by Andre Norton
Produced by Jason Isbell, Greg Weeks, Sankar Viswanathan,and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team athttps://www.pgdp.net
Transcriber's note: Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the copyright on this publication was renewed.
ANDRE NORTON
STAR BORN
ace books
A Division of Charter Communications Inc.
1120 Avenue of the Americas
New York, N.Y. 10036
* * * * *
"What of our children--the second and third generations born on this new world? They will have no memories of Terra's green hills and blue seas. Will they be Terrans--or something else?"
--TAS KORDOV, _Record of the First Years_
* * * * *
1
SHOOTING STAR
The travelers had sighted the cove from the sea--a narrow bite intothe land, the first break in the cliff wall which protected theinterior of this continent from the pounding of the ocean. And,although it was still but midafternoon, Dalgard pointed the outriggerinto the promised shelter, the dip of his steering paddle swinging inharmony with that wielded by Sssuri in the bow of their narrow,wave-riding craft.
The two voyagers were neither of the same race nor of the samespecies, yet they worked together without words, as if they hadestablished some bond which gave them a rapport transcending the needfor speech.
Dalgard Nordis was a son of the Colony; his kind had not originated onthis planet. He was not as tall nor as heavily built as those Terranoutlaw ancestors who had fled political enemies across the Galaxy toestablish a foothold on Astra, and there were other subtle differencesbetween his generation and the parent stock.
Thin and wiry, his skin was brown from the gentle toasting of thesummer sun, making the fairness of his closely cropped hair even morenoticeable. At his side was his long bow, carefully wrapped inwater-resistant flying-dragon skin, and from the belt which supportedhis short breeches of tanned duocorn hide swung a two-foot blade--halfwood-knife, half sword. To the eyes of his Terran forefathers he wouldhave presented a barbaric picture. In his own mind he was amply cladand armed for the man-journey which was both his duty and hisheritage to make before he took his place as a full adult in theCouncil of Free Men.
In contrast to Dalgard's smooth skin, Sssuri was covered with a fluffypelt of rainbow-tipped gray fur. In place of the human's steel blade,he wore one of bone, barbed and ugly, as menacing as the spear nowresting in the bottom of the outrigger. And his round eyes watched thesea with the familiarity of one whose natural home was beneath thosesame waters.
The mouth of the cove was narrow, but after they negotiated it theyfound themselves in a pocket of bay, sheltered and calm, into whichtrickled a lazy stream. The gray-blue of the seashore sand was only afringe beyond which was turf and green stuff. Sssuri's nostril flapsexpanded as he tested the warm breeze, and Dalgard was busycataloguing scents as they dragged their craft ashore. They could nothave found a more perfect place for a camp site.
Once the canoe was safely beached, Sssuri picked up his spear and,without a word or backward glance, waded out into the sea,disappearing into the depths, while his companion set about his shareof camp tasks. It was still early in the summer--too early to expectto find ripe fruit. But Dalgard rummaged in his voyager's bag andbrought out a half-dozen crystal beads. He laid these out on aflat-topped stone by the stream, seating himself cross-legged besideit.
To the onlooker it would appear that the traveler was meditating. Awide-winged living splotch of color fanned by overhead; there was adistant yap of sound. Dalgard neither looked nor listened. But perhapsa minute later what he awaited arrived. A hopper, its red-brown fursleek and gleaming in the sun, its eternal curiosity drawing it,peered cautiously from the bushes. Dalgard made mind touch. Thehoppers did not really think--at least not on the levels wherecommunication was possible for the colonists--but sensations offriendship and good will could be broadcast, primitive ideasexchanged.
The small animal, its humanlike front pawhands dangling over itscreamy vest, came out fully into the open, black eyes flicking fromthe motionless Dalgard to the bright beads on the rock. But when oneof those paws shot out to snatch the treasure, the traveler's hand wasalready cupped protectingly over the hoard. Dalgard formed a mentalpicture and beamed it at the twenty-inch creature before him. Thehopper's ears twitched nervously, its blunt nose wrinkled, and then itbounded back into the brush, a weaving line of moving grass markingits retreat.
