when should dissolvable stitches come out wisdom teeth

when should dissolvable stitches come out wisdom teeth

the green odyssey by philip josã© farmer chapter i for two years alan green had lived withouthope. from the day the spaceship had crashed on... Maret 14, 2017

the green odyssey by philip josã© farmer chapter i for two years alan green had lived withouthope. from the day the spaceship had crashed on this unknown planet he had resigned himselfto the destiny created for him by accident and mathematics. chances against another shiplanding within the next hundred years were a million to one. therefore it would do nogood to sit around waiting for rescue. much as he loathed the idea, he must live the restof his life here, and he must squeeze as much blood as he could out of this planet-sizedturnip. there wasn't much to squeeze. in fact, it seemed to him that he was the one losingthe blood. shortly after he'd been cast away

he'd been made a slave. now, suddenly, he had hope. hope came to him a month after he'd been madeforeman of the kitchen slaves of the duke of tropat. it came to him as he was standingbehind the duchess during a meal and directing those who were waiting upon her. it was the duchess zuni who had not so subtlymaneuvered him from the labor pens to his coveted, if dangerous, position. why dangerous?because she was very jealous and possessive, and the slightest hint of lack of attentionfrom him could mean he'd lose his life or one limb or another. the knowledge of whathad happened to his two predecessors kept

him extremely sensitive to her every gesture,her every wish. that fateful morning he was standing behindher as she sat at one end of the long breakfast table. in one hand he held his foreman's wand,a little white baton topped by a large red ball. with it he gestured at the slaves whoserved food, who poured wine and beer, who fanned away the flies, who carried in thehousehold god and sat it on the god chair, who played something like music. now and thenhe bent over the duchess zuni's long black hair and whispered phrases from this or thatlove poem, praising her beauty, her supposed unattainability, and his burning, if seeminglyhopeless, passion for her. zuni would smile, or repeat the formula of thanks-- the shortone-- or else giggle at his funny accent.

the duke sat at the other end of the table.he ignored the by-play, just as he ignored the so-called secret passage inside the wallsof the castle, which green used to get to the duchess's apartments. custom demandedthis, just as custom demanded that he should play the outraged husband if she got tiredof green or angry at him and accused him publicly of amorous advances. this was enough to makegreen jittery, but he had more than the duke to consider. there was alzo. alzo was the duchess's watchdog, a mastiff-likemonster with shaggy red-gold hair. the dog hated green with a vindictiveness that greencould only account for by supposing that the animal knew, perhaps from his body-odor, thathe was not a native of this planet, alzo rumbled

a warning deep in his chest every time greenbent over the duchess or made a too-sudden movement. occasionally he rose to his fourfeet and nuzzled the man's leg. when that happened green could not keep from breakingout into a sweat, for the dog had twice bitten him, playfully, so to speak, and severelylacerated his calf. as if that weren't bad enough, green had to worry that the nativesmight notice that his scars healed abnormally fast, almost overnight. he'd been forced towear bandages on his legs long after the new skin had come in. even now, the nauseating canine was sniffingaround green's quivering hide in the hope of putting the fear of the devil in him. atthat moment the earthman resolved that, come

the headsman's ax, rack, wheel, or other hellishtortures, he was going to kill that hound. it was just after he made that vow that theduchess caused him to forget altogether the beast. "dear," said zuni, interrupting the duke inthe midst of his conversation with a merchant-captain, "what is this i hear about two men who havefallen from the sky in a great ship of iron?" green quivered, and he held his breath asbe waited for the duke's reply. the duke, a short, dark many-chinned man withwhite hair and very thick bristly salt-and-pepper eyebrows, frowned. "men? demons, rather! can men fly in an ironship through the air? these two claimed to

have come from the stars, and you know whatthat means. remember oixrotl's prophecy: a demon will come, claiming to be an angel.no doubt about these two! just to show you their subtlety, they claim to be neither demonnor angels, but men! now, there's devilish clever thinking. confusing to anybody butthe most clearheaded. i'm glad the king of estorya wasn't taken in." eagerly zuni leaned forward, her large browneyes bright, and her red-painted mouth open and wet. "oh, has he burned them already?what a shame! i should think he'd at least torture them for a while." miran, the merchant-captain, said, "your pardon,gracious lady, but the king of estorya has

done no such thing. the estoryan law demandsthat all suspected demons should be kept in prison for two years. everybody knows thata devil can't keep his human disguise more than two years. at the end of that time hereverts to his natural mesh and form, a hideous sight to behold, blasphemous, repulsive, soul-shaking." miran rolled his one good eye so that onlythe white showed and made the sign to ward off evil, the index anger held rigidly outfrom a clenched fist. jugkaxtr, the household priest, dived under the table, where he crouchedpraying, secure in the knowledge that demons couldn't touch him while he knelt beneaththe thrice-blessed wood. the duke swallowed a whole glass of wine, apparently to calmhis nerves, and belched.

miran wiped his face and said, "of course,i wasn't able to find out much, because we merchants are regarded with deep suspicionand scarcely dare to move outside the harbor or the marketplace. the estoryans worshipa female deity-- ridiculous, isn't it?-- and eat fish. they hate us tropatians becausewe worship zaxropatr, male of males, and because they must depend on us to bring them fish.but they aren't close-mouthed. they babble on and on to us, especially when one has giventhem wine for nothing." green finally released his breath in a sighof relief. how glad he was that he had never told these people his true origin! so faras they knew he was merely one of the many slaves who came from a distant country inthe north.

miran cleared his throat, adjusted his violetturban and yellow robes, pulled gently at the large gold ring that hung from his noseand said, "it took me a month to get back from estorya, and that is very good time indeed,but then i am noted for my good luck, though i prefer to call it skill plus the favor givenby the gods to the truly devout. i do not boast, o gods, but merely give you tributebecause you have smiled upon my ventures and have found pleasing the scent of my many sacrificesin your nostrils!" green lowered his eyelids to conceal the expressionof disgust which he felt must be shining from them. at the same time, he saw zuni's shoetapping impatiently. inwardly he groaned, because he knew she would divert the conversationto something more interesting to her, to her

clothes and the state of her stomach and/orcomplexion. and there would be nothing that anybody could do about it, because the customwas that the woman of the house regulated the subject of talk during breakfast. if onlythis had been lunch or dinner! then the men would theoretically have had uncontested control. "these two demons were very tall, like yourslave green, here," said miran, "and they could not speak a word of estoryan. or atleast they claimed they couldn't. when king raussmig's soldiers tried to capture themthey brought from the folds of their strange clothes two pistols that only had to be pointedto send silent and awesome and sure death. everywhere men dropped dead. panic overtookmany, but there were brave soldiers who kept

on charging, and eventually the magical instrumentsbecame exhausted. the demons were overpowered and put into the tower of grass cats fromwhich no man or demon has yet escaped. and there they will be until the festival of thesun's eye. then they will be burnt..." from beneath the table rose the babble ofthe priest, jugkaxtr, as he blessed everyone in the house, down to the latest-born pup,and the fleas living thereoff, and cursed all those who were possessed by even the tiniestdemon. the duke, growing impatient at the noise, kicked under the table. jugkaxtr yelpedand presently crawled out. he sat down and began gnawing the meat from a bone, a well-done-thou-good-and-faithful-servantexpression on his fat features. green also felt like kicking him, just as he often feltlike kicking every single human being on this

planet. it was hard to remember that he mustexercise compassion and understanding for them, and that his own remote ancestors hadonce been just as nauseatingly superstitious, cruel and bloody. there was a big difference between readingabout such people and actually living among them. a history or a romantic novel coulddescribe how unwashed and diseased and formula-bound primitives were, but only the too-too substantialstench and filth could make your gorge rise. even as he stood there zuni's powerful perfumerose and clung in heavy festoons about him and slithered down his nostrils. it was arare and expensive perfume, brought back by miran from his voyages and given to her asa token of the merchant's esteem. used in

small quantities it would have been quiteeffective to express feminine daintiness and to hint at delicate passion. but no, zunipoured it like water over her, hoping to cover up the stale odor left by not taking a bathmore than once a month. she looked so beautiful, he thought. and stankso terribly. at least she had at first. now she looked less beautiful because he knewhow stupid she was, and didn't stink quite so badly because his nostrils had become somewhatadjusted. they'd had to. "i intend to be back in estorya by the timeof the festival," said miran. "i've never seen the eye of the sun burn demons before.it's a giant lens, you know. there will be just time enough to make a voyage there andget back before the rainy season. i expect

to make even greater profits than the lasttime, because i've established some highly placed contacts. o gods, i do not boast butmerely praise your favor to your humble worshiper, miran the merchant of the clan of effenycan!" "please bring me some more of this perfume,"said the duchess, "and i just love the diamond necklace you gave me." "diamonds, emeralds, rubies!" cried miran,kissing his hand and rolling his eye ecstatically. "i tell you, the estoryans are rich beyondour dreams! jewels flow in their marketplaces like drops of water in a cataract! ah, ifonly the emperor could be induced to organize a great raiding fleet and storm its walls!"

"he remembers too well what happened to hisfather's fleet when he tried it," growled the duke. "the storm that destroyed his thirtyships was undoubtedly raised by the priests of the goddess hooda. i still think that theexpedition would have succeeded, however, if the late emperor had not ignored the visionthat came to him the night before they set sail. it was the great god axoputqui, andhe said..." there was a lengthy conversation which didnot hold green's attention. he was too busy trying to think of a plan whereby he couldget to estorya and to the demons' iron vessel, which was obviously a spaceship. this washis only chance. soon the rainy season would start and there would be no vessels leavingfor at least three months.

he could, of course, just walk away and hopeto get to estorya on foot. thousands of miles through countless perils, and he had onlya general idea of where the city was... no, miran was his only hope. but how...? he didn't think that stowing awaywould work. there was always a careful search for slaves who might try just that very plan.he looked at miran, the short, fat, big-stomached, hook-nosed, one-eyed fellow with many chinsand a large gold ring in his nose. the fellow was shrewd, shrewd, and he would not wantto offend the duchess by helping her official gigolo escape. not, that is, unless greencould offer him something that was so valuable that he couldn't afford not to take the risk.miran boasted that he was a hard-headed businessman,

but it was green's observation that therewas always a large soft spot in that supposedly impenetrable cranium: the fissure of cupiditas. chapter ii the duke rose, and everybody followed hisexample. jugkaxtr chanted the formula of dismissal, then sat down to finish gnawing on the bone.the others filed out. green walked in front of zuni in order to warn her of any obstaclesin her path and to take the brunt of any attempted assassination. as he did so he was seizedby the ankle and tripped headlong. he did not fall hard because he was a quick man,in spite of his six-foot-two and hundred ninety pounds. but he rose red-faced because of theloud laughter and from repressed anger at

alzo, who had again repeated his trick ofgrabbing green's leg and upsetting him. he wanted to grab a spear from a nearby guardand spit alzo. but that would be the end of green. and whereas up to now there had beenmany times when he would not particularly have cared if he left this planet via thedeath route, he could not now make a false move. not when escape was so near! so he grinned sheepishly and again precededthe duchess, while the others followed her out. when they reached the bottom of the broadstone staircase that led to the upper floors of the castle, zuni told green that he wasto go to the marketplace and buy tomorrow's food. as for her, she was going back to bedand sleep until noon.

inwardly green groaned. how long could hekeep up this pace? he was expected to stay up half the night with her, then attend tohis official duties during the day. she slept enough to be refreshed by the time he visitedher, but he never had a chance for any real rest. even when he had his free hours in theafternoon he had to go to his house in the pens, and there he had to stay awake and attendto all his familial duties. and amra, his slave-wife, and her six children demandedmuch from him. they were even more tyrannical than the duchess, if that were possible. how long, o lord, how long? the situationwas intolerable; even if he'd not heard of the spaceship he would have plotted to escape.better a quick death while trying to get away

than a slow, torturous one by exhaustion. he bowed good-by to the duke and duchess,then followed the violet turban and yellow robes of miran through the courtyard, throughthe thick stone walls, over the bridge of the broad moat, and into the narrow windingstreets of the city of quotz. here the merchant-captain got into his silver-and-jewel-decorated rickshaw.the two long-legged men between its shafts, sailors and clansmen from miran's vessel,the bird of fortune, began running through the crowd. the people made way for them, astwo other sailors preceded them calling out miran's name and cracking whips in the air. green, after looking to make certain thatnobody from the castle was around to see him,

ran until he was even with the rickshaw. miranhalted it and asked what he wanted. "your pardon, your richness, but may a humbleslave speak and not be reprimanded?" "i presume it is no idle thought you havein mind," said miran, looking green over his one eye narrow in its fat-folds. "it has to do with money." "ah, despite your foreign accent you speakwith a pleasing voice; you are the golden trumpet of mennirox, my patron god. speak!" "first your richness must swear by menniroxthat you will under no circumstances divulge my proposal."

"there is wealth in this? for me?" "there is." miran glanced at his clansmen, standing therepatiently, apparently oblivious of what was going on. he had power of life and death overthem, but he didn't trust them. he said, "perhaps it would be better if i thought about thisbefore making such a drastic oath. could you meet me tonight at the hour of the wineglassat the house of equality? and could you perhaps give me a slight hint of what you have inmind?" "the answer to both is yes. my proposal hasto do with the dried fish that you carry as cargo to the estoryans. there is another thing,too, but i may not even hint at it until i

have your oath." "very well then. at the agreed hour. fish,eh? i must be off. time is money, you know. get going boys, full sails." green hailed a passing rickshaw and seatedhimself comfortably in it. as assistant majordomo he had plenty of money. moreover, the dukeand duchess would have been outraged if he had lowered their prestige by walking throughthe city's streets. his vehicle made good time, too, because everybody recognized hislivery: the scarlet and white tricorn hat and the white sleeveless shirt with the duke'sheraldic arms on its chest-- red and green concentric circles pierced by a black arrow.

the street led always downward, for the cityhad been built on the foothills of the mountains. it wandered here and there and gave greenplenty of time to think. the trouble was, he thought, that if the twoimprisoned men at estorya were to die before he got to them he'd still be lost. he hadno idea of how to pilot or navigate a spaceship. he'd been a passenger on a freighter whenit had unaccountably blown up, and he'd been forced to leave the dying vessel in one ofthose automatic castaway emergency shells. the capsule had got him down to the surfaceof this planet and was, as far as he knew, still up in the hills where he'd left it.after wandering for a week and almost starving to death he'd been picked up by some peasants.they had turned him in to the soldiers of

a nearby garrison, thinking he must be a runawayslave on whom they'd collect a reward. taken to the capital city of quotz, green had almostbeen freed because there was no record of his being anybody's property. but his tallness,blondness and inability to speak the local language had convinced his captors that hemust have wandered down from some far northern country. therefore if he wasn't a slave heshould be. presto, changeo! he was. and he'd put in sixmonths in a quarry and a year as a dock worker. then the duchess had chanced to see him onthe streets as she rode by, and he'd been transferred to the castle. the streets were alive with the short, dark,stocky natives and the taller, lighter-complexioned

slaves. the former wore their turbans of variouscolors, indicating their status and trade. the latter wore their three-cornered hats.occasionally a priest in his high conical hat, hexagonal spectacles and goatee rodeby. wagons and rickshaws drawn by men or by big, powerful dogs went by. merchants stoodat the fronts of their shops and hawked their wares in loud voices. they sold cloth, grixtrnut, parchment, knives, swords, helmets, drugs, books-- on magic, on religion, on travel--spices, perfumes, ink, rugs, highly sugared drinks, wine, beer, tonic, paintings, everythingthat went to make up their civilization. butchers stood before open shops where dressed fowl,deer and dogs hung. dealers in birds pointed out the virtues of their many-colored andmulti-songed pets.

for the thousandth time green wondered atthis strange planet where the only large animals were men, dogs, grass cats, a small deer anda very small equine. in fact, there was a paucity of any variety of animal life, exceptfor the surprisingly large number of birds. it was this scarcity of horses and oxen, hesupposed, that helped perpetuate slavery. man and dog had to provide most of the labor. no doubt there was an explanation for allthis, but it must be buried so deep in this people's forgotten history that one wouldnever know. green, always curious, wished that he had time and means to explore. buthe didn't. he might as well resign himself to keeping a whole skin and to getting outof this mess as fast as he could.

there was enough to do merely to make hisway through the narrow and crowded streets. he had to display his baton often to cleara path, though when he approached the harbor area he had less trouble because the streetswere much wider. here great wagons drawn by gangs of slavescarried huge loads to or from the ships. the thoroughfares had to be broad, else the peoplewould have been crushed between wagon and house. here also were the so-called pens,where the dock-slaves lived. once the area had actually been an enclosure where men andwomen were locked up for the night, but the walls had been torn down and new houses builtin the old duke's time. the closest earthly parallel green could think of for these edificeswas a housing project. small cottages, all

exactly alike, set in military columns. for a moment he considered stopping off tosee amra, then decided against it. she'd get him tied up in an argument or something, andhe'd spend too much time trying to soothe her, time that should be spent at the marketplace.he hated scenes, whereas amra was a born self-dramatist who reveled in them, almost wallowed, onemight say. he averted his eyes from the pens and lookedat the other side of the street, where the walls of the great warehouses towered. workmenswarmed around them, and cranes, operated by gangs pushing wheels like a ship's capstan,raised or lowered big bundles. here, he thought, was a business opportunity for him.

introduce the steam engine. it'd be the greatestthing that ever bit this planet. wood-burning automobiles could replace the rickshaws. cranescould be run by donkey-engines. the ships themselves could have their wheels poweredby steam. or perhaps, he thought, rails could be laid across the xurdimur, and locomotiveswould make the ships obsolete. no, that wouldn't work. iron rails cost toomuch. and the savages that roved over the grassy plains would tear them up and forgeweapons from them. besides, every time he suggested to the dukea new and much more efficient method of doing something he ran dead into the brick wallof tradition and custom. nothing new could be accepted unless the gods accepted it. thegods' will was interpreted by the priests.

the priests clutched the status quo as tightlyas a hungry infant clutches its mother's breast or an old man clings to his property. green could make a fight against the theocracy,but he didn't feel it was worth while to become a martyr. he heard a familiar voice behind him callinghis name. "alan! alan!" he hunched his shoulders like a turtle withdrawinghis head and thought desperately for a moment of trying to ignore the voice. but, thougha woman's, it was powerful and penetrating, and everybody around him had already turnedto see its owner. so he couldn't pretend he

hadn't heard it. "alan, you big blond no-good hunk of man,stop!" reluctantly green told his rickshaw boy toturn around. the boy, grinning, did so. like everybody else along the harbor front he knewamra and was familiar with her relations with green. she held their one-year-old daughterin her arms, cradled against her magnificent bosom. behind her stood her other five children,her two sons by the duke, her daughter by a visiting prince, her son by the captainof a northerner ship, her daughter by a temple sculptor. her rise and fall and slow riseagain was told in the children around her; the tableau embodied an outline of the structureof the planet's society.

chapter iii her mother had been a northerner slave; herfather, a native freeman, a wheelwright. when she was five years old they had died in aplague. she had been transferred to the pens and raised by her aunt. when she was fifteenher beauty had attracted the duke and he had installed her in the palace. there she gavebirth to his two sons, now ten and eleven, who would soon be taken away from her andraised in the duke's household as free and petted servants. the duke had married the present duchess severalyears after his liaison with amra began and her jealousy had forced him to get rid ofamra. back to the pens she had gone; perhaps

the duke had not been too sad to see her go,for living with her was like living with a hurricane, and he liked peace and quiet toowell. then, in accordance with the custom, she hadbeen recommended by the duke to a visiting prince; the prince had overstayed his leavefrom his native country because he hated to part with her, and the duke had wanted togive her as a present. but here he'd overstepped his legal authority. slaves had certain rights.a woman who had borne a citizen a child could not be shipped away or sold unless she gaveher permission. amra didn't choose to go, so the sorrowing prince had gone home, thoughnot without leaving a memento of his visit behind him.

the captain of a ship had purchased her, buthere again the law came to her rescue. he could not take her out of the country, andshe again refused to leave. by now she had purchased several businesses-- slaves wereallowed to hold property and even have slaves of their own-- and she knew that her two boysby the duke would be valuable later on, when they'd go to live with him. the temple sculptor had used her as his modelfor his great marble statue of the goddess of fertility. well he might, for she was amagnificent creature, a tall woman with long, richly auburn hair, a flawless skin, largerusset brown eyes, a mouth as red and ripe as a plum, breasts with which neither childnor lover could find fault, a waist amazingly

slender considering the rest of her curvedbody and her fruitfulness. her long legs would have looked good on an earthwoman and wereeven more outstanding among a population of club-ankled females. there was more to her than beauty. she radiateda something that struck every male at first sight; to green she sometimes seemed to bea violent physical event, perhaps even a principle of nature herself. there were times when green felt proud becauseshe had picked him as her mate, chosen him when he was a newly imported slave who couldsay only a few words in the highly irregular agglutinative tongue. but there were timeswhen he felt that she was too much for him,

and those times had been getting too frequentlately. besides, he felt a pang whenever he saw their child, because he loved it and dreadedthe moment when he would have to leave it. as for deserting amra, he wasn't sure howthat would make him feel. undeniably, she did affect him, but then so did a blow inthe teeth or wine in the blood. he got down out of the rickshaw, told theboy to wait, said, "hello, honey," and kissed her. he was glad she was a slave, becauseshe didn't wear a nose-ring. when he kissed the duchess he was always annoyed by hers.she refused to take it off when with him because that would put her on his level, and he mustn'tever forget he was a slave. it was perfectly moral for her to take a bondsman as a loverbut not a freeman, and she was nothing if

not moral. amra's return kiss was passionate, part ofwhich was the vigor of asperity. "you're not fooling me," she said. "you meant to rideright by. kiss the children! what's the matter, are you getting tired of me? you told me youonly accepted the duchess's offer because it meant advancement, and you were afraidthat if you turned her down she'd find an excuse to kill you. well, i believed you--half-believed you, anyway. but i won't if you try sneaking by without seeing me. what'sthe matter? are you a man or not? are you afraid to face a woman? don't shake your head.you're a liar! don't forget to kiss grizquetr; you know he's an affectionate boy and worshipsyou, and it's absurd to say that in your country

grown men don't kiss boys that old. you'renot in your country-- what a strange, frigid, loveless race must live there-- and even ifyou were you might overlook their customs to show some tenderness to the boy. come onback to our house and i'll bring up some of that wonderful chalousma wine that came inthe other day out of the cellar----" "what was a ship doing in your cellar?" hesaid, and he whooped with laughter, "by all the gods, amra, i know it's been two dayssince i've seen you, but don't try to crowd forty-eight hours' conversation into ten minutes,especially your kind of conversation. and quit scolding me in front of the children.you know it's bad for them. they might pick up your attitude of contempt for the headof the house."

"i? contempt? why, i worship the ground youwalk on! i tell them continually what a fine man you are, though it's rather hard to convincethem when you do show up and they see the truth. still..." there was only one way to handle her; thatwas to outtalk, outshout, outact her. it was hard going, especially when he felt so tired,and when she would not cooperate with him but would fight for precedence. the troublewas, she didn't feel any respect for the man she could shut up, so it was absolutely necessaryto dominate her. this he accomplished by giving her a big squeeze,causing the baby to cry because she was pushed in too tightly between the two of them. thenwhile amra was trying to soothe the baby he

began telling her what had happened at thepalace. she was silent, except for a sharply pointedquestion interjected now and then, and she insisted upon hearing the details of everythingthat had taken place-- everything. he told her things that he would not have mentionedbefore children-- two years ago. but the extremely frank and uninhibited society of the slaveshad freed him of any such restraints. they went inside amra's house, through heroffices, where six of her clerks and secretaries worked, through the living rooms proper, andon into the kitchen. she rang a bell and told inzax, a pretty littleblonde, to go into the cellar and bring up a quart of chalousma. one of the clerks poppedhis head in the kitchen door and told her

that a mr. sheshyarvrenti, purser of an andoonanargavessel, wanted to see her about the disposition of some rare birds that she had ordered sevenmonths before. he would deal with no one but her. "let him cool his heels for a while," shesaid. the clerk gulped and his head disappeared. green took paxi, his daughter, and playedwith her while amra poured their wine. "this can go on only so long," she said. "ilove you, and i'm not getting the attention i'm accustomed to. you should find some pretenseto break off with the duchess. i'm a vigorous woman who needs a lot of love. i want youhere." green had nothing to lose by agreeing withher, since he planned to be leaving in a very

short time. "you're right," he said. "i'lltell her as soon as i think up a good excuse." he fingered his neck at the place where aheadsman's ax would come down. "it had better be a good one, though." amra seemed to glow all over with happiness.she held her glass up and said, "here's to the duchess. may demons carry her off." "you'd better be careful, saying that beforethe children. you know that if they innocently repeated that to someone and it got back tothe duchess you'd be burned in the next witchhunt." "not my children!" she scoffed. "they're tooclever. they take after their mother. they know when to keep their mouths shut."

green gulped his wine and stood up. "i mustgo." "you'll come home tonight? surely the duchesswill let you out one night a week?" "not one single night. and i can't come herethis evening because i'm to meet miran the merchant at the house of equality. business,you know." "oh, i know! you'll dillydally about the wholematter, and put off acting for one reason or another, and the first thing you know,years will go by, and----" "if this keeps up i'll be dead in six months,"he said. "i'm tired! i have to get some sleep." she changed instantly from anger to sympathy."poor dear, why don't you forget that appointment and sleep here until time to go back to thecastle? i'll send a messenger to miran telling

him you're sick." "no, this is something i just can't pass by." "what is it?" "it's of such a nature that telling you, oranybody, would spoil it." "and just what could that be?" she demanded,angry again. "it concerns some woman, i'll bet!" "my problem is keeping away from you women,not getting into more trouble. no, it's just that miran has sworn me by all his gods tokeep silent and of course i couldn't think of breaking a vow."

"i know your opinion of our gods," she said."well, go along with you! but i warn you, i'm an impatient woman; i'll give you a weekto work on the duchess, then i'm launching an attack myself." "that won't be necessary," he said. he kissedher and the children and left. he congratulated himself on having delayed amra that long.if he couldn't carry out his scheme in a week he was lost, anyway. he'd have to walk awayfrom the city and out onto the xurdimur, even if packs of wild dogs and man-eating grasscats and cannibalistic men and god knew what else did roam the grassy plains. chapter iv

every city and village of the empire had itshouse of equality, within whose walls distinctions of every type were abandoned. green did notknow the origin of the institution, but he recognized its value as a safety valve toblow off the extreme social pressure put on every class. here the slave who did not dareopen his mouth in the outside mundane world could curse his master to his face and gounpunished by the authorities. of course, there was nothing to keep the master fromretaliating in kind, for the slave also cast off his legal rights when he entered. violencewas not unknown here, though it was infrequent. blood shed within these walls did not, theoretically,call for punishment. but any murderer would find that, though the police paid no attentionto him, he'd have to deal with the slain one's

relatives. many feuds had had their originand end here. green had excused himself after the eveningmeal, saying that he had to talk to miran about getting some spices from estorya. alsothe merchant had mentioned that on his last trip he'd heard that a band of estoryan hunterswere going after the rare and beautiful getzlen bird and that he might find some for salewhen he returned there. zuni's face lit up, because she desired a getzlen bird even morethan a chance to annoy her husband. graciously she gave green permission to leave. inwardly exultant, though outwardly pullinga long face that was supposed to suggest his sadness at having to leave the duchess, hebacked out of the dining room. not very gracefully,

for alzo chose that moment to refuse to getout of green's path. green tumbled backward, sprawling over the huge mastiff, who snarledwith anger and trembled with hypocritical indignation and bared his fangs with the intentionof tearing green apart. the earthman did not try to rise, because he did not want to givealzo an excuse for jumping him. instead he bared his own teeth and snarled back. thehall roared with laughter and the duke, holding his sides, tears running from his bulgingeyes, rose and staggered over to where the two faced each other on all fours. he clutchedalzo's spike-studded collar and dragged him away, meanwhile choking out a command to greento take off while the taking off was good. green swallowed his anger, thanked the dukeand left. swearing that he'd rip the hound

apart some day with his bare hands, the earthmanleft for the house of equality. it took all the long rickshaw ride to the temple for himto calm down. the great central room with its three-storyceiling was full that night. men in their long evening kilts and women in masks crowdedaround the gambling tables, the bars and the grudge-stages. there was a large crowd aroundthe platform on which two dealers in wheat were slugging it out to work off resentmentarising from business disputes. but by far the greatest number had gathered to watcha husband-and-wife match. his left hand had been tied to his side, and she had been armedwith a club. thus equalized, they'd been given the word to go to it. so far the man had hadthe worst of the match, as bloody patches

on his head and bruises on his arm showed.if he could get the club away from her he had the right to do what he wanted to her.but if she could break his free arm she had him at her complete mercy. green avoided the stage, because such barbarousdoings made him sick. looking for miran, he finally found him rolling a pair of six-sideddice with another captain, this fellow wore the red turban and black robes of the clanaxucan. he had just lost to miran and was paying him sixty iquogr, a goodly sum evenfor a merchant-prince. miran took green's arm, something he'd neverhave done outside the house, and led him off to a curtained booth where they could getas much privacy as they wished. he matched

green for drinks; green lost, and miran ordereda large pitcher of chalousma. "nothing but the best for yours truly-- wheneversomeone else is paying," miran said jovially. "now, i'm a great one for fun, but i'm hereprimarily for business. so-- let's have your proposal at once, if you please," "first i must have your solemn oath that youwill tell absolutely no one what you hear in this booth. second, that if you rejectmy idea you do not then use it later on. third, that if you do accept you will never attemptlater on to kill me or get rid of me and thus reap the profits." miran's face had been blank, but at the word"profits" it twisted into many folds and creases,

all expressive of joy. he reached into the huge purse he carriedslung over his shoulder and pulled out a little golden idol of the patron deity of the claneffenycan. putting his right hand upon its ugly head, he lifted his left and said, "iswear by zaceffucanquanr that i will obey your wishes in this matter. may he strikeme with lice, leprosy, lecher's disease and lightning if i should break this, my solemnvow." satisfied, green said, "first i want you toarrange for me to be aboard your windroller when you leave for estorya." miran choked on his wine and coughed and sputtereduntil green pounded his back.

"i do not ask that you give me passage back.now, here's my idea. you plan to be taking a large cargo of dried fish because the estoryans'religion requires that they eat them at every meal and because they use them in great quantitiesat their numerous festivals." "true, true. do you know, i've never beenable to figure out why they should worship a fish-goddess. they live over five thousandmiles from the sea, and there's no evidence that any of them have ever been to the sea.yet, they demand saltwater fish, won't use the fish from a nearby lake." "there're many mysteries about the xurdimur.however, they needn't concern us. now, do you know that the estoryans' book of godsplaces much more ritual-power in freshly killed

and cooked fish than in smoked fish? however,they've always had to be content with the dried fish the windrollers brought them. whatprice would they not pay for living sea-fish?" miran rubbed his palms together. "indeed itdoes make one wonder...?" green then outlined his idea. miran sat stunned.not at the audacity or originality of the plan, but because it was so obvious that hewondered why neither he nor anyone else had ever thought of it. he said so. green drank his wine and said, "i supposethat people wondered the same when the first wheel or bow and arrow were invented. so obvious,yet no one thought of them until then." "let me get this straight," said miran. "youwant me to buy a caravan of wagons, build

water-tight tanks into them and use them totransport ocean fish back to here? then the wagon bodies, with their contents, will belifted onto my windroller and fitted into specially prepared racks-- or perhaps, holes--on the middeck? also, you will show me how to analyze sea water so that its formula maybe sold to the estoryans, and they can thus keep the fish alive in their own tanks?" "that's right." "hmmm." miran ran his fat, ring-studded fingerover his hook nose and the square gold ornament hanging therefrom. his single eye glared pale-bluelyat green. the other was covered with a white patch to hide the emptiness left after a ballfrom a ving musket had struck it.

