Starn basked in this new experience of adult approval, and resolved to heed the advice of his father to give his new sense a lot of exercise and make it strong.
The Foser himself visited Virnce's hut that evening, and he spoke to Starn for the first time the boy could remember.
To his parents the Pack chief said, "You must be mighty proud of your lad."
"Indeed we are!" beamed Becca, and Virnce nodded. Starn decided The Foser was awful good to say something like that about him, especially in front of the neighbors who had dropped in to talk.
Turning to the boy's father the Pack chief said, "Virnce, I'm told you have some interesting thoughts on the significance of all this. I'd like to hear them."
Virnce looked uncomfortable. "A man's thinking about his own children suffers from immodesty, Foser," he protested.
The Foser shook his head. "You were never a man to hold false pride, Virnce. And you understand and abide by the teaching of the Sacred Gene as well as any man in the Pack."
"Well," Virnce began slowly, "we are sometimes troubled at heart by false beliefs of the Olsapern kind, that we of the Packs are not the chosen of the Sacred Gene. The infidels claim that when Science fell long centuries ago, the whole of humanity suffered a deep spiritual shock of such potency that the very chromosomes of our forebears cowered in despair, and beat an evolutionary retreat.
"Thus, they pretend, we of the Packs are not a people far advanced toward the Ultimate Novo, but rather are throwbacks toward the ancestral man of a million years ago. They would have us believe that, far from leading us onward, the Sacred Gene has not simply forsaken us but has pushed us backward into savagery! They choose to ignore, or to explain away, our durable if humble civilization, the continued literacy of our children, and above all our blessed Novo senses.
"But there is, in the Novo sense my son has revealed today, something the Olsaperns cannot explain away! We know the early prophets, even in the days before Science fell, were aware of traces of telepathy, premonition, perception and the various other Novo senses in certain people of their own time. We need not believe the evil theories of the Olsaperns, that these senses were present even in the most primitive men, were perhaps even prevalent at the dawn of humankind. We need not believe this, but we have been hard put to disprove it!
"However," and here Virnce's eyes glinted triumphantly, "even the oldest of prophets and commentators make no mention of such a sense as Starn's! Nothing like it has ever been known before! It is new—Novo without question! And it is a clear manifestation of the logic and balance with which the Sacred Gene leads us forward to the Ultimate, in that it provides a desirable foil and counter to the telepathic sense he has previously bestowed on us!
"I cannot help but believe, Foser," Virnce concluded solemnly, "that in my young son the Sacred Gene not only sends us another bountiful blessing, but that he is giving his people a convincing reaffirmation: The Gene is with us; he is with us indeed!"
At that inappropriate instant Huill's mother Nari rushed into the hut and hugged Starn's mother. "Oh, Becca!" she gushed, "I'm so happy for you and Virnce! We've all felt such sympathy for you, and for poor little Starn! And now it turns out that he has this marvelous instinct!"
"Instinct?" flared Becca, pushing Nari away in anger.
"What kind of Olsapern talk is that? As if Starn were an animal! Honestly, Nari, you are the most exasperating woman in the whole Pack!"
"Oh, I'm so sorry, Becca!" Nari apologized. "The word just slipped out!"
"I'll bet it did!" huffed Becca.
"Easy, Becca," soothed Virnce, putting a hand on his wife's shoulder. He looked at The Foser, at Starn, at the others, gathered before his fire, and said, "Perhaps the whole Pack has been engaging in Olsapern talk tonight, like a group of proud, senseless scientists trying to explain a new star, or a new kind of fruit. I perhaps more than the rest of you have been guilty. In our first excitement over Starn, we can pray this was a forgivable error."
In a voice of impressive depth he finished, "But we must not persist in this! Hereafter my wife and I will seek to see Starn as what he is—a blessing from the Sacred Gene to be accepted humbly and gratefully, with no questions, no attempts to pit our meager wisdom against that of the Sacred Gene himself!"
"Amen!" exclaimed Becca, with a final glare at Nari. And the others, The Foser included, echoed the word.