Dalgard withdrew his hand from the beads. Through the years the Astrancolonists had come to recognize the virtues of patience. Perhaps themutation had begun before they left their native world. Or perhaps thechange in temperament and nature had occurred in the minds and bodiesof that determined handful of refugees as they rested in the frozencold sleep while their ship bore them through the wide, unchartedreaches of deep space for centuries of Terran time. How long thatsleep had lasted the survivors had never known. But those who hadawakened on Astra were different.
And their sons and daughters, and the sons and daughters of two moregenerations were warmed by a new sun, nourished by food grown in aliensoil, taught the mind contact by the amphibian mermen with whom thespace voyagers had made an early friendship--each succeeding childmore attuned to the new home, less tied to the far-off world he hadnever seen or would see. The colonists were not of the same breed astheir fathers, their grandfathers, or great-grandfathers. So, withother gifts, they had also a vast, time-consuming patience, whichcould be a weapon or a tool, as they pleased--not forgetting theinstantaneous call to action which was their older heritage.
The hopper returned. On the rock beside the shining things itcoveted, it dropped dried and shriveled fruit. Dalgard's fingersseparated two of the gleaming marbles, rolled them toward the animal,who scooped them up with a chirp of delight. But it did not leave.Instead it peered intently at the rest of the beads. Hoppers had theirown form of intelligence, though it might not compare with that ofhumans. And this one was enterprising. In the end it delivered threemore loads of fruit from its burrow and took away all the beads, bothparties well pleased with their bargains.
Sssuri splashed out of the sea with as little ado as he had entered.On the end of his spear twisted a fish. His fur, slicked flat to hisstrongly muscled body, began to dry in the air and fluff out while thesun awoke prismatic lights on the scales which covered his hands andfeet. He dispatched the fish and cleaned it neatly, tossing the offalback into the water, where some shadowy things arose to tear at theunusual bounty.
"This is not hunting ground." His message formed in Dalgard's mind."That finned one had no fear of me."
"We were right then in heading north; this is new land." Dalgard gotto his feet.
On either side, the cliffs, with their alternate bands of red, blue,yellow, and white strata, walled in this pocket. They would make farbetter time keeping to the sea lanes, where it was not necessary toclimb. And it was Dalgard's cherished plan to add more than just aninch or two to the explorers' map in the Council Hall.
Each of the colony males was expected to make his man-journey ofdiscovery sometimes between his eighteenth and twentieth year. He wentalone or, if he formed an attachment with one of the mermen near hisown age, accompanied only by his knife brother. And from knowledge sogained the still-small group of exiles added to and expanded theirinformation about their new home.
Caution was drilled into them. For they were not the first masters ofAstra, nor were they the masters now. There
were the ruins left byThose Others, the race who had populated this planet until their ownwars had completed their downfall. And the mermen, with theirtraditions of slavery and dark beginnings in the experimental pens ofthe older race, continued to insist that across the sea--on theunknown western continent--Those Others still held onto the remnantsof a degenerate civilization. Thus the explorers from Homeport wentout by ones and twos and used the fauna of the land as a means ofgathering information.
Hoppers could remember yesterday only dimly, and instinct took care oftomorrow. But what happened today sped from hopper to hopper and couldwarn by mind touch both merman and human. If one of the dreadsnake-devils of the interior was on the hunting trail, the hopperssped the warning. Their vast curiosity brought them to the fringe ofany disturbance, and they passed the reason for it along. Dalgard knewthere were a thousand eyes at his service whenever he wanted them.There was little chance of being taken by surprise, no matter howdangerous this journey north might be.
"The city--" He formed the words in his mind even as he spoke themaloud. "How far are we from it?"
The merman hunched his slim shoulders in the shrug of his race. "Threedays' travel, maybe five. And it"--though his furred face displayed noreadable emotion, the sensation of distaste was plain--"was one of theaccursed ones. To such we have not returned since the days of fallingfire--"
Dalgard was well acquainted with the ruins which lay not many milesfrom Homeport. And he knew that that sprawling, devastated metropoliswas not taboo to the merman. But this other mysterious settlement hehad recently heard of was still shunned by the sea people. OnlySssuri and a few others of youthful years would consider a journey toexplore the long-forbidden section their traditions labeled asdangerous land.
