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by Gordon R. Dickson

  Rajn stared at him. In the moonlight the Homskarter’s round face was clearly visible, but his eyes were ovals of jet, unreadable.

  “How do you know this, Outlander?” Rajn said.“You haven’t been close to your fellow since we left on the sword-trail.”

  “We of our kind know much of what each other is thinking,” Harb said. “It’s one of our ways. I tell you, King, about this only because the Other may now do something to cause my fields to fail, or the slaves to die, so that they would not be available for the harvest, and the sacrifice to follow.”

  “How could he do such things?”

  “I don’t know yet,” said Harb. “But he may haves ome means that is magic.”

  Harb paused deliberately before the last word to make sure that the king understood. But he need not have worried. There was nothing dull about the perceptions of the Homskarters’ ruler.

  “I see,” said Rajn slowly. “Surely now, that would be something unfortunate. One magic bowl and one magic sword is enough magic for this kingdom. Nor would it be agreeable to me to lose the grain that you will grow; and very unhappy indeed it would be to have the slaves die before they could be properly sacrificed. What does the outlander think can be done about his brother uplake?”

  “I’ll go talk to him,” said Harb. “Perhaps I can find out what he plans to do. Then I’ll come back and talk some more with the king. I’ve hesitated to do this until now because I’ve got no one besides myself to look after the slaves while I’m gone.”

  “Don’t concern yourself about that.” The jet ovals of Rajn’s vision narrowed thoughtfully. “I’d already planned, I remember now, to take them from you fora day or two and put them to work at cleaning and mending the canots.”

  “That’s good, King,” said Harb. “I’ll leave first thing in the morning, then.”

  He was at Cohone’s station by two hours after sunrise the next day. It looked, except for lack of gray in the forest greenery, that had passed with the change of season, no different than it had looked before. Only, the crops in Cohone’s small field,obvious fruit of planting late the previous fall, were now standing tall and almost ready for harvesting so that a second planting could be gotten in.

  Harb smiled internally, however, at the number of the Homskarters he saw around the station. Instead of the four that had been there when Harb landed, Harb now saw more than a dozen. It was not the sort of increase that indicated any sudden new success on Cohone’s part in recruiting the natives to ways of primitive agriculture and industry, but any increase at all could be argued in evidence to substantiate what Harb had told Rajn the night before.

  Bill Cohone was supervising what seemed to be the digging of a well. Like the rest of the scene, he could almost have stepped just now out of the moment of Harb’s landing. Shirtless, half-bald, red-faced and undernourished-looking, he broke off what he was doing to come down to the landing as Harb drove the prow of his small canot ashore with the outboard motor still attached to it.

  “I’ve been hearing about you,’’ Cohone said, as Harb stepped ashore and started up toward the building that was both Cohone’s home and headquarters.

  “Oh?” said Harb. “I didn’t know you had a phone link to other parts of this planet.”

  “Don’t try to make a joke out of it!” said Cohone, following beside Harb as he climbed the slight slope from the water to the building. “My converts hear from the other Homskarters, and tell me. And lately Witta’s dropped by to give me some of the details about what happened on that expedition to the plains. You’re a murderer!”

  “It depends on how you define whoever’s killed,” said Harb. He reached the door of the building and put his hand on the leather strap that latched it. “I’ve got a call to put in to Sector headquarters. I don’t suppose you’d consider resigning for reasons of health?”

  “Like hell!” Cohone’s hands were clenched. The skin of them was as usual dirt-stained and their bones were larger than his skinny body would have indicated. The knobby fists he made were not ridiculous.“Is that what you came for?”

  “I told you—I came here to put in a private call to Sector,” said Harb, opening the door. “Do you mind?”

  Cohone stood back, scowling. Harb went in, closing the door behind him. He found himself in a large single room that was hardly more than a primitive cabin, except for the bank of powerful interstellar communications equipment in one far comer. He went to the equipment, sat down, put a headset and throat mike on, and keyed in Sector Headquarters.