"it's four weeks until the very last day onwhich i can set sail from here and still get to estorya and back before the rains come.it's just barely possible to have the tanks built, get them convoyed down to the seashore,get the fish in and bring them back. meantime, i can be having the deck altered. if my menwork day and night we can make it." "of course, this is a one-shot proposition.you can't possibly keep a monopoly on the idea, once the first trip is over. too manypeople are bound to talk, and the other captains will hear of it." "i know; don't teach an effenycan to suckeggs. but what if the fish should die?" green shrugged and spread out his palms, "apossibility. you're taking a tremendous gamble.

but every voyage on the xurdimur is, isn'tit? how many windrollers come back? or how many can boast your list of forty successfultrips?" "not many," said miran. he slumped in his seat, brooding over hisgoblet of wine. his eye, sunk in ranges of fat, seemed to stare through green. the earthmanpretended indifference, though his heart was pounding, and he controlled his breathingwith difficulty. "you're asking a great deal," miran finallysaid. "if the duke were to find out that i'd agreed to help a valued slave escape, i'dbe tortured in a most refined way, and the clan effenycan would be stripped of all itsrights to sail windrollers and would probably

be exiled to its native hills. or else wouldhave to take to piracy. and that, despite all the glamorous stories you hear, is nota very well-paying profession." "you'd make a killing in estorya." "true, but when i think of what the duchesswill do when she discovers you've fled the country! ow, ow, ow!" "there's no reason why you should be connectedwith my disappearance. a dozen craft leave the harbor every day. besides, for all she'llknow, i've gone the opposite way, over the hills and to the ocean. or to the hills themselves,where many runaway slaves are." "yes, but i have to return to tropat. andmy clansmen, though notoriously tight-lipped

when sober, are also, i must confess, notoriousdrunkards. someone'd be sure to babble in the taverns." "i'll dye my hair black, cut it short, likea tzatlam tribesman, and sign on." "you forget that you have to belong to myclan in order to be a crew member." "hmmm. well, what about this adoption-by-bloodroutine?" "what about it? i can't propose that unlessyou've done something spectacular and for the profit of the clan. wait! can you playany musical instrument?" promptly, green lied, "oh, i am a wonderfulharpist. when i play i can soothe a hungry grass cat into lying down at my feet and lickingmy toes with pure affection."

"excellent! though it would not be an affectionso pure, since it is well known that the grass cat considers a man's toes a great delicacyand always eats them first, even before the eyes. listen well. here is what you must doin four weeks' time, for if all goes well, or all goes ill, we set sail on the week ofthe oak, the day of the sky, the hour of the lark, a most propitious time..." chapter v to green, the next three weeks seemed to haveshifted to low gear, they crept by so slowly. yet they should have raced by quickly enough,so full of schemes and plots were they. he had to advise miran on the many technicaldetails involved in building tanks for the

fish. he had to keep the duchess happy, anincreasingly difficult job because it was impossible to pretend a one-hundred-per-centabsorption in her while his mind desperately looked for flaws in his plans, found oh, somany, and then as anxiously sought ways of repairing them. nevertheless he knew it wasvital that he not displease or bore her. prison would forever ruin his chances. worst of all, amra was getting suspicious. "you're trying to conceal something from me,"she told green. "you ought to know better. i can tell when a man is deceiving me, there'ssomething about the voice, the eyes, the way he makes love, though you've been doing verylittle of that. what are you plotting?"

"i assure you it's simply that i'm very tired,"he said sharply. "all i want is some peace and quiet, a little rest and a little privacynow and then." "don't try to tell me that's all!" she cocked her head to one side and squintedat him, managing somehow even in this grotesque attitude to look ravishingly beautiful. suddenly she said, "you wouldn't be thinkingof running away, would you?" for a second he became pale. damn the womananyway! "don't be ridiculous," he said, trying hardto keep his voice from cracking. "i'm too much aware of the penalties if i were caught.besides, why should i want to run away? you

are the most desirable woman i've ever known.(this was the truth.) though you're not the easiest one in the world to live with. (amaster understatement.) i would have gotten no place without you. (true; but he couldn'tspend the rest of his life on this barbarous world.) and it is unthinkable that i wouldwant to leave you." (inexpressible, yes, but not unthinkable. he couldn't take her withhim, for the simple reason that even if she would go she would never fit in his life onearth. she'd be absolutely unhappy. moreover, she'd not go anyway, because she'd refuseto abandon her children and would try to take them along, thus wrecking all his escape plans.he might just as well hire a brass band and march behind it out of the city and onto thewind-roller in the light of high noon.)

nevertheless his conscience troubled him.if it was painful to leave amra it was hell to leave paxi, his daughter. for days he hadconsidered taking her along with him, but eventually abandoned the idea. trying to stealher from under amra's fiercely watchful gaze was almost impossible. moreover, paxi wouldmiss her mother terribly, and he had no business exposing the baby to the risks of the voyage,which were many. amra would be doubly hurt. losing him would be bad enough, but to losepaxi also...! no, he couldn't do that to her. the outcome of this conversation with herwas that she apparently dropped her suspicions. at least she never spoke of them again. hewas glad of that, for it was impossible to keep entirely hidden his connection with themysterious actions of miran the merchant.

the whole city knew something was up. therewas undoubtedly a lot of money tied up with this deal of the wagon caravan going to theseashore. but what did it all mean? neither miran nor green would say a word, and whilethe duke and duchess might have used their authority to get the information from theirslave, the duke made no move. miran had promised to let him in on a share of the profits, providedhe gave the merchant a free hand and asked no questions. the duke was quite content.he planned on spending the money to increase his collection of glass birds. he had tenlarge rooms of the castle glittering with his fantastic aviary: shining, silent andgrotesquely beautiful, all products of the glass-blowers of the fabulous city of metzvamoosh, far, far away across the grassy sea

of the xurdimur. green was present when the duke talked tomiran about it. "now, captain, you must understand just exactlywhat i do want," warned the ruler, lifting a finger to emphasize the seriousness of hiswords. his eyes, usually deep-sunk in their fat, had widened to reveal large, brown andsoulful orbs. the passion for his hobby shone forth. nothing: good chalousma wine, his wife,the torture of a heretic or runaway slave, could make him quiver and glitter with delightas much as the thought of the exquisitely wrought image of a metzva moosh bird. "i want two or three, but no more becausei can't afford more. all made by izan yushwa,

the greatest of the glass-blowers. i'd particularlylike any modeled after the bird-of-terror...." "but when i was last in estorya i heard thatizan yushwa was dying," said miran. "excellent, excellent!" cried the duke. "thatwill make everything recently created by him even more valuable! if he is dead now it isprobable that the estoryans, who control the export of the mooshans, will be putting ahigh price on anything of his that comes their way. that means that bidding will be highduring the festival and that you must outbid any prospective buyers. by all means do so.pay any price, for i must have something created by him in his last days!" the duke, green realized, was so eager becauseof the belief that a part of a dying artist's

soul entered into his latest creations whenhe died. these were called "soul-works" and brought ten times as much as anything else,even if the conception and execution were inferior to previous works. sourly miran said, "but you have given meno money to buy your birds." "of course not. you will lend me the sum,buy them yourself, and when you come back with them i will raise the money to repayyou." miran didn't seem too happy, but green knewthat the fat merchant was already planning to charge the duke double the purchase price.as for green, he liked to see a man interested in a hobby, but he was disgusted because taxeswould now be raised in order to allow the

duke to add to his collection. the duchess, bored as usual by her husband'sconversation, suddenly said, "honey, let's go hunting next weekend. i've been so restlesslately, so unable to sleep nights. i think i've been cooped up too long in this dismalold place. my digestion has been so sluggish lately. i think i need the exercise and thefresh air." and she went into vivid detail about certain aspects of her gastrointestinaltroubles. the earthman, who'd thought he was hardened to this people's custom of dwellingon such matters, turned green. at the suggestion of a hunt the duke didn'texactly groan, but his eyes rolled upward in supplication to the gods. until he hadreached the age of thirty he had enjoyed a

good hunt. but like most upper-class men ofhis culture, he rapidly put on flesh after thirty and became as sedentary as possible.the belief was that fat increased a man's life span. also, a big belly and double chinwere signs of aristocratic blood and a full purse. unfortunately, along with this camean inevitable decline in vigor, which, coupled with the december-may marriages that theirsociety expected of them, had given birth to another institution: the slave male companionof the rich man's young wife. it was toward green that the duke looked."why not let him conduct the hunt?" he suggested hopefully. "i've so much business to takecare of." "like sitting on your fat cushion and contemplatingyour glass birds," she said. "no!"

"very well," he said, resignedly. "i've aslave in the work-pens who's to be executed for striking a foreman. we'll use him as thequarry. but i think we ought to give him two weeks to build up his wind and legs. otherwiseit would hardly be sporting, you know." the duchess frowned. "no. i'm getting bored;i can't stand this inaction any longer." she shot a glance at green. he felt his stomachmuscles contracting. evidently she'd noticed his lukewarm interest in her. this hunt waspartly to suggest to him that he'd be meeting a like fate unless he perked up and beganto be more entertaining. it wasn't that thought that made his heartsink. it was that next weekend was when miran's windroller raised sail and when he plannedto be aboard it. now, he'd be gone conducting

the hunting party up in the hills. green looked appealingly at miran, but themerchant's shoulders rose beneath the yellow robe as if to say, "what can i do?" he was right. miran couldn't suggest thathe too go along on the hunt, and thus give green a chance to slip aboard afterward. theday on which the bird of fortune was scheduled to leave the windbreak was absolutely thelast date on which it could set sail. he couldn't afford to take the chance of being caughtin the rains in the middle of the vast plains. chapter vi all the next day green was too busy settingup the schedule of the hunting party to have

time to be gloomy. but when night came heseemed to fold up inside himself. could he pretend to be sick, too, and be left behindwhen the party set out? no, for they would at once assume that hehad been possessed by a demon and would pack him off to the temple of apoquoz, god of healing.there he'd be under lock and key until he proved himself healthy, the terrible partabout going to the temple of apoquoz was that it made death almost inevitable. if you didn'tdie of your own disease you caught somebody else's. green wasn't worried about catching any ofthe many diseases he'd be exposed to in the temple. like all men of terrestrial descent,he carried in his body a surgically implanted

protoplasmic entity which automatically analyzedany invading microscopic organisms and/or viruses and manufactured antibodies to combatthem. it lived in the space created by the removal of his appendix; when working to fulfillits mission it demanded food and radiated a heat that assured its host of its hearteningpresence. an increased appetite plus a slight fever indicated that it was killing off thedisease and that within several hours it would successfully repel any boarders. in the twoyears green had been on the planet it had had to attack at least forty times; greencalculated that he would have been dead each and every time if it had not been for hissymbiote. knowing this didn't help him. if he playedsick he'd be locked up and couldn't get on

the 'roller. if he went on the hunting partyhe missed the boat, too. suppose he were to disappear the night beforethe party, to hide on the windroller while the castle vainly looked for him? not very likely. the first thing that wouldoccur to zuni would be to order the windbreak closed and all 'rollers searched for a possiblestowaway. and if that happened miran would be so delayed that it was unlikely he'd sail.even if he, green, hid in miran's cabin, where he would probably be safe, there would stillbe the inevitable and totally frustrating delay. then why not disappear several days earlier,so that miran could have time to reload his

cargo? he'd see the merchant tomorrow. ifmiran fell in with his plans, green would disappear four nights from this very night,which would leave three days for the windroller to be emptied and reloaded. fortunately thetanks wouldn't have to be taken off, because any fool could see that the runaway wasn'thiding at the bottom among the fish. much relieved that he at least had a way open,if a very perilous one, green relaxed. he was sitting on a bench along a walk on topof one of the castle walls. the sky was blazingly beautiful with stars larger than any seenfrom earth. the great moon and the small moon had risen. the larger had just cleared theeastern horizon and the lesser one was just past the zenith. mingled moonwash and starwashsoftened the grimness and ugliness of the

city below him and laved it in a flood ofromance and glamour. most of quotz was unlighted, for the streets had no lamps and the windowswere shut up tight against thieves, vampires and demons. occasionally the torchflares ofthe servants of a drunken noble or rich man moved down the dark canyons between the toweringoverhanging houses. beyond the city was the amphitheater formedby the hills curving out to the north and the great brick wall built to continue thenatural windbreak. a wide opening had been left so that the 'rollers, their sails furled,could be towed in or out. past this the great plain suddenly began, as if the hand of someimmense landscaper had pressed the hills flat and declared that from here on there wouldbe no unevennesses.

westward lay the incredibly level stretchof the grassy ground of the xurdimur. ten thousand miles straight across, flat as atable top, broken only here and there by clumps of forests, ruins of cities, waterholes, thetents of the nomadic savages, herds of wild animals, packs of grass cats and dire dogs,and the mysterious and undoubtedly imaginary "roaming islands," great clumps of rock anddirt that legend said slid of their own volition over the plains. how like this planet, hethought, that the greatest peril to navigation should be one that existed only in the headsof the inhabitants. the xurdimur was a fabulous phenomenon, withoutparallel. on none of the many planets that earthmen had discovered was there anythingsimilar. how, he wondered, could the plain

keep its smoothness, when there was alwaysdirt running on to it from the eroding hills and mountains that ringed it? the rains, too,should have done much to wear it away unevenly. of course, the grass that grew all over itwas long and had very tough roots. and if what he had been told was true, beneath thevegetation was one mass of inextricably tangled roots that held the soil together. there was another thing to consider, though:the winds that blew all the way across the xurdimur and furnished propulsion for thewheeled sailing craft. to have winds you must have pressure differentials, which were usuallycaused by heat differentials. although the xurdimur was ringed by mountains there wereno large eminences on it for ten thousand

miles, nothing to replenish the currents ofair. or so it seemed to his limited knowledge of meteorology, though he did wonder how thetrade winds that swept earth's seas managed to keep going for so many thousands of leagues,just on their original impetus. or did they get boosts? he didn't know. what he did know was that the xurdimur wasa thing that shouldn't be. yet, the very presence of men here was just as amazing, just as preposterous.homo sapiens was scattered throughout the galaxy. everywhere that the space-travelingearthmen had gone, they had found that about every fourth inhabitable planet was populatedby men of their species. the proof lay not just in the outward physical resemblance ofterrestrial and extra-terrestrial; it lay

in their ability to breed. earthman, sirian,albirean, vegan, it made no difference. their men could have children by the women of otherplanets. naturally there had been many theories toaccount for this fact. all had as a common basis the assumption that homo sapiens hadsometime, somewhere, in the very remote past, originated on one planet and then had spreadout over the galaxy from it. and, somehow, space travel had been lost and each race hadgone back to savagery, only to begin again the long hard struggle toward civilizationand the re-discovery of spaceships. why, no one knew. one could only guess. there was the problem of language. it mightseem that if man had come from a common birthplace

he would at least have kept a trace of hishome language and that the linguists could break down the development of tongue and linkone planet to another through it. but no. every world had its own tower of babel, itsown ten thousand languages. the terrestrial scientist might trace russian and englishand swedish, and lithuanian and persian and hindustani back to a proto-indo-european,but he had never found on any other planet a language which he could say had also derivedfrom the aryan ursprache. green's mind wandered to the two earthmennow imprisoned in the city of estorya. he hoped they weren't being treated badly. theycould be in horrible pain at this very moment, if the priests felt like subjecting them toa little demon-testing.

thinking of torture led him to sit up a littlestraighter and to stretch his arms and legs. in an hour he was supposed to meet the duchess.to do that he had to go through the supposedly secret door in the wall of the turret at thenorthern end of the walk, up a stairway through a passage between the walls, and so to theduchess's apartments. there one of the maids-of-honor would usher him into zuni's presence and thenwould try to eavesdrop so she could report to the duke later on. zuni and green weren'tsupposed to know about this, but were to pretend that she was their trusted confidante. when the great bell of the temple of the godof time, grooza, struck, green would rise from his bench and go to what he now thoughtof as a wearisome chore. if that woman could

only be interested in talking of somethingelse besides her complexion or digestion, or idle palace gossip, it wouldn't be so bad.but no, she chattered on and on, and green would get increasingly sleepy, yet would notdare drop off for fear of irreparably offending her. and to do that... chapter vii the lesser moon had touched the western horizonand the greater was nearing the zenith when green awoke and jumped to his feet, swearingin sheer terror. he'd fallen asleep and kept zuni waiting. "my god, what'll she say?" he said aloud."what'll i tell her?"

"you needn't tell me anything," came her angryretort from very close by. he started, and whirled around and saw that she'd been standingbehind him. she was wrapped in a robe, but her pale face gleamed from beneath the overhanginghood and her mouth was opened. white teeth flashed as she began accusing him of not lovingher, of being bored by her, of loving some other woman, probably a slave girl, a good-for-nothing,lazy, brainless, emptily pretty wench. if his situation hadn't been so serious greenwould have smiled at her self-portrayal. he tried to dam the flood, but to no avail.she screeched at him to shut up, and when he put his fingers to his lips and said, "shhh!"she replied by raising her voice even more. "you know you're not supposed to be out ofyour rooms after dark unless the duke is along,"

he said, taking her elbow and attempting tosteer her down the walk toward the secret door. "if the guards see you there'll be trouble,bad trouble. let's go." unfortunately the guards did see them. torchesappeared at the foot of the steps below the walk, and iron helmets and cuirasses gleamed.green tried to urge her on faster, for there was still time to make it to the door. shejerked her arm loose and shouted, "take your filthy hands off me, you northern slave! theduchess of tropat doesn't allow herself to be pushed around by a blond beast!" "damn it," he snarled, and he shoved her."you stupid kizmaiaz! get going! you won't be tortured if they find us together!"

zuni jerked away. her face twisted and hermouth worked soundlessly, "kizmaiaz!" she finally gasped. "kizmaiaz yourself!" suddenly she began screaming. before he couldclamp his hand over her mouth, she dashed past him and toward the steps. it was thenthat he came out of his paralysis and ran, not after her, which he knew was useless,but toward the secret door. all was up. it was absolutely no use trying to explain tothe guards. the situation had now entered a conventional phase. she would tell the guardsthat he had come into her room, through some unknown means-- which would be "found out"later-- and had dragged her out onto the walk, apparently with the intention of violatingher. why he should pick a public place when

he already had the privacy of her rooms wouldnot be asked. and the guards, though they would know what really had happened, wouldpretend to believe her and would furiously seize him and drag him off to the dungeons.the absurd thing about it was that within a few days the whole city, including zuniherself, would believe that her story was true. by the time he'd been executed theywould hate his guts, and the lot of all the slaves would be miserable for a while becausethey would share his blame. green had no intention of being seized. flightwas an admission of guilt, but it made no difference now. he ran through the secret door, shut and boltedit and raced up the steps that led to her

apartments. the guards would have to takethe long way around; he had at least two minutes before they could unlock the two doors ofthe ante-rooms to her quarters, explain to the guards just outside them what had happenedand begin a search for him. as for him, he was running like a rabbit, but he was thinkinglike a fox. having known that just such a situation might arise, he had long ago plannedin detail several possible courses of action. now, he chose the likeliest one and beganacting efficiently-- if not smoothly. the staircase was a narrow corkscrew withroom for only one person at a time to go up. he ran up it so fast that he got dizzy withthe ever-winding turns. he reeled and had trouble keeping from falling to his left whenhe did arrive at its top. nevertheless he

did not pause to catch breath or balance butpulled the lever that would make the door swing out. he burst through it. no one there,thank god. he stopped for a moment, listened to make sure nobody was in the next room,then pushed on a boss set in a pattern of bronze protuberances, which was connectedwith the mechanism that operated the secret door. the section of wall swung back silentlyuntil it was flush with the rest, and quite indistinguishable. he then twisted the knobso the door couldn't be opened from the other side. green took time to give fervent thanksto the builders of the castle, who had prepared this device for the owners to hide withinin case of a successful invasion or revolt. if it had not been there he could not haveescaped.

escaped? he'd only put off his inevitablecapture. but he intended to run as long as he could and then fight until they were forcedto kill him.the first thing to do was to find a weapon. as a matter of fact, he was so familiarwith zuni's rooms that he knew exactly where he could get what he wanted. he walked throughtwo large rooms, making his way easily even through the feeble duskish light that thefew oil lamps and candles furnished. hanging from the wall of the third room was a sabermade of the best steel obtainable on this planet and fashioned by the greatest smiths,the swordwrights of faraway and almost legendary talamasko. the blade was a gift from zuni'sfather on the occasion of her wedding to the duke. it was supposed to be given by zunito her eldest son when he came of weapon-carrying

age. the hilt had a guard on which was inscribedin gold the motto: sooner hell than dishonor. he fastened sword and scabbard to an ironring on his broad leather belt, went to a luxurious dressing table, pulled open a drawerand took out a stiletto. this he stuck through his belt, also a huge flintlock pistol witha gold-and-ivory-chased butt. he loaded it with powder and an iron ball he found in acompartment and put ammunition in a bag, which he also hung from his belt. then, well armed,he walked out onto the balcony to take a quick view of the situation. three stories below him was the walk whichhe had left a few minutes before. many soldiers, and zuni, were standing there, all lookingup. as his face came into sight, visible in

the moonlight and the up-reaching flares oftheir torches, a shout arose. several of the musket men raised their long-barreled weapons,but zuni cried out for them to hold their fire, she wanted him alive. green's skin prickledat the vindictiveness in her voice and at the vision of what she was probably planningfor him. he'd been forced to see too many tortures and public executions not to knowexactly what she designed for him. suddenly overcome with rage that she could be so treacherousand brutal, a rage perhaps flavored with self-disgust because he had made love to her, he aimedhis pistol at her. there was a click as the hammer struck the flint, a spark, a whooshas the powder burnt in the pan, a loud bang and a cloud of black smoke. when the fumescleared away, he saw that everybody, including

the duchess, was running for cover. naturally,he'd missed, for he'd had almost no practice with the pistols, being a slave. even if he'dbeen well trained, he probably would not have struck his mark, so inaccurate were the weapons. while green was reloading he heard a shoutfrom above. looking up, he saw the duke's round face, pale in the moonlight, hangingover the railing of the balcony above. he raised his empty pistol, and the duke, squallingwith fear, ran back into his quarters. green laughed and said to himself that even if hewas killed now he would at least have the satisfaction of knowing that he had shamedthe duke, who was always boasting about his bravery in battle. of course, his action hadalso made it absolutely necessary for the

duke to have him killed at once, so that greencould not tell others that he'd put him to flight. he grinned crookedly. what would happen whenthe soldiers received the duke's orders, directly contradicting the duchess's? the poor fellowswould scarcely know what to do. the man's commands would of course supersede the woman's.but the woman would be furious and she would later on find some means of punishing thosewho did succeed in killing green. it was at that moment that he lost his smileand paled with fright. a loud deep-chested barking nearby. not outside the apartment'sdoor, but inside! he cursed and whirled around just in timeto see the large body launched toward his

throat, the white fangs flashing and the greenfire shining from its eyes as the moonlight struck them. even in that moment of panic he realized thathe'd forgotten the small door set inside the larger one so that alzo could have admittanceat any time. and if the big dog could get through, then soldiers could also crawl through! instinctively he thrust out the pistol andsqueezed the trigger. it did not go off, for there was no powder in the pan. but the barreldid jam into the great mouth and deflect alzo from his target, green's throat. even so,green was knocked backward by the impact, and he felt the sharp teeth clamping downon his wrist. those jaws were capable of biting

through his arm, and though he felt no pain,he was sickened by the thought that he'd see a bloody stump when alzo danced away fromhim. however, his arm, though dripping blood from large gashes, was not hurt badly. thedog had been deterred by the barrel shoved down his throat, choking him so that he couldthink of nothing for the moment but getting clear of it. the pistol clattered on the iron floor ofthe balcony. alzo shook his head, unaware in his frenzy that he was rid of the weapon.green leaped up from the sitting position into which alzo's charge had flung him againstthe railing. snarling as viciously as the dog, he braced his feet against the junctureof the floor and railing and launched himself

straight out. at the same time, the caninejumped. they met head on, green's skull driving into the open mouth and knocking the dog backwardbecause his impetus was greater. though the huge jaws bit down at his scalp, they snappedon air, and the animal fell to one side, growling. green seized hold of the long tail, rolledaway from the teeth now snapping at his ankles, and jerked at the tail so that the dog wouldswing away from him. he rose to one knee, pushed the dog away from him, though stillkeeping his frenzied grip with two hands, and jumped to his feet. frantically, the animaltwisted around and bit at the imprisoning hands. but he succeeded only in biting hisown flank. howling in anguish, he tried to lunge away. green, making a supreme effort,raised the tail in the air. naturally, the

body came along with it. at the same timehe half-turned from the animal, bent forward and, with a convulsive motion, using his bowedback as a lever, threw alzo over his head. chapter viii the terrible growling suddenly changed toa high-pitched howl of despair as alzo flew over the railing and out into the air abovethe walk. green, leaning over to watch him, did not feel sorry for him. he was exultant.he'd hated that dog and had dreamed of just such a moment. alzo's yelping was cut off as he struck theparapet beside the walk, bounced off, and then dropped from view into the depths beyond,green's strength had been greater than he'd

suspected, for he had thought only to tossthe one hundred and fifty pound beast over the railing. there was no time for savoring triumph. ifthe dog could get through that little door, so could soldiers. he ran out into the room,expecting that at least a dozen men had crawled in. but there was no one. why? the only thinghe could think of was that they were afraid, knowing that if he at once dispatched thedog, he could leisurely knock them over the head in their helpless on-all-fours position. the door shook beneath a mighty impact. they'dtaken the wiser, if the less courageous, course of battering rams. green loaded his pistol,spilling the powder at his first attempt to

prime the pan because his hands shook so.he fired, and a large hole appeared in the wood. however, part of the ball also stuckout, for the door was planked thickly against just such weapons. the battering ceased and he heard a thud asthe ram was dropped on the floor in hasty retreat. he smiled. as they were still operatingunder the duchess's instructions to take him alive-- not yet countermanded by the duke's--they would not want to face pistol fire with only swords in hand. and in the first reflexto the shot they'd undoubtedly forgotten that a ball couldn't penetrate the wood. "this is living!" said green out loud. andhe wondered that his voice shook as much as

his legs did, and yet he felt a wild exultanceshooting through his fear and knew that he was tasting both with a fine liking. perhaps,he thought, he really liked this moment-- even if his death was around the corner--because he'd been repressed so long and violence was a wonderful therapy for releasing hisresentment and clamped-down-on fiery. whatever the reason, he knew that this was one of thehigh moments of his life and that if he survived he'd look back on it with pleasure and pride.and that was the strangest thing of all, since in his culture the young were taught to abhorviolence. luckily, they weren't so conditioned against it that the very thought of it paralyzedthem. no hard neural paths had been set up against the action of violence; it was justthat, philosophically speaking, they loathed

the concept. fortunately, there was a philosophyof the body, too, a much older and deeper one. and while it was true that man couldno more live without philosophy of the mind than he could without bread, it had no placein green at present. the fiery breath that flooded his body now and made him so sensitiveto what a fine thing it was to be alive while death was knocking at the door did not risefrom any mental abstraction or profound meditation. green rolled back the carpets that led fromthe room to the balcony, for he wanted a firm footing if it became necessary to make a runningbroad jump from the balcony in an effort to clear the walk below and drop into the moat.he'd have to have very good timing and do everything just right the first time, likea parachute jump, otherwise he'd end up with

broken bones on the hard stones below. not that he was going to make that leap unlesshe just had to. but he was leaving an avenue open if his other measures didn't work. again he ran to the bureau and drew out alarge bag of gunpowder, weighing at least five pounds. in the open end of this he inserteda fuse, and tied the neck around it, while he was doing this, he heard shouts and cheersas the soldiers returned to the door, picked up their ram and hurled themselves at thethick planking. he did not bother shooting again but instead lit the fuse with a candle.then he walked to the large door, pushed out the small dog's door and tossed the bag throughit. he jumped back and ran, though there was

little chance that the resultant explosionwould harm the door. there was a silence as the soldiers were probablystaring paralyzed at the smoking fuse. then-- a roar! the room shook, the door fell in,blasted off its hinges, and black smoke poured in. green ran into the cloud, got down onall fours, scuttled through the doorway, cursed desperately when the hilt of his sword caughton the doorframe, tore loose and lunged through into the dense smoke that filled the anteroom.his groping hands felt the ram where it had dropped, and the wet warm face of a soldierwho'd fallen. he coughed sharply from the biting fumes but went on until his head buttedinto the wall. then he felt to his right, where he imagined the door was, came to it,passed through and on into the next room,

also filled with a cloud. after he'd scuttledlike a bug across its floor, he dared to open his eyes for a quick look. the smoke was thinnerand was pouring out the door to the hallway, just in front of him. he saw no feet in theclearer area between the floor and the bottom of the clouds, so he rose and walked throughthe door. to his left, he knew, the hall led to a stairway that was probably now jammedwith soldiers. to his right would be another stairway that went up to the duke's apartments.that was the only way he could go. luckily the smoke was still so dense in thecorridor that those assembled on the left staircase couldn't see him. they'd think hewas in the duchess's rooms yet, and he hoped that when they did rush it and didn't findhim there the rolled-back carpets would give

them the idea that he'd taken a running broadjump from the balcony. in which case, they'd at once search the moat for him. and if theydidn't find him swimming there, as they wouldn't, then they might presume he'd either drownedor else got to the shore and was now somewhere in the darkness of the city. he felt along the wall toward the staircase,his other hand gripping the stiletto. when his fingers ran across the arm of a man leaningagainst the wall, he withdrew them at once, bent his knees and in a crouching positionran in the general direction of the stairs. the smoke got even thinner here so that hesaw the steps in time to avoid falling over them. unfortunately the duke and another manwere also there. both saw his figure emerge

into the torchlight from the clouds, but hehad the advantage of knowing who he was, so that he had plunged the thin stiletto intothe soldier's throat before he could act. the duke tried to leap past green, but theearth-man stuck a leg out and tripped him. then he grabbed the ruler's arm, twisted itbehind his back, forced him up and on his knees and, using the arm as a cruel lever,raised him. he enjoyed hearing the duke moan, though he'd never consciously taken pleasurein pain before. he had time to think that perhaps he liked this because of the torturethe duke had inflicted on his many helpless victims. of course, he, green, a highly civilizedman, shouldn't be feeling this way. but the rightness or wrongness of an emotion neverkept anybody from experiencing it.

