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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/78726-0.txt b/78726-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..65ac1dd --- /dev/null +++ b/78726-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,472 @@ +*** 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 *** diff --git a/78726-h/78726-h.htm b/78726-h/78726-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c0bf328 --- /dev/null +++ b/78726-h/78726-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,612 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> + <title> + Blood Lands | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .51em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .49em; +} + +.f15 {font-size: 1.5em;} +img.w20 {width: 20em;} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: 33.5%; + margin-right: 33.5%; + clear: both; +} + +hr.tb {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;} +hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} +@media print { hr.chap {display: none; visibility: hidden;} } + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} +h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} + + +blockquote { + margin-top: 0; + margin-bottom: 0; + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +.center {text-align: center;} + + +figcaption {font-weight: bold;} +figcaption p {margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: .2em; text-align: inherit;} + +/* Images */ + +img { + max-width: 100%; + height: auto; +} + +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; + page-break-inside: avoid; + max-width: 100%; +} + + +/* Transcriber's notes */ +.transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA; + color: black; + font-size:small; + padding:0.5em; + margin-bottom:5em; + font-family:sans-serif, serif; +} + + +/* Illustration classes */ +.illowe111_9375 {width: 111.9375em;} + </style> +</head> + +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78726 ***</div> + + +<figure class="figcenter illowe111_9375" id="cover"> + <img class="w20" src="images/cover.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + Transcribed from Dynamic Science Fiction, December 1952 (Vol. 1, No. 1.). + </figcaption> +</figure> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"><div class="chapter"></div> + +<h1> +Blood Lands +</h1> + + +<p class="f15 center">by <strong>Alfred Coppel</strong></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"><div class="chapter"></div> +<blockquote> +<p>“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!”</p> +</blockquote> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"><div class="chapter"></div> + + +<p><i>—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?</i></p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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....</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>She +paused at the very edge of the grove, solemn and unsmiling in the +slanting light.</p> + +<p>“The sunset comes, Kenyon,” she said.</p> + +<p>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....</p> + +<p>He shivered slightly and smiled at Elyra. “Shall we walk by the sea?” +he asked. “I’ve brought something for you—a gift.”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>Kenyon frowned. He had promised her, and +she had remembered.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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 <i>was</i> afraid—he knew it. Afraid of this watery +world and its islands. Perhaps he was even afraid of Elyra.</p> + +<p>“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—”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“—I +would take you by the hand,” Elyra continued in her quaintly-accented +and archaic <i>lingua spacia</i>, “and show you why my people have no wish +to go.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>She smiled, showing sharp white teeth.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Even in the cargo-holds—the huge pens intended for the +natives of Kana—he could hear Grancor and Bothwell arguing.</p> + +<p>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?”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Vulcanism is out,” Bothwell was declaring. “Kana and the Kana sun +are too old to support that kind of thing.”</p> + +<p>“You don’t know,” Grancor +said drily; “you are a starman, not a geologist.”</p> + +<p>“I’m no agronomist, either,” bellowed Bothwell “but I can tell you +nothing grows here but those damn feathers!”</p> + +<p>“They only <i>look</i> like feathers,” Grancor said, “you’ve seen stranger +growths—”</p> + +<p><i>Isolation</i>, thought Kenyon, <i>is sharpening their natural antagonisms. Isolation and +failure. A failure that neither of them will face up to.</i> 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.</p> + +<p>He armed himself and went up the ramp toward the bickering +voices; it would be a pleasure to interrupt them.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“And where do you think you’re going?”</p> + +<p>“Where indeed?” murmured Grancor. “Booted, +armed and armored, our young colleague goes to meet his pretty savage, +of course.”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>“Is that wise?” Grancor asked Bothwell.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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....”</p> + +<p>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!”</p> + +<p>Kenyon turned on his heel and almost ran out of the ship, +his face burning. Damn them both anyway!</p> + +<p>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. <i>Like a red, unhealed scar</i>, +he thought. Typical of the improvements made by man on the worlds +he exploited.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Without talk, +Kenyon took the girl’s extended hand and together they vanished into +the forest of waving plumes.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>—<i>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</i>—</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Be steadfast, Kenyon,” +Elyra said, as though she had guessed his thoughts. “Be brave and +above all—be wise when you meet the father.”</p> + +<p>“Father?”</p> + +<p>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—”</p> + +<p>There it was again, Kenyon thought—that schism between +the people of Kana and the rest of the inhabited worlds. <i>Your</i> people. +<i>My</i> 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.</p> + +<p>“There are no gods from space, little one,” Kenyon said +gently. “Only more men.”</p> + +<p>“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. “<i>You</i> 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.”</p> + +<p>“No,” Kenyon said. “One way or another, your people will come with us. +You are needed elsewhere.”</p> + +<p>She laughed at him. “When time ends—when +the red star dies—we will be here on Kana. <i>And so will every man +who touched the sacred soil....”</i></p> + +<p>She stood on tip toes and kissed him, +and Kenyon felt a stinging pain on his lips.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>“—<i>wake father wake father wake father</i>—”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Kenyon twisted his head aside and froze +with horror. Not ten meters from him a stump of a man stood upright—</p> + +<p>—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.</p> + +<p>“—<i>father wakes father wakes!</i>”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“<i>You—man from the stars! Why have you come here?</i>”</p> + +<p>Kenyon could not reply.</p> + +<p>“<i>To steal my people. To take them from me</i>,” +the accusing voice thundered. “<i>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?</i>” +And the buried man laughed. A +hollow, booming, awful sound in the firelit forest. The trogs echoed +his mirthless laughter.</p> + +<p><i>—it’s a trick</i>, Kenyon thought. <i>Hypnosis. Or I’m +going mad. I thought the whole world was speaking through that man’s +mouth—</i></p> + +<p>The man swept his arms about in a wild circle. He shouted at the +trogs: “<i>Eat! I feast! Join me, eat!</i>”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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....</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>And then suddenly, he was free and running +through the forest, with the naked horde of trogs running behind him, +torches blazing.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>He had to get back!</p> + +<p>Back to warn the others!</p> + +<p>Back to the starship and cold clean +metal under his naked feet and sanity again.</p> + +<p>Behind him the trogs +howled, and the dark forest echoed their cries.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“You’ve gone mad! Can’t you understand +what I’m saying? We must get <i>out!</i>”</p> + +<p>When they did not respond, he took +the controls himself and closed the relays. The rockets did not fire.</p> + +<p>There was a sinking sensation to the deck. Kenyon +felt his sanity totter.</p> + +<p>Grancor took him by the arm and led him to a +port near the still-open valve.</p> + +<p>“Look outside,” Grancor said gently.</p> + +<p>“You got my message,” Kenyon said.</p> + +<p>Grancor nodded.</p> + +<p>Kenyon stood in +the open port, looking out.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Kenyon +was conscious of the nearness of a supernal, mammoth intelligence. +It hungered.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"></div><div class="transnote"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="Transcribers_note"> + Transcriber’s note: + </h2> + + +<p>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.</p> +</div> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78726 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/78726-h/images/cover.jpg b/78726-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..4a0117a --- /dev/null +++ b/78726-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6c72794 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This book, 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. 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