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                       CHAPTER ONE
   Evening cupped blood-red hands around the city of Tenarensor. The
quaint towers of the capital of Ortel became less distinct as the yellow sky
darkened through maroon to a deep crimson, shot with the bright stars of
the Hub. In mounting chorus the bright horns called over the rooftops,
summoning the faithful to give thanks to the gods and call blessings on
Oontara, the star king, whose imperious grip on more than a hundred
habitable worlds kept the trade lanes free around the Hub and assured the
vast fortunes of the empire.

   Inside the palace, the twirling shadows of the triple suns at last found
rest in the motionless crimson of night. A capricious breeze dallied with
the ornate drapes, penetrating the window frets and disturbing the
priceless fabrics around the gaming table. Star King Oontara watched the
result of its antics, a little surprised, and turned to his guest.

   "My Lord Xzan is cold, perhaps?"

   Seated at the gaming table between two windows, each of which
contributed its fiery glow to the villainous outline of his face, the visiting
star lord could adequately have personified the principal of some ancient
demonolatry.

   "My dear Oontara, you grow soft on this torrid world of yours. I've said
so before. I mind when you could wage great battles with the blood cold as
ice in your veins. Yet now you're disturbed by the merest draft."

   "I was thinking only of your comfort, Xzan. I welcome a breath of fresh
air."

   "Maybe. But I repeat, you're going soft What use is it for a star king to
ply trade with Terra?"

   "Oh, so that's what's been on your mind all evening!" Oontara set about
stacking new tokens on the gaming table. "And I thought you'd tried too
much of the wine, or too few of the women. We sadly misjudge each other,
old comrade."

  "We used not. We were a fair match in cunning and guessing."

   "Nothing's changed. There's still no matter in which I can't equal or
better you. As for your opinions of Terra, they're born of ignorance."

   With a deft movement of his hand, Oontara spread the gaming tokens
across the board, each one falling with mathematical precision. The
gesture was not lost on Xzan, who attempted to follow suit but failed.

   "Is this what Terran influence has reduced you to—a gamesmaster?"
asked Xzan critically. "Those who consort with the weak themselves
become weaker."

  "You think Terra's weak?"

  "The Terrans are a race of weaklings. There's scarcely one I couldn't
destroy with a single hand. And none I couldn't tear apart with two."

   "Physically that may be true, but you've forgotten the strength of their
technology. If you want to see controlled power in action, you should see
my Terran-built bark. It's the most singular ship in space."

    "I've heard of your ingenious toy. History proves innovators count for
little when faced with trained arms. Come, Oontara! You and I have the
empires to prove it. Would you pit a Terran expeditionary force against a
legion of hereditary star warriors? Of course not."

  "Since you answer your own questions, you presumably don't want to
hear my views," said Oontara silkily.

   "Heh! It was the ransad, the old knowledge, which carved the parsecs
off the galaxy and made the star empires possible. That was a thousand
years before the infant Terrans even discovered the wheel. All their
technology's won for them is eight habitable planets—all of them
self-governed. They don't even have the strength to rule what they've
gained. I give such playthings to favored concubines."

   "You're trying to make me angry, Xzan." Oontara bent low over the
table, examining the geometrical de-signs. "You'll not succeed. You've
already shown your hand."

   "I have?" Xzan's evil visage scanned the game and found nothing amiss,
then looked up to meet Oontara's crafty smile.

   "Yes. You thought Oontara's flirtation with Terra so unlikely, you had
to come in person to find out what the star fox was up to. You felt
impelled to know what advantage Oontara could gain from Terra which
might be to your detriment. Aren't I right?"

  "I admit a certain curiosity."

  "Had you asked me direct, I'd have told you. I've seen the light."

  "The light?" Xzan's hand faltered on the board, and he misplaced a
minor token, but dared not withdraw.

   "Certainly!" Oontara saw the false move and was heartened by it. "We
were taught that the ransad was absolute—that nothing further could ever
be known. The Terrans have proved that knowledge is unending. Whatever
you know is only a steppingstone to the infinite possibilities of what could
be known. Already they can step a tenth of the way to the next galaxy.
Why be limited to this one alone when the universe contains more galaxies
than the Milky Way does stars?"

  Xzan was dubious. "You haven't mentioned price. What do these
wonders cost?"

  "Merely the promise to assume membership in the Galactic
Federation."

    "Federation!" Xzan's scorn was terrible. "Once there were no laws
around the Hub but my word and your word, my whim and your whim.
That has been the way of star kings since time began. Yet you seek an
alliance with upstart weaklings, and talk of federation. I can hear the gods
laughing from here."

   "The alliance serves me well. I've access to technology the ransad said
couldn't exist. And if the promise of my plans is fulfilled, I'll one day
control a million worlds where now I've but a hundred. Even Kam Kanizar,
the King of Kings, will sit at my feet."
   Xzan spat expressively at the immaculate drapes. "In a federation you'll
control nothing. In return, you'll have lost your warrior's soul. You're
selling your birthright for a handful of platitudes and a headful of ideas."

  "You speak as if there were a choice in the matter. There isn't, Xzan.
Our way of life became extinct the day Terra independently discovered
hyperdrive."

  "What sort of heresy is this?"

  "No heresy—a revelation. We've been worshipping false gods."

  "Mine are the gods of strength and terrible vengeance. Show me
anything in the universe stronger than these."

  "I intend to. He's a little, fat Terran by the name of Hilary
Rounding—Commissioner for Terran Outspace Technical Aid. Neither you
nor your gods stand a chance against him."

   Oontara reached for a golden tassel, which evoked a distant, soulful
bell. A servant appeared, approaching with the deep, obsequious bows
which the presence of star nobility demanded.

  "Tell the Commissioner well be pleased to see him now."

   The man who entered made no attempt to follow protocol. He strode
into the room with a broad smile and a hand ready for shaking. Oontara
had described him as a little, fat Terran. He could have added that
Rounding was bald, suntanned, and seemingly unaware of the awe in
which star nobility was held.

   Xzan regarded the white-clad dumpling with much surprise, and shook
the proffered hand before he had time to consider what the salutation
meant. His reaction to the soft, fleshy skin was one of considerable
distaste. He looked at Oontara appealingly. If this was the star king's idea
of someone who could depose the ancient gods and draw the teeth of
hereditary legions, then Oontara had indeed gone soft.

   "Lord Oontara, Lord Xzan," the jovial Terran was saying, "I'd like to
introduce a colleague of mine— Colonel Bogaert, known to the rest of the
universe as Colonel Bogey." He waved his hand toward the door, and a
second Terran entered. "Bogey's my technical and military aide. You
warlike chaps should find a lot in common."

   While Rounding had been speaking, his eyes had been active, noting
the devillike scowl of Xzan with a questing interest. Xzan had the
uncomfortable feeling that the fat Terran was reading a lot more from his
face than the star lord wanted him to know. The arrival of the second
Terran served to divert the unwelcome attention.

   Colonel Bogaert was as unlike his superior as could be imagined. He
was tall and lean, with muscles hard from a lifetime in the Space Service.
The spring in his step hinted at an internal confidence not explained
entirely by his fitness as a military man. Like most Terran Service
technicians, he was quiet-spoken, yet there was an edge of command at
the back of his voice which gave his casual words more than ordinary
force. Xzan sensed that here was a man who held a great deal in reserve.

   Even so, Colonel Bogey was not to Xzan's liking. He had neither the
swaggering superiority of a hereditary warrior nor the desperate cunning
of the professional survivor. Xzan summed him up as a "painted
warrior,"—a derogatory term used around the Hub to describe those who
used a show of arms without true appreciation of the realities of battle.

   Oontara read his guest's disapproval with shrewd eyes, and turned to
the Colonel.

   "As a military man, Colonel Bogaert, you've surely acquired knowledge
of our war game. Have a look at our play, and tell me what you think of
Xzan's position."

  Bogaert gave the board a few minutes' deep consideration.

   "Indefensible, of course. My Lord Xzan would be advised to surrender
before his losses became insupportable."

   "What!" Xzan rose swiftly to the defense. "My vocabulary admits no
such word as 'surrender.' "

  "Does it have a term for complete annihilation?" asked Bogaert quietly.

  "The concept exists—for application to enemies and weaklings."

  "But not for yourselves?"
   "You're bluffing, Colonel. The game's still open."

   "Yet can be won by a single move."

   "What's that?" Oontara crossed to the board with some surprise. "If I've
victory, I've yet to see its form."

   "You don't have victory. But there's a move that could assure it."

   "Which?"

   Bogaert turned from the board with a slightly apologetic smile. "I fear
to spoil the game for my Lords."

   "I'll risk it—if Xzan will also."

   "An empty threat's no risk." Xzan was strong with contempt. "I'll treble
the stake—no, raise it tenfold."

   "A hundredfold?" queried Oontara.

  "Done! Come on, painted warrior! Show our vacillating star king how
empty the words of his champions are."

  Bogaert glanced at Rounding. The Commissioner nodded almost
imperceptibly. With one finger, the Colonel moved a small blue token one
square.

   Xzan's first expression of jubilation faded as he attempted to complete
his play. Whichever way he turned, his losses mounted exponentially. His
greatest strengths became his overwhelming liabilities. Even the structure
of numbers seemed to join in a conspiracy against him. Finally, he had to
admit a defeat more crushing than any he had ever before suffered on the
gaming board. He turned to Bogaert, and there was a new line of
speculation across his evil brow.

  "Only once in a million games could such a sequence happen. You,
Colonel Bogey, were incredibly lucky."

  "I'll not deny it. But had that piece of luck not been available, I'd never
have played."

   "He's telling you, in his devious Terran way," interjected Oontara, "that
there's absolutely no route by which he could have lost. It's the new logic,
Xzan. You don't see it coming. Before you can find out what's happening,
you're presented with an accomplished fact. That's how I know
federation's inevitable."

   "I'm glad you mentioned that," said Rounding. "It explains the purpose
of our visit. Knowing my Lord Xzan was visiting, we came to make a
preliminary approach regarding the advantages of membership in the
Galactic Federation."

   "My answer's plain," said Xzan. "You appear to have softened Oontara's
skull, but you'll find me a tougher proposition. Small though my star
holdings are, I still control twelve times the number of planets in your
entire Federation. You're the flea that clings to the hairs of my ferocious
animal. Don't bite too deeply, else my claws'll scratch you out."

   "Well spoken!" said Rounding with warm approval. "But you've missed
the point. A colonized planet subject to star rule has a support potential of
less than one ten-thousandth of that of a self-determined, federated
planet. A star colony has no incentive for self-development, since this only
invites further tithes and plunder. When you consider how Terra, unaided
and alone, came to join you lords and kings among the stars, you'll see
how much can be achieved by the right philosophy."

  "And what about the divine right of being stronger? This built star
empires beyond your wildest dreams."

   "I don't dream of empires, Lord Xzan. I have enough trouble just
running my own department. Come, Bogey, we've taken up too much of
the Lords' time. But I hope we've left Lord Xzan something to think
about."

                      CHAPTER TWO
   The Field of Perfection on Meon was a broad tract of rare, lush grasses
maintained in such flawless condition that the name could never be
doubted. Heading the slope, the unpenetrable purple mountains stretched,
so the legend had it, continuously up to support the arched back of the
sky. Flanking the field, the walls and block towers of the twin fortress
towns Andor and Ute formed a natural continuation of the mountain
barrier and drew together at the foot of the slope where stood the great
palace of Kam Kanizar, the King of Kings, the greatest star monarch of
them all.

   The children playing in the field were aware of the great tensions which
beset their home world. Arma, nine Earth years old, rocked her playthings
in a little cradle, and sang them an ancient hymn, as her mother might do
to ease the stress. Zim was a few years older. He had a long-knife and a
gimbal bow, and stalked imaginary goblins and won imaginary battles
against overwhelming odds. One day he would follow his father, the
mighty Kanizar, to fight the demons who dwelled among the stars; for the
moment, however, not really understanding the situation, he was excited
by the promise of change. The whole routine of the palace had been
disturbed. Although they should have been at lessons, the children had
today been awarded an unofficial holiday. Even their personal guards
stood clustered in despondent discussion.

   It was nearly dark before the young ones' mother, Miram, the Empress
Kanizar, came to the field to fetch them. This in itself was unusual,
because normally armed guardsmen would have been at her side—but this
evening she came alone, as if the occasion were too personal to permit the
presence of others. Tall and slender, seemingly fragile as a reed, with
honey-gray hair and an air of eternal calm, she bent only slightly as she
answered her children's questions.

   "We mustn't be afraid, little ones. We've to be strong. Camin Sher, who
pretends to your father's throne, sends many ships toward Meon. We
think he means to attack us. Messengers have gone to your father, but
even if he knew at this moment, he couldn't be back in time to save us."

  "Then we must fight Sher ourselves."

   "It isn't as easy as that, Zim. Your father has the main and both
auxiliary fleets with him. We have nothing but a dozen patrol craft of the
home fleet and a few supply ships. That's nowhere near enough to
withstand Sher's battle fleet."

  "What will we do then, Mother?"

   "The Council is meeting now. Old Sashu will advise us. We think Sher's
not much concerned with our garrison or installations, but that he'd like
to harm you, my children. While you live, there's no substance to his
Pretender's claim. Therefore, it's your safety the Council will consider
most important. Whatever they say we must do without question. For
your father's sake as well as your own."

   She turned and led the way back across the flawless turf, with Anna
holding her hand. Zim followed regretfully. Something about his mother's
attitude suggested that he might never again have the chance to play
under the purple mountains. Yet there was also the excitement of
promised change, a break from his cloistered life. Not for one moment did
he imagine that old Sashu would fail to find them safe harbor. After all,
old Sashu advised Kanizar himself, and was not Kanizar the king of all the
kings?

   Leaving her children in the care of a trusted retainer, Miram returned
to her chambers and spent some time examining her treasures, mainly
gifts Kam Kanizar had brought her from the most exotic places in the
galaxy. She knew that with the coming of Camin Sher these things must
pass from her possession. Such loss would fill her with regret, but it was a
pain which could be tolerated. Her children, however, were different No
matter what the hardship or personal cost, they must be brought to safety.
This was not only political expediency, but also a necessity of the heart.
Night enveloped her as she sat and made her silent dedication.

   A whisper of drapes heralded the arrival of old Sashu, who was older
and more wise in the affairs of the galaxy and of men than anyone else
Miram had ever met. His creased and wizened face held a sympathetic
understanding of her mood, yet his eyes were steady with his customary
resolve.

   "Is the Council decided?" asked Miram. Her voice sounded tired,
reflecting the strains of the day.

   "I've decided, my Lady, and the Council doesn't disagree. For the safety
of yourself and the Kanizar line, you. and the children must leave Meon
within the hour. You'll travel incognito on a freighter already charted for
Ortel. To cover your departure, our entire fleet, such as it is, will mount an
attack on Sher's war fleet The Pretender will certainly win, but it should
buy us the time we need to get the freighter out unobserved."

  Miram considered the prospect and its consequences. She felt numb.

  "Such loss of life. Is there no other way?"

  "My Lady"—Sashu's voice was infinitely soft— "every man in the fleet
was born for this moment Though it means certain death, there'll not be
one dissenter. Further discussion is useless. We've none of us any choice."

   "Forgive me, Sashu. I wasn't questioning your judgment, only
regretting a terrible waste. When we reach Ortel, do we throw ourselves on
the mercy of Oontara?"

   "I fear not, my Lady. Since Oontara's infatuation with the Federation,
his whole court has become riddled with spies. Rumor has it that Lord
Xzan even now is his guest, and we know how Xzan favors the Pretender.
No, you must remain incognito and strive to contact Manu Kan. He's a
worthy kinsman of ours, and a merchant of considerable influence in
Tenarensor. He's Kanizar's man, and hell guard you well. Entreat him to
smuggle you to Terra, where you'll be safe. Not even the Pretender would
dare raise a finger against those 'terrible infants' of the galaxy."

  "But why should the Terrans protect us? They've no treaty with
Kanizar."

   "It's what's known as the new logic. They'll protect you not because you
bring Kanizar's heirs, but because you're a mother in distress."

   She nodded dully, not relishing the idea of the days ahead. "What
retinue is coming with me?"

   "None, my Lady. It's safer for the three of you to travel alone. Guards
and attendants can't fail to attract attention, and Tenarensor has more
spies than inhabitants. You'll carry no jewels or treasures. You'll be
dressed in very simple clothes. Even your beauty will be a danger to you.
Once off the ship, you must wear a widow's cowl at all times. Do you
understand?"

   "I hear you, faithful Sashu. I'll take your advice, just as my Lord Kanizar
has always done. My regret is that you'll not be there to share the safety we
attain."

    "Have no concern for old Sashu. It is you who carry the burden. Prince
Zim is the most valuable child in the galaxy. With respect, my Lady, you've
known little of life outside the courts and palaces of kings. Thus, the
journey will fall infinitely harder on you than it would on a serving woman.
If I didn't know your inner strengths, I'd be mortally afraid. As it is, I've
complete confidence that the heirs of Kanizar are in safe hands."
  "You say we leave within the hour?"

   "The freighter's already waiting on the pads. We wait only to get the
home fleet into space on the light side. Then the freighter will make space
from the dark side, keeping Meon between the ship and the Pretender's
fleet. With luck, the freighter will be out of scanner range before Sher has
disposed of the trickle of ships we send to meet him. It could be many days
before he even knows you're gone."

  "May the gods bless you, Sashu, and see you safe through the coming
darkness."

   "And may the darkness hide you, Miram, till you come to the safety of
Terra's light. Come, it's time you made ready! My ears tell me the home
fleet is ready for launch. We come to the most terrible night in creation."

   On the bridge of his flagship, Camin Sher, the Pretender, watched the
screens with interest and mounting jubilation. Against the might of the
war fleet at his back the defenders of Meon were offering only token
resistance: twelve small patrol vessels. Kanizar's second auxiliary fleet,
which Sher had feared to meet, was mercifully as absent as his agents had
suggested it would be. It was a major tactical blunder on the part of
Kanizar, and one which the Pretender was determined the King of Kings
would always regret. The rich lands of Meon were open for rape, and the
palace was ready for plunder. More important, the stock of Kanizar's
bloodline could be destroyed in public view, leaving no other claimants to
the throne once Kanizar himself was dead.

   One of his spacefinders blossomed suddenly, and the glare brought
Sher back from speculation to the immediate tactics of battle. The
spacefinder had been vaporized, its position now marked only by a broad
streak of ion-contaminated debris. The cause of this disaster was not
immediately apparent, until Sher thought to count the Meon ships.
Eleven. Suddenly Sher realized he had underestimated the defense. This
handful of ships set against him was not going to engage in conventional
battle. They were on a suicide mission.

   Each would select a target ship, match coordinates precisely, then leap
straight into hyperdrive. From a position well out of weapons range, they
would streak at megalight velocities as if to pass through the target vessel.
There was no defense against such a maneuver, and the results were
inevitable: the complete destruction of both vessels. It was tactical
brilliance for a defense which was bound to be beaten. For Camin Sher, it
meant insupportably high losses.

   While he pondered the problem, two of his major destroyers, each with
a complement of better than two thousand men, became red roses and
ceased to register as anything more substantial than gas. Since the
attacking patrol ships had a probable crew of, at most, only four men, the
ratio of his losses was at least five hundred to one, and nothing in his fleet
was sacred, no matter how perfect its armor.

    It took Sher two further agonized seconds to realize that his own
flagship would be a prime objective. As he ordered emergency lifecraft
evacuation, he was sick with the thought that he might already have
delayed too long. Like a shoal of startled fish darting from a whale, the
lifecraft departed, mere moments before the flagship became a miniature
nova, which produced enough radiation to knock a couple of years off the
Pretender's life expectancy. White and shaken, he lay on the life-craft's
floor and waited helplessly while eight more of his finest dreadnoughts
became suns. Then he knew the battle was over, and that because of
numerical supremacy he had certainly won. However, the bitter flavor of
defeat was strong in his mouth as he ordered the remnants of his
once-great battle fleet to begin the sack of Meon.

  Meanwhile, on the night side of the planet, a freighter slipped
ponderously into hyperdrive and sped away across the great vortex of the
Milky Way, heading for Ortel.

                    CHAPTER THREE
   The gaming continued far into the night, with the players so evenly
matched that neither could gain a decisive advantage. In an attempt to
raise the interest, the stakes were growing ever higher. The ownership of
star systems rested on the turn of a token. Although there were some
considerable runs, nothing occurred to equal the remarkable performance
of Colonel Bogaert, and the players were becoming bored through lack of
excitement.

   "Old friend," said Oontara after a while, "I never thought to admit it,
but the war game no longer moves me. It has battles without blood,
victories without the screams of the defeated, and defeats without bitter
anger waking the will to survive."
    "I was thinking on the same lines," said Xzan. These token warriors
remind me of your Terran friends. Somebody paints a value on them, and
that's the unit they become—without earning their place by blood and
fire."

   "I agree about the tokens, but not about the Terrans. You misjudge
them simply because they don't conform to our standards. But they're a
race new to the stars— why should they bother to conform? I once went
into battle against them, and found myself completely outclassed. I tell
you, they're unassailable."

   "As a race, possibly." Xzan lacked conviction. "As individuals, they're
pale, flat apologies for fighting men. In my retinue right now I've one I'd
dare set against any ten Terrans and back him with my life—providing the
Terrans fought man to man and not with the forces of their technology."

   "A useless proviso. You can't separate Terrans from their technology.
Take it away from them and they recreate it. Never commit your life to
such a gamble. You'd all too easily find the odds reversed against you."

   "If you think so, you've never seen my champion." Xzan reached for the
golden tassel and summoned a servant. "Have my Captain send
Bethschant immediately. I wish to show King Oontara what the complete
fighting man looks like."

   The servant returned shortly with a soldier in the uniform of Xzan's
personal guard. Oontara regarded the appointee with mixed surprise and
fascination. Here stood not one of Xzan's vaunted hereditary warriors, but
a near-animal creature, with a squat, hairy body and overlong arms which
rippled with an abundance of muscle. His face was flat, fleshy, and fully as
wicked as his master's. Scarcely a centimeter of skin on his face and body
did not bear the scar of some past wound or disease, yet his stance and
bearing were of one driven by a life force which acknowledged death as the
only true conqueror.

   "This is your champion?" Oontara's voice was strong with disbelief.

  "You'll find no better. He's a very clever devil, is Bethschant. His guile
and lack of conscience give no limit to his talent for mixing with death
and surviving the consequences. We speak of hereditary warriors, but
here's one to end them all—a hereditary survivor."
  "Is he from a star world?"

   "No. From Avida—where the life pressures are so extreme that
ninety-five percent of the population never reach puberty. Only the
successful scion of successful scion ever manage to breed. A hundred
thousand years of this has produced a race of the most indestructible
individuals the galaxy's ever seen."

  "And the ugliest," said Oontara with a shudder. "I didn't know Avida
had a human population."

   "It hasn't now. The total colony was less than a hundred strong. When
the system came under my control, I took them all into my service. They
make magnificent warriors—even the women. Show me the Terran who
could survive a week on Avida, much less grow to maturity there."

   "You persistently miss the point. Terrans don't adapt to foreign
environments. They use their technology to adapt the environment to
them. A Terran colony on Avida would remain Terran—it's the planet
which would have to change."

   "I can see how this might apply to colonies—but we're discussing
individuals. You can't seriously think an isolated Terran could survive on
Avida?"

   "The question's one of degree. The more Terrans you have, the more
technology they generate. How much needs to be generated to insure the
survival of a man? They've a saying: 'What can't be endured must be
cured.' It's the philosophy which makes these terrible children so terrible."

  Xzan dismissed Bethschant with a nod of his head and turned back
conspiratorially to the star king.

  "Our differences won't be resolved by argument. You're a gambler,
Oontara. Would you dare put your viewpoint to the test?"

  "If you've a fair proposal."

   "I suggest we each put a champion on Avida for a set period. One shall
be Bethschant, the other a Terran of your choice. The game's to see which
can survive for the agreed term."
   "I said a fair proposal," said Oontara. "We already know Bethschant
can survive on Avida. The point under discussion is whether my candidate
could do the same. Furthermore, if a Terran's to survive he must have a
nucleus of bits of wire and things with which to practice his technology.
To do otherwise would be equivalent to putting Bethschant there with his
arms cut off."

   "I accept your second point with reservations. The first I'll not give.
Bethschant survived on Avida because he belonged to a colony. This time
he'll be alone. So whoever's candidate survives shall be the winner. If
neither or both survive, the game's void."

   "Not so fast!" Oontara was fully equal to his wily opponent. "If neither
survives, it establishes nothing except that the game was too severe. If
both survive, it proves my Terran the equal of your savage, therefore the
game's mine."

  "You drive a hard bargain, friend. I see the soft life's little dimmed your
cunning. I concede the point—but only if the odds make the gaming worth
my while."

  "What wager had you in mind?"

  "Would you risk ownership of fifty habitable planets against ten of
mine? Such an acquisition could make me a king the equal of yourself."

  "I'm faintly interested, though I've not said I agree."

   "Come! Where's the old Oontara, who'd risk all on the placing of a
token? Have you really grown soft, as I feared? Or do you have sudden
doubts about the omnipotence of Terra?"

   "Your jibes are misplaced, Xzan. It's not that I thought the stakes too
high, but rather that they were low. The wager still lacks interest. Ten of
your miserable, gutted mudballs seems little enough recompense for the
proof of my point. I'll offer a new condition, binding on us both. I doubt
you've sufficient faith even to consider it."

  "I'd dare anything to teach you the lesson you deserve."

   "Then here's what I propose. I'll wager fifty planets against your ten, as
proof of my certainty. My further commitment's that, if I lose, I'll
renounce my contracts with Terra and return to the old ways—if, in the
event of my winning, you'll agree to surrender all your holdings to the
Federation."

   "If I didn't know you for a joker, I'd think you serious."

   "I'm perfectly serious, Xzan. It's you who finds the challenge difficult to
face. Who's the softer of us now?"

   "You raise the bid to a desperate level. But somebody has to show you
the error of your ways. The chances to take fifty of your planets and also
bring you back to sanity is too good to miss. I accept your condition,
Oontara. I've named my champion. Let's hear the name of yours."

   "There are many I might choose. But we were speaking of Terrans in
the abstract. Therefore, I'll pick one I've only just met. I nominate Colonel
Bogey."

   A smile of wicked anticipation lit Xzan's face. "An interesting
choice—though I doubt if Commissioner Rounding will happily volunteer
his services."

   "The fat Commissioner doesn't need to know. In past days, Xzan, we
manipulated many and much by stealth and cunning. Well, I've not
forgotten the old tricks. If you'll guarantee to deliver your champion to
Avida, I'll guarantee the delivery of mine. But we've not yet agreed on the
matter of equipment and provisions. What do you say for Bethschant?"

   "He's a nomad and a hunter. Too many provisions would be a burden. I
think such spears and native weapons as he had when I acquired him, plus
a long-knife, and prepared food for no more than three days. That will
insure his rapid return to the old ways of living."

  "And I see for Colonel Bogey perhaps the basic stores and tool pack
which are given to a star-world settler joining a colony."

   "Since there'll be no colony for him to join, I can scarcely make
objection. Though what use he'll find for hammering nails and digging
trenches on Avida is beyond my comprehension."

   "Then it's settled! All we need to establish is the duration of the game."
   "I've been thinking about that. Would three months be too severe?"

   "Let's make it six, to be decisive. And, Xzan…"

   "Yes?"

  "This time, let there be no interference with the fortunes of the
game—else the prize goes to the other party by default."

   "Naturally! Then we're agreed, Oontara. Though I can't seriously
believe you think you can win. It'll be pleasant enough to welcome you
back to the ways of your fathers. If age hasn't tried you too sorely, you'll
likely find a few more planets to replace those you'll have lost."

   "You count too soon, Xzan. It's your way of life on trial here. And you
who'll have to make the reparations. I've told you, federation is inevitable.
I speak from strength of knowledge. I merely go a little from my way to
help an old friend who's become too blind to see the path ahead."

                      CHAPTER FOUR
  A freighter carved its way out of parking orbit into Oriel's ruby night
and dropped with the sound of a million demons onto the landing pads of
Tenarensor spaceport. A heavy cargo vessel, she was routed to the extreme
edge of the field, well away from the passenger-receiving docks.

   Old Sashu had made the preparations well, and the liberal bribes
bestowed on Meon were being honored fully. A woman wearing a widow's
cowl was silently hustled through the warehouses and across the perimeter
hardstand. She was followed by two hushed, intensely excited children.
The trio was led finally through a small metal gate and onto a street
bordering the bewildering commercial district which lay beyond. At this
point, all obligations had been met. Shorn suddenly of even hired support,
the woman drew her children against the comforting folds of her cloak
and looked about uncertainly, not sure of what move to make next.

   In the dim maroon of night, the bustle of spaceport trade continued
unabated; space schedules heeded no local light or darkness. Somewhere
among the moving bulks of floats and transporters there ought to be a
guide to meet her—somebody to take them to a place of rest and
temporary safety. Tenarensor, however, was a very large place, and there
was no certainty they were even at the right exit from the spaceport
Miram had a map and emergency directions, but these would be of little
use before the coming of daylight Nor could they reasonably remain in the
vicinity of the delivery gate without attracting attention. Without a real
objective in mind, she picked up the few poor bags which contained their
meager belongings and began to walk slowly along the road, telling the
children to keep their faces shaded from the street flares to avoid any
possibility of recognition.

   After half a kilometer, she had an uneasy feeling that someone was
following them. A quiet shadow, dark against the shades of the red night,
sought shelter whenever she looked behind. Though she could not have
sworn it was always the same person, the behavior was repeated too often
to be ignored. So conscious did she become of the lurking presence that
she nearly missed the significance of a few short notes of music whistled
casually by a man inspecting boxes on a float. Only on the second hearing
did her mind acknowledge the theme of Kanizar's favorite battle hymn.

  "Lady Miram!" The float was almost completely blocking the road
behind them.

  "Yes. You come from Manu Kan?"

   "Indeed. But this is no place for idle talk. The Pretender's spies had
rumor of your coming. They're all around the area. All of you on the
float—quickly!"

   Miram helped the children climb aboard, then seized the thick hand
that reached down to assist her. At first sight, the piled boxes offered only
a precarious handhold. Then she realized that the boxes were piled to
form thick walls, with a hollow cavity within. Inside, a rough cabin had
been constructed to bear the weight of the boxes stacked above. The guide
led them into the cabin and replaced the boxes which formed the
entrance.

   "Welcome to Ortel, my Lady! Sorry about the conveyance, but the
Pretender's men are everywhere. Fortunately, they can't yet be certain
you've arrived. We'll try to spirit you away before they're sure. The price
on your heads would make a thousand men wealthy, so they won't hesitate
to attack if they find out where you are."

  "Someone followed us along the road from the spaceport gate."
   "Hmm!" The guide checked the ion gun at his waist and leaned forward
between the boxes to speak to the driver. Then he moved a single box and
wriggled through, replacing it from outside. Miram and the children
waited in the darkness, aware of the swaying of the slowly moving float.
Then came the abrupt, miniature thunder characteristic of an ion-weapon
discharge. Soon the boxes at the door were removed, and their guide
reentered.

  "May the gods give us speed! Now they've no witnesses to your arrival.
But when they find three of their own men dead, they'll know just as surely
you were here."

  "Where're you taking us?"

  "To one of Manu Kan's private places. There you'll be safe till we can get
you passage to Terra. But we've a good distance to cover yet."

   The implications of the last sentence were underscored when the float
stopped suddenly. They heard the sound of argument. The guide crept to
the hole through which he communicated with the driver and listened.

  "Ortellian Guards. They know something's afoot, but they're not sure
what They're operating a random stop-and-search pattern."

  "Will they find us here?"

   "Only by chance. Manu has nearly a hundred floats like this on the road
tonight. It would be impossible to search them all, especially since they're
loaded with lead pellets."

  "What would happen if they did discover us?"

   "It would be wise to admit who you were. You'd be taken to King
Oontara, who'd probably offer you his protection. Unfortunately, his court
crawls with spies and assassins. There's no real safety for you there."

   After a few moments, the float again proceeded on its way. The driver
called back something through the hole, and the guide relayed the
information.

   "The guards were satisfied, but the Pretender's agents weren't. They've
already attacked one of Manu's floats about a kilometer ahead and killed
the driver. If I know Manu, he'll use the excuse to turn all hell abroad in
Tenarensor tonight."

   "Does that mean much fighting?"

   "Aye, my Lady. That's why the guards are jumpy. With the value of
Manu's cargoes so high, he's well versed in the arts of protection. Hell
treat this as a commercial war."

   "Which it isn't."

   "No, but it'll confuse the issue sufficiently to give us a chance of getting
through."

   For ten minutes the float continued on its way without obstruction.
Then its progress was suddenly arrested by a violent shock, which threw
them all to the floor. Regaining his feet, the guide went to consult with the
driver. When he turned back, his voice was grave.

   "An ambush, Lady Miram. Strings of floats across the road. We're
going to try to ram a passage through. If we can't, we'll have to fight No
matter what happens, don't try to leave. Stay on the floor and protect your
heads from concussion if you can."

   "I understand. May the gods guard your progress!"

   With a swift reassembly of the boxes which hid the door, the guide left
the cabin. Miram brought her children together, and they sat on the
Uttered floor while she distributed clothing from her bags to protect their
heads with. This action was taken not a moment too soon. The float was
again urged into motion and then brought to a halt with a cruel shock.
Again and again it staggered into battle, and each time was deflected
sideways, to scrape hideously along some forbidding mass until halted by
forces greater than its own very considerable momentum.

   Then came the noise of shooting. It started nearby, and advanced and
retreated many times, with only fancy to suggest the fortunes of the
combatants. The whipcrack thunder of ion weapons echoed spitefully from
walls and buildings; occasionally the sound was nearly continuous. Miram
found it peculiarly terrifying not to be able to see the progress of the fight
or know if her champions were holding their ground or being beaten.
With a sick heart, she imagined that they were losing, and that by the
intensity of then- effort they had betrayed the fact that they had
something important to defend. She cradled young Zim's shoulders with
her arms and bade him to be brave.

   To her surprise, he shrugged her away. He had imagined the fortunes of
the battle quite differently, and was softly cheering victory. In this he
displayed his father's optimism and love of combat. Had it been
permitted, he would certainly have been happier to have joined the
fighting, instead of being forced to sit in the darkness listening to it rage
around him. Miram caught his sense of helplessness and frustration at
being confined, and knew it was only in deference to her wishes that he
remained. She understood that one day soon even her influence would be
unable to tame the Kanizar blood, and that he too would blaze a
destructive trail across the galaxy, as had his father.

   There was a deafening explosion close by. The float gave a sickening
lurch and settled roughly to the ground as its motors died. Then came the
sound of many running feet, and the sudden entrance of red light as the
stack of boxes blocking the door was toppled off the float, leaving the
entrance bare.

  "I thought as much!"

   A huge figure, pistol in hand, thrust through the opening and stood
trying to adjust his eyes to the darkness of the cabin. Anna whimpered
with fright, and the pistol turned in her direction. Immediately Zim was
off the floor, the wrap which his mother had given him thrown straight in
the intruder's face. The gun arm went up as the startled man attempted to
protect his face from he knew not what. Zim came up under his elbow and
forced the arm yet higher. The gun went off.

    The whipcrack of the discharge in the confined space deafened them
all, and the blaze of energy went straight up into the boxes piled above the
cabin, creating a fire-flash so intense that its image interfered with
Miram's sight for a long period afterward. The miraculous thing was the
reaction of their would-be assailant. For half a second he reeled in the
doorway; then, with a blood-chilling yell, he leaped backward, falling to
the roadbed from the superstructure of the float, dropped his weapon, and
ran off uttering hoarse and anguished moans. He had covered scarcely ten
meters before a bolt dropped him in mid-stride.

  Miram was not certain whether to cry with relief or be sick. Zim,
unharmed, was staring with great surprise at the doorway through which
the vanquished assassin had departed. The overwhelming stench of
burned flesh told its own peculiar story. The assassin had fired his weapon
directly upward—and the energy of the discharge had penetrated the
boxes above, liquefying some of the lead pellets they contained. Their
assailant had bathed his own head with molten lead—a fitting if
unpremeditated justice for the assault on the heirs of Kanizar.

  Their guide came running back to them, his face a cloud of concern.

  "Lady Miram—thank the gods you're safe! That devil slipped through
our net. What a mercy he didn't attack!"

  "He did," said Miram, her calmness returning. "Fortunately, I had my
own protector."