"up you go!" he said in a low, harsh voice,directing the duke toward his apartments, manipulating the twisted arm as a steeringcolumn. by then the smoke had cleared away so that those at the other end of the corridorcould see that something was wrong. a shout arose, followed by the slap of running feeton the stone flags. green stopped, turned the duke so he faced the approaching crowdand said to him, "tell them that i will kill you unless they go away." to emphasize his point he stuck the end ofthe stiletto into the duke's back and pressed hard enough to draw blood. the duke quivered,then became rigid. nevertheless he said, "i will not do so. that would be dishonor."

green couldn't help admiring such courage,even if it did make his predicament worse. he refused to kill the duke just then becausethat would throw away the only trump card he held at that moment. so he stuck the stilettoin his teeth and, still holding with one hand to the duke's twisted arm, took the duke'spistol from his belt and fired over his shoulder. there was a whoosh of flame that burned theduke's ear and made him give a cry that was almost drowned out in the roar of the explosion.the nearest man threw up his hands, dropping his spear, and fell on his face. the othersstopped. doubtless, they were still operating under the duchess's orders not to kill green,for the duke must have arrived at the foot of the staircase just in time to witness theexplosion of the gunpowder. and he was in

no condition to issue contrary orders, beingdeafened and stunned by the report almost going off in his ear. green shouted out, "go back, or i will killthe duke! it is his wish that you go back to the stairs and do not bother us until hesends word to you!" by the flickering light of the torches hecould see the puzzled expression on the soldiers' faces. it was only then he realized that inhis extreme excitement he had shouted the orders in english. hastily, he translatedhis demands, and was relieved to see them turn and retreat, though reluctantly. he thenhalf-dragged the duke up the steps to his apartments, where he barred the door and primedhis pistol again.

"so far, so good." he said, in english. "thequestion is what now, little man?" the ruler's rooms were even more luxuriousthan his wife's, and were larger because they had to contain not only the duke's hundredsof hunting trophies, including human heads, but his collection of glass birds. indeed,one might easily see where his heart really lay, for the heads had collected dust, whereaseach and every glittering winged creature was immaculate. it would have gone hard ona servant who'd neglected his cleaning duties in the great rooms dedicated to the collection. on seeing them green smiled slightly. when you're fighting for your life, hit aman where he's softest....

chapter ix it was a matter of two minutes to tie theduke in a chair with several of the hunting whips hanging from the walls. meanwhile the duke came out of his daze. hebegan screaming every invective he knew-- and he knew quite a lot-- and promising everyrefined torture he could think of-- and his knowledge was not poverty-stricken in thatarea either. green waited until the duke had given himself a bad case of laryngitis. thenhe told him, in a firm but quiet voice, what he intended to do unless the duke got himout of the castle. to emphasize his determination, he picked up a bludgeon studded with ironspikes and swung it whistling through the

air. the duke's eyes widened, and he paled.all of a sudden he changed from a defiant ruler challenging his captor to inflict hisworst upon him to a shrunken, trembling old man. "and i will smash every last bird in theserooms," said green. "and i will open the chest that lies behind that pile of furs and takeout of it your most precious treasure, the bird you have not even shown to the emperorfor fear he would get jealous and demand it as a gift from you, the bird you take outat rare intervals and over which you gloat all night." "my wife told you!" gasped the duke. "oh,what an izzot she is!"

"granted," said green. "she babbled to memany secrets, being a featherbrained, idle, silly, stupid female, a fit consort for you.so i know where the unique exurotr statuette made by izan yushwa of metzva moosh is hidden,the glass bird that cost the whole dukedom a great tax and brought many bitter tearsand hardships from your subjects. i will have no compunction about destroying it even ifit is the only one ever made and if izan yushwa is now dead so that it can never be replaced." the duke's eyes bulged in horror. "no, no!" he said in a quavering voice. "thatwould be unthinkable, blasphemous, sacrilegious! have you no sense of beauty, degenerate slavethat you are, that you would smash forever

that most beautiful of all things made bythe hands of man?" "i would." the duke's mouth drew down at the corners;suddenly he was weeping. green was embarrassed, for he knew how greatmust be the emotion that could snake this man, educated in a hard school, break downbefore an enemy. and he reflected upon what a strange thing a human being was. here wasa man who would literally allow his throat to be cut before he would display cowardiceby bargaining for it. but to have his precious collection of glass birds threatened...! green shrugged. why try to understand it?the only thing to do was to use whatever came

his way. "very well, if you wish to save them you mustdo this," and he detailed exactly the duke's moves and orders for the next ten minutes.he thereupon made him swear by the most holy oaths and upon his family name and by thehonor of the founder of his family that he would not betray green. "to make sure," added the earthman, "i shalltake the exurotr with me. once i know your word is good i'll take steps to see that itis returned undamaged to you." "can i depend on that?" breathed the dukehoarsely, rolling his big brown eyes. "yes, i will contact zingaro, business agentof the thieves' guild, and he will return

it to you, for a compensation, of course.but before we conclude this bargain you must swear that you will not harm amra, my wife,nor any of her children, nor confiscate her business but will behave toward her as ifthis had never happened." the duke swallowed hard, but he swore. greenwas happy, because, though he was going to desert amra, he was at least insuring herfuture. it was a long, long hour later that greencame out of his hiding place inside a large closet in the duke's apartment. even thoughthe duke had sworn the holiest of oaths, he was as treacherous as any of the barbarianson this planet, and that was very treacherous indeed. green had stood behind the door, sweatingand listening to the loud and sometimes incoherent

conversation taking place between the duke,his soldiers and the duchess. the duke was a good actor, for he convinced everybody thathe had escaped from the mad slave green, had seized a sword and forced him to make a runningbroad jump from the balcony railing. of course, several guardsmen had seen a large man-sizedobject hurtle from the balcony and fall with a loud splash into the moat below. there wasno doubt that the slave must have broken his back when he struck the water or else he hadbeen knocked out and then drowned. whatever had happened, he had not come out. green, his ear against the door, could nothelp smiling at this, despite his tension. he and the duke had combined forces to heaveout a wooden statue of the god zuzupatr, weighted

with iron dishes tied to it so that it wouldn'tfloat. in the moonlight and the excitement, the idol must have looked enough like a fallingman to deceive anybody. the only one seemingly not satisfied was zuni.she raised every kind of hell she knew, behaved in a most undignified manner, screeched ather husband because his blood-thirstiness and lack of restraint had robbed her of theexquisite tortures she'd planned for the slave who had attempted to dishonor her. the duke,his face getting redder and redder, had suddenly bellowed out at her to quit acting like acondemned izzot and go at once to her apartments. to show that he meant what he said he orderedseveral soldiers to escort her. zuni, however, was too stupid to see how perilous was hersituation, how near the headsman's ax. she

raved on until the duke gave a sign and twosoldiers seized her elbows-- at least, green supposed they did, for she yelled at themto take their dirty hands off her-- and propelled her out of the rooms. even then it took sometime before the duke could close the doors on his last guest. the little ruler opened the door. in his handhe held a priest's green robe, the sacerdotal hexagonal spectacles and a mask for the lowerpart of the face. the mask was customarily worn when a monk was on a mission for a highdignitary. during the time the face was covered the monk was under a vow not to speak to anyoneuntil he had reached the person for whom he had a message. thus, green would not be botheredwith any embarrassing questions.

he put on the robe, spectacles and mask, threwthe hood over his head and placed the glass exurotr inside his shirt, his loaded pistolhe kept up one capacious sleeve, holding it with the other hand. "remember," said the duke anxiously as heopened the door and peered out to see if anybody was on the staircase, "remember that you musttake every precaution against damaging the exurotr. tell zingaro that he must at oncepack it in a chest filled with silks and sawdust so it won't break. i will die a thousand deathsuntil it comes back once again to my collection." and i, thought green, will die a thousanddeaths until i get safely out of your reach, out of the city and far away on a windroller.

he promised again that he would keep his wordas well as the duke kept his, but that he would also take every measure to insure againsttreachery. then he slipped out and closed the door. he was on his own until he boardedthe bird of fortune. chapter x he had no trouble at all, except for makinghis way through the thick traffic. the explosions and shouting coming from the castle had arousedthe whole town, so that everybody who could stand on his two feet, or could get somebodyto carry him, was outside, milling around, asking questions, talking excitedly and ingeneral trying to make as much chaos as possible and to enjoy every bit of this excuse to takepart in a general disturbance. green strode

through them, his head bent but his eyes probingahead. he made fairly good progress, only being held up temporarily a few times by thehuman herd. finally the flat plain of the windbreak laybefore him, and the many masts of the great wheeled vessels were a forest around him.he was able to get to the bird of fortune unchallenged by any of the dozens of guardsmenthat he passed. the 'roller herself lay snugly between two docks, where a huge gang of slaveshad towed her. there was a gangway running up from one of the docks, and at both endsstood a sailor on guard, clad in the family colors of yellow, violet and crimson. theychewed grixtr nut, something like betel except that it stained both teeth and lips and gavethem a green color.

when green stepped boldly upon the gangwaythe nearest guard looked doubtful and put his hand on his knife. evidently he'd hadno orders from miran about a priest, but he knew what the mask indicated and that awedhim enough so that he did not dare oppose the stranger. nor was the second guard anyquicker in making up his mind. green slipped by him, entered the middecks and walked upthe gangway to the foredeck. he knocked quietly on the door of the captain's cabin. a momentlater it swung violently open; light flooded out, then was blocked off by miran's hugeround bulk. green stepped inside, pressing the captainback, miran reached for his dagger but stopped when he saw the intruder take off the maskand spectacles and throw back the hood.

"green! so you made it! i did not think itwas possible." "with me all things are possible," repliedgreen modestly. he sat down at the table, or rather crumpled at it, and began repeatingin a dry voice, halting with fatigue, the story of his escape. in a few minutes thenarrow cabin rang with the captain's laughter and his one eye twinkled and beamed as heslapped green on the back and said that by all the gods here was a man he was proud tohave aboard. "have a drink of this lespaxian wine, evenbetter than chalousma, and one i bring out only for honored guests," said miran, chortling. green reached out a hand for the profferedglass, but his fingers never closed upon the

stem, for his head sank onto the tabletop,and his snores were tremendous. it was three days later that a much-restedgreen, his skin comfortably, even glowingly, tight with superb lespaxian, sat at the tableand waited for the word to come that he could finally leave the cabin. the first day ofinactivity he'd slept and eaten and paced back and forth, anxious for news of what wasgoing on in the city. at nightfall miran had returned with the story that a furious searchwas organized in the city itself and the outlying hills. of course, the duke would insist thatthe 'rollers themselves be turned inside-out, and miran was cursing because that would meana fatal delay. they could not wait for more than three more days. the fish tanks had beeninstalled; the provisions were almost all

in the hold; his roistering crewmen were beingdragged out of the taverns and sobered up; two days after tomorrow the great vessel wouldhave to be towed out of the windbreak and sails set for the perilous and long voyage. "i wouldn't worry," said green. "you willfind that tomorrow word will come from the hills that green has been killed by a wildman of the clan axaquexcan, who will demand money before handing the dead slave's headover. the duke will accept this as true and will conveniently forget all about searchingthe 'rollers." miran rubbed his fat oily palms, while onepale eye glowed. he loved a good intrigue, the more elaborate the better.

but the second day, even though what greenhad predicted came true miran became nervous and began to find the big blond man's constantpresence in his cabin irksome. he wanted to send him down into the hold, but green firmlyrefused, reminding the captain of his promise of haven within these very walls. he thencalmly appropriated another bottle of the merchant's lespaxian, having located its hidingplace, and drank it. miran glowered, and his face twitched with repressed resentment, buthe said nothing because of the custom that a guest could do what he pleased-- withinreasonable limits. the third day miran was positively a tub ofnerves, jittery, sweating, pacing back and forth. at last he left the cabin, only tobegin pacing back and forth on the deck. green

could hear his footsteps for hours. the fourthday he was up at dawn and bellowing orders to his crewmen. a little later green feltthe big vessel move and heard the shouts of the foremen of the towing gangs and the chantsof the slaves as they bent their backs hauling at the huge ropes attached to the 'roller. slowly, oh, so slowly it seemed to green,the craft creaked forward. he dared open a curtain to look out the square porthole. beforehim was the rearing side of another 'roller, and just for a second it seemed to him thatit, not his vessel, was the one that was moving. then he saw that the 'roller was advancingat a pace of about fifteen or sixteen feet a minute. it would take them an hour to getpast the towering brick walls of the windbreak.

he sweated out that hour and unconsciouslyfell into his childhood habit of biting his nails, expecting at any time to see the dockssuddenly boil with soldiers running after the bird of fortune, shouting for it to stopbecause it had a runaway slave aboard. but no such thing occurred, and at last thetug gangs stopped and began coiling up their ropes, and green quit chewing his nails. miranshouted orders, the first mate repeated them, there was the slap of many feet on the decksabove, the sound of many voices chanting. a sound as of a knife cutting cloth told thatthe sails had been released. suddenly, the vessel rocked as the wind caught it and avibration through the floors announced that the big axles were turning, the huge wheelswith their tires of chacorotr, a kind of rubber,

were revolving. the bird was on the wing! green opened the door slightly and took onelast look at the city of quotz. it was receding rapidly at the rate of fifteen miles an hour,and at this distance it looked like a toy city nestled in the lap of a hillock. nowthat the danger from it was gone and the odors too far away to offend his nose it lookedquite romantic and enticing. "and so we say farewell to exotic quotz,"murmured green in the approved travelog fashion. "so long, you son of an izzot!" then, though he was supposed to stay insideuntil miran summoned him, he opened the door and stepped out.

and almost fainted dead away. "hello, honey," said amra. green scarcely heard the children groupedaround her also extend their greetings. he was just coming out of the dizziness and blacknessthat had threatened to overcome him. perhaps it was the wine coupled with the shock. perhaps,he was to think later, it was just that he was plain scared, scared as he'd not beenin the castle. ashamed, too, that amra had found out his plans to desert her, and deeplyashamed because she loved him anyway and would not allow him to go without her. she had atremendous pride that must have cost her great effort to choke down.

probably, he was to say to himself later on,it was sheer fear of her tongue that made him quail so. there was nothing that a mandreaded so much as a woman's tongue-lashing, especially if he deserved it. oh, especially! that was to come later. at the moment amrawas strangely quiet and meek. all she would say was that she had many business connectionsand that she knew well zingaro, the thieves' guild business agent. they had been childhoodplaymates, and they'd helped each other in various shady transactions since. it was onlynatural that she should hear about the exurotr a slave hiding on the bird of fortune hadgiven zingaro to take back to the duke. cornering zingaro, she had worked out of him enoughinformation to be sure that green had escaped

to the 'roller. after all, zingaro was underoath only to be reticent about certain details of the whole matter. from there she had takenthe business into her own hands, had told miran that she would inform the duchess ofgreen's whereabouts unless he permitted her and her family to go along on the voyage. "here i am, your faithful and loyal wife,"she said, opening her arms in an expansive gesture. "i am overwhelmed with emotion," replied green,for once not exaggerating. "then come and embrace me," she cried, "anddon't stand there as if you'd seen the dead return from the grave!"

"before all these people?" he said, half-stunned,looking around at the grinning captain and first mate on the foredeck beside him andat the sailors and their families on the middeck below. the only ones not watching him werethe goggled helmsmen, whose backs were turned because they were intent on wrestling withthe great spoked wheel. "why not?" she retorted. "you'll he sleepingon the open deck with them, eating with them, breathing their breath, feeling their elbowsat every turn, cursing, laughing, fighting, getting drunk, making love, all, all on theopen deck. so why not embrace me? or don't you want me to be here?" "the thought never entered my head," he said,stepping up to her and taking her in his arms.

or, if it had, he rejected, you can bet thati'd not dare say it. after all, it was good to feel her soft, warm,firmly curved body again and know that there was at least one person on this godforsakenplanet that cared for him. what could have made him think for one minute that he couldendure life without her? well, he had. she just would not, could not,fit into his life if he ever got back on earth. chapter xi miran coughed and said, "you two and yourchildren and maid must get off the deck and go amidships. that is where you will live.never again must you set foot upon the steering deck unless you are summoned. i run a tightship and discipline is strictly adhered to."

green followed amra and the children downthe steps to the deck below, noticing for the first time that inzax, the pretty blondslave who took care of the children, was also aboard. you had to give credit to amra. wherevershe went she traveled in style. he also thought that if this was a tight shipa loose one must be sheer chaos. cats and dogs were running here and there, playingwith the many infants, or else fighting with each other. women sat and sewed or hung upwashing or dried dishes or nursed babies. hens clucked defiantly from behind the barsof their coops, scattered everywhere. on the port side there was even a pigpen holdingabout thirty of the tiny rabbit-eared porcines. green followed amra to a place where an awninghad been stretched to make a roof.

"isn't this nice?" she said. "it has sideswhich we can pull down when it rains or when we want privacy, as i suppose we will, youbeing so funny in some ways." "oh, it's delightful," he hastened to assureher, "i see you even have some feather mattresses. and a cookstove." he looked around. "but where are the fishtanks? i thought miran was going to bolt them to the deck?" "oh, no, he said that they were too valuableto expose to gunfire if we encountered pirates. so he had the deck cut open wide enough tolower the tanks inside the hold. then the deck planking was replaced. most of thesepeople here would be sleeping below if it

weren't for the tanks. but there's no roomnow." green decided to take a look around. he likedto have a thorough knowledge of his immediate environment so that he would know how to behaveif an emergency arose. the windroller itself was about two hundredfeet long. its beam was about thirty-four feet. the hull was boat-shaped, and the narrowkeel rested on fourteen axles. twenty-eight enormous solid rubber-tired wheels turnedat the ends of these axles. thick ropes of the tough rubber-like substance were tiedto the ends of the axles and to the tops of the hull itself. these were to hold the bodysteady and keep it from going over when the 'roller reeled under too strong a side windand also to provide some resiliency when the

'roller was making a turn. being aboard atsuch times was almost like being on a water-sailing ship. as the front pair of wheels-- the steeringwheels-- turned and the longitudinal axis of the craft slowly changed direction, thebody of the vessel, thrust by the shifting impact of the winds, also tilted. not toofar, never as far as a boat in similar case, but enough to give one an uneasy feeling.the cables on the opposing side would stretch to a degree and then would stop the sidewisemotion of the keel and there would be a slight and slow roll to the other direction. thena shorter and slower motion back again. it was enough to make a novice green. 'rollersickness wasn't uncommon at the beginning of a voyage or during a violent windstorm.like its aqueous counterpart, it affected

the sufferer so that he could only hang overthe rail and wish he would die. the bird of fortune sported a curving bowand a high foredeck. on this was fastened the many-spoked steering wheel. two helmsmenalways attended it, two men wearing hexagonal goggles and close-fitting leather helmetswith high crests of curled wire. behind them stood the captain and first mate, giving theirattention alternately to the helmsmen and to the sailors on deck and aloft. the middeckwas sunken, and the poopdeck, though raised, was not as high as the foredeck. the four masts were tall, but not as tallas those of a marine craft of similar size. high masts would have given the 'roller atendency to capsize in a very strong wind,

despite the weight of the axles and wheels.therefore, the yardarms, reaching far out beyond the sides of the hull, were comparativelylonger than a seaship's. when the bird carried a full weight of canvas she looked, to a mariner'seyes, squat and ungainly. moreover, yards had been fixed at right angles to the topof the hull and to the keel itself. extra canvas was hung between these spars. the sightof all that sail sticking from between the wheels was enough to drive an old sailor todrink. three masts were square-rigged. the aft mastwas fore-and-aft rigged and was used to help the steering. there was no bowsprit. altogether, it was a strange-looking craft.but once one was accustomed to it, one saw

it was as beautiful as a ship of the sea. it was as formidable, too, for the bird carriedfive large cannon on the middeck, six cannon on the second deck, a lighter swivel cannonon the steering deck, and two swivels on the poopdeck. hung from davits were two long liferollersand a gig, all wheeled and with folding masts. if the bird was wrecked it could be abandonedand all the crew could scoot off in the little rollers. green wasn't given much time for inspection.he became aware that a tall, lean sailor was regarding him intently. this fellow was dark-skinnedbut had the pale blue eyes of the tropat hillsmen.

he moved like a cat and wore a long, thindagger, sharp as a claw. a nasty customer, thought green. presently, the nasty customer, seeing thatgreen was not going to notice him, walked in front of him so that he could not helpbeing annoyed. at the same time, the babble around them died and everybody turned hishead to stare. "friend," said green, affably enough, "wouldyou mind standing off to one side? you are blocking my view." the fellow spat grixtr juice at green's feet. "no slave calls me friend. yes, i am blockingyour view, and i would mind getting out of

the way." "evidently you object to my presence here,"said green. "what is the matter? you don't like my face?" "no, i don't. and i don't like to have asa crewmate a stinking slave." "speaking of odors," said green, "would youplease stand to leeward of me. i've been through a lot lately and i've a delicate stomach." "silence, you son of an izzot!" roared thesailor, red-faced, "have respect toward your betters, or i'll strike you down and throwyour body overboard." "it takes two to make a murder, just as ittakes two to make a bargain," said green in

a loud voice, hoping that miran would hearand be reminded of his promise of protection. but miran shrugged his shoulders. he had doneas much as he could. it was up to green to make his way from now on. "it is true that i am a slave," he said. "buti was not born one. before being captured i was a freeman who knew liberty as none ofyou here know it. i came from a country where there were no masters because every man washis own master. "however, that is neither here nor there.the point is that i earned my freedom, that i fought like a warrior, not a slave, to getaboard the bird. i wish to become a crew member, to become a blood-brother to the clan effenycan."

"ah, indeed, and what can you contribute tothe clan that we should consider you worthy of sharing our blood?" what indeed? green thought. the sweat brokeout all over his body, though the morning wind was cool. at that moment he saw miran speak to a sailor,who disappeared below decks and come out almost at once carrying a small harp in his hand.oh, yes, now he remembered that he had told the captain what a wonderful harpist and singerhe was, just the man that the clan, eager for entertainment on the long voyages, wouldbe likely to initiate. the unfortunate thing about that was thatgreen couldn't play a note.

nevertheless he took the instrument from thesailor and gravely plucked its strings. he listened to the tones, frowned, adjusted thepegs, plucked them again, then handed the harp back. "sorry, this is an inferior instrument," hesaid haughtily. "haven't you anything better? i couldn't think of degrading my art on sucha cheap monstrosity." "gods above!" screamed a man standing nearby."that is my harp you are talking about, the beloved harp of me, the bard grazoot! slave!tone-deaf son of a laryngiteal mother! you will answer to me for that insult!" "no," said the sailor, "this is my affair.i, ezkr, will test this lubber's fitness to

join the clan and be called brother." "over my dead body, brother!" "if you so wish it, brother!" there were more angry words until presentlymiran himself came down to the middeck. "by mennirox, this is a disgrace." he bellowed."two effenycan quarreling before a slave! come, make a decision quietly, or i will haveyou both thrown overboard. it is not too far to walk back to quotz." "we will cast dice to see who is the luckyman," said the sailor, ezkr. grinning gap-toothedly, he reached into the pouch that hung from hisbelt, and pulled out the hexagonal ivories.

a few minutes later he rose from his knees,having won four out of six throws. green was disappointed mere than he cared to show, forhe had hoped that if he had to fight anybody it would be the pudgy, soft-looking harpist,not the tough sailor. ezkr seemed to agree with green that he couldnot have had worse luck. chewing grixtr so rapidly that the green-flecked slaver randown his long chin, ezkr announced the terms that the blond slave would have to meet toprove his fitness. chapter xii for a moment green thought of leaving theship and making his way on foot. miran protested loudly. "this is ridiculous.why can you not fight on deck like two ordinary

men and be satisfied if one gives the othera flesh wound? that way i won't stand the chance of losing you, ezkr, one of my toptopmen. if you should slip, who could take your place? this green hand here?" ezkr ignored his captain's indignation, knowingthat the code of the clan protected him. he spit and said, "anybody can wield a dagger.i want to see what kind of a man this green is aloft. walking a yard is the best way tosee the color of his blood." yes, thought green, his skin goose-pimpling.you'll likely see my blood all right, splashed from here to the horizon when i fall! he asked miran if he could withdraw a momentto his tent to pray to his gods for success.

miran nodded, and green had amra let downthe sides of his shelter while he dropped to his knees. as soon as his privacy was assured,he handed her a long turban cloth and told her to go outside. she looked surprised, butwhen he told her what else she was to do, she smiled and kissed him. "you are a clever man, alan. i was right toprefer you above any other man i might have had, and i could have had the best." "save the compliments for afterwards, whenwe'll know if it works," he said. "hurry to the stove and do what i say. if anybody asksyou what you are up to, tell them that the stuff is necessary for my religious ritual.the gods," he said as she ducked through the

tent opening, "often come in handy. if theydidn't exist it would be necessary to invent them." amra paused and turned with an adoring face."ah, alan, that is one of the many things for which i love you. you are always originatingthese witty sayings. how clever, and how dangerously blasphemous!" he shrugged, airily dismissing her complimentas if it were nothing. in a minute she returned with the turban wrappedaround something limp but heavy. and within two minutes he stepped out from the tent,clad in a loincloth, leather belt, dagger and turban. silently, he began climbing therope ladder that rose to the tip of the nearest

mast. behind him came ezkr. he did get some encouragement from amra andthe children. the duke's two boys cried out to him to cut the so-and-so's throat, butif he was killed instead, they would avenge him when they grew up, if not sooner. eventhe blond maid, inzax, wept. he felt somewhat better, for it was good to know that somepeople cared for him. and the knowledge that he had to survive and make sure that thesewomen and children didn't come to grief was an added stimulus. nevertheless he felt his momentarily gainedcourage oozing out of his sweat pores with every step upward. it was so high up here,and so far down below. the craft itself became

smaller and smaller and the people shrankto dolls, to upturned white faces that soon became less faces than blanks. the wind howledthrough the rigging and the mast, which had seemed so solid and steady when he was atits base, now became fragile and swaying. "it takes guts to be a sailor and a blood-brotherof the clan effenycan," said ezkr. "do you have them, green?" "yes, but if i get any sicker i'll lose them,and you'll be sorry, being below me," muttered green to himself. finally, after what seemed endless clamberinginto the very clouds themselves, he arrived at the topmost yard. if he had thought themast thin and flexible, the arm seemed like

a toothpick poised over an abyss. and he wassupposed to inch his way out to the whipping tip, then turn and come back fighting! "if you were not a coward you would standup and walk out," called ezkr. "sticks and stones will break my bones," repliedgreen, but did not enlighten the puzzled sailor as to what he meant. sitting down on the yard,he put his legs around it and began working his way out. halfway to the arm he stoppedand dared to look down. once was enough. there was nothing but hard, grassy ground directlybeneath him, seemingly a mile below, and the flat plain rushing by, and the huge wheelsturning, turning. "go on!" shouted ezkr.

green turned his head and told him in indelicatelanguage what he could do with the yard and the whole ship for that matter if he couldmanage it. ezkr's dark face reddened and he stood upand began walking out on the yard. green's eyes widened. this man could actually do it! but when he was a few feet away the sailorstopped and said, "no, you are trying to anger me so i will grapple with you here and perhapsbe pushed off, since you have a firmer hold. no, i will not be such a fool. it is you whomust try to get past me." he turned and walked almost carelessly backto the mast, against which he leaned while he waited.

"you have to go out to the very end," he repeated."else you won't pass the test even if you should get by me, which, of course, you won't." green gritted his teeth and humped out towhat he considered close enough to the end, about two feet away. any more might breakthe arm, as it was already bending far down. or so it seemed to him. he then backed away, managed to turn, andto work back to within several feet of ezkr. here he paused to regain his breath, his strengthand his courage. the sailor waited, one hand on a rope to steadyhimself, the other with its dagger held point-out at green.

the earthman began unwinding his turban. "what are you doing?" said ezkr, frowningwith sudden anxiety. up to this point he had been master, becausehe knew what to expect. but if something unconventional happened... green shrugged his shoulders and continuedhis very careful and slow unwrapping of his headpiece. "i don't want to spill this," he said. "spill what?" "this!" shouted green, and he whipped theturban upward towards ezkr's face.

the turban itself was too far from the sailorto touch him. but the sand contained within it flew into his eyes before the wind coulddissipate it. amra, following her husband's directions, had collected a large amount fromthe fireplace's sand pile to wrap in it, and though it had made his head feel heavy ithad been worth it. ezkr screamed and clutched at his eyes, releasinghis dagger. at the same time, green slid forward and rammed his fist into the man's groin.then, as ezkr crumpled toward him, he caught him and eased him down. he followed his firstblow with a chopping of the edge of his palm against the fellow's neck. ezkr quit screamingand passed out. green rolled him over so that he lay on his stomach across the yard, supportedon one side by the mast, with his legs, arms

and head dangling. that was all he wantedto do for him. he had no intention of carrying him down. his only wish was to get to thedeck, where he'd be safe. if ezkr fell off now, too bad. amra and inzax were waiting at the foot ofthe shrouds when green slowly climbed off. when he set foot on the deck, he thought hislegs would give way, they were trembling so. amra, noticing this, quickly put her armsaround him as if to embrace the conquering hero but actually to kelp support him. "thanks," he muttered. "i need your strength,amra." "anybody would who had done what you've done,"she said. "but my strength and all of me is

at your disposal, alan." the children were looking at him with wide,admiring eyes and yelling, "that's our daddy! big blond green! he's quick as a grass cat,bites like a dire dog and'll spit poison in your eye, like a flying snake!" then, in the next moment, he was submergedunder the men and women of the clan, all anxious to congratulate him for his feat and to callhim brother. the only ones who did not crowd around, trying to kiss him on the lips, werethe officers of the bird and the wife and children of the unfortunate sailor, ezkr.these were climbing up the rigging to fasten a rope around his waist and lower him.

there was one other who remained aloof. thatwas the harpist, grazoot. he was still sulking at the foot of the mast. green decided that he'd better keep an eyeon him, especially at night when a knife could be slipped between a sleeper's ribs and thebody thrown overboard. he wished now that he'd not gone out of his way to insult thefellow's instrument, but at the time that had seemed the only thing to do. now he hadbetter try to find some way to pacify him. chapter xiii two weeks of very hard work and little sleeppassed as green learned the duties of a topsailman. he hated to go aloft, but he found that beingup so high had its advantages. it gave him

a chance to catch a few winks now and then.there were many crow's nests where musketmen were stationed during a fight. green wouldslip down into one of these and go to sleep at once. his foster son grizquetr would standwatch for him, waking him if the foretop captain was coming through the rigging toward them.one afternoon griz's whistle startled green out of a sound sleep. however, the captain stopped to give anothersailor a lecture. unable to go back to sleep, green watched a herd of hoobers take to theirhoofs at the approach of the bird. these diminutive equines. beautiful with their orange bodiesand black or white manes and fetlock, sometimes formed immense herds that must have numberedin the hundreds of thousands. so thick were

they that they looked like a bobbing sea offlashing heads and gleaming hoofs stretching clear to the horizon. to stretch to the horizon was something onthis planet. the plain was the flattest green had ever seen. he could scarcely believe thatit ran unbroken for thousands of miles. but it did, and from his high point of view hecould see in a vast circle. it was a beautiful sight. the grass itself was tall and thickbodied,about two feet high and a sixteenth of an inch through. it was a bright green, brighterthan earthly grass, almost shiny. during the rainy season, he was told, it would blossomwith many tiny white and red flowers and give a pleasing perfume.

now, as green watched, something happenedthat startled him. abruptly, as if a monster mowing machine hadcome along the day before, the high grass ended and a lawn began. the new grass seemedto be only an inch high. and the lawn stretched at least a mile wide and as far ahead of thebird as he could see. "what do you think of that?" he asked amra'sson. grizquetr shrugged. "i don't know. the sailorssay that it is done by the wuru, an animal the size of a ship, that only comes out atnight. it eats grass, but it has the nasty temper of a dire dog, and will attack andsmash a roller as if it were made of cardboard." "do you believe that?" green said, watchinghim closely. grizquetr was an intelligent

lad in whom he hoped to plant a few seedsof skepticism. perhaps some day those seeds might flower into the beginnings of science. "i do not know if the story is true or not.it is possible, but i've met nobody who has ever seen a wuru. and if it comes out onlyat night, where does it hide during the daytime? there is no hole in the ground large enoughto conceal it." "very good," said green, smiling. happily,grizquetr smiled back. he worshiped his foster-father and nursed every bit of affection or complimenthe got from him. "keep that open mind," said green. "neitherbelieve nor disbelieve until you have solid evidence one way or another. and keep on rememberingthat new evidence may come up that will disprove

the old and firmly established." he smiled wryly. "i could use some of my ownadvice. i, for instance, had at one time absolutely refused to put any credence in what i havejust seen with my own eyes. i put the story down as merely another idle story of thosewho sail the grassy seas. but i'm beginning to wonder if perhaps there couldn't be ananimal of some kind like the wuru." both were silent for a while as they watchedthe animals race off like living orange rivers. overhead, the birds wheeled in their hundredsof thousands of numbers. they, too, were beautiful, and even more colorful than the hoobers. occasionallyone lit in the rigging in a burst of dazzling feathers and a fury of melodious song or raucousscreeches.

