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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/31523-h.zip b/31523-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ef85a9d --- /dev/null +++ b/31523-h.zip diff --git a/31523-h/31523-h.htm b/31523-h/31523-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..10912f6 --- /dev/null +++ b/31523-h/31523-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2473 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Woman-stealers of Thrayx, by Fox B. Holden + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; background-color: #FFFFFF; +} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; +} + +.p1 { font-size:36px; font-weight:bold; } +.p2 { font-size: 24px; font-weight:bold; } + +.tr {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; margin-top: 5%; margin-bottom: 5%; padding: 2em; background-color: #f6f2f2; color: black; border: dotted black 1px;} + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 15%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +.center {text-align: center;} + + +/* Images */ +.figleft { + float: left; + clear: left; + margin-left: 0; + margin-bottom: 0em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-right: 0.25em; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + +.figright { + float: right; + clear: right; + margin-left: 1em; + margin-bottom: + 0em; + margin-top: 0em; + margin-right: 0; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + +/* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Women-Stealers of Thrayx, by Fox B. Holden + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Women-Stealers of Thrayx + +Author: Fox B. Holden + +Release Date: March 6, 2010 [EBook #31523] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WOMEN-STEALERS OF THRAYX *** + + + + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="tr"><p class="center">Transcriber's Note:</p> +<p class="center">This etext was produced from Planet Stories January 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.</p></div> +<p> </p> + + +<h1>THE WOMAN-STEALERS OF THRAYX</h1> +<p> </p> +<h2>By FOX B. HOLDEN</h2> +<p> </p> +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>"And that is why you will take us to Earth, Lieutenant," +barked the Ihelian warrior. "We do not want your arms or +your men. What we must ask for is—ten thousand women."</i></p></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div> +<img class="figright" src="images/image_001_01.jpg" width="177" height="238" alt="" title="" /> + +<img class="figright" src="images/image_001_02.jpg" width="600" height="504" alt="" title="" /> + +</div> + + +<p><span class="p1">M</span>ason was nervous. It was the nervousness of cold apprehension, not +simply that which had become indigenous to his high-strung make-up. He +was, in his way, afraid; afraid that he'd again come up with a wrong +answer.</p> + +<p>He'd brought the tiny Scout too close to the Rim. Facing the facts +squarely, he knew, even as he fingered the stud that would wrench them +out of their R-curve, that he'd not just come too close. He'd overshot +entirely. Pardonable, perhaps, from the view-point of the corps of +scientists safely ensconced in their ponderous Mark VII Explorer some +fifteen light-days behind. But not according to the g-n manual. +According to it, he'd placed the Scout and her small crew in a +"situation of avoidable risk," and it would make a doubtful record +look that much worse.</p> + +<p>The next time he'd out-argue Cain with his rank if he had to. Cain was +big enough to grab things with his brawny fists and twist them into +whatever shape he wanted when the things were tangible, solid, +resisting. But R-Space was something else again. Nobody knew what it +did beyond the Rim.</p> + +<p>He materialized the Scout into E-Space, listened for trouble from her +computers, but they chuckled softly on, keeping track of where they +were, where they'd been, and how they'd get home.</p> + +<p>It was as though nothing had happened. But Lieutenant Lansing Mason +was still nervous, his slender fingers steady enough, but as cold as +the alien dark outside the ship they controlled.</p> + +<p>"You look a little shot again, skipper!" Cain said, grinning like a +Martian desert cat. "What's the matter, Space goblins got you again?"</p> + +<p>A retort started at Mason's taut lips, but his third officer was +already speaking.</p> + +<p>"Here's a dope sheet from the comps, if anybody's interested in +knowing just where outside the Rim we are," she said. "I make it just +a shade inside the outermost fringes of the Large Magellanic Cloud." +Sergeant Judith Kent's voice had its almost habitually preoccupied +tone, as though the words she said were hardly more than incidental to +a host of more important thoughts running swiftly behind her wide-set, +deep gray eyes. They were serious eyes, and in their way matched the +solemn set of her small features and the crisp, military cut of her +black hair and severe uniform.</p> + +<p>"Our little boss-man knows where we are, all right!" Cain said.</p> + +<p>Mason gave Cain's six-feet-two a quick glance, wondering as he always +wondered why the big redhead's shoulders always seemed too broad for +the Warrant Officer's stripes on them. "Sergeant Kent's right," he +said. "Here's her comp-sheet. You can look for yourself. Fringe, +Magellanic. And look at that while you can—" he jabbed a forefinger +at the main scanner, its screen studded with unfamiliarly close +constellations—"because we're on our way back. Set up a return on the +comps, will you, Sergeant?" For all his tenseness his voice was low, +and the words it formed were even and swift.</p> + +<div> +<img class="figright" src="images/image_002_01.jpg" width="224" height="284" alt="" title="" /> +<img class="figright" src="images/image_002_02.jpg" width="600" height="697" alt="" title="" /> + +</div> + +<p>"Hell, Lance, this is the sort of stuff the brain trust pays us +bonuses for."</p> + +<p>"Not out here they don't. R-drive when you're ready, Sergeant!"</p> + +<p>Cain turned from the deep control bank and gave his full attention to +the scanner as the slender, efficient girl started feeding a tape of +reversal co-ordinates into the computers.</p> + +<p>Mason waited the few necessary seconds, pushed disarranged dark hair +out of his eyes and felt the clammy dampness on his forehead, and +wished silently to himself that opportunists like Cain were kept where +they belonged—on the Slam-Bang Run out of Callisto. That's where the +money was. That's where a Warrant like Cain ought to be.</p> + +<p>"Ready, sir," he heard Judith saying quietly.</p> + +<p>"Hey, skipper!" There was a sudden urgency in Cain's voice, and the +equally sudden racket of an MPD alarm going off. Cain was gesturing at +the scanner, stubby finger tracing a slewing pip of light. The alarm +stopped, and Judith's cool voice was relaying information. "About a +thousand miles," she was saying, "mass, approximately three hundred +tons. Speed—"</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p><span class="p2">B</span>ut Mason wasn't listening. He was watching the pip of light as Cain +got the scanner's directional going, tracked it. Suddenly there were +others coming as though to meet it, and it swerved violently, +obviously in flight. And now there were more yet, this time from the +starboard quadrant of the screen.</p> + +<p>"Radiation reading, Sergeant!" Mason clipped out.</p> + +<p>While the two men watched, Judith read back the cryptic information +interpolated by the ship's mass-proximity detector.</p> + +<p>"That's not all engine junk!" Cain exclaimed as she finished.</p> + +<p>"We don't know what drive they've got," Mason answered. "Could be +anything—"</p> + +<p>"Nuts! You wouldn't get that much from an old-fashioned ion-blast, +skipper! That's a shooting war, that's what it is!" There was a +glitter in Cain's narrowed brown eyes; a new edge on his heavy voice. +"Which side do we take, boss-man?"</p> + +<p>"No side at all," Mason said, hardly moving his lips. "We're getting +the hell out of here."</p> + +<p>"Look, Lance. We've got a crew of ten—we've got a couple of m-guns +aboard because we're a Scout. No telling how one of those outfits may +show their gratitude if we pitch in, help their side out. That's what +we're out here for, isn't it? Dig up new stuff for the double-domes to +sink their slide-rules into? Think of the bonus, skipper! Hell, this +is made to order—"</p> + +<p>Mason turned a quick glance to the girl, but her face told him +nothing. It never did when things like this came up between himself +and Cain. And it was something he knew he had no right to expect. But +he was tired ... too damn much Space, and there was nothing else he +knew how to do.</p> + +<p>But this time Cain had a point. Aliens—extra-galactic, even if almost +neighbors—and his help one way or the other could mean an engraved +invitation, a key to the city.</p> + +<p>He turned back to the screen, watched as the careening pips massed, +mixed, whirled in an insensate jumble. He didn't want any more +mistakes. They'd ground him for good, tell him he'd had his limit of +Space, and park him on one of the rest-planets with a pension for the +rest of his life.</p> + +<p>No, he had to think, and quickly.</p> + +<p>Earth had only too recently gotten an entire history of wars out of +her system. Perhaps for good, this time. And that was it; that was his +answer. Better keep his nose clean—</p> + +<p>"For God's sake, skipper," Cain snapped. "Come out of it! This is a +natural, we'll clean up!"</p> + +<p>"Sergeant Kent! R-drive!"</p> + +<p>There was a moment's sensation of nothingness as the Scout made the +Euclidean-Riemannian Transition; the scanner paled and the segment of +the universe it framed twisted, changed.</p> + +<p>Cain didn't say anything. He glowered, and Mason could feel the big +man's contempt. But he didn't have time for it.</p> + +<p>This time there wouldn't be any error. This time he'd be a step ahead +of the situation and stay there. "Scratch those reversal co-ordinates, +Sergeant! Set up to diverge thirty degrees!"</p> + +<p>Cain's sarcasm was little disguised. "Mind if I ask a question?"</p> + +<p>"Just stay at ease, Mister Cain, until we're out of this!"</p> + +<p>Mason watched the scanner's distorted image as the Scout hurtled +through a curved pencil of four-point Space; she didn't have a +fraction of a powerful Explorer's speed, and her small powerframe +physically limited her to that of light. Yet it could be fast enough, +for the aliens might know nothing of Transition technique, or could be +as wary as Earthmen of the Rim. His precautions could be needless. But +he had seen them and they were war-like, and he had no intention of +being followed, either back to the Explorer, or ultimately to Earth +itself. He'd have to maintain the diverged course until he was +certain.</p> + +<p>There was a black pip on the fog-colored scanner. Judith saw it even +as he did. There was a fleeting look of fright on her intent young +face that she hadn't been able to mask.</p> + +<p>Cain saw it too.</p> + +<p>"You got a tail, skipper!" he said, and the grin was back on his big +freckled face.</p> + +<p>Cain was right. The alien was capable of Transition. And he obviously +had little fear of the Rim. His ship grew larger in the scanner.</p> + +<p>Mason felt his fingers grow cold again.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_l.jpg" alt="L" width="33" height="40" /></div> +<p>ance told the girl to eject the tape of co-ordinates from the +nav-computers, and he took over manually, hoping the comps would keep +up. It would be up to him where they went, and up to the comps to keep +track of the Scout's position relative to both the Solar System and +the Explorer.</p> + +<p>His fingers played across the control-banks as though they were the +keyboards of a great organ, and he felt his insides writhe as he +slipped the hurtling ship back into E-Space, then back to R-level +again. He played the tiny craft between levels as though it were a +stone skipping across water, and altered course with each Transition +with no attempt at plan or pattern. Rivulets of ice water trickled +down across his ribs, and the flesh of his thin face was stiff.</p> + +<p>"Wrong again," he heard Cain saying. "At least we can tell the brain +trust that their precious R-factor is constant beyond the Rim ... +maybe that'll be worth a buck or two. At least those kids back there +are playing around in this galaxy like it was their own front yard. Go +on, skipper, take a look yourself!"</p> + +<p>Mason didn't have to look. He knew that he hadn't lost the alien; had +known somehow that he wouldn't be able to. Too apparently, their own +galaxy, near as it was to the Milky Way, was of the same Space, its +continuum forged in the same curvature matrices.</p> + +<p>"Shall I order our m-guns placed, sir?" It was Judith, and he knew she +had grasped the implications of the situation as quickly as she always +did. Sometimes he wondered if she were a computer herself, clad in the +graceful body of a young woman rather than in a shell of permasteel. +And other times....</p> + +<p>He didn't even think about his answer. The "No" was automatic.</p> + +<p>"I'll give the order, then, myself!" Cain said flatly.</p> + +<p>"As you were, Mister Cain!"</p> + +<p>"So it's rank, now, is it?" And he was grinning that damn grin again.</p> + +<p>"Take it any way you want. If you think three meson cannon will stop a +ship that's obviously built for battle, you're hardly thinking well +enough for the responsibilities of your post."</p> + +<p>"Well listen to who's sounding off! So we're just going to let 'em +overhaul us; just let 'em blast us out of Space, or come tramping +aboard if they want to!"</p> + +<p>Mason didn't reply. He looked at the scanner, and now the alien craft +was no longer a dot, but taking definite shape. It would be a couple +of hours, yet, perhaps. And then it would have to be the way Cain had +said.</p> + +<p>The alien overhauled them hardly a billion miles inside the Rim, and +Mason offered no resistance when he felt their magnetics touch the +Scout and draw it gently to the flank of their great ship. It was +necessary to scale down the scanner's field to see the huge shape in +its entirety. Beside it, the Scout was like a sparrow's egg.</p> + +<p>He punched the stud that would swing in the outer lock as the two +craft touched with but the slightest jar.</p> + +<p>Cain's ham-like fists were knotted at his sides, and Judith stood +quietly, as though waiting for nothing more than the presence of an +inspecting officer. But her delicate face was white, and Mason +wondered if the brain under that crisp, dark hair was still +functioning as a well disciplined piece of machinery, or if it felt +the same fear that was in his own. He knew what was in Cain's +thoughts. But at least when he'd told their small crew the score, they +had accepted his decision—and his order to keep the m-guns where they +were. So maybe this time it was Cain who was wrong.</p> + +<p>The three of them stood in the compact confines of the control bubble, +silent, waiting.</p> + +<p>And when the alien stepped through their inner airlock port and faced +them, Mason knew he was not succeeding in keeping his surprise from +his features.</p> + +<p>The alien could have been human. Even clad in his Spacegear, he was +little taller than Cain, and his hair and eyes could have been those +of an Earthly Viking of another day. Humanoid, so far as physical +appearances went But in thought—?</p> + +<p>There was a smile on the Viking face as the alien removed the +transparent globe of his helmet. He seemed to realize instinctively +that Mason was the Scout's commander.</p> + +<p>"I am Kriijorl," he said. "I extend the greetings of Ihelos." And he +proffered his right hand, Earth fashion, toward Mason!</p> + +<p>Lance grasped it as he tried to organize the sudden scramble of his +thoughts. It was a strong hand. He could feel the sinews of it beneath +its gauntlet; like Cain's, yet different, somehow. "You are peacefully +received, and welcome," he said. But there was a hollow sound to his +words that he had not been able to help.</p> + +<p>The smile still played on the alien's sun-darkened face.</p> + +<p>"Thank you. I hope that I use your language not too clumsily. Our +teleprobes may leave something to be desired in the matter of +semantics. You will, I hope, forgive us for taking the liberty of +their use. But since you employed no protective screens, and because +of the necessity of our meeting—"</p> + +<p>Cain broke in without hesitation. "I don't know what you've been up to +while you've been tagging us, mister, but I—"</p> + +<p>"At ease, Mister Cain!" Mason snapped. "We must allow our guest to +explain his action and his mission."</p> + +<p>The alien nodded slightly, glanced at Judith.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_i1.jpg" alt="I" width="35" height="40" /></div> +<p>t was your woman officer aboard," he began. "When we became aware +that you also represented a bi-sexual race, as do we, we realized at +once that you afforded us an unexpected opportunity. Otherwise, we +should have remained at our business and spared you this intrusion.</p> + +<p>"We of Ihelos, as you doubtless have noted, are at war. It is perhaps +not war as your culture understands it; it is perhaps more accurately +described by your word 'feud,' I think, and it has continued between +us and our only similar neighbor, the planet of Thrayx, for many +thousands of your years.</p> + +<p>"We have been quite self-sufficient cultures for all that time, and +have taken great care that our conflict not infect any other area in +either our galaxy or yours, for neither of us, by inherent nature, is +war-like in the sense of aggressiveness. Our conflict is between us +and us alone.</p> + +<p>"However, we of Ihelos recently received a staggering setback from our +traditional enemy due to a certain unexpected innovation in their +battle techniques, and we realized that our cause could end only in +eventual defeat. As it shall, unless your people will help us."</p> + +<p>There was a moment of silence, and Mason found himself wondering how +often this had happened in Earth's own bitter past. It was, wherever +men lived, an old story.</p> + +<p>"What," Cain was asking, "is in this for us?"</p> + +<p>"Could you tell us," Judith said before the alien could answer Cain, +"just why you chose us? Certainly, you must have noticed our +techniques of warfare are quite inferior to your own. We have not +employed them for more than two hundred years—"</p> + +<p>"Nor," Mason finished for her, "do we intend to again. You must seek +help elsewhere, sir."