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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..7d10fc9 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #64690 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/64690) diff --git a/old/64690-0.txt b/old/64690-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 6fb45f4..0000000 --- a/old/64690-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,2581 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Dead-Star Rover, by Robert Abernathy - -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 -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: The Dead-Star Rover - -Author: Robert Abernathy - -Release Date: March 04, 2021 [eBook #64690] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DEAD-STAR ROVER *** - - - - - The Dead-Star Rover - - By ROBERT ABERNATHY - - Only savage engines roamed that arid world, - charging one another with snarling guns beneath - those grinding treads. And two puny machine-less - humans like Torcred and Ladna should die quickly. - That they suddenly could become the most dangerous - things alive must surely be some dead god's joke. - - [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from - Planet Stories Winter 1949. - Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that - the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] - - -The terrapin was traveling eighty miles an hour--far too fast for -such uneven country. Over maddeningly repetitive dunes it scudded, -rising with a swoop to each windward slope and hurtling clear of the -ground beyond each wave-like crest, to plunge through the trough in a -hurricane of flying sand. - -The wiry little man who crouched tensely, hugged by a padded safety -belt, in the pitching, vibrant interior of the midget combat car, -was impatient, furiously so. Thanks to an unusually stubborn case of -engine trouble, he was a full two hours behind the rest of his troop; -by now they must have sighted the new camping place on the shore of -the Salt Sea. And the blazing sun was already sinking toward the dusty -horizon haze. Torcred the Terrapin came of a people unused to fear--but -his shrewd intelligence, calculating the risks he must run before he -rejoined the others, found the daylight dangers enough and to spare, -and nothing attractive in the thought of an encounter with any of the -things that prowled the desolate plain after the sun went down. - -So the terrapin fled at reckless speed westward over the dipping dunes, -and Torcred's deepset irongray eyes, squinting against the glare that -even the polarized glass in the narrow vision slits could only cut -down, were anxious. Under his breath he chided his own nervousness; -probably after all nothing would happen.... - - * * * * * - -Midway in the thought it did happen, and with almost catastrophic -suddenness. The black silhouette of a flying thing materialized out -of the sun's glare, diving straight at him. It flattened out and was -gone overhead, while the roar of its passing echoed behind it. And the -terrapin had rocked to the impact of bullets all the more fiercely -driven by the aero's terrific velocity; its armor rang and steel -splinters hummed like wasps inside it. - -Torcred slammed down one foot pedal and the terrapin slewed crazily and -slid sidewise for a score of yards, in a cloud of sand that momentarily -hid it from the eyes above. Coming out of the skid he gave full power -to the spinning wheels, operating the throttle with one hand while the -other switched on his radar screen and leaped from it to the firing -control of the turret gun. It was long seconds before the scanning beam -located its flitting target; then, though the terrapin was traveling -in the quick swerves and dashes of a desperately evasive course, the -automatic control held the image reasonably well centered on the -projected crosshairs of the turret gun's sight. The image swelled, grew -wings, as the aero came in in a second howling dive. - -Torcred's reflexes, hardly less automatic than his machine's, depressed -the firing button, and the gun's stammering blast numbed his ears, -mingling almost at the same moment with the clang and shriek of steel -on steel as the terrapin took more hits. But the flying enemy leveled -off far higher than before and zoomed away more steeply; its great -advantage had been lost when the first attack failed to cripple or kill. - -The Terrapin's eyes burned into the screen as his own wild zigzags -flung him painfully against his safety belt. The aero might let things -go at that.... No, the screen's image expanded again. His finger closed -once more on the firing button. - -The winged outline grew with ominous determination. Careless now of the -single gun that rattled defiance, it was coming down for the kill. With -the corner of his eye Torcred saw the vicious puffs of sand that strode -to meet the racing terrapin; he swerved instantly, but in that same -instant the car staggered and spun out of control. He did not hear the -thunderous concussion that stung his face and hands. The forepart of -the roof bowed inward, and there was a knife-like fragment of steel, -inches long, in the cushion almost touching Torcred's ear. - -Dimly he realized that his wheels were spinning futilely, the car -canted far over; it had nosed into a dune and half-buried itself. The -fight was over.... - -But ten, twenty seconds went by and no fresh storm of destruction -burst on him. Incredulously his eyes found the radar screen. It was -still working, and the image that filled it wavered strangely, neither -receding nor coming nearer. - -He threw his machine into reverse and opened the throttle; the front -wheels took hold and the terrapin bucked itself free of the sand. Then -Torcred leaned sidewise, recklessly flung open a steel shutter and -looked out. - -He blinked, dazzled, at the sweep of desert and bright blue sky before -his eyes found the falling shape, twisting and fluttering as it fell -despite its weight of tons. As he watched, the aero almost leveled -out, teetered on one wing and sideslipped out of sight behind a -distant dune. A cloud of dust sprang up and drifted away, but no smoky -death-pall rose after it. - - * * * * * - -The Terrapin shook his dizzy head, and his narrow hawk face hardened. -He pressed the pedals and sent the combat car rolling swiftly toward -the spot that his practised eyes had marked accurately in the midst of -the featureless desert. - -The black-and-yellow aero's nose was sunk deep into the loose sand that -had slid down to partly bury the wreck, its blunt tail pointed into -the cloudless sky it had left forever. One wing had been torn off and -hurled yards away, the other was crumpled beneath the slanted fuselage. - -The terrapin slowed to a crawl along the crest of the nearest sandhill -as its pilot surveyed the scene. But he was about to wheel away once -more when he noticed the sprawled figure in bulky dark-blue flying -clothes, that lay face down in the shadow of a brown drift. - -Deftly Torcred sent the terrapin careening down the slope to halt -close to the motionless enemy. He hesitated briefly, then, shrugging, -unsnapped his belt, wrestled open the almost-jammed door and clambered -out. Dead or stunned, he had to make sure, and there was no harm in -indulging a trifling curiosity. - -Under the remote blue curve of the sky, he shrank into himself a -little. It was always so outside the steel shelter of the terrapin in -which he had spent most of his days since childhood; he felt an oddly -naked helplessness. But he looked down with interest on the body, his -hand gripping the haft of the broad-bladed knife at his side. He had -never before seen in flesh and blood a member of the lofty peoples of -the air. - -As if roused, the limp form twitched a foot, shivered, and rolled over -with a sigh. A pale face, closed eyes were upturned to the glaring sun -and the startled gaze of the Terrapin. Startled he was, for the face -was a girl's. - -She could not have passed twenty. In spite of the heavy coverall worn -against the stratosphere's chill, and a wide strawberry mark where -her left cheek had met the sandy soil, she contrived to be pretty. No -more--but the terrapin women were brown and sturdy and coarse-featured, -hardened by the drudgery of the camps. This girl's face was very white -in the frame of dark hair that escaped the oversize plastic helmet. She -breathed slowly and fitfully, and Torcred guessed at a state of shock; -she might be badly injured. - -He shook off an unaccustomed indecision and knelt beside her. His face -was unpleasantly hard as the knife slid from its sheath with a faint -whisper, as he laid its thin edge along the exposed curve of the girl's -throat, where a flutter marked the great artery. One quick slash, she -would never wake.... - -But it was as if a restraining hand fastened on his wrist. Slowly he -drew back the glittering blade and returned it to its place. He stood -up and scowled down at the still, slight figure, brushing sand savagely -from the knees of his heavy breeches. - -Angrily Torcred told himself that he had only to turn and go. The -desert would finish the job, and no one would know that his courage had -failed him. But still he stood and stared, not consciously admitting -his strange desire to know the color of the eyes behind those closed -lids. - -They were blue, he saw as they flickered wide without warning. Not cold -sapphires, but the living blue of a desert sky or of electric flame. -They were alive as a small bird's eyes--but of course Torcred had never -seen a bird. Rather, he called the girl a bird, as he called himself a -terrapin. - -Still he did not move, even as the bird-girl struggled to a sitting -position and gathered her feet under her. Dismay came into the blue -gaze fixed on him; she half raised a hand as if in defense. - - * * * * * - -And Torcred's determination slipped again. "You are my prisoner," he -announced in a hollow voice that did not sound at all like a victor's. - -Without answering, the bird-girl sprang nimbly to her feet; then her -mouth twisted with pain and she swayed dizzily, but her eyes never left -Torcred's expressionless face. - -"You are the terrapin?" she gasped. Her voice had the exotic accent of -the bird-people's speech, and in her inflection of the word "terrapin" -rang a contempt that was like a whip across the face. She glanced -swiftly about, at the boat-shaped gray machine that crouched, purring, -like a waiting animal on its six wheels some yards away, then at the -broken wreck that had been her aero. Her eyes went wide with a blue -flame of horror and regret, and her right hand darted to her side. - -Torcred exploded from rigidity into action; his feet dug into the sand -as he lunged, and his hand closed on the girl's slender wrist, halting -the sharp point of her dagger an inch above her left breast. - -Her free hand struck viciously at his hastily averted face. The -Terrapin ground his teeth and twisted her wrist mercilessly until the -long knife fell among their scuffling feet. Then he thrust the girl -away and set his foot solidly on the weapon, pressing it into the sand. -He glared at her deadwhite face. - -"I said you're my prisoner. That means you'll live while I want you to!" - -The bird-girl was trembling uncontrollably. "My ship is destroyed," she -said in a stifled voice. "I am already dead. It is the law." - -Torcred's black brows knitted in anger--at her and at himself for the -impossible situation into which he had blundered. "Get yourself another -aero," he growled unreasonably, knowing the truth of what she said. -On land or in the air, the code was the same. With destruction of the -fighting machine, the poor, soft being of flesh did best to perish too. -He snapped, "Be quiet and do as I say. Come along!" He half-turned -toward the waiting terrapin. - -The girl stiffened. "Well!" she said on a note of cold, controlled -scorn. "You crawlers keep slaves?" - -That was absolutely untrue, and was exactly what was bothering the -Terrapin. His people kept no slaves and took no prisoners. He barked, -beside himself: "You will obey me! Or stay here and die--slowly--of -thirst." - -Her lips parted as if to retort, but her gaze slipped past Torcred to -sweep the remote horizon and the dun wilderness that stretched to it -without path or landmark. In the two expanses of sand and sky there was -no life visible. The thin shoulders under the heavy flying suit seemed -to sag. - -"All right, terrapin," she said with weary disdain. "You win, for the -time being." - - - II - -The little machine held two well enough; married terrapins on the march -carried their wives beside them and children stowed somehow and anyhow -in the rear compartment. Torcred snapped the catches of his safety -belt and motioned the girl to do the same; when she was slow to obey, -he leaned over and fastened the belt himself, drawing it painfully -tight about her slim waist. Then the engine's hum rose as he opened the -throttle; the wheels spun and gripped, and the terrapin bounded away, -bearing westward over the dunes. As it picked up speed Torcred was -touched by the familiar sense of power and mastery in the deep throb of -the motor and the ready surge of the armored car. But he brooded darkly -as mountain and desert rolled past in monotonous succession, as the -minutes heaped themselves into hours.... - -The sun was a redhot disc descending into a bath of fire in the west. -And minute by minute the angry light crept higher up the sky and -assumed new forms, clouds and streamers, for it was a mighty redlit -pall of dust that was ever higher and nearer to the rushing terrapin. - -Torcred glanced sidelong at the girl beside him. Her face was even -whiter under the harsh light of sunset, her eyes closed beneath long -lashes. Watching that smooth, tragic face, Torcred realized again -how young she was; he shook his head somberly. The air-people were a -strange race, who sent their young females on missions fit only for -grown men. The terrapins were far more sensible. - -But no terrapin woman had the strange beauty of this alien creature -from the sky.... - -Presently he said, "Look. Ahead." - -The girl's eyes opened listlessly. They were dark-blue, opaque. But -faint interest stirred them as she scanned the view ahead. - -The flaming dust cloud had climbed to the very zenith; the smell of it -was in the terrapin, its feel between the teeth. Miles ahead across the -desert, a dim encarmined shimmer marked the waters of the Salt Sea. - -Nearer, but still far ahead, a black stream was moving across the -rippled plain at right angles to the terrapin's course. It was without -beginning or end, pouring steadily from north to south. A distant -vibration seemed to shake the earth beneath the sway and swoop of the -moving vehicle. - -"The trailer herd," said Torcred. "Thousands on thousands of them, -moving south with the sun that feeds them. The fall migration is -farther west this year, and they are coming in greater numbers than any -of our troop can remember." - -The girl said nothing. He added irritably, "You understand--there will -be good hunting." - -She shocked him by laughing. "Is that all you think of?" she inquired -mockingly. "Good hunting--a full stomach and a full fuel tank. You -crawlers lead poor, empty lives." - -"We don't crawl," said Torcred shortly, eyes fixed on the speedometer -that registered a hundred miles an hour. - -The bird-girl laughed again. "You know so little, you earthbound -creatures," she taunted. "You've never known the joy of flight--to -climb up and into the clear bright stratosphere, and see the Earth with -all its secrets unroll below you.... _You_ creep from place to place -and cower in your camps, but we range farther than you dream, and know -the world and all its peoples that fly and swim and crawl and burrow. -And we are the highest race of all." - -"Higher than the buzzards?" asked Torcred. - -She hesitated, then said defiantly, "Of course! Those evil things are -huge and powerful, but we'll defeat them in the end, never doubt it. -And then--we will have the rule of the sky, which is the rule of the -Earth." - -She sounded very certain, and Torcred could think of no adequate -counter-argument. He said brutally, "We? Who do you mean? _Your_ wings -are clipped, bird!" - -Then unexpected remorse stung him as he saw how the girl shrank into -herself, how the brief glow of enthusiasm left her face. She made no -answer, and Torcred too fell sullenly silent. - - * * * * * - -In silence he closed the throttle and the hurtling terrapin slowed. -Close ahead, now, the trailer herd was an amorphous black river in the -gathering dusk. Earth and air shook to its thunder, the rumbling of -countless wheels and engines and couplings and the strident bleating of -thousands of horns as the vast herd jostled and protested. - -Closer and closer to the flank of the moving mass rolled the little -terrapin, darting over the crests of the dunes and stealing along under -their cover. The girl's eyes grew wide at the glimpses they had of that -dark dangerous-looking stream; she seemed to flinch from its pounding -clamor. - -Torcred smiled grimly as he brought the terrapin to a poised halt -half-sheltered by a low swell. A scant hundred yards away the migrating -trailers rolled obliviously past, one close behind the other, huge -box-like monsters on wheels behind a tiny cab. Torcred knew their ways -of old; the trailer sections housed women and children, who tended -the apparatus that made food, fuel, and ammunition from sunlight and -water and air and the minerals extracted from the sterile soil. The -trailer-men were drivers and gunners; but the great machines were -clumsy and ill-armed, finding safety against the fierce mechanical -predators chiefly in their numbers. - -The Terrapin waited only for moments; then he opened his throttle wide -and sent the little combat car swerving into the heart of the herd. - -All around rolled rumbling iron giants; the clank of couplings, the -roaring of unmuffled engines were deafening. A hooting of furious horns -arose as the terrapin darted and zigzagged between the moving units of -the herd. But there was no blaze of gunfire. - -"So we hunt them," Torcred flung over his shoulder at the breathless -girl. "They can't shoot when we're in among them; we disable one and -shelter behind it until the herd passes on...." - -The terrapin dashed through narrowing gaps, slowed and spurted again, -as Torcred threaded his way skilfully on an oblique course across the -roaring stream. At last he saw open ground ahead; he grinned exultantly -and put on a final burst of speed that carried him into the clear. The -little car swooped with a sickening rush into a shallow valley, and -behind it thundering flashes leaped along the flank of the trailer herd -and bullets exploded around or ricocheted screaming overhead. - -As he slowed to a more moderate pace under cover of the farther dunes, -Torcred turned, still grinning, to the bird-girl. "That," he commented, -"was the dangerous part." - -She shivered slightly. "I was afraid," she admitted candidly. - -"That's hardly as simple as attacking a mere crawling terrapin from the -air, eh?" - -The girl turned her face away. "That was necessary, terrapin ... I -passed my fledgling examination only two days ago; it was my second -flight beyond the safety zone. The novice must defeat some machine of -prey in single combat, before he is accepted." - -"And if he fails?" Torcred's eyes were fixed ahead, where a pale light -was reflected by the ground that was flat now and gleamed whitely, -encrusted with salt. - -"And if he--or she--fails," the girl's voice dropped low, "it is the -last time." A sob came into her voice. "Even if I could go back to my -people, I would be degraded to menial labor or breeding--could never -fly again." - -Torcred felt pity for her despite his prejudices; and at the same time -her words recalled his own worries, and he frowned blackly. The girl -mistook his expression for an indication that she had somehow said too -much, and she sank back into brooding silence. - -She glanced up only when the car's wheels ground to a stop on the salty -crust, and Torcred, with a relaxing sigh, was already unsnapping his -safety belt and switching off the panting motor. The girl saw flames -and shadows amid which black figures moved, and she shrank back in -fright, uncomprehending. As the Terrapin flung open his door, mingled -sound of clanging metal and hissing fire rushed in to increase her -confusion. - -He paused momentarily; his expression was unreadable as he gazed on her -white face. - -"Stay where you are and make no noise," his low voice rasped sternly. -"I'll come back." - -Torcred closed the door firmly and heard its lock click. The girl, -if she foolishly wanted to escape, probably could not find the catch -inside, and there was nothing she could hurt herself with if she still -felt suicidal. There at least she would be safe from prying eyes, -until he could untangle the tumult of unaccustomed emotions that were -struggling within him. A terrapin had only one place to himself, the -interior of the fighting machine--those with families, of course, knew -no such word as privacy. - -He turned, straightening his back resolutely, and advanced into the -midst of the terrapin camp. - - - III - -Spaced shadows resolved themselves into a double rank of parked -terrapins, forming concentric circles about the encampment. Such was -the pattern of a terrapin camp from time immemorial; it was safety -against attack by other raiders of the wasteland, and on each day one -ring could go forth to hunt, the other remain in place to guard the -women, the young, and the booty. - -Even here the warm night air quivered ever so faintly with sound from -the east, the endless motion of the great trailer herd. By morning it -would have passed, and the hunters would follow it southward. - -Within the great circle the women and older children were busy now, -while the men lounged about, talking quietly, boasting perfunctorily -of the day's deeds. The first day's hunt had been only a hit-and-run -affair at twilight, but in the midst torches flared sputteringly over -the remains of dismantled trailers; there were neat piles of steel -beam-lengths and undamaged armor plate, and sprawling heaps of metal -scrap that would be abandoned when the troop rolled south. To one side -a red glow came from the maw of a small furnace, melting aluminum to -be made into castings; the terrapins did not smelt steel, leaving that -to the giant scavenger machines that followed the herds at a more -respectful distance. Fuel, food, and usable ammunition had naturally -been transferred first of all from the captured trailers to the tanks -and storage compartments of the terrapins. - -From the shadows of the inner circle a voice hailed Torcred by name, -and its owner came out into the light to meet him--a short man, -unusually plump for a terrapin, with heavy black eyebrows that seemed -pasted high on his round bald forehead, giving him a look of perpetual -astonishment. - -He greeted the newcomer effusively. "My dear Torcred! We came very near -giving you up! And from the look of your machine, you must have had a -narrow squeak." - -Torcred frowned imperceptibly. It seemed an evil omen that he should -be met by the only one among his fellow-terrapins whom he actively -disliked--Helsed, the talker, who was always close to the chief's ear -in council, but far from his side in the battle. - -"That's right," admitted Torcred curtly, and started to brush past -the other and his brimming questions. But he found himself face to -face with another terrapin who had risen from the shadow, a taller man -whose hair shaded from the usual black into gray, and whose face was -permanently lined in a stern expression of command. He was Vazcled, the -chief. Torcred fell back a step and inclined his head in salute. - -"What happened to you?" inquired Vazcled quietly. - -"I was attacked," said the younger man with reluctance. - -"By what?" - -"An aero." - -Even the chief's face showed surprise, and the listening Helsed's -eyebrows went up steeply. Vazcled said, "You are lucky to have escaped -so easily." - -"I didn't escape. I shot it down." - -Helsed exclaimed aloud and stared at his brother-terrapin enviously. -The chief's withered lips smiled. "Such victories are rare," he said -approvingly. "I know of only two or three in the past fifty years. You -must tell us the story tonight, and Hiyik can make a song of it.... Did -you bring any trophy from the wreck?" - -Torcred licked his lips nervously. "No," he said. "It fell a long way -off...." - -"Well, no matter," the chief shrugged. "We will find the spot on -the back trail." Already--Helsed, the eager newsbearer, had dashed -off without waiting for details--they were surrounded by a growing -audience, afire to know more about Torcred's almost unheard-of exploit. - - * * * * * - -Torcred, dazed, found himself sitting atop someone else's machine, -relating his battle with the aero to an enthusiastic mob of his -fellow-warriors. The terrapins lost their customary reserved poise and -grew festive; while Torcred almost choked on the lies with which he -ended his narrative, they pressed food and drink on him and made him go -back over the most stirring parts. Then Hiyik the poet had his turn, -and retold the story in improvised verses, his chanting voice mingling -with the hiss and clangor of the workshop in the midst of the circle on -whose rim the warriors were gathered. - -But the hero of it all sat moody, well-nigh oblivious, his brow -wrinkling painfully from time to time. The thoughts he was thinking -hurt. For what he was planning was treason, what he had already done -was treason--more than that, sacrilege, abomination, a trampling of the -laws that kept the diverse races of Earth eternally apart.... Lesser -breeds might hold such laws lightly--but not the proud terrapins. -For them all other peoples were enemies, or prey, or vermin beneath -contempt. - -The bird-folk were enemies. And the crime of giving aid and comfort to -an enemy deserved the ultimate in punishment. - -Torcred's mouth tightened grimly at the thought, and the logically -following reflection that he, Torcred the Terrapin, must have gone -quite insane. But even here, in the midst of his noisy comrades, he -could not forget the glimpse of a strange beauty that had fallen out -of the sky to destroy him--if not by the swift vengeance of outraged -tradition, then by returning and returning to haunt him all