“They’ve moved our sled into the hallway down there and it is probably under guard now. If we win through—”

“If we win,” Fylh broke in, “we can march right in and take it. We might just do that anyway. What’s keeping the old lizard?”

Kartr had wondered about that, too, enough to send a questing thought which was answered instantly with a strong impression of danger. The sergeant scooped up his share of the blaster clips and tucked them into his belt before he crossed the room and went down to the green fish chamber. Zinga stood pressed against the door as if he wished to melt into its surface. Kartr joined him to “listen.”

There were movements—not too far away—maybe just beyond the foot of the staircase. Two living things withdrew, a third remained—that was the Can-hound. But why did they leave that one on guard unless—

Unless, Zinga’s thought answered him in a second’s flash, they suspect that you—or I—are not what we seem. But they cannot know the full truth or they would not leave the Can-hound. Not after the way you handled him before. They must have discovered that—

Or is he—bait? Kartr thought back to Zinga, reveling in the freedom of this exchange which he had always longed to experience but had never found before.

That we shall see. This time the task is mine—brother!

Kartr withdrew mind touch and concentrated only on trying to sense the approach of any other who might break Zinga’s control. He felt the Zacathan’s body grow tense and guessed the agony Zinga was feeling.

It was as if they had stepped out of time—planet time. Kartr never knew how long they fought their soundless battle before he had to give a warning.

“One comes.” He said that aloud, not daring to break in by thought.

Zinga hissed a long sigh. “He was bait of a sort,” he answered in words, as if his thought power was almost exhausted. “But not as we had feared. He has been under observation all the time—if he withdrew against orders then they could assume that we were powerful enough to control him. So they suspect—but they do not know.”

“You say—they—we face more than Cummi and the Can-hound?”

“Cummi has learned to tap the mind energy of some others—how many I do not know. If a five point nine can do that—”

“What will he be able to raise himself to?” A great deal of Kartr’s confidence was wiped out by the thought of that. Even with Zinga could he face down a Cummi so reinforced?

“I suggest,” Zinga said a little dryly as if he were shaken also, “that we continue to stick to blasters as offensive weapons for a while. That way the odds are easier to assess.”

“And we’ll have to get out of here to be able to use those. If we leave, that thing below will know it at once.”

“Which leaves us only one answer—we’ll have to split up for now. You and Rolth take the outside route down and see what you can do in the general melee. Fylh and I shall hold the fort and try to make two think as four.”

Kartr could see the wisdom in that. As humans Rolth and he would have a better chance of getting co-operation from the rebels. At the same time the Bemmy scouts would be safe from ruthless shooting.

The climb down to the roof top across which Smitt had come was ridiculously easy. They paused there long enough to pull on their boots, and then snaked over it from shadow to shadow. When they reached the parapet Rolth looked over. Then he dropped back and put his lips close to Kartr’s ear.

“One floor below there is a ledge. It leads to a lighted window. The drop is sheer, I do not think that anyone who may be in that room would expect company to arrive through the window—”

“And how do you reach the ledge?”

“Our belts hooked together and passed around this—here—” The Faltharian put his hand on a tooth-shaped projection ornamenting the parapet.

If Kartr had an instant picture of what it meant to dangle so precariously over the edge of a sheer drop he did not betray himself.

“It is good that we are both tall.” Rolth buckled his belt to the one the sergeant reluctantly passed over. “A short man could not make it.”

The Faltharian slipped the loop in one end of his improvised rope over the projection and climbed over the parapet. Holding his body at an angle he half slid, half walked down the stone. Kartr huddled against the edge and forced himself to watch. Then Rolth stopped and the belt swung loosely in the sergeant’s fingers.

Not so skillfully as Rolth, Kartr made the same trip, keeping his eyes fast on the stone before him, trying not to think of the darkness below. He inched downward for an eternity and then Rolth’s hand pulled him straight and his boots touched the path of the ledge. He found that it was wider than it appeared from above, he could get all but a small scrap of heel onto it.

“Anyone in the room?” Rolth demanded as they crept toward the window.

Kartr sent out the probe. “Not in the room—near though—”

The Faltharian answered that with a ghost of laughter. “We’re almost as good as some of Fylh’s feathered friends. Here goes!” He caught at the window frame and pulled himself against it, jamming open the casement with his knee. It gave a faint squeak of protest and Rolth landed lightly on his feet within where Kartr joined him a second later.

They were in a chamber where someone was at home. A pile of bedding lay on a bunk bed which had been obviously torn out of ship’s fittings. Two expensive Valcunite luggage bags stood against the wall and a table, also ship use, was piled almost to the sagging point with personal belongings.

Rolth’s nostrils wrinkled. “What a stink!” he commented under his breath.

Kartr tried to remember where he had smelled that too-sweet cura blossom fragrance before.

“Fortus Kan!” When they had run against the secretary in the corridor that morning he had certainly carried cura lily with him.

And as if that identification had been either a summons or an entrance cue, the Vice-Sector Lord’s man was coming toward them now. Kartr had warning enough to plaster himself back against the wall by the door, and Rolth, seeing his move, did the same on the other side of the portal.

There was apprehension to be read in the mind of the man who was fumbling with the intricate ancient fastening. Fortus Kan was afraid. The fastening was defying him, too, so that exasperation began to drown out the fear. He lost command enough to kick the panel as it gave. With such a medley of emotions uncovered it would be easy for Kartr to—

The sergeant allowed him four steps into the room before he put the flat of his hand against the door and sent it shut again. Fortus Kan spun around—to face the small and deadly mouths of two Patrol blasters. And at the sight all his resistance crumbled at once.

“Please!” His hands went up to his working mouth. He retreated backward, without looking where he was going, until the cot caught him behind the knees and he plumped down upon it as if he were as boneless as a Lydian gelisar.

As Kartr walked toward him the little man cringed as if he wanted to burrow into the tangle of bedding.

“One would begin to think, Kartr, that this gentleman has a guilty conscience—”

Rolth’s words might have been the lash of a Tullan slaver’s whip the way Fortus Kan reacted. He stopped trying to pull himself under the covers and sat stone still, his mouth trembling, his eyes glassy with—Kartr recognized—pure fear.

“Please—” The secretary had to work to get that one word out, but it was a stopper which had held up the flood. “Please—I had nothing to do with it—nothing! I advised him not to antagonize the Patrol. I know the law— Why, I have a second cousin who is the clerk in your administration office on Sexti. I wouldn’t go against the Patrol—never. I had nothing, absolutely nothing to do with it!”

His fear was so rank that it was almost an odor in the room. But what was he afraid of—the planting of the force bomb, that trick with the Can-hound? There was only one way to get at the full truth. And for the second time in his life Kartr ruthlessly invaded a fellow human’s mind, breaking down the feeble block, exploring, learning what he wanted—in part. Fortus Kan whimpered, was quiet. He would be quiet for a while now. Kartr turned away. There was a lot to do. A pity that Cummi had not trusted the little man more, there were such big gaps in his information—gaps which might be fatal if the rangers were not careful.

The sergeant came back to Rolth. “There’s a force bomb under the tower stairs, all right. And the Can-hound is set to trick us out and blow it up. Everyone is being moved out of the top floors here before it goes off. Kan came back for some precious personal possessions. The stairs are under guard—”

“We could blast through—rather noisy though.”

“Yes. One thing I’m wondering about—why all these staircases when they had gravity wells, too. Odd—maybe important.”

“This was a state building,” Rolth reminded him. “Might use stairs for reasons of ceremony. Like those Opolti who fly everywhere except in the Affid’s quarter. No evidence of any other way down from here. What about the boys? If that Can-hound gets tired of waiting for them to come out he may just set the bomb off anyway and trust to luck to bag the game.”

“Yes—”

Kartr stood stiffly. He was blacking out, first the corridors, then this room, his awareness of Rolth, of Fortus Kan, of his own person. He did it! His mind touched Zinga’s! He gave the warning. Then he was back in the frowzy room, shaking his head dazedly, to see Rolth crouched by the door listening. Men—two—three of them were coming along the hall outside—straight for this room!

10 — BATTLE

A sharp rap on the door froze both rangers.

“Kan! We’re moving out now. Come along!”

But Fortus Kan was deep in a world of his own.

“Kan! You fool, come on!”

Kartr made mind contact. Out there was the young ship’s officer he had met early in the day, two others—human, non-sensitive. They were impatient, impatient because of fear. And the fear won out. After some garbled conversation, which came through the door only as a murmur, they went on. Rolth glided to the window and studied what lay below.

“I take it that we have to move fast?” he asked without turning around.

“They were afraid—too afraid to linger very long. What’s below?”

“Another roof outcrop, but so far down we couldn’t hope to make it without a climber’s sucker pads.”

“We have a substitute for sucker pads.” Kartr rolled Fortus Kan off the bed and set to work tearing its coverings into strips which Rolth caught up and knotted together. Working against time, but testing each knot, they produced a rough rope.

“You first,” ordered the sergeant. “Then this.” He touched Kan with the toe of his boot. “I’ll come last. Over now—time must be running out fast or they wouldn’t have been in such a hurry to clear out.”

Rolth was gone almost before he finished speaking. Kartr hung over the window sill to watch but the Faltharian was so quickly hidden in the dark that only the movements of the rope told when he stopped climbing down and signaled a safe landing. Kartr pulled the clumsy line back into the room, his palms wet against the torn cloth. There was a terrible urgency goading him. He tied the cloth loop under Kan’s arms and manhandled the secretary’s limp body over the sill, lowering it as slowly as he could until a sharp jerk told him Rolth was in charge. Kartr did not even wait until Kan was untied before he was descending hand over hand.

And as his feet hit the surface of the roof below it happened. There was no sound at first. But the support under him danced. He fell flat and buried his head in his arms, not daring to watch what was happening above. Force bomb all right. He had once before been caught in the backwash of one. Had Zinga and Fylh escaped in time? Resolutely he shut that fear out of his mind. There was a faint moan from Kan. Rolth—?

But on the edge of that thought came the Faltharian’s voice.

“Quite a display! Cummi likes to play rough, doesn’t he?”

The sergeant sat up. He was trembling—perhaps with reaction from that frenzied descent—but, he decided, mostly from the black rage which possessed him now whenever he thought of the Ageratan. A rage he must best or that other sensitive could turn it into a weapon against him.

“How do we get away from here?” He must depend on Rolth’s ability to pierce the gloom. For it was real gloom which walled them in now. The dancing lights of the city were gone—they were crouched in the middle of a black blot.

“Window over there—not too high to reach. What about this prize package? Do we have to lug him along?”

“He’ll wake by morning. Get him inside a room and leave him. I don’t think they’ll try another bomb.”

“Not unless they want to bring the whole place down around their heads. Let’s go. If you’ll take Kan’s legs, I’ll heave his head.”

Kartr stumbled along, trusting to Rolth to guide them. They reached a window, beat open the casement and crawled through with their unconscious burden.

“Aren’t we in the wrong building now?” the sergeant wanted to know. “I thought we climbed down over there—”

“You’re right. We’re in a different one. But this was the easiest and quickest route out. Did the boys get away?”

For the second time Kartr tried to reach Zinga—sent out those shafts of thought. Once—for a single joyful second he thought he had made contact—then it was gone. He dared not try too long, the Can-hound—if that creature still lived—or even Cummi might be able to pick up his signal.

“No use,” he told Rolth. “I can’t make contact. But that doesn’t mean we have to worry. They may be too far away—we’ve never been able to discover what governs mental reception or how far we can beam a call. And they may be lying low because the Ageratan is too near. But I did reach Zinga before the blast and they had several minutes more than we did to escape.”

That was not much to pin any hope to, Kartr knew that. But with such veterans as Fylh and Zinga it was almost enough.

“Do we try to locate Smitt?”

“I think so. Or at least we can make contact with his rebels.”

Kartr hooked his fingers in Rolth’s belt and allowed the Faltharian to tow him through dark rooms and darker hallways, while he tried to keep some sense of direction.

“Street level,” came the welcome whisper at last.

“I believe that we are facing the street which runs along the front of Cummi’s headquarters—”

But, before Rolth could affirm or deny that, a brilliant bolt of fire snapped across the dark and both of them involuntarily ducked.

A blaster shot! And that was another from down the street. A third beam brought a choked, horrible scream in answer.

“The war’s on!” Rolth pointed out unnecessarily. “And which is our side?”

“Neither, just yet. I don’t want to guess wrong and be fried,” returned Kartr grimly. “There’s one to our left—about five feet away— He’s crawling past us at an angle. I’ll try contact as he goes by and see who he is—”

The lashes of fire continued to light up the sod-grown street at intervals. There were no more cries so either the aim continued to be poor, or very, very good.

The sniper crawled across their vantage point.

“No uniform,” Rolth reported. “Looks like a civilian to me. But he knows blasters. Maybe the veteran of a sector war—”

“He’s not a Cummi man but—” Kartr had no time for a warning.

No, the man out there was not one of Cummi’s followers, but he had caught that tentative mind touch in an instant—something which had never happened to Kartr before. And his blaster swung around at the rangers.

“Patrol!” Rolth yelled.

The blaster aim wavered, and then held steady at them.

“Come out—with your hands up!” ordered a harsh voice. “I’ve set this on ‘spray’ and I’ll use it that way, too!”

Kartr and Rolth obeyed, hunking forward at a half stoop for there were other blasters busy farther down.

“Who in Space are you?” demanded their captor.

“Patrol rangers. We’re trying to contact Smitt, our com-techneer—”

“Yeah?” There was deep suspicion in that voice. “Well, you’re going to contact him now. Get going down in that direction and I’m right behind you if you try to run—”

They followed orders which brought them to a dark doorway some distance away.

“Stairs here,” Rolth informed his companion.

“Sure,” agreed the man behind them. “Go down them, and shut up!”

But five steps down brought them to a barrier.

“Knock on that four times quick, wait a second and knock again!” came the order of their guard.

Rolth obeyed and the portal moved aside. They blundered through a thick curtain and found themselves in a dimly lighted hall where two men eyed them with no pretense of friendship and blasters were pointed at their middles. But when the light touched their comets there came recognition and relaxation. One of the guardians stepped closer.

“Take off your helmets,” he commanded.

The rangers obeyed and the blinked as a torch beam centered on them.

“It’s okay. They’re not Cummi’s—they must be Patrol. Take them in to Krowli. How is it going topside?”

“We lie on our bellies and shoot—they do the same. At least we knocked out the robots’ signal cables so they can’t turn those against us again. Far as I can see it’s stalemate,” their late captor replied. “Okay. Let the old man out, boys—back to the firing line!”

“Get one of them for me, Pol!”

“I’ll do that little thing. Fry him on a platter. Good landing!”

“And clear skies!” One of the guards closed the door and rearranged the folds of the improvised blackout curtain. The other jerked a thumb at the rangers.

“Down this way.”

They went down the length of the hallway into a large room which was the scene of some activity. Several men squatted around some boxes digging machinery parts out of packing. Two others sat at a box table and three more were making a scratch meal at the far end of the room. The newcomers were waved toward the two at the table. One of them raised his head and then jumped to his feet. It was Smitt.

“It is stalemate all right.” The com-techneer ran his fingers through his hair.

Kartr and Rolth studied the crude map which lay on the table top.

“We have them bottled up in the headquarters building. By the way, did they blow the tower? We felt some sort of a shock—”

The sergeant nodded without replying aloud. “If Cummi has disruptors,” he said, “I don’t see why he lets a handful of snipers pen him in. He could blow himself a path out any time he wants to.”

“Well.” The slim, middle-aged man who shared Smitt’s table when the rangers had been brought in, stretched and grinned. “Cummi doesn’t want to blow big holes in his nice city, not if he can help it. And snipers are hard to locate.”

“Not for a sensitive,” Kartr pointed out. “Give me five minutes out there and I can tag every one of your men. Cummi need only send out the Can-hound and—”

Krowli’s grin vanished as if wiped off by a brutal hand. “You have a point there, Sergeant,” he admitted in a voice of mild tone, but the emotions seething below it were anything but mild.

“Could it be,” Rolth struck in, “that disruptor shells are not too many in Lord Cummi’s armory?”

“That thought has also occurred to us,” Krowli answered. “Only it is a little difficult to prove. Cummi has had all the arms under his control since the second day we landed. We have only personal side arms which he could not logically take from us. This whole rotten mess came about just because he was able to think faster than the rest of us. And be sure that he didn’t overlook the point of holding all the guns he could! We might storm Cummi’s headquarters, sure, but if the disruptors do work—that would be the end of the stormers. And he has two sensitives—we have—”

“Two also, if I can contact Zinga. Any more among your people?”

Krowli shook his head. “We are—were—about as ordinary a crowd of average citizens as you could find anywhere in Control territory. Cummi grabbed all those of use to him, along with the arms.”

Rolth had been studying the map and now he dug a fingernail into the center of the square representing Cummi’s hold.

“I notice you don’t have the tube-tunnel marked—”

“What tube-tunnel?” Krowli wanted to know.

Smitt smashed his fist down on the box and swore at the pain. “I’m three kinds of a Domanti idiot,” he shouted. And then Kartr’s explanation interrupted him.

“It depends now upon whether Cummi has discovered those underground routes,” the sergeant concluded.

“He doesn’t know of them—I’m almost certain of that! None of us heard of them before—unless the techneers have discovered them and kept the secret.”

Rolth looked up. “If they did just that we may be leading a forlorn hope right into a stinger’s nest.”