"look!" said the boy, eagerly pointing. "agrass cat! he's been hiding, waiting to catch a hoober, and now he's afraid he'll be trampledto death by them." green's gaze followed the other's finger.he saw the long-legged, tiger-striped body loping desperately ahead of the thunderinghoofs. it was completely closed in a pocket of the orange-maned beasts. even as greensaw him, the sides of the pocket collapsed and the big cat disappeared from sight. ifhe remained alive he would do so through a miracle. suddenly, grizquetr cried, "gods!" "what's the matter?" cried green.

"on the horizon! a sail! it's shaped likea ving sail!" others saw it too. the ship rang with shouts.a trumpeter blew battle stations; miran's voice rose above those of others as he bellowedthrough a megaphone; chaos dissolved into order and purpose as everybody went to hisappointed place. the animals, children and pregnant women were marshaled into the hold.the gun crews began unloading barrels of powder with a crane from a hatch. musketmen swarmedup the rigging. the entire topmast crew tumbled aloft and took their places. as green wasalready in his, he had some leisure to observe the whole outlay of preparations for fight.he watched amra hurriedly give her children a kiss, make sure they'd all gone below, thenbegin tearing strips of cloth for bandages

and of wadding for the muskets. once she lookedup and waved at him before turning back to her task. he waved back and got a severe reprimandfrom the top-captain for breaking discipline. "an extra watch for you, green, after thisis over!" the earthman groaned and wished that the martinetwould fall off and break every bone in his body. if he lost any more sleep...! the day wore on as the strange ship came closer.another sail appeared behind it, and the crew grew even tenser. from all appearances, theywere being pursued by vings. vings usually went in pairs. then there was the shape ofthe sails, which were narrower at bottom than at top. and there was the long, low, streamlinedhull and the overlarge wheels.

nevertheless discipline was somewhat relaxedfor a time. the pets and children were allowed to come up, and meals were prepared by thewomen. even when the swifter craft came close enough so that the color of the sails wasseen to be scarlet, thereby confirming their suspicions of the strangers' identity, battlestations weren't recalled. miran estimated that by the time the vings were within cannonrange night would fall. "that is what they hate and what we love,"he said, pacing back and forth, fingering his nose ring and blinking nervously his onegood eye. "it'll be an hour before the big moon comes up. not only that, it looks asthough clouds may arise. see!" he cried to the first mate. "by mennirox, is that nota wisp i detect in the northeast quarter?"

"by all the gods, i believe it is!" said themate, peering upward, seeing nothing but clear sky, but hoping that wishing would make theclouds come true. "ah, mennirox is good to his favorite worshiper."said miran. "he that loves thee shall profit, book of the true gods, chapter ten, verseeight. and mennirox knows i love him with compound interest!" "yes, that he does," said the mate. "but whatis your plan?" "as soon as the last glow of the sun disappearscompletely from the horizon, so our silhouette won't be revealed, we'll swing and cut acrosstheir direct path of advance. we know that they'll be traveling fairly close together,hoping to catch up with us and blast us with

cross-fire. well, we'll give them a chance,but we'll be gone before they can seize it. we'll go right between them in the dark andfire on both. by the time they're ready to reply we'll have slipped on by. "and then," he whooped, slapping his fat thigh,"they'll probably cannonade each other to flinders, each thinking the other is us! hoo,hoo, hoo!" "mennirox had better be with us," said themate, paling. "it'll take damn tight calculating and more than a bit of luck. we'll be goingby dead reckoning; not until we're almost on them will we see them; and if we're headedstraight at them it'll be too late to avoid a collision. wharoom! smash! boom! we're donefor!"

"that's very true, but we're done for if wedon't pull some trick like that. they'll have caught us by dawn-- they can outmaneuver us--and they've more combined gunfire. and though we'll fight like grass cats we'll go down,and you know what'll happen then. the vings don't take prisoners unless they're at theend of a cruise and going into port." "we should have accepted the duke's offerof a convoy of frigates," muttered the mate. "even one would have been enough to make theodds favor us." "what? and lose half the profits of this voyagebecause we have to pay that robber duke for the use of his warships? have you lost yourmind, mate?" "if i have i'm not the only one," said themate, turning into the wind so his words were

lost. but the helmsmen heard him and reportedthe conversation later. in five minutes it was all over the ship. "sure, he's greedyguts himself," the crewsaid. "but then, we're his relatives; we know the value of a penny. and isn't the fat olddarling the daring one, though? who but a captain of the clan effenycan would thinkof such a trick, and carry it through, too? and if he's such a money-grabber, why, then,wouldn't he be afraid to risk his vessel and cargo, not to mention his own precious blood,not to mention the even more precious blood of his relatives? no, miran may be one-eyedand big-bellied and short of temper and wind, but he's the man to hold down the foredeck.brother, dip me another glass from that barrel

and let's toast again the cool courage andhot avariciousness of captain miran, master merchant." grazoot, the plump little harpist with theeffeminate manners, took his harp and began singing the song the clan loved most, thestory of how they, a hill tribe, had come down to the plains a generation ago. and howthere they had crept into the windbreak of the city of chutlzaj and stolen a great windroller.and how they had ever since been men of the grassy seas, of the vast flat xurdimur, andhad sailed their stolen craft until it was destroyed in a great battle with a whole krinkansprungerfleet. and how they had boarded a ship of the fleet and slain all the men and takenthe women prisoners and sailed off with the

ship right through the astounded fleet. andhow they had taken the women as slaves and bred children and how the effenycan bloodwas now half krinkansprunger and that was where they got their blue eyes. and how theclan now owned three big merchant ships-- or had until two years ago when the othertwo rolled over the green horizon during the month of the oak and were never heard of again,but they'd come back some day with strange tales and a hold brimming with jewels. andhow the clan now sailed under that mighty, grasping, shrewd, lucky, religious man, miran.whateverelse you could say about grazoot, you could not deny that he had a fine baritone. green,listening to his voice rise from the deck far below, could vision the rise and falland rise again of these people and could appreciate

why they were so arrogant and close-fistedand suspicious and brave. indeed, if he had been born on this planet, he could have wantedno finer, more romantic, gypsyish life than that of a sailor on a windroller. provided,that is, that he could get plenty of sleep. the boom of a cannon disturbed his reverie.he looked up just in time to see the ball appear at the end of its arc and flash byhim, it was not enough to scare him, but watching it plow into the ground about twenty feetaway from the starboard steering wheel made him realize what damage one lucky shot coulddo. however, the ving did not try again. he wasa canny pirate who knew better than to throw away ammunition. doubtless he was hoping topanic the merchantman into a frenzy of replies,

powder-wasting and useless. useless becausethe sun set just then and in a few minutes dusk was gone and darkness was all aroundthem. miran didn't even bother to tell his men to hold their fire, since they wouldn'thave dreamed of touching off the cannon until he gave the word. instead he repeated thatno light should be shown and that the children must go below decks and must be kept quiet.no one was to make a noise. then, casting one last glance at the positions of the pursuingcraft, now rapidly dissolving into the night, he estimated the direction and strength ofthe wind. it was as it had been the day they set sail, an east wind dead astern, a goodwind, pushing them along at eighteen miles an hour. miran spoke in a soft voice to thefirst mate and the other officers, and they

disappeared into the darkness shrouding thedecks. they were giving prearranged orders, not by the customary bellowing through a megaphonebut by low voices and touches. while they directed the crew, miran stood with bare feetupon the foredeck. he held a half-crouching posture, and acted as if he were detectingthe moves of the invisible sailors by the vibrations of their activities running throughthe wood of the decks and the spars and the masts and up to his feet. miran was a fatnerve center that gathered in all the unspoken messages scattered everywhere through thebody of the bird. he seemed to know exactly what he was doing, and if he hesitated ordoubted because of the solid blackness around him, he gave the helmsmen no sign. his voicewas firm. "hold it steady."

"...six, seven, eight, nine, ten. now! swingher hard aport! hold her, hold her!" to green, high up on the topmost spar of theforemast, the turning about seemed an awful and unnatural deed. he could feel the hull,and with it his mast, of course, leaning over and over, until his senses told him that theymust inevitably capsize and send him crashing to the ground. but his senses lied, for thoughhe seemed to fall forever, the time came when the journey back toward an upright positionbegan. then he was sure he would keep falling the other way, forever. suddenly the sails fluttered. the vessel hadcome into the dead spot where there was no wind acting upon her canvas. then, as heroriginal impetus kept her going, the canvas

boomed, seeming to his straining and oversensitiveears like cannon firing. this time the wind was catching her from what was for her a completelyunnatural direction, from dead ahead. as a result, the sails filled out backwards, andtheir middle portions pressed against the masts. the 'roller came almost to a stop at once.the rigging groaned, and the masts themselves creaked loudly. then they were bending backwards,while the sailors clinging to them in the darkness swore under their breaths and clampeddown desperately on their handholds. "gods!" said green. "what is he doing?" "quiet!" said a nearby man, the foretop-captain."miran is going to run her backwards."

green gasped. but he made no further comment,trying to visualize what a strange sight the bird of fortune must be, and wishing it weredaylight so he could see her. he sympathized with the helmsmen, who had to act againsttheir entire training. it was a bad enough strain for them to try to sail blindly betweentwo vessels. but to roll in reverse! they would have to put the helm to port when theirreflexes cried out to them to put it to starboard, and vice versa! and no doubt miran was awareof this and was warning them about it every few seconds. green began to see what was happening. bynow the bird was rolling on her former course, but at a reduced rate because the sails, bellyingagainst their masts, would not offer as much

surface to the wind. therefore, the ving vesselswould by now be almost upon them, since the merchant ship had also lost much ground inher maneuver. in one or two minutes the ving would overtake them, would for a short whileride side by side with them, then would pass. provided, of course, that miran had estimatedcorrectly his speed and rate of curve in turning. otherwise they might even now expect a crashfrom the foredeck as the bow of the ving caught them. "oh, booxotr," prayed the foretop-captain."steer us right, else you lose your most devout worshiper, miran." booxotr, green recalled, was the god of madness.

suddenly a hand gripped green's shoulder.it was the captain of the foretop. "don't you see them!" he said softly. "they'rea blacker black than the night." green strained his eyes. was it his imagination,or did he actually see something moving to his right? and another something, the hintof a hint, moving to his left? whatever it was, 'roller or illusion, miranmust have seen it also. his voice shattered the night into a thousand pieces, and it wasnever again the same. "cannoneers, fire!" suddenly it was as if fireflies had been inhiding and had swarmed out at his command. all along the rails little lights appeared.green was startled, even though he knew that

the punks had been concealed beneath basketsso that the vings would have no warning at all. then the fireflies became long glowing worms,as the fuses took flame. there was a great roar, and the ship rocked.iron demons belched flame. no sooner done than musketry broke out likea hot rash all over the ship. green himself was part of this, blazing away at the vesselmomentarily and dimly revealed by the light of the cannon fire. darkness fell, but silence was gone. the mencheered; the decks trembled as the big wooden trains holding the cannon were run back tothe ports from which they'd recoiled. as for

the pirates, there was no answering fire.not at first. they must have been taken completely by surprise. miran shouted again; again the big guns roared. green, reloading his musket, found that hewas bracing himself against a tendency to lean to the right. it was a few seconds beforehe could comprehend that the bird was turning in that direction even though it was stillgoing backwards. "why is he doing that?" he shouted. "fool, we can't roll up the sails, stop, thenset sail again. we'd be right where we started, sailing backwards. we have to turn while wehave momentum, and how better to do that than

reverse our maneuver? we'll swing around untilwe're headed in our original direction." green understood now. the vings had passedthem, therefore they were in no danger of collision with them. and they couldn't continuesailing backwards all night. the thing to do now would be to cut off at an angle sothat at daybreak they'd be far from the pirates. at that moment cannonfire broke out to theirleft. the men aboard the bird refrained from cheering only because of miran's threats tomaroon them on the plain if they did anything to reveal their position. nevertheless theyall bared their teeth in silent laughter. crafty old miran had sprung his best trap.as he'd hoped, the two pirates, unaware that their attacker was now behind them, were shootingeach other.

"let them bang away until they blow each othersky-high," chortled the foretop-master. "ah, miran, what a tale we'll have to tell in thetaverns when we get to port." chapter xiv for five minutes the intermittent flashesand bellows fold that the vings were still hammering away. then the dark took hold again.apparently the two had either recognized each other or else had decided that night fightingwas a bad business and had steered away from each other. if this last was true, then theywouldn't be much to fear, for one ving wouldn't attack the merchant by itself. the clouds broke, and the big and the littlemoons spread brightness everywhere. the pirate

vessels were not in sight. nor were they seenwhen dawn broke. there was sail half a mile away, but this alarmed no one, except theuntutored green, because they recognized its shape as a sister. it was a merchant fromthe nearby city of dem, of the dukedom of potzihili. green was glad. they could sail with it. safetyin numbers. but no. miran, after hailing it and findingthat it also was going to estorya, ordered every bit of canvas crowded on in an effortto race away from it. "is he crazy?" groaned green to a sailor. "like a zilmar," replied the sailor, referringto a foxlike animal that dwelt in the hills.

"we must get to estorya first if we wouldrealize the full value of our cargo." "utter featherbrained folly," snarled green."that ship doesn't carry live fish. it can't possibly compete with us." "no, but we've other things to sell. besides,it's in miran's blood. if he saw another merchant pass him he'd come down sick." green threw his hands into the air and rolledhis eyes in despair. then he went back to work. there was much to do yet before he'dbe allowed to sleep. the days and nights passed in the hard routineof his labor and the alarms and excursions that occasionally broke up the routine. nowand then the gig was launched, while the 'roller

was in full speed, and it sped away underthe power of its white fore-and-aft sail. it would be loaded with hunters, who wouldchase a hoober or deer or pygmy hog until it became exhausted; then would shoot thetired animal. they always brought back plenty of fresh meat. as for water, the catch-tankson the decks were full because it rained at least half an hour at every noon and dusk. green wondered at the regularity and promptnessof these showers. the clouds would appear at twelve, it would rain for thirty to sixtyminutes, then the sky would clear again. it was all very nice, but it was also very puzzling. sometimes he was allowed to try target practicefrom the crow's nest on the grass cats or

the huge dire dogs. these latter ran in packsof half a dozen to twenty, and would often pace the bird, howling and growling and sometimesrunning between the wheels. the sailors had quite a few tales of what they did to peoplewho fell overboard or were wrecked on the plains. green shuddered and went back to his targetpractice. though he ordinarily was against shooting animals just for the fun of it, hehad no compunction about putting a ball through these wolfish-looking creatures. ever sincehe'd been tormented by alzo he'd hated dogs with a passion unbecoming to a civilized man.of course, the fact that every canine on the planet instinctively loathed him because ofhis earthman odor and did his best to sink

his teeth into him, strengthened green's reaction.his legs were always healing from bites of the pets aboard. often the 'roller would cruise through grasstall as a man's knee. then suddenly it would pass onto one of those tremendous lawns whichseemed so well kept. green had never ceased puzzling about them, but all he could getfrom anyone was one or more variations of the fable of the wuru, the herbivore biggerthan two ships put together. one day they passed a wreck. its burned hulklay sideways on the ground, and here and there bones gleamed in the sun. green expressedsurprise that the masts, wheels and cannon were gone. he was told that those had beentaken away by the savages who roamed the plains.

"they use the wheels for their own craft,which are really nothing but large sailing platforms, land-rafts, you might say," amratold him. "on these they pitch their tents and their fireplaces, and from them they goforth to hunt. some of them, however, disdain platforms and make their homes upon the 'roamingislands.'" green smiled but said nothing about that fairystory because disbelief excited these people, even amra. "you'll not see many wrecks," she continued."not because there aren't many, for there are. out of every ten 'rollers that leavefor distant breaks, you can expect only six to get back."

"that few? i'm amazed that with such a casualtyratio you could get anybody to risk his fortune and life." "you forget that he who comes back is manytimes richer than when he sailed away. look at miran. he is taxed heavily at every portof call. he is taxed even more heavily in his home port. and he has to split with theclansmen, though he does get a tenth of the profit of every cargo. despite this, he isthe richest man in quotz, richer even than the duke." "yes, but a man is a fool to take risks likethese just for the remote chance of a fortune," he protested. then he stopped. after all,for what other reason had the norsemen gone

to america, and columbus to the west indies?or why were so many hundreds of thousands of earthmen daring the perils of interstellarspace? what about himself, for instance? he'd left a stable and well-paying job on earthas a specialist in raising sea crops to go to pushover, a planet of albireo. he'd expectedto make his fortune there after two years of not-too-hard work and then retire. if onlythat accident hadn't happened...! of course, some of the pioneers weren't drivenby the profit motive. there was such a thing as love of adventure. not a pure love, however.even the most adventurous saw eldorado gleaming somewhere in the wilds. greed conquered morefrontiers than curiosity. "you'd think the ruins of 'rollers would notbe rare, even if these plains are vast," said

amra, breaking in on his reflections. "butthe savages and pirates must salvage them as fast as they're made." "your pardon, mother, for interrupting," saidgrizquetr. "i heard a sailor, zoob, remark on that very thing just the other day. hesaid that he once saw a 'roller that had been gutted, by pirates, he supposed. it was threedays' journey out of yeshkayavach, the city of quartz in the far north. he said their'roller was a week there, then returned on the same route. but when they came to wherethe wreck had been it was gone, every bit of it. even the bones of the dead sailorswere missing." "and he said that that reminded him of a storyhis father had told him when he was young.

he said his father told him that his shiphad once almost run into a huge uncharted hole in the plain. it was big, at least twohundred feet across, and earth had been piled up outside, like the crater of a volcano.at first that was what they thought it was, a volcano just beginning, even though they'dnever heard of such a thing on the xurdimur. then they met a ship whose men had seen thehole made. it was caused, they said by a mighty falling star..." "a meteor," commented green. "...and it had dug that great hole. well,that was as good an explanation as any. but the amazing thing was that when they cameby that very spot a month later, the hole

was gone. it was filled up and smoothed out,and grass was growing over it as if nothing had ever broken the skin of the earth. now,how do you explain that, foster-father?" "there are more things in heaven and earththan ever your philosophies dreamed of, horatio," green nonchalantly replied, though he feltas though he wasn't quoting exactly right. amra and her son blinked. "horatio?" "never mind." "this sailor said that it was probably thework of the gods, who labor secretly at night that the plain may stay flat and clean ofobstacles so their true worshipers may sail upon it and profit thereby."

"will the wonders of rationalization nevercease?" said green. he rose from his pile of furs. "almost timefor my watch." he kissed amra, the maid, the children, and stepped out from the tent. hewalked rather carelessly across the deck absorbed in wondering what the effect would be uponamra if he told her his true origin. could she comprehend the concept of other worldsexisting by the hundreds of thousands, yet so distant from each other that a man couldwalk steadily for a million years and still not get halfway from earth to this planetof hers? or would she react automatically, as most of her fellows would do, and thinkthat he must surely be a demon in human disguise? it would be more natural for her to preferthe latter idea. if you looked at it objectively,

it was more plausible, given her lack of scientificknowledge. much more believable, too. somebody bumped him. jarred out of his reverie,he automatically apologized in english. "don't curse at me in your foreign tongue!"snarled grazoot, the plump little harpist. ezkr was standing behind grazoot. he spokeout of the side of his mouth, urging the bard on. "he thinks he can walk all over you, grazoot,because he insulted your harp once and you let him get away with it." grazoot puffed out his cheeks, reddened inthe face and glared. "it is only because miran has forbidden duels that i have not plungedmy dagger into this son of an izzot!" green looked from one to the other. obviouslythis scene was prearranged with no good end

for him in view. "stand aside," he said haughtily. "you areinterfering with the discipline of the 'roller. miran will not like that." "indeed." said grazoot. "do you think mirancares at all about what happens to you? you're a lousy sailor and it hurts me to have tocall you brother. in fact, i spit every time i say it to you, brother!" grazoot did just that. green, who was downwind,felt the fine mist wet his legs. he began to get angry. "out of my way or i'll report you to the firstmate," he said firmly and walked by them.

they gave way, but he had an uneasy feelingin the small of his back, as if a knife would plunge into it. of course, they shouldn'tbe so foolish, because they would be hamstrung and then dropped off the 'roller for the crimeof cowardice. but these people were so hotheaded they were just as likely as not to stab himin a moment of fury. once on the rope ladder that ran up to thecrow's nest, he began to lose the prickly feeling in his back. at that moment grazootcalled out, "oh, green, i had a vision last night, a true vision, because my patron godsent it, and he himself appeared in it. he announced that he would snuff up his nostrilsthe welcome scent of your blood, spilled all over the deck from your fall!"

green paused with one foot on the rail. "youtell your god to stay away from me, or i'll punch him in the nose!" he called back. there was a gasp from the many people who'dgathered around to listen. "sacrilege!" yelled grazoot. "blasphemy!" he turned to those aroundhim. "did you hear that?" "yes," said ezkr, stepping out from the crowd."i heard him and i am shocked. men have burned for less." "oh, my patron god, tonuscala, punish thispride-swollen man! make your dreams come true. cast him headlong from the mast and dash himto the deck and break every bone in his body so that men may learn that one does not mockthe true gods."

"tahkhai," murmured the crowd. "amen." green smiled grimly. he had fallen into theirtrap and now must be on guard. plainly, one or both of them would be aloft tonight duringthe dark hour after sunset, and they'd be content with nothing less than pitching himout over the deck. his death would be considered to have come from the hands of an outragedgod. and if amra should accuse ezkr and grazoot she'd get little justice. as for miran, thefellow would probably heave a sigh of relief, because he'd be rid of a troublesome fellowwho could carry damaging stories of a certain conspiracy to the duke of tropat. he climbed up to the crow's nest, and settledgloomily to staring off at the horizon. just

before sunset grizquetr came up with a bottleof wine and food in a covered basket. between bites green told the boy of his suspicions. "mother has already guessed as much," saidthe lad. "she is a very clever woman indeed, my mother. she has put a curse upon the twoif you should come to harm." "very clever. that will do a great deal ofgood. thank her for her splendid work while you're picking up my pieces from the deck,will you?" "to be sure," replied grizquetr, trying hardto keep his sober face from breaking into a grin. "and mother also sent you this." he rolled the kerchief all the way off thetop of the basket. green's eyes widened.

chapter xv "a rocket flare!" "yes. mother says that you are to releaseit when you hear the bos'n's whistle from the deck." "now, why in the world would i do that? won'ti get into tremendous trouble by doing that? i'll be run through the gauntlet a dozen timesfor that. no sir, not me. i've seen those poor fellows after the whips were throughwith them." "mother said for me to tell you that nobodywill be able to prove who sent up the flare." "perhaps. it sounds reasonable. but why shouldi do it?"

"it will light up the whole ship for a minute,and everybody will be able to see that ezkr and grazoot are in the rigging. the wholeship will be in an uproar. of course, when it is discovered that somebody has stolentwo flares from the storeroom, and when a search is conducted, and one flare is foundhidden in ezkr's trunk, then... well, you see..." "oh, beamish boy!" chortled green. "calloo,callay! go tell your mother she's the most marvelous woman on this planet-- though that'sreally not much of a compliment, now i think of it. oh, wait a minute. about this bos'n'swhistle. now, why should he be warning me to send up a flare?"

"he won't. mother will be blowing it. she'llbe waiting for a signal from me or azaxu," grizquetr said, referring to his younger brother."we'll be watching ezkr and grazoot, and when they start to climb aloft we'll notify her.she'll wait until she thinks they're about halfway up, then she'll whistle." "that woman has saved my life at least halfa dozen times. what would i do without her?" "that's what mother said. she said that shedoesn't know why she went after you when you tried to run away from her-- from us-- becauseshe has great pride. and she doesn't have to chase a man to get one; princes have beggedher to come live with them. but she did because she loves you, and a good thing, too. otherwiseyour stupidity would have killed you ten times

over by now." "oh, she did, did she? well, hah, hum. yes,well...!" thoroughly ashamed of himself, yet angry atamra for her estimate of him, green miserably watched grizquetr climb down the ratlines. during the next half-hour, time seemed tocoagulate, to thicken and harden around him so that he felt as if he were encased in it.the clouds that always came up after sunset formed, and a light drizzle began. it wouldlast for about an hour, he knew, then the clouds would disappear so swiftly that theywould give the impression of being yanked away like a tablecloth by some magician overthe horizon. but he'd cram a highly nervous

lifetime into those minutes, wondering ifperhaps there wouldn't be some unforeseen frustration of amra's schedule. the first webby drops struck his face, andhe wondered if perhaps that wouldn't be what the two would wait for. they'd probably takenthe first step up the rigging, but he mustn't expect her whistle for some time yet. if theywere clever they wouldn't climb up directly beneath him, but would go aft, ascend to thetop, then climb over to him. it was true that they'd have to pass others who, like green,were also stationed aloft on watch. but ezkr and grazoot knew the locations of these. sodark was it they could pass within touching distance and not be seen or heard. the windin the rigging, the creak of masts, the rumble

of the great wheels would drown out any slightnoise they might make. the 'roller did not stop sailing just becausethe helmsmen could not see. the bird followed a well-charted route; every permanent obstaclealong here had been memorized by helmsmen and officers alike. if anything formidablewas expected in their path during the dark period, a course would be set to avoid it.the officers on duty would advise the helmsmen on their steering by means of an ingeniousdial on a notched plate. his sensitive fingers, following its flickerings back and forth,and comparing them with the directional notches, would tell him how close to the course theywere keeping. the dial itself was fixed to the needle of a compass beneath it.

green hunched his shoulders beneath his coatand walked around the walls of his nest. he strained his eyes to make out something inthe blackness that wrapped him around like a shroud. there was nothing, nothing at all....no, wait! what was that? a vague outline of a white face? he stared hard until it disappeared, thenhe sighed and realized how rigidly he'd been standing there. and of course he'd been opento attack from behind all that time. no, not really. if he couldn't see an arm'slength away, neither could the other two. but they didn't have to see. they knew theropes so well that they could grope blindfolded to his nest and there feel him out. a touchof a finger, followed by a thrust of steel.

that would be all it would take. he was thinking of that when he felt the finger.it poked into his back and held him like a statue for just a second, quivering, paralyzed.then he gave a hoarse cry and jumped away. he snatched out his dagger and crouched downclose to the floor, straining his eyes and ears, trying to detect them. surely, if theywere breathing as hard as he, he couldn't fail to hear them. on the other hand, he realized with a suddensickishness, they could hear him just as well. "come on! come on!" he said soundlessly, throughclenched teeth. "do something! make a move so i can pin you, you sons of izzots!"

perhaps they were doing the same, waitingfor him to betray himself. the best thing was to hug the floor where he was and hopethey'd stumble over him. he kept reaching out in front of him, feelingfor the warm mesh of a face. his other hand held his dagger. it was during one of his tentative explorationsthat he felt the basket where grizquetr had left it. at once, seized with what he thoughtwas an inspiration, he pulled out the flare. why wait for them to close in on him and butcherhim like a hog? he'd send up the flare now, and in the first shock of its glare he'd attackthem. the only trouble was, he'd have to put downhis dagger in order to take his flint and

steel and tinderbox from his pocket. he hatednot to have it ready for thrusting. solving this problem by putting the daggerbetween his teeth, he took out his firebox, paused, and swiftly put them back. now, howwas he supposed to get the tinder going when it was drizzling? that was one thing amra,with all her cleverness, hadn't thought of. "fool!" he whispered to himself. "i'm thefool!" and in the next moment, he was removing his coat and putting the flint and steel andbox under its protecting cover. he couldn't see what he was doing, but if he held thetinder close enough a spark should fall on it. then he'd have a flame hot enough to touchoff the fuse of the flare. again, he froze. his enemies were waitingfor him to reveal himself through noise. what

better giveaway than flint scraping againststeel? and what about the sound of the rocket flare's spiked support being driven into thewooden floor? he suppressed a groan. no matter what he didhe was leaving himself wide open. it was then that the shrillness of a whistlebelow startled him. he rose, wondering frenziedly what he should do next. so convinced was hethat ezkr and grazoot were poised just outside the nest, he could not believe that amra hadnot misjudged the time it had taken them to climb to him or that she had not been heldup for some reason and now was frantically trying to warn him. but, he realized, he couldn't just stand therelike a scared sheep. whether amra was right

or not, whether they were within dagger'sthrust or not, he had to take action. "do your damndest!" he growled at whatevermight be in the dark, and be struck steel against flint. the materials were under hiscoat, blocking his view, but he lay down again so he could see between his arms and underthe coat held over them. the tinder caught at once and blazed up, then began a smallbut steady glow in the harder wood of the box. without waiting to look around, greenrammed the flare's spike into the deck of the nest. swiftly he brought the punk up,still holding the coat over it for protection from the drizzle and also from any watchingeyes. he held it against the fuse, saw the cord catch flame and sizzle like a fryingworm. then he had ducked around the other

side of the mast that supported the nest,for he knew how unpredictable these primitive rockets were. like as not it would go offin his face. hardly had he rounded the big pillar of the mast when he heard a soft whooshingsound. he looked up just in time to see the rocket explode in a white glare. the momentit dispelled the darkness he jerked his head to the right and the left in an effort tosee if ezkr and grazoot were on him, as he'd known they must be. but they weren't. they were still half a ship'slength away from him, caught by the light in the rigging, like flies in a spider's web.what he had thought was a finger poking him in the back must have been the bolt that heldthe support for the muskets which were to

be fired from the nest during combat. so relieved was he, he would have broken intoloud laughter, but at that moment a great cry broke from the decks below. the mate andthe helmsmen were shouting in alarm. green looked down, saw them pointing, andhis gaze followed the direction of their extended fingers. a hundred yards ahead, rushing at them ona collision course, was a towering clump of trees! chapter xvi then the flare had died and had left nothingbut its afterimage on the eye-- and panic

on the brain. green did not know what to make of it. inthe first instant he had thought that it was the 'roller alone that was speeding towardan uncharted forest-grown hill. immediately after, he'd seen that his senses were deceivinghim and that the mass was also moving. it had looked like a hill, or several hills,sliding across the grass toward them. but even as the darkness came back he'd seen thatthere were other hills behind it, and that the whole thing was actually a sort of icebergof rocks and of soil from which grew trees. that was all he could make out in that confusingmoment. even then he couldn't believe it, because a mountain just didn't run along ofits own volition on flat land.

