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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78726 ***
+
+
+
+
+                              Blood Lands
+
+                            by Alfred Coppel
+
+
+[Illustration: Kenyon felt sick as he wiped his lips.]
+
+
+  “You will never take us away from our land, men from the stars ...
+  and no one who has touched this, our sacred land shall ever leave it!”
+
+
+
+
+_--drums beating in the feather forests and a wailing in the wind as
+the red sun sets protect us o father for the past men have returned and
+we are afraid a deep sullen surging of the soil and a wordless reply of
+alien anger mixed with pain our father rages whisper the chants leave
+us alone you men of space what have we to do with you now?_
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The rendezvous was well away from the charnel, stinking area that had
+been burned by the starship’s landing. Kenyon stood on the edge of
+a plume-grove that grew down to where the tideless sea lay red and
+shimmering.
+
+He looked back, cursing the flatness of the island. The spire of the
+starship commanded a complete view of the territory; there was no place
+to hide. Kenyon knew that anyone who wished to do so could spy on him
+easily as he stood waiting for Elyra to come out of the grove.
+
+Not, he told himself defensively, that there was any good reason that
+he should hide his doings with Elyra. Affairs with native women--while
+not considered in the best taste--were common enough among starmen. It
+was simply that the mission here was one of repatriation rather than
+exploitation, and all members of the expedition had been warned against
+forming liaisons that could conceivably become embarrassing situations
+when the natives were moved off Kana.
+
+Kenyon shifted his weight nervously from one foot to another, peering
+through the picket of quills into the grove. He would have liked to go
+into the grove to meet the girl, but it was something he had never been
+able to bring himself to do. One didn’t take chances on a planet like
+Kana--one that had retrogressed from technology into legend-worshipping
+semi-savagery. And there was that unanswered question about
+cannibalism....
+
+Not Elyra, Kenyon thought quickly; that wouldn’t be possible. After
+all, the mission had been on Kana only a few days. It was only a matter
+of time until the riddle of the native food-supply was solved.
+
+A soft rustling of the plumes warned him of her approach. Native
+or not, he reflected, she was a handsome thing. Odd about the red
+hair--they all had it, men and women alike. And the grey, almost cold,
+eyes. But there was nothing cold about her body; it was lithe and
+supple, burned golden by the light of the red sun. Her costume showed
+most of it, and Kenyon could fully appreciate the rippling play of
+muscles under the satiny skin as she walked.
+
+She paused at the very edge of the grove, solemn and unsmiling in the
+slanting light.
+
+“The sunset comes, Kenyon,” she said.
+
+Her greeting was always the same. A dwelling on the ending of a day,
+the fading of light from the sky. Kenyon unconsciously looked toward
+the east, where the first pale light of a star was breaking through the
+rusty glow of the sinking sun. Stars were pale on the Edge, he thought
+vaguely. It filled him with a sense of distance, of vast empty spaces,
+of the parsecs that separated Kana and its red star from the teeming
+worlds of the inner systems. Little wonder it had been lost for so
+long....
+
+He shivered slightly and smiled at Elyra. “Shall we walk by the sea?”
+he asked. “I’ve brought something for you--a gift.”
+
+Ordinarily, the promise of a bauble would have brought a smile to her
+face, but she remained solemn and, it seemed to Kenyon, unduly aloof.
+“Tonight you were to walk in the forest.”
+
+Kenyon frowned. He had promised her, and she had remembered.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the far distance, on one of the islands across the red water, a drum
+began to beat with a deep, thudding insistence. A sense of alienage
+filled him, and something akin to fear--though he knew nothing that
+should bring such feelings into a starman’s mind. All the teeming
+billions of a starflung culture backed him with power and machines.
+There was nothing in the inhabited galaxy a starman should fear; yet
+Kenyon _was_ afraid--he knew it. Afraid of this watery world and its
+islands. Perhaps he was even afraid of Elyra.
+
+“We have walked by the sea,” Elyra said, still standing apart from him,
+“and now we should walk in the plume-forest. You have come here from
+the sky to take my people from Kana--”
+
+There was little point in denying this, Kenyon realized, since both
+Bothwell and Grancor had already announced it to the island chieftain.
+Manpower was needed in the industrial combines of the inner worlds.
+It was wasteful to let humans rusticate on a world without commercial
+value like Kana.
+
+“--I would take you by the hand,” Elyra continued in her
+quaintly-accented and archaic _lingua spacia_, “and show you why my
+people have no wish to go.”
+
+Kenyon’s eyes widened at that. No native had yet offered any of the
+mission’s three members a reason for their reluctance to leave Kana.