his days. - -With a chill he realized that the chief was watching him thoughtfully, -and he strove to give his features a dignified impassivity appropriate -to the modesty of the feted hero. - -The face of Helsed, hugging the spotlight as always, was at his elbow, -wearing a vapid smile which Torcred's hypersensitized suspicions saw -as a knowing smirk. And in reality, he knew, the fat terrapin's air -of loud thickheadedness masked a sharp scheming brain--and Helsed -hated him. Helsed had talked and toadied his way into the graces of -the council of elders and the chief, and he had hopes--the latter's -successor must be chosen soon from among the younger men. And in -the taciturn Torcred he saw his most dangerous rival, for the young -warrior's deeds spoke for him. - -Sunk in thought, Torcred hardly realized the passage of time or that -the gathering was breaking up. Hiyik had ceased his recitative. One by -one the terrapins yawned, stretched, and moved off toward their own -vehicles; it was late, and tomorrow, first full day of the great hunt, -would be hard. The noisy labor in the camp's center went on unabated. - -Torcred forced himself to yawn and stretch as elaborately as the -others, to rise unhurriedly to his feet. His plans, such as they were, -were complete; during the next day's farflung maneuvers and attacks -on the trailer herd, he should be able to slip off unnoticed and, -traveling fast, reach the vicinity of the aeros' nearest eyrie. There -he would leave the bird-girl. Whatever her fate then, she would be -alive among her own kind; and perhaps later she would be grateful to -the terrapin who had befriended her. Beyond that his thoughts did not -go.... - -As he started to walk away, the chief's voice rooted him to the spot. - -"Wait a moment. I understand your machine was damaged; perhaps it needs -immediate repairs." - - * * * * * - -Torcred turned swiftly toward him. "No!" he exclaimed hastily. "There's -not much damage--a few bullet holes, a dent. No use bothering with it -now." - -"You never can tell." Vazcled rose; despite the hour's lateness the -wiry old man seemed untouched by fatigue. The bright eyes that dwelt -on Torcred's face held only friendly concern. "You are confident now; -but a failure of mechanism can betray the bravest. Let me look your -terrapin over and judge for myself." - -The chief's wish was a command. Torcred's spirit quailed as, walking -like an automaton, he led the way. He derived a little comfort from -noting that Helsed had already disappeared; when worst came to worst, -he would at least be spared, in the moment of disaster, the sight of -his enemy's triumph.... And he could still hope that the chief would -content himself with an outside examination. - -Vazcled studied without speaking the stove-in nose of the terrapin. -His experienced hands felt out the damage that was invisible in the -uncertain light; he clicked his tongue. - -"That's no dent," he said at last. "You ran head-on into a shell. I'd -better look at it from inside; open the door." - -With wooden fingers Torcred produced the key. Silently he handed it to -the chief; he did not think, in that whirling moment, of the symbolism -of the action, but Vazcled stared at him curiously before turning to -the door. For a terrapin to surrender the key of his vehicle was a -gesture of abject self-humiliation. - -The simple lock clicked. Torcred fell back a step, his shoulders -hunched tensely and his hand convulsively closing on the haft of his -dagger. - -The door swung open. The chief fumbled and switched on the inside -light; he grunted softly, squinting up at the fore part of the roof. -Past him Torcred could see the whole cramped interior of the armored -car; it was empty. - -Across the chaos of his mind fluttered one clear thought; the girl had -escaped. And he was at once limp with relief and taut with a new and -formless fear, mixed with an odd empty sense of loss. - -Vazcled grunted again, emerging. Pressing the key into Torcred's damp -palm, he said pointedly, "Keep that." - -Matter-of-factly he added. "You need repairs. Drive into the center, -then look up somebody with room for an extra sleeper. You won't be -called for guard duty; you've earned a good night's rest." The chief's -wrinkled hand rested affectionately on the young man's shoulder, but to -Torcred's imagination it burned like fire. - -His mumbled response was swallowed by a sudden burst of noise from the -outer periphery. A voice and then voices cried out confusedly, and then -a light blazed, silhouetting the parked terrapins. And Torcred was -already running among them, but even as he ran his world was crashing -and crumbling about his ears, and he knew he had been most cruelly -mocked by fate. - - * * * * * - -On the edge of the encampment a space of sand was white in the glare -of lights. White too was the face of the girl who swayed, fast in the -grip of two men. Others pressed round with flashing knives, and more -warriors, half-dressed and sleepy-eyed, appeared to reinforce them. -They looked questioningly at one another; somehow the appearance of -a lone alien being, with no machine in evidence, was more sinisterly -alarming than would have been the onslaught of a horde of armed and -armored juggernauts. - -Torcred halted and stood rigid, his gaze stabbing into the knot of men. -And before him they opened out, pushing the girl to the fore, as if -in accusation. The next moment he realized that that was because the -chief stood beside him. And he saw that one of the bird-girl's arms -was pinioned by a sentry, and that Helsed, puffing himself with menace -grasped the other. - -"Silence!" roared Vazcled's voice of command. "Bring her nearer. Where -did she come from? What is she?" - -No one answered at once. Torcred's eyes were on the bird-girl. For a -moment her gaze met his, then she looked past him. On her pale face -was written the fierce pride he had seen before, and he knew she could -never betray him. - -"Shall we make her answer?" Helsed grinned ingratiatingly at the -chief, and as if in demonstration of the methods he proposed, his grip -tightened on the girl's arm, twisting. She winced and closed her eyes, -making no sound. - -And Torcred, his remnants of caution whirled away like chips on a flood -tide of fury, was on the torturer in one catlike spring. He would have -used his knife, but he had forgotten it; his fist, with all his weight -behind it, crashed squarely into Helsed's hateful grin. Helsed was -hurled backward and rolled over limply on the sand. - -Torcred stood watching him, poised to renew the attack. The other man -who had been holding the girl involuntarily released her and stepped -back, leaving her standing alone beside Torcred--but she too shrank -away from him; his berserk rage had made him terrible. The surrounding -warriors hesitated, and behind them, from among the cars or from -vantages atop them, the women and children stared open-mouthed. - -In the stunned silence, Torcred could hear the whisper of night wind, -and from far away the faint mutter of gunfire as nocturnal machines of -prey still took their toll of the trailer herd. He had other random -impressions: the feel of the soft sand underfoot, the hard brightness -of the stars overhead, the odor of fuel and heated metal that hung -about the camp. - -Then he turned, straightening: his eyes sought out Vazcled beyond the -ring of men who were warily beginning to close on him. And he laughed, -having cast away his world. - -"See, chief!" he shouted. "See, terrapins! I brought home a trophy, -after all!" - - - IV - -It was a red dawn, for the sun rose behind the dust that still hovered -over the track of the southbound herd. In the west the sky was dark -blue above the flatly shimmering water of the great dead sea. - -The whole terrapin tribe, save for the indispensable lookouts, was -assembled in the open space of the ringed camp. A hush lay on them as -they gazed on the prisoner in their midst--honored last night among his -peers, this morning guilty of hideous treason. There was no need for -trial; it only remained to condemn him. - -A cool, salt breeze blew from over the lake and stirred Torcred's -tousled black hair. His gray eyes were bloodshot and staring. - -Helsed was there, insinuating himself into the council of elders at the -chief's elbow, and mumbling implacable hatred past swollen lips and -missing teeth. His clearest and oftenest-repeated word was "Death!" - -Vazcled's face was set in sorrowful lines; there was regret and a -hopeless question in the old man's eyes as they met Torcred's. - -A small voice beside Torcred asked, "What are they going to do, -terrapin?" - -He half-turned and really saw the girl for the first time that morning. -She was composed, her blue eyes unafraid. - -"I don't know," muttered Torcred. "This has never happened before--not -in anyone's memory." In his mind were horrific legends heard in -childhood, but he tried not to repeat those even to himself. - -Vazcled's first words were to the girl. He asked, "Who are you, -stranger? What is your race?" - -She returned his gaze, decided to answer. "My name is Ladna, and I -am of the race of birds." Torcred realized that he had not known her -name before; it had not occurred to him that such remote beings used -names.... - -"Who brought you to this place?" - -The girl's lips tightened; deliberately she turned her back on the -chief and stared away over the lake. She seemed oblivious of all the -hostile eyes around--in particular the swarthy faces of the terrapin -women reflected unpleasant ideas as they greedily ogled this creature -of the air. - -"No matter," Vazcled said heavily. "The criminal stands -self-accused.... Have you any explanation of your conduct, Torcred the -Terrapin?" - -Torcred shook his head dumbly. - -"Then--" the chief turned to the elders, "there is question only of the -punishment." - -Helsed thrust himself forward eagerly. "Death!" he mouthed. "Such a -crime deserves no less!" - -The chief looked at him coldly. "Did I ask your advice?" he inquired -bitingly. - -Helsed beat a retreat. "I am sorry.... But it is true that I have a -special grievance in this matter...." - -"Be quiet!" snapped Vazcled. - -The oldest member of the council spoke, and the rest listened -respectfully. "Everyone knows the story of Fuwu, who took to himself a -dragon woman. He was cast out of the tribe according to the ritual, and -left to die in the desert with his seductress--a sentence lighter and -heavier than mere death, and one which did not stain the hands of the -tribe with the blood of a terrapin." - -The other judges nodded in token of their remembrance and approval of -the precedent. The chief saw their decision, and faced the prisoners -again. At this curt command the guards seized Torcred and thrust him -forward unresisting. Vazcled, knife in hand, looked him in the eyes, -his face a stern formal mask. He intoned: - -"Torcred the Terrapin, your sin is past forgiveness. I pronounce you -outcast and abhorred; none shall take notice of you any more, either -to help or hurt. You are no longer one of us; we give you to the -wilderness. Torcred, no longer Terrapin, I mark you as such!" - -The knife point rose and made two quick motions. Torcred did not -flinch; on his forehead was a tau cross in oozing drops of blood. The -chief bent, took a pinch of sand, and rubbed it into the wound to make -sure that it would scar--if the victim lived that long. - -Vazcled turned away. "Cast them out!" he ordered over his shoulder, to -the guarding warriors. - -"The girl too?" Helsed asked hastily; his eyes lingered. - -"Of course!" rasped the chief. "It is the tradition--and what else -should we do?" - -Helsed licked his battered lips nervously. "Of course," he agreed. -"What else?" - - - V - -Torcred sat, head sunk limply in his hands, on the white salt beach -facing the lifeless sea. The throb of motors and swirl of dust behind -the departing terrapins had died down in the south; instead of hunting -today as planned from this camp, they had left the spot that had become -accursed. And Torcred sat numb with despair, passively waiting for the -end. - -Near him Ladna, the bird-girl rose to her feet. She looked in the other -direction, out over the lifeless waste of sand, and then at the man's -slumped, motionless figure. - -Her voice was hard and scorn-edged. "So--a terrapin shorn of his armor -is less than a bird clipped of her wings?" - -Torcred raised his head and looked at her glassy-eyed. "You heard," he -growled. "I'm not a terrapin any more." - -"You'll always be a terrapin to me," she said. "A miserable, beaten -crawler." - -He stared without understanding. Around them was the thirsty, deadly -desert; the sun was hot already, his mouth was dry, and the poisonous -sea lapped mockingly at its flat shore. The girl had been ready to die -when her aero crashed--but now her slender body was vibrant with the -will to live. - -But her bitter words could not fail of effect. Torcred stumbled erect -and snapped, "I'm not beaten until I'm dead! But--what chance do we -have?" - -She accepted the _we_ with a faint smile, and said in a softer tone, -"There is an aero eyrie--not my own, but one with which we have -friendly relations--about seventy miles east of here, in those blue -mountains you can see. Perhaps we can make it there on foot." - -"That's all very well for you," said Torcred somberly. "But for -me--what could I expect from your people?" - -"We are not so narrow-minded as the terrapins. We see more and tolerate -more. You can be taken in and given tasks to perform in return for -your keep." She frowned at his doubt, and explained further, "Some -day--soon--we birds will rule all the Earth. And we do not want to wipe -out all the other races; we'll preserve them to do the jobs that must -be done on the ground, and all of our people will be free to fly." - -The picture of conquest she painted so naively repelled Torcred, reared -in the terrapin tradition of a barbaric individualistic freedom. "You -offer me slavery," he said harshly. - -"No, no," protested Ladna. "According to our law, you will be free to -leave if you wish." He snorted. "And--" she hesitated, "I will be in -the same condition, now that I have lost my wings." - -Torcred stared at the ground, shrugged. "It's better than dying -here--perhaps. And we may not make it. How fast can one travel on foot?" - -"Ten miles an hour?" the girl hazarded. - -"Less than that, I think. It will be a long way--and I know of no water -holes." Ladna shook her head at the question in his glance. "It may be -impossible to walk that far without water; I never heard of anyone's -doing it. But we can try." - - * * * * * - -The blue flat-topped mountains still shimmered unreally, far away as -ever, across the heated plain. The sun was at its height and the sand -was blistering. The two huddled in the scant shadow of a dune. Both -were sunburned, maddeningly thirsty, and discouraged. They could not -have covered more than a dozen miles before the heat had driven them to -seek shelter. - -They talked very little; as the burning midday dragged on, Ladna slept -for a time. When she woke she looked round feverishly, and a moan -escaped her lips. - -"What's the matter?" asked Torcred. - -"I was dreaming," the girl said in a choked voice, and, shockingly, two -tears rolled down her cheeks. - -"Don't cry," ordered Torcred harshly. "We've got to conserve all -possible moisture." - -She bit her lip, and no more tears came. - -When the shadows lengthened somewhat they set out again to the east. -During the morning they had seen some signs of life--had flattened -themselves on the ground while a cavalcade of fire-breathing dragons -passed one by one along the crest of a distant ridge, the long snouts -of their flame projectors thrusting before them, and had skirted a -colony of the queer crusty pillbox people who had sacrificed mobility -for an almost invulnerable security. But during the long afternoon the -desert seemed utterly empty. Only at dusk they saw, far over head, -three vast black shapes flying in wedge formation, and the drone of -motors beat down out of the hollow bowl of the sky. - -"Buzzards!" whispered the girl, and shrank against the sand. - -Torcred knew that the buzzards were the aero people's hereditary foes, -but that did not seem adequate to explain the bright bitterness of -hatred in the girl's eyes.... He was about to ask a question, when his -eyes caught movement in the near distance and he froze, mouth open. - -A hundred paces ahead on the way they had been going, atop a low mound, -stood a figure--a man in queer garments, not identifiable with any of -the races Torcred knew. When the Terrapin tried to make out his face, -the man seemed to waver in the fading light; then he raised a hand in a -gesture beckoning them toward him. - -The bird-girl, back to the apparition, looked wide-eyed wonder. Torcred -croaked wordlessly and pointed; and with the motion the stranger was -gone from the ridge. - -"What's the matter?" asked Ladna puzzledly. - -"Nothing," Torcred managed to get out. "The shadows play tricks...." - -As they crossed the rise, Torcred halted to tie a bootlace that didn't -need tying. There were no tracks in the soft sand. Torcred remembered -fearfully what he had heard of the visions that heralded death by -thirst--but even sane people saw things that weren't there, such as the -phantom lakes that had mocked them in the midday heat. - -But he had been sure that vision was looking at him.... - -Two or three miles further on, it was almost dark. Torcred sank wearily -down in the lee of a high ridge. "We'd better stop here. Perhaps a -night's sleep will give us strength." - -The girl sighed. "I think we will die on this desert, terrapin." - -Torcred felt a stirring of the anger her use of that word always roused -in him. But he said only, "We've covered perhaps a third of the way. -Two more days, then." - -He remembered that pebbles in the mouth ease thirst; they tried that, -and it helped a little. Then they scooped hollows in the sand for -sleep. Ladna wriggled out of the heavy flying suit that, stickily -uncomfortable as it was, had protected her from the sun. The sleeveless -shirt and shorts she wore beneath clung damply to her; even through -a haze of exhaustion Torcred was stirred by the sight of her slender -body, her mildly rounded breasts and long straight legs.... - -He slept like a log, and woke in the dim pearly light before dawn, -still tired, his mouth like a furnace. - - * * * * * - -It was a moment before he realized that the bird-girl's piercing -whisper had wakened him, and sat up abruptly. Spots danced before his -eyes; he felt her hand tighten in warning on his arm. - -Then he saw by that ghostly light, not a hundred yards away, a thing of -nightmare. - -It was a huge gray monster of metal, a moving fortress going steadily -forward on endless treads that hardly dented the soft sand beneath -it, though it must have weighed half a hundred tons. Shod with -silicone-rubber, it rolled in an unreal silence, the purr of its engine -scarcely audible in the early hush, past the two frightened watchers -under the dune, and vanished over another crest. - -The girl still clutched Torcred's arm, finding perhaps some flimsy -reassurance in the resilient hardness of his tensed muscles. "What was -it?" she gasped. - -"That was a panzer," Torcred informed her in a low voice. "A big -relative of the terrapins, that prowls the desert alone, by night. It -carries a crew of three to six, can see in the dark and move without a -sound. It's one of the most formidable land machines in the world." - -Ladna drew a shuddering breath. "I hope it doesn't come back." - -"Don't worry. I told you it was nocturnal--at this hour it's hunting a -good safe spot to lie up for the day." - -The girl was wearily pulling on her coveralls; her fire-blue eyes were -clouded with hopelessness as they gazed into the gray dawn. "Perhaps it -would have been better if it had seen us--better than what's ahead of -us." - -Torcred did not answer; he was frowning in thought. Suddenly he rose to -his feet--wincing a little as he put his weight on them; with gentle -firmness he turned the girl around and faced her toward the west, -suggesting, "Let's go back a little way." - -"Back! Are you crazy, terrapin?" - -"Remember the wreck of an armadillo we saw about a quarter of a mile -back? I want to get something there." - -"That wreck was years old," sniffed Ladna. "There couldn't be any -supplies left in it." - -"I have an idea," said Torcred. Then, as he saw her unyielding -disbelief, "I intend to capture the panzer." - -And he trudged off purposefully to the west. The girl followed, still -protesting in an undertone, as all their argument had been carried -on. "You _are_ sunstruck! That monster--and we've not got so much as -a knife--You might as well try to tear down that mountain peak," she -pointed toward a distant blue height, wreathed in cottony clouds, "with -your bare hands." - -"Maybe I will," said the Terrapin. - - * * * * * - -The smashed armadillo had long since been stripped of usable parts by -the desert's scavengers. The remaining wreckage was widely strewn, -half-buried in the sand and eaten by rust. - -Torcred searched with a grim intensity, tugging at the projecting -steel ribs. Some were deeply buried, others too badly bent, still -others too short. At last he found what he was looking for; a narrow -T-beam, six straight feet of alloy steel, light but tremendously -strong. He hefted it with satisfaction. - -"You don't intend to attack the panzer with that!" exclaimed Ladna. - -"I do," said Torcred. He looked into her wide blue eyes for a moment, -then pointed down at something that had been disturbed when he pried -loose the beam. A chalk-white skull with empty eyes. He kicked at it, -and it crumbled. "Of such are we made, bird-girl. A fragile framework -compared with the machines'. But alive, we have intelligence, and with -intelligence and this weapon I mean to take the panzer." - -They tramped eastward again, following their own tracks, under a sun -already growing hot. After a while the girl asked in a meek voice, "How -can you hope to do it?" - -Torcred smiled inwardly at the impression his--largely -assumed--confidence had made. He answered, "This morning I noticed some -of the thing's weaknesses." - -"It didn't look weak to me." - -"In the first place, its guns are set high on that huge frame--above -the housing of the treads. They couldn't hit a man standing right -beside it. And I think I can get that close to it, because it will -be resting now, the crew asleep--or one of them may be watching, but -he can't watch all ways at once. There will be automatic alarms, of -course, but I don't think they'll respond to anything as small and -harmless as a lone man." - -Ladna drew breath sharply. "Perhaps you're right--But even so, what -then? You can't dent its armor with that bar, and it can simply move -away and shoot you down!" - -"It has another weak point. It runs on caterpillar tracks--that is, -really, on wheels turning inside an endless belt that gives a wider -basis of support. But if any sizable, hard object finds its way between -wheel and track--" - -He paused significantly, and the bird-girl's eyes met his in a luminous -dawn of understanding and hope. - -They had no trouble finding the trail of the panzer. As he scanned -those yard-wide tracks, paralleling each other ten feet apart, -Torcred's grip tightened on his T-beam; it did not seem quite so thick -and heavy now, against all those tons of rolling metal might. - -But he had boasted recklessly, and he was going through with it if it -killed him. - - - VI - -Stealthily they crept along the trail in the direction the monster had -taken, lying prone to peer with immense caution over the wave-crest of -each dune it had breached in crossing. - -Beyond the sixth or the seventh crest, it was there. Lying still in -a hollow of the sand, its gray paint blending with the drab earth to -make it almost invisible from the air--and its radar alarms, no doubt, -keeping watch for any moving threat. Encased in armor almost to the -ground, over the great treads, and its three rounded turrets astare -with guns. - -At first glimpse Torcred jerked his head back like the extinct land -reptile whose namesake he was. His palms grew sweaty and his insides -quivered. If he had been alone, he might have slid quietly down the -slope and stolen away, leaving his T-beam behind him. But he heard -Ladna's quickened breathing at his back, and knew she knew he had seen -the panzer. - -Before he could check her she had wriggled up beside him and peered -over the edge. When she drew back her face was shades paler beneath its -peeling sunburn. Her lips framed words: "Are you going to try?" - -Torcred nodded, jaw set. "You stay here," he hissed, and, gripping his -weapon, began to slither over the crest of the dune. - -When he was on the far side and nothing had happened, he felt -reasonably sure he had passed below the horizon of its radar. But he -continued to crawl, eyes fixed on the giant enemy, watching for the -first stir of motion about it that would be followed by a smoky blast -of death. - -Halfway there--Almost there--He reached the edge of the panzer's -shadow. Then he distinctly heard a low burring sound from inside it. -Alarm! A magnetic mine detector, probably, tripped by the metal beam; -Torcred realized that even as he flung himself forward in a scrambling -rush that carried him the rest of the way. - -The driver must have been alert. Even as Torcred caught himself with a -hand against the gray steel flank, the muffled motor throbbed into life -and the great machine surged forward. - -Torcred ran stooping beside it, eyes measuring the gap between armored -housing and racing tread. Seconds to live if he missed--already his -lungs were bursting and the great gray side was slipping past. With -both hands he drove the T-beam straight into that gap. - -It was wrenched from his hands, its end snapped off and hurled spinning -with terrific force. Then a grinding shriek of tormented metal, and the -panzer's vast mass shook and wheeled half round in a storm of sand as -the jammed tread stopped and slid. - -Almost before the machine had lurched to a full halt with a tremendous -clank and rattle, Torcred had snatched up the broken end of his bar and -was swarming up its side. - -In a moment he was perched atop it within easy reach of the single -exit port, leaning against the smooth warm steel, feet braced solidly -against the tread housing. A