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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e1794ee --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #62382 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/62382) diff --git a/old/62382-h.zip b/old/62382-h.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 9a18777..0000000 --- a/old/62382-h.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/62382-h/62382-h.htm b/old/62382-h/62382-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index dbb3468..0000000 --- a/old/62382-h/62382-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,2090 +0,0 @@ -<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" - "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> - <head> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=us-ascii" /> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> - <title> - The Project Gutenberg eBook of Thralls of the Endless Night, by Leigh Brackett. - </title> - <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> - - <style type="text/css"> - -body { - margin-left: 10%; - margin-right: 10%; -} - - h1,h2 { - text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ - clear: both; -} - -p { - margin-top: .51em; - text-align: justify; - margin-bottom: .49em; -} - -hr { - width: 33%; - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 2em; - margin-left: 33.5%; - margin-right: 33.5%; - clear: both; -} - -hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} -hr.tb {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;} - -.center {text-align: center;} - -.right {text-align: right;} - -/* Images */ -.figcenter { - margin: auto; - text-align: center; -} - -.caption p -{ - text-align: center; - text-indent: 0; - margin: 0.25em 0; -} - -div.titlepage { - text-align: center; - page-break-before: always; - page-break-after: always; -} - -div.titlepage p { - text-align: center; - text-indent: 0em; - font-weight: bold; - line-height: 1.5; - margin-top: 3em; -} - - </style> - </head> -<body> - - -<pre> - -Project Gutenberg's Thralls of the Endless Night, by Leigh Brackett - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll -have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using -this ebook. - - - -Title: Thralls of the Endless Night - -Author: Leigh Brackett - -Release Date: June 12, 2020 [EBook #62382] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THRALLS OF THE ENDLESS NIGHT *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - -</pre> - - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/cover.jpg" width="347" height="500" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="titlepage"> - -<h1>THRALLS of the ENDLESS NIGHT</h1> - -<h2>By LEIGH BRACKETT</h2> - -<p>The Ship held an ancient secret that meant<br /> -life to the dying cast-aways of the void.<br /> -Then Wes Kirk revealed the secret to his<br /> -people's enemies—and found that his betrayal<br /> -meant the death of the girl he loved.</p> - -<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br /> -Planet Stories Fall 1943.<br /> -Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that<br /> -the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>Wes Kirk shut his teeth together, hard. He turned his back on Ma Kirk -and the five younger ones huddled around the box of heat-stones and -went to the doorway, padding soft and tight with the anger in him.</p> - -<p>He shoved the curtain of little skins aside and crouched there with his -thick shoulders fitted into the angle of the jamb, staring out, cold -wind threading in across his splayed and naked feet.</p> - -<p>The hackles rose golden and stiff across Kirk's back. He said carefully,</p> - -<p>"I would like to kill the Captain and the First Officer and the Second -Officer and all the little Officers, and the Engineers, and all their -families."</p> - -<p>His voice carried inside on the wind eddies. Ma Kirk yelled,</p> - -<p>"Wes! You come here and let that curtain down! You want us all to -freeze?" Her dark-furred shoulders moved rhythmically over the rocking -child. She added sharply, "Besides, that's fool's talk, Jakk Randl's -talk, and only gets the sucking-plant."</p> - -<p>"Who's to hear it?" Kirk raised his heavy overlids and let his pupils -widen, huge liquid drops spreading black across his eyeballs, sucking -the dim grey light into themselves, forcing line and shape out of -blurred nothingness. He made no move to drop the curtain.</p> - -<p>The same landscape he had stared at since he was able to crawl by -himself away from the box of heat-stones. Flat grey plain running -right and left to the little curve of the horizon. Rocks on it, and -edible moss. Wind-made gullies with grey shrubs thick in their bottoms, -guarding their sour white berries with thorns and sacs of poisoned dust -that burst when touched.</p> - -<p>Between the fields and the gullies there were huts like his own, sunk -into the earth and sodded tight. A lot of huts, but not as many as -there had been, the old ones said. The Hans died, and the huts were -empty, and the wind and the earth took them back again.</p> - -<p>Kirk raised his shaggy head. The light of the yellow star they called -Sun caught in the huge luminous blackness of his eyes.</p> - -<p>Beyond the Hansquarter, just where the flat plain began to rise, were -the Engineers. Not many of them any more. You could see the dusty lumps -where the huts had been, the tumbled heaps of metal that might have -meant something once, a longer time ago than anyone could remember. But -there were still plenty of huts standing. Two hands and one hand and -a thumb of them, full of Engineers who said how the furrows should be -laid for the planting but did nothing about the tilling of them.</p> - -<p>And beyond the Engineers—the Officers.</p> - -<p>The baby cried. Ma Kirk shrilled at her son, and two of the younger -ones fought over a bone with no meat on it, rolling and snapping on the -dirt floor. Kirk shifted his head forward to shut out the sound of them -and followed the line of the plain upward with sullen, glowing eyes.</p> - -<p>The huts of the Engineers were larger than those in the Hansquarter. -The huts of the Officers were not much larger than the Engineers', but -there were more of them and they climbed higher up the grey slope. -Five, nearly six hands of them, with the Captain's metal-roofed place -highest of all.</p> - -<p>Highest and nearest, right under the titanic shape lifting jagged -against the icy stars from the crest of the ridge.</p> - -<p>The Ship.</p> - -<p>Kirk's voice was soft in his thick throat. "I would like to kill them," -he said. "I would like to kill them all."</p> - -<p>"Yah!" cried a shrill voice over his shoulder. "All but the Captain's -yellow daughter!"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Kirk spun angrily around. Lil, next below himself, danced back out of -reach, her kilt of little skins flying around her thin hips.</p> - -<p>"Yah!" she said again, and wrinkled her flat nose. "I've seen you -looking at her. All yellow from head to foot and beautiful pink lids to -her eyes. You wouldn't kill <i>her</i>, I bet!"</p> - -<p>"I bet I'll half kill you if you don't shut up!"</p> - -<p>Lil stuck out her tongue. Kirk aimed a cuff at her. She danced behind -his arm and jerked the curtain down and shot away again, making two -jumps over the brawling young ones and the box of heat-stones.</p> - -<p>She squatted demurely beside Ma Kirk and said, as though nothing had -happened, "Ma says will you please not let so much heat out."</p> - -<p>Kirk didn't say anything. He started to walk around the heat box. Lil -yelled, "Ma!"</p> - -<p>The young ones stopped fighting, scuttling out of reach and watching -with bright moist eyes, grinning. The baby had reached the hiccoughing -stage.</p> - -<p>Ma Kirk said, "Sit down, or go pick on somebody your own size."</p> - -<p>Kirk stopped. "Aw, I wasn't going to hurt her. She has to be so smart!" -He leaned forward to glare at Lil. "And I would so kill the Captain's -daughter!"</p> - -<p>The baby was quiet. Ma Kirk laid it down in a nest of skins put close -to the heat and said wearily:</p> - -<p>"You men, always talking about killing! Haven't we enough trouble -without that?"</p> - -<p>Kirk looked at the little box of heat-stones, his pupils shrinking.</p> - -<p>"Maybe there'd be less trouble for us."</p> - -<p>Lil poked her shock of black hair around Ma Kirk's knee. Her big eyes -glowed in the feeble light.</p> - -<p>She said, "You men! He's no man, Ma. He's just a little boy who has to -stay behind and shoo the beetles out of the fields."</p> - -<p>The young ones giggled, well out of reach. Lil's thin body was strung -tight, quivering to move. "Besides," she demanded, "what have the -Officers and the Engineers ever done to you that you should want to -kill them—all but the Captain's yellow daughter?"</p> - -<p>Kirk's big heavy chest swelled. "Ma," he said, "you make that brat shut -up or I'll whale her, anyhow."</p> - -<p>Ma Kirk looked at him. "Your Pa's still big enough to whale you, young -man! Now you stop it, both of you."</p> - -<p>"All right," said Kirk sullenly. He squatted down, holding his hands -over the heat. His back twitched with the cold, but it was nice to have -his belly warm, even if it was empty. "Wish Pa'd hurry up. I'm hungry. -Hope they killed meat."</p> - -<p>Ma Kirk sighed. "Seems like meat gets scarcer all the time, like the -heat-stones."</p> - -<p>"Maybe," said Kirk heavily, "it all goes to the same place."</p> - -<p>Lil snorted. "And where's that, Smarty?"</p> - -<p>His anger forced out the forbidden words.</p> - -<p>"Where everybody says, stupid! Into the Ship."</p> - -<p>There was suddenly a lot of silence in the room. The word "Ship" hung -there, awesome and accusing. Ma Kirk's eyes flicked to the curtain over -the door and back to her son.</p> - -<p>"Don't you say things like that, Wes! You don't know."</p> - -<p>"It's what everybody says. Why else would they guard the Ship the way -they do? We can't even get near the outside of it."</p> - -<p>Lil tossed her head. "Well neither do they."</p> - -<p>"Not when we can see 'em, no. Of course not. But how do we know they -haven't got ways of getting into the Ship that don't show from the -plain? Jakk says a lot goes on that we don't know about."</p> - -<p>He got up, forcing his belief at them with his big square hands.</p> - -<p>"There must be something in the Ship that they don't want us to have. -Something valuable, something they want to keep for themselves. What -else could it be but heat-stones and maybe dried meat?"</p> - -<p>"We don't know, Wes! The Ship is—well, we shouldn't talk about it. -And the Officers wouldn't do that. If they wanted us killed off they'd -let the Piruts in on us, or the shags, and let 'em finish us quick. -Freezing and starving would take too long. There'd be too many of us if -we found out, or got mad."</p> - -<p>Kirk snorted. "You women know so much. If they let the shags or the -Piruts in on us, how could they stop 'em before they killed everybody, -including the Officers? As for slow death—well, they think we're dumb. -They've kept us away from the Ship ever since the <i>Crash</i>, and nobody -knows how long ago that was. They think they can go on doing it. They -think we'd never suspect."</p> - -<p>"Yah!" said Lil sharply. "You just like to talk. Why should the -Officers want us killed off anyhow?"</p> - -<p>Kirk looked at the thin fuzzy baby curled tight in the skins.</p> - -<p>"There aren't enough heat-stones to go around any more. Why should they -let their young ones cry with the cold?"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>There was silence in the room again. Kirk felt it, thick and choky. -His heart kicked against his ribs. He was scared, suddenly. He'd never -talked that much before. It was the baby, crying in the cold, that set -him off. Suppose someone had heard him. Suppose he was reported for a -mutineer. That meant the sucking-plant....</p> - -<p>"Listen!" said Ma Kirk.</p> - -<p>Nerves crackled icily all over Kirk's skin. But there wasn't any need -to listen. The noise rolled in over them. It hit rock faces polished by -the wind, and the drifts of crystalline pebbles, and it splintered into -a tangle of echoes that came from everywhere at once, but there was -no mistaking it. No need even to use sensitive earcups to locate its -source.</p> - -<p>The great alarm gong by the Captain's hut.</p> - -<p>Kirk began to move, very swiftly and quietly. Before the third gong -stroke hit them he had his spear and his sling and was already lifting -aside the door curtain.</p> - -<p>Ma Kirk said stiffly, "Which way are they coming?"</p> - -<p>Kirk's ears twitched. He sorted the gong sounds, and the wind, and -found a whisper underneath them, rushing up out of the gullied plain.</p> - -<p>Kirk pointed. "From the west. Piruts, I think."</p> - -<p>Ma Kirk sucked in her breath. Her voice had no tone in it. "Your Pa -went hunting that way."</p> - -<p>"Yeah," said Kirk. "I'll watch out for him."</p> - -<p>He glanced back just before he let the curtain drop. The pale glow of -the heat-stones picked dots of luminous blackness out of the gloom, -where the still breathless faces were, watching him. He saw the blurred -shapes of clay cooking pots, of low bed frames, of huddled bodies. The -baby began to whimper again.</p> - -<p>Kirk shivered in the cold wind. "Lil," he said. "I would, too, kill the -Captain's yellow daughter."</p> - -<p>"Yah," said Lil. "Go chase the beetles away."</p> - -<p>There was no conviction in her voice. The wind was freezing on Kirk's -bare feet. He dropped the curtain and went across the plain.</p> - -<p>Men and youths like himself, old enough to fight, were spilling out of -low doorways and forming companies on the flat ground. Kirk spotted -Jakk Randl and fell in beside him. They stood with their backs to the -wind, stamping and shivering, their head-hair and scant fur clouts -blown straight out.</p> - -<p>Randl nudged Kirk's elbow. "Look at 'em," he said, and coughed. He was -always coughing, jerking his thin sharp face back and forth. Kirk could -have broken his brittle light-furred body in two. All Randl's strength -was in his eyes. The pupils were always spread, always hot with some -bitter force, always probing. He wasn't much older than Kirk.</p> - -<p>Kirk looked up the hill. Officers were running from the huts below the -gaunt, dead Ship. They didn't look so different from the Hans, only -they were built a little taller and lighter, less bowed and bunchy in -the shoulders, quicker on their feet.</p> - -<p>Kirk stepped behind Randl to shield him from the wind. His voice was -only a whisper, but it had a hard edge. The baby's thin, terrible wail -was still in his ears.</p> - -<p>"Is it true, Jakk? Do you know? Because if they are...."</p> - -<p>Randl laughed and shuddered with a secret, ugly triumph. "I crawled up -on the peak during the last darkness. The guards were cold and the wind -made them blind and deaf. I lay in the rocks and watched. And I saw...."</p> - -<p>He coughed. The Officers' voices rang sharp through the wind. Compact -groups of men began to run, off toward the west. The whisper of sound -had grown louder in Kirk's ears. He could hear men yelling and the -ringing of metal on stone.</p> - -<p>He started to run, holding Randl's elbow. Grey dust blew under their -feet. The drifts of crystal stones sent their sound shivering back at -them in splinters. Kirk said fiercely:</p> - -<p>"What did you see?"</p> - -<p>They were passing under the hill now. Randl jerked his head. "Up there, -Wes."</p> - -<p>Kirk looked up. Someone was standing at the doorway of the Captain's -hut. Someone tall and slender and the color of the Sunstar from head to -foot.</p> - -<p>"I saw her," said Randl hoarsely. "She was carrying heat-stones into -the Ship."</p> - -<p>Kirk's pupils shrank to points no warmer nor softer than the tip of his -knife. He smiled, almost gently, looking up the hill.</p> - -<p>The captain's yellow daughter, taking life into the Ship.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>It was a big raid. Kirk saw that when he scrambled up out of the last -gully, half-carrying the wheezing Randl. The Piruts had come up the -tongue of rock between two deep cuts and tackled the guards' pillbox -head on. They hadn't taken it, not yet. But they were still trying, -piling up their dead on the swept grey stone.</p> - -<p>They were using shags again. They drove the lumbering beasts on into -the hail of stones and thrown spears from the pillbox, keeping low -behind them, and then climbing on the round hairy bodies. It took -courage, because sometimes the shags turned and clawed the men who -drove them, and sometimes the dead ones weren't quite dead and it was -too bad for the man who climbed on them.</p> - -<p>It looked to Kirk as though the pillbox was pretty far gone.</p> - -<p>He ran down the slope with the others, slipping in the crystal drifts. -Randl was spent. Kirk kept him going, thinking of the huts back there -on the plain, and Ma and Lil and the little ones, and the baby. You had -to fight the Piruts, no matter what you thought about the Officers. You -had to keep them from getting onto the plain.</p> - -<p>He wondered about Pa. Hunting shags in the outer gullies was mean work -any time, but when the Piruts were raiding....</p> - -<p>No time to think about that. Wite, the second son of the First Officer, -was signalling for double time. Kirk ran faster, his ears twitching -furiously as they sifted the flying echoes into some kind of order.