Good things kept happening to Starn after that. A few months later, for instance, the Pack chose his father as the Gene's Voice for the Tenthday services.
But the boy was too fascinated with his newfound sense to give more than the required amount of devotion to its mighty Bestower. He spent an hour or two every day working with Huill or Rob in mock contests, learning to act effectively, and without thinking, to meet the challenges produced by his telepathic friends. There wasn't really much to learn, except to do it. That was the right way, anyhow, because as his father had said, it would be wrong to try to figure out how the sense worked. That was the Sacred Gene's business, not his.
Starn made the most of the world which had opened to him that day by the creek. Because his sense was superbly useful in battle, especially in the raids and counter-raids on traditional enemy Packs that had telepaths to be outwitted, his childhood dream of being a great warrior promised to come true. In fact, at the age of nineteen he was elected Raid Leader of the Pack. Even at that age he was the tallest of The Foser's men, and had physical strength to match his impressively rugged appearance.
Another high moment came when he was twenty-two. That was when he found his wife, Cytherni, at the annual spring parley of Packs allied to the Fosers.
Cytherni was a lovely girl, and as he had suspected from their first meeting she was not basically the timid person she appeared. Her initial shyness with him, and later with the entire Pack when he brought her home, was real, but he could guess its cause easily enough.
In fact, part of her attraction for him was a sense of similarity—a feeling that "there, but for the grace of the Sacred Gene, go I." Like himself, Cytherni had displayed little Novo capability as a child; but unlike him, she had never revealed such talents later on. Starn could readily imagine himself growing up, without his "surprise sense," into a person much like Cytherni. It gave him deep pleasure to see her bloom, with fears and selfdoubts forgotten, when they were alone together.
But just four months after their marriage, Starn's bright, open world began closing.
2
The trader Nagister Nornt was known by repute to every Pack east of the mountains. Many people said he was the closest man to the Ultimate Novo—the goal man of the future—then alive. Without question, his powerful Novo abilities made him someone to be feared and hated. He was a dangerous man.
But he was also a trader of unusual scope, trafficking in many goods the Packs needed—salt from the coast, bulletlead perhaps from the ruins of some ancient city, and fine, but honest, cloth from Packs far to the south who had maintained the arts of weaving. Thus, when word came that Nagister Nornt was heading their way, the people of Pack Foser were both pleased and disturbed.
The point was carefully drilled into the children that Nornt was a man to be hated, because that was the best defense against a telehypnotist who could invade and enslave an unwary mind. And they were warned not to take even the briefest nap during the several hours Nornt would be in or near the Compound, because they couldn't hate him while they slept, and could wake up with their wills in his control, doomed to be Nornt's slavies for the rest of their lives.
The trader arrived one midmorning with his vacanteyed slavies and his heavy-loaded train of mule-drawn wagons. The Foser greeted him ceremoniously, at the same time making it clear that Nornt was to conclude his business there by midafternoon and be at least three miles away by nightfall. Nornt agreed, showing his protruding yellow teeth in an ugly grin, and proceeded to display his wares in the Compound yard.
He was a hunched, heavy man, better described as hairy-faced ra
ther than bearded. He looked as if he had grown bald-jowled and had left untrimmed the few straggling facial hairs that remained. He smelled unclean. Nornt was, indeed, an easy man to abhor. Starn wondered, as he made his rounds to assure himself that the Pack's men were all armed and alert for trouble, why the trader didn't fix himself up a bit. Surely, if hating Nornt was a good defense against him, the trader shouldn't make the hating so easy for everybody. But then the Sacred Gene had made Nornt's personality what it was, and perhaps the man was unable to change his ways.
Nornt glanced at him and chuckled, evidently amused at Starn's thoughts. Starn regarded him coldly before moving away.
But Nornt had beautiful cloth, and Starn had a young and lovely wife. It was necessary for them to do business.
When Starn returned with Cytherni, the trader was a few yards from the cloth display with his back turned, haggling with one of the older wives over a skin of salt. Cytherni fingered a swath of light-blue fabric under the dull but watchful eyes of a slavie.
