Leigh Brackett (continued 3)

Kerrel. Could he have hired somebody, to see that a certain Earthman did not come back from the Hercules Cluster?

Say he did. Who? Rohan? Perri? Yann? No, Yann had saved his life, and he couldn't see either of the youngsters in the role of a killer. Somebody else, then. He looked around at the familiar faces, angry now, resentful. Who? He could not pick one out. He knew them all. They were his shipmates. They might do a lot of things, but—murder?

The First Officer said a skatological word. "You could probe into any man's subconscious mind and find a wish to kill. It doesn't take a parapsych to know that. They just wanted an excuse."

"Yeah," said Yann. "The hell with 'em. Well, let's pick up our traps and go."

Trehearne thought the First Officer was probably right. It was the most comforting explanation. He clung to it. It seemed that if anyone had really wanted to kill, and had tried once, he would have tried again. They'd been to a lot of worlds and done a lot of things. There had been plenty of other chances.

Or had there? Who knew what might appeal to a murderer as a good chance? And he couldn't just kill. He had to make it look like an accident. That wouldn't be so easy.

Oh, hell, forget it. It was an accident.

He did forget it, deliberately, as much as he could. But a certain uneasiness stayed with him, and he dreamed more often of the fungoid forest and the ghastly sensation of breathing without air. He began to want a change. He wouldn't have believed it a few months before, but he was getting sick of the ship, the confinement, the close quarters, the manufactured air and the palatable but synthetic food. He was not the only one. The most hardened veterans aboard were suffering from the ennui of a long voyage. They looked forward more and more to the landings, even on unpleasant worlds, and grumbled because they were so brief. By the time the Saarga reached the system of the green star, the terminal point whence she would start the equally long return voyage, Trehearne was so hungry for land that even that lurking unease was thrust out of his mind by the sheer joy of making worldfall.

Yann was full of excitement. "This is the system I told you about, Trehearne—the one where I was factor so long. I got to know the natives like a brother." He laughed and clapped Trehearne on the shoulder. "We make a good stop here, and when our work's done I'll show you some things!"

The Saarga set down on a world of emerald heat. Besides the starship the landing field contained half a dozen battered interplanetary craft, brought out piecemeal by the Vardda and operated by them between the wild planets of the system. The great stockaded factory was one of the largest Trehearne had seen and the strangest.

The "logs" that formed the stockade and made the walls of the warehouses were of crystal, cut from the crystalline forests that covered much of the land. Trehearne thought of them as trees and forests, simply because they had stems and branches, but they were inorganic, the glittering proliferation of sublimated alien chemicals. They glowed and flashed under the fierce green sun, showing glints of weird color where a prism formation broke the light. And also, in their shining branches, they netted the many-colored rays of the brighter stars that burned even in the daylight sky.

There was a town beyond the factory. It too was built of the crystal logs over foundations of black rock sunk in the ooze. Thick vines clambered everywhere, bearing bulbous fruit. Undergrowth, green almost to blackness, stood between the trees. There was a smell of fragrant rottenness, cloying, sweet.

Trehearne worked his long shifts, moving and sweating through a bath of molten jade. It was a large world and heavy. The gravity dragged at him. The letters of the freight lists swam under his eyes. When his own job was finally finished, he found Rohan and Perri still hard at it, but Yann was through and waiting for him.

"Come on with me now," said Yann, and smacked his lips. "Wine, cooled in deep wells. Make a new man of you."

"A hell of a world," said Trehearne.

"You should see the others of this system. This is the pick of the lot."

They walked through the outer compound, a sort of caravanserai crowded with folk from the other planets, brought in for the trading. Cold-blooded creatures with crimson eyes, ophidian princes of the inner worlds, wrapped in golden mantles against the chill. Slim, furred kings of the outer planets, capped and girdled with precious stones, still and panting in the heat. These and others watched the two tall Vardda, thinking their own thoughts.

They passed through the gate out of the factory, wading in soggy mud. The sun was setting in a welter of lurid green, tinged with peacock hues. Trehearne looked at the town ahead, the straggling lanes, the crystal huts that crouched in sordid beauty, the encircling forest of ungodly trees. Doubt assailed him.

"Perhaps we should stay in the factory. There'll be plenty of wine and more comfort."

Yann cursed him good-naturedly. "I told you I know these people better than I know my own children! Come on, Trehearne, there's nothing to do in the factory. Don't you want to see something new?"

Trehearne did. He was sick of the factory, after those long shifts of sweating labor. He shrugged, and made sure of the prismed shock-tube in his belt. It was customary, when the Vardda went abroad on strange worlds, for them to carry a weapon. They were sometimes needed. Yann noticed the gesture and grinned. His own belt-holster was empty.

"I'd feel safer with one myself," he said, "but these people we're going to see are my friends. They'd be mortally offended if I came armed—a sign I didn't trust them, you see, and then look out!" He led the way down the muddy road, and Trehearne followed.

Night came. The glorious sky of the Cluster crashed down on them, sown to bursting with stars as bright as moons. The crystalline trees took on opaline fires. The hut walls glittered. Around the two Vardda gathered a crowd of sloe-eyed children, silent and solemn, with hides of dusky green. Women watched them from the doorways. Human enough and pretty enough too, the younger ones, sleek and olive-colored, wearing bright silks from Llyrdis about their hips and baubles in their hair.

Yann chattered happily as they went along the winding lanes, telling of his multifarious sins and adventurings and the clever ways in which he had cheated the factory. The hostile curious eyes of the women followed them and now and again a man spat expressively into the mud behind them.

They came at last to a hut on the outskirts of the town. Beside it were chained four pairs of beasts the size of harriers, milk-white with dark muzzles and feet, the undulating bodies built light and long for speed. They made shrill barking sounds and leaped at the strangers, showing hungry fangs. Trehearne thought they looked like gigantic weasels—and quite as friendly.

"Hounds," said Yann. "Kurat is a hunter. I had a private arrangement with him for skins." He winked hugely and lifted up his voice, shouting in the native tongue an obvious demand for Kurat to come out and welcome his brother.

A lean, hard-muscled man emerged. He wore a loin-cloth of brilliant blue silk, not very clean, and a necklet of hammered metal. He greeted Yann with glad cries. Trehearne smiled inwardly. They were two of a kind, the Vardda and the hunter, a brace of happy scoundrels. Kurat welcomed him in the lingua franca of the factory towns. A brother of Yann, it seemed, was his brother also. He swept Trehearne before him into the hut.

There was a numerous family inside. A very old man and woman sat in a corner, doing nothing. Babes and children cluttered the floor. Kurat's hulking wife waded imperturbably among them. A handsome younger woman brought in a great sweating jug and poured from it into Trehearne's cup. The wine was cold and bitter. Trehearne, draining it, began to forget the heat and his weariness. Then, as he looked up into the young woman's face, he was startled by the hatred in her watching eyes.

He said suddenly, "Why do you hate us so?"

She laughed metallically. "Is there any world where the Vardda are loved?"

"Because we are able to fly the stars and you aren't?"

"Because we too could have had the stars and you Vardda kept us from it!"

Trehearne stared at her, disconcerted by her sudden passion. "But the secret was lost...."

"Oh, yes! And even on this far world we know how it was lost! All the universe has heard of Orthis and of how the Vardda drove him into the depths of space and destroyed him because he would have shared his knowledge. And so you are free and I am chained, and my children after me forever."

She turned abruptly away from him. He looked after her, depressed by this new proof of what bitter depths of hostility lay behind the faces of the non-Vardda.

But Yann shook his shoulder. "Kurat has made a kill today—a rare skin. Come outside and look at it. It could be worth a lot of money."

Less from interest than to escape his own oppression, Trehearne rose. They went out a back way. There was a shed some distance away, where Kurat said the hide was drying. Yann and he chatted in the unfamiliar jargon. Trehearne was not much interested in the whole business.

It was dark inside the shed. Yann said, "Wait a minute while I make a light."

Trehearne waited but not long. The light exploded inside his own skull. He heard Kurat grunt behind him with the exertion of the blow, then laugh. Yann was laughing too.

Trehearne knew a moment of murderous fury and then the world of the green star slipped away from under him.

When it returned again into his ken, he was sprawled on his face in mud, stripped of his tunic, his jewelled belt, his shocker and his sandals. The hut of Kurat had vanished, the town with it. He was in the forest, encircled by trees whose crystal branches glittered under the savage stars. His head hurt violently.

He got unsteadily to his feet with only one thought in his mind—the determination to get his hands on his good friend Yann. He took three steps in no particular direction—and then stopped, bathed in a sudden icy sweat.

In the distance and not too far away he heard the high-pitched cry of Kurat's strange hounds.

THIRTEEN

Trehearne's mind cleared with an almost physical wrench. The fumes of the wine left it, and the thick obscurity put there by the blow. The pain stayed, but he could think. He could remember. The world of the cumulid star. The man in the dun-colored robe saying, Murder.

Murder. Yann.

Don't thank me, it was Yann that saved you. He had your air-line recoupled....

Crazy. It couldn't be Yann.

It was. He had followed him meekly into a trap and sat there meekly drinking while Yann and Kurat talked jovially over his head, arranging the details.

The cry of the pack was nearer.

