Elron set her cherished rifle at his feet. Karison approached +Wright, humble but determined: "We must leave you."</p> + +<p>Before Wright could speak, Mijok answered her with a sullen anger Paul +had never heard from him: "I brought you from the jungle with empty +heads. We gave you the words, the beginning of the laws we must make +together. You lived like the uskaran, furtive and cruel—"</p> + +<p>"No," Wright said. "Mijok, no...."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span></p> + +<p>Karison had winced, but she repeated: "We must go. The old way—we +need it."</p> + +<p>"Then you must go," Wright said, his spread fingers white-nailed on +the ground. "And remember always that you go with our good will."</p> + +<p>"That is so." She was torn two ways. "But the old life—"</p> + +<p>Elis rumbled: "Elron, come here." The girl would not. "I hoped that in +the next Red-Moon-before-the-Rains—"</p> + +<p>She muttered, "When the change comes you will return to us—"</p> + +<p>Elis laughed, roaring at her, "You're a fool, a child!" The harshness, +Paul knew, was calculated, in the hope of changing her mind by shaming +her. "You think the old life was a freedom. Freedom to live like an +animal without an animal's peace, Elron, because of the thing in you +that struggles for knowledge—oh yes, in spite of yourself, and +always. Freedom to hunt all day or else sleep on an empty stomach, +jump with fear at every creaking branch. Freedom to cram yourself with +moss root and slugs from the streams—never enough—in the bad moons +when the asonis go north. Freedom to kill the pygmies and be hunted by +them, never an end to it—that's your freedom without the laws, +without the words. No, so long as you're a fool I don't want you." She +turned away, speechless; he shouted after her in a different voice, +"He said you go with our good will. That is true. You can't forget us, +Elron. You're not the wild thing Mijok brought out of the woods. +You'll feel us pulling you back—you feel it now—and you will come +back." But she was gone in the shadows, Karison following her, and +Elis rubbed his broad forehead on his arms.</p> + +<p>Wright whispered, "If they wanted it—it had to be so."</p> + +<p>Elis waited for his angry breathing to calm. "Mijok, do you remember? +In the old days I couldn't even have been your friend. Remember how +angry <i>I</i> was—only a year ago? You stepping over the border of my +territory, telling me—I've wondered how you did it with our few +stumbling words—telling me every being should be free to go as he +pleased anywhere in the world? You were in danger, Mijok. I am older, +bigger, heavier—I nearly went for your throat. Long ago. So—don't be +angry with these two."</p> + +<p>Tejron sat by Wright, holding the Vestoian like a nursing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span> baby. +"Maybe," she said, "maybe they will take some of what you teach us to +others. Maybe it will be like the thing you showed us, how a little +seed no bigger than the eye of illuama can become a tree...."</p> + +<p>Pakriaa had watched indifferently; Paul hoped he was right, that her +face was not quite so tightly set in lines of rejection and despair. +Wright came stiffly to his feet, a hand on Tejron's shoulder, the +other wandering into his gray beard. "Abro Brodaa, interpret for +me—some of them have no English. Tell them we turn west soon, then +south through bad country—swamp, heat, uskaran, marsh reptiles maybe, +maybe the kaksmas swarm on the west side of the hills. Tell them we go +through that. When we reach a river we have seen from the air—it has +no falls and flows southwest—we shall make boats."</p> + +<p>Brodaa put it into the high music of the pygmy tongue. Paul could see +no change in the saddened faces; by rumor, most of them would already +know this much. But the thin witch was muttering to his gross +colleague, and some soldier faces turned to overhear that instead of +attending to Brodaa.</p> + +<p>"Tell them, Brodaa, this river will take us to Big-Water. We go south +along the coast, to the island where our friends are, where we believe +Spearman has gone in the winged boat. Tell them, on this island there +are no kaksmas, the omasha never come, nor the lake boats of Lantis. +There is game, good ground, room for all. Tell them—No, wait.... Oh, +Brodaa, tell them in your own way that we hope to live there in +peace."</p> + +<p>The lean witch interrupted Brodaa's translation with a wailing +diatribe, twitching his twigs of arms, lashing the battered soldiers +with his oratory. Brodaa turned to Wright in misery: "He says—he saw +Ismar change Spearman back to a marsh lizard and the boat to an +omasha."</p> + +<p>Mijok laughed savagely. "When did he see that? Ask him."</p> + +<p>Brodaa did, on a thin shout. The scarecrow flashed her a glare of +resentment and a snapping answer.... "He says he saw it in sleep +picture."</p> + +<p>Paul snarled, "Yes, a dream's as near as he came to a battlefield."</p> + +<p>Brodaa was shocked, but Nisana laughed. The fat witch<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span> on the litter was +fuming. Coming from Pakriaa's village, he probably had enough English to +understand it; he leaned forward, embracing his hideous belly, croaking at +the soldiers. Nisana translated in swift whispers: "Says—you Charins all +marsh lizards, changed by Inkar-Goddess-of-Kaksmas.... Says we lose to +Vestoians because image was broke; Ismar punishes.... Will I kill him, +Paul-Mason?"</p> + +<p>Brodaa choked: "You cannot touch Amisura. Your spear will turn—"</p> + +<p>"My spear is lost," said Nisana, loudly enough for all to hear. "But +Aksona, Amana, two other men of magic—those I saw killed at Abro +Samiraa's village. Vestoian spears was not turn in the hand—I saw." +She stepped forward, fingering her white-stone knife, and the fat +Amisura cringed, squeaking.</p> + +<p>Wright cried, "I forbid it, Nisana. Let them go. Brodaa!"</p> + +<p>Brodaa said quickly, "He asks sacrifice—you, Paul, Pakriaa—"</p> + +<p>Nisana laughed again. She dropped her white-stone dagger on the ground +and slapped the thin witch in the face. The crowd gasped and shrank +back. Such a man, Paul knew, was altogether holy, never to be touched; +one must not even look him in the eye. But Nisana slapped him again +and shoved him sprawling. She caught a pole of Amisura's litter, +heaved at it, and he tumbled like a red melon. "<i>Now</i> let them +choose!" She came back to Paul with grin and swagger, patting her +scarred chest. "I am little Spearman. I break images too."</p> + +<p>And the pygmies were choosing, not as she or the witches had +hoped—choosing headlong retreat from this sacrilege, dissolving away +into the forest with sick-eyed backward looks. Paul saw Amisura +weeping, humping pitiably back to his litter on all fours, and heard +Pakriaa laugh. The two soldiers who had carried Amisura brought the +litter nearer, not daring to touch him; when he flopped on it they +bore him away. The other witch had run blindly, covering his insulted +face, and Wright said like a machine, "Let them go—let them—"</p> + +<p>Sardonically, Pakriaa had watched the whole incident without rising; +now she seemed to want to catch Wright's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span> eye, lifting a skinny +shoulder as if to say: "What can you do with fools?"</p> + +<p>When the panic was over, thirty followers remained....</p> + +<p>In the early evening Mijok reported, after another treetop survey, +that the last of the kaksma hills was about three miles southwest. +West of them the jungle was level; it was time to turn. Elis had +slipped away and returned with two heavy carcasses like wild boars. +Sears had named these stodgy animals pigmors. The <i>mor</i> suffix, he had +insisted, was an intensely scientific shorthand for "more or less, +damn it." The meat was high-flavored and coarse but safe.... Hearing +Mijok's news, Brodaa sighed, thinking perhaps of the long history of +her people, the groping for a narrow path of survival among endless +perils. "We say the great uskaran hears a leaf fall to earth from a +thousand paces away but the kaksma hears the leaf divide the air as it +falls. Oh—three of your Charin miles, that is great length. Maybe +enough."</p> + +<p>The tremendous sheer spires of the coastal range, Mijok said, were +visible in the southwest though nearly a hundred miles off; it would +be a clear sweet night, he thought, with no clouds and many stars. +They should go at least fifteen miles due west; then the course would +be southwest rather than south, to miss the hills....</p> + +<p>In the crowding darkness Mister Johnson's leading was again a thing of +wisdom; his lifted trunk and sensitive eyes avoided dense growth and +drooping vines that could endanger the riders. From each necessary +detour he came back willingly to the course, under guidance of Abara's +sense of compass direction, and the other four followed him as the arm +follows the hand. Tonight Paul rode old Susie—she seemed to feel +happier for it—carrying Nisana again; Wright was on Miss Ponsonby, +with Pakriaa. Tejron, unfamiliar with the beasts but ready to learn, +had climbed on Millie's back and kept her balance without trouble, +holding the wounded Vestoian, who stirred and whimpered but was not +truly conscious. Behind Paul was the more nervous bull Mister Smith +without a rider, and Elis and Mijok walked beside him, Mijok with his +shield, Elis holding Brodaa's hand. The thirty who had dared to choose +the forbidden unknown trailed behind Brodaa with linked fingers,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span> nine +bowmen among them; there were few weapons, no wounded except on +Mijok's shield, and this held only two, for one of the women had died. +The wounded archer was yellow-faced with loss of blood from a hip +injury, but that was clean and closed; he was free from the signs of +fear, almost cheerful. The woman was a sturdy black-skirted soldier of +the ranks, gashed in the face and with a leg torn from knee to ankle.</p> + +<p>Another night of silence and of drifting—for a while. Wright's voice +floated back: "I am thinking of Dorothy and Ann, and your daughter."</p> + +<p>"And not of Ed Spearman?"</p> + +<p>"Oh.... The fuel must have been getting low, Paul. Nothing the boat +could do for us after we were back in the woods. He must be at the +island."</p> + +<p>Paul could only say, "I hope so." The thing Spearman had almost said +when his anger and disappointment were high, the hint at joining +forces with Lantis in abandonment of everything thus far +achieved—nothing could be gained by speaking of that now. But some of +Spearman's words murmured on in darkness: "<i>Lantis—terrific +organization ... monetary system ... whole world for the taking ... +pretty idealism that never worked even on Earth....</i>"</p> + +<p>There had always been strain and mutual exasperation in argument with +Ed Spearman—long ago, on the ship <i>Argo</i>. The Collectivist Party, +surviving as an innocuous political group after the horrors of the +Civil War of 2010-13, lived strongly in Spearman's mind, not only +because his father had fought for it. Lacking the frenzied dogmatism +of the antique communism it resembled, it was nevertheless communism's +natural heir, a party of iron doctrines simplified for minds that +resented analysis and magnified Man out of a dislike for men. Like +communism, it needed to imagine a class war and felt that it had a +tight vested monopoly of the underdog. The C.P., said one of its late +twentieth-century prophets as humorless as his predecessors, "believed +in Man." You could always fluster a collectivist by asking for a +logical breakdown of that—and make an enemy: they were usually good +haters and made a virtue of it. The years following the Civil War had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span> +been troubled though materially prosperous, darkened by the build-up +of yet another monolithic state under Jenga the Mongol, who had +inherited the desolation of the Russo-Chinese war of 1970-76; in those +years the Collectivist Party in the Federation, unsupported by any +conveniently foreign deity, had become not much more than a +serio-comic decayed socialism with a dash of bitters. But it was +alive; at the time <i>Argo</i> left the spaceport it had had ten senators +and a larger handful of delegates in the Federation Congress. It was +respectable, no longer subversive, and owned a small hard core of the +aggressively sincere.... Not Wright nor Sears nor anyone had ever been +able to convince Edmund Spearman that evil means breed a further evil, +which swallows up any good that may have been imagined in the +beginning. Spearman could admit that (himself in no way an evil man) +he would not do evil—if he could help it. But in the region of theory +Spearman held quite simply that you can't make an omelette without +breaking eggs, and that settled it....</p> + +<p>"They should be safe," Wright said. "You and Jocko saw the island."</p> + +<p>"It's beautiful. I know they're all right."</p> + +<p>"Yes.... Would you say it was a place where Ann might—oh, how shall I +say it?—might attain tranquillity? Not cry too much for the moon?"</p> + +<p>"If there is any such place in the Galaxy."</p> + +<p>"Time," Elis said. "Little Black-Hair needs time. She is like grass I +have seen growing in too much shade. She is not like our Mashana +Dorothy who will make sunshine if the other sun is clouded."</p> + +<p>"Listen!" Brodaa's voice. "Listen..."</p> + +<p>Paul heard nothing, at first. Up ahead Abara sputtered: "Mister +Johnson—hoo-hee—be quiet. Is nothing—be quiet—"</p> + +<p>Nisana came broad awake in Paul's arms. Wright's mount halted, as did +Susie, but Susie was trembling, raising and swinging her head in a way +to make balance difficult; Paul saw the white writhing of her trunk +lifted to explore for a scent.... He heard it then: a long rustling, +like a repeated tearing of paper behind a closed door; nothing +else.... A wet howl from Mister Johnson<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span> sent a spasm through Susie's +mass; her muscles bunched; Abara's voice wailed back: "Mister Joh—I +cannot hold him—<i>kaksmas</i>!"</p> + +<p>Transition from realization to stampede was a flash like the pain of a +blow. Paul heard Mijok: "My shield—it will hold more." Elis cried +something to Brodaa. Then Susie had plunged ahead, uncontrollable; +Paul could only bend low above the clinging of Nisana, hold on with +hands and knees, hope that no trailing vine or branch would sweep them +off into death. Mister Johnson could make no careful choice of a trail +now—he would be parting the jungle like a six-ton bullet. "Don't be +afraid, Nisana—we can outrun them—"</p> + +<p>"My people—"</p> + +<p>"Elis and Mijok can outrun them too. They'll carry all they can." In +spite of the agony of mere hanging on, mere straining to stay alive, +he had to think: <i>They were loyal and we got them into this....</i> +Branches slashed across his back, stinging and scraping. Once Susie +stumbled and recovered as the group went splattering across some +invisible mud, and Paul wondered if Mister Johnson in his terror would +run them into quicksand or marsh.</p> + +<p>That ended; there was more thick jungle whipping his back for—five +minutes?—an hour...? This too ended.</p> + +<p>Crazed or purposeful, the beasts charged out into open land through a +soft roaring of torn grass. Paul could twist his head to glance upward +at a field of stars. He could not win a backward look for Elis and +Mijok: his neck and arm muscles were stiffened in his grasp of Susie's +ears, and he dared not risk disturbing Nisana's clutch of him. But to +left and right he could make out other shapes under starlight and hear +a frantic thudding of hoofs—fleeing asonis, other innocent woodland +cattle with a hunger to live. Once he glimpsed a long-bodied thing +pass off to the left in wild leaps lifting it above the grass tops: +uskaran, he thought, the huge tiger cat, no enemy but a brother in +panic.</p> + +<p>The open ground ended at water; here at last the olifants slowed to a +halt, unlike the lesser desperate brutes, for Mister Johnson was still +wise, considering the stream, aware of his leadership. Paul could +shout to the others<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span> now, and they all answered. But his backward +staring found only the stars, the white mass of Mister Smith, the +disturbed darkness that must be meadow. "Elis! Mijok!"</p> + +<p>No answer could have reached him above the bleating and thunder of +terrorized harmless things crossing the field and hurtling blindly +into the river. Mister Johnson was wading in deliberately. There was +splashing at first, then silence, as cool water came up around Paul's +knees and Susie's motion changed to a smooth throbbing and heaving; he +saw small foam where the curve of her lifted trunk cut the water. He +whispered to Nisana, "We're safe, dear. Big river. Kaksmas won't cross +it...." Mister Johnson was leading them in an upstream slant, bearing +well to the right while the bobbing frantic heads of other creatures +let the moderate current press them away to the left. This +way—whether by Mister Johnson's wisdom or Abara's guidance—they +might be able to come ashore clear of the dangerous passage of the +stampede.</p> + +<p>"My people cannot go through the water. We never—"</p> + +<p>"Elis and Mijok can swim. They'll get them across somehow. Maybe the +shield will float, Nisana."</p> + +<p>The madness behind them dwindled into the faraway. In growing quiet, +Wright's voice came back, not loudly: "I am a murderer."</p> + +<p>Paul wondered what insight made him call out words not his own: +"'What's the profit of any effort if the result is thrown away in a +time of weakness?'"</p> + +<p>The even motion became a clumsiness of wading in mud. Then there was +solid ground. Paul said, "Halt them here if you can, Abara." Mister +Johnson must have shared the sense of safety; they all calmed, heads +drooping, shaken breathing slowing to sighs. "Down, Susie...." All but +Abara descended. This was still open grassland, but there was a black +velvet curtain of jungle not far off. "Doc—still got your +flashlight?"</p> + +<p>"Eh? No—lost somewhere." The old man spoke vacantly; he stumbled to the +edge of the water, sat with his head on his knees. "Mijok-Mijok...."</p> + +<p>Tejron still had her Vestoian, but now the pygmy woman was panting, +fully conscious in Tejron's arms and witless with fear. Tejron said, +"She's trying to break away. Can't someone talk to her?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Pakriaa!" Paul searched for the princess. "Here—please."</p> + +<p>Nisana whispered, "I will talk to the Vestoian—yes?"</p> + +<p>"Not yet. If Pakriaa—"</p> + +<p>Pakriaa said thickly, "I am here. What to say? She is nothing."</p> + +<p>"She is nothing to you, Pakriaa? Then Sears chose a poor student. +Brodaa would have spoken to her. I ask you to tell her the war is over +and she is among friends."</p> + +<p>"Friends? She is Vestoian." Pakriaa approached Wright, who did not +look up. "Tocwright—I must speak to the Vestoian kaksma? I owe you my +life—will obey you."</p> + +<p>He groaned: "I do not want you to obey me. If there is nothing inside +to tell you what you should do, then I have nothing to say to you."</p> + +<p>Pakriaa flung up her arm across her eyes as if struck. Tejron +muttered, "I can't restrain her much longer without hurting her." It +was Nisana who gave the Vestoian the message in the pygmy tongue, a +ripple of sound that must have conveyed some reassurance, for the +struggling ceased.</p> + +<p>"Look!" Paul dug his fingers in Wright's shoulder. "Over there—"</p> + +<p>The dark spot under starlight was surely the floating shield; behind +it, another purposeful splashing, rise and fall of a driving arm.</p> + +<p>"Mijok!" Wright was on his feet. "This way! A little upstream—"</p> + +<p>Both giants were bleeding from small double stab wounds of the kaksma +teeth. There were four pygmies on Mijok's shield. Elis had carried +Brodaa and another in his arms and one on his back; they had clung to +his fur as he swam the river. Mijok plucked a sodden thing from his +thigh; its jaws had clenched in flesh when he smashed its body. He +flipped the ratty thing into the water and remarked like a Charin, +"Damned if I could ever care for 'em."</p> + +<p>"The others—"</p> + +<p>"We tried to help them into the trees," said Elis. "Could be some +safety in that if the swarm passes by. But most of them ran blindly, +so—beyond that, Doc, don't ever ask us.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span> We must forget some things. +We've all done what we could, so—let's rest a while and go on."</p> + +<p>"Oh, we go on," Wright said. "Chaos, or maybe a little bit of light +from time to time. What—sixteen of us now...? Which way was the swarm +going?"</p> + +<p>"North. Our flight was west. I think this place is safe."</p> + +<p>Abara called down: "Mister Johnson says it is safe."</p> + +<p>Paul said, "No more travel tonight. Wait here for daylight. This is +not the river we wanted, but we know it reaches the sea somehow. Let's +think about that in the morning. And—if you will, Doc—I'd like to +make that my last order. Let Elis be our commander till we reach the +island."</p> + +<p>"I!" Elis was shocked. "But Paul.... I am a big baby, I wonder and +wonder and never find the answer to anything."</p> + +<p>Wright laughed; it sounded like laughter. At any rate when his voice +found words it was warm, relieved, more like his own than it had been +at any time since the drums sounded on Lake Argo. "That doesn't +matter, Elis. Paul has done all anyone could, done it well, and +leadership's a wearing thing. But you can carry it."</p> + +<p>Paul wished he could see the black face in the dark; he might learn +from it, he thought, so far as a Charin was capable of learning. Elis +said dazedly, "If you all wish it—"</p> + +<p>"I wish it," said Abro Brodaa.</p> + +<p>"Yes," Mijok said. "Let's not trouble to vote. We know you, Elis."</p> + +<p>"I'll do my best...."</p> + +<p>Most of the pygmies collapsed in sleep. The bites the giants had +received were not numerous enough to be a danger, but both were in +some pain, and wakeful; Abara also said he would prefer to watch out +the night and not sleep. Paul stretched on the damp grass, aware of +Nisana, sitting near him. He tried to make a mental refuge of Dorothy +and the island; for a time it was possible, but twice, as he thought +he was drifting into true healing sleep, the present pulled at him and +the thought was not of Dorothy, but of Pakriaa, throwing up her arm +across her eyes as if Wright's words had been a deeper wound than<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span> any +she had received in these days of calamity and defeat.</p> + +<p>He woke while it was still night. The red moon had risen, changing the +river to deep purple; the stampede was all ended, and stillness was +everywhere, underlying the low voices of Wright and Elis. He saw the +small silhouette of Nisana beside him; he could make out none of the +others, but he heard the soft breathing of the olifants, and at least +some of them must have gone to the jungle and returned, for there was +a steady munching of coarse leaves. He thought: <i>Sears' pets—one of +his ten thousand gifts we can never live long enough to assess. His +laughter was another....</i></p> + +<p>Wright was talking placidly: "We suppose it must have been a similar +story on this planet, Elis. The major patterns are the same. The small +and simple forms must have grown to greater complexity through their +millions of years, undoubtedly in the seas, the good saline medium for +our kind. Then other millions of years, while the first creatures to +try the land were clumsy amphibians, still needing the sea but +developing ways to carry it with them, venture a little further. +There's no hurry in history."</p> + +<p>"And before the beginning of life?"</p> + +<p>"Difficult, Elis. We think (there are other theories) that each star +with planets was once two—a binary, our astronomers called it—"</p> + +<p>Someone thin and small came near to Paul, speaking delicately, in an +extremity of pain, and not to him. "Nisana," Pakriaa said. "Nisana—"</p> + +<p>Nisana was looking up, a little afraid, uncertain. "Princess?"</p> + +<p>"Only Pakriaa.... Nisana—I saw how you spoke to the Vestoian, how she +was quiet. If you will bring her—and Tejron too? And we go and +listen—Tocwright is talking about the stars—the world—I think, +maybe, we tell her what he says? Will you come with me, Nisana?"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> +<img src="images/image_04.jpg" width="600" height="524" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<h2><a name="part_three" id="part_three"></a>Part Three</h2> +<h2>The Year Ten</h2> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span></p> +<h2>1</h2> + + +<p><i>Argo IV</i> answered Dunin's brown hand at the tiller, sliding south +under a following breeze. Her chief designer Paul Mason liked to call +her a sloop, admitting that on no planet would any sloop have cared to +be found dead with a pair of twelve-foot oars amidships. She was +thirty-six feet fore and aft. Without a sawmill, shaping boards for +her strakes had been harder than trimming and placing the single tree +trunk that was her keel. Much of her joining was with wooden pegs; +there was iron in her too, from the single deposit of ore on the +island of Adelphi. Her building had started seventeen months ago in +the Year Nine. One month ago Paul's daughter Helen had cracked across +her bow an earthen flask of wine brought to maturity by Nisana and +<i>Argo IV</i> had slipped out of the mouth of the Whitebeach River for a +maiden voyage—a forty-mile circuit of the island, including the +passage of a strait where a current from open ocean ran formidably +between Adelphi and a small nameless island in the south. Since then +she had journeyed short distances up and down the coast, learning her +own fussy ways and teaching them to her makers.</p> + +<p><i>Argo II</i> had been a clumsy oared raft of heroic history. Nine Lucifer +years ago, roughly the equivalent of twelve Earth years, <i>Argo II</i> had +not only brought fifteen survivors of a war to the island, she had +also, broadened and repaired, returned to the mainland over the +ten-mile channel to pick up a sixteenth survivor, Abara, and the +gentle white beasts he had refused to abandon. He had guided them +south, through seventy miles of unknown terrors, and ten miles further +along the beach, until it came to an end at sheer cliffs; here <i>Argo +II</i> found him. One by one—probably no one but Abara could have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span> +coaxed them aboard—<i>Argo II</i> had ferried all five of the olifants +across. During the rains that came for a dark ending of Year Two, the +swollen Whitebeach River had torn <i>Argo II</i> from her moorings and she +had been swept away down the channel. Now she would be driftwood +scattered over the infinity of the unexplored; she was remembered.</p> + +<p><i>Argo III</i>, still in existence and more often called Betsy, was only a +boxed platform with outriggers and two pairs of oars. With four giants +at the oars and a favorable current she could approximate three miles +an hour and carry several tons. She had been built in the Year Four +and was still busily bringing slabs of building stone from the base of +the coastal range. The stone was red and black or sometimes purple, +heavy, already smoother than marble without polishing; unlike any +common stone of Earth, it was so hard that wind and sun and water over +the centuries had done little with it. Wright believed that was why +the coastal range could rise to such heights from a narrow base. While +the years in their millions had turned other mountains to level +ground, the glassy rock remained: it could be broken for use but +defied erosion like a diamond.</p> + +<p><i>Argo IV</i> was unequivocally a ship; after her trial Paul had carved +for her bow a figurehead with the dreaming face of Pakriaa.</p> + +<p>"Maybe," Dunin said, "with a few more like this the first explorations +could be around the coast instead of overland? If we had two or three +more ships when Kris-Mijok is old enough to go?"</p> + +<p>Paul knew Dorothy had winced, though her face was turned to the +evening-reddened field of water. "If he still wants it, when he's old +enough to go...."</p> + +<p>Kris-Mijok Wright, her third-born child and only son, had been born in +the Year Three; in Earth years he was only nine. His hunger for the +long journeying might be mainly a reflection of his devotion to Dunin, +herself full of visions and not yet a woman. A tentative half joke, a +means of channeling a child's fantasy into patience, had somehow +become a sober adult plan: that the first major explorations would +begin when Kris-Mijok would have a man's strength to take part in +them.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span></p> + +<p>"We might have such ships by then." Paul tried to sound judicial. "Say +the Year Eighteen or Nineteen. Yes, a coastal exploration might be +better than trying to cross the continent. Not a circumnavigation +though, at first."</p> + +<p>Dunin's big face blossomed in a grin. "Only about thirty-six thousand +miles by the old map made from the air. Open water at north and south +poles, plenty of it. Could do it in less than a year."</p> + +<p>"More like fifty thousand, allowing for deflections, tacking, pull of +currents we don't know. Storms, flat calms, contrary winds, repairs, +expeditions ashore for provisions. You pull your horns in just a bit, +my girl. Do you remember a desert plateau the map shows in the +southern hemisphere? Solid cliff rising out of the sea for over seven +hundred miles, and on top of it roasting sand all the way across the +continent—and that plateau is only a small part of the coastal +desolation down there. From the equator to the 30th parallel I don't +think you'd have a chance to go ashore—and nothing to help you if you +did."</p> + +<p>Dunin still grinned. "Just sail past it."</p> + +<p>"Yes—well out to sea, with the equatorial sun at work on you. Very +few islands in that region, some of them bare rock." And he thought: +<i>If I might go myself...! I am fifty now, in Earth years, a young +fifty....</i></p> + +<p>He knew also that Dorothy would not prevent him. She would not go +herself: she would remain at Adelphi, faithful to the daily things, +undramatic labors and loyalties that make civilization something more +than a vision. She was a young thirty-eight, though she had already +borne five children. If he went away, she would mind the watch fires +on the beaches, as she had done nine years ago; she would work in the +school, the house, the gardens, stand by Christopher Wright during the +depressions that sometimes overcame him. She would grow old waiting. +Therefore, Paul knew, he would never leave her. "The explorations will +come in good time, Dunin," he said. "You'll have 150 years to watch +and take part. I think you'll live to see the other continent too, and +the great islands in the southwest. In the meantime—there's so much +exploring to be done right here!" He watched the water too, aware of +Dorothy's face turned to him, sober<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span> and appraising. "You know, +Dunin—that island we visited today—that could hold a community of a +thousand between its two little hills. And I'm remembering the one +forty miles north of us. <i>Argo II</i> was swept ashore there: get Doc to +tell you that story sometime. I was sick for a week and laid up in one +of the limestone caves while the others repaired the raft. A round +island less than five miles across. We might sail there next trip."</p> + +<p>"The other continent," Dunin murmured, and she watched the rising +blue-green mound of Adelphi in the south. "The islands of the +southwest...."</p> + +<p>Dorothy leaned against the hand-hewn rail, looking northeast, saying +lightly, "There he is...." The stone figure in the coastal range grew +visible as the channel current pressed them a little too far eastward. +The vast features were not clear; one could find the line of shoulder. +"And Sears said, 'He looks west of the sun.' Was it long ago you told +me that, Paul?"</p> + +<p>"In a way it was.... Penny for 'em, Dorothy?"</p> + +<p>"Oh——" Her brown face crinkled in the way he hoped for. "I was +climbing down off philosophy with my usual bump—wondering what hell +the twins have been raising while we're away. Brodaa's patience with +them passes belief. With her own three sets of twins she's had +practice. I wish Pak could have had children. Twenty-nine—late middle +age for her people.... Helen's going to make a better med student than +ever I was—don't you think, Paul? Seems like more than just a kid's +enthusiasm."</p> + +<p>"I think so." And Sears' plump daughter Teddy (Theodora-Pakriaa) would +no doubt find herself too, sometime: there was no hurry. Even +Christopher Wright no longer seemed to feel that time was hounding +him, though his years by the Earth calendar were sixty-five, his hair +and beard were white, his wiry thinness moved deliberately to save the +strength he had once been able to spend like unconsidered gold.... +"Look!"</p> + +<p>Dorothy said carefully, "But that is impossible." A column of smoke on +the flank of the coastal range, above one of the beaches where +building stone was found. Blue-gray against the red and black, it rose +straight in untroubled air. "They weren't taking Betsy out till we got +back."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Too high anyway," Dunin said. "No need to climb so high for the +stone."</p> + +<p>Dorothy whispered, "I have <i>never</i> quite believed that Ed and Ann——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Dorothy! Well, we——"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I saw the lifeboat go down on the channel. It didn't sink." She +shut her eyes. "It was a misty evening, lover, more ways than one. +Remember, Dunin?"</p> + +<p>"I'll always remember."</p> + +<p>"Paul, I know that when the open-sea current below the island took the +lifeboat it must have been smashed against the cliffs—oh, of +course—and for nine years the sea spiders will have used the pieces +of it for their little castles and hideaways. All the same—Ed and Ann +could have managed to swim ashore. Cross the range somehow or go +around it."</p> + +<p>"Nothing to eat. Barren rock straight up from the beaches, where there +are any beaches, for ninety miles south of the only place where they +could have landed and for twenty miles north of it."</p> + +<p>"But no kaksmas in the coast range either; no omasha, this side. There +<i>are</i> beaches here and there. They might have found—shellfish—blue +seaweed."</p> + +<p>"Nine years——"</p> + +<p>"It <i>is</i> smoke. Our people wouldn't be up there...."</p> + +<p>"You've never wanted to talk much about that day."</p> + +<p>"No, I—haven't. I didn't behave too well myself. Yes, there are +things I've never told.... Paul, Ed Spearman was like somebody I +didn't know. He did say in so many words that he planned to go to +Vestoia, not to—to throw himself on the mercy of Lantis, but to 'give +her civilization'—he said. We tried, Ann and I, tried to reason with +him against that. I think he had some alternative plan—maybe flying +south of Vestoia as far as the fuel would take him and starting a +community of his own—with Ann and me, you know, and himself the old +man of the tribe."</p> + +<p>"And without us," said Dunin mildly.</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear, I recall that. He put that in words...." In a way, Paul +did not want her to go on, living it over again, but she had a need to +speak of it. "I suppose his plans made a kind of sense if you accepted +the premise. As I couldn't, of course. When he said you were all +lost,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span> I believed (I had to believe) that he was—not lying perhaps, +but telling something he hadn't truly seen. I know that was where I +let go—I raged and screamed, and when he grabbed my arm (probably +just wanting to quiet me down)—well, if he's living he'll have two or +three white scars down his cheek. Uh-huh: the Dope comes clean. I ever +think I was trying to get hold of my pistol when Arek took it away, +and took his away too. After that she forced him to give a precise +account of everything that had happened, every detail. She made him +tell it five or six times, watching for contradictions. She +was—justice embodied. I was afraid of her myself even while I loved +her for it. I knew what he told us then was the truth: the fuel was +low, he'd come direct to the island with no real knowledge of what had +happened to you. He was saner after the telling. He lost a—a certain +look of exalted listening, as if somebody behind Arek's shoulder were +telling him what to do. Arek never gave back his pistol. We were on +the beach. The giants had been bringing wood all day for a beacon +fire. I remember the exact shape of a big shell at my feet, the look +of a bit of driftwood tossed in by the channel breakers...."</p> + +<p>"And Ann—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Ann! Tom two or three ways as usual. She was very much in love +with him, you know, from our first days on Lucifer. But her mind was a +battleground with no armistice. I think Ed always knew that. When he +pleaded with her—reasonably too—she couldn't think, she could only +cry and say: 'I won't go with you—I won't go.' He stopped +trying—suddenly, as if he'd knowingly turned off a light inside +himself—unsteady light and the only one he had, I reckon. He said, +'So much for the human race: but I'll see what one man can do here +before I'm dead without issue.' And he walked off to the lifeboat, +while Arek let his pistol dangle from her finger—and, Paul, I shall +always think he knew Ann would run after him. I saw her tugging, +trying to pull him out of the boat—but she was pulled in and it was +gone."</p> + +<p>"And I remember," said Dunin, "what you did after we lost sight of +it."</p> + +<p>"What I did...? What was that, Dunin? I'm blank there."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You went to the beacon fire and put on more wood."</p> + +<p>"Well," she said vaguely, "of course. We all did.... That <i>is</i> smoke, +Paul. Lantis' pygmies or the wild giants couldn't be there on the +cliffs."</p> + +<p>Dunin said, "Oh, there are no giants in that country, Dorothy. Those +low hills I remember west of the first camp—those kaksma hills were +an impassable boundary in the old days. The country west of +them—nobody went there, ever. And south of them—Vestoia. My wild +kindred are all very far north of here...."</p> + +<p><i>Argo IV</i> eased up to the wharf, where Elis and Arek handled her like +a toy, making her fast with ropes of a fabric as good as linen. Wright +was there with them, and Tejron, and Pakriaa and Nisana, who were +inseparable. "Too far," said Wright, and handed Paul the field +glasses. "Just smoke."</p> + +<p>Elis grumbled, "What's up there to burn? No vegetation. Rock."</p> + +<p>The smoke seemed to be thinning. "How long since our last trip over?"</p> + +<p>"Eight days, Paul," Tejron recalled. "My impatient eldest wanted to +see if he could handle Betsy's oars, remember?"</p> + +<p>"He could, too." Paul remembered. "Sears-Danik pulled his weight, my +lady. Yes, that was the last time. And we saw nothing unusual."</p> + +<p>Only Nisana thought to ask, "Good voyage today, Paul?"</p> + +<p>"Fine, darling. You should have come."</p> + +<p>Wright was carefully calm. "I'll go over, with Paul, Elis—and—"</p> + +<p>"And me," said Dorothy, not smiling.</p> + +<p>"Well... Okay, Dope."</p> + +<p>Pakriaa's thin wrinkled face turned to him. "Nisana and I? +Miniaan—she would remember the Vestoian dialect—but she is at the +city. It would need an hour to send for her, and then it would be +getting dark."</p> + +<p>"Yes, come with us...."</p> + +<p>The site of Jensen City was not where Wright and Paul had originally +dreamed of it but two miles south, where the radiance of Sears Lake +hung in the hills. A gap in the west admitted ocean winds; the outlet +of the lake<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span> ran for a mile to the edge of a red stone cliff and +tumbled over in a waterfall five hundred feet high. There would one +day be houses along that mile of river. Already, near the waterfall, +there was a temple of red and black stone devoted to quiet without +ritual, thought of sometimes as a memorial to Sears and to the other +dead, more often simply as a place to go for the satisfactions of +silence. It had no name; Paul hoped it would never have one.</p> + +<p>Miniaan of Vestoia was an eager citizen. The old wound had left one +side of her head cruelly scarred; from the other side she was +beautiful, by Charin as well as pygmy standards. Younger than Pakriaa, +she was the mother of four, by Kajana—the archer whom Mijok had once +carried on his shield, who would never walk again nor live a day +without pain, and who was more cheerful as a permanent habit of mind +than any of the other pygmy survivors of that war. The fifty-four +pygmy children of Jensen City were all fathered by Abara and Kajana—a +fact which caused old Abara to draw dead-pan comparisons between +himself and Mister Johnson and to grow darkly desperate when Kajana +wistfully asked him to explain why it was a joke....</p> + +<p>Elis shipped the oars; Paul let down the anchor, a heavy block of +stone, in two fathoms of blackening water; Elis lifted the dugout over +the side and held it for them. He himself swam the short distance to +the beach and eased the canoe through the shallows. Even now at low +tide there was barely a quarter mile of gray sand between water and +cliffs. Chipping away of building stone had created a fair path a +hundred feet up; beyond, natural irregularities made it possible to +climb another two hundred to the first setback of the great sea +wall—a ledge which ran only as far as the next patch of beach, five +miles south. Sunset had been ending when <i>Argo IV</i> came home; here +there was a depth of evening quiet, no sign of smoke or life, no sound +but the long hiss and moaning of small waves. "We might make a fire +here," Wright said. "But there's enough light. They—they?—must have +seen <i>Argo</i>."</p> + +<p>"There," Dorothy said, and ran up the sand.</p> + +<p>The others watched in frozen helplessness as the woman came down the +crude cliff path, gaunt, seeming tall only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span> because of the +gauntness—flaring ribs, thighs fallen in, every arm bone visible. Her +hair was black disorder to her waist, her body a battleground of +bruises, dirt, scars old and new, and she winced away from Dorothy +with protesting hands. "You mustn't touch me because I'm very dirty, +but I know who you are. Besides, I had to burn the last of my clothes. +My baby died. I know who you are. You see, my milk stopped. You're +Dorothy Leeds. I left him on the cliff. Matron would not approve. You +see——"</p> + +<p>"Ann—Ann——"</p> + +<p>"I have two other sons, but this one died. On the cliff. I used to +know a man who called me Miss Sarasate, but that was just his way of +talking—I don't happen to be in practice." Still trying to fend off +Dorothy's arms, Ann fell on her face....</p> + +<p>Pakriaa was speaking softly, in the room where Ann was +sleeping—Wright's room. "She will be healed," Pakriaa said. "I can +remember—and you remember it too, Paul—how my own mind refused to be +my servant for a while." Since Ann had been brought to Jensen City, +Pakriaa and Nisana had never left her: the little women, both now far +from youth, took on the duties of nursing with a fierce +protectiveness, so that there was little for even Dorothy to do. Ann +had slept heavily all night and morning. At noon the stone-walled +house remained cool; mild air entered at the screenless window +openings, stirring the wall map of Adelphi and the three of Paul's +paintings which were the only decorations Wright allowed in this +ascetic shelter. There was glass-making now, but in such a climate, +with no serious insect pests, it seemed a waste of effort to make +windows; a long overhang of the eaves was sufficient against the +rains. The house was large, U-shaped around a garden courtyard open +toward Sears Lake; the walls were of black stone, the roof of a +material indistinguishable from slate, carried by hardwood timbers. +Wright shared this house with Mijok and Arek, Pakriaa, Nisana, +Miniaan, and their children and Arek's. There were five other such +communal houses overlooking the lake; a seventh was building. The +children were everywhere: it was, and would be for many years, a city +of the young. Rak had died in the Year Four, a matter of falling +asleep without waking, but Kamon lived, sharing a house<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span> with Tejron, +Paul and Dorothy, Brodaa and Kajana. Lately Sears' daughter had taken +over the task of caring for Kajana in his helplessness, lifting him to +and from a wheel chair that Paul and Mijok had contrived or carrying +him to a hammock slung near the waterfall, where he could watch the +ocean and its changes. In middle age, Kajana had taught himself to +write, and kept a journal of the colony with a sober passion for +detail.</p> + +<p>Ann had not waked when Dorothy and Nisana washed her and clipped the +dreadful tangle of her hair. "She will be healed," Pakriaa insisted. +"Maybe in the next waking." And when Ann's gray eyes came open an hour +later, they did show a measuring sanity, recognizing Dorothy and Paul, +but wincing away when Nisana smiled and touched her.</p> + +<p>"Do not be afraid of us," Pakriaa whispered. "We are still proud. But +our pride now is that no one is afraid of us.... You came to my house +in the old old days, remember? My blue house, and I thinking I would +be Queen of the World? I laugh at that now. Do not look at what I was, +Ann."</p> + +<p>"Pakriaa ... Paul, you haven't changed much."</p> + +<p>"One of our other friends is about to bring a man-sized meal——"</p> + +<p>"Why, Paul, you must be——"</p> + +<p>"Fifty, Earth calendar——"</p> + +<p>Dorothy said, "We measure it in Lucifer years, pretty please."</p> + +<p>"Nicer," Paul admitted. "That way I'm around thirty-seven. Ann, +you—let's see: one Earth year, one point three eight—damn mental +arithmetic—let's call you half past twenty-seven."</p> + +<p>"Imagine that." Ann achieved a smile. "And—Pakriaa?"</p> + +<p>"Twenty-nine. See—already I am an old woman and ugly."</p> + +<p>"Don't be absurd, Pak," Dorothy said. "And this lady——"</p> + +<p>"You would not remember me," said Nisana.</p> + +<p>"Oh, but I do, I do. You—voted for Paul——"</p> + +<p>Pakriaa chuckled with unforced gaiety. "Politics," Nisana chirped. +"P.S., I got the job." Paul pinched her tiny ear lobe and stepped out +to the kitchen, where he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span> found Wright with Arek. The children were at +school, with Brodaa, Mijok, and Miniaan: ordinarily Wright would have +been there too. When the youngest of this house were through with +lessons they would go wandering in the hills with Mijok and Muson, so +that Ann might have quiet, with only distant sounds of the laughter +and playing in sunlight. "She's awake," Paul said, and Wright hurried +to the bedroom, but Arek lingered, filling a tray.</p> + +<p>Arek had grown almost to Mijok's height, filling out, a red mother +goddess still bemused by inner discoveries. Her fine soft-furred +fingers fussed at the earthen dishes on the wooden tray. "No ambition, +no achievement—nothing, I think, could be worth the price of what's +happened to her. Whether she recovers completely or not. There's human +right and wrong. I think sometimes, Paul, it's not necessary to do +much wondering. You can look straight at a thing and say: 'This ought +not to be.'"</p> + +<p>"Granted," Paul said, watching the garden through the broad kitchen +window. His eldest, Helen, must have elected to do a little work after +school instead of strolling away with the others. She was weeding, her +brown head sheltered from the sun by an improvised hat of leaves; but +for that she was prettily naked as the day she was born, and though +she was humming to herself, she restrained the sound so that Paul +could hardly hear it. She saw him in the window and grinned and waved. +She had most of Dorothy's warm coloring, with Paul's long-legged +slimness.</p> + +<p>Arek saw her too and smiled. "What Ann should have had too.... Paul, I +told you once, we love you. All the good new things we have—your +work. All the same there's a devil in—some of you. As in us too, of +course. Need of the laws is obvious. If Spearman is responsible—the +Vestoians too, maybe?—then I think we live in too much seclusion +here." She took up the tray. "Too easy to live all the time in +Paradise and—leave things undone."</p> + +<p>"Yes. Vestoia is big, Arek—or was, when it almost destroyed us."</p> + +<p>"True. But you tell me that over there on the beach she said, 'I have +two other sons.' Living, did she mean? We must find them, and Spearman +too."</p> + +<p>"I believe she can tell us about it soon."</p> + +<p>"Understood that I go with you when you find them."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes. Yes, Arek...."</p> + +<p>In the bedroom Arek's manner was altogether changed. "Observe: this is +asonis <i>rôti à la mode Versailles</i>, whatever that means. All I did was +roast it. These are (Paul says) lima beans Munchausen, and here we +have could-be asparagus. And by the way, the cheese tastes better'n it +smells."</p> + +<p>"Cheese——"</p> + +<p>"Asonis milk," said Wright. "They moo, too."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you've tamed them." Pain fought with interest in the haggard +face. "Yes, Ed wanted to do that, but we—somehow we never——"</p> + +<p>"If you're good," Arek said, "and eat all that, there's cake."</p> + +<p>"You found something for sugar?"</p> + +<p>"Can't tell it from terrestrial," Dorothy chattered, "only it's pink. +From a tree fruit sort of like a plum. We have a plantation of 'em +across the lake. You boil it down to nothing and the sugar +crystallizes out. We make another kind from sap, not as good as maple. +Flour—that's from the same old wheat that came from Earth. +Miniaan—oh, you don't know her yet—Miniaan and Paul have +experimented around with the local grass grains—nothing yet that +measures up to wheat." Ann picked at the food, crying weakly at the +first mouthful. "Ah, don't do that," said Dorothy, looking away. "You +came home, that's all."</p> + +<p>Later she ate ravenously. "I want to tell you——"</p> + +<p>It took a long time in telling. Once she fell asleep but woke an hour +later, obsessed with a need to continue....</p> + +<p>The lifeboat drifted south, its last remnant of fuel gone in a mad +effort to leap the coastal range. Water sneaked in at the seal of the +floor window, damaged in an earlier landing, and Ed Spearman talked to +himself. "Fugitives from a Sunday school—we'll live." Like a hurt boy +he said, "We'll show 'em...." When the current beyond the island swept +them toward the cliffs, he opened the door and pulled Ann into the +water, dragging her, forgetting that she was herself a strong swimmer. +Later, on the beach, he was tender, trying to comfort and reassure her +with a vision of the future abundantly real to him. They had no food, +no way to light a fire of driftwood. They would go to Vestoia, he +said, convince Lantis that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span> they were friends, with something to offer +her empire; they would "bring her civilization."</p> + +<p>From this beach there seemed to be no passage north. They could have +found one by climbing high into the range—Ann did so, nine years +later. But Spearman found a ledge of sorts running south: it might +take them the eighty-odd miles to the lower end of the range or give +out at any point, trapping them. It did give out twice; both times, +rather than clamber higher on the cliffs, Spearman hurled his famished +body through the breakers and swam south, aided by the current until +it was possible to continue along the rocks. Ann followed, not quite +wishing for the death the ocean could have given easily. They kept +alive with shellfish and seaweed washed ashore and small crustaceans +that hid in the tide lines and in crannies of wet rock; there were +pools of rain water and violent small streams plunging down the range. +It took them fifty days to cover the eighty miles. ("I think I spent a +hundred coming back," Ann said. "Couldn't swim, with the baby. It +would have been against the current anyway. Climbed—sometimes went +back miles from a dead end to try again.") In the afternoons the sun +pressed on them with total fury; then they could only crawl into what +shadow the rocks gave and wait for the torture to cease.</p> + +<p>But at last there were trees. Level ground. In a few miles, a rapid +friendly river. ("Are there rivers here? I've forgotten. Nothing +prettier in the world. I let that one close over me. Ed pulled me +out—we had to go on.")</p> + +<p>There were five more of those bright leaping coastal streams in a +journey of another fifty miles southeast through good country, where +the great range thinned out into rolling jungle and meadowland. There +were asonis and small game. Spearman made himself weapons. Ann could +remember these days almost with pleasure. They had, she said, +something the flavor of a delayed childhood, a glimpse of Eden. +Spearman was for a time simply a strong and intelligent man measuring +himself against nature for survival, master of a simple environment +with none to question his decisions and no social complexities to warp +them. ("I wished we could settle in that country, the two of us. I +even begged for it. He had to go on.")<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span></p> + +<p>From the remembered map, Spearman knew there was an obscure pygmy +settlement south of the end of the range, some fifty miles below +Vestoia: merely a cluster of parallel lines that had appeared in the +photographs, it might or might not be a part of the empire of Lantis. +It was near the headwaters of a seventh river, which flowed, not to +the coast, but eastward, into the deep, wide, violent outlet of Lake +Argo. ("He never told me why he was following that river so +cautiously, until we reached the villages. And history repeated +itself.")</p> + +<p>The villages were a furtive, chronically frightened community. They +knew of Vestoia but believed, correctly, that the groping tentacles of +empire had not yet found them. Lantis' drive was mainly to the east, +where the country was easier and pygmy settlements were numerous; even +her war against Pakriaa's people had been a diversion, more a matter +of hurt pride than gainful conquest. Between these hidden villages and +Vestoia there were meadows, dangerous with omasha, and some swampland; +below the two small Vestoian lakes the current of the river Argo was +too fierce for the flimsy boats of Lantis. So the villages of the +seventh river, under a sly but feeble queen, waited like a rabbit in a +hedge. With sharply calculated drama—but smiling this time, Ann said, +like a pleased teacher at a blackboard—Ed Spearman overturned another +idol and became a god.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span></p><p>At the end of two years, when Spearman's goddess had borne him twin sons, +there was industry in the villages. There was an army of a thousand spears, +bladed with iron from certain small hills in the north between Vestoia and +Spearman City. These hills were dangerous with burrows, but workers of a +particular kind could be made to go there. The soldiers overcame their +distaste for the bow when they had watched the course of arrows properly +vaned and tipped with iron or bronze. They did not need to be taught how to +hate Vestoia—nevertheless they relished it when Spearman decided that +political realities demanded he should tell them an epic tale, the tale of +a war he and companion gods had waged against that place. Vengeance, divine +or human, was a thing the pygmies had understood from the first biting and +scratching of infancy.</p> + +<p>Ann had been bewildered by that first gust of oratory against Vestoia. +Spearman had neglected to prepare her for it during the long two years +spent in teaching the pygmies a limited English and the beginnings of +industry: it might not have been clear to himself that such a move +would be necessary in order to hold his people's enthusiasm and +devotion. Ann wondered. "You had thought once of going to Vestoia——" +Spearman turned on her with an anger partly cynical humor: "They hurt +us, didn't they? Oh, I might have toyed with the idea as a choice of +evils before we found our real friends. They killed Doc, didn't they? +And Paul and Sears and those milky giant friends of ours."</p> + +<p>"But you didn't see——"</p> + +<p>"<i>What?</i>"</p> + +<p>Spearman believed now that he had seen the full end of that war. Ann +got it through her head after a while. When he said that Vestoia must +be punished for past wrongs, there was a smiling half admission of +disingenuous policy. "It'll work," he said. "We can get away with it." +But the death of all the others except Dorothy had become for him +something like an article of faith, not to be examined. At this +moment, Ann said, she had begun to think of a northward journey, but +the odds were darkly against it. The twins were still nursing and +sickly; the demands of mere daily living are heavy on a goddess who +must also supervise housekeeping. There was, for instance, the endless +squabbling treachery of the household slaves. At that time also, Ann +hoped to soften or divert some changes that seemed to be taking place +in Spearman himself. ("I wonder if they were really changes....")</p> + +<p>Spearman detested slavery, he said. But in a primitive economy how +else could you get the work done? Even in daylight, when the kaksmas +were half helpless, only the bravest soldiers would go into those +hills—not to work, but only as guards for the chained lines of +laborers, guards who could run fast if the kaksmas came out for a +day-blind attack and leave the slaves to be consumed. Bad: Spearman +was sorry such things had to be. Still, the slaves were poor or +sometimes dangerous material at best; besides that, they hated +responsibility and were therefore<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span> really happier in slavery and +received better care than they could otherwise have had. So you had to +see it as almost a eugenic, even a humanitarian measure as well as an +unavoidable transitional phase, and in any case you can't make an +omelette without breaking eggs. At the use of meat slaves for the +palace household, Spearman had to draw the line, and he instituted +laws against the custom for the rest of his little kingdom, but they +were difficult to enforce without compromising matters of greater +political importance. "Transitional" became a somewhat sacred word for +Spearman over the years, a sustaining conception when things went +badly and when his ingrained sensitivities brought from Earth were +violated by the brisk egg-breaking of a Neolithic culture.</p> + +<p>Even the first war against Vestoia, in the third year of Spearman's +deification, was part of a transitional phase, although Spearman did +not feel that his pygmies were advanced enough to be troubled with +fine distinctions. It is better for a god to resist pressures for +explanation.</p> + +<p>That first war was well planned, with limited objective. Six hundred +spearwomen and archers crossed the Argo below Vestoia and fell on the +city from the east, so that there was no clue to their southern +origin; they set afire a mile of the lake settlement, took three +hundred captives, and vanished—again eastward, leaving a few crippled +defenders to convey the message that they would come again. It had the +desired effect: the armies of Lantis foamed eastward like crazed +hornets, while Spearman's force slipped home across the Argo without a +trace. In the following year they struck again, again from the east, +but with a larger force, laying waste nearly a third of that part of +the city on the eastern shores of the Vestoian lakes. The palace of +Lantis, nerve center of empire, was on the west shore. Probably the +queen knew nothing of what had happened until she saw the far shore +buried in smoke, and by the time she crossed over, she would have +learned only that Spearman's army had promised to come a third time +and take Lantis herself and assume command of the empire.</p> + +<p>They did, just six years after that lonely journey along the rocks. +Ann's twin sons were five years old, five Lucifer years. In the first +two campaigns, Spearman had not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span> shown himself in person to the +Vestoians. In this third battle he was at the head of his army, +massive and tall; with a cold, unhappy precision, he was using a long +hardwood stick with a razor-edge semicircular blade. And this time his +legion had driven in out of the west, directly against the palace and +the temples and sacred places of the Queen of the World.</p> + +<p>Lantis was aging then, and sick, and bewildered; she probably never +understood that it was merely a question of her own methods being used +against her. Even when her city was in flames around her and her +people were scattering into forest and swamp and lake, she could +neither yield nor destroy herself; thus it was her misfortune to be +taken alive.</p> + +<p>A week later Ann and the children were brought by litter from Spearman +City; Spearman recognized the political advantage, almost necessity, +of their presence at the triumph. Lantis was ceremonially dragged +through the still-smoldering and stinking streets and forced to drink +an infusion of the green-flower weed that destroyed the self: this was +pygmy custom, which Spearman watched in regretful disgust, anxious +that his small sons should preserve the impassive dignity proper to +gods. "They're far from human, you know—they don't feel things as we +do...." The boys were puzzled and curious.</p> + +<p>So far as Ann knew, however, Lantis was not eaten at the festival. "He +told me she was mercifully put away after the excitement died down, +and another meat slave was sacrificed, made up to look like +Lantis—not deception, but ritual substitution; Ed felt he'd achieved +quite a step in progress there. It showed, he said, they were +beginning to accept ritual for reality under the influence of——Oh, +the devil with it.... He moved his capital to Vestoia. The palace was +restored—modernized. I lived there—two and a half years. That's +where I bore him another son. I'll never know how I came to allow +it—a kind of madness, hate close to love—something.... He didn't +want me any more, you know. He had some ideas about—ascetic +discipline—purity—I don't know what exactly—and he didn't try to +explain it to me. I'd hated him with all my mind for years—before the +Vestoian wars—but I'm not a good hater. I even still imagined I +could<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span> influence him a little—until the baby was born and he was in +black despair because it wasn't a daughter. I had to escape. I could +feel my mind, my self, rotting away—dissolving, as the Vestoian +empire was dissolving, for that matter. He couldn't hold them. It +began to fall apart right away. They were terrified of him and of his +Spearman City bodyguards—weasels.... They simply drifted away into +the woods and didn't come back. I doubt if they've organized anywhere +else. Lantis must have had a rare sort of skill—the city was all +hers: she built it out of Stone Age villagers, and it died with her. +Ed tried everything to keep them—bribes, threats, endless spying and +public executions by his guard. Bread and circuses, meaningless +offices for favorites with fancy clothes and no duties. It didn't +work. At the time I escaped, the population was down to—he'd never +tell me, but my guess is under ten thousand for the whole city. There +was an epidemic—rather like flu. I used that as a reason to take the +baby back to Spearman City, knowing Ed would need to stay and go on +trying to hold things together. I thought he would let me take the +twins—John—David——"</p> + +<p>"Rest awhile," said Arek. "We're going to bring them home too." Ann +could not speak. "How would you like to bathe again in our lake? I'll +hold you up. Water's warm with the sun—best part of the day——"</p> + +<p>"I'd like it. It's so pretty. What do you call it?"</p> + +<p>"Sears Lake."</p> + +<p>"Sears.... What am I made of? I haven't thought or asked——"</p> + +<p>"It was a Vestoian arrow," Wright said. "At the end he enjoyed +remembering Earth."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span></p> +<h2>2</h2> + + +<p>"The city is a desolation." Miniaan slipped out of shadow into the +clearing, where the others waited for her without a fire; she was shaken, +short of breath. No longer young, she had hurried on the ten-mile return +journey from Vestoia through high-noon heat of jungle. "I could not even +find the house where I was born. Oh, Pakriaa—Paul—of every ten houses, +seven are empty. The streets are dirt and rubbish. No one knew me. Well, +that's not strange. Those I met supposed I was a stranger, probably from +the east. But the ones who were suspicious did not challenge me—they +slipped into their sorry houses and stared at me through the cracks." She +sat down in weariness, wiping sweat from her scarred head and shoulder. +"Word of what I said will travel quickly. But not one followed me here. I +made sure of that."</p> + +<p>Arek asked, "Have you had anything to eat?"</p> + +<p>"No, I—only walked through the streets.... Doc, some had English +words—a few, badly spoken. No one could pronounce <i>d</i> at the +beginning of a word, and they had absurd turns of speech I don't +understand. One woman said to me, 'One fella goddamn skirt belong you +what name?' I thought she was asking about this skirt I made in the +old fashion, but then we spoke in the old tongue: I found she only +wanted to know who I was and where I came from. It seems that now, +under Spearman-abron-Ismar, they indicate—what word do I +want?—social—social levels——"</p> + +<p>"Castes?"</p> + +<p>"Castes, that is it, Paul—they indicate castes by the color of a skirt. In +the old days there were only two castes—soldiers and voluntary laborers, +not considering the family of Lantis or the slaves at the bottom. Now +there<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span> are—oh, ten, twenty, I don't know. Those who work at the dye pots +must never do anything else, and they can look down on the workers in +hides; this woman was a maker of arrowheads and despised both.... I told +her (and some others) that I was a stranger from a distant village, and I +said I had heard by rumor of other gods and giants, who would come one day +soon to talk with Spearman-abron-Ismar—yes, they call him that, +Spearman-male-issue-of-Ismar. It frightened her: she made excuses and ran +away. I told it to another, an old woman, who broke out cursing and +weeping. She said, Oh, no more of them! No more——' And sat down in the +street and scattered dust on her head."</p> + +<p>"Did you see—him?"</p> + +<p>"No, Paul. I saw the palace—changed, with new tall doors. There were +soldiers at the entrance, so I did not dare go near. They wore a +headdress—it was the old bark fabric, I think, but a shape I never +saw. I saw the great stockade—always the biggest thing on the shore +of North Lake—still in repair; there was the same sluice, to wash +away the blood of the meat slaves. There is still a ferry near it, +where the crossing is narrow at the lake's inlet; I could see +across—streets and tree-sheltered houses. And outside the city I saw +a mound, very foul. Once the city was clean. There was a boy playing +near it—ran when he saw me, but I caught him and asked him about that +mound. I could hardly understand his gabble. It seems that nowadays in +Vestoia children have reason to be afraid of grown women. When we +could talk he told me the mound was the grave of the False Empress, +the Wicked One—everyone who passes is required to defile it. A law."</p> + +<p>Pakriaa laced her wrinkled hands at her throat, smiling at Christopher +Wright, quoting a few of his own words: "'The laws are living things: +let men guard them against crippling and disease.'"</p> + +<p>Nisana asked, "What is next to do?"</p> + +<p>"We sleep on it," Wright said. "Long journey. We're tired. We'll go +there in the morning. With our weapons of course, but...."</p> + +<p>Mijok said softly, "First-light is a good time."</p> + +<p>"I think there won't be any fighting," Miniaan said,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span> and she relaxed +and leaned happily against Muson's plump knee and ate the meal Arek +had ready for her in fastidious birdlike bites. "If they're troubled +by the rumors I scattered they'll slip away and hide, not fight. +They're weary, bewildered, disillusioned people—at least that is the +temper of the city as I felt it."</p> + +<p>Nisana murmured, "With Spearman's bodyguard it could be different."</p> + +<p>"Why," said Wright, "he'd never turn them against us. Not if he's the +man I used to know, or anything like that man. He came a long way with +us once." But Paul had to wonder: <i>Was he ever with us?