credible or not, it was not being ignoredby the helmsmen. they must have turned the wheel almost at once, for green could feelthe leaning of the mast to port and the shift of wind upon his face. the bird was swingingto the southwest in an effort to avoid the "roaming island." unfortunately it was toodark for the men to have worked swiftly in trimming the sails even if a full crew hadbeen aloft. and there were far too few on the top, as it was not thought necessary tohave them on duty when the 'roller was running in the post-sunset drizzle. green had time for one short prayer-- no nonsenseabout punching a god in the nose, now-- and then he was hurled against the wall of thenest. there was the loudest noise he'd ever

heard-- the loudest because it was the crackof doom for him. rope split like a giant's whip cracking; spars, suddenly released fromthe rigging, strummed like monster violins; the masts, falling down, thundered; intermingledwith all that were the screams of the people below on the deck and in the holds. greenhimself was screaming as he felt the foremast lean over, and he slid from the floor of thenest, which had suddenly threatened to become a wall, and fought to hold himself on thewall, which had now become a floor. his fingers closed upon the musket-support with the desperationof one who clings to the only solid thing in the world. for a minute, the mast stopped its forwardmovement, held taut by the tangled mass of

ropes. green hoped that he was safe, thatall the damage had been done. but no, even as he dared think he might comeout alive, the mighty grinding noise began again. the island of rock and trees was continuingits course and was smashing the hull of the ship beneath it, gobbling up wheels, axles,keel, timber, cargo, cannon and people. the next he knew, he was flying through theair, torn from his hold, catapulted far away from the 'roller. it seemed as if he actuallysoared, gained altitude, though this must have been an illusion. then the hard returnto earth, the impact on his face, his body, his legs. the outstretched arms to softenthe blow that must surely splinter his bones and pulp his flesh. the pitiful arms, thelast warding-off gesture before annihilation.

the series of hard blows, like many fists.the sudden realization that he was among tree branches and that his fall was being brokenby them. his trying to grab one to hang on and its slipping away and his continued rapidand punishing descent. then, oblivion. he didn't know how long he'd been unconscious,but when he sat up he saw through the trunks of the trees the shattered hull of the birdabout a hundred feet away. it was lying on its side on a lower level than he was, sohe supposed that he was sitting on the slope of a hill. only half of the craft was in sight;it must have been broken in two, and most of the middeck and stern ground into rubblebeneath the advancing juggernaut of the island.

dully, be realized that the drizzle had stopped,the clouds had cleared and the big and little moons were up. the seeing was good, too good. there were people left alive in the wreck,men, women and children who were trying to climb through the tangle of ropes, spars andbroken, jagged, projecting planks. screams, moans, shouts and calls for help made a chaos. groaning, he managed to rise to his feet.he had a very painful headache. one eye was so swollen he couldn't see with it. he tastedblood in his mouth and felt several broken teeth with his lacerated tongue. his sideshurt when he breathed. the skin seemed to have been torn off the palms of his hands.his right knee must have been wrenched, and

his left heel was a ball of fire. neverthelesshe got up. amra and paxi and her other children were in there; that is, unless they'd beencaught in the other half. he had to find out. even if they were beyond his help there wereothers who weren't. he started to hobble through the trees. thenhe saw a man step out from behind a bush. thinking that he must be a survivor who hadwandered off in a dazed condition, green opened his mouth to speak to him. but there was somethingodd about him that imposed silence. he looked closer. yes, the fellow wore a headdress offeathers and held a long spear in his hand. and the moonlight, where it slipped throughthe branches and shone upon an exposed shoulder, gleamed red, white, blue-black, yellow andgreen. the man was painted all over with stripes

of different colors! green slowly sank down upon his hands andknees behind a bush. it was then that he became aware of others who stood behind trees andwatched the wreck. then these emerged from the darkness under the branches. presently,at least fifty plumed, painted, armed men were gathered together, all silent, all intentlyinspecting the wreck and the survivors. one raised a spear as a signal and gave aloud, whooping war cry. the others echoed him, and when he ran out from beneath thebranches they followed him. green could watch only for a minute beforehe had to close his eyes. "no, no!" he moaned. "the children, too!"

when he forced himself to look again, he sawthat he had been mistaken in thinking that everybody had been put to spear. after thefirst vicious onslaught, in which they'd killed indiscriminately and hysterically, like allundisciplined primitives, they'd spared the younger women and the little girls. thoseable to walk were lined up and marched off under the guard of half a dozen spearsmen.the too badly injured were run through on the spot. even in the midst of this scene, green feltsome of his intense anguish eased a little. amra was still alive! she held paxi in one arm and with the otherpulled soon, her daughter by the temple sculptor.

though she must have been terribly frightened,she faced her captors with the same proud bearing she'd always had, whether in the presenceof peasant or prince. inzax, her maid, stood behind her. green decided that he'd better try to followher and her captors at a discreet distance. but before he could get away he saw the womenand older children of the savages appear, bearing torches. fortunately none came hisway. some of these mutilated the dead, dancing around the hacked corpses and howling in imitationof the adult men. then began the work in earnest, the carving up of the flesh. these paintedpeople were cannibals and made no bones about it. fires were being lit for a midnight snackbefore the bulk of the meat was brought back

to wherever their homes were. chapter xvii green stayed far enough behind the prisonersand savages to keep out of sight if any man should turn. the path was narrow, windingbetween crowding trunks and under low branches. the soil underfoot was rich and springy, asif composed of generations of leaves. green estimated he must have gone at least a mileand a half, not as the crow flies, but more like a drunk trying to find his way home.then, without warning, the forest stopped and a clearing was before him. in the midstof this stood a village of about ten log houses with thatched roofs. six were rather smallouthouses serving one purpose or another.

the four large ones were, he guessed, longhouses for community living. they were grouped about a central spot in which were the remainsof several large fires beneath big iron pots and spits. clay tanks were scattered hereand there; these held rain water. before each house was a twenty-foot-high totem pole, brightlypainted, and around it many slender poles holding skulls. the prisoners were led into one of the outhousesand the door barred. a man stationed himself at the front, squatting with his back to thewall and holding a spear in one hand. the others greeted the old women and younger childrenwho had been left behind. though they spoke in a language green didn't understand, theywere obviously describing what they'd found

at the wreck. some of the old crones thenbegan piling brushwood and small logs under one of the huge iron kettles; presently theyhad a fire blazing brightly. others brought out glasses and cups of precious metals--loot from wrecks. these they filled with some sort of liquor, probably a native beer, judgingfrom the foam that spilled over the sides. one of the young boys began idly tapping upona drum and soon was beating out a monotonous simple rhythm. it looked as if they were goingto make a night of it. but after a few drinks the warriors arose,picked up jugs of liquor and walked into the woods, leaving one man to guard the prisoners'hut. all the children over the age of four left with them, trailing along in the dark,though the warriors made no effort to slow

their pace so the children could keep up. green waited until he was sure the spearsmenwere some distance away, then rose. his muscles protested at any movement, and pains shotthrough his head, knee and ankle. but he ignored them and limped around the edge of the clearinguntil he came to the back of one of the long houses. he slipped inside and stood by the side ofthe doorway. it was more illuminated than he'd thought at first, because of the severallarge and open windows which admitted moon-beams. hens sleepily clucked at him, and one of themidget pigs grunted questioningly. suddenly something soft brushed across his ankles.startled, he jumped to one side. his heart,

which had been beating fast enough before,threatened to hammer a hole in his ribs. he crouched, straining to see what it was. thena soft meowing nearby told him. he relaxed a little and stretched out a hand, saying,"here, kitty, kitty, come here." but the cat walked by, his tail raised anda look of disdain on his face as he disappeared through the door. seeing the animal remindedgreen of something about which he was anxious. that was whether the natives kept dogs ornot. he hadn't seen any and thought that surely if there were some he'd have long ago heardthe noisy beasts. undoubtedly, by now, he should have a whole pack of the obnoxiousmonsters snarling at his heels. silently, he walked into the long single roomwith its high ceiling. from thick rafters

hung rolled-up curtains, which he supposedwould be let down to make a semi-private room for any families that wished it. from themalso hung vegetables, fruit and meat; chickens, rabbits, piglets, squirrels, hoober and venison.there were no human parts, so he guessed that the flesh of man was not so much a staplediet to these people as a food for religious purposes. all he did know was that he would have totake some meat with him. he gathered strips of dried hoober, rolled them into a ball andstuffed them in a bag. then he took down an iron-headed spear and a sharp steel knifefrom their rack on the wall. knife in belt and spear in hand, he went out the back door.

outside, he stopped to listen to the far-offbeating of drums and the chanting of voices. there must be quite a celebration around thewreck. "good," he muttered to himself. "if they getdrunk and pass out i'll have time for what i want to do." staying well within the shadows of the trees,he picked his way to the back of the hut in which the prisoners were. from where he stoodhe could see that there were only six old women-- about all the island's economy couldafford, he supposed-- and some ten infants, all toddlers. most of these, once the excitementcaused by the noisy warriors had subsided with their leavetaking, had lain down closeto the fire and gone to sleep. the only one

who might give real trouble, aside from theguard, was a boy of ten, the one who was now tapping softly on the drum. at first greencould not understand why he hadn't gone with the others of his age to the wreck. but theempty stare and the unblinking way he looked into the fire showed why. green had no doubtthat if he were to come close enough to the lad, he'd see that the eyeballs were filmedover with white. blindness was nothing rare on this filthy planet. satisfied as to everybody's location, he creptto the back of the hut and examined the walls. they were made of thick poles driven intothe ground and bound together with rope taken from a 'roller's rigging. there were plentyof openings for him to look through, but it

was so dark that he could see only the vagueoutlines moving about. he put his mouth to one of the holes and saidsoftly, "amra!" somebody gasped. a little girl began to crybut was quickly hushed up. amra answered, faint with joy. "alan! it can't be you!" "i am not thy father's ghost!" he replied,and wondered at the same time how he could manage to inject any levity at all into themidst of this desperate situation. he was always doing it, perhaps it was not the productof a true humor but more like the giggle of a person who was embarrassed or under someother stress, more the result of hysteria

than anything else, his particular type ofsafety valve. "here's what i'm going to do," he said. "listencarefully, then repeat it after me so i'll know you have it down." she had to hear it only once to give it backto him letter-perfect. he nodded. "good girl. i'm going now." "alan!" "yes?" he replied impatiently. "if this doesn't work... if anything shouldhappen to you... or me... remember that i love you."

he sighed. even in the midst of this the eternalfeminine emerged. "i love you, too. but that hasn't got muchto do with this situation." before she could answer and waste more valuabletime he slid away, crawling on all fours around the corner of the hut. when he was where onemore pace would have brought him into view of the guard and the old crones, he stopped.all this while he'd been counting the seconds. as soon as he'd clocked five minutes-- whichhe thought would never pass-- he rose and stepped swiftly around the corner, spear heldin front of him. the guard was drinking out of his mug withhis eyes closed and his throat exposed. he fell over with green's spear plunged throughhis windpipe, just above the breastbone. the

mug fell onto his lap and gushed its amberand foam over his legs. green withdrew the blade and whirled, readyto run upon anybody who started to flee. but the old women were huddled on their kneesaround a large board on which they were rolling some flour, cackling and talking shrilly.the blind boy continued tapping, his open eyes glaring into the fire. only one saw green,a boy of about three. thumb in mouth, he stared with great round eyes at this stranger. buthe was either too horrified to utter a sound or else he did not understand what had happenedand was waiting to find out his elders' reactions before he offered his own. green lifted one finger to his lips in theuniversal sign of silence, then turned and

lifted up the bar over the door. amra rushedout and took the guard's spear from her husband. the dead man's knife went to inzax and hisother knife to aga, a tall, muscular woman who was captain of the female deck hands andwho had once killed a sailor while defending her somewhat dubious honor. at the same time, the chattering of the hagsstopped. green whirled around, and the silence was broken by shrieks. frantically, the hagstried to scramble up from their stiffened knees and run away. but green and the womenwere upon them before they could take more than a few steps. not one of them reachedthe forest. it was grim work, one in which the effenycan woman took fierce joy.

without wasting a look on the poor old carcasses,green rounded up the children and the blind boy and put them in the prisoners' hut. hehad to hold aga back from slaughtering them. amra, he was pleased to see, had made no motionto help them in their intended butchery. she, understanding his brief look, replied, "icould not kill a child, even the spawn of these fiends. it would be like stabbing paxi." green saw one of the women holding his daughter.he ran to her, took paxi out of her arms and kissed the baby. soon, amra's ten-year-oldchild by the sculptor, came shyly and stood by his side, waiting to be noticed. he kissedher, too. "you're getting to be a big girl, soon," he said. "do you suppose you couldtag along behind your mother and carry paxi

for her? she has to carry her spear." the girl, a big-eyed, redheaded beauty, noddedand took the baby. green eyed the long houses with the idea ofsetting them afire. he decided not to when it became apparent that the wind would carrysparks to the hut in which the savages' children were. moreover, though a fire would undoubtedlycreate consternation among the roisterers at the wreck and keep them busy for some time,it would also cause them to start tracking down the refugees just that much sooner. besides,there was the possibility of setting fire to the forest, wet though it was. he didn'twant to destroy his only hiding-place. he directed some women to go into the longhouse and load themselves with as much food

and weapons as they could carry. in a fewminutes he had the party ready to leave. "we'll take this path that leads out of thevillage away from the path that goes to the wreck," he said. "let's hope it goes to theother edge of the island, where we may find some small 'rollers on which we can escape.i presume these savages have some kind of sailing craft." this path was as narrow and winding as theother one. it worked in the general direction of the western shore, and the savages wereon the eastern shore. their way at first led upward, sometimes throughpasses formed by two large rocks. several times they had to skirt little lakes, catchbasins for rain. once a fish flopped out of

the water, scaring them. the island was fairlyself-sufficient, what with its fish, rabbits, squirrels, wild fowl, pigs and various vegetablesand fruit. he estimated that if the village was in the center of the island, then themass should have a surface area of about one and a half square miles. rough though theland was and thickly covered with grass, the place should offer cover for one refugee. for one, yes, but not for six women and eightchildren. chapter xviii after much puffing and panting, muttered encouragementsto each other, and occasional cursing, they finally reached the summit of the tallesthill. abruptly, they found themselves facing

a clearing which ran around its crown. directlyahead of them was a forest of totem poles, all gleaming palely in the moonlight. beyondit was the dark yawning of a large cave. green walked out from the shadows of the branchesto take a closer look. when he came back he said, "there's a little hut by the side ofthe cave. i looked in the window. an old woman's asleep in it. but her cats are wide-awakeand likely to wake her up." "all these totem poles bear the heads of cats,"said aga. "this place must be their holy of holies. it's probably taboo to all but theold priestess." "maybe so," replied green. "but they musthold religious services of some sort here. there's a big pile of human skulls on theother side of the cave mouth, and also a stake

covered with bloodstains. "we can do two things. go on down the otherside of this hill, jump off onto the plain and take our chances there. or else hide insidethe cave and hope that because it's taboo nobody will explore it to look for us." "it seems to me that's the first place they'dlook into," said aga. "not if we don't wake the old woman. thenif the savages come along later and ask her if anybody's come by they'd get no for ananswer." "what about the cats?" green shrugged his shoulders. "we'd have totake that chance. perhaps, if once we get

by them and into the cave, they may quietdown." he was referring to their caterwauling, whichwas beginning to sound dreadful. "no," said aga, "that noise will be a signalto the islanders. they'll know something's up." "well," replied green, "i don't know whatyou intend doing, but i'm going into that cave. i'm too tired to run any further." "so are we," affirmed the other women. "we'vereached the end of our strength." there was a silence, and into that silencecame a voice, a man's. it whispered, "please do not be startled.be quiet. it is i...."

miran stepped out of the shadows behind them,holding his finger to his lips, his one eye round and pale in the moonlight. he was aragged captain, not at all the elegantly uniformed commander of the bird of fortune and the wealthy-appearingpatriarch of the clan effenycan. but he carried in his other hand a canvas bag. green, seeingit, knew that miran had managed somehow not only to escape with his skin but had alsocarried off a treasure in jewels. "behold," he announced, waving the bag, "allis not lost." green thought that he was referring to thejewels. however, miran had turned and beckoned to someone in the darkness behind himout ofit slipped grizquetr. tears shone in his eyes as he ran to his mother and fell into herarms.

amra began weeping softly. until now she hadrepressed her grief over the children she thought forever lost to her. all thought hadbeen directed to saving her own life and the lives of the two girls who had survived withher. now, seeing her eldest son emerge from the shadows as if from the grave had thawedthe frozen well of sorrow. she sobbed, "i thank the gods that they havegiven me back my son." "if the gods are so wonderful why did theykill your other two children?" asked miran sourly. "and why did they kill my clansmen,and why did they smash my bird? why...?" "shut up!" said green. "this is no time tocry about anything. we have to get out with whole hides. the philosophizing and tearscan come later."

"mennirox is an ungrateful god," mutteredmiran. "after all i did for him, too." amra dried her tears and said, "how did youescape? i thought all the males who hadn't been killed in the wreck were speared?" "almost everybody was," replied grizquetr."but i crawled down into the hold and slipped through to a hiding place beneath one of thefish tanks, which had overturned. it was wet there, and there were dead fish nestling besideme. the savages did not find me, though doubtless they would have when they began salvaging.it was thinking about that that decided me to crawl back out on the other side of the'roller away from the savages. i did so, and i found that i could belly my way throughthe grass growing on the edge. i almost died

of fright, though, because i crawled headon into miran. he was hiding there, too." "i was thrown off the foredeck by the impact,"interrupted the captain. "i should have broken every bone in my body, but i landed on a hullsail, which had come down and was lying on the starboard side, supported by the fallenmast. it was like falling into a hammock. from there i dropped into the grass and snakedalong the very edge of the island. several times i almost fell off, and i would haveif i'd been a pound fatter, an inch wider. as it was..." "listen," said grizquetr, breaking in. "thisisland is the wuru!" "what do you mean?" said green.

"while i was clinging to the edge of the islandi thought i'd hang down over it and see if there was any place there to hide. there wasn't,because the underside of the island is one smooth sheet. i know, because i could seein the moonlight clear to the other side. it was smooth, smooth, like a slab of iron. "and that's not all! you know how the grasson the plains hereabouts has been tall, uncut? well, the grass just ahead of the edge wasuncut. but the grass underneath the island was being cut off. rather, it was vanishing!the top of the grass was just disappearing into air! only a lawn of grass about an inchhigh was left!" "then this island is one big lawnmower," saidgreen. "more than just interesting. but we'll

have to investigate that later. right now..." and he walked toward the little hut by thecave mouth. as he approached it several large house cats streaked out of the doorway. amoment later green came out. he grinned broadly. "the priestess has passed out. the place smellslike a brewery. the cats are in their cups, too. all drinking from bowls set on the groundfor them, staggering around, yowling, fighting. if they don't wake her up, nothing can." "i have heard that these old priestesses areoften drunkards," said amra. "they lead a lonely life because they're taboo, and nobodyeven goes near them except during certain religious customs. they have only their bottleand their cats to keep them company."

"ah," said miran, "you are thinking of thetale of samdroo, the tailor who turned sailor. yes, that is supposed to be a story to entertainchildren, but i'm beginning to think there is a great deal to it. remember, the storydescribes just such a hill and just such a cave. it is said that every roaming islandhas just such a place. and..." "you talk too much," broke in aga harshly."let's get on into the cave." green could appreciate what aga's commentmeant. miran had lost face because he'd allowed his vessel to be wrecked and his clansmenmurdered en masse. to aga and the other women he was no longer captain miran, the rich patriarch.he was miran, the shipwrecked sailor. a fat old sailor. just that. nothing more.

he could have redeemed himself if he had committedsuicide. but his eagerness to live had resulted in his placing himself on an even lower levelin their estimation. miran must have realized this, for he didnot reply. instead he stood to one side. green walked thirty paces into the cave, thenlooked back over his shoulder. the entrance was still visible, an arch outlined in thebright moonshine. someone coughed. green was about to cautionthem to keep quiet, when he felt his nostrils tickling and had to fight to down a loud sneezehimself. "dust." "good," said green. "maybe they never comedown here."

suddenly the tunnel turned at right angles,to the left. the little light that penetrated from the entrance disappeared in total blackness,the party halted. "what if there are traps set for intruders?"wailed inzax. "that's a chance we'll have to take," greengrowled. "we'll go in the dark until we come to another turn. then we'll light up a torchor two. the natives won't be able to see the glow." he walked ahead feeling the wall with hisleft hand. suddenly he stopped. amra humped into him. "what is it?" she asked anxiously.

"the rock wall has now become metal. feelhere." he guided her hand. "you're right," she whispered. "there's adefinite seam, and i can tell the difference between the two!" "the floor's metal, too," added soon. "myfeet are bare, and i can feel it. what's more, the dust is all gone." green went ahead, and after thirty more paceshe came to another ninety-degree turn, to the right, the walls and floor were composedof the smooth, cool metal. after making sure that the entire party was around the corner,he told a woman carrying some torches taken

from a long house to light one. its brightflare showed the group staring round-eyed at the large chamber in which they stood. everywhere were bare gray metal walls andfloors. no furniture of any kind. nor a speck of dust. "there's a doorway to another room," he said."we might as well go on in." he took the torch from the woman and, holdinga cutlass in the other, he led the way. once across the threshold he halted. this room was even larger than the other.but it had furnishings of a sort. and its further wall was not metal but earth.

at the same time the room began to brightenwith light coming from an invisible source. soon screamed and threw herself against hermother, clinging desperately to her waist. the babies began howling, and the other adultsacted in the various ways that panic affected green alone remained unmoved. he knew whatwas happening, but he couldn't blame the rest for their behavior. they had never heard ofan electronic eye, so they couldn't be expected to maintain coolness. the only thing that green feared at that momentwas that the outcries would be heard by the savages outside the cave. so he hastened toassure the women that this phenomenon was nothing to be frightened about. it was commonin his home country. a mere matter of white

magic that anyone could practice. they quieted down but were still uneasy. wide-eyed,they bunched up about him. "the natives themselves aren't scared of this,"he said. "they must come here at times. see? there's an altar built against that dirt wall.and from the bones piled beneath it i'd say that sacrifices were held here." he looked for another door. there seemed tobe none. he found it hard to believe that there couldn't be. somehow he'd had the feelingthat great things lay ahead of him. these rooms, and this lighting, were evidences ofan earlier civilization that quite possibly had been on a level with his own. he'd knownthat the island itself must be powered with

an automatically working anti-gravity plant,fueled either atomically or from the planet's magneto-gravitic field. why the whole unitshould be covered with rocks and soil and trees he didn't know. but he had been surethat somewhere in the bowels of this mass of land was just such a place as this. andmore. where was the power plant? was it sealed up so that no one could get to it? or, aswas likely, was there a door to the plant which could not be opened unless one had akey of some sort? first he had to find the door. he examined the altar, which was made of iron.it was a platform about three feet high and ten feet square. upon it stood a chair, fashionedfrom pieces of iron. from its back rose a

steel rod about half an inch in diameter andten feet long, its lower end held secure between two uprights by a thick iron fork. once thefork was withdrawn, the rod would obviously fall over against the earth wall behind it,though the lower end would still remain on the uprights and would, in fact, stick againstwhoever was sitting in the chair at the moment. "odd," said green. "if it weren't for thosecatheaded idols on the ends of the platform, and the bones at its foot, i'd not know thiswas an altar. bones! they're black, burned black." he looked again at the rod. "now," he said,half to him.-self, "if i were to withdraw the fork, and the rod fell, it would strikethe wall. that is evident. but what is it

all about?" amra brought him some long pieces of rope. "these were stacked against the wall," shesaid. "yes? ah! now, if i were to tie one end ofthis rope about the apex of that rod, and someone else were to stand upon the altarand take out the fork, then i could control which direction the rod would fall by pullingit toward me. or allowing it to go away from me. and the person who had taken the forkout would then have plenty of time to get down from the altar and back to the regionof safety, where the rope-wielder and his friends would be stationed. alas, the poorfellow sitting in the chairs. yes, i see it

all now." he looked up from the rope he held in hishand. "aga!" he said sharply. "get away from that wall!" the tall, lean woman was walking past thealtar, holding her bare cutlass in her hand. when she heard green she paused in her stride,gave him an astonished look, then continued. "you don't understand," she called back overher shoulder. "this wall isn't solid earth. it's fluffy, like a young chick's feathers.it's dust, dust. i think we can knock it down, cut our way through. there must be somethingon the other side...." "aga!" he yelled. "don't! stop where you are!"

but she had lifted her blade and brought itdown in a hard stroke that was to show him how easy the stuff would be to slash away. green grabbed amra and paxi and dived to thefloor, pulling them with him. thunder roared and lightning filled the room,dazzling and deafening him! even in its midst he could see the dark figure of aga, transfixed,crucified in white fire. chapter xix then aga was blotted out by the dense cloudof dust that billowed out over her and filled the whole room. with it came an intense heat.green opened his mouth to cry out to amra and paxi to cover their faces and especiallytheir noses. before he could do so his own

open mouth was packed with dust and his nostrilswere full. he began sneezing and coughing explosively, while his eyes ran tears in theirefforts to wash out the dirt that caked and burned them. clods of dirt struck him, hurledby the blast. they didn't hurt because they were so small and so fluffy. but they fellso swiftly and in such numbers that he was half-buried under them. even in the midstof his shock he couldn't help being thankful that he'd been breathing out when the heatstruck him. otherwise he'd have sucked in air that would have seared his lungs, andhe'd have dropped dead. as it was, wherever his skin had not been covered by cloth hefelt as if he were suffering a bad case of sunburn.

painfully, he rose on all fours and begancrawling toward the other room, where he thought the dust would not be so thick. at the sametime he tugged at amra's arm-- at least he supposed it was her arm, since she'd beenso close to him when the explosion took place. his gesture was intended to tell her thatshe should follow him. she rose and followed him, touching him from time to time. onceshe stopped, and he turned to find out what was bothering her, even if he felt that hecouldn't stand much more of the almost solid dust in his lungs and had to get out to openair or strangle. then he knew that the woman was amra, for she was carrying a child inher arms. the child had a scarf around her head and, as he remembered, paxi was the onlyinfant so dressed.

coughing violently, he rose to his feet, pullingamra to hers, and swiftly walked toward where he hoped the exit was. he knew he'd fallenon his face in the general direction of the doorway; if he kept in a straight line hemight make it without wandering off to one side. he found soon enough that he was going justopposite, for he fell headlong over a body on the floor. when he got up again, he ranhis hands over the body. the skin was crusty, scaly. aga's burned corpse. the cutlass waslying by her side, assuring him of her identity. re-oriented, he turned back, still pullingamra by the hand. this time he ran into a wall, but he had his free hand stretched outin front of him for just such an event. frantically,

he groped to his left until he came to thecorner of the room. then, knowing that the doorway lay back to his right, he turned andfelt along the metal until he came to the opening. he plunged through it, almost fellinto the other room, which was as dark and dusty as the one he'd just left. he trottedon ahead, bumped into another wall, groped to his right, found the next exit and ranthrough that. here the air was much more free of dust. he could actually make out outlinesof his companions as the light was penetrating the fainter haze. nevertheless he and the others were coughingand weeping as if they were trying to eject lungs and eyeballs alike. spasm after spasmshook them.

green decided that this room wasn't reallymuch better than the others, so he led amra and paxi around the right-angled corner andinto the dark tunnel. here his violent rackings began to quiet down and by rapid blinking,which forced tears, he cleaned his eyes of much of the dust. anxiously, he peered downthe passageway toward its end, where the cave mouth formed a dim arch in the moonlight outside. it was as he'd feared. somebody stood there,outlined in the beams, bent forward, peering in. he thought that it must be the priestess,for the figure was slight and the hair was pulled up on top of the head in a great psycheknot with a feather stuck through it. moreover,

around her feet were four or five cats. his coughing betrayed him, for the priestesssuddenly whirled and trotted off on her sticklike legs. green dropped amra's hand and ran, atthe same time drawing his stiletto from his belt, as he'd lost his cutlass during theexplosion. he had to stop the priestess, though he didn't know what good it would do. thesavages sooner or later would come to the sanctuary to ask if she'd seen any of therefugees. and if they couldn't find her they would at once suspect what had happened. thechances were that they already knew. surely, the noise of the blast must have penetratedeven to their ears. or had it? the air waves had to round severalperpendicular turns before reaching the cave

mouth, and it might be that the noise hadseemed much greater to green than it actually was because he'd been so close to it. perhapsthere was some hope. he ran into the clearing before the cave mouth.the sun was just coming over the horizon, so he could see things clearly. the old womanwas nowhere in sight. the only live things were several drunken cats. one of these beganto rub its back against green's leg and purred loudly. automatically, he stooped down andcaressed it, though his gaze flickered everywhere for a sign of the priestess. the door of herhut was open and since it was so small he could be certain that she had no room in thereto hide from him. she must have run off down the path.

if so, she wasn't making any noise about it.there were no outcries from her to call her companions to her help. he found her lying face down on the path,halfway down the hill. at first he thought she was playing possum, so he turned her over,his stiletto ready to shut off any outcry. a glance at her hanging jaw and ashen colorconvinced him that her possum-playing days were over. at first, he thought she'd trippedand broken her neck, but an examination disproved this. the only thing he could think of wasthat her old heart had given away under the sudden fright and the stress of running. something brushed his ankles. so startledwas he, so convinced that a spear had just

missed him, he leaped into the air and whirledaround. then he saw that it was only the cat that had rubbed itself against him when he'dfirst come out of the tunnel. it was a large female cat with a beautiful long black silkycoat and with golden eyes. it exactly resembled the earth cat and was probably descended fromthe same ancestors as its terrestrial counterpart. wherever homo sapiens of the unthinkably longago had penetrated he seemed to have taken his canine and feline pets. "you like me, huh?" said green. "well, i likeyou, too, but i'm not going to if you keep on scaring me. i've been through enough tonightfor a lifetime." the cat, purring, paced delicately towardhim.

"maybe you can do me some good," he said andlifted the cat to his shoulder, where she crouched, vibrating with contentment. "i don't know what you see in me," he confidedsoftly to her. "i must be a frightful-looking object, what with being covered with dust,and my eyes red and raw and running. but then, you're not so delightful yourself, what withyour beery breath blowing in my face. i like you very much, what's-your-name. what is yourname? let's call you lady luck. after all, when i rubbed you i found the priestess dead.if she hadn't died she'd have got away to warn the cannibals. and obviously, you, herluck, had deserted her for me. so lady luck it will be. let's go back up the hill andsee what's happened to the rest of my friends."

he found amra sitting down at the cave's mouth,cuddling paxi in an effort to quiet her. nine others were there, too, grizquetr, soon, miran,inzax, three women, two little girls. the rest, he presumed, were lying dead or unconsciousin the altar room. they made a dirty-looking, red-eyed, weary group, not good for much exceptlying down and passing out. "look," he said, "we have to have sleep, whateverelse happens. we'll go back into the first chamber and get some there, and..." as one, the others protested that nothingwould get them to return anywhere near that horrible fiend-haunted room. green was ata loss. he thought he knew exactly what had happened, but he just could not explain tothese people in terms they'd understand. and

they probably would have a dark distrust ofhim from then on. he decided to take the simple, if untrue,explanation. "undoubtedly aga provoked a host of demonsby striking at the wall behind the altar," he said. "i tried to warn her. you all heardme. but those demons won't bother us again, for we are now under the protection of thecat, the cannibals' totem. moreover it is the nature of such beings that, once they'vereleased their fury and taken some victims, they are harmless, quiescent, for a long timeafter. it takes time for them to build up strength enough to hurt human beings again." they swallowed this offering as they wouldnever have his other explanation.