</p> - -<p>Pa hadn't been alone, of course. Frank and Russ went with him. The -three of them would have sense enough to keep safe. Maybe they were in -the pillbox.</p> - -<p>A big raid. More Piruts than he'd ever seen before. He wondered why. -He wondered how so many of them had been able to get so close to the -pillbox all at once, walking two or three abreast on the narrow tongue -of rock under the spears and slingstones.</p> - -<p>They poured in through the gates of the stone-walled building, -scattering up onto the parapet. There were slits in the rooms below and -rusty metal things crouching behind them, but they weren't any good for -fighting. A man needed shoulder room for spear and sling.</p> - -<p>It was pretty hot up there. The wall of bodies had built up so high, -mostly with shags, that the Piruts were coming right over the wall. -Kirk's nose wrinkled at the smell of blood. He avoided the biggest -puddles and found a place to stand between the dead.</p> - -<p>Randl went down on his knees. He was coughing horribly, but his hot -black eyes saw everything. He tried three times to lift his sling and -gave it up.</p> - -<p>"I'll cover you," said Kirk. He began taking crystal pebbles out of a -big pile that was kept there and hurling them at the Piruts. They made -a singing noise in the air, and they didn't stop going when they hit. -They were heavy for their size, very heavy, with sharp edges.</p> - -<p>Randl said, "Something funny, Wes. Too many Piruts. They couldn't risk -'em on an ordinary raid."</p> - -<p>Kirk grunted. A Pirut with red hair standing straight in the wind came -over the wall. Kirk speared him left-handed in the belly, dodged the -downstroke of his loaded sap, and kicked the body out of the way.</p> - -<p>He said, "Wonder how they got so close, so fast?"</p> - -<p>"Some trick." Randl laughed suddenly. "Funny their wanting the Ship as -much as you and I do."</p> - -<p>"Think they could know what's in it?"</p> - -<p>Randl's narrow shoulders twitched. "Near as we know, their legend is -the same as ours. Something holy in the Ship, sacred and tabu. Only -difference is they want to get it for themselves, and we want to keep -it." He coughed and spat in sudden angry disgust. "And we've swallowed -that stuff. We've let the Officers hoard heat and food so they can live -no matter what happens to us. We're fools, Wes! A lot of bloody fools!"</p> - -<p>He got up and began jabbing with his spear at heads that poked up over -the wall.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The Piruts began to slack off. Stones still whistled past Kirk's -head—a couple of them had grazed him by now—and spears showered down, -but they weren't climbing the walls any more.</p> - -<p>Randl grounded his spear, gasping. "That's that. Pretty soon they'll -break, and then we can start thinking about...."</p> - -<p>He stopped. Kirk put a stone accurately through the back of a Pirut's -head and said grimly:</p> - -<p>"Yeah. About what <i>we're</i> going to do."</p> - -<p>Randl didn't answer. He sat down suddenly, doubled over. Kirk grinned. -"Take it easy," he said softly. "I'll cover you."</p> - -<p>Randl whispered, "Wes. Wes!" He held up one thin hand. Kirk let his own -drop, looking at it. There was blood on it, running clear to the elbow.</p> - -<p>He went down beside Randl, putting his arms around him, trying to see. -Randl shook him off.</p> - -<p>"Don't move me, you fool! Just listen." His voice was harsh and rapid. -He was holding both hands over the left side of his neck, where it -joined the shoulder. Kirk could see the bright blood beating up through -his fingers.</p> - -<p>He said, "Jakk, I'll get the sawbones...."</p> - -<p>Hot black eyes turned to his. Burnt-out fires in a face with the young -beard hardly full on its sharp jaw.</p> - -<p>"Sit down, Wes, quick, and listen. Sawbones is no good—and why would -I want to go on living anyway?"</p> - -<p>He smiled. Kirk had never seen him smile like that, without bitterness -or pain. He sat down, crouched on the body of a man who lived only two -huts away from him. The blood made little red fountains between Randl's -fingers.</p> - -<p>"It's up to you, Wes. You're the only one that really knows about the -Ship. You'll do better than I would, anyhow. You're a fighter. You -carry it on, so the Hans can live. Promise."</p> - -<p>Kirk nodded. He couldn't say anything. The heat was dying in Randl's -eyes.</p> - -<p>"Listen, Wes. I saw the secret way into Ship. Bend closer, and -listen...."</p> - -<p>Kirk bent. He didn't move for a long time. After a while Randl's voice -stopped, and then the blood wasn't pumping any more, just oozing. -Randl's hands slid away, so that Kirk could see the hole the stone had -made. Everything seemed to be very quiet.</p> - -<p>Kirk sat there, holding Randl in his arms.</p> - -<p>Presently someone came up and shook Kirk's shoulder and said, "Hey, -kid, are you deaf? We been yelling for you." He stopped, and then said -more gently, "Oh. Jakk got it, did he?"</p> - -<p>Kirk laid the body carefully on the stones and got up. "Yeah."</p> - -<p>"Kind of a pal of yours, wasn't he?"</p> - -<p>"He wasn't very strong. He needed someone to cover him."</p> - -<p>"Too bad." The man shook his head, and then shrugged. "Maybe it's -better, at that. He was headed for trouble, that one. Kinda leading you -that way, too, I heard. Always talking."</p> - -<p>He looked at Kirk's face and shut up suddenly. He turned away and -grunted over his shoulders, "The O.D.'s looking for you."</p> - -<p>Kirk followed. The wind was cold, howling up from the outer gullies.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The Officer of the Day was waiting at the north end of the wall. -There was a ladder dropped over it now, and men were climbing up and -down with bodies and sheaves of recovered spears. More were busy down -below, rolling the dead Piruts and the shags down into the deep gullies -for the scavenger rats and the living shags who didn't mind turning -cannibal.</p> - -<p>That ladder made Kirk think of Pa. It was the only way for a man to get -into the outer gullies from the west escarpment of the colony. He shook -some of the queer heaviness out of his head, touched his forelock and -said:</p> - -<p>"I'm Wes Kirk, sir. You wanted me?"</p> - -<p>"Yes." The O.D. was also the Third Officer. Taller than Kirk, thinner, -with the hair going grey on his body and exhausted eyes sunk deep under -his horny overlids. He said quietly:</p> - -<p>"I'm sorry to have to tell you this...."</p> - -<p>Kirk knew. The knowledge leaped through him. It was strange, to feel a -spear-stab where there was no spear.</p> - -<p>He said, "Pa."</p> - -<p>The Officer nodded. He seemed very tired, and he didn't look at Kirk. -He hadn't, after the first glance.</p> - -<p>"Your father, and his two friends."</p> - -<p>Kirk shivered. The horny lids dropped over his eyes. "I wish I'd -known," he whispered. "I'd have killed more of them."</p> - -<p>The Officer put his hands flat on the top of the wall and looked at -them as if they were strange things and no part of him.</p> - -<p>"Kirk," he said, "this is going to be hard to explain. I've never done -anything as hard. The Piruts didn't kill them. They were responsible, -but they didn't actually kill them."</p> - -<p>Wes raised his head slowly. "I don't understand."</p> - -<p>"We saw them coming up the tongue of rock. The Piruts were behind them, -but not far. Not far enough. One of the three, it wasn't your father, -called to us to put the ladder down. We waited...."</p> - -<p>A muscle began to twitch under Kirk's eye. That, too, was something -that had never happened before, like the stab of pain with no spear -behind it. He licked his lips and repeated hoarsely:</p> - -<p>"I don't understand."</p> - -<p>The Officer tightened suddenly and made one hand into a fist and beat -it slowly on the wall, up and down.</p> - -<p>"I didn't want to give the order. God knows I didn't want to! But there -was nothing else to do."</p> - -<p>A man came up over the top of the ladder. He was carrying a body over -his shoulder, and breathing hard.</p> - -<p>"Here's Kirk," he said. "Where'll I put him?"</p> - -<p>There was a clear space off to the right. Kirk pointed to it. "Over -there, Charley. I'll help."</p> - -<p>It was hard to move. He'd never been tired like this before. He'd never -been afraid like this, either. He didn't know what he was afraid of. -Something in the Officer's voice.</p> - -<p>He helped to lay his father down. He'd seen bodies before. He'd handled -them, fighting on the pillbox walls. But never one he'd known so long, -one he'd eaten and slept and wrestled with. The thick arm that hauled -him out of bed this morning, the big hands that warmed the baby against -the barrel chest. You saw it lying lax and cold, but you didn't believe -it.</p> - -<p>You saw it. You saw the spear shaft sticking out clean from the -heart....</p> - -<p>You saw it....</p> - -<p>"That's one of our spears!" He screamed it, like a woman. "One of our -own—from the front!"</p> - -<p>"I let them get as close as I dared," said the Officer tonelessly. "I -tried to find a way. But there wasn't any way but the ladder, and that -was what the Piruts wanted. That's why they made them come."</p> - -<p>Kirk's voice wasn't a voice at all. "You killed them. You killed my -father."</p> - -<p>"Three lives, against all those back on the plain. We held our fire -too long as it was, hoping. The Piruts nearly broke through. Try to -understand! I had to do it."</p> - -<p>Kirk's spear made a flat clatter on the stone. He started forward. Men -moved in and held him, without rancor, looking at their own feet.</p> - -<p>"Please try to understand," whispered the Officer. "I had to do it."</p> - -<p>The Officer, the bloody wall, the stars and the cold grey gullies all -went away. There was nothing but darkness, and wind, a long way off. -Kirk thought of Pa coming up under the wall, close to safety, close -enough to touch it, and no way through. Pa and Frank and Russ, standing -under the wall, looking up, and no way through.</p> - -<p>Looking up, calling to the men they knew, asking for help and getting a -spear through the heart.</p> - -<p>After that, even the wind was gone, and the darkness had turned red.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>There was a voice, a long way off. It said, "God, he's strong!" Over -and over. It got louder. There were weights on his arms and legs, and -he couldn't throw them off. He was pressed against something.</p> - -<p>It was the wall. He saw that after a while. The wall where the Officer -had been standing. There were six men holding him, three on each side. -The Officer was gone.</p> - -<p>Kirk relaxed. He was shivering and covered with rime from body sweat. -Somebody whistled.</p> - -<p>"Six men! Didn't know the kid had it in him."</p> - -<p>The Officer's voice said dully, "No discipline. Better take him home."</p> - -<p>Kirk tried to turn. The six men swung with him. Kirk said, "You better -discipline me. You better kill me, because, if you don't, I'll kill -you."</p> - -<p>"I don't blame you, boy. Go and rest. You'll understand."</p> - -<p>"I'll understand, all right." Kirk's voice was a hoarse, harsh whisper -that came out by itself and wouldn't be stopped. "I'll understand about -Pa, and the Ship with the heat-stones in it, and the Captain's yellow -daughter getting fat and warm while my sisters freeze and go hungry. -I'll understand, and I'll make everybody else understand, too!"</p> - -<p>The Officer's eyes held a quick fire. "Boy! Do you know what you're -saying?"</p> - -<p>"You bet I know!"</p> - -<p>"That's mutiny. For God's sake, don't make things worse!"</p> - -<p>"Worse for us, or for you?" Kirk was shouting, holding his head up in -the wind. "Listen, you men! Do you know what the Officers are doing up -there in the Ship they won't let us touch?"</p> - -<p>There was an uneasy stirring among the Hans, a slipping aside of -luminous black eyes. The Officer shut his jaw tight. He stepped in -close to Kirk.</p> - -<p>"Shut up," he said urgently. "Don't make me punish you, not now. You're -talking rot, but it's dangerous."</p> - -<p>Kirk's eyes were hot and not quite sane. He couldn't have stopped if -he'd wanted to.</p> - -<p>"Rot, is it? Jakk Randl knew. He saw with his own eyes and he told me -while he was dying. The Captain's yellow daughter, sneaking heat-stones -into...."</p> - -<p>The Officer hit him on the jaw, carefully and without heat. Kirk sagged -down. The Officer stepped back, looking as though he had a pain in him -that he didn't want to show.</p> - -<p>He said quietly, but so that everyone could hear him, "Discipline, for -not longer than it takes to clear the rock below."</p> - -<p>Two of the men nodded and took Kirk away down a flight of stone steps. -One of the four who were left looked over the wall and spat.</p> - -<p>"Rock's pretty near clean," he said, "but even so...." He shook himself -like a dog. "That Jakk Randl, he was always talking."</p> - -<p>One of the others flicked a quick look around and whispered, "Yeah. And -maybe he knew what he was talking about!"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The little stone room was cold and quiet. It was dark, too, but the -sucking-plant carried its own light. Kirk lay on his back watching -the cool green fire pulse on his chest and belly. It looked cool, but -underneath the sprawling tentacles of it he was burning with the pain -of little needles that bit and sucked.</p> - -<p>He was spreadeagled with leather thongs. He made no sound. The sweat -ran into his eyes and the blood went out of his body into the hungry -plant, drop by drop.</p> - -<p>Somebody came in, somebody too quick and light to be a fighting man. -Kirk let his pupils spread. First a slim tall shape moving, a kilt of -little skins swirling beneath the shimmering sinthi-mesh overall suit. -Small sharp breasts and a heavy mane of hair caught back.</p> - -<p>Then color. Yellow. Yellow like the Sunstar, from head to foot. Kirk's -jaw shut and knotted.</p> - -<p>The sucking-plant was ripped away very deftly by its upper fronds and -thrown into a corner. Kirk went rigid, but he didn't make a sound. The -yellow girl took a knife from her belt sheath and slashed him free with -four quick strokes.</p> - -<p>Kirk didn't move.</p> - -<p>"Well," she said. "Aren't you going to get up?"</p> - -<p>He could see her eyes, great black shining things. "What did you come -here for?"</p> - -<p>"They told me about you. I said I thought it was criminal to discipline -you when you didn't know what you were doing. So I came down to see -what I could do about it."</p> - -<p>She always came with the other women after a raid, to help the wounded. -Kirk looked at her stonily.</p> - -<p>"You must have just missed my speech."</p> - -<p>"They told me about it. Whatever made you say things like that?"</p> - -<p>"Aren't they true?"</p> - -<p>"No!"</p> - -<p>Kirk laughed. It was not a pleasant laugh. "You could have saved -yourself the trouble. This isn't going to make me believe you."</p> - -<p>The girl tossed her thick hair back impatiently. "You're acting like -a child." She was no older than Kirk. "We're all terribly sorry about -your father," she went on gravely, "but that doesn't give you the -right...."</p> - -<p>"I have the right to tell the truth."</p> - -<p>"But you're not telling the truth!" She was down on her knees now, -beside him. "I don't know what this Jakk Randl saw, or whether he saw -anything, but...."</p> - -<p>Kirk said slowly, "Jakk's dead. He was my friend, and he didn't lie."</p> - -<p>"Perhaps not. But he was mistaken."</p> - -<p>"He saw you, taking heat-stones into the Ship."</p> - -<p>"But only a very few! We're not hoarding them. We wouldn't!"</p> - -<p>"Then what do you use them for?"</p> - -<p>"I can't tell you that. And it doesn't matter anyway."</p> - -<p>Kirk laughed again. He got up, stiffly because of the raw places -drawing across the front of him. His hair was gone in a sprawling -pattern, eaten off by digestive acids. He said:</p> - -<p>"You'll have to do better than that."</p> - -<p>She was angry, now, and perhaps a little scared. He enjoyed making her -angry and scared. He enjoyed the thick hot feeling of power it gave him.</p> - -<p>She asked, "Then you won't believe, and you won't stop talking?"</p> - -<p>"I made a promise to go on talking. And I believe in what I'm doing."</p> - -<p>"You know what that will mean." He could hear the quiver and the -breathing of her. "People may be hurt, your own people. We don't want -trouble. We can't afford trouble, with the Piruts getting stronger. -It'll mean you'll be punished, maybe even—killed."</p> - -<p>That gave him a cold twinge for a moment. Then he thought of Jakk and -shrugged.</p> - -<p>"It doesn't matter," he said, and started out.</p> - -<p>The Third Officer came in. There were five men with him, and one of -them was the Captain, wearing the gun of authority.</p> - -<p>The Captain said, "I'm sorry, Kirk. I heard a lot of what you said; too -much to dare turn you loose just now. Perhaps in solitary we can talk -sense into you."</p> - -<p>Kirk stood quite still, not moving anything but his eyes. The four Hans -were big and they had knives. Kirk shrugged and fell in with them. The -girl walked ahead, between the Captain and the Third.</p> - -<p>Nobody said anything. They went together up the stone steps.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>They had taken the wounded off the wall, out of the wind. The rock -below was clean of bodies, and the last of the men were coming back up -the ladder.