quick glance assured him that there were -no vision slits giving a view of the panzer's back to those inside. He -set himself and waited, controlling his labored breathing. - -The wait was not overlong. The panzer-men, seeing no attacker outside, -but having heard their alarm and found their machine inexplicably -crippled an instant later, had no choice but to come out and -investigate. - - * * * * * - -The port-cover swung aside, and a man's crash-helmeted head and -gray-clad shoulders emerged, back to Torcred. The Terrapin struck -viciously and dented the helmet; almost before its top slid out of -sight, he vaulted after it into the opening, disregarding the ladder. - -[Illustration: _Torcred struck viciously, denting the man's helmet._] - -He landed in a tangle of arms and legs--the man he had stunned sprawled -atop another who struggled to free himself. Torcred sprang clear and, -across the cramped central compartment of the panzer, faced a third -gray-clad man with a drawn knife. - -Incredulity and fright were written large on the panzer-man's face. Out -of sheer desperation he lunged forward in a stabbing rush; but he was -no knife-fighter, and the two-foot length of steel in Torcred's hands -was a far superior weapon. The knife flew wide and its wielder stumbled -back, nursing a bruised forearm. - -Another figure appeared in the narrow door forward and stared at the -scene with popping eyes--the driver, no doubt. Torcred greeting him -with a ferocious grin and swung his club whistling back and forth. He -looked and felt invincible. - -Then Ladna's voice behind him screamed, "Torcred! Look out!" - -He whirled, and the knife-blade gashed his shoulder instead of sinking -into his back. Then Torcred struck a two-handed blow and felt bone -give way beneath it. He took a couple of steps back from the crumpled -body of the panzer-man who had unluckily disentangled himself from his -unconscious comrade, and set his back against a solid bulkhead; on his -face was still the savage grin that had frozen the driver in his tracks. - -The bird-girl dropped lightly from the ladder and came to his side, -scooping up the knife that was red with Torcred's blood. Her shining -eyes reflected his fierce elation of victory. - -Torcred realized that if he lost time his psychological advantage might -go with it. He snapped at the two remaining panzer-men, his voice -rasping strangely from his dry throat, "Quick! Do you want to live?" - -They stared at him dumbly; it was almost beyond their power to grasp -that this bloodstained, primitive being had got inside their defenses, -that the far-ranging guns whose breeches thrust into the compartment -were useless. - -Torcred took a step toward them, swinging his bar ominously. The man -who was clutching his right arm asked sullenly, "What are you? What do -you want?" - -"I am Torcred," and he added with brief thought, "the Terrible. And we -want very little from you--food, water, weapons from your stores. You -can keep your lumbering panzer; we've got no use for it." The two men -exchanged fearful glances, sure now they had to do with a mad creature. -He gave them no chance to think it out. "Right now, we want to look -around in peace. Ladna! Find something and tie them up." - -The girl, dagger in hand, opened the door of the rear compartment; a -whimper of terror came from the darkened interior, where two women and -an indeterminate number of offspring hugged one another in paralyzed -panic. Ladna spoke to them with a soothing softness that amazed -Torcred, rummaged inside and came out with a coil of strong wire. The -solitary panzer, an economy in itself, carried a little of everything. - - * * * * * - -Under the menace of Torcred's club, the terrorized panzer-men -submitted. Then the two invaders found the machine's provisions, and -satisfied first their raging thirst and afterwards the hunger that had -been forgotten in the face of the greater need for water. But Ladna -broke off eating to bandage Torcred's slashed shoulder with strips torn -from a gray garment. - -It was then he remembered to scold her. "What did you mean," he -demanded between bites, "by rushing in here, after I distinctly told -you to keep in the clear?" - -Her blue answering gaze held an impudence that was a new thing to him. -"I saw you had stopped it, Torcred the Terrible, so I came. And--where -would you have been if I hadn't?" Her strong slender fingers closed for -a moment painfully on his wounded shoulder. - -He was silent, remembering with a queer excitement what her warning cry -had been. "Torcred!" not "Terrapin!" ... - -The bandage finished, he stood up and said brusquely, "We'd better get -ready to leave." - -"You plan to go on foot again--now that we've captured a machine?" - -"It's the only sensible way," asserted Torcred flatly. "Neither of us -knows how to repair the caterpillar tread, or, if we managed that, how -to maneuver and fight the panzer; if we were attacked, it would be a -death trap for us. Afoot, we're in very little danger--what machine of -prey would be likely to consider us worthy of notice?" - -They looted the best of the provisions, and the girl's deft fingers -fashioned for each a strap of sorts from a roil of cellotex fabric. -Torcred went up to the driver's cabin, located the engine under the -floor, and did things to it that would keep the panzer immobilized -until long after the blowing sand should have covered their traces. The -woman could untie their men as soon as they gained courage to come out -of hiding.... - -Terrapin and bird-girl set their faces to the east and began to trek -again. They trudged on with lightened hearts. - -They had gone about a mile when a fold of the land revealed a wide -swathe of desert dotted with camouflaged steel hemispheres, mostly -buried in the sand--a big colony of the pillbox people. - -They ducked back behind the shelter of the sand-hills and began what -looked like the shortest detour. Suddenly Ladna, glancing back the way -they had come, cried out sharply. - -Torcred turned, and saw a plume of dust above the far-off dunes--then -a gray scurrying beetle-thing that rose to a crest, vanished, and -reappeared on a nearer swell. - -It was a terrapin, travelling fast, and as it raced closer there was -less and less doubt that it was following their own plainly marked -trail. Torcred strained his eyes through the heat-shimmer to make out -the identifying mark on its blunt nose; he stiffened, and his hand -dropped to the knife he had taken from the panzer. - -"Helsed! He's picked up our trail somehow--but what does he want?" - -"The fat terrapin, the one that twisted my arm? I think I know," the -bird-girl said in a low voice. - -Torcred's dark face went hard as flint. His mind seethed: there was -no hiding here, no use trying to flee from the hundred-mile-an-hour -pursuer--or was there? - -Uncertain, he stood stockstill. The girl pressed shivering against him. -Helsed would not open fire, of course, for fear of hitting her; there -might be a chance of parleying. If he could only lure the fellow into -the open-- - -The Terrapin swung broadside--on a stone's throw from them. Its door -opened, and Helsed half slid out of the seat. He eyed the pair, swarthy -brows rising in seeming amusement. - -"Ah, still together," he observed. "Torcred, my dear fellow--you -shouldn't be traveling in such company, even in your present status. -Suppose you run along and let me take care of her." - -Torcred controlled his voice with an effort, "_You're_ a terrapin in -good standing, Helsed. Would you discard your honor--" - -The other smirked. "Don't worry. I'm not a fool like you; I won't take -her home with me." - -Torcred ground his teeth. "You're crazy!" - -"I had to leave the hunt and make good time to catch you--I don't feel -like being disappointed." The viciousness in Helsed's smooth voice -crept into the open. "And I have a score to settle with you anyway." -He jerked the terrapin's door shut, and its nose gun started to swing -around. - -Torcred spun and ran, crouching, knowing the girl would follow. They -plunged over the dune-top close together; the terrapin's gun wavered -and did not fire, then its motor snarled into life and it bounded after -them. - -Torcred, with Ladna close behind, ran panting down the windward slope, -straight toward a cluster of domed, sunken structures. Sheer amazement -of the pillbox-dwellers must have kept them alive so far; every moment -he expected a murderous barrage. - -It came. The nearest pillbox erupted flame, and beyond it others. The -explosions rolled flatly, echoless across the desert. Torcred caught -the girl round the waist and flung her down beside him; hugging the -ground, he raised his head slightly and looked back. - -The terrapin swerved agilely among spouting columns of sand. Then all -its wheels left the ground at once, it tilted in the air and rolled -over and over down the long slope of the dune. Black smoke poured from -its punctured armor. - - - VII - -Torcred stared long at the blackened wreck, hardly noting that the -guns were silent, the haze settling. He knew none of the exhilaration -that had been his when he took the panzer; a sickish sensation nested -in his stomach. He had killed--by subterfuge, true, but killed all the -same--a brother-terrapin, and now in his own mind rose up against him a -lifetime's training, all the blood-ties with his own kind.... - -His own kind. The terrapins. But were they? _What was he?_ - -The breeze, laden with sharp smoke of explosive, made his eyes twitch -and smart. He blinked, and saw the man standing on the dune's edge -above them. Much nearer this time, so that there could be no doubt that -the eyes were looking at him, that the lips smiled. That smile, and the -careless stance that went with it, seemed to radiate confident power. - -Beside Torcred the girl gasped, and he knew with sudden relief that she -too had seen the stranger. - -And so did the others. The bright air was split again by thunder as -some touchy pillbox fired a shell. It struck squarely at the stranger's -feet, and they saw him blown to fragments. But the burst drifted down -the wind, things crawled and flickered in the air, and he was there -again, smiling more broadly than before. He glanced aside, at the -smashed terrapin, then back at Torcred, and raised his right hand in -a gesture--thumb and finger forming a circle--that some of the desert -peoples used as a sign of approval and encouragement. - -Then he rippled slightly, like a reflection in water, and was gone. - -Torcred was hardly conscious of how they squirmed out of range of the -pillbox people's venomous annoyance. Ladna, brushing tangled black hair -out of her eyes, was first to break the silence. - -"Was that what you saw yesterday?" - -"Uh-huh," admitted Torcred glumly. "But you saw. He wasn't real at all." - -"Did we see the same? He was blown to bits, and reassembled himself -unhurt?" Torcred nodded. "Then there was something there." - -"What?" he demanded, irked by her superior reasoning. - -"I don't know.... But I remember something. A month ago, a man in -strange clothing like that--a real man of flesh and blood--came to -our eyrie. No one knew where he came from, or where he went when they -laughed him to scorn." - -"They laughed--why?" - -"Because he talked about 'civilization' to every one who would -listen--but he didn't seem to realize that the civilization of the -air is necessarily the highest. And he said we should make peace with -all other creatures--even the buzzards!--and refrain from hunting, -and practise photosynthesis like the lesser races." She wrinkled her -peeling nose. "If that weren't enough, he mixed his talk with old -legends--stories of the ancients, and the floating cities." - -"I've heard--" Torcred began, looking impressed. The girl smiled -loftily. - -"Those are tales that have lost their substances, fit for the young, -the ignorant, and the uncivilized. Certainly the great ancients -existed--they were an air-people like us, who ruled the world long ago, -as we shall in time to come. But that they were immortal and are still -alive, drifting somewhere in midocean out of sight of land--that's -nonsense." - -"Maybe so," Torcred grunted stolidly. In the cosmogony he knew, the -ancients were mighty terrapin heroes of the world's youth, from whose -stock all other races had degenerated; they still lived somewhere, -and would return to make the terrapins supreme again.... He said -matter-of-factly, "If you want to know what I think--we are being -watched, by something that is alive and powerful _here_ and _now_." - - * * * * * - -Ladna started and looked nervously round. She had begun to respect the -Terrapin's shrewd native intelligence. As they plodded on across the -desert, she said no more, infected by his dark preoccupation. - -But in Torcred's brain the question of the stranger's identity loomed -less large than that of his own. What was he? Ex-warrior and hunter, -ex-hero, ex-terrapin--he could think of things he had been and was not. - -_I am a--_ - -He had no word. Outcast, traitor, criminal? A newborn pride in him -rebelled against the labels he would have accepted without question -before his battle with the panzer. He had earned a name, but he had no -name. - -The west veiled its face in flame again, and darkness overtook them in -the wilderness. Torcred dreamed that he stood naked in the middle of a -vast circle of formidable machines that snarled and hooted, demanding -his name and lineage; and he had no answer. In desperation he cried, "I -am I!"--and a thousand motors roared, the armored mass rolled inward to -crush him. - -He woke staring into a dawn-lit sky where a black flight of buzzards -droned northward thousands of feet overhead. - -Ladna was awake too and looking up, the old tense fear-born hatred -expressed in every line of her body. - -"They're insolent," she murmured half to herself. "So close.... This -is already my people's land," she explained to Torcred, and her gaze -led his toward the mountains, where gray and red and yellow cliffs and -slopes stood out now from the blue haze of the canyons. "I don't know -how those buzzards dare to fly so near." - -"Why do you hate them so?" asked Torcred. - -"They're evil. They want to rule the world." - -"Well--" Torcred scowled, still out of sorts after his nightmare. -"Don't you bird-folk have the same grand plans?" - -"That's different!" she cried vehemently. "Don't dare to compare us -to the buzzards! We're hunters, like the terrapins, but the buzzards -kill and destroy for sport. The milk of their mothers is bitter with -cruelty! Oh, if those things should win--" she made a swift gesture to -ward off evil--"you'll learn what terror can be!" - -A skeptical part of Torcred's mind reflected that that was one side's -story. But he wanted to believe the girl when her blue eyes blazed so -and her voice trembled with passion. Once he had wanted to hurt her and -humble her. That had been long ago.... - -But there was a strained silence between them as they made ready to -resume the march. - -They had hardly gone fifty paces when they heard again the noise of -engines aloft, nearer this time, and looking up saw a second trio of -buzzards passing over. But one of these had left the others and was -dropping steeply earthward, heading, it seemed, straight toward them. - -Torcred stared stupidly at the great machine--it could not possibly -mean to attack them in their utter insignificance. Ladna was less -confident; she shrilled, "Down!" and Torcred dropped to all fours and -flattened himself to the sand beside her, just as the buzzard leveled -off and shot overhead so low that they could see the landing wheels -folded like talons under it, could see a door open in its black belly. -Something appeared through the aperture and vanished in the speed of -its fall. The buzzard had laid an egg, and it hatched mere yards away -with a flash and roar that left them blinded, deafened, smothered, -feeling that the earth had heaved up to meet the falling sky and pinned -them between. - -Torcred sat up, swaying, his head a ringing void. He glimpsed Ladna's -face, tears of rage furrowing the grime of sand on her cheeks as she -glared after the receding and climbing buzzard. - - * * * * * - -And not far away, among loose heaps of sand on the rim of the blast -crater, he saw a strange thing. A massive cone of metal, with the -spiral grooves and flanges of a screw, thrust slantingly from the -ground; it was turning slowly, earth dropping from it, and as he stared -it turned faster and moved forward and upward, drawing after it a -glistening rounded back. - -Dazedly Torcred walked toward the thing, and as he did so a port-cover -lifted in the armored back and a man's head thrust out. He blinked at -Torcred with a look of stunned confusion. - -"What happened?" demanded the mole in a shaken voice. "I was coming -up for a breath of air, then--_bang_!" He looked around wildly. "My -garden! What have they done to my garden?" - -The moles, Torcred knew, made gardens--sheets of cellotex impregnated, -like the sun-screens of the trailers and like machines, with -photosynthetic chemicals. Even the predators left them alone, for the -most part, since the moles were a peaceful and harmless race. That, -then, had been the bomb's target. - -The mole peered at Torcred, seemed to come to himself. "What are you?" -he gasped, and without waiting for an answer, ducked inside. The -hatch-cover slammed, the great screw reversed and revolved furiously, -and the burrowing machine slowly sank from sight under the sand. - -"Now do you believe me--about _them_?" demanded Ladna's stifled voice. - -Torcred nodded slowly, feeling sorry for the poor frightened mole, and -rather surprised at himself for it, as he had been when he had spared -the beaten crew of the panzer.... Torcred the Terrapin was never like -that. Mechanically his fingers caressed the half-healed mark on his -forehead. - -The girl's tongue seemed loosened by their near escape, and as they -journeyed on, she talked, with a calm bitterness now, of the enemy. -Torcred knew vaguely that, somewhere far to the north, was Buzzard -Base, an immense fortress with subterranean dwellings and hangars where -the black monsters bred and swarmed. Ladna enlightened him further. -"Some of our spies"--the word meant nothing to Torcred--"got inside -the place not long ago. They reported things stirring, the buzzards -building airframes and engines at a furious rate, obviously planning a -new move. Naturally, we increased our construction tempo to keep pace -with them, but we've been puzzled; you see, there were rumors that -the chief buzzards were worried about something else, besides the old -dragging stalemate. But whatever it was, they were keeping it secret -even from their own rank and file." - -Torcred shook his head bewilderedly; he was lost in her world with its -vastness and complexity of organization and politics and schemes for -domination. With the openmindedness of confusion he had to admit that -the civilization of the air was such as the free terrapins did not -dream of.... And he felt an inward hurt as, in the girl's talk of her -people and their life, he sensed the widening of the distance between -them, which had almost dwindled away while they wandered and struggled -to survive and nearly died together in the desert. - -But the mountains were close now, and they made good time that day. -They did not need to evade any of the prowling land machines, for the -desert here was utterly empty, unmarked by wheels, under the threat of -the desolate plateaus above and ahead, from which deadly flying things -ranged far and wide. - -A couple of times they glimpsed winged squadrons in the sky, and the -girl's eyes shone, and the shadow on Torcred's face grew deeper. - - * * * * * - -As evening came on, the mesas rose bare and sheer before them out of -the sandy waste. They climbed laboriously over smooth rock and gravel -slides; Ladna led the way upward, trying to sight landmarks that were -meant to be seen from the air. - -At last she gave a little cry of joy, and pointed up the dry streambed -they were ascending. Torcred looked, and saw nothing but the -rock-rimmed head of the canyon; but the girl had seen some sign that -wholly escaped him. "We're practically there!" - -Behind her back Torcred passed a hand across his eyes. "Well, then," he -said with assumed casualness, "you'll be all right from here on." - -She whirled and gave him a searching look. "What are you talking about?" - -Torcred's jaw muscles twitched. "I'm wishing you a happy homecoming," -he answered, "by way of saying goodbye." - -"But you're coming with me!... Aren't you?... What else can you do?" - -He shook his head somberly. "I'm too used to freedom, Ladna. I'll take -my chances with the desert again." - -"I told you my people will accept you, and your fate among them will -be no worse than mine...." Her protest trailed off as she read the -inflexible refusal in his impassive face. - -"Earth and sky can't meet." He looked back down the canyon, toward -where a wedge of the barren plain, pink with reflected sunset, showed -between the rock walls. Then the girl was in front of him again. Her -eyes were very large, and her red lips spoke no more useless words of -pleading. - -Instead--her hands were on his shoulders, her arms slipped round -his neck as her slim body swayed against him, her face blurred with -nearness, tilted up.... - -Gravely, according to the terrapin custom, Torcred touched noses with -her. - -He felt her go tense, and she drew back. Her eyes glistened with a -shock and disappointment he was at a loss to understand. She said in a -choked voice, "Good-bye!" and turned and fled up the ravine. - -Mechanically Torcred picked up the satchel with the remainder of her -share of the food and water, which she had remembered to leave behind. -His muscles tightened with a violent urge to run after her and bring -her back by force. - -But how could he hold her with him? She still had her place, however -small, in the world of machines that had cast him out.... Suddenly he -hated them all without exception, all the iron monsters that ruled -the world in whose sight flesh and blood were helpless, hopeless, as -nothing. - -He stumbled down the mountain, going into an exile lonelier than that -stigmatized by the brand on his forehead. Yet withal, loneliness and -hatred, he felt a curious inner peace. His brain was no longer a -battlefield of hostile allegiances and longings. He still had no name -for what he had become. But it didn't matter any more. - -He reached the bottom of the last rock slide, and looked back; in the -failing light he could just make out the mesa rim, above which must lie -the aeros' eyrie. Nothing moved up there. She would be at home now, -among her own kind. - - - VIII - -When he turned away, he saw the stranger standing not far off, beneath -a great stone promontory that thrust out into the sea of sand, his back -to a deep black cleft in the rock. Torcred could see his face clearly -this time, and this time it was unsmiling, the brows drawn together -and lips compressed in an expression of anxiety. The stranger beckoned -with a jerky urgency, half-turned, and pointed toward the crevice of -the cliff. - -Torcred took a step toward him, his anger boiling up dangerously, blood -drumming in his ears. "What are you?" he shouted. "What do you want? -You've dogged my steps, watched me, and applauded my downfall. Now -what--" - -The stranger's eyes shifted, and he moved his head as if listening to -a voice that Torcred did not hear. His eyes widened with alarm, and he -vanished like a blown-out flame. - -Torcred blinked baffledly. The hand on the hilt of his knife relaxed, -but the roaring in his ears grew louder. Almost it might be real.... - -He threw back his head and looked up. Far above, individually almost -indistinguishable in the pale twilight sky but making it alive with -their massed formations, V after V of black flying shapes were moving. -The air throbbed with the vibrant roar of many engines. - -The leading squadrons were already over the mountain when the first -dart of flame leaped from it and climbed with a whistling rush to meet -them. Others followed, the clatter of their guns mingling with the -multiple crescendo shriek of the first sticks of falling bombs. - -Torcred crouched involuntarily, bracing himself for the concussions -that must shake earth and air.... But only dull thudding sounds -rolled down from the mesa, as if the rain of projectiles fell without -exploding. - -Over the mountain two buzzards dropped out of formation and wobbled -earthward, trailing smoke down the sky, and a third burst into bright -flame and disintegrated in a meteoric shower. New formations still came -droning out of the north--the buzzards were attacking in force. Their -bombs kept landing with sullen thumps, almost inaudible under the roar -of motors, the sputter of guns and the flat reports of aerial cannon. - -But to Torcred, hugging the lee of a great boulder and trying with -straining eyes to pierce the darkness that increasingly shrouded the -mesa, those dull incessant impacts became an ominous sound. Ladna had -gone up there--she had had plenty of time to reach safety in the buried -heart of the eyrie, which even the mightiest explosives could scarcely -touch--but without knowing why, Torcred edged out of his shelter and -began once more, creeping from rock to rock, to clamber up the steep -ravine that the two of them had ascended together. - -He had not progressed far--in the dark the uncertain footing was -dangerous--when the breeze, sighing down the canyon with cool -mountain-top air for the hot plain, brought confirmation of his fear -with it. - -A whiff of strange odor that stung in his nostrils and tickled his -windpipe harshly. Then his eyes began to smart as it grew rapidly -stronger; the gas the buzzards had used to blanket the mesa was a -dense one, designed to seek out the aero people in the depths of their -underground fortress. - -Torcred halted, blinking, struggling with the growing need to cough. He -recognized the odor after a moment--the same poison that the machines -called skunks used against their enemies. He knew that enough of it was -deadly. And a cold hand of terror clutched at his heart. - - * * * * * - -He flung caution from him and started to scramble recklessly, -planlessly upward. Denser clouds of gas met him, and, half-blinded, -he stumbled against sharp rocks and almost fell when fits of coughing -shook him. His chest became a rasping furnace, and