"How much prime leather for the blue?" Starn asked.
"Trader trades," the slavie said tonelessly.
Starn shrugged and reconciled himself to dealing directly with Nagister Nornt.
Nornt soon concluded the deal for the salt and turned to face Starn and Cytherni. He did not move toward them but stood motionless, his eyes examining the young woman with uncouth interest.
Huill hurried to Starn's side. "Watch out!" he warned.
"He's yenning for Cytherni!"
"I can see that!" growled Starn.
"But he means to have her!" the telepath hissed urgently.
Starn swept a rapid glance over the slavies and found them reaching for their knives, pistols, or long-guns.
"Hold it, Nornt!" he yelled. "Start anything here and you're a dead trader!"
"I think not!" cackled the trader. "Your men don't have—"
In a flash Starn whipped his throwing knife from its sheath. It zinged through the air to plunge deep into Nornt's right shoulder. The trader screamed and fell, and his slavies lost interest in their weapons.
"He read us that you could do things like that," Huill explained excitedly, "but he didn't believe you could fool him!"
The Foser came hurrying up. "Trading's over!" he bellowed. "All you women and kids go home! Get inside! Nagister Nornt, pack up and get out!" All moved to obey except Cytherni, who seemed afraid to stray from Starn's side.
Grimacing horribly, Nornt got to his feet. One of his slavies pulled the knife from his shoulder and helped him to a comfortable seat, where another removed his filthy jacket and bandaged the wound. Meanwhile the other slavies began repacking the wares and hitching the mules.
Within fifteen minutes Nornt was helped onto a wagon seat and the train started out of the Compound. The trader turned to direct a final baleful stare at Starn as he departed.
"Holy somes!" cursed Huill. "He's raving mad! I never read such hate in my life! He's not through with you, Starn! He means to even things up, and get Cytherni!"
"Let him try!" said Starn grimly. "He'll just get more of the same!"
"I don't know, Starn," said the worried telepath. "You caught him at a disadvantage today."
"No I didn't! His slavies had their weapons drawn!"
"Yeah, but to his way of thinking, he was still at a disadvantage! He was here, where he could be attacked, and he didn't have to be! What if he'd been waiting half a mile away, and had sent his slavies to take Cytherni or anything else he wanted? He can do that, you know! And slavies are cheap to him!"
Starn frowned. "Let's not think more about it while he's in reading range," he said. "Are you all right, Cythie?"
His wife wore a sick expression, but she nodded.
"His looks revolted her," Huill said helpfully.
"I'd better get you home," Starn told her.
That night the Pack's chief men met by The Foser's fire. Nagister Nornt, the telepaths reported, was camping for the night five miles west, and intended to continue in that direction, trading with the mountain Packs, for several weeks before turning back. But he did mean to return to Foser Compound.
"We won't let him get close!" growled Starn.
"Don't underestimate him," warned The Foser.
"Huill, what do you make of his attack strategy?"
"It isn't clear," said the telepath. "He can control his thoughts unusually well, and has avoided thinking about his plans. But the picture I got was of him waiting in some safe place, and sending his slavies up to read us—he can use them as telepathic relays, you know—and to snipe our scouts and sentries. If we go out to fight, the slavies kill some of us while we're killing them, and if we don't go out they besiege the Compound. We'd have to go out."
With an unhappy expression Huill continued, "But, if we do kill his slavies, he'll just recruit more from Packs that aren't alert for trouble, or from farms that can't keep telepathic guards out all night. Thirty slavies at a time is about all he can control without straining, but he can get new ones faster than we can kill the old ones, and after each battle there'll be fewer of us left for the next fight. He means to get what he wants if he has to wipe out Pack Foser to do it!"
Starn bolted to his feet. "This is between Nornt and myself!" he snapped. "It's my fault for not finishing him today, and I'm going after him right now!"
"Sit down," said The Foser sternly. "Sit down and listen to me!" It was an order, and Starn grudgingly obeyed.