</p> - -<p>Kirk felt queer. He wasn't like himself at all. It was as though he had -fragments of ice inside his head, all jumbled. Then suddenly they fell -into place, clear and frozen and unalterable, without any help from him -at all.</p> - -<p>He moved, very fast. Faster than ever before in his life, caught the -Captain's gun.</p> - -<p>His two hands thrust out, one against the Captain, the other against -the Third, and sent them staggering. He charged through between them, -gathering the yellow girl in to his chest firing as he went. The -antique gun went dead on the third shot, and he threw it away.</p> - -<p>A knife slashed across his shoulders, but it was short. Men began -to yell. He knocked one away from the ladder head and pushed the -struggling girl over and let her drop, so that she had to catch the -rungs. He whirled, swinging, and sent two men sprawling back into the -ones behind. Then he leaped over, dropping down the side of the ladder -hand over hand.</p> - -<p>He passed the girl, climbed onto the ladder behind her so that no one -could sling stones at him, and began pulling her down by the foot. She -tried kicking, but it was a long drop to the rock, and after she'd -slipped a couple of times she stopped that and went on down.</p> - -<p>Men were howling at him from above. They started to climb onto the -ladder. Kirk yelled at them, threatening to throw the girl off. They -stopped. Presently Kirk felt the cold rock underfoot.</p> - -<p>The minute he was off the ladder a man climbed over the wall and -started down. Kirk yelled at him to go back, then got hold of the -bottom of the ladder and pushed out. The yellow girl got out her knife -again and slashed at him. She hadn't opened her mouth once.</p> - -<p>Kirk dropped. The knife bit his shoulder, not very deep. He -straightened up suddenly, swinging his open palm. It caught the girl -over the ear. She fell backward away from him, rolling over on the -rock. The knife flew out of her hand. Kirk heard it skitter along and -then vanish over the gully edge.</p> - -<p>He pushed hard on the ladder. It gave, and the man at the top began -scrambling up again, fast. He only just made it, dangling half of him -in the air, when the ladder fell. The light aluminum struts it was made -of sent clashing echoes flying in the wind.</p> - -<p>It was the only ladder they had. They'd have to bring one from one -of the other pillboxes before they could climb down and get it. Kirk -looked up at the men lining the wall, yelling, waving things.</p> - -<p>Just about here Pa must have stood, looking up.</p> - -<p>He turned and hauled the dazed girl to her feet and started off down -the tongue of rock. He didn't hurry. There was no need to hurry. The -young strength of the girl was pressed against him, thigh and hip and -chest. It burned, in some queer way.</p> - -<p>He watched the yellow hairs rub and tangle with his golden ones. The -muscle started twitching under his eye again.</p> - -<p>He had to cuff her twice more to keep her quiet, before they were -safely off the naked rock. He got her down the length of two gullies, -well out of sight of the pillbox. She was still a little groggy, and -very busy keeping her footing in the pebble drifts. They started down a -third cut that angled off. Then, quite suddenly, she fell.</p> - -<p>Kirk stopped. He put out a hand to help her up, and then took it back -again. He looked at his feet and surlily, "Get up."</p> - -<p>"I can't. Where are you going?"</p> - -<p>"I don't know. Just somewhere to think, and plan. I've got to figure -this out."</p> - -<p>She thought about that. He could see her wide golden shoulders tremble. -He wanted to touch them. After a while she said:</p> - -<p>"Why did you take me? Why won't you let me go?"</p> - -<p>"They'd have killed me on the rock if I hadn't had you. And when I go -back...."</p> - -<p>She brought her head up. "You're going <i>back</i>?"</p> - -<p>He laughed at her. "Did you think you could get rid of me that easy? I -told you I'd made a promise. I'm going to keep it, and you're going to -help me. I can buy a lot with you."</p> - -<p>Her pupils were little hot pinpoints. "I see. You don't care how many -people you hurt, do you, as long as you can be a big man and keep your -promise."</p> - -<p>He said roughly, "Get up."</p> - -<p>"All right." She nodded, casually. "I'll get up."</p> - -<p>She did. She got up fast, like a rocksnake uncoiling, and she had a -big stone in her right hand. She let it go, straight for his head.</p> - -<p>Kirk jerked himself aside, but he was too late. The rock grazed him -above the ear. He staggered, trying to see through a curtain of hot and -flashing lights.</p> - -<p>His earcups, working instinctively by themselves, brought him the sound -of naked feet scrambling away over the pebble drifts.</p> - -<p>Feet. And then something else....</p> - -<p>Kirk yelled. He tried to shake the lights away, and yelled again.</p> - -<p>"Stop! Look out—<i>shags!</i>"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He heard her stop. He began to be able to see again. She was poised -halfway up the head wall of the cut, her ears twitching. For a long -time they stood that way, not moving, listening to the wind and the -rolling pebbles and the soft padding feet of things that were hungry -and hunting them.</p> - -<p>She began to move, almost without sound, back to him. Her lips formed -the word "Two," and her yellow head jerked back the way she had been -going. Kirk nodded. He pointed off to the left and held up three -fingers. Then he turned and started down the gully. The girl stayed -close beside him. She was breathing rapidly and her pupils swelled and -shrank. They showed no fear.</p> - -<p>Looking at them, Kirk thought of Lil. Lil was right. She did have pink -lids to her eyes, and they were beautiful.</p> - -<p>The shags followed them, two behind, three beside them beyond a thin -wall of rock.</p> - -<p>Kirk had never been in the outer gullies before. He was too young. But -he'd heard Pa and the older men talk about them from the time he was -old enough to crouch beside the heat-stones and listen.</p> - -<p>Out here there were shags and scavenger rats and once in a while a -rocksnake. Men of the settlement never hunted beyond the fringe. Beyond -that was forbidden ground and Piruts. Nobody knew just where the Pirut -colony was any more. Nobody wanted to know.</p> - -<p>Kirk's ears were stretched, sifting the tiny shattered echoes. His -spread pupils sucked in every bit of the dim grey light. His body hair -was erect so that even his skin acted as a sensory organ, feeling the -bodies of the shags behind them.</p> - -<p>They were getting close.</p> - -<p>The gully ended. Beyond it was a little space of tumbled rock with -other gullies opening into it, and then a cliff built of great tilted -slabs of grey stone.</p> - -<p>Kirk pointed to the cliff and started to run, with the yellow girl -beside him. Wind slashed sharp and thin across them. The echoes -whispered like many tongues and Kirk fought them and heard the two -shags come onto the plain behind them, running.</p> - -<p>The other three came out of the parallel cut. They came fast, and -because of the curve of the plain they were a little ahead of the two -humans.</p> - -<p>The girl said between her teeth, "We can't make it."</p> - -<p>She was right. Kirk picked out the biggest boulder he could see and -dashed for it. The leading shag was breathing on the girl's heels as he -hauled her up after him.</p> - -<p>They were safe for a while, but it didn't do them any good. In this -world even shags would wait forever at the prospect of a square meal. -Presently they'd start climbing and when they did it was all over. Kirk -didn't even have a weapon with which to fight.</p> - -<p>He looked down at them. Five squat thick shapes with six legs; four -powerful legs with claws and two slender ones held in against the -chest, armed with sucker discs for climbing. Five pairs of black eyes -watching, hungry and infinitely patient. Five tucked bellies burning -under pale, shaggy hair.</p> - -<p>He was looking at death. A strange cold terror took him. He turned his -head toward the yellow girl and saw the same thing in her eyes. They -looked at each other, not moving nor breathing, thinking that they were -young and going to die.</p> - -<p>He shivered. The girl's yellow body burned in the grey light. He moved. -He didn't know why, only that he had to. He took her in his arms and -found her lips and kissed them, roughly, with an urgent, painful -hunger. She fought him a little and then lay still against him.</p> - -<p>One of the shags started to climb. Kirk saw it across the girl's -shoulder. He let her go and walked to the boulder's edge and waited -until the shaggy head was level with his feet. Then he crouched and -struck, in a way he had never struck before. Blood spurted across his -fist. The shag roared and fell backward clumsily, shaking its head. -Kirk stood up and sucked in his belly and yelled. He felt savage now, -but not afraid. The echoes howled eerily.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus.jpg" width="650" height="406" alt=""/> - <div class="caption"> - <p><i>Kirk stood up, yelled, as he fought.</i></p> - </div> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>The shag started up again, and two more came with him.</p> - -<p>There was something queer about the echoes. They got louder and wilder. -Men's voices, shouting. Kirk couldn't look, but he heard the yellow -girl cry:</p> - -<p>"Piruts!"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He heard them coming closer, bare feet scrambling on rock. The shags -came higher. He struck down, left and right. One beast lost hold with -one sucker and fell into another, knocking it loose. They fell, clawing -each other. The third came on. Kirk hit it. It slid its head aside and -caught his wrist.</p> - -<p>The pain blinded him. He roared and beat at it, but the grip on his -wrist pulled him to his knees and almost over the edge. The brute -started back down the boulder, taking Kirk with him.</p> - -<p>The yellow girl slid suddenly in under Kirk and reached over and took -hold of the shag's snout and peeled it back. The beast snuffled and -squealed and chewed on Kirk's arm. The girl twisted harder. Blood -began to spill down over the shag's teeth.</p> - -<p>It let go. Kirk began to hear slingstones whistle. The shag bellowed -and took itself back down the rock, fast. The others were scattering -away across the plain, driven by stones from expert slingers. Kirk and -the girl crouched quietly, trembling and breathing hard.</p> - -<p>Somebody called cheerfully, "You might as well come down now."</p> - -<p>Kirk supposed they might as well. He climbed down, streaming blood from -his torn wrist, with the girl scrambling beside him. The hackles were -raised across her yellow shoulders.</p> - -<p>Piruts. Kirk thought about Pa and Russ and Frank being driven up that -tongue of naked rock. Their own people had killed them, but the Piruts -put them there in the first place. And there was Jakk. Besides....</p> - -<p>They were Piruts. That was enough. Kirk felt numb inside. It might have -been easier if the shags had got them, after all.</p> - -<p>The man who had called them was waiting, lounging back against a rock. -He was no taller than Kirk, but he was a lot thicker and his hair was -red. The bones of his face were heavy and brutal under his beard. His -horny overlids were dropped so that only bright black slits showed of -his eyes. He was smiling. It was a lazy, white-toothed, cheerful smile, -but Kirk didn't like. It made his belly knot up.</p> - -<p>"What," said the Pirut, "the hell are you two kids doing out here?"</p> - -<p>"Hunting," said Kirk shortly. There were a lot of Piruts among the -tumbled rocks. Four, five hands of them.</p> - -<p>The red Pirut had stopped looking at Kirk. He was looking at the -Captain's yellow daughter. "Well," he said. "Well, well!" He took -himself away from the rock and came toward them. He moved slowly, as -though he might be sleepy. Kirk didn't like that, either.</p> - -<p>He said, "Let us go. We haven't anything to steal."</p> - -<p>The Pirut chuckled. "I'm not so sure about that." He was still looking -at the yellow girl. "No," he said. "I'm not sure about that at all."</p> - -<p>He raised his hand and called the others in. Kirk knew he couldn't -fight; he followed the leader.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>It was a lot colder in the Pirut cave than it was back in the huts of -the colony. Everybody kept close together for warmth, crowded around -the scanty heat-stones. There was a moaning draft from somewhere that -kept Kirk's hair stirring, and there were babies crying. Babies that -didn't sound any different from the one at home.</p> - -<p>Kirk chewed up the last of his handful of pemmican, made of shag meat -and sour berries, and was thankful for a full belly. The yellow girl -crouched on the cold stone, not saying anything, her arms around her -knees. The Pirut women watched her out of hostile eyes.</p> - -<p>Samel, the red Pirut who had turned out to be some sort of an Officer, -watched her too, but his eyes were not hostile.</p> - -<p>"Close-mouthed piece, aren't you?" he said. He threw a scrap of bone -at a wiry black girl huddled over the heat, and laughed. "Sada," he -yelled, "get her to give you lessons, will you?"</p> - -<p>Everybody enjoyed that. Sada called him a name and turned her back. -Samel's black eyes came back to the yellow girl.</p> - -<p>"You won't tell who you are. That means you're somebody. An Officer's -daughter, likely. Maybe even the Captain's."</p> - -<p>Some flicker in the girl's eyes must have told him he'd hit home. -He jumped up and shouted, "Hey! All of you, look here! We've got -somebody—we've got the Captain's daughter!"</p> - -<p>The mob stirred and moved in. People began to shout, to curse and make -animal noises of sheer hate. For a minute Kirk thought he and the girl -were going to be torn apart. He shivered violently, and the hate was so -strong in the air he could smell it.</p> - -<p>Samel pulled out his sling lazily and loaded it. The sweep of his arm -stopped part of the crowd, and the rest quieted down enough to hear him -say:</p> - -<p>"Hold it! Sit down, you fools! The girl's gold. We can buy things with -her."</p> - -<p>Kirk didn't get that word 'gold', but he understood the rest of it. It -was what he had told her, himself.</p> - -<p>He wished the babies would stop crying. It was hard to hate these -people so much when you knew they had kids just like the one at home, -wailing in the cold.</p> - -<p>The mob relaxed sullenly. The Captain's daughter spoke suddenly, very -clear across the muttering quiet of the crowd.</p> - -<p>"You can't buy your way into the colony with me. They'll kill me, like -they did the three Hans, only this time they won't wait as long."</p> - -<p>She was telling the truth. Samel didn't like it, and Kirk liked it even -less, but she was. The muscle twitched under Kirk's eye. It was a hell -of a world. You couldn't keep straight in it at all.</p> - -<p>"All right," said Samel. "But we can buy heat with you. And maybe -before we do we can get some things out of you, <i>free</i>." He moved in -close to her, staring down with sultry eyes. He said huskily, "And -don't think we can't, baby. And don't think we wouldn't enjoy it!"</p> - -<p>She shivered, but her eyes didn't flinch. She told him steadily, "If -it's about the Ship, you can do what you want and go to hell with it."</p> - -<p>"I watched you up there on that rock," said Samel slowly. "Both of you. -You have guts, all right. But I wonder...." He let his gaze slide down -over her long, arrogant body. "It would be a pity to spoil that."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The girl Sada pushed her way out from the crowd.</p> - -<p>"You big red son of a she-shag! Look at us! Look at this lousy cave, -and those boxes of heat-stones that wouldn't keep a rat-pup warm, and -then think of these swine sitting up there on their plateau, fat and -happy, toasting their feet! <i>They</i> drove us out here to starve and -freeze. <i>They're</i> robbing the gullies of heat-stones. Listen to those -kids crying! They haven't been warm since they were born, and whose -fault is it? And you worry about spoiling that yellow vixen!"</p> - -<p>Samel said pleasantly, "Shut up that screeching." He shoved the girl -aside hard enough to sit her down on the stones and then knelt beside -the Captain's daughter. He pulled her head back by the yellow hair and -looked down into her eyes and said:</p> - -<p>"But she's right. Pretty soon there aren't going to be any more -heat-stones at all. Pretty soon we're all going to die of the cold. But -you won't, you up there on the plateau. You can watch us freeze on the -rocks and feel pretty smart about it. And you'll have the Ship."</p> - -<p>He drew his breath in, sharp, as though something hurt him. His horny -lids dropped and his lips twisted like a child about to cry with pain. -His hand tightened suddenly in the girl's hair, jerking her head back -hard on the taut curve of her neck. He slapped her twice across the -face and let her go and stood up, backing off and trembling.</p> - -<p>"You'll have the Ship," he whispered, "for always."</p> - -<p>Kirk got up. He felt sick, and there were red clouds across his eyes. -The Captain's yellow daughter. He'd cuffed her himself. Why did this -happen to him when somebody else did it? It was a hell of a world and -he was lost in it. All he knew was that he wanted to hit Samel hard -enough to kill him.