  There was a short wait. Even with a relay satellite in orbit around the planet and the newest of phase-shift equipment, a translight call of some twenty parsecs was not made immediately. But then the ready light on the control face of the equipment lit up redly.

  “This is Sector,” said a voice from the speaker within the bones of Harb’s inner ear. “Come in, 4938ID. Go ahead, Cohone.”

  “Sector Chief Mallard speaking,” said Harb, dryly. “I’m just using Cohone’s equipment to put in a call.”

  “Oh, sorry sir.”

  “All right. Listen, Cohone isn’t looking too well, I think he’s been overworking and over-identifying, rubbing these locals the wrong way. I suggested he resign for health reasons, or at least a leave of absence, but he wouldn’t go for it. Would you get a medical officer in here to have a look at him?”

  “Right away, Chief.”

  “Good. No need to get Cohone worked up. Why don’t you send the pod in as if it were a routine delivery of something like updated communication equipment, and not mention that the Med’s aboard.That way the Med can get a good look before Cohone has a chance to tighten up on him.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Good. I’ll be finishing up here in about two more months, myself. Any emergencies in my office?”

  “No sir. Deputy Chief’s advisory says everything’s going routinely.”

  Harb silently blessed his choice of an ambitious young Deputy Chief who thought he stood a chance to take over Harb’s job one of these days when Harb himself was promoted.

  “Good, So much for now. Out.”

  “Out.”

  Harb shut off the equipment and went back outside the building. Cohone was nowhere to be seen. Harb hesitated, wondering whether to wait for the man and talk to him a while for appearance’s sake, so that the word of their interview would be taken back to Rajn. But after all, they had had some conversation in their own tongue while walking up from the canot, and that was probably enough gossip to be relayed back to the Homskarter king.

  He took his canot and went back to the village.Once there, he sought out Rajn.

  “King,” he said, “I’m afraid I wasn’t able to find out just what the Other is going to do to your slaves and crops, but it’s very clear that he plans to destroy both.”

  “Stop him, Outlander.”

  “I can’t,” said Harb.

  Rajn’s voice was as cold with suspicion as if Harb were a stranger encountered for the first time.

  “Why not? Is he stronger than you?”

  “No,” said Harb. “He’s nothing, compared to me. But he has friends. Not great friends, or many friends, but enough to make it impossible for me to stop him at this time.”

  Rajn stared at him.

  “Are you seeking a price from me, Outlander?”

  “No,” said Harb. “It’s not a matter of price. It’s just that in this instance I can’t help you. But, King. . . you can help yourself."

  “I?”

  “If his crops should be flattened, and all those at his place should be slain—”

  Rajn coughed dry laughter.

  “You should know me better, Outlander,” he said. “I’m not a fool, to kill your brother for you when you dare not kill him yourself.”

  “No—I don’t mean that the Other should be slain,” Harb said. “Only that those of your own people who have fallen away from you to be with him should die. Then he’d have nothing to do here; and he’d have to leave.�
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  Rajn stood motionless in silence for nearly a full minute. It was impossible for Harb to guess what the Homskarter was thinking.

  “He’s done us no harm so far,” Rajn said. “And I’ve only your word for it that he intends harm, now.”

  “Hasn’t my word been good also, so far?” demanded Harb. “And besides, isn’t a wise ruler one who takes care of trouble before it can begin? Also, King, what have you got to lose—a handful of your own people who aren’t actually even your own any longer?”

  Once more Rajn thought.

  “All right,” he said abruptly. “But it won’t be easy to find someone to lead warriors against some who were once our own people.”

  “I thought of that,” said Harb. “Surely, there are two whom your warriors would follow into anything. Yourself, and Witta.”

  Rajn stared at him with dark eyes.

  “Neither I, nor Witta, for this,” said the Homskarter king. “But I will find someone. And may the God shelp you, Outlander, if you have counseled me badly in this doing.”

