One of the technicians was running and screaming. The magter knocked him
down and beat him into silence. Seeing this the other two men returned
to work with shaking hands. Even if all life on the surface of the
planet were dead, this would have no effect on the magter. They would go
ahead as planned, without emotion or imagination enough to alter their
set course. As they worked the technicians' attitude changed from
shocked numbness to anger. Right and wrong were forgotten. They had been
killed--the invisible death of radiation must already be penetrating
into the caves--but they also had the chance for vengeance. Swiftly they
brought their work to completion, with a speed and precision they had
concealed before.
"What are those offworlders doing?" Ulv asked.
Brion stirred from his lethargy of defeat and looked across the cavern
floor. The men had a wheeled hand-truck and were rolling one of the
atomic warheads onto it. They pushed it over to the latticework of the
jump-field.
"They are going to bomb Nyjord now, just as Nyjord bombed Dis. That
machine will hurl the bombs in a special way to the other planet."
"Will you stop them?" Ulv asked. He had his deadly blowgun in his hand
and his face was an expressionless mask.
Brion almost smiled at the irony of the situation. In spite of
everything he had done to prevent it, Nyjord had dropped the bombs. And
this act alone may have destroyed their own planet. Brion had it within
his power now to stop the launching in the cavern. Should he? Should he
save the lives of his killers? Or should he practice the ancient
blood-oath that had echoed and destroyed down through the ages--_An eye
for an eye, a tooth for a tooth._ It would be so simple. He literally
had to do nothing. The score would be evened and his and the Disans'
deaths avenged.
[Illustration]
Did Ulv have his blowgun ready to kill Brion if he should try to stop
the launchings? Or had he misread the Disan entirely?
"Will _you_ stop them, Ulv?" he asked.
How large was mankind's sense of obligation? The cave man first had this
feeling for his mate, then for his family. It grew until men fought and
died for the abstract ideas of cities and nations, then for whole
planets. Would the time ever come when men might realize that the
obligation should be to the largest and most encompassing reality of
all? Mankind. And beyond that to life of all kinds.
Brion saw this idea not in words, but as a reality. When he posed the
question to himself in this way he found that it stated clearly its
inherent answer. He pulled his gun out, and as he did he wondered what
Ulv's answer might be.
"Nyjord is _medvirk_," Ulv said, raising his blowgun and sending a dart
across the cavern. It struck one of the technicians who gasped and fell
to the floor.
Brion's shots crashed into the control board, shorting and destroying
it, removing the menace to Nyjord for all time.
_Medvirk_, Ulv had said. A life form that co-operates and aids other
life forms. It may kill in self-defense, but is essentially not a killer
or destroyer. Ulv had a lifetime of knowledge about the interdependency
of life. He grasped the essence of the idea and ignored all the verbal
complications and confusions. He had killed the magter, who were his own
people, because they were _umedvirk_--against life. And saved his
enemies because they were _medvirk_.
With this realization came the painful knowledge that the planet and
the people that had produced this understanding were dead.
* * * * *
In the cavern the magter saw the destruction of their plans, and the
cave mouth from which the bullets had come. Silently they rushed to kill
their enemy. A concerted wave of emotionless fury.
Brion and Ulv fought back. Even the knowledge that he was doomed no
matter what happened could not resign Brion to death at the hands of the
magter. To Ulv, the decision was much easier. He was simply killing
_umedvirk_. A believer in life, he destroyed the anti-life.
They retreated into the darkness, still firing. The magter had lights
and ion-rifles, and were right behind them. Knowing the caverns better
than the men they chased, pursuers circled. Brion saw lights ahead and
dragged Ulv to a stop.
"They know their way through these caves, and we don't," he said. "If we
try to run, they'll just shoot us down. Let's find a spot we can defend
and settle into it."
"Back here," Ulv gave a tug in the right direction, "there is a cave
with only one very narrow entrance."
"Let's go!"
Running as silently as they could in the darkness, they reached the
deadend cavern without being seen. What noise they made was lost in
other footsteps that echoed and sounded through the connecting caves.
Once inside they found cover behind a ridge and waited. The end was
certain.
The magter ran swiftly into their cave, flashing his light into all the
places of concealment. The beam passed over the two hidden men and at
the same instant Brion fired. The shot boomed loudly as the magter fell.
Even if his loss was not known, the shot would surely have been heard.
Before anyone else came into the cave, Brion ran over and grabbed the
still functioning light. Propping it on the rocks so it shone on the
entrance, he hurried back to shelter beside Ulv. They waited for the
attack.
It was not long in coming. Two magter rushed in and died. There were
more outside, and Brion wondered how long it would be before they
remembered the grenades and rolled one into their shelter.
An indistinct murmur sounded outside and some sharp explosions. In their
shelter, Brion and Ulv crouched low and wondered why the attack didn't
come. Then one of the magter came in and Brion hesitated before
shooting.
The man had _backed_ in, firing behind him as he came.
Ulv had no compunctions about killing, only his darts couldn't penetrate
the magter's thick clothing. As the magter turned Ulv's breath pulsed
once and death stung the back of the other man's hand. He collapsed into
a crumpled heap.