   The puzzled frown on the guide's face deepened when he went to
examine the body of the fallen assassin. He returned full of speculation,
looking first at the ruptured boxes and then at Zim. Then, gravely, he
unbuckled the weapon belt from his own waist and placed it around the
boy. Astonished, Zim hesitated, then took the heavy weapon from his
holster and tested the grip with his hand. It was a perfect fit.

   The young prince looked at his mother as though despairingly asking
permission to keep so dangerous yet marvelous a gift. Miram stifled her
horrified reaction. This was a situation to which she had long since
reconciled herself.

  "If you've really finished with childhood so soon, accept it proudly, Zim
For what you've done today I think your father would have offered you his
own."

   The guide gave the boy a respectful salute. "Hail, chip off Kanizar!" he
said genially. "Manu Kan will be preparing an account of this night's work.
I think the King of Kings will be pleased to know his seed breeds true."

                      CHAPTER FIVE
   Hilary Rounding had a whole suite of offices in the superb new
buildings of the Terran Outspace Technical Aid Commission. He was
seldom to be found there, however. More usually he was wandering the
great ornamental corridors of Oontara's court, talking to nobles and
minor star lords and listening to the gossip and scandals of the star
community. In such a way, he kept a sure finger on the pulse of the Hub
worlds, using Oontara's court as a barometer for measuring the strengths
and moods of the star factions.

   For ten days now the rumor had persisted that Miram, the Empress
Kanizar, had fled to Ortel from Meon to escape the forces of the Pretender.
Rounding tended to dismiss the idea. What could she gain by fleeing to
Ortel, when she could reach some more neutral dynasty without crossing
the vortex of the Hub? The only advantage Ortel had to offer was its
position along the route of the Federation starliners, whose ultimate
destination was Terra. Since Kam Kanizar frequently spoke
contemptuously of the Federation, it appeared unlikely that Miram would
be en route to Terra. There was also the fact that, although Miram was
thought to have landed in Tenarensor, nobody had the slightest idea of
what had happened to her thereafter.

   Another rumor—one not so widespread, but far more disturbing—ran
that Oontara and his guest Xzan had fallen out over the former's dalliance
with the Federation. To settle the dispute, a survival game had been
arranged, in which two champions, one of whom was to be a Terran,
would be placed in some hostile environment to determine which of them
was better suited to survive. Oontara was openly criticized for accepting a
huge wager when he had a full knowledge of Xzan's capacity for cheating.

   This second rumor Rounding took seriously. Although Oontara
professed genuine leanings toward federation, he was still a star savage by
tradition and inclination. The notion of a survival game fitted
convincingly with what Rounding knew of the star king's humor and his
disregard for life. About Xzan the Commissioner could have believed
anything. That star lord's notorious love of gaming had caused whole
planetary populations to be murdered to satisfy some whim of chance, and
his capacity for cruelty was a legend.

   With the idea of a survival game a virtual certainty, Rounding's
immediate concern was over which Terran had been selected as the
victim. One absolute certainty was that the game could not be allowed to
take place with a Terran participant. First, there was the moral issue of
Terra's responsibility toward her employees who worked outspace.
Second, the idea that Terrans could be used as pawns in alien star games
was a notion to be swiftly discouraged.
   The Commissioner's inquiries around the courtrooms on this particular
morning had a more than usually searching quality. The rumor had
originated within the court of Oontara. This lent credence to its
probability, but made it less understandable how the star king could have
allowed the story to circulate where he must have known the Terran
Commissioner must hear of it. Learning nothing to his satisfaction,
Rounding sought an audience with Oontara, determined to set the matter
straight.

   Unusually, he was admitted to see the star monarch immediately.
Oontara sat at his great desk of state, sorting through documents, and
seemed glad of the opportunity to talk.

  "My dear Commissioner, sit and take wine. Do you know the main
consequence of negotiation with Terra? It's an exponential increase in the
paperwork."

  "I've long suspected it, my Lord. But it's about personnel rather than
paperwork that I came to see you."

   "Indeed? You've the look of a man with a problem on his mind. Come,
my federated friend. According to the new logic, your problems are mine
also."

   Rounding made his reply a tactful accusation, and finished with a few
veiled threats of what might occur if the survival game became a reality.
Oontara listened with increasing noises of distress, which were not
supported by the wicked lines at the sides of his eyes.

   "My dear Rounding! I'd thought we'd grown to understand each other
better."

   "I'm sure we do understand each other, my Lord. That's why I hastened
to you for reassurance there's no truth in the rumor."

   "You did rightly. Such wild talk can only make mischief between us.
You've my most categorical denial that any such scheme ever entered my
head. However, it's a fortunate meeting, Commissioner. I've a favor to
ask.'"

  "If it's within my power, it's yours."
  "I believe you're interested in the ransad."

   "Very much so! And a fascinating topic it is, too. A developing
technology which reached unprecedented heights—then mysteriously
ceased to develop further. Did you know they preceded Terra by as much
as a million years in developing space flight and the hyper-drive? And its
originators have vanished entirely, leaving their technology scattered
around the galaxy, to become petrified into custom and ritual."

   "All you say is true, Commissioner—though we of the stars have always
thought of it as the knowledge. To us it had no beginning and no end. It
was a singularity and a totality, incapable of being unproved. It gained a
new perspective when you showed us that Terran technology is unending.
Therefore, as a cultural exercise, I'd like to finance one of your Terran
experts to do some practical research into the ransad. Such as where it
began, why it ceased to progress, and what befell its originators."

  "I'd be happy to arrange that for you. Did you have anyone particular in
mind?"

  "The one you call Colonel Bogey. He impressed me greatly."

  "Research isn't strictly Bogey's line."

   "I was emphasizing the practical nature of the project. This could well
include exploratory trips to possible star locations. It would need a man of
his caliber."

   "I'll see what can be arranged," said Rounding speculatively. "But he's
on loan to me from the Space Service. You may have to wait till I get a
replacement out from Terra."

  "Do your best, Commissioner. Both Lord Xzan and I were greatly
impressed by his immediate grasp of a complex problem. I see nun as an
outstanding man who needs the chance to prove himself."

   "In Terran terms, the Colonel's already proved himself, or he'd not be
out here. But I'm sure he'd welcome the extra scope. I'll talk to him and
see if he can be persuaded."

  "Thank you, Commissioner. You see, we do have mutual
understanding."
   "But why me?" asked Bogaert angrily. "I've worked years to qualify for
this posting. Now you want to smuggle me back to Terra like a small boy
in disgrace."

   "You're reading it all wrong. I know these star savages. They've a
penchant for playing games with human lives. I can't allow you to take
such a risk for their amusement or to satisfy a wager."

  "Fine! Most of my work can be done within the Commission complex.
Surely I don't need retreat to Terra?"

   "You're making two errors, Bogey, old son. You're underestimating that
wicked old bastard Oontara and just how much he can manipulate the
scene. If he wants you in a game, then you're in it no matter what you
think. You also missed the point that once it becomes established that
Terrans are good pawns for gaming, the sport could become a galactic
pastime. Do you fancy being the first of a succession of human fighting
cocks?"

  "Of course not, but—"

   "There aren't any buts. We're a small race in a big galaxy where the life
of an individual counts for nothing. But it's our standards which've got to
succeed, because we're cursed with being unique. So far as we know, every
other race in the galaxy is dependent on the ransad for its technology. We
didn't have the ran-sad. We brought ourselves into space by scientific
method and a bloody-minded refusal to be daunted by the impossible.
Now we've arrived, and we've got something to sell in both hardware and
philosophy. Nothing and nobody's going to reduce Terra to the status of
an ordinary star world and a plaything for star kings."

  "I don't see that that's in question," said Bogaert.

   "Oontara and Xzan are questioning it. So we have two courses of
action. We can play you against a stacked deck and, win or lose, establish
Terrans as good material for games. Or we can treat the whole thing with
contempt and get you out of the path of their temptation."

  "What makes you say the deck's stacked?"

  "It's never otherwise on the Hub. Fair play's a peculiar Terran concept.
Oontara led us into this-—and he's supposed to be our friend. So just think
how that Satan's limb Xzan views the prospect. He's fighting for
recognition as a star king. He wouldn't give a damn if a thousand million
died to achieve his end."

   Bogaert shook his head ruefully. "You've made your point, Hilary. When
do I leave?"

   "As soon as can be arranged—perhaps a couple of days. We don't dare
divert a starliner here, because it would attract too much attention. I'll
arrange for you to be smuggled out on a space barge to make rendezvous
with the next Terra-bound liner which hits this sector. And Bogey…"

   "Yes?"

   "Don't take all this as any reflection on yourself. I'd personally back you
in a survival game against anyone Xzan could muster. Unfortunately, the
politics of the situation don't allow us to compete."

   Bogaert looked at his nails and grinned reflectively. "I used to wonder
how a fat, short-assed politician ever got to be Commissioner in a theater
like the Hub. Now I know. The only way you can beat a star savage is to pit
against him someone even more primitive and potentially more savage
than he is."

  "If you've learned that much, your time on the Hub hasn't been
wasted."

  "Still, it's a damn shame about the ransad. I'd have loved to have taken
Oontara at face value and had a crack at the problem."

   "And I. There are many curious parallels between the ransad and
Terran science. In some areas, they're virtually interchangeable. Take the
present mysticism away from the ransad and you find a system of
reasoned knowledge far greater than our own. In contrast, Terran science
seems hasty and utilitarian. We never had the time to probe too deeply
into areas of knowledge for which we had no immediate practical
application. So there are still huge portions of the ransad we can't even
begin to understand."

   "And no clues about its originators?"

   "Only inferences. They were weaker in atomic physics than is Terran
science, but leagues ahead in relativity. This suggests they weren't
pressured by their environment to develop the crude power devices which
kicked Terra into the main atomic phase. And it's a certainty that their
intellectual powers were well above the galactic norm. Their optical
instruments peak in the Terran visual range, from which we infer that in
eye structure, at least, they were very like ourselves and probably evolved
under similar conditions. In fact, many aspects of the ransad's originators
seem less alien to us than do the races who enjoy its use."

  "No clues even about where it developed?"

   "None. It could have been anywhere in the galaxy, or even out of it. I
suspect it was within this galaxy, for the very simple reason that the
ransad's conclusions have been doctored."

  "Doctored?"

   "Those like the star kings, who use the ransad for their technology,
swear that it's the ultimate in knowledge and can't be exceeded. We know
this is nonsense. But there's evidence that the higher ransad texts have
been deliberately tailored to give that impression. The compilers of the
ransad didn't want something to be known."

  "Do we have any idea what that something was?"

   "At a guess, it was intergalactic drive systems. The ransad states
they're an all-time impossibility. Yet Terra has one on active test right
now. With their vast lead in relativity studies, the originators of the
ransad must've known that intergalactic drives are theoretically at least as
viable as conventional hyperdrives. That suggests to me that the ransad
technologists evolved in our own galaxy but left to populate another—after
making damn sure the waning star kings couldn't follow."

   "Which shows they were also people of discernment and good sense,"
said Bogaert sourly. "Having met Oontara and Xzan, I have a desire to
make a similar move myself. I can understand the ransad's originators'
going, but I don't understand what they gained by leaving so much
powerful technology behind them."

   "I don't suppose we'll ever know their motives, though one likes to
believe they were similar to our own. But here's a point to think about
Spread right across the Terran civilizations existing around two thousand
and sixteen hundred B.C. there's a sudden emphasis on the development
of writing, of systems of govern-merit, and working in bronze. Wouldn't
you know it, but that's exactly the territory of the first book of Tan-sad
texts. Did we actually get Book One on Terra all those years ago? And, if
so, what reason had they for not trusting us with Book Two?"

                        CHAPTER SIX
   Dropping out of hyperspace, the wicked-looking ship of Xzan's personal
command force made a swift orbit around Avida. The proficiency of the
black vessel in executing this maneuver betrayed its long familiarity in
gaining orbital battle stations around neutral worlds destined to be
afflicted by the star lord's craving for dominance.

    This time, however, no terrifying missiles were unleashed. Only one
lifecraft descended from the vicious father ship, and this delivered to the
surface not a destructive squadron but a solitary individual. The weapons
which were laid on the soil were not war floats or projectile carriers, but
only such things as a man might carry: a spear, a blowpipe, a throwing
stick, flints, a bow, some stores, and a long-knife. The individual savored
the air, checked his supplies, gathered his belongings into manageable
bundles, and set off into the forest fringes without a backward glance, as if
escape from the service of Xzan was something greatly welcomed.

  Curiously, Xzan had kept his promise. The weapons and supplies with
which Bethschant had been provided were only those few simple things
which had been agreed to by Oontara. Only one thing had been added
outside the scope of the arrangement, and that was the command given to
Bethschant: "If Avida doesn't kill Colonel Bogey, then finish the job
yourself."

   The instruction was no burden for the wily savage. Avida was his
birthplace. He knew it as a relentless enemy. With full knowledge of the
dangers and pitfalls, he still had fears for his own survival, having been
off-planet in the service of Xzan for five Avidan years. Such absence had
dulled the lifetime habit of never relaxing for an instant against the
constant dangers. He would need all of his exceptional sight and hearing
and talent for survival just to stay alive. What chance, then, had a soft and
inexperienced Terran of surviving even a few days in such a place?

   Realizing the need to reacclimatize himself, Bethschant had opted to be
placed on Avida well before the Colonel was due to arrive. He needed a
period in which to adapt again to the harsh way of life. There were also
differences to be overcome between the condition of his former years and
his present situation. Previously he had lived with a tribal group, which
always moved in unison, so that help was only a cry away. Now he was on
his own. He was the only member of his species on this whole vast and
savage planet. The entire remaining human population of Avida had been
"liberated" into space by Xzan's probing ships, and the knowledge of this
fact emphasized the silence that lay over the great forests and swamp
tracts.

   The demands of survival, however, were too fierce to permit him to
brood on his loneliness. His first action had been to get clear of the
flux-reaction range of the departing lifecraft. The next consideration was
to find a place in which to spend the night, because it was already too late
to make a tree camp. The old survival rituals, which he had thought he
never again would need, began to flood back into memory. He deliberately
chose a clearing in a thorn thicket as a likely campsite. It was only in
exploring it that he realized how much he had forgotten.

   He had chosen the thicket to give him protection against large
predators, but a single contact with a thorn warned him that the
predators might be preferable to the protection. He looked in amazement
and concern as the slight puncture on his arm became a vivid blue weal,
the toxins making the veins stand out beneath the skin like a web of iron.
He cursed himself savagely for not having remembered that thornbush.
Nature had provided him with strong immunity to Avidan poisons, but he
knew it would cost him many hours of fever before his arm, rapidly
growing stiff, again became usable.

    It became imperative that he immediately make camp for the night.
The fever was already coming upon him, and he had only one arm with
which to make the preparations. With his throwing stick, he probed the
ground for a suitable spot, found one near the thorn hedge, and, holding a
flint between his toes, bent to the task of making fire. Such was his skill
and the combustibility of Avidan firebush that he soon had a good blaze
going.

   When the fire was fully hot, he heaped on it as many branches and
leaves as possible, then spread the flaming mass over a wide area. Having
assured himself that the whole area would become properly scorched, he
left the fire and cut the broad fronds he would need to make a cover.
Although he was barely on the fringes of the forest, the presence of tall
trees meant that he would have to protect himself while sleeping against
airborne particles of acid sap.

   Then, taking up a long, tubular vessel, he went to the edge of the
swamp and scooped the filthy black water from the shallows. So active
were the hair-fine flesh-worms in the sludge that he could see them
waving their wiry ends above the rim of the pot, sensing by some blind
instinct the nearness of his 'body. Returning to his camping spot, he raked
dying embers from the fire, crushed the ashes with a stone, and quenched
the mess with water. In a second tubular vessel he made a crude filter with
the ash, and allowed the remaining water to trickle through it before he
dared drink. The sourness of the dilute lye leached from the ash made his
mouth sore, but at least the water was free of fleshworms and, he hoped,
other equally vicious constituents. It was a procedure every native of Avida
had to learn almost before he could walk if he was to stand any chance of
survival. What hope, therefore, would there be for an uninitiated Terran?

   His left arm was now swollen beyond use, and the fever brought
perspiration trickling from his brow. He raked aside the remaining ashes
of the fire with a stick and probed the ground beneath. The crustiness told
him that the vicious shoots and flesh-seeking creatures in the soil would
be deterred at least until morning. He hoped his fever would pass before
the thrusting forces of nature broke through the charred ground cover and
began to attack his resting body. He laid himself down on the
uncomfortably hot patch of soil he had sterilized, and began to arrange
the cover above him so that he would not easily disturb it in his sleep. His
spear he cradled against his chest, ready for instant use. The poisonous
thorn shrub would protect his back, but the growing fever left him
incapable of maintaining a proper watch on the remaining unprotected
sides. He therefore consigned his safe journey through till morning to the
strange gods of Avida, and closed his eyes and slept.

    Because of the fever and the toxins in his bloodstream, his sleep was
fitful and disturbed. Perhaps Avida was reaching out to her only son,
striving to reestablish the old rapport between habitat and inhabitant.
Whatever the reason, his dreams returned constantly to the old way of life,
to the fears and the failures, the hardships and the hatreds. It brought to
mind the old legends of the days when his people were said to have
controlled Avida instead of living like animals destined for extinction.
   The gods, it seemed, were pleased with his devotions. Bethschant awoke
the next morning slightly surprised to find himself still alive. The fever was
gone and his arm nearly returned to normal. He felt considerably
refreshed and confident. His first act of the day was to greet the sunshine
and the heady air with one immense cry of animal exuberance, which
echoed back from the startled forest and the distant mountains as if in
response to his greeting. Mankind had returned to Avida, and a new
challenge was being offered to old enemies.

  Bethschant was back.

                    CHAPTER SEVEN
   For the last ten meters he had no cover at all. Leaving the shadow of the
work float, Bogaert decided to take the risk, and ran upright through the
red darkness to where the outriders of the spacebarge loomed high and
dark. Gaining the hull of the pod, he pressed himself against it and
paused, slightly breathless, as he surveyed the field, wondering if he had
been observed. Finally he decided that no one had detected his coming. He
reached out his hand to grasp the door hatch, and, with one last scan for
possible observers, he slipped into the interior of the pod and closed the
hatch thankfully behind him.

    Fortunately, there was no crew for him to worry about. The
pod/powerbarge complex was controlled entirely from a father ship, and
all operations were automatic. His only duty was to fasten the dogs of the
door hatch securely and check the integrity of the vacuum seals. That
done, he activated the "readiness" signal and glanced at his watch. He had
barely made the deadline.

   A rose-colored light signaled the father ship's acknowledgment of his
entry, and he turned his attention to the contents of the dimly lit pod,
which was a detachable container positioned under the powerbarge itself.
He discerned that the boxes, bales, and packages were all of a standard set
which formed the traditional provisions of a hopeful colonist who,
shunning the doubtful advantages of living on an exploited star world, was
determined to join one of the newer star colonies. Such enterprise found
favor with the star kings, because whenever such a development was
successful it added one more populated planet to the list of those available
for spoil or conquest.

  Behind the bales and sacks, Bogaert found something he had not been
expecting. Hearing a slight sound, he had crept stealthily around a clump
of sacks and found himself suddenly facing a woman, a youth, and a girl
child—all regarding him with a hushed apprehension which hinted at
much fear of discovery. It was a finding which puzzled him considerably.

   Space-riding in barges was an arduous and frequently dangerous
experience. Although pressurized with a breathable atmosphere for
livestock transport and simplification of cargo handling, the pods were not
intended for human occupation. The controls were "ghosted" by a remote
farther ship controlling the barge fleet, and the system was not specifically
designed to maintain Sight stresses within the range of human tolerance.
The bribes which had been extended to allow Bogaert to use this harsh
mode of exodus from Ortel were a measure of the urgency with which
Commissioner Rounding had vested the affair. If a woman and two
children had been submitted to a similar risk, it was presumably an
expression of a similarly extreme necessity.

    His attempt to open conversation provoked such an alarmed reaction
that he thought it kinder not to persist. As the counting light indicated the
approach of liftoff, however, he became alarmed by their apparent
ignorance of how brutal powerbarge acceleration could be. With less than
two minutes to go, he strode to their section of the pod, ordered them to
lie on the softest materials available, and showed them the posture best
suited to resist acceleration pressures. Probably because of the military
tone of his commands, they obeyed without argument, and nestled into
hollows in the giant sacks which Bogaert released from the clamps and
toppled to the deck. With a final check to insure that everyone had
sufficient spinal support, Bogaert regained his own place with only
seconds to spare before the power-barge's engines wound into thundering
life.

   The liftoff was quite as vicious as he had anticipated. The crushing
acceleration forced him painfully into the improvised couch, and was
maintained in varying degrees of intensity for nearly an hour. This meant
that file powerbarge was not being placed in parking orbit for collection
with the rest of the barge fleet, but was being accelerated straight toward
a high-level hyper-drive condition. It was the first indication he had
received that the father ship exercising ghost control of the powerbarge
had been merely passing Ortel at some cosmic range and speed and had
not been in planetary orbit, as was normal.
   The pressures eased abruptly at the onset of hyper-point. Bogaert's
immediate concern was for the safety of the others as the cargo began to
redistribute itself to accommodate the vagaries of the crude system of
artificial gravity. He was preparing the cargo clamps when he again came
face to face with the woman, and he was transfixed by the bright green of
her eyes, the perfection of her skin, her honey-gray hair wisping out from
under the sternness of the widow's cowl. Here was a vision of the purest
nobility—not the grief-stricken widow he had imagined, but a creature
who proclaimed royalty with every movement of her immaculate hands.
Behind her, the two children watched the encounter with distinct unease.

   "You probably saved our lives." Her accent was of one of the far worlds,
uncontaminated by Ortellian slur. "I should know your name if you're to
be rewarded when the time's proper."

  Bogaert smiled and shook his head.

   "There's no question of reward, nor could I accept if you gave it me.
However, the name's Bogaert, Colonel Bogaert, of the Federation Space
Service, latterly attached to Terran Outspace Technical Aid. Everyone calls
me Bogey."

   A look of relief crossed her brow. 'Terran? I feared you might be one of
the Pretender's men."

  "Hardly! But you, ma'am? This is no way to be traveling with children."

  "I know what you mean, Colonel. But circumstances force the issue.
You'll forgive my not explaining further."

    "No need for explanations. I've already guessed you to be Miram, the
Empress Kanizar. And this" —he turned to where the young girl was
regarding him with dubious eyes— "would be Princess Anna. The young
fellow with the ion gun must be Prince Zim, heir to most of the galaxy. It
seems I travel in august company."

  "You're well informed, Colonel… er… Bogey."

   "I merely put the pieces together. I was told you'd fled to Ortel to escape
the Pretender. That would explain your presence in Tenarensor. And I
presume that you, like myself, are attempting to transship to Terra by the
quiet route out of the star kingdoms."
   She was examining him curiously. He stopped speaking, perturbed by
the intensity of her gaze.

   "I'm sorry" she said. "But I confess I've never met a Terran before. I find
you difficult to gauge. Why should you need a quiet route out of the star
kingdoms? I thought Terrans feared nobody."

  "I was cast as the star turn in a survival game organized by Lords Xzan
and Oontara. Such engagements are forbidden by protocol. I'm being sent
home, out of the way."

   "You're running away?" The notion clearly troubled her.

  "Effectively. But the principles at stake are more important than the
man."

   "More important than the honor of a warrior?"

   "Terra doesn't have warriors in your sense, Lady Miram. We fight and
progress more as a species, not so much as individuals."

  "Like ants?" There was suddenly a terrible apprehension in her eyes,
which she conquered by an effort of will. "Forgive me, Colonel Bogey! That
was an inexcusable remark."

   "On the contrary, quite understandable. Coming from your
background, you have a natural repugnance for the warrior who runs. I
had to make a similar if opposite adjustment when I first encountered the
star legions. But what you read as weakness is part of Terra's strength."

   "How can it be strength?"

   "Because we're as strong as the sum of the parts, not only as strong as
the weakest link in the chain. It's a difference of philosophy, not
capability. We choose not to fight unless we have to, but that doesn't mean
we can't fight when we must. Several star kings have lost their crowns
because they couldn't appreciate that fact."

  "I suppose that's what they call the new logic. I fear I'll never
understand it."

   "It's the old logic to us. It clawed us out of the jungle and into space in
less than a million years. It gave us a thriving Federation instead of a
miserable set of colony worlds. In a few years more it'll give us access to as
many galaxies as this galaxy has stars."

   Miram burst into laughter, so suddenly that the children were alarmed.
The handgun sprang into Zim's fingers as if it had acquired life of its own.
Miram's hand went out to touch Bogaert's wrist in the familiar Meon
mode of greeting, and she drew back her cowl and let the honey-gray
tresses fall about her neck.

   "I wronged you, Colonel Bogey. Not even Kara Kanizar can make such
claims. You've proven a vital point. He always says, 'Never get into an
argument with a Terran—because the universe is on their side.' Today I
appreciate what he means."

   The young Prince Zim had witnessed all this with a general lack of
comprehension. One thing was certain, however: he greatly disapproved of
a painted warrior who spoke to his mother as though to an equal. Holding
the gun prominently, he indicated that the Colonel should fall back.
Bogaert took his measure sagely, a glint of humor nestling in the corners
of his eyes.

   "There are several good reasons for not taking that attitude," he said
softly. "First, I wish you no harm, rather the reverse. Second, you couldn't
fire that thing in here without puncturing the hull and killing us all. Third,
you've the safety ring turned the wrong way…"

   Momentarily the boy looked down to check the accuracy of the last
statement. In that split second, Bogaert struck the weapon from his hand
and sent it in a long arc into a clump of sacks.

  "And fourth, you've got a hell of a lot to learn before you threaten
another's life."

   Before the Prince could recover from his surprise, Bogaert had
recovered the weapon and was offering it back.

  "You're a good lad, Zim! Full marks for motivation. But there are a
couple of things you need to know about survival through arms: the
weaknesses of your enemies—and the strengths of your friends. If ever you
point that gun at me again, it had better be with intent to kill. Because if
you don't kill me, I swear I'll take it and use it on you."
   The Prince's anger and frustration quieted when he read the concern in
his mother's eyes. He took the weapon and returned it to his belt. Then, at
Miram's unspoken prompting, he extended his hand to touch the Colonel's
wrist.

  "That's better! Do you realize this old cargo pod holds just about the
most wanted selection of people in the galaxy right now? Between us,
we've more than sufficient enemies without having quarrels among
ourselves."

   Tiring of the monotony of the flight, the children began to argue.
Miram quieted them and told them to try to sleep. They did not find this
easy, but gradually grew silent. Meanwhile, Miram and Bogaert continued
talking in low voices. She was apprehensive about the reception she would
meet on Terra.

  "But what if the Terran authorities won't accept us? After all, Kanizar
has no treaty with Terra."

  "Nor needs one. You don't need a treaty to extend a principle of
common humanity."

   "What a strange people you are! Suppose the Pretender threatens
reprisals?"

  "It won't affect the issue. There's no circumstance that could make
Terra hand over a woman and children to a murderer."

  "It's nearly beyond belief. Such a thing couldn't happen on a star
world."

  "That's why Terra won't become a star world. As Commissioner
Rounding says, we're cursed with being unique."

  "A curious claim—but one I come to believe."

   They continued talking for a while longer, Bogaert gradually managing
to allay her fears. Then he held up his hand.

    "The transfer to the starship will be tiring and demanding. We should
break jump in about three hours from now. I suggest you get a little rest.
I'll wake you in good time."
   Miram nodded gratefully. A little happier about her future prospects,
she joined her children on the sacks, while Bogaert wedged his back into a
niche in the wall and listened to the eerie song of hyperspace
reverberating around the hull. Soon he permitted himself to doze, knowing
that the cessation of the song would wake him.

   When he did wake, it was with a start. He looked disbelievingly at his
watch. The continuing song of hyperspace swiftly led him to conclude that
something was terribly wrong. They were already many hours past
rendezvous, and still traveling at megalight velocity.

   He did not wake Miram immediately, preferring to first think out the
implications of the situation. The answers were anything but encouraging.
From the time they had been traveling, they must by now be a great
distance from the starliner route and well into one of the less-charted
sectors. Here were the great wilds of the galaxy, the haunts of star
brigands and the lesser lords, who were forced to take their pickings in the
less-desirable areas away from the great star empires. These were the
wastelands of space… He swore softly.

  The sudden sound woke Miram, who came over to him.

  "Are we nearly there, Colonel Bogey?"

   "I'm afraid not. This old tub's been in hyperspace far too long. I don't
know where the hell it's taking us, but I'll guarantee it's not to rendezvous
with any starliner."

  "Where, then?" She read the concern in his face.

   "At a rough guess, Oontara's made a monkey out of Commissioner
Rounding. I think we're all in a trap which was set for me. We're going to
get the chance to play Xzan's survival game."

   Miram looked back at the children, who were just beginning to stir. "Is
there nothing we can do?"

  "I wish I knew."

   Bogaert climbed up a high stack of bales and started to examine a
hatch in the ceiling. It was typical of constructions based on ransad
technology, and he estimated that it could be easily opened if he could
improvise a latch manipulator from pieces of colonist's gear. He returned
to the floor and began to break open boxes of stores.

   "What's up there?" asked Miram uneasily.

    "It's a double hatch which couples this pod to the powerbarge proper.
There's a sort of test cabin used for setting up instruments before handing
over to ghost control. Ransad technology's still much of a mystery to me,
but there's just a chance I can break the father ship's hold as soon as we
fall below hyperpoint."

   "I'm afraid I don't understand the technicalities."

   "If I can't get control of the powerbarge, it'll probably jettison this pod,
with us inside it, at the site of the survival game."

   "Oh!"

   "If the rumor's correct, the stakes are very high in this game.
Conditions will be as near lethal as possible. I'd guess we're to be dumped
on one of the uninhabitable worlds where the natural conditions are
extreme. So we need everything we can get from the situation to give us a
chance of survival. Primarily, we need the powered section of this barge."

    Among the stores he found some alloy rods. With a couple of these and
a cargo clamp, he fashioned a crude tool with which to attack the hatch
lock. Fortune was with him, and he hit on the optimum dimension with a
minimum of readjustment. The hatch opened into a hemispherical cabin
entirely lined with instrument cells and mechanisms based on ransad
principles. Climbing the wall rings, he was surprised at how much room
was available in the cabin. Because of the differing technological emphasis
of the ransad, the cramped, closed con-fines characteristic of Terran
utilitarian space technology were absent from this dome. Only the hatch,
opening centrally through the floor, prevented it from forming a
reasonably habitable cabin.

   Translation of the ransad into Terran-usable terms was well advanced
in Terran circles. Like all Terran outspace personnel, Bogaert had been
tutored in the basics of the alien science. He had little difficulty
understanding the readings presented by the instrument cells, but
comprehension of the complete system was a different matter. He
therefore worked by a process of elimination, discarding the elements
which were of no immediate concern and concentrating on the sections
which appeared to relate to the power, hyperdrive, and subhyperpoint
navigation.

   The process took a very long time indeed. He was acutely conscious that
the task of snatching control away from the ghost was nearly beyond his
technical capabilities. The ransad ghost, unlike radio control, was an
organic, empathic coupling, not designed to be rejected from the receiving
end. In any case, he dared risk no imbalance of conditions until the
barge's velocity fell below hyperpoint.

   The only food available was a little provided by Manu Kan for the short
journey to the space rendezvous, and the emergency pack from Bogaert's
holdall. They shared it sparingly, not knowing how long the journey might
now continue. As the hours stretched into days, both food and water
became critically short. Desperately the Kanizars searched the colony
stores, and found a small stock of grain biscuits and a container of insipid
wine. Though the find was small, it was nonetheless very welcome.

   Meanwhile, Bogaert persisted in his attempt to unravel the functions of
the ransad controls. Periodically Miram would come up to the cabin to
see how he was progressing. Normally she accepted his quiet assurances
without question, but at last she was driven to voice her fears.

  "Is it going to be possible, Colonel Bogey?"

  "Possible but dangerous."

  "Isn't any risk justified by the alternative?"

  "If I interfere with the controls at the wrong moment, it'll kill us more
swiftly than any planetary exposure."

   She shrugged, and her green eyes burned into his. "If the gods so will it,
that's how it must be. Can I do anything to help?"

   "Strip out as much sacking and soft things as you can find. Bring them
up here and spread them on the floor. When I try to get control, the father
ship may detect it and jettison the pod prematurely. It's safer with all of
you up here in the cabin, with as much cushioning as possible."

  He turned back to the instrument cells, and quickly noted a continuing
fall of activity on a unit be thought reported the velocity of the barge
falling toward the hyperpoint threshold. Soon the changed note of the
hyperspace song told his ears the same message. The journey was coming
to an end.

  "Speed it up, down there! Five minutes at most."

   By way of answer, the young Prince Zim bobbed up through the hatch
and shouldered in a large bundle of soft sacking. He climbed through the
opening and distributed his burden on the floor, then turned to help his
sister with a smaller load. Miram came last, disheveled by her exertions,
bringing the largest bundle of all. Bogaert kicked the wraps clear of the
hatch and closed it, sealing them off from the pod. The children and the
cloths under his feet impaired his mobility, and his understanding of the
controls was still far from complete, but he had made as ready as the
situation would allow.

   As the velocity fell toward hyperpoint, he experimentally tested the
reaction of the powerbarge to his own set of controls. His interference was
sensed immediately by the father ghost. Alarms sprang up all over the
cells. He had betrayed his hand prematurely, but given himself the chance
to know and counter some of the measures which could be used against
him when he made the final bid. He managed to cancel most of the alarms
and inactivate the associated cells. Again he tried the controls. This time
he began to feel a firm and definite response, and a momentary
hopefulness came over him.

   As the ship passed through a low-level hyperpoint, the curious ransad
soft-screens came alight, displaying pictorially the details of a planetary
approach. The ran-tad screens were a fascinating combination of
three-dimensional imagery and mobile diagrams, giving a real-time
indication of alternative approach modes, the details of which were
already set into the instruments. Bogaert chose a different mode from that
selected by the ghost, and felt the controls rebel against his fingers. He
fought the cells vigorously, returning the mode to the one of his own
choice whenever the ghost appeared to reestablish control. Finally the
ghost let him have his own way, and soon he could hear the scream of
rarefied atmosphere against the hull as the ship made a raw descent
toward what the screens told him was a planet called Avida.

   In the last instant, the ghost clawed back, and Bogaert momentarily
lost control. The careful flight path of the mode was disrupted at a critical
stage. The barge, caught between opposing commands, swung like a
pendulum. A sea of green forest far below swung crazily across the screens,
and the barge threatened to topple into a powered dive assisted by the
force of gravity. Bogaert swore, and reset his mode commands in a frenzy,
fearing they were too near touchdown to be saved. Miraculously, the barge
responded. It steadied, with a dramatic reduction in velocity.

   Then the barge made contact with the forest. The pod smashed against
a series of springy treetops, and the whole ship spun and lurched and
finally slithered with ungainly force down through a tangle of branches.
Bogaert was thrown on top of the Kanizars, and all of them rolled into a
knot of tangled bodies as the grounding came. Instantly the ghost signaled
for the power-barge to jettison the pod and blast off again into space, but
the command came a tenth of a second too late. Bogaert's foot kicked in
the emergency cell which controlled the power plant, and with the onset of
the power shutdown the barge merely shuddered ineffectively before it
settled to rest on the forest floor.

                    CHAPTER EIGHT
   Transcending the sounds of nature, a rising scream warned Bethschant
that a spacecraft was making planet-fall in his vicinity. He searched the
cloudless skies for some moments before his sharp eyes found the dot of
the spacebarge in powered descent. Even from a distance, it was obvious
that something was wrong. The smooth trajectory of the landing mode
was interrupted more than once, and the craft drifted far from its
intended landing spot. It was traveling nearly horizontally when it passed
out of his sight across the swamplands. His sensitive ears failed to pick up
the sounds of the final crash, but it was no surprise to Bethschant that the
powerbarge failed to rise again, as had been intended.

    A gleam of wicked intelligence widened his apelike eyes. On this
mission, he had two imperatives: to survive and to insure that the Colonel
did not survive. The latter command caused him little concern. Survival
on Avida was a full-time profession, and one to which you needed to be
born. An outworlder injured in a space crash stood virtually no chance at
all. When he had made his own position secure, Bethschant considered, it
would be prudent to prove that the Terran had died. A swampland
crossing, however, was not to be undertaken without careful preparation,
and time was on his side.
   His occupation for the first part of the day had been to scout for a good
position in which to establish a tree camp. He located a few of the rare
species of trees which did not exude an acid sap. Of these, only one had
sufficient height and stood far enough from its neighbors to offer the
necessary degree of safety. With the agility of a Terran ape, Bethschant
began to explore the great plant from bole to branch tip, looking for nests
of bite-wings, or the pencil-slim flesh beetles, which could burrow into a
body as fast as they could run along a branch.