They would not want his body in the hut or in the town. They would not want it to seem like murder. They would carry him into the forest, and then set the hounds after him, leaving the beasts to do the final work. Who could be blamed if a drunken Vardda wandered off where he had no business to be and was pulled down by a pack of hounds? He wondered if Yann and Kurat were following the hunt. He wondered why Yann wanted him dead.

Yann. The dirty treacherous son of a bitch....

Trehearne began to run.

The ropy vines that crept and clambered among the crystal trees were like nooses set to catch his feet. He fell, and rose, and ran again, and the spongy ground gave softly under his feet like sand. It was very hot, and he was heavy, heavy with the drag of a heavy world.

Behind him, clear and shrill, came the yap-yap-yaahhh! of Kurat's weasel hounds, racing over a fresh scent. The crystal branches gleamed and sparkled, tipped with star-fire, sharp-tipped like spears. Trehearne stopped and tried to break one and it was like trying to break a bar of steel with his bare hands. He gave it up and fled onward, not knowing where he was or where he was going, only wanting to stay away as long as he could from the lithe white demons that were hunting him. There was a little river, black and warm. He waded upstream in it, splashing to his waist, swimming in the deeper pools. The bitter wine had left him thirsty, and he drank. The water tasted foully of pitch and slime and he spat it out again, gasping. He heard the voice of the pack change to a querulous whining as they checked by the bank of the stream where he had entered it. He sank down to rest and listened to them casting back and forth. He thought he heard a man's voice shouting but he could not be sure. He went on again, striking away from the river and into the forest. The great stars were pounding against his head and his body was leaden with many extra pounds of weight by gravitation.

He prayed for a fallen branch, but there was none. He prayed to find the town and that too was denied him. He ran heavily under the glittering trees and behind him the hounds burst suddenly into full cry, more distant now but as chilling to the blood. It would not be long before they overtook him.

He measured the trees with an eye to climbing one for refuge. They were glassy and badly shaped, and they were low. He remembered the long whipcord bodies of the weasel-like beasts. He thought they could leap as high as they needed to pull him down. He staggered on, and every time he fell it was harder to get up again. A terrible rage was on him, rage against Yann. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair to make a man run for his life on a world where he couldn't run. The cry of the pack came closer.

Abruptly, from somewhere ahead of him, rose the challenging voices of other hounds.

Trehearne stopped. He was caught now, between two fires. There was no use in going on. He choked on the acrid gorge of fear that filled his throat and cast about for a weapon, something, anything, to hold in his hands, to kill with, at least a little before he was torn apart.

It came to him that the yelping of the beasts ahead was stationary. It was irritable. They were not hunting. They were chained. Trehearne sobbed. He began to run again.

There was a clearing. He saw it ahead dimly through the starshine and the trees. He strove to reach it, and the pack-cry clamored at his heels. He tripped and pitched headlong and was almost happy, because he had fallen over a tangle of branches left from the breaking and clearing of the crystal trees. He caught one up. It was not long but it was sharp and heavy. It was better than nothing. He plunged forward with it into the edge of the open space, and there the hounds of Kurat bayed him.

Swift and undulant, white as frost in the starlight, they came leaping beautifully between the glistening trees. They cried out once, all together, and then they were still, still as arrows in mid-flight, arching toward him through the air. He set his back against a glassy trunk and swung his broken crystal branch. He struck some of them. But there were fangs set like hot irons in his flesh.

There was a hut in the center of the clearing. Four of the hunting-beasts were leashed beside it. They were the ones that had answered Kurat's pack. Now they snarled and screamed and fought their leashes. A man, a woman, and a tall boy came out of the hut. The boy started to run toward Trehearne, shouting. The man caught him. He spoke to the boy and made him be still. They stood there, watching.

Trehearne killed one of the hounds with his crystal club, and one he crippled. The remaining six boiled around him, a liquid tangle of bodies leaping, flowing, slashing with the white knives of their teeth. The blood ran on Trehearne's body. He swung and swung again, and yelled for help to the man and woman who watched stolidly.

They did not move. The boy tried to, and the man cuffed him.

Trehearne uttered a hoarse sound and dropped the branch. One of the brutes had fastened on his wrist. Its weight dragged him to his knees and he knew that this was the finish, the last of his voyaging amidst the stars. He tore the strong jaws out of his flesh and swung the brute as a flail in the faces of its mates and then he could hold it no longer and the pack closed in.

The boy had slunk back into the shadows by the hut wall. Now, suddenly, he reached and slipped the thongs from around the necks of the tethered hounds.

They tore across the clearing over the jagged stumps and flung themselves upon the pack of Kurat.

For a moment the beasts forgot Trehearne. He scrambled free of the snarling tangle and went toward the hut. The man rushed by him, howling. He picked up a branch and began to beat the battling hounds, struggling to separate them. The woman wailed and ran to help him. The boy came to Trehearne.

He was not much above sixteen, tall and well made. He put his arm around Trehearne's waist and took him into the hut and sat him down. Trehearne was glad to sit. The room reeled and darkened around him. When his sight cleared the boy had brought cloths and a pungent salve and was binding his cuts.

"What is your name?" asked Trehearne in the lingua franca.

"Torin."

"You saved my life, Torin. I will not forget it."

"I would do anything for the Vardda." Instead of hate there was hero-worship in this non-Vardda face. It was obvious that in the boy's eyes Trehearne was a figure of glory. Trehearne was touched.

Torin stared at him, his task forgotten. And he asked the question, the old unchanging question that was always on the lips of boys. "What is it like—what is it really like, to fly between the stars?"

Trehearne put his hand on the lean young shoulder and lied. "It is long and hard and not nearly as adventurous as hunting. I'll wager that you're as good a hunter as your father."

"Not yet," said Torin. "Some day...." He bent to his work again. His fingers moved over Trehearne's flesh, touching the muscles, spreading the wounds, gentle with the thick salve. He scowled, brooding over some question of his own. "It feels like mine," he said. "It bleeds like mine and here is an old scar and there will be new ones. It is not a different flesh, made of iron or some other thing."

He sprang up. "Look!" he cried. "I am strong, very strong. See, my flesh is hard like yours. Surely it is not true that only the Vardda can fly in the great ships! Surely I am strong enough to go out and see the stars!"

Trehearne could not meet his eager eyes. He said, "It takes a different kind of strength." He tried to explain and gave it up. He could only say, "I'm sorry."

He got up. "Will you guide me to the compound, Torin? And think what you would like out of all the things that are there. I can't take my life from you without giving something back—a little gift between friends."

Torin whispered, "I want to see the ship."

Trehearne frowned and in the interval of silence he heard the noises from the clearing—the whining growl of hounds and the sudden lifting of human voices.

"Your parents?"

"No," said Torin. "They are still trying to catch our beasts in the forest."

"Look out and see who has come, Torin."

He flattened himself in the corner behind the door. The boy opened it and peered.

"Two men," he whispered. "A hunter whose name is Kurat—and a Vardda." He drew back and looked at Trehearne. "They were hunting you?"

Trehearne nodded. His face had tightened and grown cruel. "Give me a knife."

Torin handed him a skinning blade of crystal chipped to a razor edge. Trehearne said, "Go and tell them I am dead from the hounds' tearing. Tell the Vardda to come and help you carry out my body."

Torin hesitated, then he went. Trehearne heard him calling across the clearing. The gabble of voices increased and Yann's familiar laughter sounded. The boy was talking, telling the details of Trehearne's dying.

Yann strode into the hut.

He came confidently. He had nothing to fear. And then Trehearne's arm was around his throat and the point of the knife was biting in under the angle of the jaw.

"Don't move," said Trehearne. And again, "Don't move!"

Yann stood still. Blood was running down the side of his neck. "You'll cut the vein," he whispered. "No deeper, please, no deeper."

He had not picked up any weapons on the way. There was none in his belt, none in his hands. Trehearne took the point of the knife out of Yann's throat and then he hit him. Yann fell sprawling on the floor. He started to complain, and Trehearne kicked him, as hard as he could with his bare foot, twice in the ribs, wanting to hear bone break. Yann's breath came out with a rush. Over his shoulder Trehearne said to Torin, wide-eyed in the doorway, "Keep watch, and tell me if anyone comes."

"They are busy with the hounds and with talking," the boy said. And then, "Will you kill him?"

"I'd enjoy it." Trehearne touched Yann again with his foot. "You tried it that other time, too, didn't you? God damn it, answer me! Didn't you?"

Coughing, his face against the floor, Yann muttered, "Yes."

"You crept up behind me, between those growths. You pulled my air-line loose and ducked before I could turn around. You went to a lot of trouble. Why did you save my life?"

Yann groaned and retched. "I'm sick."

"You'll be sicker." Trehearne got him by the hair of the head, standing carefully and watching for any sudden move, and dragged him half erect. "Sit up and talk like a man. Why did you undo all your good work? You could have let me die right there."

Yann shook his head. "You were blundering straight into the others. Somebody was going to save you, and I figured it might as well be me. If you had any suspicions you'd switch them to someone else. Make it easier next time." His mouth twisted into a parody of a grin. "It did."

Trehearne said, "You're a hell of a nice guy." His hand moved and light flickered on the crystal knife. Yann's eyes were drawn to it.

"This wasn't my idea," he said. "I was only doing a job. You don't have to kill me." He put an emphasis on the pronoun.

"I don't have to. It's whether I want to or not. Whose idea was it, Yann?"