"if you will lead the way," they said, "wewill return. we put our lives in your hands." before going into the cave he paused to takeanother survey. from his spot in the clearing, which was almost on the top of the hill, hecould look over the tree tops and see most of the island, except where other hills barredhis view. the island had stopped moving and had settled down against the plain itself.now, to the untutored eye, the entire mass looked like a clump of dirt, rocks and vegetationfor some reason rising from the grassy seas. it would remain so until dusk, when it wouldagain launch itself upon its five-mile-an-hour journey to the east. and once having reacheda certain point there, it would reverse itself and begin its nocturnal pilgrimage towardthe west. back and forth, shuttling for how

many thousands of years? what was its purpose,and whom had its builders been? surely they could not have conceived in their wildestdreams of its present use, a mobile fortress for a tribe of cannibals? nor could they have seen to what uses theirdust-collectors would be put. they couldn't have guessed that, millennia thence, men ignorantof their originally intended purpose would be using the devices as part of their religiousritual and of human sacrifice. green left the others in the room next tothe one where the explosion had taken place. they lay down on the hard floor and at oncewent to sleep. he, however, felt that there were certain things that had to be done andthat he was the only one physically capable

of doing them. chapter xx though he hated to go back into the altarroom, he forced himself. the scene of carnage was bad enough, but not as repulsive as he'dexpected. dust had thrown a gray veil of mercy over the bodies. they looked like peacefulgray statues; most of them had not burned on the outside but had died because they'dbreathed the first lung-scorching wave of air directly. nevertheless, despite the lookof peace and antiquity, the odor of burned flesh from aga hung heavy. lady luck bristledand arched her back, and for a moment green thought she was going to leap from his shoulderand run away.

he said, "take it easy," then decided thatshe must have smelled this often before. her present reaction was based on past episodes;probably, there had been great excitement then. the cats, being taboo animals, musthave been figures of some importance in the sacrificial ceremonies. cautiously, the man approached the wall ofdirt behind the altar, even though he did not think there would be any danger for sometime to come. the altar itself was comparatively undamaged. surprised at this, he ran his handover it and found out that it was composed of baked clay, hard as rock. the chair andmetal rod had not been torn loose, both were tightly bolted down with huge studs whichhe supposed had been taken off wrecked 'rollers.

the victims that were tied in the chair bythe savages must have been sitting looking at the audience, so that their backs wereto the wall itself. that meant that when the rod was dropped to make contact between thewall and victim, the discharge only burned the sacrifice's head. evidence of that wasthe fact that only skulls were stacked around the altar. the charred head was severed andthe body carted outside to one destination or another. what puzzled green was how the audience managedto escape the fury of the blast and of the dust, even if they stood at the farthest endof the big room. determined to find out what happened at those times, he returned to thedoorway. just around its corner, in the second

room, he discovered what he'd not noticedbefore, probably because it was placed so upright and so firmly against one side ofthe wall. and because its back, which was turned away from the wall, was also made ofgray metal. when he switched it around so he could see its other side, he was staringinto a mirror about six feet high and four feet wide. now he could visualize the ceremony. the victimwas strapped into the chair and a rope was tied around the rod. everybody but the priestess,or whoever conducted the rites, retreated from the altar room. the conductor himself,or herself, then stood in the doorway and released the cord. before the rod could makecontact, the conductor had stepped around

the corner. and there the audience saw inthe mirror, placed in the doorway so it reflected the interior of the altar room, the raveningdischarge of a tremendous electrostatic blast. and immediately afterward, no doubt, theysaw nothing because of the dust that would fill the two rooms. strange and strong magic to the savages. whatmyths they must have built about this room, what tales of horrible and powerful gods ordemons imprisoned in that wall of dirt! surely their old women must whisper to the wide-eyedchildren stories of how the great cat-spirit had been caught by their legendary strongman and savior, some analog to hercules or gilgamesh or thor, and how the cat-spiritwas the tribe's to keep prisoner with their

magic and to appease from time to time withhuman kills from other tribes lest it become so angry it burst through the wall of earthand devour everybody upon the floating island! green knew that it was hopeless to try todig through that wall, even if it would be safe for days. it might only be several feetthick, or it might be twenty or more. but however thick it was, he bet that anybodywho had the tools, time and strength to excavate would find, embedded somewhere in that mass,several large dust-collectors. he didn't know what shape they'd take, because that woulddepend on the culture that had built them, and their tastes in decorations would differfrom green's multimillennia-later society. but if they had architectural ideas similarto present-day terrans they would have constructed

the collectors in the shape of busts or ofanimals' heads or even of bookcases with false backs of books filling them, books that wouldin reality have been both chargers and filters. the busts or books would have been piercedwith many tiny holes, and through these holes the charged particles of dust would have drifted.once inside the collectors, they would have been burned. looking at the blank dirt before him, greencould see what had happened through the ages. some part of the burning mechanism had gonewrong-- as was the custom of mechanisms everywhere. but the charging effect had continued. andthough the dust had piled up around the collectors, the extraordinarily powerful fields had continuedto work even through the thick blanket. in

the beginning, of course, their field couldnot have caused any human being harm. but these batteries must have been built to adjustto whatever demand was made of them, though their builders, of course, could have hadno idea of how great that demand would some day be. nevertheless it had come, and thebatteries had been equal to it. by the time the savages had found this room they wereblocked off by this imposing wall. through the death of their fellows they haddiscovered that touching the wall caused a terrible discharge of electrostatic electricity.the rest of the apparatus for execution and the ritual that went with it was foregoneand logical, religiously speaking. green swore with frustration. how he wouldlove to get through that dirt before another

charge built up! on the other side must beanother doorway, and it must lead to the fuel and control rooms for this whole island. ifhe could get inside and there figure out the controls, he'd turn this island upside downand shake off the man-eating monsters. there'd be no holding him then! he remembered the story of samdroo, the tailorwho turned sailor. the legend went that samdroo, his 'roller wrecked upon just such a roamingisland as this one, had wandered into just such a cave and through rooms like these.but he'd found no barrier of electrically charged dirt and had walked into a room whichcontained many strange things. one of them was a great eye that allowed samdroo to seein it what was happening outside the cave.

another was a board which contained many roundfaces over which raced little squiggles and lines. of course, the story had its own explanationsfor what these things were, but green could hardly fail to recognize tv, oscilloscopesand other instruments. unfortunately his knowledge was going to dohim no good. he wasn't going to get through the dirt. nor was he to be allowed time forexcavation and exploration. every minute on this island meant that he was traveling backto quotz and its revengeful duchess and getting farther from estorya, where the two spacemenand their ship were. he had to find a way of getting off this place and onto some meansof transportation. he left the death chamber and went into thenext room. after slumping down against the

wall, between amra with paxi in her arms,and inzax with grizquetr in hers, he chewed some dried meat. lady luck meowed for someand he gladly gave her all she wanted. when he'd swallowed all he could hold without burstingand had washed that down with great drafts of the warm and sweet beer taken from thepriestess's hut, he closed his eyes. now, it was up to his vigilante to take the foodand rebuild his wasted tissue, throw off the effects of autointoxication, tone his tiredmuscles, relax his too-taut nerves, readjust his hormonal balance... chapter xxi green dreamed that his mouth and nose wereclogged with dirt and that he was suffocating.

he woke to find that, while there was no earthupon him, he was having a difficult time getting his breath. remedying that by removing thecat from his face, he rose. "what do you want?" he asked her. she wasmewing and striking gently at him. she padded toward the doorway to the outside,so he imagined that she wished him to follow her. grasping his cutlass, be walked afterher and out to the tunnel that led to the cave mouth. not until then did he hear thebooming of cannon, far away. the cat meowed plaintively. evidently, she'dheard cannonfire before and had not liked the results. once out of the cave he stopped to look upat the sun. it was on its downward path from

the zenith. about four o'clock in the afternoon.he'd slept about ten hours. unable to see much from where he stood, heclimbed up the rocks outside the cave and soon stood upon the very top of the hill,a little tableland about ten feet square. from there he commanded as good a view ofthe island as anyone could get. tacking around the periphery of the islandwere three long, low, black-hulled 'rollers with over-large wheels and scarlet sails.occasionally a lance of red spurted from one of the vessel's ports, a boom reached green'sears a few seconds later and he would see the iron ball climb up and up, then fall towardthe village. a tree around the clearing would lose a limb, or a spurt of dust would showwhere a ball landed in the clearing itself.

two of the long houses had big holes in theirroofs. the village itself was deserted, as no one with good sense would have remainedthere. none of the cannibals were visible, but that wasn't surprising, considering howthick the woods were. green hoped the vings would land soon andclean out the savages. that would leave him and his party a clear field, unless the piratesinvestigated the cave in the same day. if they didn't, then the refugees could leavethe island and take to the plains under cover of the night. anxiously, green traced the path that ledfrom the hilltop where he stood and wound down to the village. it was a narrow trailand he often lost sight of it. but always

there was a difference in the shading of thetree tops along the trail and the rest of the forest. with his eye he could follow theshading to the village and beyond, toward the back or western part of the island. it was here that he came across the firstsign of hope he had had since the wreck of the bird of fortune. it was a small breakin the vegetation, which ran uninterrupted to the very edge of the island, a shelf ofseemingly smooth earth, almost hidden from him by the slope of the terrain. indeed, hecould barely make it out and might have missed it altogether, but he saw the masts of threesmall 'rollers projecting from above the slope and followed them down toward the hulls. allthree were yachts, obviously not of islander

make. beyond the stolen craft were the uprightsof davits. these were behind a wall of branches, camouflage for anybody outside the islandbut visible to those on the inside. it was all green could do to keep from whoopingwith joy. now he and his party wouldn't have to cast themselves on foot on the dangerousplains. they could sail in comparative safety. now, while the cannibals were cowering helplesslyunder the bombardment green could lead his people through the woods to the yachts. whendusk came and the island began moving again they could lower a yacht from the davits andset sail. he went back to the cave entrance, where hefound everybody awake, waiting for him. he told them what he'd seen and added, "ifthe vings come aboard we'll take advantage

of the confusion and escape." miran looked at the sun and shook his head."the vings won't attack now. it's too close to dusk. they'll want a full day for fighting.they'll follow the island tonight. when dawn comes and the island stops they'll board." "i bow to your superior experience," greensaid. "only i'd like to ask you one thing. why don't the vings launch their small craftat night and land boarding parties from them?" miran looked surprised. "no one does that!it's unthinkable! don't you know that at night the plains abound in spirits and demons? thevings wouldn't think of taking a chance on what the magic of the savages might unlooseagainst them in the darkness."

"i knew of the general attitude, but it hadslipped my mind," admitted green. "but if this is so, why did you all wander about thisplace the night the bird was wrecked?" "that was a situation where we preferred thesomewhat uncertain possibility of stumbling across demons to the certainty of being killedby the cannibals," said miran. "to be honest," said amra, "i was too scaredto think of ghosts. if i had i might have stayed where i was.... no, i wouldn't either.i've never seen a ghost, but i had seen those savages." "well," said green, "all of you might as wellmake up your mind that, come ghosts, demons, or men, we're walking through the dark tonight.all those too scared will have to stay behind."

he began issuing orders, and in a short timehe had the sleepy-eyed, bedraggled and dirty-looking party ready. after that, he turned to watchthe bombardment. by then it had largely ceased. only occasionallydid one of the vessels loose a single cannon shot. the rest of the time they spent in tackingback and forth and in running up close to the very edge of the island. "i think they are trying the temper of theisland's inhabitants," green said. "they don't know whether the woods conceal a hundred savagesor a thousand, or whether they're armed with cannons and muskets or just with spears. theywant to draw fire, so they can get an estimate of what they're facing."

he turned to miran. "which reminds me, whyis it that the natives don't use guns? they must have a chance to get their hands on manyfrom the wrecks." the fat merchant shrugged and rolled his onegood eye to indicate that he didn't really know but was making a guess. "probably they've a taboo against using firearms.whatever the reason, they're evidently suffering because they neglect them. look how few theyare. only fifty men! they must have lost quite a few through raids from other savage tribes,both from those who live upon the plain itself and from those who live on other roaming islands.they're down to the point now where they must die out within a generation, even withouthelp from such as those," he said, pointing

to the ving 'rollers. "yes, and i suppose that during the daytime,when the island is stopped, grass cats and dire dogs board it. these must take theirtoll of the humans." he gazed again at the red sails and wheelsof the vings. "i'd think that those pirates would take every island they could and woulduse them as bases from which to operate." "they do," said amra. "for a generation nowthe vings have been scouring the plains, locating the islands and exterminating the savageson them. then they've fortified the islands, so that you might say that today the xurdimuris dominated by them. but there's a drawback to an island as a harbor. no large 'rollermay get very close except in the daylight.

they have to put out to grass every nightand follow their base at a safe distance until dawn. however, though the vings are well establishedon many roamers, they're often attacked by the navies of various nations and sometimesdriven off. then the nation that takes possession of the island has a nice little base. and,of course, quite often they use it to launch heir own piratical ventures against the craftof countries at peace with them. "oh, the xurdimur is a land where every man'shand is against the other, and the devil take the ones with short sail! a man may make hisfortune or break his heart, all in a night's work. but, then, you know that only too well." green interrupted, "we'll leave them, andthe natives, too, when moonlight gets here.

i only hope that there aren't other ving craftin the neighborhood." "what the gods will, happens," replied miran.his sad face rejected the belief that if he, the favorite of mennirox, could come to grief,then green could expect even worse. when dusk came, green walked from the caveinto the dark and hard rain. behind him came amra, one hand upon his shoulder, the othersupporting paxi. the rest were stretched out in a line behind her, each person's hand onthe shoulder of the one ahead. the black cat was underneath green's coat,riding in a large pocket of his shirt. she had made it plain to him that where he went,she went. and green, to avoid a big fuss and also because he was beginning to feel veryaffectionate toward her, allowed her to come

along. the descent from the hilltop was an anxiousand stumbling trip. green, after ten minutes of groping along the path, had to acknowledgehe did not know where he was. so many windings had the path taken that he did not know whetherhe was going east, north, south, or in the right direction, west. actually, it didn't really matter, as longas it brought him to the edge of the island. he could skirt the edge until he arrived atthe fleet craft that would give them a chance for flight. the trouble was in finding that rim. he wasafraid that it would be possible to wander

in circles and figure eights until moonlight.then, though they'd be able to orient themselves, they'd also be exposed to the view of thecannibals. and if they found themselves, say, at the eastern edge, their journey aroundwould be perilous indeed. occasional lightning flashed, and then hecould make out his immediate environment. these brief revelations weren't much help.all he could see were the solid-seeming walls of tree trunks and bushes. suddenly amra spoke. "do you think we're gettingclose?" he stopped so suddenly that the entire linelurched into him. lightning burst again, quite close by. the cat, curled in his coat pocket,spat and tried to shrink into an even smaller

ball. absently, green patted her from outsidethe coat. he said, "your name is lady luck. i just saw the village. now we're gettingsome place. i really needed that referent." he wasn't worried about the inhabitants ofthe village. all were undoubtedly cowering under the roofs of their long houses, prayingto whatever gods they worshiped that they would not send the lightning their way. therewould be little danger if the whole party were to walk through the center of the village.he planned to take no chances at all, however, and ordered everybody to follow him aroundthe clearing. "it won't be long now!" he said to amra. "passthe word back and cheer everybody up." half an hour later he wished he'd kept hismouth shut. it was true that he'd followed

the wandering path to the cove where theirboats were kept. but he'd at once drawn his breath in pain of surprise. a lightning bolt had illuminated the grayrock walls of the cove, its broad shelf, and the high black iron davits. but the yachts were gone! chapter xxii later green thought that if ever the timecame when he should have cracked up, that instant of loss, white and sudden as the lightningitself, should have been the one. the others cried out loudly in their griefand shock, but he was as silent as the empty

stone shelf. he could not move nor utter aword; all seemed hopeless, so what was the use of motion or talk? nevertheless, he was human, and human beingshope even when there is no justification for it. nor could he remain frozen until the nextstroke of lightning would reveal to the others the state of their leader. he had to act.what if his actions were meaningless? mere movement answered for the demands of the body,and at that moment it was his body that could move. his mind was congealed. shouting to the others to scatter and lookabout in the brush, but not to scatter too far, he began climbing up the slope of thehill. when he had reached its top he left

the path and plunged into the forest to hisright on the theory that if the yachts were anywhere they must be there. he had two ideasabout where they might be. one was that the vings had spotted them and had sent in a partyaboard a gig to push them over the side of the island. thus, when the island had begunits nightly voyage it had left the 'rollers sitting upon the plain. the other theory wasalso inspired by the presence of the vings. perhaps the savages had hidden their craftbecause of just such an event as his first theory put forth. to do that they would havehad to haul the 'rollers up the less steep slant of the cove. at the point where he would have looped arope around a tree and used it to pull a yacht

uphill, he saw all three of the missing craft.they were nestling side by side just over the lip of the slope, their hulls hidden bybrush piled up before them. their tall masts, of course, would be taken for tree trunksby anybody but a very close observer. green yelled with joy, then whirled to runback and tell the others. and slammed into a tree trunk. he picked himself up, swearingbecause he'd hurt his nose. and tripped over something and fell again. thereafter, he seemedto be in a nightmare of frustration, of conspiracy between tree and night to catch and delayhim. where his trip up had been easy, his trip back was a continued barking of shins,bumping of nose, and tearing loose from clutching bushes and thorns. his confusion wasn't atall helped when the lightning ceased, because

he'd been guiding himself by its frequentflashes. and lady luck, alarmed at all the hard knocks she was getting, struggled outof his shirt pocket and slipped into the forest. he called to her to come back, but she hadhad enough of him, for the time being, anyway. for a brief moment he thought of the fantasticdevice of grabbing hold of her tail and following her through the dark. but she was gone, andthe idea wouldn't have worked, anyway. more than likely she'd have turned and bitten hishands until he released her. there was nothing to do but make his own wayback. after ten minutes of frantic struggling, duringwhich he suddenly realized he'd turned the wrong way and was wandering away from theedge of the island, he saw the clouds disappear.

with the bright moon came vision and sanity.he turned around and in a short time was back at the cove. "what happened to you?" asked amra. "we thoughtmaybe you'd fallen off the edge." "that's about all that didn't happen," hesaid, irritated now that he had been so easily lost. he told them where the yachts were andadded, "we'll have to let one down by a rope before we can connect it to the davits. it'lltake a lot of pushing and pulling, a lot of muscle. everybody up on the hill, includingthe children!" wearily, they climbed up the slope to thetop and shoved one of the 'rollers up the slight incline of the depression to the lipof the hill. green picked up one of the wet

ropes lying on the ground and passed it aroundthe tree. its trunk had a groove where many ropes had worn a path during similar operations.one end he gave to half of the party, putting miran in charge of them. the other end hetied in a bowknot to a huge iron eye which projected from the stern of the craft. then,ordering the other half of the women to help him push, he got the 'roller over the lipand down the slope, while the rope gang slowly released the double loop around the tree inshort jerks. when the craft had halted by the davits, greenuntied the rope. his next step would be to back the yacht in between the davits so thathe could hook up its ropes and lift it. fortunately, there was a winch and cable for this. unfortunately,the winch was hand-operated and had been allowed

to get rusty. it would work only with greatresistance and with loud squeaking. not that more noise mattered, for the party had madeso much that only the fact that the wind was from the east could have kept the savagesin ignorance of the survivors' whereabouts. it was as if his thinking of them had broughtthem upon the scene. grizquetr, who'd been stationed in a tree as a sentinel, calleddown, "i see a torch! it's somewhere in the woods, about half a mile away. oh! there'sanother one! and another one!" green said, "do you think they're on the paththat leads here?" "i don't know. but they're coming this way,winding here and there, wandering like samdroo when he was lost in the mirrored mazes ofgil-ka-ku, the black one! yes, they must be

on the path!" green began feverishly tying the davit-ropesto the axles of the craft. he sweated with anxiety and cursed when his fumbling fingersgot in the way of his haste. but the tying of the four bowknots actually took less thana minute, in spite of the way time seemed to race past him. that done he had to order off the yacht someof the women who had climbed aboard. only the women who had to take care of very smallinfants and the older children were to be on that boat. "just who do you think is going to work thewinch?" he barked at the too-eager. "now,

jump to it!" one of the women on the 'roller wailed, "areyou going to stay on the island and leave us all alone on this 'roller in the midstof the xurdimur?" "no," he answered, as calmly as possible."we're going to lower you to the ground. then we're going back up the hill and shove theother 'rollers over the edge so that they can't be used by the savages to come afterus. well jump off and walk back to you." seeing that the women were still not convincedand softened by their pitiable looks, he called to grizquetr. "come down! and get on the boat!"

and when the boy had run down the slope andhalted by his side, breathing hard and looking up at him for his orders, green said, "i'mdelegating you to guard these women and babies until we arrive. okay?" "okay," said grizquetr, grinning, his chestswelling because of the importance of the duty. "i'm captain until you climb aboard,is that it?" "you're a captain and a good one too," saidgreen, slapping him lightly on the shoulder. then he ordered the winches turned until the'roller was hoisted into the air a few inches. as soon as the rusty machines had groaninglyfulfilled their functions he had the craft lowered over the edge and down to the plain.the transition was smoothly made; the yacht's

wheels began turning; the nose lifted onlyslightly because of the superior pull on the ropes tied to the bow; the stern ropes werepaid out a little to equalize the strain; then, obeying green's gesture, the women aboardit pulled at the bowknots, which untied simultaneously. not until then did he breathe a little easier,for if one or more had refused to slip loose as swiftly as another, the craft might havebeen pulled up on one side or dragged around by either end and thus capsized. for a few seconds he watched the 'roller slipaway, coasting on its momentum but headed at right angles to the direction of the island.then it had stopped, and it began to grow smaller as the island left it behind. fromit came the thin wailing of his daughter paxi.

it broke the spell that momentarily held him.he began running up the slope, shouting, "follow me!" reaching the crest of the hill ahead of theothers, he took time for a glance through the woods. sure enough, torches bobbed upand down and flickered in and out as they passed between tree trunks. and there weredrums beating somewhere on the island. lady luck shot out of the woods, leaped upongreen's knee, scaled his shirt front and came to rest upon his shoulder. "ah, you wanderingwench, you," he said, "i knew you couldn't stay away from my irresistible charm, nowcould you?" lady luck didn't reply but gazed anxiouslyat the forest.

"never fear, my pretty little one," he said."they'll not touch a hair of my fine blond head. nor a silky black one of yours." by then the others, puffing and panting, hadgained the top of the hill. he set them to pushing on the stern of a yacht, and in aminute they had sent it headlong down the hill. when it rushed over the edge and disappearedwith a crash on the plain below they had all they could do to restrain their cheers. smallrevenge for the suffering they'd had to undergo. but it was something. "now for the other," said green. "then everybodyrun as if the demons of gil-ka-ku were on your tails!"

grunting, they pushed the last 'roller upthe little incline, then gathered their strength for the final heave that would launch it,too, upon its last voyage. and at that moment some savages who'd beenrunning ahead of the torch-bearers burst out of the woods. green took one look and realized that theywould get between the edge of the island and his party. there were about ten of them; theynot only outnumbered his own force but were strong men against women. and they had spears,whereas his people were armed mainly with cutlasses. green didn't waste any time in meditation."everybody aboard except miran and me!" he

said loudly. "don't argue! get in! we're ridingthrough them! lie flat on the deck!" screaming, the women scrambled over the lowrail and onto the deck. as soon as the last one was on, the earthman and miran put theirshoulders to the stern and pushed. for a second it looked as though their combined strengthwould not be enough, as if the party should have shoved the craft a little further overthe lip of the hill before stopping. "there's not time to get them out again tohelp us!" panted green. "dig in, miran, get that fat into gear, shove, damn you, shove!" it seemed to him that he was breaking hisown collarbone under the pressure and that he'd never felt such hard and cutting woodin all his life. and it seemed that the 'roller

was stubbornly refusing to move until thecannibals arrived in time to save it, like the marines. his legs quivered, and his intestines,he was sure, were writhing about like snakes, striking here and there against the wall ofhis belly, seeking a weak place where they might erupt through into the open air andleave this man who subjected them to such toil. there was a shout from the warriors assembledbelow and a thud of their feet as they charged up. "now or never!" shouted green. his face felt like one big blood vessel, andhe was sure that he was going to blow his

top, literally. but the 'roller moved forward,crept slowly, groaned-- or was that he?-- and began moving swiftly, too swiftly, downthe slope. too swiftly, because he had to run after it, grab the taffrail and haul himselfover. and while he was doing that be had to extend a hand to miran, who wasn't as faston his feet. fortunately amra had presence of mind enoughto grab miran by the shoulder of his shirt and help pull. over the rail he came, cryingout in pain as his big stomach burned against the hard mahogany, but not forgetting thebag of jewels clutched in his hand. lady luck had already deserted her post ongreen's shoulder when he began pushing. now she meowed softly and pressed against him,scared at the shaking of the deck and the

rumbling of the wheels as the craft sped downhill. he pulled her to him in the protection ofthe crook of his arm, and reared up on his elbow to see what he could see. what he sawwas a spear flying straight at him. it shot by so close he fancied he could feel the sharpedge of its blade graze him, and there was nothing of his imagination about the woman'sscream that rose immediately afterward. it sounded so much like amra that he was sureshe'd been hit; however, he had no time to turn and find out. an islander had appearedby the side of the yacht, and as the deck was on a level with his chest, the fellowcould see them all easily enough. his arm view back, then leaped forward, and the spearhe held darted straight at green.

no, not at him, but at lady luck. anotherwarrior, a little further down the slope, screaming something, also thrust at the cat.evidently felines were no longer taboo upon this island. the former worshipers consideredthat their totem had deserted them and therefore deserved death. lady luck, however, had the traditional ninelives. none of the razor sharp blades came very close to her. and in the next few secondsthe savages were left howling upon the slope or lying unconscious on the spot where the'roller had struck them. the vessel sped down the steep incline, bumped hard as it roaredout upon the stone shelf, and flew into the air. green flattened himself out against thedeck, hoping thus to dampen the effect of

the three-foot drop onto the plain. somehow he became separated from the deck,was floating in the air, and saw the planks rushing up at him. there was a brief interlude of darkness beforegreen awoke and realized that the meeting of the deck and his face had done the latterno good at all and might have resulted in considerable damage. he was sure of it whenhe spit out his two front teeth. however, his pain was overwhelmed in the rush of joyat having escaped. for the island was retreating across the flat, moonlit xurdimur while itsinhabitants screamed and jumped with fury and frustration on the rim, unable to bringthemselves to leap after the refugees. home

was where the island was, and they weren'tgoing to get left behind for the sake of revenge. "i hope the vings exterminate you tomorrow,"muttered green. wearily and painfully, he rose to his feet and surveyed what was leftof the clan effenycan. amra was unhurt. if it was she who'd screamed when the spear hadpassed over green, she'd done it from fright. the spear itself was sticking out from thebase of the mast, its head half-buried in the wood. he climbed over the side and inspected thedamage done by the three-foot drop. one of the wheels had fallen off, and an axle wasbent. shaking his head, he spoke to the others, "this roller is done for. let's start walking.we've a boat to catch."

chapter xxiii two weeks later the yacht was scudding alongunder a twenty-mile-an-hour wind. it was high noon, and everybody except the helmsmen, amraand miran was eating. they were lunching on steaks carved from a hoober which green hadshot from the deck and which had been cooked on the fireplace placed under a hood immediatelyaft of the small foredeck. there was no lack of food despite the fact that the yacht hadnot been stocked. fortunately the savages who'd owned it had not bothered to removethe several pistols and the keg of powder and sack of balls from its locker. with thisgreen killed enough deer and hoobers to keep everybody well fed. amra supplemented theirprotein diet with grass which her culinary

art turned into a halfway decent salad. attimes, when they neared a grove of trees, green would stop the yacht. they would goforaging for berries and for a large plant which could be beaten until soft, mixed withwater, kneaded and baked into a kind of bread. once, a grass cat dashed out from behind atree, making straight for inzax. green and miran, both firing at the same time, crumpledit within ten yards of the little blonde. the grass cats, big cheetah-like creatureswith long slim legs built for running, were only a peril when the party left the yacht.though fully capable of leaping aboard when the 'roller was in movement, they never did.sometimes they might pace it for a mile or so, then they would contemptuously walk away.

green wished he could say the same for thedire dogs. these were almost as large as the grass cats and ran in packs of from six totwelve. sinister-looking with their gray-and-black spotted coats, pointed wolfish ears and massivejaws, they would run up to the very wheels, howling and snapping with their monstrousyellow fangs. then one would be inspired with the idea of leaping aboard and finding outhow the occupants tasted. up he would come, easily sailing over the railing. usually theoccupants would discourage him with a well-placed thrust from a spear or an amputating swingof a cutlass. sometimes they missed, and he would land on the deck, which enabled thesailors to try again, with better success. back over the rail his body would go, backto his fellows, many of whom would stop the

chase to devour their dead comrade. thosewho persisted in the hunt would then try their luck, bounding upon the yacht, snarling hideously,trying to scare their quarry into a complete paralysis and sometimes succeeding. no lives were lost to the dire dogs, but almosteverybody bore scars. only lady luck managed to stay unscathed. every time she heard theirdistant howling she scaled the mast and would not come down until the danger was over. today they'd not been bothered. everybodyrelaxed, chattering and munching happily the unexciting but nutritious meat of the hoober.miran stood upon the foredeck, sighting at the sun through his sextant. this also hadbeen found in the locker, along with some

charts of the xurdimur. though the chartshad had their locations marked in an alphabet unknown to anybody aboard, miran had beenable to compare them in his mind to the charts he'd left on the bird of fortune. he had crossedout the foreign names and put in names in the kilkrzan alphabet. he'd done this onlyat the insistence of green, who didn't trust miran to translate for him and wanted to beable to read the maps himself. not only that, he'd forced the fat merchant to teach bothhim and amra how to use the clumsy and complicated but fairly accurate sextant. a few days later, after green and his wifehad begun to study the navigation instrument, there occurred the accident that forced greento take further measures to safeguard himself.

he and miran had been standing at the stern,ready with their pistols while amra steered the yacht toward a group of hoobers. theywere going through their usual maneuver of running down a herd until the exhausted animalscould be overtaken. just as they neared an orange-colored stallion, galloping furiously,green raised his pistol. at the same time he was vaguely aware that miran had also sightedbut had stepped back, behind and to one side of him. sensitive about wasting any of thevaluable ammunition, green had turned his head to warn miran not to shoot unless he,green, missed. it was then that he saw the muzzle swerving toward the back of his head.he ducked, fully expecting to get his brains blown out before he could shout a warning.but miran, seeing his reaction, lowered the

muzzle and puzzledly asked green what he wasdoing. green didn't answer. instead he took the gunaway from miran's limp grip and silently put it away in the locker. neither he nor themerchant ever referred to the incident, nor did miran ask why he was not permitted totake part in any shooting thereafter. that convinced green that the fellow had fullyintended to shoot him. and then claim to the others that it had been an accident. to forestall any more attempts at "accidents"green told amra that if he were to disappear some dark night, she was to see that a certainperson was shot and thrown overboard. he did not name the certain person, but he mentionedhis sex and as miran was the only other man

on the yacht, there was no doubt about towhom he referred. thereafter, miran was most cooperative, always smiling and joking. however,green caught him now and then with frowning brows and a thoughtful expression. he waseither fingering his stiletto or the bag of jewels he carried inside his shirt. greencould imagine that he was planning something for the day they reached estorya. now, on this day two weeks after they'd leftthe island, miran was shooting the sun, and green was waiting until he was through, sohe could check on him. if his calculations were correct the yacht should be directlyeast of estorya two hundred miles. if they maintained their average rate of twenty-fivemiles an hour they'd reach the windbreak in

a little over eight hours. the fat merchant quit looking through theeyepiece of his instrument and walked to the cockpit where his charts and papers were.green took the sextant from him and made his own observations, then checked with miranin the narrow and crowded cockpit. "we agree," said green, indicating with thepencil tip a round scarlet spot on the chart. "we should be sighting this island withinfour hours." "yes," replied miran. "that is an old landmark.it has been there a hundred miles due east of estorya since before my grandfather's time.it was once a roaming island, but it long ago quit moving and has stayed in that onespot. that is nothing unusual. every captain

knows of these fixed islands scattered allover the xurdimur, and every now and then we have to add a new red mark to our chartsbecause one of the roamers has settled down." he paused, then added a statement that setgreen's heart to beating fast. "the unusual thing about this island is thatit did not stop of its own accord. it was halted by the magic of the estoryans, andit has been kept in that one place ever since by their magic." "what do you mean?" asked green, eagerly. miran's round, pale-blue eye stared at himblankly. "what do you mean what do i mean? i mean justwhat i said, nothing more."