each deep panting -breath was a flame. Bitterly he knew that his will could not drive him -much longer into that torment.... - -In the air something flew burning, and the light of its destruction -fell bright as day into the canyon and threw shifting shadows. -Torcred's tear-filled eyes blurred the glare, but he glimpsed a small -dark-clad figure huddled on the rocks not ten feet from him, across a -black crevice that might be five or fifty feet deep. - -He crouched and sprang; weakened knees betrayed him, he landed clawing -on the rounded lip of the chasm and barely managed to pull himself up -to the girl's side. But new strength steeled him as he gathered his -feet under him and dragged both her and himself erect. - -Ladna was alive and conscious; she leaned against him, coughing weakly. - -"I was coming back," she gasped in his ear. "I'd have been up there ... -but I was coming back ... to you...." - -Torcred hardly understood her. "Come on!" he croaked. "Down!" - -The way seemed immeasurably longer than the way up had been. It was -really a little longer--the gas was settling fast--until, staggering, -each half-supporting the other, they reached a level where the air -was no longer choking poison. Ladna grew able to stand alone; swaying -a little, she followed Torcred down the treacherous slides in the -canyon's mouth. - -On the soft wind-piled sand below the great rifted rock, where Torcred -had last seen the visionary stranger, they sank down to rest by common -consent. Torcred listened anxiously to the girl's hoarse breathing. - -He moistened his lips and asked, "How do you feel?" - -Ladna stirred and sat up with an effort that set her coughing again. -"I'll be all right.... We'll go back into the desert, and live there -somehow, as long--as long as we live." - -"That's right," said Torcred. In the dark she couldn't see how his face -grew grim at the thought of how short their life together was likely to -be. - -He raised his head, sniffing the air. A thin sharp taint, reminiscent -of stifling agony, told him they must be up and moving soon. The gas -was diffusing but still dangerous; up yonder on the plateau, where it -had been concentrated, it must have left nothing save desolation and -death.... - -Only then did he become aware, with a start of amazement, of the great -silence that enfolded mountain, sky, and desert. - -The air, at least, which had snarled with motors not twenty minutes -earlier, should still have echoed to the sound of battle. But the sky -was empty. - -No, not empty--abruptly landing lights cut a brilliant swathe far out -on the desert. The buzzard pilot saw he had misjudged his altitude -and tried to pull up, the huge ship stalled and its lights went out as -it plowed into the ground. Before the sound of its crash reached the -mountain's foot, a pillar of fire was mounting above the dunes, and -they saw that the air was full of machines, attackers and defenders -alike in one confused flitting swarm, wheeling, dipping and always -drifting downward, unpowered. - -Ladna gasped, "What's happened? The buzzards--" - -"I don't know. Maybe your people--" - -"They're not my people any more," she interrupted swiftly. "Whatever -you are, I am too.... And anyway, all the engines are dead." - - * * * * * - -Torcred got up stiffly. On the desert between them and the fire, an -aero glided down, bounced and rolled to a shaky landing. Its pilot -dropped to the ground and stood staring at his useless machine; he did -not even look up as a buzzard passed low over him with a rush of wings, -touched ground and slewed round a short way off with a broken landing -gear. Small figures spilled out of it too, their movements expressing -the same dazed lack of understanding. The enemies paid each other no -heed. - -The smell of gas was stronger. The desert would be littered with -aircraft, but they shouldn't have much trouble slipping through.... -Still Torcred frowned, hesitating. He turned with sudden resolution to -the girl. - -"Wait here. There's something I have to find out; but it won't take -long." - -"No!" Ladna struggled to her feet. "I'll go with you." - -Torcred started to protest, then changed his mind. He turned silently -toward the cliff whose blank stone face was lit redly by the dying -fire, its great fissure a dark gulf of mystery. - -Inside the cleft it was pitchblack, but the footing was smooth, packed -sand. Torcred felt his way between rock walls. At first he heard only -the scufflings the girl made, groping behind him, and then he was -conscious of a faint all-pervading hum. Something was humming deep in -the rock, and Torcred felt sure now that he was going to find the -meaning of the visions and of the battle's uncanny end. - -He was hardly surprised when white light shone in the fissure ahead and -a man appeared, black against it. The figure's outline was familiar. -The stranger spoke--his first word in a strange tongue, but the rest -intelligible enough though oddly pronounced. - -"Ahoy, there! We'd almost given you up." - -Torcred advanced warily. The stranger did not flicker nor vanish. A -door was open, and the white light poured out from a chamber that -must have been a natural hollow, laboriously enlarged in the stone. -Torcred's hand shot out and gripped the man's arm above the elbow; the -stranger started, then relaxed, and Torcred caught a flash of the grin -he had seen before. - -"I'm real," said the stranger. "I wasn't the other times we've met--but -that's one of the things Captain Relez will explain to you. Now come -inside, before the air out here gets any thicker." - -Cautiously Torcred edged into the brightly-lit room, keeping in front -of Ladna. He saw in the cramped space a glittering confusion of -unfamiliar devices--it was the flimsiness of most of the apparatus -that was most surprising; the terrapins and other races built mostly -machinery designed to withstand heavy mechanical forces, but a blow of -the hand would shatter most of those things of wire and glass tubes. A -young man, hunched over a complex control panel beside a glass screen -on which a darkly indistinct image floated, glanced up with narrowed -eyes, and an older one with a small pointed beard met Torcred's -suspicious gaze benignly, over a small table on which a map was spread, -studded with colored pins. - -Then Torcred heard the door click, and whirled, hand on his knife. - -"It's not locked," the bearded man said calmly. "You can leave if you -like--but we've gone to a good deal of trouble to persuade you here for -a talk." - - * * * * * - -Torcred faced him again, still tensely ready. The setup here didn't -look dangerous, only incomprehensible. But he sensed power in this -little room; the deep potent hum he had heard in the fissure was at -home here, though he could not locate its source. - -"My name is Relez." The bearded man rose from behind his table, "Dunu, -you can take care of the chart." - -"Aye, aye, sir," said the young man they had seen as a phantom in the -desert, and Torcred bristled again at the alien jargon. But Relez' -casual manner was reassuring. - -He gestured at a shelf cut into the stone. "Have a seat." Torcred -obeyed mechanically, and Ladna huddled beside him. Torcred stared -fascinated at the screen. A scene had resolved itself there--one of -incredible, nostalgic familiarity. It was the twice-ringed camp of the -terrapins, unmistakable to Torcred though he saw it now from a strange -angle, from above. All the machines were in place, as was normal after -nightfall. Torcred half started to his feet. - -Then he saw what was not normal for that or any hour in a terrapin -camp. A confusion of bobbing lights among the cars; the shop area in -the midst was almost deserted, but against the reddening fires of the -forges tiny black figures scurried to and fro like distracted ants. -He could almost hear the cries of alarm and exasperation over the -discovery that not a functioning engine was left in the whole troop. - -Torcred turned and caught Relez smiling in his beard. - -"You did that!" - -Relez nodded. "Unfortunately, we didn't get the anti-ionization field -into operation in time to prevent the buzzards' gas attack. But there -won't be any more fighting tonight, unless they do it with knives. -It's a bit of luck that none of these people seem to have any notion -of portable firearms. No more mechanized warfare, though, as long as -that unit is working." He gestured at a thing of massive coils and bus -bars and fragile glowing tubes, from which, Torcred perceived now, the -humming came. - -Ladna's blue eyes were wide. "That little device--has stopped all the -machines?" - -"It broadcasts a wave form that affects the molecules of air, of all -gases, inhibiting their ionization. So no spark can jump, and motors -are stopped when their electric ignition fails. The only machines -that can move now, inside its range, are the moles, with their -battery-driven electric motors for underground travel--which is lucky -for them, or they'd be trapped under the earth. - -"Everything else--terrapins, trailers, aeros, buzzards, and all -the rest--are paralyzed. Our field's range blankets five hundred -thousand square miles. Beyond that area, others are responsible for -administering the same treatment; it already began a month ago on the -coast--" - -"What are you?" Torcred burst out. "What do you want?" - -"We three--Dunu, Rhenu, and I--are the Continental Demilitarization -Commission for this area. As to what we are trying to do, that will -take some explaining--" - -"I meant," Torcred scowled, dissatisfied, "what is your race?" - -Relez regarded him strangely. "The same as yours. The race of man." - - - IX - -They came of peoples which had no history, only legend and tradition. -And they learned-- - -That there was such a thing as history, recorded in books; Relez showed -them such a book, which they could not read, because neither of them -could understand more than the code markings on mechanical parts. - -That the storied ancients, whose powers were marvelous and whose end -was terrible, had really existed and had left their record in writing. - -How after the great wars that had almost seared his life from the -Earth's surface, when man's weapons--and his medical science--had -wiped out every creature save the indestructible destroyer himself, -the machine races had risen from the shreds of technical knowledge -hoarded by the scattered groups of survivors and crystallized by their -descendants in the rigid mold of tradition. And how that last war had -never ended, but had passed into the nature of things in the unending -war of the predatory machines against the feeders on sunlight, and of -the races of land and air and sea for mastery of their habitats. - -"But no matter who wins, no man is master; the machine is the ruler, -and man is its slave. It is against that we have begun to fight, now, -after all the long dark ages...." - -For one place on all the harried Earth had provided the relative -security and permanence needed to keep alive a spark of the ancients' -culture. That was aboard the great ships at sea, that had been built -and armed to resist every hellish technique of destruction known to the -dead age of their building, and were wholly invulnerable to today's -weapons. Those were floating cities in truth, with atomic power plants, -machine shops, dwellings, hospitals, storehouses, recreation space, -libraries--and in the later times, when their first purpose as warships -had been almost forgotten, classrooms and laboratories where the -knowledge of the past was dredged up from the memories of men and from -the books, and even added to in some ways. - -"We have built up the nucleus of a new civilization on the sea," said -Relez solemnly. "Now the time has come for it to take root on the dry -land. But first the continents must be pacified. The world must be -taken from the warring machines and given back to man. - -"We possess some of the old ones' weapons, and we could try to use -them to enforce our will, as they did. And I think our end would be -like theirs. But we have invented some new devices to serve the cause -of peace. The anti-ionization field is chief among those. I myself had -some share in developing it--my title of 'captain' means leader of a -group of scientists, not master of a ship." - -"Is there no defense against the field?" asked Torcred shrewdly. - - * * * * * - -Relez eyed him thoughtfully. "There are ways of avoiding the effect," -he admitted, "but they are not likely to occur to these custom-bound -people. And once they are liberated from the tyranny of the machine--" - -"Your method of liberation," said Torcred, "is to reduce everyone to an -equal helplessness, and let them fight it out among themselves?" - -"You might put it that way. I'm afraid there will be some bloodshed. -The predatory peoples, naturally, will have the hardest time at first. -But--Suppose _you_ tell _me_ what you think will happen, for example, -when the terrapins come in contact, under the new conditions, with -their old enemies and prey, the trailer people." - -"Why--at first they will be afraid to venture out of the camp. Then, -when the food supply runs low, they will begin to think of attacking -the stalled trailer herd on foot. A quick raid, by determined men with -knives and clubs, might work once or twice, but not after that, because -the trailer people are much more numerous, and, once recovered from the -first confusion and organized, they could defend themselves...." - -"But if you were chief of the terrapins, what would you do?" - -Torcred thought hard, intrigued in spite of himself. "I think--I would -try to get some of the sun-machines the trailers use. In order to have -an independent supply of food and power, you understand. That lightning -raid, perhaps--but it would be hard to dismantle the screens and escape -with them. No, I think I would try to bargain with the trailers. They -have no radar scanners; if their suspicions could be allayed, they'd be -willing to trade a few of their sun-screens for some terrapin sighting -devices." - -"Not realizing that those have lost their value, now that all aircraft -are grounded," said Relez with a smile. "It might work. And overcoming -the suspicions may prove easier than you think, when men begin to meet -each other under the open sky, and realize that their hates never -belonged to them, but to the machines they served...." - -"I don't know about the buzzards," murmured Ladna dubiously. - -Relez disregarded that. "What we need now is helpers. The -anti-ionization field is the catalyst of peace, but if it is to work -quickly, the confused peoples must have guidance. - -"We've done a little advance missionary work among the more civilized -and approachable tribes, both in the flesh, and by teleprojection, as -Dunu appeared to you in the wilderness. The televiewer, incidentally, -is another of our new developments; the old machines of that type used -both a transmitter and receiver, but this one works on the principle -you can see once in a while in nature, when atmospheric refraction is -just right to reassemble the light from a distant object and project -its picture in the air. Only very recently we perfected the reverse -application of the effect, so that under good conditions we can project -a three-dimensional image--mirage--over large distances. - -"But those methods are inadequate for working directly on the minds of -the peoples. Few as we are, we can't appear openly as authors of the -change; for the time being, let them think it a natural phenomenon. -However," his eyes met Torcred's and held them in a challenging gaze, -"very much could be done to smooth a people's way toward civilization -by an agent who belongs by birth to it...." - -"I was a terrapin once," said Torcred steadily. "Now I am a man of -the race of man. And in the eyes of the terrapins I am an outcast, -accursed." - -"I know. But your very return, when they think you dead, may help the -break-down of the old habits and customs.... I don't say it will be -easy. But I believe the desert has sharpened your wits." - - * * * * * - -Torcred considered. The mark on his forehead burned, but he remembered -how there had been compassion in Vazcled's face even as he wielded the -knife, and that his worst enemy was discreditably dead in the desert. -"Perhaps," he muttered. - -"If you go back," said Ladna quietly, "I go too." - -Relez stroked his beard. "That might make trouble." - -The girl turned on him, electric fire in her look. "None of your -business!" - -Relez smiled. "On the other hand, maybe it will be for the best--a step -forward in contact between the peoples." - -Torcred felt a new strength and confidence born of Ladna's loyalty. He -said, "Your scheme is good, if it will work. I will--_we_ will help -you make it work." - -The older man's face lit. "Good!" he exclaimed enthusiastically. "You -already have some sound ideas. I suggest--" - -"Captain!" broke in a low, taut voice. "What do you make of this?" - -Relez wheeled. The young technician who had been operating the controls -of the televiewer was pointing at the screen in horror. - -The scene was a sweep of desert, silvered by the risen moon. There were -indistinct dark shapes that might be a tribe of dragons, stalled, of -course. But around and among them red flashes leaped and black towers -of smoke sprang up to drift down the quiet night wind. - -It was a scene of death and destruction whose silence made it unreal. -But as the five people in the rock chamber held their breath, they -heard and felt, telegraphed from far away through the ground, the dull -heavy concussions of exploding bombs. - -"Scan the sky, Rhenu," gulped the captain. - -The view shifted as Rhenu's trembling fingers made adjustments, and -they glimpsed a black squadron drifting across the moonlit sky. -Cruising with a leisurely consciousness of invulnerability, in the -knowledge that the victims were helpless to maneuver, sitting ducks to -be blasted at will. - -"Keep on scanning!" snapped Relez, but his face was ashen as he saw his -dreams crumbling. - -Dunu was incredulously checking the anti-ionization generator. "There's -nothing wrong here," he reported. But the screen showed scene after -scene of a carnival of destruction. The night sky was full of buzzards, -flying low, playing their search-lights on the desert and raining gas -and explosives on everything that lived. It was the buzzards' moment to -strike for dominance and they were making the most of it. - -Dunu said frozenly, "They must have been warned by their kin on the -coast, and have managed to develop an engine with a hotpoint ignition -system." - -Relez muttered, looking suddenly old and weary, "It's too bad. The -people with the highest technical ingenuity--but their motivation -seems to be insane hate of everything unlike them." - -"I told you so," Ladna said bitterly. - -Torcred had no ears for philosophy; he had seen enough of the murder -going on out there. He bounded to his feet and his knife flashed in his -hand. - -"One side!" he snarled at the recoiling Dunu. "I'm going to smash that -machine and give the rest of us a chance!" - - * * * * * - -But Relez had stepped between him and the generator. The color returned -to his bearded features as he faced the threatening blade. - -"Wait!" he cried. "Don't wreck all your chances for peace--" - -"I'll give you peace," said Torcred, "if you don't get out of the way." - -Ladna was behind him, he knew, knife drawn, holding the thunderstruck -assistants at bay. - -Relez did not move. "I told you we possess some of the ancients' -weapons. The decision to use them belongs properly to the High Command -of the Fleet--but in this case I will take it on myself." - -"You have such weapons here?" - -"Yes. A bomb, which in case we were discovered here could have exploded -to wipe out this place and protect our secrets. You and the girl can -take one of the grounded aeros outside and carry the bomb over Buzzard -Base. I'll switch off the anti-ionization field for half an hour, long -enough for you to go and return...." - -"One bomb?" exclaimed Ladna scornfully. "_They_ have thousands!" - -"No more will be needed." - -Torcred's black gaze searched Relez' face for long moments. He read -utter sincerity there, and lowered the knife. - - - X - -The aero roared across a short stretch of sand and was airborne. It -swerved, evading a buzzard squadron that was droning over, and climbed -swiftly into the north. - -Torcred huddled in the cramped space behind the pilot's seat, -over the little dull metal box that Relez claimed was a bomb. He -glimpsed Ladna's face, over the dimly glowing controls; it was as if -transfigured. She was tasting the joy she had thought lost to her -forever, the glory of flight through the high thin air at a thousand -miles an hour. - -"This isn't like crawling, is it?" she asked lightly. "Four or five -minutes now, and we'll be there." - -Torcred braced himself more firmly. "Give me thirty seconds warning." - -Presently the girl cut off the power. The machine slowed and began to -swerve and buck a little as its speed approached that of sound. "Thirty -seconds." - -Relez had told him how to arm the bomb. Torcred pushed the levers he -had indicated, and looked doubtfully at the harmless-looking gray -box. "We're over it," said Ladna. "The place is lit up; they're not -expecting anything else in the air. I can see buzzards taking off...." - -Torcred, of course, could see nothing. He shoved open the emergency -escape door in the floor and tipped the lead box out into the shrieking -rush of air. - -The engine's sighing roar began again. He slammed the door shut and -squirmed forward, into the seat beside Ladna. The little ship ran away, -faster than sound or an air shock wave could follow.... - -But they saw the glare that turned desert and mountains and sky ahead -white with a reflected radiance brighter than the noonday sun. For -moments it lasted, then the light died and the night was dead black to -their dazzled eyes. - -"The ancients' weapons were pretty potent," said Torcred, and the girl -shivered. - -She made a wide circle and flew back, but they could see nothing in the -valley where Buzzard Base had been. Only an immense cloud of darkness -still faintly luminous at its heart, roiling slowly upward. The air was -turbulent. Ladna gave the cloud a wide berth, for Relez had warned them -of that. - -The girl looked questioningly at Torcred. He said, "A line due south -from the Salt Sea should find us the terrapins' camp." - -Obediently Ladna made a few degrees' turn to the west. "You still -believe--" - -"That Relez was right? I don't know. But I know this--whether the men -of the floating cities have their way of the world or not, they've -started a change that must lead to more change, a new civilization.... -And I still want to help the terrapins make a place in it--first of all -by teaching them that they are men." - - * * * * * - -The great salt lake unrolled in the moonlight and slipped away beneath -the ship. They raced on over the southern reaches of the valley where -they had wandered three strange days. Then in midflight the motor -choked and died. The anti-ionization field had closed down again. - -"Relez is in a hurry for his peace," remarked Torcred, and they laughed -a little hysterically. The ship lost altitude and the shadowy desert -came up to meet them, but not before they saw, a couple of miles away, -a spot of light that Torcred's keen eyes identified as the camp of the -terrapins. He breathed a sigh of relief at finding it undamaged by the -buzzard raids. - -"You can start educating them in the morning," said Ladna. "Isn't the -moon lovely tonight?" - -"Eh?" Torcred was jarred by the disconnectedness of her remarks. "Why -wait till morning?" - -She started to answer, then exclaimed and wrenched at the controls. The -aero wobbled on one wing as the top of a dune slid by scant feet below; -then it plowed through the next crest and pancaked into the valley -beyond. - -The two scrambled, shaken up but undamaged, out of the battered craft, -and Torcred caught the disheveled girl in his arms. - -"You're a hopelessly bad bird," he growled in mock rage. "Two ships -you've smashed up inside a week!" - -And he would have touched noses with her, but Ladna evaded the gesture -adroitly. - -"Don't be a terrapin!" she chided. "You've got to learn civilized -ways ... like this...." - -He learned. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DEAD-STAR ROVER *** - -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. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, -and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following -the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use -of the Project Gutenberg trademark. 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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 <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Dead-Star Rover</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Robert Abernathy</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: March 04, 2021 [eBook #64690]</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net</div> - -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DEAD-STAR ROVER ***</div> - - -<div class="titlepage"> - -<h1>The Dead-Star Rover</h1> - -<h2>By ROBERT ABERNATHY</h2> - -<p>Only savage engines roamed that arid world,<br /> -charging one another with snarling guns beneath<br /> -those grinding treads. And two puny machine-less<br /> -humans like Torcred and Ladna should die quickly.<br /> -That they suddenly could become the most dangerous<br /> -things alive must surely be some dead god's joke.</p> - -<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br /> -Planet Stories Winter 1949.<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>The terrapin was traveling eighty miles an hour—far too fast for -such uneven country. Over maddeningly repetitive dunes it scudded, -rising with a swoop to each windward slope and hurtling clear of the -ground beyond each wave-like crest, to plunge through the trough in a -hurricane of flying sand.</p> - -<p>The wiry little man who crouched tensely, hugged by a padded safety -belt, in the pitching, vibrant interior of the midget combat car, -was impatient, furiously so. Thanks to an unusually stubborn case of -engine trouble, he was a full two hours behind the rest of his troop; -by now they must have sighted the new camping place on the shore of -the Salt Sea. And the blazing sun was already sinking toward the dusty -horizon haze. Torcred the Terrapin came of a people unused to fear—but -his shrewd intelligence, calculating the risks he must run before he -rejoined the others, found the daylight dangers enough and to spare, -and nothing attractive in the thought of an encounter with any of the -things that prowled the desolate plain after the sun went down.