+This was the first apparent break in a wall of courteous passive
+resistance. If he, Kenyon, could be the one to convince the chiefs that
+they should urge their people to board the starship without coercion
+and bloodshed, it would be an excellent mark in his record; it could
+lead to better things than herding troglodytes back into the fold of
+the galactic State.
+
+“Wait for me, Elyra,” he said. “I will be back before the sun is fully
+down, and I will go with you into the forest.”
+
+She smiled, showing sharp white teeth.
+
+Kenyon shuddered slightly and turned back toward the starship. Into the
+forest he might go, he thought bleakly, but not without weapons--and
+not without Bothwell and Grancor knowing what he was about to do and
+where, in the service of the State.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Even in the cargo-holds--the huge pens intended for the natives of
+Kana--he could hear Grancor and Bothwell arguing.
+
+Bothwell: “You bloody fool--you aren’t even able to tell me what
+happened to the blasted barges! Even a thousand years in this climate
+wouldn’t destroy them--let alone a mere four hundred. So where are
+they, then?”
+
+And Grancor, in his dry and acid-tinged tones, like those of an academy
+professor: “Obviously, my dear Bothwell, when the islands formed they
+were no longer needed. They simply sank them.”
+
+Kenyon paused to listen. It was a perpetual argument between the older
+men, and one he thought both fruitless and exasperating. One he had no
+wish to join.
+
+It had begun with the planetfall, and the discovery of ten thousand
+islands in the shallow sea that had once--according to the
+book--covered the entire planet of Kana.
+
+Five hundred years ago, in the first flush of stellar colonization,
+Kana had been populated with human beings from the inner galaxy.
+Since no land of any kind was available, and since there was a ready
+market for gold salts and nitrates that could be extracted from Kana’s
+sea, a first-stage barge-culture was established. Floating villages,
+hydroponics, an essential and highly-developed technology. And then
+came the interregnum--a commercial interregnum that found the products
+of Kana unneeded. Trade fell off, and eventually the planet and its
+people were forgotten. A lost colony. It took five hundred years for
+the manpower of Kana and other worlds like it to become valuable enough
+to send repatriation missions out to gather it up and bring it into the
+industrial combines.
+
+Yet the Kana planetfall brought some surprises to Kenyon and Grancor
+and Bothwell, the mission’s nominal head. The barges were gone, the
+inhabitants strangely changed and uncivilized, and a million islands
+where none had been before.
+
+“Vulcanism is out,” Bothwell was declaring. “Kana and the Kana sun are
+too old to support that kind of thing.”
+
+“You don’t know,” Grancor said drily; “you are a starman, not a
+geologist.”
+
+“I’m no agronomist, either,” bellowed Bothwell “but I can tell you
+nothing grows here but those damn feathers!”
+
+“They only _look_ like feathers,” Grancor said, “you’ve seen stranger
+growths--”
+
+_Isolation_, thought Kenyon, _is sharpening their natural antagonisms.
+Isolation and failure. A failure that neither of them will face up
+to._ He knew that, in a matter of days, Bothwell would blow up and
+order the Kana natives herded into the starship’s holds by force. They
+had the weapons, but somehow Kenyon dreaded taking such a step; there
+were dangers on Kana that none of the three men from the stars had yet
+recognized--he was sure of it.
+
+He armed himself and went up the ramp toward the bickering voices; it
+would be a pleasure to interrupt them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Bothwell looked up as he entered, a frown on his craggy face. Kenyon
+decided again, as he had every day for weeks, that he didn’t like
+Bothwell.
+
+“And where do you think you’re going?”
+
+“Where indeed?” murmured Grancor. “Booted, armed and armored, our young
+colleague goes to meet his pretty savage, of course.”
+
+Kenyon flushed. “Since we seem to be wasting time here,” he snapped
+with some bravado, “I’m going into the forest to talk to the chief.”
+
+“Is that wise?” Grancor asked Bothwell.
+
+“Let him go,” the big man said. “When he’s convinced talking won’t
+help, we’ll go out with blasters and herd the trogs into the ship.”
+
+Kenyon forced down his anger and turned away. At the bulkhead, he
+stopped, unwilling to go without asking their help, and hating to do
+it. “Please guard the command channel,” he said casually. “I’ll report
+my progress by radio....”
+
+Bothwell let out a hoot of coarse laughter. “Progress! Into the forest
+at night with his pretty trog and he wants to keep us informed!”
+
+Kenyon turned on his heel and almost ran out of the ship, his face
+burning. Damn them both anyway!
+
+The sun was down and a thick dusk hung over the island. Kenyon’s boots
+sank into the stinking, burned soil as he went, making him stumble.
+_Like a red, unhealed scar_, he thought. Typical of the improvements
+made by man on the worlds he exploited.
+
+Elyra was still where he had left her, waiting in the shadow of the
+tall plumes. The drums sounded louder, their leaden beat drifting
+across the darkling water of the sea from island to island. The last
+bloody light was fading from the sky.