   As he gradually climbed to the higher branches under the great leafed
canopy, Bethschant felt himself returning to the ways of his youth. There
came slowly back to him his previous understanding of the violent ecology
of Avida, in which every living thing needed to regard every other as a
mortal enemy. The jaw, the claw, the thorn, the sting, the selective poison,
and the razor-edged leaf or scale all had a purpose for both offense and
defense. Kill or be killed was the simple law, and this precept was taken to
an extreme almost unparalleled anywhere else in the galaxy.

   In a cracked branch some fifteen meters above the ground, he located a
nest of bite-wings. These flying carnivores, with piranhalike ferocity, had
been known to completely devour the carcass of a man within five minutes
of the swarm's settling. Smoking out the nest would have been useless,
because the swarm would reform locally and remain a constant danger.
Instead, he climbed again to the ground and patiently hunted an
immature running-horn which had been foolish enough to stray from its
herd. Poisoning the freshly-killed carcass with strips of a certain bark
pressed into incisions in the flesh, he hoisted the deadly gift on a length of
creeper and swung back into the great tree.

   From a convenient point above the bite-wing nest, he lowered the
carcass gently into the cracked branch and prayed that the occupants of
the nest would be content with the bait rather than come out to explore
the cause of the disturbance. He was fortunate. After an initial sortie,
during which they failed to discover him on the branch above, the
bite-wings swarmed back into their hole to feast on the warm, unearned
meal. An hour later, Bethschant knew the trick had been successful and
felt it was safe to continue his exploration of the tree.

   So far as he could tell, there were no flesh beetles present, and the only
sting-wings he saw were merely cruising past. High up, he chanced upon a
cradle of branches well suited as a sleeping platform. He spent the next
few hours scraping away all the bark from the branches of the platform so
that the night tendrils were destroyed and would have no chance to
penetrate his skin while he slept.

   Another worry was a fast-creeper, a parasitic vine which could grow ten
meters a day if it chose, and exhibited an almost human intelligence in
trapping and securing its prey. The fast-creeper had no roots other than
the myriad spines it used to puncture its hosts, whether animal or
vegetable; thus, it was impossible to inactivate it completely by attacking
any single point. He settled for cutting the vine so savagely and in so many
places that he destroyed any coordination it possessed. Some of the
fragments continued to reach out for him, but they were clumsy and
lacked directional sense, and would not trouble him even if they found him
asleep.

   Having cleared the worst of the resident perils, it was now necessary to
make the tree secure against climbing predators. Rawthorns grew close
by, like an entanglement of barbed wire. Though he hurt himself
attempting to cut some loose, he soon had a sufficient barrier to encircle
the bole of the tree to the height of several men. His own route for entering
and leaving the tree was along one vast overhanging bough, and this he
trimmed so that nothing could reach it which was less agile than himself.
Even then, he took aloft a string of rawthorn with which to seal the branch
during the night.

   With the resident and climbing predators now taken care of, he needed
protection against visiting flying things. To this end, he built a small fire
on the forest floor well under the canopy of the tree. Once it was
established, he heaped on it quantities of selected bark and roots, and let
the heavy aromatic smoke rise to fill the spacious cavity beneath the leafy
ceiling. Judicious damping and a good supply of bark would enable him to
keep the fire smoldering all night, and its heavily scented smoke would
deter most of the nocturnal winged beasties that might otherwise stray
into his camp.

   Finally he looked up and surveyed his handiwork proudly. When tied
onto the sleeping platform in the high branches amidst the curls of slowly
drifting smoke, he would experience the nearest approach to safe sleeping
which Avida had been known to offer. There was something immensely
satisfying about taking a piece of raw nature and fashioning it into a
tolerable habitat with his own knowledge and the skill of his own hands. A
stirring from the depths of his ancestry told him it was for such as this
that man had been created. This slight deflection of attention nearly cost
him his life.

   Like a streak of black lightning, something launched itself from a high
place behind him. Bethschant sensed its presence too late, and knew of its
movement only by the swift passage of a shadow across his path.
Desperately he threw himself aside, knowing that the yellowed razor claws
missed him by no more than the depth of the fine hairs on his body.
Unable to alter its course in mid-flight, the beast continued on its
trajectory until it touched the ground, then turned again to the attack,
almost faster than the eye could follow—but still too slowly. It ran
breast-on into Bethschant's spear blade, and such was the force of the
meeting that the shaft penetrated nearly halfway into its body. Its brain
was still insisting that the fight was not lost when it toppled, dead, in the
path.

   Amazed and shaken by the speed and unexpectedness of the encounter,
Bethschant inspected his prize. It was a sleek, black, sinuous animal with
a body weight twice his own. He did not recognize the species, but the
wickedly carnivorous teeth and terrible claws proclaimed it well suited to
the role of successful predator. The smooth black pelt and hint of
atrophied wings suggested that this was probably another of the
continually mutating creatures that came out of the badlands of the north.
This was confirmed by the spots of blood and saliva which shone with
unnatural luminescence in the shade beneath the brush. He backed away
hastily, knowing that the carcass meat would be dangerous to eat.
Reluctantly he left his spear, hopelessly embedded in the creature's body,
and went to hunt his supper with the aid of a short bow and a knife.

   Later, victorious if rather bruised by an encounter with a dominant
female running-horn that had tried to defend her plump suckling,
Bethschant tied himself happily to the high branches and plastered his
skin with sticky leaves to ward off the worst of the airborne sap which
drifted from neighboring trees. With a full stomach, the sweet taste of
blood on his lips, and the aromatic smoke curling around his nostrils, he
reflected that he had had a very successful day. The lure of the old life,
demanding though it was, had no counterpart in all the halls of Xzan. It
could be easy to forget that :he star worlds existed, and drift back into the
eternal and continuing challenge that was the way of life on Avida. Sadly,
however, he knew that he could not survive for long without a tribal group,
nor was there much point in trying to do so without a mate and a chance
to perpetuate his seed.

   Yet the call of Avida was strong, and Bethschant rested more content
that night than he had for several years. Tomorrow—or the day after—he
would start to collect materials to build a raft to cross the swamp and look
for the Terran. For this night, however, he embraced the old gods of Avida.
There was a harmony in the ritual which strengthened the ties between
him and his old mother planet, and as the two became one in his
consciousness, he drifted into a deep and dreamless sleep.

                      CHAPTER NINE
   Such was the will of the strange gods of Avida that the flight path of the
crashing spacebarge had been changed to an almost horizontal direction
in the seconds before the actual crash. Despite the conflict over the vessel's
trajectory, the reaction drive had remained operating, and the built-in
safety circuits had striven to keep the stresses within safe limits. The
vessel's remaining momentum had been spent in random brushes with the
springy tops of high trees, modifying the landing and cutting a broad
swath in the high foliage which marked the line of its progress to its final
dropping point. The barge had then slithered down through a nest formed
by four tall and resilient trees, only tens of meters from a torn and rocky
outcrop which would otherwise certainly have destroyed both ship and
occupants.

   Even so, their survival was a miracle. Sorting himself out from the
tangle of wraps and bodies, Bogaert anxiously noted that Miram and the
children appeared to have suffered no more than minor injuries. He
wrestled with the hatch, opened it, and peered down into the pod. Most of
the clamps had broken open, and the heap of torn cargo was a grim
pointer to what might have happened to anyone remaining below. The
ransad space-alloy hull had been extensively buckled by its bruising
passage through the treetops, and in one area a huge tear left a gap large
enough to admit the body of a man. Nevertheless, the protective
outriggers of the powerbarge had kept the whole structure approximately
vertical, and, wedged as they were between the trees, there was no fear
that the assemblage might topple.

   Bogaert climbed down into the pod, scrambled across the broken
stores, and peered out through the rent in the hull. He was faced by an
alienly beautiful forest scene, which showed their present position to be on
a slight slope which ran gently down to where he could discern a hint of
black, as if of swampland water. The whole scene was vibrant with life,
and the foliage was vivid with incredible blooms. This planet had been
chosen for the survival game, however, and Bogaert had no illusions about
the probable dangers inhabiting the apparently peaceful forest strip. If
Xzan and Oontara had wagered whole space territories on his ability to
survive such a place, it was likely to be a very tough
proposition—especially with a woman and two children, encumbrances
which the gamblers had not foreseen.

  Miram followed him down, assisting the descent of Prince Zim, who
had an open cut on his forehead.

  "Water—can you find us any water? And ointment?"

  Bogaert looked wryly around the wrecked pod.

   "There may be a medicine kit buried under that lot somewhere, but it'll
take a while to find. Tamp the blood flow with some clean cloth, and let
the clot seal itself. We have more important things to do first."

  "Leave the blood on his face?" Miram was aghast.

   "Time to clean it later. He won't die if it doesn't get infected. Until we
know what the local water's like, we don't dare risk using it for anything.
Better all of you start sorting these stores. We must know what our assets
are before nightfall."

    He waited for Anna to descend. She had been crying, and his heart
went out to her, but there were many important things to be done and
little time in which to do them.

    Thrusting his way back up into the cabin, he turned his attention to the
state of the power plant and the damaged cell by which he had terminated
its activity. He found the situation worse than he had feared. The impact
of the crash landing had virtually closed the plant down. Less than a
millionth of its original power was still available, and there was no
provision for its reactivation in the field. His hopes fell considerably,
because he knew too well the value of an efficient power supply in aiding
survival under adverse conditions.
   Stripping the cells from around the power plant was not an easy job,
and he did it only to find out whether it was possible for the unit to be
reactivated. After a struggle, he managed to gain access to the incredibly
small power plant itself, which harnessed some obscure principle of
relativity to permit mass-to-energy conversion with a power-to-weight
ratio still undreamt of by Terrestrial technology.

   He knew that the shutdown of the power plant had been designed in as
a safety feature to prevent the destructive liberation of its vast potential in
the event of a disaster. He also knew that the attention of skilled ransad
technicians could restore it to working order. Unfortunately, his
knowledge of that aspect of the alien technology was severely limited.
Although he understood the basic principles of the method, he had neither
the tools nor the training to perform the operation. The only power he was
able to draw from it was electricity for the emergency lighting, which, by
translating the Ortellian nameplate, he found had a value of about twelve
Terran volts of direct current.

   At this point it occurred to Bogaert that no sounds were coming from
the pod below, where the Kanizars were supposed to be sorting the stores.
With a sudden fear, he descended the rings and found Anna alone, gazing
fearfully through the rent in the hull.

   "Where's your mother and Zim?"

   "They went out—to get water. Zim's hurt his head."

   "Hell!" Bogaert looked for the nearest available weapon, which proved
to be an Ortellian ax, and forced his way through the rent. "Which way did
they go?"

   "Down there." Anna pointed the way through the brush to where a
slight clearing permitted a gleam of black water to show against the vivid
forest green. Forgetting discretion, Bogaert broke into a fast sprint toward
the point where even now he could hear Miram's voice rising in panic.

   "Zim! Zim! What've I done?"

   Some camouflaged animal moved under Bogaert's flying feet. He
continued running, reflecting that if the creature were going to attack, it
would already have done so. Moments later, he plunged down a bank and
found Miram and Zim. The boy was staggering away from his mother, his
hands covering his face, issuing frightened screams and moans.

  "What happened?" Bogaert swung Miram around roughly.

  "I tried to bathe his face with this."

   She held up a metal container full of what appeared to be dirty water.
Closer inspection showed that it writhed with a mass of hair-fine worms
whose ends even now probed out of the water and attempted to reach her
shaking hands.

   Bogaert seized Zim and wrenched the boy's hands away from his face.
As he feared, many dozens of the worms had penetrated the flesh and were
even now thickening and reddening as they sucked the living blood.
Swearing impiously, Bogaert looked around for something which would
burn. A dry, golden bush suggested itself as useful material. He tore off a
few twigs and ignited them in the discharge gap of his pocket igniter.
They flared readily and, when rubbed between his fingers, continued to
smolder.

   He applied a glowing splint to each of the reddening worms, and was
gratified to find that each contracted with a spasm and fell away, leaving
only a small red mark in the skin. So fine and so numerous were the
worms that it took him many minutes to be sure he had removed them all.
When he was finished, he turned his attention to Miram, who had gone
into a tearful frenzy, trying to brush the worms from her own arms and
hands. Soon she too was free of the creatures, and her frightened sobbing
began to abate. She turned to him gratefully.

  "Bogey, I—"

  "Later," said Bogaert. "Let's get back to the ship. Anna's alone, and I
don't think we've seen the worst of what's out here."

   He picked up the container of water and, holding it carefully by its
base, his fingers out of range of the probing hair-worms, he led the way
back to the stricken barge. Zim followed, pale and shaken, his face a mass
of red blotches in addition to his original cut, but apparently otherwise
unharmed. Miram, her arms bare and delicately pale, seemed to find
something new troubling her skin, and looked constantly and
apprehensively up into the great trees, as if seeking the source of the
irritation.
   Bogaert noticed something stinging his wrists and neck. His keen eyes
detected slight aerosol droplets, revealed in a shaft of sunlight viewed
against shade. These liquid particles were apparently being exuded from
the heights of the giant trees, and their action was a strong irritant to
human skin. Whether its effect would be mild or persistent he had yet to
learn, but the idea of a constant rain of alien fluid filled him with strong
and private fears.

   Before they were halfway along the path, Anna's piercing scream
cleaved the air. With his ax raised, Bogaert charged forward, to be
confronted by a fantastic creature like a large armor-clad rat which sat
snarling in the rent in the pod wall. At the sound of his approach, the
creature whirled to face him, with a speed faster than Bogaert's eyes could
follow, and its scorpionlike tail twitched in a blur. The Colonel viewed the
teeth and claws warily, and knew the creature's reaction speed precluded
any sane attempt to attack it with the ax.

   Zim stopped at his side, drew his ion gun, and sighted it at the
creature. Then, to insure no possibility of missing, he advanced a couple of
paces before squeezing the trigger. There was a click, but the weapon
failed to fire. In a blur of flying legs and snapping jaws, the creature
hurled itself across the intervening distance straight at Zim's throat.

  By some gift of inspiration, Bogaert's ax stroke intercepted the hurtling
body in mid-flight, and the ax blade bit deeply into the soft flesh under the
armor plate. A blue fluid spurted from the wound and spattered Bogart's
arms as he followed the stricken body to the ground and hacked at it until
most of its limbs were severed and its life gone.

   Meanwhile, Miram had run on to a tearful reunion with her frightened
daughter, and Zim, wan and aghast, was looking at the weapon which had
failed him. Wiping the blue life fluid of the creature from his arms in some
disgust, Bogaert motioned the boy into the pod and followed with his face
as stem as thunder.

  "A straight word, Miram. If you'd done as I'd asked, none of this would
have happened. Instead, we've all four been at risk without any gain. Don't
underestimate this place. Its choice was no accident. So until the three of
you learn how to survive under these conditions, you're going to damn well
have to take orders—my orders."

  "Nobody gives orders to Kanizars." Zim rose swiftly to his mother's
defense. "Least of all painted warriors."

   "To me, you aren't Kanizars. You're a family in need of protection. That
won't be easy to provide, so I'm going to tell you something you'll forget at
your peril. The next one who wanders off without permission takes the
consequences alone. I won't risk the group again to save an individual. Is
that clearly understood?"

  The assent was nodded rather than spoken. Bogaert scowled and held
out his hand. "Now let me see that ion gun."

   Zim surrendered the weapon meekly. Bogaert drew it apart and
examined the mechanism.

   "Must have been damaged in the crash. The control-store's fractured. I
can set it for single shots, but after each shot it'll take about ten minutes
to recharge. If you have to use it, better not miss. You might not get a
second chance."

  A cry from Miram brought a sudden shift of attention.

  "Something's burning my skin."

  "And mine," said Zim.

  "Anna?"

  "No-o."

   Then it must be the droplets from the big trees. I thought it was too
clean beneath them."

  "Too clean?" queried Miram.

   "Yes. No dead vegetation or anything left rotting. I'd guess the trees are
dropping some sort of digestive enzyme—something which converts dead
organic matter quickly into food for the roots."

  "You mean it's sort of eating us?"

  "Trying to."

  "But we aren't dead," protested Zim.
   "The outer layers of our skin is. Likewise hair and nails." He examined
the growing redness of Miram's arms and looked at his own. "Mine's a lot
less where that creature's blood splashed me. Which suggests the enzyme's
water-soluble. Spit on our arms and wipe it off with a cloth till I see what I
can do about the water from the swamp."

  "But that water's no good," said Miram. "It's got those things in it. And
what are we going to drink?"

   "Start working your way through those stores again.

  Look particularly for food, weapons, tools, and medicines. Zim, you
come help me with the water."

   "But the worms…" The lad touched his face anxiously.

   "Given the water, well find a way of dealing with the worms. Now
everybody get busy. We've a lot to do before nightfall, and we've lost a lot
of time already."

   Bogaert took his ax, and Zim his ion gun. Very warily this time, the two
of them moved off through the clearing toward the dark water. After his
recent outburst, Zim had accepted the Terran's leadership without further
question. Now he was becoming curious about the alien Colonel who had
no awe of Kanizars.

   "Don't Terrans ever carry guns?"

   "Frequently we do—but not when we're supposed to be on duty in
friendly territory. It might give the wrong impression. We don't dare risk
being confused with warriors."

   "What's wrong with warriors?"

   "Warriors destroy—but only man creates. Destruction's a negation of all
that makes man unique."

  "If that's what they call the new logic, I don't think much of it. I'll be a
warrior, like my father."

  "And I've no doubt you'll be a good one. But by the time you've
conquered the galaxy, Terra will have conquered the intergalactic drive.
Well have access to as many galaxies as you'll have access to stars. So
whose logic is the stronger?"

   The boy obviously considered this a piece of homespun idiocy, and
crouched like a wary protector to cover Bogaert as he took cans to the
edge of the water and filled them.

   This was the first time that Bogaert had had a close view of the swamp.
The sight impressed him only with a feeling of hopelessness. Both the
depths and the surface of the water were alive with life in constant conflict
Fantastic insects darted and preyed on the water dwellers and were
themselves picked out of the air by leaping serpents' tongues or fast-flying
scavengers; even the well-armored and the quick probably survived as a
species more by virtue of fast breeding than by any ad-vantage in attack
or defense. The whole pattern of life boded no good for any species late
maturing or with a long gestation period. Small wonder that, on Avida,
man had not achieved his usual dominance.

   Now that he was conscious of the pitch of the life-and-death struggle,
Bogaert began to discern evidence of it on all sides. Nothing was neutral.
It was a pattern of kill or be killed, eat or be eaten, multiply or become
extinct. Individuals had no value except for their contribution to the food
chain. Survival was a continuing battle against the most staggering odds,
and death was the penalty for a moment of inattention. If there was a
moral to be learned from his observations, it was that he only sure method
of defense was continued and unremitting attack.

   Their return to the pod was uneventful, but Bogaert's face grew
increasingly stern when he saw the nature of the stores. The colonist's kit
had been "edited." The basic survival rations intended to take a colonist
through the acclimatization period had been omitted; likewise the weapon
pack, the water-treatment plant, fuel pellets, and the medicine bags. The
remaining stores consisted of seeds and dry beans, agricultural
instruments, materials, tools, and an assortment of ransad technical
pieces which had presumably formed part of some communications
package, the rest of which was missing.

   Bogaert looked at the duty, bruised, thirsty, and hungry faces of his
companions and back at the poor assortment of things which were their
sole possessions. Behind him, something prowled inquisitively close to the
rent in the pod wall. The piteous cry of an animal nearby falling into the
jaws of an enemy was a pointed comment on the dangers which awaited
them. The hairy net of worms reaching out for his fingers over the edge of
the water can was a potent reminder that they had not even achieved a
source of the barest essentials of life.

   "Adaptation's the keynote of survival," said Bogaert reflectively. "Either
you adapt to suit your environment, or you adapt it to suit you. I propose
to take the latter course. We may never win against Avida, but we're going
to have a damn good try. We'll pick up the problems as they come, and
concentrate on staying alive. The one spark of hope is Commissioner
Rounding. When Hilary finds we're missing, he'll stir the galaxy itself until
he finds out where we are."

                       CHAPTER TEN
   As Camin Sher came to count the cost of his attack on Meon, his face
grew increasingly sour and his capacity for vengeance increasingly great.
The battle had lost him twelve warships, including his own flagship, fully a
third of his attack force on this mission, and represented a loss of twenty
thousand trained star warriors. That such havoc had been caused by a
mere handful of small patrol vessels raised something very bitter in his
throat.

   Now, however, his target ships had neutralized the fiercest of the
ground defenses, and threats of massive destruction had been delivered to
the more highly populated areas. Finally, all resistance died. The
Pretender ordered his great ships down to strategic points, reserving his
present craft and one other to make planetfall on the pads of the twin
fortresses of Andor and Ute, which stood between the Field of Perfection
and Kanizar's own establishment.

   It should have been a proud moment—arriving in triumph to take over
the castle of the King of Kings— but the losses had taken the edge off the
victory. Something about the final acquiescence of the garrison made Sher
nervous in case he was being tricked or cheated. It was therefore with
caution and a great deal of unnecessary brutality that the Pretender finally
arrived at the throne.

   He gave orders that Miram and the Kanizar heirs be brought to him. As
was his practice, he offered a rich reward to whoever should succeed in
this endeavor. After twelve hours of frustration, he doubled the reward
and listened furiously to bearer after bearer of conflicting rumor and
speculation, all of which proved to be without foundation. There were no
clear clues as to the whereabouts of the Empress Kanizar or her children.

   Then somebody made a positive find. Two members of Kanizar's
council were located in hiding, and with them was old Sashu, Kanizar's
chancellor and confidante. Camin Sher ordered them slowly tortured until
they broke and revealed the whereabouts of the missing Kanizars. He
himself attended the atrocities, insistent that none should be allowed to
die before the truth was known. All three held their secret to the end of
their lives. The look of agonized triumph on old Sashu's face's he passed
away upset Sher's stomach and completed the sense of defeat in the midst
of victory.

   By this time circumstantial evidence was being acquired. The
destination of a freighter which left just before the Pretender's arrival was
found to be Tenarensor on Ortel. That the Empress and her children had
gone by this route nobody then bothered to deny. Even with his best ships,
Sher could not reach Ortel before the freighter docked, and although the
Pretender was tolerated in the realms of Oontara, his visit would be on
sufferance and his use of arms forbidden.

   Everyone assumed that King Oontara would become Miram's protector,
because Sashu's injunction to the contrary had been communicated to
none but the Empress herself. In a towering rage, the Pretender ordered
his fleet back into space, spurred by his urgent need to destroy the Kanizar
heirs and mindful that the mighty Kam Kanizar himself would now be on
his way home, hot with vengeance. The garrison mistook Sher's hasty
departure for a rout, and rose in armed rebellion, which cost Sher a
further thousand warriors. The natural space-borne retribution which
such insurrection would normally have earned was foregone by the
departing fleet, k-.t Kanizar's vengeful forces be nearer than they
supposed.

   When they neared Oontara's star territory, Camin Sher had his fleet
stand well off in space. It was provocative and dangerous to attempt to
take a star fleet into the territory of a king as powerful as Oontara.
Instead, Sher took a single ship through to the spaceport at Tenarensor
and, having been formally identified, was granted permission to make
planetfall. The Pretender found the protocol galling. He determined, if he
succeeded Kanizar, to make Oontara pay for the indignity. For the
moment, however, polite compliance with Oontara's wishes was the surest
way to his goal.
   Even before he sought an audience with Oontara, the Pretender
contacted his own network of spies and sympathizers, and learned from
them two things which improved his hopes considerably. Miram and the
Kanizar heirs had definitely arrived on Ortel and had gone not to Oontara
but to one Manu Kan, a powerful merchant and friend of Kanizar himself.
Second, the Pretender's own sycophant, the star lord Xzan, was currently
visiting Oontara's court, and had the direct ear of the star king.

    Taken together, these two pieces of news pleased Camin Sher greatly.
He had to operate warily while on Ortellian soil. Oontara was unlikely to
countenance the murder or abduction of Kanizar's kin from his own
sovereign territory, but action against the merchant might be practical if
it could be done discreetly. Having Xzan as a willing ally in the Tenarensor
court could be useful in case things went wrong.

   The Pretender sought and was granted an audience with Oontara. He
exchanged star gossip and had rooms placed at his disposal, but
mentioned nothing of the real purpose of his visit Oontara, who listened
attentively to every whisper of rumor around his halls, made an astute
guess that the Pretender had not come visiting for social reasons or for
trade. Nevertheless, the star king kept his ideas to himself, but later
summoned Manu Kan, the merchant, to come to him privately.

   "Manu, we've known each other long enough to be able to speak with
the true meaning of words. Therefore, listen to what I have to say. Politics
and intrigue are the concern of kings. I don't sell or barter goods. Why,
then, do you meddle in politics?"

  "My Lord, I don't think I understand."

  "You understand well enough. Why does the Pretender come seeking
goods you've no intention of selling?"

   Manu Kan was a huge man with a tanned and open face. Behind his
apparently simple and picturesque exterior was an experienced and
calculating mind fully a match for Oontara's. His initial show of perplexity
changed to one of bland relief.

  "My Lord, the Pretender wastes his time. The consignment he seeks
was but goods in transit. It's long since been transshipped to Terra."

  "A strange choice of destination—though I'm glad to hear it. But the
Pretender's intelligence is seldom at fault. How come he still seeks goods
which are unavailable?"

  "With respect, my Lord, commercial security's a tighter school than the
whispering galleries of court."

   "That's a certainty!" said Oontara heavily. "But repeat the assurance
that we've nothing here to interest the Pretender."

   "Did I not load the consignment with my own hands? It was very late at
night, and there were few who could be trusted with so delicate a task."

   "I'll accept that, Manu. But any troubles you meet as a result of playing
star politics are troubles you've brought upon yourself. If the Pretender's
sympathizers attack you, I grant you right of arms in defense. But don't
involve the Ortellian Guard. Officially, none of this ever happened."

   "I understand, my Lord Oontara. And thank you for your kind interest
in the details of my trade."

   "Don't thank me yet. You've strayed into kings' business. I've a mind to
teach you a lesson. The cost of whatever complications arise you'll find
added to your taxes. Come, Manu, take wine with me. Perhaps tomorrow
you'll be able to afford none of your own."

   Meanwhile, Camin Sher was making little progress. He soon found that
money was insufficient to encourage his sympathizers to attack the
strongholds of Manu Kan. The Merchant's reputation for close security
and strong defense was almost a legend in Tenarensor, nor was anyone
agreed as to which of Manu's establishments might house the missing
trio.

   In desperation, Camin called on the sycophantic Xzan, who saw in the
Pretender a powerful patron in his struggle to win kingship. Xzan was
overjoyed to be of service. If the Pretender succeeded in his quest, the
sycophant could be in a very favorable position.

  "You've already spoken to Oontara?" he asked Sher.

  "I spoke guardedly. He's no man to take part in a plot against Kanizar."

  "Oontara softens considerably since his flirtation with Terra. He's no
longer the star demon we used to know. Have you seen that bark he
bought from Terra? A tiny, ornate toy. He could've had a ransad warship
from his own weapon shops for less than half the price. Thus he buys
himself into favor with these whelps and mewlings of the galaxy."

   "They call them the terrible infants," said Sher doubtfully. "I'd not care
to invoke their wrath. But we stray from the point What can you find out
about the Empress Miram and her Utter?"

   "Whatever's to be known I'll find. Oontara's lost his craftiness. He talks
too much when full of wine. I already know that after your audience with
him he called the merchant Manu Kan and they had talks in private.
Oontara was not displeased with the result."

   "What does that suggest?"

   "Seeing how soft Oontara's become, I'd guess Miram and the spawn of
Kanizar aren't still on Ortel. With you in Tenarensor and Kanizar soon in
pursuit, there's no other circumstance that could make Oontara lie easily
in bed."

   "That makes sense, Xzan. It also explains why no spies have been able
to trace their whereabouts. But if they've left, I must know where they
went."

   "If Oontara knows—and I suspect he does—well have his secret out.
Tonight I fete and feast him. I'll give him wine until his eyeballs show the
level of it. I'll lend him my softest concubine, who'll leave him so sated he'll
think his manhood's fled. Then he'll talk and have no guard on what he
says."

  "I should think he'd go to sleep on you. Still, I leave it to you. Find
where Miram's gone, and it'll count much store for you."

   "I seek no reward, my Lord Sher. Only to be of service to the galaxy's
true king."

   "I recall you making the same noises once to Kanizar. I prefer
intelligent self-interest to loyalty. Loyalties change, but self-interest's a
predictable constant."

   During the night, the Pretender was awakened by his guards. They
brought a drunk and stupefied Xzan to his bedside.

  Sher shook him roughly. "What's the answer? Did Oontara speak?"

  Xzan swayed mightily, and would have fallen had he not been
supported by the soldiers' arms. His voice was thick and infinitely tired.

   "Oontara had the evening… of his life. Then he said, "Xzan, old friend…
I hope you're doing all this for the love of me. If you want to know where
the Kanizars have gone, you need only ask. They've gone to Terra. Not even
the Pretender can touch them there."

   "Terra?" This was a blow Camin Sher had not anticipated. No star
monarch had ever attacked a Terran installation and escaped without the
most hideous of losses. Sher had proved this point at his own cost. Yet the
mild-seeming Terrans seemed to bear no enmity, and continued to spread
the gospel of federation and the new logic to friend and foe alike. Nor had
any spy ring or system of espionage ever made effective penetration of the
home planet. Sher sensed that he was beaten, but needed to think about
the implications. The swaying Xzan was a positive distraction. Sher
motioned to his guard.

  "Take him away and lay him somewhere to sleep it off. I'll see him
again when he's sober."

   The inebriated Xzan, slurring mild protests, was assisted from the
room and laid on a couch in the corridor. There his welfare was taken over
by a short, fat man in a white suit, named Hilary Rounding, who began
inquiring solicitously about the wrongs the day had brought to the noble
Lord Xzan.

                  CHAPTER ELEVEN
   From his growing appreciation of the ever-present dangers, Bethschant
judged that his acclimatization to Avida was nearly complete. In the past
few days he had made very few mistakes, and though he knew
complacency was equated with death, he now felt sufficiently confident to
abandon his tree camp.

   From the top of his tree he had daily surveyed the direction taken by
the crashing barge, wondering if it was possible that the Terran Colonel
had survived. The prospect seemed unlikely, but Bethschant's own interest
prompted him to make the journey to prove the point. In any case, the
terms of his assignment made it necessary for him to complete any
death-dealing that Avida left unfinished. He therefore turned his attention
to gathering materials for the raft he would need to make the journey
across the swamp.

   Finding cane was no problem. The difficulty lay in finding cane
sufficiently dried so that the resin had been driven out to glaze the surface
and render it waterproof. Shortly after attaining a suitable level of glaze,
the material became susceptible to the acid sap from the trees, and was
rapidly digested to a useless fragility. Again and again he risked the
razor-sharp leaf edges only to have the precious tubes crumble to powder
at his touch.

   All day he worked patiently at the task, stopping only to hunt when he
saw an easy prospect or to retreat when the natural dangers proved too
great. By evening he had most of the cane he needed, and he piled it
regretfully on the ground, knowing that by morning much of it would have
succumbed to the rot and he would have to start gathering again.

   Returning to his tree, he felt a pang of disloyalty to Avida as his
thoughts turned longingly to the imperishable boats used on the star
worlds. Then something reminded him that his raft was a way of life,
whereas a boat was an impersonal ancillary. Few star-worlders outside
those who worked in the great black mills had the knowledge or the skill to
build their own vessels, and those who did took their methods solely from
the ransad texts. In contrast, Bethschant's own brain and hands had to
supply everything he needed for the job. The gods assured him that he
should be proud of being a one-man civilization, and he tied himself to the
tree and fell asleep with a smile of honest satisfaction on his face.

   In the morning, a rare wind broke the tranquility of the forest, and
another creature from the badlands worried his canepile, scenting human
flesh but unable to find its location. Bethschant stayed out of the way. The
creature was far too powerful to engage in needless combat. Its flesh
would be dangerous to eat, so he did not need to kill it for food.

   Nevertheless, the creature's visit worried him. This was the third
badlands animal he had encountered in five days. Their numbers were
increasing, and they were spreading farther south in search of food. This
was a radical change from the old days, and a reminder that the
remorseless march of evolution had still not produced a dominant animal
on Avida. There was a bitterness in Bethschant's heart as he reflected that
whereas man had dominance on so many worlds, the human population of
Avida had been forced down to an insignificant animal level. The legends
had it that this had not always been so, but that the sons of Avida had
somehow lost their way in the unending struggle to survive.

   After a couple of hours, the creature grew tired of seeking a quarry it
could smell but not locate. It finally charged off through the bushes after a
fleeting wildfoot, leaving Bethschant to hunt his breakfast and examine
his pile of canes. By the time he had made good the overnight wastage and
begun to plait his raft, the day was already well advanced, and it was far
later than he would normally have considered prudent for such a venture.
However, if he delayed another night, even more of his cane would have
rotted, and once the plaiting had been started, replacement would be
difficult or impossible. Viewing the tall shoulder of an island jutting out of
the swamp, he determined to reach at least that far before nightfall.

   As soon as the raft was finished, he gathered his possessions together.
The spear which he had lost had now been replaced by a shaft which was
longer and lighter than the original. He carefully checked the poison on its
tip to insure that it was still fresh and active. His other weapons had their
appointed places on the raft, where he could find them without an
instant's hesitation. The long-knife hung from a plaited girdle around his
waist, always within swift reach of his fingers; his precious flints were
strung around his neck for safety; and some ribbons of dried meat and
half a shell of ash-filtered water made his preparations complete.

   With one last wistful look at the tree which had served him so well,
Bethschant took up a length of heavy cane and began to push his fragile
craft out onto the shallow waters. He immediately became absorbed by
the need to find deeper water. Because of the shallow tides, some of the
clumps of weedbed were partially submerged, and the thick black water
did much to conceal their presence. The task was not eased by the ribbon
worms, whose flat external stomachs surfaced in response to any
disturbance, giving the appearance of shallows where there were actually
depths.

   Patiently but persistently, because the sun was growing low, Bethschant
leaned to his task. To be trapped on the swamp after nightfall would prove
fatal, because the night creatures were even more fearful than those of the
day. Long ago in childhood he had lain and listened with dread to the
sound of talking-pipe, whose eerie resonance was uncommonly like
snatches of human conversation. Legend had it that just before it killed,
talking-pipe repeated its victim's name three times. Bethschant was not
sure. It had shouted his name quite plainly and often in the night, but had
not killed him yet.

   Among other nocturnal visitors were the hover-ghosts, said to be the
hunters of men's souls. Whether they were a single creature or a
composite of many was uncertain. These man-sized fluorescent specters
floated jauntily over the dark waters, hindered by neither weapon nor
brush. It was- Bethschant's private speculation that they were swarms of
luminous flies. Perhaps it was the terror these apparitions evoked on
approach which caused men to leap from safe places, to be swallowed by
the swamp. He doubted very much that the ghosts were the harbingers of
death, but their ability to locate a frightened man in hiding was
something he n over could explain.

    His present dangers were more tangible, if no less severe. Brilliantly
colored sting-wings were everywhere, fluttering and darting around the
weed clumps. The quantity of poison a single sting-wing could inject was
sufficient to cause immediate paralysis in a man. In his path there were
literally hundreds, and his surest defense against them was itself a
dangerous maneuver.

    With a single push of his pole, he directed the raft toward a small
sting-wing swarm. Then he took up his long-knife and waited until he had
drifted close enough to attract the swarm's notice. When they attacked, he
was ready with his knife, striking in a swift pattern which took advantage
of the creatures' broad wing span. In seconds, and with an amazing skill,
he had dewinged about a dozen, and their bright carcasses, many of them
still alive, adorned the platform of the raft. From then on, the sight and
smell of the carnage would deter any others, and he was relatively safe
from sting-wing attack until the carcasses had dried.

    If he was fortunate with the sting-wings, he was less than lucky with the
fibrous swamp life. He was yet only halfway across, and already the fibroid
life attached to the underside of the raft had made it heavy and sluggish
and dangerously low in the water. Worse still, fine writhing tentacles were
beginning to penetrate the plaiting and attack his feet and ankles. He
could deal with these blind growths easily enough while he had only them
to contend with, but if his attention was diverted by any other danger,
they would become a serious menace with their virtually inexhaustible
appetite for blood.