</i></p> + +<p>There were six giants in the party: Mijok, Arek, Muson, Elis, +Sears-Danik, Dunin. Elis was the year's Governor at Adelphi, but +Dorothy had held that position the year before and would assume its +simple duties in his absence. Nisana's eldest twin daughters had +wanted to come, but Nisana had not allowed it, requiring them to stay +in school under Brodaa's temperate discipline; the only pygmies here +were herself, Pakriaa, and Miniaan. The group had come 120 miles +overland, after <i>Argo IV</i> set them on a beach north of the coastal +range: this had seemed better than taking the sloop south, where +harbor would be uncertain and the winds and currents unknown. The +first twenty miles ashore had been a retracing of Abara's long-ago +journey with the olifants, through swampy and treacherous jungle. +After rounding the range they could follow the eastern edge of the +grassland that spread on its lee side, traveling in the open only at +night, to avoid omasha. For all of one day they were bedeviled by a +swarm of biting flies, and since there were brown wings circling they +could not escape into full sunlight, where the flies would not follow. +Eventually Pakriaa found an evil-smelling plant and remembered its use +from old times. The juice of the root was a protection; the smell was +almost as distressing as the bites but less dangerous. Miniaan of +Vestoia had never heard of the plant's use: perhaps that explained why +Vestoia had never exploited the otherwise pleasant region due west of +Lake Argo.</p> + +<p>There was fitful sleep in the daylight following Miniaan's return, and +then an evening meal. Arek and Muson and the two young giants seemed +untroubled by tomorrow,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span> full of speculative curiosity. Mijok was +uneasy, though he would not put it in words; Elis, too, would be +remembering. Wright said again, "He came a long way with us.... Jensen +chose him—remember that: chose him from among seven hundred other +physically fine youths who had the same training, the same kind of +courage, who wanted the—privilege, as he did."</p> + +<p>"I can always wonder what Jensen himself would have made of Lucifer."</p> + +<p>Wright said, almost with reproach, "Jensen was a great engineer, Paul, +but he was also a student of history. Compared with what his +leadership would have been, mine has been weak, vacillating, +academic—it was bound to be. I take credit for some achievements. +I've said give protoplasm a chance. We have done that. We've +established the climate of liberty under law (for our very small +group) and proved that a human mind can by-pass twenty thousand years +of blundering, with no other help than a flexible language and the few +basic rules of civilized action—as the so-called savages of Earth +always proved it whenever they had a chance to secure a genuine +education and fair treatment. But—in our material development there +must have been a thousand lost opportunities—things Jensen (and +probably Ed Spearman) would have seen at once."</p> + +<p>Paul laughed. "Ed could have designed a better sloop."</p> + +<p>Wright dismissed that with a chuckle. "Ach—she floats, boy. She +sails.... When I get angry or impatient or discouraged—when I stick +too tight to a plan of my own and fail to hear the opposing +argument—then I remember that Jensen had a charity, a patience, a +kindliness, almost as great as Sears had—"</p> + +<p>"Tocwright," said Pakriaa, half amused, "why do you search yourself? +Must you always be sitting in judgment on your own mind?"</p> + +<p>"Why, yes, dear, I must." His fingers played in his white beard. +"Cod-and-baked-beans origin ... Remember my fussy little <i>History of +the Americas</i>, the first book Dorothy and Nisana copied out for me +when we found how to make good paper from the marsh grass...? But +self-searching is a vice-and-virtue not limited to the Charin tribe, +Pakriaa—ask yourself. And ask Elis." The black giant<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span> smiled. +"So—I'll go on with it just a little. Paul, is it weakness in me to +ask that when we find Ed Spearman, you do most of the talking? I want +to be—merely friendly if I can, not say much. At least until we know +what sort of man he's become. Nine years ago, I don't think he ever +had much resentment against you. You hear both sides—usually the +surest way to make an extremist hate you bitterly, but somehow people +don't. You're a—kindly listener; I only try to be, pushing down a big +part of my natural temperament to do it.... Why, I think I never even +appreciated the full nastiness of sarcasm until one time (it's not +such a small matter)—one time on the space ship, when Sears +reproached me for it: something that went against his own nature, by +the way, because he was always too afraid of finding fault with +others."</p> + +<p>"I'll talk with him first, Doc, if you want me to. But I wonder what I +can say. I keep seeing Ann. The things she told us—he things Miniaan +has told us today."</p> + +<p>"A city that never was," said Miniaan sleepily, "never was even in the +old times. Maybe I dreamed it. If you are quiet, maybe I will allow us +to wake up in a moment on the island of Adelphi...."</p> + +<p>"Ann is not changed," Muson reflected, "even though the baby died."</p> + +<p>Mijok said, "I'm not sure. I think she is. In what way I can't define. +But she's not the same sad little thing I watched when she was +sleeping in that fever. Well now, that was truly long ago. She puzzled +me more than the rest of you, and you were all a great mystery—and I +with a dozen words and the old terrors crawling on my skin like lice. +Maybe it was her seeming weakness, her secret look of listening—which +I thought I began to understand when she taught me the Earth music, +but I don't suppose I ever did understand it." Mijok laughed and +looked away. "Doc, it was very difficult for me to grasp that you were +not begotten out of the west wind by a thunderbolt. You'll never know +how difficult, because you were never a savage. You were born to be +articulate. Those twenty thousand years of blundering—bad I don't +doubt they were, but they gave you something. I am as if the forest +had generated me, with no past."</p> + +<p>Miniaan murmured and rolled over on her back to look<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span> up into the +leaves. "I too. I was never born. Someone with no father nor mother +looked at that filthy mound they say is the grave of the Queen of the +World. The mind of a white-furred Charin is my father and my mother."</p> + +<p>Elis suggested: "Ann has come neater to the immediate present."</p> + +<p>"Why, Elis—" Pakriaa was surprised. "She said something like that to +me herself, a short while before we came away. She said, 'My +yesterdays became tomorrows before I lived them. I want to find today, +Pakriaa. Where is today?'"</p> + +<p>Miniann pursued the dark stream of her own thought, which now seemed +to be giving her pleasure and not pain: "This morning I found how +yesterday can bury itself with only the smallest scattering of years. +There will be other cities. Never again Vestoia."</p> + +<p>Wright asked gently, "But you can remember good and pleasant things of +the old city, the way it was when you were young there?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I can, I can. But I'll have today, too. I think I found it first +when I bore my little sons, at Adelphi." She sat up, leaning on +Pakriaa's shoulder. "I've had good todays at Adelphi. I don't +understand how it could have been abandoned by this Spearman I've +never seen."</p> + +<p>"In a way," Paul said, "you did see him. You were one of those who +came on the canoes up Lake Argo. You saw the boat set your fleet +afire."</p> + +<p>"Yes. That was war.... And before I was wounded I killed, I think, +seven of your people, Pakriaa. One with a blue skirt. I wounded her in +the throat, and I have heard she died in the forest, looking north."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Tamisraa. My sister Tamisraa was a bitter woman," Pakriaa said, +"and quite brave. Miniaan, all that was over long ago, in a forgotten +country. Now we pull weeds in the same garden."</p> + +<p>Night came tranquilly. Elis, who kept the last quarter of the watch, +waked them before first-light. There was the help of a full red moon, +and they followed the sound of a swift river which flowed into North +Lake through the palace district of Vestoia.</p> + +<p>For more than a mile outside the city the jungle was like a park, +undergrowth removed, vines cut away. But<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span> the vines were coming back. +Greedy purple fingers curled to recapture and reclaim....</p> + +<p>In the outskirts no one halted or questioned them. They saw no armed +women; here and there a man crouched in a weedy doorway with staring +children half hidden behind him. Mijok, Elis, Sears-Danik and Arek +walked on the outside, with shields upheld against a possible arrow or +thrown spear. Rifles and pistols were now history, all ammunition +spent; they lay in a closet off Wright's room at Adelphi which he +called the Terrestrial Museum. Paul, Wright, and Elis had Earth-made +hunting knives, still keen. Miniaan, leading them, held a spear, but +there was a blue-flower garland below its blade, symbol of peace. +Pakriaa and Nisana preferred to carry no weapons; Muson and young +Dunin had never handled one in their lives. Miniaan said over her +shoulder, "There is the old stockade. Here we turn right, toward the +palace."</p> + +<p>There was scurrying and disturbance now. Beyond Mijok's shield Paul saw a +few lean women running; one of them halted at Miniaan's call and approached +uneasily. There were questions, dubious replies. At the far end of the +shaded avenue was a growing cluster of red bodies before a thatched +building with one tall doorway. Miniaan explained: "I told her that we come +peacefully and want to talk with Spearman-abron-Ismar. And she says she +thinks he would be asleep at this hour."</p> + +<p>"So?" Wright frowned and fretted. "But the word you left yesterday +would certainly have reached him." The Vestoian twittered a last word +or two and ran away down the street; Paul saw her elbowing through the +crowd in front of the palace. "We might go forward a little...."</p> + +<p>Most of the group melted away; some forty armed women remained, in a +ragged formation blocking the entrance. They made no threatening or +even warning gestures, but their staring was heavy and cold. The +volunteer messenger returned, pushing through them to speak again with +Miniaan; once or twice a halting gabble of something like pidgin +English made Miniaan wave her hand impatiently. She turned to Paul. +"It seems Spearman told her to say that he is under the—the climate? +The weather? Is this meaningful?"</p> + +<p>Wright said, "Tell him his third-born son is dead and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span> the doorway of +his palace is too narrow for our friends. Wait.... He asked nothing +about Ann?"</p> + +<p>"She does not say so."</p> + +<p>"I can send him no message. You see what I meant, Paul? +Paul—you—send whatever word you think best."</p> + +<p>"Well ... Miniaan, ask her to tell him that—Ann could not come with +us. That we want to talk with him and, as Doc said, that his door is +too narrow for some of us."</p> + +<p>The soldiers seemed to catch a glimmering of it; they made way for the +messenger, and it might be there was less suspicion in them, more +curiosity. Sears-Danik, Tejron's dreamy eldest boy, whispered to Paul, +"I am trying to remember him. Not much hair on his head—it was brown. +I was only seven when he flew us to Adelphi. His voice—heavy."</p> + +<p>"Yes. His hair may be gray now, Danny, as mine is. His face will look +older—it never had a young look. His body will not have changed +much."</p> + +<p>Dunin asked, "He is older than you?"</p> + +<p>"No, dear, a little younger."</p> + +<p>But Spearman seemed older by far, appearing abruptly in the doorway, +arms spread against its frame, face thrust intently forward and eyes +squinting as if they troubled him. He wore a black loincloth of bark +fabric, nothing else. His sparse hair was wholly gray with streaks of +white at the temples, his cheeks, leathery, deeply grooved, and +flushed. "I didn't believe her," he said. Seeing him, the guards held +their spears as if they were Earth-born soldiers presenting arms, then +grounded the butts; they remained rigidly at attention when Spearman +paid them no heed. "I didn't suppose ..." Spearman hiccuped; he rubbed +both hands across his face.</p> + +<p>Seeing tormented uncertainty in Christopher Wright, Paul stepped +forward. "Sears died, long ago. Doc and I got through, with—some of +our friends." He paused, short of the guards, and held out his hand, +and Spearman stared at it, communing somehow with himself, approaching +at last, clumsily, to take hold of it in the old Earth gesture. There +was alcohol on his breath; his bloodshot eyes fought an open struggle +with bewilderment; his handclasp was damp, unsteady, quickly +withdrawn.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Sorry," he said, "not well. Hard to get it through my head. +Well—Christ, I'm a bit drunk. Not strange, is it...? Mijok." His +glance traveled over Pakriaa and Nisana without recognition; it +lingered at Arek, but he did not speak her name. There was the +beginning of a stiff smile, unreadable, as his eyes fixed on +Christopher Wright.</p> + +<p>"Ann—reached us," Wright said, hardly audible. "She—"</p> + +<p>"Why don't you speak up, man?"</p> + +<p>"She came along the coast," Wright said, not much more clearly. "The +baby died—a little while before she reached us."</p> + +<p>Spearman blinked, glanced at his hands, let them drop. He noticed the +tight soldiers; in the antique military manner of Earth he said, "At +ease...." The spearwomen relaxed part way, eyes front. "Maybe," +Spearman said, "maybe you came too soon."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?" Paul asked. "We had to come as soon as we knew you +were alive.... Are your other children well, Ed? Are they here?"</p> + +<p>"Oh...? Yes, I see.... You came too soon. I still have a little town +of seven or eight thousand and some very loyal followers."</p> + +<p>Wright struck his fist into his palm. "We are not your enemies. We +never were. There was a place for you at Adelphi. There is now."</p> + +<p>"Oh...? I can imagine it. So—Ann—"</p> + +<p>"Ann came back to us. It took her a hundred days, she says. She +was—is—skin and bone—"</p> + +<p>Paul said, "She'll recover, Ed. Only needs rest and food. She wants +John and David—naturally. They're her children too, Ed."</p> + +<p>Spearman said almost absently, "Are they?"</p> + +<p>"What!"</p> + +<p>"I don't exactly believe your story, you know.... You must have +been—watching—for a long time."</p> + +<p>Behind him Paul heard Nisana's miserable whisper: "What is it? What is +it?" And Wright's muffled answer: "A sickness."</p> + +<p>"There's no truth in that, Ed," Paul said. "Five days ago we still +supposed that you and Ann were lost when the lifeboat went down in the +channel."</p> + +<p>Spearman shrugged. "Yes—I think you've come too<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span> soon. You should +have worked longer in the dark. We had an epidemic here. Many died. +And another trouble—mental—well, you've kept track of that, of +course: the way they've fallen away from me, gone back to the forest +and the old life, when I could have given them a golden age. A prophet +without honor." He coughed and straightened heavy shoulders. "My God, +I can't blame the poor fools—now that I know how it was done." His +voice did not rise. "Without the conspiracy and interference, I could +soon have started them in building a ship that—Never mind that now. I +have the designs, of course. That what you came for?"</p> + +<p>Mijok broke in, utterly bewildered: "What are you saying?"</p> + +<p>Spearman dismissed the giant with a stare and a voice of cold +politeness: "I don't blame you either. I remember you well. I suppose +you had to do whatever your god ordered, without question...."</p> + +<p>The twin boys had appeared in the doorway, dressed like their father +in bark fabric: slim, well-knit children, thin-faced like Ann, nine +Earth years old. They halted uncertainly, perhaps driven by curiosity +to violate an order of their father's. Paul tried to smile at them, +and one responded but then blushed and looked worriedly away with a +hand over his mouth; the other stared like a pygmy without expression. +Spearman did not appear to notice them, though Paul's smile must have +told him of their presence. Elis broke the silence: "Mijok and the +others of my people do not create gods. We live by our own light so +far as it reaches, without fear of the mysteries beyond it." His +voice, so seldom loud in anything but laughter, boomed and echoed back +from the thatched walls. "At Adelphi, orders derive from the laws, +which are made by all of us and understood by all of us."</p> + +<p>"Yes," Spearman nodded, upper lip drawn in, as one who saw his saddest +predictions verified. "Yes, he would teach you to say that."</p> + +<p>Arek said disgustedly, "There's no conversation here. He listens to +his own mind, no other's. As it was on the beach, years ago—I +remember—"</p> + +<p>Spearman said sharply, "Wright, be careful! You've brought your +bullies here, but I ought to warn you, this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span> is the country where I +still rule. There are some left who love me and understand me."</p> + +<p>Dunin muttered to Paul, "Bullies—what word is that?" Paul squeezed +her wrist, a warning to be silent.</p> + +<p>Speaking with care and difficulty, Wright said, "Ed, your boys are +about nine, Earth time. Would you say that is old enough to make +certain decisions? Would you be willing, Ed, to ask them whether they +want to go to Adelphi and see their mother again?"</p> + +<p>Spearman glanced back at them. He would be seeing, Paul knew, how the +boy who had smiled was staring at Wright with his mouth fallen open, +how the other's blank look had crumpled into a grimace foretelling +tears. "Now I really understand it!" Spearman said softly. "So it was +a kidnaping—a real kidnaping. I simply would not believe it when my +messengers came from Spearman City—but I should have known, I should +have known. You stole Ann in order to get my children too, for your—"</p> + +<p>There was a murmuring among the guard and in the crowd of pygmy +spectators who had gathered at a safe distance. Uncomprehendingly, +Paul saw a few wildly pointing arms, saw one of the guards throw away +her spear and run blindly down the street. Others were doing the same. +The swelling murmur was broken by thin screams. Those of the guard who +remained were staring into the northeast quarter of the sky, where a +break in the trees permitted a view of it, and they were +transfixed—the guard and Spearman's boys and now Spearman himself, +glaring at that blue patch of morning heaven with total unbelief. But +then Spearman did believe it, was perhaps the first to believe it, +tears starting from his gray eyes and running unregarded down the hard +channels of his face. "From home! Home—oh, my God, so long a +time...!"</p> + +<p>The spot seemed small and slow in its descent, riding on a cushion of +flame brighter than sunlight....</p> + +<p>The Vestoian pygmies were all running now. Not into their houses, nor +the palace, but away down the tree-sheltered streets, a mindless +stampede, weapons tossed away with an agonized crying of tiny voices.</p> + +<p>Paul's eyes found it, held it, saw the white flame change to a vast +outpouring of brilliant green like the burning of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span> copper. +"Charlesite!" Spearman cried. "They've found how to use charlesite for +braking! No radioactivity."</p> + +<p>The ship must be aiming for the open ground twenty miles away. They +could hear the roaring now, almost gentle with distance.</p> + +<p>Arek's red arm became a warmth over Paul's shoulders. She said, "I'm +afraid."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span></p> +<h2>3</h2> + + +<p>The gap in the leaves was blank, the green flame gone. Edmund Spearman +gazed at the spot where the descending ship had been, unaware of his +sons, unaware that his pygmy followers had been scattered by fear as +swallows are scattered by a storm; unaware, Paul guessed, of the two +men who had been friends and now were strangers—but these he +presently saw again. His gray eyes measured Paul and Wright, the +unspeaking giants, the small shaken figures of Pakriaa and Nisana and +Miniaan, as if they were rocks or tree stumps and his only problem how +to step around them. Addressing Wright and Arek, whose big arm was +still warm around his shoulders, Paul said carefully, "It will come +down on the meadow ground about twenty miles from here. They must have +seen Vestoia from the air; they probably made sure there was no +settlement in the open land."</p> + +<p>Wright whispered, "It may not even have been from Earth."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" Mijok's black lips smiled. "It is, Doc. I forget our eyes are +better at distance. You didn't see the letters? Black on silver, +reaching halfway up the body of the ship. J-E-N-S-E-N."</p> + +<p>"So?" In Wright's face was a sudden blaze of belief.</p> + +<p>Spearman stared. He said, "Quite an imagination. Glad it was you who +made it up, and not one of the men who knew the real Jensen—a name +that ought not to be taken in vain."</p> + +<p>"I have good eyes," said Mijok gently. "I made up nothing."</p> + +<p>Spearman's eyebrows lifted, a fury of mimic politeness. He stepped +around the group as if they were not rocks but dangerous animals. He +passed down the street<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span> in long strides, not looking back even for his +sons. Paul stupidly watched him go, saw him reach the turning by the +meat-slave stockade and break into a loping run. Stout Muson muttered, +"So changed! What sickness could make such a change?"</p> + +<p>Wright said, "It is not likely to pass. In the old days of Earth they +sometimes ruled nations. Or they were put away in institutions, +usually after others had been injured. Or they were fanatics of one +sort and another, ridden by the devil of one idea. My profession +learned a little about them—never enough. The law met them more often +and learned less." He watched Paul, perhaps needing contact with a +Charin mind, since the innocence of the others gave them no frame of +reference. "I dare say Ed is paranoid only on the one point, +technically: all his troubles are caused by me and my—what did he +say?—conspiracy. A means to help him believe that only he is right +and virtuous and the universe wrong.... It is not so much a sickness, +Muson, as the sum of years of mental bad habits. Vanity and dislike of +one's own kind make most of the seed, and this is the fruit."</p> + +<p>Elis said, "We can overtake him. Six of us giants—we can carry you, +overtake him in a walk, if you think best."</p> + +<p>"Yes." Wright watched the empty street and Spearman's palace that +already seemed haunted and forlorn. "I believe there's no need for +haste. Twenty miles...." The Vestoian pygmies were not returning; the +street was a desolation of rubbish and loneliness with the dull smell +of neglect. One of Spearman's boys was whimpering; the other watched +the place where his father had disappeared, a tension in his small +face, without forgiveness. Wright said, "Who's John and who's David?"</p> + +<p>The crying one muttered, "I'm John."</p> + +<p>David spoke as if the words had been shaken out: "He said she wouldn't +ever come back. Where is she?"</p> + +<p>"At our island," Paul told him. "She's all right, David, and we're +going to take you to her. You want that, don't you?"</p> + +<p>"Is <i>he</i> going there?"</p> + +<p>"We don't know, David. You want to go with us, don't you?"</p> + +<p>"He hit her face. When she said it was his fault that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span> they were all +giving up the city. He always had the guards. Six sat around his bed +every night. John and me, we tried. We made a grass picture like the +priest Kona told us to do, and did things with it and burned it. It +was no good."</p> + +<p>Arek said, "Let's forget that for now. We're going to the new ship and +then the island. Shall I carry you? I've got two boys your age."</p> + +<p>"Who're you? I never saw anybody like you."</p> + +<p>She dropped on one knee, not too close to him. "I'm like you, David. +Just big and furry, that's all."</p> + +<p>"Your mother, David"—said Wright, and swallowed—"your mother is +living in my house now. She was our friend long before you were born, +you know. She came from Earth with us.... You're with us, aren't you?"</p> + +<p>The boy scuffed his bare feet in the dust. John was still crying. +David slapped him savagely. "You stop yakking, y'son of a bitch." The +words could have no meaning for him, Paul thought, beyond the +generalized stink of profanity. John stopped and rubbed his cheek +without apparent anger, gulping and then nodding. When Arek reached, +David let her pick him up, and he relaxed and buried his face in her +fur....</p> + +<p>The giants made little of the miles. Mijok had Pakriaa and Nisana in +his arms and Miniaan perched on his shoulder. They had traveled often +that way on the troublesome journey to Vestoia. Elis carried Wright's +trifling 140 pounds, and Muson had John, her slow voice establishing +cautious friendship. Paul preferred to walk on his own feet, but +before long Sears-Danik stole up behind and swept him into a living +cradle. "Slow legs. Don't mind, do you, Pop?"</p> + +<p>"Pop, huh? No, I don't mind, Danny. I was getting fifty-year-old +cramps and too dumb to admit it."</p> + +<p>Dunin chuckled. "That's Danny: knows all, sees all, says nuf'n'. I'd +live with him awhile when he grows up if only he wasn't so lazy."</p> + +<p>"What's wrong with being lazy?"</p> + +<p>"Not a thing, rockhead. Only if you're going to explore, the way I am, +you can't be lazy, the way you are." She twisted a branch into a leaf +crown and walked backward before them, trying the crown on the boy's +head at different angles. "Ah, wonderful! Charging asonis—whuff<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span> +whuff—and now you look just like the kink that chewed up my diary to +make a nest."</p> + +<p>"Which was your fault for leaving it on a shelf and not writing in it. +Explorers have to keep diaries. Doc said so—didn't he, Paul?"</p> + +<p>"I'm strictly neutral, to avoid bouncing."</p> + +<p>"So anyway, Dunin, when you trip over a root and smack your fanny, I'm +going to laugh."</p> + +<p>She did. He did....</p> + +<p>It was an hour before they overtook Spearman, who glanced back without +expression, without halting his powerful strides, his tanned body +gleaming with sweat and effort. Dunin sobered; she caught Paul's eyes. +She said, "May I carry you, Spearman? Then we can all reach the ship +at the same time."</p> + +<p>Spearman gave no sign of hearing her. He drew up at the side of the +trail, staring at the ground, arms folded. David's face was hidden +again at Arek's breast; John seemed to be asleep. Dunin said, "Please? +Why should we leave you behind?"</p> + +<p>Remote and desolate, Spearman watched the ground. Dunin moved on, +reluctantly, no more laughter in her. "What <i>is</i> he thinking?"</p> + +<p>Wright said, "At this moment he's probably thinking it's brutally +unfair that we should go on ahead of him."</p> + +<p>"But I asked—"</p> + +<p>"You did. What's more he hasn't anything against you. All the same, +that's about what he'll be thinking. Don't try too hard to understand +it, Dunin—I'm not sure it's worth it. Let's think about the ship. +Paul, is it possible, what he said about charlesite?"</p> + +<p>"I reckon so, Doc. The flame certainly did change to green. I think I +remember, long ago, hearing some engineers discuss the possibility of +stepping up charlesite enough so it could be used in braking a big +ship for descent, instead of keeping the atomics on all the way down. +It would char everything over a wide area, but at least it wouldn't +make radioactive desert...."</p> + +<p>"I can't feel it," Wright mumbled. "Mirage...."</p> + +<p>It was no mirage. The ship <i>Jensen</i> stood high above blackened ground +half a mile away; even here at the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span> edge of forest there was a +lingering smell, anciently familiar. Paul felt himself grinning +stupidly. "Plain carbon tet or something like it. Must have shot it +out to kill any grass fires. No mirage."</p> + +<p>Towering silver-white above a hundred-foot tripod, it flaunted the +letters of a great name, and David Spearman rubbed his eyes at it, +leaning against Arek's knee, accepting the protective touch of her +hand. Arek said, "What—Oh Paul, what will they be like?"</p> + +<p>Wright shook his head, plainly feeling it now—the thought, the +memories, the pleasure, and something far from pleasure. Paul +answered, "They will—look like us, Arek."</p> + +<p>Pakriaa pointed up. "There! That we remember. Oh, the beautiful—"</p> + +<p>"A boat out already?" Paul searched and found the silver flight.</p> + +<p>Wright chattered: "Have we anything, anything white? No—you and I out +in the open, Paul—rest of you keep back. They need to recognize what +we are—" He was shaking, and Paul embraced his shoulders to steady +him as they moved into the open ground. Wright giggled hysterically. +"Damn white flag myself—my whiskers—"</p> + +<p>The boat swooped, swelling from a dot to keen familiar lines; it +circled above them twice and came to earth in a perfect landing a +hundred feet away. A blank pallor in the pilot's window would be a +human face; there would be a human brain shocked into new wonder. It +was still necessary for Paul to help his teacher through the grass, +for Wright was swaying and stumbling. Paul reminded him: "They'll be +sealed up, afraid of the air."</p> + +<p>"Ah, yes. I say they needn't be—we have good air on Lucifer...."</p> + +<p>Paul was aware of his own struggle for sanity, for clarity in the +beginning of this impossible joy which was not pure joy. He heard +himself shout at the top of his strong lungs: "'Ahoy the <i>Jensen</i>!' +No, they won't hear it. Yes—they did, they did."</p> + +<p>The door slid open for a meeting of two worlds. A square little bald +man, a tall gray-haired woman who fussed at her ears, troubled by the +change in atmospheric<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span> pressure. Faded overalls, the human look, +incredulous stares changing to belief. The bald man gulped and +stumbled; he grinned and held out his hand. "Dr. Christopher Wright, I +presume?"</p> + +<p>Wright could neither speak nor let go the hand. The woman said, "You +must be—well, who could forget the photographs?—you're Paul Mason."</p> + +<p>"Yes, We never—for years we haven't even thought—" "Mark Slade," +said the bald man, "Captain Slade. This is Dr. Nora Stern ... Sir, +I—you are well? You look well—"</p> + +<p>"We are well," said Wright.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid to ask—the others? Dr. Oliphant? Captain Jensen? The—the +little girls? And there was a young engineer—Edmund Spearman...."</p> + +<p>Paul managed to say, "Both little girls are mothers. Dr. Oliphant and +Captain Jensen died—Jensen on the ship, in the last acceleration. +Spearman is—will be here before long, I think. You may find him +somewhat changed—" Wright said, "We must let Ed speak for himself, +Paul." In spite of the shock, the newness, Dr. Stern was sensitive to +nuances. She said too loudly, "Beautiful country." She pressed both +hands to her ears and took them away and spoke in a normal voice: +"There...! Oh, what strange steep hills...!"</p> + +<p>"N-not like any rock of Earth," Paul stammered. "Defies erosion." <i>And +I am speaking with the pride of a home lover....</i> "The open ground is +a little dangerous—flying carnivores. Come and meet our friends."</p> + +<p>Captain Slade had already seen the giants and pygmies at the edge of +the woods; his small monkey face was ablaze with friendly curiosity +and the startled amusement that will wake at anything new, but he +said, "In just a moment. Let me take this in. If I can.... We've done +it, Nora." He filled his lungs deeply, blinking at a few tears of +pleasure. "A world like ours—a new world. Oh, Nora, it'll be a long +time before we can believe this, you and I.... High oxygen, we +noticed—feels like it. Sir, your ship—"</p> + +<p>"Lost," said Wright, tranquilly now, no longer shaking from head to +foot. "Out of control in descent, fell in a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span> lake"—he motioned over +his shoulder—"a few miles over there. We call it Lake Argo. Too deep +even to think of salvage. One of the lifeboats cracked up; we used the +other for about a year. Our friends, Captain—you'll like our +friends—"</p> + +<p>Slade murmured, "Speculation on parallel evolution seems to have been +sound—here anyway. Humanoid, I see. Two species?"</p> + +<p>"Human," said Wright. "Their English, by the way, is better than mine. +They are close to us, Captain—very dear to us."</p> + +<p>"I—see," said Captain Slade kindly. Paul thought: <i>He can't see—it's +too new. But maybe he will try to see</i>.</p> + +<p>"How many in your party, Captain?"</p> + +<p>Slade grinned. "Only four, Mr. Mason." <i>Heavens! Mister? That's me.</i> +"A smaller crew, bigger ship. Federation thought best. We left +thirteen years after you. Twelve years on the journey. Of course we've +had to double in brass considerably. The other two are a young +couple—Jimmy Mukerji; he's from Calcutta—Oh, and by the way, Dr. +Wright, his mother was Sigrid Hoch, anthropologist, one of your +students."</p> + +<p>"Sigrid—" Wright groped in the past. "Of course. I remember." But +Paul guessed that he did not.</p> + +<p>"Jimmy's a botanist <i>and</i> engineer <i>and</i>—oh, general technician, good +anywhere. Sally Marino—another good technician. Frankly I didn't want +specialists—wanted kids who could turn a hand to anything, and I got +'em." Slade's friendly face saddened; he and Dr. Stern were walking +clumsily to the woods, feeling the change in gravity. "Ours was to be +the last interstellar ship, Dr. Wright, until either you or we came +home. There'll be no building going on now. A Federation +decision—matter of public opinion as well as economics. Well, the old +lady over there did cost twice as much as your <i>Argo</i>, upped the +Federation poll tax three per cent just to pay for her on paper. Could +have got around that, maybe, but there was a beginning of public +hysteria, protest—resentment at the idea of throwing lives and +billions into space with nothing to show for it for many years. +Fanatics on both sides, and both noisy, plus the war scare of course. +Short-term thinking. Human."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You can't blame them," said Nora Stern.</p> + +<p>"I do blame them, Nora, now that we know it can be done...."</p> + +<p>Elis had tried to be ready with a little speech of welcome, but +shyness made him stiff with dignity, and it was evident that Dunin +would break loose in nervous giggling. Elis said only, "You're very +welcome. We hope you'll enjoy it here." Pakriaa might have been back +in the days of tribal grandeur, but her control too was only a result +of shyness and wonder as she echoed the Governor's words. It was +unfairly difficult for the newcomers, Paul could see—the giants' +furry nakedness and majesty, the pygmies' tininess and wrinkled +baldness; even the Charin-like beauty of Miniaan's features might be +invisible to new Charin eyes. But Slade and Dr. Stern behaved well, +with a natural friendliness. "Why," said Slade, "these boys—"</p> + +<p>"John and David Spearman," Paul explained. "Ann's boys. Spearman—we +think he'll be here shortly."</p> + +<p>Arek asked evenly, "You've come to stay, I hope?"</p> + +<p>"To—stay?" Slade shot a startled glance at Wright, who avoided it, +giving him no help.</p> + +<p>Paul said quickly, "Captain, we ought to have warned you, but neither +Doc nor I could get our wits together until you'd opened the door. +About thirteen or fourteen hours from now you'll have a fever and a +period of unconsciousness. Not too much discomfort and, so far as we +know, no danger—anyhow all of us recovered in fine shape and we've +had excellent health ever since. We decided it's just a part of +acclimation to—we call this planet Lucifer. But if you think the two +others should stay in the ship till you recover—"</p> + +<p>Dr. Stern was measuring him shrewdly. "You look very healthy, both of +you, and I know we can take your word for anything. Jimmy and Sally +are pretty rugged. They'll be wild to join us. Sally will be at the +intercom right now, tearing her pretty hair out in handfuls. They +might as well chance it with us.... Where do you people live? We saw +a—settlement? Over there south of the lake."</p> + +<p>Wright glanced at Paul with vague entreaty. It was Miniaan who spoke, +the small silver of her voice a music<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span> in the sun-streaked shadow: +"The settlement below the lake is a thing of the past, an empire that +died. We live on a warm island over yonder, the other side of those +mountains, the island Adelphi. We are returning there now, after +a—journey with some trouble in it."</p> + +<p>"Adelphi," said Dr. Stern, savoring the name. "Mark—our two boats +could fly them all there with us, couldn't they? Take out the +emergency stuff to make room."</p> + +<p>"It would be wise," said Paul. "We could take better care of you +during the illness, at Adelphi. We have houses there. Here it's not +very safe—biting flies and some dangerous animals."</p> + +<p>Slade was doubtful. "Anything here that could interfere with the ship +if we leave it unguarded?"</p> + +<p>Miniaan laughed. "Certainly the people of Vestoia will not go near +it."</p> + +<p>"Nothing could harm it," said Wright. "Too big. How in hell do you get +down out of it?"</p> + +<p>Slade chuckled and made up his mind. "Electronic lock. Can work it +from a transmitter in the lifeboat; only other way's from inside. Lets +down a ladder. Automatic derricks in the side blisters to hoist the +lifeboats if, as, and when. They thought of—<i>nearly</i> everything." He +hugged the gray-haired woman. "Even briefing on how to get along with +each other for ten-plus years."</p> + +<p>"Learning love can be difficult," said Pakriaa. Dr. Stern stared at +the tiny woman with new intentness. Pakriaa's seamed face had taken on +its dreamy look. "You must see our island. Last year Mashana Dorothy +was Governor of our island. This year it is this man." She touched +Elis' knee.</p> + +<p>"A sinecure," Elis chuckled. "A sinecure, ladies'n' gentlemen."</p> + +<p>Captain Slade laughed, standing five feet five, peering up at the +Governor's eight feet seven—half a head more than Mijok's height. +Paul thought he saw there the raw materials of friendship. Dr. Stern +said, "And you call this planet Lucifer?"</p> + +<p>"Light-bringer," said Nisana; there was grief in her face not evident +in any of the others. "Son of the morning," Paul moved toward her, +wondering.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span></p> + +<p>Slade had missed the overtone, and cocked a dark eyebrow. +"Industries?"</p> + +<p>Wright shrugged. "A few, sir. All we seem to need at present in such a +small community."</p> + +<p>"Oh." Slade touched the old man's jacket. "This is fine fabric. I +couldn't tell it from linen. Is it?"</p> + +<p>"Very similar." Wright took Nisana's hand on his palm. "This lady is +our best weaver because her hands are so small and sure. Our loom is +clumsy because, of course, our metalworking is not far advanced. But +it does good work for Nisana."</p> + +<p>"I like to weave," Nisana whispered, looking here and there and not at +Paul. "I like to make new things."</p> + +<p>Paul glimpsed the twitch of Mijok's ears, the beckoning curve of a +gray finger; Mijok whispered, "He's coming, Paul. A few hundred yards +away in the woods, breathing hard and limping. Is there nothing we can +do for him?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know, Mijok. I'm afraid whatever is done he must do for +himself, and it's late for that, very late." He saw that Mijok was +trying to understand and could not. "His mind is—living in another +country...."</p> + +<p>But outwardly at least, Edmund Spearman was changed. He even searched +out Dunin's worried face and apologized. "Should have accepted your +offer—stupid of me." He smiled. "Wanted to show what a walker I was, +I guess." John and David slipped behind Muson's back, tense and cold. +Spearman shook Slade's hand, and Dr. Stern's. "My God, it doesn't seem +possible. I can't take it in. Slade, you said? And Dr. Stern. We've +wondered, dreamed, prayed for it. I can't tell you—I don't know what +to say.... Good trip?"</p> + +<p>"Excellent." Slade hugged himself. "Excellent beyond description. Ah, +all the Federation needed was proof. They've got it now! Rather, they +will have it in twelve years. Lordy! I'll be fifty-one." He pounded +Paul on the back, and Spearman, giving way to a bubbling overflow of +good nature. "There'll be a new President, whole new Council I +guess—and they won't be looking for us either, man." He danced a few +steps and jabbed Paul in the ribs. "Think of it! Why, it's a Tom +Sawyer job. You know? You remember? When you and I walk up the middle +aisle in the Federation Hall—oh, man, man...."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span></p> + +<p>Paul had to find Nisana's face again, and the devastation of sorrow in +it, before he understood. He stooped quickly to whisper, "I am not +going back to Earth." The radiance in the aging red face was like a +Charin girl's.</p> + +<p>And he heard Dr. Stern remark dryly, "Mark, I believe we've got some +nearer bridges to cross."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span></p> +<h2>4</h2> + + +<p>One of the soft lizard-oil lamps gleamed in Kajana's room, though it +was late and the house was hushed. Paul had not been able to find +sleep; Dorothy would be watching at the bedsides of the four +unconscious newcomers from Earth for another hour, until Tejron +relieved her. Paul tapped at Kajana's never-closed doorway. "May I +come in?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, please do." The little man smiled up from his pillows: they were +filled with a stuff like dandelion down, almost as good as feathers. +"Will you lift me a little?" Paul fussed over him, glad of something +to do. "I was not sleepy. I finished transcribing from the shorthand, +but my thought remains with it."</p> + +<p>"Shorthand—"</p> + +<p>"The talk of this afternoon. You didn't know I was recording it. You +were all speaking somewhat beyond yourselves, in a way I wanted to +preserve. I wish we had better pencils. These last are not bad, blue +clay mixed with the graphite, but they still crumble too easily and +the wood is big for my hand. I used the brown ink for the +transcription." He shuffled the gray marsh-reed pages together. "You +might like to look at it."</p> + +<p>"Yes. Tonight, I think. Doc did say some things worth remembering."</p> + +<p>Kajana smiled. "So did you."</p> + +<p>"Did I...? Pencils are one thing they must have had on the ship in +abundance. The library too. Poor Doc, he'd have given anything for the +books—so would I...."</p> + +<p>Kajana patted his hand. "Maybe it doesn't matter too much, Paul? We +have our own books to make.... Besides—don't you think Spearman may +have unloaded some things for us before he took off?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Not a chance. His mind wouldn't work that way."</p> + +<p>"No? Well, you knew him better. Still, he had time, Paul. He knew we +couldn't go after him: you told me he drained the fuel out of one +lifeboat before he stole the other. And it was three hours, after you +found he was gone, before you saw the big ship go up over the range."</p> + +<p>"And down," Paul said, still physically shaken with the memory, the +sound, the sight of it. "Down into the sea forever."</p> + +<p>"What happened, do you think?"</p> + +<p>"We'll never know. It was a new type of ship. His knowledge of such +things was ten years old, Lucifer years. Likely the take-off was too +complex for one man to handle it. After we saw it climb past the +range, we stayed there—Doc and Dorothy and Miniaan and I—near the +temple, just stayed there mind-sick and wondering. We saw it +reappear—a dot, then a flame. He never quit trying. He had the +atomics blazing all the way down. Sometimes they'd lift the ship a +little, and we—I suppose we weren't breathing—we'd think yes—no, +yes—no. I even thought: is he going to crash it <i>here</i>? But he was +really many miles to the west, only seemed near, so bright in that +darkness. A meteor—yes, call him a meteor—burned out and lost. Up to +the very end, until we saw it strike the water near the western +horizon, he was still trying, a mad insect heaving against the web of +gravity. And we'll never know what he really wanted, either. I have an +idea he may not have meant to go back to Earth. I think perhaps he +wanted another star—one that never was."</p> + +<p>And Paul wondered: <i>Should I tell Kajana what Doc said when it was all +over? No, not now—not till I understand it myself.</i> ("I consider +myself to blame." "What do you mean?" "Remember when Arek noticed he +was gone? I saw him slip away ten minutes before she spoke. He looked +at me, too. I think I may have known what he meant to do: I said +nothing. Earth is a very distant place, Paul. The Federation is +building no more interstellar ships, for a while—for a while." "But +you—" "I may therefore be to blame. I look within and am confused, as +so often. But all the same, here in our world I have helped to +establish a few practical certainties." During that murmured<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span> +interchange by the temple, Dorothy had been quite silent, as if she +needed no question and answer, and Miniaan had ended it, saying, +"Let's go back, and tell the others that something has ended.")</p> + +<p>Kajana's old mind was roving after other matters, to him more +important than Spearman or the beautiful lost ship from Earth. +"Teddy," he said, "do you know, Paul, when the two silver boats came +slipping down out of the sky Teddy only glanced at them once, and came +running to carry me outdoors so that I could see them too. It was her +first thought. Her father and mother in her, and what a new self +too...!" Kajana was having pain, from the old hip-joint injury that +would never heal. "That transcription, Paul—it's quite verbatim, even +to a little hemming and hawing."</p> + +<p>"Good." Paul studied the wizened red face, regretful that his +painter's power could never record what was really Kajana—too much +that must escape, even if the portrait were faithful to the small +patient hands, the groove in the left fingers caused by years of +effort with makeshift writing materials. Sears—and Paul could think +it now without too much distress—Sears could have understood Kajana +better. "Can I get you anything?"</p> + +<p>"No, thank you, Paul. I'm very well tonight." But some other thought +stirred in him, and Paul lingered, knowing what it was: a need for a +particular reassurance, Kajana's only outward concession to his +frailty. "Paul, what do you really think? When the time comes, will it +be something like a sleep?"</p> + +<p>"I believe so, Kajana. But not soon. We need you."</p> + +<p>The mild face showed gratitude, then calm; it glanced beyond him. +"Why, Abara—you should be snoring."</p> + +<p>Abara followed his comfortable potbelly into the room; his fluty voice +was indignant: "I never snore." He sank cross-legged by the bed, +rocking lightly with a foot in each hand.</p> + +<p>"I've heard you, old man."</p> + +<p>"Lizard-fur!" said Abara. "Hear yourself snoring, of course."</p> + +<p>Paul stretched. "You gentlemen settle down to a good soothing quarrel. +I'll take off." Abara's left eyelid lowered and lifted gravely. "Good +night."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span> "Good night," said the little voices. Leaving the room, Paul +heard Abara murmur, "Do you remember...."</p> + +<p>Paul carried a taper from the permanent fire in the common room to +relight the lamp in his and Dorothy's bedroom. It was late indeed, +near to the time of the rising of the red moon, seen only the night +before from the jungle west of Vestoia—what had been Vestoia. Here in +the long room there was still a friendly disorder from the impromptu +banquet of the evening. Because of the disturbance when Spearman's +flight was discovered and preoccupation with the illness of the +newcomers, the common room had received only a few housekeeping +flurries. Mats were still scattered in the center of the floor; +earthen wine cups stood about. Carrying the taper, Paul saw by his +foot a graded series of round faces drawn on the earth with a twig. +Helen was apt to do that when most of her mind was elsewhere: the +faces were made of neat circles, even nose and mouth. Subject to a +pinch on the bottom from her half-sister, Helen called them teddies. +Paul smiled sleepily and stepped around.</p> + +<p>Kajana took pride in the sharp printlike quality of his writing; under +lamplight, the brown ink shifted into gold. Kajana had not recorded +the casual beginning of the banquet: the idea had evidently come to +him after some remark of Kamon's. Paul could not remember it clearly, +but the old giantess had been roused to it by a thing the rather +sad-faced, brown-haired girl Sally Marino had mentioned: the prospect +of war on the planet Earth. Kajana had taken down what followed as +direct dialogue; riffling through the gray pages, Paul noticed that +Kajana had inserted no comment of his own at all. The phonetic +shorthand, Paul knew, was Kajana's invention—ideal for his own use, +but he had not been able to teach it even to Nisana. Too intricate, +she said, needing the hyperacute ear which was a gift Kajana could not +share.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>SLADE: There seems never to be a single cause of war, only a +group of causes coming to a particular focus in time. Our +world, madam—</p> + +<p>WRIGHT: Just Kamon. Somehow we've never formed the habit of +courtesy titles, Captain. Names, nicknames, and a few titles +of function—as for instance, if Elis were conducting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span> one +of our meetings, we'd address him as Governor.</p> + +<p>SLADE: Oh. Pleasant, I should think. Our world, Kamon, is +still divided in two parts. An ideological division. There +is the Asian Empire of Jenga. Let me show you—the map—</p> + +<p>DUNIN: Here. I grabbed it. And what a map! If only we could +make such things!</p> + +<p>DOROTHY: In time, sugar. Takes mighty complex machinery to +make such a map.</p> + +<p>SLADE: One of the things that must come on the next trip +from Earth. Well—here is the Asian Empire. You can see the +vastness of it, one land mass, almost all of a continent—</p> + +<p>MUKERJI: Except my country.</p> + +<p>NORA STERN: Well, naturally, Jimmy—</p> + +<p>MUKERJI: I tend to be sensitive on the point since we joined +the Federation somewhat belatedly.</p> + +<p>SLADE: That's the Asian Empire. And there they believe, and +have long believed, that individual man is nothing—an ant +in a colony—the state is everything, a sole reason for +existence. The state—</p> + +<p>WRIGHT: Which exists only in the minds of individual men.</p> + +<p>SLADE: Ye-es.... For them the state takes the place of God, +of reason, of ethics, of—Oh, it's be-all and end-all, so +far as an individualist like myself can understand their +doctrine. A hundred years ago this empire was two great +states; they had the same doctrine then but called it by a +less honest name, communism, derived from certain naïve +social theories of about a hundred years earlier—</p> + +<p>SPEARMAN: Naïve?</p> + +<p>SLADE: Before I went in for engineering, sir, I majored in +history at McGill. With the help of a great deal of coffee, +I even read <i>Das Kapital</i>. It is not logical even from its +own dogmatic premises. Incidentally I think it can still be +found in secondhand bookstores.</p> + +<p>SPEARMAN: As a matter of fact, when I left Earth, it was +quite readily available in up-to-date editions from the +Collectivist Press.</p> + +<p>SLADE: Oh. Yes, I dare say it was.... Well, Kamon,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span> about a +hundred years ago those two Asian states, still paying lip +service to the—debatable doctrine of communism +(satisfactory, Mr. Spearman?)—attacked each other in a long +war, making use of recently discovered atomic weapons as +well as man-made pestilence and other devices. It was not +actually a doctrinal war, but simply a power struggle +between two tyrannies. It was hideous, incredibly +destructive, and the only saving thing about it was that it +prevented them from visiting the same disaster on the rest +of the world. Neither side won, of course; a few decades +later a new dictator—a little one-eyed zealot from +Mongolia—inherited the desolation and built on the ruins a +new monolithic state, which still exists.</p> + +<p>AREK: But what actually was this theory—this communism?</p> + +<p>SLADE: Oh, the theory. Originally an appeal to the +dispossessed. In the nineteenth century and earlier there +were masses of poor, widespread suffering and injustice, too +much economic and political power in the hands of a few, who +abused their power with stupidity and cruelty. Marx and +other theorists imagined, or said they imagined, that the +situation could be remedied by reversal—give power to the +dispossessed (the proletariat, as they called them) and +injustice would right itself. Why they imagined that the +proletariat was any more fitted to rule than its +oppressors—why they supposed it would not abuse power quite +as viciously—they never bothered to explain. Naturally the +realists among them weren't concerned with any Utopian +outcome: they simply saw the doctrine as a means to personal +power for themselves and used it accordingly. The first +important one of these was a furious little man named Lenin. +He may have believed his own theories for a while—there +seems to have been some short-lived experimentation with the +contradictions of actual communism when he first won power +in Russia—but absolute power corrupts absolutely, as +somebody said. The foundations of an old-new despotism were +well established before he died—and was unofficially +deified and kept in a glass case for the consolation of the +atheist faithful. Matter of fact, Arek, a good many things +in Earth history would make a cat laugh.... The actual cure +for the ugly situation that existed turned out to be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span> a +gradual economic leveling combined with the (very slow and +difficult) growth of representative government—so that +there would be no swollen fortunes, no severe poverty, and +no heavy concentrations of unchecked political power. But +that was most undramatic procedure: it needed the work of +centuries. No bloody revolution could ever achieve such an +end, nor could any other evil means ever bring it any +nearer. In the Federation we begin to have—an approximation +of it. The Asian Empire is merely despotism, old and stale, +old as the Pharaohs, committed to the policy of violence and +carrying the burden of slavery under modern names: the +natural product of fanatic doctrine after the power-hungry +have taken it over and made use of it.</p> + +<p>SPEARMAN: Jenga's empire is not collectivism. It is a +perversion of it.</p> + +<p>ANN: If you'll excuse me—</p> + +<p>DOROTHY: Honey, of course! I think you got up too soon. The +boys are in bed. Come on—let me tuck you in and fuss at +you....</p> + +<p>STERN: She's been ill?</p> + +<p>WRIGHT: Yes. For a long time. But now I think she—</p> + +<p>SPEARMAN: What—</p> + +<p>AREK: Captain, tell us about the other part of Earth, the +part you come from.</p> + +<p>SLADE: Canada? Oh, you mean the Federation itself. It's very +great, miss—I mean, Arek. Let's have the map again, my +dear. All of North America—here—parts of South America, +the United States of Europe, Union of Islam, Japan, India, +parts of Africa outside of Islam—then over here there's +Australia and New Zealand, and here's the Republic of +Oceania. Almost all the rest of the world, you see. Here's +Federal City. Find it? Follow my finger east of +Winnipeg—lake country, and very lovely: I was born near +there. The city was planned and built new in 1985; seems +long ago, isn't really. And then, Arek, there are some small +countries which have preferred to keep their national unity +outside of the Federation instead of inside it, although +they're affiliated with us and there aren't any barriers to +travel and other intercourse. A somewhat technical +distinction, since local sovereignties are well enough +preserved within the Federation.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span></p> + +<p>WRIGHT: Not entirely a technicality. At the time we left +Earth, there were some tendencies in the Federation that +could lead to overcentralization, even with the recognition +of limited powers. And too much emphasis on the admitted +glories of machine civilization. I think it's an excellent +thing that some parts of the world should be a little +insulated from the enthusiasms of material progress. The +Federation itself will be the better for it.</p> + +<p>SLADE: Perhaps. I think I know what you mean, Doctor. I was +always a small-government man, myself. Still, under the +threat of Jenga—</p> + +<p>STERN: I can't see it as much of a threat.</p> + +<p>SALLY MARINO: I don't know....</p> + +<p>STERN: The empire will break down sooner or later, of its +own rigidity.</p> + +<p>SLADE: But while we wait for that, the Federation has to be +strong, in the military as well as other senses.</p> + +<p>MUKERJI: If we do just wait for it.</p> + +<p>STERN: Preventive war is an absurdity, Jimmy.</p> + +<p>MUKERJI: Yes, but—</p> + +<p>STERN: Gradualist methods. The Federation can afford to +wait. The same gradualist methods that made the Union of +Islam possible, so long ago.</p> + +<p>PAUL: I don't think the leadership of Turkey was gradualist +exactly, Dr. Stem. It took thirty years after 1960, but +considering the problem, that was great speed. Only a people +with immense moral courage and good sense would have dared +to undertake it at all. They weren't fanatics; they weren't +ridden by the devil of one idea; they had to work with +intelligent compromise, temperate adjustments, yielding here +and sternness there and patience all the time—but once they +took up the task they didn't rest or let go, and by 1990 +there was a healthy union ready for full membership in the +Federation.</p> + +<p>SLADE: Yes, that was speed. I expect you've given your +friends here a pretty good account of Earth history?</p> + +<p>PAUL: We've tried. I don't know if we can allow ourselves +more than a B-plus. The subject is too enormous, and all we +had were imperfect memories. In the midst of our own work +for Lucifer, which is—paramount.</p> + +<p>WRIGHT: Not even books. Captain, when you showed us over the +ship, it was very difficult for my fingers not to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span> steal a +lens and a pocketful of those microtexts....</p> + +<p>SLADE: My dear friend! Why didn't you say so? All you want. +That's for your friends here, entirely. No need to take any +of our library back to Earth if they can use it.</p> + +<p>WRIGHT: I—excuse me—I don't know what to say.</p> + +<p>SLADE: And by the way, Doctor, before I forget again to +mention it: after you left—I think it was in 2060—they +perfected a new drug which actually makes the accelerations +quite bearable. I don't know too much about it. Muscular +relaxation is a factor, and Nora can tell you more about it. +But I understand that even for persons past the—optimum +age—</p> + +<p>WRIGHT: A moment, please.... I cannot go back to Earth, +Captain Slade. You mean it with the greatest kindness but it +is impossible.</p> + +<p>SLADE: Why, forgive me, I supposed—I took it for granted—</p> + +<p>WRIGHT: My place is here. This is my work. These are my +people.</p> + +<p>TEJRON: I knew—I knew—</p> + +<p>WRIGHT: What, my dear? I don't understand.</p> + +<p>TEJRON: Oh, I should keep silent: this is for you to decide. +But you've said it. You won't leave us.</p> + +<p>WRIGHT: No. No, I won't ever leave you. This is my home.</p> + +<p>SLADE: But—</p> + +<p>SPEARMAN: Can't argue with the passion of an expatriate. The +grass is always greener—</p> + +<p>PAUL: It could be no other way, Captain, at least for Dr. +Wright and me, and I'm certain my wife will say the same +when she comes back.</p> + +<p>WRIGHT: In some ways, Captain, the distance between Earth +and Lucifer is greater than the simple light years between +our two stars.</p> + +<p>SLADE: I'm—sorry. Wasn't expecting it, that's all. Let me +get used to the idea a little.</p> + +<p>SPEARMAN: You can consider me neutral, Captain Slade. I have +no place on Lucifer. One more utopia. Idealism running +contrary to obvious facts. It will break up—fine-spun +intellectual quarrels—no central control.</p> + +<p>PAUL: Until, sometime, a strong man takes over and makes an +empire out of it...?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span></p> + +<p>WRIGHT: Please—</p> + +<p>SPEARMAN: No comment....</p> + +<p>STERN: If I might differ with you, Mr. Spearman, it seems to +me—after being shown over this lovely island—the +domesticated cattle and those wonderful white beasts—the +plantations and the houses—the perfect English and adult +thinking of our new friends—above all, the school—it seems +to me that Dr. Wright and his colleagues are realists of the +first water. Of course I'm strongly prejudiced in their +favor, because—well, during the twelve years of our journey +I dreamed constantly of some such achievement as this +myself. So it's like coming home. I'm a doctor, Mr. +Spearman; before I was chosen for the journey, I ran a +clinic. As an intern, I had a lot of ambulance and emergency +service at one of the big hospitals in Melbourne; I saw a +superabundance of—let's call them obvious facts. Now I +think the sunny quiet here, the good health and intelligence +of the children, the gardens, the devotion of these people +to each other and to their work, the searching thought +they've given to their laws and their future—I fancy those +are obvious facts too...?</p> + +<p>WRIGHT: Man is neither good nor bad, but both. But he can +swing the balance.</p> + +<p>STERN: Too right. I think I understand you, Doctor—why you +want to stay here. I think I understand it very well.</p> + +<p>SLADE: I wouldn't urge you. It's only that I—took something +else for granted. Foolishly. Let me be just a listener.</p> + +<p>ELIS: And let me fill your cup. You're behind us, Captain.</p> + +<p>MINIAAN: The big jug is empty. How'd'at happen?</p> + +<p>MUSON: Portrait of a fat woman going away with another big +jug.</p> + +<p>PAUL: Bless you, lady.</p> + +<p>MUSON: It was you that finished emptying it. I think.</p> + +<p>NISANA: Couldn't have been me....</p> + +<p>STERN: Are there any important physiological differences?</p> + +<p>WRIGHT: Nothing of first importance. Minor differences in +blood chemistry, shape of hands and feet. Our friends have +the hind brain in the spinal column, which may be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span> the +reason for their better muscular co-ordination and—you +know, Doctor, I have often wished that the human race of +Earth, which we call Charin, had more room in its head for +the expansion of the frontal lobes.</p> + +<p>ELIS: I have a very high opinion of your frontal lobes, +Christopher Wright. I have noticed that sometimes a large +skull merely rattles.</p> + +<p>STERN: Just the same the point is well taken.</p> + +<p>PAUL: Might call it the miracle of the lobes and wishes.</p> + +<p>PAKRIAA: Why don't you wait till Muson comes back...?</p> + +<p>SALLY MARINO: Don't you—now, maybe this is a foolish +question—don't you have to work awfully hard—I mean, with +so few technical aids? The—oh, oil lamps, the necessarily +primitive—of course, you've done miracles to have as much +as you do have, starting from almost nothing. What I'm +trying to say, doesn't mere survival take up so much time +and effort that it—well, wears you down?</p> + +<p>PAUL: We have shelter, clothing, enough to eat—</p> + +<p>MINIAAN: And drink.</p> + +<p>PAUL: What we call a family, Sally, is made up of members of +all three races. Such a unit may have seven or eight adults +or more. Shelter, food—the basic needs are supplied by each +family working for itself; the large family unit distributes +the labor pretty well; and, if any family was stricken with +misfortune (none has been so far) the others would all help +as a matter of course. Now, we do have the germs of +beginning industries in textiles, sugar—</p> + +<p>MINIAAN: Wine making.</p> + +<p>ABARA: The lady is pied.</p> + +<p>MINIAAN: The lady is not pied. Only very happy, and Vestoia +is a dead city, and the little illuama will be making their +nests where—Oh, Abara, you venerable ruin, I love you, I +love you....</p> + +<p>ABARA: Well, not right here in front of all these nice +people....</p> + +<p>MUKERJI: Beautiful way of life. Oh, here's Muson. Have we +drunk to everybody? Seems as though we must have overlooked +somebody, earlier.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span></p> + +<p>NISANA: I don't think so. Yes, we have. Let's drink to the +olifants.</p> + +<p>WRIGHT: And their seven calves....</p> + +<p>PAUL: In textiles, for instance—Nisana does no housework +because her worktime is at the loom; each household sends +somebody over to work in the fiber and sugar plantations +across the lake. The system works, Sally, in this very tiny +community where everyone knows and respects everyone else, +where all the laws and customs encourage the ironing out of +differences before they become serious. And so far, work has +never become oppressive. Most of it we enjoy; the boring, +unpleasing jobs are shared because we know they have to be +done and we don't want anyone to have to carry too much of +their weight. And so far, we don't hunger for the complex +and fascinating possessions we knew on Earth. Such hungers +will come. Communities will grow. The best laws will fail +sometimes; there will be disputes, mistakes, injustices. But +we are forewarned by memories of Earth. Doc, I'm trying to +say things you could say better—</p> + +<p>WRIGHT: No. Go on.</p> + +<p>PAUL: Well.... We plan, tentatively, a hundred family units +here at Jensen City, a population of maybe a thousand +adults, no larger. When that point is reached (several years +away) then we must plan and build another town, probably +here on the island. At that point we add new problems and +perplexities. We may not need a monetary system until there +are several towns; when we do, it will not develop +haphazardly, but with the aid of all past knowledge we +possess, for safeguard and guidance.</p> + +<p>SLADE: And when there are fifteen or twenty such +communities?</p> + +<p>PAUL: They will want an over-all government; a miniature of +a federal system, we suppose. A republic, with fully +functional representative procedures, checked and +safeguarded against every abuse of power. Because in all our +study and memories of history, we've found no other type of +government that can operate with fairness to majorities and +minorities alike and leave men as free as any social animal +can ever be free. For that matter, Captain, we sometimes +glance ahead to a time when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span> there will be hundreds or +thousands of towns: a time when our great-grandchildren of +all three races may want to experiment with large cities, +elaborate industries. Such things will bring their own heavy +difficulties, but we have reason to hope that our +great-grandchildren will have the patience and courage to +solve them as they arise. Brodaa, tell them about the +school.</p> + +<p>BRODAA: I am not good in exposition, Paul.... We +are—strict, Captain, that the children should learn all the +tested factual knowledge we can give them. They must read, +speak, write—clearly, precisely, honestly. We do not allow +them to leave a method half learned, a task half done. If +there is a question, they must search for an answer; if +there is no sufficient answer known, they must learn to test +the insufficient answers and wait judgment. My own language +has flaws—I am an old woman—I still go to school, to Paul, +Mashana Dorothy, Dr. Wright, to learn more for my own sake +and for the little ones I teach. They must learn the +fundamental methods and facts as soon as they can start to +think at all. We are never afraid of teaching any child too +much or too soon—we respect them. Oh, Mashana, I was +wishing you would return.</p> + +<p>DOROTHY: Need has arisen for the Dope? What goes on more or +less?</p> + +<p>ELIS: Education.</p> + +<p>PAUL: How is—</p> + +<p>SPEARMAN: How is she?</p> + +<p>DOROTHY: She is asleep, Ed. Nothing to worry about.