The muscles in his arms and legs trembled with fatigue as he lifted
the semi-conscious girl up to Kriijorl, and then with what seemed an
impossible effort, hauled himself through the deserted ship's stern
airlock.
The Ihelian seemed to carry Judith as though she were a feather as he
climbed the narrow ladder above Mason, infinitely upward, the Earthman
thought ... an infinite distance to the ship's forehull, to its
control banks.
There was only the sound of his own hoarse breathing in his ears as he
climbed, rung after rung, and the hollow echo of Kriijorl's boots as
they mounted resolutely above him.
Then they had made it, and were strapping Judith into a hammock, were
taking their own shock-seats before the control-banks of the
Thrayxite shuttle-craft.
The Ihelian did not hesitate. His fingers deliberated for only a
moment above the firing studs in the blue-green glow of the banks, and
then they flicked home, and engines muttered, roared into terrifying
life.
Within moments, saying nothing, moving the swift, silent movements of
desperation, they had freed themselves of the grasping snare of the
jungle beneath them; were once more strong, liberated things in the
vast freedom of Space.
"And now Ihelos!" Kriijorl cried as they broke swiftly from the
ecliptic of the great spangled ring of Thrayx. "If we can but escape
their fleet. Any moment they should be on the scanner, forming to meet
the onslaught of Ihelian squadrons--"
"No!" Mason said, and his voice was like a solid thing clogging his
throat. "No, not Ihelos--not yet!" His eyes burned, and the red welts
that covered his body had begun to sting, to pain, and it was hard to
think.
He saw the frown forming on Kriijorl's face.
"Thrayx, and the Forest of Saarl," he bit from between teeth clenched
against the creeping agony in him. "The Book of the Saints, Kriijorl.
It is the key, don't you see. Key to all this, your feud."
For an instant the Ihelian said nothing, but groped in hidden pockets
of his battered space harness. His long fingers quickly produced a
tablet, thrust it into Mason's hand. The Earthman swallowed it and
almost at once energy coursed as though from some hidden well in his
body through his flagging muscles and nerves.
Then Kriijorl spoke. "I do not understand, Lieutenant. I know only
that it would be almost certain death. Intrusion near the vault would
bring a flight of guard ships within minutes."
"I know that," Mason said. "But perhaps not down upon us! And we must
have that Book. I've been thinking about it, comparing it with similar
writings in Earth's own past. Such books are not new, such motives,
such methods. Your Book is priceless in a way that even you don't
know, Kriijorl. I'm certain of it. For it must contain the reason that
you fight."
"And that reason?"
"A reason, if I'm right, that would end your feud once and for all. A
nasty bit of logic which the people of Ihelos and Thrayx were quite
deliberately kept from knowing from the beginning. I'd make book on it
that at one time both planets were very hungry places--"
"But if you are wrong, Lieutenant?"
Mason fastened his gaze straight before him on the diamond-studded
scanner, and saw that some of the smaller diamonds were moving in a
tiny echelon.
"Then I guess we die young," he answered the Ihelian. "Want to try?"
The Ihelian's face loosened into a wry smile. "Sometimes you ask
rather foolish questions, Lieutenant! I've been bred to such business,
and not given my life so much thought before this! But--"
"Yes. Judith."
And then they heard a woman's voice speaking behind them. "Thrayxite
acceleration hammocks could stand improvement," it said. "And when we
leave the Forest of Saarl, I think I'll just lie on the deck instead."
* * * * *
Kriijorl's knowledge of the spot's location in the great forest was
far more accurate than he had given Mason reason to hope. And with a
deftness that matched that with which he had eluded the screens of the
Thrayxite fleet hurtling to protect its breeder planetoid, he brought
the ship to rest at Mason's direction, little more than a quarter-mile
from where the Book of the Saints lay entombed.
It was marked by two spires. One was of hewn stone, as Kriijorl had
said, immobile, with ancient symbols carven from its base to its
pinnacle.
And the other was smooth, and of metal; its gaping airlock testimony
to the haste with which it had been landed, unhidden by the natural
camouflage of the soaring trees with which the grass-carpeted clearing
was surrounded.
"Who--"
"Muscles," Mason answered her. The three were crouched at the
clearing's edge, waiting. "Thought he'd made it some way. Must've
ducked in before their fleet got into Space. Gambling that our signal
that he picked up wouldn't bring out a special reception committee
ready and waiting to meet him."
"But he has preceded us by many minutes," Kriijorl said. "I do not
see--"
"Not so many. He was in flight two full hours before you mentacommed
Ihelos. And if I know him, it was straight out of this galaxy at full
blast! So he had to back-track all that time and distance. He had to
risk a trap down here, as well as the Thrayxite fleet which he knew
would be rushing to protect its breeders."
"You had counted on those factors, Lieutenant?"
"Two birds with one blast, like I told you before," Mason said. "Ask
Judith, here. She'll tell you how well I know him." The girl was
silent, but her eyes voiced her thoughts more eloquently than her
tongue might have.
"Some will do anything to obtain the 'priceless'--" Kriijorl said
softly.
"Cain, any time!"
"You have laid a clever trap, Lieutenant."
"If it springs, sure. But where are those guard ships you were so
worried about? I was counting on them, too. They should be all over
the place by now."
And he was interrupted by the high-pitched scream of the flat, finned
shapes that hurtled suddenly over the tree tops, circled, slid quickly
downward.