“And if they don’t know”—Smitt was almost exultant—“we’ll be in their midst before they are aware of it!”

“You’ve got to pick the right men for this,” Kartr warned without any of Smitt’s enthusiasm. “You’re the right type, Smitt. They can’t crack your mind shield. But the rest—we’ll have to have men with whom the Can-hound and Cummi can’t tamper. Now take that fellow who brought us in—he isn’t a sensitive, at least he doesn’t seem to be, yet he caught my thought beam and jumped us at once.”

“That must have been Norgot. He has had good reason to learn how to protect himself against mind invasion. He was one of the Satsati hostages—”

“So!” Rolth paid tribute. “No wonder he was edgy when you tried to probe him, Kartr. He ought to be a perfect choice for the boarding party.”

“Boarding party!” thought Kartr fleetingly. Odd how the space terms stuck in their speech even now when they were permanently earthed.

“Yes,” he said aloud. “Any more of his caliber around?”

Krowli beckoned to one of the men who had just finished eating. “You’re a sensitive, Sergeant. We’ll leave the selection up to you.”

In the end they assembled eight men with mind shields tight enough to make them possibilities. Kartr longed for Zinga and Fylh, but so far nothing had been heard from the Bemmy rangers, although the rebel patrols had been alerted to keep watch for them.

Together the party of ten descended one by one in the gravity well the rangers had first discovered. There was a single car at the platform and three was a very tight fit for the voyage. But they made it that way, with Rolth at the controls each trip forward and back. And at last they stood near the plate elevator under Cummi’s headquarters. Kartr could see no indication that there had been any visitors there since the time he and the Faltharian had passed that way before.

It was those two other stops along the way, the ones they had sped by then, which interested him now. If there was any welcoming party waiting for them at the top of the shaft it might be well to make an earlier stop. So he pushed the lowest button on the wall. The five of them who had managed to crowd on the plate clung together as they were whisked up.

Their support came to a stop in darkness and Kartr marshaled his four companions off to let the elevator sink back. Then he dared to flash his beam about.

They were on a ledge from which a ramp ran up into the darkness. Underfoot was a coating of fine, gritty dust which Kartr believed had not been disturbed for centuries. And there was no indication of life other than their own, his perception assured him of that. Cummi must be ignorant of this breach in his defenses.

The swish of displaced air heralded the arrival of the plate again and then Smitt, Rolth and the other three rebels joined them. Rolth hung out over the well and surveyed the space overhead.

“Okay. It closed up when the plate hit bottom. Unless someone was up there watching at just this moment they’ll never know.”

Kartr switched off his torch and Rolth took the lead, each man grasping hold of the belt of the one before him, forming a chain to negotiate the dark through which only Rolth could pass freely. At first the angle of the ramp was a steep one, but it began to level off until they found themselves in a large room, coming around the base of a partition into a lighted space filled with the buzz of running machinery. The partition from this side seemed solid wall and Kartr did not wonder that the ramp and the shaft it led to had not been discovered. At the same instant he not only became aware of a man ahead but was able to identify him.

“Dalgre!”

The sergeant beckoned to Smitt. “Dalgre’s ahead—with another—maybe a guard, unless he has joined Cummi. You might have better luck contacting him than I would. And I can cover you—”

The com-techneer replied with a short nod and signaled to his rebel followers to stay where they were. Then, together with Kartr, he ran from the shadow of one giant machine to another, until they were able to see into a pool of brighter light where Dalgre sat before the board of controls and a man in the rumpled uniform of a jetman lounged several feet away, a force beam projector cradled in his arm.

Kartr touched Smitt’s shoulder and pointed to himself and then to the left, a path which would, with continued luck, bring him near the guard. He took it, moving like a gray wisp of fog around machines whose purpose he could not guess, until he came up behind the jetman. From where he crouched he could see the tip of Smitt’s helmet ridge crest.

Then the com-techneer stepped boldly out and in that same instant Kartr sprang, bringing the butt of his blaster down on the guard’s right arm. The man screamed and doubled up against the side of the control board, dropping the projector which flew across the floor. In a second Dalgre had scooped it up and was in a half crouch ready to fire. But Smitt’s familiar grays were in his sights and he did not squeeze the trigger.

“Very neat,” commented the com-techneer. “One would think you had practiced it. I take it that you are not a convert to Cummi, Dalgre?”

The Patrolman showed his teeth. “Is that likely? They needed me—so I’m still alive. But they blasted Snyn and the Commander—maybe Jaksan also for all I know—”

“What?” all three of the Patrol demanded almost with a single voice.

“Did it an hour ago. Last I heard Jaksan and the medico were barricaded in the west wing. This is a madhouse. About time we put some fear for the Comet back into these space-blasted fools! If it weren’t for the Can-hound being able to find out where everyone is and what he’s doing, I’d have tried to make a break before this—”

The jetman guard was tied with his own belt to the legs of the bench before the control board. Kartr looked over the array of dials there.

“Anything you can do to this that might put the odds in our favor?”

Dalgre grinned ruefully. “I’m afraid to chance it. I’m no real mech-techneer. And they gave me only a half hour’s briefing before they put me here. If I pull the wrong lever I might blow us up. Too bad—because we might be able to shake them right out of the building if we only knew what all those gadgets mean.”

“How do you get out of here?” one of the rebels wanted to know.

“Anti-gravity lift.” Dalgre guided them to an alcove beyond the control board. “Only trouble is that they may have a guard on the upper level who will become suspicious if we rise before my shift is up.”

“And how long will that be?”

Dalgre consulted his wrist dial. “A full half hour, planet time.”

“Can’t wait that long,” Kartr decided. “Any other stops on this rise beside the one you are supposed to use?”

“No.”

“But there is something else—” Rolth had been examining the walls of the shaft. “Here are holds for hands and feet—perhaps to be used in times of emergency. We can climb out—”

And climb they did. Kartr caught the message of a stranger ahead—the guard Dalgre had predicted. It was also Dalgre who had the answer.

“Let me hail him—”

The sergeant pulled back against the side of the well and kept only a single handhold on the climbing bars as the other Patrolman squeezed by him. A moment later they heard Dalgre hail whoever was at the top.

“Give us a hand—”

“What’s the matter?”

“I’m no mech-techneer—send for one of your fellows—one of these blasted machines down here is running wild. It may blow us up or something!”

Dalgre climbed the last few feet out of the shaft and moved away from its mouth.

“Where’s Taleng? Why didn’t he come up with the message?” The guard was openly suspicious.

“Because—” Kartr heard Dalgre start to answer and then came sounds of a struggle.

The sergeant swarmed up the last rungs and out of the hole. Dalgre was fighting with the guard for the possession of a hand force-beam. Kartr did not try to reach his feet but sent his body plunging forward to bring down both men. They fell on him with force enough to drive the air out of his lungs in an agonized grunt.

Minutes later the foggy scene began to clear again. The guard lay bound and gagged close to the wall and Rolth kneeled beside the sergeant kneading Kartr’s ribs to force the air back into him again. Smitt, Dalgre and the rebels had vanished. Rolth replied to the question the sergeant did not yet have breath enough to ask.

“I couldn’t hold them back.”

“But—” Kartr’s words came between painful gasps, “Cummi—the Can-hound—”

“They don’t honestly believe very much in danger from a sensitive’s power,” Rolth reminded him. “Even if they have seen a demonstration—they simply refuse to believe the evidence presented by their eyes. It’s the way most humans are made—”

“How very true. Luckily for us—”

Kartr froze and did not finish his sentence. Instead he turned on Rolth and sent the Faltharian sprawling forward into a doorway beyond. “Get out there quick and see if you can stop those fools making targets of themselves. I know that there’s trouble waiting for them ahead—”

He watched Rolth pick himself up and go. Because the trouble wasn’t ahead he hoped that the Faltharian would not stop to ask questions. There was trouble, right enough, but it lay behind, coming closer every second.

Cummi was coming—and this time Kartr knew that it was to be battle between them, an all-out battle without quarter on either side—a battle fought on no visible field and for an untellable victory.

11 — OUTCAST

Kartr was lying on his back, staring up into a leaden sky, and fine needles of rain stung eyes and skin. The cold was numbing and from somewhere nearby came a whimpering. After long minutes he knew that he was the whimperer. But he could not stop the sound, any more than he could control the shudders which shook his whole aching body. He willed his hands to move and they dragged heavily across torn clothing and patches of raw flesh.

Then he tried to sit up. His head swam sickeningly and the gray world whirled around. But he could see rocks, scrubby bushes ringing him in. His mind sorted the evidence of his eyes, as he watched blood ooze sluggishly from a cut along his ribs. He accepted the reality of the pain in his body, the stone ledge on which he lay, and the bushes— All were a part of this world—

This world? What world?

That question brought to life a white-hot fire in his mind. He cringed and tried not to think as the rain washed the blood away from his chest. He was almost content as long as he did not think. There was a second thrust of agony through his head as he became aware of other life near. A tawny muzzle broke through the bushes, round yellow animal eyes regarded him unwaveringly, a cold curiosity touched his mind. He sent a silent appeal to it for aid—and the head vanished.

Then he moaned and his clumsy hands caught his spinning head. For he knew now that for him there was no help. Behind him lay a barrier which cut him off from the past. He shrank from the torture that edge of memory brought him.

But deeper than memory lay some hard core of resistance. It flogged him into effort. Panting, whimpering, he dragged his feet under him, and, clawing at the stone, got to his knees and then to his feet.

He lost his balance and fell down a steep slope into a stream. Pulling himself out of the flood, he huddled beside a tall rock and fought for memory.

It came clear and sharp as a video-print—too clear, too vivid.

He was in a strange building, surrounded by high walls, and he was waiting, waiting for a danger beyond all dangers. It came toward him, unhurried, purposeful. He could feel the beat of power which enveloped it. He must fight. And yet he already knew every move of the coming battle, knew that it was a lost one—

There was a clash of wills, the pouring out of mind force against mind force. There was a sudden leap of confidence at his own strength.

Another mind snaked in to aid his enemy, a devious, evil one which left in its wake an unclean trail. But the two together were not able to force his barrier. He held to the defensive for a while and then struck. Under that blow the evil mind quivered—shrank. But he dared not follow its slight retreat for its partner fought. And now that first mind began to plead—to promise—

“Come in with us. We are of your own kind. Let us unite to rule these stupid cattle—nothing can withstand us then!”

He seemed to listen, but under cover he planned. There was one very dangerous move he had not yet tried. But it was all that was left him.

So he dropped his barrier, only for an instant. With a purr of triumph the evil fighter surged in and he allowed it. Once it had come too far to retreat he turned on it, surrounded and utterly crushed it. There was a scream which was only mental. And the evil was snuffed out as if it had never existed.

But the other, the one who had beckoned and promised, was still waiting. And at the very moment of his victory it struck, not only with its own force, but with added power it had kept cunningly in reserve. And he had known that this would happen—

He fought, desperately, vainly, knowing that the end was already decided. And he broke, so that that other, exultant, wild with victory, swept in. That which was his will was imprisoned, held in bonds, while his body obeyed the enemy.

Down that blank-walled corridor he marched stiffly, purposefully, a blaster in his hand, his finger on the firing button. But within he was shrieking silently because he knew what he would be compelled to do.

Stabbing flashes of blaster fire cut back and forth across a wide open space. And at the opposite edge of that area was what he had been sent to find—the ranger sled. Against his will he crouched and crept from protection to protection.

He saw men fall and the one who shared this weird journey with him snarled in rage as they went down. The opposition was being overcome—and those who brought them down were his own friends.

One more short rush would take him to the sled. And even as he was wondering why the other who commanded him wanted that so terribly he made the spring. But two who crouched behind its shadow stared up at him in stunned surprise. He knew them—but still his arm and hand were forced down and he fired. The startled croak from the fanged jaws of the nearer rang in his ears as he scrambled into the seat and grabbed at the controls.

With his mind sick and cowering, he only half relaxed under the take-off which slammed him breathless against the padding of the seat. And that other inside his mind set the course, one which sent the slight aircraft spiraling up into the dusky dome, up and up, until it touched a balcony high above the heads of the fighters and another leaped into the sled.

And that other’s will goaded them away, speeding out of the hall and away at top speed over the city, heading toward a horizon where a faint rim of gray proclaimed daybreak. Although he was obeying that order he still struggled. It was a noiseless, motionless duel, carried on high above the ancient city, will against will, power against power. And it seemed to Kartr that now the other was not quite so confident—that he was on the defensive, content to hold what he had rather than to attempt to strengthen his control.

How did it end—that fight in the sky? Kartr pillowed his aching head on the stone beside the stream and tried vainly to remember. But that was gone. He could only recall that he had—had blasted Zinga! That he had brought Cummi safely out of the city. That he had betrayed in his over-confidence and recklessness those who had most reason to depend upon him. And realizing all that— He closed his eyes and tried to blank out everything—everything!

Exhausted, he must have slept again. For he opened his eyes to be dazed by sun reflected from the water. He was hungry—and that hunger triggered the same instinct of self-preservation which had brought him earlier to the water. His hands were still slow and clumsy but he managed to catch a creature which came out from under an overturned stone. And there were others like it.

Toward evening he got to his feet again and stumbled along beside the water. He fell at last and did not try to struggle up. Maybe he dreamed, but he snapped to full wakefulness from a haze in which Zinga had called him. Awake, desolation closed in. Zinga was gone. Almost viciously he dug his hands into his eyes—but he could not wipe from memory the sight of the Zacathan’s face as he had gone down under the beam from Kartr’s blaster.

It would be best not to try to go on. To just stay here until he went into a world where memory could not follow— He was so tired!

But his body refused to accept that; it was getting up to stagger on. And in time the stream led him out on a wide plain where tall yellow grass tangled about his legs and small nameless things ran squeaking from his path. In time the stream joined a river, broad and shallow so that rocks in some parts of its bed showed dry tops under the sun.

Bluffs began to rise beside the water. He climbed, and slipped, and slid painfully over obstructions and he lost all count of time. But he dared not leave the water, it was too good a source of food and drink.

He was lying full length on a rock by a pool, trying to scoop out one of the water creatures when he started and cried out. Someone—something—had touched his mind—had made contact for an instant! His hands went to his head as if to protect himself from a second calling.

But that came. And he was unable to shut out the alien presence which flooded into him, asking questions—demanding—Cummi! It was Cummi trying to get at him again—to use him—

Kartr threw himself off his perch, skinning his arm raw, and began to run without taking thought. Get away! Away from Cummi—away—!

But the mind followed him and there was no escaping its contact. He found a narrow crevice leading away from the water, half choked with briars and the water-worn drift of storm floods. Unheeding scratches he plunged into the tangle.

It was a very small pocket ending in a hollow under the overhang of the bluff. And into this he crawled blindly, a child taking refuge from a monster of the dark. He curled up, his hands still pressed to his head, trying to blank out his mind, to erect a barrier through which the hunter could not pierce.

At first he was aware only of the desperate pounding of his own heart, and then there was another sound—the swish of an air-borne craft. The contacting mind was closing in. What frightened him so much he could not have explained—unless it was the memory of how the other’s dominion had made him kill his own men. What Cummi had done once, he might well do again.

And that fear of his was the other’s strongest ally. Fear weakened control. Fear—

With his face buried between his arms, his mouth resting on the gritty soil under the overhang, Kartr stopped fighting the pursuer and tried to subdue his own fear.

Faintly he heard the sound of a shout, the crackling of brush. Cummi was coming down the notch!

The ranger’s lips set in a snarl and he inched out of the pocket of earth. His hands chose, almost without help from eye or brain, a jagged rock. He had been tracked like a beast—but this beast would fight! And the Ageratan might not be expecting physical attack, he might well believe his prey to be cowering helplessly, waiting for the master’s coming!

Cautiously Kartr pulled himself up so that his back was against the welcome solidity of the gully rocks. His stone weapon was a good one, he thought, balancing it in one hand—just the right size and weight and it had several promising projections.

“Kartr!”

The sound he made in answer to that call was the growl of a baited animal.

His name—Cummi daring to use his name! And the Ageratan had even disguised his voice. Clever, clever devil! Illusions—how well that warped brain could create them!

Two figures burst through the brush to face him. The stone dropped from nerveless fingers.

Was Cummi controlling his sight too? Could the Ageratan make him see this—?

“Kartr!”

He shrank back against the stone. Run—run away—but there was no escape—

“Cummi—?” He almost wanted to believe that this was a trick of the Ageratan’s, that he was not honestly seeing the two coming toward him, the smiling two in ranger gray.

“Kartr! We’ve found you at last!”

They had found him right enough. Why didn’t they just draw and blast him where he stood? What were they waiting for?

“Shoot!” He thought he screamed that. But their faces did not change as they came in to get him. And he believed that if they touched him he would not be able to bear it.

“Kartr?” another voice questioned from down the gully.

He jerked at the sound as if a force blade had ripped his flesh.

A third figure in ranger uniform beat through the brush. And at the sight of his face the sergeant gave a wild cry. Something burst in Kartr’s skull, he was falling down into the dark—a welcoming, sheltering dark where dead men did not walk or greet one smilingly. He hid in that darkness thankfully.

“Kartr?”

The dead called him, but he was safe in the dark and if he did not answer no one could drag him out again to face madness.

“What is the matter with him?” demanded someone.

He lay very quiet in the dark, safe and quiet.