"He was going to give me a ship," Yann muttered. "A ship of my own. Any man would do it for a price like that. You'd do it yourself, Trehearne. That's just common sense."

Trehearne said, "Who offered you the ship?"

"Kerrel. You go fight it out with him. I've got nothing against you, Trehearne. Kerrel explained to me that it wasn't murder to put you out of the way, but a service to the whole Vardda community, and this was the only way he could do it. But I'm not interested in politics. This was just a business deal for me. One life, one ship."

"Kerrel isn't rich. Where was he going to get hold of a ship to give away?"

"I guess he had a deal in mind. Maybe that depended, too, on your not coming back. I don't know. Anyway, I can prove it was Kerrel. Here, I've got the whole business in writing. I'm no fool. Agent of the Council or not, a man's a man...." Still talking, still scowling, Yann dug into his tunic pocket. An instant later, an instant too late, Trehearne realized that by no possibility would Kerrel ever put such things in writing. He moved, fast.

The shocker came out of Yann's pocket, the weapon he wouldn't carry openly because Kurat would be offended, the weapon he had not left behind in the compound. Trehearne hit him just before the business end, the prism, cleared the silk cloth of Yann's tunic. He hit him with both hands, and he hadn't exactly forgotten the hunting knife with the razor edge, but he didn't care now, he didn't want to be laid out stunned and senseless by the shock-beam so that Yann could have his ship and Kerrel could have Shairn and the hounds could have their bellies full of meat. He hit him hard and rolled him over and rolled over with him. The shocker went skittering away, hitting the wall with a sharp click. Trehearne scrambled frantically to get to his feet first, but he didn't need to hurry. Yann was not going to get up any more. The shining haft of the knife was standing out of Yann's chest. It rose and fell a couple of times, and then it stopped. There was not much blood around it.

Torin broke the silence. "Will you kill the other one, too?" He jerked his head toward the door. Beyond it in the clearing Kurat was bawling at his yapping hounds.

Trehearne thought. He thought rapidly and clearly, and that was odd because there was a sickness in his belly, and a kind of shaking on him. After a moment he said, "No. There's a better way."

He went and picked up the shocker that had belonged to Yann. Then he leaned over and took the slack of Yann's collar in his free hand and dragged him outside. He was very heavy, and his head lolled back against Trehearne's wrist.

Kurat turned and came toward the hut. There was a happy look on his face. He was a happy man. He had done a good job, for good pay. And then he saw Trehearne, and the shocker, and Yann lying on the ground where Trehearne had dropped him. Something queer and ludicrous happened to the face of Kurat.

Trehearne pointed. "There's a native hunter's knife in his heart. You killed him, Kurat. I saw you do it."

Kurat made a sound like something that has stepped into a snare and feels it closing. "I didn't. You lie, you know I...."

"You killed a Vardda," Trehearne said. "You were quarrelling over the wine, and you put the knife into him, so. That was wrong of you, Kurat. I don't think the other Vardda will like it. I would go away, if I were you. I would take my hounds and my family and go a long way off into the forest."

Kurat stared for a moment into Trehearne's eyes. Then he looked at Yann. Then he turned and shouted up his bleeding hounds, saying no word but shouting with a curious raw edge to his voice, and went with them into the forest, running.

He was, Trehearne thought, no fool. He knew what Vardda vengeance could be, and he knew what his word would be worth against a Vardda. He did not think the factory would see Kurat again for many years. And he was glad. Kurat's disappearance would save Trehearne many explanations. He did not want to tell to anyone now the truth of how and why Yann had died.

He did not want to talk about it except to one man.

FOURTEEN

Torin's parents came back into the clearing a few minutes later. The woman had three hounds leashed, all of them bleeding and one going on three legs. In his hand, by its loose scruff, the man carried the fourth one, dead. He flung it down at Torin's feet.

"There's your work," he said. "Two of the others will not hunt for days. We will go hungry because my son is a fool."

Then he saw Yann's body, and started back, looking swiftly at Trehearne.

"Kurat killed him," said Trehearne. "I'll take his body back to the ship. There will not be any trouble."

"I will help you," Torin said.

The man said nothing. He stood running his hard hands nervously up and down on his bare belly, a man oppressed by fate. The woman turned silently away to tie the hounds again. Trehearne took off his belt and pried two of the jewel stones out of it. They were not of the best, but to these people they were riches. He would have given them Yann's belt, which was more valuable, but he was afraid it would make them trouble when they tried to barter it. He put the two stones in the man's palm.

"Those will pay for your hounds. I'll leave word with the factor that they were not stolen. Just don't do anything till after the ship is gone." He lifted up Yann's body and laid it over his shoulder. "Come on, my friend Torin. Let's go."

He walked out across the clearing, and Torin came with him, pointing out the path. When they were out of hearing, he said to Trehearne, "I would like it if you could forgive my parents. To me they are good and kind, but they do not understand the Vardda."

"Perhaps they do," Trehearne said. "Better than you know."

It was morning when they reached the compound, a green morning oppressed with heat. Trehearne was ready to drop, and even the boy was weary. Yann had been a heavy burden, shared between them. But all the way he had talked of the great ship. He would accept no other gift but that, to see the ship, and he pleaded so that Trehearne had not the heart to refuse him. After all, it was little enough reward for what the boy had done.

"You will have to wait, though, perhaps a long while. I will have to do much talking, about him."

"I will wait," said Torin, smiling. "I have waited all my life."

It was the last great day of the trading and all the Vardda were inside the compound except one man who guarded the Saarga. The hatches were closed. Only the airlock port was open and the guard sat in front of it, yawning in the heat. He quit yawning when he saw Yann's body.

Things were a little confused for Trehearne for a while. He talked, and then he patiently endured the tongue-lashing the skipper gave him. It was a rough one, such as a man deserved who would go drinking with a comrade and pass out and let his comrade be killed by natives. But when it was over there was nothing to do but order Yann buried and go on with the last trading. Trehearne was glad that Rohan and Perri were too busy right now to ask questions. When it was all finished he found Torin and went with him to the airlock port and spoke to the guard.

"He helped me out there. Maybe he saved my life. I promised him a look around."

The guard looked doubtful. "It's against the rules. The Old Man would have my head if he found out."

"How can he find out? He's busy. Don't worry, I'll see the boy gets clear of the ship. You can look the other way."

The guard could not withstand Torin's hungry gaze. He was a family man, with sons of his own. "Well—all right. Only be sure you get the kid out again—fast!"

Trehearne saw to it. He showed Torin what he could, from the bridge to the generator rooms, and the boy trod softly as though he were in a holy place, touching, sighing, wondering. Trehearne was sorry he had brought him. It was pitiful to see all that longing that could never be fulfilled. He pressed upon Torin what few trinkets from other star-worlds he had in his own possession and then led him out from the ship and stood with the guard, watching the boy go slowly away across the field, looking back, always back, until he was lost behind the compound wall.

"Poor little beggar," said the guard. "Star-crazy, like all the rest of them. Well, he'll get over it."

"I suppose so," said Trehearne, and was glad that he would not see Torin again.

He found the doctor and had himself patched up, and after that he was busy checking lading. He was dead for sleep, and it seemed an eternity until, toward midnight, the cargo was all aboard and the hatches locked. The Saarga lifted into the star-shot sky, and the acceleration built and built to the thrust of the humming generators.

Trehearne told Rohan and Perri that he was too played out to talk about what had happened, and tumbled into his bunk. He was almost instantly asleep—and almost as instantly awake again.

There was a screaming in the ship....

They found Torin lying beside the well that led up from the hold. He had made it that far. His skin was already darkened with the subcutaneous hemorrhage, his body twisted and writhing, his face almost unrecognizable. And he screamed and would not stop.

Trehearne held him and watched him die.

It seemed to take a long, long time. It was not a clean death. It was dissolution. Trehearne remembered his own torment and there was nothing he could do. The others watched also with sick white faces. In the end it was the guard who went to fetch a cloth to wrap the body in, and there were tears on his cheeks.

Trehearne laid Torin on the sheet. His flesh was not hard any more. He was no longer straight and well made. He was not even a dead boy. He was a rag, a shapelessness, an obscenity. It crossed Trehearne's mind how nearly he had come to dying that same death.

He got up. He returned to his cabin, stripped and scrubbed himself in a kind of frenzy. He kicked his sodden garments into the corridor for someone else to deal with. He could not touch them again. And all the time he heard Torin's voice crying, "Surely I am strong enough to go out and see the stars!"

They came a little later and told Trehearne that they had found where Torin had hidden himself under the wrappings of a bale, to be carried aboard with the cargo.

"It wasn't your fault," they told him. "There was no way you could have seen the boy."

Trehearne was not comforted.

They buried Torin in deep space, to drift forever among the Suns of Hercules. And Trehearne thought of a hut, of a man and a woman who were waiting for their son to come home. He wished that Torin had listened to the wisdom of his father.

The Saarga tramped her way onward among the worlds of the Cluster. Time and events gave Trehearne other things to think about. He was a starman now, tested and hardened, a functioning part of his environment. His horizons were boundless and the stars had not lost their lustre. But somehow, even so, the first fine flush of glory was gone.

He remembered the bitterness of the woman who had said, "You are free and I am chained and my children after me forever." He remembered the countless young men who hungered, the eyes of children wide with dreams. Each time he saw the new-healed scars on his body he remembered the boy who had dressed those wounds and found the Vardda flesh no different from his own—a treachery too subtle for his understanding.