"FLAT!" Mason yelled. And as they stretched prone, they saw Cain
running toward the ship from a great open shaft in the ground, a
round, shiny thing beneath one arm.
A probing needle of white hot flame stabbed out from one of the
descending ships, and there was a scream, and then Cain fell, a
charred skeleton, to the ground. The shiny thing he had carried rolled
lazily along the grass, teetered on edge, plopped silently over.
Mason was poised like a runner awaiting the starting gun. For a split
second he hesitated as the guard ships touched down, their weapons
momentarily screened by the lush foliage at the clearing's edge.
And then Mason was running, Judith and Kriijorl only steps behind him.
There were perhaps seconds before the armed women of the Thrayxite
guard detail would break from the forest's edge.
He stumbled, fell, and his outstretched hands touched the round, shiny
thing, and he could smell the reek of Cain's smouldering skeleton.
Kriijorl and Judith hesitated.
"Damn it, run!" and he felt his scream tear at his dry throat, and
then clutched the metal disk to him and regained his feet in a single
whip-like motion, and bolted after them toward the gaping air lock of
the ship that Cain had never reached.
There was a hissing sound and a wave of heat crackled behind him,
seared his flesh beneath his tattered tunic. And there was another,
inches before him, scorching smoking scars in the soft green turf, and
shouted orders filled the air scant yards behind him.
Then somehow he was at the air lock, and strong hands were pulling him
over its edge, and it swung to, glowed red as a bolt of raw energy
spent itself harmlessly against it.
"Now Ihelos!" Mason said as he fought for new breath.
* * * * *
It was white, all white around him.
He tried to sit up but there was the touch of gentle hands that stayed
him, lowered him back upon the bed.
There were two of them--tall, like Vikings, and memory returned
slowly. There was a smaller one, too, standing straight and erect
beside him, like a proud queen from the pages of Earth's colorful
history.
Judith. And Kriijorl. And another. And in his hands there was the
silver disk. The can.
The can of records. The Book of the Saints.
He tried again to straighten, and then heard the voice of the one whom
he did not know.
"I am Yhevvak, Grand Liege of Ihelos," the voice said. "And I hold in
my hands, Earthman, the Book of the Saints. I have read it, and I have
broadcast to all of Thrayx what I have read. A truce delegation has
already departed from that planet to meet us here in Space."
"But--" the word stuck in his throat, and it was hard to think.
"Commander Kriijorl said that you suspected it was the key to our
great trouble. You were right.
"For it tells of a conference among the leaders of our two worlds many
millenia ago; a conference held in secret, because of the nature of
its subject--the very people of our worlds themselves. Secret, because
of the decision concerning them and their staggering number. Too
staggering for either planet any longer to feed. And the record itself
was then committed to this single microtape, and itself, kept in
secrecy since the day it was recorded.
"At first shrouded in deliberate mysticism, it was at length
remembered only as the Last Word of the Saints in the sudden wars
which so quickly followed its creation, the true cause of which was
skillfully falsified to the people of the time, and truly known only
to those who made the microtape I hold here.
"They were our greatest leaders; in them was invested the
responsibility for the welfare and livelihood of our two planets, both
materially and spiritually.
"When they lived, those records say, travel in Space beyond the speed
of light had not been accomplished; they believed such a feat an
impossibility imposed by a condescending Nature that could be
challenged too far. And they therefore knew no way of reaching beyond
the planets of Ihelos and Thrayx for the food and resources that
became so sorely depleted as both planets became, at length, stripped
nearly bare as their populations swelled beyond saturation point.
"Medical science had permitted the old to grow older; granted the
new-born an almost certain purchase on life once first breath had been
drawn. Yet its greatest offering was rejected by the people; there
were indignant cries at the merest suggestion that they intelligently
regulate their number, so that their posterity might live in greater
plenty than had they.
"There was but one solution for our desperate leaders. For although
warfare had long since vanished from our civilization as it had
matured, it took with it Nature's own unpleasant balance for her
overgenerous fecundity.
"The new balance, then, had to be of Man's making. And so it was made.
"Our leaders, our Saints, as we have come through the years to know
them, were of course adept masters at the many subtle arts of
propaganda, and they used those arts to the very limits of their
skill. They deliberately fomented, as their ancient record shows, the
wars, small at first and then ever larger, between Ihelos and Thrayx.
"They could not have foreseen that one day there would be conflict for
existence between the sexes; logically calculating intellect against
intuitive, wily cunning in a battle to determine the most fit, who
would then enjoy the right to survive.
"Nor could they have foreseen that one day, because of the very
conflict they fomented, the science of controlled genetics would at
last be recognized as a necessity of survival to both factions.
"Today we have our answer to the age old problem of keeping our
consumption within the limits of our ability to produce for it; we
have used it to survive. But to survive war, not peace.
"And that, as you apparently suspected, Earthman, is the key.
"We know now why we fought. And with the knowledge of the life forces
with which we insured our continued existence during our years of
battle, we may now become united worlds of peace again. For we shall
use that knowledge to take more advisedly of Nature's fruits than we
took before.
"Well done, Earthmen. And with our thanks, know that we shall be
always in your debt."
Then Yhevvak bowed low, and left just the three of them together in
the white hospital bay of his flagship.
Kriijorl was smiling, and there was a shininess in Judith's eyes.
Mason grinned. "I hope those Thrayxite babes get a wiggle on," he
said. "Those Earth gals gotta get 'em home! Their mothers'll be
frantic. Hey, girl, not in front of company!"
* * * * *