The belief that he was about to venture into questionable territoryhad made Dalgard evasive when he reported his plans to the Eldersthree days earlier. But since such trips were, by tradition, alwaysthrusts into the unknown, they had not questioned him too much. All inall, Dalgard thought, watching Sssuri flake the firm pink flesh fromthe fish, he might deem himself lucky and this quest ordained. He wentoff to hack out armloads of grass and fashion the sleep mats for thesun-warmed ground.
They had eaten and were lounging in content on the soft sand justbeyond the curl of the waves when Sssuri lifted his head from hisfolded arms as if he listened. Like all those of his species, hisvestigial ears were hidden deep in his fur and no longer served anyreal purpose; the mind touch served him in their stead. Dalgard caughthis thought, though what had aroused his companion was too rare athread to trouble his less acute senses.
"Runners in the dark--"
Dalgard frowned. "It is still sun time. What disturbs them?"
To the eye Sssuri was still listening to that which his friend couldnot hear.
"They come from afar. They are on the move to find new huntinggrounds."
Dalgard sat up. To each and every scout from Homeport the unusual wasa warning, a signal to alert mind and body. The runners in thenight--that furred monkey race of hunters who combed the moonless darkof Astra when most of the higher fauna were asleep--were verydistantly related to Sssuri's species, though the gap between them wasthat between highly civilized man and the jungle ape. The runners wereharmless and shy, but they were noted also for clinging stubbornly toone particular district generation after generation. To find such aclan on the move into new territory was to be fronted with a puzzle itmight be well to investigate.
"A snake-devil--" he suggested tentatively, forming a mind picture ofthe vicious reptilian danger which the colonists tried to kill onsight whenever and wherever encountered. His hand went to the knife athis belt. One met with weapons only that hissing hatred motivated by abrainless ferocity which did not know fear.
But Sssuri did not accept that explanation. He was sitting up, facinginland where the thread of valley met the cliff wall. And seeing hisabsorption, Dalgard asked no distracting questions.
"No, no snake-devil--" after long moments came the answer. He got tohis feet, shuffling through the sand in the curious little half dancewhich betrayed his agitation more strongly than his thoughts had done.
"The hoppers have no news," Dalgard said.
Sssuri gestured impatiently with one outflung hand. "Do the hopperswander far from their own nest mounds? Somewhere there--" he pointedto the left and north, "there is trouble, bad trouble. Tonight weshall speak with the runners and discover what it may be."
Dalgard glanced about the camp with regret. But he made no protest ashe reached for his bow and stripped off its protective casing. Withthe quiver of heavy-duty arrows slung across his shoulder he was readyto go, following Sssuri inland.
The easy valley path ended less than a quarter of a mile from the sea,and they were fronted by a wall of rock with no other option than toclimb. But the westering sun made plain every possible hand and foothold on its surface.
When they stood at last on the heights and looked ahead, it was acrossa broken stretch of bare rock with the green of vegetation beckoningfrom at least a mile beyond. Sssuri hesitated for only a moment ortwo, his round, almost featureless head turning slowly, until hefixed on a northeasterly course--striking out unerringly as if hecould already sight the goal. Dalgard fell in behind, looking over thecountry with a wary eye. This was just the type of land to harborflying dragons. And while those pests were small, theirlightning-swift attack from above made them foes not to bedisregarded. But all the flying things he saw were two moth birds ofdelicate hues engaging far over the sun-baked rock in one of theirgraceful winged dances.
They crossed the heights and came to the inland slope, a drop towardthe central interior plains of the continent. As they plowed throughthe high grasses Dalgard knew they were under observation. Hopperswatched them. And once through a break in a line of trees he saw asmall herd of duocorns race into the shelter of a wood. The presenceof those two-horned creatures, so like the pictures he had seen ofTerran horses, was insurance that the snake-devils did not hunt inthis district, for the swift-footed duocorns were never found within aday's journey of their archenemies.