</p> - -<p>Instead somebody hit Kirk from behind with a sap, not very hard. -He fell on his face. From a great distance he heard the girl Sada -screaming:</p> - -<p>"You and your silly Ship! What does the Ship matter when we're all -going to die?"</p> - -<p>"It matters." Samel's voice was husky and queer. "It's the beginning -and the end. What it has in it belongs to us. It would make us fat and -warm and strong, so that we could rule the whole world. My father died -trying to reach it, and his father before him, and <i>his</i> father before -that. The Ship matters. It's everything."</p> - -<p>It was still in the cave. It was as though his voice had wiped it clean -of sound. Kirk shivered. And in the silence the babies cried, a thin -wailing lamentation to the cold.</p> - -<p>Kirk got up on his knees. "Wait a minute," he said thickly. "Wait, -you're going at this wrong. We all are. Wait, and listen to me."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Samel looked at him as though he'd forgotten Kirk existed. Somebody -said, "Shall I fix him, Boss?" Samel started to nod, and then something -in Kirk's face changed his mind.</p> - -<p>"He put up a good fight out there. Let him talk."</p> - -<p>Kirk got his feet under him. His head throbbed, and falling on his -bandaged wrist hadn't done it any good, but at least he could see, -and talk. He was scared, because what he was going to say was against -everything he'd been taught since he was born, but he had to say it. -There might be a lot of things wrong with it, but basically it was -right, and he knew it. He knew Jakk Randl would have said it, too.</p> - -<p>He did not look at the Captain's yellow daughter.</p> - -<p>"Listen," he said, loud enough so that everyone could hear him. "You're -wrong about one thing. We don't have heat-stones up there on the -plateau. Not the people like me, the little guys, the Hans. We starve -and freeze just like you do, and our babies cry just as loud. And we -sit, like you do, looking at the Ship and wondering."</p> - -<p>He took a deep breath. They were watching him, not believing nor -disbelieving. Just listening, feeling him, waiting for something he -said to hit them so they'd know whether he was lying or not.</p> - -<p>"Some of us have wondered a lot lately, about that Ship. The Officers -don't let us near it. They never have, no nearer than you out here in -the gullies. But somebody <i>did</i> get close to it, one man who believed -in what he was doing, and he saw...."</p> - -<p>He told them what Jakk had seen, thinking about Jakk's blood running -red through his fingers and the fire dying in his eyes.</p> - -<p>"I'm a Ship's man. I've been taught to hate and fear you. You killed -my friend. But the Officers killed my father, without even trying to -save him. And I think we're fools, we Hans and you Piruts. We're all -just people, with empty stomachs and cold backs and kids that never get -warm. Why should we kill each other at those walls?"</p> - -<p>He had them. He could hear the mob suck its breath in like one man. -Samel's eyes were hot enough to burn. Kirk cried out:</p> - -<p>"It's the Officers we ought to hate! It's the Officers who hold the -Ship, and hide the heat-stones in it! It's the Officers we ought to -fight, not each other!"</p> - -<p>The mob screamed out of a single throat. Out of the tail of his eye -Kirk saw the yellow girl spring up. Her hands were clenched and her -face was a mask of horror, of hatred and a strange pleading. She was -saying something, but the mob yell drowned her words, and when it died -down somebody had the girl, holding her arms and her mouth.</p> - -<p>"All right," said Samel hoarsely, and licked his lips. "All right. What -are you going to do about it? What's your scheme?"</p> - -<p>"I'm going to take you there, the secret way. I'm going to take you to -the Ship, so that we can break the Officers and live, together."</p> - -<p>He did not look at the Captain's yellow daughter.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The northern escarpment of the plateau fell sheer into a deep gorge. -Kirk led them into it, Samel and six hands of Pirut men and the yellow -girl with a strip of hide to gag her mouth. The darkness had come down, -so thick and black that pupils at their widest spread could hardly make -anything from the starshine. They went slowly, but almost without sound.</p> - -<p>Kirk watched the dead Ship, thrusting high above them against the cold -stars. Presently he stopped and whispered, "Here, I think."</p> - -<p>They stopped. Kirk went alone to the cliff wall and felt along it. His -hands slipped behind a curtain of moss, into a crack barely big enough -for a man's shoulder. There seemed to be a blank wall beyond, but he -felt sideways, and found that Jakk had been right. There was a way.</p> - -<p>He went back to Samel. "It's there. Come on."</p> - -<p>"No!" Samel caught his arm. He was looking up, at the broken Ship on -the cliff-top, and he was trembling. "Wait," he whispered. "I want to -know this, to keep it."</p> - -<p>Kirk followed his rapt stare. The Ship, brooding over the plain, -dominant even in death. The Ship that had brought them, Officers and -Hans, in some strange forgotten way from some forgotten place, and died -in the bringing. The Ship, Untouchable....</p> - -<p>Kirk shivered, violently. His heartbeats choked him. And then Samel was -speaking, no louder than a whisper, to the night and the Ship.</p> - -<p>"We came from the sky, following, hunting. It had power and gold in its -belly, and they kept us from it. They kept us Outside, away from the -Ship, and we starved and froze and waited. And now we're going in." He -caught his breath between his teeth and shuddered. "And now we're going -in!"</p> - -<p>Kirk whispered, "What are 'power' and 'gold'?"</p> - -<p>"I don't know. Something in the legend. Something men live for, and die -for. We'll know soon."</p> - -<p>"We'll know soon. Samel, remember the bargain. No killing or plundering -among the Hans."</p> - -<p>Samel smiled, but the muscles ran hard along his jaw.</p> - -<p>"If you're telling the truth, there won't be any reason for it. We'll -let the Officers decide whether <i>they</i> die or not." Samel started -forward. "The Ship," he said softly, and laughed. "<i>The Ship!</i>"</p> - -<p>They went toward the cleft in the rock. Somebody said, "Hey, it's warm -in this gorge!" Kirk realized then that he wasn't cold, and wondered -why. Then he smiled bitterly. Sure. The Officers had found a vein of -heat-stones, probably just under the soil where they were standing. -The gorge had never been a source of the stones, the crystal rocks -that looked just like the ones scattered all over except that they had -a tiny light in them and burned you when you picked them up. But the -Officers must be getting them from here and taking them up to the Ship, -to hoard.</p> - -<p>Most of his superstitious chill went away when he thought about that.</p> - -<p>Inside the cleft was a shaft leading up, tool-shaped here and there, -with rusty metal bars set in the rock. Kirk led the way. There was -no sound made loud enough to be heard over the wind that blew across -the plateau. Kirk and Samel came up out of the shaft and took the two -guards from behind easily enough, and went on to the Ship.</p> - -<p>Just for a moment, looking down across the plain, thinking about Ma -Kirk and Lil and the little ones, Kirk was scared. He'd let the Piruts -in. If Samel didn't keep his word, if anything....</p> - -<p>But nothing would go wrong. There was no reason for it to. He was -telling the truth, and once the Ship was broken into there was no -quarrel between the Piruts and the Hans. They were allies against the -Officers.</p> - -<p>He remembered what he'd said to Lil, about the Captain's yellow -daughter.</p> - -<p>Samel left a guard behind and went into the Ship.</p> - -<p>Darkness and cold and the smell of a place that hasn't been used or -lived in for a long, long time, and the grit of rusty metal under bare -feet. They went very slowly, and the yellow girl whimpered in her gag.</p> - -<p>They couldn't really be silent, slipping and blundering in blackness -too thick even for their eyes, over buckled deck plates and around -broken walls. Somebody heard them and called out, and the yellow girl -struggled like a speared shag.</p> - -<p>Kirk shivered and the palms of his hands were wet. He could feel the -Ship like a living presence in the dark.</p> - -<p>The somebody called again, with fear in his voice. They stumbled down a -long, tilted passageway and came into a little room with a great gash -in it looking out over the gorge. There was a barred door in one wall, -and a man sitting in front of it over a tiny box of heat-stones.</p> - -<p>The Captain.</p> - -<p>He got up, a lean grey man moving with dignity. He didn't drop his -spear, but he didn't try to use it, either. He didn't say anything. His -eyes took them in, in the dull glow of the heat-stones—Kirk and Samel -and the Piruts, and then the yellow girl, gagged and held by the arms. -His eyes blazed, then. Kirk's heart jolted. It was just the way Pa -might have looked at Lil.</p> - -<p>He said roughly, thinking of Pa, "Don't try anything, and you won't get -hurt. I've made a pact with the Piruts. There's to be no more fighting -and we take the Ship together, share and share alike. The Officers can -obey, or take what's coming to them. Where are the heat-stones?"</p> - -<p>The Captain stared at him. His face had no expression. He said, "Let my -daughter go."</p> - -<p>Samel started forward. The Captain raised his spear. "Let my daughter -go!" The Piruts raised their weapons. Samel looked around the room, at -the single door behind them, and grinned.</p> - -<p>"Sure," he said. "Why not? Let her go."</p> - -<p>They let her go. She tore off the gag and ran to her father and stood -by him, glaring at the Piruts with hot black eyes. Neither one said -anything.</p> - -<p>"All right," said Samel lazily. "Now where are the stones?"</p> - -<p>"There." The Captain pointed at the tiny box at his feet. "Those are -all the heat-stones there are in the Ship."</p> - -<p>Kirk cried, "That's a lie!"</p> - -<p>The Captain looked at him. "Tell your friends to go and search."</p> - -<p>"What about that door behind you?"</p> - -<p>"There are no stones in there."</p> - -<p>Kirk laughed. The laugh was not pleasant. He was thinking of the cold -huts of the Hans and the thin babies that cried, and Jakk Randl dying -on the pillbox wall, telling him what he'd seen.</p> - -<p>"You lie. You bring the stones up out of the gorge and hide them here. -Jakk Randl saw your daughter doing it."</p> - -<p>"There was only a tiny pipe of stones in the gorge. This is almost the -last of them. We used them rather than take from the community supply."</p> - -<p>Samel smiled his lazy smile and started toward the barred door. His -eyes had a queer wild shine to them. The Captain cried out:</p> - -<p>"Wait! Wait, and let me speak!"</p> - -<p>Samel looked at the door and his breath made a little sob in his -throat. "All right," he said hoarsely. "I can wait."</p> - -<p>He wasn't thinking about the heat-stones so much then. He was thinking -of the words of the legend, power and gold.</p> - -<p>The Captain said quietly, "You can kill me, and go on. But I ask you -not to. I ask you to believe me. There are no heat-stones in that room. -The bar hasn't been lifted since the Crash. I ask you not to violate a -sacred trust."</p> - -<p>Kirk scowled and looked at the bar. It didn't look as though it had -been lifted since the Crash. He began to be uneasy.</p> - -<p>Samel spoke silkily. "Sacred trust, eh? Something that belongs to us, -the Piruts. Something we've waited for, longer than anyone knows."</p> - -<p>The Captain nodded. He seemed very tired. "I should have remembered -that. The Legend grows a little hazy.... You Piruts caused the Crash. -You followed our Ship and attacked it, and in the battle your own ship -was destroyed. You made land somehow in little ships carried inside the -big one. After we crashed you tried again to take what is in the Ship, -and we drove you out into the gullies and kept you there."</p> - -<p>"Ever since," answered Samel huskily. "Starving and freezing."</p> - -<p>"We've starved and frozen, too, all of us—Officers and Hans alike. But -we had a sacred trust in this Ship. We've guarded it. I think at first -the Officers of that day thought that someone would come from—from -wherever the Ship came from, and take them back. No one ever did. And -in the struggle to live, everything has been lost. The only thing -left is the knowledge that we Officers had a duty, a trust, and we've -guarded this door night and day since the Crash."</p> - -<p>"What's behind it?" asked Samel. "What's behind it?"</p> - -<p>"Even that is lost."</p> - -<p>Samel laughed and started forward. He caught the Captain's half-raised -spear in his hands and broke it and pushed him away with the yellow -girl. He took hold of the bar and lifted. Kirk and the packed mass of -Piruts swayed forward like one man.</p> - -<p>It fought him. He heaved on the bar, and sweat ran dark on his red -body-hair and the veins stood like ropes on his forehead, but the rust -held. Samel struggled, crying like a child.</p> - -<p>Kirk thought: "He told the truth, the Captain did. No heat-stones, and -I've let the Piruts in." He began to shiver. He started to shout—</p> - -<p>The bar screamed like a man in torment and swung back in Samel's hands, -and the door was open.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The pale glow of the heat-stones filtered through the opening. Kirk -saw a box with black marks on it—DANGER. ATOBLAST HIGH EXPLOSIVE—and -above that a much smaller box made of metal, on a shelf. The black -marks on the first box didn't mean anything to anybody. The father of -the Captain's great-grandfather had remembered that there was such a -thing as reading.</p> - -<p>Samel reached out and took the smaller box, which was at eye level, -and locked with a heavy lock, and sealed. He put it down and took the -Captain's broken spear and tore the lock away.</p> - -<p>The Captain and his yellow daughter stood like dead things, watching. -Kirk's heart was pounding in his throat. The secret of the Ship, the -sacred thing, the gold and power that had caused the Crash—</p> - -<p>Samel's big red hand pulled out a flat bundle of metal sheets, marked -with marks like the first box.</p> - -<p><i>Treaty of Alliance between the Sovereign Earth and the Union of -Jovian Moons, providing for Earthly colonization and development of the -said Moons, and mutual aid against Aggressor Worlds.</i></p> - -<p>A single sheet fell out of the bundle. "... <i>have taken the precaution -of sending the treaty secretly in a ship of colonists, in care of the -captain who knows nothing of its nature. It has been rumored that our -mutual enemy, the Martio-Venusian Alliance, may try to intercept it, -possibly with the aid of hired pirates. This would, as you know, mean -war. It is my prayer that the treaty will safely</i>...."</p> - -<p>Samel stared at the bundle. He shook it, his face looking dazed, like a -man just hit in the stomach. Then he threw it down and shook the box. -It was empty. In a black fury he turned on the larger box and ripped -the cover back, and there was nothing under it but thick transparent -bottles with heavy caps, holding a tiny bit of matter in oily liquid.</p> - -<p>There was silence in the room, thick with the breathing of stunned and -angry men.</p> - -<p>"Power," said Samel. "Power, and gold! Nothing! Nothing to make even a -spear-head!"</p> - -<p>He picked up the empty box and the bundle and hurled them out through -the riven wall into the gorge. Then he caught up the larger box and -threw it after.</p> - -<p>Kirk had time to see tears running out of Samel's eyes. After that -there was an agony of light and sound and motion, and then nothing.</p> - -<p>The first thing he knew about was heat. More heat than he'd ever felt -in his life, pouring over him. He opened his eyes.</p> - -<p>Men were piled against the walls, beginning to struggle back to life. -The Ship had changed position. Samel was crouched with his arms around -his knees, motionless, staring at nothing. The yellow girl was helping -her father out of a mound of Piruts. And it was hot.</p> - -<p>There was light beating in through the broken wall. Kirk crawled over -and peered out, his pupils contracted to little points.</p> - -<p>The bottom of the gorge was split open, and it was burning. The father -of the Captain's great-grandfather had remembered vaguely something -about radioactivity and crystalline rocks that harnessed it and made -heat. The father of <i>his</i> great-grandfather had had great hopes for -the unique form of radiation and what it could be made to do. But all -his time was taken hunting meat and heat-stones, and growing moss.</p> - -<p>The heavy heart of the little world was burning up through the crack, -and for the first time, Kirk was really warm.</p> - -<p>Kirk put his hand on Samel's shoulder. "You got heat," he said. "That's -better than power and gold, whatever they are."</p> - -<p>Samel shivered and closed his eyes. His hands went with blind speed to -Kirk's throat and closed, hard. His mouth was twisted, like a child -crying with pain.