Trehearne's mind cleared with an almost physical wrench. The fumes of
the wine left it, and the thick obscurity put there by the blow. The
pain stayed, but he could think. He could remember. The world of the
cumulid star. The man in the dun-colored robe saying, Murder.
Murder. Yann.
_Don't thank me, it was Yann that saved you. He had your air-line
recoupled...._
Crazy. It couldn't be Yann.
It was. He had followed him meekly into a trap and sat there meekly
drinking while Yann and Kurat talked jovially over his head, arranging
the details.
The cry of the pack was nearer.
They would not want his body in the hut or in the town. They would not
want it to seem like murder. They would carry him into the forest, and
then set the hounds after him, leaving the beasts to do the final work.
Who could be blamed if a drunken Vardda wandered off where he had no
business to be and was pulled down by a pack of hounds? He wondered if
Yann and Kurat were following the hunt. He wondered why Yann wanted him
dead.
Yann. The dirty treacherous son of a bitch....
Trehearne began to run.
The ropy vines that crept and clambered among the crystal trees were
like nooses set to catch his feet. He fell, and rose, and ran again,
and the spongy ground gave softly under his feet like sand. It was very
hot, and he was heavy, heavy with the drag of a heavy world.
Behind him, clear and shrill, came the _yap-yap-yaahhh!_ of Kurat's
weasel hounds, racing over a fresh scent. The crystal branches gleamed
and sparkled, tipped with star-fire, sharp-tipped like spears.
Trehearne stopped and tried to break one and it was like trying to
break a bar of steel with his bare hands. He gave it up and fled
onward, not knowing where he was or where he was going, only wanting
to stay away as long as he could from the lithe white demons that
were hunting him. There was a little river, black and warm. He waded
upstream in it, splashing to his waist, swimming in the deeper pools.
The bitter wine had left him thirsty, and he drank. The water tasted
foully of pitch and slime and he spat it out again, gasping. He heard
the voice of the pack change to a querulous whining as they checked
by the bank of the stream where he had entered it. He sank down to
rest and listened to them casting back and forth. He thought he heard
a man's voice shouting but he could not be sure. He went on again,
striking away from the river and into the forest. The great stars were
pounding against his head and his body was leaden with many extra
pounds of weight by gravitation.
He prayed for a fallen branch, but there was none. He prayed to
find the town and that too was denied him. He ran heavily under the
glittering trees and behind him the hounds burst suddenly into full
cry, more distant now but as chilling to the blood. It would not be
long before they overtook him.
He measured the trees with an eye to climbing one for refuge. They were
glassy and badly shaped, and they were low. He remembered the long
whipcord bodies of the weasel-like beasts. He thought they could leap
as high as they needed to pull him down. He staggered on, and every
time he fell it was harder to get up again. A terrible rage was on him,
rage against Yann. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair to make a man run for
his life on a world where he couldn't run. The cry of the pack came
closer.
Abruptly, from somewhere ahead of him, rose the challenging voices of
other hounds.
Trehearne stopped. He was caught now, between two fires. There was no
use in going on. He choked on the acrid gorge of fear that filled his
throat and cast about for a weapon, something, anything, to hold in his
hands, to kill with, at least a little before he was torn apart.
It came to him that the yelping of the beasts ahead was stationary.
It was irritable. They were not hunting. They were chained. Trehearne
sobbed. He began to run again.
There was a clearing. He saw it ahead dimly through the starshine and
the trees. He strove to reach it, and the pack-cry clamored at his
heels. He tripped and pitched headlong and was almost happy, because
he had fallen over a tangle of branches left from the breaking and
clearing of the crystal trees. He caught one up. It was not long but
it was sharp and heavy. It was better than nothing. He plunged forward
with it into the edge of the open space, and there the hounds of Kurat
bayed him.
Swift and undulant, white as frost in the starlight, they came leaping
beautifully between the glistening trees. They cried out once, all
together, and then they were still, still as arrows in mid-flight,
arching toward him through the air. He set his back against a glassy
trunk and swung his broken crystal branch. He struck some of them. But
there were fangs set like hot irons in his flesh.
There was a hut in the center of the clearing. Four of the
hunting-beasts were leashed beside it. They were the ones that had
answered Kurat's pack. Now they snarled and screamed and fought their
leashes. A man, a woman, and a tall boy came out of the hut. The boy
started to run toward Trehearne, shouting. The man caught him. He spoke
to the boy and made him be still. They stood there, watching.
Trehearne killed one of the hounds with his crystal club, and one he
crippled. The remaining six boiled around him, a liquid tangle of
bodies leaping, flowing, slashing with the white knives of their teeth.
The blood ran on Trehearne's body. He swung and swung again, and yelled
for help to the man and woman who watched stolidly.
They did not move. The boy tried to, and the man cuffed him.
Trehearne uttered a hoarse sound and dropped the branch. One of the
brutes had fastened on his wrist. Its weight dragged him to his knees
and he knew that this was the finish, the last of his voyaging amidst
the stars. He tore the strong jaws out of his flesh and swung the brute
as a flail in the faces of its mates and then he could hold it no
longer and the pack closed in.
The boy had slunk back into the shadows by the hut wall. Now, suddenly,
he reached and slipped the thongs from around the necks of the tethered
hounds.
They tore across the clearing over the jagged stumps and flung
themselves upon the pack of Kurat.
For a moment the beasts forgot Trehearne. He scrambled free of the
snarling tangle and went toward the hut. The man rushed by him,
howling. He picked up a branch and began to beat the battling hounds,
struggling to separate them. The woman wailed and ran to help him. The
boy came to Trehearne.
He was not much above sixteen, tall and well made. He put his arm
around Trehearne's waist and took him into the hut and sat him down.
Trehearne was glad to sit. The room reeled and darkened around him.
When his sight cleared the boy had brought cloths and a pungent salve
and was binding his cuts.
"What is your name?" asked Trehearne in the _lingua franca_.
"Torin."
"You saved my life, Torin. I will not forget it."
"I would do anything for the Vardda." Instead of hate there was
hero-worship in this non-Vardda face. It was obvious that in the boy's
eyes Trehearne was a figure of glory. Trehearne was touched.
Torin stared at him, his task forgotten. And he asked the question, the
old unchanging question that was always on the lips of boys. "What is
it like--what is it really like, to fly between the stars?"
Trehearne put his hand on the lean young shoulder and lied. "It is long
and hard and not nearly as adventurous as hunting. I'll wager that
you're as good a hunter as your father."
"Not yet," said Torin. "Some day...." He bent to his work again. His
fingers moved over Trehearne's flesh, touching the muscles, spreading
the wounds, gentle with the thick salve. He scowled, brooding over some
question of his own. "It feels like mine," he said. "It bleeds like
mine and here is an old scar and there will be new ones. It is not a
different flesh, made of iron or some other thing."
He sprang up. "Look!" he cried. "I am strong, very strong. See, my
flesh is hard like yours. Surely it is not true that only the Vardda
can fly in the great ships! Surely I am strong enough to go out and see
the stars!"
Trehearne could not meet his eager eyes. He said, "It takes a
different kind of strength." He tried to explain and gave it up. He
could only say, "I'm sorry."
He got up. "Will you guide me to the compound, Torin? And think what
you would like out of all the things that are there. I can't take my
life from you without giving something back--a little gift between
friends."