</p> - -<p>So the terrapin fled at reckless speed westward over the dipping dunes, -and Torcred's deepset irongray eyes, squinting against the glare that -even the polarized glass in the narrow vision slits could only cut -down, were anxious. Under his breath he chided his own nervousness; -probably after all nothing would happen....</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Midway in the thought it did happen, and with almost catastrophic -suddenness. The black silhouette of a flying thing materialized out -of the sun's glare, diving straight at him. It flattened out and was -gone overhead, while the roar of its passing echoed behind it. And the -terrapin had rocked to the impact of bullets all the more fiercely -driven by the aero's terrific velocity; its armor rang and steel -splinters hummed like wasps inside it.</p> - -<p>Torcred slammed down one foot pedal and the terrapin slewed crazily and -slid sidewise for a score of yards, in a cloud of sand that momentarily -hid it from the eyes above. Coming out of the skid he gave full power -to the spinning wheels, operating the throttle with one hand while the -other switched on his radar screen and leaped from it to the firing -control of the turret gun. It was long seconds before the scanning beam -located its flitting target; then, though the terrapin was traveling -in the quick swerves and dashes of a desperately evasive course, the -automatic control held the image reasonably well centered on the -projected crosshairs of the turret gun's sight. The image swelled, grew -wings, as the aero came in in a second howling dive.</p> - -<p>Torcred's reflexes, hardly less automatic than his machine's, depressed -the firing button, and the gun's stammering blast numbed his ears, -mingling almost at the same moment with the clang and shriek of steel -on steel as the terrapin took more hits. But the flying enemy leveled -off far higher than before and zoomed away more steeply; its great -advantage had been lost when the first attack failed to cripple or kill.</p> - -<p>The Terrapin's eyes burned into the screen as his own wild zigzags -flung him painfully against his safety belt. The aero might let things -go at that.... No, the screen's image expanded again. His finger closed -once more on the firing button.</p> - -<p>The winged outline grew with ominous determination. Careless now of the -single gun that rattled defiance, it was coming down for the kill. With -the corner of his eye Torcred saw the vicious puffs of sand that strode -to meet the racing terrapin; he swerved instantly, but in that same -instant the car staggered and spun out of control. He did not hear the -thunderous concussion that stung his face and hands. The forepart of -the roof bowed inward, and there was a knife-like fragment of steel, -inches long, in the cushion almost touching Torcred's ear.</p> - -<p>Dimly he realized that his wheels were spinning futilely, the car -canted far over; it had nosed into a dune and half-buried itself. The -fight was over....</p> - -<p>But ten, twenty seconds went by and no fresh storm of destruction -burst on him. Incredulously his eyes found the radar screen. It was -still working, and the image that filled it wavered strangely, neither -receding nor coming nearer.</p> - -<p>He threw his machine into reverse and opened the throttle; the front -wheels took hold and the terrapin bucked itself free of the sand. Then -Torcred leaned sidewise, recklessly flung open a steel shutter and -looked out.</p> - -<p>He blinked, dazzled, at the sweep of desert and bright blue sky before -his eyes found the falling shape, twisting and fluttering as it fell -despite its weight of tons. As he watched, the aero almost leveled -out, teetered on one wing and sideslipped out of sight behind a -distant dune. A cloud of dust sprang up and drifted away, but no smoky -death-pall rose after it.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The Terrapin shook his dizzy head, and his narrow hawk face hardened. -He pressed the pedals and sent the combat car rolling swiftly toward -the spot that his practised eyes had marked accurately in the midst of -the featureless desert.</p> - -<p>The black-and-yellow aero's nose was sunk deep into the loose sand that -had slid down to partly bury the wreck, its blunt tail pointed into -the cloudless sky it had left forever. One wing had been torn off and -hurled yards away, the other was crumpled beneath the slanted fuselage.</p> - -<p>The terrapin slowed to a crawl along the crest of the nearest sandhill -as its pilot surveyed the scene. But he was about to wheel away once -more when he noticed the sprawled figure in bulky dark-blue flying -clothes, that lay face down in the shadow of a brown drift.</p> - -<p>Deftly Torcred sent the terrapin careening down the slope to halt -close to the motionless enemy. He hesitated briefly, then, shrugging, -unsnapped his belt, wrestled open the almost-jammed door and clambered -out. Dead or stunned, he had to make sure, and there was no harm in -indulging a trifling curiosity.</p> - -<p>Under the remote blue curve of the sky, he shrank into himself a -little. It was always so outside the steel shelter of the terrapin in -which he had spent most of his days since childhood; he felt an oddly -naked helplessness. But he looked down with interest on the body, his -hand gripping the haft of the broad-bladed knife at his side. He had -never before seen in flesh and blood a member of the lofty peoples of -the air.</p> - -<p>As if roused, the limp form twitched a foot, shivered, and rolled over -with a sigh. A pale face, closed eyes were upturned to the glaring sun -and the startled gaze of the Terrapin. Startled he was, for the face -was a girl's.</p> - -<p>She could not have passed twenty. In spite of the heavy coverall worn -against the stratosphere's chill, and a wide strawberry mark where -her left cheek had met the sandy soil, she contrived to be pretty. No -more—but the terrapin women were brown and sturdy and coarse-featured, -hardened by the drudgery of the camps. This girl's face was very white -in the frame of dark hair that escaped the oversize plastic helmet. She -breathed slowly and fitfully, and Torcred guessed at a state of shock; -she might be badly injured.</p> - -<p>He shook off an unaccustomed indecision and knelt beside her. His face -was unpleasantly hard as the knife slid from its sheath with a faint -whisper, as he laid its thin edge along the exposed curve of the girl's -throat, where a flutter marked the great artery. One quick slash, she -would never wake....</p> - -<p>But it was as if a restraining hand fastened on his wrist. Slowly he -drew back the glittering blade and returned it to its place. He stood -up and scowled down at the still, slight figure, brushing sand savagely -from the knees of his heavy breeches.</p> - -<p>Angrily Torcred told himself that he had only to turn and go. The -desert would finish the job, and no one would know that his courage had -failed him. But still he stood and stared, not consciously admitting -his strange desire to know the color of the eyes behind those closed -lids.</p> - -<p>They were blue, he saw as they flickered wide without warning. Not cold -sapphires, but the living blue of a desert sky or of electric flame. -They were alive as a small bird's eyes—but of course Torcred had never -seen a bird. Rather, he called the girl a bird, as he called himself a -terrapin.</p> - -<p>Still he did not move, even as the bird-girl struggled to a sitting -position and gathered her feet under her. Dismay came into the blue -gaze fixed on him; she half raised a hand as if in defense.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>And Torcred's determination slipped again. "You are my prisoner," he -announced in a hollow voice that did not sound at all like a victor's.</p> - -<p>Without answering, the bird-girl sprang nimbly to her feet; then her -mouth twisted with pain and she swayed dizzily, but her eyes never left -Torcred's expressionless face.</p> - -<p>"You are the terrapin?" she gasped. Her voice had the exotic accent of -the bird-people's speech, and in her inflection of the word "terrapin" -rang a contempt that was like a whip across the face. She glanced -swiftly about, at the boat-shaped gray machine that crouched, purring, -like a waiting animal on its six wheels some yards away, then at the -broken wreck that had been her aero. Her eyes went wide with a blue -flame of horror and regret, and her right hand darted to her side.</p> - -<p>Torcred exploded from rigidity into action; his feet dug into the sand -as he lunged, and his hand closed on the girl's slender wrist, halting -the sharp point of her dagger an inch above her left breast.</p> - -<p>Her free hand struck viciously at his hastily averted face. The -Terrapin ground his teeth and twisted her wrist mercilessly until the -long knife fell among their scuffling feet. Then he thrust the girl -away and set his foot solidly on the weapon, pressing it into the sand. -He glared at her deadwhite face.</p> - -<p>"I said you're my prisoner. That means you'll live while I want you to!"</p> - -<p>The bird-girl was trembling uncontrollably. "My ship is destroyed," she -said in a stifled voice. "I am already dead. It is the law."</p> - -<p>Torcred's black brows knitted in anger—at her and at himself for the -impossible situation into which he had blundered. "Get yourself another -aero," he growled unreasonably, knowing the truth of what she said. -On land or in the air, the code was the same. With destruction of the -fighting machine, the poor, soft being of flesh did best to perish too. -He snapped, "Be quiet and do as I say. Come along!" He half-turned -toward the waiting terrapin.</p> - -<p>The girl stiffened. "Well!" she said on a note of cold, controlled -scorn. "You crawlers keep slaves?"</p> - -<p>That was absolutely untrue, and was exactly what was bothering the -Terrapin. His people kept no slaves and took no prisoners. He barked, -beside himself: "You will obey me! Or stay here and die—slowly—of -thirst."</p> - -<p>Her lips parted as if to retort, but her gaze slipped past Torcred to -sweep the remote horizon and the dun wilderness that stretched to it -without path or landmark. In the two expanses of sand and sky there was -no life visible. The thin shoulders under the heavy flying suit seemed -to sag.</p> - -<p>"All right, terrapin," she said with weary disdain. "You win, for the -time being."</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph1">II</p> - -<p>The little machine held two well enough; married terrapins on the march -carried their wives beside them and children stowed somehow and anyhow -in the rear compartment. Torcred snapped the catches of his safety -belt and motioned the girl to do the same; when she was slow to obey, -he leaned over and fastened the belt himself, drawing it painfully -tight about her slim waist. Then the engine's hum rose as he opened the -throttle; the wheels spun and gripped, and the terrapin bounded away, -bearing westward over the dunes. As it picked up speed Torcred was -touched by the familiar sense of power and mastery in the deep throb of -the motor and the ready surge of the armored car. But he brooded darkly -as mountain and desert rolled past in monotonous succession, as the -minutes heaped themselves into hours....</p> - -<p>The sun was a redhot disc descending into a bath of fire in the west. -And minute by minute the angry light crept higher up the sky and -assumed new forms, clouds and streamers, for it was a mighty redlit -pall of dust that was ever higher and nearer to the rushing terrapin.</p> - -<p>Torcred glanced sidelong at the girl beside him. Her face was even -whiter under the harsh light of sunset, her eyes closed beneath long -lashes. Watching that smooth, tragic face, Torcred realized again -how young she was; he shook his head somberly. The air-people were a -strange race, who sent their young females on missions fit only for -grown men. The terrapins were far more sensible.</p> - -<p>But no terrapin woman had the strange beauty of this alien creature -from the sky....</p> - -<p>Presently he said, "Look. Ahead."</p> - -<p>The girl's eyes opened listlessly. They were dark-blue, opaque. But -faint interest stirred them as she scanned the view ahead.</p> - -<p>The flaming dust cloud had climbed to the very zenith; the smell of it -was in the terrapin, its feel between the teeth. Miles ahead across the -desert, a dim encarmined shimmer marked the waters of the Salt Sea.</p> - -<p>Nearer, but still far ahead, a black stream was moving across the -rippled plain at right angles to the terrapin's course. It was without -beginning or end, pouring steadily from north to south. A distant -vibration seemed to shake the earth beneath the sway and swoop of the -moving vehicle.</p> - -<p>"The trailer herd," said Torcred. "Thousands on thousands of them, -moving south with the sun that feeds them. The fall migration is -farther west this year, and they are coming in greater numbers than any -of our troop can remember."</p> - -<p>The girl said nothing. He added irritably, "You understand—there will -be good hunting."</p> - -<p>She shocked him by laughing. "Is that all you think of?" she inquired -mockingly. "Good hunting—a full stomach and a full fuel tank. You -crawlers lead poor, empty lives."</p> - -<p>"We don't crawl," said Torcred shortly, eyes fixed on the speedometer -that registered a hundred miles an hour.</p> - -<p>The bird-girl laughed again. "You know so little, you earthbound -creatures," she taunted. "You've never known the joy of flight—to -climb up and into the clear bright stratosphere, and see the Earth with -all its secrets unroll below you.... <i>You</i> creep from place to place -and cower in your camps, but we range farther than you dream, and know -the world and all its peoples that fly and swim and crawl and burrow. -And we are the highest race of all."</p> - -<p>"Higher than the buzzards?" asked Torcred.</p> - -<p>She hesitated, then said defiantly, "Of course! Those evil things are -huge and powerful, but we'll defeat them in the end, never doubt it. -And then—we will have the rule of the sky, which is the rule of the -Earth."</p> - -<p>She sounded very certain, and Torcred could think of no adequate -counter-argument. He said brutally, "We? Who do you mean? <i>Your</i> wings -are clipped, bird!"</p> - -<p>Then unexpected remorse stung him as he saw how the girl shrank into -herself, how the brief glow of enthusiasm left her face. She made no -answer, and Torcred too fell sullenly silent.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>In silence he closed the throttle and the hurtling terrapin slowed. -Close ahead, now, the trailer herd was an amorphous black river in the -gathering dusk. Earth and air shook to its thunder, the rumbling of -countless wheels and engines and couplings and the strident bleating of -thousands of horns as the vast herd jostled and protested.</p> - -<p>Closer and closer to the flank of the moving mass rolled the little -terrapin, darting over the crests of the dunes and stealing along under -their cover. The girl's eyes grew wide at the glimpses they had of that -dark dangerous-looking stream; she seemed to flinch from its pounding -clamor.</p> - -<p>Torcred smiled grimly as he brought the terrapin to a poised halt -half-sheltered by a low swell. A scant hundred yards away the migrating -trailers rolled obliviously past, one close behind the other, huge -box-like monsters on wheels behind a tiny cab. Torcred knew their ways -of old; the trailer sections housed women and children, who tended -the apparatus that made food, fuel, and ammunition from sunlight and -water and air and the minerals extracted from the sterile soil. The -trailer-men were drivers and gunners; but the great machines were -clumsy and ill-armed, finding safety against the fierce mechanical -predators chiefly in their numbers.</p> - -<p>The Terrapin waited only for moments; then he opened his throttle wide -and sent the little combat car swerving into the heart of the herd.</p> - -<p>All around rolled rumbling iron giants; the clank of couplings, the -roaring of unmuffled engines were deafening. A hooting of furious horns -arose as the terrapin darted and zigzagged between the moving units of -the herd. But there was no blaze of gunfire.</p> - -<p>"So we hunt them," Torcred flung over his shoulder at the breathless -girl. "They can't shoot when we're in among them; we disable one and -shelter behind it until the herd passes on...."</p> - -<p>The terrapin dashed through narrowing gaps, slowed and spurted again, -as Torcred threaded his way skilfully on an oblique course across the -roaring stream. At last he saw open ground ahead; he grinned exultantly -and put on a final burst of speed that carried him into the clear. The -little car swooped with a sickening rush into a shallow valley, and -behind it thundering flashes leaped along the flank of the trailer herd -and bullets exploded around or ricocheted screaming overhead.</p> - -<p>As he slowed to a more moderate pace under cover of the farther dunes, -Torcred turned, still grinning, to the bird-girl. "That," he commented, -"was the dangerous part."</p> - -<p>She shivered slightly. "I was afraid," she admitted candidly.</p> - -<p>"That's hardly as simple as attacking a mere crawling terrapin from the -air, eh?"</p> - -<p>The girl turned her face away. "That was necessary, terrapin ... I -passed my fledgling examination only two days ago; it was my second -flight beyond the safety zone. The novice must defeat some machine of -prey in single combat, before he is accepted."</p> - -<p>"And if he fails?" Torcred's eyes were fixed ahead, where a pale light -was reflected by the ground that was flat now and gleamed whitely, -encrusted with salt.</p> - -<p>"And if he—or she—fails," the girl's voice dropped low, "it is the -last time." A sob came into her voice. "Even if I could go back to my -people, I would be degraded to menial labor or breeding—could never -fly again."</p> - -<p>Torcred felt pity for her despite his prejudices; and at the same time -her words recalled his own worries, and he frowned blackly. The girl -mistook his expression for an indication that she had somehow said too -much, and she sank back into brooding silence.</p> - -<p>She glanced up only when the car's wheels ground to a stop on the salty -crust, and Torcred, with a relaxing sigh, was already unsnapping his -safety belt and switching off the panting motor. The girl saw flames -and shadows amid which black figures moved, and she shrank back in -fright, uncomprehending. As the Terrapin flung open his door, mingled -sound of clanging metal and hissing fire rushed in to increase her -confusion.</p> - -<p>He paused momentarily; his expression was unreadable as he gazed on her -white face.</p> - -<p>"Stay where you are and make no noise," his low voice rasped sternly. -"I'll come back."</p> - -<p>Torcred closed the door firmly and heard its lock click. The girl, -if she foolishly wanted to escape, probably could not find the catch -inside, and there was nothing she could hurt herself with if she still -felt suicidal. There at least she would be safe from prying eyes, -until he could untangle the tumult of unaccustomed emotions that were -struggling within him. A terrapin had only one place to himself, the -interior of the fighting machine—those with families, of course, knew -no such word as privacy.</p> - -<p>He turned, straightening his back resolutely, and advanced into the -midst of the terrapin camp.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph1">III</p> - -<p>Spaced shadows resolved themselves into a double rank of parked -terrapins, forming concentric circles about the encampment. Such was -the pattern of a terrapin camp from time immemorial; it was safety -against attack by other raiders of the wasteland, and on each day one -ring could go forth to hunt, the other remain in place to guard the -women, the young, and the booty.</p> - -<p>Even here the warm night air quivered ever so faintly with sound from -the east, the endless motion of the great trailer herd. By morning it -would have passed, and the hunters would follow it southward.</p> - -<p>Within the great circle the women and older children were busy now, -while the men lounged about, talking quietly, boasting perfunctorily -of the day's deeds. The first day's hunt had been only a hit-and-run -affair at twilight, but in the midst torches flared sputteringly over -the remains of dismantled trailers; there were neat piles of steel -beam-lengths and undamaged armor plate, and sprawling heaps of metal -scrap that would be abandoned when the troop rolled south. To one side -a red glow came from the maw of a small furnace, melting aluminum to -be made into castings; the terrapins did not smelt steel, leaving that -to the giant scavenger machines that followed the herds at a more -respectful distance. Fuel, food, and usable ammunition had naturally -been transferred first of all from the captured trailers to the tanks -and storage compartments of the terrapins.</p> - -<p>From the shadows of the inner circle a voice hailed Torcred by name, -and its owner came out into the light to meet him—a short man, -unusually plump for a terrapin, with heavy black eyebrows that seemed -pasted high on his round bald forehead, giving him a look of perpetual -astonishment.</p> - -<p>He greeted the newcomer effusively. "My dear Torcred! We came very near -giving you up! And from the look of your machine, you must have had a -narrow squeak."</p> - -<p>Torcred frowned imperceptibly. It seemed an evil omen that he should -be met by the only one among his fellow-terrapins whom he actively -disliked—Helsed, the talker, who was always close to the chief's ear -in council, but far from his side in the battle.</p> - -<p>"That's right," admitted Torcred curtly, and started to brush past -the other and his brimming questions. But he found himself face to -face with another terrapin who had risen from the shadow, a taller man -whose hair shaded from the usual black into gray, and whose face was -permanently lined in a stern expression of command. He was Vazcled, the -chief. Torcred fell back a step and inclined his head in salute.</p> - -<p>"What happened to you?" inquired Vazcled quietly.</p> - -<p>"I was attacked," said the younger man with reluctance.</p> - -<p>"By what?"</p> - -<p>"An aero."</p> - -<p>Even the chief's face showed surprise, and the listening Helsed's -eyebrows went up steeply. Vazcled said, "You are lucky to have escaped -so easily."</p> - -<p>"I didn't escape. I shot it down."</p> - -<p>Helsed exclaimed aloud and stared at his brother-terrapin enviously. -The chief's withered lips smiled. "Such victories are rare," he said -approvingly. "I know of only two or three in the past fifty years. You -must tell us the story tonight, and Hiyik can make a song of it.... Did -you bring any trophy from the wreck?"</p> - -<p>Torcred licked his lips nervously. "No," he said. "It fell a long way -off...."</p> - -<p>"Well, no matter," the chief shrugged. "We will find the spot on -the back trail." Already—Helsed, the eager newsbearer, had dashed -off without waiting for details—they were surrounded by a growing -audience, afire to know more about Torcred's almost unheard-of exploit.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Torcred, dazed, found himself sitting atop someone else's machine, -relating his battle with the aero to an enthusiastic mob of his -fellow-warriors. The terrapins lost their customary reserved poise and -grew festive; while Torcred almost choked on the lies with which he -ended his narrative, they pressed food and drink on him and made him go -back over the most stirring parts. Then Hiyik the poet had his turn, -and retold the story in improvised verses, his chanting voice mingling -with the hiss and clangor of the workshop in the midst of the circle on -whose rim the warriors were gathered.</p> - -<p>But the hero of it all sat moody, well-nigh oblivious, his brow -wrinkling painfully from time to time. The thoughts he was thinking -hurt. For what he was planning was treason, what he had already done -was treason—more than that, sacrilege, abomination, a trampling of the -laws that kept the diverse races of Earth eternally apart.... Lesser -breeds might hold such laws lightly—but not the proud terrapins. -For them all other peoples were enemies, or prey, or vermin beneath -contempt.</p> - -<p>The bird-folk were enemies. And the crime of giving aid and comfort to -an enemy deserved the ultimate in punishment.</p> - -<p>Torcred's mouth tightened grimly at the thought, and the logically -following reflection that he, Torcred the Terrapin, must have gone -quite insane. But even here, in the midst of his noisy comrades, he -could not forget the glimpse of a strange beauty that had fallen out -of the sky to destroy him—if not by the swift vengeance of outraged -tradition, then by returning and returning to haunt him all his days.</p> - -<p>With a chill he realized that the chief was watching him thoughtfully, -and he strove to give his features a dignified impassivity appropriate -to the modesty of the feted hero.</p> - -<p>The face of Helsed, hugging the spotlight as always, was at his elbow, -wearing a vapid smile which Torcred's hypersensitized suspicions saw -as a knowing smirk. And in reality, he knew, the fat terrapin's air -of loud thickheadedness masked a sharp scheming brain—and Helsed -hated him. Helsed had talked and toadied his way into the graces of -the council of elders and the chief, and he had hopes—the latter's -successor must be chosen soon from among the younger men. And in -the taciturn Torcred he saw his most dangerous rival, for the young -warrior's deeds spoke for him.</p> - -<p>Sunk in thought, Torcred hardly realized the passage of time or that -the gathering was breaking up. Hiyik had ceased his recitative. One by -one the terrapins yawned, stretched, and moved off toward their own -vehicles; it was late, and tomorrow, first full day of the great hunt, -would be hard. The noisy labor in the camp's center went on unabated.