Over and over, when he slept, he held Torin in his arms and watched him die.

He told himself that it was all wasted pity. Whatever had been done to Orthis long ago was not his doing. Things were as they were and there was no help for it. He was one of the lucky ones and he should be content with that. Most of the time he was content. But now and again there would come the small sharp doubts, the creeping sense of guilt.

If only Torin had not come aboard the ship to die!

He needed to talk to Edri. He needed to ease his mind, to get things straight with himself, and he knew that Edri would understand.

He was glad when they started the long haul back to Llyrdis. He discovered that much as he wanted to see Edri, he wanted even more to see Shairn. He wondered if she had forgotten him by now or if she would be waiting when he landed.

The Saarga made her worldfall at last under the tawny-red glare of Aldebaran. Trehearne watched the golden planet rush and grow toward the ship. He cheered with the others at the first sight of home and did not think it odd that he should strain as eagerly as they to see the familiar towers of the city rising out of the mountain-girdled plain.

When the freighter found her dock and wallowed into it, Joris was on hand to watch his ship come in. He had been in contact with the Saarga by ultra-wave radio and now he boarded her before the ports were fairly open. The skipper had given him good news of the venture and he was in jovial spirits, clapping shoulders all around, peering at manifests, firing questions, demanding to know how Trehearne had acquitted himself.

"A good voyage, eh?" he cried. "Too bad about Yann, but any voyage through the Cluster is a good one if only one gets killed!"

Trehearne said bitterly, "Someone else did."

Joris stared at him, uncomprehending.

"Oh, not one of the crew. A native boy, crazy to fly the stars. He stowed away."

All the light went out of Joris' face, leaving it bleak. It was a long time before he spoke and then it was only to make a routine statement about the ship. He seemed to have lost all his joy in it. Trehearne was surprised at the impact that those few words about a nameless boy had had on the old man.

Joris left soon after. He told Trehearne, "I'll see you in a day or so. Meanwhile I think Shairn is waiting for you at the sector gate." He spoke as though his mind were not really on what he was saying. He turned away, then hesitated, and asked, "How old was that boy, Trehearne?"

"About sixteen."

Joris nodded. He walked away across the apron as though he carried on his massive shoulders some heavy burden that weighed them down. Trehearne signed over his manifests to the port official in charge of unloading and went in search of Shairn.

She stood outside the great barred gate, watching for him. She was just as beautiful as he remembered.

He said, "You haven't forgotten me then?"

"No. Did you expect me to?"

"I wouldn't have been surprised."

She laughed—the sweet familiar laughter spiced with mockery. "You're a wise man." She cocked her head back and studied him. "You've changed. You've got so brown and hard and—older. I think I like you even better now. But I'll have to learn to know you all over again." She pulled him toward the long, sleek vehicle that waited. "It will be nice," she said, "this getting acquainted again!"

The broad road took them northward along the coast, away from the clamoring spaceport and the city. The cliffs rose from the golden sea, wild and forbidding.

She asked suddenly, "Where did you get that?"

His sleeve had fallen back and she was looking at the scars on his wrist.

"Someone set the hounds on me," Trehearne answered indifferently. Then, "By the way, how is Kerrel?"

"I haven't seen him." She glanced at the scars again. "How did he work it?"

"How did who work what?"

"Oh, stop trying to be subtle! I had a feeling that Kerrel might arrange something for that voyage. He's not a man who takes his defeats lightly."

Trehearne told her briefly the story of Yann and the hounds. He finished, "I want to see Kerrel."

"You will!" Shairn's eyes sparkled. "And I want to be there when you do!"

The car swung around a curve and there on its great crag loomed the Silver Tower—Shairn's ancestral home, built by generations of Vardda men and women who had reached out with strong hands to grasp the stars.

For a time, with Shairn, he forgot about Kerrel and Torin and all the things that preyed upon his mind. He only knew that it was very good to be here. It was evening when he was again reminded of them. They were sitting in the gallery, sipping the sharp, cold wines, and Shairn said, "Are you happy, Michael?"

He remembered another time when she had asked that question—the night that Edri had walked away alone down the avenue of trees. He remembered Edri crying out in the dark against injustice, and instantly the old restlessness was back upon him.

"Yes," he said. "Yes, I'm happy." He turned the wine-glass in his hands, brooding. "Shairn, could you get Edri out here? I'd like to see him."

He felt her stiffen and draw away and he thought that she was angry with him. He went on, "I didn't mean now. Tomorrow's time enough. But I—well, I want to talk to him."

"You're fond of Edri, aren't you?"

"He was a good friend to me."

"Yes—and to me." She was silent for a moment and then she turned around. "You might as well know now as later. Edri was arrested a month ago."

Trehearne sprang up. "Arrested?"

"Yes. They sentenced him yesterday. Exile to Thuvis—for the rest of his natural life."

FIFTEEN

For a moment Trehearne stood still like a man stunned. Thuvis—for the rest of his natural life!

He remembered that dark, inexpressibly lonely world of a dying sun that Shairn had shown him in the microfilm viewer, on the way from Earth.

"No," he said. "Not Edri. There must be some mistake."

Shairn shook her head. "I wish there were but there isn't. Edri is an Orthist, caught, confessed and convicted. He was unable even to offer a defense."

She turned away from him. "I don't like it either. But Edri knew what he was doing. He brought this on himself."

Trehearne asked, "What happened?"

"You remember that night in the wine garden when Kerrel spoke of a man named Arrin who had been arrested?"

"Yes. He was a friend of Edri's."

"Well, they couldn't find Arrin's papers. They wanted them very badly. It seemed that Arrin had found some clue to the course of Orthis' ship, on that last voyage when it was lost, and had been making calculations."

She paused, then added grimly, "Kerrel got the idea that Edri had those papers."

Trehearne's yellow eyes took on a peculiarly evil glint. "Then Kerrel was at the bottom of this?"

"Yes. It was his duty as agent of the Council to investigate, and he did, and very cleverly. Well, Edri had the papers all right, and more of his own."

Trehearne groaned. "The idealistic fool! Why wasn't he satisfied to be a Vardda himself, without worrying about the rest of the galaxy!"

Shairn seemed relieved. Then, "That's what I said! But knowing your friendship for Edri, I was afraid you'd lose your head when you heard."

She went on quickly. "I know you'll have a reckoning with Kerrel over this and your own score. But you'll have to be careful since he's a Council agent. I can help you—"

But Shairn's voice faded out of Trehearne's hearing except for that one phrase.

"—knowing your friendship for Edri—"

Yes, Edri had been his friend. He was sorry for Edri. But should he let friendship be a chain to drag him back down from all that he had dreamed and desired and finally achieved?

No! He would not let himself be trapped by friendship and by pity! He had been merely indulging in emotionalism, to sympathize as he had with the non-Vardda peoples' hunger for star-freedom, to remember as he had the hopeless longing in their eyes, to brood as he had over the dying of Torin.

A sick fatal foreboding grew in Trehearne as he realized the decision shaping in his mind. He knew that it was shaped by emotion, not by reason, and he felt a savage contempt for his own weakness.

He spoke, interrupting Shairn. "I'm sorry, Shairn, I was thinking. And I think I've got to try to help Edri."

She stopped, looking at him with wide steady eyes. Then, rapidly, "Michael! Don't be a fool!"

He smiled mirthlessly. "You've told me that before. I'm telling myself now. But it doesn't work. It seems that I'm determined to be a fool."

"You're taking it too tragically! After all, Edri's not going to be executed."

Remembering Edri's words about the fate of Arrin, Trehearne answered, "I think he'd almost prefer that. Exiled to a remote star, never to fly again, nothing to do but sit and wait for death—"

"But there's nothing you can do, Michael! He's convicted, sentenced. They're taking him off tonight. So there's an end to it."

Trehearne rose to his feet. "I'm going back to the city, Shairn."

"For what?"

"I'm going to see if I can get him away."

She understood then the full depth and danger of his thinking. She caught him fiercely by the arm.

"Are you going to throw away everything you've worked so hard to get for nothing? Remember, Edri's a traitor. No matter how good a friend he was to both of us he's a traitor and deserves his punishment."

"That's how you feel, is it?"

"Is there any other way I could feel? You know what the Orthists are as well as I do."

He said quietly, "I'm not sure I do. Perhaps you'd better tell me."

"They're destroyers. They want to ruin Llyrdis, the Vardda empire, everything as it is now." Her passionate voice took in the star-trails, the swift ships flying, the Vardda pride of race and achievement.

"Orthis had his laboratory in his ship. The secret of the Vardda mutation is there. They want to find that ship. They want to find the secret in it and spread it all across the Galaxy."

"Would it be so terrible," asked Trehearne, "if others should have the ability to fly the stars?"

She looked at him as though he had spoken blasphemy. He added, "Except, of course, that it would wreck the Vardda monopoly."

"That sounds very strange, coming from you," she said bitterly. "You, the outsider, who fought so hard to be a part of the monopoly. It looked pretty good to you then after thirty-three years of crawling in the mud of Earth!"

"I've seen more of it now. I've seen a boy die because of it. I don't think I like it any longer."