   A new attack came sooner than he had anticipated, and was nearly
fatal. As he was passing over what his pole told him was a particularly
deep area of water, he felt something move as the pole struck down.
Knowing that he had disturbed and probably angered some sizable water
creature, he shelved the pole and snatched up his spear with his right
hand, while his left took the knife.

    Even thus prepared, he nearly missed the loathsome noduled tentacles
which rose silently out of the water behind him and made to encircle his
waist. As soon as his alert senses noted the movement of its shadow, he
turned on it, hacking with the knife and jabbing with the spear at where
he hoped the muscle might be. Crippled and foreshortened, the tentacle
fell back, but another twenty rose to grasp the raft in its entirety, and
began to crush it as fingers might crush a handful of straw. His only hope
lay in the spear with which he probed down, seeking the great creature
below and trying to reach some vital point of its body. He met with
dangerously little success.

   It was unexpected allies which saved him. As the raft was crushed,
several dead or near-dead sting-wings were caught between the writhing
gray tentacles of the water beast. The paralytic venom was still active, and
some of the fluid from their vicious needles penetrated the water beast's
flesh. Soon the tentacles slowed and stiffened, leaving Bethschant with the
job of trying to extricate the mashed raft from the horrific death-locked
fingers.

   By the time he had succeeded in this, both he and the raft were in a
very sad state. The raft was waterlogged and barely able to support his
weight, all his protective sting-wing carcasses had been washed away, the
creeping fibroid tentacles had stripped considerable areas of skin from his
ankles, and his blowpipe and throwing stick had floated away. Somehow,
by blind force of will and a refusal to be daunted by any further injuries or
attacks, Bethschant poled his floating mess toward the island. In the
fading light his eyes had spotted a patch of firebushes on the shore, and it
was to this point of the island that he desperately worked his way.

   It was full darkness as he finally dragged himself through the living
slime and up the bank. Fortunately, I lie firebushes were plentiful and
readily responsive as finder. He dragged a dozen of them out by the roots
and threw them together, setting them on fire to sterilize a sleeping place.
He pulled out glowing splints from the aping flames and used them to help
dislodge the numerous fleshworms and similar parasites he had acquired
on his skin during the crossing. Then he made a filter of crushed embers,
treated some swamp water, and drank thirstily while he waited for his
sleeping space to become tolerably cool. Rather than cut an overcover, he
rolled his sticky, sweating body in the warm gray ash, placed his spear
between his knees, ready for instant use, and promptly went to sleep.

   So complete was his exhaustion that although talking-pipe called:
"Bethschant! Bethschant! Bethschant!" monotonously across the water,
and the hover-ghosts sought him silently through the bushes, he was
aware of none of this. He was a son of Avida, and had done his duty for the
day—obeyed the precept to survive. With that done, the gods could ask no
more of him. They could repay such fidelity by guarding his journey
through to morning's light.

                  CHAPTER TWELVE
    Their first night on Avida had been miserable and critical. Drinking
water was their primary need. Straining the water they had collected from
the swamp through the finest filter he could improvise, Bogaert obtained
an amber liquid certainly too biologically contaminated to be considered
for drinking. Outside the pod, he lit a fire and heated some of the strained
water in a metal canister. This probably effected some degree of
sterilization, but the resultant liquid was salt and sour to the taste, and
still not drinkable. He allowed the others to dip their fingers in it when
cool and use it to wipe their skins to relieve the intolerable itching caused
by the aerosol rain from the trees.

   Hunting through the stores which Miram had organized, he found a
spouted vessel with a lid, and a length of flexible metal tube. With these he
managed to produce a crude and inefficient air-cooled still, but at least
the clear liquid which dripped out contained nothing more noxious than
rust. By nightfall the apparatus had produced about a large thimbleful of
water each— enough to moisten the mouth but not to quench the thirst.
Then all the water was gone, and it was too dark and dangerous to make
another journey to the swamp that day.

   Bogaert encouraged the others to go up into the cabin to sleep, while he
took Zim's gun and stayed on guard near the rent in the hull. He occupied
the time trying to assess what best he could do to ensure their survival
with the facilities available to him. A more efficient and continuous still
was his first priority. In this connection, he remembered the electrical
output available from the ransad power unit. By the dim illumination of
the emergency light, he found what appeared to be some resistance wire
in one of the ransad technical crates. The necessary length of wire would
have to be determined empirically, but he was sufficiently confident of the
value of the find to go on to construct an air-cooled condenser made out of
seed cans, of which he had a reasonable supply. A rough calculation
suggested that with this apparatus and a degree of luck, he could probably
produce about twenty liters of water a day—enough for at least their
immediate needs.

   With the others having a sorely-needed sleep, he was reluctant to go up
to the cabin to experiment with the electrical part of the system. Instead,
he completed the rest of the still as far as he was able. Then he rested on a
pile of sacks, intending to remain awake until morning, when he could
attempt to free the door hatch, which had become jammed in the crash,
and close the rent in the wall. Sleep took him unawares. He woke in a
panic as something black and snarling moved sinuously inside the broken
hull.

   Even in sleep, he had made his hand retain the ion pun, pointing
toward the open hole. As his eyes focused, he fired, knowing as he did so
that he had only one chance. The whipcrack thunder and flare dazed and
blinded him, but the sinuous creature must have divined his intent and
escaped a hairsbreadth before the beam struck. His shot drilled a neat
hole in the hull but k ft no carcass to show for the endeavor. Even then, he
was not aware how dangerous had been his lapse into sleep until he found
that the tip of his left shoe had been sheared off by amazing teeth, missing
his toes by an uncomfortably small amount. The dawning shock caused a
buzzing in his ears as he contemplated just how sharp the teeth must have
been and how incredibly powerful the jaws that drove them. He knew he
was more than fortunate to still have a foot.

  Zim, disturbed by the noise, had raised the cabin hatch and was
peering down" anxiously. Miram was looking over his shoulder.

  "You all right, Colonel Bogey?"

  "Only just." Bogaert knew his voice sounded ragged, but his vocal cords
were taut. While he had no wish to alarm them, he was incapable of
concealing his shock at the narrowness of his escape from injury. "Better
you all stay up there while I check around. There was an animal in here,
and it may still be hiding."

  "I'll help you."

   Despite Bogaert's warning injunction, Zim clambered down the rings.
His presence brought a comforting sense of camaraderie to Bogaert.
Suddenly he was no longer alone with the problems. His role had been
recast as elder of the tribe. Admittedly, it was a very small tribe, but the
essential principles remained. Now Zim stood beside him, the younger
element, anxious to learn and share in the defense. The others, too, would
have their parts to play.

  "What're we looking for?" asked Zim.

   "Black furry thing about as big as my forearm. I don't know if it's still
here or it ran off. We'd better check the stores carefully. Watch out for its
teeth."

    Waiting for the ion gun to reprime itself, he handed it to Zim and took
up an Ortellian long-knife. As they started a wary approach on the stores,
a fleeting body, arm-thick and moving with incredible speed, shot out
from beneath a sack of beans. Before Zim had had time to raise his useless
weapon, Bogaert's knife had cleaved the body into sections. Blood was
spattered wide on the yellow sacks.

   Almost immediately, a further half dozen of the creatures emerged,
burrowing their way out of sacks and boxes with a rapidity which was
frightening. Zim discarded his gun and seized an ax. For the next fifteen
minutes, the two of them hacked and chopped in the direction of anything
that moved, mainly without effect but finally winning the exhausting
battle. Examination of the corpses revealed a hairy, tubelike animal with
fully a hundred spindly legs and a set of jaws at one end which justified
the caution of their approach.

   Sweating, and spattered with blood, Bogaert and Zim grinned at each
other in triumph. In the course of the battle, they had completely
disordered the stores again, and done much incidental damage with their
weapons. Bogaert was concerned that the rent in the hull was still open to
further intruders, but until he could free the door hatch for human access,
he dared not attempt to bend the space alloy back into place. A rising
crescendo of alien animal noises outside suggested the approach of
morning, and the due lightening of the sky was their introduction to the
first real day of the survival game.

   Bogaert's first action was to complete his water still. As in other areas
where the alien technology ran parallel to Terran, the ransad use of
electricity followed from the same basic principles. However, the
components and methods used were complex and strange. Having
determined which output nibs were responsible for powering the
emergency lighting supply, Bogaert found it necessary to abandon any
ideas of using the original ransad circuitry, and was forced to wire in a
new circuit of his own. This was complicated by the fact that he had no
insulated wire, only a supply of stiff, drawn-metal thread possibly
intended for making fences.

   He was able to succeed with this circuit solely because the low voltage
of the supply made no great demands on the quality of the insulation.
Using pieces of cloth and sacking, he was able to keep the wires from
snorting together. Zim covered him with the ion gun while he set up his
apparatus just outside the hull. The wire proved to have the necessary
resistance, and from it he was able to fashion a crude heater and secure it
beneath his still in a bed of stones. The next step was to obtain some more
water, with which to test the apparatus. Eying the uninviting trail that led
to the swamp, Bogaert was conscious of the dangers which attended every
step. Visibility and mobility were the things needed most. Starting out
with Zim and several large canisters converted to water holders with long
string handles, Bogaert tested the foliage for its ability to burn as it stood.
Most was too moist and fleshy, but selected groups of bushes of a
particularly dry texture took fire readily and burned with a heat which
dried and charred some of the surrounding vegetation. Thus it was that in
the course of their progress down to the swamp they considerably
broadened the previous trail and gave themselves a more adequate view of
potential danger. Indeed, their success was such that Bogaert determined
to clear as large an area as possible as soon as time allowed.

   By a combination of design and luck, the electric still worked well. They
now had sufficient drinking water, but little to spare for washing—which
was becoming a necessity because the rain of airborne sap droplets was
continuous. The supply of wire was insufficient to build a second still, but
Bogaert determined to build a sun-heated still when their more urgent
problems had been overcome.
   Having tested the emergency lighting with the still in operation and
found no discernible drop in the voltage, Bogaert had reasoned that he
had plenty of power in reserve. For this piece of good fortune he
immediately found a use. The extent of their fire-raising activities on the
way to the swamp had completely exhausted the fuel in his lighter.
Lacking native skill in fire-making, they were now without means of
making fire, although, with a short piece of the resistance wire hooked
into the circuit, he could produce sufficient heat to ignite a mat of tinder.
The Colonel regarded a continuing fire as a good deterrent against
marauding creatures and a way of gradually clearing the undergrowth
from around the barge.

   The next problem was food—not obtaining it, for fruits, berries, and
tubers grew in fleshy abundance, but knowing what might and might not
be safe to eat. Since the flora was indigenous, all previous experience with
similar-looking plants on other worlds could be discounted. Bogaert had
therefore set Miram to watch carefully since the early morning to see if
she could discover which plants provided food for the animals and which
were avoided. Even with this information, there was still no certainty that
the human stomach would be adapted to digest it, and it was a certainty
that some animals would be able to tolerate vegetable poisons which
humans could not. Nevertheless, it was the only way to start.

  The results of Miram's observations were interesting.

   Something very fleeting, with large razor-sharp horns, had disturbed an
area of loam beneath a tree and eaten avidly of the white nodules it
uncovered between the roots. Bogaert secured some of the nodules and
tasted one with caution. It would have made a creditable ink eraser, but
was tough, gritty, and utterly without taste. He boiled a few in a little of
the distilled water, and they softened to a starchlike consistency with a
faintly aromatic odor. There was no way of telling whether this starch
paste, as they called it, had any human food value, but the cautious
consumption of a small portion produced no ill effects. In the absence of
any better information, they decided to include it in their diet along with
boiled beans and dried nuts from the stores.

   A second of Miram's observations led Bogaert to concentrate on a spiny
cactuslike plant whose skin showed the ravages of many creatures small
enough to penetrate between the spines. Small stem bulges, carefully
peeled and quartered, yielded a sweet, pithy fruit reminiscent of melon.
The sticky liquid it exuded was undoubtedly a form of sugar. They called it
sugar fruit and, to prove it was acceptable to all manner of creatures, laid
small portions out on leaves at the edge of the swamp track, where it was
quickly eaten by a whole range of passing animals.

   The finding of two apparently edible substances in such close proximity
greatly improved Bogaert's views about their potential food supply.
Contrary to his fears, many of the indigenous life forms seemed to have a
body chemistry closely related to the galactic norm—a common
occurrence on most of the inhabited star worlds. That the other contestant
in the survival game was a native of the planet suggested human-utilizable
food chains, which should logically include at least a proportion of the
animals. The promise of meat was very welcome, but they had already
achieved a subsistence diet, and the Colonel's next priority was defense
rather than hunting.

   It proved more difficult than he had supposed to close the rent in the
ransad alloy hull. The curious thing about the alloy was that, although it
bent, it did not become stretched in the process. When he finally managed
to apply sufficient leverage to spring the torn metal back into place, it
closed the gap completely, and one could detect where the tear had been
only if one knew of its previous existence.

   Reopening the door hatch was easier. An outrigger had split a tree
during their descent, and the fragmented wood was pressed hard against
the outside of the door. With an ax, he chopped away the entire tree, while
Zim stood with the pistol to guard him in case of attack. The thing that
impressed Bogaert was that the pod, after the enormous stresses of the
crash, was still in remarkably good shape. That it had been constructed by
star craftsmen working religiously according to the ransad texts was a
tremendous tribute to the unknown compilers of the ancient manuals,
both for their knowledge and for their ability to communicate.

   At the end of the first day, Bogaert had taken stock of their
achievements and deficiencies. They now had some known foodstuffs and
the promise of more. They had clean water for drinking, although not
enough for bathing. They had a tolerable shelter, but were critically
lacking in means of defense and knowledge of then- environment. Their
retention of the powerbarge and its power unit was a factor which stood
greatly in their favor. Zim's gun, limited though it was, was another asset
the game's designers had not foreseen—but Bogaert knew they must be
wary of complacency. To relax even for a short period could be fatal.

   The lesson was clear: they, like the creatures of Avida, could survive
only by a continued and unremitting attack on the problems created by
their environment. They would have to press every advantage to the limit,
and make their own advantages where none came naturally. Only in this
way could they gain a tactical reserve of time and resources which could
aid them when the survival game turned its more deadly tokens.

   Throughout the succeeding days, this principle of defense by attack
became paramount. With Zim to cover him, Bogaert deliberately cleared a
wide area around the ship, firing what was immediately combustible and
chopping down that which was not. It was difficult and dangerous work.
Several attacks by animals were defeated only by Zim's weapon and his
hair-fine sensitivity, which enabled him to anticipate trouble shortly
before it made itself manifest.

   Having cleared most of the trees and brush from the immediate area,
they had better access to strong sunlight Bogaert stripped the plastic
domes from a couple of the instrument cells, and made a crude
sun-powered still, which provided a welcome supplement to their water
supply and gave them enough for an occasional wash.

   Throughout this period, Miram showed something of the mettle of
which star royalty was made. Recognizing that Bogaert was both mentor
and protector, she made a particular point of relieving him of as many
jobs as she could. She was remarkably quick at learning, and the mantle of
her upbringing dropped swiftly from her shoulders as she fought
strenuously with the most menial of tasks, and even masked her revulsion
at skinning and gutting the small animals which began to be caught in
Bogaert's snares. Her transition from a court ornament to a tough human
animal fighting for the survival of herself and her children revealed to
Bogaert a little of what old Sashu had known when he had sent the trio
unaccompanied from Meon.

               CHAPTER THIRTEEN
   So great was Bethschant's exhaustion after the swamp crossing that he
awoke to find the sun signaling midday through the leafy cover of the
great trees. He rose painfully and examined his injuries and abrasions.
Most were responding adequately to the natural ability of his body to
repair itself, but there were angry places on his legs which would be slow
to heal unless he could find a salve. As usual on Avida, herbs suitable for
the purpose were growing in close abundance. He beat the leathery leaves
with a stone to bring the sap to the surface before he bound them around
his legs with pieces of vine.

   The raft had been almost entirely absorbed by the living slime under
the bank. Bethschant viewed this disinterestedly, it being axiomatic that a
new one would have to be built before the journey could continue. Because
of the time needed to locate sufficient cane at exactly the right stage of
maturity, he knew a couple of days must pass before he could resume his
search for the Terran. This respite would also enable his skin to repair
itself for the next round of assaults. Thus, his priority was to explore his
immediate habitat to determine what type of camp would be most
appropriate.

   A swift survey of the long, narrow island assured him no large creatures
inhabited it—which was logical in view of its isolated situation. All his
usual enemies were there, however: sting-wings from the swamp, a
multiplicity of flesh beetles, snappers, and various small carnivorous
reptiles, together with fast-creepers and parasitic horrors too numerous to
classify. The conclusion was that sleeping on the ground other than in very
hot ash would be dangerous. His thoughts therefore turned again to the
trees.

   One end of the island was bare for some considerable distance; the only
vegetation which existed in the area was one enormous tree of the rare
non-sap variety, which had literally thrust the rocks apart to drive its
roots into some deep nutrient layer. Isolated as it was from the main pool
of wildlife, it naturally attracted Bethschant's attention as an outstanding
prospect for a camp. Climbing it, he found it singularly uninhabited,
which should have made him doubly cautious, but he was misled by
regarding its isolation as the reason for its unusual lack of population.

   He climbed high into the tree for a tactical investigation prior to the
elaborate work of preparing it as a camp. Standing separately, the tree
had grown without hindrance, and its luxuriant foliage formed a dome
which would ideally contain the aromatic smoke which Bethschant would
use to deter winged insects and animals. Indeed, as he climbed closer to
the leafy canopy he imagined he could already smell the smoke rising from
below him. Cautioning himself against any such flights of fancy, he tested
the slight wind, and broke through the leaf screen at an appropriate angle
to look across the intervening strip of swamp to the neighboring
mainland.

   He expected to see a forest fire sweeping the region. What he saw was
three distinct plumes of smoke, each concentrated, as if from separate,
tended fires. Here, in a situation mainly above the arboreal ceiling, the
forest sounds came through with unnatural clarity. Bethschant was still
pondering on the unlikely circumstance of three distinct fires when his
ears detected what could only be the sound of an ax striking wood. The
distance was such that he could easily have been mistaken, but with his
hearing and perception suddenly attuned, he now heard the sound
repeated at regular intervals. The conclusion was inescapable: the Terran
was not only alive but actually engaged in making a clearing in the forest.

   The surprise of the discovery left Bethschant trembling. Whereas he
had thought himself alone on the whole planet, here was clear evidence of
someone else living and in good health, to judge by the frequency and
regularity of the ax blows. Although the man was an enemy and would
have to be killed, Bethschant was suddenly glad Colonel Bogey had
managed to survive. He felt a sudden kinship with this other human, and
a great relief as the weight of his own absolute loneliness was lifted from
his scarred shoulders.

   His objective changed imperceptibly. More than wanting to kill the
Terran, he first wanted to look at him. He needed to hear the sound of a
human voice in the Avidan forest, to have actual sight of another human
being moving over Avida's deadly and too-fertile land. He stayed over-long
clinging to his precarious perch, straining all his senses to try to catch a
fragment more evidence of this incredible survival. The further sound he
did hear filled him with an unholy joy and purpose. Above the forest
murmur had come the clear and distant call of an unmistakably female
voice.

  "Bogey! Bogey!"

   The sound ricocheted around Bethschant's brain. A woman on Avida?
The idea was impossible, yet he had the evidence of his senses. Her voice
was not that of one of the apelike females of Avidan stock, like his own
erstwhile mate. Here was an outworld woman, perhaps one of those
creamy, desirable females from the star worlds whose attractions had
caused Bethschant so much trouble during his service with Xzan. This,
Bethschant reasoned, was the answer to all his most impious prayers.
Certainly Colonel Bogey would have to be killed—but Bethschant could
think of a thousand better things he could do with a star woman on this
planet, where he and the Avidan gods were the only arbiters of events.

   His preoccupation with lecherous daydreams kept Bethschant in the
tree for most of the remaining day. Hunger finally drove him down from
his perch. It was the wrong time of day to hunt small game. He therefore
contented himself with fruits and canenuts before reluctantly returning to
the preparations for night defense.

   His expertise at fire-making failed him time after time. It was very
nearly dark before he had the aromatic smoke winding up through the
high branches. The loss of light robbed him of the opportunity to encircle
the bole with rawthorns or cut the fast-creeper which draped itself
casually on the underside of the great boughs. He spent the remaining
moments of twilight scraping the bark from the branches on which he
intended to sleep. He admitted to himself that he was not properly
prepared for the night, but in times of fatigue or illness he had taken
greater risks than this and still survived.

   His sense of oneness with Avida was disturbed during the night by a
series of broken and erotic dreams which were neither satisfying nor
conducive to the freedom from movement necessary in one sleeping in the
branches of a tree. As it was, the fitful nature of his sleep probably saved,
his life. The gentle pressures across his groin, which in sleep he had
associated with the softness of human flesh, remained as a cold, vegetable
hardness when he awoke. Striving to move, he found a similar loop
encompassing his chest. His alerted senses immediately warned him that
he was being attacked by a fast-creeper, and that only minutes remained
before the intelligent vine managed to encircle him so many times that he
would lose all power to move his limbs.

   In the darkness, his hand caught an exploring tip-bud. He chopped at it
with the side of his palm, hoping to snap the stem. The resilience of the
vine, however, enabled it to avoid damage. Although it withdrew, he knew
it was only to describe a wider arc before it wrapped around his shoulders
or his neck. His fingers thankfully reached the handle of his long-knife.
Although his arms were pinioned against his chest, he managed to hack at
the branch beneath him, trying to strike a point where it was intersected
by the fast-creeper. For a long time this awkward action met with no
success. Finally he felt the pressure across his groin begin to slacken, and
then he was able to bend the coil around his chest and arrive at a sitting
position.

   The situation was worse than he had feared. While he had slept,
festoons of fast-creeper had risen from the lower branches to attack him
from all sides. Had he not awakened when he did, it must certainly have
immobilized and devoured him. However, it was no match for a
long-knife, and he had soon scythed away a whole host of fleshy,
inquisitive tip-buds and severed every flying trunk or streamer which
wavered within arm's length.

   Trembling with reaction at the narrowness of his escape, Bethschant
knew he would have to move away from the immediate area, because the
plant knew his location and would continue to attack that part while it
had any mobile appendages left. Escape was not easy. Tree-climbing in
absolute darkness was very dangerous, and the most he dared do was
make his way along the branch on which he had been sleeping, down to a
crevice it formed with the main trunk of the tree. There he wedged himself
to wait for the coming of daylight.

   While he was thus occupied, he heard below something he could
scarcely have conceived in his worst nightmares. This was a constant
chattering noise as made by armor-clad snappers, whose ferocity was
legend. The sound was not isolated; it was repeated as though multiplied
by countless hundreds. Sickly, Bethschant realized into what circumstance
he had led himself. The barrenness of the rocks beneath the tree took on a
morbid significance. Below the rocks must be a major snapper colony, and
the surrounding area would have been thoroughly scavenged by the young
from the nests, even though the adults traveled far in their remorseless
search for flesh.

   He questioned himself sternly about how he had come to make so grave
a mistake. The answer was that he had been careless. Snappers were
usually but not invariably nocturnal. He had arrived at the tree and made
preparations for the night at a time when the whole snapper colony was
undergoing a major sleep period. Perhaps his fire or the noise he had
made fighting the creeper had disturbed them. Now the whole colony
encircled the tree, and, from what he knew of their patience and
determination, they were unlikely to go away while such a tempting flesh
morsel hung above their heads.

  Snappers could not climb, but their agility was such that they could
jump several man-heights, and their reaction speed made one fully a
match for a seasoned warrior. To descend into their midst was
unthinkable, and there were no other trees through which he might
escape. While he crouched, uncomfortable and afraid, the gradual light of
dawn began to fill in the visual details of what his imagination had already
told him was the terrible truth.

   The growing light also showed something which gave him a glimmer of
hope. No snappers dared approach the slow fire that even now drifted its
long streamers of vapor into the air. His weapon against so many snappers
could only be fire, and if he could make fire in the tree and drop it down
on them, he would stand a chance of gaining an escape route. The chances
of finding sufficient flammable material up a tree seemed unlikely, but the
unlikely proved possible once he had decided what needed to be done.
Generations of fast-creeper had populated the boughs, died, and withered,
leaving great festoons of dried vine hanging from the branches. Had the
tree been of the acid-sap variety, these remnants would have been
digested and fallen as powder, but in this particular tree the loops still
clung dryly to the branches they had hugged in life.

   He started collecting dead vines, intending to light fires at various
points on the branches, from which he could drop the flaming masses.
After he lit one fire, however, the flames spread with an astonishing
rapidity along the overhanging loops of creeper, and soon the sparks and
tongues of flame had made their own way throughout the entire ulterior
vastness of the tree. The result was far better than he could have
anticipated. Burning streamers dropped from all sides like incandescent
rain. The panic among the snappers manifested itself in an untidy, angry
exodus, which took them not from the island, as Bethschant had expected,
but leaping and floundering out across the swamp tracts in the direction
of the mainland.

   Suddenly Bethschant understood why the snappers were so numerous
in an area which could not have supported them all. From the island to
the mainland there must be a slightly submerged causeway across which
the snappers could gain access to the larger territory. The place he had
disturbed was probably only a breeding nest, and all the regular foraging
would be done on the other side of the swamp.

   His further consideration of the point was cut short by the
requirements of his own safety. Not only had most of the creeper burned,
but now part of the host tree was also catching fire. Super-heated sap
sprouted long jets of flame, which further increased the conflagration. By
the time he reached the ground, the radiant heat had already become
unbearable, and he had to pick his way carefully through the masses of
live embers lest he severely burn his feet. His final consolation was to pick
up a couple of partly roasted snappers, whose cooking he then proceeded
to complete. It had been a long time since he had tasted roast snapper for
breakfast.

               CHAPTER FOURTEEN
   Trouble came early. Zim, who had gone confidently out to examine
snares, came back hastily with the information that a whole legion of
crab-rats was advancing from the direction of the swamp. His suggestion
of an army was no less than the truth. By midday, many hundreds of the
fearsome creatures had moved into the area and were sunning themselves
in the open spaces Bogaert and Zim had so laboriously cleared.

   It was impossible for the occupants of the pod to consider driving them
off. Any single creature was fully a match for an armed man, and the
horrific tide surrounded the ship completely. Effectively, the humans were
besieged, with access to neither food nor water. Some of the crab-rats
were even investigating the nearby rocky outcrop, as if considering the site
for a nest. A large group waited impatiently close to the pod, attracted by
the scent of human flesh inside.

   Occasionally, Zim opened the door hatch and fired at the creatures
with his ion gun. He killed a few and wounded many, but even the
wounded returned and waited expectantly for the door to open wider. Zim
could not hope to shoot many with his malfunctioning weapon, and it
would be far too dangerous to attempt to carry on the fight with other
weapons.

   Through a viewing port, Bogaert noted that the crab-rats that crossed
the bare wires leading to the still leaped away as though receiving an
unwelcome shock. He decided that an electrical attack on the creatures
might succeed if he could somehow increase the voltage. On each of the
preceding days, he had spent an hour working on the power plant, trying
to restore its output above the existing trickle level. Given access to a
workshop, he could probably have regained full power in a matter of days.
As it was, he had a dangerous and tricky job, applying makeshift levers
against truly amazing forces. Spurred by this new necessity, he tackled the
reluctant unit with an urgency that made little concession to the very
considerable risk of losing a finger or a hand should his precarious system
of stops and levers lapse under the opposing forces.

   His Herculean efforts were rewarded when he managed to achieve a
gap between the output plates into which he could slip an Ortellian
wedge-hammer. As he did so, the metal bar he had been using as a lever
fractured without warning. The broken metal spun across the cabin,
hitting the back of his wrist as it did so. Fortunately, it was only a glancing
blow which did no more than raise an ominous bruise. It could as easily
have broken his wrist.

   Testing the output, he found he now had the equivalent of one hundred
twenty-seven Terran volts. This was only half of what he felt he needed,
but time was running out, and hopefully even this would be sufficient to
stun or kill a crab-rat.

   He already had two bare wires rigged outside the hull to power the
electric still. If he now applied the full available voltage to these, he would
burn out his precious heater and destroy their main source of pure water.
He therefore connected the supply to only one of these wires, and the other
he affixed directly to the hull. He was confident that the construction of
the still would afford a ground connection, but there was an anxious
moment as he brought the voltage up to full value, because he had no way
of testing the pod's own electrical contact with the ground. Fortunately,
only a negligible current flowed, indicating that the barge was reasonably
well insulated by the ceramic tips of the outriggers.

   Being themselves inside the electrically charged pod, they were not
affected, and they gathered close to the viewing ports to watch the results
outside. Whenever a crab-rat touched the hull, it gave a truly amazing
jump into the air and fell either dead or stunned some considerable
distance away. There appeared to be an element of learning involved, and
the mistake was repeated by only a few crab-rats before the lesson was
learned. Bogaert decided it was time to carry the fight into the open.

   The instrument he decided to use was adapted from a rakelike tool with
a long cane stem. By attaching one end of the wire to the tines and the
other to the charged hull of the pod, he produced an electrified weapon
which he could safely hold by the cane-insulated handle. Warning Zim,
who insisted on following, to jump clear of the hull and not to touch both
it and the ground simultaneously, Bogaert emerged from the door hatch
and began his assault.

   The crab-rats had been waiting for just such an opportunity, and
swarmed around for the kill. The combined effects of accidental contact
with the hull and the Colonel's sterling work with the electrified rake soon
caused them to change their minds. Their vicious swarming became an
uncontrolled rout as inert bodies piled up before this unfamiliar and
deadly enemy. Such was the communal sense of the creatures that at some
signal undetectable by human senses, virtually the whole of the
survivors—probably only half the original colony—turned as if impelled by
a single command and fled into the forest cover.

   Bogaert surveyed the retreat with much relief, and was about to reenter
the pod when a shout of warning from Zim made him freeze. Three of the
creatures had leaped onto an outrigger, from which, having no contact
with the ground, they could move without danger of electrocution. They
were about to launch themselves at his neck and back, an act which must
certainly prove fatal to him, when Zim's single shot vaporized one in
mid-Sight and so disconcerted the others that they missed the target
completely. On instinct, Bogaert used the rake not for electrocution but in
the manner of a club, striking the bodies with a strong swing. One was
electrocuted; the other was lifted bodily and hurled almost to the limits of
the clearing.

   Things grew quieter then, although the creatures could still be seen
lingering on the fringes of the clearing. Bogaert decided the time was ripe
to improve on his advantage. He staked out a wide area around the
stricken ship and ran a bare wire around it, which he then electrified. It
was a hasty, makeshift job, but it promised to keep the foraging crab-rats
at bay until a better defense could be constructed.

   Miram, whose eye for edible substances was becoming delicately
practiced, considered that crab-rats should make good eating. They
picked a few prize specimens from among the newly dead, and began to
clean the carcasses. This involved splitting the armored shells, in the
course of which Miram cut her hand badly. Bogaert was worried as he
washed the wound, knowing the grave risk of infection. His concern, and
the increased power available from the power plant, made him decide
immediately to try another device he had in mind.

  He had been collecting the concentrated brine sludge from the stills,
and had successfully purified some by recrystallization. Some of this rock
salt had been crushed for cooking, and all of the remainder he now
redissolved in an apparatus he hastily constructed from some pottery
utensils and some pieces of carbon broken out of a ransad cell.

  Zim watched the improvisation with considerable interest.

  "What're we making, Bogey?"

   "We need some antiseptic for your mother's hand. We're trying to
break down the salt using electricity to give us two chemicals called
sodium hydroxide and chlorine. If we can get them to react together, we'll
form another chemical, called sodium hypochlorite. That's the one we're
after. It makes a good antiseptic."

   The first results were not encouraging, but, by pressing both Zim and
Anna into service, pouring the liquid repeatedly through the assembly,
Bogaert finally produced a result he decided by taste and smell was as
near as he was likely to get to the desired composition. He tried some on
his own scratched arms. The stinging was considerable, and the remedial
effects not obvious, but the mixture, whatever its composition, was the
nearest to an antiseptic preparation they were likely to obtain.

   He diluted some with some pure water and took a jar of it to Miram.
She was in the pod, trying to continue the preparation of the food using
only one hand, and not making a very good job of it. She allowed him to
recleanse and dress the wound, even though the stinging brought tears to
her eyes. When it was finished and neatly dressed with strips of torn cloth,
she reached out with her good hand and grasped his wrist as a sign of
gratitude. The sensation of her fingers fired a spark in his consciousness,
which shook him nearly as much as the electrical shocks had shaken the
crab-rats. He recovered from his mental somersault vividly aware that
although this was the first time they had been alone together, there were
some very good reasons why it should also be the last.

   The crab-rat meat proved superb. Roasted on a spit turned by the
dogged little Anna, it was tender and succulent. Unfortunately, they were
unable to preserve any of their present surfeit. Regretfully, Zim and
Bogaert shoveled away the remaining carcasses to a position under one of
the great trees, where the enzyme sap would rapidly destroy and digest the
remains with the accelerated rotting which was part of the life cycle of the
forest.
   The same sap was, at this time, causing other problems. Clothing
materials of natural origin had begun to fall apart, and even some of the
synthetic fibers were affected. Bogaert had felled most of the closest trees,
but the slight drift of the aerosol out of the forest still brought enough
enzyme to promote the destruction of most of their garments. Miram's
propriety was maintained only by frequent changes of clothes with which
she had been provided by Manu Kan. Zim was enjoying the previously
forbidden luxury of going about nearly naked, while Anna was fortunate in
having almost the only garment which was impervious to the attack.
Bogaert's uniform was in shreds, and made him look like a military
scarecrow.

   Not only their clothing was suffering. Their hair, too, became brittle
and broke off close to the scalp. The psychological effect was reduced by it
being a gradual process rather than a sudden loss, and new hair continued
to grow healthily at the roots. Bogaert accepted the consequent
close-cropped effect with stoicism. It changed his appearance very little.
Miram, whose honey-gray tresses had been a cherished possession, was
horrified until she accepted that it probably enhanced her new image as a
practical savage, and underscored the strengths she mind growing in
herself.

   All the rest of the day the crab-rats remained at the fringes of the
forest. The few which strayed as far as Bogaert's fence died, apparently as
object lessons for the others.

   After their evening meal, Zim and the Colonel checked the wire, and
found to their concern that a great many of the cane supports were
already beginning to crumble. This was remarkable, because the canes
had appeared perfectly sound when put into place a few hours earlier.
Apparently this type of cane was very susceptible to the acid sap, and the
supports close to the forest edge were already critically decayed. They
carefully replaced those they found to be defective, but had doubts about
the remainder lasting through the night.

  Toward evening, the crab-rats began to move back closer to the wire.
With them now were a great number of smaller crab-rats who had not
been apparent in the earlier fray. Miram decided that these must be the
young of -the species, and that the whole colony had probably had to
abandon a previous breeding ground and was now looking for another.
Bogaert's worry was I hat the electrified fence, supported as it was on
unreliable cane, would fail during the night and allow the creatures to
repeat their attack.

   The recent clearing activities had left them with an ample supply of dry
brushwood. The Colonel took the precaution of lighting a number of fires
around the perimeter as an additional deterrent To speed this task before
darkness, the others came to assist Thus it was that they all happened to
be away from the ship and at the far end of the clearing when disaster
struck.

   Whether it was a short circuit or a break in the wire was not apparent.
Anna's startled cry signaled the fact that crab-rats by the hundreds were
now crossing over or under the wire with impunity, and that the majority
of them were running straight for the open door of the pod. Several of the
larger ones, however, broke away and turned toward the end of the
clearing where the horrified humans were tending their fires.

   The first of the crab-rats to approach was dropped by a burst from
Zim's ion gun—which was then useless for the ten minutes it took to
recharge. Ten seconds would have been too long a delay. Bogaert played
the only move available. Seizing burning branches with his bare hands, he
dragged two fires together and made a flaming wall between them and the
attacking creatures. He immediately did the same with two more adjacent
fires, so that he achieved a horseshoe of flame around them.

   The effect was dramatic. The crab-rats made a cursory attempt to find
a way through, failed to find the open end of the horseshoe, then retired to
join their fellows in the rush for the pod. The night became complete, with
only the Hub stars and the light from the fires for illumination, but from
what little could be seen, it was certain that the crab-rats had adopted the
pod as a new and novel kind of nest.

   The loss of their major asset in the fight for survival filled Bogaert with
apprehension. He realized, even if the others did not, that they were
unlikely to survive many days without the shelter and facilities the
power-barge made available. The question was how to regain the pod
from such a concentration of ferocious and deadly foes. Any attempt at
entry would be impossible, and even if he managed to find a way to drive
them out, they would still be at liberty to menace the district. The best
solution would be to kill them in the pod, but the means by which this
could be done were not immediately apparent. After some thought, the
Colonel and Zim left the women safely behind a circle of fires and, each
carrying a burning brand, advanced carefully toward the ship.

