Front matter (continued 2)

I swung my right foot back in a short arc and swept it forward and up, old science and old muscles responding to my need, and neatly and viciously I drop-kicked Bill Cuff under the chin.

His head jerked back and there was a report like a .22 rifle going off. He crumpled down into himself like a granite pile collapsing. I knew without looking close that he was good and dead.

I jumped off the stool, over his body. Skagarach had managed to get to his knees, holding his pistol limply and staring at me with blood trickling down his face. I leaped at him and he brought up the gun and shot wildly. Then I was on top of him and there was another shot and his foxlike face smoothed out and became loose, and his gray eyes rolled back till the yellow whites showed. I got slowly to my feet. It was all done.

Taking Nessa and holding her trembling body close to mine, I turned to the door and opened it. The three scientists were sitting in the next room, smoking and waiting for us. The soundproof door had kept our riot secret.

Howard gazed at us and smiled. "The love feast all finished?" he asked.

I nodded.

CHAPTER XIV

After what seemed a long time our radio came on. The Army had landed, the Old Companions in the boats were overwhelmed, and their hand-jammers put out of commission. Thankfully we prepared to leave the bloody metal moon.

As we walked toward the door, Howard snapped his fingers. "Good Lord, I remember what it was!" he said to me. "I know what I had to tell you. You seemed pretty worried about our being related to Bill Cuff."

"Well, aren't you?"

"Hell," he said, "I thought you knew about that business years ago. Everyone else in the family did. Bill's father was supposed to be our mother's brother, right?"

"Sure," I said blankly.

"A lot of nonsense," Howard said irritably. "Uncle John was dead a year before Bill was born. As far as we know, Bill's father was a traveling salesman."

It took ten minutes for it to sink clear in. Then I started to celebrate my release from the horrible mental bondage. I did it in a quiet way. I sat in the plane that was taking us home, and I held Nessa very closely.

I was human. Our child would be human. Nothing else could matter at all.

There was a lot of work to be done even yet, of course. The Old Companions had to be ferreted out, dug from their holes, sought in cities and swamps and villages and caves. In that work we had unexpected help: there are traitors to every cause, good and bad, those who'll turn coat when the going gets rough, and even the boasting Neanderthals were no exception. Our turncoat was the captive Trutch. He had a prodigious memory and he had been high in the councils of the Cuff muster. He named names and located HQs. He was like a cur, savage in a pack but now, standing alone in a cage, fawning and eager to please.

Trutch's reward, when the last of the recrudescent cavemen had been tracked and found and annihilated, was his life. He was sterilized and given a farm all for himself—an extremely well-guarded farm, for even when they were gone the Old Companions left an aura of unease and fear on the land.

It's over now. It can't happen again; we'll be on the watch for the primal rage, the wakening dawn memory in those who may remain as carriers of the dark blood. The man-made moon rides high in space by day and night, watching the world with unfailing vigilance.

My brother Howard is up there as I write.

And Nessa is in the nursery putting our infant son to bed. I hope that one day he'll join many other men in space.

That's the future—our real future—and heritage....