</p> + +<p>"That, for us, would be quite impossible," the alien replied slowly. +"The chances of finding other life forms like our own are billions to +one, the immensity of both our galaxies notwithstanding. Had you not +ventured within range of our screens we would in all probability never +known you existed. And to organize a search...." and now the smile on +his lips was almost a sad thing, "a search of two galaxies—it would +take us aeons, even at a thousand times the speed of light, simply to +cover the vast distances involved, to say nothing of finding a similar +life and thought form. And we do not have aeons, Lieutenant. We have +but two—three, at most—generations.</p> + +<p>"There is too little time to search for allies. We have no other +choice, as you can see, than to take what advantage we can of those +upon whom we may chance."</p> + +<p>"But as my sergeant has already pointed out," Mason said, "our arms +would be worthless to you. And, more importantly, we wish no more part +in warfare. I am afraid, in that respect, you must excuse us, sir.... +It has been a pleasure to have you aboard."</p> + +<p>And suddenly, the smile was gone from the alien's face.</p> + +<p>"I must demand of you, then—force you, if necessary—to take us to +your planet, Lieutenant. For you can quite obviously help us. It is +not your arms we want."</p> + +<p>"I fail to understand you sir." Mason felt the icy sweat start again, +repressed a shiver as it trickled the length of his spare body.</p> + +<p>"Our planet, as our enemy's, is encircled by a wide ring of floating +cosmic debris," the alien said. "In both instances, the rings are +remnants of what once may have been satellites. In the ring which +encircles us, we have successfully secreted refrigerated, +lead-sheathed stores of male sperm, quite impossible for our enemy to +locate. That is a necessity, of course, for any race that is +constantly at war and is obliged to take all possible safeguards to +insure its continued existence. We assume that Thrayx has done the +same.</p> + +<p>"However, our cell stores are useless if they lack ova to fertilize. +On their last attack, Thrayxite ships succeeded in penetrating our +innermost planetary defenses, and heavily damaged a number of our +cities. Many of our women and young were victims.</p> + +<p>"We therefore evacuated our planet's entire female population to an +uninhabited world far distant. It was a young world and covered with +thick forests, much like the labor planetoid which circles Thrayx, and +we believed our breeders would be quite sufficiently camouflaged."</p> + +<p>"Breeders?" Cain broke in.</p> + +<p>"Our philosophy concerning women is slightly different than your own," +the alien said. And then he resumed, "But in our haste we +underestimated our enemy's cleverness. Thrayxite scouts located the +planet, destroyed it, our women, and our seeds.</p> + +<p>"And that is why you will take us to Earth, Lieutenant. We do not want +your arms or your men. What we must ask for is—ten thousand of your +women!"</p> + + +<h2>II</h2> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_a.jpg" alt="A" width="37" height="40" /></div> +<p> Cepheid Variable winked tauntingly at the edge of the Milky Way, the +Large Magellanic Cloud strewn like diamonds in a vast cosmic spume +behind it. It corruscated in glorious display as, far off, a great +silvery ship of Space and a tiny jot of man-made metal resumed their +headlong motion through the mighty legion of the stars.</p> + +<p>And then for an instant, the Cepheid's bright wink was dulled; +eclipsed. A tapering streamlined shape slipped silently across it, and +then was gone in the blackness, and the white dwarf resumed its +brilliant display.</p> + +<p>But the commander of the Cepheid's interruptor had been giving little +time to appreciation of the myriad beauties in the great darkness that +had swallowed her ship. She had trebled her screens and had taxed her +craft's colossal power installation to its limit, forcing it to absorb +and reconvert every erg of radiant energy possible as it labored to +maintain the awful output necessary to cling to the very edge of +R-Space, barely clear of the E-continuum itself.</p> + +<p>She might have been an Amazon of Earth save for the great intelligence +behind the high plane of her forehead, yet she was not without beauty, +nor were those of her ship's complement. On their close-fitting +uniforms were emblazoned the Planet-and-Circle insignia of their +homeland, for they were of the galactic hosts of Thrayx.</p> + +<p>"They proceed toward a planet on the near side of this galaxy called +Earth," the second officer said. "Their mission is to replenish their +supply of breeders."</p> + +<p>"You are certain of that?"</p> + +<p>"I admit it is peculiar, for the breeders they seek are women of that +planet."</p> + +<p>"<i>Women?</i>"</p> + +<p>"Yes. However, the Earthmens' minds indicated a strong tendency to +refuse cooperation."</p> + +<p>"I see. Do you think our probe was detected?"</p> + +<p>"No. I withdrew it immediately when the Earthmen were taken aboard the +Ihelian destroyer."</p> + +<p>There was a long moment of silence. The commander's eyes stayed +unwaveringly on the control sphere mounted in gimbals before her. They +remained concentrated on it when she spoke again.</p> + +<p>"Women, you say. Hardly conceivable, Daleb, unless—unless it was +<i>not</i> simply a penal planetoid which we destroyed!"</p> + +<p>"A startling thought, Lady!"</p> + +<p>"Yes. And the Earthmen, you say, did not have cooperative thoughts?"</p> + +<p>"That is correct. They are not taking the Ihelian craft to their +planet of their own volition."</p> + +<p>"That is difficult to understand, Daleb, for the Ihelians are like +ourselves in at least one respect. They are not aggressors. And if +they are refused their strange request, they will leave the planet +Earth peacefully. But if they are not refused it, perhaps the +Earthman's superiors will cooperate, Daleb! In which case—"</p> + +<p>"Whatever their mission, it is our duty to prevent its success, Lady. +But to do this without violating the Book, without infecting a foreign +area of the galaxy with our conflict?"</p> + +<p>"I think there is a way," the commander said. She twisted the sphere +slightly, and again the two tiny pips it held were caught squarely at +the intersection of the curving light traceries within it. "There is a +way," she said. "Give me a complete description of the clothing these +Earthmen wore, Daleb...."</p> + +<p>A tapering, streamlined shape slid shadow-like across the face of an +undulating globular cluster, and then was swallowed quickly in the +strange gray void of hyper-space.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_m1.jpg" alt="M" width="42" height="40" /></div> +<p>ason and Judith waited outside the towering New United Nations +building in Greater San Francisco, their chauffeured government helio +parked on a sky-ramp adjacent to the three hundredth floor.</p> + +<p>They waited for Kriijorl; they had been assigned, as Earthmen best +acquainted with the alien, as his official hosts during his stay on +their planet. Mason had protested, but Judith had kept the protests +from reaching the wrong ears.</p> + +<p>"You won't make any mistakes. You're home, now!" she had whispered. +"After all, he's only human!"</p> + +<p>It had been the first time Mason had heard a hint of levity in her +voice, and he had liked it, and decided to take the assignment +gracefully. And, the orders said, Sergeant Judith Kent went with the +assignment. Without Cain!</p> + +<p>He hardly felt nervous at all as they waited for the Ihelian to leave +the General Council chamber.</p> + +<p>"Wonder how he made out?" he said idly, offering the girl a +self-lighting cigarette. "Been in there for hours...."</p> + +<p>"We'll know soon enough," she said. "But I—I personally can't +conceive of it, sir. Of course, the New-UN is very practiced in +dealing with all kinds of cultures. Remember the time they had with +those awful five-legged things from Canis Major? Wanted to trade all +the tritium we'd need to blow up a planet just for trees; because they +worshipped trees! Any and all kinds of trees...."</p> + +<p>Mason smiled. He was good looking when he smiled and the Space-tension +was gone from his slate colored eyes. "I remember. But it looks as +though they're going to have the toughest time with somebody just like +us—two legs, two arms, oxygen-breathing.... Women, the man said. Just +what the devil does he expect us to do? Draft 'em? Have an +international lot drawing?"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_s.jpg" alt="S" width="26" height="40" /></div> +<p>he smoked quietly, and her gray eyes were thoughtful. "A matter of +view-point, sir," she said finally. "As it always is. To them, females +are for breeding only, to keep their war machine well stocked. From +what Kriijorl said, they do not understand love as we do. There's +simply one purpose...."</p> + +<p>"Well, that's why I think the whole thing is—well, as you say, +inconceivable from our point of view. Our culture, our women just +aren't conditioned for such an existence."</p> + +<p>"Think back two centuries, sir."</p> + +<p>"You don't have to keep calling me 'sir' like that!" Mason said, +feeling a sudden warmth at the back of his neck as he said it. And +then, "Two centuries back. Yes. After every war, Earth's birth rate +would go crazy. Mother Nature ruled the roost in those days, didn't +she? Supply and demand, cause and effect. It's a wonder Man ever got +anywhere."</p> + +<p>"More wonder some men do—"</p> + +<p>Mason looked up. But Judith's face was, as usual, quite calm and +detached. "You say something?"</p> + +<p>"I said I'd like to have you get Kriijorl to demonstrate that +teleprobe thing of his for us, if you can, s—— Lance. How did he say +it worked?"</p> + +<p>"I still don't get it completely. A peculiar mixture of radio and the +electroencephalograph, I think. He said it replaced radio on Ihelos +and Thrayx centuries ago. You can communicate to a group or an +individual with it in language, or in basic thought pictures. That's +what they use it mostly for, of course, and as such, it's termed a +mentacom. But he told me that it can also be used as it was on us as a +teleprobe when the subject isn't screened. They use a specially tuned +carrier wave of some sort, he said, that impinges on a thought wave +pattern, but instead of registering the pattern's electronic impulse +equivalents as does the electroencephalograph, it 'reflects' them. +Like a basic radar system. And the receiver, it's a tiny thing, breaks +the reflected pattern down into values equivalent to those in which +the 'listener' thinks; amplifies, and that's it! Mind reading made +easy, I guess."</p> + +<p>Judith squirmed a little uneasily. "I'm glad they're not natural +telepaths, anyway," she answered. "And even with a gimmick like +that—"</p> + +<p>And then the conversation was lost as Kriijorl, flanked by two New-UN +guides, strode from the building. The stiff breeze at three hundred +stories of what had once been called Nob Hill flicked his scarlet +short-cape behind him and rippled the broad front of his black and +silver tunic.</p> + +<p>He climbed into the helio with a smiled greeting, seated himself to +Judith's right as he knew Earth custom demanded, and the craft was +lifting slowly over the central area of the ancient city before Mason +spoke.</p> + +<p>"Well, how did they treat you in there, sir?"</p> + +<p>"Not as well as I had hoped," Kriijorl answered. "Your +President-General spoke with me privately after the World Delegates +Council met to question me, and he held out extremely little hope. +However, the issue is to be debated. I think perhaps more out of +diplomatic courtesy than actual consideration. I am to be informed of +the official decision tomorrow...."</p> + +<p>"There were scientists present, of course?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; you have brilliant men on Earth, Lieutenant. They are good +thinkers. I am certain they were interested in me for more than the +sole fact that I am an alien of a race so precisely a replica of your +own. But it is again the old factor, cultural difference. Your entire +world simply regards women differently than we. I imagine my request, +to persons less learned than those with whom I spoke, would be quite +shocking anywhere on the planet."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps," Judith murmured. "Yet somehow I wonder. Somehow I wonder +how much two hundred years has really changed us. Our history in such +things is not pleasant, Kriijorl. Many of our women once gave their +bodies for money. Shock us? I'm not sure you really could. For your +breeders simply give their bodies to produce the flesh for war. And +there was a time when we did that, too."</p> + +<p>There was silence between them for a while, and then Lance began +directing the Ihelian's attention to points of interest as the air +phase of the diplomatic tour got under way.</p> + +<p>The blue-green beauty of the Pacific stretched lazily below them from +the colorful California shore line to the west. Surrounding air +traffic was light, and the tour proceeded smoothly eastward; over the +Great Divide, and then swung north. Kriijorl seemed impressed and +grateful for the momentary respite.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_i.jpg" alt="I" width="17" height="40" /></div> +<p>t was near the end of the tour's air phase that Mason remembered +Judith's request, and Kriijorl obliged with an amused smile, producing +a personal mentacom for Judith to examine.</p> + +<p>"And the receiver simply fits about the head like earphones?"</p> + +<p>"Like this," Kriijorl said. They were nearing Denver, and air traffic +at their level had picked up, and the helio was proceeding more slowly +so that Kriijorl's demonstration caused him to miss little of the +tour.</p> + +<p>He fitted the compact headpiece to his ears and flicked a small +switch. It was suddenly bathed in a warm orange glow. "This way, the +device functions as a limited range mentacom," he began. And then he +flicked the switch again. "And now, as a teleprobe, you see, I could +tell you, Lady Judith, just what—"</p> + +<p>She flushed furiously, but Kriijorl had suddenly stopped speaking. His +face had blanched, and a look of bewildered fury was suddenly in his +eyes.</p> + +<p>"Lieutenant! That air bus! There!" He pointed to a thick egg shaped +vehicle speeding to the north. "Tell your chauffeur to pursue it at +once! It carries a full passenger-load of Earthwomen!"</p> + +<p>For a moment Mason thought the Ihelian was attempting some strange +joke. But a look at the man's face told him that here was no joke; +that here was something he was failing to understand.</p> + +<p>"Earthwomen? Sure—"</p> + +<p>"Plus two other beings, Lieutenant. Two others using Thrayxite probe +screens!"</p> + +<p>On Mason's order the government chauffeur swiftly heeled the helio +about. "Those buses can make nearly a full Mach when they're wide open +like that one," he told Kriijorl. "We can't overtake them, but maybe +we can keep up. I'll have the chauffeur try for radio contact—"</p> + +<p>"No, no! They'll be alert for any signs of awareness of their +presence! Wait—" The Ihelian made a third adjustment on the mentacom, +and it emitted a slight humming sound, and the orange glow vanished. +"This will screen us for a short period, at least," he said. "And if +we've not been already detected, perhaps we'll be able to follow. If +you'll continue to help me, Lieutenant—"</p> + +<p>"Looks as though they've got some of ours, doesn't it?" Mason said +evenly. There was a strange heat in his veins now, and with the +Ihelian, his nervousness was somehow evaporated. "But how the devil—"</p> + +<p>"They are clever, Lieutenant. We were somehow followed here even as we +at first followed you in your Scout ship. We may have been probed +before you were taken aboard our screened destroyer."</p> + +<p>"But you said nothing about destroying <i>their</i> breeders," Judith said +above the throbbing roar of the helio's fast accelerating jets. "Why +would they want—" and she let the sentence die as comprehension +snapped in her gray eyes. Her dark, slender eyebrows arched nearly +together as she pushed the thought further.</p> + +<p>The borderlands of Canada sped beneath them, and then there was pine +forest, but the helio kept the fleeing bus in sight even as the +shadows of a dying day crept inexorably from the east to engulf them. +And then, abruptly, the bus had started down.</p> + +<p>"They're hanging a neat frame on you, sir," Mason said. "Making +certain you don't get the women you ask. By kidnaping some, they plan +sure as hell to make it look as though Ihelian desperation is +responsible. And bingo, your side's in the dog house in nothing flat. +No deal!"</p> + +<p>"They're damnably cunning," Kriijorl said. "It will not be the first +time they have come near making utter fools of us. I can't understand +that."</p> + +<p>"But how would they have gotten those women?" Judith asked. The helio +was slanting downward, and was now less than five miles distant from +the fast vanishing bus. It began to skim the tree tops of a great +tract of spruce, its chauffeur awaiting Mason's signal to drop quickly +out of their quarry's line of sight.</p> + +<p>"Video ads, of course," Mason answered quickly, straining his tensed +eyes to estimate distance in the fast gathering darkness. "Some big +deal. Spaceliner hostess at twice the going rate of payment. Anything +like that...."</p> + +<p>The bus finally vanished less than a half-mile ahead of Mason's helio, +and there was a dark vertical shadow jutting just above the tree tops. +He knew it was one of their shuttle boats, and from its apparent size +would easily hold all the bus would be able to carry—perhaps a full +three hundred. He gave orders quickly to the chauffeur, and then the +helio was hovering inches above the tree tops, and he tossed a +plastiweave ladder over the side.</p> + +<p>"Don't use the radio," he snapped to Judith. "Just get back to New-UN +headquarters. Inform them any way possible of what's going on, and +then flash the air patrol and tell 'em to come gunning!"</p> + +<p>He didn't give her a chance to argue. He simply swung over the helio's +side, Kriijorl after him, and within moments they were on the ground, +and running with what silence they could through the darkness toward +the towering Thrayxite ship a quarter-mile distant.</p> + +<p>"Their action is incomprehensible to me," the Ihelian grunted between +gulps of air. "It violates the most basic tenets of the ancient Book +of the Saints, sacred to us both—"</p> + +<p>"Better save your breath for running," Mason told him, and they +sprinted across the soft pine needle forest floor, shielding their +eyes from treacherous, low hanging boughs, dodging the trees +themselves as best they could in the moonlit darkness.