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Kirk clawed at his thumbs. "Don't be a fool!" he croaked. "There's heat -now. Heat for everybody. The kids won't cry any more. Samel, bring your -people in out of the gullies!"</p> - -<p>"Heat," repeated Samel. "Yeah." He took his hands away slowly. "There's -that, isn't there? Heat."</p> - -<p>The Captain echoed, "Heat." He went to the broken wall and blinked at -the light. "The heat-stones were almost gone. I thought we were going -to die. And now...." He shook his shoulders, like a man freed of a -burden. "Now there's no more need to guard the Ship. Perhaps that's -what we've been guarding it for, to save us in time of need."</p> - -<p>Kirk said humbly, "I'm sorry."</p> - -<p>"You were honest. You believed you were right. But taking my -daughter...."</p> - -<p>"I deserve the sucking-plant."</p> - -<p>"What's done is done, and it's turned out right."</p> - -<p>People were clamoring outside the Ship. Kirk was sweating. He tasted -it, and laughed, pulling in his belly and spreading his chest.</p> - -<p>"Heat," he said. "And no more fighting with the Piruts. Maybe there's -some way we can roof the gorge and bring the heat up into the fields so -the moss will grow better. And there's a lot of this world out beyond -the gullies. We've never been able to explore it because of the Piruts. -Samel, do you know what lies beyond you?"</p> - -<p>Samel shook his head. "We had to eat and hunt for heat-stones, too."</p> - -<p>"A whole world," said Kirk, "just waiting for us. Maybe we'll find -other gorges like this one. Maybe places with better soil. The kids can -grow up warm and fat, and have kids of their own...."</p> - -<p>He turned around and looked at the Captain's yellow daughter.</p> - -<p>He said, "Do you still hate me?"</p> - -<p>Her yellow shoulders twitched. She turned her back on him, and she was -so beautiful he hurt with it. He went up behind her.</p> - -<p>"I said I was sorry."</p> - -<p>She didn't answer. A close-mouthed piece.</p> - -<p>"I lied."</p> - -<p>Her head jerked a little and her earcups moved.</p> - -<p>"I'm not sorry I took you with me. I'm not sorry I kissed you on the -rock. Are you sorry you saved my life?"</p> - -<p>She tossed her head. "I didn't."</p> - -<p>"You did so. You twisted that shag's nose half off. Why?"</p> - -<p>She turned around, hot-eyed, and slapped him. He laughed. He took her -in his arms and waited till she quit clawing and struggling. Then he -kissed her. Presently she kissed him back.</p> - -<p>"You don't talk much," he said. "But who wants talk?"</p> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's Thralls of the Endless Night, by Leigh Brackett - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THRALLS OF THE ENDLESS NIGHT *** - -***** This file should be named 62382-h.htm or 62382-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/2/3/8/62382/ - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan 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 print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll -have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using -this ebook. - - - -Title: Thralls of the Endless Night - -Author: Leigh Brackett - -Release Date: June 12, 2020 [EBook #62382] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THRALLS OF THE ENDLESS NIGHT *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - - - - - THRALLS of the ENDLESS NIGHT - - By LEIGH BRACKETT - - The Ship held an ancient secret that meant - life to the dying cast-aways of the void. - Then Wes Kirk revealed the secret to his - people's enemies--and found that his betrayal - meant the death of the girl he loved. - - [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from - Planet Stories Fall 1943. - Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that - the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] - - -Wes Kirk shut his teeth together, hard. He turned his back on Ma Kirk -and the five younger ones huddled around the box of heat-stones and -went to the doorway, padding soft and tight with the anger in him. - -He shoved the curtain of little skins aside and crouched there with his -thick shoulders fitted into the angle of the jamb, staring out, cold -wind threading in across his splayed and naked feet. - -The hackles rose golden and stiff across Kirk's back. He said carefully, - -"I would like to kill the Captain and the First Officer and the Second -Officer and all the little Officers, and the Engineers, and all their -families." - -His voice carried inside on the wind eddies. Ma Kirk yelled, - -"Wes! You come here and let that curtain down! You want us all to -freeze?" Her dark-furred shoulders moved rhythmically over the rocking -child. She added sharply, "Besides, that's fool's talk, Jakk Randl's -talk, and only gets the sucking-plant." - -"Who's to hear it?" Kirk raised his heavy overlids and let his pupils -widen, huge liquid drops spreading black across his eyeballs, sucking -the dim grey light into themselves, forcing line and shape out of -blurred nothingness. He made no move to drop the curtain. - -The same landscape he had stared at since he was able to crawl by -himself away from the box of heat-stones. Flat grey plain running -right and left to the little curve of the horizon. Rocks on it, and -edible moss. Wind-made gullies with grey shrubs thick in their bottoms, -guarding their sour white berries with thorns and sacs of poisoned dust -that burst when touched. - -Between the fields and the gullies there were huts like his own, sunk -into the earth and sodded tight. A lot of huts, but not as many as -there had been, the old ones said. The Hans died, and the huts were -empty, and the wind and the earth took them back again. - -Kirk raised his shaggy head. The light of the yellow star they called -Sun caught in the huge luminous blackness of his eyes. - -Beyond the Hansquarter, just where the flat plain began to rise, were -the Engineers. Not many of them any more. You could see the dusty lumps -where the huts had been, the tumbled heaps of metal that might have -meant something once, a longer time ago than anyone could remember. But -there were still plenty of huts standing. Two hands and one hand and -a thumb of them, full of Engineers who said how the furrows should be -laid for the planting but did nothing about the tilling of them. - -And beyond the Engineers--the Officers. - -The baby cried. Ma Kirk shrilled at her son, and two of the younger -ones fought over a bone with no meat on it, rolling and snapping on the -dirt floor. Kirk shifted his head forward to shut out the sound of them -and followed the line of the plain upward with sullen, glowing eyes. - -The huts of the Engineers were larger than those in the Hansquarter. -The huts of the Officers were not much larger than the Engineers', but -there were more of them and they climbed higher up the grey slope. -Five, nearly six hands of them, with the Captain's metal-roofed place -highest of all. - -Highest and nearest, right under the titanic shape lifting jagged -against the icy stars from the crest of the ridge. - -The Ship. - -Kirk's voice was soft in his thick throat. "I would like to kill them," -he said. "I would like to kill them all." - -"Yah!" cried a shrill voice over his shoulder. "All but the Captain's -yellow daughter!" - - * * * * * - -Kirk spun angrily around. Lil, next below himself, danced back out of -reach, her kilt of little skins flying around her thin hips. - -"Yah!" she said again, and wrinkled her flat nose. "I've seen you -looking at her. All yellow from head to foot and beautiful pink lids to -her eyes. You wouldn't kill _her_, I bet!" - -"I bet I'll half kill you if you don't shut up!" - -Lil stuck out her tongue. Kirk aimed a cuff at her. She danced behind -his arm and jerked the curtain down and shot away again, making two -jumps over the brawling young ones and the box of heat-stones. - -She squatted demurely beside Ma Kirk and said, as though nothing had -happened, "Ma says will you please not let so much heat out." - -Kirk didn't say anything. He started to walk around the heat box. Lil -yelled, "Ma!" - -The young ones stopped fighting, scuttling out of reach and watching -with bright moist eyes, grinning. The baby had reached the hiccoughing -stage. - -Ma Kirk said, "Sit down, or go pick on somebody your own size." - -Kirk stopped. "Aw, I wasn't going to hurt her. She has to be so smart!" -He leaned forward to glare at Lil. "And I would so kill the Captain's -daughter!" - -The baby was quiet. Ma Kirk laid it down in a nest of skins put close -to the heat and said wearily: - -"You men, always talking about killing! Haven't we enough trouble -without that?" - -Kirk looked at the little box of heat-stones, his pupils shrinking. - -"Maybe there'd be less trouble for us." - -Lil poked her shock of black hair around Ma Kirk's knee. Her big eyes -glowed in the feeble light. - -She said, "You men! He's no man, Ma. He's just a little boy who has to -stay behind and shoo the beetles out of the fields." - -The young ones giggled, well out of reach. Lil's thin body was strung -tight, quivering to move. "Besides," she demanded, "what have the -Officers and the Engineers ever done to you that you should want to -kill them--all but the Captain's yellow daughter?" - -Kirk's big heavy chest swelled. "Ma," he said, "you make that brat shut -up or I'll whale her, anyhow." - -Ma Kirk looked at him. "Your Pa's still big enough to whale you, young -man! Now you stop it, both of you." - -"All right," said Kirk sullenly. He squatted down, holding his hands -over the heat. His back twitched with the cold, but it was nice to have -his belly warm, even if it was empty. "Wish Pa'd hurry up. I'm hungry. -Hope they killed meat." - -Ma Kirk sighed. "Seems like meat gets scarcer all the time, like the -heat-stones." - -"Maybe," said Kirk heavily, "it all goes to the same place." - -Lil snorted. "And where's that, Smarty?" - -His anger forced out the forbidden words. - -"Where everybody says, stupid! Into the Ship." - -There was suddenly a lot of silence in the room. The word "Ship" hung -there, awesome and accusing. Ma Kirk's eyes flicked to the curtain over -the door and back to her son. - -"Don't you say things like that, Wes! You don't know." - -"It's what everybody says. Why else would they guard the Ship the way -they do? We can't even get near the outside of it." - -Lil tossed her head. "Well neither do they." - -"Not when we can see 'em, no. Of course not. But how do we know they -haven't got ways of getting into the Ship that don't show from the -plain? Jakk says a lot goes on that we don't know about." - -He got up, forcing his belief at them with his big square hands. - -"There must be something in the Ship that they don't want us to have. -Something valuable, something they want to keep for themselves. What -else could it be but heat-stones and maybe dried meat?" - -"We don't know, Wes! The Ship is--well, we shouldn't talk about it. -And the Officers wouldn't do that. If they wanted us killed off they'd -let the Piruts in on us, or the shags, and let 'em finish us quick. -Freezing and starving would take too long. There'd be too many of us if -we found out, or got mad." - -Kirk snorted. "You women know so much. If they let the shags or the -Piruts in on us, how could they stop 'em before they killed everybody, -including the Officers? As for slow death--well, they think we're dumb. -They've kept us away from the Ship ever since the _Crash_, and nobody -knows how long ago that was. They think they can go on doing it. They -think we'd never suspect." - -"Yah!" said Lil sharply. "You just like to talk. Why should the -Officers want us killed off anyhow?" - -Kirk looked at the thin fuzzy baby curled tight in the skins. - -"There aren't enough heat-stones to go around any more. Why should they -let their young ones cry with the cold?" - - * * * * * - -There was silence in the room again. Kirk felt it, thick and choky. -His heart kicked against his ribs. He was scared, suddenly. He'd never -talked that much before. It was the baby, crying in the cold, that set -him off. Suppose someone had heard him. Suppose he was reported for a -mutineer. That meant the sucking-plant.... - -"Listen!" said Ma Kirk. - -Nerves crackled icily all over Kirk's skin. But there wasn't any need -to listen. The noise rolled in over them. It hit rock faces polished by -the wind, and the drifts of crystalline pebbles, and it splintered into -a tangle of echoes that came from everywhere at once, but there was -no mistaking it. No need even to use sensitive earcups to locate its -source. - -The great alarm gong by the Captain's hut. - -Kirk began to move, very swiftly and quietly. Before the third gong -stroke hit them he had his spear and his sling and was already lifting -aside the door curtain. - -Ma Kirk said stiffly, "Which way are they coming?" - -Kirk's ears twitched. He sorted the gong sounds, and the wind, and -found a whisper underneath them, rushing up out of the gullied plain. - -Kirk pointed. "From the west. Piruts, I think." - -Ma Kirk sucked in her breath. Her voice had no tone in it. "Your Pa -went hunting that way." - -"Yeah," said Kirk. "I'll watch out for him." - -He glanced back just before he let the curtain drop. The pale glow of -the heat-stones picked dots of luminous blackness out of the gloom, -where the still breathless faces were, watching him. He saw the blurred -shapes of clay cooking pots, of low bed frames, of huddled bodies. The -baby began to whimper again. - -Kirk shivered in the cold wind. "Lil," he said. "I would, too, kill the -Captain's yellow daughter." - -"Yah," said Lil. "Go chase the beetles away." - -There was no conviction in her voice. The wind was freezing on Kirk's -bare feet. He dropped the curtain and went across the plain. - -Men and youths like himself, old enough to fight, were spilling out of -low doorways and forming companies on the flat ground. Kirk spotted -Jakk Randl and fell in beside him. They stood with their backs to the -wind, stamping and shivering, their head-hair and scant fur clouts -blown straight out. - -Randl nudged Kirk's elbow. "Look at 'em," he said, and coughed. He was -always coughing, jerking his thin sharp face back and forth. Kirk could -have broken his brittle light-furred body in two. All Randl's strength -was in his eyes. The pupils were always spread, always hot with some -bitter force, always probing. He wasn't much older than Kirk. - -Kirk looked up the hill. Officers were running from the huts below the -gaunt, dead Ship. They didn't look so different from the Hans, only -they were built a little taller and lighter, less bowed and bunchy in -the shoulders, quicker on their feet. - -Kirk stepped behind Randl to shield him from the wind. His voice was -only a whisper, but it had a hard edge. The baby's thin, terrible wail -was still in his ears. - -"Is it true, Jakk? Do you know? Because if they are...." - -Randl laughed and shuddered with a secret, ugly triumph. "I crawled up -on the peak during the last darkness. The guards were cold and the wind -made them blind and deaf. I lay in the rocks and watched. And I saw...." - -He coughed. The Officers' voices rang sharp through the wind. Compact -groups of men began to run, off toward the west. The whisper of sound -had grown louder in Kirk's ears. He could hear men yelling and the -ringing of metal on stone. - -He started to run, holding Randl's elbow. Grey dust blew under their -feet. The drifts of crystal stones sent their sound shivering back at -them in splinters. Kirk said fiercely: - -"What did you see?" - -They were passing under the hill now. Randl jerked his head. "Up there, -Wes." - -Kirk looked up. Someone was standing at the doorway of the Captain's -hut. Someone tall and slender and the color of the Sunstar from head to -foot. - -"I saw her," said Randl hoarsely. "She was carrying heat-stones into -the Ship." - -Kirk's pupils shrank to points no warmer nor softer than the tip of his -knife. He smiled, almost gently, looking up the hill. - -The captain's yellow daughter, taking life into the Ship. - - * * * * * - -It was a big raid. Kirk saw that when he scrambled up out of the last -gully, half-carrying the wheezing Randl. The Piruts had come up the -tongue of rock between two deep cuts and tackled the guards' pillbox -head on. They hadn't taken it, not yet. But they were still trying, -piling up their dead on the swept grey stone. - -They were using shags again. They drove the lumbering beasts on into -the hail of stones and thrown spears from the pillbox, keeping low -behind them, and then climbing on the round hairy bodies. It took -courage, because sometimes the shags turned and clawed the men who -drove them, and sometimes the dead ones weren't quite dead and it was -too bad for the man who climbed on them. - -It looked to Kirk as though the pillbox was pretty far gone. - -He ran down the slope with the others, slipping in the crystal drifts. -Randl was spent. Kirk kept him going, thinking of the huts back there -on the plain, and Ma and Lil and the little ones, and the baby. You had -to fight the Piruts, no matter what you thought about the Officers. You -had to keep them from getting onto the plain. - -He wondered about Pa. Hunting shags in the outer gullies was mean work -any time, but when the Piruts were raiding.... - -No time to think about that. Wite, the second son of the First Officer, -was signalling for double time. Kirk ran faster, his ears twitching -furiously as they sifted the flying echoes into some kind of order. - -Pa hadn't been alone, of course. Frank and Russ went with him. The -three of them would have sense