Late afternoon faded into the long summer twilight and still Sssurikept on. As yet they had come across no traces of Those Others. Herewere none of the domed farm buildings, the monorail tracks, the otherrelics one could find about Homeport. This wide-open land could havebeen always a wilderness, left to the animals of Astra for their own.Dalgard speculated upon that, his busy imagination supplying variousreasons for such tract. Then the voiceless communication of hiscompanion provided an explanation.
"This was barrier land."
"What?"
Sssuri turned his head. His round eyes which blinked so seldom staredinto Dalgard's as if by the intensity of that gaze he could drive homedeeper his point.
"What lies to the north was protected in the days before the fallingfire. Even _Those_"--the distorted mermen symbol for Those Others wassharpened by the very hatred of all Sssuri's kind, which had not paledduring the generations since their escape from slavery to Astra'sone-time masters--"could not venture into some of their own privateplaces without special leave. It is perhaps true that the city we areseeking is one of those restricted ones and that this wilderness is aboundary for it."
Dalgard's pace slowed. To venture into a section of land which hadbeen used as a barrier to protect some secret of Those Others was ahighly risky affair. The first expedition sent out from Homeport afterthe landing of the Terran refugee ship had been shot down byrobot-controlled guns still set against some long-dead invader. Wouldthis territory be so guarded? If so they had better go carefully now--
Sssuri suddenly struck off at an angle, heading not northeast now, butdirectly north. The brush lands along the foot of the cliffs gave wayto open fields, bare except for the grass rippled by the wind. It wasnot the type of country to attract the night runners, and Dalgardwondered a little. They should discover water, preferably a shallowstream, if they wanted to find what the monkey creatures liked best.
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Within a quarter-hour he knew that Sssuri was not going wrong. Cradledin a sudden dip in the land was the stream Dalgard had been lookingfor. A hopper lifted a dripping muzzle from the shore ripples andstared at them. Dalgard contacted the animal. It was its usual curiousself, nothing had alarmed or excited its interest. And he did not tryto establish more than a casual contact as they made their way downthe bank to the edge of the stream, Sssuri splashing in ankle-deep forthe sheer pleasure of feeling liquid curl about his feet and legs oncemore.
Water dwellers fled from their passing and insects buzzed and hovered.Otherwise they moved through a deserted world. The stream bed widenedand small islands of gravel, swept together in untidy piles by thespring floods, arose dry topped, some already showing the green ofventuresome plants.
"Here--" Sssuri stopped, thrusting the butt of his spear into theshore of one such islet. He dropped cross-legged on his choice, thereto remain patiently until those he sought would come with the dark.Dalgard withdrew a little way downstream and took up a similar post.The runners were shy, not easy to approach. And they would come morereadily if Sssuri were alone.
Here the murmur of the stream was loud, rising above the rustle of thewind-driven grass. And the night was coming fast as the sun, hidden bythe cliff wall, sank into the sea. Dalgard, knowing that his nightsight was far inferior to that of the native Astran fauna, resignedlysettled himself for an all-night stay, not without a second regretfulmemory of the snug camp by the shore.
Twilight and then night. How long before the runners would make theirappearance? He could pick up the sparks of thought which marked thecoming and going of hoppers, most hurrying off to their mud-plasterednests, and sometimes a flicker from the mind of some other nightcreature. Once he was sure he touched the avid, raging hunger whichmarked a flying dragon, though they were not naturally hunters bydarkness.
Dalgard made no move to contact Sssuri. The merman must be leftundisturbed in his mental quest for the runners.
The scout lay back on his miniature island and stared up into the sky,trying to sort out all the myriad impressions of life about him. Itwas then that he saw it....
An arrow of fire streaking across the black bowl of Astra's night sky.A light so vivid, so alien, that it brought him to his feet with achill prickle of apprehension along his spine. In all his years as ascout and woodsman, in all the stories of his fellows and his eldersat Homeport--he had never seen, never heard of the like of that!
And through his own wonder and alert alarm, he caught Sssuri's addedpuzzlement.
"Danger--" The merman's verdict fed his own unease.
Danger had crossed the night, from east to west. And to the west laywhat they had always feared. What was going to happen now?