</p> + +<p>And they burst upon the clearing in which the Thrayxite ship had +landed almost before realizing it.</p> + +<p>Mason caught a glimpse of Earthwomen, being led as though drugged into +the yawning flank of the silent vessel.</p> + +<p>There was a sudden movement in the darkness to his left, and he heard +the start of an outcry on the Ihelian's lips. But it was all he heard +or saw. There was a quick knifing pain in his skull, and he crumpled +to the ground.</p> + + +<h2>III</h2> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_y1.jpg" alt="Y" width="53" height="40" /></div> +<p>ou may wait in here, sergeant," the New-UN orderly said. She was +ushered into a small, comfortably appointed chamber adjoining the main +conference hall, and the perfectly controlled coolness of her bearing +was at its peak. To the casual glance of the orderly, perhaps, it +flawlessly masked the vital convictions which had long seethed within +her and made her the little known woman she was. The studied mask +itself had made her the efficient Space officer she was. And at the +moment she was glad for it, because it also concealed the anxious +uncertainty that twisted coldly inside her.</p> + +<p>She was to wait, the Council had informed her. Wait, while the +information she had given them was analyzed, digested. As though, +perhaps, what she had said was part of some insidious plot; as though +it were too fantastic to be the truth.</p> + +<p>They had not even immediately authorized the dispatch of a patrol +cruiser to the spot where she'd left Lance and Kriijorl over two hours +ago, and by now—?</p> + +<p>She tried not to think or what the Earthman and the Ihelian might be +facing, alone and in the darkness. Nor of the conclusions to which the +Council, called into emergency session by the President General +himself when her information had been rapidly relayed through the +correct channels to him, might arrive.</p> + +<p>She could only wait.</p> + +<p>And her waiting was terminated with an abrupt suddenness that made the +twisting cold thing inside her a churning confusion. It had been only +minutes, hardly minutes.</p> + +<p>Only one of them came into the small room where she sat. She rose +quickly to attention. It was an aide to the President General himself; +a brevet-Colonel wearing the uniform of the World Police.</p> + +<p>"Sergeant Kent," he said, "it is the Council's decision that you be +placed under temporary arrest. Your case will be heard at the next +sitting of the martial court to which your unit is assigned. If you +will accompany me, please...."</p> + +<p>"May I ask, sir, what the charge against me is?" Her voice was steady +by cultivated habit.</p> + +<p>"You are to be held on suspicion of acting as accessory before and +after the fact of conspiring to assist an alien power in the +achievement of its objective within the governmental jurisdiction of +Earth without official permission of the New United Nations."</p> + +<p>"But the Ihelians have not done that, sir!" she protested. "It is a +plot of their enemy, as I explained to the Council—"</p> + +<p>"You will be given full benefit of due legal process, sergeant," the +officer said. "You will come with me, please."</p> + +<p>The Women's Detainment Barrack was not unpleasant, yet, Judith +thought, it may as well have been a medieval dungeon. But her own +problem, she knew, was nothing beside the cunning success of the +Thrayxites.</p> + +<p>The call-buzzer at the side of her bunk interrupted her thoughts; it +meant she was wanted in the main guard room. She straightened her +uniform quickly, and within moments presented herself before the +barrack warden.</p> + +<p>Roger Cain stood beside the warden's desk. There was something white +in his hand, and she knew what it was.</p> + +<p>"You're at liberty, Sergeant Kent," the beefy-faced warden informed +her in a tone as casual as though she'd asked her for a cigarette. +"Warrant Officer Cain has posted a release voucher; you're ordered +into his custody until your trial. That's all. You may go."</p> + +<p>She left the barrack with Cain, wordlessly. None of it made sense. +Unless—</p> + +<p>"Well, don't I even get a thank you?" the red-haired giant asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Mister Cain, sorry. But I don't understand—"</p> + +<p>"Why I did it?" He chuckled, and she didn't like the sound of it. "I'm +only too glad to have you in my custody, young woman! And, you know, +you're not supposed to be out of my sight any—that is, <i>any</i> of the +time!"</p> + +<p>She felt her face redden, and spun about to face him. There was sudden +anger at her lips and her coolness had evaporated.</p> + +<p>"You contempti—"</p> + +<p>"Easy there, sergeant! Always knew there was a little more to you than +that ice cube exterior of yours! But tell me—d'you want to sit back +there in that dump, or shall we stick our noses into the lovely mixup +your precious Lieutenant Mason has set off?"</p> + +<p>She stared up at him wordlessly, the blood hot in her cheeks. And she +tried to think. This was Cain as she knew he was. This was Roger Cain, +angling for a deal.</p> + +<p>"I'm in your custody," she bit out. "I must stay within your sight. +That is your responsibility."</p> + +<p>He laughed at her, then gripped her elbow.</p> + +<p>"Come on," he said. "I've got a R-IX waiting at the field. I think we +should go on a little trip, sergeant. There are people I want to +see!"</p> + +<p>They were streaming for open Space within less than thirty minutes +from the time Cain had freed her. She didn't ask him how he'd gotten +permission for the fleet R-IX's use, or how he'd obtained her voucher, +nor did she ask him how he had learned of what had happened to Lance +and Kriijorl, yet she knew that somehow he was aware of the Thrayxites +and their plot. Cain had ways of learning the things he wanted to +learn, getting the things he wanted to get.</p> + +<p>"Keep an eye on the scanner for me, will you, beautiful?"</p> + +<p>"Yes sir."</p> + +<p>"And forget that sir stuff! Look, Judy—"</p> + +<p>"For what do you want me to watch, sir?"</p> + +<p>Cain grunted, gave a shrug of his powerful shoulders and turned his +attention back to the pursuit's compact control console.</p> + +<p>"Two blips, honey. Tearing hell-for-leather out of old Sol's little +family. One'll be chasing the other, if my guess is any good. We want +the front one."</p> + +<p>"But—but that would be the—"</p> + +<p>"The Thrayxite crowd. Right?"</p> + +<p>For a moment she was silent. She knew he could not mean to attack; not +with a tiny pursuit, swift as it was.</p> + +<p>"Mister Cain, I can only guess at what you intend doing. But it will +be my privilege in court to testify concerning your conduct of +custodianship—"</p> + +<p>"You must be working on the assumption that we're going back there, +sweetheart!"</p> + +<p>"You—"</p> + +<p>"A deal is where you find it! Watch for that front blip, sergeant. +With what we know of Kriijorl and his crowd, this oughta be a +natural!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_t.jpg" alt="T" width="31" height="40" /></div> +<p>he cubicle in which he awoke was softly lit, and the painful throb +Mason knew should be splitting his head apart was strangely absent. +Kriijorl was bending over him, loosening the tightness of the military +collar at his throat.</p> + +<p>"They certainly were taking no chances with you," he said. His long +Viking's hair was matted with blood just above the temple, yet he +seemed to be suffering little pain, himself. "How do you feel?"</p> + +<p>"O.K. I guess. Don't feel anything, really...." Kriijorl unbuckled the +wide straps that held him solidly in an acceleration-hammock, and he +sat up. The steel-walled room rocked for a moment, then steadied.</p> + +<p>"The Thrayxites are not vicious, any more than we. If they do not kill +outright, they apparently take medical precaution to see that their +victims suffer as little pain as possible. We're captives, however, +together with your Earthwomen. We've been in flight for about an hour; +putting us well out of your system, if we're hyperdriving—moving in +what you term R-Space."</p> + +<p>"Then—"</p> + +<p>"Apparently no help of any kind arrived in time, Lieutenant."</p> + +<p>Mason remembered, then. Judith.... Somehow she hadn't made it. Or +hadn't made them believe her. This trip, he was strictly on his own. +Not just a space weary Scout Lieutenant any more.</p> + +<p>"What'll they do with us?"</p> + +<p>"Pump us for information, probably. Kill me afterward. You should be +safe enough in that respect. You're an alien, not a part of our +conflict. Their labor planetoid for you, I would imagine. It is a +jungle covered sphere at the edge of their planetary ring; our scouts +have sighted it on numerous occasions. A handful of men in each of its +camps, mining, probably, for the ore used in Thrayxite engines. But it +will be better than death."</p> + +<p>"What are our chances, Kriijorl?" Mason felt the familiar nervousness +returning to his wiry body, yet this time it was in some way +different. Not the kind that ate your insides out from too much Space, +for too long.</p> + +<p>"Of escape, you mean?" Mason nodded. "There is no reason for you to +risk—"</p> + +<p>"Sure as hell is, friend. First because I believe you're my friend. +Second, there were a couple of things you said awhile back that got me +thinking. And third, I got myself shanghaied, and I don't think I'll +like where I'm going!" Cain, Mason thought to himself, wasn't the only +guy in the universe with a muscle!</p> + +<p>The Ihelian grinned. "We'll watch for a chance of some kind, then. But +I will not let you risk your life. We of Ihelos obey the Book, even +if our enemy sees fit occasionally to violate the spirit in which it +was conceived."</p> + +<p>"Tell me something," Mason said. "This feud of yours. What's it all +about? You mentioned that Book business once before, and it seems a +people with your apparent piety and maturity and general advancement +would certainly find a way to arbitrate such a dispute. What are you +fighting about?"</p> + +<p>Kriijorl's answering smile was thin, and there was a puzzled look in +his craggy features.</p> + +<p>"We fight because the Book of the Saints says we must!" he answered at +length. "And further than that—"</p> + +<p>"Yes?"</p> + +<p>"Further than that, I'm afraid we do not know!"</p> + +<p>Mason felt his features twisting into an incredulous expression +despite his efforts to realize and appreciate the wide gap of cultural +differences between them.</p> + +<p>"Don't <i>know</i>! But you can't fight a war without knowing why! You—"</p> + +<p>"It is in the Book of the Saints," the Ihelian said, "and, therefore, +it is our command. And—" he looked into the Earthman's face with the +slightest hint of a smile, "from what I've learned of Earth's history +from your own lips, Lieutenant, what of your own past wars? Who among +your own soldiery has really known why he fought?"</p> + +<p>"Well, but—" And then Mason returned the smile. "No, it isn't so +different, is it? But tell me more about this Book. Is it based on +law, religion, ethics?"</p> + +<p>And this time there was no smile on the Ihelian's broad face.</p> + +<p>"Legend says all three," he replied.</p> + +<p>"Legend? And yet you blindly obey—"</p> + +<p>"We always have. Its writings, such as we understand them to be, have +governed us for millenia, Lieutenant. The Book is our way, our life. +We are told we could not be a civilization without it."</p> + +<p>Mason was silent for a long moment. He did not want to question too +deeply the beliefs sacred to another, yet it was so damnably peculiar. +They fought bitterly, and they did not know why.</p> + +<p>"Could you—would you let me see a copy of this Book, Kriijorl?"</p> + +<p>"If I could I'd be glad to, Lieutenant. For I have often wished I +could see the words it contains myself."</p> + +<p>"You've never read it?"</p> + +<p>"Never. Nor has any Ihelian or Thrayxite for thousands of years. There +is, you must understand, only one Book of the Saints."</p> + +<p>"Just one copy?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. It has long been deemed sacrilege for mortal eyes to view the +ancient writings. The single copy is kept in a great vault, built of +indestructible metals, and protectively sheathed to last for all Time. +The spot above its burial place is marked by a tall spire of stone. It +is jealously protected."</p> + +<p>"You said that its commands commit you and Thrayx to eternal battle. +But if you could only read it, you might learn the basic cause of your +conflict—and, knowing, certainly—"</p> + +<p>"The thought has often occurred to me. But, there is even more +prohibiting such an impossible undertaking than the powerful bondage +of tradition and belief alone, Lieutenant. And that is the Book's very +location."</p> + +<p>"And that—?"</p> + +<p>"The subterranean vault in which it rests is guarded in the Forest of +Saarl. And the Forest of Saarl, my friend, is on Thrayx."</p> + + +<h2>IV</h2> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_i1.jpg" alt="I" width="35" height="40" /></div> +<p>t is something completely beyond my understanding," the Ihelian was +saying. The two men stood, each flanked by two guards, at the +threshold of a great ramp which led from the main air lock of the +Thrayxite ship to the reddish surface of the spaceport upon which it +had landed but minutes before. Mason felt a chill of awed amazement, +not because of the unexpected beauty of the verdant hills that rolled +in a delicate blend of kaleidoscopic pastels on every side of the +'port and as far as the eye could see, nor was it even from the sight +of the exquisite towers that rose as though from the heart of some +fabled fairyland scant miles to the south.</p> + +<p>"They're all—all <i>women</i>!" Mason breathed. "Not a single man!" And he +looked quickly to Kriijorl. "You mean you did not know this?"</p> + +<p>"Know? By the teeth of Jhavuul, we never so much as suspected, +Lieutenant! We have not looked upon a Thrayxite face for five thousand +years."</p> + +<p>The guards spoke to them tersely in the common tongue of Ihelos and +Thrayx, although peculiarly accented to Ihelian ears, and Kriijorl +gestured with a slight movement of his head to Mason. At a quick pace +they started down the ramp.</p> + +<p>"We're sunk, kid," Mason said. And he saw the heaviness in the great +Viking's face. "We'll never make it out of here in a million years. +Even if we made a break for it; even if we had our hands free, where +could we hide? Couldn't make a move. Two men among an entire female +populace—"</p> + +<p>He let the sentence trail off as he realized that Kriijorl wasn't +hearing him. And as their brief view of Thrayx was terminated by their +entrance into a smaller shuttle-ship, he saw the hint of a smile +flicker at the corners of the Ihelian's lips.</p> + +<p>Their captors strapped them into hammocks, and when they had gone to +assist others in herding a portion of the Earthwomen aboard the same +craft, Kriijorl finally spoke.</p> + +<p>"I think for the moment their probes may be off us," he said quickly. +"I was relieved of my own during my unconsciousness, so we're no +longer screened. And the fact that we speak in your tongue does us +little good. But hear me. If we are being taken where I hope we are, +then they are playing into our hands almost as well as we could have +asked. There will be a limited freedom there, and a chance, if we are +clever enough, to get to a mentacom installation. A planetary unit of +unlimited range."</p> + +<p>"But among women?" Mason asked, and his throat was dry.</p> + +<p>"That is the point," Kriijorl replied tersely. "We shall be among +males almost exclusively, save for the Earthwomen and those Thrayxites +who periodically will be sent to breed."</p> + +<p>"You mean the planetoid that you talked of before...? But I—"</p> + +<p>"Think a moment! Thrayxite is a matriarchy, something we of Ihelos +never suspected. And therefore we erred further—what we believed to +be a labor planetoid is not, of course!"</p> + +<p>"Breeders!"</p> + +<p>"Exactly. And if we can make it to one of their mentacoms, perhaps our +problem will be solved. Except that—" His voice hesitated, and Mason +saw doubt in the sudden frown. "I—I have no right to sacrifice your +life nor those of your women. If we were to get to a mentacom it would +be to contact my people, to inform them of the planetoid's true +nature, so that we may even the score for what was done to our own +breeders, and perhaps even form a plan to take prisoners to replace +them. But such a message would be intercepted, of course."</p> + +<p>"Hell, we could dodge 'em long enough—"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps we could, Lieutenant. But the ships I summon will be fighting +their way through a trebled Thrayxite guard—and once within range of +our enemy's breeder satellite, they will have little time to seek us +out and effect our rescue. Destruction will have to be immediate. Now +do you understand?"</p> + +<p>Mason wet his lips. He understood. Death for the breeders. For the +Earthwomen. And for themselves.</p> + +<p>"Nuts!" he clipped out. "That means that as far as you're going to be +concerned, I'm just another Ihelian private first class for awhile, +not a space-neurotic Earthman! And our girls ... well, I think—I +think they'd prefer anything to the living death in store for +them—the rotting away of their lives in some infested alien jungle. +Anyway, somebody's got to be judge. So let's get this damned thing +doped out!"</p> + +<p>The Ihelian began a reply, but the words were stopped in his throat by +the sudden pressure of acceleration as powerful engines fumbled +suddenly to throbbing life and lifted the Thrayxite craft quickly +toward the eye of a great white sun.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_f.jpg" alt="F" width="33" height="40" /></div> +<p>or the second time in her life, Judith Kent watched the warp +configurations of the Large Magellanic Cloud from the far side of the +Rim; somehow it frightened her, as though some awful deadliness must +lie within it.</p> + +<p>Helplessly, she carried out Cain's orders, and as hopelessly, wondered +of the fate of Lance and Kriijorl. Captives, with the Earthwomen, in +the Thrayxite ship with which Cain was so rapidly closing? Or lying +dead somewhere, as she more than half believed, in the chill wilds of +northern Canada? The odds had been so great. She knew that to hope +without reason was folly, and yet not to hope was no longer to care.</p> + +<p>She twisted away quickly from Cain's muscular arm.