enough to keep safe. Maybe they were in -the pillbox. - -A big raid. More Piruts than he'd ever seen before. He wondered why. -He wondered how so many of them had been able to get so close to the -pillbox all at once, walking two or three abreast on the narrow tongue -of rock under the spears and slingstones. - -They poured in through the gates of the stone-walled building, -scattering up onto the parapet. There were slits in the rooms below and -rusty metal things crouching behind them, but they weren't any good for -fighting. A man needed shoulder room for spear and sling. - -It was pretty hot up there. The wall of bodies had built up so high, -mostly with shags, that the Piruts were coming right over the wall. -Kirk's nose wrinkled at the smell of blood. He avoided the biggest -puddles and found a place to stand between the dead. - -Randl went down on his knees. He was coughing horribly, but his hot -black eyes saw everything. He tried three times to lift his sling and -gave it up. - -"I'll cover you," said Kirk. He began taking crystal pebbles out of a -big pile that was kept there and hurling them at the Piruts. They made -a singing noise in the air, and they didn't stop going when they hit. -They were heavy for their size, very heavy, with sharp edges. - -Randl said, "Something funny, Wes. Too many Piruts. They couldn't risk -'em on an ordinary raid." - -Kirk grunted. A Pirut with red hair standing straight in the wind came -over the wall. Kirk speared him left-handed in the belly, dodged the -downstroke of his loaded sap, and kicked the body out of the way. - -He said, "Wonder how they got so close, so fast?" - -"Some trick." Randl laughed suddenly. "Funny their wanting the Ship as -much as you and I do." - -"Think they could know what's in it?" - -Randl's narrow shoulders twitched. "Near as we know, their legend is -the same as ours. Something holy in the Ship, sacred and tabu. Only -difference is they want to get it for themselves, and we want to keep -it." He coughed and spat in sudden angry disgust. "And we've swallowed -that stuff. We've let the Officers hoard heat and food so they can live -no matter what happens to us. We're fools, Wes! A lot of bloody fools!" - -He got up and began jabbing with his spear at heads that poked up over -the wall. - - * * * * * - -The Piruts began to slack off. Stones still whistled past Kirk's -head--a couple of them had grazed him by now--and spears showered down, -but they weren't climbing the walls any more. - -Randl grounded his spear, gasping. "That's that. Pretty soon they'll -break, and then we can start thinking about...." - -He stopped. Kirk put a stone accurately through the back of a Pirut's -head and said grimly: - -"Yeah. About what _we're_ going to do." - -Randl didn't answer. He sat down suddenly, doubled over. Kirk grinned. -"Take it easy," he said softly. "I'll cover you." - -Randl whispered, "Wes. Wes!" He held up one thin hand. Kirk let his own -drop, looking at it. There was blood on it, running clear to the elbow. - -He went down beside Randl, putting his arms around him, trying to see. -Randl shook him off. - -"Don't move me, you fool! Just listen." His voice was harsh and rapid. -He was holding both hands over the left side of his neck, where it -joined the shoulder. Kirk could see the bright blood beating up through -his fingers. - -He said, "Jakk, I'll get the sawbones...." - -Hot black eyes turned to his. Burnt-out fires in a face with the young -beard hardly full on its sharp jaw. - -"Sit down, Wes, quick, and listen. Sawbones is no good--and why would -I want to go on living anyway?" - -He smiled. Kirk had never seen him smile like that, without bitterness -or pain. He sat down, crouched on the body of a man who lived only two -huts away from him. The blood made little red fountains between Randl's -fingers. - -"It's up to you, Wes. You're the only one that really knows about the -Ship. You'll do better than I would, anyhow. You're a fighter. You -carry it on, so the Hans can live. Promise." - -Kirk nodded. He couldn't say anything. The heat was dying in Randl's -eyes. - -"Listen, Wes. I saw the secret way into Ship. Bend closer, and -listen...." - -Kirk bent. He didn't move for a long time. After a while Randl's voice -stopped, and then the blood wasn't pumping any more, just oozing. -Randl's hands slid away, so that Kirk could see the hole the stone had -made. Everything seemed to be very quiet. - -Kirk sat there, holding Randl in his arms. - -Presently someone came up and shook Kirk's shoulder and said, "Hey, -kid, are you deaf? We been yelling for you." He stopped, and then said -more gently, "Oh. Jakk got it, did he?" - -Kirk laid the body carefully on the stones and got up. "Yeah." - -"Kind of a pal of yours, wasn't he?" - -"He wasn't very strong. He needed someone to cover him." - -"Too bad." The man shook his head, and then shrugged. "Maybe it's -better, at that. He was headed for trouble, that one. Kinda leading you -that way, too, I heard. Always talking." - -He looked at Kirk's face and shut up suddenly. He turned away and -grunted over his shoulders, "The O.D.'s looking for you." - -Kirk followed. The wind was cold, howling up from the outer gullies. - - * * * * * - -The Officer of the Day was waiting at the north end of the wall. -There was a ladder dropped over it now, and men were climbing up and -down with bodies and sheaves of recovered spears. More were busy down -below, rolling the dead Piruts and the shags down into the deep gullies -for the scavenger rats and the living shags who didn't mind turning -cannibal. - -That ladder made Kirk think of Pa. It was the only way for a man to get -into the outer gullies from the west escarpment of the colony. He shook -some of the queer heaviness out of his head, touched his forelock and -said: - -"I'm Wes Kirk, sir. You wanted me?" - -"Yes." The O.D. was also the Third Officer. Taller than Kirk, thinner, -with the hair going grey on his body and exhausted eyes sunk deep under -his horny overlids. He said quietly: - -"I'm sorry to have to tell you this...." - -Kirk knew. The knowledge leaped through him. It was strange, to feel a -spear-stab where there was no spear. - -He said, "Pa." - -The Officer nodded. He seemed very tired, and he didn't look at Kirk. -He hadn't, after the first glance. - -"Your father, and his two friends." - -Kirk shivered. The horny lids dropped over his eyes. "I wish I'd -known," he whispered. "I'd have killed more of them." - -The Officer put his hands flat on the top of the wall and looked at -them as if they were strange things and no part of him. - -"Kirk," he said, "this is going to be hard to explain. I've never done -anything as hard. The Piruts didn't kill them. They were responsible, -but they didn't actually kill them." - -Wes raised his head slowly. "I don't understand." - -"We saw them coming up the tongue of rock. The Piruts were behind them, -but not far. Not far enough. One of the three, it wasn't your father, -called to us to put the ladder down. We waited...." - -A muscle began to twitch under Kirk's eye. That, too, was something -that had never happened before, like the stab of pain with no spear -behind it. He licked his lips and repeated hoarsely: - -"I don't understand." - -The Officer tightened suddenly and made one hand into a fist and beat -it slowly on the wall, up and down. - -"I didn't want to give the order. God knows I didn't want to! But there -was nothing else to do." - -A man came up over the top of the ladder. He was carrying a body over -his shoulder, and breathing hard. - -"Here's Kirk," he said. "Where'll I put him?" - -There was a clear space off to the right. Kirk pointed to it. "Over -there, Charley. I'll help." - -It was hard to move. He'd never been tired like this before. He'd never -been afraid like this, either. He didn't know what he was afraid of. -Something in the Officer's voice. - -He helped to lay his father down. He'd seen bodies before. He'd handled -them, fighting on the pillbox walls. But never one he'd known so long, -one he'd eaten and slept and wrestled with. The thick arm that hauled -him out of bed this morning, the big hands that warmed the baby against -the barrel chest. You saw it lying lax and cold, but you didn't believe -it. - -You saw it. You saw the spear shaft sticking out clean from the -heart.... - -You saw it.... - -"That's one of our spears!" He screamed it, like a woman. "One of our -own--from the front!" - -"I let them get as close as I dared," said the Officer tonelessly. "I -tried to find a way. But there wasn't any way but the ladder, and that -was what the Piruts wanted. That's why they made them come." - -Kirk's voice wasn't a voice at all. "You killed them. You killed my -father." - -"Three lives, against all those back on the plain. We held our fire -too long as it was, hoping. The Piruts nearly broke through. Try to -understand! I had to do it." - -Kirk's spear made a flat clatter on the stone. He started forward. Men -moved in and held him, without rancor, looking at their own feet. - -"Please try to understand," whispered the Officer. "I had to do it." - -The Officer, the bloody wall, the stars and the cold grey gullies all -went away. There was nothing but darkness, and wind, a long way off. -Kirk thought of Pa coming up under the wall, close to safety, close -enough to touch it, and no way through. Pa and Frank and Russ, standing -under the wall, looking up, and no way through. - -Looking up, calling to the men they knew, asking for help and getting a -spear through the heart. - -After that, even the wind was gone, and the darkness had turned red. - - * * * * * - -There was a voice, a long way off. It said, "God, he's strong!" Over -and over. It got louder. There were weights on his arms and legs, and -he couldn't throw them off. He was pressed against something. - -It was the wall. He saw that after a while. The wall where the Officer -had been standing. There were six men holding him, three on each side. -The Officer was gone. - -Kirk relaxed. He was shivering and covered with rime from body sweat. -Somebody whistled. - -"Six men! Didn't know the kid had it in him." - -The Officer's voice said dully, "No discipline. Better take him home." - -Kirk tried to turn. The six men swung with him. Kirk said, "You better -discipline me. You better kill me, because, if you don't, I'll kill -you." - -"I don't blame you, boy. Go and rest. You'll understand." - -"I'll understand, all right." Kirk's voice was a hoarse, harsh whisper -that came out by itself and wouldn't be stopped. "I'll understand about -Pa, and the Ship with the heat-stones in it, and the Captain's yellow -daughter getting fat and warm while my sisters freeze and go hungry. -I'll understand, and I'll make everybody else understand, too!" - -The Officer's eyes held a quick fire. "Boy! Do you know what you're -saying?" - -"You bet I know!" - -"That's mutiny. For God's sake, don't make things worse!" - -"Worse for us, or for you?" Kirk was shouting, holding his head up in -the wind. "Listen, you men! Do you know what the Officers are doing up -there in the Ship they won't let us touch?" - -There was an uneasy stirring among the Hans, a slipping aside of -luminous black eyes. The Officer shut his jaw tight. He stepped in -close to Kirk. - -"Shut up," he said urgently. "Don't make me punish you, not now. You're -talking rot, but it's dangerous." - -Kirk's eyes were hot and not quite sane. He couldn't have stopped if -he'd wanted to. - -"Rot, is it? Jakk Randl knew. He saw with his own eyes and he told me -while he was dying. The Captain's yellow daughter, sneaking heat-stones -into...." - -The Officer hit him on the jaw, carefully and without heat. Kirk sagged -down. The Officer stepped back, looking as though he had a pain in him -that he didn't want to show. - -He said quietly, but so that everyone could hear him, "Discipline, for -not longer than it takes to clear the rock below." - -Two of the men nodded and took Kirk away down a flight of stone steps. -One of the four who were left looked over the wall and spat. - -"Rock's pretty near clean," he said, "but even so...." He shook himself -like a dog. "That Jakk Randl, he was always talking." - -One of the others flicked a quick look around and whispered, "Yeah. And -maybe he knew what he was talking about!" - - * * * * * - -The little stone room was cold and quiet. It was dark, too, but the -sucking-plant carried its own light. Kirk lay on his back watching -the cool green fire pulse on his chest and belly. It looked cool, but -underneath the sprawling tentacles of it he was burning with the pain -of little needles that bit and sucked. - -He was spreadeagled with leather thongs. He made no sound. The sweat -ran into his eyes and the blood went out of his body into the hungry -plant, drop by drop. - -Somebody came in, somebody too quick and light to be a fighting man. -Kirk let his pupils spread. First a slim tall shape moving, a kilt of -little skins swirling beneath the shimmering sinthi-mesh overall suit. -Small sharp breasts and a heavy mane of hair caught back. - -Then color. Yellow. Yellow like the Sunstar, from head to foot. Kirk's -jaw shut and knotted. - -The sucking-plant was ripped away very deftly by its upper fronds and -thrown into a corner. Kirk went rigid, but he didn't make a sound. The -yellow girl took a knife from her belt sheath and slashed him free with -four quick strokes. - -Kirk didn't move. - -"Well," she said. "Aren't you going to get up?" - -He could see her eyes, great black shining things. "What did you come -here for?" - -"They told me about you. I said I thought it was criminal to discipline -you when you didn't know what you were doing. So I came down to see -what I could do about it." - -She always came with the other women after a raid, to help the wounded. -Kirk looked at her stonily. - -"You must have just missed my speech." - -"They told me about it. Whatever made you say things like that?" - -"Aren't they true?" - -"No!" - -Kirk laughed. It was not a pleasant laugh. "You could have saved -yourself the trouble. This isn't going to make me believe you." - -The girl tossed her thick hair back impatiently. "You're acting like -a child." She was no older than Kirk. "We're all terribly sorry about -your father," she went on gravely, "but that doesn't give you the -right...." - -"I have the right to tell the truth." - -"But you're not telling the truth!" She was down on her knees now, -beside him. "I don't know what this Jakk Randl saw, or whether he saw -anything, but...." - -Kirk said slowly, "Jakk's dead. He was my friend, and he didn't lie." - -"Perhaps not. But he was mistaken." - -"He saw you, taking heat-stones into the Ship." - -"But only a very few! We're not hoarding them. We wouldn't!" - -"Then what do you use them for?" - -"I can't tell you that. And it doesn't matter anyway." - -Kirk laughed again. He got up, stiffly because of the raw places -drawing across the front of him. His hair was gone in a sprawling -pattern, eaten off by digestive acids. He said: - -"You'll have to do better than that." - -She was angry, now, and perhaps a little scared. He enjoyed making her -angry and scared. He enjoyed the thick hot feeling of power it gave him. - -She asked, "Then you won't believe, and you won't stop talking?" - -"I made a promise to go on talking. And I believe in what I'm doing." - -"You know what that will mean." He could hear the quiver and the -breathing of her. "People may be hurt, your own people. We don't want -trouble. We can't afford trouble, with the Piruts getting stronger. -It'll mean you'll be punished, maybe even--killed." - -That gave him a cold twinge for a moment. Then he thought of Jakk and -shrugged. - -"It doesn't matter," he said, and started out. - -The Third Officer came in. There were five men with him, and one of -them was the Captain, wearing the gun of authority. - -The Captain said, "I'm sorry, Kirk. I heard a lot of what you said; too -much to dare turn you loose just now. Perhaps in solitary we can talk -sense into you." - -Kirk stood quite still, not moving anything but his eyes. The four Hans -were big and they had knives. Kirk shrugged and fell in with them. The -girl walked ahead, between the Captain and the Third. - -Nobody said anything. They went together up the stone steps. - - * * * * * - -They had taken the wounded off the wall, out of the wind. The rock -below was clean of bodies, and the last of the men were coming back up -the ladder. - -Kirk felt queer. He wasn't like himself at all. It was as though he had -fragments of ice inside his head, all jumbled. Then suddenly they fell -into place, clear and frozen and unalterable, without any help from him -at all. - -He moved, very fast. Faster than ever before in his life, caught the -Captain's gun. - -His two hands thrust out, one against the Captain, the other against -the Third, and sent them staggering. He charged through between them, -gathering the yellow girl in to his chest firing as he went. The -antique gun went dead on the third shot, and he threw it away. - -A knife slashed across his shoulders, but it was short. Men began -to yell. He knocked one away from the ladder head and pushed the -struggling girl over and let her drop, so that she had to catch the -rungs. He whirled, swinging, and sent two men sprawling back into the -ones behind. Then he leaped over, dropping down the side of the ladder -hand over hand. - -He passed the girl, climbed onto the ladder behind her so that no one -could sling stones at him, and began pulling her down by the foot. She -tried kicking, but it was a long drop to the rock, and after she'd -slipped a couple of times she stopped that and went on down. - -Men were howling at him from above. They started to climb onto the -ladder. Kirk yelled at them, threatening to throw the girl off. They -stopped. Presently Kirk felt the cold rock underfoot. - -The minute he was off the ladder a man climbed over the wall and -started down. Kirk yelled at him to go back, then got hold of the -bottom of the ladder and pushed out. The yellow girl got out her knife -again and slashed at him. She hadn't opened her mouth once. - -Kirk dropped. The knife bit his shoulder, not very deep. He -straightened up suddenly, swinging his open palm. It caught the girl -over the ear. She fell backward away from him, rolling over on the -rock. The knife flew out of her hand. Kirk heard it skitter along and -then vanish over the gully edge. - -He pushed hard on the ladder. It gave, and the man at the top began -scrambling up again, fast. He only just made it, dangling half of him -in the air, when the ladder fell. The light aluminum struts it was made -of sent clashing echoes flying in the wind. - -It was the only ladder they had. They'd have to bring one from one -of the other pillboxes before they could climb down and get it. Kirk -looked up at the men lining the wall, yelling, waving things. - -Just about here Pa must have stood, looking up. - -He turned and hauled the dazed girl to her feet and started off down -the tongue of rock. He didn't hurry. There was no need to hurry. The -young strength of the girl was pressed against him, thigh and hip and -chest. It burned, in some queer way. - -He watched the yellow hairs rub and tangle with his golden ones. The -muscle started twitching under his eye again. - -He had to cuff her twice more to keep her quiet, before they were -safely off the naked rock. He got her down the length of two gullies, -well out of sight of the pillbox. She was still a little groggy, and -very busy keeping her footing in the pebble drifts. They started down a -third cut that angled off. Then, quite suddenly, she fell. - -Kirk stopped. He put out a hand to help her up, and then took it back -again. He looked at his feet and surlily, "Get up." - -"I can't. Where are you going?" - -"I don't know. Just somewhere to think, and plan. I've got to figure -this out." - -She thought about that. He could see her wide golden shoulders tremble. -He wanted to touch them. After a while she said: - -"Why did you take me? Why won't you let me go?" - -"They'd have killed me on the rock if I hadn't had you. And when I go -back...." - -She brought her head up. "You're going _back_?" - -He laughed at her. "Did you think you could get rid of me that easy? I -told you I'd made a promise. I'm going to keep it, and you're going to -help me. I can buy a lot with you." - -Her pupils were little hot pinpoints. "I see. You don't care how many -people you hurt, do you, as long as you can be a big man and keep your -promise." - -He said roughly, "Get up." - -"All right." She nodded, casually. "I'll get up." - -She did. She got up fast, like a rocksnake uncoiling, and she had a -big stone in her right hand. She let it go, straight for his head. - -Kirk jerked himself aside, but he was too late. The rock grazed him -above the ear. He staggered, trying to see through a curtain of hot and -flashing lights. - -His earcups, working instinctively by themselves, brought him the sound -of naked feet scrambling away over the pebble drifts. - -Feet. And then something else.... - -Kirk yelled. He tried to shake the lights away, and yelled again. - -"Stop! Look out--_shags!_" - - * * * * * - -He heard her stop. He began to be able to see again. She was poised -halfway up the head wall of the cut, her ears twitching. For a long -time they stood that way, not moving, listening to the wind and the -rolling pebbles and the soft padding feet of things that were hungry -and hunting them. - -She began to move, almost without sound, back to him. Her lips formed -the word "Two," and her yellow head jerked back the way she had been -going. Kirk nodded. He pointed off to the left and held up three -fingers. Then he turned and started down the gully. The girl stayed -close beside him. She was breathing rapidly and her pupils swelled and -shrank. They showed no fear. - -Looking at them, Kirk thought of Lil. Lil was right. She did have pink -lids to her eyes, and they were beautiful. - -The shags followed them, two behind, three beside them beyond a thin -wall of rock. - -Kirk had never been in the outer gullies before. He was too young. But -he'd heard Pa and the older men talk about them from the time he was -old enough to crouch beside the heat-stones and listen. - -Out here there were shags and scavenger rats and once in a while a -rocksnake. Men of the settlement never hunted beyond the fringe. Beyond -that was forbidden ground and Piruts. Nobody knew just where the Pirut -colony was any more. Nobody wanted to know. - -Kirk's ears were stretched, sifting the tiny shattered echoes. His -spread pupils sucked in every bit of the dim grey light. His body hair -was erect so that even his skin acted as a sensory organ, feeling the -bodies of the shags behind them. - -They were getting close. - -The gully ended. Beyond it was a little space of tumbled rock with -other gullies opening into it, and then a cliff built of great tilted -slabs of grey stone. - -Kirk pointed to the cliff and started to run, with the yellow girl -beside him. Wind slashed sharp and thin across them. The echoes -whispered like many tongues and Kirk fought them and heard the two -shags come onto the plain behind them, running. - -The other three came out of the parallel cut. They came fast, and -because of the curve of the plain they were a little ahead of the two -humans. - -The girl said between her teeth, "We can't make it." - -She was right. Kirk picked out the biggest boulder he could see and -dashed for it. The leading shag was breathing on the girl's heels as he -hauled her up after him. - -They were safe for a while, but it didn't do them any good. In this -world even shags would wait forever at the prospect of a square meal. -Presently they'd start climbing and when they did it was all over. Kirk -didn't even have a weapon with which to fight. - -He looked down at them. Five squat thick shapes with six legs; four -powerful legs with claws and two slender ones held in against the -chest, armed with sucker discs for climbing. Five pairs of black eyes -watching, hungry and infinitely patient. Five tucked bellies burning -under pale, shaggy hair. - -He was looking at death. A strange cold terror took him. He turned his -head toward the yellow girl and saw the same thing in her eyes. They -looked at each other, not moving nor breathing, thinking that they were -young and going to die. - -He shivered. The girl's yellow body burned in the grey light. He moved. -He didn't know why, only that he had to. He took her in his arms and -found her lips and kissed them, roughly, with an urgent, painful -hunger. She fought him a little and then lay still against him. - -One of the shags started to climb. Kirk saw it across the girl's -shoulder. He let her go and walked to the boulder's edge and waited -until the shaggy head was level with his feet. Then he crouched and -struck, in a way he had never struck before. Blood spurted across his -fist. The shag roared and fell backward clumsily, shaking its head. -Kirk stood up and sucked in his belly and yelled. He felt savage now, -but not afraid. The echoes howled eerily. - -[Illustration: _Kirk stood up, yelled, as he fought._] - -The shag started up again, and two more came with him. - -There was something queer about the echoes. They got louder and wilder. -Men's voices, shouting. Kirk couldn't look, but he heard the yellow -girl cry: - -"Piruts!" - - * * * * * - -He heard them coming closer, bare feet scrambling on rock. The shags -came higher. He struck down, left and right. One beast lost hold with -one sucker and fell into another, knocking it loose. They fell, clawing -each other. The third came on. Kirk hit it. It slid its head aside and -caught his wrist. - -The pain blinded him. He roared and beat at it, but the grip on his -wrist pulled him to his knees and almost over the edge. The brute -started back down the boulder, taking Kirk with him. - -The yellow girl slid suddenly in under Kirk and reached over and took -hold of the shag's snout and peeled it back. The beast snuffled and -squealed and chewed on Kirk's arm. The girl twisted harder. Blood -began to spill down over the shag's teeth. - -It let go. Kirk began to hear slingstones whistle. The shag bellowed -and took itself back down the rock, fast. The others were scattering -away across the plain, driven by stones from expert slingers. Kirk and -the girl crouched quietly, trembling and breathing hard. - -Somebody called cheerfully, "You might as well come down now." - -Kirk supposed they might as well. He climbed down, streaming blood from -his torn wrist, with the girl scrambling beside him. The hackles were -raised across her yellow shoulders. - -Piruts. Kirk thought about Pa and Russ and Frank being driven up that -tongue of naked rock. Their own people had killed them, but the Piruts -put them there in the first place. And there was Jakk. Besides.... - -They were Piruts. That was enough. Kirk felt numb inside. It might have -been easier if the shags had got them, after all. - -The man who had called them was waiting, lounging back against a rock. -He was no taller than Kirk, but he was a lot thicker and his hair was -red. The bones of his face were heavy and brutal under his beard. His -horny overlids were dropped so that only bright black slits showed of -his eyes. He was smiling. It was a lazy, white-toothed, cheerful smile, -but Kirk didn't like. It made his belly knot up. - -"What," said the Pirut, "the hell are you two kids doing out here?" - -"Hunting," said Kirk shortly. There were a lot of Piruts among the -tumbled rocks. Four, five hands of them. - -The red Pirut had stopped looking at Kirk. He was looking at the -Captain's yellow daughter. "Well," he said. "Well, well!" He took -himself away from the rock and came toward them. He moved slowly, as -though he might be sleepy. Kirk didn't like that, either. - -He said, "Let us go. We haven't anything to steal." - -The Pirut chuckled. "I'm not so sure about that." He was still looking -at the yellow girl. "No," he said. "I'm not sure about that at all." - -He raised his hand and called the others in. Kirk knew he couldn't -fight; he followed the leader. - - * * * * * - -It was a lot colder in the Pirut cave than it was back in the huts of -the colony. Everybody kept close together for warmth, crowded around -the scanty heat-stones. There was a moaning draft from somewhere that -kept Kirk's hair stirring, and there were babies crying. Babies that -didn't sound any different from the one at home. - -Kirk chewed up the last of his handful of pemmican, made of shag meat -and sour berries, and was thankful for a full belly. The yellow girl -crouched on the cold stone, not saying anything, her arms around her -knees. The Pirut women watched her out of hostile eyes. - -Samel, the red Pirut who had turned out to be some sort of an Officer, -watched her too, but his eyes were not hostile. - -"Close-mouthed piece, aren't you?" he said. He threw a scrap of bone -at a wiry black girl huddled over the heat, and laughed. "Sada," he -yelled, "get her to give you lessons, will you?" - -Everybody enjoyed that. Sada called him a name and turned her back. -Samel's black eyes came back to the yellow girl. - -"You won't tell who you are. That means you're somebody. An Officer's -daughter, likely. Maybe even the Captain's." - -Some flicker in the girl's eyes must have told him he'd hit home. -He jumped up and shouted, "Hey! All of you, look here! We've got -somebody--we've got the Captain's daughter!" - -The mob stirred and moved in. People began to shout, to curse and make -animal noises of sheer hate. For a minute Kirk thought he and the girl -were going to be torn apart. He shivered violently, and the hate was so -strong in the air he could smell it. - -Samel pulled out his sling lazily and loaded it. The sweep of his arm -stopped part of the crowd, and the rest quieted down enough to hear him -say: - -"Hold it! Sit down, you fools! The girl's gold. We can buy things with -her." - -Kirk didn't get that word 'gold', but he understood the rest of it. It -was what he had told her, himself. - -He wished the babies would stop crying. It was hard to hate these -people so much when you knew they had kids just like the one at home, -wailing in the cold. - -The mob relaxed sullenly. The Captain's daughter spoke suddenly, very -clear across the muttering quiet of the crowd. - -"You can't buy your way into the colony with me. They'll kill me, like -they did the three Hans, only this time they won't wait as long." - -She was telling the truth. Samel didn't like it, and Kirk liked it even -less, but she was. The muscle twitched under Kirk's eye. It was a hell -of a world. You couldn't keep straight in it at all. - -"All right," said Samel. "But we can buy heat with you. And maybe -before we do we can get some things out of you, _free_." He moved in -close to her, staring down with sultry eyes. He said huskily, "And -don't think we can't, baby. And don't think we wouldn't enjoy it!" - -She shivered, but her eyes didn't flinch. She told him steadily, "If -it's about the Ship, you can do what you want and go to hell with it." - -"I watched you up there on that rock," said Samel slowly. "Both of you. -You have guts, all right. But I wonder...." He let his gaze slide down -over her long, arrogant body. "It would be a pity to spoil that." - - * * * * * - -The girl Sada pushed her way out from the crowd. - -"You big red son of a she-shag! Look at us! Look at this lousy cave, -and those boxes of heat-stones that wouldn't keep a rat-pup warm, and -then think of these swine sitting up there on their plateau, fat and -happy, toasting their feet! _They_ drove us out here to starve and -freeze. _They're_ robbing the gullies of heat-stones. Listen to those -kids crying! They haven't been warm since they were born, and whose -fault is it? And you worry about spoiling that yellow vixen!" - -Samel said pleasantly, "Shut up that screeching." He shoved the girl -aside hard enough to sit her down on the stones and then knelt beside -the Captain's daughter. He pulled her head back by the yellow hair and -looked down into her eyes and said: - -"But she's right. Pretty soon there aren't going to be any more -heat-stones at all. Pretty soon we're all going to die of the cold. But -you won't, you up there on the plateau. You can watch us freeze on the -rocks and feel pretty smart about it. And you'll have the Ship." - -He drew his breath in, sharp, as though something hurt him. His horny -lids dropped and his lips twisted like a child about to cry with pain. -His hand tightened suddenly in the girl's hair, jerking her head back -hard on the taut curve of her neck. He slapped her twice across the -face and let her go and stood up, backing off and trembling. - -"You'll have the Ship," he whispered, "for always." - -Kirk got up. He felt sick, and there were red clouds across his eyes. -The Captain's yellow daughter. He'd cuffed her himself. Why did this -happen to him when somebody else did it? It was a hell of a world and -he was lost in it. All he knew was that he wanted to hit Samel hard -enough to kill him. - -Instead somebody hit Kirk from behind with a sap, not very hard. -He fell on his face. From a great distance he heard the girl Sada -screaming: - -"You and your silly Ship! What does the Ship matter when we're all -going to die?" - -"It matters." Samel's voice was husky and queer. "It's the beginning -and the end. What it has in it belongs to us. It would make us fat and -warm and strong, so that we could rule the whole world. My father died -trying to reach it, and his father before him, and _his_ father before -that. The Ship matters. It's everything." - -It was still in the cave. It was as though his voice had wiped it clean -of sound. Kirk shivered. And in the silence the babies cried, a thin -wailing lamentation to the cold. - -Kirk got up on his knees. "Wait a minute," he said thickly. "Wait, -you're going at this wrong. We all are. Wait, and listen to me." - - * * * * * - -Samel looked at him as though he'd forgotten Kirk existed. Somebody -said, "Shall I fix him, Boss?" Samel started to nod, and then something -in Kirk's face changed his mind. - -"He put up a good fight out there. Let him talk." - -Kirk got his feet under him. His head throbbed, and falling on his -bandaged wrist hadn't done it any good, but at least he could see, -and talk. He was scared, because what he was going to say was against -everything he'd been taught since he was born, but he had to say it. -There might be a lot of things wrong with it, but basically it was -right, and he knew it. He knew Jakk Randl would have said it, too. - -He did not look at the Captain's yellow daughter. - -"Listen," he said, loud enough so that everyone could hear him. "You're -wrong about one thing. We don't have heat-stones up there on the -plateau. Not the people like me, the little guys, the Hans. We starve -and freeze just like you do, and our babies cry just as loud. And we -sit, like you do, looking at the Ship and wondering." - -He took a deep breath. They were watching