“—have to find out. We must get him back to camp. Look out, Smitt. Use binders on him before you put him aboard, he could twist right over the edge—”

“Kartr!” He was being shaken, prodded. But with infinite effort he locked his lips, made his body limp and heavy. And his stubbornness gave him a defense at last. He was left alone in his dark safety.

Then slowly he became aware of a warmth, a soothing warmth. And, as he had at his first awaking in the wilderness, he lay still and felt his body come back to life. There were hands moving over him, passing over half-healed wounds and leaving behind them a refreshing coolness and ease.

“You mean he is insane?”

Those were words spoken through his dark. He had no desire to see who spoke them.

“No. This is something else. What that devil did to him we can only guess—planted a false memory, perhaps. You saw how he acted when we caught up with him. There are all sorts of tricks you can play—or rather someone without scruples can play—with the mind, your own and others’—when you are a sensitive. In some ways we are far more vulnerable than you who do not try to go beyond human limits—”

“Where’s Cummi? I’d like to—” There was a cold and deadly promise in that and something in Kartr leaped to agree with it. And that act of emotion pushed him away from the safety of the dark.

“Wouldn’t we all? But we shall—sooner or later!”

A hard edge was pushed against his lips, liquid trickled into his mouth and he was forced to swallow. It burned in his throat and settled into a pleasant fire in his stomach.

“Well, so you have found him?” A new speaker broke through the mists about him.

“Greetings, Haga Zicti! We have been waiting for you, sir. Maybe you can suggest treatment—”

“So—and what is the matter with the rescued? I see no wounds of importance—”

“The trouble is here.” Fingers touched Kartr’s forehead. And he shrank away from that touch. It threatened him in some odd fashion.

“That is the way of it, eh? Well, we might have deduced as much. A false memory or—”

He was running away, running through the dark. But that other was behind him, trying to compel him—and, with a moan of desolate pain, Kartr found himself again in the hallway, facing Cummi and the Can-hound, made to relive for the third time that shameful and degrading defeat and murderous attack upon his own comrades.

“So Cummi took him over! He must have used other minds to build up such power—!”

Cummi! There was a hot rage deep inside Kartr, burning through the shame and despair—Cummi— The Ageratan must be faced—faced and conquered. If he did not do that he would never feel clean again. But would he even if he vanquished Cummi? There would remain that moment of horror when he had fired straight into Zinga’s astonished face.

“He took over.” Was he actually saying those words or were they only ringing in his head. “I killed—killed Zinga—”

“Kartr! Great Space, what is he talking about? You killed—!”

“Describe the killing!” And he could not disobey that sharp command.

He began to talk slowly, painfully, and then with a spate of words which seemed to release some healing in their flow. The fight for the sled, the escape, his awaking in the wilderness, he told it all.

“But—that’s perfectly crazy! He didn’t do that at all!” someone protested. “I saw him—so did you, and you! He walked right through the whole fight as if he didn’t see any of us—took the sled and went. Maybe he did pick up Cummi as he said—but the rest—it’s crazy!”

“False memories,” stated the authoritative voice. “Cummi supplied them—guilty ones so that he would want to keep away from us even if Cummi couldn’t control him fully. Simple—”

“Simple! But Kartr’s a sensitive—he does that sort of thing himself. How could he be taken in—?”

“Just because he is a sensitive he could be that much more vulnerable. Anyway—now that we know what is wrong—”

“You can cure him?”

“We shall try. It may leave some scars. And it will depend upon how adept Cummi has been.”

“Cummi!” That was spat out as if the name were an obscene oath.

“Yes, Cummi. If we can turn Kartr’s will to meeting— Well, we shall see.”

Again a hand was laid on his forehead, soothingly.

“Sleep—you are asleep—sleep—”

And he was drowsily content now—it was as if some weight had been shrugged away. He slept.

Waking was as sudden. He was staring up at a sloping roof of entwined branches and leaves—he must be lying in a lean-to such as the rangers built when in temporary camp. There was a cover over his body, one of the blankets of Uzakian spider silk from their packs. He turned his head to see a fire. There was a dankness in the air, a mist or fog dulled the outlines of the trees that ringed in the clearing.

Someone came out of the mist and flung down an armload of wood.

“Zinga!”

“In the flesh and snapping!” returned the Zacathan genially, bringing his jaws together smartly to prove it.

“Then it was a false memory—” Kartr drew a deep breath of wonder and infinite relief.

“That was the biggest lie you ever dreamed, my friend. And how do you feel now?”

Kartr stretched luxuriously. “Wonderful. But I have a lot of questions to ask—”

“Which can all be answered later.” Zinga went back to the fire and picked up a cup which had been resting on a stone close to the flames. “Suppose you get this inside you first.”

Kartr drank. It was hot broth and well flavored. He glanced up with a smile which seemed to stretch muscles that had not been used for a long, long time. “Good. I think I detect Fylh’s delicate talent in cooking—”

“Oh, he stirred it up now and then right enough, and added some of his messy leaves. Down every drop of it now—”

But Kartr was still holding the cup and sipping at intervals when another stepped out into the firelight. And the sergeant stopped in mid-gulp to stare. But Zinga was right here, beside him. Then who, in the name of Tarnusian devils, was that?

Zinga followed Kartr’s eyes and then grinned. “No. I haven’t twinned,” he assured the sergeant. “This is Zicti—of Zacan to be sure—but a Hist-techneer, not a ranger.”

The other reptile man strolled up to the lean-to. “You are awake then, my young friend?”

“Awake and”—Kartr smiled at them both—“in my right mind again—I think. But it may take some time for me to sort them out—the real and fake memories, I mean—they are rather mixed—”

Zinga shook his head. “Do not work too hard at that sorting until you are stronger. Weak as you are it might set you twirling about like a Tlalt dust demon.”

“But where—?”

“Oh, I was a passenger on the X451, along with my family. We joined your force yesterday—or rather the rangers found us in the early morning—”

“What happened in the city after I—er—left?”

Zinga’s taloned finger moved with a faint scraping sound along his jaw. “We decided to come away—after the fight was over.”

“Hunting for me?”

“Hunting for you, yes, and for a couple of other reasons. Smitt and Dalgre came across a ship the city people built. It brought us this far before it gave out. They are still working on it under the delusion that they may be able to put it back together again if they can just solve a few of its internal mysteries.”

“Smitt and Dalgre?”

“Yes, the Patrol withdrew as a unit. It seemed best at the time.”

“Hmm.” Kartr considered all that statement might imply. There had been changes. He was suddenly eager to know how many.

12 — KARTR TAKES THE TRAIL

Three in the uniform of the Patrol squatted on their heels by the fire. Kartr sat up, his back braced against bedrolls, watching them.

“You never said”—he broke the silence at last—“why you left the city—”

None of the three seemed to wish to meet his gaze. Finally it was Smitt who answered, an almost defiant ring in his tired voice.

“They were grateful to have Cummi and his men removed—”

Kartr continued to wait but that appeared to be all the answer the com-techneer was going to give.

“Big of them,” Dalgre added after a long pause, a dry rasp under-running his words.

“They decided,” Zinga took up the explanation, “that they did not want to exchange one official ruler out of the past for another—at least the impression they conveyed was that the Patrol had better not plan to take over in Cummi’s place. So we weren’t welcome—especially the rangers.”

“Yes, they made it clear.” Smitt was bleakly cold. “ ‘Now that the war is over, let the troops depart’—the usual civilian attitude. We tended to be a disturbing element as far as they were concerned. So we took one of the city aircraft and left—”

“Jaksan?”

“He went after the jetman who had burned down the Commander. When we found them later they were both dead. We’re the last of the Patrol—except for Rolth and Fylh—they’re out scouting—”

The three did not enlarge on that story and Kartr accepted their reticence. Perhaps to the city castaways who had tasted Cummi’s grab for power the Patrol had become too much a symbol of the old way of things. And so the Patrol had to go, after the ruler had been deposed. But one thing had come of that—there were no longer crewmen or rangers—there was only Patrol—their second exile had cemented tight the bonds of the survivors.

“Ah, our fishing party returns!” Zicti, who had been napping in the warmth of the flames, rolled over and got to his feet to greet the three coming through the screen of the trees. “And what luck did you have, my dears?”

“We put Rolth’s blue torch down at the water’s edge and the creatures were attracted by its light, so we return heavily laden,” the thinner voice of a Zacathan female answered. “This is indeed a very rich world. Zor, show your father the armored creature you found under the rock—”

The shortest of the three ran into the firelight, holding in one hand a kicking thing of many legs and thick claws. Zicti accepted the captive, being careful not to encounter the claws, and examined it critically.

“But how strange! This might almost be a distant cousin of a Poltorian. But it is not intelligent—”

“None of the water dwellers appear to be,” agreed his wife. “However, we should be glad of that, for they are excellent eating!”

Kartr had seen few Zacathan women, but his long companionship with Zinga had accustomed him to the difference between human and Zacathan features and he could understand that both Zacita and her young daughter, Zora, would be considered attractive by others of their race. As for young Zor—like an impish young male of any species, he was enjoying every minute of this wilderness life.

Zacita made a graceful gesture to suggest that the company seat themselves again. Kartr noted that Smitt and Dalgre had been as quick to rise to greet the Zacathan ladies as the others. Their feelings concerning Bemmys had certainly undergone a change.

Kartr awoke early the next morning and lay still for a long moment frowning up at the slant roof of the lean-to. There was something— Then his mouth straightened into a thin hard line. He knew now what it was he had to do and soon. Meanwhile, he crawled out of his bedroll. Above the drowsy quiet of the sleeping camp he could hear the murmur of the river not too far away.

A little unsteadily at first and then firmly as he gained balance he made his way down to its edge. The water was chill enough to bring a gasp out of him as he waded in. Then he lost touch with the sands of its bed and began to swim.

“Ah—the supreme energy and recuperative powers of the young!”

The booming voice was drowned out by a splash. Kartr raised his head just in time to receive a face full of water as Zor passed him at full swimming speed. And Zicti was sliding cautiously down over a flat rock, allowing the stream to engulf him by inches.

The dignified Zacathan blinked in mild benevolence over the wavelets at the ranger sergeant. With two lazy strokes Kartr joined him.

“Pretty primitive, I’m afraid, sir—”

The former hist-techneer of the Galactic University of Zovanta gave a realistic shudder but answered calmly:

“It does one good at times to be shaken out of the comfortable round of civilized life. And we Zacathans are not so physically breakable as you humans. The general idea now held by my family is that this is a most delightful holiday, showing much more imagination on my part than they had believed possible. Zor, for one, has never been so happy—” He grinned as he watched that small scaled body shoot across the current of the stream in pursuit of a water creature.

“But this is not a holiday, sir.”

Zicti’s large grave eyes met Kartr’s. “Yes, there is that to take into consideration. Permanent exile—”

He looked away, over the tumbled rocks, the bluffs beyond the river, the massed greenery of the wilderness. “Well, this is a rich world, and a wide empty one—plenty of room—”

“There is the city, partly in working order,” Kartr reminded him.

And in that instant he felt a warmth of reassurance close about him, a mental security he had not known for a long, long time. Zicti was not replying with actual mind speech, but answering the ranger in his own way.

“I believe that those in the city must be left to work out their own destiny,” the hist-techneer said at last. “In a manner of thinking that choice is now a retreat. They wish life to remain as it always has been. But that is just what life never does. It goes up—one advances—or it goes down—one retreats. And if one tried to stand still—that is retreat. We are now following the path our whole empire is taking. We have been slowly slipping back for the past century—”

“Decadence?”

“Just so. For example—this spread of dislike for those who are not human. That is increasing. Luckily we Zacathans are sensitives—we are ready to meet situations such as that which ensued after the X451 set down—”

“What did you do then?” asked Kartr, momentarily distracted.

Zicti chuckled. “We landed, too—on a lifeboat. There was a promising tract of wilderness not too far away. Before they got over the surprise of seeing us pop out of the escape port we were safely beyond their reach. But—had we not been able to sense Cummi’s attitude—it might have ended differently—

“We came in this direction and established a camp. And I must tell you, sergeant, I was the most amazed being in this solar system when I accidentally contacted Zinga. Another Zacathan here! It was as if I had met a sootacl face to face when I was not wearing a wrist blaster! After we joined forces with your party everything was, of course, satisfactorily explained. They were hunting you—you are very well regarded by your men, Kartr—”

Again that warmth of security and reassurance flooded the sergeant’s mind. He colored. “Then, when they found me—”

“Yes, when they found you—well, they loaded you on the lifeboat and brought you here. And your adventure has taught all of us an important lesson—not to underrate an opponent. I would never have believed Cummi capable of such an attack. But, in turn, he was not as strong as he thought himself to be, or you would not have been able to escape from his control after you left the city—”

“But did I?” Kartr’s frown was black. “In spite of your therapy I can’t remember what happened between leaving the city and waking up alone in the wilderness.”

“I believe that you did break free from him,” Zicti said soberly. “Which is why I have laid the compulsion on you— But, let us examine the facts, you men of Ylene are six point six on the sensitive scale, are you not?”

“Yes. But Ageratans are supposed to be only five point nine—”

“True. But there is always the chance lately that one may be dealing with a chance mutant. And this is the proper time in the wave of history for mutants to appear. A pity we do not know more of Cummi’s background. If he is a mutant that would explain a great deal.”

“Would you mind,” Kartr asked humbly, “telling me just where on the sensitive scale Zacathans place themselves?”

The big eyes twinkled at him. “We have purposely never submitted to classification, young man. It is always best and wisest to keep some secrets—especially when dealing with non-sensitives. But I would rate us somewhere between eight and nine. We have produced several persons who are combination telepaths and teleports, and more only a step or two below them, during the past three generations. So I am sure that while such mutation is on the increase among my people, it must be working in other races also.”

“Mutants!” Kartr repeated and he shivered. “I was on Kablo when Pertavar started the Mutant Rebellion—”

“Then you know what can come of such an upcurve in mutant births. There are good and bad results from all changes. Tell me, when you were a small child, were you aware of being a sensitive?”

Kartr shook his head. “No. In fact I was never aware of my powers until I entered the ranger cadet school. Then an instructor discovered my gift and I was given special training.”

“You were a latent sensitive. Ylene was a frontier planet, its people too close to barbarism to know their full strength. Ah—to have such a vigorous world thrown away! The foul sins of war! It is just because things such as the destruction of Ylene are happening too often now that I am convinced our civilization is nearing its end. Now in this camp we are a strange mixture.” He pulled himself out of the water and applied a towel with vigor. “Zor, it is time to come!” he called after his son.

“Yes, we are a strange mixture—a collection of odds and ends of the empire. You and Rolth, Smitt and Dalgre, are human, but you are all of different races and widely separated stock. Fylh, Zinga and my family are non-human. Those back in the city are human and highly civilized. And, who knows yet, there may also be natives in this world. One might almost believe that Someone or Something was about to conduct an experiment here.” He chuckled and sniffed the air. “Ah, food, and I am indeed empty. Shall we go to see what lies in the cooking pots?”

But before they came up to the fire Zicti touched Kartr’s arm.

“There is only one thought I wish to leave with you, my boy. I know little of your race—you may not be a mystic, although most sensitives tend to look beyond the flesh and seek the spirit—and you may have no religious beliefs. But if we have been chosen to work out some purpose here, it is up to us to prove worthy of being so selected!”

“I agree,” Kartr returned shortly but he knew that the other recognized his sincerity.

The Zacathan nodded. “Fine, fine. I am going to enjoy my declining years. And to think I have been given this just when I thought that life was totally devoid of excitement. My dear”—he raised his voice to address Zacita—“the aroma of that stew is delightful. My hunger increases with every step I draw nearer to the fire!”

But Kartr spooned up the soup mechanically. It was very well for Zicti to paint the future in such bold strokes. A hist-techneer by his training was always taught to look at the whole situation, not to study details. Now ranger instruction worked in just the opposite fashion, it was the small details which mattered most, the careful study of a new planet, the long hours of patient spying upon strange peoples or animals, the rebuilding by speculation from a few bricks of a whole vanished civilization. And here and now they were faced with a detail which he and he alone must handle.

He must render Cummi harmless!

That was the thought which had held over from sleep that morning, had been part of his dreams, and was now crystallized into a driving urge. Living or dead—he must and would find the Ageratan. If Joyd Cummi were still alive he was a menace to all of them.

Odd—Kartr shook his head as if to clear it—he was so haunted by that thought. Cummi was a danger, and Cummi was his business. Luckily the Ageratan was no trained explorer-woodsman, he must leave a trail so plain it would be child’s play for a ranger to follow. They had been together when they left the city. Somewhere that night they had parted company. Had Cummi pushed him off the sled in the dark, intending the fall to kill him? If that were so it would be a much more difficult task to locate the Ageratan—he would leave no footprints on clouds. The thing for Kartr to do was to return to that ledge where he had first gained consciousness.

“That’s ten—maybe fifteen miles north—”

The sergeant started to hear the words come from Zinga’s thin lips—picked out of his own thoughts.

“And—Kartr—you do not go alone, not on that trail!”

He stiffened. But Zinga must know his protest without his putting it into words.

“That job is mine,” the sergeant returned, his teeth set hard.

“Granted. But still I say you do not take such a trail alone. We have the lifeboat—it will cover ground with time-saving speed. And with it we can better prospect for any traces of Cummi’s passing.”