   Apparently the crab-rat colony did not consider it necessary to guard
their new nest. The two men approached warily without meeting any sign
of roving creatures. Their first action was to insert a piece of branch in the
hatch frame and slam and prop the door so that it was almost but not
entirely closed. This action raised a great tide of animal movement within
the ship, but Bogaert had judged the width of the gap to a nicety, none of
the claws which appeared at the gap could reach them as they further
secured a rope around the hull to reinforce the prop.

   Breathing a sigh of relief at the ease of the creatures' containment,
Bogaert used the light of a burning brand to examine the apparatus he
had used for making the antiseptic. Although the high-voltage wire
around the clearing had failed, the lower-voltage line connected to the
carbon electrodes in the salt solution was still functioning. He lifted the
top off the apparatus and carried the pieces to the door batch. There he
made a crude modification, which he then sealed against the gap in the
door with the remains of his uniform jacket trapped beneath a loop of
rope.

   "And that's all we can do," he said to Zim. I've taken the top off the pot
so the chlorine gas can escape. A lot of it'll go through the gap into the
pod. With luck, it'll poison our friends inside."

  "Is it very poisonous?"

  "Very. It's a nasty way to kill, but I don't have any option. We need the
pod back—and we need it fast It's them or us."

  "How long will the chlorine take?"

   "There's no way of knowing. Certainly we don't dare open it before
morning, perhaps not even then. But it's hotter than losing the pod
altogether. Let's get back to the fires, because I think we're going to have a
very hard night."

                  CHAPTER FIFTEEN
   The Pretender's continued presence in the quaint and ornate halls of
Oontara's court was motivated by nothing stronger than clutching at
straws. While all the evidence pointed to Miram's having taken her
children to Terra, Gamin Sher conducted a frantic search for anything
which suggested they might actually have gone somewhere more
accessible. Behind his standpoint was the knowledge that Kanizar had no
treaty with Terra; therefore, the destination was unlikely as a refuge for
his wife and heirs. He suspected that the mention of Terra was part of a
trick to throw him off the scent. If the Empress had indeed reached such
inviolable territory, however, Sher had damned himself without gain. His
attack on Meon could be justified only by the assassination of Kanizar's
hereditary successors. If he failed in this, all his other victories were a
mere prelude to his final defeat at Kanizar's vengeful hands.

   The immoderate sums of money he had to pay for the records of the
shipping agency which handled Terran space transportation was a
reminder to Sher that he was operating in a region where he was not
recognized as a potential king of kings. Instead, he was treated with the
offhand disrespect merited by a potential loser. Nonetheless, the records
appeared to prove that the rendezvous with the Terra-bound starliner had
indeed been arranged. They further showed that a second pickup had been
arranged for the same outspace rendezvous. This duplication held no
immediate significance for the Pretender, since in neither case had a
passenger list been filed.

    His first piece of luck came with the location of a spacegram from the
captain of the spaceliner berating the shipping agency for causing him to
break out of hyperspace for a rendezvous which had not been kept. Camin
Sher's next thoughts were to locate the vessel which had been engaged to
make the rendezvous. The search narrowed down to one possible barge,
which was the subject of ghost control by a father ship. The father ship
had long since left the system, but was speedily traced through the cargo
lists. Since it was operating a returning shuttle service, units of Camin
Sher's fleet were dispatched to intercept the Master. They reported that
the Master denied all knowledge of the incident and neither bribery nor
threats could make him move from this position.

    On the rising hope that Miram had not reached Terra, Sher refused to
let the matter rest. He sent again for Xzan and set the facts before him.
Xzan queried the details meticulously, then with growing delight he
turned back to the Pretender.

   "My Lord knows my desire to serve him faithfully. I think I can show
proof of my intent."
  "Stop planting words and come to the point," Sher answered acidly. "If
you've anything relevant, tell it now before Kanizar destroys us all."

   "I've no facts to go on, you'll understand. But the circumstance of the
barge and the unkept rendezvous are familiar. Oontara and I'd wagered on
a survival game. My champion was willing, but Oontara's had to be
'acquired.' The barge and the false rendezvous was the ruse by which we
secured the Terran Colonel Bogey fur the sport."

  "What has this to do with the Kanizars?"

   "We forced a diversion of a barge intended to make rendezvous with
the starliner. It's unlikely there were two barges similarly engaged that
evening."

  "You mean… ?"

   "From the evidence you've given me, there's a more than adequate
chance that our net caught also Kanizar's woman and the Kanizar spawn.
They've all been included in our survival game. They're probably dead
already."

  "I'll need evidence of that." Sher's hopes were on a flowing tide.
"Where'd you put them, Xzan?"

  "My Lord will remember I'm not yet a king—"

  "I'll make you a king. Tell me where."

  "Not that I expect rewards out of proportion to the service—"

  "Ten times a king," said Sher hastily. "What's the location?"

  "Avida. One of the subtler hells."

  "I don't want a travelogue. I want star references."

  Xzan found them for him, wondering what being ten times a king
might feel like.

  Camin Sher's reaction was immediate. Without a further glance at the
beaming Xzan, he called for his aides, then left the court at a pace which
gave every indication of his urgency. On the way down the corridor, the
hurrying group passed a small, balding figure dressed in crumpled white,
who raised an eyebrow in silent speculation.

   As the Pretender hurried out of sight, Hilary Rounding wandered into
the room they had just vacated and slapped Star Lord Xzan heartily across
the shoulders.

  "My Lord looks pleased yet quizzical. Could it be he's as puzzled as I
about the speed of the Pretender's departure?"

  Xzan's eyes were still fixed on the doorway through which the
Pretender had run. "Not at all. But I wonder if he'll remember who told
him where to go."

   "I've much difficulty in understanding the motivations of the great star
monarchs," said the dumpling sadly, examining a set of shipping-agency
records and a star gazeteer which were open on the table.

   "I don't have trouble with their motivations," said Xzan. "It's keeping
them to their promises I find difficult. Sometimes I think I'd have been
better advised to remain with Kanizar."

  "Is the Pretender's rescue mission associated with the missing
Kanizars, then?"

   "Rescue mission?" Xzan regarded his inquisitor with dismay. "I forgot.
You're a Terran. You can't be expected to understand the complexities of
star politics."

   "I'm afraid you're right there," said Rounding humbly. "I'm naive and
incurably romantic. You know, I even like every story to have a happy
ending."

   "The truth of this story'd make your hair stand on end." Xzan found
himself staring fixedly at Rounding's bald pate, slightly embarrassed to
realize how inappropriate his metaphor had been. Then he looked
accusingly into Rounding's eyes, as if he had just become aware of his
presence for tie first time. "You know, I think you're trying to pump me,
Commissioner. But I've nothing to say."

   "Perish the thought!" said Rounding, departing the scene with a star
gazeteer, page-marked by the insertion of a folded spacegram, draped
casually under his arm.

   If Xzan's feelings were already slightly mixed, they were completely
scrambled by the imperious summons he received from Oontara.

  "I've my explanations," said the star king, "as to why the Pretender
came to Ortel. I leave it to you to explain why he left so hurriedly."

   Xzan tried to be placating. "It's something you'd scarcely believe, old
friend. A coincidence beyond belief."

  "Try it on me," said Oontara. "My powers of credulity grow with every
hour of our acquaintanceship."

   "The trap we set for Colonel Bogey caught other rodents as well. None
less than the Empress Miram and the Kanizar heirs."

  "What! And you told this to the Pretender? Did you also tell where the
game world was located?"

  "I mentioned the fact. There's no harm in it. The Pretender cares
nothing about Colonel Bogey, and only Kanizar will have a loss to suffer."

   "Then think again, star weasel. The loss will be yours also. Assuming
they've survived, Colonel Bogey's unlikely to surrender a woman and two
children to Sher's murdering hands. They'll have to kill him as well. Which
means you lose the game by default. You'll owe me ten planets and
surrender the rest of your holdings to the Federation. That was the terms
of our agreement."

  "But I—

   "Not that I'm complaining about that," said Oontara. "I've much to
gain from it. But that's only part of the upset your idiot ego may have
caused. There's a major concentration of hyperspace trails rocking the
continuum. My guess is this heralds Kanizar's return. The Pretender may
have the advantage in craft and guile, but if Kanizar devotes all his
resources to destroying him, then the Pretender stands no chance at all.
And what do you suppose the King of Kings will do to those who included
his family in a survival game?"

  Xzan's attempt to answer was interrupted by an apologetic servant.
   "My Lord Oontara, a million pardons, but Commissioner Rounding
seeks an immediate audience."

   "Have him wait an hour," said Oontara. "Then I'll see him. As for Lord
Xzan, see that he has every assistance in reaching his ship. I fear he has an
urgent mission to perform."

                  CHAPTER SIXTEEN
    The night spent in the ring of fire was the worst they had ever
experienced. It confirmed Bogaert's suspicions that without the barge and
its power plant, there was virtually no chance that they could have
survived this far. Even in the protective circle of flame they were not
immune from attack by flying creatures. All the quartet received painful
multiple stings from smaller flying species, but mercifully avoided some of
the larger winged horrors, the size of Terran bats, which were probably
capable of giving a fatal injection.

    There were also flying things with teeth and claws. They all now carried
branches, with which they attempted to knock these flying beasts down
into the flames, and each guarded the others in case something slipped
through unnoticed. Such unceasing vigilance permitted no sleep, and
would lead all four of them to complete exhaustion if they did not regain
the pod in a couple of days. In any case, sleeping on the ground was out of
the question. The flesh-seeking fibers grew a centimeter a minute from the
ground wherever a foot was rested over-long. Such was the appetite of this
life form that it literally stripped the skin from their ankles and found its
way through the cracks in their rotting footwear.

   Even though there were no trees overhead, the drift of enzyme sap
seemed even more vehement. It glazed their skins where it dried in the
heat from the fire, making them feel even more wretched than before. The
night noises, too, crowded in on them with screams of abject terror and
outbursts of hysterical laughter. Somewhere out in the swamp something
called in an unbelievably human voice. The Colonel thought it called,
"Bogey! Bogey! Bogey!" but Miram was certain it was calling her. The
children heard it with mortal apprehension, but refused to name their
fears.

  Bogaert blessed his foresight in clearing the area of brush. This had
encouraged many of the larger creatures to move away and so not
contribute to the present danger. Even so, he could see some particularly
venomous-looking articulated sticks slithering not far beyond the fires.
Occasionally some gross animal head, warty and toothed or fanged, would
loom up with hungry eyes, mournfully seeking a route to the human party.
None had yet dared attempt to leap the flames, and the tired Zim had
been able to reserve the shot in his ion gun for a really prime emergency.

   Dawn was one of the most welcome sights they had ever known. With
the growing light, the attack of the insects abated. A fine rain saturated
the air, a solace indeed to their smoke-dried and sap-glazed skin. The
interlude gave Bogaert the chance to move more cut brush into the
vicinity, so that the fires could be continued if required. Then, when the
light had grown sufficient to see details at a distance, he and Zim went
warily toward the ship to assess the results of their move against the
crab-rats.

   When they could see the door hatch clearly, they stopped in disbelief.
The chlorine generator had been knocked on its side, and the rope
securing the door had been cut or broken. The door stood open wide
enough to have permitted the escape of any crab-rat that had cared to
leave. Bogaert's jacket, used to guide the gas into the door gap now lay
many meters away.

   Their immediate fear was that the crab-rats had managed to escape,
and knocked over the chlorine generator in their flight. Bogaert and Zim
turned anxiously to scan the forest fringes. The scene, however, remained
curiously quiet.

   Their suspicions unconfirmed, the two approached the pod with
utmost caution, being constantly prepared to run for their lives. The rope
had been severed cleanly, as if by a sharp knife. With a long stick, Bogaert
cautiously levered open the door hatch. Something moved very swiftly
through the gap—but it was only a dead crab-rat falling out. Recovering
from the shock, they moved back again and opened the door wide enough
to see inside. The pod was stacked high with dead crab-rats, literally
hundreds of them, now fallen in strained heaps and piles between the
clamps of stores. Each was twisted in the agonies of painful death.

    Breathing a sigh of relief, Bogaert propped the door wide open. It would
take many hours before the gas inside would disperse sufficiently to make
it safe to reclaim their shelter. He sent Zim to advise the women of the
situation, and turned his attention to trying to decide who or what could
have cut the rope and allowed the door to open. Hilary Rounding had
suggested that another contestant was to be placed on Avida. The
Commissioner had also been convinced that the game would be loaded
against the Terran. Putting these things together, the Colonel came up
with a reasonable conjecture as to the identity of their mysterious visitor,
if not the motive which had brought him so stealthily through the night.

   Bogaert tried to imagine the nocturnal visitor's surprise when he had
attempted to enter the pod. It was difficult to say whether the effect of
finding it full of crab-rats would have been more or less daunting than
finding it full of concentrated chlorine gas. Certainly it was an experiment
which would be repeated only with great caution. The fact that it might be
repeated, however, was itself a cause for concern.

   It was Zim who found evidence of the correctness of Bogaert's
assumptions regarding the opening of the pod. On his way back with
Miram and Anna, he had found a long-knife dropped among the ferns.
Searching around, he found five short spears, all made from local cane and
tipped with obsidian shards dipped in what he presumed to be poison. It
appeared that all of these items had been dropped in the course of a
headlong flight from the pod. Bogaert guessed that the intruder had
unsuspectingly taken a lungful of chlorine, and fled in extreme pain. It was
not clear whether the visitor had known of their presence amid the fires at
the end of the clearing, but he had walked into a situation as dangerous as
a prepared trap. Bogaert decided the next trap would be deliberately set.

   A slight breeze cleared the air in the pod rapidly, although the smell of
chlorine persisted. By mid-afternoon they were able to enter and shovel
the dead crab-rats to a place beneath the trees where they could safely
decompose. The manner in which the creatures had died suggested the
meat would be tainted, and none were saved for food.

   As soon as he had a clear route to the control cabin, Bogaert left the
others to continue the clearance and started work again on the power
plant. Now that the reactive plates were fairly well apart, he had more
room in which to manipulate his tools. He was aided by finding a strong
clamp, which he used as a jack, gaining considerable mechanical
advantage. After two hours of struggle, the maximum voltage available
had been unproved to the equivalent of nearly five hundred Terran volts,
and many of the ransad instruments were coming back to life.

  Insulation of his temporary wiring at this higher voltage was a major
problem. He managed to bead the wire where it ran down through the pod
with lengths of hollow cane further wrapped in pieces of packing
materials. He extended two circuits—one to lethally electrify the hull, and
the second to feed the loop he was intending to reconstruct as a perimeter
fence round the clearing.

    Curiously, the finding of the spears was of assistance in the erection of
the new electrified fence. The previous fence had failed because the canes
on which the wire had been suspended had rapidly rotted and allowed the
conductor to short-circuit to the ground. The stem used for the spears,
however, showed no sign of such deterioration. They were able to identify
it as a type which grew widely on one edge of the swamp. The new fence,
when completed, had two strands of wire: one set low enough to kill a
crab-rat or similar small creature, and one set high enough to kill a man.

   The whole system was improvised and dangerous. Miram and Anna in
particular had to be instructed not to stray too close to the electrified
strands or to leave the pod until they were sure the circuit had been
disconnected. They had much trouble due to the antics of a peculiarly
fast-growing creeper that seemed to exercise almost human ingenuity in
trying to invade their territory. It was deterred by repeatedly chopping off
the leading buds until it appeared to finally accept the lesson and declined
to grow any farther than the fence. In the meantime, the electrocution of a
number of small animals provided a steady source of meat for Miram's
pot.

   So passive a defense, however, was not enough for Bogaert. The
presence of another human worried him even more than some of the
terrifying creatures which occasionally appeared at the clearing's edge. He
judged that outside the pod they were easily within range of a well-thrown
spear. He took it as axiomatic that the other human was of bad intent.
Life held too many hazards to take chances.

   His priority thus became the improvisation of weapons and the
clearance of the forest cover over a wider area by firing the trees and
brush. In this latter enterprise he was initially unsuccessful. When he did
manage to establish a good blaze, however, it became a major forest fire,
and scarred a strip of land several kilometers in length. It was halted only
by a series of muddy rivulets which stood across its path and acted as a
firebreak. The clearance brought a welcome reduction in insect swarms,
but meant that the traps and snares had to be set over a wider area, and
fruits had to be fetched from a distance. The greater visibility afforded by
the scheme, however, justified the hardships. By day they were relatively
immune from surprise attacks, and by night the electrified defenses gave
them a very high order of protection.

                CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
   As he entered the audience chamber, Rounding's face was more stern
than Oontara remembered ever having seen it. The Terran offered no
handshake and refused to take wine or a chair.

   "My Lord Oontara disappoints me. I'd hoped that in embracing
federation you'd also learned that human lives are not for sale or gaming."

   "I won't pretend I don't know what you mean," said the star king slowly.
"I know you too well. Your information's always immaculate. You're
referring to Colonel Bogey."

  "I am."

   "You Terrans are devils. You expect too much of us. Our star customs
go back to well before your own Neanderthal. You'll not reform us
overnight."

   "I can have a damn good try," said Rounding ominously. "I want some
straight answers."

  "Unless I misread you, Commissioner, you already have your answers.
You have some other point that needs making."

  "The Empress Miram and her children were on the barge that took
Colonel Bogey to Avida. Right or wrong?"

  "Probable."

  "And the Pretender's gone to arrange their assassination?"

  "That too seems probable."

   "Then tell me why Lord Xzan made blastoff while you had me waiting
in the antechamber."

   "I reminded Xzan that if the Pretender kills Colonel Bogey while
attacking the Kanizars, he forfeits the game."
   "And if the Kanizars are murdered without the death of Bogey, how's
the situation altered?"

    Oontara smiled slyly. "Then my offense against Terra is a purely
technical one. And Kanizar's quarrel with me will be the slightest. After
all, I didn't knowingly send Miram to Avida. Officially she was never even
on Ortel. And I'll be many parsecs away when Xzan and the Pretender
conspire to her murder. A rather neat piece of politics, don't you think,
Commissioner?"

  "That wasn't the phrase I had in mind," said Rounding savagely. "One
day I'll introduce you to another aspect of the new logic—known as ethics.
How the hell do you expect Xzan to stop the Pretender from killing
Bogey?"

   "I didn't say I could expect it. But if the crime's committed, at least the
blood's not on my hands. I've done what I can without becoming further
implicated."

   "You've not done a tenth enough. Believe me, if Bogey's killed I'll
personally make sure Kanizar has full knowledge of your part in this."

   "I'd thought we were friends." Oontara's tone was faintly plaintive.

  "You consistently miss the point of friendship. The point is not to
appear innocent of the crime, but to prevent it from happening. The
chances are Bogey and the Kanizars are still alive. I've radioed a taskforce
out from Terra, but I doubt they'll reach Avida in time. But there's the
possibility that they could be reached by a ship moving in from the Hub."

  "You're not asking me to send a fleet against the Pretender?" Oontara
was suddenly anxious.

  "Nothing half as heroic—though I hope the idea sits heavily on your
conscience. It looks as though I'll have to sort out this mess myself. But I've
only workships here, and they're not fast enough."

   "You'd like to borrow a star cruiser?"

  "Not to put too fine an edge on it, this mission calls for characteristics
which can't be found in a ransad-based ship. I'd like to borrow the Terran
bark."
  "My pleasure, Commissioner! Xzan thinks it nothing but a quaint toy."

  "Them it'll please me to demonstrate otherwise."

  "And you'll remember the gesture when you speak to Kanizar?"

   "I'll remember it as a gesture. Even star kings aren't above
responsibility for their own actions."

   "Did nobody ever tell you you've the makings of a tyrant? By the gods, I
think you'd outmaneuver Kanizar himself!"

   "Possibly. But that's not the Terran way. We meet force with force,
guile with guile, and honesty with honesty. It's part of the new logic: do
unto others as they'd do unto you—but do it first and do it better. Have I
made myself plain?"

   "Crystal clear. You're a rogue without peer—and all the more dangerous
because you're that curse of the galaxy, a man dedicated to furthering
things other than himself."

  "Amen to that!" said Hilary Rounding.

    Of all the impressive man-made sights in the universe, none could
compare with the massed fleets of Kanizar dropping out of hyperspace.
First a solitary spacefinder would apparently materialize in space with an
inaudible boom that sent a shiver through the continuum. Alone, it would
sit a hundred million miles from the sun, a shining glory to those who had
the instruments to see it. Then sixteen other ships would appear around it
in careful station, to form a circle as large as Terra's moon.

   When these markers were in position, the rest of the fleet would
appear, gradually filling the interstices of the disk. Those who did not
appreciate the realities of scale soon found it unbelievable that the design
could continue to fill and thicken with the golden splints, each of which
was a great warship with a complement of several thousand men. The
ships' arrivals were timed microseconds apart, so that each sent only an
ascending thrill through the continuum. Had they arrived simultaneously,
the shock would have been such that the physical constants for several
kilo-parsecs would have been hideously distorted and the delicate
structure of space-time ruptured for centuries. Men had been driven mad
and stars turned nova by lesser assemblies than this.
   Even so, the rapidity with which the great circle became a golden shield
was indicative of the great urgency of the occasion. Risking the enmity of
natural philosophers for generations, Kanizar had cut the emergence of
his fleets from hyperspace to the finest limits safety would allow. The
resonance set up in the continuum forced a thrill through every sentient
creature in that sector of space, and registered like the waves of an angry
sea on entropy monitors as far out as the Rim. It was a fitting expression
of Kanizar's might and wrath that when he returned home to investigate
news of the threat to his wife and heirs, the whole galaxy should be
shaken.

   Normally the shield of ships dissolved into paths leading to the vessels'
home planets. On this occasion, however, the shield held steady. Only a
few ships, Kanizar's flagship at their head, streaked toward Meon.
Kanizar's reception was both jubilant and grave. He was full of praise for
Meon's defenders, saddened by the loss of old Sashu, and apprehensive
about the fate of Miram and the children. His immense victories in the
campaign from which he had just returned went almost unmentioned in
the face of his anger at the deeds of the Pretender.

  Having a wisdom long prompted by old Sashu's hand,

   Kanizar knew that loyalty was a two-edged blade. He forewent his
immediate resolution to burn into space to avenge himself on the
Pretender, and first made provision that the home planets should always
have adequate defense. He further charged his new chancellor to dedicate
a large part of his fortunes to making what restitution was possible to
those who had suffered through the Pretender's coming.

   Then Kanizar, the King of Kings, stole a quiet hour and walked out
alone onto the Field of Perfection just as the Hub stars were beginning to
show their full magnificence. By accident, he stumbled on Zim's gimbal
bow, and picked it up, marveling at how straight and strong was its
design, considering that the lad had constructed it himself. Nearby was
Anna's little rocking cradle, containing all but one of her favorite toys.
Kanizar was not a man given to showing emotion, other than superhuman
anger, but when he returned to his castle he carried these playthings in his
arms as though they were the bodies of the children themselves. His
cheeks were unashamedly wet with tears.

   That night, specially selected units of Kanizar's fleets detached
themselves from the false moon in the sky and made rendezvous with
Kanizar's flagship as it rose in a cold, controlled passion from Meon. When
the rendezvous was complete, the avenging taskforce jumped into
hyperspace with such near simultaneity that the shock to the continuum
could not fail to be read by the Pretender's craft no matter in what section
of the universe it lay. Kanizar said prayers to the gods of strength and
terrible retribution and to a deity less known to the mighty, which the
Terrans might have called hope. And these gods were invoked by every
ship in the force as it burned toward the region of Ortel.

                CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
   Their trials on Avida had changed them all considerably, but none as
radically as Miram. Anna was growing out of her childhood almost visibly,
and showing an astonishing capability in seconding her mother at the
women's chores; Zim was becoming all too suddenly a man, with the able
savagery of his forefathers, and all of Kanizar's intelligence; Bogaert was
finding new resources within himself unconnected with his military
training—but Miram was transformed almost beyond recognition.

   Her honey-gray hair, now close-cropped by the sap, showed more of her
brow and revealed a face with an astonishing strength of character.
Furthermore, despite the unusual diet, the harsh, active life had given her
a considerable appetite. Her willowy slimness was giving way to an
attractive roundness. Kanizar was going to have difficulty recognizing this
tough, rounded, and increasingly practical savage as the slight doll who
had graced his side through the courts of kings and emperors.

   There was another change in Miram, also. Although the daily hardships
and danger were of constant concern, she had learned to laugh aloud.
Prompted by Bogaert's tendency to make light of the seemingly
impossible, she had developed a sense of humor in adversity. Zim often
looked up wonderingly when he heard his mother's laughter ring out
across the clearing. He once remarked to Bogaert that, despite the
circumstances, he had never remembered Miram being happier. Bogaert
made no reply. He was only too conscious of her increasing attractions
and of the strong bonds which were forming between them.

   Although it was never discussed, they were all tacitly agreed that there
was no point in patterning their lives as though rescue would be either
soon or certain. Though hopes of relief were never far from their thoughts,
there was the knowledge that they had been manipulated into the
situation, and that the manipulators themselves might forestall any
attempt at early rescue. That a human intruder prowled around their
camp was a further indication of no good will from those who had
arranged the game. Bogaert therefore constructed his defenses and
installations as though they had to last for years.

   He spent the early hours of darkness continuing his work on the power
plant, and managed to improve it to such a degree that many of the cabin
instruments began to operate, if only dimly. Of particular interest was a
ransad ground-scanning device intended to give warning of personnel
near a launch pad near takeoff. The Colonel found its range amply covered
the area to the fringes of the forest, and trained the others to listen for the
tonal qualities which might indicate the return of the intruder or the
presence of a large beast in the vicinity.

    It was while examining the control cells to discover which he could use
and which he could dismantle for parts that Bogaert found a considerable
quantity of mercury in one of the ransad units. He had originally been
after the transparent dome to make a supplement to his sun-powered
stills, and the finding of the liquid metal was an unexpected bonus.

   By altering his chlorine cell to use mercury as the negative electrode, he
was able to separate the sodium from the salt water as a mercury
amalgam. This reacted with pure water to form a solution of caustic soda.
With the alkali and some fat recovered from spit-roasted animals, he was
able to prepare a kind of soap. The product was a slimy mess, with a
rancid, animal smell and a tendency to burn the skin, but, using liberal
quantities of water, they were able to wash themselves properly for the
first time since their arrival.

   One of the main chores each day was the fetching of water from the
swamp. Despite the clearance which had taken place, it was still the most
dangerous part of their routine. The electric fence had to be turned off,
and they had to make a passage through tracks still occasionally the haunt
of savage and fast-moving animals. Now that their use of water was
increasing, Bogaert and Zim were being exposed to this danger for longer
periods each day. To add to the problem, a variety of fleshy herb was
repopulating the cleared ground, providing cover for a number of small
but dangerous animals. Attempts to burn the herb proved futile because
of its high moisture content, nor was the amount of wire available
sufficient to extend their protected area as far as the swamp.
   Bogaert decided to dig a channel to conduct the water to a point inside
the fence. The soil was a rich loam and easily disturbed, but because of the
extended time involved working knee-deep in newly grown herbage, the
project could not be considered unless the undergrowth was first cleared.
He searched in vain through the stores in the pod, hoping to find an
effective defoliant, but there was no sign that any such thing had ever
been included. He next tried treating the ground with caustic soda
solution, but the success was only partial. To do the job properly would
have required more caustic than he was capable of producing. He
therefore turned his attention to the possibility of making sodium chlorate
weedkiller in his assembly of pots, wires, and pieces of metal.

   Viewing the range of things that the Colonel had already produced from
the crude electrolysis apparatus with a feedstock of salt water, Zim had
gained the impression that it could be made to produce anything in
creation. Bogaert had to admit that he had never before considered the
true potential of so limited a system. Now that he could produce caustic
soda, he could use the alkali in the electrolysis of water to produce both
oxygen and hydrogen. These gases combined in the proportion produced
by electrolysis formed an explosive mixture of creditable blasting power.

   He cautiously demonstrated this fact to Zim by filling a bladder made
of tied entrails and igniting the mixture with an improvised electrical
fuse. The explosion stung their ears and echoed for many seconds between
the distant mountains. Both were immediately impressed with its
potential as a defensive weapon, and they made several more explosive
balloons to test the idea. These they fixed at strategic places near the
perimeter, able to fire them electrically should the need arise.

   Bogaert then continued his experiments to produce sodium chlorate.
By bubbling chlorine through boiling caustic, he obtained a mixture
which should have contained salt and the weedkiller mixed. The effect of
this on the Avidan weeds was remarkable. So promptly did they die that
Miram laughingly told him that it was only a matter of time before he
killed off all the vegetation on the planet. Bogaert did not laugh. He had
seen what technology had done to his native Terra.

   When they started to dig the swamp end of the water channel, Bogaert
and Zim noticed two remarkable things. The first was an actual sight of
the one they took to be the intruder, squatting on the bank of an island
across the swamp. Zim raised the question of how the dark figure had
gained the island, because the thick banks of slime which broke the
surface of the water would have been a serious impediment to any form of
boat.

   The second discovery followed Bogaert's curse when his spade, biting
deeply into the loam, struck something hard like a plateau of buried rock.
He explored with the spade, trying to find its depth and extent. The cut
took him so near to the edge of the swamp that a bank of slime gave way
and flooded the hole with black and sedimented water. The instant before
the water swept in, he saw something which stayed his hand in surprise:
the first wash of water revealed not a stone, but a section of an elaborate
mosaic pavement of undoubtedly human construction.

   Immediately the scene was lost as the black water swamped the hole.
He began at first to wonder if it had been a trick of his imagination.
Moving back a couple of meters, he began to shovel the loam from over a
broad area. Soon he was rewarded by a section of ornate paving running
in a direction aslant to his intended channel and apparently continuing
outward across the swamp, only shallowly covered by the waters. The line
of the pavement continued to a point directly below where the enigmatic
figure sat watching them. As soon as it was obvious that they had made
the connection, the dark figure rose, raised one arm in a salute, and
walked away among the island trees.

   Zim explored the edges of the swamp and confirmed the presence of the
pavement leading like a barely submerged causeway out toward the
island. Meanwhile, Bogaert had scraped a section of the mosaic clean, and
was examining the alien intricacy and artistry of its design. On Terra or
any advanced star world, this would have been an important archeological
find. On Avida, however, it represented a route by which a potentially
dangerous intruder could invade their territory with impunity. Nor did
Bogaert fail to make a significant connection as the sound of Miram's
laughter drifted easily between the blackened trees. It was now doubly
important that the Kanizars were never left without protection.

   Having dug the first part of the channel, Zim and Bogaert sealed the
mainland end of the causeway with a huge pile of woody thornbush, which
they dragged into position with ropes and hooks because of the
spiteful-ness of the thorns. In gathering this material, they surprised a
huge feline creature which had been sleeping on the edge of the forest. A
single shot from the ion gun mercifully halted a charge which they could
not possibly have withstood, and reminded them of the continuing
dangers of being too long outside the protection of the wire. They
inspected the dead beast to see if it could possibly be used as food.
Something odd about its warty skin and curious, random tufts of hair
caused Bogaert to take a dislike to the carcass. He could not specifically
say that the creature was diseased, but he decided that the meat would
not be worth the risk.

    The Colonel's judgment was proved correct when, three days later, the
carcass still showed no sign of having decomposed. What factor was
responsible for its continued preservation, he did not discover, but several
creatures that took a meal from the carcass had died soon after they had
filled their stomachs. So slight were the divisions between life and death
on Avida.

                CHAPTER NINETEEN
   Aware of the fires but not of their purpose, Bethschant had that night
crept into Bogey's camp, thinking to seize the woman while the Colonel
and the boy were occupied at the far end of the clearing. He could have
saved himself a lot of pain and trouble had he bothered first to wonder
why the ring of fire had been established. By investigating more closely, he
would have found that the woman he sought was also in the fire ring, but
he had considered no circumstance unlikely enough to bring a woman out
into the Avidan night when she had a safe shelter in which to sleep.

   He had spent many hours watching the group from the shelter of the
forest edge, greatly intrigued by the curious things with which Colonel
Bogey occupied his time. Unexpectedly, the occupants of the barge
appeared not only to be surviving but to be in positive ascendancy over
their Avidan environment. It was obvious that with the crucial advantage
offered by the barge they had both the means and the will to remain on
Avida for as long as circumstance required. He was impressed by the way
the Colonel had attacked the forest rather than suffering its dangers and
hardships. Bethschant reflected ruefully that, had the members of his own
tribe been as positive in their approach, they might still be kings on their
own planet.

   Bethschant knew he could have killed Colonel Bogey several times had
he chosen, and the Colonel would never have known the mode or reason of
his death. Having no care about time, the native had stayed his hand,
preferring to make a sport of the affair to provide some interest in the
boredom of his otherwise complete isolation. He planned to steal the
woman, and when the Colonel came out to the rescue, Bethschant would
kill him face to face, warrior against warrior, with the woman to witness
his superiority.

   With this in mind, Bethschant had approached the pod from the
direction opposite that of the ring of fire. He was slightly amused to find
the door hatch secured from the outside with rope, a fact he took to
indicate that the Colonel was having trouble containing the woman. The
portent was promising: a creature of such high spirits would undoubtedly
be sport to catch and tame.

   Pausing outside the door, Bethschant applied his ear to the crack and
heard reassuring movements within. He reasoned that the female child
would be asleep, and that the woman was probably engaged in some
housekeeping chore. With his long-knife Bethschant silently cut the rope,
swung the panel, and leaped into the dark interior. Then, even in a
darkness lit only by the dun reflection from the flames, he knew he had
made the greatest mistake of his life. The dry-shelled rustle of stricken
snappers was a terrifying revelation of the nature of the trap into which he
had walked. His horrified comprehension was completed by a stinging in
his eyes and a burning sensation in his throat.

   He found it almost impossible to breathe, and, with his feet stumbling
on piles of still writhing, contorted snapper bodies, Bethschant counted
himself fortunate to have fallen backward out the door hatch. A clatter
from the creatures in the pod warned him of pursuit, and he swung the
heavy hatch behind him but fell over a pile of wire and pottery which had
been heaped close by. From the pain in his throat and chest, he reasoned
he had been dealt a grave injury. His eyes, swimming, refused to accept
anything but the blurred image of the flames. He heard a shout from
beyond the fires, and considered it probable that the Terran knew his trap
had been sprung. In no condition for fighting or even for defense,
Bethschant half crawled, half staggered away into the darkness, losing all
his weapons in the process, intent only on finding a place where he could
rest and if necessary die peacefully from the injuries to his lungs.

  He found no sleep in the forest crevice into which he finally stumbled.
An alarming weakness possessed his limbs, and he repeatedly coughed up
quantities of frothy fluid. His head ached in a manner he had never before
experienced, and he was convinced that death was slowly coming upon
him. He twisted all night to deter the fibers and things which rose out of
the ground to attack his body, while he prayed with every hard-won
breath for the gods to save his lungs. Toward morning, the pain had
slightly eased, although he still coughed considerably. He moved off slowly
into the deep forest, where the air seemed cooler and moister and less
painful to inhale. As the day passed, he found a gradual return to normal,
though he still had to avoid undue exertion. It was a further week before
he could comfortably run again.

  Throughout the period of his recovery, he took great care to avoid any
contact with the inhabitants of the ship. He was of two minds as to
whether he had walked into a deliberate trap set for him or not. Either
possibility seemed to confirm the things he had heard about the terrible
Terrans. If this injury had been accidental, he hated to contemplate what
Colonel Bogey could do to his enemies by design.

    The loss of his cough and the capacity to breathe easily again brought
the renewal of his confidence. By now the demon Colonel had succeeded in
setting fire to a considerable strip of forest, and there was no cover to be
had between the blackened trees until the foliage grew again. This same
fact, however, worked partly to Bethschant's advantage, because it left
Bogey's clearing in view from the island, and Bethschant found he could
sit comfortably in the trees and watch all that went on around the pod
without much fear of discovery.

   He now viewed more cautiously what had at first seemed a naive act:
that of putting two metal strings as a fence around the clearing. His
previous experience told him Colonel Bogey was unlikely to have done such
a thing without good reason. The scheme became clearer when he noted
that any animal which touched the fence was usually killed by the contact.
He made a note that small running-horns, which leaped between the
strings, could cross the clearing with impunity. Bethschant practiced the
movement over a log and beneath the fronds of an overhanging tree, until
he knew he could make a similar passage without any slackening of speed.