him, not believing nor -disbelieving. Just listening, feeling him, waiting for something he -said to hit them so they'd know whether he was lying or not. - -"Some of us have wondered a lot lately, about that Ship. The Officers -don't let us near it. They never have, no nearer than you out here in -the gullies. But somebody _did_ get close to it, one man who believed -in what he was doing, and he saw...." - -He told them what Jakk had seen, thinking about Jakk's blood running -red through his fingers and the fire dying in his eyes. - -"I'm a Ship's man. I've been taught to hate and fear you. You killed -my friend. But the Officers killed my father, without even trying to -save him. And I think we're fools, we Hans and you Piruts. We're all -just people, with empty stomachs and cold backs and kids that never get -warm. Why should we kill each other at those walls?" - -He had them. He could hear the mob suck its breath in like one man. -Samel's eyes were hot enough to burn. Kirk cried out: - -"It's the Officers we ought to hate! It's the Officers who hold the -Ship, and hide the heat-stones in it! It's the Officers we ought to -fight, not each other!" - -The mob screamed out of a single throat. Out of the tail of his eye -Kirk saw the yellow girl spring up. Her hands were clenched and her -face was a mask of horror, of hatred and a strange pleading. She was -saying something, but the mob yell drowned her words, and when it died -down somebody had the girl, holding her arms and her mouth. - -"All right," said Samel hoarsely, and licked his lips. "All right. What -are you going to do about it? What's your scheme?" - -"I'm going to take you there, the secret way. I'm going to take you to -the Ship, so that we can break the Officers and live, together." - -He did not look at the Captain's yellow daughter. - - * * * * * - -The northern escarpment of the plateau fell sheer into a deep gorge. -Kirk led them into it, Samel and six hands of Pirut men and the yellow -girl with a strip of hide to gag her mouth. The darkness had come down, -so thick and black that pupils at their widest spread could hardly make -anything from the starshine. They went slowly, but almost without sound. - -Kirk watched the dead Ship, thrusting high above them against the cold -stars. Presently he stopped and whispered, "Here, I think." - -They stopped. Kirk went alone to the cliff wall and felt along it. His -hands slipped behind a curtain of moss, into a crack barely big enough -for a man's shoulder. There seemed to be a blank wall beyond, but he -felt sideways, and found that Jakk had been right. There was a way. - -He went back to Samel. "It's there. Come on." - -"No!" Samel caught his arm. He was looking up, at the broken Ship on -the cliff-top, and he was trembling. "Wait," he whispered. "I want to -know this, to keep it." - -Kirk followed his rapt stare. The Ship, brooding over the plain, -dominant even in death. The Ship that had brought them, Officers and -Hans, in some strange forgotten way from some forgotten place, and died -in the bringing. The Ship, Untouchable.... - -Kirk shivered, violently. His heartbeats choked him. And then Samel was -speaking, no louder than a whisper, to the night and the Ship. - -"We came from the sky, following, hunting. It had power and gold in its -belly, and they kept us from it. They kept us Outside, away from the -Ship, and we starved and froze and waited. And now we're going in." He -caught his breath between his teeth and shuddered. "And now we're going -in!" - -Kirk whispered, "What are 'power' and 'gold'?" - -"I don't know. Something in the legend. Something men live for, and die -for. We'll know soon." - -"We'll know soon. Samel, remember the bargain. No killing or plundering -among the Hans." - -Samel smiled, but the muscles ran hard along his jaw. - -"If you're telling the truth, there won't be any reason for it. We'll -let the Officers decide whether _they_ die or not." Samel started -forward. "The Ship," he said softly, and laughed. "_The Ship!_" - -They went toward the cleft in the rock. Somebody said, "Hey, it's warm -in this gorge!" Kirk realized then that he wasn't cold, and wondered -why. Then he smiled bitterly. Sure. The Officers had found a vein of -heat-stones, probably just under the soil where they were standing. -The gorge had never been a source of the stones, the crystal rocks -that looked just like the ones scattered all over except that they had -a tiny light in them and burned you when you picked them up. But the -Officers must be getting them from here and taking them up to the Ship, -to hoard. - -Most of his superstitious chill went away when he thought about that. - -Inside the cleft was a shaft leading up, tool-shaped here and there, -with rusty metal bars set in the rock. Kirk led the way. There was -no sound made loud enough to be heard over the wind that blew across -the plateau. Kirk and Samel came up out of the shaft and took the two -guards from behind easily enough, and went on to the Ship. - -Just for a moment, looking down across the plain, thinking about Ma -Kirk and Lil and the little ones, Kirk was scared. He'd let the Piruts -in. If Samel didn't keep his word, if anything.... - -But nothing would go wrong. There was no reason for it to. He was -telling the truth, and once the Ship was broken into there was no -quarrel between the Piruts and the Hans. They were allies against the -Officers. - -He remembered what he'd said to Lil, about the Captain's yellow -daughter. - -Samel left a guard behind and went into the Ship. - -Darkness and cold and the smell of a place that hasn't been used or -lived in for a long, long time, and the grit of rusty metal under bare -feet. They went very slowly, and the yellow girl whimpered in her gag. - -They couldn't really be silent, slipping and blundering in blackness -too thick even for their eyes, over buckled deck plates and around -broken walls. Somebody heard them and called out, and the yellow girl -struggled like a speared shag. - -Kirk shivered and the palms of his hands were wet. He could feel the -Ship like a living presence in the dark. - -The somebody called again, with fear in his voice. They stumbled down a -long, tilted passageway and came into a little room with a great gash -in it looking out over the gorge. There was a barred door in one wall, -and a man sitting in front of it over a tiny box of heat-stones. - -The Captain. - -He got up, a lean grey man moving with dignity. He didn't drop his -spear, but he didn't try to use it, either. He didn't say anything. His -eyes took them in, in the dull glow of the heat-stones--Kirk and Samel -and the Piruts, and then the yellow girl, gagged and held by the arms. -His eyes blazed, then. Kirk's heart jolted. It was just the way Pa -might have looked at Lil. - -He said roughly, thinking of Pa, "Don't try anything, and you won't get -hurt. I've made a pact with the Piruts. There's to be no more fighting -and we take the Ship together, share and share alike. The Officers can -obey, or take what's coming to them. Where are the heat-stones?" - -The Captain stared at him. His face had no expression. He said, "Let my -daughter go." - -Samel started forward. The Captain raised his spear. "Let my daughter -go!" The Piruts raised their weapons. Samel looked around the room, at -the single door behind them, and grinned. - -"Sure," he said. "Why not? Let her go." - -They let her go. She tore off the gag and ran to her father and stood -by him, glaring at the Piruts with hot black eyes. Neither one said -anything. - -"All right," said Samel lazily. "Now where are the stones?" - -"There." The Captain pointed at the tiny box at his feet. "Those are -all the heat-stones there are in the Ship." - -Kirk cried, "That's a lie!" - -The Captain looked at him. "Tell your friends to go and search." - -"What about that door behind you?" - -"There are no stones in there." - -Kirk laughed. The laugh was not pleasant. He was thinking of the cold -huts of the Hans and the thin babies that cried, and Jakk Randl dying -on the pillbox wall, telling him what he'd seen. - -"You lie. You bring the stones up out of the gorge and hide them here. -Jakk Randl saw your daughter doing it." - -"There was only a tiny pipe of stones in the gorge. This is almost the -last of them. We used them rather than take from the community supply." - -Samel smiled his lazy smile and started toward the barred door. His -eyes had a queer wild shine to them. The Captain cried out: - -"Wait! Wait, and let me speak!" - -Samel looked at the door and his breath made a little sob in his -throat. "All right," he said hoarsely. "I can wait." - -He wasn't thinking about the heat-stones so much then. He was thinking -of the words of the legend, power and gold. - -The Captain said quietly, "You can kill me, and go on. But I ask you -not to. I ask you to believe me. There are no heat-stones in that room. -The bar hasn't been lifted since the Crash. I ask you not to violate a -sacred trust." - -Kirk scowled and looked at the bar. It didn't look as though it had -been lifted since the Crash. He began to be uneasy. - -Samel spoke silkily. "Sacred trust, eh? Something that belongs to us, -the Piruts. Something we've waited for, longer than anyone knows." - -The Captain nodded. He seemed very tired. "I should have remembered -that. The Legend grows a little hazy.... You Piruts caused the Crash. -You followed our Ship and attacked it, and in the battle your own ship -was destroyed. You made land somehow in little ships carried inside the -big one. After we crashed you tried again to take what is in the Ship, -and we drove you out into the gullies and kept you there." - -"Ever since," answered Samel huskily. "Starving and freezing." - -"We've starved and frozen, too, all of us--Officers and Hans alike. But -we had a sacred trust in this Ship. We've guarded it. I think at first -the Officers of that day thought that someone would come from--from -wherever the Ship came from, and take them back. No one ever did. And -in the struggle to live, everything has been lost. The only thing -left is the knowledge that we Officers had a duty, a trust, and we've -guarded this door night and day since the Crash." - -"What's behind it?" asked Samel. "What's behind it?" - -"Even that is lost." - -Samel laughed and started forward. He caught the Captain's half-raised -spear in his hands and broke it and pushed him away with the yellow -girl. He took hold of the bar and lifted. Kirk and the packed mass of -Piruts swayed forward like one man. - -It fought him. He heaved on the bar, and sweat ran dark on his red -body-hair and the veins stood like ropes on his forehead, but the rust -held. Samel struggled, crying like a child. - -Kirk thought: "He told the truth, the Captain did. No heat-stones, and -I've let the Piruts in." He began to shiver. He started to shout-- - -The bar screamed like a man in torment and swung back in Samel's hands, -and the door was open. - - * * * * * - -The pale glow of the heat-stones filtered through the opening. Kirk -saw a box with black marks on it--DANGER. ATOBLAST HIGH EXPLOSIVE--and -above that a much smaller box made of metal, on a shelf. The black -marks on the first box didn't mean anything to anybody. The father of -the Captain's great-grandfather had remembered that there was such a -thing as reading. - -Samel reached out and took the smaller box, which was at eye level, -and locked with a heavy lock, and sealed. He put it down and took the -Captain's broken spear and tore the lock away. - -The Captain and his yellow daughter stood like dead things, watching. -Kirk's heart was pounding in his throat. The secret of the Ship, the -sacred thing, the gold and power that had caused the Crash-- - -Samel's big red hand pulled out a flat bundle of metal sheets, marked -with marks like the first box. - -_Treaty of Alliance between the Sovereign Earth and the Union of -Jovian Moons, providing for Earthly colonization and development of the -said Moons, and mutual aid against Aggressor Worlds._ - -A single sheet fell out of the bundle. "... _have taken the precaution -of sending the treaty secretly in a ship of colonists, in care of the -captain who knows nothing of its nature. It has been rumored that our -mutual enemy, the Martio-Venusian Alliance, may try to intercept it, -possibly with the aid of hired pirates. This would, as you know, mean -war. It is my prayer that the treaty will safely_...." - -Samel stared at the bundle. He shook it, his face looking dazed, like a -man just hit in the stomach. Then he threw it down and shook the box. -It was empty. In a black fury he turned on the larger box and ripped -the cover back, and there was nothing under it but thick transparent -bottles with heavy caps, holding a tiny bit of matter in oily liquid. - -There was silence in the room, thick with the breathing of stunned and -angry men. - -"Power," said Samel. "Power, and gold! Nothing! Nothing to make even a -spear-head!" - -He picked up the empty box and the bundle and hurled them out through -the riven wall into the gorge. Then he caught up the larger box and -threw it after. - -Kirk had time to see tears running out of Samel's eyes. After that -there was an agony of light and sound and motion, and then nothing. - -The first thing he knew about was heat. More heat than he'd ever felt -in his life, pouring over him. He opened his eyes. - -Men were piled against the walls, beginning to struggle back to life. -The Ship had changed position. Samel was crouched with his arms around -his knees, motionless, staring at nothing. The yellow girl was helping -her father out of a mound of Piruts. And it was hot. - -There was light beating in through the broken wall. Kirk crawled over -and peered out, his pupils contracted to little points. - -The bottom of the gorge was split open, and it was burning. The father -of the Captain's great-grandfather had remembered vaguely something -about radioactivity and crystalline rocks that harnessed it and made -heat. The father of _his_ great-grandfather had had great hopes for -the unique form of radiation and what it could be made to do. But all -his time was taken hunting meat and heat-stones, and growing moss. - -The heavy heart of the little world was burning up through the crack, -and for the first time, Kirk was really warm. - -Kirk put his hand on Samel's shoulder. "You got heat," he said. "That's -better than power and gold, whatever they are." - -Samel shivered and closed his eyes. His hands went with blind speed to -Kirk's throat and closed, hard. His mouth was twisted, like a child -crying with pain. - - * * * * * - -Kirk clawed at his thumbs. "Don't be a fool!" he croaked. "There's heat -now. Heat for everybody. The kids won't cry any more. Samel, bring your -people in out of the gullies!" - -"Heat," repeated Samel. "Yeah." He took his hands away slowly. "There's -that, isn't there? Heat." - -The Captain echoed, "Heat." He went to the broken wall and blinked at -the light. "The heat-stones were almost gone. I thought we were going -to die. And now...." He shook his shoulders, like a man freed of a -burden. "Now there's no more need to guard the Ship. Perhaps that's -what we've been guarding it for, to save us in time of need." - -Kirk said humbly, "I'm sorry." - -"You were honest. You believed you were right. But taking my -daughter...." - -"I deserve the sucking-plant." - -"What's done is done, and it's turned out right." - -People were clamoring outside the Ship. Kirk was sweating. He tasted -it, and laughed, pulling in his belly and spreading his chest. - -"Heat," he said. "And no more fighting with the Piruts. Maybe there's -some way we can roof the gorge and bring the heat up into the fields so -the moss will grow better. And there's a lot of this world out beyond -the gullies. We've never been able to explore it because of the Piruts. -Samel, do you know what lies beyond you?" - -Samel shook his head. "We had to eat and hunt for heat-stones, too." - -"A whole world," said Kirk, "just waiting for us. Maybe we'll find -other gorges like this one. Maybe places with better soil. The kids can -grow up warm and fat, and have kids of their own...." - -He turned around and looked at the Captain's yellow daughter. - -He said, "Do you still hate me?" - -Her yellow shoulders twitched. She turned her back on him, and she was -so beautiful he hurt with it. He went up behind her. - -"I said I was sorry." - -She didn't answer. A close-mouthed piece. - -"I lied." - -Her head jerked a little and her earcups moved. - -"I'm not sorry I took you with me. I'm not sorry I kissed you on the -rock. Are you sorry you saved my life?" - -She tossed her head. "I didn't." - -"You did so. You twisted that shag's nose half off. Why?" - -She turned around, hot-eyed, and slapped him. He laughed. He took her -in his arms and waited till she quit clawing and struggling. Then he -kissed her. Presently she kissed him back. - -"You don't talk much," he said. "But who wants talk?" - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's Thralls of the Endless Night, by Leigh Brackett - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THRALLS OF THE ENDLESS NIGHT *** - -***** This file should be named 62382.txt or 62382.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/2/3/8/62382/ - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan 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 print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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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