  The following morning, early, Witta took a hunting party into the woods at the king’s request. Shortly thereafter Harb took his small canot and started once more uplake in the direction of Cohone’s station, following about an hour behind a good-sized body of warriors in three large canots who had left earlier in that direction, shortly after Witta’s group was gone. Harb drove his canot to within half a mile of the station, then beached it under the cover of some overhanging brush and made his way on foot up to the fringe of the forest from which he could look into the cleared area that held the fields and the station.

  The fields were silent. What lay among the stems of the tall grain it was impossible to say, but close to the main building on the open ground were what might have been bundles of rags lying on the ground,showing here and there the colors used in non-royal Homskarter body, arm and leg wrappings.

  Harb set himself patiently to watch. An hour or so went by and the sun warmed. Finally, the door to the building opened by slow jerks and the head of Cohone peered out, followed slowly by his full figure. He stood before the door and stared about him, at the apparent bundles of rags. Slowly, he moved to examine them, one by one. He walked like a drunken man; and after he had gazed at the last one he could find, he stood and stared downlake toward the Homskarter village for a long time. Then he went back inside.

  Harb stayed where he was, waiting. Late that afternoon, Cohone reappeared, carrying a piece of equipment which the rules required be kept securely out of native hands—a collapsible metal shovel, now extended into working position. With this, he dug holes in the earth and attempted, one by one, to bury the rag bundles. But the effort seemed to drain him of strength, and when it began to get dark, he stopped with two bodies still not interred. He went back inside; and Harb found a comfortable patch of earth under a tree, set his clothing thermostat at a sleeping temperature, and dropped off into slumber.

  With sunrise, he renewed his watch. About mid-morning a pod descended from an interstellar aircraft and the pilot, together with another man wearing the white shoulder patch of the Medical Arm, left it, came to the building, and let themselves in. A second later, Harb heard faintly the sound of hysterical yelling from the building, and Cohone burst out of the door, running toward the grain fields. The two men followed, caught him, and did something to him. Suddenly Cohone went limp. The others carried him to the pod, shut the hatch behind them, and the pod took off, to lose itself in the brilliant blue of the summer sky.

  Harb stood up, stretched with satisfaction and walked back to his canot. As he drove the canot with the outboard motor back toward the Homskarter village, his feeling of satisfaction grew. Cohone’s testimony would be suspect from now on; particularly in view of the fact that Harb had asked for medical help for him two days before his mismanagement of his station resulted in the massacre of his converts by the wild natives. It was a bonus that Cohone had evidently grown close enough to his converts so that seeing them slaughtered had driven him into a real state of emotional shock. Of course, they could cure him in a few days but that would not change anything. The view he had acquired here on the planet would remain suspect. In a couple of days Harb could drop by the station, be shocked himself by what he found and call Sector Headquarters, to be more shocked by what he was told of Cohone’s emotional condition. It was all tied up, now. Mission accomplished.

  Harb reached the village and tethered his canot at the wharf. There were only a couple of older male villagers armed and on duty there, and these did not answer when he spoke to them. Harb guessed that they would by now have heard of the raid on the station, and perhaps these two had owned a friend or relative among the converts. Harb ignored them and went up through the near-empty streets to the house of the king.

  The doors of the big house were open and two other Homskarters Harb did not recognize were on duty. From within came the sounds of a very large celebration taking place, rather than the ordinary afternoon drinking and arguing. Harb went up the steps without bothering to speak to the new guards and stepped inside. The main hall was packed with warriors, shouting, laughing, and drinking.

  Harb started down the open center lane between tables that led to the small table of the king, blinking his eyes in the dimness to get the dazzle of the sunlight out of them. It was a technique he had become expert in since returning from the expedition to the plains.

  Abruptly, all sound in the hall died away. Harb was surrounded by total and unexpected silence. He stopped, blinking furiously, and slowly the scene became clear around him.