</p> + +<p>"What's eating you, duchess? Your conscience giving you trouble, or +are you just plain scared?" When she didn't reply, he laughed shortly, +and gestured toward the scanner. In it, the slender Thrayxite craft +was growing steadily larger as Cain's swift pursuit gradually folded +the gap of curved Space between them. "In a couple of minutes, we'll +be ready to talk turkey, sweetheart. They ought to be aware of us +right this minute. I think they'll listen to what we have to offer."</p> + +<p>"To what <i>you</i> have to offer!"</p> + +<p>He laughed again. "It's more than Mason ever had! You know, sometimes +I think you were torching for that space-happy has-been!"</p> + +<p>She felt the burn of rising color in her cheeks and turned quickly +away from him.</p> + +<p>"You don't get it yet, do you duchess?" his heavy voice was saying +behind her. "It's never occurred to you that there are other places to +be beside with your own flock; that there are other men among whom to +seek your fortune if the ones you were born among didn't offer the +opportunities you expected. What are we among the stars at all for if +it's not to find our destinies anywhere we think they might lie? +What's this Big Freedom for, if not to use to some kind of advantage? +And me, I'm sick of being a Warrant under worn out space-neurotics +like Mason! And I don't want to end up being one, either!"</p> + +<p>Judith held her lips tight against the thing that surged hotly inside +her. There would have to be a way to stop this man. And if there +weren't—How the pampered friends whom she'd left so proudly to choose +this calling would laugh at her, would say "<i>that was what the +hot-headed little rebel deserved ... she had it coming if she couldn't +act like a lady</i>." And they <i>were</i> wrong!</p> + +<p>But this man was hideously twisting all the things she had thought +were good and right, worth hoping and striving for. All the priceless +things that had stood for more than the soft, idle and pointlessly +shallow existence to which she'd been born.</p> + +<p>"But I guess you wouldn't get it," Cain was saying. "Born with a +silver shovel in your mouth, you don't have to worry about sweating +out your pile! Quit any time and there it all is after your little +adventure, still waiting for you to come home to! Maybe they'll even +want you to write a book! But me—my father wasn't a lucky +g-prospector."</p> + +<p>A proximity alarm clanged, and Cain quickly turned his attention to +the control banks. He jacked out the auto control and took over +manually. And within seconds the pursuit was hovering over the great +whale-like back of the Thrayxite craft, and then was drawn slowly to +it as its powerful magnetics reached out, ensnared it. Then Cain cut +the pursuit's drive, and they both waited.</p> + +<p>The airlock opened, and the two women stepped through. There were +weapons in their hands.</p> + +<p>"I want to see your commander," Cain barked.</p> + +<p>"I am the commander of this complement," the taller of the two said in +an almost unaccented English. "You will consider yourselves my +captives. Daleb...."</p> + +<p>"What? Not all <i>women</i>." There was a curious look on Cain's face; +thoughts were racing behind the thin blades of his eyes.</p> + +<p>"You are prisoners of the matriarchy of Thrayx," the officer called +Daleb said. "If you do not resist, you shall be unharmed."</p> + +<p>"All right, come off that alien-meets-alien stuff," Cain said as +though the two briefly-uniformed women before him held toys rather +than weapons in their hands. "I didn't just tag after you at a billion +times the speed of light to get thrown into one of your dungeons! I've +got some information I think you can use. And—" and the curious look +was again on his face, "—there are some—shall we say—services, I +think I can profitably perform for you."</p> + +<p>"Profitably, Earthman? Profitable to whom?"</p> + +<p>"To both of us. To me—that's why I'm here—and to you."</p> + +<p>Judith's face was white. Perhaps this was some clever trick of Cain's. +She could have been wrong.</p> + +<p>"Tell me this information you have, Earthman."</p> + +<p>"Let's dicker about price, first, Goldylocks!" He stood there, +confident, defiant, great muscles bunched beneath the fabric of his +tunic.</p> + +<p>"You, Earthman, are hardly in bargaining position!" Only the woman's +mouth moved; her eyes bored straight into Cain's like fine diamond +drills.</p> + +<p>"Chuck me," Cain said with a grin, "and you chuck the best chance +you've ever had to take your Ihelian friends to the cleaners. What +information I have concerning Ihelian plans is one thing." Judith +caught her breath. She knew Cain was lying now. Even Lance had learned +little of the Ihelian strategy, above Kriijorl's attempt to enlist +Earthwomen for Ihelian breeding colonies. It was all, she realized +suddenly, a colossal bluff, from which Cain planned to play his cards +as he went along! And now he had found a wedge of some sort, some new +bargaining point. There was still that curious look on his face, that +careless grin at his lips. "But what service I can render you," he was +continuing, "is quite another! Ladies, how good are your teleprobe +gadgets against an Ihelian screen? A big blank, aren't they? But I +still think you'd give those cute shirts of yours to find out what's +going on inside the thick skulls of our Ihelian friends."</p> + +<p>A puzzled look flickered across the Thrayxite commander's face, yet +she remained immobile, and her weapon held steady.</p> + +<p>"First of all, bright eyes," Cain said swiftly, "may you be the first +to know that they're all men! <i>All men</i>, get it?" There was a soft +gasp from Daleb, and the commander's eyes flickered, widened almost +imperceptibly. "And better yet, I'm a pal of Kriijorl, their commander +who picked us up just inside the Rim that time you followed us into +Earth. So think it over. It ought to be worth a fancy little pile to +you, ladies, since women agents would be kind of conspicuous in an +all-male civilization!"</p> + +<p>"You expect us to believe this fantasy? Do you expect us to accept +your proposal on the basis of nothing more than words? And the +technique you describe. It has never been used, never even considered +as a legitimate method of battle!"</p> + +<p>Cain laughed easily. "Then maybe you better consider it if you want to +come out on top! And as to the rest of it, if I was part of some +counter-plot against you do you think I'd've gone to the trouble of +bringing along some security?" And Judith felt something freeze inside +her as he threw a careless glance in her direction. "There she +is—Sergeant Judith Kent. Your hostage for this little operation! If I +misbehave, she should make a pretty good bargaining point with Ihelos. +From all I gather, they've got Earth sore enough at them as it is!"</p> + +<p>There was an instant's silence, and then the commander said, "You have +not proven your statement that our enemy is a male enemy."</p> + +<p>"What do you think they wanted women for on Earth after you blasted +that planetoid of theirs? A quilting party or something? Add it up."</p> + +<p>The quiet in the small control bubble was electric. Judith watched the +Thrayxites' faces as they weighed the incredible thing that Cain had +said.</p> + +<p>"I haven't got all eternity!" Cain snapped. "You think you can afford +not to believe me?"</p> + +<p>"Very well. Our Book has never mentioned this technique of spying, and +therefore there can be no rule against it. As for the rest—that could +be immaterial. You could be of value to us. Outline your plan."</p> + +<p>"That's better, girls. Only take it just a little slower. We both know +what we are, but let's haggle for awhile about the price, shall we?"</p> + + +<h2>V</h2> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_j.jpg" alt="J" width="26" height="40" /></div> +<p>udith shivered, partly from an uncontrollable terror and partly from +the pre-dawn dampness creeping from the thick jungle surrounding the +small clearing which held one of the breeder planetoid's many secluded +colonies. The camp and the tangled growth which bounded it was her +prison; a place in which there was freedom, yet where none were free. +To walk or to run or to hide—but where? And so it was with the +rest—the hard-muscled, obviously drug-clouded males who had never +known any other world than this; who never questioned from whence came +the periodic groups of Thrayxite women for them to fertilize; who only +glared dully at her, dimly understanding that she was to be, although +captive here, left to herself and unmolested. Yet despite her status +as hostage and Earthwoman, she was afraid.</p> + +<p>The brute of a camp leader, Bruhlla.... Not drugged like the rest. +There was more to his sidelong glances than curiosity and vague +resentment. Too often, she could sense his eyes upon her. And she +wondered at the increasing frequency of his visits to the camp's well +guarded mentacom installation.</p> + +<p>She had lost count of night and days under the white sun of Thrayx and +its ringed host. There had been two, perhaps, or three. Three days in +which Roger Cain had been doing what? Was he with Kriijorl and Lance +posing as their friend, their fellow captive, listening to their plans +against their Thrayxite captors ... remembering? Or would they be +freed, if indeed they still lived, in order that Cain could, with +them, learn even more of Ihelian stratagems on a far greater scale?</p> + +<p>And the Earth girls—she had heard the cries of some, the desperate +curses of others.</p> + +<p>Bruhlla, entitled to use of the mentacom for daily contact reports +with Thrayx as he was, was the only other alien being on the planetoid +who could converse with her. He had lost little time in probing her to +learn her tongue. And he had already hinted at the fate of the women +from her planet. In other camps on the planetoid, held in small +isolated groups, unmolested, Bruhlla had said. But prisoners, as was +she.</p> + +<p>Somehow, the Ihelians would have to know.</p> + +<p>For there was no Earth to which to turn now.</p> + +<p>The shiver again shook her slender body, and her tattered uniform did +little to shield her from the damp cold.</p> + +<p>"Still one apart from the rest of us, are you?" The growl of Bruhlla's +voice behind her startled her, and she turned quickly to face the +loose grimace of derision on his thick lips.</p> + +<p>"I am to be left to myself," she said with what assurance she could +muster. "That is your order."</p> + +<p>"I know my order, little one! No need to tell Bruhlla his orders! But +perhaps you will grow colder; perhaps you will grow hungry."</p> + +<p>"You couldn't—"</p> + +<p>"I have no order about feeding you, little one!"</p> + +<p>Somehow she found the strength to voice her defiance. For she could +still think. And thought, Lance had once told her, was the ultimate +strength....</p> + +<p>"You lie! There was such an order! But if you wish to bring the wrath +of your masters down upon your ugly head." She watched his unkempt +face, fanned the sudden puzzlement she saw growing in his red, +sadistic eyes. If his intelligence were blurred enough by the +self-made drug of his lust. "I myself heard such an order; and if you +can prove me mistaken you may do with me what you will!" <i>God, would +he stop to realize that she understood not a word of the Thrayxite +tongue?</i></p> + +<p>"Quickly proven, my little one! Quickly enough proven! And then if +what you say is untrue...." He left the sentence mercifully +unfinished, and turned toward the sturdily-built cubicle that housed +the colony's mentacom.</p> + +<p>"Wait! I'll only believe your proof if I can hear it for myself!"</p> + +<p>"Come along then and you shall hear it!" The thick lips slackened into +a lascivious grin that sickened her, but she hastened to follow him. +And he did not see her as she scooped the jagged stone from the +ground, thrust it into a tattered tool-pocket of her uniform.</p> + +<p>Past the quiescent, sweat reeking bodies of the bull-muscled guards, +into the dimly lit chamber beyond, Bruhlla half walking, half +shambling before her.</p> + +<p>She watched him as he switched the device into life; waited until its +dull orange glow assured that it was ready for use. So much like the +communications room of an ordinary ship of Earth, she thought. So like +the familiar things of her life, yet so alien.</p> + +<p>He had barely slipped the mentacom's headpiece on his skull and +adjusted a simply calibrated control dial when she struck him at the +base of his thick neck with the stone, all the force of her supple +young body behind it.</p> + +<p>Blood spurted as its ragged edges tore through flesh, bone and nerves, +and slowly, Bruhlla crumpled from the rude chair that held his dying +bulk.</p> + +<p>Thought images as well as words, Kriijorl had explained during their +flight so long ago in the helio. Language would be no barrier. Over +the head, like this ... and this switch—</p> + +<p>She twirled the large dial from its setting, watched a slender thread +of light within a transparent sphere above it fluctuate in breadth as +the dial twisted. And when it was at its widest, she gambled that it +indicated the broadest transmitting beam of which the mentacom was +capable.</p> + +<p>And then she marshalled her thoughts, carefully chose the simplest +words.</p> + +<p><i>Warning, Ihelos! There is an Earthman among you at work as a spy for +Thrayx! I am a captive.</i></p> + +<p>Over and over, the same words, the same thought images which they +formed; of Cain, of this hell-planetoid itself.</p> + +<p>The orange glow pulsated as though itself alive with the desperation +of her signal. And she heard the guard barely in time.</p> + +<p>A howl of rage bellowed from him as she turned, twisted frantically +just outside his grasp, darted headlong through the door.</p> + +<p>And she was quicker than those outside; she was beyond them, running, +the breath sobbing in her throat.</p> + +<p>Away from the blood-soaked thing she'd left crumpled in death behind +her, and toward the jungle's edge. Toward some new horror, perhaps, +and toward a freedom that would be short-lived at best. For she had +killed Bruhlla, and she knew they would not stop now until she had +been run to earth.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_t.jpg" alt="T" width="31" height="40" /></div> +<p>he three men watched as the six ships landed in the jungle clearing; +emptied of the selected Thrayxite women who would in little more than +a day's time re-enter them, the breeders' seed within their bodies, +for the journey back to the mother planet.</p> + +<p>It had been the same the day before, and the day before that, and in +the distance, they had watched similar craft descend toward other of +the many colonies with which the lush planetoid was dotted.</p> + +<p>"Nuts!" Cain said. He turned to Mason. "What the hell else is there to +do? Sit here and rot? They won't kill us. They'll just let Nature take +its course—"</p> + +<p>"There's more to be done than simply make a run for it to one of their +ships," Mason snapped. "The mentacoms on them, Kriijorl's said a dozen +times, haven't the necessary range."</p> + +<p>"So what's your plan? Or don't I get to hear any of the details?"</p> + +<p>Mason studied the big man's face. Captured in his attempt to rescue +the Earthwomen, he had said. His explanation had been that simple. +New-UN hadn't believed Judith, but she had convinced him, and so he'd +tried on his own responsibility, and simply hadn't made it. And then +they'd brought him here, scarcely hours after Mason and Kriijorl had +themselves been delivered to the teeming colony.</p> + +<p>Logical enough, yes. Cain was the kind who would try such a crazy +stunt, alone, with such supreme overconfidence in his own muscle +power. Yet—</p> + +<p>"We must not be impatient," Kriijorl interrupted his thought. He stood +up, his blond head nearly touching the top of the plastifabric tent. +"We must be certain and wait for the best time, Mister Cain. For if we +fail in our first attempt, there will not be a second. And it has only +been three days. As yet, we have been left quite to ourselves; even my +life has not been threatened."</p> + +<p>Mason noticed the puzzled frown that was across the Ihelian's +forehead. "Do you think—"</p> + +<p>"I cannot even guess the reason for that," Kriijorl murmured, as +though more to himself than in answer to Mason's question. "By all the +rules of our conflict, I should be stretched naked for the jungle +beasts by now."</p> + +<p>"Forget it!" Cain broke in quickly. "You're alive now, and if we can +have a little action around here maybe you'll stay that way. We've +watched long enough. They don't guard those ships at all. These +breeders they keep drugged to the eyes, so why should they? I say we +just grab one and blast off! Unless somebody's got a better plan, and +I still haven't heard one—"</p> + +<p>"Awfully anxious, aren't you, Mister Cain?" Mason asked.</p> + +<p>"I'm not afraid of 'em if that's what you mean!"</p> + +<p>Lance turned to Kriijorl. "Maybe he's right. We've watched for three +days. What do you think?"</p> + +<p>The Ihelian looked out across the colony of low, square-shaped +enclosures and to its far side where the twisted jungle began; to the +spot where the mentacom was housed in a squat, guarded dome of +crudely-shaped steel. Then he turned back to the Earthman, and Mason +saw the uncertainty in his eyes.</p> + +<p>"We have gained far less than I had hoped by watching," he said +slowly. "We have learned the number of their guards, and the period of +their change, but perhaps that is all we shall learn. If you think +that as soon as there is darkness—"</p> + +<p>"About time!" Cain said sourly. "And it'll be straight for the—"</p> + +<p>"To the mentacom first," Mason said quietly. "And after that, to the +ships if we can, Mister Cain." He felt strangely calm as his eyes met +Cain's squarely. Somewhere within him, there was something changing. +"Take it from an ex-has-been, big man! That's how it's going to be!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_t.jpg" alt="T" width="31" height="40" /></div> +<p>he camp was dark and silent as the three men left the tent. They +walked as if from boredom, changing direction often as though at +random; yet they moved with a deceiving swiftness, and each step +brought them closer to the crude dome. The sound of their movements +was as a whisper that lost itself with the quiet murmur of the night +wind through the web of the jungle, and when they were close enough, +they halted, to wait; to watch.</p> + +<p>There was the soft clink of metal on metal and the mutter of +dead-toned voices as the guard changed. Four hulking shapes walked at +last in a tired shamble from the structure housing the mentacom. Four +others prepared to take their posts.</p> + +<p>And there was little to disturb the silence after that.