That was good common sense, but it was no sweeter to swallow because it was logical. Kartr would rather have left camp alone and on his two feet. It burned inside him that Cummi was his alone, and that he would not feel whole and well again until he had fronted the Ageratan and won.

“Take one more day of rest,” Zinga advised, “and then, I promise, we shall go. This matter of Cummi—it is one of importance.”

“Others might not think so. He is alone in a wilderness he can know very little about. The wilds may already have done our job for us.”

“But he is Cummi, and so will continue to linger as a threat until we are sure of him. Did Zicti tell you that he believes him a mutant? Remember Pertavar and what that one was able to do. And Cummi is not going to win next time you face him!”

Kartr smiled at the Zacathan, a smile which was hardly more than ten percent humor. “D’you know, my friend, there I think you are right! And this time I do not believe that I am being too confident—the mistake I made before. He has no Can-hound—and surely no other brains to tap!”

“Very well.” Zinga arose. “Now let me go and pick Dalgre’s store of mechanical knowledge. It might be wise to know just how much ranging power the lifeboat unit has left.”

They took off the next morning and no one asked questions although Kartr was sure they all knew his mission. The lifeboat did not have the springy lift of the sled and its pace was slower. Zinga, at the controls, held it steady over the winding reaches of the river until they found the stream which had served to guide Kartr’s wanderings.

From time to time the Zacathan glanced anxiously at the heavy clouds bulging over the horizon. Storm was indicated and they had best take shelter when the wind which was driving those clouds struck. To be tossed about the sky in a light-weight lifeboat was no experience to be desired.

“Anything below look familiar?

“Yes. I’m sure I crossed this open field. I remember pushing through the tall grass. And those trees ahead are promising. Think we’d better land in their shelter?”

Zinga measured the cloud spread again. “I’d like more to reach that ledge where you came to. Flame bats! It’s getting dark. Wish I had Rolth’s night eyes.”

It was darkening fast and the rising wind swept under the boat so that it lurched as it might on pounding sea waves. Kartr clung to the edge of his seat, his nails biting into its cover.

“Wait!” He got the word out at the risk of a bitten tongue as the lifeboat bucked. Through the dusk he had caught a glimpse of a recent rock slide down the side of a hill beside the stream. “This looks like where I fell!”

They were already past the point but Zinga circled back, as Kartr squinted through the storm dusk and tried to imagine how that same section would look to a man lying flat on the ledge near the top of the rise.

The aircraft snapped out of the circle and veered suddenly to the right, across the crest of the hill. Kartr’s protest was forgotten as he sighted what had drawn Zinga’s attention. The top of a tree had been shorn off, the newly splintered wood of the trunk gleaming whitely. With the pressure of expert fingers on the controls the Zacathan set the lifeboat down on the slope of the rise, a piece of maneuvering which might have at another time brought honest praise from the sergeant. But now Kartr was too intent upon what might lie just beyond the broken tree.

He found a mass of crushed branches and the remains of the sled. No one, not even a master mech-techneer, could ever reassemble what lay there now. The wreckage was jammed almost bow down in tight wrappings of withered leaves and broken wood and it was empty.

Zinga sniffed deeply as his torch revealed the bareness of that crumpled seat.

“No blood even. The question is—were either or both of you aboard when she hit?”

Kartr shook his head, a little awed by the completeness of the crack-up.

“I don’t think either of us could have been. Maybe he threw me out and—”

“Yes—and if you fought back that could have made him lose control so this would happen. But then where is Cummi—or his remains. No mess at all—something would remain if he had been collected by a wandering meat eater—”

“He could have jumped just before she hit,” suggested the sergeant. “If he had an anti-grav on his belt he could have made it on such a short fall without smashing himself.”

“So we look for a few tracks now?” Zinga’s long jaw jutted out as he glanced up at the sky. “Rain is going to spoil that—”

For the clouds were emptying their weight of water at last. Together the rangers stumbled through a beating downpour to the lee of a rock outcrop which gave a faint hint of shelter. The trees might have kept off more of that smothering blast but, Kartr decided as he saw branches whiplash under the wind, that might be more dangerous an asylum than the corner where they huddled gasping, the rain stinging their skin and finding its way through every crevice of their tunics and breeches.

“It can’t keep on like this forever—there isn’t that much water,” Kartr said and then realized that the drum of rain drowned out any but a parade ground pitch of voice.

He sneezed and shivered and thought bitterly that Zinga was going to be proved right. This deluge would mask any trail Cummi might have left hereabouts.

Then, in an instant, he snapped erect and felt Zinga’s answering jerk. The Zacathan was as startled as he had been.

They had caught a faint, very faint plea for help. From Cummi? Somehow he believed not. But it had come from a human—or rather from an intelligent mind. Someone or something which was alive, and reasoning, was in trouble. The sergeant turned slowly, trying to center the source. The pain and terror in that plea must be answered!

13 — CUMMI’S KINGDOM

“Due north—” Zinga’s gutturals reached him, and the Zacathan’s keener perception was right.

“Can the lifeboat ride this?” Kartr’s own experience with small air craft had been limited to those of the Patrol and the stability of their exploring sleds was proved—they had been designed for rough going under strange weather conditions. But the machine they had to use now did not arouse any confidence in him.

Zinga shrugged. “Well, it isn’t the sled. But the force of the wind is lessening and we certainly can’t start out on foot—”

They sprinted through the wall of falling water. And a moment later gained the cramped cabin of the lifeboat. It was a relief to be out of the pounding rain. But, even as they settled into their seats, the light craft rocked under them. Get this up into the full force of the wind—they would be riding a leaf whirled around in a vortex—!

But, with that thought in both their minds, neither hesitated. Zinga started the propeller beams and Kartr sent out a mind probe, trying to touch the one who had asked for their help.

They were lucky in some things, the dusk of the storm clouds was clearing. And Zinga had been correct, the wind was dying. The light craft bucked, swerved, dipped and soared as the Zacathan fought at the controls to hold her on course. But they were airborne and high enough above the tree tops to escape the fate of the wrecked sled.

“Should we circle—?” Zinga thought instead of spoke.

“Enough fuel?” Kartr asked in answer to that as he leaned forward to read the gage on the instrument board.

“You’re right—can’t afford that,” Zinga agreed. “A quarter of a tal of bucking these winds and we’ll be walking anyway—”

Kartr did not try to translate “tal” into his own terms of measurement. He had a suggestion to make.

“Pick out some good landmarks ahead and set us down—”

“Then we take to our feet? It might work. It will—if this deluge slackens. And there is your landmark—agreed? Put us in the middle of that—”

“That” lay about a mile before them, a wide circle of bare and blackened ground covered with the charred stumps of trees among which the thin green heads of saplings were beginning to show. Sometime not too far in the past this section had been burnt over. Zinga brought them down where the stumps were fewer.

And just as they left the lifeboat that plea for help reached them again, the terror in it plainer. Kartr caught something else. They were not the only living things to answer that call. There was a hunter on the trail ahead, a four-footed hunter, hungry—one who had not fed that day or the night before.

The slot of an old game trail led across the burnt land. Years of pressing hooves and pads had worn it so deep that it could be followed by touch as well as by sight. Kartr’s boots slipped into it easily and he trotted on through the slackening rain toward a sharp rise of bare rock. The rock wall which had once kept the fire from advancing was broken in one place by a narrow gap through which the game trail led. And then it went down slope into the heart of a real forest.

Not too far ahead was the hunter, very close to its prey. Kartr caught the mind of the one who was trapped. It was human—but not Cummi. A stranger, hurt, alone, and very much afraid. A different mind—

Now the hunter knew it was being followed. It hesitated—and Kartr heard a cry which was hardly more than a moan. There was a screen of bushes through which he beat his way and then he stood looking down at broken tree limbs and at a small, pitifully thin body pinned to the ground by one shattered branch. A distorted face was turned up to him—and he saw that the captive was no straggler from the city.

Kartr threw himself down in the soft muck and tried to lift the weight of the limb. But he could not shift it far enough for the other to escape. And now the hunter waited—just beyond a neighboring clump of bushes.

“Yahhhhh—” That rising, horrible bellow was the battle cry of a Zacathan warrior. A blaster cracked above Kartr’s head.

The tawny-furred body had been met in mid-spring by a searing shaft of flame. And the power of the beam bore it back, already terribly dead, into the very nest of leaves from which it had just sprung. A thick stench of singed hair and flesh curled about them.

Kartr went back to work. He was scooping the soft earth from under the branch when a shriek of pure, unreasoning terror whipped him around.

The captive’s face was a mask of naked fear, distorted out of human shape.

But there was nothing there to fear—the giant cat was dead. Only Zinga stood there, slipping his blaster back into its holster.

Only Zinga—but it was the Zacathan who aroused that fear!

Kartr did not need to give warning, the other ranger had sensed what was happening and disappeared, melting back into the bushes instantly. Kartr saw the captive was limp now, eyes closed—unconscious! Well, if he would stay that way for a while it would simplify the task.

As silently as he had vanished Zinga came back and together they worked until they had that slim body free and straightened out between them on the ground. Kartr’s hands made quick and skilled examination.

“No bones broken. The worst damage is this.” There was a deep and ugly gash across the ribs where a fold of the stranger’s flesh had been pinned by a sharp stub.

The body was thin, outlines of ribs showed beneath the sun-browned skin. And the stranger was small and slight—very small to be full grown or close to that, as Kartr judged the boy to be. His head was covered with a tangled, mud-and-briar-filled mass of yellow hair and there were downy sproutings along the lines of his jaw and across his upper lip. His torn garments consisted of a sleeveless, open jerkin made of the hide of some animal and a pair of leggings of the same material, while there were strange bag-like coverings on his feet.

“Very primitive—a native?” Zinga wondered.

“Or a survivor of another wreck—”

The Zacathan bit at one talon. “Might be. But then—”

“Yes—if the stranger was the survivor of another galactic shipwreck why his terror at the sight of you?”

The Zacathans were widely known, and they did not arouse fear—they had never been raiders. But—Kartr studied his companion objectively for the first time—suppose one had never seen a Zacathan before? Suppose one’s world was only inhabited by beings more or less like one’s self? Then the first glimpse of those pointed, fanged jaws, of that scaled skin, of the frill depending about a hairless head and neck—yes, it would be enough to frighten a primitive mind.

Zinga nodded; he had followed that reasoning. Now he had an answer ready.

“I’ll go back to the lifeboat and keep out of sight. You can try to discover where he came from and all the rest. If you move him, I’ll follow. Natives here! What if Cummi finds them?”

But Kartr did not need that implied warning. “Get going now— I think he’s coming around!”

Eyelids flickered. The eyes they had shielded were light blue, almost faded. First there was terror mirrored in them, but when they saw only Kartr’s human features the fear went and a sort of wary curiosity took its place. The sergeant probed lightly and found what he had suspicioned. This was no survivor of a space shipwreck, or, if the lad was descended from galactic rovers, their landing on this forsaken world was many generations back.

To make entirely sure of that Kartr asked his first question in the speech so common to all travelers of the stellar routes.

“Who are you?”

The boy was puzzled and his surprise deepened into fear once more. He was not accustomed to hearing a strange tongue, apparently, and galactic speech meant nothing to him. Kartr sighed and returned to the easiest methods of communication. He jabbed a thumb at himself.

“Kartr—” he said slowly and distinctly.

The wariness remained, but the curiosity was stronger. And after a moment of hesitation the boy repeated the ranger’s gesture and said:

“Ord.”

Ord. That might be the native term for man, but Kartr thought it more likely a personal designation. Again, and with infinite caution, the sergeant tried mind contact. He expected some shrinking, fear— But, to his surprise and interest, the boy appeared familiar with such an exchange. Yet—surely—he was not a sensitive! Kartr went deeper and knew that the stranger was not.

Which meant only one thing—he had had in the past some dealings with a sensitive—enough not to fear the mind touch. Cummi! The sergeant’s own signal went out to Zinga. The Zacathan was in the lifeboat ready and waiting.

Kartr turned to Ord. Making the boy comfortable on a bed of boughs under the drooping branches of a neighboring tree where the rain could not drench them so completely, he went to work. Sometime later, with mind touch and a fast-growing vocabulary, he learned that Ord was one of a tribe who lived a roving life in the wilderness. Any mention of the city sent him into shivering evasion—it was in some manner taboo. Those “shining places” had once been the homes of the “sky gods.”

“But now the gods return—” Ord was continuing. Kartr’s attention snapped to “alert.”

“The gods return?”

“Even so. One has come to us, seeking out our clan—that we may serve him as is right—”

“What is the appearance of this sky god?” asked the sergeant, keeping his voice carefully casual as if it mattered very little.

“He is like unto you. But—” Ord’s eyes widened—“but then are you also of the sky gods!” And he made a gesture with crossed fingers pointed at the ranger.

Kartr took the plunge. “After your way of speaking—yes, I come out of the sky. And I am trying to find the god who is now among your people, Ord.”

The boy moved uncomfortably, inching away from the sergeant. His hand fell on his bandaged side and he looked up with the old wary suspicion.

“He said that there were those who might come hunting him—night demons and doers of evil. And”—terror colored his voice again—“when first you came upon me I thought I saw with you such a one—a demon!” His voice slid up scale until it was almost a scream.

“Do you see him now, Ord? I, alone, am here with you. And you say that I look like the sky god who is with your people—”

“You must be truly a god—or a demon. You killed the silent hunter with fire. But if the god who came to us is your friend, why did he say that those who came after him were his enemies?”

“The ways of the gods,” Kartr answered loftily, “are not always the ways of men. Had I been a demon, Ord, would I have brought you out from under that tree, bandaged your hurt, and treated you well? I think that a doer of evil would not have done that for you.”

The other responded to this simple logic almost eagerly. “That is right. And when you come with me to the clan we shall have a great feast and later we shall go together to the Meeting Place of the Gods where you can be as you were in the very ancient days—”

“I want very much to go with you to your clan, Ord. How may we reach them?”

The boy’s hand pressed his injured side and he frowned. “It lies one day’s travel away—does the camp. I will not be able to walk swiftly—”

“We shall manage, Ord. Now this ‘Meeting Place of the Gods’—that is where your people live?”

“No—it is much farther away. Ten days of travel from here—maybe more. We go once a year, all the clans together, and there is trading and warriors are raised up at the Man Fire, and the maidens make their choices of mates. There is fine singing and the Dance of Spears—” His words trailed off.

Kartr smoothed the matted hair back from the boy’s eyes.

“Now you will sleep,” he ordered. The pale blue eyes closed and the boy’s breathing came even and unhurried. Kartr waited for a few minutes and then slipped into the fringe of trees where seconds later Zinga joined him.

“This ‘sky god’ he speaks of must be Cummi—” the sergeant began.

“Cummi, yes, and with him at large time is of importance. This Ord is a member of a primitive, superstitious culture—just the type Cummi could wish for—”

“He can start a fire in such tinder which would spread with ease,” Kartr agreed. “We’ve got to get to him!”

His fingernails drummed on his belt. “We’ll have to take the boy,” he continued. “And he says that the camp is at least a day’s journey away. I can’t carry him that distance—”

“No. We’ll take the lifeboat.”

“But, Zinga, he thinks you are a demon. He couldn’t be dragged aboard that with you in it—”

“No? But there is going to be no trouble. Use your wits, Kartr. You are a sensitive but you have no idea even yet of how much power you have to draw on at will. Ord will see and hear just what I want him to when we go and he will guide us to just the right spot, too. But we shall not land at his camp—I cannot control any number of minds—especially where Cummi has been tampering. So you will carry him in to his people and he will have no memory of the flight or of there being a second ranger.”

It went just as Zinga had promised. Ord seemed but half awake, lying between them in dreamy content. He answered the Zacathan’s questions readily. The visibility was better than it had been all day and they were flying out of the rain.

“Smoke!” Kartr pointed to the right.

“That must be their campsite. Now for a landing place—not too far away. You take him in—”

Ten minutes later Kartr grunted as he paused, the boy’s limp body in his arms. He was on the edge of an open park-like expanse in which were set up, in no particular order, a cluster of skin tents. He could sense some twenty individuals within range of mind touch. But not Cummi.

“Ord!”

A girl was running toward the ranger, long braids of the same yellow hair as the boy’s swinging over her shoulders.

“Ord?” She stopped short, staring with a hint of terror at the sergeant.

To his relief the boy roused at her cry and turned his head.

“Quetta!”

There were others coming from the tents now. Three men, hardly taller than the boy, moved warily along, their hands not far from the hafts of the long knives at their belts. Their cheeks and chins were covered with thick mats of hair—they were furred almost like animals.

“What you do?” The demand came from the tallest of the three.

“Your boy—hurt—I bring him—” Kartr shaped the unfamiliar words slowly and as clearly as he could.

“Father—this is a sky god—he seeks his brother—” Ord added.

“The sky god is away. He hunts.”

Kartr gave silent thanks for the chance to learn the ground before Cummi’s return. “I will wait—”

They did not dispute that. Ord was taken from him and established on a pile of furs in the largest of the tents. And the ranger was given a mat by the fire and offered a steaming bowl of stew. He ate hungrily but it was not appetizing stuff.

“How long ago did—did the sky god leave?” he asked at last.

Wulf, the hairy chieftain and Ord’s father, squinted and sucked upon a tightly rolled stick of dried leaves which he hit lit with a blazing splinter and moved contentedly between his bearded lips, puffing out a gray, acrid smoke.