"i mean, what magic did they contrive to haltthis roamer?" "why, they put up certain peculiar towersin its path, and when the island began going backwards to get out of the trap and go aroundit, they moved other towers to block its retreat. these towers moved fast on many well-greasedwheels. once the circle was completed the island couldn't move. nor has it been ableto move since." "these towers intrigue me. how did the estoryansknow how to halt these islands? and if they've succeeded with one, why not with the others?" "i do not know. perhaps because the towersare huge and costly and don't move too fast. perhaps it is not worthwhile to the estoryansto capture many. as for their knowledge, i

think they got it from their ancestors. itwas their great-great-great-and-then-some-grandfathers who originally built estorya in the middleof the plain and protected it from being crushed by these islands by placing these many towersall around their city. but it cost them much wood and time, and perhaps they lost interestafter that." miran indicated a castle inked in beside thered spot. "that castle means that a military or navalfortification has been built there on the island. it is the furtherest eastern garrisonof the estoryans. when we come within sighting distance of it we are supposed to report.of course, if you wish to avoid it, we may sail to the north or south and swing aroundit. but then we will have to report to the

windbreak master of the city itself, and theyare rather hostile to captains who have failed to have their papers checked at the fort ofshimdoog. even if the craft is such a small and weak one as this. the estoryans are asuspicious people." yes, thought green, and i'll bet that youintend to inflate their distrust with certain information about me. he rose from the cockpit, and at the sametime he heard amra hail him from her station at the helm. "island on the horizon," she said. "and manyglittering white objects placed before it." green refrained from comment. but he had ahard time concealing his excitement, which

grew with every turn of the wheels. he pacedback and forth, stopping now and then to shade his eyes and look long at the white towers.finally, as they got so near that he could no longer be mistaken about their size orthe details of their peculiar structure, he could contain himself no longer. he whooped with joy and kissed amra on thecheek and danced around and around the foredeck while the women stared with embarrassmentand concern and the children giggled, all wondering if he'd gone mad. "spaceships! spaceships!" he howled in english."dozens of them! it must be an expedition! i'm saved, saved! spaceships, spaceships!"

chapter xxiv they were a magnificent sight, those manycones pointing their skyscraping noses upward and their spreading landing struts sinkinginto the soft earth! their white eternum metal gleamed in the sun, dazzling the spectatorwho happened to catch their radiance full in the eyes. they were glorious, embodyingall the vast wisdom and skill of the greatest civilization of the galaxy. no wonder, thought green, that i dance andhowl while these people look at me if i'm mad, and amra, tears in her eyes, shakes herhead and says something to herself. what can they know of the meaning of those splendors?

what, indeed? "hey," shouted green, "hey! here i am! anearthman! maybe i look like one of these barbarians, with my long hair and bushy beard and dirtyskin, but i'm not. i'm alan green, an earthman!" of course, they couldn't have heard him atthat distance, even if somebody had been standing beneath the spaceships to hear him. but hehowled with sheer exuberance, not worrying about wasting his breath and making himselfhoarse. finally amra interrupted him. "what is the matter, alan? have you been bittenby the green bird of happiness, which sometimes flies over these plains? or has the whitebird of terror nipped you while you slept

last night upon the open deck?" green paused and looked steadily at her. couldhe tell her the truth, now he was so near salvation? it was not that he was worriedabout her or the others stopping him from making contact with the expedition. nothingcould stop him now, he was sure of that. it was just that he hesitated to tell herthat he would be leaving her. the idea of hurting her was agony to him. he started to speak in english, caught himself,and switched to her language. "those vessels-- they have brought my people from across thespace between the stars. i came to this world in just such a vessel, a spaceroller, youmight say. my ship crashed, and i was forced

to descend upon this-- your-- world. then,i heard that another ship had landed near estorya and that king raussmig had put thecrew in prison and was going to sacrifice them during the festival of the sun's eye.i had little time to get to estorya before that happened, so i talked miran into takingme. that was why i left you, that..." he trailed off because he did not understandthe expression upon her face. it was not the great hurt he'd expected, nor the wild furyhe thought might result from his explanation. if anything, she looked pitying. "why, alan, whatever are you talking about?" he pointed at the line of spaceships.

"they're from terra, my home planet." "i don't understand what you mean by yourhome planet," she replied still pityingly. "but those are not spaceships. those are thetowers built by the estoryans a thousand years ago." "wha-what do you mean?" stunned, he looked at them again. if thoseweren't star-ships he'd eat the yacht's canvas. yes, and the wheels, too. under the swift wind, the 'roller swept closerand closer while he stood behind amra and thought that he'd break into little piecesif his tension didn't find some release.

finally it did find an outlet. tears welledin his eyes, and he choked. his breast seemed as if it would swell up and burst. how cleverly the ancient builders had fashionedthose towers! the landing struts, the big fins, the long sweeping lines ending in thepointed nose, all must have been built with a spaceship as a model. there was no escapingsuch a conclusion; coincidence couldn't explain it. amra said, "don't cry, alan. your people willthink you weak. captains don't weep." "this captain does," he replied, and he turnedand walked the length of the yacht to the stern and leaned over the taffrail where noone could see him as he shook with sobs.

presently he felt a hand upon his. "alan," she said gently. "tell me the truth.if those had been ships on which you could leave this world and travel into the skies,would you have taken me along? were you still thinking that i was not-- not good enoughfor you?" "let's not talk about it now," he said. "ican't. besides, there are too many people listening. later, when everybody's asleep." "all right, alan." she released his hand and left him alone,knowing that that was what he wanted. mentally, he thanked her for it, because he knew whatit was costing her to exercise restraint.

at any other time, in a like situation, shewould have thrown something at him. after he had calmed down somewhat he returnedto the helm and took over from miran. from then on he was too busy to think much abouthis disappointment. he had to report to the port officer and tell his story, which tookhours, for the officer called in the others to hear his amazing tale. and they questionedmiran and amra. green anxiously listened to the merchant's account, fearful that the fellowwould disclose his suspicions that green was not what he claimed to be. if miran had anysuch intentions, however, he was saving them for their arrival in estorya itself. the officers all agreed that they had heardmany wonderful stories from sailors but never

anything to match this. they insisted upongiving a banquet for miran and green. the result was that green got a much-needed anddesired bath, hair cut and shave. but he also had to endure a long feast in which he hadto stuff himself to keep from offending his hosts and also was forced to enter a drinkingcontest with some of the younger blades of the post. his vigilante could handle enormousamounts of food and alcohol, so that green appeared to the soldiers to be something ofa superman. at midnight the last officer had dropped his head upon the table, dead drunk,and green was able to get up and go to his yacht. unfortunately he had to carry the fat merchantout on his shoulders. outside the banquet

room he found a few rickshaw boys standingaround a fire, huddled together, waiting for a customer so drunk he wouldn't fear thievesor ghosts. he gave one of them a coin and told him to deliver miran to the yacht. "what about yourself, honored sir? don't youwish to ride home, too?" "later," said green, looking up past the fortand at the hills behind it. "i intend to take a walk to clear my head." before the rickshaw men could question himfurther he plunged into the darkness and began striding swiftly toward the highest peak uponthe island. two hours later he suddenly appeared in themoonlight-drenched windbreak, walked past

the many vessels tied down for the night andcrawled aboard his own yacht. a glance around the deck convinced him that everybody wassleeping. he stepped softly past the prostrate forms and lay down by amra. face up, his handsbehind his head, he stared at the moon, a thoughtful expression upon his face. amra whispered, "alan, i thought you weregoing to talk to me tonight." he stiffened but did not turn his head tolook at her. "i was, but the officers kept us up late.didn't miran get here?" "yes, about five minutes before you did." he rose on one elbow and looked searchinglyat her. "what?"

"is there anything strange about that?" "only that he was so drunk he'd passed outand was snoring like a pig. the fat son of an izzot! he must have been faking! and hemust have..." "must have what?" green shrugged. "i don't know." he couldn't tell her that miran must havefollowed him up into the hills. and that if he had the fellow must have seen some verydisturbing things. he stood up and gazed intently at the darkforms stretched out here and there. miran was sleeping upon a blanket behind the helm.or was pretending to do so.

should he kill him? if miran turned him into the authorities in estorya... he sat down again and fingered his dagger. amra must have guessed his thoughts, for shesaid, "why do you want to kill him?" "you know why. because he could have me burned." she sucked her breath in with a hiss. "alan, it can't be true! you can't be a demon!" to him the accusation was so ridiculous thathe didn't bother to answer. he should have known better, because he was well aware ofhow seriously these people took such things. however, he was thinking so furiously aboutwhat he could do to forestall miran, that

he completely forgot about her. not untilhe heard her muffled sobs did he come out of his reverie. surprised, he said, "don'tworry. they're not going to burn me." "no, they're not," she said, choking on everyother word. "i don't care if you are a demon. i love you, and i'd go to hell for you orwith you!" it took him a few seconds to understand thatshe did believe he was a demon and that it made no difference to her. or, rather, shewas determined to ignore the difference. what a sacrifice of her natural feelings she musthave made for him! she, like everybody upon this world, had been trained from childhoodto develop a fierce disgust and horror of devils and to be always upon her guard forthem when they appeared in human form. what

an abyss she had to cross in order to conquerher deep revulsion! in a way, her feat was greater than crossing the chasm between thestars. "amra," he said, deeply touched, and he bentdown to kiss her. to his surprise she turned her face away. "you know my lips don't belch fire, like thedevils' in the legends," he said, half-jestingly, half-pityingly. "nor will i suck your soulinto my mouth." "you have already done that," she said, stillnot facing him. "oh, amra!" "yes, you have! else why should i follow youwhen you deserted me to run away on the bird?

and why should i still want to follow you,to be with you, even if those towers had turned out to be your what-do-you-call-'em? and youhad sailed away into the skies on them? why would any decent human woman want to do that?tell me!" she, too, rose on an elbow, her face now turnedto him. he scarcely recognized her, her features were so twisted and her skin was so livid. "a hundred times during this voyage i've wishedyou would die. why? because then i wouldn't have to think about the time to come whenyou would leave this world forever, leave me forever! but when you were in danger, theni almost died, too, and i knew i didn't really wish your death. it was just wounded prideon my part. and i couldn't face the moment

of your departure! or the fact that you mustcome from a superior race, a people more like gods than demons! "oh, i didn't know what to think! whetheryou were a devil, or a god, or just a man who was somehow more of a man than any i knew.i could ignore such things as your wounds healing up faster than they should and scartissues disappearing. but i couldn't ignore your knowledge that aga would be killed ifshe touched that wall in the room on the cannibals' island. nor the fact that your teeth grewback in after they were knocked out during the escape from the island. nor your too obviousinterest in those two demons held prisoner in estorya. or..."

"not so loud, amra," he interrupted. "you'llwake everybody up." "all right, all right. better to keep quietand pretend to be stupid. but i can't, i'm not built that way. so... what are you goingto do, alan?" "do? do?" he repeated miserably. "why, somehowor other i'm going to free those two poor devils and escape in their spaceship." "devils? then they are demons!" "oh, no, that was just a manner of speaking.i said poor devils because of what they must have gone through in that barbarous prison.they might as well have been in the hands of the cannibals as at the mercy of the priestsof this wretched planet."

"yes, that's what you really think of us,isn't it? that we're all murderous, dirty and stinking savages." "oh, not all of you," he replied. "you'renot, amra. by any standards, you're a wonderful woman." "then why can't..?" she bit her lip and turned away from him.she would not humble herself by asking him to take her with him. it was up to him tomake the offer. green did not know what to say, though heknew that it was necessary to say something at once.

he just could not make up his mind as to howshe would fit into earth civilization. how could he teach her that if somebody whomyou didn't like differed with you, you just didn't try to tear them apart? or that ifthe person you hated was too powerful for you to settle matters with personally youdidn't resort to professional assassins? how could he teach her to love the same thingshe did, the music and literature of his own culture? her roots were in an entirely differentculture. she couldn't possibly understand what he understood, thrill to that which thrilledhim, catch the subtleties that he caught, see what lay behind the nuances of his civilization.she'd be a stranger in a world not made for of course, he thought, there were plenty ofwomen upon earth and her star-colonies who

didn't share his culture, even if they'd beenbrought up in it. but their case was simply a matter of taste. and they could still sharea certain amount with him, just because they'd breathed the same atmosphere and talked thesame words as he. not that he would have cared to live with them, because he wouldn't. butamra, desirable in so many ways, just would not understand what was taking place aroundher or in the minds of those she would have to live with. he looked down at amra. her back was turned,and she seemed to be breathing the easy breath of deep sleep. though he doubted very muchthat she could be sleeping, he decided to accept things as they looked. he wouldn'tanswer her now, though he knew that when morning

came her eyes would be asking the same question,even if she didn't voice it. at least, he thought, she'd been divertedfrom her curiosity about what he'd been doing that night. that was something. he didn'twant anybody to know about that. not until the time for action came! provided, that is, that he could do anythingeven then. he'd discovered certain things tonight that could mean his salvation if hecould utilize them. that was the rub, as some poet or other hadonce said. wondering just who had originated that saying,he fell asleep. woolgathering had always been a favorite occupation of his when people lefthim alone to do it. that was the rub. they

didn't. chapter xxv shortly after dawn the yacht set sail andsped toward estorya, a hundred miles west. the breeze was a strong thirty-five milesan hour, precursor of the violent winds that roared across the xurdimur during the rainyseason. green set every inch of sail he had and took over the helm himself. steering wasnot as simple as it had been, for traffic was getting heavy. in an hour he saw no lessthan forty 'rollers, ranging in size from small merchants not much larger than his owncraft to tremendous three-decker 'rollers-of-the-line from far-off batrim, convoying even largermerchant vessels, high-pooped and richly decorated.

then, as they came to within fifty miles oftheir destination, small pleasure yachts appeared in increasing numbers. and by the time theysaw the white rocket-shaped towers that stretched from horizon to horizon, green was sweatingat the manner in which craft were shooting back and forth in front of him. miran said, "the entire nation is surroundedby these white towers and by many fortresses interspersed between them. inside the greatcircle of towers the estoryans have many rich farms on the plains. the city proper, however,is built on three roaming islands that were captured by their magic many centuries ago." green raised his eyebrows at this information."indeed? and where is the vessel that brought

the two demons down from the skies?" miran locked blankly at the earthman, thoughhe knew well enough that he was keenly interested in the so-called demons. "oh, it is located close to the palace ofthe king himself, but not on the hills. it landed on the plain." "hmm. and the strangers will be burned duringthe festival of the eye of the sun?" "if they have lived, they will be." green didn't like to think about their dying.if they had, then his problem was solved. he stayed upon this planet and did the besthe could here.

there was one thing he had to admit. thatwas that having amra as his wife made such an event not so calamitous as it might havebeen. she'd keep him so interested that time would pass swiftly, even on this barbarousplace. in that case, he thought, why was he hesitatingabout taking her to earth, if he got the chance? no matter where he was she'd see that lifewas a whirlpool of action. and she'd only begun to disclose the deeps within her. giveher an education, and what a creature might evolve! what's the matter with you, green? he saidto himself. don't you know your own mind? are you so capable at handling physical eventsbut a complete muckup when it comes to psychical?

why..? "look out!" cried miran, and green threw thehelm hard aport to avoid crashing into a small freighter. the captain, standing on the foredeckbehind his own helmsman, leaned over the rail and shook his fist at green and cursed. greencursed back but after that he didn't allow himself to begin thinking about amra untilhe had steered the 'roller into the 'break. the rest of the day he was busy getting clearedwith the port authorities. fortunately he had a letter from the officer of the island-fortress.it explained why he happened to be in possession of a foreign craft and also recommended thatgreen be given a chance to sign up in the estoryan 'roller-fleet if he wished. evenso, he had to tell his story so many times

to an admiring and amazingly credulous audiencethat it was dusk before he could get free. outside the customs building he found grizquetrwaiting for him. "where's your mother?" he asked. "oh, she knew you'd be tied up for a longtime, so she went ahead and got a room in an inn. they're very hard to get during thefestival, almost impossible. but you know mother," said grizquetr, winking. "she getswhat she goes after, every time." "yes, i'm afraid so. well, where's this inn?" "it's clear across town, but it's within sightof the wall that's built around the demons' skyship."

"wonderful! rooms must be twice as difficultto get there as on the edge of town. how did amra do it?" "she gave the innkeeper three times his askingprice, which was high enough. and he found a pretext to quarrel with a man who had longago reserved a room, threw him out and gave it to us!" "ah? and where did she get this money?" "she sold a ruby to a jeweler who kept shopclose to the 'break. he's sort of shady, i guess, and he didn't give mother what theruby was worth." "now, where would she get a ruby or any kindof jewel?"

grizquetr grinned crookedly but delightedly."oh, i imagine that a certain fat one-eyed merchant-captain who shall remain namelessmust have had one or two rubies within that bag he keeps inside his shirt." "yes, i can imagine. the question that alarmsme is how did she get it off miran? he'd sooner lose a quart of blood than one of his preciousjewels. and he'd notice its loss quicker than he would the blood." grizquetr looked thoughtful. "i really don'tknow. mother didn't say," he brightened with a smile and said, "buti'd like to know how she did it! maybe she'll teach me some day."

"she seems to have a lot to teach both ofus," said green. he sighed. "well, i'm eternally indebted toher. no getting out of it. let's call a rickshaw and see what kind of a place she has selected." once both had settled in the high-backed chairof their vehicle, and the two men who pulled it had begun their slow trotting through thecrowded streets, green said, "have you any idea where miran is?" "some. he was detained by the port-officers,too, because he had to explain what had happened to his 'roller. then he called a rickshawand left in a big hurry. he had an officer with him. not a naval officer. a soldier fromthe palace, one of the king's own."

green felt a sinking sensation. "already?tell me, does he know where we are staying?" "oh, no, when i saw him coming out of thecustomshouse, i hid behind a bale of cotton. mother had told me to stay out of his sight.she explained how treacherous he is, and how he hates you because he thinks you broughtall his bad luck upon him." "that's only the half of it," green replied.he was silent for a while, thinking, his gaze roving idly over the crowds. there were manyforeigners in town, sailors from every nation that had a border on the xurdimur, pilgrimswho belonged to the far-flung cult of the fish goddess and had come here for the festival.the majority, however, were estoryans, a fairly tall people, brown or red-haired, green orblue-eyed, with big noses, thick lips and

a slight epicanthic fold. they spoke a gutturalpolysyllabic semi-analytic language. they wore broad-rimmed hats shaped like open umbrellas,tight-necked shirts with long stringties and pants that were skintight from crotch to knee,then ballooned out into many ruffles. little bells tinkled on their ankles, and the womencarried canes. all had a fish, a star, or a rocket-shaped tower tattooed on their cheeks. along the narrow winding street were manylittle shops, flowering with a variety of articles. green was intrigued by the magicalcharms being hawked everywhere. many of these were little towers, replicas of the largeones that encircled the country. on earth they could have passed for toy spaceships.he bought one. it was made of white-painted

wood and was about seven inches long. thebig flaring fins and landing struts were well reproduced, but there weren't any of the finedetails that he could have found in such a toy on earth. there were no holes in the sternor nose for the drive-exhaust or any indications of doors or detector apparatus. he gave it to grizquetr and leaned back todo some more thinking. the charm hadn't disappointed him, because he had not expected any morethan what he'd seen. if, in the beginning, those models had been furnished with everylittle detail, the passage of many thousands of years would have seen them blunted andreduced to their present state of fuzzy symbolic images. time ate down to the skeleton of things.

he wondered how the charm could have survivedup to the present, because it surely must have been over twenty thousand years ago thatthe prototype, the real spaceship, disappeared and man sank back to savagery again. then,why had this lasted here, whereas it had not done so on other planets, earth included? abruptly, he noticed that his rickshaw hadstopped. "a procession of priests, going to the palaceof the king, where they will spend all night preaching to the demon," said one of theirrickshaw boys. he yawned and stretched. "i suppose that it will be a fine burning, sincethe priests have predicted that the sun will shine at high noon. they are safe doing that,as it has not failed to shine on festival

day for a thousand years." green leaned forward, his hands gripping thesides of his chair, and said, "demon? you meant demons, didn't you? weren't there twoof them?" "oh yes, there were. but one died two daysago. hung himself, i heard, though i can't swear to it since the priests have releasedno details. the holy ones have been giving the demons a rough time." "demons?" said grizquetr, snorting with disbeliefand disgust. "doesn't the very fact that one killed himself prove they're not fiends? everyoneknows that a demon can't kill himself." "quite true, my small friend," replied thetaxi man. "the priests have admitted their

error. they are truly sorry-- so they say." "then aren't they letting the other man loose?" "oh no. because he may still be a demon. tomorrow,at high noon, the prisoner goes under the sun's eye and there meets the only death ademon may know. by fire he was born, by fire he shall perish. chapter twenty, verse sixty-two.or so i remember the high grauchning saying in his sermon yesterday. myself, i'm not muchfor reading. too busy making a living, running my legs off, killing myself so my wife andkids may eat and have clothes on their backs." green scarcely heard the garrulous rickshawman, so shocked was he at the news. had he been too late? what if the man who'd diedwas the pilot and the other one unable to

handle the ship? the rest of the ride he was sunk in such deepgloom he hardly saw any of the many sights that grizquetr kept pointing out. but he didrouse when the boy said, "look, father, there's the king's palace, on top of the hill! beyondthat is the ship of the demon. you can't see it from here, but you will tomorrow when yougo to the burning." "don't be so heartless," said green, but helooked carefully at the great marble structure that rambled all over the hill. somewherebelow that, probably filled with dirt, undoubtedly forgotten, was just such an entrance as he'dfound on the island of the cannibals. he'd also discovered a similar one upon the fortressof shimdoog, the night before when he'd gone

exploring and miran had followed him. the palace, he thought, looked quite romanticand beautiful, enveloped in a dim red haze cast by the setting sun, which lay directlybehind it. probably it would look different in the harsh glare of day, when the dirt andgarbage would be so apparent. the area in which amra had rented the roomwas one which had once belonged to the rich and the noble but had decayed when the aristocracymoved their homes elsewhere. the inn before which the rickshaw boys stopped was a three-storypile of granite blocks. it had an enormous porch and six huge pillars in the images ofthe fish goddess. green could not help admiring the building even in its present state ofdecay, because he knew that it must have cost

a fortune to build it. the granite would havehad to be transported by 'roller across the xurdimur, since there would be no stone inthis neighborhood. he imagined that the landlord charged high rents and that amra must havepaid a pretty price indeed if she'd given him three times the usual amount. one thingyou could say for her, when she traveled she did it in style. the caryatids of the fish goddess also interestedhim, and at another time he'd have examined them closely by the light of the torches inthe hands of the servants standing by them. the cult of the goddess indicated that theoriginal estoryans must have migrated from the oceanside to the center of the vast andlevel plains. and here they must have built

this imposing city, which was to become sucha great focus of trade. its central location made it a great clearing house for goods fromevery country bordering the xurdimur. he wondered whether it was pure accident thatthey had brought with them the charms in the shapes of spaceships? and if they'd also accidentallydiscovered that towers modeled after the charms would stop the roaming islands? whatever the answer, it lay buried in theprehistoric. "hurry up," said grizquetr, pulling on green'shand. "mother has a surprise for you, but don't tell her i told you." "that's nice," replied green absently, hismind still upon the news of the earthman's

death. hang it all, why must he always bekept in suspense, must always be improvising from moment to moment, always in the dark,never knowing what was coming next nor what he was going to have to do? oh, for one dayof peace and assurance! "father!" "what, what?" said green, startled out ofhis reverie and stopping halfway up the steps to the porch. suddenly something black andsmall launched itself at him and landed on his shoulder. "lady luck! why are you shivering so?" "better run, dad!" said grizquetr. "there'smiran coming out of the door! and soldiers

behind him!" he ended with a wail, "motherr-r-r-r!" the sight of amra, inzax, and the childrenbeing marched out between musketmen was enough for green. he turned away and spoke softlybut savagely. "keep your backs to them! don't look back!we're far enough away in the dark so they might not recognize us. especially in thiscrowd!" a minute later he and the boy and the catwere looking around the corner of a large building. they saw the soldiers commandeera rickshaw and put the prisoners in it. then four of them walked behind the vehicle asit was pulled away.

"they-they'll be put in the tower of the grasscat," said the boy, shaking with fury. "oh, that devil miran! that fat old devil! he'sthe one who's accused mother of witchcraft! i know! i know!" "he didn't accuse her," said green, "but me.she's guilty through association with me. well at least we'll know where they are fora while." "there go miran and the soldiers back intothe hotel." "waiting for us," said green. "they'd havea long wait. well, let's go. first things first. we'll buy a ticket, see the ship. ihave to know where it's located, what type it is, et cetera. luckily i've enough moneyon me to do that. but we'll be broke then.

you have any?" "ten axar." "that's not much, but it's enough to pay fora rickshaw ride to the windbreak." at the box-office, green bought two tickets,then walked up the steep flight of steps with grizquetr. at the top he found himself ina large group standing on a platform beneath a wooden roof. this was for the curious whowanted to get a preview of the demons' vessel. tomorrow the gates would be opened to admita vast crowd, who would sit on the hard wooden seats of the amphitheatre that had been builtfairly close to the ship. the ship itself was an earth naval vessel,a two-man scout. it pointed its needle nose

upward, resting upon eight jet-struts, gleamingin the moonlight. its naval insignia, a green globe crossed with rocket and olive branch,was a smudge in the shadows. nevertheless he could make it out. he felt his breast swelland he choked with homesickness. "ah, so near, yet so far," he murmured. "evenif i get to you, then what? what if the poor devil of a survivor turns out to be a navigator?still, he ought to know enough to get her off the ground and into space. and from thereon, with interstellar drive, we ought to be able to get home, somehow." he sounded plaintive, even to himself, forhe knew how vast space was and how complicated astromathematics was. and of course therewas no guarantee that the earthman would even

be a navigator. he might just be an officeror perhaps a civilian official who was being ferried in one of the swifter small ships. then there was the awful possibility thatthe vessel might have landed here because there was something wrong with it, and thatit could not rise again even if it had a full crew. in fact, that was the most logical explanation. he sighed and turned to the boy. "this may be for nothing, but we can't justsit down and watch. let's take off for the windbreak." "what are we going to do there?" asked grizquetr,as they walked down the steps.

"well, we're not going back to the yacht,"green answered. "soldiers'll be waiting there to arrest us. no, we'll go to the other sideof the 'break. stealing another 'roller isn't going to get us in any more trouble than we'realready in." the boy's eyes widened. "what're we doingthat for?" "we must return to the island-fortress ofshimdoog." "what? why, that's a hundred miles away!" "yes, i know. and we won't be able to makethe speed going back that we did coming. we'll have to do quite a lot of tacking to sailagainst the wind, and that'll eat up our time. but there's nothing else to do."

"if you say so, father, i believe you. butwhat is there on shimdoog?" "not on. in." grizquetr was a bright lad. he was silentfor a minute, so silent green could imagine he heard the wheels turning within his head.then he said, "there must be a cave on shimdoog like the one on the cannibals' island. andyou must have gone into it that night we stayed in the 'break. i remember waking up and hearingyou and mother say something about your being gone and about miran following you." grizquetr paused, then said, "if there isa cave-entrance there, why haven't other people gone into it?"