</p> + +<p>A muffled grunt, a choked off curse lost in a brief rustle of +undergrowth as though a sudden breeze had momentarily ruffled its +languid calm. And that was all.</p> + +<p>Four breeders lay dead outside the dome.</p> + +<p>Mason felt the warm stickiness of blood on his face, and the sting of +a deep cut somewhere upon it. He saw that Cain was straightening over +a mangled form; that Kriijorl had overcome odds of two to one. The +breeder at his own feet had died swiftly of a deftly broken neck, a +reddened dirk still clutched in his stiffening fingers.</p> + +<p>Then they were inside the dome, and Kriijorl was placing the head-unit +of the mentacom over his matted yellow hair.</p> + +<p>Mason watched in the half-light of the pulsing orange glow, listened +to the heaviness of Cain's breathing.</p> + +<p>And he saw Kriijorl's face stiffen suddenly. With a swift movement the +Ihelian had handed him the head-unit, and with slippery fingers he +fumbled the device into place over his own head.</p> + +<p>Before he could think he had given Cain all the warning that he had +needed.</p> + +<p>"My God, it's Judith! Somehow she's—"</p> + +<p>Kriijorl lunged too late. The man whom Judith's mentacom message had +branded as a spy was already through the dome's door, running.</p> + +<p>Mason moved more quickly than the Ihelian then. Ahead in the jungle +there was a crashing sound, and Mason tripped suddenly himself as he +ran, fell. Kriijorl leapt past him in the darkness, as though he could +somehow see through it, and then Mason had regained his feet and was +following blindly.</p> + +<p>And suddenly he thought of the empty ships behind them, and Cain's +abrupt uselessness to his Thrayxite employers. Then—</p> + +<p>But the gamble was too great. Cain might not double back, but instead +plunge headlong further and further into the concealing morass before +him. No, Cain would not double back. Not now. For in Kriijorl he had +met an even match, and now he was afraid!</p> + +<p>Fully an hour had passed when, his tunic torn and the exposed flesh +bleeding, Mason caught up with Kriijorl.</p> + +<p>"He was nearly within my hands for a moment—" the giant whispered +hoarsely. He breathed with difficulty, and there were long slashes +gleaming redly in the darkness across his great muscles.</p> + +<p>Mason stood silently for moments, toying with a thought that nagged +insistently at the edge of his brain. He knew Cain. He knew the man.</p> + +<p>Then suddenly his thoughts were interrupted by the muffled sound of a +rocket blast, and within moments there was a vertical trail of fire +above them as a Thrayxite ship hurtled skyward.</p> + +<p>"By Jhavuul—"</p> + +<p>"No!" Mason exclaimed. "The blast was from in front of us, he didn't +double back! Must be another colony near our own, and he stumbled out +of this overgrown mess and right into it. There was simply an empty +ship—"</p> + +<p>"Then the traitor has won!" Kriijorl's face was tilted upward, and in +the faint glow of the planetesimal belt that girdled Thrayx, it seemed +more than ever that of an heroic Viking king of ages gone.</p> + +<p>"There's a chance he hasn't!" Mason breathed. He had the thought now, +pinned down, clear in his head. "If there has been no alarm back at +our own camp we may still have the mentacom to ourselves. We'll signal +Ihelos as you planned and then—then there is something else you will +say. Something else that I think will, as the saying goes on Earth, +kill two birds with a single blast."</p> + +<p>Mason had lost track of time; perhaps it was as many as two hours +before they had fought their way through the clutching undergrowth +back to the mentacom at the fringe of their own camp. Several times +they had had to stop, for there had been sounds in the jungle other +than those they had made themselves. Animals, Kriijorl had said, who +had got the scent of their blood. But the noises had not been fast and +crashing—more those of stealth, as were those of their own steps. A +single animal, perhaps, with the scent of their blood; or that of the +breeder guard they had slain. And stalking.</p> + +<p>The dome was still silent, and the stiff corpses outside it lay +undisturbed in the thick undergrowth. In the clearing the six empty +Thrayxite ships towered in the sleeping quiet, star-shine glinting +faintly from their polished hulls.</p> + +<p>Wordlessly, they entered the dome, and it was as they had left it.</p> + +<p>Kriijorl again adjusted the headset, and the orange glow pulsed and +waned as Mason watched.</p> + +<p>And then at length, "If they are to know, they know now," Kriijorl +said. "And the Thrayxite host as well. What was there you wished to +add, Lieutenant?"</p> + +<p>Mason spoke quickly. "Say that you have discovered that the +priceless—and you must say <i>priceless</i>—Book of the Saints is in the +Forest of Saarl on Thrayx. Say that we have discovered it to be less +well protected than is generally believed. Then give the location of +the subterranean vault as precisely as you can!"</p> + +<p>"But my people are well aware—"</p> + +<p>"I realize that, but our friend Cain doesn't!"</p> + +<p>The Ihelian's face was still puzzled, but he projected the +thought-message Mason had dictated.</p> + +<p>And then in seconds the Ihelian had hastily but thoroughly wrecked the +mentacom, and the two men left its silent dome for the empty ships +that beckoned so tantalizingly a scant quarter-mile distant.</p> + +<p>They had run perhaps a dozen steps when the undergrowth behind them +ripped and tore, and Mason spun.</p> + +<p>There was a muffled cry, and he had barely time to catch Judith's +bleeding body as she fell in exhaustion into his arms.</p> + + +<h2>VI</h2> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_t.jpg" alt="T" width="31" height="40" /></div> +<p>he muscles in his arms and legs trembled with fatigue as he lifted +the semi-conscious girl up to Kriijorl, and then with what seemed an +impossible effort, hauled himself through the deserted ship's stern +airlock.</p> + +<p>The Ihelian seemed to carry Judith as though she were a feather as he +climbed the narrow ladder above Mason, infinitely upward, the Earthman +thought ... an infinite distance to the ship's forehull, to its +control banks.</p> + +<p>There was only the sound of his own hoarse breathing in his ears as he +climbed, rung after rung, and the hollow echo of Kriijorl's boots as +they mounted resolutely above him.</p> + +<p>Then they had made it, and were strapping Judith into a hammock, were +taking their own shock-seats before the control-banks of the +Thrayxite shuttle-craft.</p> + +<p>The Ihelian did not hesitate. His fingers deliberated for only a +moment above the firing studs in the blue-green glow of the banks, and +then they flicked home, and engines muttered, roared into terrifying +life.</p> + +<p>Within moments, saying nothing, moving the swift, silent movements of +desperation, they had freed themselves of the grasping snare of the +jungle beneath them; were once more strong, liberated things in the +vast freedom of Space.</p> + +<p>"And now Ihelos!" Kriijorl cried as they broke swiftly from the +ecliptic of the great spangled ring of Thrayx. "If we can but escape +their fleet. Any moment they should be on the scanner, forming to meet +the onslaught of Ihelian squadrons—"</p> + +<p>"No!" Mason said, and his voice was like a solid thing clogging his +throat. "No, not Ihelos—not yet!" His eyes burned, and the red welts +that covered his body had begun to sting, to pain, and it was hard to +think.</p> + +<p>He saw the frown forming on Kriijorl's face.</p> + +<p>"Thrayx, and the Forest of Saarl," he bit from between teeth clenched +against the creeping agony in him. "The Book of the Saints, Kriijorl. +It is the key, don't you see. Key to all this, your feud."</p> + +<p>For an instant the Ihelian said nothing, but groped in hidden pockets +of his battered space harness. His long fingers quickly produced a +tablet, thrust it into Mason's hand. The Earthman swallowed it and +almost at once energy coursed as though from some hidden well in his +body through his flagging muscles and nerves.</p> + +<p>Then Kriijorl spoke. "I do not understand, Lieutenant. I know only +that it would be almost certain death. Intrusion near the vault would +bring a flight of guard ships within minutes."</p> + +<p>"I know that," Mason said. "But perhaps not down upon us! And we must +have that Book. I've been thinking about it, comparing it with similar +writings in Earth's own past. Such books are not new, such motives, +such methods. Your Book is priceless in a way that even you don't +know, Kriijorl. I'm certain of it. For it must contain the reason that +you fight."</p> + +<p>"And that reason?"</p> + +<p>"A reason, if I'm right, that would end your feud once and for all. A +nasty bit of logic which the people of Ihelos and Thrayx were quite +deliberately kept from knowing from the beginning. I'd make book on it +that at one time both planets were very hungry places—"</p> + +<p>"But if you are wrong, Lieutenant?"</p> + +<p>Mason fastened his gaze straight before him on the diamond-studded +scanner, and saw that some of the smaller diamonds were moving in a +tiny echelon.</p> + +<p>"Then I guess we die young," he answered the Ihelian. "Want to try?"</p> + +<p>The Ihelian's face loosened into a wry smile. "Sometimes you ask +rather foolish questions, Lieutenant! I've been bred to such business, +and not given my life so much thought before this! But—"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Judith."</p> + +<p>And then they heard a woman's voice speaking behind them. "Thrayxite +acceleration hammocks could stand improvement," it said. "And when we +leave the Forest of Saarl, I think I'll just lie on the deck instead."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_k.jpg" alt="K" width="37" height="40" /></div> +<p>riijorl's knowledge of the spot's location in the great forest was +far more accurate than he had given Mason reason to hope. And with a +deftness that matched that with which he had eluded the screens of the +Thrayxite fleet hurtling to protect its breeder planetoid, he brought +the ship to rest at Mason's direction, little more than a quarter-mile +from where the Book of the Saints lay entombed.</p> + +<p>It was marked by two spires. One was of hewn stone, as Kriijorl had +said, immobile, with ancient symbols carven from its base to its +pinnacle.</p> + +<p>And the other was smooth, and of metal; its gaping airlock testimony +to the haste with which it had been landed, unhidden by the natural +camouflage of the soaring trees with which the grass-carpeted clearing +was surrounded.</p> + +<p>"Who—"</p> + +<p>"Muscles," Mason answered her. The three were crouched at the +clearing's edge, waiting. "Thought he'd made it some way. Must've +ducked in before their fleet got into Space. Gambling that our signal +that he picked up wouldn't bring out a special reception committee +ready and waiting to meet him."</p> + +<p>"But he has preceded us by many minutes," Kriijorl said. "I do not +see—"</p> + +<p>"Not so many. He was in flight two full hours before you mentacommed +Ihelos. And if I know him, it was straight out of this galaxy at full +blast! So he had to back-track all that time and distance. He had to +risk a trap down here, as well as the Thrayxite fleet which he knew +would be rushing to protect its breeders."</p> + +<p>"You had counted on those factors, Lieutenant?"</p> + +<p>"Two birds with one blast, like I told you before," Mason said. "Ask +Judith, here. She'll tell you how well I know him." The girl was +silent, but her eyes voiced her thoughts more eloquently than her +tongue might have.</p> + +<p>"Some will do anything to obtain the 'priceless'—" Kriijorl said +softly.</p> + +<p>"Cain, any time!"</p> + +<p>"You have laid a clever trap, Lieutenant."</p> + +<p>"If it springs, sure. But where are those guard ships you were so +worried about? I was counting on them, too. They should be all over +the place by now."</p> + +<p>And he was interrupted by the high-pitched scream of the flat, finned +shapes that hurtled suddenly over the tree tops, circled, slid quickly +downward.</p> + +<p>"FLAT!" Mason yelled. And as they stretched prone, they saw Cain +running toward the ship from a great open shaft in the ground, a +round, shiny thing beneath one arm.</p> + +<p>A probing needle of white hot flame stabbed out from one of the +descending ships, and there was a scream, and then Cain fell, a +charred skeleton, to the ground. The shiny thing he had carried rolled +lazily along the grass, teetered on edge, plopped silently over.</p> + +<p>Mason was poised like a runner awaiting the starting gun. For a split +second he hesitated as the guard ships touched down, their weapons +momentarily screened by the lush foliage at the clearing's edge.</p> + +<p>And then Mason was running, Judith and Kriijorl only steps behind him.</p> + +<p>There were perhaps seconds before the armed women of the Thrayxite +guard detail would break from the forest's edge.</p> + +<p>He stumbled, fell, and his outstretched hands touched the round, shiny +thing, and he could smell the reek of Cain's smouldering skeleton.</p> + +<p>Kriijorl and Judith hesitated.</p> + +<p>"Damn it, run!" and he felt his scream tear at his dry throat, and +then clutched the metal disk to him and regained his feet in a single +whip-like motion, and bolted after them toward the gaping air lock of +the ship that Cain had never reached.</p> + +<p>There was a hissing sound and a wave of heat crackled behind him, +seared his flesh beneath his tattered tunic. And there was another, +inches before him, scorching smoking scars in the soft green turf, and +shouted orders filled the air scant yards behind him.</p> + +<p>Then somehow he was at the air lock, and strong hands were pulling him +over its edge, and it swung to, glowed red as a bolt of raw energy +spent itself harmlessly against it.</p> + +<p>"Now Ihelos!" Mason said as he fought for new breath.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_i.jpg" alt="I" width="17" height="40" /></div> +<p>t was white, all white around him.</p> + +<p>He tried to sit up but there was the touch of gentle hands that stayed +him, lowered him back upon the bed.</p> + +<p>There were two of them—tall, like Vikings, and memory returned +slowly. There was a smaller one, too, standing straight and erect +beside him, like a proud queen from the pages of Earth's colorful +history.</p> + +<p>Judith. And Kriijorl. And another. And in his hands there was the +silver disk. The can.</p> + +<p>The can of records. The Book of the Saints.</p> + +<p>He tried again to straighten, and then heard the voice of the one whom +he did not know.</p> + +<p>"I am Yhevvak, Grand Liege of Ihelos," the voice said. "And I hold in +my hands, Earthman, the Book of the Saints. I have read it, and I have +broadcast to all of Thrayx what I have read. A truce delegation has +already departed from that planet to meet us here in Space."</p> + +<p>"But—" the word stuck in his throat, and it was hard to think.</p> + +<p>"Commander Kriijorl said that you suspected it was the key to our +great trouble. You were right.</p> + +<p>"For it tells of a conference among the leaders of our two worlds many +millenia ago; a conference held in secret, because of the nature of +its subject—the very people of our worlds themselves. Secret, because +of the decision concerning them and their staggering number. Too +staggering for either planet any longer to feed. And the record itself +was then committed to this single microtape, and itself, kept in +secrecy since the day it was recorded.</p> + +<p>"At first shrouded in deliberate mysticism, it was at length +remembered only as the Last Word of the Saints in the sudden wars +which so quickly followed its creation, the true cause of which was +skillfully falsified to the people of the time, and truly known only +to those who made the microtape I hold here.</p> + +<p>"They were our greatest leaders; in them was invested the +responsibility for the welfare and livelihood of our two planets, both +materially and spiritually.</p> + +<p>"When they lived, those records say, travel in Space beyond the speed +of light had not been accomplished; they believed such a feat an +impossibility imposed by a condescending Nature that could be +challenged too far. And they therefore knew no way of reaching beyond +the planets of Ihelos and Thrayx for the food and resources that +became so sorely depleted as both planets became, at length, stripped +nearly bare as their populations swelled beyond saturation point.</p> + +<p>"Medical science had permitted the old to grow older; granted the +new-born an almost certain purchase on life once first breath had been +drawn. Yet its greatest offering was rejected by the people; there +were indignant cries at the merest suggestion that they intelligently +regulate their number, so that their posterity might live in greater +plenty than had they.</p> + +<p>"There was but one solution for our desperate leaders. For although +warfare had long since vanished from our civilization as it had +matured, it took with it Nature's own unpleasant balance for her +overgenerous fecundity.</p> + +<p>"The new balance, then, had to be of Man's making. And so it was made.</p> + +<p>"Our leaders, our Saints, as we have come through the years to know +them, were of course adept masters at the many subtle arts of +propaganda, and they used those arts to the very limits of their +skill. They deliberately fomented, as their ancient record shows, the +wars, small at first and then ever larger, between Ihelos and Thrayx.</p> + +<p>"They could not have foreseen that one day there would be conflict for +existence between the sexes; logically calculating intellect against +intuitive, wily cunning in a battle to determine the most fit, who +would then enjoy the right to survive.</p> + +<p>"Nor could they have foreseen that one day, because of the very +conflict they fomented, the science of controlled genetics would at +last be recognized as a necessity of survival to both factions.</p> + +<p>"Today we have our answer to the age old problem of keeping our +consumption within the limits of our ability to produce for it; we +have used it to survive. But to survive war, not peace.</p> + +<p>"And that, as you apparently suspected, Earthman, is the key.</p> + +<p>"We know now why we fought. And with the knowledge of the life forces +with which we insured our continued existence during our years of +battle, we may now become united worlds of peace again. For we shall +use that knowledge to take more advisedly of Nature's fruits than we +took before.</p> + +<p>"Well done, Earthmen. And with our thanks, know that we shall be +always in your debt."