+
+Without talk, Kenyon took the girl’s extended hand and together they
+vanished into the forest of waving plumes.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+--_the night wind and drums in the forest a feeding circle forms to
+greet a past man from the stars and the anger in the throbbing beat
+underfoot grows dark and hungry wait the plumes whisper he is coming
+wait the soil says he is coming to us your father will care for you and
+feed you and you need not go out among the stars I will protect you_--
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It seemed to Kenyon that they walked for hours through the darkness. He
+was conscious of a growing excitement in Elyra, of a feeling of triumph
+and anticipation. He thought of Grancor’s speculations on cannibalism
+among the Kana people and a sick thrill ran through him.
+
+As they reached a clearing in the forest, the drums stopped; silence
+fell like a blow. Elyra turned to face him, her eyes wide and dark in
+the shadows.
+
+He struck a match and lit a cigaret, sucking the smoke deep into his
+lungs. Elyra flicked her tongue over her lips and Kenyon noticed its
+sharp tip. He almost succumbed to an impulse to turn back, but the
+thought of Bothwell and Grancor laughing at him held him where he was.
+
+“Be steadfast, Kenyon,” Elyra said, as though she had guessed his
+thoughts. “Be brave and above all--be wise when you meet the father.”
+
+“Father?”
+
+She stamped a bare foot on the resilient ground impatiently. “The
+father, Kenyon,” she said again. “The great one who came to my people
+after yours had deserted us--”
+
+There it was again, Kenyon thought--that schism between the people of
+Kana and the rest of the inhabited worlds. _Your_ people. _My_ people.
+As though the birth of a legend of gods from space had changed the
+inhabitants of Kana into something apart from the rest of the human
+race.
+
+“There are no gods from space, little one,” Kenyon said gently. “Only
+more men.”
+
+“The father is not a man,” Elyra whispered. Kenyon could almost feel
+the mystic calm that descended on her as she contemplated the legendary
+past. “Long ago, when the people of Kana lived on the sea and were
+dying, the great gods came to us and fed us and made us warm.” Her
+tone grew scornful. “_You_ would not understand me; I cannot make you
+understand. But the father will speak with you, I am sure, and you will
+know why our people must remain here for always.”
+
+“No,” Kenyon said. “One way or another, your people will come with us.
+You are needed elsewhere.”
+
+She laughed at him. “When time ends--when the red star dies--we will be
+here on Kana. _And so will every man who touched the sacred soil....”_
+
+She stood on tip toes and kissed him, and Kenyon felt a stinging pain
+on his lips.
+
+“Savage!” He stepped back, wiping blood from his mouth where her sharp
+tongue had pierced his flesh. He struck her across the face, hard,
+and she fell. It came to him in a sickening flash of completion. Not
+cannibals--vampires. He felt his stomach heave convulsively. That
+descendants of civilized men could become so depraved was unbelievable.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Grancor and Bothwell had to be warned. He keyed his pack radio with
+the message and waited for a response as Elyra watched him from the
+shadows. There was no response. Damn them! Were they guarding the
+channel or weren’t they? He had no way of knowing.
+
+Elyra laughed. The sound of it was infuriating. He drew his blaster
+and pointed it at her. “Lead the way back,” he commanded with more
+confidence than he felt.
+
+For answer, she laughed again and vanished into the darkness of the
+thicket of plumes. Nightmare! Kenyon fired blindly, searing a path
+through the feathery growth. Again, laughter.
+
+And then a sudden thudding rush of naked feet, and hands laid roughly
+on him, clawing, beating. He screamed with fright, threshing about in
+the grip of strong arms. Then there was a stunning pain at the base of
+his skull and darkness, deep and black as the night of space itself.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Kenyon awoke, he lay naked in a clearing lit with torches. All
+about, a sea of faces--the people of Kana. Someone was beating a drum,
+very softly, with an insistent and hypnotic rhythm. His bare flesh
+touched the ground, and for the first time, Kenyon was conscious of
+the peculiar texture of the soil. Smooth, but warm with some kind of
+latent, inner heat.
+
+The entire tribe of trogs was swaying, self-entranced by the drum beats
+and the smoky night. Kenyon could hear their murmured chant, made
+endless by repetition:
+
+“--_wake father wake father wake father_--”
+
+Kenyon tried to sit up, found that he could not. Unseen, fleshy bands
+held him firm to the ground. Panic stirred in him, and he suppressed
+it with all the power of his will and training. He twisted his head
+about to see if he could find Elyra in the sea of faces, but she was
+indistinguishable from any other woman. All were naked, all were
+swaying in their ritual chant. The very air seemed to vibrate with the
+beat of it.
