_He had only two aims in life: first, to
get what he wanted; and after that to enjoy
it. But to achieve the one he'd have to
give up the other ... or would he?_
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, August 1957.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
_The transport ship, bound for Capella with Outlander colonists
from Earth and Frontier Guards from Arcturus, struck the
hyperspace vortex without warning. It seized her, wrenching and
twisting her, and flung her across its gigantic rim at
thousands of times the speed of light. She emerged into normal
space in an unknown region of the galaxy, broken and driveless,
but near enough a planet that she could descend by means of her
antigravity plates before the last of her air was gone._
_It was sunset when she settled heavily to earth on a grassy slope
beside a forest, leaning at a dangerous angle with only her failing
antigravity plates to hold her from falling. The dead had been
disposed of in space and the living filed out of her: fifty
Outlander men, women and children, eighteen ship's crewmen, and
ten Frontier Guards._
_The Guard officer and ship's captain came last, of equal rank and
already appraising each other with cold speculation._
The Howling things in the dark forest were coming closer. Thane
listened as he watched Curry, the ship's captain, approach across the
strip of land that separated the two camps; standing back from his fire
as he waited, where he would make an uncertain target for an assassin's
blaster.
No one could be seen near any of the fires in the two camps on the
hill. Only the unarmed Outlanders, at their fires in the swale below,
moved about without wariness. And it was not yet three hours from the
landing of the ship.
Curry stopped before him, restrained anger on his arrogantly handsome
face.
"You failed to report to me and turn your Frontier Guards over to my
command as you were ordered," he said.
"Since your rank is no higher than mine I saw no reason to do so,"
Thane answered.