</p> + +<p>Then Yhevvak bowed low, and left just the three of them together in +the white hospital bay of his flagship.</p> + +<p>Kriijorl was smiling, and there was a shininess in Judith's eyes.</p> + +<p>Mason grinned. "I hope those Thrayxite babes get a wiggle on," he +said. "Those Earth gals gotta get 'em home! Their mothers'll be +frantic. Hey, girl, not in front of company!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Women-Stealers of Thrayx, by Fox B. 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Holden + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Women-Stealers of Thrayx + +Author: Fox B. Holden + +Release Date: March 6, 2010 [EBook #31523] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WOMEN-STEALERS OF THRAYX *** + + + + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + Transcriber's Note: + + This etext was produced from Planet Stories January 1954. Extensive + research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this + publication was renewed. + + + THE WOMAN-STEALERS OF THRAYX + + + By FOX B. HOLDEN + + + _"And that is why you will take us to Earth, Lieutenant," + barked the Ihelian warrior. "We do not want your arms or + your men. What we must ask for is--ten thousand women."_ + + * * * * * + + + + +Mason was nervous. It was the nervousness of cold apprehension, not +simply that which had become indigenous to his high-strung make-up. He +was, in his way, afraid; afraid that he'd again come up with a wrong +answer. + +[Illustration] + +He'd brought the tiny Scout too close to the Rim. Facing the facts +squarely, he knew, even as he fingered the stud that would wrench them +out of their R-curve, that he'd not just come too close. He'd overshot +entirely. Pardonable, perhaps, from the view-point of the corps of +scientists safely ensconced in their ponderous Mark VII Explorer some +fifteen light-days behind. But not according to the g-n manual. +According to it, he'd placed the Scout and her small crew in a +"situation of avoidable risk," and it would make a doubtful record +look that much worse. + +[Illustration] + +The next time he'd out-argue Cain with his rank if he had to. Cain was +big enough to grab things with his brawny fists and twist them into +whatever shape he wanted when the things were tangible, solid, +resisting. But R-Space was something else again. Nobody knew what it +did beyond the Rim. + +He materialized the Scout into E-Space, listened for trouble from her +computers, but they chuckled softly on, keeping track of where they +were, where they'd been, and how they'd get home. + +It was as though nothing had happened. But Lieutenant Lansing Mason +was still nervous, his slender fingers steady enough, but as cold as +the alien dark outside the ship they controlled. + +"You look a little shot again, skipper!" Cain said, grinning like a +Martian desert cat. "What's the matter, Space goblins got you again?" + +A retort started at Mason's taut lips, but his third officer was +already speaking. + +"Here's a dope sheet from the comps, if anybody's interested in +knowing just where outside the Rim we are," she said. "I make it just +a shade inside the outermost fringes of the Large Magellanic Cloud." +Sergeant Judith Kent's voice had its almost habitually preoccupied +tone, as though the words she said were hardly more than incidental to +a host of more important thoughts running swiftly behind her wide-set, +deep gray eyes. They were serious eyes, and in their way matched the +solemn set of her small features and the crisp, military cut of her +black hair and severe uniform. + +"Our little boss-man knows where we are, all right!" Cain said. + +Mason gave Cain's six-feet-two a quick glance, wondering as he always +wondered why the big redhead's shoulders always seemed too broad for +the Warrant Officer's stripes on them. "Sergeant Kent's right," he +said. "Here's her comp-sheet. You can look for yourself. Fringe, +Magellanic. And look at that while you can--" he jabbed a forefinger +at the main scanner, its screen studded with unfamiliarly close +constellations--"because we're on our way back. Set up a return on the +comps, will you, Sergeant?" For all his tenseness his voice was low, +and the words it formed were even and swift. + +"Hell, Lance, this is the sort of stuff the brain trust pays us +bonuses for." + +"Not out here they don't. R-drive when you're ready, Sergeant!" + +Cain turned from the deep control bank and gave his full attention to +the scanner as the slender, efficient girl started feeding a tape of +reversal co-ordinates into the computers. + +Mason waited the few necessary seconds, pushed disarranged dark hair +out of his eyes and felt the clammy dampness on his forehead, and +wished silently to himself that opportunists like Cain were kept where +they belonged--on the Slam-Bang Run out of Callisto. That's where the +money was. That's where a Warrant like Cain ought to be. + +"Ready, sir," he heard Judith saying quietly. + +"Hey, skipper!" There was a sudden urgency in Cain's voice, and the +equally sudden racket of an MPD alarm going off. Cain was gesturing at +the scanner, stubby finger tracing a slewing pip of light. The alarm +stopped, and Judith's cool voice was relaying information. "About a +thousand miles," she was saying, "mass, approximately three hundred +tons. Speed--" + + * * * * * + +But Mason wasn't listening. He was watching the pip of light as Cain +got the scanner's directional going, tracked it. Suddenly there were +others coming as though to meet it, and it swerved violently, +obviously in flight. And now there were more yet, this time from the +starboard quadrant of the screen. + +"Radiation reading, Sergeant!" Mason clipped out. + +While the two men watched, Judith read back the cryptic information +interpolated by the ship's mass-proximity detector. + +"That's not all engine junk!" Cain exclaimed as she finished. + +"We don't know what drive they've got," Mason answered. "Could be +anything--" + +"Nuts! You wouldn't get that much from an old-fashioned ion-blast, +skipper! That's a shooting war, that's what it is!" There was a +glitter in Cain's narrowed brown eyes; a new edge on his heavy voice. +"Which side do we take, boss-man?" + +"No side at all," Mason said, hardly moving his lips. "We're getting +the hell out of here." + +"Look, Lance. We've got a crew of ten--we've got a couple of m-guns +aboard because we're a Scout. No telling how one of those outfits may +show their gratitude if we pitch in, help their side out. That's what +we're out here for, isn't it? Dig up new stuff for the double-domes to +sink their slide-rules into? Think of the bonus, skipper! Hell, this +is made to order--" + +Mason turned a quick glance to the girl, but her face told him +nothing. It never did when things like this came up between himself +and Cain. And it was something he knew he had no right to expect. But +he was tired ... too damn much Space, and there was nothing else he +knew how to do. + +But this time Cain had a point. Aliens--extra-galactic, even if almost +neighbors--and his help one way or the other could mean an engraved +invitation, a key to the city. + +He turned back to the screen, watched as the careening pips massed, +mixed, whirled in an insensate jumble. He didn't want any more +mistakes. They'd ground him for good, tell him he'd had his limit of +Space, and park him on one of the rest-planets with a pension for the +rest of his life. + +No, he had to think, and quickly. + +Earth had only too recently gotten an entire history of wars out of +her system. Perhaps for good, this time. And that was it; that was his +answer. Better keep his nose clean-- + +"For God's sake, skipper," Cain snapped. "Come out of it! This is a +natural, we'll clean up!" + +"Sergeant Kent! R-drive!" + +There was a moment's sensation of nothingness as the Scout made the +Euclidean-Riemannian Transition; the scanner paled and the segment of +the universe it framed twisted, changed. + +Cain didn't say anything. He glowered, and Mason could feel the big +man's contempt. But he didn't have time for it. + +This time there wouldn't be any error. This time he'd be a step ahead +of the situation and stay there. "Scratch those reversal co-ordinates, +Sergeant! Set up to diverge thirty degrees!" + +Cain's sarcasm was little disguised. "Mind if I ask a question?" + +"Just stay at ease, Mister Cain, until we're out of this!" + +Mason watched the scanner's distorted image as the Scout hurtled +through a curved pencil of four-point Space; she didn't have a +fraction of a powerful Explorer's speed, and her small powerframe +physically limited her to that of light. Yet it could be fast enough, +for the aliens might know nothing of Transition technique, or could be +as wary as Earthmen of the Rim. His precautions could be needless. But +he had seen them and they were war-like, and he had no intention of +being followed, either back to the Explorer, or ultimately to Earth +itself. He'd have to maintain the diverged course until he was +certain. + +There was a black pip on the fog-colored scanner. Judith saw it even +as he did. There was a fleeting look of fright on her intent young +face that she hadn't been able to mask. + +Cain saw it too. + +"You got a tail, skipper!" he said, and the grin was back on his big +freckled face. + +Cain was right. The alien was capable of Transition. And he obviously +had little fear of the Rim. His ship grew larger in the scanner. + +Mason felt his fingers grow cold again. + + * * * * * + +Lance told the girl to eject the tape of co-ordinates from the +nav-computers, and he took over manually, hoping the comps would keep +up. It would be up to him where they went, and up to the comps to keep +track of the Scout's position relative to both the Solar System and +the Explorer. + +His fingers played across the control-banks as though they were the +keyboards of a great organ, and he felt his insides writhe as he +slipped the hurtling ship back into E-Space, then back to R-level +again. He played the tiny craft between levels as though it were a +stone skipping across water, and altered course with each Transition +with no attempt at plan or pattern. Rivulets of ice water trickled +down across his ribs, and the flesh of his thin face was stiff. + +"Wrong again," he heard Cain saying. "At least we can tell the brain +trust that their precious R-factor is constant beyond the Rim ... +maybe that'll be worth a buck or two. At least those kids back there +are playing around in this galaxy like it was their own front yard. Go +on, skipper, take a look yourself!" + +Mason didn't have to look. He knew that he hadn't lost the alien; had +known somehow that he wouldn't be able to. Too apparently, their own +galaxy, near as it was to the Milky Way, was of the same Space, its +continuum forged in the same curvature matrices. + +"Shall I order our m-guns placed, sir?" It was Judith, and he knew she +had grasped the implications of the situation as quickly as she always +did. Sometimes he wondered if she were a computer herself, clad in the +graceful body of a young woman rather than in a shell of permasteel. +And other times.... + +He didn't even think about his answer. The "No" was automatic. + +"I'll give the order, then, myself!" Cain said flatly. + +"As you were, Mister Cain!" + +"So it's rank, now, is it?" And he was grinning that damn grin again. + +"Take it any way you want. If you think three meson cannon will stop a +ship that's obviously built for battle, you're hardly thinking well +enough for the responsibilities of your post." + +"Well listen to who's sounding off! So we're just going to let 'em +overhaul us; just let 'em blast us out of Space, or come tramping +aboard if they want to!" + +Mason didn't reply. He looked at the scanner, and now the alien craft +was no longer a dot, but taking definite shape. It would be a couple +of hours, yet, perhaps. And then it would have to be the way Cain had +said. + +The alien overhauled them hardly a billion miles inside the Rim, and +Mason offered no resistance when he felt their magnetics touch the +Scout and draw it gently to the flank of their great ship. It was +necessary to scale down the scanner's field to see the huge shape in +its entirety. Beside it, the Scout was like a sparrow's egg. + +He punched the stud that would swing in the outer lock as the two +craft touched with but the slightest jar. + +Cain's ham-like fists were knotted at his sides, and Judith stood +quietly, as though waiting for nothing more than the presence of an +inspecting officer. But her delicate face was white, and Mason +wondered if the brain under that crisp, dark hair was still +functioning as a well disciplined piece of machinery, or if it felt +the same fear that was in his own. He knew what was in Cain's +thoughts. But at least when he'd told their small crew the score, they +had accepted his decision--and his order to keep the m-guns where they +were. So maybe this time it was Cain who was wrong. + +The three of them stood in the compact confines of the control bubble, +silent, waiting. + +And when the alien stepped through their inner airlock port and faced +them, Mason knew he was not succeeding in keeping his surprise from +his features. + +The alien could have been human. Even clad in his Spacegear, he was +little taller than Cain, and his hair and eyes could have been those +of an Earthly Viking of another day. Humanoid, so far as physical +appearances went But in thought--? + +There was a smile on the Viking face as the alien removed the +transparent globe of his helmet. He seemed to realize instinctively +that Mason was the Scout's commander. + +"I am Kriijorl," he said. "I extend the greetings of Ihelos." And he +proffered his right hand, Earth fashion, toward Mason! + +Lance grasped it as he tried to organize the sudden scramble of his +thoughts. It was a strong hand. He could feel the sinews of it beneath +its gauntlet; like Cain's, yet different, somehow. "You are peacefully +received, and welcome," he said. But there was a hollow sound to his +words that he had not been able to help. + +The smile still played on the alien's sun-darkened face. + +"Thank you. I hope that I use your language not too clumsily. Our +teleprobes may leave something to be desired in the matter of +semantics. You will, I hope, forgive us for taking the liberty of +their use. But since you employed no protective screens, and because +of the necessity of our meeting--" + +Cain broke in without hesitation. "I don't know what you've been up to +while you've been tagging us, mister, but I--" + +"At ease, Mister Cain!" Mason snapped. "We must allow our guest to +explain his action and his mission." + +The alien nodded slightly, glanced at Judith. + + * * * * * + +"It was your woman officer aboard," he began. "When we became aware +that you also represented a bi-sexual race, as do we, we realized at +once that you afforded us an unexpected opportunity. Otherwise, we +should have remained at our business and spared you this intrusion. + +"We of Ihelos, as you doubtless have noted, are at war. It is perhaps +not war as your culture understands it; it is perhaps more accurately +described by your word 'feud,' I think, and it has continued between +us and our only similar neighbor, the planet of Thrayx, for many +thousands of your years. + +"We have been quite self-sufficient cultures for all that time, and +have taken great care that our conflict not infect any other area in +either our galaxy or yours, for neither of us, by inherent nature, is +war-like in the sense of aggressiveness. Our conflict is between us +and us alone. + +"However, we of Ihelos recently received a staggering setback from our +traditional enemy due to a certain unexpected innovation in their +battle techniques, and we realized that our cause could end only in +eventual defeat. As it shall, unless your people will help us." + +There was a moment of silence, and Mason found himself wondering how +often this had happened in Earth's own bitter past. It was, wherever +men lived, an old story. + +"What," Cain was asking, "is in this for us?" + +"Could you tell us," Judith said before the alien could answer Cain, +"just why you chose us? Certainly, you must have noticed our +techniques of warfare are quite inferior to your own. We have not +employed them for more than two hundred years--" + +"Nor," Mason finished for her, "do we intend to again. You must seek +help elsewhere, sir." + +"That, for us, would be quite impossible," the alien replied slowly. +"The chances of finding other life forms like our own are billions to +one, the immensity of both our galaxies notwithstanding. Had you not +ventured within range of our screens we would in all probability never +known you existed. And to organize a search...." and now the smile on +his lips was almost a sad thing, "a search of two galaxies--it would +take us aeons, even at a thousand times the speed of light, simply to +cover the vast distances involved, to say nothing of finding a similar +life and thought form. And we do not have aeons, Lieutenant. We have +but two--three, at most--generations. + +"There is too little time to search for allies. We have no other +choice, as you can see, than to take what advantage we can of those +upon whom we may chance." + +"But as my sergeant has already pointed out," Mason said, "our arms +would be worthless to you. And, more importantly, we wish no more part +in warfare. I am afraid, in that respect, you must excuse us, sir.... +It has been a pleasure to have you aboard." + +And suddenly, the smile was gone from the alien's face. + +"I must demand of you, then--force you, if necessary--to take us to +your planet, Lieutenant. For you can quite obviously help us. It is +not your arms we want." + +"I fail to understand you sir." Mason felt the icy sweat start again, +repressed a shiver as it trickled the length of his spare body. + +"Our planet, as our enemy's, is encircled by a wide ring of floating +cosmic debris," the alien said. "In both instances, the rings are +remnants of what once may have been satellites. In the ring which +encircles us, we have successfully secreted refrigerated, +lead-sheathed stores of male sperm, quite impossible for our enemy to +locate. That is a necessity, of course, for any race that is +constantly at war and is obliged to take all possible safeguards to +insure its continued existence. We assume that Thrayx has done the +same. + +"However, our cell stores are useless if they lack ova to fertilize. +On their last attack, Thrayxite ships succeeded in penetrating our +innermost planetary defenses, and heavily damaged a number of our +cities. Many of our women and young were victims. + +"We therefore evacuated our planet's entire female population to an +uninhabited world far distant. It was a young world and covered with +thick forests, much like the labor planetoid which circles Thrayx, and +we believed our breeders would be quite sufficiently camouflaged." + +"Breeders?" Cain broke in. + +"Our philosophy concerning women is slightly different than your own," +the alien said. And then he resumed, "But in our haste we +underestimated our enemy's cleverness. Thrayxite scouts located the +planet, destroyed it, our women, and our seeds. + +"And that is why you will take us to Earth, Lieutenant. We do not want +your arms or your men. What we must ask for is--ten thousand of your +women!" + + +II + +A Cepheid Variable winked tauntingly at the edge of the Milky Way, the +Large Magellanic Cloud strewn like diamonds in a vast cosmic spume +behind it. It corruscated in glorious display as, far off, a great +silvery ship of Space and a tiny jot of man-made metal resumed their +headlong motion through the mighty legion of the stars. + +And then for an instant, the Cepheid's bright wink was dulled; +eclipsed. A tapering streamlined shape slipped silently across it, and +then was gone in the blackness, and the white dwarf resumed its +brilliant display. + +But the commander of the Cepheid's interruptor had been giving little +time to appreciation of the myriad beauties in the great darkness that +had swallowed her ship. She had trebled her screens and had taxed her +craft's colossal power installation to its limit, forcing it to absorb +and reconvert every erg of radiant energy possible as it labored to +maintain the awful output necessary to cling to the very edge of +R-Space, barely clear of the E-continuum itself. + +She might have been an Amazon of Earth save for the great intelligence +behind the high plane of her forehead, yet she was not without beauty, +nor were those of her ship's complement. On their close-fitting +uniforms were emblazoned the Planet-and-Circle insignia of their +homeland, for they were of the galactic hosts of Thrayx. + +"They proceed toward a planet on the near side of this galaxy called +Earth," the second officer said. "Their mission is to replenish their +supply of breeders." + +"You are certain of that?" + +"I admit it is peculiar, for the breeders they seek are women of that +planet." + +"_Women?