+
+Kenyon twisted his head aside and froze with horror. Not ten meters
+from him a stump of a man stood upright--
+
+--no, it was not a stump at all--but a native buried to the armpits in
+the ground. His eyes were wide open and his mouth worked convulsively.
+The soil itself was pulsating slowly as the man sank steadily downward.
+The man screamed. A liquid mumbling wail that broke into jibberish. A
+yell erupted from the gathered trogs.
+
+“--_father wakes father wakes!_”
+
+Kenyon, eyes bulging, lay stiff--waiting for he knew not what. The
+sinking man raised an arm like an automaton, pointing directly at
+the captive. As though something had taken control of his vocal
+cords--something alien that found speech a clumsy thing--the man spoke
+in a hollow, ragged, sepulchral voice.
+
+“_You--man from the stars! Why have you come here?_”
+
+Kenyon could not reply.
+
+“_To steal my people. To take them from me_,” the accusing voice
+thundered. “_When their own kind deserted them--I came across parsecs
+of space--across the gulf between the galaxies--to live with them and
+care for them. And now you think to take them away?_” And the buried
+man laughed. A hollow, booming, awful sound in the firelit forest. The
+trogs echoed his mirthless laughter.
+
+_--it’s a trick_, Kenyon thought. _Hypnosis. Or I’m going mad. I
+thought the whole world was speaking through that man’s mouth--_
+
+The man swept his arms about in a wild circle. He shouted at the trogs:
+“_Eat! I feast! Join me, eat!_”
+
+Kenyon struggled against the bonds that held him, panic surging in him.
+But the trogs did not attack him with their sucking, pointed tongues.
+They bent over, pressing their mouths against the ground, plunging
+their tongues into the soil. The buried man screamed once more and
+vanished, with a wet, sucking noise.
+
+The whole thing leaped into focus in Kenyon’s mind, like a picture
+forming. The soil, the earth--the islands; that was the father. A race
+of beings from across space, finding refuge in the shallow, warm waters
+of a world abandoned by the humans of the inner galaxy. Huge, plumed
+beasts, willing to live in a ghastly symbiosis with the men they found
+on Kana. Giving them the blood of the land to eat, and taking in return
+the flesh of men. It was sickening, horrifying. Kenyon could imagine
+the people leaving the barges for the islands they could see rising in
+their ocean, and eventually living like parasites on the blood under
+the tawny skin....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+With sick disgust raging in him, Kenyon threshed about, fighting tooth
+and nail to free himself. He had to get away--out into the cold, clean
+dark of space--away from this nightmare of alien and human depravity.
+
+And then suddenly, he was free and running through the forest, with the
+naked horde of trogs running behind him, torches blazing.
+
+The awful plumes tore at his flesh, the hot pulsing soil of the island
+softened to slow him. He could hear himself screaming in mixed rage and
+terror as he fled.
+
+He had to get back!
+
+Back to warn the others!
+
+Back to the starship and cold clean metal under his naked feet and
+sanity again.
+
+Behind him the trogs howled, and the dark forest echoed their cries.
+
+And at last he was running across the burned flesh of the area of the
+starship’s landing. A ragged, craterlike puckered mouth. The ground
+rippled and heaved in anger. Kenyon stumbled, fell. Picked himself up
+again and plunged into the open valve with a sobbing, rasping cry.
+
+Grancor and Bothwell sat in the control room, their faces white. They
+did not move when Kenyon stumbled into the cabin. They did not speak as
+he babbled his story and yelled at them to lift the ship.
+
+“You’ve gone mad! Can’t you understand what I’m saying? We must get
+_out!_”
+
+When they did not respond, he took the controls himself and closed the
+relays. The rockets did not fire.
+
+There was a sinking sensation to the deck. Kenyon felt his sanity
+totter.
+
+Grancor took him by the arm and led him to a port near the still-open
+valve.
+
+“Look outside,” Grancor said gently.
+
+“You got my message,” Kenyon said.
+
+Grancor nodded.
+
+Kenyon stood in the open port, looking out.
+
+The sky was reddening in the east, and in the crimson light the plumes
+were waving agitatedly. The ground was close. Too close. The red,
+mutilated mouth had closed on the ship. Kenyon remembered the buried
+man with a thrill of horror. The ship was sinking. In another few
+moments it would be completely ingested.
+
+Kenyon was conscious of the nearness of a supernal, mammoth
+intelligence. It hungered.
+
+Grancor and Kenyon stood in the open port, watching the silent circle
+of trogs that had formed around the starship. They felt their craft
+sinking slowly, down and down--into the bloody, living land.
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber’s note:
+
+
+This etext was produced from Dynamic Science Fiction, December 1952
+(Vol. 1, No. 1.). Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
+the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78726 ***