"Nagister Nornt was taken by surprise today," the Pack chief said, "because he didn't believe in your sense. Now he's seen you in action, and he won't be off guard a second time, tonight or later. He's a wily man, Starn, who's survived many battles and knows how to protect his skin. His slavies would come at you singly and in bunches, and you would have to kill them all before you got a crack at him! Don't forget that every one of those men is under his complete command! Their bodies are his, as if his brain was in each of them! Don't let the dull look of their eyes fool you!
"As for this being your fight and not the Pack's," The Foser continued, "you know better than that! You know no Pack can let an enemy demand and get his choice of its women or children! A Pack that sells out the least of its people is soon no Pack at all, but the timid prey of any raider who comes along!
"Neither the Pack nor your wife can spare you, to get yourself killed in a foolish one-man venture against Nornt! You'll defend your wife as a leader of the Pack!" Starn snorted. "Defend her how? You heard what Huill said! How do we beat Nornt against that kind of strategy, and with guns no better, if as good, as his slavies have?"
"That's why we need you," The Foser explained. "Your sense will provide the answer if anything will."
Starn grunted and stalked unhappily around the fire.
"My sense will help me, but in a long series of scattered skirmishes I can lose a lot of good friends, and the Pack a lot of good men, while I'm engaged elsewhere! The only way we could win would be to push through to Nornt himself, no matter what kind of defenses he threw up! We'll waste many men doing that—unless we have weapons far better than anything in the slavies' hands!" After a moment The Foser said, "Well?"
"Well," Starn replied angrily, "we'll have to get the weapons we need! We'll have to raid the Olsaperns first, so we can fight Nagister Nornt!"
3
A raid on an Olsapern trading post wouldn't have helped. The posts were not defended by any weapons worth stealing. Starn wondered about this sometimes. Why were the Olsaperns so unconcerned about their trading posts being pillaged? Of course about the only goods they stocked were basic rations, which were freely stolen during drought years and long winters to keep the Packs alive, and such items as books and artificial fabrics, both of which the Packs disdained in favor of the honest cloth and books certain Packs produced for trading. The fact that the trading posts stayed well-stocked and practically defenseless was just one more example of the idiocy of the Olsaperns.
But the Olsaperns did have a few outposts in Pack
country that were heavily defended, with the kind of weapons the Pack needed. The only such installation close to Pack Foser was a copper mine twenty miles northwest of the Compound. The mine would have to be raided.
This was not necessarily a desperate risk. The Olsaperns were a cowardly lot who seldom chose to expose themselves to battle. Trading-post keepers invariably deserted their stations when under attack, to scoot away like frightened birds in their flying machines, seldom stopping before they were safely behind the Hard Line hundreds of miles to the north.
But the mine's defenses were automated and could prove deadly effective, Starn was well aware. Perhaps the Olsaperns didn't much care about their trading posts, but they obviously cared about the tons of ore they removed from the mine each day, to carry off in giant flying wagons. Not since the days of Starn's great-grandparents had the mine's perimeter been tested by Pack raiders, and that attack had been a disaster. Ten raiders had been killed, and twenty-eight captured and subjected to the Treatment.
Of course the long decades of peace following that raid could have lulled the Olsaperns into letting the defenses fall into disrepair. That could be hoped. Nevertheless, Starn laid his plans with strict care to minimize potential losses and to put his men at the best possible advantage. With Huill's help he questioned the Pack's oldest members, to get the most direct accounts available of what the long-ago raid had encountered.
What he learned made him delay the attack for three weeks, fretting over the possibility that Nornt might return earlier than expected, but convinced that the raid would be far more likely to succeed if carried out in the right kind of weather. When at last the premonitors advised him a day-long rainstorm was due, he led his thirty-man party forth to the attack.
They approached the mine complex in a heavy downpour, and were thoroughly soaked beneath their hardleather armor and face masks.
Starn intended no broad frontal attack. Against automatic defenses that would probably do nothing but increase the casualties among his men. What he hoped for was a point penetration, the driving of a hole through the perimeter defenses, by which all could enter and defeat any last-ditch stand of the Olsapern miners.
A Sense of Infinity Page 34