She laughed metallically. "Is there any world where the Vardda are
loved?"
"Because we are able to fly the stars and you aren't?"
"Because we too could have had the stars and you Vardda kept us from
it!"
Trehearne stared at her, disconcerted by her sudden passion. "But the
secret was lost...."
"Oh, yes! And even on this far world we know how it was lost! All the
universe has heard of Orthis and of how the Vardda drove him into the
depths of space and destroyed him because he would have shared his
knowledge. And so you are free and I am chained, and my children after
me forever."
She turned abruptly away from him. He looked after her, depressed by
this new proof of what bitter depths of hostility lay behind the faces
of the non-Vardda.
But Yann shook his shoulder. "Kurat has made a kill today--a rare skin.
Come outside and look at it. It could be worth a lot of money."
Less from interest than to escape his own oppression, Trehearne rose.
They went out a back way. There was a shed some distance away, where
Kurat said the hide was drying. Yann and he chatted in the unfamiliar
jargon. Trehearne was not much interested in the whole business.
It was dark inside the shed. Yann said, "Wait a minute while I make a
light."
Trehearne waited but not long. The light exploded inside his own skull.
He heard Kurat grunt behind him with the exertion of the blow, then
laugh. Yann was laughing too.
Trehearne knew a moment of murderous fury and then the world of the
green star slipped away from under him.
When it returned again into his ken, he was sprawled on his face in
mud, stripped of his tunic, his jewelled belt, his shocker and his
sandals. The hut of Kurat had vanished, the town with it. He was in the
forest, encircled by trees whose crystal branches glittered under the
savage stars. His head hurt violently.
He got unsteadily to his feet with only one thought in his mind--the
determination to get his hands on his good friend Yann. He took three
steps in no particular direction--and then stopped, bathed in a sudden
icy sweat.
In the distance and not too far away he heard the high-pitched cry of
Kurat's strange hounds.