</p> + +<p>PAKRIAA: She will be healed.</p> + +<p>MIJOK: Education on Lucifer. Pakriaa and I have the +pleasantest part of the teaching, I think. We show them the +ways of the forest and the open ground, the plants and other +living things, how to hunt without cruelty or waste, how to +be safe and happy alone in the woods at night, when to fear +and not to fear. As Samis shows them the care of the tame +beasts, and the work in the plantations....</p> + +<p>WRIGHT: I'll add a little too, though Brodaa could do it +better—</p> + +<p>MUKERJI: Come here, kink.</p> + +<p>DOROTHY: Why, he loves you! That one won't usually<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span> go to +anybody but Muson. His wife is due to have kittens and he's +blue about it.</p> + +<p>MUKERJI: Kittens—kinkens—</p> + +<p>DOROTHY: Just kittens. Seven at one whack. Oof—shet ma +mouf.</p> + +<p>HELEN: Mother, if you looked at seven kittens now they'd be +fourteen.</p> + +<p>DOROTHY: Such comment, from a lady allowed to sit up late. +Such, I might add, perfectly accurate comment. Sleepy, baby?</p> + +<p>HELEN: Not a bit.</p> + +<p>DOROTHY: You are too. You snuggle like a kitten half full of +milk. Half an hour, huh?</p> + +<p>HELEN: Mm.</p> + +<p>WRIGHT: We see to it, Captain, that our children are not +stuffed with inflated words, equivocal words. When you talk +with them, they won't be chattering to you about freedom, +democracy, truth, justice. They learn these words closely; +we see to it that they learn them with caution. When they +use them we say—define, define. Democracy by what means, +within what limits, toward what end? Freedom from what, for +what? For what's the profit if I rattle on about freedom in +a semantic vacuum? I am free to speak, not free to kill and +wound; I must be free from slavery to the whims of others. I +can never be free from the bonds of a hundred duties, +responsibilities, loyalties to persons I love and principles +I cherish. Words without definition are sheer noise, and +noise never drummed any race into Paradise. Oh, the thing's +obvious as a child's building blocks—but I recall how on +Earth men tended to forget it twenty-four hours a day, and +here on Lucifer we forget it often enough—myself included. +But we do not forget it when we teach our children.... One +other thing—before this wine takes me back to second +childhood—as soon, Captain, as their minds are old enough—</p> + +<p>AREK: Where did Spearman go?</p> + +<p>WRIGHT: Oh, he—he just stepped out, I think. Stretch his +legs or something. As soon as their minds are old enough to +think with some independence and explore, we insist that +they start the lifetime struggle with man's primary +dilemma<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span>—</p> + +<p>ELIS: I hoped you would speak of that, my brother.</p> + +<p>WRIGHT: That he is an individual, his self-hood precious and +inviolate, yet he must live in harmony with other +individuals whose right to life and welfare is as certain as +his own. Approach the study of society from any direction +you will, that problem is at the heart of it, and must be a +thousand generations from now, because it must be met anew +with every infant born. We think, here, that the most +rewarding answer is in the old virtues of self-knowledge, +charity, honesty, forbearance, patience. Now, those are all +words that demand definition and multiple definition; on +that basis we have our children study them, search the depth +and height of them, in the not so simple problems of +childhood through the tougher ones of adolescence and +maturity. We make them understand that lip service will not +do: if one is to make himself honest he must eat honesty +with breakfast, sweat with it in the sun, laugh and play and +suffer with it and lie down with it at night until it's near +as the oxygen in his blood. Yes, we aim high. Cruelly high, +would you say? We don't think so. Perfection is a cold spot +on top of a mountain, and nobody ever climbed there. We have +trouble and fun and arguments; sometimes the garden weeds +grow until tomorrow or the day after, but we sleep well.</p> + +<p>DOROTHY: Speaking of perfection and goodness and things and +stuff—I know it was Paul who put those violin strings by +Nan's bed, but which one of you supplied them?</p> + +<p>SLADE: Well, he told me—</p> + +<p>DOROTHY: Will it be all right if I reach over this daughter +of mine and kiss you?</p> + +<p>SLADE: They did brief us, back on Earth, that we must +respect local customs—</p> + +<p>MIJOK: And perhaps even another drink could do him no harm.</p> + +<p>PAKRIAA: He's pied.</p> + +<p>ELIS: I would not say that. Speaking as Governor, I say that +the local wine industry deserves every encouragement it can +get—and has, ever since Samis' favorite kink had kittens in +the bottom of the vest bat.</p> + +<p>SAMIS: Correction.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span></p> + +<p>MIJOK: Best vat. Speaking as Lieutenant Governor. Just +elected—did it myself.</p> + +<p>MUSON: The toastmistress has been quiet lately.</p> + +<p>NISANA: Who, me?</p> + +<p>PAUL: By acclamation, yes.</p> + +<p>NISANA: Le'me think. We did drink to the children—those in +bed and those who ought to be—</p> + +<p>HELEN: 'Ception.</p> + +<p>DOROTHY: Great big woman. You weigh a ton, sweet stuff, 'n' +so do your eyelids, they do.</p> + +<p>NISANA: And we drank to the olifants. No no—I am too +happy—my mind is a lake without a breeze. You propose the +toast, Pakriaa.</p> + +<p>SALLY: Matter of fact I'm already sort of whooliollicky—I +think—</p> + +<p>DOROTHY: Hey—maybe it's not just the wine. Paul—Doc—it +must be almost thirteen hours—</p> + +<p>PAUL: Yes—yes, almost. Maybe you'd better—</p> + +<p>SALLY: No, let's have one more toast. At least one more, +Pakriaa?</p> + +<p>WRIGHT: I'll drink with you, Pakriaa.</p> + +<p>PAKRIAA: Oh—let us be happy. Friends, I give you the wine +itself and the earth that made it. I give you birth and +death and the journey of our days and nights between them, +the shining of green fields, the patience of the forest, the +little stars, the great stars, the love and the thought, the +labor and the laughter, the good morning sky.</p></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of West Of The Sun, by Edgar Pangborn + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WEST OF THE SUN *** + +***** This file should be named 39572-h.htm or 39572-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/9/5/7/39572/ + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Bruce Albrecht, and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://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: West Of The Sun + +Author: Edgar Pangborn + +Release Date: April 29, 2012 [EBook #39572] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WEST OF THE SUN *** + + + + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Bruce Albrecht, and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + Transcriber's Note + + Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the + U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. + + + On earth it was 2056 A.D. + but on the red-green planet + it was + + THE YEAR ONE + + _There were only six human beings_-- + + + DR. CHRISTOPHER WRIGHT, anthropologist--he believed in man's + basic goodness ... but could he put his trust in an alien + race? + + PAUL MASON--he dutifully shared his wife with his best + friend. + + DOROTHY LEEDS--Paul was her husband, but she knew there were + some things more important than love. + + SEARS OLIPHANT--the gentle scientist who inspired love in an + alien. + + ANN BRYAN--the youngest of them all, she had to be taught + violence and passion. + + EDMUND SPEARMAN--the rebel who had to have his own tribe to + rule ... even though it meant war with his Earth companions. + + + _Six humans alone against the deadly forces of a strange and + distant planet._ + + * * * * * + + WEST OF THE SUN + + + EDGAR PANGBORN + + * * * * * + +To Mary C. Pangborn + + * * * * * + + + + +Contents + +PART ONE +_A.D. 2056_ 9 + +PART TWO +_The Year One_ 77 + +PART THREE +_The Year Ten_ 161 + + * * * * * + + + + +Part One + +A.D. 2056 + + + + +1 + + +Morning was flowing over the red-green planet. "What do we know?" The +delicate brown face of Dorothy Leeds kindled with questions. +"Summarize it." + +Edmund Spearman achieved casualness. "Diameter and mass a trifle more +than Earth's, larger orbit around a larger sun. A year of 458 days, +twenty-six hours each. Moderate seasonal changes, axial tilt less than +Earth's, orbit less elliptical. See the smallness of the north polar +ice cap? The equatorial region--much too hot; the rest is subtropical +to temperate. We should go down (if we do) near the 50th +parallel--north, I'd say. Too much desert in the southern hemisphere. +Might be hot winds, sandstorms." + +"The red-green _is_ vegetation?" Dr. Christopher Wright teetered on +long legs before the screen, a classroom mannerism unchanged by eleven +years in the wilderness of space. He pinched and pulled the skin on +his Adam's apple, his hawk's-beak, small-chinned head jutting forward +with an awkwardness not aggressive but intent. Paul Mason thought: +_You love him or hate him. In either case he's never quite grotesque._ +Wright's too-soft voice insisted: "It _is_, of course?" + +"It has to be, Doc," Spearman said, and rubbed his bluish cheeks, +looking older than his thirty-two years. Already he showed frontal +baldness, deeply bracketed mouth corners. On Spearman's big shoulders +was the burden of the ship. Watching him now, Paul Mason was troubled +by a familiar thought: _Captain Jensen should not have died_.... "It +has to be. The instruments show oxygen in Earth proportion, or +somewhat richer, plus nitrogen and carbon dioxide. The camera gives us +tree shadows in these latest photographs with the stronger lens. The +air may make us oxygen-happy--if we go down.... Well, Dorothy--two +continents, two oceans, both smaller than the Atlantic, connected +narrowly at north and south polar regions. Dozens of lakes bigger than +the Caspian. The proportion of land to water surface works out nearly +the same as on Earth. No mountains to match the Himalayas, but some +pretty high ranges. Unlimited forest, prairie, desert." He closed +bloodshot eyes, pressing the lids. Paul Mason thought: _I should never +try to paint Ed. The portrait would always come out as Hercules +Frustrated, and he wouldn't care for it...._ Spearman said, "Even most +of the tallest mountains look smooth--old. If there were glaciers it +was a long time ago." + +"Geologically a quiet phase," Sears Oliphant remarked. "As Earth +looked in the Jurassic and may look again." Born fifty years ago in +Tel Aviv, brought up in London, Rio, and New York because his parents +were medical trouble shooters for the Federation, and possessed of a +doctorate in biology (more exactly, taxonomy) from Johns Hopkins, +Sears Oliphant claimed that his original Polish name could not have +been spelled with the aid of two dictionaries and a crowbar. His fat +face blinked at Dorothy with little kind eyes. "I forget, sugar--you +weren't around in the Jurassic, were you?" + +"Maybe." Her slow smile was for Paul. "As a very early mammal." + +Wright said, "No artifacts.... At first it looked like Venus." His +crinkled asymmetrical face probed at them with a wistful half smile +like a child's. "May we call this planet Lucifer, son of the morning? +And if we land and found a city (or am I being ridiculous?)--let it be +Jensen City, in honor of a more-than-solar myth." + +Shading closed lids, Spearman said with harshness, "Myth?" + +"Why, Ed, yes--like all remembered heroes who continue in the love of +others, a love that magnifies. How else would you have it?" + +"But"--Ann Bryan was high-voiced, troubled--"Lucifer----" + +"My dear, Lucifer was an angel. Devils and angels have a way of +turning out to be the same organism. I noticed that first when I was a +damned interne. I noticed it again when I switched to anthropology. I +even noticed it on a space ship with the five persons I love best.... +No artifacts, huh?" + +Dorothy said, "You haven't seen these latest pictures, Doc." + +"Something?" Wright hurried over, gray eyes wide and sparkling. "I'd +quit hoping." Ann joined him, quick-motioned in her slimness, too +taut. Wright slipped an elderly arm around her. "Parallel lines, in +jungle? Ah.... Now, why none in the open ground?" + +Spearman suggested: "We could take more shots. But...." + +Paul Mason broke the darkening silence. "But what, Ed?" + +"We're falling, some. I could move us out into a self-sustaining orbit +by using more of the reaction mass. We have none to waste. Jensen's +death eleven years ago----" Spearman shook his gaunt but heavy head. +"Thirty pre-calculated accelerations--and the rest periods they +allowed us were insufficient, I think. You remember what wrecks we +were when it was finished; that's why I tried to allow more time in +deceleration." His brassy voice slowed, fetching out words with care: +"The last acceleration, as you know, was not pre-calculated. Jensen +was already dead (must have been heart) when his hand took us out of +automatic, made another acceleration that damn near flattened us----" + +"Still here though." Sears Oliphant chuckled and patted his middle. +"We made it, didn't we, boy?" It sounded a little forced. + +"In deceleration I had to allow for the big step Jensen never meant; +more of the mass was used to correct a deflection. Same allowance must +be made in returning, not to mention the biggest drain of all--getting +out of gravity here, a problem not present at the spaceport. Oh, it's +planned for--she's built to do it, even from a heavier planet than +this. But after she's done it the margin for return will be--narrower +than I care to think." + +Dorothy, small and soft, leaned back in Paul's arms. Her even voice +was for everyone in the control room: "Nevertheless we'll go down." + +Spearman gazed across at her without apparent comprehension. He went +on, deliberate, harassed: "Here's a thing I never told you. In that +accidental acceleration the ship did not respond normally: the +deflection happened then, and it may have been due to a defect in the +building of _Argo_, a fault in the tail jets. At the time, it was all +I could do to reach Jensen before I blacked out--I still don't know +how I ever managed it. Later I tried to think there could be no +defect. The forward jets took care of us nicely in deceleration. Until +we start braking, we can't know. Indicators _say_ everything's all +right down there. Instruments can lie. Lord, they've sweated out +atomic motors since before 1960, almost a century now--and we're still +kids playing with grown-up toys." + +Sears smiled into plump hands. "So I must be sure to pack my +microscope in one of the lifeboats--hey?" + +"You're for landing, then." + +Sears nodded. Ann Bryan thrust thin ivory fingers into her loose black +hair. "_I_ couldn't take another eleven years." She attempted a smile. +"Tell me, somebody--tell me there'll be music on Lucifer--a way to +make new strings for my violin before I forget everything...." + +Dorothy said, "Land." Gently, as one might say time for lunch. And she +added: "We'll find strings, Nan." + +"Land, of course," said Christopher Wright, preoccupied; his long +finger tapped on the photograph; his lips went on moving silently, +carrying through some private meditation. "Land. Give protoplasm a +chance." + +"Land," Paul Mason said. _Did anyone suppose the First Interstellar +would just turn around and go home? We're here, aren't we...?_ + +Through hours when spoken words were few, inner words riotous, Lucifer +turned an evening face. A morning descent might have been pleasanter +in human terms, but the calculator, churning its mathematical brew, +said the time was now. + +Paul Mason squirmed into his pilot's seat. It was good, he thought, +that they could at least meet the challenge of the unexplored with +adequate bodies. Wright was dryly indestructible; Ed Spearman a gaunt +monolith; the plumpness of Sears Oliphant had nothing flabby. The +women were in the warm vigor of a youth that had never known illness. +As for his own body, Paul felt for it now a twinge of amused +admiration, as if he were seeing an animated statue by an artist +better than himself: slender, tough, nothing too much, built for +endurance and speed--it would serve. Spearman was already talking in +the earphones: "Close lock. Retract shield." Paul responded from +ingrained training. Beyond the window that would give him forward +vision in the (impossible) event he had to fly the lifeboat, the +heavens opened. Withdrawal of the shield into the belly of the mother +ship _Argo_ was a dream motion within a wider dream. Dorothy and +Wright were strapped in the two seats behind him: half of _Argo's_ +human treasure was here. "Go over what you do if you have to drive +off. Over." + +"Lever for release. No action till wing-lock indicator is green. No +jet unless to correct position. In atmosphere handle as glider, jet +only in emergency. Over." After all, Paul considered, he had had a +thousand hours of atmospheric flying, and two years' drill on these +boats. Ed could worry less and save wind. Beautiful mechanisms in +their own right, Model L-46, lying eleven years secret but alert in +the streamlined blisters, powered by charlesite to avoid the ponderous +shielding still necessary for atomic motors--and charlesite, perfected +only thirty years ago in 2026, was obedient stuff. In space, the boats +were small rocket ships; in atmosphere, gliders or low-speed jet +planes. While _Argo_ had been in the long ordeal of building, Paul had +been shot from gleaming tubes like this into the atmosphere of Earth, +the blind depth at the spaceport, the desolate thin air of Mars. +Spearman said, "Turning in five minutes." + +In the port lifeboat Ann and Sears would be waiting, but that lock +would be open, for Ed must be in the control room. If they had to +abandon ship (ridiculous!) Ed's boat would be many moments behind. + +The stars moved. "Paul--check straps. Over." + +Paul glanced behind him. "All set. Over." + +The forward jets spoke once, and softly. Spearman said, "Out of orbit. +We start braking sooner than you think. Then we'll know...." + +The depth of quiet was a depth of eternity. Time to reflect--to +marvel, if you wished. One hundred and eleven years since Hiroshima, +which the inveterate insanity of history textbooks sometimes referred +to as a great experiment. Eighty-five years since the first-manned +spaceport; seventy since the founding of stations on Luna and Mars. +But to Paul Mason a greater marvel was the responding warmth of the +woman, the brooding charity of the old man, whose lives were upheld +with him in this silent nothing, dependent on the magic bundle of +muscle and nerve that was himself. _What is love?_ + +The greater spaceport had been twelve years in building. Then _Argo_. +More than a century from early rocket experiments to the mile-long +factories turning out charlesite. In that century man had even added +to his morsels of self-knowledge a trifle more than he possessed in +the days of flint ax and reeking cave. "We are in atmosphere," said +the earphones.... _Time: a cerebral invention? How long is a May fly's +life to a May fly...?_ "Braking starts in forty-five seconds. Warn the +others." + +Paul shoved down the mouthpiece, echoing the message. Wright said, +"Six pushed-around people. The arrogance of man! Doing fine, Paul." + +Pressure--not too bad. A long roaring. But then the stars.... + +The stars went mad. A glare--a cruel second of the light of the star +that was now the sun and a flicker of red-green, not real. The roaring +paused. Stopped. + +The earphones screamed: "Release! _Drive off!_" + +"Releasing." The amused voice was Paul's own. "Good luck, Ed." + +No answer. There was still such a thing as time. _Now, look: the +Federation was a grand thing, potentially, if only, as Doc insists, it +weren't for the damned cultural lag of the humanistic sciences, but +there is unfortunately no TIME to turn around and see if that little +brown cowlick is over her forehead the way it_----Meantime he said +aloud, "Doc, Dorothy, get ready for a big one." And his hand pulled +for release--nicely, as you might steer a road car for a turn. The +pressure torment.... + +Finished. He looked at a friendly green eye. So the retractile wings +were as good as eleven years ago--you hoped. Atmosphere--thin, said +the gauge. Never mind, thicker soon. _And down you go_---- + +_Too steep. Level off, if there's stuff to bite on. There is.... Thank +you, Machine Age Man, for a sweet boat. That thing gibbering in the +autonomic and voluntary nervous systems--merely fear. Overlook it...._ + +The ship was alien, far away. Turning, bright and deliberate, like a +mirror dropped in a well. The other lifeboat? But Ed would have to +reach it, close lock, strap in, open shield, while the ship went.... + +"Down"--lately an artificiality, now the plainest word in the +language. A gleaming disturbance in the air "down" yonder--something +streaking away from the dot that was a dying ship? "Ed, can you hear +me? Over." + +"Yes," said the voice in the earphones. + +Paul noticed himself weeping. "They made it! They made it!" + +The voice said coldly, "Quiet. Your altitude? Over." + +"Forty-six thousand. All under control. Over, jerk." + +"I'm going to head for----_Ah!_ Can you see the ship?" + +It was possible to find the silver dot of _Argo_ above an S-shaped +expanse of blue. The blue, Paul understood, was not becoming larger, +simply nearer. The dot changed to a white flower, which swelled and +hung tranquilly over the blue, a brief memorial. The radio carried a +groan, and then: "Better maybe. The lake may be shallow enough for +salvage. If it'd hit ground there'd be nothing at all. Get nearer, +Paul. Keep me in sight--not too damn' near." + +Time.... Delicately Paul asked the boat for a steeper glide. The +response was even. Was it? Some peevish sound. He flattened the glide +a thousand feet above Ed's boat. The red-green below--anything real +about it? Yes, if time was real, but one had to think that over.... + +Mild hills of dark red-green, in the--west? Yes, because now there was +a birth of sunset beyond them. Lighter green below, alongside the +lake: that would be meadow. Not one of the great lakes--no larger +than Lake Champlain, its outlet in the south blurred by marsh; only a +portion of its northwest shore adjoined the meadow--except in that +region the lake was a blue S written on red-green dark of jungle. A +winged brown thing slipped by, teasing the edge of vision. "Bird or +something...." + +In the earphones was a dazed note, like shame. "Power was out of control, +Paul--port motor. Had to be a defect in the building--something that +couldn't take the strain of what happened eleven years ago. All the +way--God!--and then to be loused up by a builder's error!" To Spearman, +Paul knew, a mechanical defect was the gravest of indecencies, beyond any +forgiveness. + +True sunset here. A world. And you don't climb out of gravity on +charlesite. Paul said, "Doc--parallel lines--I think." + +But the speed of the glide allowed no certainty, only a glimpse of +three dark bars, perhaps half a mile long in the jungle area northwest +of the meadow, and a hint of other groups further north. They _should_ +be there, according to a map Spearman had made in orbit from the final +photographs. And some fifty miles south of here was a great network of +them thirty miles long. The glide brought them out over meadow once +more. + +A thing was riding with them. A grumbling moan. Paul told himself: +_With Model L-46 it cannot happen--it cannot--Dorothy--Doc_---- + +Dorothy cried, "Specks--in the open ground. Moving, hundreds of 'em. +Oh, look! _Smoke_, Paul--campfires. How high are we?" + +"Under seven thousand. Check your compass by the sunset, Doc. See if +we have a magnetic north." + +"We do...." + +Spearman's far-off voice said, "Life all right. I can't make out----" + +Paul cut in with hurried precision: "Ed--vibration, port wing, bad. +I'm going to make one more circle over the woods if I can and try for +the north end of this meadow." + +A startled croak: "I'll jet off--give you room." Paul saw the squirt +of green flame. Ed's boat darted westward like a squeezed apple seed. +Paul dipped and leveled off as much as he dared. "We're--all right." + +He lived with it a timeless time. Knowing it would happen. They were +circling over jungle, pointed into sunset. The jet would only make +matters worse--rip the heart out. Soon the meadow would come around +again.... + +But the moment was now. An end of the moaning vibration. A lurch. +Paul's hand leaped stupidly for the charlesite ignition and checked +itself. + +Calm, but for the reeling of sunset. _I must tell Dorothy not to fight +the straps: L-46 is solid--is solid----_ + +Then the smash, the tearing and grinding. Somehow no death. Sky in the +window changed to a gloom of purple and green. No death. Elastic +branches? Metal whimpered and shrieked. _Is that us?_ They built them +solid.... + +There was settling into silence. The pressure on Paul's cheek, he +knew, was the wonderfully living pressure of Dorothy's hand, because +it moved, it pinched his ear, it groped for his mouth. A hiss. Through +the wrenched seams the old air of Earth yielded to the stronger weight +of Lucifer's. The starboard wing parted with a squeal like amusement, +letting the boat's body rest evenly on the ground, and Christopher +Wright said, "Amen." + + + + +2 + + +The Earphones Were Squawking: "Speak Up! Can you hear me? Can you----" + +"Not hurt. Seams open, and there goes Sears' thirty-six-hour test for +air-borne bacteria. Down and safe, Ed." + +"Listen." In relief, Ed Spearman was heavily didactic again. "You are +three quarters of a mile inside the jungle. I will land near the +woods. It will be dark in about an hour. Wait there until we----" + +"One minute," Paul said in sudden exhaustion. "We can find you, +easier. Sears' test is important. We're already exposed to the air, +but----" + +"What? Can't hear--damn it----" The voice dimmed and crackled. + +"Stay sealed up!" Nothing. "Can you hear?" Nothing. "Oh, well, good," +said Paul, discarding the headset, adding foolishly: "I'm tired." + +Dorothy unfastened his straps; her kiss was warm and quick. + +"Radio kaput, huh?" Wright flexed lean cautious legs. "Pity. I did +want to tell Sears one I just remembered after eleven years, about +poor lackadaisical Lou, who painted her torso bright blue, not for +love, not for money, not because it looked funny, but simply for +something to do." + +"You're not hurt, Doc," Dorothy said. "Not where it counts." + +"Can't kill an anthropologist. Ask my student Paul Mason. Leather +hides, pickled in a solution ten parts curiosity to one of statistics. +Doctors are mighty viable too. Ask my student Dorothy Leeds." + +Paul's forehead was wet. "Dark in an hour, he reminded me." + +"How close are we to the nearest of those parallel lines?" + +"Three or four miles, Doc, at a loose guess." + +"Remember that great mess of 'em fifty or sixty miles south of here? +Shows on Ed's map. We must be--mm--seventy miles from the smallest of +the two oceans--oh, let's call it the Atlantic, huh? And the other one +the East Atlantic? Anyway the ocean's beyond that range of hills we +saw on the way down." + +"I saw campfires in the meadow," Dorothy said. "Things running." + +"I thought so too.... Paul, I wonder if Sears can do any testing of +the air from the lifeboat? Some of the equipment couldn't be +transferred from _Argo_. And--how could they communicate with us? +They'll have to breathe it soon in any case." + +Paul checked a shuddering yawn. "I must have been thinking in terms of +_Argo_, which is--history.... You know, I believe the artificial +gravity was stronger than we thought? I feel light, not heavy." + +"High oxygen?" Dorothy suggested. "Hot, too." + +"Eighty-plus. Crash suits can't do us any more good." They struggled +out of them in the cramped space, down to faded jackets and shorts. + +Wright brooded on it, pinching his throat. "Only advantage in the +others' staying sealed up a while is that if we get sick, they'll get +sick a bit later. Could be some advantage. Paul--think we should try +to reach them this evening?" + +"Three quarters of a mile, dark coming on--no. But so far as I'm +concerned, Doc, you're boss of this expedition. In the ship, Ed had to +be--matter of engineering knowledge. No longer applies. I wanted to +say that." + +Wright turned away. "Dorothy?" + +She said warmly, "Yes. You." + +"I--oh, my dear, I don't know that it's--best." Fretfully he added: +"Shouldn't need a leader. Only six of us--agreement----" + +Dorothy held her voice to lightness: "I can even disagree with myself. +Sears will want you to take over. Ann too, probably." + +His gray head sank in his hands. "As for that," he said, "inside of me +I'm apt to be a committee of fifteen." Paul thought: _But he's not +old! Fifty-two. When did he turn gray, and we never noticing it...?_ +"For now," Wright said, "let's not be official about it, huh? What if +my dreams for Lucifer are--not shared?" + +"Dreams are never quite shared," Dorothy said. "I want you to lead +us." + +Wright whispered with difficulty, "I will try." + +Dorothy continued: "Ed may want things black and white. Not Ann, I +think--she hates discussions, being obliged to make up her mind. +You're elected, soldier.... Can you open the door, Paul?" + +It jammed in the spoiled frame after opening enough for a tight exit. +Wright stared into evening. "Not the leader kind. Academic." His white +hands moved in doubtful protest. "Hate snap decisions--we'll be forced +to make a lot of them." + +Paul said, "They're best made by one who hates making them." + +The lean face became gentle. "Taught you that myself, didn't I, +son...? Well--inventory. What've we got, right here?" + +"Thirty days' rations for three, packed eleven years ago. Two +automatic rifles, one shotgun, three automatic pistols, three hundred +rounds for each weapon. Should have transferred more from the ship, +but--we didn't. Three four-inch hunting knives, very good----" + +"They at least won't give out. With care." + +"Right. Two sealed cases of garden seeds--anybody's guess about them. +Six sets of overalls, shorts, and jackets. Three pairs of shoes +apiece--the Federation allowed that you and Ann might grow a little, +Dot--plasta soles and uppers, should last several years. Carpentry +tools. Ed's boat has the garden tools instead. Sears did pack his +microscope, didn't he?" + +"Oh my, yes," said Dorothy, in affectionate mimicry of the fat man's +turn of speech. + +"Each crash suit has first-aid kit, radion flashlight (good for two +years maybe), compass, field glasses, plus whatever else we had sense +enough to stuff in. Set of technical manuals, mostly useless without +the ship, but I think there's one on woodcraft, primitive tools and +weapons--survival stuff----" + +"Oh, the books!" Wright clutched his hair, groaning. "The books----" + +"Just that woodcraft----" + +"No, no, no--the books on _Argo_! Everything--the library--I've only +just understood that it's gone. The whole flowering of human +thought--man's best, uncorrupted--_Odyssey_--Ann's music, the art +volumes you selected, Paul, and your own sketches and paintings----" + +"No loss there----" + +"Don't talk like a damn fool! Shakespeare--_Divina commedia_----" + +Dorothy twisted in the narrowness to put both arms around him. +"Doc--quiet, dear--please----" + +"I can remember pages of _Huck Finn_--_a few pages_!" + +Dorothy was wiping his face with a loose comer of her jacket. +"Doc--subside! Please now--make it stop hurting inside yourself. Oh, +quiet...." + +After a time he said lifelessly, "Go on with the inventory, Paul." + +"Well--there's a duplicate of that map Ed made yesterday from orbit +photographs of this area, about a hundred miles square. We're near the +eastern edge of that square. There's the other map he made of the +whole globe. We didn't duplicate that one. I guess that's about it." + +"Knives," Wright muttered. "Knives and a few tools." + +"The firearms may make a difference while they last." + +"Yes, perhaps. But thirty years from now----" + +"Thirty years from now," said Dorothy, still sheltering his head, +"thirty years from now our children will be grown." + +"Oh." Wright groped for her fingers. "You almost wanted it like this, +didn't you? I mean, to land and not return?" + +"I don't know, Doc. Maybe. I'm not sure I ever quite believed in the +possibility of return. State Orphanage children like Ann and me, +growing up in a tiny world within a big one, we weren't quite human +ever, were we? Not that the big world didn't seep in plenty." She +smiled off at private shadows of memory. "We did learn things not in +the directors' curriculum. When they started grooming Ann and me for +this--Youth Volunteers! Stuffing our little heads with the best they +had--oh, it was fun too. By that time I think I had a fair idea of the +big world. The Orphanage was pleasant, you know--clean, humanitarian, +good teachers, all of them kind and more than a bit hurried. They did +try so hard never to let me hear the word 'nigger'! Ignorance is poor +insulating material, don't you think? And why, Doc, after all that's +been known and thought and argued for the last hundred years, couldn't +they select at least one Oriental for our little trip? Wouldn't have +had to come from Jenga's empire--our own states in the Federation had +plenty of 'em--scholars, technicians, anything you care to name." + +Wright had calmed. He said, "I argued for it and got told. They even +said that the spaceport rights and privileges recently given to +Jenga's empire would allow the Asiatics to build their own +ship--tacitly implying that humanity should stay in two camps world +without end. Ach! You can shove the political mind just so far, then +it stalls in its own dirt Even Jensen wasn't able to budge them." + +"It's history," said Dorothy, and Paul wondered: _How does she do it? +Speaking hands and voice, enough to shove away the black sorrow even +before it fairly had hold of him--and she'd try to do it for anyone, +loved or not. She was the first (and only one) who said to me there +are some things more important than love-and she herself would be +bothered to explain that in words._ "Well," Dorothy reflected, "I +believe the Orphanage slapped too much destiny of Man on the backs of +our little necks--they're just necks. Paul, why don't you sleep +awhile? You too, Doc. Let me keep watch. I'll wake you both if +anything stirs out there. Doze off, boys." + +Paul tried to, his mind restless in weary flesh. No permissible margin +of error, said the twenty-first century. But _Argo_ lay at the bottom +of a lake because of an error. Not an error like the gross errors +twenty-first century man still made in dealing with his own kind and +still noisily disregarded, but an engineering error--something +twenty-first-century man viewed with a horror once reserved, in not so +ancient times, for moral evil. The cardinal sin was to drop a decimal. +If, like Wright, or Paul himself, you were concerned with the agony +and growing pains of human nature, disturbed by the paralytic +sterility of state socialism and the worse paralysis of open tyranny, +you kept your mouth shut--or even yielded, almost unknowingly, to the +pressures that reduced ethical realities to a piddling checker game +perverting the uses of semantics. They said, "There won't be any war. +If there is, look what we've got!" If you were like the majority of +Earth's three billion, you hoped to get by with as much as the traffic +would bear and never stuck your neck out. They celebrated the turn of +the third millennium with a jolly new song: "Snuggle up, Baby--Uncle +pays the bill...." But for all that, you mustn't use the wrong bolt. + +Unreasonably quiet here. A jungle evening on Earth would have been +riotous with bird and insect noises.... He slept. + +It was dark when Wright's finger prodded him. "A visitor." + +The darkness was rose-tinged, not with sunset. There were two moons, +Paul remembered, one white and large and far away, one red and near. +Should the red moon be shining now? He gazed through the half-open +doorway, wondering why he was not afraid, seeing something pale and +vast, washed in--yes, surely in reddish moon-light. A thing swaying on +the pillars of its legs, perhaps listening, tasting the air for +strangeness. And scattered through the night, sapphires on black +velvet, were tiny dots of blue, moving, vanishing, reappearing. "Blue +fireflies," Dorothy whispered, "blue fireflies, that's all they are." +He felt her controlled breathing, forced down a foolish laugh. _We +could have done without a white elephant._ + +Nine or ten feet tall at the shoulder, a tapir-like snout, black tusks +bending more nearly downward than an elephant's, from milk-white +flesh. The ears were mobile, waving to study the night. There was an +oval hump near the base of the neck. The beast had been facing them; +it turned to pull down a branch, munch the leaves, casually drop the +stalk. In silence it drifted away, pausing to meditate, grumbling +juicily, but with no alarm. + +Wright whispered, "The planet Lucifer did not ask for us." + +"Paul--I stepped out for a minute, while you were both asleep. Firm +ground. A smell--flowers, I think--made me remember frangipani." + +"I'll try it." + +"Oh, but not with that thing----" + +"He didn't seem to mind us. I'll stay near the door." He knew Dorothy +would come with him. Feeling earth under legs that had nearly +forgotten it, he turned to help her down; her dark eyes played diamond +games with the moon-light. + +It could have been a night anywhere in the Galaxy, up there beyond +torn branches, stars, and red moon in a vagueness of cloud. Blue +fireflies.... + +But there was a child wailing somewhere. Far-off and weak, a dim rise +and fall of sound, grief and remoteness. A waterfall? Wind in upper +branches? But they were still, and the sound carried the timbre of +animal life. Dorothy murmured, "It's been crying that way ever since +moon-rise." She came closely into his arms. + +"I can read one thing inside of you--you're not scared." + +"I'm not, Paul?" + +"No." + +"But don't ever leave me--Adam." + + + + +3 + + +This was dawn: vision out of the dark: ripples of music coalescent in +one forest voice moving toward a crescendo of daytime. + +Paul watched a spreading of color in the leaves, a shift from black to +gray to a loveliness more green than red; the trees were massively +old, with varied bark of green or purple-brown. Phantoms in the more +distant shadows could be understood now that light was advancing: they +were thick trees with a white bark like that of the never-forgotten +birches of New Hampshire. Underfoot Paul felt a humus that might have +been a thousand years in growing; he prodded it with his knife--a +white worm curled in mimic death. + +Everywhere purple-leaved vines, vastly proliferating, climbed in a +riot of greed for the sunlight of the forest ceiling. Paul sensed a +mute cruelty in them, a shoving lust of growth. It might have been +these, elastically yielding, that had saved the lifeboat from total +ruin. + +Overnight the gravity of Lucifer had become natural. His close-knit +body accepted and relished it, finding a new pleasure in strength: +thirty-seven years old and very young. + +One tiny voice was near, persistent. Paul walked around the boat, +where Dorothy and Wright still slept. The starboard wing, parting from +the lifeboat, had gashed a tree trunk, littering the ground with +branches. The source of the voice was a brown lump, twenty feet up, +clinging head downward, a body small as a sparrow's, wings folded like +a bat's. As he watched they spread, quivered, and relaxed. Head and +ears were mousy, the neck long, with a hump at its base. The throat +pulsed at each cry. Near Paul's foot lay a fabric like an oriole's +nest, fastened to a twig that had been torn from the tree. Three +young had tumbled out. One was not mangled but all were dead, +hairless, poignantly ugly. "Sorry, baby--our first act on Lucifer." +The parent creature made another abortive motion as Paul took up the +young. + +Its high lament was not what he and Dorothy had heard in the night. +That had been continuing when he slipped out to watch for dawn, and it +had ended at some unnoticed moment--profoundly different, surely far +off.... + +He tried to study the dead things as Sears Oliphant would want to do. +Two were hopelessly torn; he dug a hole in the humus and dropped those +in, smoothing the surface, wondering at his need for an act which +could mean nothing to the unhappy morsel of perception on the tree +trunk. The third, and the nest, he carried around the boat where the +light was better. + +All seven digits of the forelimb spread into a membranous wing; the +hind leg divided at the ankle, three toes anchoring the wing, the +other four fused into a slim foot which had suction pads. He cradled +the bit of mortality in his palm, recalling a thing Wright had said +when they entered the lifeboat. Captain Jensen, waiting for take-off +at the spaceport, trying, as he drank sherry with Christopher Wright, +to look at the venture under the aspect of eternity, had said he liked +the philosophical implications of _Argo's_ converter, into which his +own body was strangely soon to pass. What was Wright's comment eleven +years later? "All life is cannibalism, benign or not: we are still +eating the dinosaurs." There had been more, which Paul could not +remember. So, man drove eleven years through space and killed three +babies. _But there was no element of malevolence_.... + +Perhaps there was none in most of man's actions over the millennia. + +Wright crawled out, stiff-limbed and unrested. + +"'Morning, Doc. Let me introduce _Enigma Luciferensis_." + +"'Luciferensis' won't do." Wright peered down. "Everything is +'Luciferensis,' including the posterity Dot mentioned. Well now, +what----" + +"A nestling. Our crash broke the nest and killed the young." + +Wright fingered the fabric. "Beautiful. Leaves gummed together with +some secretion." With a doctor's intentness he added: "How d'you +feel?" + +"Good." + +A shadow circled Paul, settled on his arm, hobbling toward his palm +and what it held. He felt the suction cups; with a careful mouth the +creature took up its dead and flew away. "I've been remembering +something you said: life eating life--without too much concern for the +second law of thermodynamics. Forgive us our trespasses.... Good +morning, lady." + +"What did I miss?" Dorothy had glimpsed the departure. + +"Lucifer's idea of a bat. I think that big flying thing I saw from the +lifeboat was shaped like this midget. Haven't seen any birds." + +Dorothy hugged his arm. "Not even one measly robin?" + +"Sorry, Whifflepuff--fresh out of robins." + +Wright blinked at his compass. "Meadow that way." Paul was +inattentive, needing the warm quiet of the woman beside him. Wright +added: "First, breakfast." He broke the seal of a ration package and +snarled. "Thirty days, I b'lieve you said. Antique garbage--dehydrated +hay." + +Dorothy said, "You're nicest when you're mad, Doc. We'll soon have to +try the local stuff, I suppose." + +"Uh-huh. But no guinea-pig work for you or Ann." + +She was startled. "Why not? I can digest boilerplate." + +"Two women on Lucifer: valuable livestock." Wright smiled with his +mouth full. "I'm boss, remember? For guinea-pig work, the men draw +lots." + +She was grave. "I won't argue. It so happens----" She peeked into the +nest. "Poor little fuzzies lined it with fur. Their own, I'll bet." + +"It so happens what, dear?" + +"Ah.... This eleven-year-old gookum claims to be coffee. Can we make a +fire? Looks like dead wood over there." + +The branches burned aromatically; the morning was growing into deep +warmth, but still with freshness. Wright said, "Coffee my shirt." + +Dorothy tasted it. "Brr...! I was about to say when I interrupted +myself, it so happens I'm six or seven weeks pregnant, I think." + +"Six----" Wright set his aluminum cup carefully upside down. Paul +mumbled, "That's what's been on your mind." + +Behind her eyes he glimpsed the primitive thing, deeper than thought, +not like a part of her but a force that sustained her, himself, all +others: the three billion of Earth, the small grieving spirit now +flown away into the trees. "Yes, Adam. I would have told you sooner, +but we all had a lot on our minds." + +"Even before we got in orbit, you saw us settling--staying----" + +Dorothy grinned then. "No-o, Paul. I just wanted the baby. Could have +been born on the ship. The Federation said no, but...." + +Gradually Paul began to realize it. "But you said yes." + +She leaned to him, no longer smiling. "I said yes...." + +The forest floor hushed footsteps; some coolness lingered. Paul walked +in front, then Dorothy, and Wright marked blazes on the tree trunks. +Paul glanced backward often, to capture the receding patterns. At the +third such pause the lifeboat was no longer visible--only a sameness +of trees and sparse young life groping through shadow for the food of +the sun. In this depth of forest there was no brush; the going was +easy except for the nuisance of purple vines that sometimes looped +from tree to tree. Paul searched for any change of light ahead. + +The boat held all but what they wore, the two rifles, the three +pistols holstered at their hips, the three knives, three sealed ration +packages. Damage had prevented locking the door of the boat: to rob, +an inhabitant of Lucifer would need only intelligence enough to solve +the sliding mechanism. They had seen no life but that huge nocturnal +leaf eater, the small fliers, a white worm, and now a few timid +ten-legged scuttlers on the warm ground and midge-like specks dancing +in shafts of sunlight. Too quietly, Wright said, "Stop." + +Paul raised his rifle as he turned. Only untroubled forest. Wright's +warning hand lowered. "Almost saw it. Heard nothing, just felt +a--watching. Might be in my head. Let's go on. And don't hurry." + +It would have been possible to hurry, even with an eye on the compass. +It would have been possible, Paul thought, to run in panic, fall +whimpering and waiting. But you wouldn't do it.... + +No shape in this dim region could be right or wrong; the trees +themselves were no sweetly familiar beech or pine. They halted at +sight of a new sprawling type of vine, uprooted where a break in the +forest ceiling admitted more sunshine. The earth displayed hoof-prints +like a pig's. Some scattered tuberous roots were marked by teeth; +Dorothy sniffed one. "Spud with garlic for a papa." Paul pocketed a +sample. She said, "Not that Lucifer cares, Doc, but what time is it?" + +"My watch says we've been walking fifteen minutes. Take it slow." +Wright presently added: "I've had another glimpse. Not a good one. +Furry, gray and white--white face, splashes of white on a gray body +seven or eight feet tall. Human shape. We may be all right if we don't +bother him." + +"Or blunder into territory where he doesn't want us." + +"There is that, Paul." + +"Human shape," said Dorothy evenly. "How human?" + +"Very. Upright. Good-sized head.... Ah--hear that?" It was Ann's +voice, calling, from someplace where there should be sunlight. "Don't +answer just yet--no sudden noises." + +Close to Paul, Dorothy whispered, "The baby--I don't want to tell the +others quite yet." + +That made it real--so real that in spite of a patch of beckoning blue +Paul had to turn to her. + +Behind Wright, he saw it, among the pillars of the trees, retreating +in fluid slowness till it was only a black ear, part of a white-furred +cheek, an iridescent green eye showing, like a cat's, no white. But +the blue was also real.... + +The edge of the forest was a mass of young growth fighting for the +gold coin of sunlight. "Shield your faces"--Wright was panting--"could +be poisonous leaves." They broke through to a red-green field, the +slim silver of the undamaged boat, the certainty of friends, an +expanse of lake no longer blue but sickly white. The boat's nose was +thrust under an overhang of branches. Ann Bryan was unsteady and wan, +but there was welcome in her gray eyes for Dorothy, who joined her at +once and whispered with her. Sears' fat affectionate face carried a +determined smile. Ed Spearman came forward, alert and commanding. +Wright asked, "How long have you been out in the air?" + +"An hour." Ed was impatient. "Sealed overnight. Nothing in the boat +for a test of the air, no point in waiting. You----" + +"Okay." Wright watched brown wings over the lake. "What are those?" + +"Birds or some damn thing. The white on the lake is dead fish. I +suppose the ship blew under water or the impact killed them. Our +Geiger says the water isn't radioactive. We haven't gone into the +meadow--been waiting for you." + +In the south the meadow reached the horizon--twenty miles of it, Paul +remembered from the air view, before jungle again took over. Near by, +threads of smoke were rising straight from the grass. "Abandoned +fires? We scared off----" + +"Maybe," Spearman said. "Seen no life except those birds." + +"Bat wings," Sears Oliphant remarked. "Mammalian, I think--oh my, yes. +Can't have furry birds, you know, with a taxonomist in the family, +hey?" + +Spearman shrugged. "Must get organized. How much damage, Paul?" + +"The boat itself. Both wings off, radio dead. Couldn't lock the +door...." It was like an Earth landscape. Tall grass carried oatlike +ruddy seed clusters on green stems. The lake was bordered by white +sand except close by, where jungle reached into water. There was +casual buzzing traffic above the grass, reminiscent of bees, wasps, +flies. Far up, something drifted on motionless wings, circling. And +ten or fifteen miles to the west there was the calm of hills--rounded, +old, more green than blue in a sleepy haze, but to paint them, Paul +thought, you would shade off into the purple. Paul went on, absently: +"We'll have the charlesite of the wrecked boat of course. That gives +this one a theoretical twenty hours of jet. We have ammunition for +long enough to learn how to use bow and arrow, I think." + +Ann muttered, "Paul, don't----" + +"What?" Spearman was disgusted. "Oh, you could be right at that, Paul. +Hard to realize.... Well, we must make some kind of camp." + +Wright began: "Some knowledge of the life around us----" + +"Oh my, yes----" + +"We'll have to make a camp before we can do any exploring, Doc. Here, +out in the open. See anything in the woods?" + +"Something followed. More or less human----" + +"So we know the camp has to be in the open." + +"Do we, Ed?" Wright watched the distant bat wings. Spearman stared. +"Can't chance a forest we don't know." + +"Still, I mean to look things over a bit. Feel not so good, Ann?" + +"All right," she said, glancing from Wright to Spearman, silently +begging to know: _Who is leader?_ "Slightly slap-happy, Doc." + +"Mm, sure." Wright hitched his rifle. "Going to look at that nearest +smoke. You come, Paul--or you, Ed. One of you should stay here." + +Spearman leaned against the lifeboat, still-faced. "Paul can go if he +wants to. I think it's a risk and a waste of time." + +Paul watched him a moment, frightened not by a man whom he had never +quite been able to like, but by the withdrawal itself, the sense of a +barrier to communication. _We start with a division on this first +morning of the world...?_ Paul hugged his own rifle and followed +Wright into the long whisper of the grass. + + + + +4 + + +Moist heat pressed down, but the air of the meadow was sweet. There +were marks of trampling as well as the swath the boat had cut--trails, +places where something might have crouched. Under his breath Wright +asked, "Feel all right, Paul?" + +Truth was more needed than a show of courage. "Not perfect, Doc. Am I +flushed? You are, a little." + +"Yes. Trace of fever; may wear off. Here's something----" + +They had not come far. Two red bodies barely three feet tall sprawled +near each other face down in the grass. Paul noticed oval bulges +between shoulder blades modified to accommodate them, the pathos of +fingers--seven-fingered hands--holding earth in a final grasp. The +male wore a loincloth of black fabric and a quiver almost full of +arrows; the female had a grass skirt, and her hand was tight on a +stone-headed spear longer than herself. A bow of carved wood lay some +distance away; one could see how the little man had crawled in his +agony after the bow was lost. Wright turned them over gently--bald +skulls, no trace of body hair on skin of a rich copper color exciting +to a painter's vision, green eyes with no visible whites in human +faces heavily tattooed, wide-open eyes, accusing no one. The bodies +were in rigor, a shaft in the man's neck, the woman pierced by an +arrow in the side. Blood colored the grass, dry but eloquent. + +"War too," said Wright, and pulled out the arrows, showing Paul the +stone heads, the intricate carving of the wood, thin-whittled wooden +vanes taking the place of feathers. "Stone Age war...." + +The male pygmy was the smaller of the two, and softer, his shape not +feminine but rounded and smooth. Both seemed mature, so far as age +could be guessed at all. The woman was rugged, with a coarser skin and +the scar tissue of old wounds; her two pairs of breasts were scarcely +more prominent than the ridged muscles of her midget chest. + +Wright mulled it over, kneading his wrinkled throat. "Physical +refinements of evolution as far along as our own. Straight thigh and +neck, perfect upright posture; there was no slouch or belly sag when +they were on their feet. Human jaw, big brain case. That furry giant I +saw in the woods had complete upright posture too. Oh, it's natural, +Paul. You stick fins on an ocean vertebrate, turn him into a +four-legged land animal, give him a few hundred million years. Almost +bound to free his front limbs if they've stayed unspecialized." In the +gaunt face, sadness and pity struggled with a bitter sort of mirth. +"The brain gets large, boy, and away you go, to--ach--to the +Federation versus the Asian Empire--Lincoln, Rembrandt, the state +papers of Abraham Brown. And to you and Dorothy and the baby." Wright +stood erect, brushing bony knees, calm again. "I'm almost pleased to +find it this primitive. I don't think it can have gone further +anywhere on the planet, or we'd have seen cities, farms, roads, in the +photographs. Unless----" + +"Unless what, Doctor?" + +"Oh--unless there might be forms with no Earth parallel. In the +forests perhaps--even underground. Thought of that? But that's +speculations, and our little soldiers here are fact. They have a +civilization--arrows say so, tattooing, garments. Rigid, +tradition-bound--or maybe not, depending on how much language they've +developed to tie 'emselves in knots with." + +"Bow and arrow--why, suh, almost as advanced as not being afraid to +end a sentence with a preposition." + +"Hell with you. Twenty thousand years ago, or whenever it was we +reached our present physique, if there'd been anything external to +teach men how to behave like grown-ups----. Well, we had to sweat it +out--tribal wars, bigger wars, venerated fears, errors, and +stupidities. But maybe here----" + +"Are _we_ big enough?" + +Wright shut his eyes. His thin cheeks were too bright; there was a +tremor in the rifle tip. "Wish I knew, Paul. We have to try." + +Ed Spearman yelled, "Look out!" A rifle banged, and a pistol. + +A brown darkness had come swooping from the lake. Others +followed--mud-brown, squealing. They had banked at the noise of the +shots to circle overhead. Paul fired; a near one tumbled, screeching, +thrashing a narrow wolfish head on a long neck, black teeth snapping +in the death throes--but even now it was trying to hobble forward and +get at them. The others wheeled lower until Wright's rifle spoke, and +Spearman's; there was the dry slap of Dorothy's automatic pistol. +"Back to the trees!" The wounded thing on the ground set up a bubbling +howl. + +More were coming, with weaving of pointed red-eyed heads on mobile +necks. Paul ran, Wright loping beside him, hearing the crash of their +friends' weapons. Something slammed Paul's shoulder, flopped against +his leg, tripping him. He tumbled over a shape furry and violent that +smelled of fish and carrion. He fought clear of it, sobbing in animal +wrath, and reached the shelter of the trees and Dorothy's embrace. +Sweat blinded him. Wright was clutching him too, getting his jacket +off. + +"Flesh wound. The hind foot got you----" + +"I saw it." Ann Bryan choked. "Saw it happen. Filthy claws----" + +Wright had a bottle of antiseptic. "Son, you ain't going to like this. +Hang on to the lady." But the pain was a welcome flare. Paul's eyes +cleared as Wright made him a bandage of gauze, with Dorothy's help. He +could look from the shelter of overhanging branches at a confusion of +wings. The creatures had not followed as far as the lifeboat; perhaps +its shining mass disturbed them. + +Spearman groaned: "You _would_ go out." + +Wright snapped at him. "Camp in the open--some disadvantages----" + +"Granted. But you sure learned it the hard way." "Eating"--Ann +pointed, nauseated--"their own wounded--" + +Wright stepped between her and the loud orgy in the meadow. "Wing +spread, fifteen feet. Well--sky's bad, woods maybe. What do you +suggest?" + +"Clear underbrush," Spearman said, "so we can see into the woods. Pile +it just beyond this overhang of branches for a barrier, leave a space +so we can reach the lifeboat. We can get to the lake for water without +going much in the open." + +"Good," said Wright. A peace offering. Spearman smiled neutrally. + +"If the water's safe," said Sears Oliphant. + +Wright grinned at the fat man. "Pal, it better be." + +"Miracles?" Sears' shoulders shot up amiably. "We can hope it is, with +boiling. Gotta have it. Canteens won't last the day, in this heat." + +Paul helped Ed unpack tools from the lifeboat. "One sickle," Spearman +noted. "No scythe. Garden gadgets. Pruning shears. One ax, one damned +hatchet. No scythe, no scythe----. There were two or three on the +ship." + +"Maybe the lake's not so deep." + +"Maybe we'll play hell trying to find out too. Those things weren't +much scared by the shooting...." + +Hot, tedious work created a circle of clear shaded ground which must +be called home. A fire was boiling lake water in the few aluminum +vessels. It had a fishy, mud-bottom taste and could not be cooled, but +it eased thirst. Paul had glimpsed Ann in the lifeboat, opening her +violin case, closing it, sick-faced. He had marveled again at the +mystery of a Federation governing two-thirds of a world, which had +genially allowed a fourteen-year-old musician to carry her violin on +man's greatest venture--with enough strings to last two or three years +and no means of restringing the bow. Later Ann threw herself into the +labor of clearing brush but tired quickly from her own violence. +Sears' microscope occupied a camp table; Paul and Dorothy joined him +in a pause for rest. "Got anything for the local news-paper?" + +"Unboiled lake water-assorted wrigglers." Sears mopped his cheeks. +"'Twas never meant my name should be Linnaeus. Have a look." The world +on the slide seemed not unlike what Sears had once shown him in water +from the hydroponics room of _Argo_: protoplasmic abundance no mind +could grasp. "So far, nothing basically different from what you'd find +in lake water on Earth--except for the trifle that every species is +unknown, hey? I suppose that's why they heaved a taxonomist into +space, to see what the poor cluck would do, hey? Now, those red dots +are something like algae. Notice a big ciliated schlemihl blundering +around? He could almost be old man paramecium, oh my, yes. Gi'me your +sickle, muscle man." + +"Hot work, Jocko. Take it slow and easy." + +"Believe me, Mistuh Mason, I will. What----" + +In undergrowth beyond the clearing there was deep-throated fury, a +crashing of branches. A gray and white man shape staggered out of +concealment, wrenching at what looked like swollen black rope. But the +rope had a head, gripping the giant's forearm; a black loop circled +the giant's loins and his free arm, tearing and pounding, could not +loosen it. A saurian hind leg groped, hooking for purchase into gray +fur. + +Paul's hunting knife was out; there was time only for recognition. The +gray and white being was everything human caught in a coil. Paul +forced himself through a barrier of fear, hearing Wright yell, "Don't +shoot, Ed! Put that away." There was no shot. Paul knew he was between +Spearman and the confusion of combat; someone was blundering behind +him. A black reptilian tail stretched into bushes, grasping something +for anchorage. Paul slashed at that. The mass of heaving life rolled +on the ground as the giant lost his footing, serpent teeth still +buried in his forearm. Green eyes were pleading in a universal +language. + +Wright was clutching a black neck, with no strength to move it, and +Paul stabbed at scaled hide behind a triangular head, but the skin was +like metal. The forelimbs were degenerate vestiges, the hind legs +cruelly functional. At last the steel penetrated; Paul twisted it, +probing for a brain. The giant had ceased struggling; the furred face +was close. Paul could feel the difficult breath, sense a rigid +waiting.... The teeth let go. The giant leaped free, returning at once +with a stone the size of Paul's chest, to fling it down on the +slow-dying body, repeating the action till his enemy was a smear of +black and red. + +Now in returning quiet a furred man eight feet tall watched them +openly. Wright said, "Ed, put away that gun. This man is a friend." + +"Man!" Spearman holstered his automatic, ready for a draw. "Your +daydreams will kill us all yet." + +"Smile, all of you--maybe his mouth does the same thing." Wright +stepped to the trembling monster, hands open. Ann was sobbing in +reaction, smothering the sound. Wright pointed at himself. "Man." He +touched the gray fur. "Man...." + +The giant drew back, not with violence. Paul felt Dorothy's small +fingers shivering on his arm. The giant sucked his wound and spat, +turning his head away from Wright to do it. "Man--man...." Wright's +hand, small and pale as an oyster shell, spread beside the huge palm, +six fingers, long four-jointed thumb. "Paul--your first-aid kit. I +want just the gauze." + +Spearman said, "Are you crazy?" + +"It's a chance," Sears Oliphant said in a level, careful voice. "Doc +knows what he's doing. Ed, you should know you can't stop him." + +Wright was pointing to Paul's bandaged shoulder and to the giant's +wound. The high furred forehead puckered in obvious effort. Dorothy +was choking on a word or two: "Doc--must you--" + +"He knows we're friends. He's been watching a long time. He saw Paul +get hurt and then bandaged." The giant's trembling was only a +spasmodic shuddering. "Man--man...." Wright snipped off gauze. "And he +knows that thing is a weapon, Ed. Will you put it away?" + +"He could break you in two. You know that, don't you?" + +"But he won't. Give protoplasm a chance." Now Wright was winding gauze +lightly, firmly, hiding the already clotting blood, and the giant made +no move of rejection. "Man--man." + +"Man." The giant murmured it cautiously, prolonging the vowel; he +touched his chest. "_Essa kana._" A finger ran exploringly over the +gauze. + +"Essa kana--man," said Wright, and swayed on his feet. + +The giant pointed at the bloody mess on the ground and rumbled: +"_Kawan_." He shuddered, and his arm swept in a loose gesture that +appeared to indicate the curving quarter mile where lake and jungle +met each other in a black-water marsh. Then he was staring out, +muttering, at the wings in the meadow, and presently he touched Paul's +bandage with fantastic lightness. "_Omasha_," he said, pointing at the +flying beasts. He indicated the rifle wobbling in Sears' arm and held +up two fingers. "Omasha." + +"Yes, we killed two omasha. Sears-man. Paul-man. Wright-man." + +The giant rumpled his chest fur. "Mijok." + +"Mijok-man.... Mijok, why didn't I have you in Anthropology IA fifteen +years ago? We'd've cleaned up the joint." Mijok knew laughter; his +booming in response to Wright's tone and smile could mean nothing +else. But Wright staggered and was breathing hard. Dorothy whispered, +"Paul--" + +It could not be pushed aside any more--the pain separate from the +smart of his shoulder, tightness in the eyeballs, chill, nausea. "The +air--" + +Wright's knees buckled. Sears had dropped the rifle and was helping +him to the lifeboat, Paul watching the action in a daze of stupidity. +Wright's eyes had gone empty.... Paul was uncertain how he himself +came to be sitting on the ground. Dorothy's face was somewhere; he +touched it. Her brown cheek was fire-hot, and she was trying to speak. +"Paul--take care of you--always--" + +The face of Mijok was there too--red vapor turning black. + + + + +5 + + +Paul Mason stared into blue calm: airy motion of branches against the +sky, a mystery remembered from long ago, in a place called New +Hampshire. Those years were not dead: secretly the mind had brought +them here. _What a small journey! Less than five light-years: on a +star map you could hardly represent it with the shortest of lines...._ +He was without pain, and cool. Time? Why, that amiable thud of a heart +in a firm, familiar body (his own, surely?), that was indicating time. +The boy in New Hampshire, after sprawling on his lazy back and +discovering the miracle of sky--hadn't he tried to paint it, even +then? Messed about with his uncle's palette, creating a daub that +had--oh, something, a little something. _Very well. Once upon a time +there was a painter named Paul Mason_.... Dorothy.... + +"You're back--oh, darling! No, Paul, don't sit up fast or your head'll +hurt. Mine did." Now she was curling into the hollow of his arm, +laughing and weeping. "You're back...." + +A thin old man sat cross-legged on gray moss. Paul asked him, "How +long?" + +Christopher Wright smiled, twisting and teasing the skin of his gaunt +throat, gray with a thick beard stubble. "A day and a night, the nurse +says. You know--the nurse? You were kissing her a moment ago. It's +early morning again, Paul. She was never quite unconscious, she +claims. I recovered an hour ago. No ill effects. It knocked out the +others at nightfall--predictable. They were exposed to Lucifer's air +thirteen hours later than we were." Paul saw them now, lying on beds +of the gray--moss? And where he and Dorothy clung to each other was +the same pleasant stuff--dry, spongy, with an odor like clover hay. +"Beds by courtesy of Mijok." Wright nodded toward the gray giant, who +had also brought moss for himself and now sprawled belly down, +breathing silently, the bulge between his shoulder blades lightly +rising and falling. Mijok's face was on his arm, turned away toward +the purple shadow of forest. + +Dorothy whispered, "He watched over us all night." + +"So you were conscious all the time? Tell me." + +Dorothy kept her voice low. Paul noticed the towering slimness of the +lifeboat beyond the barrier of branches, reversed--Ed Spearman's work, +he supposed. It pointed toward the west. Turned so, the jet would +blast toward the lake, harming nothing. Its shadow held away the heat +of the sun, a gleaming artifact of twenty-first century man, the one +alien thing in this wilderness morning. The sickness, Dorothy said, +had taken her with a sudden paralysis: she could see, hear, be aware +of boiling fever, but could not move. Then even the sense of heat left +her--she was only observing eyes, ears, and a brain. She had had a +fantasy that she was dead, no longer breathing. "But I breathed." Her +small brown face crinkled with a laughter rich in more than amusement. +"It's a habit I don't mean to abandon." + +"Neurotoxin," said Wright, "and a damn funny one. Back on Earth, when +I believed myself to be a doctor, I never heard of anything like it." + +The condition had lasted all day, she said; at nightfall her sense of +touch had gradually returned. She could move her hands, later her feet +and head. At length she had sat up, briefly blinded by pain in the +forehead, then she had given way to an overwhelming need for sleep. "I +got a glimpse of you, Paul, and tumbled off into a set of dreams that +were--not so bad, not so bad. I woke before sunrise. Different. Don't +ask me how. Never felt healthier. Not even weak, as you should be +after a fever. But Doc--what if the illness--" + +Wright looked away from the terror that had crossed her face. "If you +go on feeling all right, we can assume nothing's wrong with the baby. +Don't borrow trouble, sugarpuss--we've got enough." + +"Maybe," Paul suggested, "the illness was just--oh, some of our Earth +metabolism getting burned out of us. A stiff acclimation course." +Wright grunted, pinching his long nose. Paul said, "Wish it had burned +out the yen for a cigarette that I've had for eleven years." + +Sears Oliphant, the only other with some medical knowledge, had taken +charge immediately after their collapse. "He is--scared, Paul," +Dorothy murmured. "Of Lucifer, I mean. I could feel it when I was just +a pair of eyes and ears. More physical shrinking in him than in the +rest of us, and he's fighting it back with all he's got. He's a very +big man, Paul...." Sears looked peaceful enough now, in the dark sleep +of the sickness, his moon face bristling with black beard growth but +relaxed and bland. On another couch of moss, Spearman was more +restless, powerful arms twitching as if he needed to fight the +disaster even in sleep. Ann Bryan was deeply flushed and moaned a +little now and then. "Ed was all right too. Considerate. Took all +Sears' orders without any fuss or question; I don't think he's much +scared. He feels he can bull his way through anything, and maybe he's +right." Dorothy's helpless eyes had also seen Mijok bringing moss in +great armfuls. This, she thought, had helped Ed Spearman to accept the +giant as a man and perhaps as a friend. She remembered Mijok raising +Paul and herself in one careful swing of his arms to set them down +beside each other on the moss. Later she had watched him turning the +lifeboat under direction of Spearman's blunt gestures. Its length was +thirty-four feet, its weight over three tons Earth gravity--more here. +One gray-white arm had lifted the tail and swung the boat on its +landing gear as a man might push a light automobile. "I wasn't afraid. +After dark, when I knew the sickness had got the others, I still +wasn't afraid. Believe me? I could see Mijok moving around. Once I +heard him growl--I think he was driving something off. And then while +the red moon was coming up, he sat by us--his eyes are red in the +dark, Paul, not green. He smells musky at close range, but clean. I +wasn't afraid. Now and then he'd look us over and smile with his funny +black lips and touch the furry back of his finger to our foreheads.... +I could see the blue fireflies, Paul. Someday you'll make up stories +about them for the baby.... I heard that crying again--much nearer +than when we heard it that first night by the other lifeboat. Like a +group of children crying, if you can imagine that synchronized, almost +musical. Mijok growled and fretted when it began, but it came no +nearer. It had stopped when I woke." + +"Some of Earth's critters sounded human--panthers, owls, frogs--" + +"Ye-es. Just possibly something like tree frogs...." + +Wright said, "Mijok brought us raw meat this morning before he went to +sleep, something like a deer haunch. The fire bothers him--he +evidently didn't go near it last night after the others collapsed." + +"Ed tried to show him about fire," Dorothy said. "I remember. Mijok +was scared, and Sears told Ed to let it wait." + +"Meat was good too." Wright smirked. "We got the fire going, and Mijok +did try some cooked and liked it. You and Dorothy can have some +tomorrow if I don't turn purple." + +"Not guinea-pig," said Dorothy. "Just pig." + +"Hungry?" Wright tossed Paul a ration package. + +"Gah!" But he opened it. "Learned any more of Mijok's words?" + +"No. He won't have many. Nouns, simple descriptives. Must have some +continuing association with his own breed, or he'd have no words at +all. A hunter--with only nature's weapons, I think. That haunch was +torn, not cut--some hoofed animal smaller than a pony, fresh-killed +and well bled. He must have got it while Dorothy slept. It may have +strayed into the camp during the night. I think Mijok lives in the +woods, maybe not even a shelter or a permanent mate. Anthropology IA." +said Wright, and bowed in mimic apology to the sleeping giant. "Those +pygmies will be something else again--Neolithic. Wish I understood +that bulge between the shoulder blades. All the creatures we've seen +have it--even that damn black reptile, I believe, though things were +too mixed up to be sure." + +Mijok woke--all at once, like a cat. He stretched, extending his arms +twelve feet from wrist to wrist. He smiled down at Paul. He studied +the helpless ones, peering longest at Ann Bryan; the black-haired girl +was breathing harshly, fidgeting. Now and then her eyes flickered open +and perhaps they saw. Softly as smoke Mijok stepped into the shadow of +the trees and listened. Wright remarked, "Speaking of that reptile, +we should set up a monument to it. Nothing luckier could have happened +than that chance to lend Mijok a hand." His gray eyes fixed on Paul, +lids lowered in a speculative smile. "I'm not the only one who +remembers, Paul, that you were the first to go to his help. He hasn't +forgotten.... Dot, you're sure Ed understood that we have a friend +there?" + +"He seemed to, Doc. I watched them. They got along--practically +buddies." + +Paul saw the bandage was still on Mijok's arm, earth-stained and with +fragments of gray moss, but not disarranged; the bandage on his own +shoulder had been removed. The flying beast's attack had left only a +heavy scratch, which looked clean; there was no pain, only an itching. +The meadow was empty of brown wings. The dead fish were gone from the +lake. Perhaps other scavengers had been busy in the thirteen-hour +night. The water was an innocent blue, a luminous stillness under the +sun. + +Mijok stole out into the grass, gazing westward along the line where +meadow met jungle. Returning, he squatted by Wright and muttered, +"_Migan_." He spread a hand three feet above the ground; two fingers +drooped and indicated the motion of walking legs. Paul suggested: +"Pygmies?" + +"Could be." Mijok stared eloquently at Wright's rifle then crouched at +the barrier of branches, complaining in his throat. Taking up his own +rifle, Paul joined him. Dorothy hurried to the lifeboat and came back +with field glasses for him and Wright and herself. In spite of the +great planet's heavy pull, her body moved with even more light +easiness than it had shown in the unreal years of _Argo_. With the +glasses, vague motion a quarter mile away in the meadow leaped +shockingly into precision. + +The pygmies were not approaching but heading out from the edge of the +forest, a group of nine, barely taller than the grass, bald red heads +and shoulders in single file. The rearmost had a burden: seven others +carried bows, with quivers on the right hip. "Left-handed," Paul +observed aloud. The leader was the tallest--a woman, with a long +spear. All were sending anxious glances at the sky and toward the +human shelter; their motions suggested a fear so deep it must be pain, +yet something drew them out there in spite of it. The pygmy with the +burden, a rolled-up hide, was also a woman. The leader was bald as +the others, slender, muscular, her head round, with prominent forehead +and thin nose, tattooed cheeks. The bowmen had only simple loincloths, +and belts for their arrow quivers. The women's knee-length grass +skirts were like the Melanesian, but the leader's was dyed a brilliant +blue. Her two little pairs of breasts were youthfully firm and +pointed. Dorothy murmured, "American civilization would have gone mad +about those people." + +"What a girl!" Wright sighed. "I mean Dorothy--the Dope." + +"Even a dope can be jealous. Do you s'pose Mrs. Mijok has--Oh! Oh, +poor darling! Not funny after all, gentlemen----" + +The pygmy leader had turned full face, as the nine paused at trampled +grass. She wore a necklace of shell. These had no glitter, but their +yellow and blue made handsome splashes against the red of her skin. +Reason told Paul that she could see at most only dazzling spots where +sunlight might be touching the glasses he had thrust through wilted +leaves. It made no difference: she was staring directly into him, +making her grief a part of his life. A still-faced grief, too profound +for any tears, if she knew of tears. The green cat eyes lowered; she +stabbed her spear into the ground and lifted her arms, a giving, +yielding motion. Her lips moved--in prayer, surely, since all but one +of the men were bowed, performing ritual gestures toward whatever lay +on the ground. The one who did not bow never ceased to watch the sky. +The prayer was brief. The woman's left hand dropped meaningly, the +hide was unrolled, and its bearer raised what the grass had hidden--no +more than a skull and a few bones, a broken spear, a muddy scrap that +might have been a grass skirt. The hide was folded gently over these; +the group went on. + +"Dorothy--those things you saw running when we were circling down--I +missed 'em," Wright said. "Poor eyesight, and seems to me the air was +still misty from _Argo's_ crash in the lake. They were going south, +away from here? And they could have been--people like these?" + +"Yes. Hundreds or thousands of them. I suppose the crash of _Argo_ +must have seemed like the heavens falling. The lifeboats too." + +"I think we interrupted a war." + +"These would be survivors? Live in this part of the jungle maybe? +Looking for what's left after those--those flying beasts--" + +"It makes sense," Wright said. "They're more afraid of the sky than of +our setup over here. Maybe we're gods who came down to help them. If +we did help them. Look: they've found another.... Yes, now the +prayer.... Wish Mijok wasn't so afraid of them. Inevitable. To them I +suppose he's an ugly wild animal. Different species, similar enough to +be shocked at the similarity. 