“With the first light. He is very clever. With his magic he holds fast the beasts until the young men can spear them. We feast in plenty since he came to us. He will go to the Meeting Place of the Gods and there call upon his people and they shall come to us. Our maidens shall marry with them and we shall be great and rule this land—”

“Your people have lived here always?”

“Yes. This land is ours. There was a time of burning fire and the gods departed into the sky—then we were left behind. But we knew that they would come again and bring a good life with them. And so it has come to pass. First came Koomee”—he had trouble with the name—“now you are here. There will be others—as the old ones promised.”

He puffed silently for a moment or two and then added, “Koomee has enemies. He said that the demons fear that he may make us great again.”

Kartr nodded. He gave every appearance of listening closely to what the chieftain was saying, but he was listening with more than ears alone. They were expert woodsmen, these natives. For the past five minutes they had been creeping into position in the dark behind him. They planned a sudden rush—a neat enough idea—it might have worked with a non-sensitive caught in the trap. As it was he could turn and put hand on every one of them. And he must make some move before that rush came.

“You are a great and clever chieftain, Wulf. And you have many strong warriors, but why do they lurk in the dark like frightened children? Why does he with a split lip crouch there”—the sergeant pointed to his left—“and the one with the two knives there?” His hand moved from side pocket to the fire as Wulf’s head jerked around. A tongue of greenish flame shot up to bring light to the faces of the men who had believed themselves completely hidden.

There was a wild animal howl of fear as they threw themselves back out of that betraying light. They scattered. But to give full credit to the chieftain’s courage he did not move. Only the roll of leaves dropped from his mouth to singe the hide legging on his right knee.

“If I were a demon,” Kartr continued in his ordinary voice, “those would now be dead men, for I could have slain them as they hid. But I have no hatred for you or your people in my heart, Wulf.”

“You are Koomee’s enemy,” returned the other flatly.

“Has Cummi said so? Or do you only guess that? Let us wait until he returns—”

“He has returned.” The chieftain did not turn his head but there was a subtle alteration in his voice, a quickening of intelligence in his eyes as if another personality now inhabited the squat body.

Kartr got to his feet. But he did not draw his blaster. He could only use that weapon for a last defense. Surely the Ageratan wouldn’t hurl these poor fools at him—!

“That I shall believe when I face him. Gods do not fight from behind others—”

“So say the noble Patrol! The fearless rangers!” Wulf’s lips twisted as he shaped words entirely alien to his own tongue. “You are still bound by those outmoded codes? The worse for you. But I am glad you have come back to me, Sergeant Kartr, you are a better tool than these brainless woodsrunners.”

And before Wulf had half finished that speech a bolt of mental force struck Kartr. If Cummi had not betrayed himself by words he might have had a better chance. But the ranger was armed and prepared. And into him flowed Zinga’s support, so that he stood smiling faintly in the firelight as he parried and thrust in the silent motionless duel.

Cummi did not try heavy assaults, instead he used quick rapier stings of attack which one must guard against constantly. But Kartr’s confidence grew. And he was doing all the work, he realized with mounting exultation—Zinga was only in watchful support. Let Cummi be a mutant of unknown powers, he was going to meet his match now in a frontier barbarian from a vanquished planet. The ranger had a second’s flicker of new knowledge—Ylene had been burnt off because an Ageratan had realized the threat of that world.

His confidence grew. Perhaps Ylene had been the check upon the growing Ageratan ambition. Very well, a man from Ylene was about to avenge both his people and his world!

14 — PLAGUE

But that confidence was to be suddenly shaken. The pressure exerted by Cummi stopped as quickly as if some force blade had cut it. And in place of that darting attack there was a confused boiling of unrelated thoughts and impressions. Was that to lure him from behind his block, to set him up for some more subtle attack? But Kartr remained wary, ready to meet what came—and it came with a wild blast of desperation as if the Ageratan must win at once.

That ebbed and still the sergeant was on guard, believing that the other had withdrawn to gather his forces for another assault. And by thinking that he almost died.

For the attack which came was not mental but physical—a lance of blaster fire.

With a choked cry of pain Kartr dropped. He lay flaccid in the glow of the flames.

The chieftain shook his head and stared almost stupidly at the limp body of the ranger. He was still in the process of getting to his feet when another came out of the shadows and approached the fire, a gleaming blaster in his hand.

“Got—got him!” There was an odd hesitation in those words of triumph. And before he reached the body the newcomer stopped and half raised his hand to his head. Then his face twisted and he cried out. The blaster fell to the ground, bounced, and landed close to the body of his victim. And a second later he, too, had crumpled up.

Kartr raised himself. His hand went to his left shoulder. The vlis hide jerkin had taken some of the force of the blast, and it had not been well aimed. He had a nasty burn, but he was still alive, scooping up Cummi’s blaster as he got to his feet.

That blaster—why had Cummi tried to burn him down? The sergeant was sure that the Ageratan relied on mental power—the weapon was entirely out of character—Cummi was too civilized, too self-confident. And how in the world had he been able to knock the Ageratan out so easily just a minute ago? Why—Cummi had reacted to his bolt as if he had had no mind blocks up at all!

As the ranger bent over him Cummi stirred and moaned faintly. The Ageratan’s breath came in painful gasps, his chest laboring as if he were fighting hard for every lungful of air. But that was not natural—what was wrong with the man?

“Koomee? What does—?”

Wulf hovered timidly by the two. Kartr shook his head.

“Turn him over,” he ordered briefly.

The chieftain obeyed gingerly, as if he dreaded touching the man on the ground. Kartr went down on one knee, setting his teeth against the sharp twinge of pain that motion cost him. In the firelight the Ageratan’s sharp features were plain to see, his mouth was open and he was gasping. There was a faint, dark shadow pinching in above his beaked nose and about his lips—Kartr stiffened.

“Emphire fever!” he broke out though Wulf could not understand.

It was a common enough disease, he had had a bout with it once himself. The remedy was galdine. But before the medicos had discovered that drug, emphire had been serious all right. A man who caught it strangled to death because muscles locked against breathing. Galdine! But where could one find galdine here? Did they carry it in their packs of ranger equipment? He tried to remember if it were included. It might not be—their immunity shots were supposed to leave them free from the necessity of carrying such supplies.

In the meantime Cummi was going to die unless he could get air. And he, Kartr, couldn’t apply artificial respiration with a blast-burned shoulder.

“You”—he turned to Wulf—“put your hands here. Then push hard and let go, like this—one, two, one, two—”

With visible reluctance the chieftain obeyed orders. Kartr contacted Zinga.

“Okay,” came the calm response. “Will try for galdine in camp if you can hold on. Give me two hours—maybe three—”

Kartr bit hard on his lower lip; little hot waves of pain spread from the burn.

“Get going!” he flashed back.

Wulf glowered at him from under the tangle of his thick hair.

“Why must I do this to Koomee?”

“If you fail to do it he will die.”

For a moment the rhythm ceased as the chieftain looked at the ranger in open surprise.

“But there is no wound upon him. And he is a sky god—one of those of all knowledge. Have you laid a spell upon him—being his enemy?”

“There is no spell.” Hurriedly Kartr discarded two possible explanations and gave a third which this clansman might not only understand but accept. “Cummi has swallowed certain demons which cannot be seen. They do not wish to come forth, but they must be forced to do so—or they will slay him as surely as if your knife had torn him open—”

Wulf considered this and went back to his task. The manpower—and womanpower—of the camp ringed them in. And, as Wulf began to tire, Kartr arbitrarily chose the nearest and strongest of the men and set him to work in the chieftain’s place. The sergeant watched Cummi’s face narrowly. He could not be sure but he was almost certain that some of the strain was passing.

It might be that the first attack would be over before Zinga returned. Emphire came in cycles, he recalled. If the first disastrous paralysis of the disease did not kill, there was a period of relief before the second attack began. For that second crisis only galdine was the answer. If not treated with it the patient generally succumbed. The fever, which had faded in four generations to light attacks of mild discomfort, had once been a plague which had devastated whole planets.

Yes, Cummi was definitely breathing easier. At a sign from the ranger the man now working over the Ageratan stopped, but the Vice-Lord continued to draw shallow breaths. Kartr touched the dank skin of the sick man’s face; the characteristic cold sweat was beading on forehead and upper lip.

“Bring robes to cover him,” he told them.

Wulf pulled at his sleeve. “Are the demons out?”

“They have withdrawn; they may yet return.”

A woman squirmed by the line of men and tossed a tanned skin in the general direction of Cummi. But she came no closer to draw it over the unconscious man. Kartr pulled it awkwardly into place himself. The natives were edging away. Wulf had retreated to the other side of the fire where he hovered nervously as if in two minds about whether to follow his people into the tight group of whisperers by the tents.

Two hours, Zinga had said, maybe three. And perhaps no galdine after all. Kartr didn’t like to see the natives gathering that way, to hear the whispers hissing in the dark. They couldn’t start any trouble without his knowledge. But he was one man against twenty or more of them. He had two blasters—which he could only use as a very last resort. The years-long conditioning of the rangers would not permit him to fire until it was absolutely necessary in order to save his life.

“You—”

That weak thread of voice came from beside him. Cummi was awake.

“What—?” The Ageratan began with a question.

Kartr answered with one word: “Emphire.”

“Beaten—by—by a virus!” There was self-contempt in that. “Galdine?”

“Maybe. I have sent someone to see if it is among our supplies.”

“So? Then there were two of you!” Cummi’s voice was gaining strength. “But you are alone now—”

“I am alone.”

The Ageratan’s eyes closed wearily. He was holding a complete mind block. Perhaps behind it he was planning. But emphire affected the mental powers as well as the muscles. He could do little to start trouble now.

“You are going to have difficulties with the clan, you know.” He was continuing in a conversational tone, a sort of malicious amusement just below the surface. “I’ve had time to indoctrinate them pretty thoroughly. They are not going to take kindly to my collapse—they’ll believe that you’ve tried to murder me.”

Kartr did not answer and his silence appeared to sting Cummi to another effort.

“You won’t win this bout, Ranger, any more than you won the last. If I die you’ll go down under their knives and spears—a fitting end for a barbarian.”

The sergeant shrugged although that motion almost wrung a cry of pain from him. Cummi’s half-open eyes narrowed and a grin drew back his lips in an animal snarl.

“So I did mark you! Well, that will make you easier meat for Wulf and his men when the time comes.”

“You have it arranged very neatly, I suppose.” Kartr dared to yawn. He might not be able to read what was going on behind the Ageratan’s block, but he could guess how he himself would answer such an impasse and he gave Cummi credit for devising something as easy. “I will be taken care of and then you will lay an ambush for whoever comes with the galdine. It will be simpler to get it from a dead man.”

But Cummi’s eyes were closed again and he gave no sign that the other might have scored. Kartr looked to Wulf. The chieftain was sitting cross-legged again, staring into the fire. Was Cummi busy now making mind contact with that hunched figure? The sergeant sighed. During the past few days he had discovered that there were vast unexplored possibilities tied up with this gift of his. Why, the adept who had schooled him had known practically nothing—he knew that after meeting with Zicti, discovering communication with Zinga. If he had their ability now he might well be able to intercept any orders or suggestions the Ageratan was trying to plant in Wulf’s mind. He had no idea of the extent of Cummi’s power—if he were a mutant, anything was possible.

The rest of the clan were still bunched in the dark by the tents. But they were squatting down, there was no immediate danger of attack. He had only to be alert and ready—

Time passed leadenly. Now and again someone crept up to feed the fire. Wulf drowsed and awakened with a jerk of the head. To all appearances Cummi either slept or was unconscious. But Kartr stayed on guard. Fortunately the pain in his shoulder would not let him rest.

At last the sound he had been straining to hear came—the faint swish of the lifeboat’s air passage. He drew a deep breath of relief and straightened. Then he glanced down. Cummi’s eyes were open, dark holes of evil malevolence. What was the Ageratan going to try?

Wulf stirred and Kartr’s hand reached for the blaster Cummi had dropped. The chieftain arose stiffly to his feet. Three more men came out of the shadows to join him.

“Kartr!” That mental call was imperative and it came from Zicti not Zinga. “There is no galdine!”

Even as the message reached the ranger Cummi uncoiled, his legs flailing out in a move which might have brought Kartr down had he not sprung backward at the same instant. The Ageratan was crazy if he thought he could ever surprise a sensitive. But by his maneuver the Vice-Lord had been able to get to his hands and knees.

This was it! Kartr lurched to the left, keeping the fire between him and the clansmen who were moving to come up to him. They had their knives out. And he couldn’t turn his blaster on the poor fools, he couldn’t!

He lashed a kick at Cummi, who, reflexes weakened by the fever, could not dodge the blow. As the Ageratan sprawled flat on his face, the ranger hurdled his body and began to back toward the woods in the general direction of the hidden aircraft.

Seconds later he heard a welcome voice behind him.

“I have them covered, Kartr—”

“Cummi controls them—”

“Okay. I’ve got him, too. Fall back to the trees, Zicti is waiting for us.” Rolth spoke calmly as he stepped out of the shadows to stand shoulder to shoulder with the sergeant.

Cummi caught at Wulf as the chieftain passed him. Using the native as a support he pulled himself up on his feet.

“So you don’t have galdine,” he spat at them. His face was no longer malevolent. It was twisted and white with pure fear.

“I may be a dead man,” he went on softly, “but I still have time to finish you, too.” He released Wulf suddenly and pushed him at the rangers. “Kill—!” he screamed.

“We’ll do what we can for you—” Kartr said slowly.

The Ageratan was holding himself erect with an effort which was draining the last resources of his strength. “Still living by the code, fool! I shall live to see your blood—barbarian!”

“Ahhhhhhhh!” The scream was shrill and it bit rawly at the nerves. It could only have been torn from a woman’s throat.

Wulf and his men half turned just as a second scream broke. There was a frenzied gabble of words which Kartr did not catch. But Zicti’s thought translated for them.

“One of this tribe—a maiden—has fallen ill. They believe that the demons of Cummi have entered into her—”

Wulf had gone to the source of the screaming; now he came back into the firelight walking heavily.

“The demons”—he spoke directly to the Ageratan—“are in Quetta. If you are truly a sky god—bring them forth.”

Cummi swayed, conquering the weakness of his body by sheer power of will.

“It is their doing.” He pointed to the rangers. “Ask them.”

But Wulf’s attention did not waver.

“Koomee is a sky god, he has sworn it. These have not sworn it. Koomee brought the devils hither in his body. They are the devils of Koomee, not the devils of my people. Now let Koomee summon them forth out of the body of my daughter!”

Cummi’s ravaged face, gaunt and hollowed, was a mask of pain in the flickering light. His black eyes held on the rangers.

“Galdine.” Kartr saw the Ageratan’s lips form the word. Then slowly, as if he were fighting to the last, he lost control and toppled forward into the trampled dirt and ashes on the very edge of the fire.

Wulf stooped and twisted his fingers in the Ageratan’s cropped hair, fumbling for a hold, and then he jerked up the head. But Cummi had not lost consciousness. And, before either of the horrified rangers could move, the chieftain drew his knife in a quick stroke across the stretched throat of the Vice-Lord.

“Here is an open door for the devils to enter,” he remarked, “and also much blood for them to drink. May they speedily find it.” He wiped the knife on Cummi’s tunic. “Sometimes it takes very much blood to satisfy the thirst of a strong demon,” he ended as he looked up at the rangers.

Rolth’s blaster was ready but Kartr shook his head. Together they backed into the darkness under the trees.

“They will follow—” suggested the Faltharian.

“Not yet,” came Zicti’s reassurance. “I think that they are still a little daunted by their chieftain’s act. After all, it is not every day that one slays a god—or ex-god. Now, let us make haste to the lifeboat.”

It was morning again and there was a sun bright and hot across Kartr’s knees but his thoughts were dull and gray.

“We couldn’t do anything to help them.” Smitt was making his report. “If we had had the galdine—maybe—if they would let us near them. But we have tried during these last three days. When Dalgre and I went there two hours ago one of them crawled out just to throw a knife at us. Most of them must be already dead.” He spread out his hands in a gesture of defeat. “I do not think any will be alive by nightfall.”

“Twenty people—maybe more—murdered. It was murder,” Kartr returned bleakly.

“We don’t catch it,” Dalgre wondered.

“Immunity shots—and the Zacathans have never come down with emphire. But this is the way it used to hit—when it was a plague. It hasn’t been like this for years—”

“We’ve had galdine. And we’ve known emphire a long time, remember. It struck us just after the Ciran worlds were explored. Through generations,” Rolth pointed out, “we may have built up some natural immunity to it, also. Man does, by natural selection. But how do we know how many other germs we may carry with us—harmless to us but devastating to this world. The best thing we can do from now on is to stay away from the natives.”

“And that move may not be altogether altruistic,” added Zinga. “Suppose they have bred some pleasant little viruses of their own. Let us pray that our immunity shots continue to work.”

“It is a tragedy, but one we can do nothing to end.” Zicti pulled off his traveling cloak and let the sun beat warmly on his shoulders. “From now on we shall keep away from these people. I gather that they are not a numerous race—?”

“I believe not,” answered Kartr. “From the little I was able to learn there are only a few small family clans—but they unite once a year at—”

“The Meeting Place of the Gods, yes, that is a most interesting point. These ‘gods’ who departed into the sky—who were they, some galactic colony later withdrawn? That would account for the city left in order to wait a return. Pardon me, gentlemen, I am being swept away again by my own subject.” The hist-techneer smiled.