   The point prompted him to observe everything the Colonel did as
closely as possible. Bogaert and the boy were hiding things in the ground
and leading strings away toward the pod. Bethschant guessed these were
Terran traps, and mentally marked their positions. The next time he came
to take the woman, he wanted no possible chance of having to retreat in
defeat.

   The woman herself was the real prize. He did not know whether it was
his own desire which made her seem more attractive whenever she came
into view, or she was actually changing into something more akin to what
Bethschant would have liked to have believed was the ideal Avidan
woman. She laughed frequently, and her laughter floating across the
swamp made him squirm with longing. When he had taken her and made
her used to his native Avidan ways, he hoped she would still be able to
laugh. His own former Avidan mate had been more nearly an animal:
sullen, morose, and concerned only with the necessities of survival and
what minimal comfort she could obtain. Miram (for such he had heard
the others call her) was different, and her presence seemed to light the
forest edge more brightly than one of Bogaert's fires.

   When he thought nobody was about, Bethschant made occasional
sallies toward the wire to test the defenses and have a closer look at
Bogey's creations. Lately, the demon Colonel always seemed to detect his
coming and open the door hatch and scan the area. Sometimes the boy
would come also, with what was recognizably an ion gun. It mystified
Bethschant as to why, when they had so devastating a weapon available,
they did not use it more often. He concluded that the Colonel's confidence
rendered the device of marginal value. Nevertheless, the native took good
care to remain unseen whenever within range of ion fire.

   Life had been difficult without the long-knife. It was to regain this that
Bethschant planned his attack earlier than he might otherwise have done.
An almost complete knowledge of Bogey's defensive system gave him
confidence that the Colonel could still be taken by surprise. Bethschant
reasoned that if he attacked in fading light, there would be little chance of
his being visually observed even if the Colonel did have some mysterious
knowledge of his approach. With a rising bravado, Bethschant no longer
bothered to conceal himself when he was beyond the range of the ion gun.
For this reason, he was still sitting on the island bank, interestedly
watching Bogey's latest mystery, when the Colonel and the boy discovered
the end of the causeway and its connection with the island.

   The incident caused a point of decision for Bethschant. If the causeway
gave him easy passage to the island, it would also permit Colonel Bogey
and his strange weapons to make the crossing. To forestall the prospect of
being hunted across the island like an animal, Bethschant decided he
would attack that very evening, before the Terran was able to take
advantage of the new knowledge. That the Colonel had appreciated the
significance of the causeway was indicated by the fact that he had
bothered to seal the mainland end with spiteful rawthorn. Bethschant,
however, had his own way around the obstacle, and this could only add to
the element of surprise.

   The native spent the rest of the afternoon preparing his weapons. He
had changed his mind about drawing the Colonel into a fight, because the
Terran's policy of dealing with unwanted things appeared to be
extermination rather than combat. The Colonel would have to be killed
first; then the boy with the gun. Bethschant had decided to keep the
female child as well as the woman, and to take over the pod in Bogey's
place. So pleased was he with this idea that he could scarcely suppress his
eagerness to start bringing it about. He retipped all his spears and flights
with the swiftest poison he could find, and went to great lengths to
arrange the decoy which would draw the Colonel and the boy out into the
open.

   Once the two men had cleared the shelter of the pod, with their
attention focused elsewhere, Bethschant knew, from the place where he
intended to conceal himself he could drop them both, swiftly and silently.
Inside the pod, the woman would never know she had changed hands until
her new master arrived for the feast. The best part of the fighting would
take place inside the pod: taming the woman and forcing her to accept
that his whim was law. If things worked out as he hoped, Bethschant
thought, he might even stay on Avida and found a new dynasty when the
game was ended, instead of returning to Xzan and his perpetual problems
with the star worlds.

   Finally, everything was prepared. Bethschant moved silently across the
causeway, bearing the many things he considered he needed for the
success of his venture. Reaching the mainland, he traveled a considerable
way along the swamp edge before turning inland and taking a curved
route that actually placed the pod between himself and the swamp. With
some dexterity, he set up the woven decoy which in the closing darkness
could easily be mistaken for himself. Then he crept to the place he had
chosen and arranged his weapons, ready for instant use.

   He was about to toss a log onto the fence, which he was certain would
fetch the Colonel and the boy out to investigate, when he experienced a
peculiar shimmer of his vision—a sensation with which he had become
familiar during his service on the star worlds. It was a distortion of the
continuum caused by one or more ships breaking out of hyperspace
somewhere in the vicinity of the planet. This in itself would not have
worried Bethschant overmuch, yet he paused to consider its significance.
It could be Xzan come to check on the progress of the game; it could be
Oontara, who already seemed to have equipped his champion with far
more than was originally agreed on—or it could be that the Colonel had
somehow called for rescue or reinforcement from Terra. Whatever the
nature of the space visit, it was bound to have some effect on Bethschant's
present plans. The native considered it prudent to find out what changes
this new factor would introduce before he engaged in the risks of killing
Bogey and capturing the pod.

                  CHAPTER TWENTY
   Like a trio of avenging demons, the three fastest ships of the
Pretender's fleet dropped out of hyper-space. Each carved a separate
trajectory into orbit around Avida, losing no time in starting to scan the
surface for any possible clues as to the whereabouts of the missing
Kanizars.

   Gamin Sher was in the instrument room of the lead ship, cursing the
reluctance of his space technicians to give hope of locating three or four
individuals on an entire planet. Nor, from the nature of the terrain which
the optical instruments depicted, was it obvious that better results would
be yielded by a ground search unless the approximate area could first be
determined. The whole proposition appeared hopeless—a fact which Sher
had not appreciated until his arrival.

   Despite the unassailable logic of this argument, they were wrong. At a
point close to the terminator, the communications technicians found
evidence of a ground scanner at work. The transmissions were diffuse,
because the radiation was not directed skyward but reflected from objects
on the ground. Nevertheless, on an otherwise uninhabited planet, any
evidence of wave transmission was evidence of human life. After securing
a tentative fix for the position, Camin Sher ordered a landing party to go
down.

   The Pretender gave charge of the landing party to Pera Hai, his second
in command. His reasons for doing so were twofold. There had recently
been signs that Hai himself was beginning to doubt the Pretender's
prospects of succeeding Kanizar. Sher considered it good politics to give
Hai the task of attending to the executions. There was also the slight
chance that, if the Terran lived up to his reputation, Hai might be killed.
Either ending was acceptable to the Pretender. Hai would either be
convinced of Sher's cause by witnessing the removal of Kanizar's heirs, or
else the death of Hai would relieve Sher of a dangerous nucleus of apostasy
in his ranks.

   Because there were no ferry ships and no landing pads available, they
were forced to make planetfall using lifecraft. Hai chose to take only twelve
hand-picked men in full battle order, to create a tight commando force
which he could oversee as a body. Something in Sher's own reticence to
lead the attack twisted a cautious knot in Hai's stomach, and made him
take more than ordinary care with his preparations. Avida had an evil
reputation, but he was not sure whether Camin Sher, the wildlife, or the
mysterious Colonel Bogey was the factor most to be feared.

    From his position back on the forest's edge, Bethschant heard the
lifecraft fall. Once into the atmosphere, it had applied ionization braking,
and there was little to mark its actual descent other than the sharp crackle
of static as it passed overhead. It made planetfall about three kilometers
away, in the trees. There was a reasonable chance that the occupants of
the pod had missed the craft's coming, unless they had had reason to
anticipate its fall. From the lack of activity around the pod, Bethschant
guessed that they had slept.

    Interested in the purpose of the visit, Bethschant silently made his way
toward the lifecraft, his curiosity causing him to take chances in passing
through black forest recesses which were better avoided until daylight. As
was usual at night, the forest was alive with all manner of creatures, many
of which lived in deep burrows during the day. Many of the major
predators were nocturnal, and the routines of hunting and being hunted
filled the forest spaces with unimaginable animal sounds. Through this
natural bedlam, Bethschant's keen ears began to detect sounds of men and
equipment being readied for movement. He judged there to be about a
dozen men with full space armor and equipment packs. He smiled wryly as
he considered how inappropriate these items were for service on Avida.

   Soon he came across the group, making heavy work of forging a path
through the forest instead of taking advantage of natural weakness in the
brush. He found that he could move around them in the darkness quite
easily, and take advantage of the restrictions to their senses imposed by
their armor to approach quite closely without fear of detection. One of the
men was using a communicator pack, presumably in contact with the ship
in orbit He periodically gave the leader course instructions, and it was
obvious from their general direction that those in the ship had a fair idea
of the location of the pod.

   The first calamity for the party came when, in hacking a path under a
large tree, one of the shipmen put a long-knife through a bite-wing nest
Bethschant heard the characteristic scream of angry wings and retired to
a discreet distance. The men from the lifecraft were not so lucky. At least
three of the shipmen must have opened the face-bulbs of their helmets in
order to cope with the high humidity. This presented the bite-wings with
targets upon which to avenge the injury to the nest. The men's screams
did not last long. Bethschant could have told them it would be only a
matter of half an hour before the three suits of armor would contain
nothing but bones.

   Had the bite-wings attacked Bethschant, he would have crashed
through the brush, twisting and rolling as he went, to make the ferns and
twigs strike the creatures from his body. Distance also was of paramount
importance, because even starving bite-wings never traveled far from the
swarm. A fast-running man could normally escape with only a few bites.
Colonel Bogey had had the foresight to burn a large area of forest clear of
nesting wildlife, and thus had not encountered the problem. The soldiers,
however, had damaged a nest and then remained in the vicinity. Three
whipcrack bursts of ion fire told how their leader had finally decided to
solve the problem.

   When the party was clear of the bite-wing nest, Bethschant crept closer
and counted the survivors— now only ten, including the leader. He
climbed a low branch of a tree along their intended route and tried to hear
their conversation as they passed. He heard the name "Miram" mentioned
several times, and formed the impression that this must be a rescue party
come to take the woman back to the stars. With his own plans for the
woman well advanced, Bethschant was not prepared to consider any
chance of having her prematurely taken from the scene. He decided to
assist Avida in the work of destruction which the wildlife had already
started.
   One native against ten armed and armoured shipmen was not the
daunting prospect it appeared. Bethschant knew the ways of the forest,
had the advantage of mobility even in darkness, and the benefit of
surprise. Furthermore, from his service with Xzan, he well knew the
shipmen's equipment and armor and the nature of their defenses. His
prime target was the man with the communicator. No one could have seen
or heard the upthrusting spear which penetrated the fellow's body armor
at the vulnerable waist joint, but the communications man staggered into
the brush and died. When his colleagues discovered where the body had
fallen, the poisoned shaft had been removed and the communicator was
nowhere to be found. Bethschant counted on his fingers. Only nine
shipmen remained.

    There followed an anguished conference, with some shipmen urging a
return and their leader pointing out that without the communicator to
give them guidance they would be unlikely to find their way back to the
life-craft again before daylight. He then ordered the mission to continue,
and the complaining party once again went ahead.

   When Bogaert had managed to set fire to the forest, the flames had
traveled inland from the swamp edge for a great distance before reaching
a region of mud banks and quagmires which acted as a firebreak. It was
on the far side of this same obstacle that the shipmen now emerged. In the
darkness, the sluggish rivulets were not distinguishable from open patches
of terrain, and two of the shipmen were lost by drowning in the slow mud
drains before the leader called a halt and decided to remain in the same
spot until daybreak. Without the communicator, he was unable to
transmit this decision to the ship, and in their attempts to find a way
around the treacherous mires they had effectively lost their bearings.

   With the party now reduced to seven, afraid to open their armor for
any reason, it was a demoralized group that waited for the dawn.
Bethschant climbed into a tree above them and tried to encourage a
fast-creeper to disentangle from the branches and drop upon them, but
the sentient vegetable refused to consider the armor-clad shipmen edible.
This failure did not worry the native overmuch. He had a shrewd idea that
confinement in the armor was becoming insufferable, and he was gaming
the feeling that, because of their tolerance to their losses, this was more
likely to be a raiding than a rescue party. This latter point implied that
Colonel Bogey's defenses would probably add to the death toll, leaving
Bethschant to deal with only a few survivors to insure that no harm came
to the woman.

   This suited Bethschant better than his earlier plan. Because of the
appalling lack of fieldcraft exhibited by the shipmen, he was confident of
his ability to kill them at any moment he chose. If the shipmen themselves
could deal with the dreadful Colonel, then his main problem was solved.

   Dawn broke, and the uncertain light grew stronger. The unhappy
warriors rose, shook stiff limbs, and continued to plot a path around the
mud holes which would lead them into the newly grown herbage of the
burned forest strip. Once among the blackened trees, they appreciated the
reduction in wildlife and became brave enough to open their face-bulbs
and even remove their helmets altogether. Keeping low in the new
vegetation,

    Bethschant shadowed them silently with a wry anticipation of what was
to follow.

   At the sight of the pod standing in the clearing, the party again became
a military team. The leader gave detailed instructions as to the method of
attack and the angle of approach. Two were sent ahead to gain positions
on the swamp side of the clearing, while the remainder separated and took
places along the landward side. At a signal, they began a simultaneous
advance. Bethschant made no attempt to follow, but climbed the
blackened stump of a tree to gain a better view. The first man to touch the
fence died as the animals had done, and another on the far side of the
clearing, unable to see the fate of his comrade, likewise met his end.

   Thereafter, the fence was destroyed in several places by ion fire, and the
advance continued, with the leader calling on the Colonel to surrender the
Kanizars. A device which Bethschant had not known about exploded close
to one of them, and the five survivors now became four. Two turned and
ran, and Bethschant's arrows straight into the vulnerable waist-joint of
their suits dropped them in mid-stride. Another reached the door of the
pod, intending to wrench it open. He met a close-range burst of ion fire
directed expertly through the opening gap, and dropped like a falling log.
Only the leader now remained. He turned and ran toward the nearest
clump of trees outside the clearing.

  This was an unwise move, as Bethschant could have told him. Colonel
Bogey had something hidden in those trees which the native had never
understood, but which certainly formed some sort of trap. The sound of an
explosion low in the trees signaled that the demon Colonel had recognized
the advantage. The running man faltered, threw his hands protectively
over the open bulb of his helmet, then began to stagger blindly, all further
thoughts of flight forgotten.

   Although Bethschant could not see what manner of injury had struck
the leader, it was certain that the man was in very great pain. Something
invisible had stopped the fully armed space warrior and turned him into a
blind, defeated creature. When the Colonel and the boy appeared at the
door hatch, Bethschant retreated into the forest. The action had not gone
at all the way he had hoped, and his respect for the terrible Terran was
increasing by the hour.

             CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
   From Bogaert's point of view, several members of the attacking force
were still not accounted for. Emerging cautiously from the door hatch, he
crouched low and ran to where one of the men had been blasted by an
oxy-hydrogen mine which had been buried below the approach to the pod.
The explosive power of the buried gas bomb should not have been
sufficient to kill a man in armor, but the blast had lifted the fellow bodily,
and landed him with a broken neck. An ion carbine was the Colonel's
gratifying gain.

   Still low on the ground, Bogaert surveyed the area warily, trying to
estimate the extent of any further attack by counting the number of fallen.
Two had been electrocuted by the wire, one blasted by the mine, one shot
by Zim, and one was even now staggering from the effects of a faceful of
strong caustic solution distributed by a gas mine concealed in a tree. The
Colonel's estimation from the ground scanner had been seven men, with a
possible eighth slightly out of range. Potentially there could be three
attackers still to come.

   Zim doubled out to the wire to collect the weapons of the men who had
fallen there. Bogaert permitted him to make this dangerous sortie because
he had discovered that the lad's field sense was even better than his own.
What Bogaert had not anticipated was that Zim would suddenly stand and
begin to beckon with his arms. Bogaert shouted to him to keep low, and
ran over to see what had so excited the boy's attention. When he arrived
he found two further members of the attack party dead on the ground,
with native arrow shafts sticking out precisely from the waist joints of
their armor. For a certainty, the eighth man who had shown on the
scanner had been their native antagonist, who, for reasons of his own,
appeared to have chosen to attack the newcomers rather than assist them.

   This came as a surprise to Bogaert, who had assumed the attacking
party were Xzan's own men. On closer inspection he decided their insignia
was that of Camin Sher, the Pretender. Whereas he had supposed the
threat to be against his own life, it was now obvious that the Kanizars
were the target. Furthermore, if a small task force had landed, it was
certain a larger force was still in orbit.

   He turned back to the unfortunate who had run into the caustic
dispersion liberated by the gas mine in the tree, and sent Zim scurrying
for water. The facial burns were going to be serious, because the fellow
had opened the bulb of his helmet as he ran. Certainly nothing could now
save his sight. If Bogaert felt any pity, it was quelled by the thought that
the man was a member of an armed murder party sent to kill a woman
and two children.

    Miram herself brought the water and carefully washed and cleansed the
burns. Bogaert and Zim helped the shipman out of his armor—but it was
little Anna, full of solicitude for his plight, who took the blind warrior's
hand and led him back toward the pod. When he was seated, she brought
him food and a drink of water, and her own bean-filled cushion, which he
declined.

  Although blind and in extreme pain, the shipman looked up as Bogaert
came in, recognizing a military step.

   "Are you in league with the gods, Colonel Bogey?" he asked with
difficulty. "Else why does everything on this cursed planet rush to your
aid?"

   "You'd not think it did if you were in our position," said Bogaert,
settling himself on a sack next to the stricken man.

   "Believe me, it's true. We were thirteen when we left the lifecraft. The
wildlife, the landscape, and the natives halved our number before we even
reached here."

  "You're Pera Hai, Sher's lieutenant, aren't you?"
  "Do you read minds, also?"

  "No. I've been reading the document foil in your armor. How many men
has the Pretender in orbit?"

  "By this time, better than twenty thousand."

  "Yet he sent only thirteen?"

   "Sher sensed trouble. That's why he didn't come himself. We were goats
thrust in to test the extent of danger. We lost our communicator early, so
we've not reported back, thus confirming Sher's fears. His next move'll be
a space strike."

   "I wonder he didn't do that first." Bogaert reverted to the role of
tactician.

   "It complicates the issue," said Hai. "To succeed, he needs proof of his
claims of assassination. It's difficult to find convincing proof in a bomb
crater. Even when he does make a strike, he'll have to do it delicately, else
he'll have nothing to show the doubting kings he wishes to influence."

  "You're an easy man to talk to, Hai. You've told me a lot without close
questioning. Why?"

   "Because the Pretender's cause is lost, and he knows I'm convinced of it.
Thus he plotted me out of his way. I wasn't intended to survive this
exercise."

  "Would you have been convinced of the Pretender if this assassination
had succeeded?"

  The blind warrior screwed up his face with the pain of his burns.
"There's more to being King of Kings than successful murder of women
and children. It's a question of stature."

  "Stature?"

   "Great star rulers are born, not self-elected. True dominance gathers in
the bloodline through centuries of successful combat. The young Kanizar
shot my warrior through a door crack no wider than the ion beam. The
shot was impressive, but not as impressive as the battle light on the lad's
face as the door opened wider. I knew then with dreadful certainty that
the Pretender couldn't win."

   He turned away to face outward through the hatch and continued
speaking reflectively.

   "I ran into your infernal device, Colonel. And a woman with kind hands
treated my wounds like one the gods have sent. She also was a Kanizar.
And a child whom I should have killed took my arm and scolded me like a
toy. She rested me out of the sun and brought me meat. This none but a
Kanizar could have done. Contrast it with the shallow wantonness of
Camin Sher, and there's no doubting who'll prevail. That's why I'm
honored to die at the hands of a Kanizar."

   "There's no question of your dying at Zim's hands," said Bogaert. "Only
from your wounds, for which we don't have medical supplies."

   "I'll die all too surely when the Pretender comes. You've got to get away
from here, Colonel. Sher will soften the whole area with bombs and then
send a major task force to sift for evidence of the Kanizars' deaths."

   "There's no way we can survive in the forest without the things
available here."

  "And it's certain death at Sher's hands if you remain. What about the
barge—can't it still fly?"

  "The power plant shut itself down during the crash. I've been able to
open it up a bit, but there's nothing like full power available."

   "If you have enough power to render the wire lethal, you should have
sufficient for an atmospheric flight. A hop of a hundred kilometers should
make it difficult for Sher to find you. He'd not have found you yet had you
not been using the ground scanner. A ship's a remarkably small thing on
the ground when you're looking for it from orbit."

   "You're making sense, Hai. Except I've no idea how to fly the thing. I
fetched her down by inactivating the ghost and switching to a preset
landing mode. I don't know enough of the ransad to pilot the thing even as
an atmospheric craft."

  "But I do, Colonel. Take me with you. I'll be the brains, you the eyes.
Between us, we could make it."

   "Possibly. But why should you want to help us?"

   "I'm a stricken man, and blind. I've no further use for the Pretender,
nor he for me. If I can't die at the hands of a Kanizar, at least let me not
suffer extermination by Camin Sher."

   "You change sides with remarkable alacrity."

  "There's no time to argue the case," said Hai tiredly. "You can take a
chance and trust me, or you can wait for the murderer to come."

   "We don't have much choice."

   "I've a further suggestion, Colonel. Abandon the pod. With luck, Sher's
bombs will blast it apart It'll then take some while sifting the wreckage
before he knows for certain you've escaped. If they discover no ship
wreckage, they'll start a wider search immediately."

   "The chances of our surviving without the pod are vanishingly small."

  "Not as small as if you take it. A balance of risks. Every hour you buy
could be crucial. I doubt Kanizar's far behind the Pretender."

  "Very well! We'll give it a try. If we ever do get out of this alive, I'll see
you guaranteed safe harbor.".

   Hai made some attempt at reply, then bit his words back and kept the
comment to himself. Bogaert went to explain the situation to the others.
The prospect of piloting the craft on an atmospheric trip, guided by a
blind former enemy, did not give him much ease. The idea of having to
continue living on Avida without the protection and facilities of the pod
made him view the whole prospect with distinct apprehension.
Nevertheless, Hai was unarguably right, and Bogaert therefore presented
the case to Miram with a confidence he did not feel.

             CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  Hai predicted that the best time for an undetected takeoff would be at
sunset, when cooling of the atmosphere would introduce distortions in
many of the observations being made from the orbiting ships. In any case,
it was nearing sunset before the two men, sitting in the powerbarge cabin,
managed to evolve a system of communication which made makeshift use
of Bogaert's eyes and hands and Hal's eyeless knowledge. Having defined
which of the instrument cells were necessary for atmospheric-flight
information, Bogaert had to keep up a continuous commentary on their
indicated state, while reacting immediately and precisely to Hai's
directions. Their rehearsals showed grave deficiencies in the system, but
there was no time for improvement.

   Miram and the children had been sorting their possessions to decide
which were the absolute necessities they should attempt to take. Now,
clutching a nucleus of food, water, tools, and arms, they forced their way
into the already crowded cabin. It was immediately obvious that the
captured ion carbines, valuable though they might be, were a physical
danger in such cramped conditions. Reluctantly Bogaert dropped all but
one back down into the pod before closing and sealing the hatch. Then
came the point he had been dreading. Squatting before the instrument
cells, he began calling the indications and listening for Hai's directions.

   He severed the connections with the pod correctly, but allowed the
reaction power to build too fast. The craft left the ground with a
bone-shaking punch instead of a controlled acceleration, and Anna
whimpered with fright. Bogaert fought the controls but overcompensated,
though at least he managed to maintain the craft on an even keel. Then,
under the guiding influence of Hai, who maintained a fatalistic calm, he
managed to re-trim for horizontal flight, and began to look about for the
most promising direction in which to fly.

   Attracted by the noise, Bethschant watched the barge ascend. At first
he had the notion that it might be trying to escape past the orbiting ships
and make for Ortel or another star world. The barge, however, hovered
uncertainly at no great height and then set off in the direction of the
broken hills. The native moved out from his cover into the open and
followed its progress with interested eyes.

   Because the distance was extreme for so small an object, he could not
be certain, but he thought he saw it fall to the ground again, and
memorized a few landmarks to guide his direction when he chose to
follow. Firstly, however, he wanted to have a look at the abandoned pod
itself. This time he did not fear traps, because from the manner of their
leaving it was obvious that the party had no intention of returning.
   Bethschant had no reason to explain why the pod had been left behind,
dearly it made so excellent a shelter that it had enabled its recent
occupants to survive with only a fraction of the risks and discomfort that
had beset the nomad. He surveyed the progress the Colonel had made
toward taming the forest in so short a time, and accepted the implied
rebuke that he and his kind could have made a similar stand had they
known it was possible and had they an idea how it might have been
achieved. He finished his tour with the firm resolve mat he, Bethschant,
was going to see Avida repopulated, and this time it would be the wildlife
which would have to withdraw. Perhaps the Terrans might even fend him
someone terrible, like Colonel Bogey, to make the forests cringe and the
animals die magically at the touch of a wire.

   So strong was this resolution and so appealing its goal that the native
determined to start changing his way of life immediately. The abandoned
pod offered a far better camp than he could build. Much of the food he
found was already prepared, but he needed fresh meat to supplement the
grain and paste cakes, and therefore a hunting trip was necessary. He
considered using one of the ion carbines for the hunt, but realized the
noise of the weapon would preclude a second shot should the first one fail.
He therefore took his bow and spears and started off into the forest to
secure his supper before the darkness closed. The move was fortuitous,
because scarcely was he safely between the trees when the whole area was
rocked by a string of bombs which leaped down from space.

   Dazed and shaken by the intensity of the blasts, Bethschant lay for a
long while pressed to the ground, then circled warily until he was
reasonably sure that no more were going to fall. A line of splintered trees
now blocked his path, but he pressed carefully through the broken timbers
until he could see the site. Where the pod had stood there was now a
monstrous hole surrounded by seven smaller craters whose edges literally
overlapped.

   Such precision bombing from space was no magic to the native. He had
seen it employed many times in the course of his service with Xzan. What
did surprise him was the number of bombs employed against an
individual target when one would have been sufficient Could it be that
those in the ships felt it necessary to take no possible chance that the
occupants of the pod might survive? And what would their reaction be
when they realized they had f ailed?
   There was no longer anything to retain his interest in the vicinity now
the pod had been destroyed. Because of the approach of night, he now had
no time in which to establish a new camp, and so he set off back over the
flooded causeway to his island retreat, where he still had a tree already
prepared. The loss of the pod annoyed him greatly, because it was a
wanton act. Colonel Bogey had abandoned it, and those in the ships above
had no use for it, yet now it had been blasted apart. He sensed that the
bombs had come because the landing raid had failed. The pity was that
the bombers had not known or cared about his existence or the
importance of the hull to his plans for the future.

   The situation defined those in the ships as enemies. They had come
between him and his acquisition of the woman, and also destroyed the
only realistic shelter on the planet. As he settled, still hungry, on the
branches of his tree, Bethschant decided he hated these people nearly as
much as he respected Colonel Bogey. He had gained the strongest regard
for the Colonel's almost fanatical ability to construct a semblance of order
out of chaos, whereas those in the ships had shown no talent other than a
penchant to destroy.

   Something happened in the night which caused Bethschant to untie
himself from the branches and climb down and extinguish the slow fire
beneath. The circumstance which gave rise to this action was the sound of
the arrival of an incredible number of lifecraft. Over a period of about an
hour, the descents continued until the native could easily have believed
that as many as a hundred craft had been landed within a radius of a
kilometer of the site. He took a considerable delight in the thought that
inevitably a high proportion of these must have come down in the swamp.
From what he knew of the foibles of lifecraft, few of these were ever likely
to struggle back out of the dark waters.

   Fortunately, no lifecraft landed on or near the island. Bethschant was
content to remain in his cover until the coming of dawn. At first light, he
climbed down from the tree and began to explore. He detected several
groups of shipmen moving toward the area where the pod had been, and
one group already engaged in setting up lights around the craters to
reinforce the dim shades of early morning. All were armed with ion
carbines, and Bethschant gave little for his chances if he remained in the
area as the search pattern closed. The occasional whipcrack of ion fire
echoing back from the hills was an indication that some parties were
already firing at animals or shadows in the dark spaces of the great
forests.

    It was therefore with infinite caution that he stole across the causeway,
circled the blasted pod site, and began to trek away through the forest, his
sharp senses alert for any sign which might indicate the presence of other
groups of men. The general direction of his travel was toward the
landmarks against which he had thought the powerbarge had made its
descent. Wide detours were necessary, in order to avoid several landed
life-craft whose occupants were not converging on the original site but
apparently were making extensive searches of the forest. The implication
was that those searching the site were not convinced that the former
occupants of the pod had died when the area had been blasted. From the
way the search was patterned around the area, Bethschant judged that
they had missed the point that the powerbarge had been reactivated and
flown well out of the vicinity.

   Some of the lifecraft had been set down at an even greater radius, and
here random local searches were being carried out, generally without
much enthusiasm because of the low probability of their producing any
useful results. The activity of the wildlife had enforced the wearing of full
armor, and the growing heat of the sun combined with the high humidity
must have made the task extremely uncomfortable. The armor made the
men noisy and abusive, and thus easy to detect from a distance.
Bethschant gradually abandoned concealment for speed, frequently
breaking into a trot in the more open forest spaces.

   He was himself having trouble with the wildlife, which seemed
particularly virulent in this area. Additionally, two of the weird creatures
from the northern badlands were prowling the area, and there were many
examples of the wanton killing of running-horns and razor-horns which
had been torn to pieces but not eaten. Bethschant looked at this meat
regretfully but dared not touch it, knowing there was no escape from the
poisons distributed by the terrible badlands beasts. Instead, he fed himself
while on the move by picking young shoots and berries. It was a lengthy
and unsatisfying meal, but gave him the advantage of continuing
movement.

   It was his intention to be out of the forest and on the rising footlands
below the hills before the end of light. The colder climate on the exposed
and rising slopes was not favored by the forest-dwelling beasts, and
though the hills contained their own brands of terror, these were mainly
larger creatures which an alert man could detect and hope to avoid or kill.
One did not build a camp on the hills, but rather chose a good position for
defense and slept with open eyes.

   As he approached the edge of the forest, Bethschant discovered another
disadvantage of the more open sites. So far away and still that he had not
detected it at first, a solitary lifecraft had landed on a high plateau. From
this point of vantage, it had a perfect view of the sparser terrain which
Bethschant was now crossing. The native knew nothing of its existence
until he had betrayed both his presence and his direction of travel. He
presumed he was being watched through powerful optical instruments,
because the figures which emerged from the distant lifecraft split into two
groups, one designed to intersect his path and the other to cover a retreat.

   Bethschant had no intention of retreating, nor was he likely to walk into
so obvious a trap. He changed direction subtly, so that the watchers might
not know that they too had been seen, and set a new route to his
destination. He estimated that he could safely pass between the encircling
groups of men and still gain a useful lead. The idea of having a trail of
armed shipmen following him across the open hillside was one he did not
relish, but he knew that once he reached the more broken ground the
advantage would be with him rather than with an armored warrior. He
therefore led his pursuers determinedly toward the crown-tops of the
nearer hills.

          CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
   The diversion of the powerbarge from its original rendezvous had
resulted in Avida's becoming an unusual focus of galactic interest. From a
base around Sol, a task force of the Federation Navy had leaped into
hyperdrive on the first leg of its vast journey to the Hub in response to
Commissioner Rounding's urgent summons. The Commissioner himself
was already well on his way to Avida in Oontara's space bark. In front of
him now, clear on the screens, six of Xzan's wicked-looking battle craft
scurried through the dimensionless tunnels of hyperspace, intent on trying
to salvage the star lord's stake in the survival game.

   In orbit around Avida, no less than a dozen of the Pretender's ships
already held station, and several hundred of the slower vessels were
following in formation. Camin Sher himself was growing anxious. After his
initial exultation at finding the powerbarge, he had struck a hiatus. The
superlative accuracy of his space combing had apparently destroyed the
pod completely, and despite the high rewards he had offered for positive
proof of the deaths of Miram and her children, none of his men had yet
come forth with a claim. The crew searching the site reported that the
fragments of wreckage did not warrant the conclusion that the
powerbarge had been destroyed along with the pod. If the power-barge
proved to be missing, the chances were very high that Colonel Bogey had
used it to transfer his royal charges elsewhere.

   This was a conclusion which caused the Pretender no joy. At worst, the
missing group had a whole planet on which to hide themselves, and the
Terran was unlikely to repeat the mistake of using the ground scanner
whose signals had attracted the first attack. There was also the curious
matter of what had befallen Hai and his landing party, which had ceased
to communicate shortly after starting the expedition. With the threat of
Kanizar's retribution growing ever closer, and yet no gain to show for the
immense risks of the undertaking, Sher began to sense that, even without
Hai, parts of his force were coming very close to mutiny.

    The Pretender desperately needed a piece of luck to restore his
credibility; he was certain that otherwise, when the time came for a
showdown with Kanizar, a large portion Of his fleet would desert. He was
caught between opposing opinions that either the children had been
destroyed in such a manner as to leave no trace, or else they had escaped.
If the first was true, his cause was already lost. He therefore grasped at the
second idea, and sent an increasing number of men to the surface of the
planet, in the hope that some shred of evidence would be found. Such was
his need for information that he promised rewards of amazing magnitude
for the man or group who made a positive find.

    Even with the unorthodox scheme for its control, the flight of the
powerbarge might have been a success had it not been for an unforeseen
event. Once he had grown used to the feel of the controls, Bogaert found
the craft a remarkably simple thing to fly—a characteristic consistent with
its ease of maneuverability around a spaceport The factor which the
Terran had overlooked concerned the power plant itself.

   In restoring the power from the unit, he had forced the plates apart and
propped them with metal wedges. What he had not known was that the
force tending to bring the plates together was proportional to the energy
being drawn from the unit. The metal props had been ample to resist the
compulsive force of his purely electrical usage; the reactive power needed
for flight, however, was a demand many orders of magnitude greater. The
powerbarge had scarcely achieved a reasonable height before the props
began to flatten and distort.

   Hai deduced the imminence of failing power from the engine note
before Bogaert had time to sing out the readings from the instrument
cells. His instruction was immediate: to hold a position above the nearest
apparently flat space and let the craft ride down under its slowly
decreasing reactive thrust. The incident happened at a particularly
difficult time, when they had left the forest and the gentler slopes and
were poised over a broken and fragmented mountain range. The only flat
surface in the vicinity was a small, bare rock plateau which sloped at an
uncertain angle.

    A further complication which Bogaert had not anticipated was the
erratic turbulence of the atmosphere over the mountains, which thrust
randomly against the failing powerbarge and threatened to turn it aside
from its minute landing point. With the power fading fast, Bogaert risked
a little of the remaining thrust in a desperate attempt to swing the craft
sideways and back onto the plateau. A gust of wind helped momentarily,
and with a prayer of relief he settled the craft down only a few meters from
a perilous edge.

   Almost at once it became apparent that the position was unstable. The
angle of the slope combined with the gusting turbulence rocked and
shifted the craft in a way that made it certain that only minutes would see
the barge unseated and plunging down into the broken teeth of a
fractured mountain cleft. There was nothing Bogaert could do but order
immediate evacuation. The jagged rock faces many hundreds of meters
below foreswore that neither the craft nor the occupants would survive
such a fall.

   Because of the crush of bodies in the cabin, rapid evacuation was
difficult. Zim and Anna managed to extricate themselves and drop down
through the hatch to the ground. Miram followed, pleading for speed.
Bogaert turned to the blinded Hai and tried to guide him, but the
shipman shook his hand away and bade him go first. As the Terran went
down through the hatch, he had the distinct impression that Hai had
stood up and was groping for the control panel. Divining a pattern in the
move, Bogaert joined the others on the ground and made them run hastily
across the rocky face away from the vicinity of the powerbarge.

   He was scarcely a moment too soon. They were barely clear of the
flux-reaction field when the motors were restarted and the craft lurched
sickly into flight again. For a moment it hung in the air like a wounded
thing, then slewed at right angles and made a long, powered crash dive
over the broken rocks into some unseen depths far below.

  Miram's cry of horror and apprehension was quenched by the
expression on Bogaert's face.

   "That's the way he wanted it, Miram. He wasn't a man who could live
without sight. It was the last thing he could da to help us."

  "Help us?" Her understanding failed her. "He's robbed us of the
powerbarge."

   "Without the pod, we couldn't have lived in it. And it's what the
Pretender will be looking for. When it's found, the search will concentrate
in that area rather than here. It'll give us an extra chance."

  "What chance? We've no food, no shelter, and no weapons."

  "At least we're alive. We'll tackle the rest of the problems as they arise."

  "Don't you Terrans ever give up hope?"

  "Not till we've exhausted all possible avenues. At this juncture, we've
not even got around to defining the problems."