'Tain't good." + +"Do we try for a foot in both camps?" + +"Paul, I think I'll take a rain check on answering that.... Ach--if I +could go out there now--communicate--" + +"No!" Dorothy gasped. "Not while the others are still sick." + +"You're right of course." Wright fretted at his beard stubble. "I get +sillier all the time. As Ed would tell me if he were up and around. +It's the high oxygen...." + +There were brown splashes in the sky. The pygmies saw the peril first +and darted for the woods--an orderly flight however--the woman with +the hide in front, the blue-skirted woman next, then the bowmen. Three +of the latter turned bravely and shot arrows that glittered and +whined. The brown beasts wheeled and flapped angrily upward, though +the buzzing arrows dropped far short of them. The pygmies gained the +trees; the omasha scouted the edge of the woods, squawking, three of +them drifting toward the lifeboat, weaving heads surveying the ground. +Paul gave way to unfamiliar savage enjoyment. "Do we, Doc?" + +"Yes," said Wright, and took aim himself. + +All three were brought down, at a cost of four irreplaceable rifle +bullets and two shots from Dorothy's automatic. Mijok bellowed with +satisfaction but recoiled as Wright dragged a dirty brown carcass into +the clearing. "A dissection is in order." Mijok grumbled and fidgeted. +"Don't fret, Mijok." Wright pegged down the wings of the dead animal +with sharp sticks and drew an incision on the leathery belly with his +hunting knife. "Good head shot, Paul--this one's yours. We'll do a +brain job from one of the others, but I think we'll let that wait for +Sears--oh my, yes...! Doesn't weigh over thirty pounds. Hollow bones +like a bird's, very likely. Hope they'll keep." + +"You hope," Dorothy sniffed. "What do you do when I turn housewife and +instruct you to get that awful mess the hell off my nice clean floor?" + +"Dope! And you my best and only medical student." He worked at the +cutting dubiously, inexpertly. "Conventional mammalian setup, more or +less. Small lungs, big stomach. Hah--two pairs of kidneys?" He spread +the viscera out on the wing. "Short intestine, also like a bird. And +she was preparing a blessed event multiplied by--count 'em--six." + +"Too many," said Paul. "Altogether too industrious." + +"What I really want to know--Oh...?" With the lungs removed, it could +be seen that the hump on the back was caused by a great enlargement of +four thoracic vertebrae, which swelled into the chest cavity as well +as outward. Wright cut away spinal cartilage. "Damn, I _wish_ Sears +was doing this. Well, it's neural tissue, nothing else--a big swelling +of the spinal cord." He sliced at the ugly head, but the hermorrhage +from a .30-caliber bullet confused the picture. "The brain looks too +simple. Could that lump in the cord be the hind brain? I hereby leave +the theories to Sears. But, son, you might slit the stomach and see +what the old lady had for breakfast." + +Paul's clumsy cut on the slippery stomach bag made it plain what the +omasha had eaten--among other things, an almost complete +seven-fingered hand. Dorothy choked and walked away, saying, "I am +going to be--" + +"Cheer up." Paul held her forehead. "Never mind the clean floor--" + +"Go away. I mean stay very close. Sorry to be so physiological. Me a +medic student! Even blood bothers me." + +"Never mind, sugar--" + +"Sugar yourself, and wash your paws. We smell." + +Mijok was muttering in alarm. Wright had abandoned the dissection and +gone out in the meadow, cautious but swift, to the spot where +yesterday they had found the pygmy soldiers. He took up a small skull +and arm bone, pathetically clean--perhaps there were insect scavengers +that followed after the omasha--and the discarded bow. But instead of +bringing back these relics, Wright held them high over his head, +facing westward. Tall and gray in the heavy sun, he stepped twenty +paces further toward the region where the pygmies had entered the +jungle; then he set the bones down in the grass and strode back to the +shelter, fingers twitching, lips moving in his old habit of talking +half to himself, half to the world. "The omasha," he said, "cracked +the enlarged vertebrae--favorite morsel maybe." + +Mijok moaned, blinking and sighing. He stared long at the silent grace +of the lifeboat, then at Christopher Wright. He too was talking to +himself. Abruptly, something gave way in him. He was kneeling before +Wright, bending forward, taking Wright's hands and pressing them +against the gray-white fur of his face and his closed eyes. "Oh, now," +Wright said, "now, friend--" + +Paul remarked, "You're elected." + +"I will not be a god." + + + + +6 + + +Mijok released the hands of his deity and sat back on his haunches, +foggy-eyed. Wright stroked the great furry head, troubled and amazed. +"It won't do," Wright said. "We'll have no gods on this planet. Unless +human nature can make itself a little godlike. And no final +Armageddon--for that's within too, and always was. Well, he'll learn +language fast. As he does, the first thing he must discover is that +we're all one flesh." But Mijok was gazing up in adoration at the +sound of the voice, trembling, not in fear, smiling when he saw Wright +smile. "I believe he never had a god before--hadn't reached the stage +of personalizing the forces of nature. They're just forces, and +himself a bundle of perception, not even realizing that he's more +knowing and sensitive than other animals. Not arrogant yet, not +sophisticated enough to be cruel, or mean, or even ambitious...." + +Dorothy pushed her fists into her cheeks, brown eyes upturned to study +the old man: a way she had, carrying Paul back eleven years to the day +he had come aboard the ship and seen her for the first time and loved +the woman who was, even then, manifest in the leggy, awkward child. +"Doc, why did you do that, out there in the meadow?" + +"Why, Dorothy, we must make contact with those pygmies too. They +are--advanced. It'll be more difficult. They'll have traditions--maybe +some very ancient ones. But we must make contact." + +"Mijok hates them though. If they come here--" + +Wright grinned. "Temporary advantage of being little tin deities. I +think Mijok will do whatever we indicate--until we're able to teach +him independence." + +Paul said, "Don't think for a minute I'm not with you. But Doc, with +the others helpless we're only three--" + +"Four." + +"Yes, four. There's our own survival to think of. It's a big planet. +Seems to me you're taking it on all at once." + +Wright slouched, loose-limbed, at the barrier, where he could watch +the meadow, and Mijok stayed close to him. "I think we must, Paul. If +we start right perhaps we can go on right. A mistake at this point +could go on burning for a thousand years.... Why do you think he broke +out into worship when he did? Our superior achievements--lifeboat, +guns, the rescue from that reptile? The fact that I wasn't afraid of a +poor pygmy's bones? All that, sure, but something else. Ed would say I +was daydreaming--but I think Mijok's heart knows what his brain can't +yet interpret. Sears would agree, I think--his own heart's bigger than +Lucifer. Mijok hasn't the least conscious idea why I invited those +pygmies to come and get their dead. Down deeper, in the part of him +that made him bring the moss and the meat and take care of us, I think +he knows very well." + +"You're proposing," Dorothy said, "to take a chance on love?" + +Wright was tranquil, watching the meadow. "Whenever men put their +chips on the other thing they always lost, didn't they? Repeatedly, +for twenty or thirty thousand years? Did they ever create anything +good except in a milieu of co-operation, friendship, forbearance? One +of the oldest of commonplaces--the teachers all knew it. +Lao-tse--Buddha--or stated negatively: 'He who lives by the sword....' +And so on. Good is not the mere absence of evil, but the most positive +of human forces. The instruments of good are charity, patience, +courage, effort and self-knowledge, each unavailing without the +others; remember that. And that's all the basic ethics I know. The +rest is detail, solution of immediate problems as they arise. Even on +Earth the good tended to win out in the long run: at least it did +until the mechanical toys got out of hand. Then there was a century of +living under a question mark. There was also the Collectivist Party. +Yes, as a prime example of a part of my own philosophy totally +perverted, I give you the Collectivist Party." Wright was talking to +himself again, the bitterness of Earth's history goading him into +soft-spoken monotone, drawling and dark, on a planet nearly five +light-years distant from the ancient confusions. "The Collectivist +Party, which turns 'co-operation' into the same sort of word fetish +that 'democracy' was less than a hundred years ago--co-operation +_without_ charity, without patience, without courage and always, +always, without self-knowledge." + +Dorothy still watched him with sober upturned eyes. "Ed told me once +his father was a pilot in the Collectivist Army during the Civil War." + +"I know." Wright smiled at her in bashful half apology. "Some of the +old wounds still bleed too, I guess. I generally manage to keep my +political mouth shut when he's listening, if I can. Not that Ed could +be accused of still fighting the war that ended before he was born.... +Relax: I think they're coming." + +Paul joined Wright and the giant at the barrier, but Dorothy stayed a +moment with the sick, feeling their wrists, murmuring something close +to Ann's ear, although the girl could not respond. "Past the fever +stage, I believe," she said. "They're all breathing well. No chance +they'll be out of it before night, I suppose...." + +The pygmies were still some distance away, slipping along the edge of +the woods in plain sight. There were only three--the two women and one +bowman; perhaps the others were paralleling their course inside the +forest--perhaps a hundred others were. Wright whispered, "Have we +anything that would make a respectable gift?" + +Mijok was rumbling in misery and fright. Dorothy came over holding a +locket. "This--you remember, Doc--a matron at the Orphanage gave it to +me. I used to imagine it could be a portrait of my mother--" + +"But my dear--" + +The brown girl shook her head. "This ship-metal wedding ring Paul +hammered out for me--that's the only Earth jewelry I want to keep. +This face that might be like my mother's--Oh, Doc, I'm getting to be a +big girl now. Besides, Lucifer will have plenty of pretties for us +later on. And Doc--let me do this, will you? They've got a woman +leading 'em, so--wouldn't she be less afraid of another woman? I'll +uncover, so she--" Dorothy shrugged out of her jacket. "Please, Doc? +I'm scared, but--" + +Wright glanced helplessly at Paul. "We--" + +Dorothy said quickly, "_My_ decision." Holding the locket up for the +sun to gleam on it, she walked into the meadow and waited in the +brightness. Paul's hand sweated on the rifle stock. He saw Wright +patting Mijok's arm, heard his restraining murmur: "Quiet, Mijok--keep +your shirt on, Mijok, old man--man...." Mijok searched the face of his +god with a mute desperation and remained as he was. + +The pygmy woman halted fifty feet away in still-faced musing. As Paul +had seen through the binoculars, she was elaborately tattooed and +young. The pause was long. Dorothy stepped nearer to the place where +Wright had left the bones, displaying the locket, her open left hand +waving down at her body to demonstrate that she carried no weapons. +For the first time Paul realized she had left her holster belt behind. + +The blue-skirted woman shrilled a word; her two followers fell back. +She thrust the blunt end of her spear in the ground and came forward +steadily until she was only a few feet from the woman of the +twenty-first century; mask-faced, she met Dorothy's smile with a long +scrutiny. Now and then the green eyes shifted to study the clearing, +the lifeboat, the quiet shapes of Paul and Wright. And Mijok. Perhaps +she stared longest at Mijok, but by some heavy discipline her face +refused to tell of anything but dignity and caution. + +She spoke at last. It was complex, in a tone like the piping of a tree +frog. There were pauses, studied inflections, no gestures: her +seven-fingered hands hung limp against the blue grass skirt. The +closing words seemed to have a note of questioning and of sternness; +she waited. + +Dorothy's contralto was startlingly deep in contrast: "Darling, I +would like to know where you picked up that perfectly adorable +wrap-around, only I don't think it would suit me. I'm, to put it +frankly, a shade too hippy for such. In case you're wondering, I'm a +female sample of man"--she touched herself and pointed to the pygmy +lady--"man--" + +"Oh!" Wright whispered. "Good girl, good--" + +"--and it does seem to me us girls ought to stick together, +because"--she held out the locket--"well, just because. And anyway +look: I have only ten toes, fastened on to the ends of my feet, and if +I had more, Heaven knows (just count 'em and _see_ how each grows!) +I'd have trouble in keeping them neat. Pome. There now, sweetie pie, +please take it, huh?" And she opened the locket--Paul remembering in +lessening panic how much the unknown portrait did resemble her--and +held it face out to the woman of Lucifer. A tiny palm came up +dubiously; Dorothy placed the locket in it. "It won't bite, baby." The +pygmy woman turned it about, puzzling at the hinge. Dorothy stooped to +demonstrate the mechanism a few times. "I'm Dorothy, by the way, more +widely known as the Dope, which is a title of uncommon distinction +among my people, achieved only after long study of the art of saying +the right thing at the wrong time, burning the bacon, and preserving +at all times an air of sweet and addled dignity--Dorothy...." She +indicated herself plainly and pointed, with questioning eyebrows. + +The tree-frog voice, with no sternness, but a hint of friendliness: +"Tor-o-thee...?" She imitated Dorothy's motions. "Abro Pakriaa--" + +"Pakriaa." + +"Abro Pakriaa." There was sternness again in that correction. + +"Abro Pakriaa...." + +Wright muttered, "Royalty, I believe. Don't dare do any coaching. +Trust Dot's instinct. Ah, here we go--" + +The pygmy woman had taken off her shell necklace. She crushed the +dainty blue and yellow against her upper right breast; she set it for +a moment on her shining hairless skull, and then offered it. Wright +sighed, shaken, "It _had_ to work--exchange of gifts--a universal--" + +When Dorothy dropped on one knee to take it, the mask relaxed for the +first time in a wintry smile. Over the proud bald head went the chain +of the locket, and Abro Pakriaa watched Dorothy put the necklace +on--fortunately it was long, even drooping a little below Dorothy's +throat. A flutter of red hands seemed to mean that Dorothy was to +stand back; another motion brought forward the woman who carried the +hide, her face a chip of red stone. The hide was unrolled, and the +bones placed on it. There was more intricate speech, with touching of +the locket and graceful, apparently kindly waving of thin arms. +Dorothy responded: "Four score and seven years ago...." She went on to +the end without mirth or hesitation, fondling the shell necklace, +giving the words the power of music that belongs to them even apart +from knowledge of their meaning. When she was silent, Abro Pakriaa +motioned the woman with the hide to go and held up her two hands +clasped together, the Chinese salutation. She waited till Dorothy had +done the same and strode away, recovering her spear without a backward +look, vanishing under the trees. + +Dorothy collapsed in the shadow of the barrier. Tentatively she +groaned: "How'm I doing?" + +Wright snarled; "Suppose you know that damn bowman had an arrow +trained on you the whole time?" + +She glanced at him, lips quivering. "I was kind of aware of it." + +"Can I," said Paul, "touch the hand that touched the hand--" + +"Oh no. I ain' gonna 'sociate with no common scum no mo'." + +Mijok stared in wonder at their sudden paroxysms of hysterical +laughter. He rumbled in doubt. Then the contagion caught him. Whatever +his own interpretation might be, he was bellowing, hammering his +chest, rolling over on the moss and scattering handfuls of it while he +roared. + +He did not sober until he saw Wright drawing pictures on the +earth--three stylized but obvious human figures, one small, one +medium-sized, one large. Only the middle one had five fingers. Wright +gouged a circle around all three. He said, "C'm'on, Mijok--language +lesson." + + + + +7 + + +The trail was obvious only to the pygmies, through a border region of +meadow and forest that was full of dappled light, a warm hurry of life +feeding, struggling, wandering. Aware of his own power and readiness, +able now to enjoy the shifting scents and noises of this new trail, +Paul watched Ann's quick slenderness and the swing of Spearman's solid +shoulders. They, and Sears Oliphant, had emerged unharmed from the +illness. During a week unmeasurably long in retrospect, all six of the +party had found the ease and sureness of physical acclimation. Their +bodies rejoiced in the hot clean air of day and the moist moderate +nights; the only rebel was the Earth-born brain--grudging, frightened, +trailing, making endless reservations and timid of shadows. In Sears +Oliphant it was an almost open battle between a brave and curious mind +and flesh that could not hide its wincing from pain and danger. His +"Oh my, yes" had a tremor which angered himself and oppressed his +natural garrulity. + +When Ann Bryan had drifted out of the sleep of illness, Ed Spearman +was petting her hands, sponging her forehead. Paul had seen something +happen in Ann at that moment, like an innocent putting forth of leaves +when winter is not surely gone. Ann had never taken a lover. On the +ship, not so much unawakened as unwilling, she had rejected all that; +Spearman, making no secret of wanting her, had not been insistent. Nor +had he seemed outwardly much distressed, but (at a time when +Earth-harbored youth of his nature would have been in their liveliest +and most demanding prime) he had buried himself in _Argo's_ technical +library to the point of red-eyed exhaustion, a desperation of +unceasing study in the technologies that Captain Jensen would have +helped him explore if Jensen had lived. Ann had read other matters +after the violin strings were gone, read and daydreamed. If she'd wept +(and Paul thought she had) she had done it alone, in that pocket of a +room sacred to herself. To the others, she was a passionately silent +adolescent turning into a tiredly silent woman, who made too much +point of doing her own work and asking for nothing. + +Yes, Ann was different now. The thin beauty of her face, vivid white +under heavy black hair, was still too quiet, but with a troubled +radiance. During this long week she had talked much with Dorothy--talk +superficially inconsequential, but Paul assumed it had a meaning below +words, as if Ann had only just realized, probably without envy, that +the brown girl was a thousand years older in heart and mind. + +Beyond Ann and Spearman were the six bowmen of the escort, bodies +bright with a sour-smelling oil, grouped around Abro Pakriaa at a +deferential distance. The princess wore Dorothy's locket. "Abro," Paul +had learned, was best translated as "princess" or "queen." A flame-red +flower behind her ear caught sunlight from the early afternoon. Five +others were following Paul--women, with skirts of every tint but +Pakriaa's blue, taller than the men, carrying spears with blades of a +white stone resembling quartz. The men were unvaryingly soft, rounded +in contour, lacking the women's tough-sinewed vigor. It was plain, +merely from the manner of Abro Pakriaa and her spear bearers, that +among this people to be a woman was to be a leader and soldier, no +doubt a hunter and head of the household by virtue of size and +strength. In muscular power, a male pygmy was to a female as the +weakest of Earth's women was to the toughest male athlete. These of +the bodyguard were soldiers of a sort: the bows were small, the arrows +only big darts. The bowmen never spoke except meekly in response to +some patronizing word of the princess. Pakriaa's height topped forty +inches; none of the bowmen was quite three feet tall. Paul's fingers +itched for brush and palette. They were available in the lifeboat. The +fact that he had not even unpacked them he blamed on a preoccupation +with the daily work needed for mere survival, but there was a deeper +reason: perhaps a fear of finding his moderate ability vanished if he +should once try to hint with oil at the welling profusion of color and +line that was Lucifer. Now he found himself trying to measure the +quality of Pakriaa's rich copper against the softness of leaves that +were burnt umber, malachite green, saffron, purple, and he thought: _I +must be recovering. Wake up, ego, and look around._ + +Spearman was carrying rifle and automatic; Paul had preferred to leave +his rifle behind; Ann, hating firearms, had only her knife. + +Abro Pakriaa had entered the camp at noon, her fourth visit in the +week. Her gloomy majesty unchanging, she had indicated that she wished +them to come to her village. But Dorothy had turned her ankle the +evening before and it still pained her. Wright, no doubt hungering +more than any of the others for a sight of Pakriaa's way of living, +had fretted and bumbled and elected to remain with Dorothy and Sears, +urging Paul needlessly to remember his anthropology. Sears, sweating +out a microsection of a water insect from Lake Argo, had flapped a fat +hand and boomed: "You be sure 'n' telephone, damn it, if you're +staying for dinner, hey?" + +Remaining uneasily close to Wright, as he did whenever the pygmies +appeared, Mijok had said carefully, "Telephone?" + +"Word without meaning," said Wright gently, patting the huge arm. +"Noise word for fun." + +The attitude of Pakriaa's people to Mijok suggested the studious +ignoring of an indecency. They would not harm the ugly animal, their +manner said, so long as he was the property of the important sky +people.... + +Life was generously abundant in this thinner forest. Things buzzed and +flew; Paul noticed a few webs cunningly extended before burrows in the +humus. Ann's ocean-gray eyes glanced back, brave and uncertain. "Those +girls are too quiet. Paul, how much _do_ they know of our language?" + +"Not much." He moved up to walk on her other side. "Doc and I have +made only those two efforts to swap languages. A lot of that time had +to be wasted on theirs, a dead end for us." + +Spearman grunted, "Why? They've got a civilization, as Doc says." + +"Our voices are wrong. Pitch effects meaning for them. You've noticed +there's no pitch difference between their male and female voices. +Their language is tied to one section of the scale; a full octave of +it is above the range of even Ann's voice. They can shape our words +though, if they're willing. Basic English may appeal to the princess +when she condescends to take it seriously." + +"They could have picked up more than we suspect. They could have been +eavesdropping outside the camp." + +"No, Ed. Mijok would have known and told us." + +"Yeah--Fido. Can hardly speak freely in front of him now." + +"Don't think anything you wouldn't want him to hear." + +"Paul, I swear, sometimes you're worse than Doc." But Spearman wanted +to cancel the ill temper of the remark, and added: "You know, I +thought _I_ knew something about Basic English--we all had drill +enough in it. Beats me, the things Doc can do with it--the man's a +wizard." + +Paul was silent with unappeased annoyance. It was true: Mijok appeared +to be a natural student too, already far beyond Basic English in a +week of keen listening. "Nan," Paul said, "how did you like Mijok's +humming when you were singing for us yesterday evening?" + +"Good." She flashed him an almost cheerful smile. But when Ann spoke +of her singing--and in the singing itself--there was, in spite of her, +an aching wordless reminder of the violin gone silent. Her voice was +sweet but without strength or resonance, and she took no ardent +pleasure in using it. Her love was the violin--covered as well as +might be in the comparative safety of the lifeboat, waiting for a +distant day. If the day ever came (Sears had already dissected out, +dried, and oiled some long leg-tendon fibers of a deerlike animal in a +humble experiment aimed chiefly at Ann's morale)--if the day came, +there would still be no piano, no answering of other strings, no +splendid cry of brass. Crude wood winds, perhaps, sometime.... "Yes, +he was good," said Ann, smiling. "Organ point in the tonic, and right +in our own scale. Once he even upped to the dominant. Instinct, huh? +Sounded good, Paul, even with you trying to fill in the middle." + +"Hell, I didn't think you heard me," Spearman snorted. + +"You kind of stood out," she said, "because Mijok was much better on +pitch, my good man. It did sound hollow without something to fill in. +He was on A-flat below the bass clef and no fooling.... _Why_ haven't +we seen other giants?" + +"We got something on that this morning. I guess it was while you were +in swimming. Each giant male has an inviolate hunting territory, and +they don't trespass. Definite breeding season: the month before the +rains. That was five or maybe six red-moon changes ago. Mijok wasn't +too clear on the count--doesn't like mathematics much better than I +do. The women go where they please, in small groups, with the children +who still need care, but I gather the males are expected to stay in +their own private grounds until the Red-Moon-before-the-Rains." + +Spearman wondered: "Will the pygmies have a season too?" + +"Doubt it. Probably like us--except that women are the bosses. The +clothes suggest a continuing sex consciousness." + +The pygmy leaders halted. A murmuring explained itself as the music of +a stream. Paul consulted his memory of the map made from orbit +photographs and of his one solo exploration flight in the lifeboat. +There could be few such flights: the charlesite, even with the surplus +salvaged from the wrecked boat, must be hoarded. Ann and Ed had flown +over the lake on the day after their recovery, searching for any sign +of _Argo_. Returning, Ed's face had been a leather mask of grief, and +neither had wanted to talk of it. Later they explained: the lake was a +profundity of secret blue; a shelf of sand or possibly white stone ran +out some yards offshore, under water marvelously clear, and ended +abruptly. Beyond it, where _Argo_ must have fallen, no bottom could +even be guessed at; the lifeboat's camera confirmed the presence of an +abyss that would have thwarted the most complex twenty-first-century +machinery. + +This stream, Paul knew, came from the western hills, flowing east and +slightly north until it entered the lake northeast of the clearing +called home. Another creek joined it east of the spot where they now +stood, and Pakriaa's village--if the parallel lines did represent its +location--was not far upstream from that junction. + +Worn boulders rose above noisy water. The stream was twenty yards +wide, sluggish even here in the shallows. A steppingstone crossing. + +Nearly all the rivers on the map passed through jungle for most of +their length; numberless smaller streams would be hidden from the sky. +There was grassland for fifteen to twenty miles on the eastern side of +every range of hills. The prevailing winds were from the west; perhaps +a dryness in the lee of the hills favored the grass. The broadest +stretch of such open land lay east of a rugged coastal range seventy +miles to the southwest; some of the mountains in that seacoast +formation were mighty enough to hold a blur of snow at their summits. +The base of the coastal range was narrow--hardly more than twenty +miles. From this the peaks shot up with incredible sheerness to great +heights of bare rock that glittered in morning sun like black and red +glass. This grandeur, like nothing known on Earth, was clearly visible +from the camp above the near hills, especially at midday, when the +mists were gone. + +And ten miles offshore from that dizzy range, Paul remembered a +mountainous island. On his solo exploration two days ago, with the +lifeboat's panoramic camera and a head full of puzzled dreams, he had +soared above it, noting a peninsular strip of red sand at its southern +end, sheltered mountain valleys--one framing a jewel of lake. In the +north was a white beach where landing should be easy, and this was +protected by a low headland of red cliffs running out to the very tip +of the island. Surely a place to carry in the mind, it seemed to +invite human living as did no other near region in this continent of +Lucifer. Wright thought so: he listened to Paul's description and +named the island Adelphi.... + +North of the camp, the range of low western hills dwindled to rolling +land and was lost in a tremendous expanse of unbroken jungle, which +ended only at the shore of one of the great lakes four hundred miles +away--an inland sea fourteen hundred miles long. Sixty-odd miles to +the south there was that large cluster of parallel lines in jungle, +and beyond it the forest gave way to more open ground, prairie, red +desert, and bare mountains. + +Abro Pakriaa dipped her spear in the water; she lifted a handful, +letting it trickle away while she spoke a rippling invocation; then +she was lithely crossing on the stones after the bowmen. The bottom +was pale sand with varicolored pebbles. + +Beyond the stream, Pakriaa followed a path a short way and pressed +into undergrowth. Spearman grumbled, "Good path for once, and we have +to--" + +"Path's probably booby-trapped. She expects us to know that." + +"Hell...." It was difficult passage, stooping on a trail meant for +little folk; it ended at a ditch six feet wide and five deep. The +ditch made a right angle, both lines stretching away straightly as far +as the eye could go; the inner side of the ditch was heaped with dry +sticks and bundles of grass. Pakriaa trilled orders to an old +black-skirted woman with a whip, in charge of a gang of four women and +three men, all totally naked. They were struggling to shove a movable +bridge into place across the ditch--two logs bearing a mat of vines +and bark. It was grunting work for them, and when the end of the +bridge was in reach, Pakriaa's escort made no motion to help. Spearman +started to; Paul interfered. "We'd lose face. Those are slaves. Women +tied together at the ankles--one of the men a eunuch. Look at the +brands on their cheeks. Nan, you're the dominant sex--try to look more +like the president of a women's club." + +Her finely modeled face had dignity enough, he thought, if she could +keep the worry out of it.... The old woman in the black skirt bowed +arrogantly to Pakriaa; the slaves cringed, with the hating stare of +the trapped. All were scarred and young except for the eunuch, who was +wrinkled and flabby. One female had a recent chest wound; the effort +at the bridge had made it bleed, but she ignored it. Paul saw +Spearman's face settle into lines of poker blankness and thought: +_Good_. _And if, to patience and courage, he could add (I hear you, +Doc) charity and self-knowledge--Oh, be quiet, critic, be quiet._... + +Trees had been felled--some time ago, for the stumps were rotted--and +the spacing was such that the tops of the trees left standing provided +a gap twenty feet wide, the entire length of the village. There would +be two other such gaps, visible from the sky as parallel lines, +admitting full midday sunlight but shutting out the omasha. +"Nan--let's try to learn something about that big settlement in the +south--the other parallel lines." + +It was surprisingly easy to convey the question to Pakriaa with the +help of signs, but her response when she understood it was a shrill +snarl and shaking of her spear, a repetition of a name, "Vestoia," +which seemed to be the place, and of another name, "Lantis," a name +that caught in her throat and made her spit. Paul said, "We make faces +at the south too, and do it fast." It seemed to appease the princess: +she even smiled. + +The area bordering the ditch had been left wild, a barrier of vines, +brush, untended trees. Inside were orderly rows of plants, some +broad-leaved, resembling beets, some bushy; another type was rangy +with cosmos-shaped blooms of startling emerald green. Near the row of +trees was a path which Pakriaa followed; under the trees stood +grass-thatched structures. Paul counted thirty, well separated, before +the princess left the path, and no sound came from them. The trees +were mostly of the same species, thin-trunked towers with dark +serrated leaves, blazing with scarlet blossoms like the one Pakriaa +wore. They were the source of an odor like frangipani which filled the +village, heady and sweet but clean. It was no primitive agriculture in +this part-sunny corridor: rich darkness of earth was drawn up about +the plants; there was not a weed in sight. And there was no trace of +the strangling purple vines. + +Pakriaa's male attendants had slipped away; her spearwomen accompanied +her through an opening into the next corridor, where her people were +waiting for her, the soldier women in three formal ranks. There were +about fifty in each rank, and here again were dyed skirts of every +color but the regal blue that was Abro Pakriaa's. Small faces +maintained the flat indifference of the unliving copper they +resembled. + +Pakriaa's intricate oratory flowed over them. More than two thirds of +the stiff soldiers were gashed with recent wounds, ranging from +scratches to lost hands or breasts or eyes. Some had deep body wounds +so ugly it was amazing that they could stand upright, but there +seemed to be no evidence of infection and there was no wavering in the +lines while Pakriaa declaimed. Her right hand soared with spread +fingers. The lifeboat? The name Torothee occurred; when it was +repeated the women swayed with unchanging faces, murmuring it in +unison like a breath of wind. Pakriaa faced her guests. Tears were not +unknown to her; laughter might be. She clenched and relaxed her hands, +the fourteen fingers rising and falling until Paul lost count of the +motions--more than twenty. She pointed to the soldiers, repeating the +display more slowly and only ten times; then one hand rose alone with +the thumb curled under. Paul muttered, "I think she's saying only 146 +are left after the war, from--maybe three hundred." + +Pakriaa laid her spear at Ann's feet. Paul advised: "Give her your +knife, same way." Pakriaa took it and placed it across the spear and +stood back, motioning to Ann to do the same. When the three had +withdrawn, Pakriaa still made impatient gestures. Paul whispered, "Ed, +you and I are trifling males. We stand further back." + +"We do like hell," said Spearman in his throat. + +"We do, just the same. It's nothing but ceremony. Safety's off on my +.38. We can handle anything. Stand back." + +Ed Spearman stood back, muttering. At a shrill summons from Pakriaa, a +shuffling procession swung out from the tree shadows. These were all +men, decrepit, ancient, dirty; some limped and two had empty eye +sockets and one, from a pathological fatness, could barely waddle. +They were striped and splotched with paint in elaborate designs, +mostly of white and yellow, and their skins, either with dirt or age, +had darkened to dull mahogany. They formed a hobbling circle around +the crossed knife and spear; each grotesque, as he passed the weapons, +spat on them and scattered on them a handful of earth until the place +became a low mound. As they did this, they muttered and howled and +squeaked, performing precise evolutions with twiddling fingers. They +carried white thigh-bones like clubs, and shell ornaments jangled on +their raddled throats and ankles. It was, on the surface, a simple +ceremony of peace and friendship, but the casual contempt of these +male witches cast a foulness over it. Their sidelong glances at the +strangers were poisonous with furtive malignancy. "Medicine men," +said Paul under his breath. "Distant equivalent of the wise women in +some patriarchal groups. Ed, we stay on the good side of those loopy +scarecrows, or it's just too bad." And with a certain hunger he +studied the mask of the man who had never offered the relaxation of +friendship, wondering how far it was physically possible for Spearman +to accept a world in which engineering science was the dream and crude +survival the reality. + +The ceremony ended in a dribble of anticlimax. The hideous old men +merely shambled away from the mound toward the shadows after a +ceremonial whoop that caused the soldiers to relax. But they did not +quite go. They huddled and squatted under the trees. They stared. They +spat and scratched and consulted together. Some of the green eyes were +close-lidded, veiled; others were wide, making no effort to conceal a +hatred compounded of jealousy and fear. The fat monster nursed his +obscene belly between scrawny knees and whispered a stream of +information into the close ear of a witch with empty eye sockets, and +the whispering dark lips wore a destroying smile. + + + + +8 + + +Abro Pakriaa motioned her guests to be seated before a large building; +the fibers of this structure were dyed the blue of her skirt. The +soldiers stalked about in a show of nonchalance. Young men and naked +children had come timidly from the houses. The youngest children were +disproportionately tiny, large-headed but no bigger than house cats. +Perhaps childbirth for this race was no more than a passing +inconvenience. There were many pairs of obviously identical twins. The +children stayed near the protective men, all but the older girls, who +ventured somewhat closer. + +It was a village without laughter. No scampering, no horseplay, no +evidence of any tenderness except between the men and the smallest +children. Curiosity burned in all of them, but its overt expression +was limited to the dead-pan stare. + +Pakriaa entered her blue building alone, greeted by a flutter of +voices from within, and she was gone several minutes. When Pakriaa had +seated her guests, most of the ancient painted males had shuffled +across the clearing--even the fat horror whose walking must have been +pain--to settle in the shadows on the other side and continue their +baleful watching. Paul noticed that even the spear-carrying women +skipped clear to give them elbow-room and never looked directly at +them. The fat witch found a place to squat that gave him a clear view +of all three visitors; as he gazed he sucked toothlessly at the knob +of his thighbone club. + +The houses were lightly framed of wood, with walls of interwoven fiber +two thirds of the way to the eaves, joints bound and roofs thatched +with the same material, a design similar to what Paul remembered from +a year spent in the Republic of Oceania. The modern citizens of that +many-islanded republic, Paul recollected, still preferred the +ancestral savage building pattern to stone or plastic; it suited the +climate and the friendly, unpretentious way of life. But none of the +buildings here was raised on supports: snakes and vicious insects were +evidently no problem. There were no domestic animals, apparently no +parasites nor self-evident diseases; except for wounds and the dirt of +the old men, the pygmy skins looked clear and healthy. There were not +even any bad smells except the mildly disagreeable oil the males used +to anoint their bodies. + +Pakriaa returned, with her make-up on. She had flowers behind both +ears, and one tied by its stem to Dorothy's locket. Heavy white +circles were drawn about the lady's eyes and breasts and navel; blue +bracelets dangled at her wrists; her skirt had been replaced by an +innocently unconcealing fringe of shells--similar to snail shells, +Paul thought. Pakriaa's anklets of wooden beads were orange. The top +of her bald head was robin's-egg blue. Two males, with the brand marks +that must mean slavery, followed her with a seat--a block of wood, +cleverly carved with stylized animal figures. It brought her face on a +level with Ann's. Ann said politely, "Why the hell can't I be handsome +too?" And Pakriaa inclined her head. A boy without the slave brand +came with a wooden bowl; Pakriaa sipped the greenish liquid and +offered the bowl to Ann. Spearman rumbled. Paul said, "Protocol. You +gotta, Nan, but don't offer us any--we're meek males." + +Ann swallowed some; her eyes watered; she repressed choking. +"Alcoholic, I do mean...." + +Feasting followed--a laborious hour of it, as food arrived without +pause in the hands of branded men from the other side of the +sheltering trees. Wood smoke drifted from that direction, and a hum of +voices. All the dishes included meat cut in tiny cubes--stewed, fried, +boiled, or smothered in unknown vegetables. Only one course was +aggressively horrid, carrion swimming in peppery sauce, clearly a +favorite of Pakriaa's, for she belched wonderfully and patted her +stomach in self-applause. Ann remarked, "Another go at that and I +start looking for another planet." + +In time even Pakriaa had had enough. She clapped her broad hands. +Greasy-mouthed and bulging, the soldiers formed a swaying, stamping +line. Spearman burped helplessly. "All that inside, and they can +dance?" + +Ann suggested: "Maybe it helps...." + +It was an hour-long narrative dance, vastly monotonous, a picture of +war. Some of those most cruelly wounded pranced into solo pantomimes +bragging of how the injuries had been received. In climax, a straw +figure of a woman was dragged to the center of the clearing: an image +carefully made, brightly painted, the face hideous, the sexual +features grossly exaggerated. Shrilling what seemed to be a name +("Lantis! Lantis!"), the soldiers swarmed on this effigy, squealing, +stabbing, defiling, tearing it into shreds, which they carried away as +treasures or mementos. + +When the soldier women had finished in yawning exhaustion, a crowd of +dainty men performed another sort of dance, purely an erotic show, +indicating that the role of the male was seductive, half infantile, +submissive all the way. Occasionally a soldier pulled a dancer out of +the line, slapping his face until he stopped the squealing that was +evidently required of him, and wandered away with him; but most of the +soldiers were too tired, gorged, or wounded to be interested. Later, +some twenty soldiers formed a group, and men brought them babies to be +nursed, morsels of humanity, quite silent, far smaller in proportion +than Earth's newborn. The mothers' arms were careful and competent, +without tenderness; they held the infants two at a time, examining +them shrewdly, often exchanging them with other soldiers. There were a +few cooing demonstrations of affection by the men toward these +infants, demonstrations which the soldiers ignored. Ann whispered, "I +could spend a lot of time hating these little devils." + +"Try not to." + +"I know, Paul, but--" + +"At least they have a civilization." Spearman was arguing with +himself. "A potential technology. That's good gardening. Good tools, +weapons." + +"Nan, see if you can ask Mrs. President to show us the town." + +Pakriaa caught on swiftly and was delighted.... + +The first of the tree-sheltered areas contained all the dwelling +houses, dulled by the splendor of Pakriaa's. Ann was invited to enter +this blue palace, Pakriaa making it clear that the men must not +follow. Ann emerged, red-faced. Later, when it would not be so patent +that she was talking of Pakriaa's house, Ann said, "Couldn't make out +much detail. Dim, and no lamps burning, though I think I saw some clay +things like old Roman lamps. Clean, funny perfume smells. I met--her +mother maybe. Incredibly old anyway, and almost black. Their skin must +change color with age." + +"Dirt more likely," Spearman said. + +"Not a bit of it. Very clean. Just a dry little ghost in a fancy room +of her own, with a--a male slave manicuring her toenails. We haven't +seen any old women out in the open." + +"Sheltered and reverenced, maybe," Paul said. "Natural." + +"Her Highness has a--I suppose you'd have to call it a harem. Ten +little husbands, or maybe eleven." + +"What a girl!" said Spearman. + +Ann was amused, though her cheeks were flaming. "I was offered one." + +"Hope you explained the rejection implied no lack of merit." + +"Tried to, Paul. I think I got over the idea that there was a taboo +involved--something like that. Her Majesty didn't insist...." + +The ditch enclosed the village. One side of its square paralleled the +river, not more than thirty feet from it but making no connection. It +would have been easy to flood the ditch, but that was evidently not +the intention. When Ann conveyed curiosity, Pakriaa was astonished +that anyone could be ignorant of its function. "_Kaksma!_" she said, +and pointed west. "Kaksma...!" Convinced at last that Ann's puzzlement +was genuine, she drew a picture on the earth, with such vigorous art +that she herself feared the image and drew back. It was a profile view +of an animal larger than a rat, long-headed with a hump on the back. +She had given it a tiny eye and a forward-thrusting tooth nothing like +a rodent's; the forefoot was broad and flattened, a digger's foot. +Giving Ann only a brief time to study it, Pakriaa spat on the image +and wiped it out with a violent heel. She muttered an angry +incantation and pointed to the dry wood heaped by the ditch, while her +dancing fingers told of flames that would defend the village.... + +In the second tree-sheltered area were the industries. Men, not +slaves, glanced up from the shaping of earthenware vessels. They had +no potter's wheel, only their hands, but there was a kiln of baked +earth. Pakriaa called a favorite over, hugged him, and sent him back +with a pat on the rump. He was quite old, toothless, and giggling. +They passed a row of dye pots, three women braiding fiber into flat +sheets, a square of ground with part-finished spearheads, arrow +points, other devices, a rack where deerlike hides were stretched in +some curing process. "They sleep on those," Ann said, "and use 'em for +rugs. The palace was full of 'em...." + +In the rear of the village was a stockade of stripped logs, guarded by +two soldier women. In the space before it, but facing away from it so +that the painted eyes brooded over the village, stood a monstrous +wooden idol, eight feet tall, raised on a low platform. Pakriaa led +her guests before the image and knelt. It was necessary to do the +same, and Ann imitated her gracefully enough. As he knelt himself, +Paul saw in a backward glance that three gangling male witches had +followed and were observing every motion with a rigid malevolence. It +was difficult to kneel with his back to them; Spearman, he hoped, had +not seen them. + +The idol was exaggeratedly female, with huge carnivorous teeth +indicated in white paint. A slot representing the left hand carried a +nine-foot spear upright. The right arm, a natural branch of the log, +reached forward and spread into a rugged table; more wood had been +neatly joined to make the table five feet long, but the whole gave the +effect of a swollen accepting hand, and it was foul with bloodstains +old and new. Pakriaa's long murmured prayer repeated the name Ismar +many times. At the end she seemed satisfied; her glance at Ann was +almost a smile. Paul saw that the witches had drifted away, but the +pressure of their watching remained. + +Pakriaa now took them into the stockade. It seemed to Paul that the +guards were scarcely needed.... + +These naked men, women, and children had no danger in them. No life. +They moved and functioned as if in life: walked, spat, scratched, +yawned; a woman nursed a baby mechanically; a man strolled to a trough +in the center of the compound and ate a handful of damp stuff like +poultry mash, then rubbed his side against the wooden edge as a pig +might. Beyond such elemental motions there was no life. A woman +followed a man for several paces; both flight and pursuit were dull, +unfinished, a fumbling response to a sluggish stimulus. They paid no +attention to Pakriaa and the strangers. The slack emptiness of their +faces denied the possibility of any thought more than a flurry in +response to physical need. They were all over-plump; some of the +females were scarred, but the wounds were old and healed. Paul could +see no anatomical differences between them and their lively free +kindred. A drug...? + +Pakriaa walked among them like a farmer in a flock of chickens. She +lifted a young girl, who made no effort to escape, and showed her to +Ann with contented pride, pinching a fat thigh and middle. The child +was limp, unexcited, mumbling a mouthful of the mash. Fighting back a +retching, Ann muttered, "Paul, when can we get out of here?" + +Abro Pakriaa caught the tone. She tossed the little girl away and led them +out of the stockade. She seemed hurt rather than angry--disappointed that +her important friends had shown no admiration at this thriving industry.... + +The soldiers had gathered again in the clearing, but now there was a +waiting, a tension with the descent of twilight, and a gloom. A long +fire had been built; Pakriaa's wave at her guests appeared to mean +that they should sit where they pleased. Ann had not been able to +convey the wish for an escort home, and Pakriaa's mind was plainly +filled with some other, graver concern, having no more time for +hospitality. Pakriaa entered her blue house. While she was gone, the +soldiers seated beyond the fire scattered handfuls of earth in +synchronized motions and the witches grouped behind them set up a +monotone of chanting. Pakriaa returned wearing a white skirt, bare of +all her paint and jewelry; she walked back and forth along the line of +the fire, praying, until daylight was wholly gone. At her call, old +men, neither painted nor grotesque, carried out burdened hides and +laid them open beside the fire: white bones, broken weapons, skirts, +loincloths, necklaces, arrows, little earthen pots and wooden bowls, +many images of clay. The soldiers threw themselves face down, their +foreheads on their arms, and wailed. + +Spearman's voice was tortured with perplexity: "Eat some, mourn for +others. Murder them and love them--" + +"Yes, they're human." + +"Oh, shut up, Paul. What do you mean, human? These animals?" + +"Human mourning, isn't it? Listen to it." + +Ann spoke with held-in fury: "At least we're not cannibals. There may +still be war back on Earth, but after all--" + +"Better to murder in groups of a thousand at long distance? Just +listen to it, Ann...." + +It was music, becoming after a time the only thing existing under the +red moon and the delicate unceasing dance of blue fireflies. It was +the music they had heard on the first night in the jungle, a pouring +forth of lamentation, wonder, supplication, whatever the spirit may +feel in the contemplation of death and its troubling counterpart. A +music that was meant to go on unchanging as the song of tree frogs for +the thirteen hours of a night of Lucifer.... Pakriaa took no vocal +part in the ritual, but sat alone, guarding the relics of the fallen. +From time to time small man shapes carried new fuel to the fire. And +there were stern sidelong glances from the princess: she had not +forgotten her guests. Once or twice Paul caught himself dozing off, +dragged into a partial hypnosis by the endless lamentation.... + +"Paul?" + +"Yes, Nan. I'm awake." He saw Spearman's head jerk upright. + +"Doc asked me yesterday--if I would bear him a child." + +Spearman's arm sought for her gently. "Why bring that up now? Can't +think with all this damn caterwauling." + +"I--did get to thinking.... Everything we used to live by--it's so +far away. Paul, you're close to Doc. You understand him, I guess." + +Two troubled faces were turned to Paul in the mystery of firelight. A +glance from Pakriaa conveyed annoyance at the sound of voices. +"Dorothy told me she wants Sears to be the father of her second. It +won't take her away from me. Not natural perhaps, but right under the +circumstances. Some of the most important laws and customs can't be +started by us. They'll be established by our grandchildren, if we can +have them." + +"I know." But her upward look at Spearman's worried, half-angry face +said that her decision would be made by him, no other. + +"He mustn't talk. The queen no like...." + +It might have been an hour later that Paul saw Spearman's head sag +down on his chest. Ann leaned against him, but his arm around her had +gone slack. Paul searched for the cause of a sense of danger that +prickled his skin. Not the witches: they were grouped as before, +chanting a faint counterpoint to the soldiers' wailing. No--it was Ed +Spearman himself, and Paul came broad awake in a certainty of what +would happen. Too late. Spearman's head twitched, and his unconscious +throat let loose a resonant, uncompromising snore, a snore that had +been famous on the great ship _Argo_. Sears Oliphant had always +claimed that if only Ed could be harnessed in sleep to the reaction +chamber.... But this was not going to be funny.... + +Pakriaa leaped up and shrieked a raging order. The wailing ceased. The +soldiers were staggering upright, grabbing spears, forming a circle of +violence around the guests before Spearman could even rise. He gasped, +"Wha's matter?" and ten pygmy women were hauling him away by wrists +and ankles, clear of the ground. + +Paul shouted. "Don't fight 'em, Ed! Keep quiet!" Two soldiers were +clinging to each of his own arms, there was a ring of shivering spears +around him, and others had dragged Ann out of sight, but she was +screaming as if they could understand: "Don't hurt him! He didn't do +anything! Let him go!" + +Without twitching his hampered arms, Paul moved slowly against the +circle of spears. They had no quarrel with him, he sensed, but only +meant to restrain him: it was at least the only action worth a gamble. +The spearwomen stepped backward away from him. The whole circle moved +in slow motion, following where Spearman had been carried--through the +tree shelter, on across the next clearing, and into the space before +the looming god. + +Ed had not been able to snatch his rifle; he still had his holstered +automatic. Paul could not see Ann, nor Pakriaa. He could see +Spearman's face, a concentration of craft and fighting fury. The pygmy +women lifted him and flung him on the table before the idol. He was +ready. He bounced like a great cat, gained his feet, and twitched out +the pistol, which banged once--at the huge blade of the idol's spear. +The stone blade crumbled; the crash of the little gun made his captors +wince back in shocked reaction. Then Ed Spearman stooped, grasped the +reaching wrist of the idol, and heaved upward with the whole of his +strength. + +The god swayed, groaned like a thing of life, and toppled over, +squashing one of the howling witches--a blind one--like a red bug. + +The village dropped into total silence. Paul could see Ann now. The +pygmies had let her go. The whiteness of her face had more than terror +in it: it had exultation, a glory of excitement and wrath. Paul's own +captors had lurched away; his automatic had slipped into his hand +without conscious effort; he searched in desperation for something +that might restore his friends to steadier sanity. "Walk," he said. +"Walk, don't run, to the nearest exit...." + +The pygmies allowed it. The god had fallen. They even stood back, too +profoundly dazed for any thought or protest.... At the edge of the +village Spearman jumped in the ditch, reached for Ann, swung her up on +the other side. "Did anyone bring a flashlight?" + +"Oh, I--I did," said Ann, and began to cry. "Brought +flashlight--'stead of gun...." + +Paul stayed in the rear. "They won't follow, I think. Not for a +while." + +The stooping passageway was hard to find. But when they won clear of +it there was the guiding sound of the stream. Paul held the +flashlight on the line of stepping stones until the others had +crossed. Ann was still weeping in reaction. "We'll never win. It's all +madness--the ship, everything. All human beings are crazy, crazy--" + +"Hush, dear," Spearman said. "We got out, didn't we?" + +Now, where was the trail? A madness of groping, blundering, where +there was no path, no guidance, and even their little thread of light +a mockery and confusion. + +Abruptly, ahead of them, there were other lights, then voices--Mijok's +soft rumbling, Wright's clear outcry: "There they are! All three, +Mijok--" + +Paul ran to him. "The others--Dorothy? Sears?" + +"Right as rain, son," Wright mumbled. "Except Dot's been frantic about +you since we heard the shot. We left Sears practically sitting on +her--well, figuratively. Women are odd, you know: they don't like +shots in the night when the best boy friend is out on the tiles." + +"Had a little trouble. They may come after us--don't know...." + +Ann was quiet. Paul saw her white hands starfished on the gray of +Mijok's chest. She said, "Mijok, I'm tired and sick. Will you carry +me?" + +Spearman groaned: "Ann, what--Use your head...." + +But Mijok knelt at once to make a cradle of his arms, and Christopher +Wright said, "Why not? Why shouldn't we need each other?" Mijok went +ahead with her on the blind trail. + +Paul heard Spearman choke: "I would have carried her." It was not +meant to be heard. Paul looked away, hearing also the deep precision +of the giant's voice exploring the mystery of words: "You are my +people. I will not ever be much time far from you." + + + + +Part Two + +The Year One + + + + +1 + + +"This island is Eden." Sears Oliphant spoke drowsily. Toy bat wings +flickered from the woods crowning the hillside, hovered over a pond: +_illuama_. In a scant year of Lucifer time (seventeen months of the +calendar of Earth) native names had become natural, mostly Mijok's +names. + +Two red-moon changes ago, in the final jading month of the rains, the +pygmy word "kaksma" had been only a symbol. Now it woke the image of a +village desolate, bones scraped and scarred. The mind's eye winced in +pity--a sentry careless, a bridge left in place after dark; thousands +of ratty bodies rustling down from the wet hills, over open ground, +swimming swollen streams, finding the bridge before oil on the rain +water in the ditch could be ignited. Small bodies, not swift, leaping +or humping along like furry worms, sniffing, squeaking, their stabbing +teeth dark with the blood of any flesh that moved. The northernmost of +the villages allied with Pakriaa's had already returned to jungle. + +But here, ten miles offshore from the coastal range, no kaksmas lived; +Sears and Paul, in two days of study on this second visit, had +established that. No wide wings lurked in the sky. The hilly island +had no large meadows where omasha could hunt. Three giants had been +flown to the island a month ago--the girl Arek, her mother Muson, and +old Rak. They said it was a place of calm. Their soft talk could be +heard up the slope, where a log building was growing. Paul stretched, +lean and comfortable, on the grass, glad to be alone for a while with +this least demanding of his friends. + +Sears was fatter, but hardened, a round block of man, with a coarse +black beard, kindness of brown eyes unaltered. Christopher Wright, +waiting at the "fortress" by Lake Argo and no doubt frantic for word +of this exploration, had let his beard grow too, sandy gray. Spearman +and Paul had stayed clean-shaven, with soap made from fat and wood +ashes. "The others must come here, Paul. I suppose Chris won't consent +till Pakriaa agrees--damn, you'd think she could see it. She knows her +enemies fear the ocean as she does. Lantis' two-by-four army would +never chase after us in their lake boats." + +"Wait a minute, Jocko. Lantis is no two-by-four proposition." + +"Damn pint-size Napoleon with four teats and a grass skirt." + +"Lookee: that settlement south of Lake Argo is thirty miles long. +Equivalent of two hundred villages, to Pakriaa's six. Say twenty +thousand warriors who got their pride hurt a year ago when the crash +of _Argo_ swamped their fleet and scared the pants off 'em. They'll +have replaced the fleet. They'll come overland too. Lantis, Queen of +the World." + +"If they do"--Sears' heavy voice had the tremor that he himself +hated--"the firearms should be at least one ace in the hole." + +"Ye--es. Ed's pistol helped in our one bad scrape with Pakriaa +herself. But it was his smashing the idol that stalled 'em, not the +gun." + +"Poor little Abro Pakriaa!" Sears spoke with tenderness. "If ever a +lady was pulled seven ways from Sunday! Wants our way of life, doesn't +want it. Wants to grasp Chris' ethics, doesn't want to. Afraid of Ed's +strength and aggressiveness, admires 'em too, oh my, yes. Tries to +believe the god Ismar died or never lived--but can't, quite." + +"And can't