_" + +"Yes. However, the Earthmens' minds indicated a strong tendency to +refuse cooperation." + +"I see. Do you think our probe was detected?" + +"No. I withdrew it immediately when the Earthmen were taken aboard the +Ihelian destroyer." + +There was a long moment of silence. The commander's eyes stayed +unwaveringly on the control sphere mounted in gimbals before her. They +remained concentrated on it when she spoke again. + +"Women, you say. Hardly conceivable, Daleb, unless--unless it was +_not_ simply a penal planetoid which we destroyed!" + +"A startling thought, Lady!" + +"Yes. And the Earthmen, you say, did not have cooperative thoughts?" + +"That is correct. They are not taking the Ihelian craft to their +planet of their own volition." + +"That is difficult to understand, Daleb, for the Ihelians are like +ourselves in at least one respect. They are not aggressors. And if +they are refused their strange request, they will leave the planet +Earth peacefully. But if they are not refused it, perhaps the +Earthman's superiors will cooperate, Daleb! In which case--" + +"Whatever their mission, it is our duty to prevent its success, Lady. +But to do this without violating the Book, without infecting a foreign +area of the galaxy with our conflict?" + +"I think there is a way," the commander said. She twisted the sphere +slightly, and again the two tiny pips it held were caught squarely at +the intersection of the curving light traceries within it. "There is a +way," she said. "Give me a complete description of the clothing these +Earthmen wore, Daleb...." + +A tapering, streamlined shape slid shadow-like across the face of an +undulating globular cluster, and then was swallowed quickly in the +strange gray void of hyper-space. + + * * * * * + +Mason and Judith waited outside the towering New United Nations +building in Greater San Francisco, their chauffeured government helio +parked on a sky-ramp adjacent to the three hundredth floor. + +They waited for Kriijorl; they had been assigned, as Earthmen best +acquainted with the alien, as his official hosts during his stay on +their planet. Mason had protested, but Judith had kept the protests +from reaching the wrong ears. + +"You won't make any mistakes. You're home, now!" she had whispered. +"After all, he's only human!" + +It had been the first time Mason had heard a hint of levity in her +voice, and he had liked it, and decided to take the assignment +gracefully. And, the orders said, Sergeant Judith Kent went with the +assignment. Without Cain! + +He hardly felt nervous at all as they waited for the Ihelian to leave +the General Council chamber. + +"Wonder how he made out?" he said idly, offering the girl a +self-lighting cigarette. "Been in there for hours...." + +"We'll know soon enough," she said. "But I--I personally can't +conceive of it, sir. Of course, the New-UN is very practiced in +dealing with all kinds of cultures. Remember the time they had with +those awful five-legged things from Canis Major? Wanted to trade all +the tritium we'd need to blow up a planet just for trees; because they +worshipped trees! Any and all kinds of trees...." + +Mason smiled. He was good looking when he smiled and the Space-tension +was gone from his slate colored eyes. "I remember. But it looks as +though they're going to have the toughest time with somebody just like +us--two legs, two arms, oxygen-breathing.... Women, the man said. Just +what the devil does he expect us to do? Draft 'em? Have an +international lot drawing?" + + * * * * * + +She smoked quietly, and her gray eyes were thoughtful. "A matter of +view-point, sir," she said finally. "As it always is. To them, females +are for breeding only, to keep their war machine well stocked. From +what Kriijorl said, they do not understand love as we do. There's +simply one purpose...." + +"Well, that's why I think the whole thing is--well, as you say, +inconceivable from our point of view. Our culture, our women just +aren't conditioned for such an existence." + +"Think back two centuries, sir." + +"You don't have to keep calling me 'sir' like that!" Mason said, +feeling a sudden warmth at the back of his neck as he said it. And +then, "Two centuries back. Yes. After every war, Earth's birth rate +would go crazy. Mother Nature ruled the roost in those days, didn't +she? Supply and demand, cause and effect. It's a wonder Man ever got +anywhere." + +"More wonder some men do--" + +Mason looked up. But Judith's face was, as usual, quite calm and +detached. "You say something?" + +"I said I'd like to have you get Kriijorl to demonstrate that +teleprobe thing of his for us, if you can, s---- Lance. How did he say +it worked?" + +"I still don't get it completely. A peculiar mixture of radio and the +electroencephalograph, I think. He said it replaced radio on Ihelos +and Thrayx centuries ago. You can communicate to a group or an +individual with it in language, or in basic thought pictures. That's +what they use it mostly for, of course, and as such, it's termed a +mentacom. But he told me that it can also be used as it was on us as a +teleprobe when the subject isn't screened. They use a specially tuned +carrier wave of some sort, he said, that impinges on a thought wave +pattern, but instead of registering the pattern's electronic impulse +equivalents as does the electroencephalograph, it 'reflects' them. +Like a basic radar system. And the receiver, it's a tiny thing, breaks +the reflected pattern down into values equivalent to those in which +the 'listener' thinks; amplifies, and that's it! Mind reading made +easy, I guess." + +Judith squirmed a little uneasily. "I'm glad they're not natural +telepaths, anyway," she answered. "And even with a gimmick like +that--" + +And then the conversation was lost as Kriijorl, flanked by two New-UN +guides, strode from the building. The stiff breeze at three hundred +stories of what had once been called Nob Hill flicked his scarlet +short-cape behind him and rippled the broad front of his black and +silver tunic. + +He climbed into the helio with a smiled greeting, seated himself to +Judith's right as he knew Earth custom demanded, and the craft was +lifting slowly over the central area of the ancient city before Mason +spoke. + +"Well, how did they treat you in there, sir?" + +"Not as well as I had hoped," Kriijorl answered. "Your +President-General spoke with me privately after the World Delegates +Council met to question me, and he held out extremely little hope. +However, the issue is to be debated. I think perhaps more out of +diplomatic courtesy than actual consideration. I am to be informed of +the official decision tomorrow...." + +"There were scientists present, of course?" + +"Yes; you have brilliant men on Earth, Lieutenant. They are good +thinkers. I am certain they were interested in me for more than the +sole fact that I am an alien of a race so precisely a replica of your +own. But it is again the old factor, cultural difference. Your entire +world simply regards women differently than we. I imagine my request, +to persons less learned than those with whom I spoke, would be quite +shocking anywhere on the planet." + +"Perhaps," Judith murmured. "Yet somehow I wonder. Somehow I wonder +how much two hundred years has really changed us. Our history in such +things is not pleasant, Kriijorl. Many of our women once gave their +bodies for money. Shock us? I'm not sure you really could. For your +breeders simply give their bodies to produce the flesh for war. And +there was a time when we did that, too." + +There was silence between them for a while, and then Lance began +directing the Ihelian's attention to points of interest as the air +phase of the diplomatic tour got under way. + +The blue-green beauty of the Pacific stretched lazily below them from +the colorful California shore line to the west. Surrounding air +traffic was light, and the tour proceeded smoothly eastward; over the +Great Divide, and then swung north. Kriijorl seemed impressed and +grateful for the momentary respite. + + * * * * * + +It was near the end of the tour's air phase that Mason remembered +Judith's request, and Kriijorl obliged with an amused smile, producing +a personal mentacom for Judith to examine. + +"And the receiver simply fits about the head like earphones?" + +"Like this," Kriijorl said. They were nearing Denver, and air traffic +at their level had picked up, and the helio was proceeding more slowly +so that Kriijorl's demonstration caused him to miss little of the +tour. + +He fitted the compact headpiece to his ears and flicked a small +switch. It was suddenly bathed in a warm orange glow. "This way, the +device functions as a limited range mentacom," he began. And then he +flicked the switch again. "And now, as a teleprobe, you see, I could +tell you, Lady Judith, just what--" + +She flushed furiously, but Kriijorl had suddenly stopped speaking. His +face had blanched, and a look of bewildered fury was suddenly in his +eyes. + +"Lieutenant! That air bus! There!" He pointed to a thick egg shaped +vehicle speeding to the north. "Tell your chauffeur to pursue it at +once! It carries a full passenger-load of Earthwomen!" + +For a moment Mason thought the Ihelian was attempting some strange +joke. But a look at the man's face told him that here was no joke; +that here was something he was failing to understand. + +"Earthwomen? Sure--" + +"Plus two other beings, Lieutenant. Two others using Thrayxite probe +screens!" + +On Mason's order the government chauffeur swiftly heeled the helio +about. "Those buses can make nearly a full Mach when they're wide open +like that one," he told Kriijorl. "We can't overtake them, but maybe +we can keep up. I'll have the chauffeur try for radio contact--" + +"No, no! They'll be alert for any signs of awareness of their +presence! Wait--" The Ihelian made a third adjustment on the mentacom, +and it emitted a slight humming sound, and the orange glow vanished. +"This will screen us for a short period, at least," he said. "And if +we've not been already detected, perhaps we'll be able to follow. If +you'll continue to help me, Lieutenant--" + +"Looks as though they've got some of ours, doesn't it?" Mason said +evenly. There was a strange heat in his veins now, and with the +Ihelian, his nervousness was somehow evaporated. "But how the devil--" + +"They are clever, Lieutenant. We were somehow followed here even as we +at first followed you in your Scout ship. We may have been probed +before you were taken aboard our screened destroyer." + +"But you said nothing about destroying _their_ breeders," Judith said +above the throbbing roar of the helio's fast accelerating jets. "Why +would they want--" and she let the sentence die as comprehension +snapped in her gray eyes. Her dark, slender eyebrows arched nearly +together as she pushed the thought further. + +The borderlands of Canada sped beneath them, and then there was pine +forest, but the helio kept the fleeing bus in sight even as the +shadows of a dying day crept inexorably from the east to engulf them. +And then, abruptly, the bus had started down. + +"They're hanging a neat frame on you, sir," Mason said. "Making +certain you don't get the women you ask. By kidnaping some, they plan +sure as hell to make it look as though Ihelian desperation is +responsible. And bingo, your side's in the dog house in nothing flat. +No deal!" + +"They're damnably cunning," Kriijorl said. "It will not be the first +time they have come near making utter fools of us. I can't understand +that." + +"But how would they have gotten those women?" Judith asked. The helio +was slanting downward, and was now less than five miles distant from +the fast vanishing bus. It began to skim the tree tops of a great +tract of spruce, its chauffeur awaiting Mason's signal to drop quickly +out of their quarry's line of sight. + +"Video ads, of course," Mason answered quickly, straining his tensed +eyes to estimate distance in the fast gathering darkness. "Some big +deal. Spaceliner hostess at twice the going rate of payment. Anything +like that...." + +The bus finally vanished less than a half-mile ahead of Mason's helio, +and there was a dark vertical shadow jutting just above the tree tops. +He knew it was one of their shuttle boats, and from its apparent size +would easily hold all the bus would be able to carry--perhaps a full +three hundred. He gave orders quickly to the chauffeur, and then the +helio was hovering inches above the tree tops, and he tossed a +plastiweave ladder over the side. + +"Don't use the radio," he snapped to Judith. "Just get back to New-UN +headquarters. Inform them any way possible of what's going on, and +then flash the air patrol and tell 'em to come gunning!" + +He didn't give her a chance to argue. He simply swung over the helio's +side, Kriijorl after him, and within moments they were on the ground, +and running with what silence they could through the darkness toward +the towering Thrayxite ship a quarter-mile distant. + +"Their action is incomprehensible to me," the Ihelian grunted between +gulps of air. "It violates the most basic tenets of the ancient Book +of the Saints, sacred to us both--" + +"Better save your breath for running," Mason told him, and they +sprinted across the soft pine needle forest floor, shielding their +eyes from treacherous, low hanging boughs, dodging the trees +themselves as best they could in the moonlit darkness. + +And they burst upon the clearing in which the Thrayxite ship had +landed almost before realizing it. + +Mason caught a glimpse of Earthwomen, being led as though drugged into +the yawning flank of the silent vessel. + +There was a sudden movement in the darkness to his left, and he heard +the start of an outcry on the Ihelian's lips. But it was all he heard +or saw. There was a quick knifing pain in his skull, and he crumpled +to the ground. + + +III + +"You may wait in here, sergeant," the New-UN orderly said. She was +ushered into a small, comfortably appointed chamber adjoining the main +conference hall, and the perfectly controlled coolness of her bearing +was at its peak. To the casual glance of the orderly, perhaps, it +flawlessly masked the vital convictions which had long seethed within +her and made her the little known woman she was. The studied mask +itself had made her the efficient Space officer she was. And at the +moment she was glad for it, because it also concealed the anxious +uncertainty that twisted coldly inside her. + +She was to wait, the Council had informed her. Wait, while the +information she had given them was analyzed, digested. As though, +perhaps, what she had said was part of some insidious plot; as though +it were too fantastic to be the truth. + +They had not even immediately authorized the dispatch of a patrol +cruiser to the spot where she'd left Lance and Kriijorl over two hours +ago, and by now--? + +She tried not to think or what the Earthman and the Ihelian might be +facing, alone and in the darkness. Nor of the conclusions to which the +Council, called into emergency session by the President General +himself when her information had been rapidly relayed through the +correct channels to him, might arrive. + +She could only wait. + +And her waiting was terminated with an abrupt suddenness that made the +twisting cold thing inside her a churning confusion. It had been only +minutes, hardly minutes. + +Only one of them came into the small room where she sat. She rose +quickly to attention. It was an aide to the President General himself; +a brevet-Colonel wearing the uniform of the World Police. + +"Sergeant Kent," he said, "it is the Council's decision that you be +placed under temporary arrest. Your case will be heard at the next +sitting of the martial court to which your unit is assigned. If you +will accompany me, please...." + +"May I ask, sir, what the charge against me is?" Her voice was steady +by cultivated habit. + +"You are to be held on suspicion of acting as accessory before and +after the fact of conspiring to assist an alien power in the +achievement of its objective within the governmental jurisdiction of +Earth without official permission of the New United Nations." + +"But the Ihelians have not done that, sir!" she protested. "It is a +plot of their enemy, as I explained to the Council--" + +"You will be given full benefit of due legal process, sergeant," the +officer said. "You will come with me, please." + +The Women's Detainment Barrack was not unpleasant, yet, Judith +thought, it may as well have been a medieval dungeon. But her own +problem, she knew, was nothing beside the cunning success of the +Thrayxites. + +The call-buzzer at