   During this conversation Bogaert had been looking round the broken
terrain, trying to judge what their next move ought to be. Unquestionably,
they had to descend from the plateau as quickly as possible, because the
high rock was completely devoid of anything which might contribute to
the maintenance of life. The air was thin, and with the waning of the sun,
a bitter chill was beginning to inhabit the updrafts and blustering winds
which plagued its desolation. Fortunately, the height gave them a slightly
longer period of evening light than would have been available in the forest.

   One face of the sloping plateau gave way to a random ramp of broken
rock leading down to the foot of a sheer cliff which had itself been cleaved
as if by a mighty ax. It was to this point that Bogaert decided to descend
before nightfall, in the hope that the walls of rock would give some
protection from the wind. The descent was difficult and dangerous, but
they had all become accustomed to hardship. Even little Anna struggled
on with an animallike determination which must have taxed her resources
to the limit. Somehow, after what seemed a whole lifetime of exertion,
they gained the foot of the cliff and began to explore the entrance to the
cleft which promised some respite from the mountain winds.

   The last part of the climb had been carried out in the near-darkness of
the night The passage into the cleft proved darker still. Only a narrow
streak of starlight above their heads provided any evidence that they were
not in fact in a cave. However, the stellar illumination was entirely
insufficient to light their way. Groping with his hands and feeling the
ground carefully with his feet, Bogaert pressed ever more deeply into the
cleft, because the atmosphere was decidedly warmer between the narrow
confines of the rocky walls. The need for warmth was paramount. Anna's
reserves must have been dangerously low, and Zim, in his state of near
nudity, was particularly liable to suffer from exposure.

   This high in the mountains they had seen no sign of wildlife, and
Bogaert prayed that they would meet none in the darkness. The only
weapon they now possessed was Zim's single-shot ion gun, which hardly
qualified as a reliable means of defense. Though strewn with large
boulders, the underlying ledge was reasonably level, as though they were
walking on a natural rock fault which had been formed when the
mountain split in half. All the time he was able to feel the rocky walls on
both sides and a solid floor beneath, Bogaert had not worried that they
might step into an unseen precipice, but when the distance between the
walls grew greater, he had no such reassurance. There he decided that
further progress in the darkness did not constitute a reasonable risk, and
brought the party to a halt.

   There was little question of sleeping. They huddled together to conserve
their natural warmth, and rearranged such tattered clothing as they still
possessed to drape the outermost parts of those who were most exposed.
Such a concentration of animal warmth made their wretched condition at
least tolerable, and enabled the group to find a minimal comfort in a
situation where an individual might have suffered dangerous chill. Arma
and Zim even appeared to doze a little, though Bogaert and Miram found
no such respite and spent the long night quietly discussing their
predicament in tones they hoped showed no sign of panic.
   their worst period came with the slow break of dawn. A change in the
mountain winds caused a bitter draft to penetrate the cleft and chill them
cruelly at a time when their resistance was at its lowest. It was Bogaert's
opinion that movement would be better than inactivity, and he coaxed the
party back to life. They formed a very sorry and pitiful-looking band as
they attempted to drape the rotting rags around themselves. Any
semblance of a civilized condition refused to become discernible, and it
was with the appearance of a troupe of ragged savages that they
reluctantly turned their feet again to the path. Fortunately, this generated
a vein of ironic humor which helped to buoy their descending spirits as
they set out to discover what this newest day in the survival game would
bring.

   As the sky became brighter, it was possible to see a streak of light in
front of them, marking the far edge of the mountain. What lay beyond,
whether a sheer drop or a more gentle slope, it was impossible to decide,
but the prospect lured them with more hope than logic would have
dictated. There were bad rock falls to be climbed, and in their weakened
condition the going was extremely hard, especially for little Anna. Thus,
the sun was high in the sky before they finally broke from their rocky
confines and stood to gaze with a kind of wonder at this new place they
had found.

           CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
   Between the cradling palms of mountain ranges, a green valley sloped
from their present position down to where a further outcrop separated it
from the plains and forests far below. It took no great measure of
observation to note that, for Avida, this valley was unusual. Because of its
high location and moderate climate, the patterns of bush and fern and
tree were completely unlike those of the forest floor, and in the lush,
abundant grasses razor-horns grazed openly, as if unused to attack.

   Nor was this the only point of note. Feeding the stream, a swift
mountain cataract poured crystal waters from some mountain height into
a rocky pool, from which it escaped by half a dozen channels before
continuing in a swift race down to the forests and the swamplands far
below. Cautiously noting the coldness of the water, Bogaert inspected the
pool closely, anticipating what he would find. The water was undefiled by
fleshworms and the myriad horrors of the lower swamps. Imitating the
razor-horns at the stream below him, he first took a sip of the water, and
then a deeper drink, then encouraged the others to do the same. After the
tepid distilled water on which they had existed for so long, the draft of
recently melted snow as it tumbled from the heights was a bittersweet
delight.

   Here in the high pass, with the sun warming their bodies despite the
chill of the clear, thin air, their spirits soon revived, and the shadows of
death fell away with this new promise of continued life. Their next
problem was food, which, in the absence of any means of raising fire,
would be necessarily limited to such fruits and berries as they already
know to be safe to eat. The abundance of the horned creatures tempted
them to think of meat, but although the animals seemed docile, the sharp
edges of their horns promised risk of severe injury to anyone making an
attack without sufficient preparation. Zim wished to shoot one. Bogaert
restrained him, because they had no way yet to cook a carcass. In any case
he wished to avoid any unnecessary ion fire, which might attract
unwanted attention. Therefore, they ate a cold, vegetarian meal as they
continued their exploration.

   Reviewing his survival priorities, Bogaert decided that this high valley
offered considerably easier living prospects than a return to the forests,
and, because the climate was colder, their paramount need was for a
shelter in which to spend the nights. They therefore moved systematically
along one of the rocky walls of the valley where many overhangs and
projections promised at least a roof and one wall ready-made. They were
luckier than they had anticipated, coming upon an overhang which
covered an almost hemispherical rock chamber open at one side only,
which had the promise of even deeper cavities beyond. Nothing about the
fine silt on the floor gave any reason to suppose that the place was
inhabited or even visited by predators, and the entrance looked easy to
defend. They therefore decided to use this as their base.

   Looking carefully at their new-found habitat, Bogaert was struck by the
smooth regularity of the walls. It was possible, he thought, that this was
one of a chain of immense lava bubbles which, on approaching the surface
of the mountain, had had an entrance cut by ram and wind erosion. He
first thought that the inner chambers might be an occasional watercourse,
active at some subterranean flood level, but there was no suggestion of
this in the patterning of the sand or rock, and he had more pressing
problems than geological speculation with which to contend.
   Their vegetable meal had been time-consuming and unsatisfying.
Therefore, fire and meat were the next two items on the list. With the
facilities offered by the pod and the powerbarge, fire had not before been a
major problem. However, in their new-found state of reduction to
primitive resources, what had previously seemed simple had now become
peculiarly difficult. Bogaert's first thought was to try to make fire using a
bow to turn a shaft in a tinder block. He found tinder and wood for the
bow without difficulty, but nothing which would serve as a string for the
bow.

   After blistering his fingers in a series of futile attempts to generate
sufficient heat by turning the stick between the palms of his hands, he
paused to take off his wrist chronometer. The sight of the curved glass
covering the digital display gave him a new idea. He pried the glass from
the front of the case, laid it on the ground, and dripped water into it,
being careful to raise a slight meniscus. In this way, he made a small but
adequate burning glass, which he held carefully over his dry tinder. He
had a reasonable fire going within ten minutes.

   He experimented for a while with various types of brushwood, trying to
discover which burned with the least smoke. His final choice was not very
satisfactory, because the brush was difficult to break by hand and he now
had no ax or saw available. Nevertheless, he collected sufficient deadwood
to last for several hours, and it was only when he had made a pile of it that
he realized that it was material which would have been swiftly rotted by
the sap down on the forest floor. The inescapable conclusion was that the
trees in this high valley were not of the sap-producing kind, or else the sap
system was inhibited by the cold.

   A further point which struck him most forcibly in his foraging was the
almost complete absence of the vicious insects and small animal life which
they had found so abundant among the forest trees. He began to realize
that if they could remain undiscovered by the Pretender's men in this high
pasture, they had a reasonable chance of surviving until Hilary Rounding
came to their rescue. The prospect was not ideal, but it was certainly more
attractive than continued tenure in the forest.

   Having a fire, they now had need for meat. Bogaert pointed several
sticks by rolling them in the fire and banging off the charred wood with a
stone, but they were hopelessly inadequate as spears. After a nearly mortal
encounter with one of the razor-horned creatures which Bogaert had
attempted to "throw" with his hands, he finally gave permission for Zim to
use a single ion discharge to kill one of the beasts. Zim's aim was prompt
and accurate, but the whipcrash thunder rolled discouragingly loud
between the mountains, and renewed Bogaert's fears of alerting the
Pretender's men.

    With the coming of night, Bogaert and Zim arranged a crude deadwood
pile across the entrance to the chamber to reduce access to it and so make
it easier to defend. Their armory consisted of the ion gun, some
fire-pointed sticks, and several piles of stones which had been specially
selected for throwing. Apart from the ion gun, the defenses were probably
more psychological than actual. Bogaert had seen scattered bones in the
valley woods which gave the impression that the carcasses of heavy
animals had literally been torn apart So far there were no clues as to what
might be responsible, but the Terran had an uneasy feeling that this
seemingly docile valley was probably not as safe as appearances suggested.

   Having settled the children to sleep at sundown, Bogaert and Miram
stood leaning on the deadwood barrier, watching the rise of the great star
clusters and wondering if Rounding had yet realized Oontara's and Xzan's
duplicity and mounted a rescue attempt In a way, the arrival of the
Pretender was fortunate, because this was a development which Rounding
could be expected to examine with his customary insight. Providing only
that the Commissioner knew that the rendezvous with the Terran starliner
had not been met, Bogaert was confident the fat representative of Terran
technology would deduce the rest for himself.

   With the deepening of night came a chill which was only partly offset
by the capacity of the rock walls to even out the temperature differences in
the chamber. The conditions were reasonably tolerable but not conducive
to unbroken sleep, and the children tossed fitfully because they had no
other covering than their shredded clothing and a bed of grasses they had
collected from the pass. Miram turned from time to time to comfort them
with soft words. At one point she crossed suddenly to Bogaert and gripped
his arm tightly, speaking in urgent but soft tones so as not to alarm the
children.

  "Bogey! There's a light!" She was very near to panic.

  "Where?"

  By way of answer, she led him by the wrist to where the yet unexplored
smaller cavity led more deeply into the mountain. From one angle, which
Miram had crossed by chance, a suspicion of dun yellow illumination was
visible, apparently reflected and re-reflected by the rocky walls.

  "What is it?" she asked.

   "I don't know—except that, so deep into the rock, it can't be the
Pretender's work." Bogaert took up one of his pointed sticks. "Wake Zim
and have him stay on guard with the gun. I'm going in there to have a
look."

  "You'll be careful…"

   Bogaert raised his stick to signify assent, and tried to grin in the
darkness. Inwardly his thoughts were in a turmoil. If he judged the
distance and the level of the illumination correctly, here was no natural
phenomenon. It tied in with an uneasy feeling he had harbored about the
shape of the chamber they had occupied, with its more than natural
regularity. He was not surprised to find that the connecting cavities,
though much smaller, were similarly formed. His theory on lava-bubble
formation gave way to a speculation that these interconnecting cavities
had been deliberately cut in the solid mountain by some method he did
not recognize. He had assumed that the cavities were originally spherical
and had been half filled by blown dust, but as he penetrated farther he
discovered that where the sand lay thinner there was a regular pavement
underneath.

   The realization brought him to a halt in agonized shock, and he moved
the sandy layer with his feet. The dim scatter of light penetrating what
proved to be a corridor formed from a series of cavities enabled his
dark-adapted eyes to discern dimly the elaborate mosaic of the paving,
and he knew he had seen something similar before. It was the same as the
paved causeway which had led from the pod site to the island. It was a
sign of an ancient civilization on Avida, perhaps a remnant of an age when
the dictates of survival on the planet were not so all-demanding. And in
front of him—the emotion made it difficult for him to draw
breath—someone or something had left a light…

   The layers of dust and sand on the cavity floors must have lain
undisturbed perhaps for many centuries, and thus Bogaert had no fear of
meeting human or animal intervention. Yet the fear and excitement which
inhabited him as he passed through successively lighter cells of the
passageway filled him with an indefinable dread. The light was something
which should not have existed, could not have existed—and yet it was
there. The enigma generated an almost electrical tension in Bogaert's
brain.

    A staggering of the line of cells forming the passage had permitted a
scattering of illumination to pass without the source becoming visible. As
he passed through the last cell, however, he paused in awe at the great
illuminated orb which sat on a low dais in the center of one great
hemispherical hall. So large was the globe that, although its output of light
was immense, the luminous density of its surface was low enough to
permit Bogaert to peer into its interior. The sight was mind-twisting and
fantastic, as though a complete universe had been reduced to minuscule
scale and set in a glass bowl, with thousands of millions of suns keeping
station in a bottled continuum.

   With the greatest difficulty, Bogaert tore his eyes away from the
fantastic scene and looked at the rest of the hall. He soon discovered that
it was only one of a great number of similar chambers, each with a
separate illuminated orb and each with the walls filled with legion upon
legion of semitransparent platelets packed solidly and several deep. The
realization of what he had stumbled upon brought a reactive shock that
left him feeling drained and weak. Here, unless he missed his guess, was
an original and major ransad library, and one containing many thousands
of times the number of ransad texts previously known to exist. Such was
the staggering volume of the data that it was a virtual certainty that the
works continued way beyond the limits of the editions on which the star
civilizations had been founded. These chambers probably contained all of
the ransad knowledge up to the time its enigmatic creators had
disappeared from the known universe. Conceivably, it told who they were,
where they went, and how others could follow if they had the wit to master
the lessons which had been set.

   Standing before this vast accumulation of knowledge, Bogaert suddenly
became aware of himself and his near-nakedness. He stood like a
primitive, a crude and ineffectual spear in his hand. He felt himself to be
the merest savage standing before the condensed tutorial texts of what
had probably been the most advanced civilization the galaxy had ever
known. Even though he came from a culture of intermediate level, he
acknowledged that he was standing before the works of a master race, and
felt awe accordingly.
    More practically, these deep chambers would also serve as a better
living and sleeping quarters for them all, and would be easier to defend. If
they made these rooms their new base, he would have the chance to
explore them more thoroughly, and might even discover the origins and
fate of the ransad's originators. Fired with enthusiasm, he turned back to
tell the others of his discovery, but as he reached the entrance of the
passage he heard Miram's shrill scream and the whipcrack thunder of the
ion gun reverberating between the walls.

  Holding his sharpened stick before him, he began to run.

            CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
   Once he had gained the broken rocks, Bethschant felt safer. The group
of six or seven men who had started out to cover his retreat had realized
theirs was an unnecessary mission and had turned back to the life-craft.
The six men determined to intercept him reached the rocky margin at a
different point and had their task considerably complicated by being
unable to see their quarry among the rocks. Bethschant had avoided them
easily, circled back, and began to shadow them from the rear. From the
direction they were now taking, it was easy to deduce that they had given
up their idea of pursuit and were instead trying to find out what had
persuaded him to come to the area in the first place.

   Had they known Bethschant's own idea of destination was to vague,
they would probably have abandoned the search at that point. Expecting
to find some immediate evidence of the missing Kanizars, however, they
continued to skirt the edge of the broken hills, and stopped frequently to
apply their scanning instruments to the surrounding landscape. In this
way, they eventually came across something even Bethschant had not
thought to find: the wreckage of the powerbarge, smashed to pieces at the
foot of the rock face which had halted its last despairing dive.

   The shipmen's excursion to the site of the crashed vessel gave
Bethschant a chance to move closer to them. From a position on a ledge of
the cliff against which the powerbarge had come to final grief, he was able
to eavesdrop on their conversation. It appeared that Camin Sher had
offered vast rewards for the death or capture of the three whom
Bethschant identified as the woman and children with Colonel Bogey. The
ship-men's dilemma was that, having come across the first major piece of
evidence, they were uncertain whether to report it to the Pretender and
risk an entire army being sent into the district, or proceed according to
the reasonable certainty that the three were in the mountains and attempt
to locate and make the capture themselves.

   So high were the potential rewards for outright capture that five
conspirators were unanimous that the news must be kept secret for the
moment. The one dissenter among the six was killed on the spot and his
body flung into a crevice and covered with rocks. Then followed a
discussion as to whether Hai could have captured the family or whether he
had been a prisoner himself, since his was the only body found in the
power-barge. They were of one mind in thinking that the remaining
survivors of such a crash must have suffered considerable injuries and
were unlikely to have traveled far. They made an intensive search of the
surrounding area, which produced no results except that one of the party
was crushed by a rock which inexplicably fell from a high ledge above the
crashed ship.

   Only four in number now, the group began a wider search, which was
suddenly given greater impetus by the sound of a single burst of ion fire
higher up in the mountains. This was exactly the sort of clue they needed,
and with their instruments they began a systematic scan of the rock faces
and-broken mountains. They were rewarded by the sight of a slight smoke
plume high in the hills and well to the left of where they had been
searching. The point was many kilometers away and involved a
considerable climb, which was impractical that day in view of the
approach of night. The four therefore made their way along the level to a
point judged to be directly below their quarry, and there decided to rest
for the night and make their assault in the morning.

   On these hill slopes the activity of the minor wildlife was negligible, and
they were relatively untroubled by the virulent pests which so discomfitted
their colleagues in the forests. Many, however, were the larger shadows
which prowled around their night shelter. While two slept, two kept
watch, risking the advent of more troops by firing at any and every moving
shape which fact or fancy generated in the darkness. Even so, by morning
one of the sleepers was dead, apparently poisoned, and their
communicator pack had been torn apart by some agency they tried not to
think about.

   This led to serious questioning as to whether they should continue
alone or return to the lifecraft for aid. Reluctantly they decided that, with
their losses already so great and their communicator gone, they had better
get reinforcements. High on the rocks, Bethschant grinned to himself as
the party began to retrace its steps. From the concentration of their
attention, he knew what their destination would be when they returned,
and he decided to scout ahead for himself.

   Surveying the climb he had to make, he estimated it as difficult until,
experimenting with different approaches, he happened on a line of paths
and steps cut into the living rock and paved with a curious pattern of even
stones which must have been the handiwork of men. Bethschant had seen
such patterns before, in places like the causeway leading to the island
when, at the low point of the shallow tides, the mud on the surface dried
and split to reveal the regularity beneath. In other parts of the forest, too,
large segments of the paving were repeated, as if the ancients of Avida had
laid connecting paths between places which had long since succumbed to
the silent fury of the forest. Bethschant had always regarded such
constructions with interest; it only now occurred to him that they should
also lead somewhere.

   Time had ravaged what man had built so carefully. Great slices of the
veined mountains had fallen and obscured the way. Only with the greatest
difficulty and with many circuitous loops did Bethschant manage to follow
the route. In many instances it was more arduous than climbing his own
way, but he persisted, because a swift assessment told him that the path
ultimately led close to the very point where smoke had been seen in the
mountain heights.

   His journeyings led him to the edge of a crevasse. Here the path had
been torn asunder by a mighty rent where the mountain itself had been
thrust upward to leave a dizzying split which it was impossible to pass
directly. Bethschant had to travel nearly two kilometers along the
shattered cubic faces before the gap narrowed to a point where he could
safely leap across. He then had to travel back a similar distance along the
perilous ledge of the opposite face before he once again stood at a
continuation of the path and was able to resume his ascent.

   On a high ridge he turned and looked back across the slopes to where
the lifecraft sat on a brief plateau. His keen eyesight could discern a string
of figures leading away from the vessel toward the hill slopes. He
estimated that they were about three hours behind himself, and if they too
found the steps, there was no reason why they should not make similar
time on the ascent. Bethschant therefore concentrated on climbing as fast
as he could, although he found the thinning air made his exertions more
tiring.

   At length he came over a lip of rock and into the bottom of an
unexpected valley. Even as he entered it, he knew the place was unusual.
Very few of the trees were like those that grew in the forest, and many of
the species were completely new to him. Grass grew in luxurious
abundance, untroubled by the throttling fern, and herds of razor-horns
grazed fat as though predators had ceased to exist.

   Thirstily, Bethschant sought water. He found a stream, and looked
around for a firebush to make ash. He could find no firebushes and no
other trees which were not so green with sap that to burn them would
have caused much smoke. Turning again to the stream, he examined the
unusually clear water with some suspicion, then tasted it and found it
lacked both salt and fleshworms. It was a new experience for him to drink
flowing water from a stream, yet the novelty did not preclude a
recognition of the fact that, had they known of the existence of this
mountain pass a few years earlier, he and his tribe might never have been
forced to leave the planet for life among the stars.

   He found a tall tree, and climbed to the highest branches, from which
point of vantage he had a good view over the way he had come and could
also gain a fair idea of the size and layout of the valley. Largely as he had
predicted, the shipmen came into the valley's foot about three hours later,
and fanned out to search a broad strip of land up toward the valley's head.
The exertions of the climb had been extreme, and most had now opened
their armor. Letting them draw well ahead of him, he took poisoned darts
from his pouch, checked the sling holding his blowpipe, and began to
shadow them silently through the bush.

             CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
    The coming of Kanizar to Ortel was no surprise, but the mode of his
coming was calculated to strike fear and apprehension into the hearts of
all who dared think the Pretender a possible successor. Never before had
such a concentration of heavy ships leaped out of hyperspace so close to
the vicinity of a populated planet. The local effect on the continuum was
shattering. It completely dislocated the pattern of weather on Ortel,
causing tidal waves, storms, and earthquakes as a foretaste of the great
anger of the King of Kings. A temporary time reversal ruptured every clock
in the southern hemisphere, and shock waves of gravitic and entropic
radiation played havoc with every sensitive device on the planet.

   Star King Oontara, who should have made protest against this gross
violation of his territorial space, bit his lip and sent an obsequious
message of welcome. The buckling of light images, caused by the violence
to the continuum had forcibly reminded him of his failing sight Suddenly
he felt a much older and frailer man.

    Kanizar's arrival at Oontara's court was equally impressive, though
much more local in effect. Instead of waiting for a ferry to bring him from
orbit down to the spaceport, Kanizar landed a space-razee directly in the
palace grounds. His descent ruined gardens which had taken a hundred
lifetimes to mature, and generated vibrations which weakened every tower
and dome and wall for a kilometer. Oontara listened to the razee's
thunderous touchdown with growing dread, and feared for the very fabric
of his palace. His reaction to this monstrous intrusion was to dress himself
in very plain white garb and send for Manu Kan to attend him
immediately. When expediency dictated, the star king could be very
diplomatic.

   The physical appearance of the King of Kings was as big as his galactic
image. A veritable giant, his deep voice rumbled and rolled like an eternal
storm, and his armored footfall could be felt as well as heard as he crashed
through the palace corridors. His red hair and red beard seemed to top
him with a constant flame, and the dreadful intensity of his dark eyes had
quelled many better kings than the quaking Oontara.

  When he burst into the audience chamber, Kanizar gave the star king
only the slightest nod of acknowledgment. His salute went straight to
Manu Kan, the merchant, who touched the sovereign's wrist gravely.

  "Manu, what news have you of Miram and the children?"

   "All too little, Kanizar. They reached Ortel safely, and I gave them my
protection. Because it was Sashu's instruction, I arranged to smuggle
them to Terra until you returned. It was a wise move, but one that went
wrong. My Lady Miram and the children were put on a barge intended for
rendezvous with a Terran starliner. That rendezvous was never kept."

  "Not kept!" Kanizar's brow was deeply furrowed, and he half turned so
that his scowl included Oontara in its fearful compass.

   "Of this I was unaware till recently," continued Manu Kan. "I've agents
on Terra, and they've only just reported. Four passengers were expected
from the Ortel rendezvous, but the starliner was never met As soon as the
news reached me, I made it my job to investigate."

   "And you have the answers?" Kanizar was watching Oontara as though
the star king were a mouse on which he intended to pounce. The star king
was shifting restlessly under the relentless gaze.

   "This idiot"—the merchant indicated Oontara with an attitude of
disgust—"was manipulating the space lanes in order to trap a Terran he
needed for a survival game. In his trap he also caught Miram, Arma, and
Zim."

  "Space!" Kanizar had not expected so dramatic a reply. "Is this true,
Oontara?"

  Oontara forced composure round him like a cloak.

   "King of Kings, it's true I acquired a Terran champion. Whether your
wife and heirs were also caught in the snare is still subject to speculation.
There's yet no proof of it. In truth, I'd no knowledge they'd even landed on
Ortel, else they'd have enjoyed my protection. But this merchant who
meddles in politics kept the facts from me. I can't answer for the safety of
those whose presence has been concealed. Manu Kan already knows I hold
him responsible for the consequences of his actions."

   "A good answer, Oontara," said Kanizar with slight sarcasm. "I'm glad
to see your guile increases proportionately with your age. Should you live
much longer, you'll be suited to match twisted wits with the Pretender
himself. Now tell me where the snare was opened."

  "A planet called Avida. One of Lord Xzan's pathetic mudballs."

   "Ask him," said Manu Kan, "what was the Pretender's destination after
his visit to Tenarensor."

  "He went to Avida too—though I didn't learn the fact until he'd
departed."
  "And ask him," said Kan, "what steps he took to right the matter."

  "Well?" asked Kanizar ominously.

   "Avida is Xzan's sovereign territory. I gave the star weasel an hour to
get into space to intercept the Pretender."

   "And what did you think the star weasel might achieve? He runs to
Camin Sher to have his ears stroked. Do you think that absolves you from
responsibility?"

   "Indeed not But I'm a realist. Second only to yourself, Sher has the
finest war fleet in the galaxy. I don't have the ships or the captains to
stand against him. My own intercession would have meant crippling
losses— which was bearable, except that they couldn't have saved the day.
I therefore turned the matter over to the one agency who can swat the
Pretender without suffering a bite."

  "Who the—" Kanizar's surprise echoed loud around the chamber.

   "I speak of Terra, my Lord. I informed Commissioner Rounding of
everything which had transpired. He's arranged for ships to come from
Terra, but he feared they might arrive too late. Even now he occupies my
personal bark and must be close on the heels of the Pretender."

   "You left the fate of the Kanizars in the hands of a Terran?" Kanizar's
incredulity got in the way of his own rage.

   "Was my choice wrong? Was not the Empress Miram originally bound
for Terra? Am I not to learn from the wisdom of your own advisers?"
Oontara sounded aggrieved.

   "Confound you, Oontara! Your forked tongue talks such mazes that
sometimes you nearly leave me believing that your hideous black soul is
white. How unbruised your conscience must be with such a tongue for a
guardian. I'll hold court over this later and examine your reasoning more
carefully. In the meantime, it appears our only hope, if Miram and the
children still survive, lies with your comical Terran anti-warrior."

  "You can speak with him if you wish," said Oontara. Signs of relief at
having deflected the ordeal broke on his brow. "The Terrans have their
own FTL communications methods, which exceed those of the ransad,
Since my bark was built on Terra, it's naturally so equipped. This"—he
handed Kanizar a large pink conchlike shell—"has the Terran
communicator built into it, though the setting's my own design."

  Kanizar took the huge shell with a look that mirrored his doubts of
Oontara's sanity, and stared into the convoluted pink interior.

  "Speak!" said Oontara encouragingly. "Commissioner?" said Kanizar,
and his perplexity made his voice come out thick.

  "Rounding at your service! But that isn't Oontara, is it?" Something
imperceptibly small at the bottom of the shell answered clearly, and the
sound was amplified by the natural form.

   "No. This is Kanizar." The King of Kings brought himself back to swift
objectivity. "Oontara tells me you're en route to Avida to intercept the
Pretender. Can this be true?"

  "It's true I'm nearing Avida. But my purpose is to rescue Colonel Bogey
and your family if they're still alive. The Pretender can be dealt with later."

   "You've never struck me as a madman. What makes you think you can
steal into the Pretender's camp and take something so precious from
under his nose?"

  "My Lord Kanizar, this bark has more tricks built into it than even the
Pretender knows. If there's any sort of chance, I'm equipped to take
advantage of it."

    "Commissioner, you know what the recovery of my family means to me,
on both a personal and a political level. Succeed in their deliverance and
I'll make you the richest king in the galaxy."

    "I appreciate the sentiment," said Sounding's voice dubiously. "But
Terran civil servants are forbidden to accept gifts of any kind. I make no
promises, because I don't yet know what I'll find. But if rescue's possible,
it'll be done for reasons of humanity, not reward. However, I'll expect a
better than previous reception when next I call to discuss the advantages
of federation."

  "You Terrans drive strange bargains. I'm afraid I never could grasp
your new logic. But succeed in this mission, Commissioner, and your
Federation will exceed your wildest dreams."

  "Let's hope I have the luck to be able to hold you to that, my Lord," said
Rounding cheerfully. "But you'll have to excuse me now. I'm approaching
hyperpoint, and I wish to shadow Xzan most carefully. If I read his
motives right, he'll lead me straight to where the action is."

   Kanizar handed the shell back to Oontara. "I begin to understand now
why old Sashu regarded the Terrans with such awe. Your part in this,
Oontara, I view with much suspicion. Let's hope for your sake Miram and
the children have not come to harm—else I'm liable to tear the universe
apart in destroying the Pretender and anyone who was his tool."

  "My Lord, I—"

   Kanizar, however, was in no mood for further talk. With a whip of his
heavy cape, he was away down the corridor, the sound of his armored feet
making the chamber ring with unaccustomed echoes. In less than a
minute, the thunderous song of the razee signaled his departure from
Ortel, and later, when his task force hit hyperpoint, it did so with such
casual disregard for the shape of the continuum that the Pretender could
not have failed to detect the coming of Nemesis.

          CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
   As Bogaert started back down the line of cells that formed the
passageway, he was possessed by a more than usual apprehension. Danger
had been a daily occurrence, but they had met before with no
circumstance which had caused Miram to scream with such infectious
fright. Nor would Zim have fired his weapon had the danger not been
extreme. Breaking into the cave, Bogaert dimly discerned Zim standing in
the center, with Anna and Miram behind him. All three were staring at
something just beyond the entrance.

    "Bogey!" Their voices sounded with great relief as he rejoined them.
"It's out there."

  "What is? What's the matter?"

  "A creature—a shining thing," said Zim.

  "Terrifying!" added Miram. Arma whimpered and clung to her mother.
She was near hysteria.

   "Did you hit it, Zim?"

   "I don't know. It was trying to get in. I fired and it went back, but it
could have been the noise which scared it. It's still out there, under the
trees."

   Bogaert moved to the entrance. The pile of dead-wood they had heaped
across the access had been largely smashed away, and the raked ground
had curious phosphorescent splashes on it. Against the nearer trees,
something faintly luminous was visible against the dark background. The
Terran judged it to be about the size of a horse on his own planet, but it
moved in a series of swift leaps more reminiscent of an bisect than an
animal. Finally it left the spot where they had abandoned the remains of
the razor-horn's carcass near the fire, and began to hop in its curious
fashion back toward the entrance to the cave.

   "It's coming again," warned Bogaert. "Is the gun reprimed yet, Zim?"

   "Not yet."

   "Then let's hope," said Bogaert.

   The stones and the fire-pointed sticks appeared pathetically
inadequate, and it was a certainty that the creature would not be deterred
by such weapons if it were determined to attack. Bogaert reached out his
hand.

  "Give me the gun, Zim. All of you get back into the small tunnel. A
beast that size won't be able to do much damage there."

   "You coming?" asked Zim.

   "Don't talk—move!"

   The others did as they had been told, though Bogaert could tell that
Zim was lingering at the tunnel entrance just behind him. The white
creature was indeed coming back toward the cave, in a series of diagonal
hops which took place almost as fast as the eye could follow. The indicator
on the handgun still showed no charge, although the repriming time was
well expired. Bogaert considered it possible that the defective mechanism
had further degenerated, but he had no better hope.

   The creature landed in front of the entrance, and Bogaert had a view of
the apparition which had filled Miram's scream with such chill. It was a
sight which brought to him a physical revulsion and an almost paralyzing
horror. The creature was huge, with a white, shiny, translucent skin which
reminded him of a magnified maggot or something made of white and
blistered flesh. In form it was a caricature of what might have been a
leopard, but it moved so awkwardly that its internal bone structure could
not fit its external shape. The hideous warts and protuberances on its flesh
gave Bogaert a horrifying insight into the creature's nature— it was a
gross mutation of genetic animal form, something which ought never to
have come to term.

   This knowledge, however, did not blind the Colonel to a realization of
the danger which faced him. He had no way of gauging the strengths and
characteristics of this unnatural animal, but its potential for survival was
indisputable. The thing seemed to have suddenly become aware of his
existence, and, with breath hissing through deformed nostrils, it crouched
for a spring. Torn between joining the others in the tunnel and standing
his ground, Bogaert realized he had already waited too long. Before he
could make it to the tunnel entrance, the creature would be upon him. He
had already seen the stiletto teeth and the claws which would fetch him
down. His reaction, therefore, was automatic. Although the gun still
indicated lack of charge, he took careful aim and pressed the trigger.

   Nothing happened. The gun remained mute in his fingers, and the
horrifying beast became a white blur as it launched into a spring. Bogaert
followed it into the air with his fingers growing stiff on the trigger. Then
several things happened simultaneously. The ion gun fired without
warning and drilled the creature in mid-flight Blinded by the sudden light
and unexpected whipcrack of the discharge, Bogaert flung himself
sideways as the hideous body, traveling under its own momentum, passed
over his shoulder and crashed into the center of the cave. Falling heavily,
Bogaert turned immediately to see Zim already out of hiding and about to
plunge a sharpened stick into the creature's body.

  "Don't!" Bogaert's cry echoed urgently. "Keep away from it, Zim.
Something's terribly wrong with that boast."

   "You shot him," said Zim reasonably. "I don't mean that. See how it
shines." This was perfectly true. Now that it was in the deep darkness of
the cave, the creature was shining brightly with its own internally
generated light This was not the phosphorescence of putrefaction, but a
deeply originated glow which shone through the deep and waxlike skin
and hinted of luminous reactions unconnected with bioluminescence. The
blood fluid leaking from the fatal wound shone even more brightly.
Although he could not prove it, the connection between the illumination
and the creature's mutant form suggested to Bogaert a high concentration
of radioactivity in the creature's fabric. Although it was impossible for
normal animals to live with such a level of radiation in the tissues, there
was the possibility that some creatures had managed to evolve with a body
chemistry able to function in spite of it. The level was probably not
dangerous to those merely exposed to radiation from the body, but it was
an unknown and therefore unjustified risk to the naked young prince who
presumably one day would wish to sire future rulers of the galaxy.

   They spent the rest of the night in the warmer chambers of the ransad
library. Miram and Arma shielded their faces from the light and tried to
sleep while the Colonel and Zim explored what seemed to be an almost
unending series of chambers containing the alien texts ascending to
orders quite unknown before. Once such treasures were evaluated, the
technology of both the star populations and Terra promised to take a
fantastic leap forward. Bogaert felt truly humbled when he considered the
sheer magnitude of the knowledge on which he had stumbled.

   The coming of morning brought Bogaert back to more mundane
considerations. They crept back through the passageway and carefully
skirted the dead horror in the cave. Emerging into the open, they began to
gather vegetable foods to eat until an animal could be killed. Despite the
heat of the sun, the mountain air was chill, and in their depressed and
nearly unclothed state they felt the need for warmth. Bogaert, indeed, was
on the point of reconstructing his burning glass to make a fire when he
became aware of the sudden disturbance of the wildlife in the trees at the
lower end of the valley slope.

   Cautiously he decided this activity must be a sign of some unusual
happening. Instead of lighting the fire, they decided to investigate.
Keeping against the line of cliffs where the undergrowth was sparse, they
proceeded down the slope, staying together as a body, because Miram and
Arma refused to be left alone after the incidents of the night. Thus it was
that, crouching in concealment out of the direct line of the search, they
saw the group of the Pretender's armed shipmen making their sweep up
the valley.

   When the shipmen had passed out of sight, Bogaert and the Kanizars
began a whispered conference about what their next move should
be—whether they ought to try to remain in the valley or risk a descent
back to the forest floor. Bogaert pointed out that once the remnants of the
previous day's fire was discovered, their presence in the valley would be
confirmed, and this would bring the Pretender's men to the area in force.
Then- best hope for immediate survival would appear to be a descent by
the route the shipmen had just used. Miram feared there might be more
shipmen still climbing, and in any case they would be unable to survive
the forest environment without the shelter of the pod. Their situation was
becoming critical.