"You don't like it?" Her voice was low and passionate. "You? And what do you know about it? We earned the right to what we have. We were the first—first of all the races of the Galaxy to go into interstellar space. And we did it without mutation, without anything! Four generations that first voyage took. Four generations of children born in deep space, in a little ship crawling between the stars! No one else ever did that. No one else ever dared! And as for our wicked monopoly—it keeps the peace of the Galaxy. It keeps worlds alive that would have died. It brings wealth and comfort where they never were before. But you don't like it and so it must be destroyed!"

She stopped for breath and then she whispered, "Kerrel was right about letting an outsider in. And I'm ashamed that I have loved you!"

She turned from him and went swiftly along the gallery. There was a purpose about the way she did it that made Trehearne uneasy. He followed her and found her at the visiphone. The screen was already brightening.

She looked at him with blazing eyes. "I fought once to get you into Llyrdis. Now I'll undo that mistake!"

He struck her away from the instrument and closed the switch. She was on him then like a cat, clawing him, calling him mongrel and freak and worse names, raging at his ingratitude. She was hard to hold but he held her and she could reach neither the visiphone nor the bell to call her servants.

He held her, and she laughed her mocking laugh at him. "All right. Go on, then. Go and make a fool of yourself, trying to free Edri. See how far you get. And remember that it's bad enough for a Vardda born to betray his people but for you—"

He held her a moment longer, swallowing his own rage, thinking. He could not let her go. The moment he left she would send out the alarm, denounce him to the Council, put an end both to his own freedom and to any remote hope he might have of helping Edri.

It took him only a few seconds to decide. In the mood he was in, it was not difficult to strike the necessary, carefully-calculated blow.

He carried her out to the car in his arms. If any of the servants saw them it would look very sweet, very romantic, her dark head on his shoulder, her arms around his neck. They would not be able to see that her wrists were tied.

He put her down gently in the padded seat. She did not stir. There was the shadow of a bruise already forming on her chin. He got in beside her and sent the car humming down the wide road that led to the city.

When he was far enough away from the tower he stopped. He bound Shairn securely with strips torn from her own garments, taking especial care with the gag. He arranged her on the floor as comfortably as he could, out of sight. Then he drove on and did not stop again until he reached the spaceport.

The lights were still on in the office of Joris. Probably he would stay late tonight, to oversee the business of taking Edri away in the prison ship. Trehearne felt guilty about Joris, almost as though he were betraying his own father. The old man had been good to him.

Shairn seemed to be safely unconscious. Trehearne left the car where it would be least likely to attract attention, and went into the Administration Building. He had only the vague beginnings of a plan in his mind but whatever he did it would have to start here.

The roar and bustle of the spaceport were not diminished by darkness. Some of the Vardda officers he knew. They hailed him as he passed them in the corridors, congratulating him on his voyage, asking him when he was going out again. Trehearne almost faltered then, thinking what a fool he was to give up all this for an idle hope. And then he remembered Edri and went on. Edri had done his best for him when he needed it, whether it was foolish or not. It seemed that he could not do less for Edri.

The lift took him up to the high room that was like the bridge of a starship that would never fly. Joris was there. He was quite alone. He had been drinking for some time but he was not drunk. He looked up when Trehearne came in and his eyes were heavy and rimmed with red.

"What do you want?" he said.

"A favor."

"Another time, Trehearne. Get out. Get the hell out."

"Another time won't do." Trehearne leaned over the table. "They're taking Edri out for Thuvis tonight. I want to say good-bye to him, Joris. That's all, just a word before he goes. Tell me what ship it is and where—or if you can't do that tell me what sector and I'll see him outside the gate."

"That's right," said Joris. "You're a friend of Edri's." He reached for the wine bottle. There was an empty one beside it and another on the floor. "How good a friend, Trehearne? That's what I'd like to know. How good a friend?"

His bloodshot gaze was sharp and very shrewd.

Trehearne said angrily, "You know I'm not mixed up with him. You know where I've been."

"Yes, I know. You've been watching a young boy die in space. What did you think when you saw that, Trehearne? How did you feel?"

"Let's not talk about that," said Trehearne harshly. "Tell me where I can see Edri and when. That isn't much to ask, Joris, just a minute to say good-bye."

"A boy sixteen," whispered Joris, "full of hope, full of longing, proud of his strength.... I ought to hate you, Trehearne. You're not even half Vardda in the ordinary way and yet you can fly the stars."

He filled his glass again and emptied it. His hands were steady. He was neither drunk nor maudlin. And yet there were tears in his eyes. Trehearne saw them and was somehow shocked. It did not seem possible that Joris could weep.

"Joris," he said gently, "forget about the boy. Let me see Edri."

Again the red-rimmed leaden gaze locked with his, weighing, measuring. "I like you, Trehearne. So I'll tell you again. Get out. Go away. Forget you ever came here."

Trehearne did not move. Abruptly Joris picked up the empty bottle and flung it, not at him but near him. "Get out, you fool! I'm giving you a chance to go!"

There was nothing to do but obey. Trehearne moved toward the door, thinking angrily that he would have to risk the sector map in Operations. He stretched out his hand to the latch and the door opened under it fast and he was looking straight into the prism lens of a shock tube, held by a tall spaceport guard. Shairn was beside the guard.

The guard said, "Back up."

Trehearne backed. He looked at Shairn. "I should have clipped you again to make sure."

"You should. I got my feet loose quite easily. This silk is pretty flimsy stuff." She walked past him toward Joris. The guard came in and closed the door, setting his back against it.

Joris demanded, "What's all this about?"

"I found her out by the gate," the guard said. "She was gagged and her hands were tied."

"Trehearne," said Shairn to Joris. "He's an Orthist. He came here to help Edri escape."

"Did he!" said Joris. "Did he now!" He looked at Trehearne. "You stand where you are. Don't try anything." He reached into a drawer of the table and covered him with the lens of another tube.

"An Orthist, eh?" he said softly. He began to laugh.

SIXTEEN

Shairn sat down on the edge of Joris' table. She smiled at Trehearne and in this moment he hated her. He looked from Joris to the guard and back again and did nothing. There was nothing then that he could do.

"Would you have believed it of him, Joris?" said Shairn. "Would you have thought that he could turn on us after all we did for him?"

Joris leaned back in his chair. "Shairn," he said, "I'm sorry it had to be this way."

"Yes," she answered, and then added bitterly, "Kerrel was right about him, after all."

Joris said, "That isn't what I mean."

Something in his tone made Shairn turn and look at him. He went on. "I'm sorry you got yourself into this. You're only doing what you believe to be right. But so is Trehearne. So am I."

He dropped his bombshell so quietly that for a moment neither Shairn nor Trehearne could quite believe that they had understood him.

Shairn got up off the edge of the table. She backed away, her eyes fixed on Joris in horrified incredulity. "You, Joris! You an Orthist!" Her tone made the words a denial.

But Joris nodded and said, "Yes."

Abruptly, Trehearne laughed. Shairn swung around. "You heard?" she said to the guard. "Arrest Joris!"

The guard shook his head and smiled. "Hardly. I'm Joris' man."

It was Shairn's turn now to stand like a trapped thing, searching for escape and not finding it.

Trehearne said, "May I move now?" His voice was a bit shaky with relief.

Joris grinned. "I didn't want you throwing yourself around. Somebody might have got hurt. Yes, you can move."

Shairn burst out. "I can't understand this, Joris! You, of all people—it's insane!"

"Perhaps. But I think Trehearne would understand." He scowled at his own hands, brooding, and then he said, "It doesn't matter who knows now. I did the forbidden thing. I married a woman of another world, a non-Vardda. I had a son. He wanted to fly the stars. He used to beg me to take him aboard my ship. After all, he was my son, half-Vardda. He thought he could do it. He hid himself away in my cabin and—the Vardda blood had not bred true in him." He glanced briefly at Trehearne. "He was not quite eighteen. I never flew another voyage after that."

He got up, kicking the empty bottle away. "I guess that was why I first gave Trehearne his chance. It seemed to make up in a way for—"

He broke off abruptly. "Well, that's over and done with. We have other things to think about and not much time to do them in. Trehearne, you've upset my plans rather badly by fetching in Miss Spitfire here."

"It wasn't intentional." He went to Joris. "Is it true then? You're going to get Edri free?"

"I'm going to try. You see, this is a thing I could only do once. I've had to sit here for years, watching more than one good man go out to Thuvis, waiting—waiting for the time when I could make my action really count. Now it's here." He turned and glowered at Shairn. "The main question is—what are we going to do with you?"

She answered him angrily and without fear. "Whatever you do you'll live to regret it!"

"H'm," said Joris. "Tie her up again, Trehearne."

He did so with immense pleasure. This time he used stouter bonds and took extra pains with the knots.

Joris paced up and down, thinking hard. "I hate to say this but there's only one place I know of where there's no danger of her being found before we're gone. And that's aboard the ship."

The guard said, "There won't be any time to get her off again."

"I know it," said Joris grimly. "So it looks as though we'll have an extra passenger."

Trehearne had finished with the gag. He looked at Shairn. Her eyes burned and her face was white above the cloth.

Joris threw his cloak over her. "Take her down in my private lift," he told the guard. "The sector has already been cleared, so you won't have any trouble there. Get her aboard and make damned sure she's locked in."

The guard nodded. He picked up the cloak-wrapped bundle and put it over his shoulder. The buzzer of the visiphone made a sudden jarring sound. Joris motioned the man to hurry, waited until he was gone before answering. Trehearne pressed himself back against the wall, out of range of the screen.