"because it has been declared taboo, off limits,by the priests of estorya. it was done so long ago that i imagine that the priests themselveshave forgotten why they forbade its access to men. but it's not hard to reconstruct thehistorical causes. once, i suppose, the island was populated by cannibals. at the time theestoryans captured the island they exterminated the aborigines. they found the cave mouthwas a holy place for the savages. so, thinking that it held demons-- and it does, in a way--they built a wall around it and set up a statue of the fish goddess, facing inward and holdingin her hand a symbol to restrain the imprisoned fiends from breaking loose. that symbol, ofcourse, is the same charm that is sold on the streets of estorya, that circumscribesthe country and the island of shimdoog. it

is the same as the spaceship that landed nearthe king's palace." green hailed a rickshaw and continued hisaccount while they rode through the still-crowded streets. there was so much noise that he feltquite safe talking, provided he kept his voice soft. by the time they had reached the northernend of the windbreak, green had told the boy all he thought he should hear at that time.if, later on, his trip to shimdoog proved successful he would enlighten him even more. for the present he was concerned with theproblem of getting transportation. fortunately they found almost at once a nice little yachtwith speedy lines and a tall mast. the craft

must have belonged to a wealthy man, for awatchman sat close to it before a little fire just outside his shed. green walked up tohim, and when the fellow rose, his hand suspiciously resting upon his spear, green struck him onthe jaw, then followed with a hard right to the pit of his stomach. grizquetr completedthe job by hitting him over the head with a length of pipe he'd picked up off the ground. green emptied the handbag of the watchmanand was pleased to see several coins of respectable denominations. "probably his life-savings," he said. "i hateto rob him, but we have to have money. grizquetr, do you remember those slaves who were drinkingand gambling outside the striped ape inn?

run to them and offer them six danken if they'lltow us out of the 'break. tell them we're paying them so much because it's so late atnight, and also to keep their mouths shut." grinning, the boy ran off. green hauled thelimp body of the unconscious watchman behind the hut, bound and gagged him and threw atarpaulin over him. grizquetr returned, leading six noisy andreeling men, sturdily built, with legs and backs big-muscled from hauling 'rollers. at first green thought he ought to try tomake them keep quiet, then decided that it would look more natural if he let them talkas loudly as they wished. there was a festive air over the city tonight, and more than oneyacht was going out for a moonlight cruise.

once out on the plain, green threw the promisedmoney to the slaves and cried, "have a good time!" to himself he muttered, "because tomorrowmay be your last day." already, he had a presentiment of what might happen if he succeeded in tonight'swork. there was no telling what forces he might be unloosing. as he'd said to the boy,there were demons imprisoned in the bowels of the island of shimdoog. chapter xxvi just before dawn the yacht coasted to a stopoutside the high stone walls of the north side of the island of shimdoog. green haddropped the sail and, judging his speed exactly, had steered the craft until its side was almostscraping the wall. as soon as the roller stopped,

green put lady luck in a bag tied to his beltand cautioned her to keep quiet. then he began climbing up the rungs nailed to the mast.the boy followed him, and both crawled out upon the spar. green tied one end of a longrope around the end of the spar. then he let himself down on it to the ground on the otherside of the wall. after the boy had also descended they pausedfor a moment, crouched, ready to run at the first sign they'd been seen. but there wasno outcry. the big moon, though dropping to the horizon,was bright enough for them to make good progress. green led the way up a series of hills, headingin a circuitous fashion toward the highest. twice he had to step and warn grizquetr aboutthe towers ahead, where sentries were stationed.

lady luck seemed to know she should be silent.her eyes glowed and her teeth flashed, but she was only making a soundless snarl. they saw the fires of the guards and heardtheir muttered voices, but none saw them. it was doubtful that the sentinels ever didlook out, for they did not think that any man in his right senses would be roaming aboutin the darkness, where it was well known that ghosts and demons waited for foolish mortals. just before they began climbing the slopeof the peak that was their goal, green whispered. "this island is built much like the firstone we encountered. i think that all of these islands are more or less similar, all beingcomposed of a base of a mile and a half square

of eternum metal or something like eternum.and all covered with rock and dirt and trees and vegetation and stocked with birds andbeasts. i suppose that the original builders landscaped these craft for aesthetic reasons.after all, a sheet of metal with a few metal chambers on it doesn't look very pretty andwould make a blinding glare in the sunshine." "uh," replied the boy, who didn't understand. "do you know, it's strange that i was rightthe first time when i sarcastically referred to the roaming islands as glorified lawn-mowers?" "what?" "yes, in the beginning there must have beenmany more than there are now, enough to keep

the vast plains looking neat and well-kept,the grass clipped, the forests prevented from encroaching well-defined limits, and so on.but when there were no longer any maintenance men to keep them going, they stopped, oneby one, until at this present time there are perhaps a few hundred. though, i don't know,there may be more. anyway, whenever one did run down or break down for some reason orother it was soon erased by a still-functioning island." "erased?" "yes, for it's quite obvious to me that theislands not only cut grass, they kept the plains free of obstructions that weren't supposedto be there. and a dead island would constitute

just such a hazard." grizquetr spoke in a thin voice, "perhaps,father, i may yet understand you. i must be stupid," "far from it. you'll learn in time. anyway,i should have known what they really were when i heard the tales of the sailors. rememberthat one about the big hole made by the meteorite? and how something mysterious filled it inand covered it with turf? and then there was the way that wrecked 'rollers would vanishdown to the last nut and bolt and the skeletons of the dead aboard. and there was the legendof samdroo the tailor turned sailor and what he found in the metal chambers inside an island.the great white eye through which he saw what

was outside the island. and the other paraphernalia.they weren't the property of a wicked magician, as the tale would have it. any earthman wouldrecognize tv and radar and dials and controls." "tell me more." "i will when we get over this wall." green had stopped before a barrier of stone,reaching at least forty feet high. a grim crown, it completely encircled the top ofthe hill. "once it must have been difficult to scale, but mortar has crumbled here andthere, and vines grow all the way up. follow me. i remember exactly the path i took." he jumped up on a little ledge, seized a thickvine and hauled himself up to another minor

projection. unhesitatingly, the boy swarmedup after him. panting, they reached the top, where theyrested a moment and wiped the blood from their lacerated fingertips. the cat was the onlyone that seemed unperturbed. silently, green pointed out the twenty foot high statue ofthe fish goddess below, her back turned to them as she gestured at the cave mouth withthe rocket-shaped charm. for the first time grizquetr seemed scared.like all his fellows, he had an unhealthy awe for the supernatural. this place, so walledoff, so utterly ancient-looking, so invested with all the attributes of taboo, so invocativeof the horrible tales of demons and angry gods, depressed him. only his father's seemingindifference to any fiends they might encounter

kept him from turning tail and backing downthe wall. "one thing i'll bet, and that is that mirandidn't follow me this far but stayed down on the ground. with that belly of his he'dnever have made it; he'd have tumbled off like a big fat bug and been squashed likeone, too. wouldn't that have been awful! however, he didn't have to go all the way with me.the very fact that i would dare to enter a taboo area is enough to condemn me, i shouldhave slit his throat when amra told me he'd been shadowing me. but i couldn't do it withoutabsolutely convincing evidence, and even if i'd had that i suppose i'm too civilized tokill him in cold blood." "you should have told me how you felt," saidgrizquetr. "i would have slipped a dagger

through the tallow over his ribs." "no doubt, and so would your mother. well,down we go." and he set the example by throwing his legover the edge of the wall and letting himself down, somewhat gingerly. the descent was evenworse than the ascent, but he didn't bother telling the boy that. by the time he foundout he'd be at the bottom. even so, when he reached ground, he thoughtthat the lad couldn't be one whit more shaky than he. forty feet was a long, long way whenyou were up on top looking down, especially in the moonlight. "this is the second time i've done it, buti don't think i'd have guts enough for a third

time," said green. "but we have to climb back out, don't we?" "oh, we'll have to go over it, but i hopeit won't be so high by then," said green, looking mysterious. "what do you mean?" "well i hope those stones will all be tumbledto the ground. in fact, it's a necessity, if we're to do what i expect to do." he took the bewildered boy by the hand andled him past the cold and silent statue and into the cave's entrance. "we could use alight," he said, "but a torch would have been

too awkward to carry up that wall, and wecan grope our way to the rooms that are lighted."wonder why the passageway wasn't lighted, too? hethought. or had this cave been added by the savages who used to live on the island, sothat the sanctum sanctorum would have to be approached through darkness? perhaps it was,the primitives having constructed such a chamber so that the initiate into the religion couldgo through darkness both literal and symbolical and come into a light that also embraced bothworlds? he didn't and couldn't know; he could only guess. but i can take advantage of what i do haveon hand, he said to himself, gritting his teeth with determination.

the dust beneath his feet gave way to cleanmetal. they rounded a corner and found themselves in a chamber much like the one upon theirfirst island, except that this had furniture. a skeleton lay in the middle of the floor,face down. the back of the skull exhibited a great hole. "he may have been here far a thousand yearsor more," said green. "i'd like to know his story. but i never will." "do you think the goddess killed him?" "no, nor the demons either. it was the handof man struck him down, my boy. if it's violent death you're trying to explain, don't dragin the supernatural. there's enough murder

in the hearts of humankind to take care ofevery case." in the third room green said, "there's nowall of dust to stop us. the ionic charges haven't stopped working. notice how cleaneverything is. ah, here we are! before the door!" grizquetr looked puzzled. "door? i see onlya blank wall." "that's all i saw too," said green, "and thatis all i would ever have seen, if it hadn't been for the tale of samdroo." "let me tell you how you got in!" chatteredthe boy excitedly. "i know what you were thinking of, what you did. you stood before the walland you made a sign like this on it!"-- he

traced a rough outline of a rocket againstthe cool white metal-- "and the wall suddenly slid to one side, and you had an entrance.see!" a whole section had moved noiselessly intothe wall, leaving a round doorway. "yes, i remembered the story of samdroo and,though it was ridiculous to think that it would work, i did what the sailor did. rememberthat the cannibals were after him, and he ran into the cave and came to just such ablank wall. and he, wishing to protect himself against the evil spirits that he was surelived in the cave, traced the sign that is supposed to prevent them from touching a man.and the door slid open and he plunged on into the chambers of the wicked magician, the savagesbowling frustratedly after him.

"and," continued green, "i did just what hedid, and the sign proved to be an open, o sesame for me." "a what?" "never mind. the point is that the ancientmaintenance men must have used just such a gesture to open the door, or else used itin conjunction with other means. and if they did, then they must also have been repairtechnicians for the ships that landed here. perhaps the sign of the rocket was a secretsymbol for their guild. i don't know, but it sounds reasonable." ignoring the boy's flood of questions, hewalked into a great room. it was more bare

than he'd expected when he had found it thefirst time; it contained four machines or their fuel supplies, all concealed in fourlarge square metal containers. in the center of the room was a chair and an instrumentpanel. the panel contained six tv windows, several oscilloscopes, and dials whose purposehe didn't know. but the controls attached to the arms of the chair seemed simple enough. "the only trouble," he said, "is that i don'tknow where the activating switch is. i tried to find it the other night and couldn't. yet,it must be so obvious that i'll feel like a fool when i do locate it." vainly he pulled at the little levers setin the arms.

"my failure to activate this was the mainreason i returned to the yacht and sailed on to estorya. of course, i had to go andfind out just what the situation was and get a good idea of my plan of campaign. perhapsif i'd stayed here and taken a chance on going into the city blind, we'd have been betteroff. at least, your mother wouldn't now be in prison, and we wouldn't have the additionalworry of rescuing her." he rose from the chair and began pacing backand forth. "how ironic if i'd come this far and couldget no farther! but then, what else could i expect? it's up to me to solve this, andi'm not infallible, omniscient. it should be functioning as of now. i know that thering of rocket-shapes has got it paralyzed

so it can't act. nevertheless, unless it'sblown a fuse, gone neurotic from frustration, or just worn out, there should be some indicationthat it is still in operation." "what do you mean?" said grizquetr. "how canthe island be paralyzed?" green stopped pacing to gesture at the radarscopes."see those? well, there should be some funny lines squiggling across it, or little dotsmoving, or arcs sweeping across it. they would be indicating the shapes of things in theimmediate neighborhood outside the island, and the lay of the land. thus, i imagine thatin the ancient days, when it spotted a rocket shape, which would then have been a genuinespaceship and not a mockup, it would have detoured around it. the whole island was,in one of its functions, a field attendant,

a scavenger. it removed anything from theplain that wasn't supposed to be there. there's why they now attack 'rollers and crush themand disintegrate the parts that fall beneath their bases. that also explains why the islandis trapped by a ring of rocket-shaped towers. the radar detects a complete circle and, beingunable to molest any object shaped like a rocket, it squats in one place until it runsdown or the rocket shapes are removed. "of course, it worked automatically. but therewere controls for a man to operate it when there was a special job to do or if he hadto take it to another place it ordinarily wouldn't go when on automatic. these controlsmust be the ones. "the question is, does the island switch itselfoff and on at certain intervals, scanning

the area around it to see if the inhibitingobjects have gone? if so, there's no telling how long we may have to wait before its nextsweep. and we just can't afford to wait!" he was in agony. as long as he could keephis body and brain in action, he felt he was progressing. but as soon as he had to waitupon some inanimate object that he couldn't attack, or came across a seemingly unsolvableproblem, he was lost. he just didn't have the patience. lady luck whined. she was tired of being imprisonedin the bag at green's waist and felt that she had been a good girl long enough. absently, he lifted her out and put her onthe table. she stretched, yawned, licked her

lips, and then padded across the table. hertail switched back and forth, and its tip brushed the surface of the centrally locatedtv screen. immediately, a metal ball on the panel glowedred and a sharp whistle sounded. two seconds later, light sprang into being in all of theviewers. chapter xxvii "oh, you beauty, you doll, you lovely ladyluck! whatever would i do without you!" shouted green. he started forward to caress the catbut, alarmed, she jumped from the table and sped across the room. "come back, come back!" he called. "i wouldn'thurt a single one of your lovely black hairs!

i'll feed you on beer and fish the rest ofyour life, and you'll never have to put in a day's work!" "what's the matter?" said grizquetr. green hugged him, then sat down in the chair. "nothing, except that that wonderful cat showedme how to activate the equipment. you do so by brushing your hand across this screen.see, i'll bet you do the same when you want to de-activate it!" he touched the screen. the whistle soundedagain, the metal ball ceased glowing and the screens went dead. once again he touched it,and life came back.

"nothing to it. but chances are i'd neverhave found out how simple it was." he began sobering up. "down to work. let's see..." the six tv windows showed them the north,east, south, west, above and below. as the island was resting upon solid dirt there was,of course, nothing to see beneath. "we'll remedy that. but first i think we'dbetter see if these screens give expanding and contracting views." he fiddled around with the levers. when hedepressed the second one, the room jumped. hastily replacing it in neutral, green said,"well, we know what that one does. i'll bet

the people outside think they had a slightearthquake. they've seen nothing yet. hmmm. here, i think, is the one i want." he twisted a knob on the right-hand arm. allthe tv's began narrowing their field of vision. reversing the knob, however, made them spreadout their view, though the objects in them, of course, became smaller. it took him five minutes more of cautioustesting before he felt justified in beginning operations. then he raised the island offthe ground about twenty feet and rocked it back and forth. lady luck leaped for his lapand cowered down in it. grizquetr, bracing himself against the table, turned pale.

"relax, kid," called green. "as long as you'regoing along on the ride you might as well enjoy it." grizquetr grinned feebly, but when his fathertold him to stand behind him so he, too, could learn how to operate, he gained color andconfidence. "when we get to estorya i may have to leavethis chamber, and i'll need somebody who can see me through the tv's and answer my signals.you're the candidate. you may he only a kid, but anybody who can calmly talk of slippinga knife through a man's ribs has what it takes." "thank you," breathed grizquetr in all sincerity. "here's what i'll do," said green. "i'll rollthis island back and forth until the soldiers

are thoroughly panicky and seasick. and thewalls around the cave are tumbled down. then we'll lower to earth again and give the ratsa chance to desert the ship. but we're no sinking ship, not us. after everybody that'sable has fled to the plains, we'll take off at top speed for estorya." fascinated, the boy watched the screens andsaw the soldiers run off into the early morning light, yelling, their eyes and mouths bulgingwith horror. some, wounded, crawled off. "i feel sorry for them," said green, "butsomebody's got to get hurt before this is over and i'd rather it wasn't us." he pointed to the 'scopes, which still indicatedthe ring of towers.

"as long as this island was on automatic itcouldn't pass those inhibitories. but i've by-passed that with this switch. now, we goahead, and not over the towers, as we could easily do, but through them. i think we'vegot the weight behind us." there was a slight shock, the rooms trembled,then the towers before them were gone and they were speeding across the plain. minuteby minute green increased their rate, until he thought they must be making about a hundredand twenty-five miles an hour. "those dials are probably telling me my speed,"he said to grizquetr. "but i can't read their alphabet or numerical system. it doesn't matter." he laughed as he watched 'rollers wheel hardaport or hard to starboard in a frenzy to

get out of their way. the rails and ratlineswere lined with white faces, like rags of terror fluttering in the breeze of the island'spassage. "if there were time to send a message, i imaginewe'd encounter the whole estoryan fleet," said green. "what a battle that would be!rather, what a massacre, for this craft is built for eating up whole navies." "father," said grizquetr, "we could be kingover the whole world, we could rule the xurdimur and take tribute off every 'roller that sailed!" "yes, i suppose we could, you little barbarian,you," replied green. "but we won't. we're using this for just one purpose, rescuingthe earthman and your mother and sisters.

after that..." "yes?" "i don't know." he fell into a reverie as the plain beneathraced past, the white sails of the 'rollers blooming from small patches to great flags,then dwindling as swiftly. finally, rousing from his thoughts, he beganto explain a little to the boy. "you see, many thousands of years ago therewas a great civilization that had many machines that would seem to you even more magical thanthis one. they traveled to the stars and there found worlds much like this one, and theyput colonies upon them. they had swift skips

that could jump across the vast abyss betweenthese worlds and so keep in fairly close touch. "but something happened, some catastrophe.i can't imagine what it could be, but it must have happened. while it would be interestingto know the cause, all we can know is the effect. travel ceased, and as time went bythe colonies, which were probably rather small to begin with, lost their civilization. thecolonies must have been rather dependent upon supplies shipped to them, and they must havehad a limited number of highly trained scientists and specialists among them. anyway, whateverthe reason, they relapsed into savagery. and it was not until ages had passed that someof these colonies, utterly without memory of their glorious heritage, except perhapsdisguised in myth and legend, attained a high

technology again. others stayed in savagery;some, like your world, grizquetr, are in the transition stage. your culture is roughlyanalogous to the ones that existed on earth between 100 a.d. and 1000 a.d. those datesmean nothing to you, i know, but let me assure you that we present-day terrestrials regardthose times as being, well, rather hazardous and, uh, unreasonable in their conduct." "i only half-understand you," replied theboy. "but didn't you say that nothing of the wisdom of the ancients survived on your planet?well, why had it done so on ours? these islands must be the work of the old ones." "correct! and that's not all. so is the xurdimuritself."

"yes, it's obvious to me that this planetmust once have been a tremendous clearing-house and landing field for spacecraft. these plainscouldn't be natural; they must have been leveled out by machinery. a laboratory-born grasswas planted that had all the characteristics needed to hold the soil together and keeperosion away. plus the fact that the islands themselves were, you might say, caretakers,and kept the whole field spruced up. "gods! i can imagine what a traffic this planetmust have had to build such a landing-field! ten thousand miles across! the mind bogglesbefore the thought. they must have done things on a big scale then. which makes it all themore difficult to figure out how they could have come to ruin. will we ever know whatforce wrecked them?"

grizquetr, of course, had even less of ananswer than green. both were silent for a while; then they cried out simultaneouslywhen the pointed tips of the white towers surrounding estorya glittered upon the horizon.one of the screens began flashing a series of cone shapes that indicated the towers. "if the island were still on automatic itwould be forced to go around the entire nation," said green. "but i'm running it now, and we'repaying no attention to those towers." "knock 'em down!" "that's just what i intend to do. but notright now. let's see. wonder how high we can go. only one way to find out. upsydaisy!"

he pulled back the lever and the island beganrising, though still maintaining its horizontal attitude. "the ancients, like us moderns, knew how tobuild antigravity machines. and they also must have kept building their spaceships inthe conventional rocket-form long after there was any need for it. perhaps, though, theydid so in order for the islands to have a more definite radar image. maybe. no one reallyknows." he spoke to himself, meanwhile glancing atthe screen which showed him the plains and the city of estorya beneath, ever-dwindlingas their height increased. "do me a favor, grizquetr. run out to thecave's mouth and tell me if those walls have

fallen over. and on your way back, close thedoor to this room. it's going to get colder very quickly, and the air will be thin. buti imagine that this room is equipped with automatic heat and oxygen. if it isn't i wantto find out now." the boy began running back. "the walls areall shaken down, all right!" he said, breathlessly. "and the fish goddess fell over, and her headalmost blocks up the cave's mouth. i wriggled through without any trouble. i think you cansqueeze through." green felt a little sick. that possibilityhad not occurred to him. it would have been ironic if the statue had completely blockedthe entrance and he'd had to stay inside until he starved to death. the estoryans, of course,would have considered his death a case of

poetical justice... no, he wouldn't have died,either! he'd just have gone back to the controls and rolled the island over on one side untilthe statue's head came loose. but what if the big stone blocks from the tumbled wallhad fallen down behind the statue so that they wedged her too tightly to be released?he sweated at the thought and glanced fondly at the black cat. he wasn't superstitious,not at all, but it seemed to him that his luck had been better since she'd adopted him.of course, that wasn't the scientific attitude to take; nevertheless he felt comforted justknowing she was around. by now, the whole nation of estorya couldbe encompassed in one glance. and the sky was getting darker.

"we're high enough." he stopped the island."if anybody didn't get off, he must be dead by now, the air's so thin. and i was right.we do have automatic heat and air-providers. very comfortable in here. i only wish we hadsomething to eat." "why not lower us to the height where i cango out and find food in the garrison's kitchens?" said grizquetr. "nobody'll be alive to stopme." green thought that was an excellent suggestion.he was very hungry, for he always had to eat for two, himself and the vigilante. if thesymbiote within his body provided him with more than normal strength and powers, it alsodemanded fuel on which to operate. and, deprived of food, it would survive by living upon green'stissue. a vigilante wasn't all advantage;

it had its dangers. he lowered the island to about two thousandfeet, set the controls on neutral, then decided that it would be safe to go out with the boy.just as he got to the doorway, however, he began feeling uneasy and wondering what hewould do if, somehow, the door closed and he couldn't get it open again. that wouldbe a fine situation, to be stuck two thousand feet in the air, and no parachute! perhaps he was silly, absurdly apprehensive,but he wasn't going to take any more chances. grinning sheepishly, he told the boy to goon by himself. he'd decided to study the controls more closely and think out his strategy infiner detail.

when grizquetr returned with a basket loadedwith food and wine, green swore at himself for his moment's weakness, then forgot it.after all, discretion was the better part and all that, and he was only playing it smart. greedily, he devoured the food and drank halfa bottle of wine, knowing the vigilante would use alcohol before food and that little ofit would remain in his bloodstream before being consumed. between bites, he told grizquetrwhat he planned. "we'll descend as soon as we're finished eating.i'll write a note, and you'll drop it over the side upon the steps of the palace. thenote will inform the king he'd better release his prisoners, unharmed, just outside thewindbreak. there we may easily pick them up

and then take off like the proverbial bigbird. if he refuses we will proceed to lower the island upon the temple of the fish goddess,crushing it and her jewel-encrusted golden idol. and if he still isn't convinced we'llthen smash the palace, not to mention toppling over the entire ring of towers around thecountry. of course, before we drop the note we'll knock over a few anyway just to showhim we're not bluffing." grizquetr's eyes shone. "can the island crusha big building?" "yes, though i think that there's a possibilitywe could as easily disintegrate it. i've wondered how the island cut the grass, and can onlyconclude that it must use a device similar to one we have on earth. it cuts through objectsby breaking up their atomic structure with

a beam that is only a molecule-thick. whenon grass-cutting duty, the island must emit such a beam, and only beneath its base. ofcourse, it must have other machines, too, for cleaning up wreckage and debris and otherstuff that its memory banks tell it has no business being on the field. but i don't knowhow to operate these." grizquetr looked reproachfully at green. "well, i don't know everything. i'm not asuperman, am i?" the boy did not reply, but his expressionconveyed the idea that he had thought his foster-father was just that. green shruggedhis shoulders and sent the boy out to get paper, pen and ink from the garrison. by thetime the boy returned, green had lowered the

island to about fifty feet above the palace.he hastily wrote a note, put it in the basket, which had a cover that could be snapped shut,and told grizquetr to throw it over the side, aiming at the steps. "i know you're going to be worn out with allthis running back and forth," he said, "but you can do it. you're big and strong." "sure i am," said the boy. chest expanded,he dashed from the room, almost tripped going through the door, recovered, and disappeared.grinning, green began to watch the crowds that had gathered below. presently he sawthe basket hurtle toward a group of priests upon the great stairway. his grin broadenedwhen the group disintegrated in panic and

several of them lost their footing and rolleddown the steps. he waited until one of them got enough courageto return and open the basket. then he lowered the island another twenty feet. at the sametime, he saw a cannon being hauled into the square before the palace and its nose beingraised so that it could fire upon him. "have to give the beggars credit for guts,"he murmured. "or for sheer folly, i don't know which. well, fire away, friends." they didn't, because a priest came runningto stop them. evidently, his note, though written in huinggro, had been translated swiftlyenough, and the estoryans were taking no hasty action.

"while we're waiting for them to make up theirminds we'll give them a taste of the feast they can expect if they aren't reasonable,"green said. he then proceeded to push over about twentytowers just outside the windbreak. it was great fun, and he'd have liked to knock downa hundred or so more, but he was too anxious to find out about amra and the earthman. hereturned to his former vigil above the palace steps. impatiently, he waited for ten minutes thatseemed like ten hours. finally, when he could bear it no longer, he growled, "i'm goingto squat on the roof of the temple and make them hurry up. do they think this is a diplomaticconference or something, that they can dillydally

about like this?" "no, father," said grizquetr. "there theycome! mother and paxi and soon and inzax! and a strange man! he must be the demon!" "demon, your horned hoof!" snorted green."that man's as human as i am. and the poor fellow must have gone through hell. even fromthis height i can see he looks bad. look how he has to be supported between two soldiers." amra and the others, he was happy to note,seemed to be unharmed. nevertheless he was anxious about them duringtheir ride through the city's streets and out to the windbreak. the estoryans mighthave plans for a sudden attack, though he

didn't see how they could expect to surprisehim, since from his vantage point, he would notice any concentration of troops immediately.or, a fanatical priest might take it into his head to kill them. neither of these possibilities happened. theprisoners were released outside the fallen towers, and the soldiers retreated into thecity. grizquetr left the control room to guide them onto the island. in fifteen minutes heran back. "here they are, father! saved! now, get offthe ground before the estoryans change their minds." "we're going back," replied green, lookingin vain for the others and then deciding that

the boy had outstripped them in his hasteto report. he shoved the lever forward and the ship-- he was beginning to think of theisland as a ship-- soared toward the cone of the spacecraft, which he could see glitteringin the sun inside its wall near the palace. when amra and the girls ran into the chamberand wished to throw their arms around him, he told them he'd be very glad to give eacha big warm kiss later on. right now he had work to do. amra's smile was replaced by a frown. "do you mean you're still thinking of leavingon the demon's ship?" she said harshly. "that depends on certain factors about whichi don't have enough information as yet to

act on," he replied, somewhat stiffly. the earthman limped in. he was a tall, broad-shoulderedbut emaciated man. his bushy beard made his long, lean, big-eared, hawk-nosed face resemblelincoln's. "captain walzer of the terrestrial interstellarfleet, intelligence," he said, weakly. "alan green, marine food specialist. i'vea long story to tell and no time to tell it. i would like to know if you can pilot thatspacer and if it's in operating condition. otherwise we might as well forget it and goelsewhere." "yes, i'm the pilot. hassan was the navigatorand communications officer. poor devil, he died in agony! those beasts...!"

"i know how you feel, but we've no time togo into that. is the ship ready to take off?" walzer sat down and leaned his head wearilyto one side. grizquetr offered him wine, and he took two long swallows and smacked hislips before replying. "ah, that's the first drink i've had for twoyears! yes, the bird's ready to take off on a moment's notice. we'd been on a missionwhose purpose i can't tell you. security, you know. we were returning when we encounteredthis system. since it's part of our duty to report any t-type planet if we've time, wedecided to stop off and stretch our legs. we'd been in space so long we were beginningto suffer from claustrophobia and were ready to fly at each other's throats. you know howit is if you've made any very long voyages.

and those scouts have especially cramped quarters.they're not made for long trips, but the nature of our mission required the use of one...well, we won't go into that. "anyway, we were wild to breathe fresh airagain, to see a horizon, to feel grass beneath our bare feet, to go swimming, to eat freshlykilled meat and freshly picked fruit. we rationalized ourselves into the idea that it was our dutyto land. we decided on this city because it was so conspicuous, stuck out here in themiddle of this incredible plain. and, of course, when we got close enough to see that it seemedto be surrounded by a ring of spaceships we had to enter the city itself and inquire aboutthis phenomenon. we were greeted friendly enough, lulled into being off guard, thenattacked. the rest of the story you know."

green nodded and said, "here we are. justabove the ship." he rose from the chair and faced the group."but before we take any further steps i think we ought to thrash out something right nowthat has been bothering amra and me. tell me, walzer, is there enough room for amra,paxi, soon, grizquetr and myself? and perhaps for inzax, if she wished to come along?" walzer's eyes widened. "no, man, absolutelynot! there's barely space for you, let alone anybody else." green held out his hands to amra. "you see?i was afraid of this all the time. i'll have to go without you."

he paused, swallowed, then said, "but i'llreturn! i swear i will! i'll get the interstellar archaeology bureau interested in this planet.when i tell them of the xurdimur, of the rocket-shaped towers, of the islands with their anti-gravitymachines, they'll not hesitate a moment in organizing an expedition. the chance of solvingthe mystery of how man spread all over the galaxy in prehistoric times will be too strongfor them. "and i'll come back with them. and i'll makethis planet my life work. i've a ph.d. in ichthyology, and i can get accredited as ascientific member of the expedition. there's no doubt about it!" amra fell into his arms, weeping, crying thatshe had known all the time that he couldn't

leave her. then in the next breath she wasswearing that he was just promising to return so he would avoid a scene. "i know men well, alan green, and i know you,especially. you won't come back!" "yes, i will, i swear it. if you know menso well, you ought to know that no man who is worthy of being called a man could eventhink of leaving a woman like you." she smiled through her tears and said, "that'swhat i wanted to hear you say. but, oh, alan, it'll be so long. won't it take at least twoyears?" "yes, at least. but it can't be helped. i'llworry about you while i'm gone. or i would if i didn't know how capable you were."

"i can learn how to run this island," shesaid half-sobbing, half-smiling. "by the time you get back i'll probably be queen of thexurdimur. i could contact the vings, and together we could have the whole plain and every cityalong its border under our thumbs. and..." he laughed and said, "that was what i wasafraid of." turning to walzer, he said, "look, you'retoo weak to consider another long trip immediately. why don't you just follow this island in yourship until we get to a safe distance from here, say about a thousand miles due north?we'll live on the island until you get your strength back and get over your claustrophobia.i imagine it wasn't helped any by being cooped up in that dungeon. when you're ready we'lltake off. in the meantime i can be showing

amra and grizquetr just what can be done withthe island. she can be living on it while i'm gone. we'll trap wild life to replacethe animals that were strangled when i went up too high for them to breathe. she can shuttleback and forth over the xurdimur, or over the whole planet if she wishes. and she will,i hope, stay out of mischief until i get back." "that's fine," said walzer. "i'll get in theship and follow you. three weeks later, the two earthmen boardedthe scout and closed the port behind them, the port that would not open again until theywere on earth, some four months subjective time away. they sat down in the control cabin,and walzer began pushing buttons and throwing switches.

green wiped the sweat from his brow, the tearsfrom his eyes, and said, "whew!" "a fine woman," said walzer, sympathetically."a rare beauty. she has a tremendous impact upon one." "something like crashing into a planet head-on,"said green. "she has the faculty of wringing out every last bit of energy left in the particularemotion she happens to be feeling at the moment. a great actress who believes in her roles." "her children are fine children, too," walzeradded, slowly and as if he were about to say something that might hurt green's feelingsbut was anxious not to do so. "you will be glad to see them again, of course."

"of course. after all, paxi's my daughter,i love the others as if they were also mine." "ah," breathed walzer. "then you are goingback to her?" green didn't express surprise or anger, becausehe had guessed from walzer's actions just what he was thinking. "you can't imagine my wanting to live on thatbarbaric planet with that woman, can you?" he said, evenly. "that after all, there areserious gaps in our ways of thinking, in our behavior, in our education. isn't that whatyou meant by your statement?" walzer glanced out of the corners of his eyesat green, then replied warily, "well, yes. but you know what you want far better thani do." he paused, then added, "i must say

i admire your courage." green shrugged. "after all i've been through i'm not afraidto take one more chance."