understand why our women are gentle--Dorothy anyway----" + +"Nan's toughening up is conscious effort, Paul. Superficial. She's +made herself hunt, shoot well, act hard, because her brain tells her +she should. If we could only find something to restring her violin! I +think she's given up hope of it: nothing I've found so far has been +any good. She doesn't see that Dorothy does more for us by remaining +the person she always was.... You know, when I go alone to Pak's +village, I just set. Even the witches have got used to me, not that +they wouldn't gut me if they could." + +"Jocko"--Paul looked away--"you told me once you were scared all the +time. When you go there alone--or when you tame the olifants for that +matter--are you sort of grasping the nettle? And does it work?" + +"Don't ask me, friend. Because I don't exactly know. I was never a +brave man." Brown eyes misted in what was partly laughter. "Oy, the +witches! There's the big enemy in the battle for Pakriaa's mind. Chris +may claim they aren't real witch doctors, just advisers, low-grade +magicians. I'm not so sure. Priests of Ismar, and when Ed clobbered +the idol Pakriaa did consider having 'em all burned alive. Point is, +she didn't do it. They gnaw away in the dark at all we try to teach +her. That proposed bonfire, by the way, is gossip passed on to me in +confidence by Abara." + +"There's a dear little man." + +"Ain't he though?" Smiling into late sky, Paul envisaged the wizened +red midget riding the white monsters that Sears had tamed and insisted +on naming olifants-with-an-f. A painting might grow out of that, he +thought, squat coppery lump astride of massive white--it might, if the +desire to paint should ever wake again and be as strong as it once was +on _Argo_, when his mind's eye could remember Earth without +distortion. Abara, popeyed and potbellied, a favorite in Pakriaa's +harem, had been commissioned by her as a student and go-between at the +lakeside camp; Sears had not only adopted him as an olifant trainer, +but suspected him of furtively possessing a sense of humor. "Well--the +giants. Lantis will always have thought of them as wild animals----" + +"Sears"--Paul rolled over and pressed his face in the grass--"can we +ask or even permit the giants to tangle in a pygmy war?" + +"Ah.... It's tormenting Chris too, ever since Lantis sent that +ultimatum." He snarled in his beard, "Thirty fat meat slaves every two +months! There's politics for you. Dirtiest way she could answer Pak's +challenge to personal combat, and the automatic refusal makes an +excuse to come and clean up. Sounds like home.... Mijok wants to help +fight--says he does." + +"It's still our responsibility." Paul sat up. His eyes kept returning +to the towering courage of the trees. Brave as any cathedral spire, +scarcely one was free from the clutch of the purple-leaf vine. "As +for moving here to the island, Pak sees it, but the idea's too new. +You just don't pull up stakes, venture on the Big Water, crossing +forbidden kaksma country." + +Sears chewed a grass blade. "Anyway we've got to bring Dorothy and the +baby here, and Ann. Dorothy won't fuss, will she, son?" + +"Since there _is_ Helen--no, she won't. I still dream sometimes, as I +did during her first pregnancy. Things, shapes, trying to pull her +away--or she's where I can't find her, can't push through the leaves." + +"She told me. It's something else that's made you blue lately." + +"No." + +Sears watched him. "Yes.... Want to start back tomorrow?" + +"Might as well. We've learned all we need." + +"Mm.... Second thoughts about the daddy of Dorothy's second----" + +"No no. We settled that. She's proud to be carrying it." + +"Good genetics could be damn bad psychology." + +"No, Jocko. Don't think that. She's close to me as ever." + +Sears waited and spoke softly: "New York late on a rainy night, a few +car lights moving, street-lamp reflections like golden fish----" + +"Orange paintbrush in New Hampshire meadows----We'd better stop." + +"We better. I want boat whistles--floating city coming out of the fog. +Call it a slow-healing wound.... And look across the channel." + +Paul saw it presently: a cliff formation in the coastal range made a +brow, nose, and chin. Below this, rounded rock could be a shoulder +straining in heroic effort; then, tumbled reality of mountain-fancy +must supply whatever held the figure in bondage. "Yes. He looks west. +Past us, at the sun." + +"Why, no, Paul. I think he looks west of the sun...." + +A red-furred girl wandered down from the woods. "I got tired." Arek +had lived twenty-two years; she was seven feet tall, not yet +adolescent but near it. In the next Red-Moon-before-the-Rains, ten +months away, she might take adult part in the frenzy of love if her +body demanded it: if not, she would go apart with the other children, +whose play also became innocently erotic at that time, and help care +for the youngest. Sears grinned as she sat down with them. "Tired or +lazy?" + +"Both. You Charins are never lazy enough." The name Charin, Paul +thought, was almost natural now, a pygmy word for "halfway," intended +by Pakriaa merely to convey that Wright and his breed were halfway in +size between her people and the giants, but Wright took sardonic +satisfaction in it as a generic name. "Work and loafing are both good. +Why can Ed Spearman never sit still in the sun? Or maybe I like to +talk too much." + +"Never," Sears chuckled. "Well--his best pleasure is in action. Maybe +it's the technician in him--he must always be doing something." + +"Like always waking, never sleeping." She sprawled in comfort; her +broad hands plucked grass, scattered it over the furry softness of her +four breasts. "Green rain.... I want to stay on this island. Will they +come?" + +"We hope so. Mijok will as soon as Doc does." + +She sighed. "Mijok is a beautiful male. I think I'll take him for my +first when I'm ready.... And soon the pretty boat will be no more +good. It's sad we can't make another. Tell me again about Captain +Jensen. He was as tall as me? He had hair on his head, red like my +fur. He spoke----" + +"Like storm wind," said Paul, supplying the wanted note in a favorite +fairy tale, remembering a brother on Earth who was--perhaps--not dead. + +"Hear the ocean," Arek whispered. Paul could hardly separate the sound +from the mutter of the pond's outlet. This ridge of high ground ended +short of the island's northern limit. A white beach, where the +lifeboat was shaded from late sun, faced the mainland. West of the +beach a red stone cliff ran to the tip of the island, shouldering away +the sea. Wind out of the west allowed no soil to gather on it. Now and +then a rainbow flashed and died above the rock, when a wave of +uncommon grandeur spent itself in a tower of foam. "Hear what it says? +'I--will--try--aga-a-ain....' Why must the others wait to come here?" + +"Pakriaa's people are not ready." + +"Oh, Sears!" Arek laughed unhappily and sat up. "I think of how my +mother taught me the three terrors. She took me to the hills, beat two +stones before a burrow till one blundered out maddened, afraid of +nothing but the light. She crushed it, made me smell it. I was sick; +then we fled. I think of how she flung an _asonis_ carcass into meadow +grass, so the omasha came. She wounded one with a stone, made me watch +while the others tore it apart. Later still, when I could run +fast--ah, through night to a village of the Red Bald----" + +"Please, dear--pygmies. That's a name they accept." + +"I'm sorry, Sears.... Yes, we hid in the dark, waited until a sentry +moved--careless.... It was wrong. You've shown us how such things are +wrong. And memory's someone talking behind you, out of the big dark." + +"The laws we've agreed on----" + +"I do honor them," she said gently. "The law against murder was my +first writing lesson. But--what if Pakriaa's tribe--" + +"They're slower," Sears said in distress, and the distress would be as +much a message to Arek as any words. There was no hiding the heart +from these people: green eyes and black ears missed no smallest +nuance. + +"When will they know they must not dig pits, with poisoned stakes--" + +"But Pakriaa's tribe don't do that now. Do they?" + +Arek admitted: "I suppose not. But the six other villages----" + +"Five, dear. The kaksmas. And only two months ago, Arek." + +She stared at Paul with shock. "I _had_ almost forgotten. But they do +still hate us. The day before you flew us here, Paul, I met Pakriaa +and two of her soldiers in the woods. I gave them the good-day +greeting. Oh, if one of you had been there she would have answered +it.... Wouldn't the island be better without them? Some of _you_ don't +like them. Even Dorothy only tries to like them. Since the baby was +born, Paul, she--shrinks when they come to the fortress. They don't +know it, but I do." + +Dimly, Paul had known it, known also that it was a thing Dorothy would +consciously reject. "Time, Arek. You'll live a hundred and fifty +years or better--more than three pygmy lifetimes. You'll see them +change." + +Speaking almost like a Charin, Arek said, "They'd better." + +They strolled up the hill; the other giants' labor had ceased. The +building was a sturdy oblong, intended as storehouse and temporary +communal dwelling for them all, including (Wright hoped) some of +Pakriaa's people. Rafters were not yet in place. For that, Rak needed +the strength of another like himself: chubby Muson tired easily. +Someday a road would climb from the beach, traversing the ridge which +was the backbone of the northern half of the island. Here, where +spring water filled the pond and rushed on down to carve a small +harbor below the beach, would be Jensen City, and the three races of +Lucifer would learn to live there in good will and pleasure under a +government of laws. So Wright said--peering at photographs, teasing +his gray beard, tapping thin fingers on the map drawn on the paper of +Earth, on the new maps of whitebark. Paul could see it too--sometimes; +glimpse the houses, gardens, open places. South of the pond, a wheat +field, for on Lucifer the wheat of Earth grew to four feet and bore +richly. Near the field, perhaps the house for Dorothy and himself, +with no doorway lower than ten feet. + +At other times he could see only defeat--the arrogance and blind drive of +genus _Charin_, species _Semisapiens_ beating against the indifference of +nature, the resentment of other life. He could see his people destroyed, by +accident or anger, the giant friends adrift with only hints of the new life +and spoiled for the old. Then he would stop trying to foresee and would +make his mind's ear listen to Wright insisting: "_Give protoplasm a chance. +Patience is the well-spring._..." + +The walls were eleven feet in height. Rak and Muson rested on the +coolness of bare ground within; Rak pointed at the top of the walls +where rafters would rest. "Slow," he said, "and good." Rak could not +be sure how old he was. When Mijok had first persuaded him to the camp +ten months ago, Rak had won his English with the grave precision of a +mason selecting fieldstone. His language had none of the flexibility +and scope that Mijok and others had achieved, but it served him. +After absorbing basic arithmetic, Rak had deliberated on the problem +of his age--squatting at the gate of the stone fortress by Lake Argo, +spreading out rows of colored pebbles to indicate years, rainy +seasons, episodes of hunting or fear or passion too keen to forget. At +last he had come up with the figure of 130 years. "But," he said, +"there are two times. In here"--he patted an ancient scar on his +belly--"and there." He pointed at the red crescent moon. + +"I'll cook supper," Arek said. Muson bubbled and shadowboxed with her +daughter. Muson would laugh at anything--the flutter of a leaf, a +breath of breeze on her red-brown fur. Paul followed to help Arek trim +the carcass of an asonis killed the night before. Hornless, +short-legged, fat, the bovine animal was abundant on the island; its +one enemy here was what Arek called _usran_, a catlike carnivore the +size of a lynx, which could tackle only the young asonis or feeble +stragglers. Rak hunted in the old way. Bow, club, spear, even rifle, +had been explained to him, but the stalk, the single rush and leap, +the grasp of a muzzle and backward jerk that snapped the neck before +the prey could even struggle--these were Rak's way still. In the old +life, Rak's age would have led him eventually to a few dim years with +a band of women, who would have fed him until he chose to wander into +deep jungle, preventing any from following. When far away, he would +have sat in the shadows to wait--for starvation or the black marsh +reptiles or a great mainland cat, _uskaran_, which never attacked a +giant in the prime of strength. Rak would have taken no harm from the +young men in this weakness: his own territory would have been +inviolate, and he would have joined the women, in a taciturn farewell +to life, only when teeth and arms had failed. ("We're gentle people," +Mijok said, puzzled at it himself. "In the Red-Moon-before-the-Rains +we only play at fighting. It's not like what we see the other +creatures do at that time. How could one 'possess' a woman? Do I +possess the wind because I like to run against the touch of it...?") + +The meat hung from a makeshift tripod; Arek jumped back, startled, as +a furry thing scampered down. It was like a kinkajou except for the +hump on the back (a true hindbrain in the spine: Sears had long ago +verified that guess of Wright's). "Little rascal," Paul said. "Let's +tame it." + +"What?" Arek was bewildered. "Do what?" + +"Do these live on the mainland?" + +"I never saw one till I came here. Too small to eat. Tame it?" + +"Watch." Paul tossed a bit of meat. The visitor's chatter changed to a +whistling whine; it elongated itself, grabbed, sat back on stubby hind +legs to eat in clever paws; it washed itself with a squirrel's +pertness. Arek chuckled, examining the idea, and went on with her +work; she had become a hypercritical cook, under Dorothy's guidance. +"Jocko, biologist, stand by: I propose to name an animile. Genus +_Kink_, species _quasikinkajou_." Genus Kink did not retreat at Sears' +quiet approach, but wriggled a black nose. + +Rak asked in solemn curiosity, "For what is it good?" + +"To make us laugh," Paul said, "so long as we're kind to it." + +"Ah?" Rak moved his fingers to aid the patient mill of his mind. + +"Dance-Nose," said Muson, who already understood. She shook all over. +"Come, Funny-Nose." It would not--yet, but Muson could be patient too. + +Sears whispered in his beard, "Less homesick?" + +"Yes...." + +After the meal Arek wanted Paul to come out on the cliffs. Though +there seemed no danger from the omasha, she carried a long stick and +Paul took his pistol. The slope leveled out to the bare rock of the +headland; the ocean voice was the humming of a thousand giants. The +way was easy, with no crevasses, no peril while the wind was mild. +Arek had often been out here alone. Yesterday Paul had seen her +standing for an hour, watching the west where unbroken water met a +sun-reddened horizon. In her earlier years there might have been dim +mention of the sea by her almost wordless people, but no true +knowledge: the mainland coast was steaming vine-choked jungle, or +tidal marsh, and shut away by the kaksma hills. Paul wondered what +member of his race could stand for an hour in contemplation like a +thinking tree, not shifting a foot nor raising an arm...? + +"Paul, why did you leave Earth?" Arek patted the rock beside her. + +Below the troubled water laughed, endlessly defeated and returning. +Cloud fantasies gathered below a lucid green, and the wind was a +friend. "I have doubted sometimes whether we ought to have done so." + +"That wasn't my meaning. We love you. Didn't you know? But I've +wondered what sent you away from such a place. Ann says it was +beautiful." + +"A--drive of restlessness. We took boundaries as a challenge. I used +to think that a great virtue. Now I call it neither good nor evil." + +"I think it is good." + +"Everywhere, we carry good _and_ evil." + +"What you do here is good. You teach us. You do kind things." + +"We can be bad. But for Doc Wright and his dreams that Ed Spearman +finds so impractical, we'd have done you harm." Helpless at her +innocence, Paul saw she did not believe him. "On Earth, we fought each +other. We hunted for lies to make ourselves feel big. We created great +institutions built on vanity--tickling lies: imperialism, +communism--most of the isms you find so puzzling when we talk of Earth +history. The anger of Charins rarely focused itself on the actual +causes of unhappiness or injustice. Instead we hunted for scapegoats, +easy solutions. We wouldn't study ourselves. Always we itched for +something external to take the blame for our own follies and crimes." + +"I don't understand." + +"As if you stumbled on a root, Arek, and then banged your fist on the +tree that grew it, to blame it for your own clumsiness." + +"But Paul--only a very small child would act like that." + +"Darling, let's watch the sunset." She felt his pain, touched his +knee, and was silent until he said, "A poor naughty child...." + +"There was a thing Ed Spearman said to me--what I wanted to talk to +you about. I've never gone to Pakriaa's village. You know, even Mijok +won't go there except with one of you. I asked Ed if Pakriaa still +kept that stockade for drugging and fattening prisoners--in spite of +her agreeing to the laws. He said yes, she did. I said it was not +right. I said we made a law against slavery too. He said, 'Forget it, +baby--one thing at a time.' I am not a baby. How can the laws govern +us unless all obey them?" + +"Ed--meant no harm, Arek. He only meant it does take time. The pygmies +have more to unlearn. You--started clean. And--well--with the army of +Lantis likely to come back at any time--we can't afford--" + +Yet it seemed natural that this giant child, who had herself done +murder in the old days, should answer his troubled evasions not only +with reproach but with command: "If the laws are to govern us they +must be respected by everyone. I wish I had gone to that village and +torn down the stockade with my hands." + +"And they would have killed you with a hundred spears and Pakriaa's +people would hate us forever, learning nothing but more hatred." + +Arek cried a little, rubbing at the unfamiliar wetness. "Maybe I begin +to see, how difficult.... The sun's going." But they sat quietly in +the warm and undemanding wind until the first sapphire glint of +fireflies dotted the slope where Jensen City might one day shine. Arek +stood, reaching down an affectionate hand. + + + + +2 + + +Paul glanced down at sunrise-tinted snow on the highest peak of the +coastal range, thirteen thousand feet above the sea. Prairie spread +for thirty miles east of its base; then came a region of forest and +small lakes fed by the outlet of Lake Argo, which was the core of the +empire of Lantis, Queen of the World. + +Pakriaa's information on Lantis was a murky blend of truth and +fantasy. Lantis claimed birth from Ismar-Creator-and-Destroyer. +Pakriaa had different theories. Originally ruler of a single village, +Lantis consolidated by conquest. Instead of annihilating defeated +villages she took their populations captive, sorting out three +categories: potential followers, slave laborers, and meat. Many in the +first class became fanatically converted; those in the second provided +a year or so of work before dying of whippings and other abuse; +captives of the third class were forced to eat the green-flowered weed +that numbed the brain and were bled out at the right stage of fatness. +In fifteen years one riverside village had swollen to a city of sixty +thousand, fed by expeditions far to the east, and Lantis named her +city Vestoia--Country of Freedom and Joy. "Got anything new in the +'scope?" + +Sears groaned: "There _are_ more boats above the falls." + +The boats, they knew, were broad canoes roofed like sampans against +the omasha, but with no sail. "Not moving, are they?" + +"No--anchored maybe." Sears mopped his round face. + +Without the telescope, Paul could see brownness on the water of Lake +Argo's southern end, near the spot where the outlet tumbled over a +high falls to a smaller lake. It meant that hundreds more must have +been portaged past the falls from Vestoia during his two days on the +island.... + +The fifty red-green flowing miles became a pain of delay. Sears too +would be aching for the gray square of their "fortress" to claim the +eye in the north, touched by early sunlight, a brave structure twelve +feet high, fifty square, built of split stone by the labor of giant +friends. Outside it ran a moat twenty feet wide, ten deep, with a +drawbridge of logs, bark matting, grass-fiber ropes, the bottom +flooded with lake water. There was room within for living quarters, a +supply of smoked meat, dried vegetables. + +Lantis understood scaling ladders, Pakriaa said. Lantis had patience +for a siege. There was no defense, Pakriaa said, in these measures. +The only defense was to attack, to retreat, and attack again. It had +always been so in the old wars. It was still so with this Lantis and +her Big-Village-Vestoia, this bastard begotten of a red worm and +Inkar, goddess of kaksmas. It would always be so--at least, until.... +Paul remembered Dorothy, cherishing Helen at her brown breast, asking +neutrally, "Until what, Abro Pakriaa?" + +Pakriaa had studied the giants' walls with contempt. "Until I shame +this worm spawn Lantis into meeting me alone. She must respect custom. +Her first answer is a--what word?--rejection, because she has fear. I +have sent a second challenge. She will meet me, or her own people will +condemn her. I will pin her belly to the ground. Her government will +be mine." There had been no mistaking it: for the first time in the +year since the idol of Ismar fell and was not restored, Pakriaa was +making vast decisions wholly her own, with only perfunctory interest +in what the Charins might think. In her wrath against the mighty +soldier ruler in the south there was natural grief at the outrages of +past years, but something else too. Her red face glaring southward +said: _She has what I desire; she is doing what I would do_. Pakriaa +had finished her answer quietly: "It is _I_ who will be Queen of the +World." + +Three days ago. It could have been a mistake to leave the camp at all. +Now--a streak of sunshine on gray at the end of familiar meadow. With +fuel for only a few more flights, Paul knew he had never made a better +landing. The drawbridge was down. Dorothy ran to meet him. Sears was +shouting, "Chris! It's perfect--no kaksmas--everything Paul said it +was--" + +Paul stammered, "You look like a million dollars." + +"Dollars. What're those?" + +"I forget. What's news?" + +"Your funny mouth is tickling my ear." + +"That isn't news, Dope. Helen--" + +"Full of the best gurgles. Come and see." He thought: _How do I tell +her of the boats, the thirty-mile hive of savage hatreds_--but Sears +was already talking of it. Wright had no smile for Paul, only a warm +gray-eyed stare and pressure of the hand. Paul asked, "Where's Ed? +Mijok and the boys?" + +Ann looked up from cutting a square of hide. She had not come to meet +them. Ann's way nowadays; one's mind insisted: _It doesn't mean +anything_. "Ed's hunting. Should have been back last night." + +Dorothy added: "Mijok's off missionarying, with Elis and Surok. They +took Blondie--Lisson, I mean: moral support." + +Wright was hag-ridden. "Sears, if it were only Pakriaa's +tribe--but--not fuel enough to fly all the giants over. We cannot +abandon _them_." + +"Then let's get the women there and the rest of us go overland." + +Ann said, "I'm going overland." + +Wright muttered, "Damn it, Nancy--" + +Sears patted her shoulder and ignored her speech as she ignored the +touch. "Chris, I've labored, myself, over that damn knotty little +brain of Pakriaa's. She can't see things our way. We need a hundred +years." + +The conference lengthened into the morning. Sometimes it seemed to +Paul that his teacher's stubbornness degenerated into the obsession of +a man who won't leave a blazing house until the rugs are saved. Wright +longed for the island, which he had seen only in photographs. There +had always been some compelling reason why he must stay by the +fortress, if only to hoe voracious weeds out of the gardens. Yet to +Wright it was unthinkable that the island community should start +without the pygmies: he returned to it with haggard insistence. "I +know--I can't actually like Pakriaa--she's got a mind like a greased +eel; but we've made a beginning. They speak our tongue--well. A people +intelligent as they are--" + +Paul thought: _It's not Lucifer that's aged him--it's us. We are not +big enough_. Aloud he suggested: "Doc, can't we make a start without +them and just keep the door open? Bring them in when we're stronger +ourselves?" + +"Oh, son, if we desert Pak now, she's finished. Over-confidence. +Lantis will go over her like a tide. We might just turn that tide. If +not, we _must_ be ready to help her escape with--whatever's left.... +Well, at least we agree on this: Helen and the women must go to the +island, at once." + +"Tomorrow." Dorothy choked. "If the boats haven't started yet--" + +"All right, dear. Tomorrow. And one man should go with them." + +"You," Paul said. "You." + +Wright said inexorably, "No." His stare groped at Sears Oliphant. + +Sears was nakedly desperate. "Chris, I beg of you--you must not ask me +to go away from this battle." He was sweating, white. "I am--in a +sense--a religious man. The--Armageddon within, your own +phrase--please understand without my saying any more. Don't ask me to +go." + +"Ed won't go.... Paul?" + +_Leave him, with Sears' inner torments and Ed's arrogance?_ "No, Doc." + +Ann Bryan said, "I'm staying for the show." + +Dorothy lowered her cheek to the brown fuzz of Helen's head; the +baby's absurd square of palm found Paul's finger. Helen was almost +eight months old--Lucifer months. The new life in Dorothy had been +conceived in the last month of the rains. Dorothy said, "I'm going, +Nancy, with Helen. As a valuable brood mare, I can't afford heroism. +Neither can you." + +The giant women crossed the bridge; they had lingered outside, knowing +the Charins needed to talk alone. Ann said, "I've heard the argument. +I'm not pregnant yet. I've learned to shoot damn' well." + +Wright asked, "Will you abide by a vote when Ed gets back?" + +Ann pushed her fingers into black hair, cut short as a man's. "I +suppose I must.... If no men get to the island, how do two women and a +girl child increase and multiply, or shouldn't I ask?" + +Wright mumbled inadequately, "We'll reach the island." + +Ann said, "Then you already see it as a retreat?" + +Wright was silent. He tried to smile with confidence at the giant +women and children, who were sober with reflected unhappiness--all but +nine-year-old Dunin, who trotted to Paul and hugged him with her large +arms and announced: "I learned six words while you were gone. Hi, +listen! 'Brain': that's here and here. 'Me-di-tation': that happens in +the brain when it's quiet. Mm-mm.... 'Breast': that's these. And +'breath': that's ooph, like that. 'Breeze': that's a breath with +nobody blowing it.... I forgotten six." + +Dorothy murmured. "Tem--tem--" + +Dunin hopped up and down. "'Tempest!' Big _big_ breeze--" + +"That's perfect," said Paul. "Perfect...." + +Before the five-month rainy season had made travel on the sodden, +gasping ground too miserable, Mijok had explored a half circle of +territory forty miles in radius east of the hills, for others who +might be willing to learn new ways. It was slow work, often +discouraging. He had located two bands of free-wandering women and +children--twenty in all--and stirred their curiosity and friendliness. +But he had been able to recruit only three other males. There was Rak. +Blackfurred Elis and tawny Surok were in vigorous middle years, hard +to convince but quick to learn once the barrier was down. + +Kamon was accepted leader of the women. White with age, gaunt, +flat-breasted, stooped but quick on her feet, Kamon rarely smiled, but +her good nature was profound. "Ann," she said, "you ought to go. +We--if we cannot fight off these southern pygmies, we can escape. But +you? One of us would have to carry you. And as Mashana Dorothy says, +your womb is needed." (Mashana--sweetheart, mother, hunting companion, +friend.) + +Wright said, "You, Dorothy, Helen, and the giant children." + +That brought murmuring. Kamon checked it: "Only four children still +need milk. You, Samis, your breasts are big: you will go." Kamon +turned with gentle deference to one authority she felt to be stronger +than her own under the laws: "Doc?" Paul found it comfortable, no +longer even amusing, that Wright should be known to the giants by his +inevitable nickname. The pygmies disliked the short sound, and initial +_D_ always bothered them. To them he was Tocwright, or more often +Tocwright-Who-Plays-with Gray-Fur-at-His-Throat. + +"Yes, Kamon. Samis too. Paul, how many trips will that take?" + +"Three--leaving fuel for about three more of the same length." + +Wright nodded. "Ed has a notion of using the lifeboat for a weapon. +Hedgehop, scare 'em to hell. But with fuel so low--" + +There was shadow at the drawbridge. Ed Spearman flung aside the +carcass he had brought. Ann's white face was still, though she clung +to him briefly when he kissed her. It had occurred to Paul that Ann's +image of love would not be given reality anywhere in the galaxies: she +wished moments to be eternities and a human self to be a mirror of +desire. _But Dorothy and I--somehow we've learned to let each other +live...._ "More news," Spearman said. "I stopped at the village. A spy +of Pakriaa's came home last night--must be a sharp article: did the +sixty-odd miles up the lake shore in nothing flat, with facts and +figures." + +"Lantis is moving." Wright dropped his hands to his bony knees. + +"No, Doc, but will in a day or so." Spearman sat down, holding Ann's +fingers till she pulled them away. He nodded to Sears and Paul. "Good +trip?" He had grown even more rugged in a year of Lucifer. He wore +only shorts and Earth-made shoes; months of handling a heavy bow had +made his upper arms almost as thick as the narrow part of Mijok's +forearm. His face had deepened its lines; he had never smiled easily. + +"Very good," Sears said. "The island is--" He was silent. + +Spearman grunted. "You're sold too? Well, here's the news. One: you +remember Pakriaa's second challenge, sent by two warriors, correct and +formal--trust Pak for that. One of those messengers is returning. The +spy ran on ahead--with part of the body of the other ambassador." He +studied the sickened faces. "Two: the spy says Lantis plans to send +four thousand on the lake boats, another six thousand overland. +Pakriaa--who is in a state of mind I don't know how to describe, not +jitters exactly--Pakriaa thinks we may feel the lake-boat drums +tomorrow. She doesn't know what they are, by the way--invention of +Lantis, I guess. From her description they must be drums, maybe hollow +logs mounted on boats. She heard them last year in the war we +interrupted. You feel them before you hear them, she says: she thinks +it was a lake devil consulting with the Queen of the World. Three: the +spy wasn't sure, but thinks Lantis has already sent six hundred east +of the lake to make a big circle, come down on the settlement from the +northeast." + +"Smart," Paul said. "To drive us into the kaksma hills?" + +"The kaksma hills." Spearman's gray eyes squinted in a sort of +laughter. "They're not so bad. The critters may be all they say, after +dark, but--I'd better own up: I've gone that way on my last three solo +trips. Safe enough in daylight, when they're half blind. I killed a +few today." + +Sears asked quickly, "Bring back specimens?" + +Spearman teased the fat man with waiting and chuckled and nodded at +the asonis carcass. "Tied to one of the hoofs. Don't look so worried, +Doc--I waded plenty of streams on the way back." He rose with heavy +grace and strolled out on the bridge. "Come a minute, some of you." +Paul joined him; Wright stayed as he was; Sears was examining the +kaksma's gray, thick-tailed body, holding back its pinkish lip. Paul +caught a repellent glimpse of the jutting upper canines; the molars +were shearing tools like a cat's. He saw the spade claws of the +forefeet. The jet eyes were like a mole's. "Look," Spearman said, "the +hills. Notice that hogback at the southern end--it's five miles long. +Riddled with burrows. They must live on small game on the meadow below +and hunt the other side of the hills too, where it's jungle." His +fingers dug at Paul's shoulder. He spoke loudly enough to be heard by +all: "Listen: the earth at the burrows is red ocher. Understand? +Hematite." + +Wright let out his breath sharply. "So--" + +"Yeah. Just a five-mile mountain of iron ore. Merely what I've been +looking for ever since we crashed. For a start. From iron to steel +to--ah.... And just when we've _got_ it--God! with organized pygmy +labor--" He strode back into the fortress, glancing obliquely at the +silent giant women. "The pygmies do understand work, you know. Well, +never mind it now. Of course we must get the baby and the women to +your island right away. As a temporary refuge, we must use it." He +watched Wright with unqualified sadness. "Apart from that, you know +what I think of your Island of Lotos-Eaters--" + +"That's not just, Ed." + +"Adelphi then. Well, the women and Helen--" + +"And the giant children, with Samis to nurse the youngest." + +Spearman asked evenly, "Paul, how's the charlesite?" + +"After the trips Doc mentioned, enough for three more." + +Ann's keen ears caught a far-off sound. "Mijok's coming back." + +The music grew slowly manifest: Mijok, in an Earth song more than two +hundred years old. Long-flowing chanteys and slower spirituals suited +him. He had teased Ann to teach him all she knew, even after she lost +interest. Swift melodies and rapid syllables were beyond him--the +depth of his tone rendered them grotesque. More than a mile away, he +was wallowing in "Shenandoah"--Mijok, to whom the ocean was only a +word and a river steamboat the cloudiest of legends. Other voices, +true on pitch, followed his solo: + +"_Away--we're bound away...._" + +Paul asked, "How many, Nan?" + +Ann shut her eyes. "Four, besides Mijok and--yes, Lisson's singing. At +least two new recruits. Ah--they can sing before they talk." She +hurried into that thatched house-within-a-house which was her comer of +privacy on Lucifer. The giant women were smiling, though Kamon's eyes +followed Ann with trouble and pity. They hummed in three-part +counterpoint. Their voices had the range of a Charin baritone; Paul +missed Muson, who could approach the tenor. Sears' bass moved in, a +well-behaved trombone teasing a crowd of bassoons. Dorothy's alto +added a warm thread of sound.... + +The tall children and women poured out over the bridge when Mijok and +his companions were still distant. Musical thunder in the woods pulsed +along the ground. Spearman smiled indulgently. "Just like a bunch of +kids." + +"Yes," Wright said. "The pygmies are more serious. They have wars." + +Sears stopped humming and mumbled, "Don't, Chris...." + +Mijok brought in his triumph, beaming and warm. "And my smallest +woman?" Dorothy placed the naked morsel that was Helen in his waiting +hands. Mijok was bemused. "How can anything be so small?" + +Dorothy claimed: "Seven pounds at birth--that ain't hay, Mijok." + +"Growing too," Elis said. The golden-furred girl Lisson tickled +Helen's chest with the tip of a forefinger, and Mijok introduced the +newcomers. One was timid. "Just a boy," Mijok explained. "Knows some +words already, though. Danik?" + +The giant boy whispered, "Good day." The other was older, black like +Elis, trying to display stern indifference, but Surok eased him into +relaxation with a few words in the old language. + +For Mijok, speech had still the brilliance of newness but was wholly +flexible; he reveled in colloquialisms, acquired mainly from Sears and +Dorothy. "While the boys and I were out having a hell of a time, +what's with local industries? The island, gentlemen?" + +"Good," Sears said. "Better than I dared dream." + +"And those tough babies in the south--anything new?" + +Sears winced. "That part ain't good." + +Mijok fondled the fat man's arm with a hand mild as silk. "Now, Jock, +now. We'll give 'em hell, that's what we'll do. Hey, Paul?" + + + + +3 + + +Abara trotted between Sears and Paul in the forest aisle, a silent +ugly man with popeyes, bulging underlip, jutting ears; thirty inches +tall. He was twenty-six. His potbellied softness had the beginning sag +of middle age. There was politics, Paul guessed, in his presence at +the camp--it was not because the queen had tired of him that he was +temporarily detached from the harem. His body was agile for all its +pokiness, his mind even more nimble; his English, when he stooped to +use it, was good. After the noon meal Abara had appeared, crossing the +drawbridge like a wisp of red smoke, ignoring the giants, reminding +Sears obliquely that it was three days since he had visited the +clearing near the camp, where the white olifants had learned to come. + +Sears' love for the great leaf eaters had deepened with familiarity. +He had easily persuaded the others to guarantee their permanent +protection in the laws. He had taught the pygmies to call them +olifants, a shrewd stroke, conveying to the Neolithic mind that the +animals were of Sears' totem. Even during the long ordeal of the rains +he had gone alone for whole days and nights, following olifant trails, +sitting in patience where a broad-leaf tree they enjoyed was abundant. +Deep forest was no place for a man who moved slowly and shrank from +discomfort and danger, yet Sears held to this undertaking as +stubbornly as Wright to his dreams of a community of good will under a +government of laws. And before all except Paul and Wright, Sears was +able to preserve a manner like the face of Lake Argo on a still +morning. That calm gave him, in the eyes of the pygmies, more puzzling +divinity than they found in the others. Abara worshiped from behind a +mask of cynical blankness. Pakriaa seemed almost to love him openly. +She was not arrogant with him; when he spoke she listened. She +assigned soldiers to collect the insects, fish, small animals he +wanted for study; she brought him gifts--an earthenware vessel with +ritual painting, odd flowers, ornaments of wood and bone and clay. She +liked to sit by him when he was at the microscope and peek, mystified, +into the country of the lens. + +Sears had let the olifants grow used to him. He talked to them. He +learned they like to be rubbed above the tip of the trunk and on the +vast flat tops of their heads--for this luxury they would kneel, +rumbling and sighing. Eventually he dared climb into the natural +saddle between hump and skull: they allowed it. They were never +excited nor in a hurry. The kaksmas they probably avoided by keen +scent and flight in times of danger; they kept clear of the omasha by +going into open ground only at night. + +The clearing was silent except for muted trilling of illuama. The +ground was trodden; purple-leaf vines hung dead and brown, ripped out +by trunks and tusks. Sears said that once, with no notion of conveying +the idea, he had tugged peevishly at a vine under the nose of his +favorite cow. "So, she came and fetched it loose--tired of watching me +act like a damn fool." + +Abara said, "I will whistle, me...." Two came, spectrally calm. +"Susie!" Sears called. "Been a good girl, hey?" The old cow let down +her many tons to have her head scratched. Another arrived on +fog-silent feet; then two bulls together, munching leaves. The five +were placid, enjoying the hot stillness and Sears' purring talk. The +largest bull stood ten feet at the shoulder, Paul estimated, as +Abara's two-feet-six approached him, seized a lowered ear, and climbed +up. Abara piped: "We walk now, Mister Johnson." + +Mister Johnson's pale eyes noted Paul's bulging jacket; the boneless +finger of his trunk groped suggestively till Paul produced a +melon-like fruit. "Hoo-hee!" Abara crowed. "We thank you." They +vanished in the shadows. + +"Susie, want to dig some vines?" But Sears halted in the act of +climbing her neck. Spearman had joined them, with a good hunter's +quiet. + +"You really have something there." Spearman was cordial and flushed. +"Pygmies still make the best wine. Ours is no damn good, yet." + +"Meant to ask how the last turned out." + +"Needs ripening, like everything else." + +"In fact," said Paul, "you're slightly plastered." + +"But slightly." Ed grinned. "How if I climb on one of those?" + +Sears was doubtful. "Have to get acquainted first. Mister Smith over +there--he shook me off the first time. Not rough--just wasn't ready." + +"They pull vines at command? You can steer 'em?" + +"Sure. If they like you. Knee pressure." + +"Abara's good?" + +"They prefer him to me. Arek is better still. I miss her." + +"Mijok rides, doesn't he?" + +"Mijok and Elis. Surok's a bit skittish. I guess Pak thinks it's +undignified--or else the damned witches disapprove." + +"Hm.... We have, maybe, three days before Lantis hits us--" + +"Lantis--I'd succeeded in forgetting her for three minutes." Sears +drooped his head against the column of Mister Smith's foreleg; eyes +closed, he cursed without humor. He dredged up almost forgotten words +from the old years of Earth, from bars, docks, dissecting rooms, at +least four major religions. He cursed Lantis root and branch, ancestry +and posterity, heart, body, and brain. Regaining a trace of mirth, he +outlined a program of correction that would have kept hell under +forced draft for a thousand years. Still with closed eyes, he asked, +"What's the point, Ed? What's the damned point?" + +"How many of these critters have you tamed?" + +"Five. There's another smelling around, not ready yet." + +"And five riders--you ride 'em, don't you, Paul?" Paul nodded. + +Abara and Mister Johnson returned in silence, under the trees behind +Spearman, who was unaware of them. Sears said, "Paul's good. Good +balance." + +"So you have a rider for each mount.... Well, I talked it over with +Doc--he says it's your department. What if a bunch of those animals, +with armed riders--" + +"No," said Sears. "Quite impractical." + +"Why?" + +"Well.... They won't go in the open--omasha." + +"They will at night, you told me." + +"They are not fighters." + +"If they go where you order 'em--" + +Sears said, "No. If Paul and I and the two strongest giants were +trying that, what's left? You, Doc, Surok, and the giant women." + +Spearman snapped: "Then use only three--Abara, Mijok, Elis." + +"Mijok will fight beside Chris. You know that. So will I." + +Spearman turned away, noticing Abara and Mister Johnson for the first +time and ignoring them. Popeyes watched him from a mountain of white +flesh. "All right. Oh, I almost forgot: Doc wants you back at the camp +for another conference. It has just occurred to him that since we're +about to be wiped off the planet we ought to have a military +commander. For the look of the thing, you reckon? You know, I dreamed +of space travel from the time I was five. Never imagined I'd do it +with a Sunday school. Don't hurry of course. Just come when it damn +well suits you." + +Paul caught up with him on the trail. "Look, Ed--" + +"I'll recite it for you: mustn't lose my temper. We mustn't divide; +mustn't quarrel; Doc's word is holy at all times--" + +"No one says that." + +Spearman wasn't listening. "Goddamn it, why do you think I've gone +away alone so often? To explore, sure, to find things we need. By God +I've found 'em too, haven't I? Also to get away from the Sunday +school. Beating my brains out to win a little advance--you people +can't see--" + +"What do _you_ think we should do? I mean right now--Lantis." + +Spearman fretted in silence, striding as if speed and heavy steps +could ease his distress. "Why, we ought to have gone to live at +Pakriaa's village a year ago, after the reconciliation, while they +were still dizzy from the fall of the idol. You remember--Pak was +almost humble. Ready for big changes. We could have done anything with +her--then. Eliminated the witches. Taught and trained the best of her +followers. We'd have ironworking now. We'd have a competent army. Why, +we could take the initiative, drive south, break up anything Lantis +may have while she's on the march. Yeah--a year ago. Sure--Mijok +wouldn't approach the village, so _we_ mustn't move there. Every day +is an opportunity thrown away, wasted." + +"You think we should have abandoned the giants?" + +"What've they _got_?" Spearman cried. "Don't even understand +work--throw things around at a great rate, and then somebody sees a +new bug or has a funny idea or starts singing. Or asks Doc to explain +a point in philosophy. Or they decide to just sit and look at nothing +for two hours. Fight? Mijok talks a good fight. You couldn't make 'em +fight with a kick in the rear." + +"Never tried it." + +Spearman smiled miserably. "One doesn't, with a critter eight feet +tall.... All right, they're people. They're intelligent. If we had all +the time in the world and nothing threatening I'd like to study 'em +myself. But look at the numbers. Three on the island. Six grown women +here. Twelve flutterbrained children. Elis, Surok, Mijok, and the two +tenderfeet they brought in today. Is that an army? As for right +now--Hell, I've given up making suggestions." He tensed and stopped +short. Paul glanced behind; Sears and Abara were catching up. "Thought +I heard something." + +"What?" + +"Drums.... Guess I imagined it.... Lantis must have a terrific +organization. Bound to, Paul, in a community of sixty thousand. Hadn't +you thought of that at all? Communications, laws, disciplined army, a +forest agriculture at least as good as Pakriaa's. Why, from something +Pak said, I think they even have a monetary system--anyway something +more elaborate than the barter that's good enough for Pak's little +cluster of villages. Stone Age--but that's partly an accident of +ecology, isn't it? I mean, they have to avoid the hills and open +ground--wouldn't be easy to get a start in metalworking when you have +to stay in the woods. I believe they're a people under strong internal +pressure toward the next stage of civilization. With labor, +organization, a few modern ideas, there would be ways to clean the +kaksmas out of the hills. Then metals. We know the omasha breed on +rock ledges wherever the kaksmas can't climb. They could be +exterminated too. There's a whole world for the taking. Doc is right +that the new culture has to be a blend of ours and theirs. Oh, the +giants too, maybe, sometime. But it won't be done by piddling around +with the kind of pretty idealism that never worked even on Earth." + +Paul groped for the unspoken thing. "You'd have us join forces with +Lantis?" + +Spearman halted to stare at him. There was a flush of blood around his +eyes, the visible pain of frustration that never gave him rest. He +waited till Sears and Abara had come up. "I'm a minority. I haven't +suggested a damned thing." He was silent until they reached the camp. + +Abro Pakriaa was there, with seven of her soldiers. All seven wore +purple skirts, insignia of leadership--"captains" was the nearest +word. With makeshift pigments and brittle whitebark, Paul had recently +painted such a group. The effort was for Pakriaa; she had been gravely +delighted with it, seeing how prominent in it were her own vivid blue +skirt and taller stature. To Paul's eyes the colors had sworn +horribly, and he had been glad when the princess carried the daub +away, balanced joyfully on her bald head. + +Pak's seven captains made it a visit of state. Wright was soberly +intent, and Ann stood by him, regally silent; play-acting for +Pakriaa's benefit, but Ann sardonically enjoyed the pose. Pakriaa had +gradually accepted the fact of Tocwright's leadership, but her view of +the status of Charin women remained addled by contradictions; the idea +of social and mental equality between the sexes eluded her completely. +Dorothy sat watchful at the opening of the "home" room--Helen would be +sleeping inside; Dorothy's fists were pushed into her cheeks, dark +eyes upturned to Pakriaa's explanatory monologue. Abara effaced +himself. Mijok loomed with folded arms on Wright's other side. The +rest of the giants kept to the background. + +"Abro Samiraa, Abro Kamisiaa, Abro Brodaa--" Pakriaa was naming the +heads of the five northern villages. A loose alliance, but those +villages had fought powerfully against Lantis a year ago and each +could provide a hundred and fifty first-line soldiers and fifty of the +skittish male bowmen. "They are with me, my sisters," Pakriaa said, +with sad gravity and not much of her natural swagger. "The wormseed +Lantis has broken custom--her own people must spit on her. For the +death of my messenger I spit on her heart and loins, I spit on her +footprints." + +The arithmetic was simple, Paul thought. A scant twelve hundred +fighters against a three-sided attack from over ten thousand. Four +Charin men with rifles, automatics, scanty ammunition, heavy bows. A +handful of giants who knew nothing of war but theory and whose basic +nature would revolt at the reality. Spitting wouldn't help. He forced +himself to attend to what Wright was saying: "There must be one +commander." + +"I give no orders to Abro Samiraa and her sisters, my equals." + +"Would you and she and the others accept direction from one of us?" + +Pakriaa murmured, "I have never seen you fight." + +Spearman laughed. Wright said, "You will, Abro Pakriaa. If you will +accept one of us as commander, the army can strike as one soldier. +There would be less confusion. And Lantis will not expect it." + +That brought shrewdness to the little red face. "But you can do +nothing hiding behind this pile of stones." + +"A temporary shelter while we shoot. You know our fire sticks. This +building commands the upper part of the lake and this end of the +meadow. We will not be trapped here. There will be no siege. If it is +necessary to retreat, we'll know the right moment to do it." + +The oldest captain, Nisana, a wiry, quiet woman, said, "Abro Kamisiaa +herself spoke of a thing like this." + +Pakriaa murmured absently, "Did I give you leave to speak?" But she +was not angry; she was considering it. "This is better, Tocwright, +what you say now. I will send, learn if my sisters agree. But who will +be the leader?" + +"That should be decided now," Wright said, and Paul thought: _Here it +comes, Ed--you get what you want at last._ And he remembered that +obscure thing which might not have been in Spearman's mind at all: +_desertion_--the thing was a dirty word, and the mind would not speak +it. But Wright was staring at him--at him, not at Spearman. "There's +only one of us," Wright said, "who ought to lead, in this trouble. +That is _my_ feeling, Abro Pakriaa, but I alone cannot decide it. All +of us here should vote on it." + +Pakriaa understood the nature of a vote. Under her iron monarchy, +minor village matters were often decided by that method if her own +attitude happened to be neutral. Once made, and approved by herself, a +pygmy vote was binding as magic. Her gaze touched the giants with a +sour smile. She was visibly counting; then she was studying Paul with +new curiosity. + +Of the giants, only the two new recruits were not in evidence. Paul +glimpsed the red-furred boy peering from the doorway of Mijok's +private room; Surok went in to soothe him. Pakriaa said, "I will +consent. After the vote I will inform my sisters as quickly as I can." + +Wright's fingers were frozen in his gray beard. "Then I ask that Paul +Mason take command, his orders to be followed without question." + +Paul could not speak. _How did this happen? How can I...._ He heard +Ann, imitating the formality of Wright's words, but with an undertone +of passionate protest: "I ask for the leadership of Edmund Spearman." + +Spearman frowned at her, flushed, proud, perhaps amazed. He said +doubtfully, "Other nominations...? Voice vote?" + +"Voice vote, as you wish," Wright said. + +"M-make it voice vote," Dorothy whispered, and her face was begging: +_Is it too much? Can you stand it? Is it what I ought to do..._? + +"Satisfactory," Spearman said. Paul nodded helplessly. + +Dorothy said, "Paul Mason." + +Wright glanced at Pakriaa. When Spearman was nominated she had +abandoned her patronizing air; she said with enthusiasm, "Spearman." + +Mijok's voice rumbled in the depths: "Paul Mason." + +The voting went quickly after that. Abara slipped into shadow and +shook his head before Wright could call his name. Sears voted for Paul +with a wry attempt at a grin. Surok hesitated; his tawny face smiled +at Paul with apology and he said, "Spearman." Golden Lisson voted the +same way. The other giant women and Elis voted for Paul. The children +were quiet, not needing to be told that this was grown-up business. +When one of the smallest boys started to hum, little Dunin squatted +behind him and covered his mouth. + +All the pygmy captains but one had followed Pakriaa's lead, after a +pantomime of meditation, probably for the record. Now, with a vote of +10-10, this one captain was full of trouble. She understood that she +would be the last to vote and must break the tie. This was Nisana, +taciturn, with the white scar of a wound that had destroyed her lower +left breast and run jaggedly down her side; Paul had seen her often +but knew little of her. She was studying the candidates with a +manifestly honest, tormenting effort to decide, and she avoided +Pakriaa's astounded glare. The green eyes fixed themselves at last on +one candidate with a blinding innocence. + +"Paul Mason." + +Pakriaa started as if slapped, but recovered quickly. She said, +"Tocwright, is Abara not to vote?" + +Abara shuffled a step backward, two steps forward. It brought him +nearer the bulk of Sears Oliphant. His bulging eyes tried to escape +Wright's look, and Pakriaa's; his ugly lips wobbled. He squeaked: +"Paul Mason." + +"Twelve-ten," Wright said. "Abro Pakriaa, I am grateful--" + +Pakriaa ignored him. She was saying with acid sweetness, "Abroshin +Nisana, perhaps you wish to remain here?" + +It seemed to Paul that a mechanical force within him was taking over, +unsought, at a moment of greatest need. "That would be excellent, Abro +Pakriaa. If I am commander, I need one of you here: I am glad to +select Abroshin Nisana." + +The princess faced him. Her eyelids flickered--usually a sign of pygmy +amusement more revealing than laughter, but one never knew, exactly. +The machine labored, weighing dangers and advantages. A direct order +now might win over Pakriaa or lose her completely and all the twelve +hundred. She understood and admired aggressiveness; she was also a +bundle of touchy personal pride. And--the slim spear in her hand could +strike like a cobra. Paul said, "Abro Pakriaa, you will tell the other +leaders our decision, and if they agree, have them come here at +once." There was a gray-white shadow at his left. The balance, +swinging delicately, was visible in Pakriaa's almost sleepy eyes. He +thought: _One thing quicker than a pygmy's arm--a giant's_. At least +he would not be pierced with white-stone, while Mijok stood there. + +Pakriaa's arm swung--the harmless right arm, a harmless beckoning +gesture to six of her captains, who followed her out of the fortress, +leaving Abroshin Nisana staring at the ground and very much alone. + +Spearman came alive. He spoke plainly, cheerfully: "Paul, count on me +for anything. Do whatever I can." His voice had full sincerity. If his +eyes were a little too steady, too candid--never mind it. It was a +pleasure to take his hand, thank him, turn to immediate needs. + +"Two lifeboat trips right away, Ed, in what's left of daylight. Ann, +Samis, and the four smallest giant children on the first. All the +carpentry and garden tools. Third trip in the morning." Wright's +sudden relaxation was praise.... + +Ann left, with no more protest than a backward look. But at the last +moment she ran back to kiss Wright on the mouth.... + +And when Ed was returning from the second flight, which had carried +Dunin and four other giant children to the island--when it was night +and the red eye of the lifeboat was slipping down from above the +hills, then the drums began. + + + + +4 + + +Paul heard the drums from within the room that was his and +Dorothy's--merely a section of the thatched lean-to inside the +fortress wall, but Dorothy had given it the reality of a living place. +There were no chairs: one sat on a rug which was a cured uskaran pelt, +a gift from Abro Brodaa, whose people had hunted down the tigerish +beast after it raided her village. The bed was only a clumsy framework +with an asonis hide stretched across it. But the shelter had become +dear with use, and Dorothy had hung a few of Paul's paintings on the +walls--a portrait of Mijok, one of Christopher Wright which had caught +something of the old man's brooding alertness. The red jungle flowers +were too cloyingly rich to be kept here, but Dorothy had found a blue +meadow shrub, and a white bloom that hid in shady ground and recalled +the scent of jonquils.... + +It was too dark to see her plainly; Paul knew her eyes were open on +him. Barely audible against his shoulder, she said, "I thought I'd be +insatiable. I only want to be near and not think." Nevertheless +thought goaded her. "Ten thousand--ten thousand--What can you _do_?" + +All he could say was rehearsed, mechanical, and she had heard it +before. "Frontal attack first, because the pygmies couldn't be led +into anything else. But I shall turn it into an ordered retreat--to +the island. Drive south, skirt the southern end of the hills, then +straight for the coast. We'll be at the island in--oh, soon--" + +"But the range--the coastal mountains opposite the island--you can't +cross them--they rise so sheer--" + +"Remember the river that flows almost due west from these little +hills? It comes to the sea north of the range. We'll make rafts to get +down that, I think. There aren't any falls. At the coast we'll +contrive something--dugouts with outriggers. I've already shown old +Rak how to make one; he may be working on it now." + +Dorothy pressed a hand over his mouth. She stammered, "Make this +moment last." But even during the fine sharp agony there were words: +"I shall keep--a bonfire on that beach--night and day...." and when +his hand was slack in her hair and she seemed to be hardly breathing, +Paul heard the drums. + +They were far off and everywhere. Only the remembering brain insisted they +were on the lake. They were not sound at all, at first. A pressure pain in +the back of the skull, a rasping of nerve endings. Nothing but drums. +Hollow logs with a hide membrane, rubbed and pounded by tiny painted +savages. "You must go tonight after all." Dorothy could not speak. He put +Helen in her fumbling arms; he hurried out to the open space, saw the eye +of the lifeboat returning. The drums took on a rhythm, a throbbing in 5/8 +time, rapid, venomous. But far away. Still not quite +sound--_Ah_-ah-ah-ah-ah, _ah_-ah-ah-ah-ah--growing no nearer, no louder, +but gaining in vicious urgency, relentless as a waterfall, a runaway +machine. _Ah_-ah-ah-ah-ah.... + +Paul hoped that Wright and Sears might be sleeping. It would be an +hour yet before Pakriaa could return with the other leaders, if indeed +she ever did. Elis and Abara were on sentry duty. The three giant +children still at the camp--would they be sleepless, keyed up to vivid +fantasies of the island, like Charin children before a great journey? + +Kamon sat alone by the gate. A small figure drooped at the other end +of the enclosure. Since there was no immediate task for her, Paul had +told Abroshin Nisana to rest, but he knew her little bald head turned +to follow him. "Kamon--I'm going to have the third flight made +tonight. There would be room for you too in the boat. Will you go?" + +Black lips and ancient white face smiled up at him. "If you wish." + +"I do. Stay close to Dorothy. That will leave four of you giant women +here. I wish they could all go. Tejron's sober and wise--she'll keep +them together. You're more needed on the island. Don't let Dorothy be +much alone." + +The old woman mused: "This Charin love is a strange thing. It isn't +our natures for two persons to come so close. But I see something good +in it, I think...." Paul struggled to hear her over the almost +subsonic yammer of the drums. _Ah_-ah-ah-ah-ah--it seemed not to +trouble Kamon much, though she would be hearing it even more plainly. +"I will stay with her, Paul," she said, and watched the long glide as +Spearman brought the boat in. + +On the drawbridge Spearman cocked his head at the drums. "That's it." +He read Paul's thought: "The rest tonight, huh? Better, I'd think." + +"Yes. Get something to eat, why don't you? Kamon is going too." + +Spearman nodded, unsurprised. "Not hungry.... Wonder how long they +keep it up...." + +Wright came from his room with sleepless eyes. "Till they attack, +probably. All night, maybe all tomorrow. To soften us up. Damn +them...." + +Somehow Paul was walking to the boat, carrying the baby for Dorothy. +He climbed in with her, adjusted the straps. Helen waked and was +fretful till she found the breast "You bore her alone--without any--" + +"Alone!" Dorothy was astonished. "I had you. Doc's a fine medical man, +whatever he says. Don't you remember how Mijok held out his arm for me +to grab when it got tough? He said, 'I am a tree.'" Now she was +holding his look with an indestructible smile until the rest came and +Paul had to back out of the cramped cabin to give them room; then had +to stand aside while the bright relic of twenty-first-century man spat +its green flame and hot gases at the lake and leaped to soaring and +slid into moonless darkness above the hills. The drums wept, raved, +obscenely whispered. + +Paul did not know Sears Oliphant was with him till he heard the voice: +"I think, Paul--the drums defeat their purpose. They make me sore +instead of scared. I think you won't need to worry about me, Paul." + +"I never have." He glanced at the fat man's holstered automatic, +remembered the cleanness of the rifle hanging in Sears' room. "My +father used to say most men are good watchdogs, who know they're +scared but stand guard in spite of it; only a few are rabbits and +possums." Paul turned his back on the hills. Nothing was there to +see, nothing at all. "I wish you'd known my father. He was a tall man. +Nuts about animals--always brought 'em into the talk--illustration, +example. Couldn't stand to see even a wasp beating against the glass; +you never knew when a deer mouse would climb out of his pocket and run +down his pants leg." Paul laughed. The drums fretted in 5/8, +passionate, soft, cruel. + +Sears watched blue fireflies over a lake so peacefully still that the +sapphire reflections were as real as their cause. "A teacher, wasn't +he?" + +"For a while, till he settled in New Hampshire. They wouldn't let him +teach nineteenth and twentieth-century history as he saw it. He saw it +in terms of ethical conflict, the man versus the state, self-reliance +versus the various dreary socialisms, enlightened altruism versus +don't-stick-your-neck-out, and he didn't give a good god-damn whether +the first atomic submersible was built in 1952 or '53. Doc would have +loved him too: he knew what was meant by a government of laws. He made +his students search out not only theory but the actual dismal +consequences of the doctrine that the end justifies the +means--Alexander, Augustus, Napoleon, Lenin, Hitler. That was regarded +as 'wilfully minimizing the significance of technological advance.' He +didn't minimize it; he just recognized that other matters were vastly +more important, and he didn't care to see the machine built up into +one more mumbo jumbo. So he sent me through college by breeding +children's riding ponies and selling hatching eggs. Not a bad life, or +so he said.... Jocko, will Pakriaa come back?" + +"I believe so.... Ah, Chris--nice evening for the month of Charin." + +Wright was a paleness in the dark; stern, weary, tall, watching the +lake, talking to himself: "The month we named for ourselves--end of +Year One--oh, I do call that a pardonable vanity.... Paul, I was +wholly selfish in choosing you. I've given you a burden no one should +have to carry." + +"We're all carrying it." + +"Thank you, son." Wright moved away to stand alone at the rim of the +lake, listening to the crawling thunder of the drums. Twice, Paul +heard him speak, with an intensity beyond pain: "No one is expendable. +No one is expendable...." + +Sears exclaimed, "Look!" There were five white cloud-like shapes at +the edge of the woods. "Oh, they've never done this before. Susie! +What's the matter? There now, girl, come tell the old man--" + +Paul followed him. "It's the drums--don't you think?" + +The five had been complaining softly, but that ceased as Sears moved +among them, patting their legs, soothing them. "But Paul--their +grounds are mostly north of here--there now, Mister Smith, you old +bastard--so why didn't they travel away from the sound? Take it easy, +Millie, Miss Ponsonby--" + +"The wild ones probably did. But these had to come to you." + +"Oh.... That detachment of Lantis--the one in the northeast--" + +"Don't think so, Jocko. Pakriaa's spies are all around up there--we'll +have warning. Elis is posted half a mile north of us--he'd know--smell +'em if he didn't hear 'em. However, I'll go talk with him...." + +The depth of forest muted the drums--a little; they were still a +cumulative torture of anger in the inner darkness of the mind. Paul +saved the fading power of his Earth-made radion flashlight by +following his sense of the trail. He had learned to move as softly in +the jungle as any Charin could hope to do--more softly than Spearman, +softly enough to steal within spear range of the asonis. There was not +much danger here, unless it might be from the uskaran, a beast Paul +had glimpsed alive only once and then dimly, a striped thing slipping +snakily out of his vision in a sun-striped afternoon; the rug in his +and Dorothy's room could almost have been a tiger pelt. The black +reptiles were lovers of hot sun and shallow water, never going inland. +The squeak and rustle of a kaksma horde, it was said, could be heard +far off except during the rains, when all noises were smothered in the +long rush and whispering of waters. For all his silence, black Elis +was aware of him before Paul knew he had reached the sentry post. +"Paul--isn't it?" The night vision of the giants was better than the +Charins' but not like a cat's; they hunted at night only if the moon +was strong. + +"Yes. Everything quiet?" + +"Quieter than my heart." + +Paul still could not see him. "Saving my flashlight. Where are you?" +Elis chuckled and slipped an invisible hand around Paul's. "The +olifants came to the meadow. We wondered what disturbed them." + +"Drums. Nothing in the northeast yet. But a great many of the pygmies +are moving from the upper villages. I heard, and smelled the red +flowers." The people of Lantis, Pakriaa said, never wore those +flowers, and it would not be the nature of Elis to exaggerate his +powers of smell and hearing. + +"I think the animals wanted Sears. Could that be, Elis?" + +"Alojna--" Elis murmured the old word for them: it meant "white +cloud." "Two things nobody knows--the thoughts of Alojna and the +journeys of the red moon and the white moon when we cannot see them. +So we used to say. You give us a hint of knowledge of both things, and +more than a hint of much greater mysteries." Elis had always been +tireless in questioning Wright; more than Mijok, he was haunted by a +need to grope after intangibles, push outward the uneasy border +between known and unknown. "So there's never an end of mystery?" + +"Never." The hand was warm. "What is the nature of courage?" + +The giant's breathing was too quiet to be heard. "To go out, away from +a world, in a little shell--that must have needed courage." + +"Perhaps only a response to a drive of uncomprehended forces. But I +think courage is a known thing, Elis, an achievement of flesh and +blood--to hear the drums in the dark and stay at the post as you are +doing, as I hope I can do myself. I must go back. Lisson will come and +relieve you soon...." + +Pakriaa had returned, with her five equals. Wright had lit one of the +clay lamps. It burned pleasantly with an oil from the carcasses of the +same reptile that had once nearly destroyed Mijok, a thing which +pleased Mijok, for he liked to think that a creeping danger could also +be a source of light; and the use of this oil had been taught them by +the pygmies, who made almost monthly expeditions to marshy regions and +butchered the beasts by the dozens for the oil alone. + +Pakriaa was almost meek. Her smile for Paul could have been a Charin +smile; there was a tremor in her hands, and once they flew up to cover +her ears. The drums, he thought, might be a worse pain for her than +for his own breed. There was unconscious pathos in the precision of +her English: "I did not make clear that I will obey you. I may have +been angry; for that I am sorry--it is past. My sisters have agreed." + +Squat Abro Samiraa; lame, thin Abro Kamisiaa; sober Abro Brodaa--these +three Paul had met before. Abro Duriaa and Abro Tamisraa were from the +farthest villages, and