</p> - -<p>Torcred forced himself to yawn and stretch as elaborately as the -others, to rise unhurriedly to his feet. His plans, such as they were, -were complete; during the next day's farflung maneuvers and attacks -on the trailer herd, he should be able to slip off unnoticed and, -traveling fast, reach the vicinity of the aeros' nearest eyrie. There -he would leave the bird-girl. Whatever her fate then, she would be -alive among her own kind; and perhaps later she would be grateful to -the terrapin who had befriended her. Beyond that his thoughts did not -go....</p> - -<p>As he started to walk away, the chief's voice rooted him to the spot.</p> - -<p>"Wait a moment. I understand your machine was damaged; perhaps it needs -immediate repairs."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Torcred turned swiftly toward him. "No!" he exclaimed hastily. "There's -not much damage—a few bullet holes, a dent. No use bothering with it -now."</p> - -<p>"You never can tell." Vazcled rose; despite the hour's lateness the -wiry old man seemed untouched by fatigue. The bright eyes that dwelt -on Torcred's face held only friendly concern. "You are confident now; -but a failure of mechanism can betray the bravest. Let me look your -terrapin over and judge for myself."</p> - -<p>The chief's wish was a command. Torcred's spirit quailed as, walking -like an automaton, he led the way. He derived a little comfort from -noting that Helsed had already disappeared; when worst came to worst, -he would at least be spared, in the moment of disaster, the sight of -his enemy's triumph.... And he could still hope that the chief would -content himself with an outside examination.</p> - -<p>Vazcled studied without speaking the stove-in nose of the terrapin. -His experienced hands felt out the damage that was invisible in the -uncertain light; he clicked his tongue.</p> - -<p>"That's no dent," he said at last. "You ran head-on into a shell. I'd -better look at it from inside; open the door."</p> - -<p>With wooden fingers Torcred produced the key. Silently he handed it to -the chief; he did not think, in that whirling moment, of the symbolism -of the action, but Vazcled stared at him curiously before turning to -the door. For a terrapin to surrender the key of his vehicle was a -gesture of abject self-humiliation.</p> - -<p>The simple lock clicked. Torcred fell back a step, his shoulders -hunched tensely and his hand convulsively closing on the haft of his -dagger.</p> - -<p>The door swung open. The chief fumbled and switched on the inside -light; he grunted softly, squinting up at the fore part of the roof. -Past him Torcred could see the whole cramped interior of the armored -car; it was empty.</p> - -<p>Across the chaos of his mind fluttered one clear thought; the girl had -escaped. And he was at once limp with relief and taut with a new and -formless fear, mixed with an odd empty sense of loss.</p> - -<p>Vazcled grunted again, emerging. Pressing the key into Torcred's damp -palm, he said pointedly, "Keep that."</p> - -<p>Matter-of-factly he added. "You need repairs. Drive into the center, -then look up somebody with room for an extra sleeper. You won't be -called for guard duty; you've earned a good night's rest." The chief's -wrinkled hand rested affectionately on the young man's shoulder, but to -Torcred's imagination it burned like fire.</p> - -<p>His mumbled response was swallowed by a sudden burst of noise from the -outer periphery. A voice and then voices cried out confusedly, and then -a light blazed, silhouetting the parked terrapins. And Torcred was -already running among them, but even as he ran his world was crashing -and crumbling about his ears, and he knew he had been most cruelly -mocked by fate.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>On the edge of the encampment a space of sand was white in the glare -of lights. White too was the face of the girl who swayed, fast in the -grip of two men. Others pressed round with flashing knives, and more -warriors, half-dressed and sleepy-eyed, appeared to reinforce them. -They looked questioningly at one another; somehow the appearance of -a lone alien being, with no machine in evidence, was more sinisterly -alarming than would have been the onslaught of a horde of armed and -armored juggernauts.</p> - -<p>Torcred halted and stood rigid, his gaze stabbing into the knot of men. -And before him they opened out, pushing the girl to the fore, as if -in accusation. The next moment he realized that that was because the -chief stood beside him. And he saw that one of the bird-girl's arms -was pinioned by a sentry, and that Helsed, puffing himself with menace -grasped the other.</p> - -<p>"Silence!" roared Vazcled's voice of command. "Bring her nearer. Where -did she come from? What is she?"</p> - -<p>No one answered at once. Torcred's eyes were on the bird-girl. For a -moment her gaze met his, then she looked past him. On her pale face -was written the fierce pride he had seen before, and he knew she could -never betray him.</p> - -<p>"Shall we make her answer?" Helsed grinned ingratiatingly at the -chief, and as if in demonstration of the methods he proposed, his grip -tightened on the girl's arm, twisting. She winced and closed her eyes, -making no sound.</p> - -<p>And Torcred, his remnants of caution whirled away like chips on a flood -tide of fury, was on the torturer in one catlike spring. He would have -used his knife, but he had forgotten it; his fist, with all his weight -behind it, crashed squarely into Helsed's hateful grin. Helsed was -hurled backward and rolled over limply on the sand.</p> - -<p>Torcred stood watching him, poised to renew the attack. The other man -who had been holding the girl involuntarily released her and stepped -back, leaving her standing alone beside Torcred—but she too shrank -away from him; his berserk rage had made him terrible. The surrounding -warriors hesitated, and behind them, from among the cars or from -vantages atop them, the women and children stared open-mouthed.</p> - -<p>In the stunned silence, Torcred could hear the whisper of night wind, -and from far away the faint mutter of gunfire as nocturnal machines of -prey still took their toll of the trailer herd. He had other random -impressions: the feel of the soft sand underfoot, the hard brightness -of the stars overhead, the odor of fuel and heated metal that hung -about the camp.</p> - -<p>Then he turned, straightening: his eyes sought out Vazcled beyond the -ring of men who were warily beginning to close on him. And he laughed, -having cast away his world.</p> - -<p>"See, chief!" he shouted. "See, terrapins! I brought home a trophy, -after all!"</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph1">IV</p> - -<p>It was a red dawn, for the sun rose behind the dust that still hovered -over the track of the southbound herd. In the west the sky was dark -blue above the flatly shimmering water of the great dead sea.</p> - -<p>The whole terrapin tribe, save for the indispensable lookouts, was -assembled in the open space of the ringed camp. A hush lay on them as -they gazed on the prisoner in their midst—honored last night among his -peers, this morning guilty of hideous treason. There was no need for -trial; it only remained to condemn him.</p> - -<p>A cool, salt breeze blew from over the lake and stirred Torcred's -tousled black hair. His gray eyes were bloodshot and staring.</p> - -<p>Helsed was there, insinuating himself into the council of elders at the -chief's elbow, and mumbling implacable hatred past swollen lips and -missing teeth. His clearest and oftenest-repeated word was "Death!"</p> - -<p>Vazcled's face was set in sorrowful lines; there was regret and a -hopeless question in the old man's eyes as they met Torcred's.</p> - -<p>A small voice beside Torcred asked, "What are they going to do, -terrapin?"</p> - -<p>He half-turned and really saw the girl for the first time that morning. -She was composed, her blue eyes unafraid.</p> - -<p>"I don't know," muttered Torcred. "This has never happened before—not -in anyone's memory." In his mind were horrific legends heard in -childhood, but he tried not to repeat those even to himself.</p> - -<p>Vazcled's first words were to the girl. He asked, "Who are you, -stranger? What is your race?"</p> - -<p>She returned his gaze, decided to answer. "My name is Ladna, and I -am of the race of birds." Torcred realized that he had not known her -name before; it had not occurred to him that such remote beings used -names....</p> - -<p>"Who brought you to this place?"</p> - -<p>The girl's lips tightened; deliberately she turned her back on the -chief and stared away over the lake. She seemed oblivious of all the -hostile eyes around—in particular the swarthy faces of the terrapin -women reflected unpleasant ideas as they greedily ogled this creature -of the air.</p> - -<p>"No matter," Vazcled said heavily. "The criminal stands -self-accused.... Have you any explanation of your conduct, Torcred the -Terrapin?"</p> - -<p>Torcred shook his head dumbly.</p> - -<p>"Then—" the chief turned to the elders, "there is question only of the -punishment."</p> - -<p>Helsed thrust himself forward eagerly. "Death!" he mouthed. "Such a -crime deserves no less!"</p> - -<p>The chief looked at him coldly. "Did I ask your advice?" he inquired -bitingly.</p> - -<p>Helsed beat a retreat. "I am sorry.... But it is true that I have a -special grievance in this matter...."</p> - -<p>"Be quiet!" snapped Vazcled.</p> - -<p>The oldest member of the council spoke, and the rest listened -respectfully. "Everyone knows the story of Fuwu, who took to himself a -dragon woman. He was cast out of the tribe according to the ritual, and -left to die in the desert with his seductress—a sentence lighter and -heavier than mere death, and one which did not stain the hands of the -tribe with the blood of a terrapin."</p> - -<p>The other judges nodded in token of their remembrance and approval of -the precedent. The chief saw their decision, and faced the prisoners -again. At this curt command the guards seized Torcred and thrust him -forward unresisting. Vazcled, knife in hand, looked him in the eyes, -his face a stern formal mask. He intoned:</p> - -<p>"Torcred the Terrapin, your sin is past forgiveness. I pronounce you -outcast and abhorred; none shall take notice of you any more, either -to help or hurt. You are no longer one of us; we give you to the -wilderness. Torcred, no longer Terrapin, I mark you as such!"</p> - -<p>The knife point rose and made two quick motions. Torcred did not -flinch; on his forehead was a tau cross in oozing drops of blood. The -chief bent, took a pinch of sand, and rubbed it into the wound to make -sure that it would scar—if the victim lived that long.</p> - -<p>Vazcled turned away. "Cast them out!" he ordered over his shoulder, to -the guarding warriors.</p> - -<p>"The girl too?" Helsed asked hastily; his eyes lingered.</p> - -<p>"Of course!" rasped the chief. "It is the tradition—and what else -should we do?"</p> - -<p>Helsed licked his battered lips nervously. "Of course," he agreed. -"What else?"</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph1">V</p> - -<p>Torcred sat, head sunk limply in his hands, on the white salt beach -facing the lifeless sea. The throb of motors and swirl of dust behind -the departing terrapins had died down in the south; instead of hunting -today as planned from this camp, they had left the spot that had become -accursed. And Torcred sat numb with despair, passively waiting for the -end.</p> - -<p>Near him Ladna, the bird-girl rose to her feet. She looked in the other -direction, out over the lifeless waste of sand, and then at the man's -slumped, motionless figure.</p> - -<p>Her voice was hard and scorn-edged. "So—a terrapin shorn of his armor -is less than a bird clipped of her wings?"</p> - -<p>Torcred raised his head and looked at her glassy-eyed. "You heard," he -growled. "I'm not a terrapin any more."</p> - -<p>"You'll always be a terrapin to me," she said. "A miserable, beaten -crawler."</p> - -<p>He stared without understanding. Around them was the thirsty, deadly -desert; the sun was hot already, his mouth was dry, and the poisonous -sea lapped mockingly at its flat shore. The girl had been ready to die -when her aero crashed—but now her slender body was vibrant with the -will to live.</p> - -<p>But her bitter words could not fail of effect. Torcred stumbled erect -and snapped, "I'm not beaten until I'm dead! But—what chance do we -have?"</p> - -<p>She accepted the <i>we</i> with a faint smile, and said in a softer tone, -"There is an aero eyrie—not my own, but one with which we have -friendly relations—about seventy miles east of here, in those blue -mountains you can see. Perhaps we can make it there on foot."</p> - -<p>"That's all very well for you," said Torcred somberly. "But for -me—what could I expect from your people?"</p> - -<p>"We are not so narrow-minded as the terrapins. We see more and tolerate -more. You can be taken in and given tasks to perform in return for -your keep." She frowned at his doubt, and explained further, "Some -day—soon—we birds will rule all the Earth. And we do not want to wipe -out all the other races; we'll preserve them to do the jobs that must -be done on the ground, and all of our people will be free to fly."</p> - -<p>The picture of conquest she painted so naively repelled Torcred, reared -in the terrapin tradition of a barbaric individualistic freedom. "You -offer me slavery," he said harshly.</p> - -<p>"No, no," protested Ladna. "According to our law, you will be free to -leave if you wish." He snorted. "And—" she hesitated, "I will be in -the same condition, now that I have lost my wings."</p> - -<p>Torcred stared at the ground, shrugged. "It's better than dying -here—perhaps. And we may not make it. How fast can one travel on foot?"</p> - -<p>"Ten miles an hour?" the girl hazarded.</p> - -<p>"Less than that, I think. It will be a long way—and I know of no water -holes." Ladna shook her head at the question in his glance. "It may be -impossible to walk that far without water; I never heard of anyone's -doing it. But we can try."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The blue flat-topped mountains still shimmered unreally, far away as -ever, across the heated plain. The sun was at its height and the sand -was blistering. The two huddled in the scant shadow of a dune. Both -were sunburned, maddeningly thirsty, and discouraged. They could not -have covered more than a dozen miles before the heat had driven them to -seek shelter.</p> - -<p>They talked very little; as the burning midday dragged on, Ladna slept -for a time. When she woke she looked round feverishly, and a moan -escaped her lips.</p> - -<p>"What's the matter?" asked Torcred.</p> - -<p>"I was dreaming," the girl said in a choked voice, and, shockingly, two -tears rolled down her cheeks.</p> - -<p>"Don't cry," ordered Torcred harshly. "We've got to conserve all -possible moisture."</p> - -<p>She bit her lip, and no more tears came.</p> - -<p>When the shadows lengthened somewhat they set out again to the east. -During the morning they had seen some signs of life—had flattened -themselves on the ground while a cavalcade of fire-breathing dragons -passed one by one along the crest of a distant ridge, the long snouts -of their flame projectors thrusting before them, and had skirted a -colony of the queer crusty pillbox people who had sacrificed mobility -for an almost invulnerable security. But during the long afternoon the -desert seemed utterly empty. Only at dusk they saw, far over head, -three vast black shapes flying in wedge formation, and the drone of -motors beat down out of the hollow bowl of the sky.</p> - -<p>"Buzzards!" whispered the girl, and shrank against the sand.</p> - -<p>Torcred knew that the buzzards were the aero people's hereditary foes, -but that did not seem adequate to explain the bright bitterness of -hatred in the girl's eyes.... He was about to ask a question, when his -eyes caught movement in the near distance and he froze, mouth open.</p> - -<p>A hundred paces ahead on the way they had been going, atop a low mound, -stood a figure—a man in queer garments, not identifiable with any of -the races Torcred knew. When the Terrapin tried to make out his face, -the man seemed to waver in the fading light; then he raised a hand in a -gesture beckoning them toward him.</p> - -<p>The bird-girl, back to the apparition, looked wide-eyed wonder. Torcred -croaked wordlessly and pointed; and with the motion the stranger was -gone from the ridge.</p> - -<p>"What's the matter?" asked Ladna puzzledly.</p> - -<p>"Nothing," Torcred managed to get out. "The shadows play tricks...."</p> - -<p>As they crossed the rise, Torcred halted to tie a bootlace that didn't -need tying. There were no tracks in the soft sand. Torcred remembered -fearfully what he had heard of the visions that heralded death by -thirst—but even sane people saw things that weren't there, such as the -phantom lakes that had mocked them in the midday heat.</p> - -<p>But he had been sure that vision was looking at him....</p> - -<p>Two or three miles further on, it was almost dark. Torcred sank wearily -down in the lee of a high ridge. "We'd better stop here. Perhaps a -night's sleep will give us strength."</p> - -<p>The girl sighed. "I think we will die on this desert, terrapin."</p> - -<p>Torcred felt a stirring of the anger her use of that word always roused -in him. But he said only, "We've covered perhaps a third of the way. -Two more days, then."</p> - -<p>He remembered that pebbles in the mouth ease thirst; they tried that, -and it helped a little. Then they scooped hollows in the sand for -sleep. Ladna wriggled out of the heavy flying suit that, stickily -uncomfortable as it was, had protected her from the sun. The sleeveless -shirt and shorts she wore beneath clung damply to her; even through -a haze of exhaustion Torcred was stirred by the sight of her slender -body, her mildly rounded breasts and long straight legs....</p> - -<p>He slept like a log, and woke in the dim pearly light before dawn, -still tired, his mouth like a furnace.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>It was a moment before he realized that the bird-girl's piercing -whisper had wakened him, and sat up abruptly. Spots danced before his -eyes; he felt her hand tighten in warning on his arm.</p> - -<p>Then he saw by that ghostly light, not a hundred yards away, a thing of -nightmare.</p> - -<p>It was a huge gray monster of metal, a moving fortress going steadily -forward on endless treads that hardly dented the soft sand beneath -it, though it must have weighed half a hundred tons. Shod with -silicone-rubber, it rolled in an unreal silence, the purr of its engine -scarcely audible in the early hush, past the two frightened watchers -under the dune, and vanished over another crest.</p> - -<p>The girl still clutched Torcred's arm, finding perhaps some flimsy -reassurance in the resilient hardness of his tensed muscles. "What was -it?" she gasped.</p> - -<p>"That was a panzer," Torcred informed her in a low voice. "A big -relative of the terrapins, that prowls the desert alone, by night. It -carries a crew of three to six, can see in the dark and move without a -sound. It's one of the most formidable land machines in the world."</p> - -<p>Ladna drew a shuddering breath. "I hope it doesn't come back."</p> - -<p>"Don't worry. I told you it was nocturnal—at this hour it's hunting a -good safe spot to lie up for the day."</p> - -<p>The girl was wearily pulling on her coveralls; her fire-blue eyes were -clouded with hopelessness as they gazed into the gray dawn. "Perhaps it -would have been better if it had seen us—better than what's ahead of -us."</p> - -<p>Torcred did not answer; he was frowning in thought. Suddenly he rose to -his feet—wincing a little as he put his weight on them; with gentle -firmness he turned the girl around and faced her toward the west, -suggesting, "Let's go back a little way."</p> - -<p>"Back! Are you crazy, terrapin?"</p> - -<p>"Remember the wreck of an armadillo we saw about a quarter of a mile -back? I want to get something there."</p> - -<p>"That wreck was years old," sniffed Ladna. "There couldn't be any -supplies left in it."</p> - -<p>"I have an idea," said Torcred. Then, as he saw her unyielding -disbelief, "I intend to capture the panzer."</p> - -<p>And he trudged off purposefully to the west. The girl followed, still -protesting in an undertone, as all their argument had been carried -on. "You <i>are</i> sunstruck! That monster—and we've not got so much as -a knife—You might as well try to tear down that mountain peak," she -pointed toward a distant blue height, wreathed in cottony clouds, "with -your bare hands."</p> - -<p>"Maybe I will," said the Terrapin.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The smashed armadillo had long since been stripped of usable parts by -the desert's scavengers. The remaining wreckage was widely strewn, -half-buried in the sand and eaten by rust.</p> - -<p>Torcred searched with a grim intensity, tugging at the projecting -steel ribs. Some were deeply buried, others too badly bent, still -others too short. At last he found what he was looking for; a narrow -T-beam, six straight feet of alloy steel, light but tremendously -strong. He hefted it with satisfaction.</p> - -<p>"You don't intend to attack the panzer with that!" exclaimed Ladna.</p> - -<p>"I do," said Torcred. He looked into her wide blue eyes for a moment, -then pointed down at something that had been disturbed when he pried -loose the beam. A chalk-white skull with empty eyes. He kicked at it, -and it crumbled. "Of such are we made, bird-girl. A fragile framework -compared with the machines'. But alive, we have intelligence, and with -intelligence and this weapon I mean to take the panzer."</p> - -<p>They tramped eastward again, following their own tracks, under a sun -already growing hot. After a while the girl asked in a meek voice, "How -can you hope to do it?"</p> - -<p>Torcred smiled inwardly at the impression his—largely -assumed—confidence had made. He answered, "This morning I noticed some -of the thing's weaknesses."</p> - -<p>"It didn't look weak to me."</p> - -<p>"In the first place, its guns are set high on that huge frame—above -the housing of the treads. They couldn't hit a man standing right -beside it. And I think I can get that close to it, because it will -be resting now, the crew asleep—or one of them may be watching, but -he can't watch all ways at once. There will be automatic alarms, of -course, but I don't think they'll respond to anything as small and -harmless as a lone man."</p> - -<p>Ladna drew breath sharply. "Perhaps you're right—But even so, what -then? You can't dent its armor with that bar, and it can simply move -away and shoot you down!"</p> - -<p>"It has another weak point. It runs on caterpillar tracks—that is, -really, on wheels turning inside an endless belt that gives a wider -basis of support. But if any sizable, hard object finds its way between -wheel and track—"</p> - -<p>He paused significantly, and the bird-girl's eyes met his in a luminous -dawn of understanding and hope.</p> - -<p>They had no trouble finding the trail of the panzer. As he scanned -those yard-wide tracks, paralleling each other ten feet apart, -Torcred's grip tightened on his T-beam; it did not seem quite so thick -and heavy now, against all those tons of rolling metal might.</p> - -<p>But he had boasted recklessly, and he was going through with it if it -killed him.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph1">VI</p> - -<p>Stealthily they crept along the trail in the direction the monster had -taken, lying prone to peer with immense caution over the wave-crest of -each dune it had breached in crossing.</p> - -<p>Beyond the sixth or the seventh crest, it was there. Lying still in -a hollow of the sand, its gray paint blending with the drab earth to -make it almost invisible from the air—and its radar alarms, no doubt, -keeping watch for any moving threat. Encased in armor almost to the -ground, over the great treads, and its three rounded turrets astare -with guns.</p> - -<p>At first glimpse Torcred jerked his head back like the extinct land -reptile whose namesake he was. His palms grew sweaty and his insides -quivered. If he had been alone, he might have slid quietly down the -slope and stolen away, leaving his T-beam behind him. But he heard -Ladna's quickened breathing at his back, and knew she knew he had seen -the panzer.</p> - -<p>Before he could check her she had wriggled up beside him and peered -over the edge. When she drew back her face was shades paler beneath its -peeling sunburn. Her lips framed words: "Are you going to try?"</p> - -<p>Torcred nodded, jaw set. "You stay here," he hissed, and, gripping his -weapon, began to slither over the crest of the dune.</p> - -<p>When he was on the far side and nothing had happened, he felt -reasonably sure he had passed below the horizon of its radar. But he -continued to crawl, eyes fixed on the giant enemy, watching for the -first stir of motion about it that would be followed by a smoky blast -of death.</p> - -<p>Halfway there—Almost there—He reached the edge of the panzer's -shadow. Then he distinctly heard a low burring sound from inside it. -Alarm! A magnetic mine detector, probably, tripped by the metal beam; -Torcred realized that even as he flung himself forward in a scrambling -rush that carried him the rest of the way.</p> - -<p>The driver must have been alert. Even as Torcred caught himself with a -hand against the gray steel flank, the muffled motor throbbed into life -and the great machine surged forward.</p> - -<p>Torcred ran stooping beside it, eyes measuring the gap between armored -housing and racing tread. Seconds to live if he missed—already his -lungs were bursting and the great gray side was slipping past. With -both hands he drove the T-beam straight into that gap.</p> - -<p>It was wrenched from his hands, its end snapped off and hurled spinning -with terrific force. Then a grinding shriek of tormented metal, and the -panzer's vast mass shook and wheeled half round in a storm of sand as -the jammed tread stopped and slid.</p> - -<p>Almost before the machine had lurched to a full halt with a tremendous -clank and rattle, Torcred had snatched up the broken end of his bar and -was swarming up its side.</p> - -<p>In a moment he was perched atop it within easy reach of the single -exit port, leaning against the smooth warm steel, feet braced solidly -against the tread housing. A quick glance assured him that there were -no vision slits giving a view of the panzer's back to those inside. He -set himself and waited, controlling his labored breathing.