“But there was no space ship landing field near the city,” protested Dalgre.

“That was only one city. There may be others,” Fylh pointed out. “Suppose they had only one or two space ports on the whole planet. That could be true of a colonial outpost.”

“The Meeting Place of the Gods,” mused Zicti. “What does that suggest?”

“We’ve got to go there!” Dalgre sat up eagerly. “The city machinery, what I saw of it, was in an amazing state of preservation. If we find a space port we might even find a ship we can use!”

A ship to use. Kartr frowned. And then he could only be surprised at the instant protest those words had sparked in him. Didn’t he want to leave this world?

Zacita and her daughter came out of the makeshift tent that was their own domain and joined the group by the fire. Kartr noted with an inner tickle of amusement how quick Zinga was to heap up the grass intended for seating.

“You have news of importance?” Zacita asked.

“There may be an ancient space port near here. The native boy told Kartr of a ‘Meeting Place of the Gods’ which suggests possibilities,” replied her husband.

“So—” Zacita considered that. But Kartr caught a fleeting impressing that she was not altogether pleased with that news. Why? A Zacathan lady of the highest rank—for the gold forehead paint she wore proclaimed her an Issitti, one of the fabulously wealthy and noble Seven Families—certainly would rejoice at the chance to return to galactic civilization as quickly as possible.

“Techneer Dalgre believes that if we find one of the old ships we might be able to activate it again—since the machinery in the city was in such an excellent state of preservation. They used a city form of aircraft to come here, remember—”

“I hope that any spaceship we might discover would last longer than that did,” Dalgre stuck in ruefully. “It did bring us this far but then it went to pieces.”

“An important point to consider.” Kartr met Zacita’s eyes and it was almost as if he read in them some subtle encouragement. “I have no desire to blast off in a ship which will go powerless after we hit deep space. I can think of many more effective and less painful ways of committing suicide—”

“But we can visit this Meeting Place of the Gods.” Dalgre was almost pleading.

“I would say yes, if we can keep free of the natives. It is time for their annual pilgrimage there. And we can’t mingle with them. Cummi infected and killed that clan just as truly as if he had taken a disruptor to their camp! We can’t be walking death to a whole nation!”

“Very true,” Zicti agreed. “Let us do this—send out a scouting party to make mind contact with some clan bound for this assembly. But our men must keep out of sight. The natives thus discovered will serve us as unconscious guides. Once contact is established we can follow with our supplies— Will the lifeboat be of any more service?”

“It can go twenty—maybe twenty-five miles.” Dalgre answered that with authority.

“Well, walking is good for the figure,” Zicti continued good-humoredly. “What do you think, Sergeant Kartr?”

“You have the best solution,” Kartr returned.

Zinga got up, crooking a taloned finger in Rolth’s direction. “Let us go out by night—owl eyes here can watch and I can think us into contact. Should we find what we seek, you shall speedily know of it.”

15 — THE MEETING PLACE
OF THE GODS

Before midnight they received the message they had been waiting for, Zinga and Rolth had found a clan of natives camped for the night and had made sure that they were en route to the Meeting Place of the Gods. In the late afternoon of the next day the rangers abandoned their own camp and set out on the trail blazed by their unknowing guides.

On the eighth morning both Kartr and the Zacathans caught the warning of a multitude gathered not far ahead—they must be approaching their goal. And, picking a well-sheltered and secluded thicket, they made camp, sleeping uneasily by turns until nightfall when Zinga, Kartr and Rolth set out to learn the general lay of the land before them.

It was not the lights of a city which lit a glow in the northern sky to beckon them, but the rising flames of at least a hundred campfires. The three rangers moved gingerly about the rim of the wide, shallow cup which held the clan rendezvous, avoiding any near contact with the few stragglers still coming in.

“This is a space port!”

“How can you be sure?” demanded Kartr, striving to see what had made Rolth declare that with such firmness.

“The ground—all over this depression—it has been blasted time and time again by take-off back-flares! But it’s old—no new scars showing.”

“All right. So we’ve located an old space port.” Zinga sounded irritated, almost disappointed. “But a port isn’t a ship. See any of those, bright eyes?”

“No,” Rolth returned calmly. “But there is a building on the other side—there. See—that fire lights it just a little—”

Kartr, now that his attention had been directed, sighted it, an expanse of massive blocks only barely perceptible in the poor light.

“It’s large—”

Rolth cupped his hands around his eyes to cut some of the fire glare. “Let’s have the visibility lenses, Kartr.” And when he used those he added with a faint trace of excitement:

“Its huge—bigger than anything we saw in the city! And—did you ever visit Central City?”

Kartr laughed bitterly. “I saw visigraphs of it. Do you think we outer barbarians ever came so close to the fount of all knowledge as to see it in reality?”

“And what has Central City got to do with this?” Zinga wanted to know. “Were you ever there yourself?”

“No. But one can get a pretty good idea of the place from the visigraphs. And that building over there is an exact duplicate of the Place of Free Planets—or I’ll eat it stone by stone!”

“What!” Kartr snatched the lenses out of his companion’s hands. But, although the fires and the figures of the natives moving about them leaped up to meet his eyes, the building beyond remained only a shadowy blurred shape shrouded in the night.

“But that is impossible!” Zinga cried almost triumphantly. “Even the newly hatched know that the Place of Free Planets is archaic, designed by architects who lived so far in the past we don’t even know their names or home worlds. And it has never been copied!”

“Except that it has—right here,” Rolth returned stubbornly. “I tell you, there is something odd about this world. Those tales you heard, Kartr, of the ‘gods’ who took to space—that city left waiting, ready for its owners to return, this place where the natives have a tradition that they must gather at regular intervals to await such a homecoming—it all adds up—if we only knew how to add—”

“Yes,” agreed Kartr, “there is some mystery here, a bigger one maybe than we have ever tried to solve before—in spite of our system ranging—”

“Mysteries!” Zinga scoffed. “And now, my friends, we had better withdraw in a hurry unless you wish to be trampled by a select party from below—”

But Kartr had received the same sense warning and was already creeping on his hands and knees back from the rim of the ancient space port.

“If we made a wide circle to the west,” Rolth pointed out, “we might be able to come out behind that building and see more of it.”

So the Faltharian wanted to see more of it. Kartr shared his impatience. A solitary building which resembled the sacred Place of Free Planets! He must get to the bottom of the mystery; he had to! A world not included on even the most ancient routing tapes which he had seen—in a solar system so near the rim of the galaxy that it had been overlooked—or forgotten—centuries before he was born. Yet here beside an age-old space port stood a replica of the oldest and most revered public building ever built by human beings! He must find out why—and who—and what—

During the next few hours they made the western circle Rolth had suggested, and when, just before dawn, they were joined by the other rangers and Patrolmen, they were behind the building. Kartr’s eyes were grainy from lack of sleep but excitement would not let him go back to their camp. He had to see what Rolth had described.

They moved from cover to cover, at last crawling snakewise to reach a point from which they could see clearly.

“Rolth was right!” Dalgre’s voice rose to a squeak in his amazement as he looked down at the white mass. “My father was stationed at Headquarters one year—we lived in Central City. I tell you that’s the Place of Free Planets down there!”

Kartr’s hand pushed him flat. “All right, we’ll take your word for it. But keep your voice and your head down. Those men below are trained hunters—they could easily spot you.”

“But how did it get here?” Dalgre turned an honestly bewildered face to the sergeant.

“Maybe”—Kartr brought out the thought which had been born in him during the night—“this came first—”

“Came first!” Smitt wriggled up and screwed the lenses tight to his eyes. “Came first—but how?”

“You mean it could be that old?” breathed Rolth.

“You’ve the lenses, Smitt. Take a good look at the edge of the roof and the steps leading up to the portico—”

“Yes,” the com-techneer agreed a moment later. “Erosion—that place is very old.”

“Older than the city even—” he added. “Unless being set out alone in the open had hastened decay. I’d like to have a closer look—”

“Wouldn’t we all?” Zinga interrupted him. “How long do you suppose our friends down there are going to sit around?”

“Some days at least. We’ll just have to button up our curiosity until they do leave,” Kartr answered. “It’ll probably keep us busy to just elude parties coming in and going out. We had better stay some distance away from now on.”

Smitt uttered a slight groan of protest and Kartr could sympathize with him. To be so near and yet have to refrain from covering that last quarter mile which kept them from the mystery was enough to irritate anyone. But they did withdraw and there was no argument over the wisdom of keeping aloof from the natives.

Their account of the building intrigued Zicti and the next morning he calmly appropriated the services of Zinga, saying:

“Since I am unfortunately not acquainted with the proper methods of lurking, crawling, and dodging, I shall require the aid of an expert to teach this old one new tricks. Alas, even when removed, perhaps permanently, from my lecture halls, I cannot suppress my desire to collect knowledge. The customs of these natives are certainly of great interest and with your permission, Sergeant, we shall lurk and crawl to watch them—”

Kartr grinned. “With my permission, or without it, sir. Who am I to interfere with the gathering of knowledge? Though—”

“Though”—Zicti caught his thought smoothly—“it may be the first time in many years that one of my rank has gathered source material personally in the field? Well, perhaps that is one of the ills of our civilization. A little personal attention can often stop leaking seams, and a fact learned from a fragment of one culture can be applied to salve the ills of another.”

Kartr ran his hands through his hair. “They are a good people—primitive—but we could help them. I wish—”

“If we only had the medical skill and learning we could mingle with them in safety. Or you could. Whether they would ever accept a Bemmy”—Zicti stabbed a talon at his own arched breast—“is another question. Among primitives, what is the general attitude toward the unknown? They fear it.”

“Yes—that poor boy thought that Zinga was a demon,” Kartr replied reluctantly. “But in time—when they learned that we meant them no harm—”

Zicti shook his head regretfully. “What a pity that we do not have a medico among us. That is one of the few limitations of our present situation which bothers me.”

“You are ready to march, Haga Zicti?” Zinga came up to them, bowing his head and addressing the elder Zacathan with one of the Four Titles of Respect, which confirmed Kartr’s suspicions that the hist-techneer was a noble on his own world.

“Coming, my boy, coming. There is one thing which I and my household may thank the First Mother for,” he added, “and that is that we have such companions in misfortune!"

Kartr, warm with pleasure, watched the two Zacathans out of sight. He realized that Zicti, much as he withheld from giving any opinion until asked, or from intruding upon the ranger councils, was a leader. Even Smitt and Dalgre, for all their inborn suspicion not only of unhumans but also of sensitives, had fallen under the spell of the urbane charm and serene good nature of the hist-techneer and his family. The Patrolmen fetched and carried cheerfully and readily for Zacita and Zora, and preserved a lordly, big-brother-plagued-by-small-tag-along attitude toward Zor. Just as the difference between ranger and crewman had vanished, so had that between human and Bemmy.

“And what are you thinking of when you stand there smiling at nothing at all?” Fylh dropped a bundle of firewood and stretched. “You should come and haul in some of these logs—if you have nothing better to do.”

“I was thinking that there have been a lot of changes,” began the sergeant.

But for once he found Fylh as intuitive as Zinga. “No more Bemmys, no more crew and rangers, you mean? It just happened—somehow.” He sat down on the woodpile. “It may be that when we got out of the city they”—he jerked his head in the direction Smitt and Dalgre had taken a few minutes previously—“had to make a choice, once and for all. They made it, and they aren’t looking back. Now they don’t think about differences—any more than you and Rolth ever did—”

“We were almost Bemmy ourselves, Rolth with his night sight, and I a sensitive. And I was a barbarian into the bargain. Those two are both inner-system men, more conventional in their conditioning. We must give them credit for conquering some heavy prejudices.”

“They just started to use their brains.” Fylh’s crest lifted. He raised his face to the sky and poured out a liquid run of notes, so pure and heart tearing a melody that Kartr held his breath in wonder. Was this Fylh’s form of happy release from emotion?

Then came the birds, wheeling and fluttering. Kartr stiffened into statue stillness, afraid to break the spell. As Fylh’s carol rose, died, and rose again, more and more of the flyers gathered, with flashes of red feathers, blue, yellow, white, green. They hopped before the Trystian’s feet, perched on his shoulders, his arms, circled about his head.

Kartr had seen Fylh entice winged things to him before but never just this way. It appeared to his bewildered eyes that the whole campsite was a maze of fluttering wings and rainbow feathers.

The trills of song died away and the birds arose, a flock of color. Three times they circled Fylh, hiding his head and shoulders from sight with the tapestry of tints they wove in flight. Then they were gone—up into the morning. Kartr could not yet move, his eyes remained fixed on Fylh. For the Trystian was on his feet, his arms outstretched, straining upward as if he would have followed the others up and out. And for the first time, dimly, the sergeant sensed what longings must be born in Fylh’s people since they had lost their wings. Had that loss been good—should they have traded wings for intelligence? Did Fylh wonder about that?

Someone beside him sighed and he glanced around. The three Zacathans—Zacita, Zora, and Zor—stood there. Then the boy stooped to pick up a brilliant red feather and the spell was broken. Fylh dropped his arms, his feather crest folded neatly down upon his head. He was again a ranger of the Patrol and not a purveyor of winged magic.

“So many different kinds—” That was Zacita, with her usual tact. “I would not have dreamed that these trees give harborage to so many. Yes, Zor, that is indeed an unusual color for a sky creature. But every world has its own wonders.”

Fylh joined the Zacathan boy who was smoothing the scarlet feather delicately between two talons. “If you wish,” he said with a friendliness he had not often displayed before, “I can also show you those who fly by night—”

Zor’s yellow lips stretched in a wide smile. “Tonight, please! And can you bring them here in the same way?”

“If you remain quiet and do not alarm them. They are more timid than those who live by the sun. There is a giant white one who skims through the dark like a Corrob mist ghost—”

Zor gave an exaggerated shiver. “This,” he announced loudly, “is the best holiday we have ever had. I hope that it is never going to end—never!”

The eyes of the four adults met above his head. And Kartr knew they shared the same thought. This exile would probably never end for them. But—did any of them care? Kartr wanted to ask—but he couldn’t—not just yet.

The rangers spent the day overhauling their equipment and making minor repairs. Clothing was a problem—unless they followed the example of the natives and took animal skins to cover them. Kartr speculated about the coming cold season. Should they tramp south to escape its rigor? For the sake of the Zacathans perhaps they should. He knew that exposure to extremes of cold rendered the reptile people torpid until they lapsed into complete hibernation.

They spied upon the natives, going out in pairs to do so, turning in all information to Zicti who compiled it as if he fully intended to give a documented lecture on the subject.

“There are several different physical types among them,” he commented one evening when Fylh and Smitt, who had drawn that day’s watch, had given their report. “Your yellow-haired, white-skinned people, Kartr, are only one. Now Fylh has seen this clan of very dark-skinned, black-haired men—”

“By their light clothing and strange equipment they are from a warmer country,” added the Trystian.

“Odd. Such dissimilar races on the same world. But that is a humanoid characteristic, I believe,” continued the hist-techneer. “I should have had more grounding in humanoid physiology.”

“But they are all very primitive. That is what I can’t understand.” Smitt wore a puzzled frown as he spooned up the last of his stew. “That city was built—and left all ready to run again—by men who were at a high state of technological advancement. Yet all the natives we have discovered so far live in tents made of animal hide, wear skins on their backs, and are afraid of the city. And I’ll swear that that pottery I saw them trading today was made out of rough clay by hand!”

“We don’t understand that any better than you do, my boy,” answered Zicti. “We never shall unless we can penetrate the fog of their history. Some powerful memory—or threat—has kept them out of the city. If they ever possessed any technical skill they forgot it long ago—maybe by deliberately suppressing such knowledge because it was sacred to the ‘gods,’ perhaps because of a general drop in a certain type of intelligence—there could be many explanations.”

“Could they be the remains of a slave population, left behind when their masters emigrated?” ventured Rolth.

“That, too, would be an answer. But slavery does not usually accompany a highly mechanized civilization. The slaves would be machine tenders—and the city people had robots which would serve them better in that capacity.”

“It seems to me,” began Fylh, “that on this world there was once a decision to be made. And some men made it one way, and some another. Some went out”—his claws indicated the sky—“while others chose to remain—to live close to the earth and allow little to come between them and the wilds—”

Kartr straightened. That—that seemed right! Men choosing between the stars and the earth! Yes, it could have happened just like that. Maybe because he, himself, was a barbarian born on a frontier world where man had not long taken to space, he could see the truth in that. And perhaps because Fylh’s people had made just such a choice long ago and sometimes regretted it, the Trystian had been the first to sense the answer to the riddle here.

“Decadence—degeneracy—” broke in Smitt.

But Zacita shook her head. “If one lives by machines, by the quest for power, for movement, yes. But perhaps to these it was only a moving on to what they thought a better way of life.”

A moving on! Kartr’s mind fastened on that eagerly. Maybe the time had come for his own people to make a choice which would either guide them utterly away from old paths—or would set them falling back—

Time continued to drag for the watchers until the last of the natives departed. They even waited another five hours after the last small clan left, making sure that there would be no chance of being sighted by lingerers. And then, in the middle of an afternoon, they came down the slope at last, picking their way through the debris of the campsite and around still smoldering fires.

At the foot of the stairs which led to the portico of the building they left their packs and bundles. There were twelve broad steps, scored and pitted by winds of time, with the tracks of hide sandals outlined in dried mud where the natives had wandered in and out. Up these steps they climbed and passed through lines of towering pillars into the interior.