shy; Duriaa was fat, with a foolish giggle; +Tamisraa had a feral furtiveness--the painted bones of her necklace +looked like human vertebrae. In Abro Samiraa Paul saw competence as +well as smoldering violence: the green of her eyes was dark jade; she +was a flat pillar of muscle from shoulder to hip. Paul guessed her to +be a devil of bravery, good in the front line and intelligent. Lame +Kamisiaa's bravery would be shrewd, vicious, and careful. In fat +Duriaa he thought he saw a politician, not a fighter; in Abro +Brodaa--there might be a thinker, even a dreamer, in Abro Brodaa. + +The princesses had brought news. A scout from Brodaa's village had +succeeded in locating the northeastern detachment of Lantis' army; it +was camped twelve miles to the northeast, on the far side of a deep +but narrow stream. The scout had shown the kind of nerve the pygmies +took for granted: she had crossed the creek to listen in the reeds and +had drifted downstream the entire length of the encampment. The +Vestoians were careless, overconfident, their dialect enough like her +own so that she could grasp the essentials; their unit was six hundred +strong, with no bowmen. The scout had heard discontented soldiers' +talk: the spearwomen missed their subject males, who were camp +followers as well as second-line fighters. Returning, the scout had +located and stalked a Vestoian sentry, stunned and gagged her, and +brought her to Brodaa's camp, where she was made to talk. Brodaa had +been about to describe this when Pakriaa glanced at Sears and +interrupted: "They plan to cross the stream before daylight, move +straight west, and try to push us down into the open ground, where the +rest of the army will roll over us." + +_The sentry is probably dead. I don't want to know, not now...._ The +machine in Paul took charge of the council of war, rejecting +compassion, rejecting everything beyond immediate need. "Abro +Samiraa--take the soldiers of your village and of Abro Duriaa's. Abro +Duriaa, you will be in command of your own people, but accept Abro +Samiraa's orders as if they were mine." Pakriaa intervened to +translate for the fat woman, who showed no hostility but rather +relief, and placed her hands formally under the spread fingers of Abro +Samiraa in token of subordination. "Abro Samiraa, take those three +hundred and the bowmen to the stream as quickly as you can with +silence, and attack. The important thing is to scatter them before +they are ready to move. If they retreat, follow them only enough to +confuse them and then return here at once. If you can take prisoners, +bring them here, unharmed. But do not be drawn into any long pursuit. +There are still eleven hours of darkness. I hope to see you return +long before sunrise." + +"Good!" Pakriaa exclaimed, and Samiraa grunted with pleasure. Brodaa +said, "Take my scout, sister. I have given her the purple skirt; she +is Abroshin now, and my friend." Duriaa waddled behind, and Paul sent +Abroshin Nisana to relieve Abara from sentry duty. Nisana was glad to +go, for Pakriaa still sent her sour glances, remembering the election. + +Sears was fretting: "My pets. Damn it, Paul, I dunno--they're huddled +out there in the meadow--just get in the way, get hurt." + +"Would they follow Abara?" + +"I think so...." Abara slipped in and puffed with pride when he +learned what was wanted. "Certainly they will follow Mister Johnson, +and Mister Johnson will follow me." + +Pakriaa laughed. She caught him by a prominent ear and hugged him to +her leanness, grinning at Brodaa over his head. "So ugly!" Pakriaa +nibbled his neck. "And he leads olifants! Don't be afraid, little +husband--I was never angry with you. Look at him!" She spun him +around for the lewd admiration of the other royalty. "I couldn't do +without him. When the war is over I'll have him back in my bed. But +now he leads olifants. Hurry, Abara--and don't hurt yourself." And she +sent him off with a pinch. + +"Keep them in the woods," Paul told him. "And stay with them." + +"Good." Pakriaa sobered. "He could do nothing. He never learned the +bow.... Ah, look!" The red dot of the lifeboat had caught her eye. +"Look, Abro Tamisraa--you never saw it fly at night." It moved with +apparent slowness, like a mad star, not toward them but toward the +lake, perhaps ten miles away; it was still high when the searchlight +beam stabbed down, probing from northeast to southwest, and vanished. +"It's all right," Paul said, "I suggested he scout the lake on the way +back...." The red eye silently tumbled; Wright gasped. "Still all +right," said Paul. "A dive. He can make it talk." But the moment +dragged out into an ugliness of waiting. + +Then orange fury glared against the underside of clouds and the clamor +of drums abruptly ceased. Paul said loudly, mechanically, "I think he +gave 'em the jet--set a few boats afire. I didn't order it, Doc. And +wouldn't try it myself...." Now the red dot was shooting upward, +disappearing as the boat circled once, then growing larger. Briefly +the searchlight illuminated the meadow, and Spearman came in, +overshooting slightly, driving almost to the moat before he checked. +He swaggered in, satisfied. "See it?" + +"Uh-huh. What did you learn?" + +"Those were drum boats. Why, my God, they opened out like little +orange flowers...! Well--the main fleet is 'way behind them, say +thirty miles down the lake, coming slow. Couldn't spot the land +army--no campfires." + +"All right. Sit in on this, Ed...." And the plan was drawn up, so far +as there could be a plan when the odds were ten to one in a world that +never asked for them. + +Paul, with Mijok and Pakriaa, would lead three hundred spearwomen and +a hundred bowmen south before daylight, in the hope of disorganizing +the advance with surprise and gunfire, but unless the Vestoians were +demoralized beyond expectation, this could be only a skirmish. They +would fall back, try to avoid losses. The remainder of the army would +stay at the edge of the woods until Lantis was in sight: Wright at the +fortress with the giant women, now only four, who could handle rifles; +Abro Kamisiaa and Abro Brodaa in the center; Sears and Abro Tamisraa +on the right flank in the west, with Elis and Surok. Spearman in the +lifeboat would follow the advance party at first-light. Paul said +nothing of the second drive, to the southeast, the retreat that would +seem like attack. When the time came for that, he must have in one +unit all that remained after the first wrath had spent itself--and +even then the pygmies would have to believe that they were attacking +single-heartedly, or they could not reach the southern end of the +range, but would probably be driven into the trap of the kaksma hills. + +The drums began again. They began after the council was ended and +Sears had gone to take charge of his command on the right flank, with +Elis and Surok and shifty Tamisraa. The other small red sovereigns had +gone too, and Wright had stalked into his room--to sleep, he said--and +Paul had followed Spearman out to the boat, where Spearman would sleep +until it was time to go. Spearman tapped his elbow. "You're surprising +me, boy. Better than I could have done, I think. We'll knock 'em +over." And the drums began. + +Spearman stared off at the lake; after a while he grinned, and the +lamp burning in the fortress caught the grimace. "Yeah," he sighed, +"well, I knew I only singed 'em." He climbed into the boat and glanced +down with a half salute, which Paul answered mechanically. But as Paul +walked away the thought stirred: _That was like goodbye...._ + +Paul went along the path at the edge of the woods. It was wide and +easy, broadened during the Year One by much travel between the camp +and Pakriaa's village. There were occasional small-voiced greetings +from the woods: these were Kamisiaa's and Brodaa's people, who knew +him. Brodaa cherished a painting he had made of the singing waterfall +above her village in return for that uskaran pelt. Many of these +soldiers would be chosen by Pakriaa to bring up the number of the +advance party to four hundred. + +There was no red moon tonight. The white moon was half the size of the +planet Earth, so far away that its glow was scarcely more than that of +a star, but Paul knew that by what light it gave the pygmies could see +him smile in response to their greetings. They would be studying him, +trying to weigh the tone of his answer. _One of them might save my +life tomorrow; certainly I shall have to see some of them die. They +are people._ + +There were two visible planets to follow the wandering of the no +longer alien star that was the sun. One was hidden tonight; the other, +red like Mars, hung over the eastern jungle in tranquillity. A little +shape detached itself from the trees to meet him. Abro Pakriaa. "Will +you not sleep tonight, Paul, before we go?" It was a human question, +sweetly spoken and meant kindly. + +"Later, I think." He stood by her awhile; in the blackness from which +she had come there was a steady mumbling, and Paul knew what it was: +the witches also had their part to play in these heavy hours, although +long before battle was joined they would be cowering in the villages. +Somewhere in the tree shadows they were squatting, muttering the +antique prayers. He wondered whether to go on and visit with Sears +awhile. _No: Elis is a rock, better company than I would be at the +moment...._ There was much, he thought, that would be good to talk +about with Pakriaa tonight; there ought to be words that would reach +her. Perhaps on this night a glimpse of Wright's vision would meet +with something better than amusement and distrust. But in the end he +only said, "We'll always be good friends, you and I." + +He thought she might take hold of his hand in the Charin gesture. She +did not--undignified perhaps. But she said, "Tocwright says we are all +one flesh." She said it thoughtfully, without contempt. + +"Yes. We are all one flesh." And lest he become a true Charin and +spoil a moment of truth with unnecessary words, Paul turned back to +the camp, seeing that she remained there in the open, looking south, +the grumbling witches behind her, before her the long night of drums +and no red moon. + +Mijok was not asleep. He sat cross-legged by the lamp. "I wanted to +thank you. Doc's gone to sleep at last, and before I could find the +words I wanted. It will be difficult to talk in the morning." + +Paul sat by him, puzzled. "To thank me?" + +"Because I've learned so much. And had so much pleasure in the +learning." Mijok yawned amiably, stretching his arms. "To thank you +for that, in case you or I should be dead tomorrow." + +It would have been easy to say: "Oh, we'll be all right--" Something +like that. Paul buried the words unspoken, knowing their triviality +would be a discourtesy, a dismissal of the insight and patience which +made it possible for Mijok to speak so casually. Mijok loved to be +alive; there was no moment of day or night that he did not relish, if +only for its newness and from his sense that every gift of time is a +true gift. "I thank you for being with us." Mijok accepted the words +without embarrassment or second thought. + +"Why, you know," he said, "in the old days I never even knew that +plants were alive. But look at this--" He lifted one of Dorothy's +white flowers from his knee. "It was in your room, Paul. She put it +beside that painting you made of me, before she left." He peered into +the white mouth of the flower, touched the fat stamens, and stroked +the slim stalk. "Everything it needs. Like ourselves. But I never knew +that. We are all one flesh." + +Paul glanced over his shoulder. The red planet like Mars was still +high over the jungle. He thought: _When that is hidden, it will be +time to go._ + + + + +5 + + +All night Paul heard the distant barbarous thunder of the drums. In +the hour before first-light his advance company formed; a furious +serpent, it stole two miles south through grassland following the +pallor of the beach. Near first-light, Paul knew, they would see a +thread of new moon. In this present darkness the Vestoians might be +slipping north on the lake; there would be no betraying sound above +the passion of the drums. As for the land army, that could be miles to +the south or over the next rise of ground. + +His mind fought a pressure of alternatives. Better to have kept the +army in one unit? To wait in the forest for news of Abro Samiraa's +thrust in the northeast? _Never mind: no time now._ At least his body +was meeting the challenge without rebellion. His wiry legs carried him +in silence; his senses were whetted to fineness. Rifle, pistol, field +glasses, hunting knife made a light load. Ahead of him Mijok loomed +against a division of two shadows, sky and earth. Not first-light: +only a sign that five thousand miles away on the eastern shore of this +continent there might be the shining of a star now called the sun. +Mijok carried a shield of doubled asonis hide; his only weapon was a +seven-foot club, since his smallest finger was too large to pass the +trigger guard of a rifle. Though keeping watch with Paul, Mijok had +spoken little during the night--brooding perhaps, trying (Paul +imagined) to see a new world in the matrix of the old. But there was +no guessing a giant's thoughts. Lacking the stale burden of human +guilt and compromise, they had the strength as well as the weakness of +innocence; the country of their minds must wait on the explorations of +centuries. + +Abro Pakriaa, close to Paul's right, moved like a breeze in the +grass. She and her small soldiers despised the use of shields, +despised the arrows of their own bowmen as fit only for timid males. +They never threw their spears but kept them for close quarters; their +only other weapon was a white-stone dagger.... The army groped through +the meadow in three ranks, widely spaced at Paul's order; beyond the +right flank the archers were concentrated. Four hundred fighters +altogether--against six thousand. + +A wooded knoll grew into silhouette fifty yards from the beach, ten +feet above the level of the meadow. "We meet them here," Paul said. By +prearrangement Pakriaa halted a hundred of her spearwomen between the +knoll and the beach, the other two hundred on the west side, the +hundred bowmen out beyond. Paul and Mijok penetrated the blackness of +the knoll, pushing through to its southern side, where Pakriaa joined +them. Even in that short passage the heaviness of dark had altered +with a promise. There were few clouds. The day (if it ever came) would +be hot, windless, and beautiful. No more blue fireflies were +wandering. The planet Lucifer had become three gray enigmas of lake +and meadow and sky, but in this blind hush when morning was still the +supposition of a dream, the shapes of the trees were attaining a +separate reality; in the west Paul could find a hint of the low hills +standing between him and the West Atlantic. + +Seventy or eighty miles over yonder Dorothy's brown eyes would be +watching for first-light on the sea, watching for it not on the great +sea, he knew, but on the channel that shut her away from the mainland, +from himself. With his child at her breast, another unknown life in +the womb. Ann Bryan too, her troubled secret mind still full of +protest at the contradictions and unfulfilled promises which made up +the climate of life on Lucifer as well as elsewhere; and the ancient +giantess Kamon, and Rak and Muson, Samis, Arek, and those giant +children perennially puzzling and lovable.... _No time._ Mijok was +peering out on the west side of the knoll. "Nicely hidden. Your +soldiers are very good, Abro Pakriaa," said the giant, whose knowledge +of war was almost as dim a product of theory as his knowledge of the +planet Earth, where his Charin friends had been born. + +The pygmy princess did not answer. Paul thought with held-in anger: +_Can't she understand even now that Mijok is one of us, the best of +us...?_ But Pakriaa was staring south; she might not have heard. She +pointed. + +Thus, after a year of waiting, wonder, rumor; a year when Lantis of +Vestoia, Queen of the World, had been a half-mythical terror, symbol +of tyranny and danger but not a person; a year that Ed Spearman spoke +of as "lost to the piddlings of philosophy"--Paul saw them at last. + +Saw rather a waving of the grass, a cluster of dots shifting, bobbing, +advancing. Pakriaa's tree-frog voice was calm: "They come fast. They +want to reach our forest before the light makes the omasha fly. Your +plan is good, Paul: we hold them in the open, the omasha have good +meat." + +A man could dourly accept it, somehow. Bred to gentleness, +undestructive labor, study, contemplation, Paul could tell himself +that a certain spot (even as it bloomed like a nodding flower in the +telescopic sights) was not flesh and blood and nerve, only a target. +_Would it be so if I were fighting only for myself...?_ He held the +spot in focus; he said, "Your soldiers are prepared for the fire +stick? They know they must not charge till they have the order from +you?" + +Her voice had warmth: "And they know you are my commander." + +Paul squeezed the trigger. + +_Too soon--and too damned quiet._ The clever makers of +twenty-first-century firearms on Earth had cut down the shout of a .30 +caliber to a trivial snap. The savage eyes out there might not even +have caught the flash at the muzzle. There ought to have been the +glare and circumstance of a rocket. How could they be panicked by a +silly pop and a spark? Even though--well, one of the dots had +vanished, true enough. Maybe he had killed his first human being. + +He glanced westward, wondering how soon the gray must change to +saffron and crimson. The new red moon--there it was. A bloody sliver +of a sword above the far shore of the lake. + +And he saw the boats. + +They were half a mile out. No others were visible north of them, but +that meant nothing: these might or might not be the lead canoes of +the fleet. The noise of drum boats in the south was constant: those +would stay anchored in hiding, letting their wrath appear to come from +all parts of the world. + +The leading boat jumped to clarity in the sights. Forward the bark +roofing reached the gunwale; aft, the sides were open to leave space +for two paddlers. Paul saw the tight mouth of the one on the port +side: she could have been Pakriaa's blood sister. Now it was necessary +to think of Abro Pakriaa's ambassador torn in quarters, head and arms +sent back as a message from the Queen of the World--until the mind of +the student of Christopher Wright rebelled: _Vengeance was one of the +ape's first discoveries._ It became more necessary to think: _Make it +a good head shot--she won't feel it...._ + +It was not a very good shot. The scream came weakly across the water. +The paddler tumbled, an arm dangling. The starboard paddler seemed not +to understand and labored stupidly, making the canoe lurch to port. +The prow of a following boat rammed it, tore away the matting, +revealed the huddled soldiers who became splashing legs and arms in a +sudden foam. While the land army came on.... + +Dots that were bald red heads, white specks that were spear blades. A +simple arithmetic: less than a hundred rounds for the rifle; four +hundred soldiers; a heart divided but angry, and the devotion of an +eight-foot giant with a big stick. Against six thousand in the land +army alone. "Pakriaa, it's a single column--the fools! Send your +bowmen out west, catch them on the flank." Pakriaa ran down the knoll. + +Paul shot twice at the head of the column. A flurry. No halt. Some of +the boats were no longer sliding north, but driving down on the beach, +forty or fifty, like hornets from a torn nest. _Another mistake--no, +not if it diverts them from the camp._ Pakriaa's hundred on this side +of the knoll were holding firm for an order. Paul's wave was enough: +they spread out in the grass at the edge of the beach, quivering like +waiting cats. The light was changing their bodies from vagueness to +familiar copper, black skirts, white body paint.... Mijok tore a +half-buried rock from the ground and hurled it out to splinter the +nearest boat. But the soldiers would merely swim ashore. "Mijok! Stay +with me!" + +The head of that column was less than two hundred yards away. Paul +fired mechanically, seeing life tumble backward and lie still. "Let +them see us now, Pakriaa, Mijok----" + +They strode down the south slope of the knoll in plain sight under the +beginning of morning as the bowmen in the meadow released a harsh +flight. The beach on the left became a seething of yells, snarling, +trampling, clash of white stone. _First-light--first-light--and where +in damnation is Ed Spearman with the lifeboat...?_ + +The column was confused by the many pressing up from behind. A few +dozen spearwomen streamed out toward Pakriaa's archers; a second and +third flight downed most of them--the little men had skill. No +Vestoian bowmen had appeared. "Now, Pakriaa----" + +Her one cry brought the spearwomen out of the grass west of the knoll, +skimming forward like red bullets, spears low in the left hand until +they crashed into the column; then weapons rose and plunged and rose. + +The Vestoians wore no white paint. Their leaders had caps of green. +Their grass skirts were mere fringes. They died easily. They killed +easily. + +Some distance down the column--for it was still a column, still a +rolling machine that could not halt--a tall structure was swaying, +hard to assess in this tortured twilight. A litter? Lantis of Vestoia, +the Queen of the World herself? Paul checked his own running advance +to send two shots at it. Then he and Mijok were surrounded by a +writhing of arms, white-stone, and blood, Mijok raging but bewildered. +Paul saw Pakriaa's spear drive down below naked ribs and withdraw from +what sprawled on the ground. She was untouched. Her lean little body +dripped with sweat, her teeth gleamed in a devil's grin. Two +purple-skirted captains joined her; the three smashed into a cluster +of shrieking souls who only began to understand what was happening. + +Arithmetic still ruled. This column might be only one of many pushing +up between lake and hills, bent on reaching Pakriaa's forest before +the omasha soared in from those hills to feed on living and dead. + +Mijok brushed through the fighters with his shield and down the line +till he was clear of Pakriaa's white-painted demons. His stick swung, +destroying everything in a half circle before him. He was not confused +now, not even shouting, but saving breath. He worked stolidly, like a +man beating at a swarm of rats.... Pakriaa jumped on a fallen thing to +point at that clumsy framework down the line. "Lantis! That is +Lantis----" + +The litter wobbled toward the center of confusion on the shoulders of +six women. Paul fired twice again at it. He had a glimpse of a scrawny +figure with a high green headdress leaping down, snatching a spear, +vanishing in an improvised protective phalanx. He shot into that, +dropping one of the outer soldiers. Mijok saw; he changed the course +of his attack, a bulldozer aiming at a new clump of brush. Pakriaa +screamed in frenzy, without meaning. Her spear was still a part of +her. She was bleeding from a thigh wound; her bright blue skirt had +been torn away; she glittered with sweat and paint and blood, a +dancing devil mindlessly happy. Then she was down once more in the +press, squirming toward the phalanx, and Paul could not shoot. + +But it was the toiling giant, Paul thought, who made Lantis break. +Again he saw the snarling face of the Queen of the World and heard her +squeal an order. Before Mijok could cut his way to her the phalanx was +running, sheltered by the mere mass of soldiers. It was necessary to +call Mijok back. + +The whole Vestoian army was running. "Pakriaa!" Paul plunged after +her, caught her shoulder. "No pursuit!" Her eyes glazed in mad +rejection; he thought she would bite his wrist. "Turn your soldiers! +Bring them down on the Vestoians from the boats--_the boats_!" + +She could understand that. Her order was the shriek of a rusty nail on +glass, and it turned them. It brought them howling down to the beach +to aid what was left of the first hundred. The water was a jumble of +abandoned boats--even the paddlers had struggled ashore to kill and +die. + +Mijok ploughed in a second time.... That ended it. Some of the +Vestoians might have glimpsed what he did to the land soldiers. A few +forgot all custom and threw their spears, which Mijok's shield +carelessly turned; then they stared with sickness at their empty +hands and waited for the club. Meanwhile the strengthened crowd of +pygmies worked on till the sand was redder than the sky and there was +no more to be done. "Back!" + +Pakriaa screamed "No!" and pointed south. Paul stumbled on something +slippery. He stooped to her, yelling, _"Omasha!_ The sky will be full +of them. Let them fight Lantis. We've lost a hundred already----" + +Her face became sane and blank in agony. "My people--my people----" + +"Yes! And other boats are still going north. Your soldiers must pick +up the hurt and run for it." + +There were not many living wounded in this sudden quiet. A spear has +scant mercy. And the lifeboat had not come.... Mijok was holding out +his shield on both arms; he had tossed his stick aside. "Put them on +this. I can carry six--seven." When the shield could hold no more he +lifted it, his face contorted and changed. "Paul--I told myself I was +back in the old life, when we always killed them if we could. But the +new laws--oh, Paul, _the laws_----" + +"War perverts all laws. But the laws are true. It is--climbing a +mountain, Mijok: we slip, fall back, try again. Nothing good in war, +only necessity, choice of evils. Now make the best speed you can, +friend--don't wait for us." Mijok ran with his vast strides, holding +the shield out in front so that the motion of his body would not +jounce it. + +Pakriaa would not move till the last of the survivors had stumbled +past her. They were disciplined. Already some of the soft bowmen had +taken out arrows of the whining, glittering type that sometimes +frightened off the omasha. They were ready. Paul tried to count, gave +it up. Less than three hundred. The archers had not suffered much. +Paul said, "Your leg is hurt, Abro Pakriaa. I'll carry you." + +She was indifferent. "I thank you." He slung his rifle and caught her +up, naked and slippery with blood and acrid-smelling paint. Her weight +was less than forty pounds. Her head lolled back; she whispered to the +sky, "No one should call me Abro. I am Pakriaa the child, weak as a +male, a fool. I could have followed. I could have brought her to the +ground. I let her go. I am a red worm. I blame you for it, Paul-Mason. +You and your friends. All of you--except Sears, who is a god with a +window on another world." + +"Hush! The world Sears shows you in the microscope is this world, +Pakriaa. He tells you so himself. And I tell you there'll be a new +way----" + +She was not listening. Still he saw no threat of brown wings, and no +lifeboat. But time was a deception; dawn on Lucifer was abrupt on +cloudless mornings. The battle which had seemed long as heart-break +had been a skirmish, a brush of advance parties lasting perhaps ten +minutes from his first shot to the retreat. Pakriaa's head twitched +from side to side; her eyes were dry. "I have betrayed Ismar, +Creator-and-Destroyer-Who-Speaks-Thunder-in-the-Rains----" + +"Pakriaa----" + +"My people are to burn me in the pit for the kaksmas with lamp oil. I +will order it. I would have been Queen of the World." Making no effort +to escape from his arms, she burst into rage at him; a rage pitiable, +not dangerous: "Why have you come, you sky people, you speakers of new +words? We had our life, no need of you. We were brave--you weaken us +with words, with words. Your friendship is the green-flower weed that +kills the self. You make children of us. You break our beautiful image +of the god and tell us she never lived. You say that now?" She slashed +her fingers down her side, drawing blood. + +Firing? Firing at the camp? + +She clung to him, wailing: "And now you carry me. I cannot even hate +you. You steal our strength. The priests were right--the +priests----Ismar, help me! _Ismar!_" + +Paul forced himself into a run. It was firing, rapid and sharp, +pistols and rifles. The ammunition would melt fast at that rate. He +could hear yelling. Catching up with the running soldiers, leaving +them behind, he could see Mijok, far ahead, swerve to the left. + +And the lifeboat was in action. + +It curved grandly from near the surface of the lake, which was dim +with smoke. It circled over jungle, descended in another swoop at the +canoes. Red bodies tumbled overside; the silver nose tilted as if in +disdain; the jet spoke for one second, blasting the near canoes into +nothing, sending up the further ones in yellow fire, driving the +lifeboat into its seeming-careless leap. But there was still firing +from the gray stone fortress, a human tangle on the beach before it, a +high long screaming. + +Forward detachments of the lake fleet must have passed in the dark. +Paul ran on, only his arms remembering Pakriaa. She slipped down, +grabbed a spear as her soldiers caught up with her, and ran straight +for the beach. + +That part of the agony was almost done. No more boats were coming +in--Ed Spearman's sky weapon had seen to that. There were more canoes, +many more, but they were holding off, grouping clumsily at a distance. +Paul waited for the lifeboat to slip over him and waved to the south. +Spearman altered the course of the glide, dropping after one more +group of panicked boats but heading south. A longer burst of the jet, +and Spearman's weapon lifted, straightened, shot out of sight across +the meadow. + +Paul could picture the big man's intent and mirthless grin, the cold +gray eye alert on the fuel gauge. And when this fuel was gone--no +more. It might stand for a while, somewhere, a decaying artifact.... + +Those left alive on the beach were bringing in casualties. The boats +were still withdrawing. Christopher Wright was in the fortress with +the wounded, his narrow face tight in the misery of a doctor who can +do almost nothing. "Doc--how many have we lost here?" + +"You! I had almost--Oh, Mijok, what've you got there...? Paul, they +jumped us at first-light. No time even to remind Ed to go after +you----" + +"No, he did right. More needed here. We've stalled the land army, but +they'll come on. They have to." In the sky the brown dots had appeared +at last, pouring from their foul rock ledges in the hills. All of them +were flying south. "Pakriaa, look! Lantis has two wars now." + +She stood naked and stiff, watching, her underlip thrust out, despair +giving way to a glare of satisfaction at the far-off wings, the beasts +who ate everything, feared nothing. The southwestern sky was heavy +with them. Paul had been right; he sickened at his own cleverness. +"How many, Doc?" + +"Forty or worse. This defense on the beach was by Kamisiaa's people +and our giant girls--who can shoot." Paul saw the golden-furred girl +Lisson smile uneasily at him; there was a sober stare from brown +Tejron. The other two giant women, old Karison and young Elron, seemed +more deeply disturbed, Elron studying her rifle as if it were a living +thing. Wright said, "With Abro Brodaa's help I made the others stay in +the woods where you posted 'em. Surok ran over from the right flank--I +had him run back and tell Sears and the rest to sit tight.... +Pakriaa"--Wright strode out to her--"let me bind that up--you're +bleeding." She permitted it.... + +The boats were clustering a quarter mile away. Paul fumbled for his +field glasses; they were lost. Little Abroshin Nisana, whom he had +ordered to remain at the fortress, spoke beside him, slowly and +carefully because her English was not good: "Commander, Abro Samiraa +is return. The plan--good. She crossed the stream, catch them in +blackness. A few escape. We lose twenty. One was Abro Duriaa--I am not +know how she is killed." She scuffed her little seven-toed foot in the +dust; there was nothing alien in her smile. "Those who return +Tocwright is send west." She was puzzled, not disapproving. "Why are +we most strong in the west? The Vestoians follow lake shore." + +He said, not quite honestly, "Their straightest approach to Abro +Pakriaa's village--your village--is in the west. Were there +prisoners?" + +"Abro Samiraa is not like to take prisoners. We took not any on the +beach. Wrong?" + +He smothered a sigh of exhaustion. "It may not matter." With Mijok, +the stout giantess Tejron was moving among the wounded. Paul noticed a +heap of torn cloth, all that remained of Earth-made shorts and jackets +and overalls, ripped for bandages. Wright's idea, no doubt, and good: +the pygmies' pounded-bark fabric was a poor second best. _After the +war we can go naked--fair enough...._ He saw a pygmy woman shrink from +Tejron's approach; she might be from one of the northern villages, her +stoicism unequal to accepting the touch of the huge beings she would +always have regarded as wild animals. Paul knelt, hoping to reassure +her, as Tejron eased a bandage around a pierced abdomen. There would +be internal bleeding. "You are from the north?" + +She looked hurt that he did not know her face. "I am of Abro Brodaa's +village." Then in spite of her shrinking her question was directed at +Tejron: "Abro Brodaa has say to us--we are all one flesh. +That--that----" + +Tejron was able to say, "That is true." And while Paul searched for +other words that might affirm, comfort, explain, the soldier died. + +The only omasha now visible were soaring stragglers. The swarm would +have found the army of Lantis--which must and would continue to +advance. There was a limit to the gorging of the bat-winged beasts; +they too could die on the spears. Meantime the lifeboat was gone, the +boats were landing, in a moment of darkly sweet quiet which was the +eye of the storm. + +Paul checked the giant girl Lisson from firing at the landing party. +"Save ammunition." He indicated a tall blue-flowered shrub a hundred +yards out in the meadow. "We wait at the edge of the woods until they +pass that bush, then charge them. If they break us down here, everyone +is to fight west, away from the lake--_west_. Now run down the line, +pass on these two orders." Lisson sped away, her golden fur bright and +unstained. "Doc--get the wounded together, have the other women and +Mijok take them west, beyond Sears' group, well back in the woods. Try +to find out where Abara's got to with the olifants but send a runner +back (if there's time)--don't come back yourself. And keep Mijok with +you. I don't want him to do any more fighting if we can help it--it's +tearing him up inside." + +"I----" Wright checked himself, nodded, hurried back into the +fortress. + +"Pakriaa, Abro Kamisiaa, get your soldiers at the edge of the woods." + +They vanished. The meadow was empty of life; the many open eyes on the +beach would not see what was to come. Wright's party left the +enclosure, Mijok carrying the shield. Wright could not look back nor +wave, for his own arms were full, his head bent in some consoling +speech. Paul was striding for the woods when Pakriaa met him and +murmured in contempt, "We hide too, Commander?" + +He answered out of a moment of black indifference. (_Probably we all +die and everything I have done is a mistake._) "Pakriaa, they may +break easier if they don't see us till we charge." She shrugged, +following him into the obscurity, pointedly ignoring Nisana, who came +to his other side, perhaps still hating the little captain for her +independence of yesterday, when Paul was chosen commander of this +grotesque army. + +The Vestoians from the boats were rising out of the grass and coming +forward. Steadily now, with no more apparent haste than the first +breakers leading a destroying wave. It was possible to think with +amazing leisure of the high meadows and wooded roads of New Hampshire. +Paul's brother had always been a little too fat and fond of ice cream. +There was a bookstore in Brattleboro. And the waves of the South China +Sea were moving mountains with snowcaps of foam as they came in on +Lingayen. Why, there was a war there once, more than a hundred years +ago, when the Republic of Oceania was hardly even a thought. Yes: they +called it a Second World War.... + +The Vestoians passed the blue shrub. The breaker was red, with a foam +of white-tipped spears. + +Paul was swept into the open, not only by the howling drive of his own +pygmy army, but by the machine within, relentless again, briefly free +from the compromise of thought. He was firing with precision in the +scant time available before the white-painted bodies crashed into the +unpainted and churned up a froth of battle. + +He had time to wonder why Nisana was here with him a few yards back of +the hand-to-hand frenzy. She was not afraid; her spear was balanced. A +break in the line of fighters let through a Vestoian soldier, dark +mouth squared in a yell. Nisana's spear widened the mouth to a death +mask and withdrew. Paul stepped into the breach and sent a few shots +toward a trio of green-capped leaders. Something slapped and gouged at +his chest--_nothing serious_. But his own fighters to the left of him +were going down, outnumbered. He shouted at a brief gleam of Pakriaa's +face, "West! Fight _west!_" + +Golden Lisson was running back from her errand, her rifle waving, her +lips straining in wild laughter. She passed him, trying to bring her +rifle into use as she ran; it did not fire. A Vestoian was forcing +Nisana away from Paul and beating down her spear. "Why, damn you!" The +Vestoian face dissolved in pulp and strangeness under his rifle butt, +and Paul reeled back, believing for an unbounded second that ghosts +from a place only a few light-years away had swirled across this +stinking battlefield to shriek at him: "_Yes! Your people always +fought that way--the ape picked up a stone...._" But Nisana was alive; +Nisana was unhurt and alive. He could look up again and see the girl +Lisson also using her rifle as a flail. + +She was between him and the beach. Three pygmies had caught the butt, +and now she swung them absurdly high; she had almost shaken them off +when a spear pierced her arm and hung there. The rifle dropped. She +was down, under the leaping spears and red bodies. She did not even +cry out again; the golden fur was reddened and defiled. Paul beat his +way toward her, scarcely seeing what his swinging rifle hit, knowing +it was too late, forgetting his own order to drive west. Aware too of +another tawny shape flashing toward him. + +Surok, who had loved Lisson, who would have been her playmate in the +next Red-Moon-before-the Rains. Paul tried to stop him--but if any +sound came out of his own throat it would have been lost against +Surok's mindless crying. The giant tore into the press around Lisson's +body and fell almost at once, crushing a few as he rolled.... + +"_West!_ Stay behind my rifle, Nisana---" + +It had become a methodical insanity like Mijok's, a cutting of red hay +that spouted blood. He noticed blood on his right hand too--nothing: +front sights of the rifle gouging him. The Vestoians in this direction +were thinning out and giving way. He caught up with a white-splashed +back and bandaged thigh--Pakriaa, ploughing her way west. Abro Samiraa +drove across his path in the wrong direction, chasing an isolated +group of three; squat and heavy-faced, she looked happy and more than +life-size in the moment of her death, as she took a spear thrust over +her heart and lay down with the enemy to grin at the sky and cease +hating. + +A rifle barked ahead of him. That could only be Sears Oliphant: Wright +would surely follow orders and keep Mijok and the giant women with him +to protect the wounded.... Abro Brodaa was fighting through to aid +Pakriaa, not yelling, not excited, keeping somehow an air of dreamy +contemplation, as if the arms driving her spear and dagger were not +quite hers. Nisana cried out, "They are not following! They go +back----" + +It was true. Partly true. Here in this patch of bloody meadow there +was not much left to fight. The defenders had functioned like a single +organism, forming a new semicircular line. Behind it was a quiet, +where Pakriaa was gasping, pounding her foot into a body that felt +nothing. + +And this dear monster, this fat naked grotesque, panting and smeared +with red--this must be Sears Oliphant, late of John Hopkins +University. The monster smiled in a black beard. "Few got by, oh my, +yes. Tamisraa's girls fixed 'em--had to club m' rifle--dirty cave +man--no fear, Paul--_no fear!_ Muscle man with an empty head. They +had--couple bowmen with 'em--no harm done." No harm? Was he unaware of +the broken arrow shaft below his ribs, deeply bedded, with dark blood +oozing around the wood? "They quit, Paul?" + +"They haven't quit." He looked south, seeing why they wouldn't quit. + +"Tamisraa got a bad one--throat." Sears coughed painfully. "I sent her +to Doc--he's just back of those trees. And my pets, Paul, my olifants, +why, they're standing fast, boy. With Abara, bless him--'bout half +mile north. You can't beat 'em. We must figure some way to ferry 'em +over to the island--must--they're people, those olifants----" + +"You go to Doc yourself, Jocko, and fast. That----" + +"Oh, that, that. Mere prac'l dem'stration nobody loves fat man----" + +The Vestoians would not quit because of what was coming half a mile +away in the south under a cloud of brown wings, coming fast. The horde +would be ignoring the omasha, striking them aside, spearing them when +there was time, granting them the necessary toll for passage, and +coming fast. Oh, they would be less than six thousand now--somewhat +less. Meanwhile the remnant from the boats was waiting, regrouping, +drawing breath, readying itself for the climax of massacre, maybe +deliberately postponing it until Lantis of Vestoia, Queen of the +World, could arrive to enjoy it. Paul tried again to count his people +in the sturdy half circle. Black Elis was striding among them, a +great stick in each hand, rumbling comfort and encouragement, and none +of them shrank away from him. + +It looked like less than seven hundred. A hundred lost at the knoll; +forty, Wright said, in the first skirmish at the camp; twenty in +Samiraa's night expedition. Perhaps three hundred in this last wave of +the battle. And Samiraa herself; Duriaa; Tamisraa wounded, Pakriaa +insane with grief; Lisson and Surok dead. Lame Kamisiaa--Paul could +not find her. Abro Brodaa--still calm, unhurt, competent. Very +well--seven hundred against somewhat less than six thousand of the +land army, somewhat less than four thousand from the boats. + +_How I dreamed!_ There would be no southward drive to the island. The +omasha alone made it an absurdity. He had been idiotic to imagine it. + +Pakriaa broke her spear across her knee. She walked out into the +meadow toward the advancing swarm. She looked back stupidly at Paul's +shout, and Nisana ran to her, crying out in the old language. Pakriaa, +with no change of expression, lunged at the captain, striking +flat-handed across her face, forcing her back until Paul reached them +to interfere and Sears caught Pakriaa's wrist, mumbling, "Come +now--come with me, princess." + +"I am no princess." + +"I call you so," Sears said clearly, and speaking with sternness for +possibly the first time in his life. "Now come with me." + +Paul stammered, "Have Doc get that damned arrow out of you. Then he's +to start north with the wounded--at once." + +"North." Sears nodded. + +"There are no gods," said Pakriaa. + +"Yes, north. We'll catch up with you." + +"I thought of you as a god." + +"Think of me as a friend who loves you. It is better." She went with +him, stumbling as Paul had never seen her do, and when the leaves +closed behind them it seemed to Paul that there was surely the cloud +of another world. She might have been a small girl going for a walk in +the woods with her grandfather.... + +There was no lifeboat above that rolling swarm. Ed Spearman must +have----_No time to think about it_. + +But he had to, a little. Spearman was forced down by lack of fuel and +killed. Or forced down, isolated somewhere, miles away. Or he had kept +good watch of the fuel gauge until there was just enough for another +trip to the island and had gone--right, reasonable, what he ought to +have done, what Paul would have ordered him to do if he could have.... +Paul turned to Brodaa. "Your sister Kamisiaa--I don't see her----" + +"My lame sister is dead." Her eyes were shrewd, counting. "We have +more than seven hundred. Two hundred of them bowmen." + +"Bring them all to the woods. Spread the bowmen at the edge: they will +meet the first charge with arrows, nothing else, and then join our +retreat. Send a hundred spearwomen to guard and help Tocwright's +group: they will go straight north. Send another hundred through the +villages to save what they can--the children, the old--and take them +west and north to join the others. All the rest will stay with you and +me and Elis to fight in the rear--delay and confuse--fighting retreat, +Brodaa. I see nothing else." + +"Nothing else," she said evenly. "As you say...." + +Elis was with him, waiting under the trees, and Nisana, who said, "No +gods? There must be other gods. Not Ismar...." + +Elis watched the meadow over the crouching bowmen. "Within you, +Captain. The god within you made you save the life of my friend. I saw +that. I even think I begin to understand. But that might be vanity." + + + + +6 + + +A sorry day moved into evening, and when evening became an approach to +moonless dark, this day of retreat was in Paul's mind a passage of +distorted images, true or false. + +True that he was now limping through forest stillness between Nisana +and a skinny ghost who was Christopher Wright and Wright carried +Pakriaa, who moaned at times like a child with a nightmare, and up +ahead were five white drifting mountains, one of them ridden by a man +who was silent in pain, Sears Oliphant. It might or might not be true +that at some time during the day Paul had thrashed on the ground with +a broken head in front of some squalling danger until black arms swept +him up away from--whatever it was. + +Tejron and the two other giant women Karison and Elron, and Mijok, +still lived. Elis was walking behind Paul, unhurt; therefore the mind +of Elis would still be probing at the borderland of known and unknown, +searching and incorruptible. All true. Apparently true that the gash +in Paul's side had stiffened, his right leg was knotting itself in +some unimportant distress, and his bandaged forehead no longer +throbbed. + +The first contact with the Vestoian land army had been a swift +skirmish and ordered withdrawal. Abro Brodaa's archers had crumpled +the first enemy charge. After that the Vestoians had crashed into the +woods with no caution, driven by the horror of brown wings that still +pursued them. Paul had had a final glimpse of the green headdress of +Lantis, Queen of the World; his two shots before the rifle jammed had +not touched her. Once, under cover of the trees, the Vestoians had +paused to reorganize, giving Paul's retreating force a little time +and distance and the help of forest obscurity. + +The spearwomen sent ahead to clear the villages had poured through +Pakriaa's settlement and Brodaa's, rounding up old people, children, +and the chattering pack of male witches, sending them west to join +Wright's group of wounded--if they could find it. But at the third +village upstream--it had been Abro Samiraa's--there was delay. Perhaps +the people had refused to go where there were giants. Paul's rear +guard had halted south of the village to protect the evacuation; here +the Vestoians caught up with them. + +They had fought it out for two hours in the misery of bush and brier +and purple vine outside the village ditch, while the jungle world +steamed in the growth of mid-morning. Paul's horizon had narrowed to +the knot of fighters who stayed with him--Nisana, Brodaa, Elis, an +unknown black-skirted soldier who fell at his feet with a bleeding +mouth. Somewhere in that hell he had lost his rifle. It was Brodaa +(this must be true, for it was Elis who told him of it)--Brodaa who +had guided them out of the trap, regrouped the remnant of the rear +guard north of Samiraa's village while the Vestoians paused to set +that village afire and rejoice over its dying. + +Paul could remember that regrouping: black Elis had set him on his +feet, supporting him till he could walk. There were many twittering, +mad-eyed bowmen among the survivors. Brodaa had sent runners to give +the other three villages a final warning; she herself decided against +trying to reach them with this fragment of an army numbering less than +three hundred. The only way to save anything at all was to flee north, +join Wright's group, hope that the remaining villages would delay the +conquerors and that at least some of their non-combatants could +scatter before Lantis, Queen of the World, took them for slaves, meat, +and sacrifice. + +The rest of the day had been a running, a harsh drive into country +unknown even to Elis. There had been, for Paul and Elis at least, a +breath of second wind when they found the tracks of the olifants. They +had caught up with Wright's refugees in the early afternoon, but there +could be no pause, even though it was quiet here at the edge of +forest and western meadow and the sound of screaming in the villages +was an hour behind them.... + +Paul noticed that he was naked except for ammunition belt and an empty +holster. Perhaps his present clarity of mind was the true madness, the +earlier fog of pain and anger the mind's more natural climate. But one +might as well reason and take stock. He remembered the map. Was it +saved? No matter: a copy had been flown to the island with Dorothy and +the baby. + +_I have a woman who loves me; I have a daughter. I have my life._ + +On his left, just visible in twilight beyond a meadow turning +brilliant with blue fireflies, there were the low western hills, the +hills rotten with the burrows of kaksmas, and they were nearer, much +nearer than he had ever seen them except from the lifeboat. (_But Ed +Spearman went there; he walked in the hills alone and found iron ore, +and now he is----Never mind where he is. If the charlesite was giving +out he did right to fly to the island and abandon us. What else could +he do?_) Well, it was right too that the hills should be nearer: the +edge of the forest slanted northwest, narrowing the meadow. And this +far north the hills were smaller, more broken up. Yet it would not do +to approach them closely: even the least of the hills (so pygmy and +giant tradition said) could be the dwelling place of day-blind ratlike +killers numerous enough to destroy this entire party and still be +hungry. The retreat must struggle north until the hills were well +behind, shut away by level jungle--where the kaksmas still might come, +to be sure, but only to the distance of half a night's journey from +their burrows. "Doc--can you estimate what distance we've made since +we caught up with you?" + +"Maybe twenty miles," the old man said. "In more time than _Argo_ once +needed to travel twenty million miles. What is man?" + +"Man? A mathematical absurdity.... Aren't you tired? I could carry +Pakriaa a while." + +"No, I'm not tired, son. I like to have her...." + +Rifles--in the beginning there had been only five, and one shotgun. +The shotgun had been taken to the island. Dorothy and Ann had their +pistols there, too. Paul's rifle was lost. Lisson's had been lost when +she died. That should leave three. Wright had one slung at his back. +Peering up ahead, Paul saw another in the red-brown hand of the young +giantess Elron. Sears must have lost his. So two at least remained. +And one automatic--Wright's. "Those two new recruits Mijok +brought----I'm in a fog--I only just remembered----" + +"Lost," said Wright, staring ahead. "The boy didn't understand. He ran +into the mess on the beach like a horse running into a fire. That was +before you got back from the south. The other had more sense. Saw the +pygmies spilling out of the boats and ran for the woods. Naturally we +didn't try to hold him. Perhaps he's reached his home territory. I +hope so." + +Behind him Elis spoke softly: "It was not very far, Doc. When we reach +the island and start the new settlement----" + +"Oh, Elis----" + +"When that has been done I'll come back and find him, give him the +words--him and many others. I promise you that. Let me believe it." + +"Believe it, Elis. But the boy Danik is dead. He was bright, curious. +He should have lived 150 years." + +"We overtake mystery," Elis said, "and leave it behind." + +"Men have never overtaken the mystery of untimely death." + +"There is chaos," said Elis. "Chance. Mystery is great jungle around a +small clearing. I accept that. We make a wider clearing." + +Paul felt Nisana's finger hook over his. Pakriaa groaned, perhaps in +sleep. The darkness had blotted away the hills; even the small shape +of Nisana was growing too dim. Elis said, "You're limping, Paul. +Abroshin Nisana is tired. There are still three of the animals without +riders. You and Doc----" + +"Yes," Wright said. "We might make better time." Nisana trilled an +order to Abara, who rode the colossal bulk of Mister Johnson at the +head of the line. The animals halted without sound. "We must go on all +night, Paul--right? What became of your--prisoner?" + +"My----" the mental clarity must be a fraud, Paul thought, if new +memories could flash into it so abruptly. At some time--it must have +been after Elis had carried him clear of the nightmare at Samiraa's +village--he had stumbled on a Vestoian soldier unconscious from a head +wound and loss of blood but not dead. He had still been carrying her +when they caught up with Wright. With this, the memory of that reunion +became whole--the wordless suffering on the shield that Mijok carried, +the improvised stretchers, the bewilderment and exhaustion in the red +faces, the very smell of defeat--with this also a picture of the +horribly fat witch from Pakriaa's village carried on a litter by two +spearwomen, and one other witch, a lank skeleton with white and purple +lines emphasizing the prominence of his ribs, striding beside his +colleague and shooting glances of wrath from left to right and back. +Someone had gently taken the unconscious soldier. "She's safe, Doc. +Tejron took her--still has her, I'm sure." + +"Good." Wright added with a harshness canceling humor: "Now if only +friend Lantis will initial a copy of the Geneva Convention...." He was +fumbling in the twilight before one of the white beasts, uncertain +what to do. + +The old cow olifant Susie, carrying Sears, fretted at the delay, +sampling the air and rumbling. Paul petted her trunk to soothe her; +Sears' voice came down to him: "Paul? Take this, will you?" He was +reaching down the case that held his microscope, safe somehow out of +the inferno of the day. "My grip's not too good, got nothing to tie it +to--bare's a baby's bottom, like you. We look like the last days of a +Turkish bath, hey?" + +"How d'you feel?" Nisana tore shreds from what remained of her purple +skirt; she looped them about the case, fastened it to Paul's +ammunition belt. + +"Feel good," Sears said. Each word was a thick struggle for normal +speech. "Arrowhead came off; Chris got it out. Manicure scissors for +forceps; you may slice me cross-ways and call me ham and eggs if it +ain't so. Right, Chris? You there?" + +"I'm here, Jocko," Wright said, and under his breath to Paul: "Medical +kit lost. I don't think the spleen is injured, but----" Aloud he said, +"Of course, with your gut what I needed was a hook and line. Paul, how +do you make one of these ten-foot roller coasters kneel down?" + +"Let me--that's Miss Ponsonby--she knows me." At Paul's order, tons of +gentleness knelt on the earth; Paul held Pakriaa while Wright +struggled into the hollow between hump and head, and Pakriaa was +either asleep or not caring.... "Abro Brodaa?" + +"Here, Commander." + +"Form your people in three lines with linked hands. The giant women +Karison and Elron, and Elis, will guide them at the head, because +their night vision is better than yours and mine. Mijok and Tejron +will walk beside us. We must travel all night. I think the Vestoians +will not." + +"They will not," the princess Brodaa said. He wished he could see +truly what was happening in her little face. "They will not because +they have no giants or Charins to help them." It carried no hint of +the obsequious. + +"Thank you, Abro Brodaa. Wait here a moment." He patted Millie's +trunk--she was a young beast, nervous but fond of him--and made her +kneel. "Help Nisana climb up to me.... Abro Brodaa--the people of your +village----" + +"Most of them lost." It might have been the oncoming night itself +speaking temperately. "These remaining are a few from all the +villages. I think they will follow me. And I will go with you...." + +In the rest of the night--a silence and a drifting, on the surge and +thrust of the great animal under him--it was possible to reach a kind +of sleep, knowing his body would not relax enough to fall or to weaken +his hold on Nisana, who trusted him. She was deeply asleep in the +first part of the night, occasionally snoring, a comic noise like a +puppy's whine. All day she had never been out of his sight; she had +fought like a hellcat, but singlemindedly, saving her strength to deal +with those who threatened him. + +It would have been possible to abandon these people; at one time, Paul +remembered, he had almost favored it himself, and Ed Spearman had very +nearly hinted that it might be better to join forces with the tyranny +in the south.... Life seemed cheap to Pakriaa's tribe--others' life. +Devil-worshipping cannibals, capable of every cruelty, committed for +thousands of years to all the superstitions that ever crippled +intelligence. You had to look beyond that, said Christopher Wright the +theorist, the doctor, the anthropologist, the impractical daydreamer. +_Anyway I saved a Vestoian--if she lives. One balanced against how +many that I destroyed...? No answer.... Unless you can see a world +where the ways of destruction become obsolete under a government of +laws. With the devils of human nature--the vanities, the greeds, the +follies and needless resentments, the fear of self-knowledge, dread of +the unfamiliar, the power lust of the morally blind, the passion for +easy solutions, scapegoats, panaceas--how do you see such a world...? +You say, Christopher Wright, that no one is expendable. I believe you. +But--when I must choose between the life of myself or my friends and +the life of the one whom the stream of history has tossed against me +as my enemy----_ + +_When I do that, I only discover once more that I am caught in the +same net with the rest of my kind and cannot escape until all of them +escape--escape into a region of living where men do not set traps for +each other and the blind do not lead._ + +_Therefore----_ + +"Are you awake, Nisana?" Her even breathing quickened. It seemed to +Paul that there was faint color in his glimpses of sky; he remembered +the silver moon that had appeared over the jungle with first-light so +long ago--yesterday morning. The passage of the red moon around +Lucifer was swift: tonight it would be rising two hours before +first-light and would be something broader than the gory scimitar he +had seen from the knoll. + +"I am awake." + +"I think the red moon has come back." + +"Yes." She pointed over his shoulder; he glimpsed it through a gap in +the leaves. "A good moon. Begins the Moon of Little Rains. The small +rains make no harm, make the ground sweet. Is better than the moon +past--that we call the Moon of Beginnings." She moved restlessly +against him. "This country--all forest? How long have I sleep?" + +"Most of the night. We're past the open land." + +She whispered, "No one has ever come here. We have think always there +are bad--what word?--tev--tevils in the north." + +"Tomorrow--rather, today--we turn west and then south on the other +side of the hills, to the island." + +"Ah, the island.... I cannot see this island." + +"You'll like it, Nisana. You'll be happy there." + +"Happy?" And he remembered that the old pygmy language had no word for +happiness. + +Wright's voice came thinly in the dark: "Abara, stop them! Sears----" + +Millie halted and knelt without an order: Nisana jumped down. Paul saw +the shapes of Elis and Sears suddenly bright under Wright's +flashlight--the only radion light left. "Easy," Elis said. "I have +you." And he lowered the man's bulk to the ground as Susie moaned and +shifted her feet. Sears had said nothing, but he was smiling, his face +red and vague above the disorder of the black beard. + +"Paul, hold the light for me." Wright removed the stained bandage. +There was a wide area of inflammation; the lips of the arrow wound +were purple. "Pakriaa! You said once you never heard of poison on the +arrows----" + +Pakriaa gaped, rubbing her eyes. It was Brodaa who answered: "Our +people never had it on the arrows. But in the war with Lantis last +year some of our soldiers had wounds like this." + +"And what happened?" + +"Ismar--" Pakriaa stumbled forward. "Ismar took----" + +"My sister," said Brodaa, "be quiet, my sister." + +"Elis," Paul whispered, "have Tejron and the other women keep +watch--we must stay here a while. Where is Mijok?" + +"Here." Mijok spoke behind him. "I have put my shield--over there." +His voice became a whisper for Paul: "There are only three on it now. +One little man, two women. They might live. Paul--is it happening, +Paul?" + +"I can't say it. I don't know...." Sears was talking, ramblingly, very +far from this patch of earth. One could only listen till he was +silent. Then Paul said, "I think so, Mijok. He needs to speak; we need +to remember." + +"What is this--Tel Aviv----" + +"The place on the other planet where he was born." + +"And there were the vineyards, oh my, yes--the little white and tan +goats----" Sears could see it, Paul thought, that small country, a +quiet corner of the Federation, where every grain of sand might +remember blood spilled in the follies of hatred, where a teacher of +mercy had been crucified. But now for Sears it was not a place of +history: he saw gardens defying wasteland, the homes and farms, +centers of music and learning where he moved, thoroughly at home, +discovering the country of his own science, himself a citizen of no +one place except the universe. Later he was recalling the hot white +streets of Rio, the genial clutter of London, Baltimore, the majestic +contradictions of New York. + +"Why, yes, Doctor," he said--and he did not mean Christopher Wright, +but some friend or instructor whose image might be standing in front +of the shadows of Lucifer, "yes, Doctor, you could say I've traveled a +great deal, in my sort of blundering fashion. And I would not exactly +say that people are the same everywhere, but you'll have noticed +yourself--the many common denominators are much more interesting than +the seeming-great differences, aren't they, hey...? What? Sorry, +Doctor, I've got no damned use for your abstraction Man, and why? +Because he doesn't exist, except as a device in a brain that wants to +prove something--which may or may not be useful. In any case it's not +my dish. There are only men and women. They get born and love and +suffer and work and grow old and die; or sometimes, Doctor, they die +young. Men and women I can love and touch; sometimes I can even teach +them the few things I know. You may take Man to the library; feed him +back into your electronic brain and don't bother me with the results +so long as I'm alive to see a child discovering his own body--or for +that matter a bird coming out of the egg, a minnow in a spot of +sunlight, a blade of grass." + +Pakriaa wailed: "What is he saying? He is not here." She squirmed past +Wright, dropped to the ground, her cheek pressed on Sears' tangled +hair, her free arm wandering over his face and shoulder as if she +wanted to cover him like a shield. "He talked to me once. Sears, you +said--you said----" + +He was back among them, gazing around in sane bewilderment. "I should +be riding.... Pakriaa--why Pak, I'm all right." Paul moved the torch +here and there to pick out his own face, Wright's, Mijok's, the white +bulk of Susie looming close by, the pouting ugly mask of Abara, who +had stolen up close, his underlip wobbling in an effort to speak. "I +fell asleep--took a tumble?" + +"Almost," Wright muttered. "Just lucky chance I saw you tottering. You +need to rest a bit." + +"Oh no." Sears frowned. "Can't stop." He smiled at Pakriaa, who had +lifted herself to watch him pleadingly. "What's the matter, Pakriaa? +What's the time?" + +"First-light before long," Paul said. "We made good distance, Jocko. +The Vestoians won't have traveled in the dark. Plenty of time and we +all need rest. Take it easy a while." + +But Pakriaa could not hide her knowledge that he was dying; Sears +touched her cheek with a curious wandering finger. "You liked looking +in the microscope, didn't you?" She nodded. "Remember--must be sure +you've got the best focus you can before you make up your mind about +anything. But this is more serious, Pak--because I think you love me +and you have trouble. I tell you again, you must go to the island with +the others. You must live. Now I expect to go there too, but--" + +Abara moved away. Paul glimpsed him striding back and forth, striking +the air with little fists. When he returned, Paul made way for him. + +"--for a teaching is a gift, Pakriaa, not to be thrown away--" + +Abara stammered. "You have talk to me too, Sears--" + +"Why, to all of you. Certainly to you, Abara.... What's the profit of +any effort if the result is thrown away in a time of weakness? You +discard only if what you have is proven false. We haven't much--we +never have much. Some things appear to be empirically certain. Not +many.... You know, I believe I've given a few people--call it a +wakening of curiosity. I think that's good. Curiosity and patience. +Good as far as it goes. I'm not ashamed." He was trying to see +Wright's gaunt face. "You picked a tougher subject, didn't you, Chris? +Don't worry--give you an A for something more than effort.... Now +look, this hanging around here won't do." He caught Paul's hand and +heaved himself upright. "I remember--map--damn it. Need another whole +day before we pass the hills. Susie--down, Susie--" + +But Susie, fumbling at him with her trunk, would not kneel. Paul heard +Mijok's agonized whisper: "She knows." + +Sears laughed. "All right, make the old man climb." And before anyone +could stop him he had tottered a few steps and burned out the last of +his strength in a heaving jump toward her neck, which barely lifted +him from the ground and dropped him at Paul's feet. Groping for him, +Paul saw that he was dead, saw also, above the arching of the trees, a +lucid cruelty of morning. + + + + +7 + + +Twice that day Elis dropped far behind to listen and reported there +was no pursuit. It was hard to judge their distance from the foothills +of the western range, for now there was no open ground--only Wright's +compass, the memory of the map, and treetop surveys that Mijok made +from time to time. Abara rode Mister Johnson in the lead, making the +beasts travel slowly since the pygmies were faint with weariness. +Susie trailed forlornly; she had not been willing to abandon the grave +till the others went on without her. + +The pygmies carried only half a dozen makeshift stretchers; the number +of unwounded had diminished too. "They slip away," Brodaa said to +Paul. He saw three men carrying children too small to walk; no old +women. The fat witch rode his litter, unconcerned at the fatigue of +its bearers; the other old man, smeared with white and purple paint, +stalked beside him. Brodaa said, "My sister Tamisraa ended life with +the white-stone dagger. While Elis and Mijok made the--what +word?