</p> - -<p>The wait was not overlong. The panzer-men, seeing no attacker outside, -but having heard their alarm and found their machine inexplicably -crippled an instant later, had no choice but to come out and -investigate.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The port-cover swung aside, and a man's crash-helmeted head and -gray-clad shoulders emerged, back to Torcred. The Terrapin struck -viciously and dented the helmet; almost before its top slid out of -sight, he vaulted after it into the opening, disregarding the ladder.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus.jpg" alt=""/> - <div class="caption"> - <p><i>Torcred struck viciously, denting the man's helmet.</i></p> - </div> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>He landed in a tangle of arms and legs—the man he had stunned sprawled -atop another who struggled to free himself. Torcred sprang clear and, -across the cramped central compartment of the panzer, faced a third -gray-clad man with a drawn knife.</p> - -<p>Incredulity and fright were written large on the panzer-man's face. Out -of sheer desperation he lunged forward in a stabbing rush; but he was -no knife-fighter, and the two-foot length of steel in Torcred's hands -was a far superior weapon. The knife flew wide and its wielder stumbled -back, nursing a bruised forearm.</p> - -<p>Another figure appeared in the narrow door forward and stared at the -scene with popping eyes—the driver, no doubt. Torcred greeting him -with a ferocious grin and swung his club whistling back and forth. He -looked and felt invincible.</p> - -<p>Then Ladna's voice behind him screamed, "Torcred! Look out!"</p> - -<p>He whirled, and the knife-blade gashed his shoulder instead of sinking -into his back. Then Torcred struck a two-handed blow and felt bone -give way beneath it. He took a couple of steps back from the crumpled -body of the panzer-man who had unluckily disentangled himself from his -unconscious comrade, and set his back against a solid bulkhead; on his -face was still the savage grin that had frozen the driver in his tracks.</p> - -<p>The bird-girl dropped lightly from the ladder and came to his side, -scooping up the knife that was red with Torcred's blood. Her shining -eyes reflected his fierce elation of victory.</p> - -<p>Torcred realized that if he lost time his psychological advantage might -go with it. He snapped at the two remaining panzer-men, his voice -rasping strangely from his dry throat, "Quick! Do you want to live?"</p> - -<p>They stared at him dumbly; it was almost beyond their power to grasp -that this bloodstained, primitive being had got inside their defenses, -that the far-ranging guns whose breeches thrust into the compartment -were useless.</p> - -<p>Torcred took a step toward them, swinging his bar ominously. The man -who was clutching his right arm asked sullenly, "What are you? What do -you want?"</p> - -<p>"I am Torcred," and he added with brief thought, "the Terrible. And we -want very little from you—food, water, weapons from your stores. You -can keep your lumbering panzer; we've got no use for it." The two men -exchanged fearful glances, sure now they had to do with a mad creature. -He gave them no chance to think it out. "Right now, we want to look -around in peace. Ladna! Find something and tie them up."</p> - -<p>The girl, dagger in hand, opened the door of the rear compartment; a -whimper of terror came from the darkened interior, where two women and -an indeterminate number of offspring hugged one another in paralyzed -panic. Ladna spoke to them with a soothing softness that amazed -Torcred, rummaged inside and came out with a coil of strong wire. The -solitary panzer, an economy in itself, carried a little of everything.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Under the menace of Torcred's club, the terrorized panzer-men -submitted. Then the two invaders found the machine's provisions, and -satisfied first their raging thirst and afterwards the hunger that had -been forgotten in the face of the greater need for water. But Ladna -broke off eating to bandage Torcred's slashed shoulder with strips torn -from a gray garment.</p> - -<p>It was then he remembered to scold her. "What did you mean," he -demanded between bites, "by rushing in here, after I distinctly told -you to keep in the clear?"</p> - -<p>Her blue answering gaze held an impudence that was a new thing to him. -"I saw you had stopped it, Torcred the Terrible, so I came. And—where -would you have been if I hadn't?" Her strong slender fingers closed for -a moment painfully on his wounded shoulder.</p> - -<p>He was silent, remembering with a queer excitement what her warning cry -had been. "Torcred!" not "Terrapin!" ...</p> - -<p>The bandage finished, he stood up and said brusquely, "We'd better get -ready to leave."</p> - -<p>"You plan to go on foot again—now that we've captured a machine?"</p> - -<p>"It's the only sensible way," asserted Torcred flatly. "Neither of us -knows how to repair the caterpillar tread, or, if we managed that, how -to maneuver and fight the panzer; if we were attacked, it would be a -death trap for us. Afoot, we're in very little danger—what machine of -prey would be likely to consider us worthy of notice?"</p> - -<p>They looted the best of the provisions, and the girl's deft fingers -fashioned for each a strap of sorts from a roil of cellotex fabric. -Torcred went up to the driver's cabin, located the engine under the -floor, and did things to it that would keep the panzer immobilized -until long after the blowing sand should have covered their traces. The -woman could untie their men as soon as they gained courage to come out -of hiding....</p> - -<p>Terrapin and bird-girl set their faces to the east and began to trek -again. They trudged on with lightened hearts.</p> - -<p>They had gone about a mile when a fold of the land revealed a wide -swathe of desert dotted with camouflaged steel hemispheres, mostly -buried in the sand—a big colony of the pillbox people.</p> - -<p>They ducked back behind the shelter of the sand-hills and began what -looked like the shortest detour. Suddenly Ladna, glancing back the way -they had come, cried out sharply.</p> - -<p>Torcred turned, and saw a plume of dust above the far-off dunes—then -a gray scurrying beetle-thing that rose to a crest, vanished, and -reappeared on a nearer swell.</p> - -<p>It was a terrapin, travelling fast, and as it raced closer there was -less and less doubt that it was following their own plainly marked -trail. Torcred strained his eyes through the heat-shimmer to make out -the identifying mark on its blunt nose; he stiffened, and his hand -dropped to the knife he had taken from the panzer.</p> - -<p>"Helsed! He's picked up our trail somehow—but what does he want?"</p> - -<p>"The fat terrapin, the one that twisted my arm? I think I know," the -bird-girl said in a low voice.</p> - -<p>Torcred's dark face went hard as flint. His mind seethed: there was -no hiding here, no use trying to flee from the hundred-mile-an-hour -pursuer—or was there?</p> - -<p>Uncertain, he stood stockstill. The girl pressed shivering against him. -Helsed would not open fire, of course, for fear of hitting her; there -might be a chance of parleying. If he could only lure the fellow into -the open—</p> - -<p>The Terrapin swung broadside—on a stone's throw from them. Its door -opened, and Helsed half slid out of the seat. He eyed the pair, swarthy -brows rising in seeming amusement.</p> - -<p>"Ah, still together," he observed. "Torcred, my dear fellow—you -shouldn't be traveling in such company, even in your present status. -Suppose you run along and let me take care of her."</p> - -<p>Torcred controlled his voice with an effort, "<i>You're</i> a terrapin in -good standing, Helsed. Would you discard your honor—"</p> - -<p>The other smirked. "Don't worry. I'm not a fool like you; I won't take -her home with me."</p> - -<p>Torcred ground his teeth. "You're crazy!"</p> - -<p>"I had to leave the hunt and make good time to catch you—I don't feel -like being disappointed." The viciousness in Helsed's smooth voice -crept into the open. "And I have a score to settle with you anyway." -He jerked the terrapin's door shut, and its nose gun started to swing -around.</p> - -<p>Torcred spun and ran, crouching, knowing the girl would follow. They -plunged over the dune-top close together; the terrapin's gun wavered -and did not fire, then its motor snarled into life and it bounded after -them.</p> - -<p>Torcred, with Ladna close behind, ran panting down the windward slope, -straight toward a cluster of domed, sunken structures. Sheer amazement -of the pillbox-dwellers must have kept them alive so far; every moment -he expected a murderous barrage.</p> - -<p>It came. The nearest pillbox erupted flame, and beyond it others. The -explosions rolled flatly, echoless across the desert. Torcred caught -the girl round the waist and flung her down beside him; hugging the -ground, he raised his head slightly and looked back.</p> - -<p>The terrapin swerved agilely among spouting columns of sand. Then all -its wheels left the ground at once, it tilted in the air and rolled -over and over down the long slope of the dune. Black smoke poured from -its punctured armor.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph1">VII</p> - -<p>Torcred stared long at the blackened wreck, hardly noting that the -guns were silent, the haze settling. He knew none of the exhilaration -that had been his when he took the panzer; a sickish sensation nested -in his stomach. He had killed—by subterfuge, true, but killed all the -same—a brother-terrapin, and now in his own mind rose up against him a -lifetime's training, all the blood-ties with his own kind....</p> - -<p>His own kind. The terrapins. But were they? <i>What was he?</i></p> - -<p>The breeze, laden with sharp smoke of explosive, made his eyes twitch -and smart. He blinked, and saw the man standing on the dune's edge -above them. Much nearer this time, so that there could be no doubt that -the eyes were looking at him, that the lips smiled. That smile, and the -careless stance that went with it, seemed to radiate confident power.</p> - -<p>Beside Torcred the girl gasped, and he knew with sudden relief that she -too had seen the stranger.</p> - -<p>And so did the others. The bright air was split again by thunder as -some touchy pillbox fired a shell. It struck squarely at the stranger's -feet, and they saw him blown to fragments. But the burst drifted down -the wind, things crawled and flickered in the air, and he was there -again, smiling more broadly than before. He glanced aside, at the -smashed terrapin, then back at Torcred, and raised his right hand in -a gesture—thumb and finger forming a circle—that some of the desert -peoples used as a sign of approval and encouragement.</p> - -<p>Then he rippled slightly, like a reflection in water, and was gone.</p> - -<p>Torcred was hardly conscious of how they squirmed out of range of the -pillbox people's venomous annoyance. Ladna, brushing tangled black hair -out of her eyes, was first to break the silence.</p> - -<p>"Was that what you saw yesterday?"</p> - -<p>"Uh-huh," admitted Torcred glumly. "But you saw. He wasn't real at all."</p> - -<p>"Did we see the same? He was blown to bits, and reassembled himself -unhurt?" Torcred nodded. "Then there was something there."</p> - -<p>"What?" he demanded, irked by her superior reasoning.</p> - -<p>"I don't know.... But I remember something. A month ago, a man in -strange clothing like that—a real man of flesh and blood—came to -our eyrie. No one knew where he came from, or where he went when they -laughed him to scorn."</p> - -<p>"They laughed—why?"</p> - -<p>"Because he talked about 'civilization' to every one who would -listen—but he didn't seem to realize that the civilization of the -air is necessarily the highest. And he said we should make peace with -all other creatures—even the buzzards!—and refrain from hunting, -and practise photosynthesis like the lesser races." She wrinkled her -peeling nose. "If that weren't enough, he mixed his talk with old -legends—stories of the ancients, and the floating cities."</p> - -<p>"I've heard—" Torcred began, looking impressed. The girl smiled -loftily.</p> - -<p>"Those are tales that have lost their substances, fit for the young, -the ignorant, and the uncivilized. Certainly the great ancients -existed—they were an air-people like us, who ruled the world long ago, -as we shall in time to come. But that they were immortal and are still -alive, drifting somewhere in midocean out of sight of land—that's -nonsense."</p> - -<p>"Maybe so," Torcred grunted stolidly. In the cosmogony he knew, the -ancients were mighty terrapin heroes of the world's youth, from whose -stock all other races had degenerated; they still lived somewhere, -and would return to make the terrapins supreme again.... He said -matter-of-factly, "If you want to know what I think—we are being -watched, by something that is alive and powerful <i>here</i> and <i>now</i>."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Ladna started and looked nervously round. She had begun to respect the -Terrapin's shrewd native intelligence. As they plodded on across the -desert, she said no more, infected by his dark preoccupation.</p> - -<p>But in Torcred's brain the question of the stranger's identity loomed -less large than that of his own. What was he? Ex-warrior and hunter, -ex-hero, ex-terrapin—he could think of things he had been and was not.</p> - -<p><i>I am a—</i></p> - -<p>He had no word. Outcast, traitor, criminal? A newborn pride in him -rebelled against the labels he would have accepted without question -before his battle with the panzer. He had earned a name, but he had no -name.</p> - -<p>The west veiled its face in flame again, and darkness overtook them in -the wilderness. Torcred dreamed that he stood naked in the middle of a -vast circle of formidable machines that snarled and hooted, demanding -his name and lineage; and he had no answer. In desperation he cried, "I -am I!"—and a thousand motors roared, the armored mass rolled inward to -crush him.</p> - -<p>He woke staring into a dawn-lit sky where a black flight of buzzards -droned northward thousands of feet overhead.</p> - -<p>Ladna was awake too and looking up, the old tense fear-born hatred -expressed in every line of her body.</p> - -<p>"They're insolent," she murmured half to herself. "So close.... This -is already my people's land," she explained to Torcred, and her gaze -led his toward the mountains, where gray and red and yellow cliffs and -slopes stood out now from the blue haze of the canyons. "I don't know -how those buzzards dare to fly so near."</p> - -<p>"Why do you hate them so?" asked Torcred.</p> - -<p>"They're evil. They want to rule the world."</p> - -<p>"Well—" Torcred scowled, still out of sorts after his nightmare. -"Don't you bird-folk have the same grand plans?"</p> - -<p>"That's different!" she cried vehemently. "Don't dare to compare us -to the buzzards! We're hunters, like the terrapins, but the buzzards -kill and destroy for sport. The milk of their mothers is bitter with -cruelty! Oh, if those things should win—" she made a swift gesture to -ward off evil—"you'll learn what terror can be!"</p> - -<p>A skeptical part of Torcred's mind reflected that that was one side's -story. But he wanted to believe the girl when her blue eyes blazed so -and her voice trembled with passion. Once he had wanted to hurt her and -humble her. That had been long ago....</p> - -<p>But there was a strained silence between them as they made ready to -resume the march.</p> - -<p>They had hardly gone fifty paces when they heard again the noise of -engines aloft, nearer this time, and looking up saw a second trio of -buzzards passing over. But one of these had left the others and was -dropping steeply earthward, heading, it seemed, straight toward them.</p> - -<p>Torcred stared stupidly at the great machine—it could not possibly -mean to attack them in their utter insignificance. Ladna was less -confident; she shrilled, "Down!" and Torcred dropped to all fours and -flattened himself to the sand beside her, just as the buzzard leveled -off and shot overhead so low that they could see the landing wheels -folded like talons under it, could see a door open in its black belly. -Something appeared through the aperture and vanished in the speed of -its fall. The buzzard had laid an egg, and it hatched mere yards away -with a flash and roar that left them blinded, deafened, smothered, -feeling that the earth had heaved up to meet the falling sky and pinned -them between.</p> - -<p>Torcred sat up, swaying, his head a ringing void. He glimpsed Ladna's -face, tears of rage furrowing the grime of sand on her cheeks as she -glared after the receding and climbing buzzard.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>And not far away, among loose heaps of sand on the rim of the blast -crater, he saw a strange thing. A massive cone of metal, with the -spiral grooves and flanges of a screw, thrust slantingly from the -ground; it was turning slowly, earth dropping from it, and as he stared -it turned faster and moved forward and upward, drawing after it a -glistening rounded back.</p> - -<p>Dazedly Torcred walked toward the thing, and as he did so a port-cover -lifted in the armored back and a man's head thrust out. He blinked at -Torcred with a look of stunned confusion.</p> - -<p>"What happened?" demanded the mole in a shaken voice. "I was coming -up for a breath of air, then—<i>bang</i>!" He looked around wildly. "My -garden! What have they done to my garden?"</p> - -<p>The moles, Torcred knew, made gardens—sheets of cellotex impregnated, -like the sun-screens of the trailers and like machines, with -photosynthetic chemicals. Even the predators left them alone, for the -most part, since the moles were a peaceful and harmless race. That, -then, had been the bomb's target.</p> - -<p>The mole peered at Torcred, seemed to come to himself. "What are you?" -he gasped, and without waiting for an answer, ducked inside. The -hatch-cover slammed, the great screw reversed and revolved furiously, -and the burrowing machine slowly sank from sight under the sand.</p> - -<p>"Now do you believe me—about <i>them</i>?" demanded Ladna's stifled voice.</p> - -<p>Torcred nodded slowly, feeling sorry for the poor frightened mole, and -rather surprised at himself for it, as he had been when he had spared -the beaten crew of the panzer.... Torcred the Terrapin was never like -that. Mechanically his fingers caressed the half-healed mark on his -forehead.</p> - -<p>The girl's tongue seemed loosened by their near escape, and as they -journeyed on, she talked, with a calm bitterness now, of the enemy. -Torcred knew vaguely that, somewhere far to the north, was Buzzard -Base, an immense fortress with subterranean dwellings and hangars where -the black monsters bred and swarmed. Ladna enlightened him further. -"Some of our spies"—the word meant nothing to Torcred—"got inside -the place not long ago. They reported things stirring, the buzzards -building airframes and engines at a furious rate, obviously planning a -new move. Naturally, we increased our construction tempo to keep pace -with them, but we've been puzzled; you see, there were rumors that -the chief buzzards were worried about something else, besides the old -dragging stalemate. But whatever it was, they were keeping it secret -even from their own rank and file."</p> - -<p>Torcred shook his head bewilderedly; he was lost in her world with its -vastness and complexity of organization and politics and schemes for -domination. With the openmindedness of confusion he had to admit that -the civilization of the air was such as the free terrapins did not -dream of.... And he felt an inward hurt as, in the girl's talk of her -people and their life, he sensed the widening of the distance between -them, which had almost dwindled away while they wandered and struggled -to survive and nearly died together in the desert.</p> - -<p>But the mountains were close now, and they made good time that day. -They did not need to evade any of the prowling land machines, for the -desert here was utterly empty, unmarked by wheels, under the threat of -the desolate plateaus above and ahead, from which deadly flying things -ranged far and wide.</p> - -<p>A couple of times they glimpsed winged squadrons in the sky, and the -girl's eyes shone, and the shadow on Torcred's face grew deeper.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>As evening came on, the mesas rose bare and sheer before them out of -the sandy waste. They climbed laboriously over smooth rock and gravel -slides; Ladna led the way upward, trying to sight landmarks that were -meant to be seen from the air.</p> - -<p>At last she gave a little cry of joy, and pointed up the dry streambed -they were ascending. Torcred looked, and saw nothing but the -rock-rimmed head of the canyon; but the girl had seen some sign that -wholly escaped him. "We're practically there!"</p> - -<p>Behind her back Torcred passed a hand across his eyes. "Well, then," he -said with assumed casualness, "you'll be all right from here on."</p> - -<p>She whirled and gave him a searching look. "What are you talking about?"</p> - -<p>Torcred's jaw muscles twitched. "I'm wishing you a happy homecoming," -he answered, "by way of saying goodbye."</p> - -<p>"But you're coming with me!... Aren't you?... What else can you do?"</p> - -<p>He shook his head somberly. "I'm too used to freedom, Ladna. I'll take -my chances with the desert again."</p> - -<p>"I told you my people will accept you, and your fate among them will -be no worse than mine...." Her protest trailed off as she read the -inflexible refusal in his impassive face.</p> - -<p>"Earth and sky can't meet." He looked back down the canyon, toward -where a wedge of the barren plain, pink with reflected sunset, showed -between the rock walls. Then the girl was in front of him again. Her -eyes were very large, and her red lips spoke no more useless words of -pleading.</p> - -<p>Instead—her hands were on his shoulders, her arms slipped round -his neck as her slim body swayed against him, her face blurred with -nearness, tilted up....</p> - -<p>Gravely, according to the terrapin custom, Torcred touched noses with -her.</p> - -<p>He felt her go tense, and she drew back. Her eyes glistened with a -shock and disappointment he was at a loss to understand. She said in a -choked voice, "Good-bye!" and turned and fled up the ravine.</p> - -<p>Mechanically Torcred picked up the satchel with the remainder of her -share of the food and water, which she had remembered to leave behind. -His muscles tightened with a violent urge to run after her and bring -her back by force.</p> - -<p>But how could he hold her with him? She still had her place, however -small, in the world of machines that had cast him out.... Suddenly he -hated them all without exception, all the iron monsters that ruled -the world in whose sight flesh and blood were helpless, hopeless, as -nothing.</p> - -<p>He stumbled down the mountain, going into an exile lonelier than that -stigmatized by the brand on his forehead. Yet withal, loneliness and -hatred, he felt a curious inner peace. His brain was no longer a -battlefield of hostile allegiances and longings. He still had no name -for what he had become. But it didn't matter any more.</p> - -<p>He reached the bottom of the last rock slide, and looked back; in the -failing light he could just make out the mesa rim, above which must lie -the aeros' eyrie. Nothing moved up there. She would be at home now, -among her own kind.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph1">VIII</p> - -<p>When he turned away, he saw the stranger standing not far off, beneath -a great stone promontory that thrust out into the sea of sand, his back -to a deep black cleft in the rock. Torcred could see his face clearly -this time, and this time it was unsmiling, the brows drawn together -and lips compressed in an expression of anxiety. The stranger beckoned -with a jerky urgency, half-turned, and pointed toward the crevice of -the cliff.</p> - -<p>Torcred took a step toward him, his anger boiling up dangerously, blood -drumming in his ears. "What are you?" he shouted. "What do you want? -You've dogged my steps, watched me, and applauded my downfall. Now -what—"</p> - -<p>The stranger's eyes shifted, and he moved his head as if listening to -a voice that Torcred did not hear. His eyes widened with alarm, and he -vanished like a blown-out flame.</p> - -<p>Torcred blinked baffledly. The hand on the hilt of his knife relaxed, -but the roaring in his ears grew louder. Almost it might be real....</p> - -<p>He threw back his head and looked up. Far above, individually almost -indistinguishable in the pale twilight sky but making it alive with -their massed formations, V after V of black flying shapes were moving. -The air throbbed with the vibrant roar of many engines.</p> - -<p>The leading squadrons were already over the mountain when the first -dart of flame leaped from it and climbed with a whistling rush to meet -them. Others followed, the clatter of their guns mingling with the -multiple crescendo shriek of the first sticks of falling bombs.</p> - -<p>Torcred crouched involuntarily, bracing himself for the concussions -that must shake earth and air.... But only dull thudding sounds -rolled down from the mesa, as if the rain of projectiles fell without -exploding.</p> - -<p>Over the mountain two buzzards dropped out of formation and wobbled -earthward, trailing smoke down the sky, and a third burst into bright -flame and disintegrated in a meteoric shower. New formations still came -droning out of the north—the buzzards were attacking in force. Their -bombs kept landing with sullen thumps, almost inaudible under the roar -of motors, the sputter of guns and the flat reports of aerial cannon.</p> - -<p>But to Torcred, hugging the lee of a great boulder and trying with -straining eyes to pierce the darkness that increasingly shrouded the -mesa, those dull incessant impacts became an ominous sound. Ladna had -gone up there—she had had plenty of time to reach safety in the buried -heart of the eyrie, which even the mightiest explosives could scarcely -touch—but without knowing why, Torcred edged out of his shelter and -began once more, creeping from rock to rock, to clamber up the steep -ravine that the two of them had ascended together.