Kerrel's voice said, "Joris—we're bringing Edri down in exactly fifteen minutes. Is everything ready?"

Joris nodded. "The sector is cleared, the guards are posted and the ship is ready for take-off."

"Good. There's a good bit of feeling about this business and we don't want any trouble."

"I've seen to it," Joris told him.

The screen went dark. "The swine!" said Joris. "He's only doing what he believes is right but he's so bloody smug about it. Agent of the Council! Bah!"

Unexpectedly he caught Trehearne's shoulders in a bearlike grip that nearly broke them.

"I'm glad you're with us. Are you armed?"

"Yes."

"Come on, then. This is the end of my waiting. I'm going back to space, Trehearne! I'm going to do the things I knew I'd have to do some day after I watched my son die. Come on then—move!"

They went down in the tiny private lift and out of the building to a guarded sector where the lights burned brightly over silent ships, where there were no swarming mobs of non-Vardda workmen, no clatter of machinery and whizzing of busy trams, only the deserted aprons of the great docks and the empty spaces between them.

As they went Joris told Trehearne what he had to do. "Only the guards at the gate, and the four who will pick up Kerrel's men when they come through belong to me. The others, we hope, will be too far away to interfere. But we'll have no time to linger."

"Where is the prison ship?"

"I spotted that at the far end of the sector. And they'll find its generators shot when they try to follow us. The Orthists are strong among the non-Vardda. The mechanics were glad to do that little job for me!"

Joris spoke briefly to the guards about Trehearne. They nodded a welcome. "In about ten minutes," Joris said. "Is the girl aboard?"

"All secure, sir."

"Good. Come along, Trehearne." He led the way past two of the towering docks. By the time they reached the third they were out of sight and hearing of the gate. In this third dock was a long rakish starship, lightless and silent, all hatches closed except the port.

"The Mirzim, the ship we're taking," said Joris. "A long-distance light trader, built for speed. Well, we'll need that. It belongs, by the way, to a good friend of mine. He'll have to collect from the two good cargo ships I'm leaving behind." He added, "The crew's waiting inside now. Only a half-crew really—not many navigators and technicians are dependable Orthists."

He stationed Trehearne in the shadows under the corner of the apron. "We'll jump them right here. Try not to kill anyone. As soon as Edri is free make for the Mirzim."

"Right." Trehearne settled back into the patch of darkness, hidden from anyone walking past in the areaway. He held his shock-tube ready in his hand. Joris was already gone, heading back to the gate.

Trehearne listened to the sounds of the spaceport. The sharp smell of the sea was in the wind, and in the distance he could see the shining towers of the city. He thought that this was probably the last time he would ever see Llyrdis. He knew a stabbing pang of regret. And then, coming from the direction of the gate, he heard the rhythmic tramp of perhaps a dozen men, moving at a brisk pace toward him. He was glad that the wait was no longer.

He did not move but his body quivered, settling itself.

There was Joris, walking first with Kerrel. There were four men without uniforms. There was a fifth man and beside him Edri, with his right wrist linked to the man's left. There were four more men without uniforms, then four of Joris' guards.

The head of the little column passed the corner of the third dock. The four guards broke rank and pulled out their shock tubes, aiming the pallid beams at an angle to avoid hitting Edri.

Trehearne sprang out and joined them.

Three of Kerrel's men went down on that first assault. Two were unconscious but one could still use his shocker. Joris had caught Kerrel unawares and knocked him down with nothing more than his great hammer of a fist. He pulled out his own weapon then and waded in.

A vicious dogfight began, swirling around with Edri as its center. Edri grappled with his guard and they fell, both struggling, both hampered by the fetters.

Both sides quit using the shockers. The fighting was too close for that, a small blundering nasty melee of fists and feet, men stumbling over each other, hitting the wrong people in their haste, going down, getting up again, shouting for help, swearing, astonished, furious.

Trehearne, trying to get to Edri, smashed one man solidly in the face and sent another staggering. Then he was tripped and was kicked as he went down. He found himself sprawling on top of Edri, who grunted and struck at him, then said, "Oh, it's you. The key is in his belt."

Trehearne chopped down with his fist. The man's head rang on the concrete. He lay still and Trehearne found the key. Then a heavy weight descended on him from behind, grinding his face into the cement. The hand that held the key was pinioned in an iron grip. He thrashed about, trying to unseat his attacker, and in the meantime Edri had grabbed his hand as well, wrenching and clawing with a single-minded determination to have the key.

He got it. Trehearne managed to get his knees under him and roll. He saw Kerrel's face close to his. In a second the two men had each other by the throat. They strained together, breast to breast, like two lovers, kicked and tramped by the feet of other men, oblivious. Edri got free and rose. He would have struck Kerrel but Trehearne gasped, "No! I'll handle him!"

Kerrel smiled, an anguished baring of the teeth. His thumbs bit hard into Trehearne's neck. Trehearne let go of Kerrel's throat. He bunched his two fists together and struck upward. Kerrel's head snapped back. His hands loosened. Trehearne tore them away. He threw himself on top of Kerrel. He hit him hard in the face until Kerrel's head rolled like the head of a dead man.

Hands grasped him and tried to drag him away. He shook them off. Kerrel moaned and turned on his side. Trehearne kicked him with his sandalled feet. "That's for Yann," he grunted. "That's for the hounds and for Torin."

A voice roared at him. "Leave it, damn you! Leave it!" A very strong arm thrust him aside. He recognized Joris. There were distant sounds of shouting, coming closer. Kerrel's men were down or scattered. Their own men were running for the Mirzim, dragging with them several who were stunned or partly paralyzed. Edri, with a bleeding face, was capering joyously and yelling at him to hurry.

Trehearne shook his head to clear it. He ran beside Joris, stumbling up the metal stair to the apron. He was the last one through the port. Joris hauled down a lever and the port closed and locked itself automatically with a squeal of compressed air.

Instantly the lights went on. The great generators jarred to life. Joris strode heavily down the long corridor to the bridge with Trehearne at his heels. There was another man sitting there but Joris took over the pilot chair.

Trehearne waited tensely but Joris did not touch the controls. He merely sat there, inspecting his bruised fists.

"What the hell are you waiting for?" Trehearne cried. "We've only got a few moments at most!"

Joris looked at him stolidly. "We've only got one life too. We can throw it away by starting at the wrong moment and colliding with incoming ships. I know the dispatch-schedules. Wait."

Trehearne waited. He could not hear inside the ship but he knew that by now alarms must be shrilling all over the spaceport. It was mad to wait. It was craven surrender. Better to run any risk of suicidal collision than to wait....

And still Joris waited, an eye cocked on the chronometers, until through the window Trehearne saw lights flashing up outside and men running. And then he glimpsed the loom of a great ship slanting down out of the sky, over and past them.

Joris grunted, suddenly punched the controls. "Hang on!"

The Mirzim went up in a screaming arc that crumpled Trehearne to the deck. He clung to a stanchion and prayed that Joris had not lost his skill.

He had not. Even the Vardda flesh had limits. So did metal and the bones of ships. Joris knew to the fraction exactly how much they could stand. The course had already been calculated. He cleared the system, found his coordinates, then hammered the signal relays to the generator rooms. The whine of the generators rose and the needle on the acceleration master dial rose with it. Trehearne watched with bulging eyes, gasping under the pressure, barely restraining an impulse to scream. The second officer was clutching his chair, his face white.

Joris watched the dial. At the precise instant he punched the relay bars again. The needle ceased to blur in its frantic ascent, climbing now with a decent deliberation.

Joris turned around. He looked at his companions and shook with laughter. He had, for the first time since Trehearne had known him, the face of a completely happy man.

Trehearne staggered up. He got out a handkerchief and wiped his face. There was blood on it as well as sweat. "Well," he said, "we're off. But if you don't mind telling me now, Joris—where the devil are we off to?"

"H'm," said Joris. "This may seem a little peculiar to you in view of all the circumstances—"

He roared again with hearty mirth.

"I'll tell you, Trehearne. We're off to Thuvis."

SEVENTEEN

Trehearne stared at Joris. A small trickle of blood ran from his nose down over his lip. He forgot to wipe it away.

"You're joking," he said.

"Not at all." It was Edri who answered. He had come into the bridge behind Trehearne. He cried good-naturedly, "Blast you, Joris, what are you trying to do—kill us all before we get started?"

"They'll be after us soon enough," said Joris. "We need all the edge we can get."

Trehearne demanded, "Why are we going to Thuvis?"

"Partly," said Edri soberly, "to rescue the men who are rotting away out there. But chiefly because we must have Arrin. You see, Trehearne, he was arrested before he could finish his calculations. When I tried to carry on I added a good bit of my own material—but the missing factor isn't there. Arrin knows it. He must or he couldn't have gone as far as he did. Now if we put our knowledge together—" Edri sighed. "It's been a long, long fight. A thousand years of piecing together lie and legend and hearsay, of hunting down scraps of letters and secret reports, of dredging through tons of irrelevant nonsense in search of one little bit of truth. The Vardda authorities of that day suppressed or destroyed all evidence connected with that last voyage of Orthis. They did their work well. Until now no one has even known in what general sector of the Galaxy that last pursuit took place."

He brooded. "Yes, a long fight. And if we're wrong it means the end of hope in our generation. Others will have to begin the search all over again."

It seemed a cruel question to ask but Trehearne could not keep from it.