It would have been dark inside but the builders had roofed the center section with a transparent material so that they could almost believe they still stood in the open.

Slowly, still in a compact group, they came down an aisle into the very middle of the huge hall. Around them on three sides were sections of seats, divided by narrow aisles, each ending at the floor level in one massive chair on the back of which was carved, in such high relief that time had not worn it away, a symbol. On the fourth side of the chamber was a dais supporting three more of the high-backed chairs of state, the center one raised another step above the other two.

“Some type of legislative building, do you think?” asked Zicti. “The presiding officer would sit there.” He pointed to the dais.

But Kartr’s torch beam fastened on the sign carved on the nearest of the side chairs. As he read it he stood incredulous. Then he flashed the light to illuminate the marking on the next seat and the next. He began to run, reading the symbols he knew—knew so well!”

“Deneb, Sirius, Rigel, Capella, Procyon.” He did not realize it, but his voice was rising to a shout as if he were calling a roll—calling such a roll as had not sounded in that chamber for four thousand years or more. “Betelgeuse, Aldebaran, Pollux—”

“Regulus.” Smitt was answering him from the other side of the hall, the same wild excitement in his voice. “Spica, Vega, Arcturus, Altair, Antares—”

Now Rolth and Dalgre began to understand in turn.

“Fomalhaut, Alphard, Castor, Algol—”

They added star to star, system to system, in that roll call. In the end they met before the dais. And they fell silent while Kartr, with a reverence and awe he had never known before, raised his torch to give more light to the last of those symbols. That bright one which should gleam in this place was there!

“Terra of Sol.” He read it aloud and the three words seemed to echo more loudly down the hall than any of the shouted names of the kindred stars. “Terra of Sol—man’s beginning!”

16 — TERRA CALLING

“I don’t believe it.” Smitt’s voice sounded thin; his attention was fixed on that high seat and the incredible sign it bore. “This can’t be the Hall of Leave-Taking. That was just a legend—”

“Was it?” asked Kartr. “But legends are not always fables.”

“And out there”—Dalgre pointed toward the doorway without turning his head from the dais—“is the Field of Flight!”

“How long—?” Rolth’s question dwindled off into silence, but his words continued to echo down the hall.

Kartr wheeled to face those rows of chairs and the section of seats each one headed. There—why, right there had sat the commanders, and behind them crews and colonists! And so they must have gathered, shipful after shipful for years—maybe centuries. Gathered, spoke together for the last time, received their last orders and instructions—then went out to the field and the waiting ships and blasted off into the unknown—never to return. Some—a few—had won through to their goals. They, Smitt, Dalgre, Rolth and he, were living proof of that. Others—others had reached an end in the cold of outer space or on planets which could not support human life. How long had it gone on, that gathering, that leave-taking? With no return. Long enough to drain Terra’s veins of life—until only those were left who were temperamentally unfitted to try for the stars? Was that the answer to the riddle of this half-and-half world?

“No return—” Rolth had picked that out of his thoughts somehow. “No return. So the cities died and even the memory of why this exists is gone. Terra!”

“But we remember,” Kartr answered softly. “For we have made the full circle. The green—that is the green of Terra’s hills. It has been a legend, an ancient song, a dim folk memory, but it has always been ours, going with us from world to world across the galaxy. For we are the sons of Terra—inner system, outer system, barbarian and civilized—we are all the sons of Terra!”

“And now,” Smitt observed with wistful simplicity, “we have come home.”

It was a home which bore no resemblance to the dark mountains and chill valleys of Rolth’s half-frozen Falthar, to his own tall forests and stone cities now forever dust, to the highly civilized planets which had been the birthplaces of Smitt and Dalgre. It was a planet of wilderness and dead cities, of primitive natives and forgotten powers. But it was Terra and, as different as their races might be today, they were all originally of the stock which had walked this earth.

Once more he surveyed that assembly of empty seats. Almost he could people it. But those he summoned to sit there could not be the ones who had once done so. The men of Terra had been gone too long—were scattered too far—

He walked slowly down the center of the hall. The Zacathans and Fylh had drawn apart. They must have watched with amazement the actions of the humans. Now Kartr tried to explain.

“This is Terra—”

But Zicti knew what that meant. “The ancient home of your species! But what an amazing discovery!”

What else he might have added was drowned out in a shout which drew all their attention to the dais again. Dalgre stood at the left of it beckoning to them. Rolth and Smitt had disappeared. In a body they hurried to join Dalgre.

The new discovery was behind the dais, hidden by a tall partition—and it covered most of the wall. A giant screen of some dark glass on which pin points of light made patterns.

Below it was a table top of which was inlaid with a paneling of switches and buttons. Smitt crouched on the bench before it, his face intent.

“A communication device?” asked Kartr.

“Either that or some kind of a course plotter,” Dalgre answered. Smitt merely grunted impatiently.

“Could it still be in working order?” Zacita marveled.

Dalgre shook his head. “We can’t tell yet. The city functioned again after they pulled the right switches. But this”—he indicated the giant star map and the intricate controls on the table—“will have to be studied before we can push the right levers. Why, we don’t understand any of their wiring methods—”

The techneer, any techneer, might possibly put the machine into working order again. But, Kartr knew, such a feat was totally beyond the rangers. He studied the star map slowly, identifying the points he could recognize. Yes, here was the galaxy as it appeared from this ancient planet close to its rim. He noted the brilliance of Sarmak, moved on to Altair and the others. Had this board once plotted the course on which man went out to those far-off suns and the worlds they nourished?

It was growing darker as the evening closed down. But even as the light faded from overhead, a soft glow outlined the star map and illumined the table—although the rest of the hall remained shrouded with shadows.

Kartr moved. “Shall we camp outside or return to the hills?” he asked Zicti.

“I see no reason for returning,” the Zacathan replied. “If all the natives have withdrawn, as they apparently have, surely there can be no objection to our staying—”

Behind him Zinga laughed and pointed a talon at Smitt. “If you think that you can drag him away from here even by force, you are sadly in error, Sergeant.”

Which, of course, was true. The com-techneer, confronted by a mysterious device in his own field, refused to leave even for food, preferring to gulp down a cup of water and chew on a piece of tough meat absently while his eyes were busy with the marvels before him.

They chose to drag their bedrolls into the hall when the full night fell, putting out their cooking fire and lying closely together below the empty seats of the vanished colonists.

“There are”—Zicti’s voice boomed through the emptiness—“no ghosts in this place. Those who gathered here once were already voyaging on in spirit, even as they sat here, eager to be gone. They have left nothing of themselves behind.”

“In a way,” Rolth agreed, “that was also true of the city. It was—”

“Discarded.” Kartr produced the right word as the Faltharian hesitated. “Discarded as might be a garment grown too small for its wearer. But you are right, sir, we shall meet no ghosts here. Unless Smitt can awaken some with his tinkering. Is he going to stay there all night?”

“Naturally,” Zinga replied. “And let us hope that he will not raise any voices out of the past—even out of your human past, friend. I have an odd desire to spend this night in slumber.”

Kartr awakened twice during the night. And by the faint glow which crept around the edges of the partition he saw that Smitt’s bedroll was still unoccupied. The com-techneer must be hypnotized by his discovery. But there was a limit to everything. So, at his second awakening, Kartr pulled himself out of the warmth of his bed with an impatient sigh, shivered in the chill, and padded on bare feet across the cold stone. Either Smitt would come willingly or he would be dragged to bed now.

The com-techneer was still on the seat, his head thrown back, his gaze fixed on the star map. In the reflection of the light his eyes appeared sunken and there were dark shadows like bruises along his cheek bones.

Kartr followed the direction of the other’s set stare. He saw what held Smitt fascinated, blinked, and gave a gasp.

There was a red dot on the black glass surface, a dot which moved in a steady curve.

“What is it—”

Smitt replied without taking his eyes from the traveling dot.

“I’m not sure—I’m not sure!” He passed his hands across his face. “You do see it, too?”

“I see a red dot moving. But what is it?”

“Well, I’ve guessed—”

And Kartr knew the nature of that guess. A ship—moving through space—headed in their general direction!

“Coming here?”

“It’s on a course—but—how can we tell? Look!”

Another dot had sprung into being on the screen. But this moved with a purpose. It was on the track of the first, a hunter on the trail. Kartr pushed down beside Smitt on the bench. His heart was thumping so that he could feel the sullen beat of blood in his temples. It was very important—that flight and pursuit—somewhere within him he knew that—so important he feared to watch.

The first dot was moving in a series of zigzags now.

“Evasive action.” Smitt mouthed the words. He had served on a battle cruiser, Kartr knew.

“What kind of ships are they?”

“If I understood this”—Smitt swept his hand over the controls before him—“maybe I could answer that. Wait—!”

The first dot engaged in a complicated maneuver which had no meaning as far as the sergeant could see but which flipped it back on a level with its pursuer.

“That’s a Patrol ship! It’s offered battle—but why—”

They were even, those two dots. And then—a third appeared on the board! It was slightly larger and moved more slowly, avoiding the two which would shortly be locked in combat. And, in making the arc to avoid the fight, it headed straight toward Sol’s system.

“Covering action,” Smitt translated. “The Patrol is covering for this other ship! A suicide mission, I think. Look—their battle screens are up now!”

A faint, very faint orange haze encircled the two dots near the outer verge of Sol’s system. Kartr had never been in space action, but he had heard enough tales, seen enough visigraphs, to be able to create in his mind a picture of the struggle now beginning. The larger dot had no part in the struggle. Instead it crept at its snail’s pace on and on, away from the dead-locked fighters.

Pressure—pressure of screen against screen. And when one of those screens failed—flaming and instant death! That was a Patrol ship out there holding the enemy at bay while a defenseless prey escaped.

“If I could only read this!” Smitt smashed his fists against the edge of the table.

On the board a tiny bubble of light blazed suddenly to light.

“Set off by the ship coming this way?”

Smitt nodded. “Could be.” He leaned forward with quick decision and pressed his finger on the button set under that pinprick of light. There followed sound—a vast roar as of rushing winds. They stared at the map almost deafened. And then through the roar came the chatter of something else, a sharp clicking which formed a pattern. Smitt jumped to his feet.

“Patrol summons, Patrol summons—TARZ—TARZ—”

Kartr’s hand reached for a blaster he was not wearing. The old call to action for the Service! He heard amazed cries behind him. The others were up, crowding around the partition to see and hear what was happening.

The beat of the summons echoed hollowly through the building. It might go on until the end of that battle or until there was some answer. But no answer came. The haze about the dots thickened until they were completely hidden in it and each spot was a stationary fire.

“Top pitch—!” that was Dalgre breathing the words down Kartr’s back. “Reaching overload fast. They can’t take that much longer—they can’t!”

“Tar—”

One spot swept from orange to yellow—to incandescent white. It was an instant of splendor and then it was gone. They blinked blinded eyes and looked again. But there was nothing—nothing at all of the two fiery spots. The dark glass of the screen where they had been was as bare and cold as the wastes of outer space it represented.

“Both—out!” Dalgre was the first to speak. “Overload and it blasted them both. One ship took the other with it.”

“But the third—it is still intact—” Zicti pointed out.

That was true. The battle had wiped out two ships, but the third dot still moved—the one which the Patrol ship had died to save. It was on course—toward Sol and Terra!

The clicking sound changed, made another series of coded calls. Smitt listened and read them aloud for his companions.

“Patrol—auxiliary—personnel ship—2210—calling nearest Patrol ship or station. Come in, please—come in. Survivors of Patrol Base CC4—calling nearest Patrol ship or station—off known courses—need guide call—come in please—”

“Survivors of Patrol Base CC4,” Rolth repeated. “But that was a Ranger Station! What in the name of Space—!”

“Pirate raid, maybe—” suggested Zinga.

“Pirates don’t tangle with the Patrol—” began Dalgre.

“You mean—pirates didn’t! We’ve been out of circulation and off the maps for some time. A coalition of pirate forces can do a lot of damage,” Zinga observed.

“Note also,” Zicti added to that, “this ship now flies from the more populated sections of the galaxy. It heads out toward the unknown which it would not do if there were not some barrier between it and more familiar routes.”

“Personnel survivor ship—families of Patrolmen.” Dalgre was visibly shaken. “Why, the base must be utterly gone!”

The clicking of the code still filled the musty air of the hall. And on the map the dot moved, on the board before Smitt the tiny bulb still blazed. Then, as suddenly, it snapped off and a second went on in turn in the block next to it. Kartr glanced from that new light to the screen. Yes, the dot was appreciably closer to the system of Sol.

Smitt’s fingers hovered over the board. He licked his lips as if his mouth was dry.

“Is there any chance of guiding her in here?” Kartr asked the question he knew was tormenting the other.

“I don’t know—” Smitt snarled like a tortured animal.

His finger went down and pressed the button below the second light. And then he jumped back, as did Kartr, for out of the edge of the table sprang a thin black stalk ending in a round bulb. The com-techneer laughed almost wildly and clutched at the thing.

Then he began to speak into it, not in code but in the common tongue of Central Control.

“Terra calling! Terra calling! Terra calling!”

They were frozen, silent, listening to the chatter of the code filling the air. Kartr sagged. It hadn’t worked after all. And then came a break in the ship’s broadcast. He had forgotten about the time lag.

“Terra calling.” Smitt was cool, calm again. To that statement he began to add a series of code words and clicks. Three times he repeated the message and then leaned back to await reply.

Again the wait seemed too long—tearing at their ragged nerves. But at last an answer came. Smitt translated it for them all.

“Do not entirely understand. But think can ride in on message beam—keep talking if you have no signal. What—where is Terra?”

So they talked. First Smitt, until his voice was but a husky whisper issuing from a raw throat, and then Kartr, using ordinary speech and the old formula, Terra calling—then Dalgre and Rolth—

There was sunshine lighting the space around them and then it grew dark again and still they crouched in turn on the bench before the sky map and talked. And the red dot crept on, now on a straight course for Terra. It was when it had drawn almost even with the outermost planet of Sol’s system that Zor pointed out to the half-dazed Kartr on duty, the newcomer. Another dot—already past the point where the battle had been fought—and on a line after the personnel ship! Enemy or friend?

Kartr shook Zor’s shoulder and pushed him toward the outer hall with the message to bring Smitt. The com-techneer, rubbing sleep-heavy eyes, half reeled in. But when Kartr showed him the dot he was thoroughly awake. He shoved the sergeant away from the microphone and took over with a sharp question in code.

After lagging minutes it was answered:

“Undoubtedly enemy ship. Pirate signals have been picked up during last quarter hour—”

To Kartr’s sick eyes the enemy ship was darting across space. It was now a race, a race in which the Patrol ship might already be the loser. And, even as he thought that, there was a flash of light on the control board. The enemy was now within hailing distance. Smitt turned a grim face to him.

“Get one of the Zacathans and Fylh. If they can talk in their own language it will be better than using control speech or the code as a guide. There are few Bemmys in pirate crews. All the ship needs is a steady sound to center her finder on—”

But he spoke his last words to empty air. Kartr was already on his way to rout out the others. Seconds later Zinga slipped into Smitt’s place, hooked his talons around the stem of the phone and unloosed a series of hissed sounds which certainly bore no resemblance to human speech. When he tired, Fylh was ready and then twittering and fluting broke across space to talk the ship in. But ever relentlessly behind it came that other dot, seeming to leap across great expanses of space as if such stretches were nothing.

Zora brought in a canteen of water and they all drank feverishly. They ate after a fashion, too, of whatever was thrust into their hands, unknowing and untasting.

The Patrol ship passed more planets. Then a third light snapped on the board. Zor came running in.

“There is a big light—reaching into the sky!” he shouted shrilly.

Kartr jumped to his feet to see that for himself when a sound of ship’s code stopped him.

“Pulse beam picked up. We can ride it in. If we still have time—”

Zinga let go of the phone and as one they hurried out into the open. Zor was right. From the end of the roof directly over the control table a beam of light speared into the evening sky.

“How did that—?” Kartr began.

“Who knows?” Dalgre replied. “They were master techneers in their day. That must pulse strongly enough to be picked up by a ship approaching this planet within a certain distance. At least we can now stop talking.”

In the end they drifted back to the map—to watch the ship and its pursuer. The gap between those two was narrowing—too quickly. A last light flashed on the control board—it was warning red.

“Ship’s entered the atmosphere,” Smitt guessed. “Get everybody inside here. It may not land on the field and the power wash will be brutal—”

So they waited inside the ancient Hall of Leave-Taking and they heard rather than saw a ship land on a field which had not felt the bite of spaceship’s fire for at least a thousand years. But it was a good landing.

Smitt remained at the board. “The other is still coming—” His warning rang out to hasten the others.

Still coming! They might lose even now, Kartr thought, as he watched the exit bridge swing out from the side of the rusty old tub perched in the field. All the enemy would have to do would be to hover and blast them with missiles. He wouldn’t have to land, but when he pulled out again he would leave nothing behind but a blackened and lifeless waste.

If they could get the refugees into the hall they might have a chance to survive that—a very thin one. The sergeant ran to the edge of the smoking landing area and waved at the figure who had appeared on the bridge.

“Get your people off and into the hall!” he shouted. “The pirate’s coming and he can try for a burn-off!”