  On every side, warriors were leaning forward, staring at him, motionless. A dozen steps in front of him, for he had covered almost half the distance through the hall automatically, stood the table of the king. But Rajn was not behind it. There was only Witta, who sat staring at Harb as the warriors stared.

  There was something strange about those stares;something possibly—not for the first time Harb cursed the fact that the Homskarter features were all but impossible for a human to read emotion from—savage and triumphant. Obviously some unusual event had taken place, but what? Whatever it was seemed to be connected with the fact that Rajn was absent. Could Witta have taken advantage of some short trip of the king’s to set the Homskarters here to taking some sort of action against Harb? It was unthinkable that Witta should suppose he could get away with such a thing. Once the king returned, Rajn would have to take action himself against Witta, if only to reestablish the fact that his authority was not to be flouted.

  On the other hand, these primitives were sometimes incredibly stupid about the future results of their present actions. Harb came to a decision. If Witta was trying anything, the thing to do was to face the vice-king down sharply and decisively, right now before the situation had a chance to gather momentum.

  Keeping his eyes on Witta’s, Harb stepped out and strode briskly forward toward the table. He was almost to it, when he stumbled and almost went down,checking himself just before he fell over something that he had not noticed until now, lost as it was in the shadows of the reed-strewn floor.

  He looked down. The body of a Homskarter lay at his feet. Blood from more than a dozen wounds had dyed red the white wrappings of arms, and legs, and the upper body. The head lolled to one side, grimacing in death. It was Rajn.

  Harb stared down, unbelieving. What he was looking at could not be. He raised his head to demand that Witta tell him what had happened; but the first sounds from his throat were drowned in the gleeful roar with which the warriors came pouring over their tables to hurl him down and pin him to the floor.

  Chapter Ten

  Nearly a week later what seemed at first to be a small sun came down from the sky to hover over the Homskarter town. A mighty voice that was the voice of Cohone spoke to the Homskarters in their own tongue, saying that he and some other outlanders would descend and move among them and by no means was any Homskarter to interfere with any of those who would land.

 
; At this, all those in the village began to shake with fear. They crouched low on the ground and tried not to look when a small flying box such as had been used to come down to Cohone, descended, and three outlanders got out. One was Cohone himself; and seeing him, some of the braver warriors ventured to raise their heads and watch as the three went past them and up to the king’s house, to the tall tree from which hung the woven cage.

  “Allah!” said one of the other two, a female outlander with jet-black hair and a white patch on the shoulder of her upper garment, gazing at the thing inside the cage. “Let’s get him down from there.”

  The third outlander, a male like Cohone, undid the knot that held the rope by which the cage was raised into position with a new occupant. The cage came to the ground, the rope holding the door to it shut was cut through, and the three reached in. The creature that had been Harb, however, did not want to come out. It cried and crouched away from them; but by main strength they got it from the cage and the one with the patch on her shoulder touched it with a small glass tube, after which it became quiet and very docile; and she was able to lead it, shambling and crouching, and sometimes even falling, down to the pod.

  Cohone and the other male outlander started to follow; but a Homskarter warrior wearing the white wrappings of a king crawled out of the open door of the king’s house and came writhing toward them,face down to the dust, up to their very feet. They stopped. The king lifted his face. It was Witta.

  “Don’t let the devils kill us!” he said to Cohone, clutching at Cohone’s ankle. “There was no more we could stand, so we put him in a cage. We did not kill him. We only put him in a cage.”

  Cohone reached down and urged Witta to his feet.

  “The devils won’t kill you,” he said, gently. But Witta still clutched him, now by the arm.

  “We’ve sacrificed all the slaves,” Witta said, pleadingly. “I sent people to put back all that was damaged where you lived. There are those who will come to take the place of those killed by the order of Rajn, when he was made mad by the devil we put in the cage. All the fields that the slaves cleared for us have been plucked clean of any growing thing. Only your fields remain with grain still on them. Come back to us. Teach us what to do and we’ll do it! But protect us from devils and all terrible things!”