--grave. We left her body looking north to help the spirit +journey. There are many lost who will have no prayers--bad--they may +follow us. What is this--burial, Paul-Mason?" + +"A Charin custom. Most of us believe the spirit dies with the body: +different parts of the same thing." + +"Ah?" She did not seem shocked. "Maybe true for your people." + +"We live in others," Paul said. "Sears lives so long as we remember +him. That will be always...." It seemed to Paul there were scarcely a +hundred in this worn line. "We mustn't try to hold them if they want +to go. If you, Brodaa, or any others want to leave us, you know you +are free." + +Her answer was firm and considered: "I will not leave you...." + +Wright had not spoken since the burial, nor had Pakriaa. They kept +together; Paul was with them sometimes. Behind them Mijok carried his +shield. It was Elis who heard the bleat of asonis and stole off to +bring back meat for an afternoon meal. It was Elis, before that, who +said, "We have done what we could, Paul. We could not have made these +people retreat in time to save themselves. If we had abandoned them +Lantis would have left no more than a fire leaves in the +Red-Moon-of-Dry-Days. Pakriaa is too sick to understand that, yet. She +carries a grief like a little one swelling in the womb: it must grow +greater before she is delivered of it." + +In the afternoon halt, it was Elis who tried to make Wright eat +something and sleep, but Wright could do neither. + +The giant women Elron and Karison also refused the meat. They sat +apart with stout brown Tejron. She was eating, keeping close to her +the still unconscious Vestoian, whom the pygmies had given no more +than disgusted glares. Tejron might be listening to Karison's +undertone--it was in the monosyllables of the old language. The girl +Elron held her eyes downcast, fondling the rifle. She and Karison had +been much together in a peculiar loneliness since the children were +flown to the island: Karison was old, her children grown and gone away +before the Charins came; Elron was too young to have given birth. +Three of the children at the island were Tejron's; the others were +children of Muson and Samis and of a mother who had died in the old +life. Tejron wiped her lips and grunted impatiently; she took up her +charge in careful arms and left the two. Paul sensed what was to come +when Elron set her cherished rifle at his feet. Karison approached +Wright, humble but determined: "We must leave you." + +Before Wright could speak, Mijok answered her with a sullen anger Paul +had never heard from him: "I brought you from the jungle with empty +heads. We gave you the words, the beginning of the laws we must make +together. You lived like the uskaran, furtive and cruel--" + +"No," Wright said. "Mijok, no...." + +Karison had winced, but she repeated: "We must go. The old way--we +need it." + +"Then you must go," Wright said, his spread fingers white-nailed on +the ground. "And remember always that you go with our good will." + +"That is so." She was torn two ways. "But the old life--" + +Elis rumbled: "Elron, come here." The girl would not. "I hoped that in +the next Red-Moon-before-the-Rains--" + +She muttered, "When the change comes you will return to us--" + +Elis laughed, roaring at her, "You're a fool, a child!" The harshness, +Paul knew, was calculated, in the hope of changing her mind by shaming +her. "You think the old life was a freedom. Freedom to live like an +animal without an animal's peace, Elron, because of the thing in you +that struggles for knowledge--oh yes, in spite of yourself, and +always. Freedom to hunt all day or else sleep on an empty stomach, +jump with fear at every creaking branch. Freedom to cram yourself with +moss root and slugs from the streams--never enough--in the bad moons +when the asonis go north. Freedom to kill the pygmies and be hunted by +them, never an end to it--that's your freedom without the laws, +without the words. No, so long as you're a fool I don't want you." She +turned away, speechless; he shouted after her in a different voice, +"He said you go with our good will. That is true. You can't forget us, +Elron. You're not the wild thing Mijok brought out of the woods. +You'll feel us pulling you back--you feel it now--and you will come +back." But she was gone in the shadows, Karison following her, and +Elis rubbed his broad forehead on his arms. + +Wright whispered, "If they wanted it--it had to be so." + +Elis waited for his angry breathing to calm. "Mijok, do you remember? +In the old days I couldn't even have been your friend. Remember how +angry _I_ was--only a year ago? You stepping over the border of my +territory, telling me--I've wondered how you did it with our few +stumbling words--telling me every being should be free to go as he +pleased anywhere in the world? You were in danger, Mijok. I am older, +bigger, heavier--I nearly went for your throat. Long ago. So--don't be +angry with these two." + +Tejron sat by Wright, holding the Vestoian like a nursing baby. +"Maybe," she said, "maybe they will take some of what you teach us to +others. Maybe it will be like the thing you showed us, how a little +seed no bigger than the eye of illuama can become a tree...." + +Pakriaa had watched indifferently; Paul hoped he was right, that her +face was not quite so tightly set in lines of rejection and despair. +Wright came stiffly to his feet, a hand on Tejron's shoulder, the +other wandering into his gray beard. "Abro Brodaa, interpret for +me--some of them have no English. Tell them we turn west soon, then +south through bad country--swamp, heat, uskaran, marsh reptiles maybe, +maybe the kaksmas swarm on the west side of the hills. Tell them we go +through that. When we reach a river we have seen from the air--it has +no falls and flows southwest--we shall make boats." + +Brodaa put it into the high music of the pygmy tongue. Paul could see +no change in the saddened faces; by rumor, most of them would already +know this much. But the thin witch was muttering to his gross +colleague, and some soldier faces turned to overhear that instead of +attending to Brodaa. + +"Tell them, Brodaa, this river will take us to Big-Water. We go south +along the coast, to the island where our friends are, where we believe +Spearman has gone in the winged boat. Tell them, on this island there +are no kaksmas, the omasha never come, nor the lake boats of Lantis. +There is game, good ground, room for all. Tell them--No, wait.... Oh, +Brodaa, tell them in your own way that we hope to live there in +peace." + +The lean witch interrupted Brodaa's translation with a wailing +diatribe, twitching his twigs of arms, lashing the battered soldiers +with his oratory. Brodaa turned to Wright in misery: "He says--he saw +Ismar change Spearman back to a marsh lizard and the boat to an +omasha." + +Mijok laughed savagely. "When did he see that? Ask him." + +Brodaa did, on a thin shout. The scarecrow flashed her a glare of +resentment and a snapping answer.... "He says he saw it in sleep +picture." + +Paul snarled, "Yes, a dream's as near as he came to a battlefield." + +Brodaa was shocked, but Nisana laughed. The fat witch on the litter was +fuming. Coming from Pakriaa's village, he probably had enough English to +understand it; he leaned forward, embracing his hideous belly, croaking at +the soldiers. Nisana translated in swift whispers: "Says--you Charins all +marsh lizards, changed by Inkar-Goddess-of-Kaksmas.... Says we lose to +Vestoians because image was broke; Ismar punishes.... Will I kill him, +Paul-Mason?" + +Brodaa choked: "You cannot touch Amisura. Your spear will turn--" + +"My spear is lost," said Nisana, loudly enough for all to hear. "But +Aksona, Amana, two other men of magic--those I saw killed at Abro +Samiraa's village. Vestoian spears was not turn in the hand--I saw." +She stepped forward, fingering her white-stone knife, and the fat +Amisura cringed, squeaking. + +Wright cried, "I forbid it, Nisana. Let them go. Brodaa!" + +Brodaa said quickly, "He asks sacrifice--you, Paul, Pakriaa--" + +Nisana laughed again. She dropped her white-stone dagger on the ground +and slapped the thin witch in the face. The crowd gasped and shrank +back. Such a man, Paul knew, was altogether holy, never to be touched; +one must not even look him in the eye. But Nisana slapped him again +and shoved him sprawling. She caught a pole of Amisura's litter, +heaved at it, and he tumbled like a red melon. "_Now_ let them +choose!" She came back to Paul with grin and swagger, patting her +scarred chest. "I am little Spearman. I break images too." + +And the pygmies were choosing, not as she or the witches had +hoped--choosing headlong retreat from this sacrilege, dissolving away +into the forest with sick-eyed backward looks. Paul saw Amisura +weeping, humping pitiably back to his litter on all fours, and heard +Pakriaa laugh. The two soldiers who had carried Amisura brought the +litter nearer, not daring to touch him; when he flopped on it they +bore him away. The other witch had run blindly, covering his insulted +face, and Wright said like a machine, "Let them go--let them--" + +Sardonically, Pakriaa had watched the whole incident without rising; +now she seemed to want to catch Wright's eye, lifting a skinny +shoulder as if to say: "What can you do with fools?" + +When the panic was over, thirty followers remained.... + +In the early evening Mijok reported, after another treetop survey, +that the last of the kaksma hills was about three miles southwest. +West of them the jungle was level; it was time to turn. Elis had +slipped away and returned with two heavy carcasses like wild boars. +Sears had named these stodgy animals pigmors. The _mor_ suffix, he had +insisted, was an intensely scientific shorthand for "more or less, +damn it." The meat was high-flavored and coarse but safe.... Hearing +Mijok's news, Brodaa sighed, thinking perhaps of the long history of +her people, the groping for a narrow path of survival among endless +perils. "We say the great uskaran hears a leaf fall to earth from a +thousand paces away but the kaksma hears the leaf divide the air as it +falls. Oh--three of your Charin miles, that is great length. Maybe +enough." + +The tremendous sheer spires of the coastal range, Mijok said, were +visible in the southwest though nearly a hundred miles off; it would +be a clear sweet night, he thought, with no clouds and many stars. +They should go at least fifteen miles due west; then the course would +be southwest rather than south, to miss the hills.... + +In the crowding darkness Mister Johnson's leading was again a thing of +wisdom; his lifted trunk and sensitive eyes avoided dense growth and +drooping vines that could endanger the riders. From each necessary +detour he came back willingly to the course, under guidance of Abara's +sense of compass direction, and the other four followed him as the arm +follows the hand. Tonight Paul rode old Susie--she seemed to feel +happier for it--carrying Nisana again; Wright was on Miss Ponsonby, +with Pakriaa. Tejron, unfamiliar with the beasts but ready to learn, +had climbed on Millie's back and kept her balance without trouble, +holding the wounded Vestoian, who stirred and whimpered but was not +truly conscious. Behind Paul was the more nervous bull Mister Smith +without a rider, and Elis and Mijok walked beside him, Mijok with his +shield, Elis holding Brodaa's hand. The thirty who had dared to choose +the forbidden unknown trailed behind Brodaa with linked fingers, nine +bowmen among them; there were few weapons, no wounded except on +Mijok's shield, and this held only two, for one of the women had died. +The wounded archer was yellow-faced with loss of blood from a hip +injury, but that was clean and closed; he was free from the signs of +fear, almost cheerful. The woman was a sturdy black-skirted soldier of +the ranks, gashed in the face and with a leg torn from knee to ankle. + +Another night of silence and of drifting--for a while. Wright's voice +floated back: "I am thinking of Dorothy and Ann, and your daughter." + +"And not of Ed Spearman?" + +"Oh.... The fuel must have been getting low, Paul. Nothing the boat +could do for us after we were back in the woods. He must be at the +island." + +Paul could only say, "I hope so." The thing Spearman had almost said +when his anger and disappointment were high, the hint at joining +forces with Lantis in abandonment of everything thus far +achieved--nothing could be gained by speaking of that now. But some of +Spearman's words murmured on in darkness: "_Lantis--terrific +organization ... monetary system ... whole world for the taking ... +pretty idealism that never worked even on Earth...._" + +There had always been strain and mutual exasperation in argument with +Ed Spearman--long ago, on the ship _Argo_. The Collectivist Party, +surviving as an innocuous political group after the horrors of the +Civil War of 2010-13, lived strongly in Spearman's mind, not only +because his father had fought for it. Lacking the frenzied dogmatism +of the antique communism it resembled, it was nevertheless communism's +natural heir, a party of iron doctrines simplified for minds that +resented analysis and magnified Man out of a dislike for men. Like +communism, it needed to imagine a class war and felt that it had a +tight vested monopoly of the underdog. The C.P., said one of its late +twentieth-century prophets as humorless as his predecessors, "believed +in Man." You could always fluster a collectivist by asking for a +logical breakdown of that--and make an enemy: they were usually good +haters and made a virtue of it. The years following the Civil War had +been troubled though materially prosperous, darkened by the build-up +of yet another monolithic state under Jenga the Mongol, who had +inherited the desolation of the Russo-Chinese war of 1970-76; in those +years the Collectivist Party in the Federation, unsupported by any +conveniently foreign deity, had become not much more than a +serio-comic decayed socialism with a dash of bitters. But it was +alive; at the time _Argo_ left the spaceport it had had ten senators +and a larger handful of delegates in the Federation Congress. It was +respectable, no longer subversive, and owned a small hard core of the +aggressively sincere.... Not Wright nor Sears nor anyone had ever been +able to convince Edmund Spearman that evil means breed a further evil, +which swallows up any good that may have been imagined in the +beginning. Spearman could admit that (himself in no way an evil man) +he would not do evil--if he could help it. But in the region of theory +Spearman held quite simply that you can't make an omelette without +breaking eggs, and that settled it.... + +"They should be safe," Wright said. "You and Jocko saw the island." + +"It's beautiful. I know they're all right." + +"Yes.... Would you say it was a place where Ann might--oh, how shall I +say it?--might attain tranquillity? Not cry too much for the moon?" + +"If there is any such place in the Galaxy." + +"Time," Elis said. "Little Black-Hair needs time. She is like grass I +have seen growing in too much shade. She is not like our Mashana +Dorothy who will make sunshine if the other sun is clouded." + +"Listen!" Brodaa's voice. "Listen...." + +Paul heard nothing, at first. Up ahead Abara sputtered: "Mister +Johnson--hoo-hee--be quiet. Is nothing--be quiet--" + +Nisana came broad awake in Paul's arms. Wright's mount halted, as did +Susie, but Susie was trembling, raising and swinging her head in a way +to make balance difficult; Paul saw the white writhing of her trunk +lifted to explore for a scent.... He heard it then: a long rustling, +like a repeated tearing of paper behind a closed door; nothing +else.... A wet howl from Mister Johnson sent a spasm through Susie's +mass; her muscles bunched; Abara's voice wailed back: "Mister Joh--I +cannot hold him--_kaksmas_!" + +Transition from realization to stampede was a flash like the pain of a +blow. Paul heard Mijok: "My shield--it will hold more." Elis cried +something to Brodaa. Then Susie had plunged ahead, uncontrollable; +Paul could only bend low above the clinging of Nisana, hold on with +hands and knees, hope that no trailing vine or branch would sweep them +off into death. Mister Johnson could make no careful choice of a trail +now--he would be parting the jungle like a six-ton bullet. "Don't be +afraid, Nisana--we can outrun them--" + +"My people--" + +"Elis and Mijok can outrun them too. They'll carry all they can." In +spite of the agony of mere hanging on, mere straining to stay alive, +he had to think: _They were loyal and we got them into this...._ +Branches slashed across his back, stinging and scraping. Once Susie +stumbled and recovered as the group went splattering across some +invisible mud, and Paul wondered if Mister Johnson in his terror would +run them into quicksand or marsh. + +That ended; there was more thick jungle whipping his back for--five +minutes?--an hour...? This too ended. + +Crazed or purposeful, the beasts charged out into open land through a +soft roaring of torn grass. Paul could twist his head to glance upward +at a field of stars. He could not win a backward look for Elis and +Mijok: his neck and arm muscles were stiffened in his grasp of Susie's +ears, and he dared not risk disturbing Nisana's clutch of him. But to +left and right he could make out other shapes under starlight and hear +a frantic thudding of hoofs--fleeing asonis, other innocent woodland +cattle with a hunger to live. Once he glimpsed a long-bodied thing +pass off to the left in wild leaps lifting it above the grass tops: +uskaran, he thought, the huge tiger cat, no enemy but a brother in +panic. + +The open ground ended at water; here at last the olifants slowed to a +halt, unlike the lesser desperate brutes, for Mister Johnson was still +wise, considering the stream, aware of his leadership. Paul could +shout to the others now, and they all answered. But his backward +staring found only the stars, the white mass of Mister Smith, the +disturbed darkness that must be meadow. "Elis! Mijok!" + +No answer could have reached him above the bleating and thunder of +terrorized harmless things crossing the field and hurtling blindly +into the river. Mister Johnson was wading in deliberately. There was +splashing at first, then silence, as cool water came up around Paul's +knees and Susie's motion changed to a smooth throbbing and heaving; he +saw small foam where the curve of her lifted trunk cut the water. He +whispered to Nisana, "We're safe, dear. Big river. Kaksmas won't cross +it...." Mister Johnson was leading them in an upstream slant, bearing +well to the right while the bobbing frantic heads of other creatures +let the moderate current press them away to the left. This +way--whether by Mister Johnson's wisdom or Abara's guidance--they +might be able to come ashore clear of the dangerous passage of the +stampede. + +"My people cannot go through the water. We never--" + +"Elis and Mijok can swim. They'll get them across somehow. Maybe the +shield will float, Nisana." + +The madness behind them dwindled into the faraway. In growing quiet, +Wright's voice came back, not loudly: "I am a murderer." + +Paul wondered what insight made him call out words not his own: +"'What's the profit of any effort if the result is thrown away in a +time of weakness?'" + +The even motion became a clumsiness of wading in mud. Then there was +solid ground. Paul said, "Halt them here if you can, Abara." Mister +Johnson must have shared the sense of safety; they all calmed, heads +drooping, shaken breathing slowing to sighs. "Down, Susie...." All but +Abara descended. This was still open grassland, but there was a black +velvet curtain of jungle not far off. "Doc--still got your +flashlight?" + +"Eh? No--lost somewhere." The old man spoke vacantly; he stumbled to the +edge of the water, sat with his head on his knees. "Mijok-Mijok...." + +Tejron still had her Vestoian, but now the pygmy woman was panting, +fully conscious in Tejron's arms and witless with fear. Tejron said, +"She's trying to break away. Can't someone talk to her?" + +"Pakriaa!" Paul searched for the princess. "Here--please." + +Nisana whispered, "I will talk to the Vestoian--yes?" + +"Not yet. If Pakriaa--" + +Pakriaa said thickly, "I am here. What to say? She is nothing." + +"She is nothing to you, Pakriaa? Then Sears chose a poor student. +Brodaa would have spoken to her. I ask you to tell her the war is over +and she is among friends." + +"Friends? She is Vestoian." Pakriaa approached Wright, who did not +look up. "Tocwright--I must speak to the Vestoian kaksma? I owe you my +life--will obey you." + +He groaned: "I do not want you to obey me. If there is nothing inside +to tell you what you should do, then I have nothing to say to you." + +Pakriaa flung up her arm across her eyes as if struck. Tejron +muttered, "I can't restrain her much longer without hurting her." It +was Nisana who gave the Vestoian the message in the pygmy tongue, a +ripple of sound that must have conveyed some reassurance, for the +struggling ceased. + +"Look!" Paul dug his fingers in Wright's shoulder. "Over there--" + +The dark spot under starlight was surely the floating shield; behind +it, another purposeful splashing, rise and fall of a driving arm. + +"Mijok!" Wright was on his feet. "This way! A little upstream--" + +Both giants were bleeding from small double stab wounds of the kaksma +teeth. There were four pygmies on Mijok's shield. Elis had carried +Brodaa and another in his arms and one on his back; they had clung to +his fur as he swam the river. Mijok plucked a sodden thing from his +thigh; its jaws had clenched in flesh when he smashed its body. He +flipped the ratty thing into the water and remarked like a Charin, +"Damned if I could ever care for 'em." + +"The others--" + +"We tried to help them into the trees," said Elis. "Could be some +safety in that if the swarm passes by. But most of them ran blindly, +so--beyond that, Doc, don't ever ask us. We must forget some things. +We've all done what we could, so--let's rest a while and go on." + +"Oh, we go on," Wright said. "Chaos, or maybe a little bit of light +from time to time. What--sixteen of us now...? Which way was the swarm +going?" + +"North. Our flight was west. I think this place is safe." + +Abara called down: "Mister Johnson says it is safe." + +Paul said, "No more travel tonight. Wait here for daylight. This is +not the river we wanted, but we know it reaches the sea somehow. Let's +think about that in the morning. And--if you will, Doc--I'd like to +make that my last order. Let Elis be our commander till we reach the +island." + +"I!" Elis was shocked. "But Paul.... I am a big baby, I wonder and +wonder and never find the answer to anything." + +Wright laughed; it sounded like laughter. At any rate when his voice +found words it was warm, relieved, more like his own than it had been +at any time since the drums sounded on Lake Argo. "That doesn't +matter, Elis. Paul has done all anyone could, done it well, and +leadership's a wearing thing. But you can carry it." + +Paul wished he could see the black face in the dark; he might learn +from it, he thought, so far as a Charin was capable of learning. Elis +said dazedly, "If you all wish it--" + +"I wish it," said Abro Brodaa. + +"Yes," Mijok said. "Let's not trouble to vote. We know you, Elis." + +"I'll do my best...." + +Most of the pygmies collapsed in sleep. The bites the giants had +received were not numerous enough to be a danger, but both were in +some pain, and wakeful; Abara also said he would prefer to watch out +the night and not sleep. Paul stretched on the damp grass, aware of +Nisana, sitting near him. He tried to make a mental refuge of Dorothy +and the island; for a time it was possible, but twice, as he thought +he was drifting into true healing sleep, the present pulled at him and +the thought was not of Dorothy, but of Pakriaa, throwing up her arm +across her eyes as if Wright's words had been a deeper wound than any +she had received in these days of calamity and defeat. + +He woke while it was still night. The red moon had risen, changing the +river to deep purple; the stampede was all ended, and stillness was +everywhere, underlying the low voices of Wright and Elis. He saw the +small silhouette of Nisana beside him; he could make out none of the +others, but he heard the soft breathing of the olifants, and at least +some of them must have gone to the jungle and returned, for there was +a steady munching of coarse leaves. He thought: _Sears' pets--one of +his ten thousand gifts we can never live long enough to assess. His +laughter was another...._ + +Wright was talking placidly: "We suppose it must have been a similar +story on this planet, Elis. The major patterns are the same. The small +and simple forms must have grown to greater complexity through their +millions of years, undoubtedly in the seas, the good saline medium for +our kind. Then other millions of years, while the first creatures to +try the land were clumsy amphibians, still needing the sea but +developing ways to carry it with them, venture a little further. +There's no hurry in history." + +"And before the beginning of life?" + +"Difficult, Elis. We think (there are other theories) that each star +with planets was once two--a binary, our astronomers called it--" + +Someone thin and small came near to Paul, speaking delicately, in an +extremity of pain, and not to him. "Nisana," Pakriaa said. "Nisana--" + +Nisana was looking up, a little afraid, uncertain. "Princess?" + +"Only Pakriaa.... Nisana--I saw how you spoke to the Vestoian, how she +was quiet. If you will bring her--and Tejron too? And we go and +listen--Tocwright is talking about the stars--the world--I think, +maybe, we tell her what he says? Will you come with me, Nisana?" + + + + +Part Three + +The Year Ten + + + + +1 + + +_Argo IV_ answered Dunin's brown hand at the tiller, sliding south +under a following breeze. Her chief designer Paul Mason liked to call +her a sloop, admitting that on no planet would any sloop have cared to +be found dead with a pair of twelve-foot oars amidships. She was +thirty-six feet fore and aft. Without a sawmill, shaping boards for +her strakes had been harder than trimming and placing the single tree +trunk that was her keel. Much of her joining was with wooden pegs; +there was iron in her too, from the single deposit of ore on the +island of Adelphi. Her building had started seventeen months ago in +the Year Nine. One month ago Paul's daughter Helen had cracked across +her bow an earthen flask of wine brought to maturity by Nisana and +_Argo IV_ had slipped out of the mouth of the Whitebeach River for a +maiden voyage--a forty-mile circuit of the island, including the +passage of a strait where a current from open ocean ran formidably +between Adelphi and a small nameless island in the south. Since then +she had journeyed short distances up and down the coast, learning her +own fussy ways and teaching them to her makers. + +_Argo II_ had been a clumsy oared raft of heroic history. Nine Lucifer +years ago, roughly the equivalent of twelve Earth years, _Argo II_ had +not only brought fifteen survivors of a war to the island, she had +also, broadened and repaired, returned to the mainland over the +ten-mile channel to pick up a sixteenth survivor, Abara, and the +gentle white beasts he had refused to abandon. He had guided them +south, through seventy miles of unknown terrors, and ten miles further +along the beach, until it came to an end at sheer cliffs; here _Argo +II_ found him. One by one--probably no one but Abara could have +coaxed them aboard--_Argo II_ had ferried all five of the olifants +across. During the rains that came for a dark ending of Year Two, the +swollen Whitebeach River had torn _Argo II_ from her moorings and she +had been swept away down the channel. Now she would be driftwood +scattered over the infinity of the unexplored; she was remembered. + +_Argo III_, still in existence and more often called Betsy, was only a +boxed platform with outriggers and two pairs of oars. With four giants +at the oars and a favorable current she could approximate three miles +an hour and carry several tons. She had been built in the Year Four +and was still busily bringing slabs of building stone from the base of +the coastal range. The stone was red and black or sometimes purple, +heavy, already smoother than marble without polishing; unlike any +common stone of Earth, it was so hard that wind and sun and water over +the centuries had done little with it. Wright believed that was why +the coastal range could rise to such heights from a narrow base. While +the years in their millions had turned other mountains to level +ground, the glassy rock remained: it could be broken for use but +defied erosion like a diamond. + +_Argo IV_ was unequivocally a ship; after her trial Paul had carved +for her bow a figurehead with the dreaming face of Pakriaa. + +"Maybe," Dunin said, "with a few more like this the first explorations +could be around the coast instead of overland? If we had two or three +more ships when Kris-Mijok is old enough to go?" + +Paul knew Dorothy had winced, though her face was turned to the +evening-reddened field of water. "If he still wants it, when he's old +enough to go...." + +Kris-Mijok Wright, her third-born child and only son, had been born in +the Year Three; in Earth years he was only nine. His hunger for the +long journeying might be mainly a reflection of his devotion to Dunin, +herself full of visions and not yet a woman. A tentative half joke, a +means of channeling a child's fantasy into patience, had somehow +become a sober adult plan: that the first major explorations would +begin when Kris-Mijok would have a man's strength to take part in +them. + +"We might have such ships by then." Paul tried to sound judicial. "Say +the Year Eighteen or Nineteen. Yes, a coastal exploration might be +better than trying to cross the continent. Not a circumnavigation +though, at first." + +Dunin's big face blossomed in a grin. "Only about thirty-six thousand +miles by the old map made from the air. Open water at north and south +poles, plenty of it. Could do it in less than a year." + +"More like fifty thousand, allowing for deflections, tacking, pull of +currents we don't know. Storms, flat calms, contrary winds, repairs, +expeditions ashore for provisions. You pull your horns in just a bit, +my girl. Do you remember a desert plateau the map shows in the +southern hemisphere? Solid cliff rising out of the sea for over seven +hundred miles, and on top of it roasting sand all the way across the +continent--and that plateau is only a small part of the coastal +desolation down there. From the equator to the 30th parallel I don't +think you'd have a chance to go ashore--and nothing to help you if you +did." + +Dunin still grinned. "Just sail past it." + +"Yes--well out to sea, with the equatorial sun at work on you. Very +few islands in that region, some of them bare rock." And he thought: +_If I might go myself...! I am fifty now, in Earth years, a young +fifty...._ + +He knew also that Dorothy would not prevent him. She would not go +herself: she would remain at Adelphi, faithful to the daily things, +undramatic labors and loyalties that make civilization something more +than a vision. She was a young thirty-eight, though she had already +borne five children. If he went away, she would mind the watch fires +on the beaches, as she had done nine years ago; she would work in the +school, the house, the gardens, stand by Christopher Wright during the +depressions that sometimes overcame him. She would grow old waiting. +Therefore, Paul knew, he would never leave her. "The explorations will +come in good time, Dunin," he said. "You'll have 150 years to watch +and take part. I think you'll live to see the other continent too, and +the great islands in the southwest. In the meantime--there's so much +exploring to be done right here!" He watched the water too, aware of +Dorothy's face turned to him, sober and appraising. "You know, +Dunin--that island we visited today--that could hold a community of a +thousand between its two little hills. And I'm remembering the one +forty miles north of us. _Argo II_ was swept ashore there: get Doc to +tell you that story sometime. I was sick for a week and laid up in one +of the limestone caves while the others repaired the raft. A round +island less than five miles across. We might sail there next trip." + +"The other continent," Dunin murmured, and she watched the rising +blue-green mound of Adelphi in the south. "The islands of the +southwest...." + +Dorothy leaned against the hand-hewn rail, looking northeast, saying +lightly, "There he is...." The stone figure in the coastal range grew +visible as the channel current pressed them a little too far eastward. +The vast features were not clear; one could find the line of shoulder. +"And Sears said, 'He looks west of the sun.' Was it long ago you told +me that, Paul?" + +"In a way it was.... Penny for 'em, Dorothy?" + +"Oh----" Her brown face crinkled in the way he hoped for. "I was +climbing down off philosophy with my usual bump--wondering what hell +the twins have been raising while we're away. Brodaa's patience with +them passes belief. With her own three sets of twins she's had +practice. I wish Pak could have had children. Twenty-nine--late middle +age for her people.... Helen's going to make a better med student than +ever I was--don't you think, Paul? Seems like more than just a kid's +enthusiasm." + +"I think so." And Sears' plump daughter Teddy (Theodora-Pakriaa) would +no doubt find herself too, sometime: there was no hurry. Even +Christopher Wright no longer seemed to feel that time was hounding +him, though his years by the Earth calendar were sixty-five, his hair +and beard were white, his wiry thinness moved deliberately to save the +strength he had once been able to spend like unconsidered gold.... +"Look!" + +Dorothy said carefully, "But that is impossible." A column of smoke on +the flank of the coastal range, above one of the beaches where +building stone was found. Blue-gray against the red and black, it rose +straight in untroubled air. "They weren't taking Betsy out till we got +back." + +"Too high anyway," Dunin said. "No need to climb so high for the +stone." + +Dorothy whispered, "I have _never_ quite believed that Ed and Ann----" + +"Oh, Dorothy! Well, we----" + +"Yes, I saw the lifeboat go down on the channel. It didn't sink." She +shut her eyes. "It was a misty evening, lover, more ways than one. +Remember, Dunin?" + +"I'll always remember." + +"Paul, I know that when the open-sea current below the island took the +lifeboat it must have been smashed against the cliffs--oh, of +course--and for nine years the sea spiders will have used the pieces +of it for their little castles and hideaways. All the same--Ed and Ann +could have managed to swim ashore. Cross the range somehow or go +around it." + +"Nothing to eat. Barren rock straight up from the beaches, where there +are any beaches, for ninety miles south of the only place where they +could have landed and for twenty miles north of it." + +"But no kaksmas in the coast range either; no omasha, this side. There +_are_ beaches here and there. They might have found--shellfish--blue +seaweed." + +"Nine years----" + +"It _is_ smoke. Our people wouldn't be up there...." + +"You've never wanted to talk much about that day." + +"No, I--haven't. I didn't behave too well myself. Yes, there are +things I've never told.... Paul, Ed Spearman was like somebody I +didn't know. He did say in so many words that he planned to go to +Vestoia, not to--to throw himself on the mercy of Lantis, but to 'give +her civilization'--he said. We tried, Ann and I, tried to reason with +him against that. I think he had some alternative plan--maybe flying +south of Vestoia as far as the fuel would take him and starting a +community of his own--with Ann and me, you know, and himself the old +man of the tribe." + +"And without us," said Dunin mildly. + +"Yes, dear, I recall that. He put that in words...." In a way, Paul +did not want her to go on, living it over again, but she had a need to +speak of it. "I suppose his plans made a kind of sense if you accepted +the premise. As I couldn't, of course. When he said you were all +lost, I believed (I had to believe) that he was--not lying perhaps, +but telling something he hadn't truly seen. I know that was where I +let go--I raged and screamed, and when he grabbed my arm (probably +just wanting to quiet me down)--well, if he's living he'll have two or +three white scars down his cheek. Uh-huh: the Dope comes clean. I ever +think I was trying to get hold of my pistol when Arek took it away, +and took his away too. After that she forced him to give a precise +account of everything that had happened, every detail. She made him +tell it five or six times, watching for contradictions. She +was--justice embodied. I was afraid of her myself even while I loved +her for it. I knew what he told us then was the truth: the fuel was +low, he'd come direct to the island with no real knowledge of what had +happened to you. He was saner after the telling. He lost a--a certain +look of exalted listening, as if somebody behind Arek's shoulder were +telling him what to do. Arek never gave back his pistol. We were on +the beach. The giants had been bringing wood all day for a beacon +fire. I remember the exact shape of a big shell at my feet, the look +of a bit of driftwood tossed in by the channel breakers...." + +"And Ann--" + +"Oh, Ann! Tom two or three ways as usual. She was very much in love +with him, you know, from our first days on Lucifer. But her mind was a +battleground with no armistice. I think Ed always knew that. When he +pleaded with her--reasonably too--she couldn't think, she could only +cry and say: 'I won't go with you--I won't go.' He stopped +trying--suddenly, as if he'd knowingly turned off a light inside +himself--unsteady light and the only one he had, I reckon. He said, +'So much for the human race: but I'll see what one man can do here +before I'm dead without issue.' And he walked off to the lifeboat, +while Arek let his pistol dangle from her finger--and, Paul, I shall +always think he knew Ann would run after him. I saw her tugging, +trying to pull him out of the boat--but she was pulled in and it was +gone." + +"And I remember," said Dunin, "what you did after we lost sight of +it." + +"What I did...? What was that, Dunin? I'm blank there." + +"You went to the beacon fire and put on more wood." + +"Well," she said vaguely, "of course. We all did.... That _is_ smoke, +Paul. Lantis' pygmies or the wild giants couldn't be there on the +cliffs." + +Dunin said, "Oh, there are no giants in that country, Dorothy. Those +low hills I remember west of the first camp--those kaksma hills were +an impassable boundary in the old days. The country west of +them--nobody went there, ever. And south of them--Vestoia. My wild +kindred are all very far north of here...." + +_Argo IV_ eased up to the wharf, where Elis and Arek handled her like +a toy, making her fast with ropes of a fabric as good as linen. Wright +was there with them, and Tejron, and Pakriaa and Nisana, who were +inseparable. "Too far," said Wright, and handed Paul the field +glasses. "Just smoke." + +Elis grumbled, "What's up there to burn? No vegetation. Rock." + +The smoke seemed to be thinning. "How long since our last trip over?" + +"Eight days, Paul," Tejron recalled. "My impatient eldest wanted to +see if he could handle Betsy's oars, remember?" + +"He could, too." Paul remembered. "Sears-Danik pulled his weight, my +lady. Yes, that was the last time. And we saw nothing unusual." + +Only Nisana thought to ask, "Good voyage today, Paul?" + +"Fine, darling. You should have come." + +Wright was carefully calm. "I'll go over, with Paul, Elis--and--" + +"And me," said Dorothy, not smiling. + +"Well.... Okay, Dope." + +Pakriaa's thin wrinkled face turned to him. "Nisana and I? +Miniaan--she would remember the Vestoian dialect--but she is at the +city. It would need an hour to send for her, and then it would be +getting dark." + +"Yes, come with us...." + +The site of Jensen City was not where Wright and Paul had originally +dreamed of it but two miles south, where the radiance of Sears Lake +hung in the hills. A gap in the west admitted ocean winds; the outlet +of the lake ran for a mile to the edge of a red stone cliff and +tumbled over in a waterfall five hundred feet high. There would one +day be houses along that mile of river. Already, near the waterfall, +there was a temple of red and black stone devoted to quiet without +ritual, thought of sometimes as a memorial to Sears and to the other +dead, more often simply as a place to go for the satisfactions of +silence. It had no name; Paul hoped it would never have one. + +Miniaan of Vestoia was an eager citizen. The old wound had left one +side of her head cruelly scarred; from the other side she was +beautiful, by Charin as well as pygmy standards. Younger than Pakriaa, +she was the mother of four, by Kajana--the archer whom Mijok had once +carried on his shield, who would never walk again nor live a day +without pain, and who was more cheerful as a permanent habit of mind +than any of the other pygmy survivors of that war. The fifty-four +pygmy children of Jensen City were all fathered by Abara and Kajana--a +fact which caused old Abara to draw dead-pan comparisons between +himself and Mister Johnson and to grow darkly desperate when Kajana +wistfully asked him to explain why it was a joke.... + +Elis shipped the oars; Paul let down the anchor, a heavy block of +stone, in two fathoms of blackening water; Elis lifted the dugout over +the side and held it for them. He himself swam the short distance to +the beach and eased the canoe through the shallows. Even now at low +tide there was barely a quarter mile of gray sand between water and +cliffs. Chipping away of building stone had created a fair path a +hundred feet up; beyond, natural irregularities made it possible to +climb another two hundred to the first setback of the great sea +wall--a ledge which ran only as far as the next patch of beach, five +miles south. Sunset had been ending when _Argo IV_ came home; here +there was a depth of evening quiet, no sign of smoke or life, no sound +but the long hiss and moaning of small waves. "We might make a fire +here," Wright said. "But there's enough light. They--they?--must have +seen _Argo_." + +"There," Dorothy said, and ran up the sand. + +The others watched in frozen helplessness as the woman came down the +crude cliff path, gaunt, seeming tall only because of the +gauntness--flaring ribs, thighs fallen in, every arm bone visible. Her +hair was black disorder to her waist, her body a battleground of +bruises, dirt, scars old and new, and she winced away from Dorothy +with protesting hands. "You mustn't touch me because I'm very dirty, +but I know who you are. Besides, I had to burn the last of my clothes. +My baby died. I know who you are. You see, my milk stopped. You're +Dorothy Leeds. I left him on the cliff. Matron would not approve. You +see----" + +"Ann--Ann----" + +"I have two other sons, but this one died. On the cliff. I used to +know a man who called me Miss Sarasate, but that was just his way of +talking--I don't happen to be in practice." Still trying to fend off +Dorothy's arms, Ann fell on her face.... + +Pakriaa was speaking softly, in the room where Ann was +sleeping--Wright's room. "She will be healed," Pakriaa said. "I can +remember--and you remember it too, Paul--how my own mind refused to be +my servant for a while." Since Ann had been brought to Jensen City, +Pakriaa and Nisana had never left her: the little women, both now far +from youth, took on the duties of nursing with a fierce +protectiveness, so that there was little for even Dorothy to do. Ann +had slept heavily all night and morning. At noon the stone-walled +house remained cool; mild air entered at the screenless window +openings, stirring the wall map of Adelphi and the three of Paul's +paintings which were the only decorations Wright allowed in this +ascetic shelter. There was glass-making now, but in such a climate, +with no serious insect pests, it seemed a waste of effort to make +windows; a long overhang of the eaves was sufficient against the +rains. The house was large, U-shaped around a garden courtyard open +toward Sears Lake; the walls were of black stone, the roof of a +material indistinguishable from slate, carried by hardwood timbers. +Wright shared this house with Mijok and Arek, Pakriaa, Nisana, +Miniaan, and their children and Arek's. There were five other such +communal houses overlooking the lake; a seventh was building. The +children were everywhere: it was, and would be for many years, a city +of the young. Rak had died in the Year Four, a matter of falling +asleep without waking, but Kamon lived, sharing a house with Tejron, +Paul and Dorothy, Brodaa and Kajana. Lately Sears' daughter had taken +over the task of caring for Kajana in his helplessness, lifting him to +and from a wheel chair that Paul and Mijok had contrived or carrying +him to a hammock slung near the waterfall, where he could watch the +ocean and its changes. In middle age, Kajana had taught himself to +write, and kept a journal of the colony with a sober passion for +detail. + +Ann had not waked when Dorothy and Nisana washed her and clipped the +dreadful tangle of her hair. "She will be healed," Pakriaa insisted. +"Maybe in the next waking." And when Ann's gray eyes came open an hour +later, they did show a measuring sanity, recognizing Dorothy and Paul, +but wincing away when Nisana smiled and touched her. + +"Do not be afraid of us," Pakriaa whispered. "We are still proud. But +our pride now is that no one is afraid of us.... You came to my house +in the old old days, remember? My blue house, and I thinking I would +be Queen of the World? I laugh at that now. Do not look at what I was, +Ann." + +"Pakriaa.... Paul, you haven't changed much." + +"One of our other friends is about to bring a man-sized meal----" + +"Why, Paul, you must be----" + +"Fifty, Earth calendar----" + +Dorothy said, "We measure it in Lucifer years, pretty please." + +"Nicer," Paul admitted. "That way I'm around thirty-seven. Ann, +you--let's see: one Earth year, one point three eight--damn mental +arithmetic--let's call you half past twenty-seven." + +"Imagine that." Ann achieved a smile. "And--Pakriaa?" + +"Twenty-nine. See--already I am an old woman and ugly." + +"Don't be absurd, Pak," Dorothy said. "And this lady----" + +"You would not remember me," said Nisana. + +"Oh, but I do, I do. You--voted for Paul----" + +Pakriaa chuckled with unforced gaiety. "Politics," Nisana chirped. +"P.S., I got the job." Paul pinched her tiny ear lobe and stepped out +to the kitchen, where he found Wright with Arek. The children were at +school, with Brodaa, Mijok, and Miniaan: ordinarily Wright would have +been there too. When the youngest of this house were through with +lessons they would go wandering in the hills with Mijok and Muson, so +that Ann might have quiet, with only distant sounds of the laughter +and playing in sunlight. "She's awake," Paul said, and Wright hurried +to the bedroom, but Arek lingered, filling a tray. + +Arek had grown almost to Mijok's height, filling out, a red mother +goddess still bemused by inner discoveries. Her fine soft-furred +fingers fussed at the earthen dishes on the wooden tray. "No ambition, +no achievement--nothing, I think, could be worth the price of what's +happened to her. Whether she recovers completely or not. There's human +right and wrong. I think sometimes, Paul, it's not necessary to do +much wondering. You can look straight at a thing and say: 'This ought +not to be.'" + +"Granted," Paul said, watching the garden through the broad kitchen +window. His eldest, Helen, must have elected to do a little work after +school instead of strolling away with the others. She was weeding, her +brown head sheltered from the sun by an improvised hat of leaves; but +for that she was prettily naked as the day she was born, and though +she was humming to herself, she restrained the sound so that Paul +could hardly hear it. She saw him in the window and grinned and waved. +She had most of Dorothy's warm coloring, with Paul's long-legged +slimness. + +Arek saw her too and smiled. "What Ann should have had too.... Paul, I +told you once, we love you. All the good new things we have--your +work. All the same there's a devil in--some of you. As in us too, of +course. Need of the laws is obvious. If Spearman is responsible--the +Vestoians too, maybe?--then I think we live in too much seclusion +here." She took up the tray. "Too easy to live all the time in +Paradise and--leave things undone." + +"Yes. Vestoia is big, Arek--or was, when it almost destroyed us." + +"True. But you tell me that over there on the beach she said, 'I have +two other sons.' Living, did she mean? We must find them, and Spearman +too." + +"I believe she can tell us about it soon." + +"Understood that I go with you when you find them." + +"Yes. Yes, Arek...." + +In the bedroom Arek's manner was altogether changed. "Observe: this is +asonis _roti a la mode Versailles_, whatever that means. All I did was +roast it. These are (Paul says) lima beans Munchausen, and here we +have could-be asparagus. And by the way, the cheese tastes better'n it +smells." + +"Cheese----" + +"Asonis milk," said Wright. "They moo, too." + +"Oh, you've tamed them." Pain fought with interest in the haggard +face. "Yes, Ed wanted to do that, but we--somehow we never----" + +"If you're good," Arek said, "and eat all that, there's cake." + +"You found something for sugar?" + +"Can't tell it from terrestrial," Dorothy chattered, "only it's pink. +From a tree fruit sort of like a plum. We have a plantation of 'em +across the lake. You boil it down to nothing and the sugar +crystallizes out. We make another kind from sap, not as good as maple. +Flour--that's from the same old wheat that came from Earth. +Miniaan--oh, you don't know her yet--Miniaan and Paul have +experimented around with the local grass grains--nothing yet that +measures up to wheat." Ann picked at the food, crying weakly at the +first mouthful. "Ah, don't do that," said Dorothy, looking away. "You +came home, that's all." + +Later she ate ravenously. "I want to tell you----" + +It took a long time in telling. Once she fell asleep but woke an hour +later, obsessed with a need to continue.... + +The lifeboat drifted south, its last remnant of fuel gone in a mad +effort to leap the coastal range. Water sneaked in at the seal of the +floor window, damaged in an earlier landing, and Ed Spearman talked to +himself. "Fugitives from a Sunday school--we'll live." Like a hurt boy +he said, "We'll show 'em...." When the current beyond the island swept +them toward the cliffs, he opened the door and pulled Ann into the +water, dragging her, forgetting that she was herself a strong swimmer. +Later, on the beach, he was tender, trying to comfort and reassure her +with a vision of the future abundantly real to him. They had no food, +no way to light a fire of driftwood. They would go to Vestoia, he +said, convince Lantis that they were friends, with something to offer +her empire; they would "bring her civilization." + +From this beach there seemed to be no passage north. They could have +found one by climbing high into the range--Ann did so, nine years +later. But Spearman found a ledge of sorts running south: it might +take them the eighty-odd miles to the lower end of the range or give +out at any point, trapping them. It did give out twice; both times, +rather than clamber higher on the cliffs, Spearman hurled his famished +body through the breakers and swam south, aided by the current until +it was possible to continue along the rocks. Ann followed, not quite +wishing for the death the ocean could have given easily. They kept +alive with shellfish and seaweed washed ashore and small crustaceans +that hid in the tide lines and in crannies of wet rock; there were +pools of rain water and violent small streams plunging down the range. +It took them fifty days to cover the eighty miles. ("I think I spent a +hundred coming back," Ann said. "Couldn't swim, with the baby. It +would have been against the current anyway. Climbed--sometimes went +back miles from a dead end to try again.") In the afternoons the sun +pressed on them with total fury; then they could only crawl into what +shadow the rocks gave and wait for the torture to cease. + +But at last there were trees. Level ground. In a few miles, a rapid +friendly river. ("Are there rivers here? I've forgotten. Nothing +prettier in the world. I let that one close over me. Ed pulled me +out--we had to go on.") + +There were five more of those bright leaping coastal streams in a +journey of another fifty miles southeast through good country, where +the great range thinned out into rolling jungle and meadowland. There +were asonis and small game. Spearman made himself weapons. Ann could +remember these days almost with pleasure. They had, she said, +something the flavor of a delayed childhood, a glimpse of Eden. +Spearman was for a time simply a strong and intelligent man measuring +himself against nature for survival, master of a simple environment +with none to question his decisions and no social complexities to warp +them. ("I wished we could settle in that country, the two of us. I +even begged for it. He had to go on.") + +From the remembered map, Spearman knew there was an obscure pygmy +settlement south of the end of the range, some fifty miles below +Vestoia: merely a cluster of parallel lines that had appeared in the +photographs, it might or might not be a part of the empire of Lantis. +It was near the headwaters of a seventh river, which flowed, not to +the coast, but eastward, into the deep, wide, violent outlet of Lake +Argo. ("He never told me why he was following that river so +cautiously, until we reached the villages. And history repeated +itself.") + +The villages were a furtive, chronically frightened community. They +knew of Vestoia but believed, correctly, that the groping tentacles of +empire had not yet found them. Lantis' drive was mainly to the east, +where the country was easier and pygmy settlements were numerous; even +her war against Pakriaa's people had been a diversion, more a matter +of hurt pride than gainful conquest. Between these hidden villages and +Vestoia there were meadows, dangerous with omasha, and some swampland; +below the two small Vestoian lakes the current of the river Argo was +too fierce for the flimsy boats of Lantis. So the villages of the +seventh river, under a sly but feeble queen, waited like a rabbit in a +hedge. With sharply calculated drama--but smiling this time, Ann said, +like a pleased teacher at a blackboard--Ed Spearman overturned another +idol and became a god. + +At the end of two years, when Spearman's goddess had borne him twin sons, +there was industry in the villages. There was an army of a thousand spears, +bladed with iron from certain small hills in the north between Vestoia and +Spearman City. These hills were dangerous with burrows, but workers of a +particular kind could be made to go there. The soldiers overcame their +distaste for the bow when they had watched the course of arrows properly +vaned and tipped with iron or bronze. They did not need to be taught how to +hate Vestoia--nevertheless they relished it when Spearman decided that +political realities demanded he should tell them an epic tale, the tale of +a war he and companion gods had waged against that place. Vengeance, divine +or human, was a thing the pygmies had understood from the first biting and +scratching of infancy. + +Ann had been bewildered by that first gust of oratory against Vestoia. +Spearman had neglected to prepare her for it during the long two years +spent in teaching the pygmies a limited English and the beginnings of +industry: it might not have been clear to himself that such a move +would be necessary in order to hold his people's enthusiasm and +devotion. Ann wondered. "You had thought once of going to Vestoia----" +Spearman turned on her with an anger partly cynical humor: "They hurt +us, didn't they? Oh, I might have toyed with the idea as a choice of +evils before we found our real friends. They killed Doc, didn't they? +And Paul and Sears and those milky giant friends of ours." + +"But you didn't see----" + +"_What?_" + +Spearman believed now that he had seen the full end of that war. Ann +got it through her head after a while. When he said that Vestoia must +be punished for past wrongs, there was a smiling half admission of +disingenuous policy. "It'll work," he said. "We can get away with it." +But the death of all the others except Dorothy had become for him +something like an article of faith, not to be examined. At this +moment, Ann said, she had begun to think of a northward journey, but +the odds were darkly against it. The twins were still nursing and +sickly; the demands of mere daily living are heavy on a goddess who +must also supervise housekeeping. There was, for instance, the endless +squabbling treachery of the household slaves. At that time also, Ann +hoped to soften or divert some changes that seemed to be taking place +in Spearman himself. ("I wonder if they were really changes....") + +Spearman detested slavery, he said. But in a primitive economy how +else could you get the work done? Even in daylight, when the kaksmas +were half helpless, only the bravest soldiers would go into those +hills--not to work, but only as guards for the chained lines of +laborers, guards who could run fast if the kaksmas came out for a +day-blind attack and leave the slaves to be consumed. Bad: Spearman +was sorry such things had to be. Still, the slaves were poor or +sometimes dangerous material at best; besides that, they hated +responsibility and were therefore really happier in slavery and +received better care than they could otherwise have had. So you had to +see it as almost a eugenic, even a humanitarian measure as well as an +unavoidable transitional phase, and in any case you can't make an +omelette without breaking eggs. At the use of meat slaves for the +palace household, Spearman had to draw the line, and he instituted +laws against the custom for the rest of his little kingdom, but they +were difficult to enforce without compromising matters of greater +political importance. "Transitional" became a somewhat sacred word for +Spearman over the years, a sustaining conception when things went +badly and when his ingrained sensitivities brought from Earth were +violated by the brisk egg-breaking of a Neolithic culture. + +Even the first war against Vestoia, in the third year of Spearman's +deification, was part of a transitional phase, although Spearman did +not feel that his pygmies were advanced enough to be troubled with +fine distinctions. It is better for a god to resist pressures for +explanation. + +That first war was well planned, with limited objective. Six hundred +spearwomen and archers crossed the Argo below Vestoia and fell on the +city from the east, so that there was no clue to their southern +origin; they set afire a mile of the lake settlement, took three +hundred captives, and vanished--again eastward, leaving a few crippled +defenders to convey the message that they would come again. It had the +desired effect: the armies of Lantis foamed eastward like crazed +hornets, while Spearman's force slipped home across the Argo without a +trace. In the following year they struck again, again from the east, +but with a larger force, laying waste nearly a third of that part of +the city on the eastern shores of the Vestoian lakes. The palace of +Lantis, nerve center of empire, was on the west shore. Probably the +queen knew nothing of what had happened until she saw the far shore +buried in smoke, and by the time she crossed over, she would have +learned only that Spearman's army had promised to come a third time +and take Lantis herself and assume command of the empire. + +They did, just six years after that lonely journey along the rocks. +Ann's twin sons were five years old, five Lucifer years. In the first +two campaigns, Spearman had not shown himself in person to the +Vestoians. In this third battle he was at the head of his army, +massive and tall; with a cold, unhappy precision, he was using a long +hardwood stick with a razor-edge semicircular blade. And this time his +legion had driven in out of the west, directly against the palace and +the temples and sacred places of the Queen of the World. + +Lantis was aging then, and sick, and bewildered; she probably never +understood that it was merely a question of her own methods being used +against her. Even when her city was in flames around her and her +people were scattering into forest and swamp and lake, she could +neither yield nor destroy herself; thus it was her misfortune to be +taken alive. + +A week later Ann and the children were brought by litter from Spearman +City; Spearman recognized the political advantage, almost necessity, +of their presence at the triumph. Lantis was ceremonially dragged +through the still-smoldering and stinking streets and forced to drink +an infusion of the green-flower weed that destroyed the self: this was +pygmy custom, which Spearman watched in regretful disgust, anxious +that his small sons should preserve the impassive dignity proper to +gods. "They're far from human, you know--they don't feel things as we +do...." The boys were puzzled and curious. + +So far as Ann knew, however, Lantis was not eaten at the festival. "He +told me she was mercifully put away after the excitement died down, +and another meat slave was sacrificed, made up to look like +Lantis--not deception, but ritual substitution; Ed felt he'd achieved +quite a step in progress there. It showed, he said, they were +beginning to accept ritual for reality under the influence of----Oh, +the devil with it.... He moved his capital to Vestoia. The palace was +restored--modernized. I lived there--two and a half years. That's +where I bore him another son. I'll never know how I came to allow +it--a kind of madness, hate close to love--something.... He didn't +want me any more, you know. He had some ideas about--ascetic +discipline--purity--I don't know what exactly--and he didn't try to +explain it to me. I'd hated him with all my mind for years--before the +Vestoian wars--but I'm not a good hater. I even still imagined I +could influence him a little--until the baby was born and he was in +black despair because it wasn't a daughter. I had to escape. I could +feel my mind, my self, rotting away--dissolving, as the Vestoian +empire was dissolving, for that matter. He couldn't hold them. It +began to fall apart right away. They were terrified of him and of his +Spearman City bodyguards--weasels.... They simply drifted away into +the woods and didn't come back. I doubt if they've organized anywhere +else. Lantis must have had a rare sort of skill--the city was all +hers: she built it out of Stone Age villagers, and it died with her. +Ed tried everything to keep them--bribes, threats, endless spying and +public executions by his guard. Bread and circuses, meaningless +offices for favorites with fancy clothes and no duties. It didn't +work. At the time I escaped, the population was down to--he'd never +tell me, but my guess is under ten thousand for the whole city. There +was an epidemic--rather like flu. I used that as a reason to take the +baby back to Spearman City, knowing Ed would need to stay and go on +trying to hold things together. I thought he would let me take the +twins--John--David----" + +"Rest awhile," said Arek. "We're going to bring them home too." Ann +could not speak. "How would you like to bathe again in our lake? I'll +hold you up. Water's warm with the sun--best part of the day----" + +"I'd like it. It's so pretty. What do you call it?" + +"Sears Lake." + +"Sears.... What am I made of? I haven't thought or asked----" + +"It was a Vestoian arrow," Wright said. "At the end he enjoyed +remembering Earth." + + + + +2 + + +"The city is a desolation." Miniaan slipped out of shadow into the +clearing, where the others waited for her without a fire; she was shaken, +short of breath. No longer young, she had hurried on the ten-mile return +journey from Vestoia through high-noon heat of jungle. "I could not even +find the house where I was born. Oh, Pakriaa--Paul--of every ten houses, +seven are empty. The streets are dirt and rubbish. No one knew me. Well, +that's not strange. Those I met supposed I was a stranger, probably from +the east. But the ones who were suspicious did not challenge me--they +slipped into their sorry houses and stared at me through the cracks." She +sat down in weariness, wiping sweat from her scarred head and shoulder. +"Word of what I said will travel quickly. But not one followed me here. I +made sure of that." + +Arek asked, "Have you had anything to eat?" + +"No, I--only walked through the streets.... Doc, some had English +words--a few, badly spoken. No one could pronounce _d_ at the +beginning of a word, and they had absurd turns of speech I don't +understand. One woman said to me, 'One fella goddamn skirt belong you +what name?' I thought she was asking about this skirt I made in the +old fashion, but then we spoke in the old tongue: I found she only +wanted to know who I was and where I came from. It seems that now, +under Spearman-abron-Ismar, they indicate--what word do I +want?--social--social levels----" + +"Castes?" + +"Castes, that is it, Paul--they indicate castes by the color of a skirt. In +the old days there were only two castes--soldiers and voluntary laborers, +not considering the family of Lantis or the slaves at the bottom. Now +there are--oh, ten, twenty, I don't know. Those who work at the dye pots +must never do anything else, and they can look down on the workers in +hides; this woman was a maker of arrowheads and despised both.... I told +her (and some others) that I was a stranger from a distant village, and I +said I had heard by rumor of other gods and giants, who would come one day +soon to talk with Spearman-abron-Ismar--yes, they call him that, +Spearman-male-issue-of-Ismar. It frightened her: she made excuses and ran +away. I told it to another, an old woman, who broke out cursing and +weeping. She said, Oh, no more of them! No more----' And sat down in the +street and scattered dust on her head." + +"Did you see--him?" + +"No, Paul. I saw the palace--changed, with new tall doors. There were +soldiers at the entrance, so I did not dare go near. They wore a +headdress--it was the old bark fabric, I think, but a shape I never +saw. I saw the great stockade--always the biggest thing on the shore +of North Lake--still in repair; there was the same sluice, to wash +away the blood of the meat slaves. There is still a ferry near it, +where the crossing is narrow at the lake's inlet; I could see +across--streets and tree-sheltered houses. And outside the city I saw +a mound, very foul. Once the city was clean. There was a boy playing +near it--ran when he saw me, but I caught him and asked him about that +mound. I could hardly understand his gabble. It seems that nowadays in +Vestoia children have reason to be afraid of grown women. When we +could talk he told me the mound was the grave of the False Empress, +the Wicked One--everyone who passes is required to defile it. A law." + +Pakriaa laced her wrinkled hands at her throat, smiling at Christopher +Wright, quoting a few of his own words: "'The laws are living things: +let men guard them against crippling and disease.'" + +Nisana asked, "What is next to do?" + +"We sleep on it," Wright said. "Long journey. We're tired. We'll go +there in the morning. With our weapons of course, but...." + +Mijok said softly, "First-light is a good time." + +"I think there won't be any fighting," Miniaan said, and she relaxed +and leaned happily against Muson's plump knee and ate the meal Arek +had ready for her in fastidious birdlike bites. "If they're troubled +by the rumors I scattered they'll slip away and hide, not fight. +They're weary, bewildered, disillusioned people--at least that is the +temper of the city as I felt it." + +Nisana murmured, "With Spearman's bodyguard it could be different." + +"Why," said Wright, "he'd never turn them against us. Not if he's the +man I used to know, or anything like that man. He came a long way with +us once." But Paul had to wonder: _Was he ever with us?