"Is there any proof that Orthis' ship still exists at all?"

"No. We only know that it was not destroyed at the time that Orthis outran his pursuers and disappeared. For as I told you, long afterward one of the life-skiffs of his ship was picked up in space, with his defiant last message to the Galaxy in it."

Edri paused, then added, "Do you wonder that we venerate such a man?"

"I think," said Trehearne slowly, "that you have his kind of courage."

"Maybe." Edri laughed. "I do know that I have a most colossal thirst. You didn't forget the wine stores, Joris?"

"The gods forbid!"

"Let's go and drink." Edri took Trehearne's arm. "And you can tell me a story—where you came from and what in hell you're doing here!"

"No," said Trehearne, without relish. "I think I'd better see about Shairn."

Edri's jaw dropped. "Shairn?"

"Yes, unfortunately—Shairn." He explained rapidly how the unwilling extra passenger had come aboard.

Edri said some low, hard words. "That isn't going to help matters one little bit. We can hardly leave her on Thuvis and we can't stop anywhere else."

"It couldn't be helped," growled Joris.

"No. Well, I think I'll go with you, Trehearne. I don't believe you'd be safe alone!"

They found her, locked in an officer's cabin for which, on this short-handed trip, there was no officer. She was still bound and gagged. From the look she gave them Trehearne thought she would have killed them both if she had the power.

He freed her. She sat up on the bunk, rubbing her wrists. Two red marks ran from the corners of her mouth across her white cheeks where the gag had rubbed. It gave her a comical expression, like the mask of a clown. There was nothing comical about her eyes.

She did not speak.

Trehearne said awkwardly, "Shairn, I'm sorry about all this. But you might as well make the best of it now you're here."

Still she did not speak. She only sat and looked at him.

Edri said, "Come on, Shairn. A glass of wine will do you good."

She ignored him. Silence and the green deadly eyes, fixed on Trehearne.

He went to her and put his hand on her shoulder. "Be reasonable, Shairn. I know how you feel but none of it was done with intent. And we're all your friends, whether you agree with us or not."

He jerked back but not quite in time. Her claws raked his cheek. He stepped away. She sat motionless and said not one word.

Trehearne swung on his heel and went out. Edri came after him and locked the door. "Perhaps Joris can talk to her," he said. His tone did not hold much hope.

"Oh, she'll come out of it," said Trehearne. "Nobody can stay that mad forever."

Edri shook his head. "I've known her longer than you have. I wouldn't count on it."

The intercom boomed over their heads—Joris calling from the bridge.

"Edri—will you and Trehearne step up here? The bad news is starting to come in."

Communications was just abaft the bridge. Joris had relinquished the controls to the Second and was standing in the cramped space behind the operator, listening intently to the thin metallic voice that came from the ultra-wave receiver.

"Channel One—Alert. All ships in Sector M29 ... request radar confirmation on ship believed on course as follows...."

"Port radar base would have got our coordinates at take-off, of course," said Joris. "They're just making sure."

"Listen," said Edri.

The metallic voice finished repeating the coordinates. It went on, "All ships will identify immediately when challenged. All ships will identify...."

"Cruisers," said Edri.

Joris frowned. "They could man at least one in a hurry. I told you we'd need a head start."

He returned to the bridge to inspect the dials and order the generators stepped up.

"We'll have to reach acceleration peak in half the normal time or we might as well have stayed on Llyrdis. I'm going to see what radar has turned up."

Trehearne followed along, brooding on the subject of cruisers. The Vardda had no warships, being in the enviable position of having no use for them. But the Council maintained a small fleet of armed craft with maximum velocities considerably above those of the slower cargo ships, for the purpose of keeping down occasional outbursts of illegal trading among the Vardda themselves, and for protection of their factors on dangerously barbaric worlds.

The three-dimensional radar screens showed the normal number of tiny red sparks—the faster-than-light energy impulses of ships' generators. Joris scanned them with a practised eye.

"Nothing to bother us yet. Too early to tell—the sector immediately behind us is too crowded with shipping from the port." He turned to Quorn, the Communications officer. "Keep a damn sharp lookout astern. Call me the minute you see anything unusual. We can spell you a bit but you're going to get blasted little relief."

Relief was a problem on that voyage. No one got much of it. They had slightly over half the number of men required for a full crew under normal circumstances and some of them were not trained technicians. Trehearne found himself doing one eight-hour trick on the bridge, calling out dial readings, and another in Communications. Since, obviously, there was no sending to be done, he could handle the receiver well enough to get by.

Channel One, which was the official, top-priority voice of the Vardda Council, continued to request—and get—confirmation of their course.

It was not long before Quorn reported that radar showed a red spark astern that seemed to be following their course.

Calculating distance by intensity it was possible to judge the rate of approach. Joris demanded more thrust from the generators, ignoring the shuddering agony of the hull and the equally painful reactions of his men.

"Until we pick up Arrin," he said, "it's got to be cut and run. Thuvis is the first place they'll block off, and anything but a direct course on our part will give them time to do it."

They reached their acceleration peak—maximum stress for the fabric of the ship. Joris pushed it over. They prayed.

The observation port began to show a thinning star-field ahead. Wider and wider the areas of darkness spread and the colonies of suns were fewer and more scattered. The red sparks on the radar screens dwindled and faded until only two or three were left—lonely traders, outbound to these isolated systems. Those—and the single spark that brightened always astern.

The hours became a lagging monotony of constant watching, constant strain. Numb from lack of sleep, Trehearne went mechanically through his duties, forgot even to worry about what was going to happen. Yesterday was an eon ago, tomorrow was lost in nothingness. There was only today and he was tired.

It was the same with all of them. Joris seemed neither more nor less exhausted than the rest and Trehearne marvelled at the old man's strength.

Shairn remained locked in her cabin. She would not speak to anyone, except the youngster who brought her food, then only to voice a curt thanks.

Ahead the darkness deepened. The main axis of the Milky Way plane was "below" them. Beyond the isolated systems they could glimpse the lightless gulf of utter emptiness. Its black blankness afflicted Trehearne with a creeping horror. It was like seeing the primal Chaos before creation.

At last a dim red sun was centered in the field. It began to grow. The radar screens were empty, save for the one grim following spark that had become almost a flame, ominously bright.

Joris made his calculations and again they prayed.

They completed deceleration in a little less than half the normal time. That was the period during which no one ate and only those who had to remained erect.

Thuvis hung in the sky before them, an idiot sun, devouring the last of its strength and peering with a dull red eye at the cosmic face of death. It was circled by a single world.

"We'll have to make it fast," said Joris harshly. "You be ready, Edri."

The Mirzim landed on an arid tableland swept by bitter winds. Quorn stayed to maintain his tense vigil at the radar screens but the rest of them went out, glad of solid ground if only for a few minutes.

The wind-driven dust tore at Trehearne, cutting into his flesh like tiny cold daggers. The sky was dusky at midday but there were few stars. Even at night there would be few stars here. The sullen glare of Thuvis washed the dusty desert world with red and where a deep ravine cleft the tableland the shadows clung like clotted blood. Trehearne could not think of a place that more resembled hell.

Edri had hastened to the lip of the ravine. Trehearne followed and looked down. Below the steep sides, below the ugly screes, was a tangle of pallid vegetation, stunted trees and leprous shrubbery, clustered around warm springs that smoked like little fumaroles in the chill air. There was a settlement here, three or four small plastic structures surrounded by a wall, and outside the wall a pathetic expanse of tilled land.

"They're coming!" cried Edri. "They saw the ship...."

A narrow path led steeply up from the ravine. Men were already toiling along it. Trehearne counted them. Eight, ten, eleven—eleven men, the total population of this world of ultimate exile.

Edri was shouting. His voice echoed back and forth in the ravine with a hollow booming sound. Other shouts answered him. The men on the path began to run. They slipped and staggered in their haste, clawing their way upward. Trehearne could see their white faces strained toward him.

He watched them come—gaunt wind-bitten hopeless men with the greyness of living death upon them, striving up from that deep red-lit prison, answering the call of Edri's voice. He saw their eyes, the eyes of men called back suddenly from that terrible numbing of the mind that is worse than clean destruction.

Edri threw his arms around the man who came first over the rim. He had not been there as long as the others and the stamp was not so deep on him. He turned and shouted at his mates to hurry. His beard and his unkempt hair blew in the wind and his voice was wild.

Edri cried to him, "No time for talk now, Arrin! Is that all of you?"

It was. The line of bearded scarecrows hastened toward the Mirzim. Ready hands helped them in.

The voice of Quorn yelled over the intercom, "They're right on top of us! Hurry it up!"

Joris had thrust his way forward to the bridge. He was at his station and waiting before the port was closed.

"Ready for take-off! Watch yourselves!"

His hand reached out for the signal relays. And then Trehearne saw it hesitate and fall back.

From the opening door of the Communications room another voice spoke, perfectly audible at that short distance—the metallic voice of the receiver.

"We have your range. Do not attempt to take off. We have your range. Do not attempt...."

Over Joris' suddenly shrunken shoulders, through the bridge port, Trehearne saw the long slim shape of a cruiser sweep in toward a landing close beside them.

EIGHTEEN

Kerrel's face appeared on the small screen. There was no need now for the ultra-wave and the ordinary visiphone unit had been cut in. Edri and Joris confronted him. Trehearne stood in the doorway, listening. Behind him were the rescued exiles, and black despair was on them all.