"Don't shoot," a voice said from outside the cave, and a man stepped
through the swirling dust and smoke to stand in the beam from the light.
Brion clutched wildly at Ulv's arm, dragging the blowgun from the
Disan's mouth.
The man in the light wore a protective helmet, thick boots and a
pouch-hung uniform.
He was a Nyjorder.
This shock of reality was almost impossible to accept. Brion had heard
the bombs fall. Yet the Nyjord soldier was here. The two facts couldn't
be accepted together.
"Would you keep a hold on his arm, sir, just in case," the soldier said,
glancing warily at Ulv's blowpipe. "I know what those darts can do." He
pulled a microphone from one of his pockets and spoke into it.
More soldiers crowded into the cave and Professor-Commander Krafft came
in behind them. He looked strangely out of place in the dusty combat
uniform. The gun was even more grotesque in his blue-veined hand. After
relievedly giving the pistol to the nearest soldier, he stumbled quickly
over to Brion and took his hand.
"It is a profound and sincere pleasure to meet you in person," he said.
"And your friend Ulv as well."
"Would you kindly explain what is going on," Brion said thickly. He was
obsessed by the strange feeling that none of this could possibly be
happening.
"We will always remember you as the man who saved us from ourselves,"
Krafft said, once again the professor instead of the commander.
"What he wants are facts, Grandpa, not speeches," Hys said. The bent
form of the leader of the rebel Nyjord army pushed through the crowd of
taller men until he stood next to Krafft. "Simply stated, Brion, your
plan succeeded. Krafft relayed your message to me--and as soon as I
heard it I turned back and met him on his ship. I'm sorry that Telt's
dead--but he found what we were looking for. I couldn't ignore his
report of radioactive traces. Your girl friend arrived with the hacked
up corpse at the same time I did, and we all took a long look at the
green leech in its skull. Her explanation of what it is made significant
sense. We were already carrying out landings when we had your call about
something having been stored in the magter tower. After that it was just
a matter of following tracks--and the transmitter you planted."
"But the explosions at midnight," Brion broke in, "I heard them!"
"You were supposed to," Hys laughed. "Not only you, but the magter in
this cave. We figured they would be armed and the cave strongly
defended. So at midnight we dropped a few large chemical explosive bombs
at the entrance. Enough to kill the guards without bringing the roof
down. We also hoped that the magter deeper in would leave their posts or
retreat from the imagined radiation. They did. Worked like a charm. We
came in quietly and took them by surprise. Made a clean sweep. Killed
the ones we couldn't capture."
"One of the renegade jump-space technicians was still alive," Krafft
said. "He told us about your stopping the bombs aimed at Nyjord, the
two of you."
* * * * *
None of the Nyjorders there could add anything to his words, not even
the cynical Hys. Yet Brion could empathize their feelings, the warmth of
their intense relief and happiness. It was a sensation he would never
forget.
"There is no more war," Brion translated for Ulv, realizing that the
Disan had understood nothing of the explanation. As he said it, he
realized that there was one glaring error in the story.
"You couldn't have done it," Brion said, astonished. "You landed on this
planet _before_ you had my message about the tower. That means you still
expected the magter to be sending their bombs to Nyjord--and you made
the landings in spite of this knowledge."
"Of course," Professor Krafft said, astonished at Brion's lack of
understanding. "What else could we do? The magter are sick!"
Hys laughed aloud at Brion's baffled expression. "You have to understand
Nyjord psychology," he said. "When it was a matter of war and killing my
planet could never agree on an intelligent course. War is so alien to
our philosophy that it couldn't even be considered correctly. That's the
trouble with being a vegetable eater in a galaxy of carnivores. You're
easy prey for the first one that lands on your back. Any other planet
would have jumped on the magter with both feet and shaken the bombs out
of them. We fumbled it so long it almost got both worlds killed. Your
mind-parasite drew us back from the brink."
"I still don't understand," Brion said. "Why--"
"Simple matter of definition. Before you came we had no way to deal with
the magter here on Dis. They really were alien to us. Nothing they did
made sense--and nothing we did seemed to have the slightest effect on
them. But you discovered that they were _sick_, and that's something we
know how to handle. We're united again, my rebel army was instantly
absorbed into the rest of the Nyjord forces by mutual agreement. Doctors
and nurses are on the way here now. Plans were put under way to evacuate
what part of the population we could until the bombs were found. The
planet is united again and working hard."
"Because the magter are sick, infected by a destructive life form?"
Brion asked.
"Exactly so," Professor Krafft said. "We are civilized, after all. You
can't expect us to fight a war--and you surely can't expect us to ignore
the plight of sick neighbors?"
"No ... you surely can't," Brion said, sitting down heavily. He looked
at Ulv, who knew nothing of the incomprehensible speech. Beyond him Hys
wore his most cynical expression as he considered the frailties of his
people.
"Hys," Brion called out. "You translate all that into Disan and explain
to Ulv. I wouldn't dare."