   It was Zim who quieted the discussion with a sudden caution to silence.
He had noticed Bethschant descend from a tree, obviously unaware of the
group hiding in the bushes. The native's path in the wake of the ship-men
was going to bring him moderately close to their present position.
Recognizing the native as the one they had seen on the island, and
presumably the agency who had killed a couple of Hai's men at the time of
the first attack, Bogaert decided to risk contact. Cautioning Zim to keep
out of sight and to cover him with the firearm, the Colonel walked openly
toward the unsuspecting native.

   The effect, as registered on Bethschant's flat and expressive face, was
comical to watch. His first surprise at finding a man standing in his path
was swiftly replaced by a look of recognition, which gave way slowly to a
broad grin as he saw the absurdity of the situation, in which his chosen
quarry stood unarmed in front of him. It took Bethschant only a fraction
of a second to detect the presence of Zim in the brush, and to become
aware that a confrontation would not necessarily be to his own advantage.

   The years had taught Bethschant the wisdom of taking decisive action
only when he was fully in charge of the situation. With the boy in the
bushes, who presumably was armed, the native was not sure of the
purpose of the encounter, and was therefore wary. He stopped abruptly in
his tracks, met the Colonel's reassuring gestures with a mock salute, then
ran swiftly back into the trees. Bogaert called out as he saw the native turn
and run, then instantly realized his mistake. The sound of a human voice
was bound to attract the attention of the shipmen if they were on the
alert. Swiftly the Terran rejoined the others and indicated that they had
best leave the spot immediately.

   They were too late. A burst of ion fire shattered the trees in their
intended direction of flight and brought them to a distracted halt Zim
dropped the first shipman to run into sight, but his single shot allowed
them no further chances. Soon they were facing a circle of guns, and had
to stand helplessly while one of the shipmen with a communicator
hysterically reported the capture to Gamin Sher. He seemed well pleased
with the Pretender's reply.

   There was a hiatus then while they waited for the Pretender and his
staff commanders to come and witness the execution. Miram and Bogaert
were each tied to a separate tree, while Zim and Arma were roped
together, back to back, and placed in the center of a clearing. There was
much laughter from the shipmen at the ragged near-nakedness of the
figures, and they concentrated on tormenting Miram by further shedding
her tattered dress and taunting her with horrifying tales of how Sher
would use her for amusement before killing her. Miram spat in their faces
and was saved from enraged retribution only by the sound of lifecraft
descending from the orbiting ships.

   Among the craft which descended, one came later and fell a little
distance away from the rest. From this came Star Lord Xzan, hurrying to
catch up with the Pretender's party, and earnestly clutching Sher's arm as
they approached the spot where the captives were held. Save for the
prisoners, all the faces were full of jubilation, and it appeared that even
the anxious Xzan had gained his point. Somewhere from the background,
Bogaert saw the native appear and touch Xzan's hem. The star lord took
him out of earshot of the party and could be seen expostulating wildly.
Both roguelike faces were grinning broadly when they returned.

   It was Camin Sher's jubilance, however, which really lit the scene. Years
of scheming and defeat were about to be justified, and with the
destruction of Kanizar's heirs he would experience the first real prospect
of succession to the throne of the King of Kings. He went to inspect the
children, who were bound helplessly together. He pinched Anna and made
her cry out, and when Zim twisted about in violent protest, the Pretender
struck him a blow which threw both children to the ground. All this was
greeted by wild enthusiasm on the part of the shipmen, and, sensing that
a show of cruelty was in order, the Pretender ordered wood to be cut to
make a fire. The children, he said, would be very slowly roasted to death as
a lesson to all who dared stand in the way of the rightful king of all the
universe.

   He then visited Miram and gave her a promise which made the earlier
electrifying mockery of the shipmen appear a probable understatement of
her fate. Again he was cheered by his men, which pleased him greatly.
This was obviously the Pretender's day. He had paid scant attention to
Bogaert, but when he did move in the Colonel's direction, it was in
company with Xzan. The devilish face of the star lord appeared more evil
than ever, and at his side the grinning Bethschant took practice blows
with a long-knife on the high grasses to demonstrate his proficiency and
micrometer accuracy with the weapon.

   "It's indeed a day of successes, my Lord," Xzan was saying. "You've your
assassination, I my execution. All honors satisfied, all prizes gained."

   "You've done well, Xzan," said the Pretender genially. "Whatever you
lose to Oontara I'll repay you ten times over. But all this talk bores me.
Let's have sight of some blood."

   Xzan motioned Bethschant forward. "My champion has special skills
with a knife. He can take all the flesh off a man's bones before the fellow
has a chance to die. I've seen it done."

   "Then let's see it again. Because I'm not sure I believe you."

   "I can prove it, my Lord, believe me. Colonel Bogey, it may please your
painted warrior's soul to know you're at least going to die at the hands of
an expert."

  Bethschant sighted along the long-knife, which had been honed to the
sharpness of the finest razor. He reached to the Colonel and adjusted his
bonds so that they might not interfere with the operation. Then he turned
and struck one blow—straight through Xzan's heart.

    The surprise on everyone's face was no greater than that on Xzan's, who
tried to register protest in the instant before he died. Before the star lord
hit the ground, Bethschant had moved again, and Bogaert's bonds fell
away as the native severed them with an amazing skill and wheeled again,
ready to take on any attackers. All weapons had been rested for the
entertainment, but now there was a general rustle of movement after the
first moments of surprise. The whole scene, however, was suddenly cast
under a great shadow, and a vastly amplified voice from above
commanded: "Everybody stay exactly where you are. The first man who
reaches for a weapon can count himself dead."

          CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
   Hilary Rounding's voice. Bogaert looked up. Suspended on a finely
tuned reaction drive was one of the very few true spacecraft which had the
capacity to hover in atmosphere. This was the ornate and incredible bark
which Terra had built for Oontara. Whereas the Pretender's fleet had been
forced to remain in orbit and depend on lifecraft for planetary contact, the
bark was happily situated only twenty meters above the ground, with its
gun blisters manned and trained on the astonished group below.

   Somebody reached for a weapon and was immediately vaporized by an
ion blaster fired from the bark. A shipman with a communicator tried to
summon assistance from the orbiting fleet, and had his head severed clean
from his neck by a blow from Bethschant's long-knife. Camin Sher had
gone rigid with an unnatural emotion, and Bogaert relieved him of his ion
gun in case the situation drove the Pretender to irrational destruction.

  "Bogey?" The amplified voice blasted over the area.

   "Here!" Bogaert waved in case he should be unrecognizable from the
bark.

  "Are the Kanizars still safe?"

  "I have them all here."

   "Separate yourselves and bring me Camin Sher. Go to the top of the
slope, clear of the trees, where I can pick you up. Everyone else, drop your
weapons and walk slowly down the slope. Remember, you were never
nearer death than at this instant."

  One of the Pretender's men near Miram pretended to throw away his
weapon, then turned it toward her. Bogaert dropped him with the
Pretender's gun slightly be-fore the man was blasted by the ship.
Thereafter, there was a complete capitulation by the Pretender's men.

  Bogaert nodded to Bethschant. "You're coming with us."
   They ran to where Arma and Zim had struggled to a sitting position on
the ground and were watching the proceedings with hopeful astonishment
Bethschant's precise long-knife freed them from their bonds with one swift
movement, though h took Bogaert half a minute to help them overcome
the stiffness in their limbs. In the meantime, Bethschant had darted to
Miram and cut her free from the tree and was dragging her by the hand
toward the appointed slope.

   Sending the children scurrying after their mother, Bogaert went back
for the Pretender. The man had a fixed expression, as though he were in
some form of shock, but he mechanically complied with Bogaert's
instruction to follow the others up the hill. As they neared the crest, Camin
Sher turned back toward the Colonel.

   "You know you won't get away with this, Terran."

  "Well have a damn good try." Bogaert motioned with his gun to
emphasize that the Pretender should continue walking.

   "My ships will blast you out of space. Rounding may have got the bark
in here, but he won't succeed in getting h out again."

   "Could be he's counting on your presence as a form of insurance."

   "If so, he's out of luck. If Rounding attempts to use me as a bargaining
point, it'll be proof I've failed. And if I've failed, there're another dozen in
those ships up there ready to have a crack at Kanizar's crown. They'll hit
you with everything in space."

   "I hope you're not proposing a compromise?"

  "A simple arrangement, Colonel Bogey. Turn me free and give me the
Kanizars, and I'll guarantee yourself and the Commissioner safe passage
out."

   "Not a hope!"

   "Think about it, Colonel. You've no allegiance to Kanizar, so why take
such a frightful risk?"

  "It wouldn't make any difference if Miram and her family were
unrelated to star monarchy. My answer would still be the same. Nobody
who prepares to roast children alive, or threatens a woman as you
threatened Miram, deserves anything but contempt. So save your breath,
you make my trigger finger curl."

  "I see! So this is what they call the new logic. Well, let's see, painted
warrior, if your new logic can get you out of this."

   Bogaert was aware that the bark was shadowing them directly
overhead, the fantastic power of its engines muted to a barely perceptible
whisper. This was the first time Bogaert had actually seen the bark in
action, and he was more than impressed by the craft's exceptional
maneuverability at treetop height and virtually zero speed. The contrast
with ransad-based craft, which, apart from the unsophisticated lifecraft
and razees, could make planetfall and ascent only from properly prepared
installations, showed that Terra had already advanced an order of
technology further than that available to the star populations. Rounding
had said that Terra had something to sell—in both hardware and
philosophy. It had only just occurred to Bogaert that both were equally
important.

   It was a curiously theatrical-looking group that awaited the final
whispered landing of the bark. Camin Sher, his face an enraged mask,
alone was fully clothed. His brilliant blue uniform was incongruous in his
captive situation; he seemed like a character from a costume play who had
wandered onto the wrong set. Next was Miram, the Empress, clad only in
a few ragged strips which were more symbolic than concealing. With the
loss of most of her hair, the toughening of her body, and the stronger,
more resourceful character which had emerged, she presented a wild,
abandoned figure, unashamed of her new image.

   Of the Kanizar children, Anna had changed the least. The synthetics of
her dress had best resisted the enzyme attack, but had degenerated to a
random lace, giving her the appearance of a ragged waif as she clung to
her mother's hand. Zim, clad in little more than an ion-gun belt, was the
picture of youthful savagery, an image only slightly lessened by contrast
with Bethschant's squat and scarred near-animal appearance. Bogaert
knew he represented nothing so much as a military scarecrow. Both his
hair and beard had succumbed to the enzyme sap, leaving a grizzled
stubble which suitably complemented the almost complete fragmentation
of his uniform.

   The sudden thrust of an air cushion brought the bark to rest only
centimeters from the ground. Bogaert pushed Camin Sher through the
hatch first, insured that the hands that seized the Pretender would safely
confine him, then saw the others safely aboard. As soon as the hatch had
closed, he felt the sudden pressures as the superb reaction motors clawed
avidly for the sky.

   He found Hilary Rounding on the control deck, surveying the screens
which indicated the strength of the Pretender's fleet above them. The
evidence was that the ground party had managed to communicate with
them, for the great belt of ships was already breaking into the triple units
of attack formation and spreading to span not a band but the entire
orbital sphere.

   "Thanks for the pickup, Hilary!"

  "Don't mention it, Bogey, old son. But next time you make off into the
woods with Kanizar's wife, I'll thank you to leave a forwarding address. I
had a hell of a job trying to find where you'd got to. Whatever you've been
up to seems remarkably hard on uniforms, but I congratulate you on your
choice of company."

   As they thrust into the troposphere, the odds above them began to look
formidable.

   "I take it this is one game Oontara won," said Rounding, watching the
screens intently. The matrix computer estimated the Pretender's fleet in
orbit at three hundred vessels.

   "Completely! Xzan got knifed by his own champion. But I'll tell you
about that later. What did you want with Camin Sher? By all accounts,
he's going to be a liability when we hit that ring of ships. He's another of
those who has to use his worst enemies for friends."

   "That's a certainty! No, the Federation want Sher for his attacks on
outpost stations. His incarceration should also serve as a warning to some
of the other star bandits."

   "So it's a good political move, even if it's not a reasonable action in our
present situation."

   "Look at it this way, old son. Kanizar's set to wipe the Pretender off the
star maps. If we can hold Camin Sher for trial, even Kanizar will have to
admit we're a force to be reckoned with. And if we start arraigning star
nobility, federation becomes inevitable."

  "What's Kanizar supposed to be doing while all this takes place?"

   "He's in hyperspace, bearing down on us like a galactic storm. I'm
sending him word of the situation so he doesn't plow right through us. But
I'm hoping the Federation task force gets here before he does. It'll be a
much tidier war if we can keep the prime combatants apart with the
Federation force as a buffer between them."

  "But you can't seriously-think Kanizar's going to let us walk away with
Sher?"

   "He won't have much option, Bogey, lad. He's scarcely likely to open fire
on us while we have his wife and heirs aboard."

   Rounding's expression showed that, in any case, the question was
largely academic. They were almost within weapons range of the orbiting
ships, and at such a numerical disadvantage that the odds appeared
completely hopeless.

   "You're the tactician, Bogey. How do you rate our chances of surviving
this lot?"

   Bogaert had been watching the plotting carefully, noting the size and
type of ships forming the gigantic ambush.

  "Very good, I'd say."

  "How the hell do you figure that?"

   "Well, you're the past master at manipulating incredible odds. If you
can talk us through, we have no problem. Apart from that, we don't stand
a snowflake's chance in hell."

   "I'll report you to tactical command," said Rounding sternly. "That
must be the oddest advice ever offered to a commander on the eve of
battle. Nevertheless, it does contain the germ of an idea."

  He motioned to the Ortellian signals officer. "Open up a
communications channel to the fleet up there."
   The officer thrust a ransad communications disk into Rounding's
hand, but his eyes carried the message that the new logic was still way
beyond his ken. "You have access to their general communications
network. It's the best we can do."

   "Fine! This is Rounding, Commissioner for Terran Outspace Technical
Aid. This communication is addressed to the forces formerly commanded
by star renegade Camin Sher. The Pretender has been apprehended by
Federation officers and is being taken for trial. A Federation fleet is on its
way to secure the area. Meanwhile, Kanizar brings his forces from the
direction of the Hub. Since your cause is already lost, you've nothing to
gain by remaining. I suggest you disperse and return to your home
planets. I repeat, your cause is lost You've nothing left for which to fight."

  He handed the communications disk back to the signals officer. "That
should give them something to think about."

    It did. Although the bark was still well below orbital height, a
three-ship formation of the Pretender's fleet dived for an attack. Rounding
ordered their destruction, and from somewhere in the weapon blisters of
the bark a new and unfamiliar weapon spoke. Almost immediately, the
three attacking ships blew themselves apart, not with explosive violence
but seemingly as if suddenly unable to contain the pressure of the air
within their hulls. Not believing his eyes, Bogaert watched in speechless
amazement as the vessels became nothing but disassembled components,
all continuing their rapid trajectory toward the planet's surface.

   "Zheesh! Forget the talking," said Bogaert finally. "What the hell kind of
a weapon was that?"

   "Called a disrupter. Latest from the Federation arsenal. It interferes
with the binding forces which hold the atoms together. Anything within
beam range literally falls apart Trouble is, it needs a trace of atmosphere
for ionization focusing. We can't operate it out in true space."

   "Well, I don't think well get many more come down to us after that
display."

   Bogaert was wrong. Another seven ships made attempts, which ended
in similarly lethal destruction, before the message went home. Then
tactics altered abruptly. A pattern of ransad space mines began littering
the way ahead. Rounding swore, and the Ortellian captain of the bark had
to take swift evasive action.

  "They're forcing us up to battle height," said Rounding. "Our shields
won't take a direct hit from a space mine."

   Building up momentum now to pass through the ring of ships in the
shortest possible time, the bark leaped spaceward, with only critical
control of its artificial gravity preventing the occupants being crushed by
the acceleration. The attackers obviously underestimated its ability,
because the first of a swarm of relativistic warheads shattered space well
behind them, without coming close enough to penetrate the screens.
Relativistic explosives were a ransad specialty not yet fully understood by
Terran science. They appeared to depend on the instantaneous conversion
of mass to energy and back in a continuing cyclic fashion which spread
like a bubble from its point of propagation. Fortunately, it's effects fell
rapidly with distance, and a ship which encountered anything after the
initial nucleation was troubled by nothing worse than a violent shaking.
Ships caught in the nucleation phase were very convincingly minced.

   The ability of the bark to withstand the battering was soon in doubt as
the attacking ships began to predict the bark's trajectory with greater
accuracy. A pattern of anticipatory fire began to appear, and direct
contact with a relativistic bubble in the developing phase became a near
certainty if the engagement continued. Bogaert, who had been watching
the screens with growing concern, suddenly smote the table.

   "Hilary, fire those damn disrupters again."

   "We're too high for focusing."

   "You need stray ions to assist the focusing, right?"

   "Right!"

   "Well, what do you think the debris from those relativistic blasts
provides?"

   For one of his weight, it was incredible how fast Rounding moved. The
results were nearly immediate. As the strange voices of the disrupters
began to speak again, the throng of ships massing in their location began
a strange and terrible dissolution. So savage and unexpected was this
show of strength that fully thirty of the Pretender's ships were caught in
the trap and literally fell apart under the pressure of their own internal
atmospheres.

   A similar number of other vessels were unable to escape from the area
in time, and joined their colleagues in the hideous wastage. Thereafter,
the bark continued without further molestation. Such a convincing show
of weaponry coupled with the fact that they had lost both leadership and
cause tempted none of the remaining vessels to try again. Indeed, from the
pattern of ion trails it was obvious that an ever increasing number were
accepting Rounding's advice to return to their home worlds. Rounding
watched them go, the merest trace of jubilance on his face.

   "Bogey, my old scarecrow, I think you just earned yourself a medal or
two. Using their own ion debris against them was one of the damnedest
tricks I've ever seen. Where did you pick up an underhand trick like that?"

  "I've been taking lessons from some masters of skullduggery," said
Bogaert, slapping his superior on the back.

            CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
    There were no Terran uniforms available on the bark. Bogaert had
instead to be content with an Ortellian uniform which was an atrocious
fit, being meant for a star warrior of truly massive proportions. The only
spare garment more suited to his size had already been given to Zim.
Arma had been found a tunic, which, with the arms cut short, reached all
the way to the ground and formed a curiously becoming gown. The main
problem was Miram. It was not that nothing could be found to suit her,
but that she steadfastly refused to have her appearance altered until she
had been reunited with Kanizar. Miram, it seemed, was fiercely proud of
her new image, and wanted Kanizar to be fully aware of the
transformation. Rounding went to reason with her and came back with a
curious look on his face, having lost his first argument in years.

   "I thought I knew the Empress Miram," he said to Bogaert, who, clean
and refreshed, had returned to the control desk. "But that tigress you
fetched back's scarcely the same person. Heaven alone knows how
Kanizar's going to stomach female emancipation. That's something that'd
really rock the star empires."

   "It's the new logic," said Bogaert. "She was brought up like a house pet
As a house pet she couldn't have lasted ten hours on Avida. But,
encouraged to develop as a competent individual, she lacked nothing in
sense or fortitude. To us it's self-evident, but to her it was a revelation."

  "Well, I hope Kanizar appreciates the point, because this is one reunion
where he's going to get back far more than he lost. Now tell me about
Bethschant."

   "He was a member of an indigenous Avidan colony that failed. Xzan
took off the last hundred or so, because they were probably the toughest
race in the galaxy. Bethschant was intended to be my assassin if Avida
proved less deadly than anticipated."

  "That's the way the game's played," said Rounding ruefully. "But how'd
you manage to win him over?"

   "By happening to survive. But it was the way in which we survived that
intrigued Bethschant. Watching us, he realized that, given a little
knowledge and a few facilities, his own people could have mastered Avida
for themselves. From that point on, we had a useful ally out in the brush."

   "And to save you he finally knifed Xzan?"

   "He could see that I, not Xzan, held the key to the repopulation of
Avida. I've just been talking it through with him. He wants to reestablish a
colony on Avida with our assistance. I can't think of a better opening for
Outspace Technical Aid."

   "You have a good point there, Bogey, old son. But we run straight into
the problem of sovereignty."

   "There's another point also. It's certain Avida once held a major
civilization—I think the major ransad civilization. We found a library
there containing ransad texts ranging several orders beyond anything
available to the star empires. Whatever else happens, we must have access
to those texts."

   "That may be difficult. The star kings of this sector aren't keen on too
much Terran influence so near to the Hub. They're already at Oontara's
throat. I think the politics will prove too tricky."

   "Not if we can get Kanizar's backing. He owes us a few favors."
   "Damn you, Bogey! You're supposed to solve problems for me, not
create them."

   "But you'll try to swing it?"

   "Yes, I'll try. But it'll take a little manipulation. In a few hours we're
going to meet Kanizar's fleet head-on. I've a mind to arrange a little trial
of strength."

   "Against Kanizar? You have to be out of your mind."

   "Kanizar won't support us unless he respects us.

   What better way of making the point than by twisting his tail in front
of his own fleet?"

   "Hold it, Hilary! Haven't you had enough space war for one day?"

  "This won't be space war. Kanizar daren't fire, because we have his
family aboard. But if we refuse to stop, he'll undoubtedly try to hold
us—and that's where he's due for his surprise."

   "I don't see the point of forcing a trial of strength."

   "Come, Bogey, you're the tactician. One day there has to be a showdown
between us and Kanizar. Wouldn't you prefer it now and in this way rather
than a shooting war?"

   "Hilary, have you ever considered how uncomplicated the galaxy was
before you decided to reshape it single-handed?"

   Soon the alarms signaled that they were dropping out of hyperspace.
The captain had been speaking to Kanizar's fleet controller, and a
rendezvous had been arranged. From his position near the screens at the
control desk, Bogaert had a fascinating view of Kanizar's task force, the
pick of the fleet, as they too emerged from hyperspace and continued at
sublight velocities to the place of meeting. These magnificent craft were
space dreadnoughts in the most literal sense, and the bark was little more
than a toy by comparison.

   The signals officer thrust a communications disk into Rounding's hand.

   "The Lord Kanizar wishes to speak with you."
   "Commissioner!" Ranker's voice reverberated deeply. "You exceed my
wildest hopes. Not only do you bring me my family, but you deliver my
greatest enemy."

   "A correction, my Lord," said Rounding mildly. "I'll return your family
with pleasure, but Camin Sher's a Federation prisoner who'll stand trial in
a court of the Federated communities."

   "What!" The power of Kanizar's voice overloaded the equipment.
"Come, Commissioner—you know me better than that. If you won't
surrender Sher, I'll come and fetch the star rodent myself. Stand by to be
boarded."

   "I wouldn't advise you to try. This is a Terran-built ship temporarily
under Federation command. Our destination is Tenarensor on Ortel to
arrange the transfer of the Pretender to a Federation starship. Follow us if
you like, but any attempt at interference will be resisted. Under the
circumstances, your family will have to accompany us to Ortel and be
returned to you there."

  Kanizar's rich laughter filled the room.

   "Commissioner, you've played with star kings so long, you're beginning
to sound like one. But there's a difference. They have forces to back their
words—you haven't. You can no more oppose me than you can get that fat
carcass of yours to fly."

  "We're wasting time," said Rounding. "I'll see you on Ortel."

   He signaled the bark's captain to continue. The officer looked at
Bogaert appealingly, as if seeking confirmation that the orders of the fat
civilian could be disregarded. Bogaert reflected on the great force in their
path dourly, but reaffirmed the Commissioner's decision.

   "I hope to hell you know what you're doing, Hilary," he said in a quiet
aside.

   Their approach to the great dreadnoughts must have been viewed with
disbelief. Kanizar's own amused comment was speared by a sudden note
of doubt, as he suddenly accepted the possibility that the Earth
Commissioner might not be bluffing. Bogaert knew what Kanizar's next
move had to be, and was unsurprised when two of the larger craft
sprouted bright blue tractor beams to encapsulate and hold the errant
bark. Predictably, because of the difference in the ships' relative masses,
the tractor's grip on the park locked in gently but solidly, and began to
haul the bark closer.

   Rounding waited for the appropriate moment, then called for full
engine power. It was a gambit which sometimes worked when tractor
beams were extended to their limits and mass differences were small. In
the present situation, it was obviously an abortive move.

   The obvious was wrong. Despite its comparatively minute size, the bark
continued on its way. At one moment it was actually between the great
ships, dragging them backward with the thrust of its truly amazing
engines. Unwilling to lose their prize or to suffer more of such indignity,
the great dreadnoughts began to use their own engines to counter their
backward progress. Rounding watched the situation building up with
mounting glee, having an insight into what was to follow.

   "Kanizar's going to hate me for this," he said, undismayed by the
terrifying opposition of forces which the deadlock was generating. "But he
can't say he wasn't warned."

   He gave a sign to the Ortellian captain of the bark, who relayed a few
swift orders. The words brought to Bogaert a sudden comprehension of
the Commissioner's intention, and he too was infected with some of the
latter's unholy glee. As the superconductive circuits in the hull were
brought into play, the tractor beams were deflected around the hull. The
bark became suddenly "slippery" as far as the tractors were concerned.

   Because of the great and opposing forces built up by the tractor-locked
tug of war, the sudden inability of the beams to hold the bark produced
the most spectacular results. The bark gained momentum like a cork
popping from a bottle, while both its would-be captors, unable to
redistribute the unlocked forces quickly enough, began to tumble end over
end like huge cartwheels which had lost their rims.

   Confusion followed in Kanizar's fleet. Primarily the ships were all facing
the wrong way, and had to check velocity before they could turn. Further,
they were loath to leave until their two prime ships had been restored to
equilibrium. In the meantime, the bark had wound up to hyperpoint in
record time, jumped into hyperspace at the highest level ever recorded,
and then reappeared where it was least expected, at the edge of Kanizar's
bewildered fleet.

  Instantly Kanizar's voice was back on the communicator.

  "Commissioner—have you any more tricks like that?"

  "Quite a few," admitted Rounding.

  "We've been intercepting signals from the Pretender's fleet. Is it true
you destroyed nearly twenty-five percent of them single-handedly?"

  "That was a mistake," said Rounding. "Colonel Bogey overplayed his
hand."

   "Mistake!" Kanizar released a string of oaths which made the signals
officer cringe. "All right, Commissioner! You win. Take the Pretender for
trial in your tinpot court. But if you ever release the star rodent, I'll move
the universe to have him sought out and destroyed. And now I want to talk
ships—your kind of ships."

   "I'll be happy to do so," said Rounding. "But you know the necessary
preliminary: an agreement in principle to join the Federation."

   "You have my agreement. Prepare your wretched papers and come and
join me."

   "I've already prepared them. I'll bring them over, together with your
family." Handing the communicator disk back to the signals officer, he
turned back to the Colonel. "You know, Bogey, I think we've got ourselves
another customer."

   When the reunion and the rejoicing was over, Kanizar called Bogaert
back, and the two men were alone in the cabin. The great king of the
galaxy went behind his desk, rested his chin on his hands, and looked at
Bogaert thoughtfully.

   "I wanted to have a private talk with you, Colonel. I needed to know
what manner of man you are. You've rendered me the greatest service a
king has ever seen. And at the same time, you've destroyed me."

  "Destroyed?" asked Bogaert, surprised.

  "Space!" Kanizar struck the desk a fearful blow. "You're fencing with
me, Colonel Bogey. You know perfectly well you've done far more than
rescue my family from an ill-conceived survival game."

  "I don't understand."

  "I'll spell it out for you. I left a young princeling playing with mock
weapons. You returned me a seasoned warrior, already blooded and
unafraid. I left a son I intended should inherit the stars. You returned one
who thinks this heritage so small, he'd prefer a commission in the
Federation Space Service."

  "I'm sorry about that, I—"

   "Quiet, Colonel! I've not finished with you yet. I also left a dainty
princess playing with dolls. You bring me back a tough young woman who
can gut reptiles without flinching and who tells me my glorious wars of
conquest are all waste and vain illusion."

  "But—"

   "And I left a wife—a fragile courtly ornament. You brought back to me
a queen powerful enough to challenge my own dominance."

  "And that makes you angry?"

   "It makes me sad. Because you've proved what old Sashu, my
chancellor, spent half a lifetime trying to teach me—that a way of life
which was old before your history began is ending. The star provinces
can't withstand your new logic. You're a terrible man, Colonel Bogey, to
render the King of Kings an anachronism. Very few manage to do so much
damage to the established order in the course of a single lifetime."

  "I fear my Lord exaggerates."

   "In truth, I believe you're a worse scoundrel than Rounding. You've
abducted my enemy, alienated my heir's allegiance, transformed my wife,
and undermined the pinions of history. Does that sound like
exaggeration?"

  Bogaert was scanning Kanizar's face, wondering how the conversation
was going to end. The King of Kings, Emperor of Emperors, regarded the
Colonel's perplexity with a growing amusement.
   "I can see now why they call Terrans the terrible infants.' I really think
you don't know even yet your own strengths. So let me return to you one of
your own truisms: 'Adaptation is the keynote of survival' Let it not be said
that Kanizar's too old a beast to contemplate adaptation. Therefore, I'm to
give this to you, Colonel. You've earned it."

  "What is it?" asked Bogaert, taking the piece of paper he was offered.

   "Commissioner Rounding has my agreement in principle to join the
Federation. You have the second document—the agreement absolute. All
my star holdings are now bound to join the Federation, and the lesser star
kings will scarcely abstain for long. I wanted to give it to you personally,
Colonel Bogey, because you're really the warrior who proved the star
legions obsolete."

                   CHAPTER THIRTY
   The trip through transdimensional space was like a long journey into
winter with only the remotest prospect of spring. The occupants of the
first Federation ship to attempt the crossing between the island universes
were not objectively aware of the multiple dimensions of their existence.
For them, relativity had imparted a comforting sense of normality.
Subjectively, however, the knowledge that their life-support vessel had a
length of minus nine hundred meters and its total weight subtracted from
infinity bred a deep and curious dread. Only a few could even comprehend
the twenty-seven physical dimensions of their absolute geometry. Even so,
then- journey through the googolplexed infinity of trans-continuum space
was a fascinating and terrifying thing.

   The fleeting but observable overlap of continuums seemed designed to
do nothing but overawe and dismay. The great oceans between the
galaxies, far from being unpopulated, had/did/would contain a
concentration of unknown bodies so staggeringly high that it was the
great galaxies themselves which appeared empty by comparison. Here
were aggregates of white holes, peculiar radiating vortices, and distortions
of the very nature of the lamelliform structure of multiple space; witness
to universes before/during/after the creation and destruction of the
universe that mankind knew; giving the lie to man's claim to a
comprehension of cosmology. Here was all the terror of the most alien of
alien environments—and through the midst of all this compound
weirdness the lab ship King Bethschant was an incorrigible splint of
cosmic dust which alone knew purpose and destination.

   Nor were all the uncertainties environmental. Culled from the ransad
library on Avida were advanced theorems on interdimensional drive
physics which even the best Terran scientific brains could only barely
understand. The resultant union of advanced ransad theory with Terran
expertise had resulted in the fantastic hybrid units which powered the
King Bethschant. It had been an extravagant technical gamble, and one
which could have been financed only by the combined resources of the
rapidly growing Galactic Federation. The results thus far had been in
excess of expectation.

   Space Marshal Bogaert, however, had no illusions about the perils of
the mission or its slim chance of success. While nothing forseeable had
been left to chance, the very definition of what constituted chance in this
region of physics was itself an unknown factor. The amalgamation of the
two alien scientific philosophies had introduced broad areas of
uncertainty, and the entire technical crew were not only brilliant
specialists in their own fields, but had also been chosen for their known
ability to make brilliant improvisations and solve critical problems in
radically unorthodox ways. Already many of the trim racks of equipment
had been stripped down to accommodate hasty modifications to meet
unanticipated emergencies. If the crew survived and returned to record an
analysis of their results, not only would they have made history but they
would also have taken a giant step forward in man's ability to handle
transdimensional space.

   The navigational and control problems were no less formidable, and
were being tackled no less competently. Here Bogaert had been fortunate
in obtaining Lieutenant Kanizar, one of the brightest products of the
Federation Space Academy, with such a rare intuition for navigation
through the unchartable that he used his instinct as frequently as he used
his navigational aids, and was invariably proved correct The crushing
weight of the problems and stresses affected him not one bit The light of
battle in his eyes showed he thrived on such challenges; and his
enthusiasm was fired by vaster yet less bloody dreams than those which
had motivated his illustrious father.

   They were approaching the point of reentry into normal space. Here
they had to negotiate the tunnel effect, which should bring them out on
the edge of a new galaxy far across the great divides of the universe. As
they made their preparations, the tension among the crew rose
perceptibly. The tunnel effect was a mathematical construct of physical
domains which had no actual existence so far as theorists could
determine. It was a non-dimensional link between the normalities of
planar space and their present trajectory at right angles to the lamellar
structure of the multiple continuums. For the period of the transition, the
ship and everything it contained could be proven to have no actual
existence in either physical realm.

   On earlier trials, the lab ships had frequently failed to emerge from the
far end of the tunnel, and had passed into nothingness without trace and
without observable reaction. The return from transdimensional to planar
space was always the most critical direction, and this was the maneuver
they now had to undertake. Space Marshal Bogaert called his senior
technical officers to the bridge and listened to their individual summaries.
There was nothing he could add to or subtract from their reasoning, and
he was impressed by their outward show of confidence. He finally
authorized the maneuver, and turned to Lieutenant Kanizar.

  "All yours, Zim! Take her through the tunnel when you're ready. All
control parameters are at your discretion."

   Zim looked up from the control panels, a trace of strained amusement
on his face.

   "Time was," he said, "when, faced with critical dangers, the star folk
called on the ancient gods to protect them. We know better. We simply
threaten to bring back Hilary Rounding from retirement. I think even the
universe has better sense than to disregard the warning."

  "Amen to that!" said Marshal Bogaert.

   Judging his point precisely, Zim activated the devices which caused
such a local warp in the continuums that the tunnel opened up before
them. As they entered it, all trace of physical phenomena outside their
own frail hull disappeared, and with one accord all the external monitors
failed to register even the faintest trace of a universe outside. From the
viewpoint of relativity, it was impossible to state whether the universe
itself had been extinguished or the ship had ceased existence while the
universe continued on its way. It was a simple fact that while they
continued in the tunnel, one or other of them did not exist and there was
no possibility of interaction. This was the only condition in which the
transition was possible.

   As they sped through the tunnel, their sense of isolation grew.
Apprehension was a rising tide which only iron discipline saved from
turning into a panic. Many ships, on entering the runnel, had failed to
reemerge. Into what strange limbo they had gone was well beyond
imagination. Whether they went into a sort of dissolution, continued their
journey into everlasting nothingness, or entered a new and unknown set of
continuums was a question to which they might never know the answer.

   Bogaert stood by Zim Kanizar's side, watching the delicate
manipulation of the controls and hoping that the brain and instincts
behind the guiding fingers held more certainty of success than his own
mind possessed. Several times Bogaert could have sworn that the ship was
losing substantiality—that he could see through the shadows of their
tenuous existence, right through to the nothingness beyond. Zim
remained silent, but a slight correction of the controls each time returned
the reality to the situation and fetched a feeling of solidity back to the
ship. Bogaert wondered how much the impression was subjective and just
how near they had actually come to fading into the negative infinity
beyond.

   Then, mercifully, they were through the tunnel. The instrument panels
became jammed with the myriad lights and signals which recorded the
return of a universe outside. Vision swam back again to the screens. They
were back in real space and on the edge of a great new galaxy a million
kilo-parsecs from home. The great sprawl of stars was a riot of
magnificence which left the Milky Way seeming a poor lackluster thing.
More importantly, they were safe, the King Bethschant was in remarkably
good shape, and the information they had gained contained the key to
traveling not only to this galaxy but to every conceivable galaxy.

    Nor were the frontiers of space finite. From this new position on the
edge of the old universe, it was possible to see that, far from being an
ending, this was only the beginning. The cosmos truly was boundless. In
all directions were limitless continuations of the scene, which left the
mind humbled and amazed.

  Here was the promise not of a star but of an entire galaxy for every
human head in existence. Contrasting this magnitude and bounty with the
smallness of man, Bogaert knew beyond doubt that the human creature
had a lot of maturing to do before he qualified to master all this new
wonder set before him. They now had the hardware. Only time would tell
whether they also had the philosophy to match.

    This was the testing time for the whole of the human species: whether
it could adapt to limitless horizons. Perhaps in this galaxy—or the one
after—the originators of the ransad, the great teachers, would be waiting.
Or perhaps even they had failed to adapt far enough fast enough, and had
left the challenge open.

  Perhaps…