_ + +There were six giants in the party: Mijok, Arek, Muson, Elis, +Sears-Danik, Dunin. Elis was the year's Governor at Adelphi, but +Dorothy had held that position the year before and would assume its +simple duties in his absence. Nisana's eldest twin daughters had +wanted to come, but Nisana had not allowed it, requiring them to stay +in school under Brodaa's temperate discipline; the only pygmies here +were herself, Pakriaa, and Miniaan. The group had come 120 miles +overland, after _Argo IV_ set them on a beach north of the coastal +range: this had seemed better than taking the sloop south, where +harbor would be uncertain and the winds and currents unknown. The +first twenty miles ashore had been a retracing of Abara's long-ago +journey with the olifants, through swampy and treacherous jungle. +After rounding the range they could follow the eastern edge of the +grassland that spread on its lee side, traveling in the open only at +night, to avoid omasha. For all of one day they were bedeviled by a +swarm of biting flies, and since there were brown wings circling they +could not escape into full sunlight, where the flies would not follow. +Eventually Pakriaa found an evil-smelling plant and remembered its use +from old times. The juice of the root was a protection; the smell was +almost as distressing as the bites but less dangerous. Miniaan of +Vestoia had never heard of the plant's use: perhaps that explained why +Vestoia had never exploited the otherwise pleasant region due west of +Lake Argo. + +There was fitful sleep in the daylight following Miniaan's return, and +then an evening meal. Arek and Muson and the two young giants seemed +untroubled by tomorrow, full of speculative curiosity. Mijok was +uneasy, though he would not put it in words; Elis, too, would be +remembering. Wright said again, "He came a long way with us.... Jensen +chose him--remember that: chose him from among seven hundred other +physically fine youths who had the same training, the same kind of +courage, who wanted the--privilege, as he did." + +"I can always wonder what Jensen himself would have made of Lucifer." + +Wright said, almost with reproach, "Jensen was a great engineer, Paul, +but he was also a student of history. Compared with what his +leadership would have been, mine has been weak, vacillating, +academic--it was bound to be. I take credit for some achievements. +I've said give protoplasm a chance. We have done that. We've +established the climate of liberty under law (for our very small +group) and proved that a human mind can by-pass twenty thousand years +of blundering, with no other help than a flexible language and the few +basic rules of civilized action--as the so-called savages of Earth +always proved it whenever they had a chance to secure a genuine +education and fair treatment. But--in our material development there +must have been a thousand lost opportunities--things Jensen (and +probably Ed Spearman) would have seen at once." + +Paul laughed. "Ed could have designed a better sloop." + +Wright dismissed that with a chuckle. "Ach--she floats, boy. She +sails.... When I get angry or impatient or discouraged--when I stick +too tight to a plan of my own and fail to hear the opposing +argument--then I remember that Jensen had a charity, a patience, a +kindliness, almost as great as Sears had--" + +"Tocwright," said Pakriaa, half amused, "why do you search yourself? +Must you always be sitting in judgment on your own mind?" + +"Why, yes, dear, I must." His fingers played in his white beard. +"Cod-and-baked-beans origin.... Remember my fussy little _History of +the Americas_, the first book Dorothy and Nisana copied out for me +when we found how to make good paper from the marsh grass...? But +self-searching is a vice-and-virtue not limited to the Charin tribe, +Pakriaa--ask yourself. And ask Elis." The black giant smiled. +"So--I'll go on with it just a little. Paul, is it weakness in me to +ask that when we find Ed Spearman, you do most of the talking? I want +to be--merely friendly if I can, not say much. At least until we know +what sort of man he's become. Nine years ago, I don't think he ever +had much resentment against you. You hear both sides--usually the +surest way to make an extremist hate you bitterly, but somehow people +don't. You're a--kindly listener; I only try to be, pushing down a big +part of my natural temperament to do it.... Why, I think I never even +appreciated the full nastiness of sarcasm until one time (it's not +such a small matter)--one time on the space ship, when Sears +reproached me for it: something that went against his own nature, by +the way, because he was always too afraid of finding fault with +others." + +"I'll talk with him first, Doc, if you want me to. But I wonder what I +can say. I keep seeing Ann. The things she told us--he things Miniaan +has told us today." + +"A city that never was," said Miniaan sleepily, "never was even in the +old times. Maybe I dreamed it. If you are quiet, maybe I will allow us +to wake up in a moment on the island of Adelphi...." + +"Ann is not changed," Muson reflected, "even though the baby died." + +Mijok said, "I'm not sure. I think she is. In what way I can't define. +But she's not the same sad little thing I watched when she was +sleeping in that fever. Well now, that was truly long ago. She puzzled +me more than the rest of you, and you were all a great mystery--and I +with a dozen words and the old terrors crawling on my skin like lice. +Maybe it was her seeming weakness, her secret look of listening--which +I thought I began to understand when she taught me the Earth music, +but I don't suppose I ever did understand it." Mijok laughed and +looked away. "Doc, it was very difficult for me to grasp that you were +not begotten out of the west wind by a thunderbolt. You'll never know +how difficult, because you were never a savage. You were born to be +articulate. Those twenty thousand years of blundering--bad I don't +doubt they were, but they gave you something. I am as if the forest +had generated me, with no past." + +Miniaan murmured and rolled over on her back to look up into the +leaves. "I too. I was never born. Someone with no father nor mother +looked at that filthy mound they say is the grave of the Queen of the +World. The mind of a white-furred Charin is my father and my mother." + +Elis suggested: "Ann has come neater to the immediate present." + +"Why, Elis--" Pakriaa was surprised. "She said something like that to +me herself, a short while before we came away. She said, 'My +yesterdays became tomorrows before I lived them. I want to find today, +Pakriaa. Where is today?'" + +Miniann pursued the dark stream of her own thought, which now seemed +to be giving her pleasure and not pain: "This morning I found how +yesterday can bury itself with only the smallest scattering of years. +There will be other cities. Never again Vestoia." + +Wright asked gently, "But you can remember good and pleasant things of +the old city, the way it was when you were young there?" + +"Oh, I can, I can. But I'll have today, too. I think I found it first +when I bore my little sons, at Adelphi." She sat up, leaning on +Pakriaa's shoulder. "I've had good todays at Adelphi. I don't +understand how it could have been abandoned by this Spearman I've +never seen." + +"In a way," Paul said, "you did see him. You were one of those who +came on the canoes up Lake Argo. You saw the boat set your fleet +afire." + +"Yes. That was war.... And before I was wounded I killed, I think, +seven of your people, Pakriaa. One with a blue skirt. I wounded her in +the throat, and I have heard she died in the forest, looking north." + +"Yes, Tamisraa. My sister Tamisraa was a bitter woman," Pakriaa said, +"and quite brave. Miniaan, all that was over long ago, in a forgotten +country. Now we pull weeds in the same garden." + +Night came tranquilly. Elis, who kept the last quarter of the watch, +waked them before first-light. There was the help of a full red moon, +and they followed the sound of a swift river which flowed into North +Lake through the palace district of Vestoia. + +For more than a mile outside the city the jungle was like a park, +undergrowth removed, vines cut away. But the vines were coming back. +Greedy purple fingers curled to recapture and reclaim.... + +In the outskirts no one halted or questioned them. They saw no armed +women; here and there a man crouched in a weedy doorway with staring +children half hidden behind him. Mijok, Elis, Sears-Danik and Arek +walked on the outside, with shields upheld against a possible arrow or +thrown spear. Rifles and pistols were now history, all ammunition +spent; they lay in a closet off Wright's room at Adelphi which he +called the Terrestrial Museum. Paul, Wright, and Elis had Earth-made +hunting knives, still keen. Miniaan, leading them, held a spear, but +there was a blue-flower garland below its blade, symbol of peace. +Pakriaa and Nisana preferred to carry no weapons; Muson and young +Dunin had never handled one in their lives. Miniaan said over her +shoulder, "There is the old stockade. Here we turn right, toward the +palace." + +There was scurrying and disturbance now. Beyond Mijok's shield Paul saw a +few lean women running; one of them halted at Miniaan's call and approached +uneasily. There were questions, dubious replies. At the far end of the +shaded avenue was a growing cluster of red bodies before a thatched +building with one tall doorway. Miniaan explained: "I told her that we come +peacefully and want to talk with Spearman-abron-Ismar. And she says she +thinks he would be asleep at this hour." + +"So?" Wright frowned and fretted. "But the word you left yesterday +would certainly have reached him." The Vestoian twittered a last word +or two and ran away down the street; Paul saw her elbowing through the +crowd in front of the palace. "We might go forward a little...." + +Most of the group melted away; some forty armed women remained, in a +ragged formation blocking the entrance. They made no threatening or +even warning gestures, but their staring was heavy and cold. The +volunteer messenger returned, pushing through them to speak again with +Miniaan; once or twice a halting gabble of something like pidgin +English made Miniaan wave her hand impatiently. She turned to Paul. +"It seems Spearman told her to say that he is under the--the climate? +The weather? Is this meaningful?" + +Wright said, "Tell him his third-born son is dead and the doorway of +his palace is too narrow for our friends. Wait.... He asked nothing +about Ann?" + +"She does not say so." + +"I can send him no message. You see what I meant, Paul? +Paul--you--send whatever word you think best." + +"Well.... Miniaan, ask her to tell him that--Ann could not come with +us. That we want to talk with him and, as Doc said, that his door is +too narrow for some of us." + +The soldiers seemed to catch a glimmering of it; they made way for the +messenger, and it might be there was less suspicion in them, more +curiosity. Sears-Danik, Tejron's dreamy eldest boy, whispered to Paul, +"I am trying to remember him. Not much hair on his head--it was brown. +I was only seven when he flew us to Adelphi. His voice--heavy." + +"Yes. His hair may be gray now, Danny, as mine is. His face will look +older--it never had a young look. His body will not have changed +much." + +Dunin asked, "He is older than you?" + +"No, dear, a little younger." + +But Spearman seemed older by far, appearing abruptly in the doorway, +arms spread against its frame, face thrust intently forward and eyes +squinting as if they troubled him. He wore a black loincloth of bark +fabric, nothing else. His sparse hair was wholly gray with streaks of +white at the temples, his cheeks, leathery, deeply grooved, and +flushed. "I didn't believe her," he said. Seeing him, the guards held +their spears as if they were Earth-born soldiers presenting arms, then +grounded the butts; they remained rigidly at attention when Spearman +paid them no heed. "I didn't suppose...." Spearman hiccuped; he rubbed +both hands across his face. + +Seeing tormented uncertainty in Christopher Wright, Paul stepped +forward. "Sears died, long ago. Doc and I got through, with--some of +our friends." He paused, short of the guards, and held out his hand, +and Spearman stared at it, communing somehow with himself, approaching +at last, clumsily, to take hold of it in the old Earth gesture. There +was alcohol on his breath; his bloodshot eyes fought an open struggle +with bewilderment; his handclasp was damp, unsteady, quickly +withdrawn. + +"Sorry," he said, "not well. Hard to get it through my head. +Well--Christ, I'm a bit drunk. Not strange, is it...? Mijok." His +glance traveled over Pakriaa and Nisana without recognition; it +lingered at Arek, but he did not speak her name. There was the +beginning of a stiff smile, unreadable, as his eyes fixed on +Christopher Wright. + +"Ann--reached us," Wright said, hardly audible. "She--" + +"Why don't you speak up, man?" + +"She came along the coast," Wright said, not much more clearly. "The +baby died--a little while before she reached us." + +Spearman blinked, glanced at his hands, let them drop. He noticed the +tight soldiers; in the antique military manner of Earth he said, "At +ease...." The spearwomen relaxed part way, eyes front. "Maybe," +Spearman said, "maybe you came too soon." + +"What do you mean?" Paul asked. "We had to come as soon as we knew you +were alive.... Are your other children well, Ed? Are they here?" + +"Oh...? Yes, I see.... You came too soon. I still have a little town +of seven or eight thousand and some very loyal followers." + +Wright struck his fist into his palm. "We are not your enemies. We +never were. There was a place for you at Adelphi. There is now." + +"Oh...? I can imagine it. So--Ann--" + +"Ann came back to us. It took her a hundred days, she says. She +was--is--skin and bone--" + +Paul said, "She'll recover, Ed. Only needs rest and food. She wants +John and David--naturally. They're her children too, Ed." + +Spearman said almost absently, "Are they?" + +"What!" + +"I don't exactly believe your story, you know.... You must have +been--watching--for a long time." + +Behind him Paul heard Nisana's miserable whisper: "What is it? What is +it?" And Wright's muffled answer: "A sickness." + +"There's no truth in that, Ed," Paul said. "Five days ago we still +supposed that you and Ann were lost when the lifeboat went down in the +channel." + +Spearman shrugged. "Yes--I think you've come too soon. You should +have worked longer in the dark. We had an epidemic here. Many died. +And another trouble--mental--well, you've kept track of that, of +course: the way they've fallen away from me, gone back to the forest +and the old life, when I could have given them a golden age. A prophet +without honor." He coughed and straightened heavy shoulders. "My God, +I can't blame the poor fools--now that I know how it was done." His +voice did not rise. "Without the conspiracy and interference, I could +soon have started them in building a ship that--Never mind that now. I +have the designs, of course. That what you came for?" + +Mijok broke in, utterly bewildered: "What are you saying?" + +Spearman dismissed the giant with a stare and a voice of cold +politeness: "I don't blame you either. I remember you well. I suppose +you had to do whatever your god ordered, without question...." + +The twin boys had appeared in the doorway, dressed like their father +in bark fabric: slim, well-knit children, thin-faced like Ann, nine +Earth years old. They halted uncertainly, perhaps driven by curiosity +to violate an order of their father's. Paul tried to smile at them, +and one responded but then blushed and looked worriedly away with a +hand over his mouth; the other stared like a pygmy without expression. +Spearman did not appear to notice them, though Paul's smile must have +told him of their presence. Elis broke the silence: "Mijok and the +others of my people do not create gods. We live by our own light so +far as it reaches, without fear of the mysteries beyond it." His +voice, so seldom loud in anything but laughter, boomed and echoed back +from the thatched walls. "At Adelphi, orders derive from the laws, +which are made by all of us and understood by all of us." + +"Yes," Spearman nodded, upper lip drawn in, as one who saw his saddest +predictions verified. "Yes, he would teach you to say that." + +Arek said disgustedly, "There's no conversation here. He listens to +his own mind, no other's. As it was on the beach, years ago--I +remember--" + +Spearman said sharply, "Wright, be careful! You've brought your +bullies here, but I ought to warn you, this is the country where I +still rule. There are some left who love me and understand me." + +Dunin muttered to Paul, "Bullies--what word is that?" Paul squeezed +her wrist, a warning to be silent. + +Speaking with care and difficulty, Wright said, "Ed, your boys are +about nine, Earth time. Would you say that is old enough to make +certain decisions? Would you be willing, Ed, to ask them whether they +want to go to Adelphi and see their mother again?" + +Spearman glanced back at them. He would be seeing, Paul knew, how the +boy who had smiled was staring at Wright with his mouth fallen open, +how the other's blank look had crumpled into a grimace foretelling +tears. "Now I really understand it!" Spearman said softly. "So it was +a kidnaping--a real kidnaping. I simply would not believe it when my +messengers came from Spearman City--but I should have known, I should +have known. You stole Ann in order to get my children too, for your--" + +There was a murmuring among the guard and in the crowd of pygmy +spectators who had gathered at a safe distance. Uncomprehendingly, +Paul saw a few wildly pointing arms, saw one of the guards throw away +her spear and run blindly down the street. Others were doing the same. +The swelling murmur was broken by thin screams. Those of the guard who +remained were staring into the northeast quarter of the sky, where a +break in the trees permitted a view of it, and they were +transfixed--the guard and Spearman's boys and now Spearman himself, +glaring at that blue patch of morning heaven with total unbelief. But +then Spearman did believe it, was perhaps the first to believe it, +tears starting from his gray eyes and running unregarded down the hard +channels of his face. "From home! Home--oh, my God, so long a +time...!" + +The spot seemed small and slow in its descent, riding on a cushion of +flame brighter than sunlight.... + +The Vestoian pygmies were all running now. Not into their houses, nor +the palace, but away down the tree-sheltered streets, a mindless +stampede, weapons tossed away with an agonized crying of tiny voices. + +Paul's eyes found it, held it, saw the white flame change to a vast +outpouring of brilliant green like the burning of copper. +"Charlesite!" Spearman cried. "They've found how to use charlesite for +braking! No radioactivity." + +The ship must be aiming for the open ground twenty miles away. They +could hear the roaring now, almost gentle with distance. + +Arek's red arm became a warmth over Paul's shoulders. She said, "I'm +afraid." + + + + +3 + + +The gap in the leaves was blank, the green flame gone. Edmund Spearman +gazed at the spot where the descending ship had been, unaware of his +sons, unaware that his pygmy followers had been scattered by fear as +swallows are scattered by a storm; unaware, Paul guessed, of the two +men who had been friends and now were strangers--but these he +presently saw again. His gray eyes measured Paul and Wright, the +unspeaking giants, the small shaken figures of Pakriaa and Nisana and +Miniaan, as if they were rocks or tree stumps and his only problem how +to step around them. Addressing Wright and Arek, whose big arm was +still warm around his shoulders, Paul said carefully, "It will come +down on the meadow ground about twenty miles from here. They must have +seen Vestoia from the air; they probably made sure there was no +settlement in the open land." + +Wright whispered, "It may not even have been from Earth." + +"Oh!" Mijok's black lips smiled. "It is, Doc. I forget our eyes are +better at distance. You didn't see the letters? Black on silver, +reaching halfway up the body of the ship. J-E-N-S-E-N." + +"So?" In Wright's face was a sudden blaze of belief. + +Spearman stared. He said, "Quite an imagination. Glad it was you who +made it up, and not one of the men who knew the real Jensen--a name +that ought not to be taken in vain." + +"I have good eyes," said Mijok gently. "I made up nothing." + +Spearman's eyebrows lifted, a fury of mimic politeness. He stepped +around the group as if they were not rocks but dangerous animals. He +passed down the street in long strides, not looking back even for his +sons. Paul stupidly watched him go, saw him reach the turning by the +meat-slave stockade and break into a loping run. Stout Muson muttered, +"So changed! What sickness could make such a change?" + +Wright said, "It is not likely to pass. In the old days of Earth they +sometimes ruled nations. Or they were put away in institutions, +usually after others had been injured. Or they were fanatics of one +sort and another, ridden by the devil of one idea. My profession +learned a little about them--never enough. The law met them more often +and learned less." He watched Paul, perhaps needing contact with a +Charin mind, since the innocence of the others gave them no frame of +reference. "I dare say Ed is paranoid only on the one point, +technically: all his troubles are caused by me and my--what did he +say?--conspiracy. A means to help him believe that only he is right +and virtuous and the universe wrong.... It is not so much a sickness, +Muson, as the sum of years of mental bad habits. Vanity and dislike of +one's own kind make most of the seed, and this is the fruit." + +Elis said, "We can overtake him. Six of us giants--we can carry you, +overtake him in a walk, if you think best." + +"Yes." Wright watched the empty street and Spearman's palace that +already seemed haunted and forlorn. "I believe there's no need for +haste. Twenty miles...." The Vestoian pygmies were not returning; the +street was a desolation of rubbish and loneliness with the dull smell +of neglect. One of Spearman's boys was whimpering; the other watched +the place where his father had disappeared, a tension in his small +face, without forgiveness. Wright said, "Who's John and who's David?" + +The crying one muttered, "I'm John." + +David spoke as if the words had been shaken out: "He said she wouldn't +ever come back. Where is she?" + +"At our island," Paul told him. "She's all right, David, and we're +going to take you to her. You want that, don't you?" + +"Is _he_ going there?" + +"We don't know, David. You want to go with us, don't you?" + +"He hit her face. When she said it was his fault that they were all +giving up the city. He always had the guards. Six sat around his bed +every night. John and me, we tried. We made a grass picture like the +priest Kona told us to do, and did things with it and burned it. It +was no good." + +Arek said, "Let's forget that for now. We're going to the new ship and +then the island. Shall I carry you? I've got two boys your age." + +"Who're you? I never saw anybody like you." + +She dropped on one knee, not too close to him. "I'm like you, David. +Just big and furry, that's all." + +"Your mother, David"--said Wright, and swallowed--"your mother is +living in my house now. She was our friend long before you were born, +you know. She came from Earth with us.... You're with us, aren't you?" + +The boy scuffed his bare feet in the dust. John was still crying. +David slapped him savagely. "You stop yakking, y'son of a bitch." The +words could have no meaning for him, Paul thought, beyond the +generalized stink of profanity. John stopped and rubbed his cheek +without apparent anger, gulping and then nodding. When Arek reached, +David let her pick him up, and he relaxed and buried his face in her +fur.... + +The giants made little of the miles. Mijok had Pakriaa and Nisana in +his arms and Miniaan perched on his shoulder. They had traveled often +that way on the troublesome journey to Vestoia. Elis carried Wright's +trifling 140 pounds, and Muson had John, her slow voice establishing +cautious friendship. Paul preferred to walk on his own feet, but +before long Sears-Danik stole up behind and swept him into a living +cradle. "Slow legs. Don't mind, do you, Pop?" + +"Pop, huh? No, I don't mind, Danny. I was getting fifty-year-old +cramps and too dumb to admit it." + +Dunin chuckled. "That's Danny: knows all, sees all, says nuf'n'. I'd +live with him awhile when he grows up if only he wasn't so lazy." + +"What's wrong with being lazy?" + +"Not a thing, rockhead. Only if you're going to explore, the way I am, +you can't be lazy, the way you are." She twisted a branch into a leaf +crown and walked backward before them, trying the crown on the boy's +head at different angles. "Ah, wonderful! Charging asonis--whuff +whuff--and now you look just like the kink that chewed up my diary to +make a nest." + +"Which was your fault for leaving it on a shelf and not writing in it. +Explorers have to keep diaries. Doc said so--didn't he, Paul?" + +"I'm strictly neutral, to avoid bouncing." + +"So anyway, Dunin, when you trip over a root and smack your fanny, I'm +going to laugh." + +She did. He did.... + +It was an hour before they overtook Spearman, who glanced back without +expression, without halting his powerful strides, his tanned body +gleaming with sweat and effort. Dunin sobered; she caught Paul's eyes. +She said, "May I carry you, Spearman? Then we can all reach the ship +at the same time." + +Spearman gave no sign of hearing her. He drew up at the side of the +trail, staring at the ground, arms folded. David's face was hidden +again at Arek's breast; John seemed to be asleep. Dunin said, "Please? +Why should we leave you behind?" + +Remote and desolate, Spearman watched the ground. Dunin moved on, +reluctantly, no more laughter in her. "What _is_ he thinking?" + +Wright said, "At this moment he's probably thinking it's brutally +unfair that we should go on ahead of him." + +"But I asked--" + +"You did. What's more he hasn't anything against you. All the same, +that's about what he'll be thinking. Don't try too hard to understand +it, Dunin--I'm not sure it's worth it. Let's think about the ship. +Paul, is it possible, what he said about charlesite?" + +"I reckon so, Doc. The flame certainly did change to green. I think I +remember, long ago, hearing some engineers discuss the possibility of +stepping up charlesite enough so it could be used in braking a big +ship for descent, instead of keeping the atomics on all the way down. +It would char everything over a wide area, but at least it wouldn't +make radioactive desert...." + +"I can't feel it," Wright mumbled. "Mirage...." + +It was no mirage. The ship _Jensen_ stood high above blackened ground +half a mile away; even here at the edge of forest there was a +lingering smell, anciently familiar. Paul felt himself grinning +stupidly. "Plain carbon tet or something like it. Must have shot it +out to kill any grass fires. No mirage." + +Towering silver-white above a hundred-foot tripod, it flaunted the +letters of a great name, and David Spearman rubbed his eyes at it, +leaning against Arek's knee, accepting the protective touch of her +hand. Arek said, "What--Oh Paul, what will they be like?" + +Wright shook his head, plainly feeling it now--the thought, the +memories, the pleasure, and something far from pleasure. Paul +answered, "They will--look like us, Arek." + +Pakriaa pointed up. "There! That we remember. Oh, the beautiful--" + +"A boat out already?" Paul searched and found the silver flight. + +Wright chattered: "Have we anything, anything white? No--you and I out +in the open, Paul--rest of you keep back. They need to recognize what +we are--" He was shaking, and Paul embraced his shoulders to steady +him as they moved into the open ground. Wright giggled hysterically. +"Damn white flag myself--my whiskers--" + +The boat swooped, swelling from a dot to keen familiar lines; it +circled above them twice and came to earth in a perfect landing a +hundred feet away. A blank pallor in the pilot's window would be a +human face; there would be a human brain shocked into new wonder. It +was still necessary for Paul to help his teacher through the grass, +for Wright was swaying and stumbling. Paul reminded him: "They'll be +sealed up, afraid of the air." + +"Ah, yes. I say they needn't be--we have good air on Lucifer...." + +Paul was aware of his own struggle for sanity, for clarity in the +beginning of this impossible joy which was not pure joy. He heard +himself shout at the top of his strong lungs: "'Ahoy the _Jensen_!' +No, they won't hear it. Yes--they did, they did." + +The door slid open for a meeting of two worlds. A square little bald +man, a tall gray-haired woman who fussed at her ears, troubled by the +change in atmospheric pressure. Faded overalls, the human look, +incredulous stares changing to belief. The bald man gulped and +stumbled; he grinned and held out his hand. "Dr. Christopher Wright, I +presume?" + +Wright could neither speak nor let go the hand. The woman said, "You +must be--well, who could forget the photographs?--you're Paul Mason." + +"Yes, We never--for years we haven't even thought--" "Mark Slade," +said the bald man, "Captain Slade. This is Dr. Nora Stern.... Sir, +I--you are well? You look well--" + +"We are well," said Wright. + +"I'm afraid to ask--the others? Dr. Oliphant? Captain Jensen? The--the +little girls? And there was a young engineer--Edmund Spearman...." + +Paul managed to say, "Both little girls are mothers. Dr. Oliphant and +Captain Jensen died--Jensen on the ship, in the last acceleration. +Spearman is--will be here before long, I think. You may find him +somewhat changed--" Wright said, "We must let Ed speak for himself, +Paul." In spite of the shock, the newness, Dr. Stern was sensitive to +nuances. She said too loudly, "Beautiful country." She pressed both +hands to her ears and took them away and spoke in a normal voice: +"There...! Oh, what strange steep hills...!" + +"N-not like any rock of Earth," Paul stammered. "Defies erosion." _And +I am speaking with the pride of a home lover...._ "The open ground is +a little dangerous--flying carnivores. Come and meet our friends." + +Captain Slade had already seen the giants and pygmies at the edge of +the woods; his small monkey face was ablaze with friendly curiosity +and the startled amusement that will wake at anything new, but he +said, "In just a moment. Let me take this in. If I can.... We've done +it, Nora." He filled his lungs deeply, blinking at a few tears of +pleasure. "A world like ours--a new world. Oh, Nora, it'll be a long +time before we can believe this, you and I.... High oxygen, we +noticed--feels like it. Sir, your ship--" + +"Lost," said Wright, tranquilly now, no longer shaking from head to +foot. "Out of control in descent, fell in a lake"--he motioned over +his shoulder--"a few miles over there. We call it Lake Argo. Too deep +even to think of salvage. One of the lifeboats cracked up; we used the +other for about a year. Our friends, Captain--you'll like our +friends--" + +Slade murmured, "Speculation on parallel evolution seems to have been +sound--here anyway. Humanoid, I see. Two species?" + +"Human," said Wright. "Their English, by the way, is better than mine. +They are close to us, Captain--very dear to us." + +"I--see," said Captain Slade kindly. Paul thought: _He can't see--it's +too new. But maybe he will try to see_. + +"How many in your party, Captain?" + +Slade grinned. "Only four, Mr. Mason." _Heavens! Mister? That's me._ +"A smaller crew, bigger ship. Federation thought best. We left +thirteen years after you. Twelve years on the journey. Of course we've +had to double in brass considerably. The other two are a young +couple--Jimmy Mukerji; he's from Calcutta--Oh, and by the way, Dr. +Wright, his mother was Sigrid Hoch, anthropologist, one of your +students." + +"Sigrid--" Wright groped in the past. "Of course. I remember." But +Paul guessed that he did not. + +"Jimmy's a botanist _and_ engineer _and_--oh, general technician, good +anywhere. Sally Marino--another good technician. Frankly I didn't want +specialists--wanted kids who could turn a hand to anything, and I got +'em." Slade's friendly face saddened; he and Dr. Stern were walking +clumsily to the woods, feeling the change in gravity. "Ours was to be +the last interstellar ship, Dr. Wright, until either you or we came +home. There'll be no building going on now. A Federation +decision--matter of public opinion as well as economics. Well, the old +lady over there did cost twice as much as your _Argo_, upped the +Federation poll tax three per cent just to pay for her on paper. Could +have got around that, maybe, but there was a beginning of public +hysteria, protest--resentment at the idea of throwing lives and +billions into space with nothing to show for it for many years. +Fanatics on both sides, and both noisy, plus the war scare of course. +Short-term thinking. Human." + +"You can't blame them," said Nora Stern. + +"I do blame them, Nora, now that we know it can be done...." + +Elis had tried to be ready with a little speech of welcome, but +shyness made him stiff with dignity, and it was evident that Dunin +would break loose in nervous giggling. Elis said only, "You're very +welcome. We hope you'll enjoy it here." Pakriaa might have been back +in the days of tribal grandeur, but her control too was only a result +of shyness and wonder as she echoed the Governor's words. It was +unfairly difficult for the newcomers, Paul could see--the giants' +furry nakedness and majesty, the pygmies' tininess and wrinkled +baldness; even the Charin-like beauty of Miniaan's features might be +invisible to new Charin eyes. But Slade and Dr. Stern behaved well, +with a natural friendliness. "Why," said Slade, "these boys--" + +"John and David Spearman," Paul explained. "Ann's boys. Spearman--we +think he'll be here shortly." + +Arek asked evenly, "You've come to stay, I hope?" + +"To--stay?" Slade shot a startled glance at Wright, who avoided it, +giving him no help. + +Paul said quickly, "Captain, we ought to have warned you, but neither +Doc nor I could get our wits together until you'd opened the door. +About thirteen or fourteen hours from now you'll have a fever and a +period of unconsciousness. Not too much discomfort and, so far as we +know, no danger--anyhow all of us recovered in fine shape and we've +had excellent health ever since. We decided it's just a part of +acclimation to--we call this planet Lucifer. But if you think the two +others should stay in the ship till you recover--" + +Dr. Stern was measuring him shrewdly. "You look very healthy, both of +you, and I know we can take your word for anything. Jimmy and Sally +are pretty rugged. They'll be wild to join us. Sally will be at the +intercom right now, tearing her pretty hair out in handfuls. They +might as well chance it with us.... Where do you people live? We saw +a--settlement? Over there south of the lake." + +Wright glanced at Paul with vague entreaty. It was Miniaan who spoke, +the small silver of her voice a music in the sun-streaked shadow: +"The settlement below the lake is a thing of the past, an empire that +died. We live on a warm island over yonder, the other side of those +mountains, the island Adelphi. We are returning there now, after +a--journey with some trouble in it." + +"Adelphi," said Dr. Stern, savoring the name. "Mark--our two boats +could fly them all there with us, couldn't they? Take out the +emergency stuff to make room." + +"It would be wise," said Paul. "We could take better care of you +during the illness, at Adelphi. We have houses there. Here it's not +very safe--biting flies and some dangerous animals." + +Slade was doubtful. "Anything here that could interfere with the ship +if we leave it unguarded?" + +Miniaan laughed. "Certainly the people of Vestoia will not go near +it." + +"Nothing could harm it," said Wright. "Too big. How in hell do you get +down out of it?" + +Slade chuckled and made up his mind. "Electronic lock. Can work it +from a transmitter in the lifeboat; only other way's from inside. Lets +down a ladder. Automatic derricks in the side blisters to hoist the +lifeboats if, as, and when. They thought of--_nearly_ everything." He +hugged the gray-haired woman. "Even briefing on how to get along with +each other for ten-plus years." + +"Learning love can be difficult," said Pakriaa. Dr. Stern stared at +the tiny woman with new intentness. Pakriaa's seamed face had taken on +its dreamy look. "You must see our island. Last year Mashana Dorothy +was Governor of our island. This year it is this man." She touched +Elis' knee. + +"A sinecure," Elis chuckled. "A sinecure, ladies'n' gentlemen." + +Captain Slade laughed, standing five feet five, peering up at the +Governor's eight feet seven--half a head more than Mijok's height. +Paul thought he saw there the raw materials of friendship. Dr. Stern +said, "And you call this planet Lucifer?" + +"Light-bringer," said Nisana; there was grief in her face not evident +in any of the others. "Son of the morning," Paul moved toward her, +wondering. + +Slade had missed the overtone, and cocked a dark eyebrow. +"Industries?" + +Wright shrugged. "A few, sir. All we seem to need at present in such a +small community." + +"Oh." Slade touched the old man's jacket. "This is fine fabric. I +couldn't tell it from linen. Is it?" + +"Very similar." Wright took Nisana's hand on his palm. "This lady is +our best weaver because her hands are so small and sure. Our loom is +clumsy because, of course, our metalworking is not far advanced. But +it does good work for Nisana." + +"I like to weave," Nisana whispered, looking here and there and not at +Paul. "I like to make new things." + +Paul glimpsed the twitch of Mijok's ears, the beckoning curve of a +gray finger; Mijok whispered, "He's coming, Paul. A few hundred yards +away in the woods, breathing hard and limping. Is there nothing we can +do for him?" + +"I don't know, Mijok. I'm afraid whatever is done he must do for +himself, and it's late for that, very late." He saw that Mijok was +trying to understand and could not. "His mind is--living in another +country...." + +But outwardly at least, Edmund Spearman was changed. He even searched +out Dunin's worried face and apologized. "Should have accepted your +offer--stupid of me." He smiled. "Wanted to show what a walker I was, +I guess." John and David slipped behind Muson's back, tense and cold. +Spearman shook Slade's hand, and Dr. Stern's. "My God, it doesn't seem +possible. I can't take it in. Slade, you said? And Dr. Stern. We've +wondered, dreamed, prayed for it. I can't tell you--I don't know what +to say.... Good trip?" + +"Excellent." Slade hugged himself. "Excellent beyond description. Ah, +all the Federation needed was proof. They've got it now! Rather, they +will have it in twelve years. Lordy! I'll be fifty-one." He pounded +Paul on the back, and Spearman, giving way to a bubbling overflow of +good nature. "There'll be a new President, whole new Council I +guess--and they won't be looking for us either, man." He danced a few +steps and jabbed Paul in the ribs. "Think of it! Why, it's a Tom +Sawyer job. You know? You remember? When you and I walk up the middle +aisle in the Federation Hall--oh, man, man...." + +Paul had to find Nisana's face again, and the devastation of sorrow in +it, before he understood. He stooped quickly to whisper, "I am not +going back to Earth." The radiance in the aging red face was like a +Charin girl's. + +And he heard Dr. Stern remark dryly, "Mark, I believe we've got some +nearer bridges to cross." + + + + +4 + + +One of the soft lizard-oil lamps gleamed in Kajana's room, though it +was late and the house was hushed. Paul had not been able to find +sleep; Dorothy would be watching at the bedsides of the four +unconscious newcomers from Earth for another hour, until Tejron +relieved her. Paul tapped at Kajana's never-closed doorway. "May I +come in?" + +"Yes, please do." The little man smiled up from his pillows: they were +filled with a stuff like dandelion down, almost as good as feathers. +"Will you lift me a little?" Paul fussed over him, glad of something +to do. "I was not sleepy. I finished transcribing from the shorthand, +but my thought remains with it." + +"Shorthand--" + +"The talk of this afternoon. You didn't know I was recording it. You +were all speaking somewhat beyond yourselves, in a way I wanted to +preserve. I wish we had better pencils. These last are not bad, blue +clay mixed with the graphite, but they still crumble too easily and +the wood is big for my hand. I used the brown ink for the +transcription." He shuffled the gray marsh-reed pages together. "You +might like to look at it." + +"Yes. Tonight, I think. Doc did say some things worth remembering." + +Kajana smiled. "So did you." + +"Did I...? Pencils are one thing they must have had on the ship in +abundance. The library too. Poor Doc, he'd have given anything for the +books--so would I...." + +Kajana patted his hand. "Maybe it doesn't matter too much, Paul? We +have our own books to make.... Besides--don't you think Spearman may +have unloaded some things for us before he took off?" + +"Not a chance. His mind wouldn't work that way." + +"No? Well, you knew him better. Still, he had time, Paul. He knew we +couldn't go after him: you told me he drained the fuel out of one +lifeboat before he stole the other. And it was three hours, after you +found he was gone, before you saw the big ship go up over the range." + +"And down," Paul said, still physically shaken with the memory, the +sound, the sight of it. "Down into the sea forever." + +"What happened, do you think?" + +"We'll never know. It was a new type of ship. His knowledge of such +things was ten years old, Lucifer years. Likely the take-off was too +complex for one man to handle it. After we saw it climb past the +range, we stayed there--Doc and Dorothy and Miniaan and I--near the +temple, just stayed there mind-sick and wondering. We saw it +reappear--a dot, then a flame. He never quit trying. He had the +atomics blazing all the way down. Sometimes they'd lift the ship a +little, and we--I suppose we weren't breathing--we'd think yes--no, +yes--no. I even thought: is he going to crash it _here_? But he was +really many miles to the west, only seemed near, so bright in that +darkness. A meteor--yes, call him a meteor--burned out and lost. Up to +the very end, until we saw it strike the water near the western +horizon, he was still trying, a mad insect heaving against the web of +gravity. And we'll never know what he really wanted, either. I have an +idea he may not have meant to go back to Earth. I think perhaps he +wanted another star--one that never was." + +And Paul wondered: _Should I tell Kajana what Doc said when it was all +over? No, not now--not till I understand it myself._ ("I consider +myself to blame." "What do you mean?" "Remember when Arek noticed he +was gone? I saw him slip away ten minutes before she spoke. He looked +at me, too. I think I may have known what he meant to do: I said +nothing. Earth is a very distant place, Paul. The Federation is +building no more interstellar ships, for a while--for a while." "But +you--" "I may therefore be to blame. I look within and am confused, as +so often. But all the same, here in our world I have helped to +establish a few practical certainties." During that murmured +interchange by the temple, Dorothy had been quite silent, as if she +needed no question and answer, and Miniaan had ended it, saying, +"Let's go back, and tell the others that something has ended.") + +Kajana's old mind was roving after other matters, to him more +important than Spearman or the beautiful lost ship from Earth. +"Teddy," he said, "do you know, Paul, when the two silver boats came +slipping down out of the sky Teddy only glanced at them once, and came +running to carry me outdoors so that I could see them too. It was her +first thought. Her father and mother in her, and what a new self +too...!" Kajana was having pain, from the old hip-joint injury that +would never heal. "That transcription, Paul--it's quite verbatim, even +to a little hemming and hawing." + +"Good." Paul studied the wizened red face, regretful that his +painter's power could never record what was really Kajana--too much +that must escape, even if the portrait were faithful to the small +patient hands, the groove in the left fingers caused by years of +effort with makeshift writing materials. Sears--and Paul could think +it now without too much distress--Sears could have understood Kajana +better. "Can I get you anything?" + +"No, thank you, Paul. I'm very well tonight." But some other thought +stirred in him, and Paul lingered, knowing what it was: a need for a +particular reassurance, Kajana's only outward concession to his +frailty. "Paul, what do you really think? When the time comes, will it +be something like a sleep?" + +"I believe so, Kajana. But not soon. We need you." + +The mild face showed gratitude, then calm; it glanced beyond him. +"Why, Abara--you should be snoring." + +Abara followed his comfortable potbelly into the room; his fluty voice +was indignant: "I never snore." He sank cross-legged by the bed, +rocking lightly with a foot in each hand. + +"I've heard you, old man." + +"Lizard-fur!" said Abara. "Hear yourself snoring, of course." + +Paul stretched. "You gentlemen settle down to a good soothing quarrel. +I'll take off." Abara's left eyelid lowered and lifted gravely. "Good +night." "Good night," said the little voices. Leaving the room, Paul +heard Abara murmur, "Do you remember...." + +Paul carried a taper from the permanent fire in the common room to +relight the lamp in his and Dorothy's bedroom. It was late indeed, +near to the time of the rising of the red moon, seen only the night +before from the jungle west of Vestoia--what had been Vestoia. Here in +the long room there was still a friendly disorder from the impromptu +banquet of the evening. Because of the disturbance when Spearman's +flight was discovered and preoccupation with the illness of the +newcomers, the common room had received only a few housekeeping +flurries. Mats were still scattered in the center of the floor; +earthen wine cups stood about. Carrying the taper, Paul saw by his +foot a graded series of round faces drawn on the earth with a twig. +Helen was apt to do that when most of her mind was elsewhere: the +faces were made of neat circles, even nose and mouth. Subject to a +pinch on the bottom from her half-sister, Helen called them teddies. +Paul smiled sleepily and stepped around. + +Kajana took pride in the sharp printlike quality of his writing; under +lamplight, the brown ink shifted into gold. Kajana had not recorded +the casual beginning of the banquet: the idea had evidently come to +him after some remark of Kamon's. Paul could not remember it clearly, +but the old giantess had been roused to it by a thing the rather +sad-faced, brown-haired girl Sally Marino had mentioned: the prospect +of war on the planet Earth. Kajana had taken down what followed as +direct dialogue; riffling through the gray pages, Paul noticed that +Kajana had inserted no comment of his own at all. The phonetic +shorthand, Paul knew, was Kajana's invention--ideal for his own use, +but he had not been able to teach it even to Nisana. Too intricate, +she said, needing the hyperacute ear which was a gift Kajana could not +share. + + SLADE: There seems never to be a single cause of war, only a + group of causes coming to a particular focus in time. Our + world, madam-- + + WRIGHT: Just Kamon. Somehow we've never formed the habit of + courtesy titles, Captain. Names, nicknames, and a few titles + of function--as for instance, if Elis were conducting one + of our meetings, we'd address him as Governor. + + SLADE: Oh. Pleasant, I should think. Our world, Kamon, is + still divided in two parts. An ideological division. There + is the Asian Empire of Jenga. Let me show you--the map-- + + DUNIN: Here. I grabbed it. And what a map! If only we could + make such things! + + DOROTHY: In time, sugar. Takes mighty complex machinery to + make such a map. + + SLADE: One of the things that must come on the next trip + from Earth. Well--here is the Asian Empire. You can see the + vastness of it, one land mass, almost all of a continent-- + + MUKERJI: Except my country. + + NORA STERN: Well, naturally, Jimmy-- + + MUKERJI: I tend to be sensitive on the point since we joined + the Federation somewhat belatedly. + + SLADE: That's the Asian Empire. And there they believe, and + have long believed, that individual man is nothing--an ant + in a colony--the state is everything, a sole reason for + existence. The state-- + + WRIGHT: Which exists only in the minds of individual men. + + SLADE: Ye-es.... For them the state takes the place of God, + of reason, of ethics, of--Oh, it's be-all and end-all, so + far as an individualist like myself can understand their + doctrine. A hundred years ago this empire was two great + states; they had the same doctrine then but called it by a + less honest name, communism, derived from certain naive + social theories of about a hundred years earlier-- + + SPEARMAN: Naive? + + SLADE: Before I went in for engineering, sir, I majored in + history at McGill. With the help of a great deal of coffee, + I even read _Das Kapital_. It is not logical even from its + own dogmatic premises. Incidentally I think it can still be + found in secondhand bookstores. + + SPEARMAN: As a matter of fact, when I left Earth, it was + quite readily available in up-to-date editions from the + Collectivist Press. + + SLADE: Oh. Yes, I dare say it was.... Well, Kamon, about a + hundred years ago those two Asian states, still paying lip + service to the--debatable doctrine of communism + (satisfactory, Mr. Spearman?)--attacked each other in a long + war, making use of recently discovered atomic weapons as + well as man-made pestilence and other devices. It was not + actually a doctrinal war, but simply a power struggle + between two tyrannies. It was hideous, incredibly + destructive, and the only saving thing about it was that it + prevented them from visiting the same disaster on the rest + of the world. Neither side won, of course; a few decades + later a new dictator--a little one-eyed zealot from + Mongolia--inherited the desolation and built on the ruins a + new monolithic state, which still exists. + + AREK: But what actually was this theory--this communism? + + SLADE: Oh, the theory. Originally an appeal to the + dispossessed. In the nineteenth century and earlier there + were masses of poor, widespread suffering and injustice, too + much economic and political power in the hands of a few, who + abused their power with stupidity and cruelty. Marx and + other theorists imagined, or said they imagined, that the + situation could be remedied by reversal--give power to the + dispossessed (the proletariat, as they called them) and + injustice would right itself. Why they imagined that the + proletariat was any more fitted to rule than its + oppressors--why they supposed it would not abuse power quite + as viciously--they never bothered to explain. Naturally the + realists among them weren't concerned with any Utopian + outcome: they simply saw the doctrine as a means to personal + power for themselves and used it accordingly. The first + important one of these was a furious little man named Lenin. + He may have believed his own theories for a while--there + seems to have been some short-lived experimentation with the + contradictions of actual communism when he first won power + in Russia--but absolute power corrupts absolutely, as + somebody said. The foundations of an old-new despotism were + well established before he died--and was unofficially + deified and kept in a glass case for the consolation of the + atheist faithful. Matter of fact, Arek, a good many things + in Earth history would make a cat laugh.... The actual cure + for the ugly situation that existed turned out to be a + gradual economic leveling combined with the (very slow and + difficult) growth of representative government--so that + there would be no swollen fortunes, no severe poverty, and + no heavy concentrations of unchecked political power. But + that was most undramatic procedure: it needed the work of + centuries. No bloody revolution could ever achieve such an + end, nor could any other evil means ever bring it any + nearer. In the Federation we begin to have--an approximation + of it. The Asian Empire is merely despotism, old and stale, + old as the Pharaohs, committed to the policy of violence and + carrying the burden of slavery under modern names: the + natural product of fanatic doctrine after the power-hungry + have taken it over and made use of it. + + SPEARMAN: Jenga's empire is not collectivism. It is a + perversion of it. + + ANN: If you'll excuse me-- + + DOROTHY: Honey, of course! I think you got up too soon. The + boys are in bed. Come on--let me tuck you in and fuss at + you.... + + STERN: She's been ill? + + WRIGHT: Yes. For a long time. But now I think she-- + + SPEARMAN: What-- + + AREK: Captain, tell us about the other part of Earth, the + part you come from. + + SLADE: Canada? Oh, you mean the Federation itself. It's very + great, miss--I mean, Arek. Let's have the map again, my + dear. All of North America--here--parts of South America, + the United States of Europe, Union of Islam, Japan, India, + parts of Africa outside of Islam--then over here there's + Australia and New Zealand, and here's the Republic of + Oceania. Almost all the rest of the world, you see. Here's + Federal City. Find it? Follow my finger east of + Winnipeg--lake country, and very lovely: I was born near + there. The city was planned and built new in 1985; seems + long ago, isn't really. And then, Arek, there are some small + countries which have preferred to keep their national unity + outside of the Federation instead of inside it, although + they're affiliated with us and there aren't any barriers to + travel and other intercourse. A somewhat technical + distinction, since local sovereignties are well enough + preserved within the Federation. + + WRIGHT: Not entirely a technicality. At the time we left + Earth, there were some tendencies in the Federation that + could lead to overcentralization, even with the recognition + of limited powers. And too much emphasis on the admitted + glories of machine civilization. I think it's an excellent + thing that some parts of the world should be a little + insulated from the enthusiasms of material progress. The + Federation itself will be the better for it. + + SLADE: Perhaps. I think I know what you mean, Doctor. I was + always a small-government man, myself. Still, under the + threat of Jenga-- + + STERN: I can't see it as much of a threat. + + SALLY MARINO: I don't know.... + + STERN: The empire will break down sooner or later, of its + own rigidity. + + SLADE: But while we wait for that, the Federation has to be + strong, in the military as well as other senses. + + MUKERJI: If we do just wait for it. + + STERN: Preventive war is an absurdity, Jimmy. + + MUKERJI: Yes, but-- + + STERN: Gradualist methods. The Federation can afford to + wait. The same gradualist methods that made the Union of + Islam possible, so long ago. + + PAUL: I don't think the leadership of Turkey was gradualist + exactly, Dr. Stem. It took thirty years after 1960, but + considering the problem, that was great speed. Only a people + with immense moral courage and good sense would have dared + to undertake it at all. They weren't fanatics; they weren't + ridden by the devil of one idea; they had to work with + intelligent compromise, temperate adjustments, yielding here + and sternness there and patience all the time--but once they + took up the task they didn't rest or let go, and by 1990 + there was a healthy union ready for full membership in the + Federation. + + SLADE: Yes, that was speed. I expect you've given your + friends here a pretty good account of Earth history? + + PAUL: We've tried. I don't know if we can allow ourselves + more than a B-plus. The subject is too enormous, and all we + had were imperfect memories. In the midst of our own work + for Lucifer, which is--paramount. + + WRIGHT: Not even books. Captain, when you showed us over the + ship, it was very difficult for my fingers not to steal a + lens and a pocketful of those microtexts.... + + SLADE: My dear friend! Why didn't you say so? All you want. + That's for your friends here, entirely. No need to take any + of our library back to Earth if they can use it. + + WRIGHT: I--excuse me--I don't know what to say. + + SLADE: And by the way, Doctor, before I forget again to + mention it: after you left--I think it was in 2060--they + perfected a new drug which actually makes the accelerations + quite bearable. I don't know too much about it. Muscular + relaxation is a factor, and Nora can tell you more about it. + But I understand that even for persons past the--optimum + age-- + + WRIGHT: A moment, please.... I cannot go back to Earth, + Captain Slade. You mean it with the greatest kindness but it + is impossible. + + SLADE: Why, forgive me, I supposed--I took it for granted-- + + WRIGHT: My place is here. This is my work. These are my + people. + + TEJRON: I knew--I knew-- + + WRIGHT: What, my dear? I don't understand. + + TEJRON: Oh, I should keep silent: this is for you to decide. + But you've said it. You won't leave us. + + WRIGHT: No. No, I won't ever leave you. This is my home. + + SLADE: But-- + + SPEARMAN: Can't argue with the passion of an expatriate. The + grass is always greener-- + + PAUL: It could be no other way, Captain, at least for Dr. + Wright and me, and I'm certain my wife will say the same + when she comes back. + + WRIGHT: In some ways, Captain, the distance between Earth + and Lucifer is greater than the simple light years between + our two stars. + + SLADE: I'm--sorry. Wasn't expecting it, that's all. Let me + get used to the idea a little. + + SPEARMAN: You can consider me neutral, Captain Slade. I have + no place on Lucifer. One more utopia. Idealism running + contrary to obvious facts. It will break up--fine-spun + intellectual quarrels--no central control. + + PAUL: Until, sometime, a strong man takes over and makes an + empire out of it...? + + WRIGHT: Please-- + + SPEARMAN: No comment.... + + STERN: If I might differ with you, Mr. Spearman, it seems to + me--after being shown over this lovely island--the + domesticated cattle and those wonderful white beasts--the + plantations and the houses--the perfect English and adult + thinking of our new friends--above all, the school--it seems + to me that Dr. Wright and his colleagues are realists of the + first water. Of course I'm strongly prejudiced in their + favor, because--well, during the twelve years of our journey + I dreamed constantly of some such achievement as this + myself. So it's like coming home. I'm a doctor, Mr. + Spearman; before I was chosen for the journey, I ran a + clinic. As an intern, I had a lot of ambulance and emergency + service at one of the big hospitals in Melbourne; I saw a + superabundance of--let's call them obvious facts. Now I + think the sunny quiet here, the good health and intelligence + of the children, the gardens, the devotion of these people + to each other and to their work, the searching thought + they've given to their laws and their future--I fancy those + are obvious facts too...? + + WRIGHT: Man is neither good nor bad, but both. But he can + swing the balance. + + STERN: Too right. I think I understand you, Doctor--why you + want to stay here. I think I understand it very well. + + SLADE: I wouldn't urge you. It's only that I--took something + else for granted. Foolishly. Let me be just a listener. + + ELIS: And let me fill your cup. You're behind us, Captain. + + MINIAAN: The big jug is empty. How'd'at happen? + + MUSON: Portrait of a fat woman going away with another big + jug. + + PAUL: Bless you, lady. + + MUSON: It was you that finished emptying it. I think. + + NISANA: Couldn't have been me.... + + STERN: Are there any important physiological differences? + + WRIGHT: Nothing of first importance. Minor differences in + blood chemistry, shape of hands and feet. Our friends have + the hind brain in the spinal column, which may be the + reason for their better muscular co-ordination and--you + know, Doctor, I have often wished that the human race of + Earth, which we call Charin, had more room in its head for + the expansion of the frontal lobes. + + ELIS: I have a very high opinion of your frontal lobes, + Christopher Wright. I have noticed that sometimes a large + skull merely rattles. + + STERN: Just the same the point is well taken. + + PAUL: Might call it the miracle of the lobes and wishes. + + PAKRIAA: Why don't you wait till Muson comes back...? + + SALLY MARINO: Don't you--now, maybe this is a foolish + question--don't you have to work awfully hard--I mean, with + so few technical aids? The--oh, oil lamps, the necessarily + primitive--of course, you've done miracles to have as much + as you do have, starting from almost nothing. What I'm + trying to say, doesn't mere survival take up so much time + and effort that it--well, wears you down? + + PAUL: We have shelter, clothing, enough to eat-- + + MINIAAN: And drink. + + PAUL: What we call a family, Sally, is made up of members of + all three races. Such a unit may have seven or eight adults + or more. Shelter, food--the basic needs are supplied by each + family working for itself; the large family unit distributes + the labor pretty well; and, if any family was stricken with + misfortune (none has been so far) the others would all help + as a matter of course. Now, we do have the germs of + beginning industries in textiles, sugar-- + + MINIAAN: Wine making. + + ABARA: The lady is pied. + + MINIAAN: The lady is not pied. Only very happy, and Vestoia + is a dead city, and the little illuama will be making their + nests where--Oh, Abara, you venerable ruin, I love you, I + love you.... + + ABARA: Well, not right here in front of all these nice + people.... + + MUKERJI: Beautiful way of life. Oh, here's Muson. Have we + drunk to everybody? Seems as though we must have overlooked + somebody, earlier. + + NISANA: I don't think so. Yes, we have. Let's drink to the + olifants. + + WRIGHT: And their seven calves.... + + PAUL: In textiles, for instance--Nisana does no housework + because her worktime is at the loom; each household sends + somebody over to work in the fiber and sugar plantations + across the lake. The system works, Sally, in this very tiny + community where everyone knows and respects everyone else, + where all the laws and customs encourage the ironing out of + differences before they become serious. And so far, work has + never become oppressive. Most of it we enjoy; the boring, + unpleasing jobs are shared because we know they have to be + done and we don't want anyone to have to carry too much of + their weight. And so far, we don't hunger for the complex + and fascinating possessions we knew on Earth. Such hungers + will come. Communities will grow. The best laws will fail + sometimes; there will be disputes, mistakes, injustices. But + we are forewarned by memories of Earth. Doc, I'm trying to + say things you could say better-- + + WRIGHT: No. Go on. + + PAUL: Well.... We plan, tentatively, a hundred family units + here at Jensen City, a population of maybe a thousand + adults, no larger. When that point is reached (several years + away) then we must plan and build another town, probably + here on the island. At that point we add new problems and + perplexities. We may not need a monetary system until there + are several towns; when we do, it will not develop + haphazardly, but with the aid of all past knowledge we + possess, for safeguard and guidance. + + SLADE: And when there are fifteen or twenty such + communities? + + PAUL: They will want an over-all government; a miniature of + a federal system, we suppose. A republic, with fully + functional representative procedures, checked and + safeguarded against every abuse of power. Because in all our + study and memories of history, we've found no other type of + government that can operate with fairness to majorities and + minorities alike and leave men as free as any social animal + can ever be free. For that matter, Captain, we sometimes + glance ahead to a time when there will be hundreds or + thousands of towns: a time when our great-grandchildren of + all three races may want to experiment with large cities, + elaborate industries. Such things will bring their own heavy + difficulties, but we have reason to hope that our + great-grandchildren will have the patience and courage to + solve them as they arise. Brodaa, tell them about the + school. + + BRODAA: I am not good in exposition, Paul.... We + are--strict, Captain, that the children should learn all the + tested factual knowledge we can give them. They must read, + speak, write--clearly, precisely, honestly. We do not allow + them to leave a method half learned, a task half done. If + there is a question, they must search for an answer; if + there is no sufficient answer known, they must learn to test + the insufficient answers and wait judgment. My own language + has flaws--I am an old woman--I still go to school, to Paul, + Mashana Dorothy, Dr. Wright, to learn more for my own sake + and for the little ones I teach. They must learn the + fundamental methods and facts as soon as they can start to + think at all. We are never afraid of teaching any child too + much or too soon--we respect them. Oh, Mashana, I was + wishing you would return. + + DOROTHY: Need has arisen for the Dope? What goes on more or + less? + + ELIS: Education. + + PAUL: How is-- + + SPEARMAN: How is she? + + DOROTHY: She is asleep, Ed. Nothing to worry about. + + PAKRIAA: She will be healed. + + MIJOK: Education on Lucifer. Pakriaa and I have the + pleasantest part of the teaching, I think. We show them the + ways of the forest and the open ground, the plants and other + living things, how to hunt without cruelty or waste, how to + be safe and happy alone in the woods at night, when to fear + and not to fear. As Samis shows them the care of the tame + beasts, and the work in the plantations.... + + WRIGHT: I'll add a little too, though Brodaa could do it + better-- + + MUKERJI: Come here, kink. + + DOROTHY: Why, he loves you! That one won't usually go to + anybody but Muson. His wife is due to have kittens and he's + blue about it. + + MUKERJI: Kittens--kinkens-- + + DOROTHY: Just kittens. Seven at one whack. Oof--shet ma + mouf. + + HELEN: Mother, if you looked at seven kittens now they'd be + fourteen. + + DOROTHY: Such comment, from a lady allowed to sit up late. + Such, I might add, perfectly accurate comment. Sleepy, baby? + + HELEN: Not a bit. + + DOROTHY: You are too. You snuggle like a kitten half full of + milk. Half an hour, huh? + + HELEN: Mm. + + WRIGHT: We see to it, Captain, that our children are not + stuffed with inflated words, equivocal words. When you talk + with them, they won't be chattering to you about freedom, + democracy, truth, justice. They learn these words closely; + we see to it that they learn them with caution. When they + use them we say--define, define. Democracy by what means, + within what limits, toward what end? Freedom from what, for + what? For what's the profit if I rattle on about freedom in + a semantic vacuum? I am free to speak, not free to kill and + wound; I must be free from slavery to the whims of others. I + can never be free from the bonds of a hundred duties, + responsibilities, loyalties to persons I love and principles + I cherish. Words without definition are sheer noise, and + noise never drummed any race into Paradise. Oh, the thing's + obvious as a child's building blocks--but I recall how on + Earth men tended to forget it twenty-four hours a day, and + here on Lucifer we forget it often enough--myself included. + But we do not forget it when we teach our children.... One + other thing--before this wine takes me back to second + childhood--as soon, Captain, as their minds are old enough-- + + AREK: Where did Spearman go? + + WRIGHT: Oh, he--he just stepped out, I think. Stretch his + legs or something. As soon as their minds are old enough to + think with some independence and explore, we insist that + they start the lifetime struggle with man's primary + dilemma-- + + ELIS: I hoped you would speak of that, my brother. + + WRIGHT: That he is an individual, his self-hood precious and + inviolate, yet he must live in harmony with other + individuals whose right to life and welfare is as certain as + his own. Approach the study of society from any direction + you will, that problem is at the heart of it, and must be a + thousand generations from now, because it must be met anew + with every infant born. We think, here, that the most + rewarding answer is in the old virtues of self-knowledge, + charity, honesty, forbearance, patience. Now, those are all + words that demand definition and multiple definition; on + that basis we have our children study them, search the depth + and height of them, in the not so simple problems of + childhood through the tougher ones of adolescence and + maturity. We make them understand that lip service will not + do: if one is to make himself honest he must eat honesty + with breakfast, sweat with it in the sun, laugh and play and + suffer with it and lie down with it at night until it's near + as the oxygen in his blood. Yes, we aim high. Cruelly high, + would you say? We don't think so. Perfection is a cold spot + on top of a mountain, and nobody ever climbed there. We have + trouble and fun and arguments; sometimes the garden weeds + grow until tomorrow or the day after, but we sleep well. + + DOROTHY: Speaking of perfection and goodness and things and + stuff--I know it was Paul who put those violin strings by + Nan's bed, but which one of you supplied them? + + SLADE: Well, he told me-- + + DOROTHY: Will it be all right if I reach over this daughter + of mine and kiss you? + + SLADE: They did brief us, back on Earth, that we must + respect local customs-- + + MIJOK: And perhaps even another drink could do him no harm. + + PAKRIAA: He's pied. + + ELIS: I would not say that. Speaking as Governor, I say that + the local wine industry deserves every encouragement it can + get--and has, ever since Samis' favorite kink had kittens in + the bottom of the vest bat. + + SAMIS: Correction. + + MIJOK: Best vat. Speaking as Lieutenant Governor. Just + elected--did it myself. + + MUSON: The toastmistress has been quiet lately. + + NISANA: Who, me? + + PAUL: By acclamation, yes. + + NISANA: Le'me think. We did drink to the children--those in + bed and those who ought to be-- + + HELEN: 'Ception. + + DOROTHY: Great big woman. You weigh a ton, sweet stuff, 'n' + so do your eyelids, they do. + + NISANA: And we drank to the olifants. No no--I am too + happy--my mind is a lake without a breeze. You propose the + toast, Pakriaa. + + SALLY: Matter of fact I'm already sort of whooliollicky--I + think-- + + DOROTHY: Hey--maybe it's not just the wine. Paul--Doc--it + must be almost thirteen hours-- + + PAUL: Yes--yes, almost. Maybe you'd better-- + + SALLY: No, let's have one more toast. At least one more, + Pakriaa? + + WRIGHT: I'll drink with you, Pakriaa. + + PAKRIAA: Oh--let us be happy. Friends, I give you the wine + itself and the earth that made it. I give you birth and + death and the journey of our days and nights between them, + the shining of green fields, the patience of the forest, the + little stars, the great stars, the love and the thought, the + labor and the laughter, the good morning sky. + + * * * * * + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of West Of The Sun, by Edgar Pangborn + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WEST OF THE SUN *** + +***** This file should be named 39572.txt or 39572.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/9/5/7/39572/ + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Bruce Albrecht, and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://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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