Kerrel regarded Edri and Joris with a weary hatred. He seemed to have learned that being an agent of the Council had its rough side. But there was no slightest hint of leniency in his tone.

"The gun crew has orders to open fire in exactly fifteen minutes," he said. "You have that long to clear your ship, bringing with you neither weapons nor personal gear of any sort." He repeated, "Fifteen minutes precisely."

Joris looked at him with red and sunken eyes. Twenty years of age had come upon him in the last few minutes. He could not seem to bring himself to speak. Edri's hands were clenched so tightly that the fingers were bone white. They moved back and forth, seeking something to strike and not finding it. He too had become old.

"Fourteen minutes," said Kerrel, without emotion. "You're wasting time."

Edri turned abruptly and thrust his way blindly past Trehearne, who caught and held him in the doorway.

"Let go," said Edri viciously and cursed him. "That ravine is deep. I can step off into it now as well as later. I won't be taken back."

"Hold on," said Trehearne. A sudden wild hope had come to him. He lifted his voice. "Kerrel! Kerrel, can you hear me?" He was out of visual range of the screen.

"Yes, Trehearne, I hear you."

"Then listen! Tell your men to hold their fire. We have Shairn aboard!"

Joris' head came up sharply. Edri stopped fighting. And in the screen Kerrel's mirrored face went through the shadings of surprise, shock, then understanding and a wry mirth.

"You have a quick mind, Trehearne," he said. "But it won't do. Thirteen minutes."

"Go and get her, Edri," said Trehearne. His mouth was dry, his body drenched with cold sweat.

Edri plunged away into the corridor. Trehearne went and stood where Kerrel could see him. He smiled and wondered if Kerrel could hear the knocking of his heart against his ribs. Joris stood motionless, waiting. Kerrel counted off the minutes, and at each count his voice became more strained, his eyes less certain.

There were six minutes left when Edri came back with Shairn and thrust her in front of the screen.

"You see?" said Trehearne. "I wasn't lying."

Kerrel forgot to count. He stared at the girl, the strong lines of his face crumbling into indecision. He said her name once. Suddenly he turned and was gone from the screen. They could hear him shouting somewhere beyond, "Hold your fire! Hold your fire! They have a prisoner aboard."

Trehearne knew then that he had not misjudged the depth of the other's passion. And strangely that knowledge was bitter to him.

Kerrel came into view again, and Shairn cried out, "Kerrel, they're after something more than these Orthist exiles! I think they're—"

Trehearne put his hand over her mouth. "It doesn't matter what she thinks. The important thing is her life. How much is it worth to you, Kerrel?"

Kerrel ran his hand nervously over his face and did not answer at once. Trehearne kept his palm firmly on Shairn's mouth.

Kerrel shook his head. "You wouldn't kill her, Trehearne."

"No, I wouldn't," Trehearne answered. "But I'm only one and there are others aboard. Eleven men of Thuvis, who feel that one life is very little to pay for escape from this hell-hole. Come on, Kerrel, how much is Shairn worth to you? You can have her—free, clear and alive."

Kerrel asked, "What do you want?"

"A head start."

"It won't do you any good. You can't outrun a cruiser."

Joris said, "We'll take that chance!"

Again Kerrel hesitated. "What are your terms?"

Trehearne said, "You will allow us to take off and we'll guarantee to land Shairn safely on the other side of this planet. You will keep your ship here until you receive our message that that has been done. We will both be able to check each other's actions by radar and if your generators are started before our second take-off we'll know it."

Kerrel thought, and then asked sullenly, "What assurance have I that you will actually release her?"

"You can take my word for that," Trehearne told him. "Either that or blow her to bits with the rest of us."

There was another long tense moment of silence. And then Kerrel said, "All right." He spoke the words as though they had a taste of vitriol on his tongue.

Joris was out of Communications in one long stride. Kerrel looked at Shairn and cried, "Wait! You must radio your position when you set her down."

"We will."

Trehearne flipped the switch. The screen went blank. The throbbing generators took the ship and lifted it and whirled it away and no gun spoke from the cruiser. Trehearne released his grip on Shairn. Reaction and relief had turned his knees to water, so that it was difficult to stand against the lurching of the ship.

Shairn turned and looked at him. "You're a fool, Michael," she said, "but I'll give you this. You're not a coward."

He had her locked in her cabin again and went back to the bridge. Joris was scowling at the projection of the microfilm chart of the planet.

"There," he said, and pointed to a huge emptiness. "She'll be safe there until they pick her up—there's no predatory life in these deserts." He glanced up at Trehearne. "Good man," he said. "Me, I was beaten."

Trehearne gave him a wry smile. "Me, I bluffed. From here on, Joris, it's all yours. Where's Edri?"

"Shut in his cabin with Arrin. They know the general sector, clear out at the Galaxy's edge. Now they're trying to figure out the true course together." And Joris snorted. "Course! If I can keep one jump ahead of that cruiser I'll be satisfied."

The Mirzim skimmed over the darkling world of Thuvis into the starless night. Trehearne sat and brooded, thinking of Shairn, thinking of the two men who were bent over the final calculations of a dream that had balked men for a thousand years. He thought of what a dream can do to a man, of how far it can lead him away from the good safe life of common sense to the ultimate voids of creation. He hoped that Edri and Arrin would find what they wanted. He hoped they would live to find it.

"Coming down," said Joris. "Better get Shairn a coverall. It's cold down there."

Trehearne found a warm coverall in the equipment locker and took it to Shairn's cabin. She put it on, and he saw how her face was shadowed with weariness and strain.

She said quietly, "Do you still love me, Michael?"

Her question took him by surprise, and the answer came of itself. "Yes," he said. "Yes, I do."

"Then we must stop behaving like two angry children and not throw away the life we can have together."

He bent his head. "I'm sorry you got caught in this."

"It's as much my fault as yours. I was too quick to lose my temper. I should have stopped to think that the Vardda world was so new to you that you had little to judge it by."

She was not now the mocking Shairn of old. Her voice was full of a sombre passion, a pleading for him to understand.

"Michael, your motives were good—loyalty to a friend, reaction against what seemed to you injustice. But surely now you must see how hopeless this all is. I know you're hunting Orthis' ship. You'll never reach it. Kerrel will run you down. It'll all have been for nothing."

It seemed to Trehearne that what she said was very likely true. But he only answered, "It's too late to think about that now."

"No, Michael! You can still save yourself!" She caught him by the shoulders, her hands urgent on his flesh. "Leave the ship with me! Let Kerrel pick us both up!"

Trehearne smiled mirthlessly. "Kerrel would like that—taking me back to a prison."

"It doesn't have to be prison!" Shairn exclaimed. "You can say you pretended to join Joris and Edri only to save me. I'll back you up and not Kerrel nor anyone else can disprove it. You'll walk out free on Llyrdis."

It crossed his mind that he could do that. It would all fit. It was an out.

"You won't be letting your friends down, either," Shairn insisted. "They'll go on without you. You've done all you can for them."

She clung to him. Her mouth begged him with a silent language of its own. He took her arms slowly from around him and thrust her back and she caught her breath at the pain of his grip.

"No," he said. And again, "No, Shairn."

She stood back and looked at him steadily. "You could go back to the Silver Tower with me but you won't—and for what? So that peoples you've never met on worlds you'll never see can someday fly the stars?"

"There was a man named Trehearne on the world Earth who got his chance to fly the stars," he said. "I thought that others should have their chance too. I have to play it out now."

She was silent and then the dropping speed of the ship told them that it was almost over. Trehearne took her down to the airlock chamber. They stood there together, not finding anything more to say, and all that had been between them came silently and mocked them with the pain of vanished days.

The Mirzim scraped her keel softly on a yielding surface and was still. Trehearne opened the port, looking out on the dark windy desert.

Shairn spoke then. "A strange beginning for us, Michael, and now an even stranger ending."

He held out his hand to help her down and the pressure of her fingers was like something tearing at his heart. She looked up at him, a small lonely figure in the vast dark. He thought her lips moved but the wind came between them and took the words away and he had none of his own for answer.

The warning bell jarred harshly in his ears. He closed the port and she was gone.

Joris' voice roared from the bridge, through the intercom. "Flatten out, all! This is the only start we'll get on Kerrel and I've got to pile it on!"

The cruel hand of acceleration crushed Trehearne down. He lay on the scored plates of the deck and that last vision of Shairn's white face remained with him to remind him of all that he had had and lost.

He said her name over and over in the silence of the empty lock and his mouth was filled with the bitter taste of dust. The Mirzim leaped through space like a wild thing, driving toward the sector that was the goal of a thousand-year hope and quest, toward the Galaxy edge and the shores of outer night.

NINETEEN

They had stepped clear out to the edge of the galaxy, where the fringing stars were lost in the outer void and the dead suns swept forever through the entombing dark, where even the memory of creation was gone, blotted out by unimaginable time. No delimited frontier was here, but a border region between the swarming star-sparks and the black abyss beyond.

Trehearne tried to remember how long it had been since they had taken off from Thuvis. He couldn't. Time seemed oddly elastic when you lost all the familiar frames of reference. He gave it up. It didn't matter. He peered with aching bloodshot eyes into the lightless seas that lie beyond the island universes and tried to remember why he had come here. And that too was dim in his mind.