He saw the jerk of an assenting nod and heard orders. The passengers filed down the bridge at the double quick. They were mostly women, some carrying or leading children. The rangers and the Zacathans stood ready to act as guides. Kartr half hauled, half carried the strangers to the precarious safety of the old building. Then when the flow of refugees ceased he hurried back to the bridge.

“All out?”

“All out,” the officer replied. “And what course is the pirate on—can you tell—?”

Zinga came running toward them. “Pirate coming in on the same course—”

The officer turned and went inside the ship. Kartr drummed nervous fingers on the guard rail of the bridge. What in the name of Space was the fellow waiting for?

Then the sergeant was almost bowled over as five men flung themselves out of the hatchway and ran for the hall, taking both rangers with them. They had just reached the protection of the doorway when the Patrol ship took off.

Blinded by the sweep of flame Kartr clung to one of the pillars to keep his footing.

“What—?” he gasped.

And a babble of question joined and drowned out his.

17 — THE END IS NOT YET

The hard surface of the partition ground into Kartr’s back as the pressure of the crowd jammed him against that barrier. All the refugees were there in the narrow space behind the control table, tense, expectant, with no attention for anything but the sky map on the wall. Beside the sergeant a tall girl in the battle-stained tunic of a civilian supply assistant muttered half aloud to herself.

“There’s only one of them—by the Grace of the Three—there is only one for him to face!”

Her “one” was that ominous red dot of the pirate ship still on course to Terra—headed without doubt for the very point on that planet where they now stood. But, even as they watched that advance helplessly, a second dot appeared on the screen—the Patrol ship moving out to meet the enemy.

“Time to try evasive!” Kartr caught the urgency in that man’s voice rising from the mass of watchers. “Evade, Corris!”

And, as if that half-order half-plea had actually reached across space, the course of the Patrol ship changed. It seemed now as if it were attempting to make a futile run for safety, trying to elude the pirate. Out there a single brave man swung before a control panel, enmeshed in a pilot’s web, prepared to fight a last battle to save his fellows. One lone Patrolman!

He continued to evade skillfully, altering his course just enough each time to draw the enemy after him, to persuade the other ship into pursuit and away from Terra. He had his screen up as the haze testified. That should act as a flaunting challenge to the pirate. The impulse of the pursuer would be to follow, to beat down the weak barrier, to put on a traction beam and warp in the Patrol ship. Only, what Captain Corris flew was no longer a ship, it was a single deadly weapon! And the enemy who strove to overtake and capture it would only trigger his own death in the same instant that he drew it in!

Kartr heard sobs, subdued, and little angry mutters from those about him.

“He has the war head ready.” That was the girl. She was talking as if to reassure herself, not to inform anyone else of what lay behind that silent battle out in the dark between worlds. “We were going to blow it if we were taken. He’ll trigger it when they beam him in—” Her voice was hoarse, almost fierce.

The red dots moved as fighters sparring for an opening, making patterns on the screen. Kartr, though he was ignorant of space maneuvers, guessed that he was now watching the last fight of an inspired pilot. And yet to the pirate it must appear that a weak ship was trying desperately to escape.

“If only they don’t suspect!” The girl’s tone was that of a prayer. “Spirit of Space, keep them from suspecting—”

The end came as the Patrol pilot had planned it. A glow of battle screens hazed both ships—and then the one surrounding the Patrol ship disappeared. The dots moved toward each other—the pirate had clamped a pincher beam on its prey, was dragging the helpless ship to where they could lock air-locks for boarding. At last the dots touched.

A flower of fire burst on the screen. It glowed for only a second and then died, to leave nothing behind it—nothing at all. The map was as blank as it had been when first they found it. Only the specks which were stars sparkled with aloof chill in the void.

No one in the crowd moved. It was as if they did not believe in the truth of what they had just witnessed, that they did not wish to believe. Then there was a single sigh and the tight mass broke apart. People drifted, with eyes which seemed to see nothing, out into the hall. Except for the shuffle of feet over the stone it was very quiet.

Overhead the gray light of another dawn gave a pale radiance. Kartr stepped up on the dais. He rested one hand on the back of the chair which was Terra’s and looked closely for the first time at these new companions in misfortune.

They were a mixed lot, both as to race and species, as might be expected from a Patrol Ranger base. There were two more Zacathans, a pale-faced woman and two children with the goggles of the Faltharians hanging from their belts, and he was sure he had seen a feather crest which could only have graced the head of a Trystian.

“You are in command here?”

Kartr’s attention flickered from the refugees to a girl—the same girl who had stood beside him to watch the battle—and two men standing together at the foot of the dais. Automatically Kartr’s hand arose to touch a helmet he no longer wore.

“Ranger Sergeant Kartr of the Starfire. We crashed here some time ago. Our party consists of three other rangers, a com-techneer and an arms-techneer—”

“Medico-techneer Veelson,” the shorter of the two men responded in a low and surprisingly musical voice. “This is Third Officer Moxan of our Base Ship, and Acting Sergeant Adrana of the Headquarters section. We are entirely at your service, Sergeant.”

“Your party—”

“Our party,” Veelson answered quickly, “numbers thirty-eight. Twenty women and six children are ranger dependents. Five crewmen under Moxan, and six supply corpswomen with Sergeant Adrana—and myself. As far as we know we are the only survivors of Base CC4.”

“Zinga—Fylh—Rolth—” Kartr gave the order which came naturally to him. “Firewood detail and get some fires going—” He turned back to the medico-techneer. “I take it, sir, that you haven’t much in the way of supplies?”

Veelson shrugged. “We have only what we could carry. It certainly isn’t too much.”

“A hunting party out, too, Zinga. Smitt, take over the communication board again. We don’t want to be caught napping if there is another ship on its way. Any of your men know com, sir?” he asked Moxan.

Instead of answering directly the third officer turned on his heel and called down the length of the hall. “Havre!”

One of the men in crew uniform came running.

“Com work,” his officer grunted. “Under this techneer.”

“I take it that we can live off the country, since you mentioned hunting,” Veelson asked.

“This is an Arth type planet. We’ve found it hospitable. In fact—this is Terra, you know.”

Kartr watched the medico-techneer closely to see if that registered. It took a second or two, but it did.

“Terra.” Veelson repeated the word blankly and then his eyes widened. “The home of the Lords of Space! But that is a legend—a fable!”

Kartr stamped on the dais. “Fairly substantial fable, don’t you think? You are in the Hall of Leave-Taking now—look at the seats of the first star rangers, if you wish.” He pointed to the chairs. “Read what is carved on the back of this one. Yes, this is Terra of Sol!”

“Terra!” Veelson was still shaking his head wonderingly when Kartr spoke to the girl.

“You have your corpswomen. Can you take charge of the women and children?” he asked abruptly. This sort of duty was beyond his experience. He had established field camps, led expeditions, fought his way back and forth across many weird worlds in the past, but never before had he been responsible for such a group as this.

She started to nod, flushed, and raised her hand in salute. A moment later she was back circulating among the tired women and the fretful children—aided by the Zacathan family.

“Any chance of there being another pirate after you? What did happen at the base?” Already forgetting the women, Kartr began to question the medico-techneer.

“The base was wiped out. But things had begun to go wrong before that. There has been a breakdown somewhere along the supply and communication route. Our yearly supply ship was three months overdue even before the attack. We’d received no messages from Central Control for two weeks. We sent out a cruiser and it never returned.

“Then the pirate fleet came in. If was a fleet and the whole raid had been carefully planned. We had five ships on the field. Two raised and accounted for three of the pirates before they were blasted out. We manned the perimeter guns as long as we could and cleared the air for the survivors to take off.

“What caught us napping was that they came in under false colors and we accepted them as friendly until too late. They were Central Control ships! Either some section of the Fleet has mutinied or—or something terrible has happened to the whole empire. They acted as if the Patrol had been outlawed—their attack was vicious. And because they had come in with all the proper signals we weren’t expecting it. It was as if they were the law—”

“Perhaps they are now,” Kartr suggested grimly. “Maybe there has been a rebellion in this sector. The winner may be systematically mopping up all Patrol bases. That would leave him free to rule the space lanes as he pleases. A very practical and necessary move if there has been a change of government.”

“That idea did occur to us. I can’t say that we welcomed it.” Veelson’s voice was bleak. “Well, we did manage to crowd aboard a supply ship and one of the Patrol scouts. After that it was a running fight across space. They were between us and the regular routes so we had to head out this way. We lost the scout—”

Kartr nodded. “We saw that on the screen before we were able to contact you.”

“It rammed a flagship—a flagship of the Fleet, mind you!”

“But effectively,” the sergeant reminded him. “There were only the two ships following you—are you sure?”

“Only two registered on our screens. And—now if neither returns— Do you think that they will send another to track us down?”

“I don’t know. They would accept the idea that the Patrol would be desperate enough to go out fighting. And so they may be willing to write off their ships as a case of blasting each other. But Smitt and your man can keep at their posts. They’ll be able to give us warning in time if another heads this way.”

“And if one does come?”

“Large portions of this world are wilderness. It will be easy to take cover in plenty of time and they could never find us.”

By the end of the day the new camp was well established. The hunting party had been successful enough so that everyone was fed. Under the leadership of the corpswomen a party had spread out on the hill, hacked off branches, and fashioned beds. And there had been no warning—the screen in the hall remained blank.

It was night now. Kartr stood at the top of the stairs gazing down abstractedly at the landing field. A gleaning party had worked under his direction most of the afternoon, shifting the debris of the natives’ encampment. And they had salvaged two spears and a handful of metal arrow points, treasures to be guarded against that day when the last blaster charge would be expended—when weapons which were the products of civilized skill would be useless.

Tomorrow they must hunt again and—

“A pleasant night, is it not, lady? There is, of course, only one moon instead of three. But it is a very bright one.”

Kartr started and turned his head. Zicti was walking toward him accompanied by the girl, Adrana.

“Three moons? Is that the number which shine down on Zacan? Now I would consider two to be a more normal number.” And she laughed.

Two moons. Kartr tried to remember all the two-mooned worlds he had known and wondered which had been her native one. But there were at least ten—and probably more which he had never heard of. No man, even if he had at least four lifetimes, could learn all that lay within the galaxy. Two moons was too faint a clue.

“Ha, the sergeant! So the night draws you also, my boy? One might believe that you were a Faltharian, this interest you show in a dark, sleeping world.”

“Only doing some planning for the future,” Kartr replied. “And I’m no Faltharian, only a barbarian,” he added recklessly. “You know what they said of us of Ylene—that we eat raw meat and worship strange gods!”

“And you, lady,” Zicti asked the girl, “upon which world did your two moons beam?”

She lifted her head with close to a defiant gesture, and stared out over the launching field as she answered.

“I was space born—a half-breed. My mother was of Krift. My father came from one of the outer system worlds, I don’t know which. My two moon world I knew only for a short time when I was a small child. But I have seen many worlds for I am Service bred.”

“We have all seen many worlds,” Kartr observed, “and now I think we are going to learn one thoroughly.”

Zicti inhaled the night air with gusto. “But such a pleasant world, my children. I must say that I have great hopes for our future here.”

“It is good to know that someone has,” Kartr said somberly.

But it was Adrana who rose to the Zacathan’s challenge. “You are right!” She laid her fingers on the hist-techneer’s scaled arm. “This is a good world! When I was up on the hill today, the air was like wine in my throat. It is free—alive! And we are very lucky. For the first time in my life”—she paused as if she were surprised at her own words—“I feel at home!”

“Because this is Terra—racial memory—” suggested Kartr.

“I don’t know. After so long a time—that couldn’t be possible, could it?”

“Perhaps.” He added a confession of his own. “The first day we landed here—when I saw the green of this vegetation—it seemed then that I, too, remembered.”

“Well, children, I do not remember Terra, nor can any of my race. But still I say that we have landed on a good world—a pleasant one to make our own. We have only to do that—”

“What of the city and the clans?” inquired the sergeant. “Are they going to sit passive and allow us such usurpation?”

“This is a wide world. And that problem we shall face when it arises. Now, moon gazers, not being a Faltharian, I shall seek my bedroll. You must pardon my withdrawal.” Chuckling he padded away.

“What did you mean—the city and the clans? Are there natives here?” questioned the girl.

“Yes.” Briefly Kartr gave her the facts. “So you see,” he ended, “this world is not altogether ours for the taking. And since we cannot remain at this point on it indefinitely we shall have decisions to make soon.”

She nodded. “Tell the others tomorrow. Tell them all you have told me.”

“You mean—leave the decision up to them? All right.” He shrugged.

What if they chose the comfort of the city? Such a decision would only be natural. But, he was very sure, he would not go back there nor would the others who had followed him out of that monument to a too-ancient past.

Because he agreed that each must decide for him- or herself, he stood again the next morning in the pool of hot sunlight which crossed the dais. His throat was dry. He had been talking steadily. And now he was tired, as tired as if he had spent half the day cutting through heavy brush. Those faces all turned to him, so impassive, so controlled.

Had any of them really heard what he had been saying, or having heard, did they understand? Was this indifference the result of their immediate past, were they sure that the worst had already happened and that nothing could shake them again?

“And that is the situation we now face—”

But there was no response from the seated refugees. Then he heard the scrape of bootsoles across the pavement, sounding louder because of the silence in the hall. Veelson jumped up on the dais to join him.

“We have the report of the ranger sergeant. He gives us two courses which may be followed. First—we may try to contact this civilian party now occupying a city not too far distant, a city with part of its functions restored. But they have the problem of limited food supply and in addition”—the medico-techneer paused, and then he added without any change of tone or expression—“that party is an entirely human one.”

Again there was no response from the listeners. Had they met with anti-Bemmy feeling before? They must have! It had been growing so powerful. But if they had it made no difference. In the wide seat marked Deneb was the Faltharian woman and she cradled in her arms a tiny Trystian girl whose mother had not survived the base raid. And Zor sat between two inner system boys of his own age. There was no drawing apart in this company—Bemmy to Bemmy, human to human. These were the rangers!

“So we may go to the city,” Veelson repeated, “or we may choose the second solution which could mean a much greater measure of hardship. Though we of the rangers, by training and tradition, are better able to face what it may demand of us. And that is to live on the land after the fashion of the natives.

“Sergeant Kartr has spoken of a cold season reported to be approaching now. He has also pointed out that we cannot remain here—due to lack of supplies. We can travel south—as the majority of the natives did when they left here a few days ago. Contact with the natives, while impossible now—judging by the sergeant’s unfortunate experience—may be allowed later as we have some medical supplies and knowledge. But it might be years before we dare attempt such fraternization.

“These are the two choices we are now assembled to vote upon—”

“Medico Veelson!” One of the crewmen was on his feet. “Do you rule out the possibility of rescue then? Couldn’t we remain near here and try to use that communicator to summon help? Any Patrol ship—”

“Any Patrol ship!” Again the lack of expression in the medico-techneer’s voice underlined his words. “A communication attempt might just as well bring down roving pirates upon us. There is no way of identifying until too late any ship we might be able to beam in. And remember, Terra is off every known chart—so forgotten that its name is now only a legend.”

A murmur ran from seat to seat.

“So we must accept exile?” That was a woman.

“I believe that we must.” Veelson’s answer came clear and firm.

Another silence followed. They were facing truth now. And—Kartr thought proudly—they were accepting it quietly.

“I believe that we wish to remain together—” Veelson continued slowly.

“Yes!” That answer was so loud it woke a faint echo from the roof. The Patrol would stand together, that creed which had been theirs for generations still held them.

“We will abide by the will of the majority. Those who wish to seek shelter in the city may take their places against that wall. Those who would remain apart—on the land—stand here—”

Veelson had not even finished speaking before he himself moved with two distance-eating strides to the left of the dais. And Kartr joined him. Only for a moment were they alone. Adrana and her six co-workers arose from their seats in the group and marched to stand beside the medico-techneer. But then there was a pause—the other women did not move.

It was the Faltharian woman who broke the spell. Still carrying the Trystian infant and pushing her own two children ahead, she walked quickly to the left. But she did not reach the others before Zicti and his family.

Now there was a steady shuffling of feet and when it was quiet again there was no need to count heads. Not one stood on the city side. They had made their decision, weighing the evidence and the chances of the future. And, Kartr knew, seeing their serene faces, they would stand by it. Suddenly he was vaguely sorry for those in the city. They would struggle there to keep up a measure of mechanical civilization. Perhaps they would live in greater ease for this generation. But in a way they had turned their backs upon the future and they might not be allowed a second choice.

But the Patrol were eager to be gone, once their minds were made up. And the dawn of the second day saw them in marching order, their scanty belongings in packs, their faces set toward the unknown lands of the south.

Kartr watched Fylh and Zinga lead that line of women and children, crewmen and officers, all one now under an alien sun, going into the future.

He glanced back into the deserted hall. The sun caught and held on the symbols in the captains’ seats along one side. Old Terra— And down there—heading into the wilderness was the NEW!

“Shall we rise again to be the lords of space and the rangers of the star lanes?” he wondered. “Do we begin this day a second cycle leading to another empire?”

He was a little startled when Zicti’s thought answered his. “It is just history, my boy, history. We fashion that whether or no. But there is a very old saying known to my people—‘When a man comes to the end of any road let him remember that the end is not yet and a new way shall open for him.’ ”

Kartr turned his back upon the Hall of Leave-Taking and ran lightly down the eroded steps. The wind was chill but the sun was warm. Dust puffed up from beneath the marching feet.

“Yes, the end is not yet! Let us go!”