</p> - -<p>He had not progressed far—in the dark the uncertain footing was -dangerous—when the breeze, sighing down the canyon with cool -mountain-top air for the hot plain, brought confirmation of his fear -with it.</p> - -<p>A whiff of strange odor that stung in his nostrils and tickled his -windpipe harshly. Then his eyes began to smart as it grew rapidly -stronger; the gas the buzzards had used to blanket the mesa was a -dense one, designed to seek out the aero people in the depths of their -underground fortress.</p> - -<p>Torcred halted, blinking, struggling with the growing need to cough. He -recognized the odor after a moment—the same poison that the machines -called skunks used against their enemies. He knew that enough of it was -deadly. And a cold hand of terror clutched at his heart.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He flung caution from him and started to scramble recklessly, -planlessly upward. Denser clouds of gas met him, and, half-blinded, -he stumbled against sharp rocks and almost fell when fits of coughing -shook him. His chest became a rasping furnace, and each deep panting -breath was a flame. Bitterly he knew that his will could not drive him -much longer into that torment....</p> - -<p>In the air something flew burning, and the light of its destruction -fell bright as day into the canyon and threw shifting shadows. -Torcred's tear-filled eyes blurred the glare, but he glimpsed a small -dark-clad figure huddled on the rocks not ten feet from him, across a -black crevice that might be five or fifty feet deep.</p> - -<p>He crouched and sprang; weakened knees betrayed him, he landed clawing -on the rounded lip of the chasm and barely managed to pull himself up -to the girl's side. But new strength steeled him as he gathered his -feet under him and dragged both her and himself erect.</p> - -<p>Ladna was alive and conscious; she leaned against him, coughing weakly.</p> - -<p>"I was coming back," she gasped in his ear. "I'd have been up there ... -but I was coming back ... to you...."</p> - -<p>Torcred hardly understood her. "Come on!" he croaked. "Down!"</p> - -<p>The way seemed immeasurably longer than the way up had been. It was -really a little longer—the gas was settling fast—until, staggering, -each half-supporting the other, they reached a level where the air -was no longer choking poison. Ladna grew able to stand alone; swaying -a little, she followed Torcred down the treacherous slides in the -canyon's mouth.</p> - -<p>On the soft wind-piled sand below the great rifted rock, where Torcred -had last seen the visionary stranger, they sank down to rest by common -consent. Torcred listened anxiously to the girl's hoarse breathing.</p> - -<p>He moistened his lips and asked, "How do you feel?"</p> - -<p>Ladna stirred and sat up with an effort that set her coughing again. -"I'll be all right.... We'll go back into the desert, and live there -somehow, as long—as long as we live."</p> - -<p>"That's right," said Torcred. In the dark she couldn't see how his face -grew grim at the thought of how short their life together was likely to -be.</p> - -<p>He raised his head, sniffing the air. A thin sharp taint, reminiscent -of stifling agony, told him they must be up and moving soon. The gas -was diffusing but still dangerous; up yonder on the plateau, where it -had been concentrated, it must have left nothing save desolation and -death....</p> - -<p>Only then did he become aware, with a start of amazement, of the great -silence that enfolded mountain, sky, and desert.</p> - -<p>The air, at least, which had snarled with motors not twenty minutes -earlier, should still have echoed to the sound of battle. But the sky -was empty.</p> - -<p>No, not empty—abruptly landing lights cut a brilliant swathe far out -on the desert. The buzzard pilot saw he had misjudged his altitude -and tried to pull up, the huge ship stalled and its lights went out as -it plowed into the ground. Before the sound of its crash reached the -mountain's foot, a pillar of fire was mounting above the dunes, and -they saw that the air was full of machines, attackers and defenders -alike in one confused flitting swarm, wheeling, dipping and always -drifting downward, unpowered.</p> - -<p>Ladna gasped, "What's happened? The buzzards—"</p> - -<p>"I don't know. Maybe your people—"</p> - -<p>"They're not my people any more," she interrupted swiftly. "Whatever -you are, I am too.... And anyway, all the engines are dead."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Torcred got up stiffly. On the desert between them and the fire, an -aero glided down, bounced and rolled to a shaky landing. Its pilot -dropped to the ground and stood staring at his useless machine; he did -not even look up as a buzzard passed low over him with a rush of wings, -touched ground and slewed round a short way off with a broken landing -gear. Small figures spilled out of it too, their movements expressing -the same dazed lack of understanding. The enemies paid each other no -heed.</p> - -<p>The smell of gas was stronger. The desert would be littered with -aircraft, but they shouldn't have much trouble slipping through.... -Still Torcred frowned, hesitating. He turned with sudden resolution to -the girl.</p> - -<p>"Wait here. There's something I have to find out; but it won't take -long."</p> - -<p>"No!" Ladna struggled to her feet. "I'll go with you."</p> - -<p>Torcred started to protest, then changed his mind. He turned silently -toward the cliff whose blank stone face was lit redly by the dying -fire, its great fissure a dark gulf of mystery.</p> - -<p>Inside the cleft it was pitchblack, but the footing was smooth, packed -sand. Torcred felt his way between rock walls. At first he heard only -the scufflings the girl made, groping behind him, and then he was -conscious of a faint all-pervading hum. Something was humming deep in -the rock, and Torcred felt sure now that he was going to find the -meaning of the visions and of the battle's uncanny end.</p> - -<p>He was hardly surprised when white light shone in the fissure ahead and -a man appeared, black against it. The figure's outline was familiar. -The stranger spoke—his first word in a strange tongue, but the rest -intelligible enough though oddly pronounced.</p> - -<p>"Ahoy, there! We'd almost given you up."</p> - -<p>Torcred advanced warily. The stranger did not flicker nor vanish. A -door was open, and the white light poured out from a chamber that -must have been a natural hollow, laboriously enlarged in the stone. -Torcred's hand shot out and gripped the man's arm above the elbow; the -stranger started, then relaxed, and Torcred caught a flash of the grin -he had seen before.</p> - -<p>"I'm real," said the stranger. "I wasn't the other times we've met—but -that's one of the things Captain Relez will explain to you. Now come -inside, before the air out here gets any thicker."</p> - -<p>Cautiously Torcred edged into the brightly-lit room, keeping in front -of Ladna. He saw in the cramped space a glittering confusion of -unfamiliar devices—it was the flimsiness of most of the apparatus -that was most surprising; the terrapins and other races built mostly -machinery designed to withstand heavy mechanical forces, but a blow of -the hand would shatter most of those things of wire and glass tubes. A -young man, hunched over a complex control panel beside a glass screen -on which a darkly indistinct image floated, glanced up with narrowed -eyes, and an older one with a small pointed beard met Torcred's -suspicious gaze benignly, over a small table on which a map was spread, -studded with colored pins.</p> - -<p>Then Torcred heard the door click, and whirled, hand on his knife.</p> - -<p>"It's not locked," the bearded man said calmly. "You can leave if you -like—but we've gone to a good deal of trouble to persuade you here for -a talk."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Torcred faced him again, still tensely ready. The setup here didn't -look dangerous, only incomprehensible. But he sensed power in this -little room; the deep potent hum he had heard in the fissure was at -home here, though he could not locate its source.</p> - -<p>"My name is Relez." The bearded man rose from behind his table, "Dunu, -you can take care of the chart."</p> - -<p>"Aye, aye, sir," said the young man they had seen as a phantom in the -desert, and Torcred bristled again at the alien jargon. But Relez' -casual manner was reassuring.</p> - -<p>He gestured at a shelf cut into the stone. "Have a seat." Torcred -obeyed mechanically, and Ladna huddled beside him. Torcred stared -fascinated at the screen. A scene had resolved itself there—one of -incredible, nostalgic familiarity. It was the twice-ringed camp of the -terrapins, unmistakable to Torcred though he saw it now from a strange -angle, from above. All the machines were in place, as was normal after -nightfall. Torcred half started to his feet.</p> - -<p>Then he saw what was not normal for that or any hour in a terrapin -camp. A confusion of bobbing lights among the cars; the shop area in -the midst was almost deserted, but against the reddening fires of the -forges tiny black figures scurried to and fro like distracted ants. -He could almost hear the cries of alarm and exasperation over the -discovery that not a functioning engine was left in the whole troop.</p> - -<p>Torcred turned and caught Relez smiling in his beard.</p> - -<p>"You did that!"</p> - -<p>Relez nodded. "Unfortunately, we didn't get the anti-ionization field -into operation in time to prevent the buzzards' gas attack. But there -won't be any more fighting tonight, unless they do it with knives. -It's a bit of luck that none of these people seem to have any notion -of portable firearms. No more mechanized warfare, though, as long as -that unit is working." He gestured at a thing of massive coils and bus -bars and fragile glowing tubes, from which, Torcred perceived now, the -humming came.</p> - -<p>Ladna's blue eyes were wide. "That little device—has stopped all the -machines?"</p> - -<p>"It broadcasts a wave form that affects the molecules of air, of all -gases, inhibiting their ionization. So no spark can jump, and motors -are stopped when their electric ignition fails. The only machines -that can move now, inside its range, are the moles, with their -battery-driven electric motors for underground travel—which is lucky -for them, or they'd be trapped under the earth.</p> - -<p>"Everything else—terrapins, trailers, aeros, buzzards, and all -the rest—are paralyzed. Our field's range blankets five hundred -thousand square miles. Beyond that area, others are responsible for -administering the same treatment; it already began a month ago on the -coast—"</p> - -<p>"What are you?" Torcred burst out. "What do you want?"</p> - -<p>"We three—Dunu, Rhenu, and I—are the Continental Demilitarization -Commission for this area. As to what we are trying to do, that will -take some explaining—"</p> - -<p>"I meant," Torcred scowled, dissatisfied, "what is your race?"</p> - -<p>Relez regarded him strangely. "The same as yours. The race of man."</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph1">IX</p> - -<p>They came of peoples which had no history, only legend and tradition. -And they learned—</p> - -<p>That there was such a thing as history, recorded in books; Relez showed -them such a book, which they could not read, because neither of them -could understand more than the code markings on mechanical parts.</p> - -<p>That the storied ancients, whose powers were marvelous and whose end -was terrible, had really existed and had left their record in writing.</p> - -<p>How after the great wars that had almost seared his life from the -Earth's surface, when man's weapons—and his medical science—had -wiped out every creature save the indestructible destroyer himself, -the machine races had risen from the shreds of technical knowledge -hoarded by the scattered groups of survivors and crystallized by their -descendants in the rigid mold of tradition. And how that last war had -never ended, but had passed into the nature of things in the unending -war of the predatory machines against the feeders on sunlight, and of -the races of land and air and sea for mastery of their habitats.</p> - -<p>"But no matter who wins, no man is master; the machine is the ruler, -and man is its slave. It is against that we have begun to fight, now, -after all the long dark ages...."</p> - -<p>For one place on all the harried Earth had provided the relative -security and permanence needed to keep alive a spark of the ancients' -culture. That was aboard the great ships at sea, that had been built -and armed to resist every hellish technique of destruction known to the -dead age of their building, and were wholly invulnerable to today's -weapons. Those were floating cities in truth, with atomic power plants, -machine shops, dwellings, hospitals, storehouses, recreation space, -libraries—and in the later times, when their first purpose as warships -had been almost forgotten, classrooms and laboratories where the -knowledge of the past was dredged up from the memories of men and from -the books, and even added to in some ways.</p> - -<p>"We have built up the nucleus of a new civilization on the sea," said -Relez solemnly. "Now the time has come for it to take root on the dry -land. But first the continents must be pacified. The world must be -taken from the warring machines and given back to man.</p> - -<p>"We possess some of the old ones' weapons, and we could try to use -them to enforce our will, as they did. And I think our end would be -like theirs. But we have invented some new devices to serve the cause -of peace. The anti-ionization field is chief among those. I myself had -some share in developing it—my title of 'captain' means leader of a -group of scientists, not master of a ship."</p> - -<p>"Is there no defense against the field?" asked Torcred shrewdly.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Relez eyed him thoughtfully. "There are ways of avoiding the effect," -he admitted, "but they are not likely to occur to these custom-bound -people. And once they are liberated from the tyranny of the machine—"</p> - -<p>"Your method of liberation," said Torcred, "is to reduce everyone to an -equal helplessness, and let them fight it out among themselves?"</p> - -<p>"You might put it that way. I'm afraid there will be some bloodshed. -The predatory peoples, naturally, will have the hardest time at first. -But—Suppose <i>you</i> tell <i>me</i> what you think will happen, for example, -when the terrapins come in contact, under the new conditions, with -their old enemies and prey, the trailer people."</p> - -<p>"Why—at first they will be afraid to venture out of the camp. Then, -when the food supply runs low, they will begin to think of attacking -the stalled trailer herd on foot. A quick raid, by determined men with -knives and clubs, might work once or twice, but not after that, because -the trailer people are much more numerous, and, once recovered from the -first confusion and organized, they could defend themselves...."</p> - -<p>"But if you were chief of the terrapins, what would you do?"</p> - -<p>Torcred thought hard, intrigued in spite of himself. "I think—I would -try to get some of the sun-machines the trailers use. In order to have -an independent supply of food and power, you understand. That lightning -raid, perhaps—but it would be hard to dismantle the screens and escape -with them. No, I think I would try to bargain with the trailers. They -have no radar scanners; if their suspicions could be allayed, they'd be -willing to trade a few of their sun-screens for some terrapin sighting -devices."</p> - -<p>"Not realizing that those have lost their value, now that all aircraft -are grounded," said Relez with a smile. "It might work. And overcoming -the suspicions may prove easier than you think, when men begin to meet -each other under the open sky, and realize that their hates never -belonged to them, but to the machines they served...."</p> - -<p>"I don't know about the buzzards," murmured Ladna dubiously.</p> - -<p>Relez disregarded that. "What we need now is helpers. The -anti-ionization field is the catalyst of peace, but if it is to work -quickly, the confused peoples must have guidance.</p> - -<p>"We've done a little advance missionary work among the more civilized -and approachable tribes, both in the flesh, and by teleprojection, as -Dunu appeared to you in the wilderness. The televiewer, incidentally, -is another of our new developments; the old machines of that type used -both a transmitter and receiver, but this one works on the principle -you can see once in a while in nature, when atmospheric refraction is -just right to reassemble the light from a distant object and project -its picture in the air. Only very recently we perfected the reverse -application of the effect, so that under good conditions we can project -a three-dimensional image—mirage—over large distances.</p> - -<p>"But those methods are inadequate for working directly on the minds of -the peoples. Few as we are, we can't appear openly as authors of the -change; for the time being, let them think it a natural phenomenon. -However," his eyes met Torcred's and held them in a challenging gaze, -"very much could be done to smooth a people's way toward civilization -by an agent who belongs by birth to it...."</p> - -<p>"I was a terrapin once," said Torcred steadily. "Now I am a man of -the race of man. And in the eyes of the terrapins I am an outcast, -accursed."</p> - -<p>"I know. But your very return, when they think you dead, may help the -break-down of the old habits and customs.... I don't say it will be -easy. But I believe the desert has sharpened your wits."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Torcred considered. The mark on his forehead burned, but he remembered -how there had been compassion in Vazcled's face even as he wielded the -knife, and that his worst enemy was discreditably dead in the desert. -"Perhaps," he muttered.</p> - -<p>"If you go back," said Ladna quietly, "I go too."</p> - -<p>Relez stroked his beard. "That might make trouble."</p> - -<p>The girl turned on him, electric fire in her look. "None of your -business!"</p> - -<p>Relez smiled. "On the other hand, maybe it will be for the best—a step -forward in contact between the peoples."</p> - -<p>Torcred felt a new strength and confidence born of Ladna's loyalty. He -said, "Your scheme is good, if it will work. I will—<i>we</i> will help -you make it work."</p> - -<p>The older man's face lit. "Good!" he exclaimed enthusiastically. "You -already have some sound ideas. I suggest—"</p> - -<p>"Captain!" broke in a low, taut voice. "What do you make of this?"</p> - -<p>Relez wheeled. The young technician who had been operating the controls -of the televiewer was pointing at the screen in horror.</p> - -<p>The scene was a sweep of desert, silvered by the risen moon. There were -indistinct dark shapes that might be a tribe of dragons, stalled, of -course. But around and among them red flashes leaped and black towers -of smoke sprang up to drift down the quiet night wind.</p> - -<p>It was a scene of death and destruction whose silence made it unreal. -But as the five people in the rock chamber held their breath, they -heard and felt, telegraphed from far away through the ground, the dull -heavy concussions of exploding bombs.</p> - -<p>"Scan the sky, Rhenu," gulped the captain.</p> - -<p>The view shifted as Rhenu's trembling fingers made adjustments, and -they glimpsed a black squadron drifting across the moonlit sky. -Cruising with a leisurely consciousness of invulnerability, in the -knowledge that the victims were helpless to maneuver, sitting ducks to -be blasted at will.</p> - -<p>"Keep on scanning!" snapped Relez, but his face was ashen as he saw his -dreams crumbling.</p> - -<p>Dunu was incredulously checking the anti-ionization generator. "There's -nothing wrong here," he reported. But the screen showed scene after -scene of a carnival of destruction. The night sky was full of buzzards, -flying low, playing their search-lights on the desert and raining gas -and explosives on everything that lived. It was the buzzards' moment to -strike for dominance and they were making the most of it.</p> - -<p>Dunu said frozenly, "They must have been warned by their kin on the -coast, and have managed to develop an engine with a hotpoint ignition -system."</p> - -<p>Relez muttered, looking suddenly old and weary, "It's too bad. The -people with the highest technical ingenuity—but their motivation -seems to be insane hate of everything unlike them."</p> - -<p>"I told you so," Ladna said bitterly.</p> - -<p>Torcred had no ears for philosophy; he had seen enough of the murder -going on out there. He bounded to his feet and his knife flashed in his -hand.</p> - -<p>"One side!" he snarled at the recoiling Dunu. "I'm going to smash that -machine and give the rest of us a chance!"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>But Relez had stepped between him and the generator. The color returned -to his bearded features as he faced the threatening blade.</p> - -<p>"Wait!" he cried. "Don't wreck all your chances for peace—"</p> - -<p>"I'll give you peace," said Torcred, "if you don't get out of the way."</p> - -<p>Ladna was behind him, he knew, knife drawn, holding the thunderstruck -assistants at bay.</p> - -<p>Relez did not move. "I told you we possess some of the ancients' -weapons. The decision to use them belongs properly to the High Command -of the Fleet—but in this case I will take it on myself."</p> - -<p>"You have such weapons here?"</p> - -<p>"Yes. A bomb, which in case we were discovered here could have exploded -to wipe out this place and protect our secrets. You and the girl can -take one of the grounded aeros outside and carry the bomb over Buzzard -Base. I'll switch off the anti-ionization field for half an hour, long -enough for you to go and return...."</p> - -<p>"One bomb?" exclaimed Ladna scornfully. "<i>They</i> have thousands!"</p> - -<p>"No more will be needed."</p> - -<p>Torcred's black gaze searched Relez' face for long moments. He read -utter sincerity there, and lowered the knife.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph1">X</p> - -<p>The aero roared across a short stretch of sand and was airborne. It -swerved, evading a buzzard squadron that was droning over, and climbed -swiftly into the north.</p> - -<p>Torcred huddled in the cramped space behind the pilot's seat, -over the little dull metal box that Relez claimed was a bomb. He -glimpsed Ladna's face, over the dimly glowing controls; it was as if -transfigured. She was tasting the joy she had thought lost to her -forever, the glory of flight through the high thin air at a thousand -miles an hour.</p> - -<p>"This isn't like crawling, is it?" she asked lightly. "Four or five -minutes now, and we'll be there."</p> - -<p>Torcred braced himself more firmly. "Give me thirty seconds warning."</p> - -<p>Presently the girl cut off the power. The machine slowed and began to -swerve and buck a little as its speed approached that of sound. "Thirty -seconds."</p> - -<p>Relez had told him how to arm the bomb. Torcred pushed the levers he -had indicated, and looked doubtfully at the harmless-looking gray -box. "We're over it," said Ladna. "The place is lit up; they're not -expecting anything else in the air. I can see buzzards taking off...."</p> - -<p>Torcred, of course, could see nothing. He shoved open the emergency -escape door in the floor and tipped the lead box out into the shrieking -rush of air.</p> - -<p>The engine's sighing roar began again. He slammed the door shut and -squirmed forward, into the seat beside Ladna. The little ship ran away, -faster than sound or an air shock wave could follow....</p> - -<p>But they saw the glare that turned desert and mountains and sky ahead -white with a reflected radiance brighter than the noonday sun. For -moments it lasted, then the light died and the night was dead black to -their dazzled eyes.</p> - -<p>"The ancients' weapons were pretty potent," said Torcred, and the girl -shivered.</p> - -<p>She made a wide circle and flew back, but they could see nothing in the -valley where Buzzard Base had been. Only an immense cloud of darkness -still faintly luminous at its heart, roiling slowly upward. The air was -turbulent. Ladna gave the cloud a wide berth, for Relez had warned them -of that.</p> - -<p>The girl looked questioningly at Torcred. He said, "A line due south -from the Salt Sea should find us the terrapins' camp."</p> - -<p>Obediently Ladna made a few degrees' turn to the west. "You still -believe—"</p> - -<p>"That Relez was right? I don't know. But I know this—whether the men -of the floating cities have their way of the world or not, they've -started a change that must lead to more change, a new civilization.... -And I still want to help the terrapins make a place in it—first of all -by teaching them that they are men."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The great salt lake unrolled in the moonlight and slipped away beneath -the ship. They raced on over the southern reaches of the valley where -they had wandered three strange days. Then in midflight the motor -choked and died. The anti-ionization field had closed down again.</p> - -<p>"Relez is in a hurry for his peace," remarked Torcred, and they laughed -a little hysterically. The ship lost altitude and the shadowy desert -came up to meet them, but not before they saw, a couple of miles away, -a spot of light that Torcred's keen eyes identified as the camp of the -terrapins. He breathed a sigh of relief at finding it undamaged by the -buzzard raids.</p> - -<p>"You can start educating them in the morning," said Ladna. "Isn't the -moon lovely tonight?"</p> - -<p>"Eh?" Torcred was jarred by the disconnectedness of her remarks. "Why -wait till morning?"</p> - -<p>She started to answer, then exclaimed and wrenched at the controls. The -aero wobbled on one wing as the top of a dune slid by scant feet below; -then it plowed through the next crest and pancaked into the valley -beyond.</p> - -<p>The two scrambled, shaken up but undamaged, out of the battered craft, -and Torcred caught the disheveled girl in his arms.</p> - -<p>"You're a hopelessly bad bird," he growled in mock rage. "Two ships -you've smashed up inside a week!"</p> - -<p>And he would have touched noses with her, but Ladna evaded the gesture -adroitly.</p> - -<p>"Don't be a terrapin!" she chided. 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