the side of her bunk interrupted her thoughts; it +meant she was wanted in the main guard room. She straightened her +uniform quickly, and within moments presented herself before the +barrack warden. + +Roger Cain stood beside the warden's desk. There was something white +in his hand, and she knew what it was. + +"You're at liberty, Sergeant Kent," the beefy-faced warden informed +her in a tone as casual as though she'd asked her for a cigarette. +"Warrant Officer Cain has posted a release voucher; you're ordered +into his custody until your trial. That's all. You may go." + +She left the barrack with Cain, wordlessly. None of it made sense. +Unless-- + +"Well, don't I even get a thank you?" the red-haired giant asked. + +"Yes, Mister Cain, sorry. But I don't understand--" + +"Why I did it?" He chuckled, and she didn't like the sound of it. "I'm +only too glad to have you in my custody, young woman! And, you know, +you're not supposed to be out of my sight any--that is, _any_ of the +time!" + +She felt her face redden, and spun about to face him. There was sudden +anger at her lips and her coolness had evaporated. + +"You contempti--" + +"Easy there, sergeant! Always knew there was a little more to you than +that ice cube exterior of yours! But tell me--d'you want to sit back +there in that dump, or shall we stick our noses into the lovely mixup +your precious Lieutenant Mason has set off?" + +She stared up at him wordlessly, the blood hot in her cheeks. And she +tried to think. This was Cain as she knew he was. This was Roger Cain, +angling for a deal. + +"I'm in your custody," she bit out. "I must stay within your sight. +That is your responsibility." + +He laughed at her, then gripped her elbow. + +"Come on," he said. "I've got a R-IX waiting at the field. I think we +should go on a little trip, sergeant. There are people I want to +see!" + +They were streaming for open Space within less than thirty minutes +from the time Cain had freed her. She didn't ask him how he'd gotten +permission for the fleet R-IX's use, or how he'd obtained her voucher, +nor did she ask him how he had learned of what had happened to Lance +and Kriijorl, yet she knew that somehow he was aware of the Thrayxites +and their plot. Cain had ways of learning the things he wanted to +learn, getting the things he wanted to get. + +"Keep an eye on the scanner for me, will you, beautiful?" + +"Yes sir." + +"And forget that sir stuff! Look, Judy--" + +"For what do you want me to watch, sir?" + +Cain grunted, gave a shrug of his powerful shoulders and turned his +attention back to the pursuit's compact control console. + +"Two blips, honey. Tearing hell-for-leather out of old Sol's little +family. One'll be chasing the other, if my guess is any good. We want +the front one." + +"But--but that would be the--" + +"The Thrayxite crowd. Right?" + +For a moment she was silent. She knew he could not mean to attack; not +with a tiny pursuit, swift as it was. + +"Mister Cain, I can only guess at what you intend doing. But it will +be my privilege in court to testify concerning your conduct of +custodianship--" + +"You must be working on the assumption that we're going back there, +sweetheart!" + +"You--" + +"A deal is where you find it! Watch for that front blip, sergeant. +With what we know of Kriijorl and his crowd, this oughta be a +natural!" + + * * * * * + +The cubicle in which he awoke was softly lit, and the painful throb +Mason knew should be splitting his head apart was strangely absent. +Kriijorl was bending over him, loosening the tightness of the military +collar at his throat. + +"They certainly were taking no chances with you," he said. His long +Viking's hair was matted with blood just above the temple, yet he +seemed to be suffering little pain, himself. "How do you feel?" + +"O.K. I guess. Don't feel anything, really...." Kriijorl unbuckled the +wide straps that held him solidly in an acceleration-hammock, and he +sat up. The steel-walled room rocked for a moment, then steadied. + +"The Thrayxites are not vicious, any more than we. If they do not kill +outright, they apparently take medical precaution to see that their +victims suffer as little pain as possible. We're captives, however, +together with your Earthwomen. We've been in flight for about an hour; +putting us well out of your system, if we're hyperdriving--moving in +what you term R-Space." + +"Then--" + +"Apparently no help of any kind arrived in time, Lieutenant." + +Mason remembered, then. Judith.... Somehow she hadn't made it. Or +hadn't made them believe her. This trip, he was strictly on his own. +Not just a space weary Scout Lieutenant any more. + +"What'll they do with us?" + +"Pump us for information, probably. Kill me afterward. You should be +safe enough in that respect. You're an alien, not a part of our +conflict. Their labor planetoid for you, I would imagine. It is a +jungle covered sphere at the edge of their planetary ring; our scouts +have sighted it on numerous occasions. A handful of men in each of its +camps, mining, probably, for the ore used in Thrayxite engines. But it +will be better than death." + +"What are our chances, Kriijorl?" Mason felt the familiar nervousness +returning to his wiry body, yet this time it was in some way +different. Not the kind that ate your insides out from too much Space, +for too long. + +"Of escape, you mean?" Mason nodded. "There is no reason for you to +risk--" + +"Sure as hell is, friend. First because I believe you're my friend. +Second, there were a couple of things you said awhile back that got me +thinking. And third, I got myself shanghaied, and I don't think I'll +like where I'm going!" Cain, Mason thought to himself, wasn't the only +guy in the universe with a muscle! + +The Ihelian grinned. "We'll watch for a chance of some kind, then. But +I will not let you risk your life. We of Ihelos obey the Book, even +if our enemy sees fit occasionally to violate the spirit in which it +was conceived." + +"Tell me something," Mason said. "This feud of yours. What's it all +about? You mentioned that Book business once before, and it seems a +people with your apparent piety and maturity and general advancement +would certainly find a way to arbitrate such a dispute. What are you +fighting about?" + +Kriijorl's answering smile was thin, and there was a puzzled look in +his craggy features. + +"We fight because the Book of the Saints says we must!" he answered at +length. "And further than that--" + +"Yes?" + +"Further than that, I'm afraid we do not know!" + +Mason felt his features twisting into an incredulous expression +despite his efforts to realize and appreciate the wide gap of cultural +differences between them. + +"Don't _know_! But you can't fight a war without knowing why! You--" + +"It is in the Book of the Saints," the Ihelian said, "and, therefore, +it is our command. And--" he looked into the Earthman's face with the +slightest hint of a smile, "from what I've learned of Earth's history +from your own lips, Lieutenant, what of your own past wars? Who among +your own soldiery has really known why he fought?" + +"Well, but--" And then Mason returned the smile. "No, it isn't so +different, is it? But tell me more about this Book. Is it based on +law, religion, ethics?" + +And this time there was no smile on the Ihelian's broad face. + +"Legend says all three," he replied. + +"Legend? And yet you blindly obey--" + +"We always have. Its writings, such as we understand them to be, have +governed us for millenia, Lieutenant. The Book is our way, our life. +We are told we could not be a civilization without it." + +Mason was silent for a long moment. He did not want to question too +deeply the beliefs sacred to another, yet it was so damnably peculiar. +They fought bitterly, and they did not know why. + +"Could you--would you let me see a copy of this Book, Kriijorl?" + +"If I could I'd be glad to, Lieutenant. For I have often wished I +could see the words it contains myself." + +"You've never read it?" + +"Never. Nor has any Ihelian or Thrayxite for thousands of years. There +is, you must understand, only one Book of the Saints." + +"Just one copy?" + +"Yes. It has long been deemed sacrilege for mortal eyes to view the +ancient writings. The single copy is kept in a great vault, built of +indestructible metals, and protectively sheathed to last for all Time. +The spot above its burial place is marked by a tall spire of stone. It +is jealously protected." + +"You said that its commands commit you and Thrayx to eternal battle. +But if you could only read it, you might learn the basic cause of your +conflict--and, knowing, certainly--" + +"The thought has often occurred to me. But, there is even more +prohibiting such an impossible undertaking than the powerful bondage +of tradition and belief alone, Lieutenant. And that is the Book's very +location." + +"And that--?" + +"The subterranean vault in which it rests is guarded in the Forest of +Saarl. And the Forest of Saarl, my friend, is on Thrayx." + + +IV + +"It is something completely beyond my understanding," the Ihelian was +saying. The two men stood, each flanked by two guards, at the +threshold of a great ramp which led from the main air lock of the +Thrayxite ship to the reddish surface of the spaceport upon which it +had landed but minutes before. Mason felt a chill of awed amazement, +not because of the unexpected beauty of the verdant hills that rolled +in a delicate blend of kaleidoscopic pastels on every side of the +'port and as far as the eye could see, nor was it even from the sight +of the exquisite towers that rose as though from the heart of some +fabled fairyland scant miles to the south. + +"They're all--all _women_!" Mason breathed. "Not a single man!" And he +looked quickly to Kriijorl. "You mean you did not know this?" + +"Know? By the teeth of Jhavuul, we never so much as suspected, +Lieutenant! We have not looked upon a Thrayxite face for five thousand +years." + +The guards spoke to them tersely in the common tongue of Ihelos and +Thrayx, although peculiarly accented to Ihelian ears, and Kriijorl +gestured with a slight movement of his head to Mason. At a quick pace +they started down the ramp. + +"We're sunk, kid," Mason said. And he saw the heaviness in the great +Viking's face. "We'll never make it out of here in a million years. +Even if we made a break for it; even if we had our hands free, where +could we hide? Couldn't make a move. Two men among an entire female +populace--" + +He let the sentence trail off as he realized that Kriijorl wasn't +hearing him. And as their brief view of Thrayx was terminated by their +entrance into a smaller shuttle-ship, he saw the hint of a smile +flicker at the corners of the Ihelian's lips. + +Their captors strapped them into hammocks, and when they had gone to +assist others in herding a portion of the Earthwomen aboard the same +craft, Kriijorl finally spoke. + +"I think for the moment their probes may be off us," he said quickly. +"I was relieved of my own during my unconsciousness, so we're no +longer screened. And the fact that we speak in your tongue does us +little good. But hear me. If we are being taken where I hope we are, +then they are playing into our hands almost as well as we could have +asked. There will be a limited freedom there, and a chance, if we are +clever enough, to get to a mentacom installation. A planetary unit of +unlimited range." + +"But among women?" Mason asked, and his throat was dry. + +"That is the point," Kriijorl replied tersely. "We shall be among +males almost exclusively, save for the Earthwomen and those Thrayxites +who periodically will be sent to breed." + +"You mean the planetoid that you talked of before...? But I--" + +"Think a moment! Thrayxite is a matriarchy, something we of Ihelos +never suspected. And therefore we erred further--what we believed to +be a labor planetoid is not, of course!" + +"Breeders!" + +"Exactly. And if we can make it to one of their mentacoms, perhaps our +problem will be solved. Except that--" His voice hesitated, and Mason +saw doubt in the sudden frown. "I--I have no right to sacrifice your +life nor those of your women. If we were to get to a mentacom it would +be to contact my people, to inform them of the planetoid's true +nature, so that we may even the score for what was done to our own +breeders, and perhaps even form a plan to take prisoners to replace +them. But such a message would be intercepted, of course." + +"Hell, we could dodge 'em long enough--" + +"Perhaps we could, Lieutenant. But the ships I summon will be fighting +their way through a trebled Thrayxite guard--and once within range of +our enemy's breeder satellite, they will have little time to seek us +out and effect our rescue. Destruction will have to be immediate. Now +do you understand?" + +Mason wet his lips. He understood. Death for the breeders. For the +Earthwomen. And for themselves. + +"Nuts!" he clipped out. "That means that as far as you're going to be +concerned, I'm just another Ihelian private first class for awhile, +not a space-neurotic Earthman! And our girls ... well, I think--I +think they'd prefer anything to the living death in store for +them--the rotting away of their lives in some infested alien jungle. +Anyway, somebody's got to be judge. So let's get this damned thing +doped out!" + +The Ihelian began a reply, but the words were stopped in his throat by +the sudden pressure of acceleration as powerful engines fumbled +suddenly to throbbing life and lifted the Thrayxite craft quickly +toward the eye of a great white sun. + + * * * * * + +For the second time in her life, Judith Kent watched the warp +configurations of the Large Magellanic Cloud from the far side of the +Rim; somehow it frightened her, as though some awful deadliness must +lie within it. + +Helplessly, she carried out Cain's orders, and as hopelessly, wondered +of the fate of Lance and Kriijorl. Captives, with the Earthwomen, in +the Thrayxite ship with which Cain was so rapidly closing? Or lying +dead somewhere, as she more than half believed, in the chill wilds of +northern Canada? The odds had been so great. She knew that to hope +without reason was folly, and yet not to hope was no longer to care. + +She twisted away quickly from Cain's muscular arm. + +"What's eating you, duchess? Your conscience giving you trouble, or +are you just plain scared?" When she didn't reply, he laughed shortly, +and gestured toward the scanner. In it, the slender Thrayxite craft +was growing steadily larger as Cain's swift pursuit gradually folded +the gap of curved Space between them. "In a couple of minutes, we'll +be ready to talk turkey, sweetheart. They ought to be aware of us +right this minute. I think they'll listen to what we have to offer." + +"To what _you_ have to offer!" + +He laughed again. "It's more than Mason ever had! You know, sometimes +I think you were torching for that space-happy has-been!" + +She felt the burn of rising color in her cheeks and turned quickly +away from him. + +"You don't get it yet, do you duchess?" his heavy voice was saying +behind her. "It's never occurred to you that there are other places to +be beside with your own flock; that there are other men among whom to +seek your fortune if the ones you were born among didn't offer the +opportunities you expected. What are we among the stars at all for if +it's not to find our destinies anywhere we think they might lie? +What's this Big Freedom for, if not to use to some kind of advantage? +And me, I'm sick of being a Warrant under worn out space-neurotics +like Mason! And I don't want to end up being one, either!" + +Judith held her lips tight against the thing that surged hotly inside +her. There would have to be a way to stop this man. And if there +weren't--How the pampered friends whom she'd left so proudly to choose +this calling would laugh at her, would say "_that was what the +hot-headed little rebel deserved ... she had it coming if she couldn't +act like a lady_." And they _were_ wrong! + +But this man was hideously twisting all the things she had thought +were good and right, worth hoping and striving for. All the priceless +things that had stood for more than the soft, idle and pointlessly +shallow existence to which she'd been born. + +"But I guess you wouldn't get it," Cain was saying. "Born with a +silver shovel in your mouth, you don't have to worry about sweating +out your pile! Quit any time and there it all is after your little +adventure, still waiting for you to come home to! Maybe they'll even +want you to write a book! But me--my father wasn't a lucky +g-prospector." + +A proximity alarm clanged, and Cain quickly turned his attention to +the control banks. He jacked out the auto control and took over +manually. And within seconds the pursuit was hovering over the great +whale-like back of the Thrayxite craft, and then was drawn slowly to +it as its powerful magnetics reached out, ensnared it. Then Cain cut +the pursuit's drive, and they both waited. + +The airlock opened, and the two women stepped through. There were +weapons in their hands. + +"I want to see your commander," Cain barked. + +"I am the commander of this complement," the taller of the two said in +an almost unaccented English. "You will consider yourselves my +captives. Daleb...." + +"What? Not all _women_." There was a curious look on Cain's face; +thoughts were racing behind the thin blades of his eyes. + +"You are prisoners of the matriarchy of Thrayx," the officer called +Daleb said. "If you do not resist, you shall be unharmed." + +"All right, come off that alien-meets-alien stuff," Cain said as +though the two briefly-uniformed women before him held toys rather +than weapons in their hands. "I didn't just tag after you at a billion +times the speed of light to get thrown into one of your dungeons! I've +got some information I think you can use. And--" and the curious look +was again on his face, "--there are some--shall we say--services, I +think I can profitably perform for you." + +"Profitably, Earthman? Profitable to whom?" + +"To both of us. To me--that's why I'm here--and to you." + +Judith's face was white. Perhaps this was some clever trick of Cain's. +She could have been wrong. + +"Tell me this information you have, Earthman." + +"Let's dicker about price, first, Goldylocks!" He stood there, +confident, defiant, great muscles bunched beneath the fabric of his +tunic. + +"You, Earthman, are hardly in bargaining position!" Only the woman's +mouth moved; her eyes bored straight into Cain's like fine diamond +drills. + +"Chuck me," Cain said with a grin, "and you chuck the best chance +you've ever had to take your Ihelian friends to the cleaners. What +information I have concerning Ihelian plans is one thing." Judith +caught her breath. She knew Cain was lying now. Even Lance had learned +little of the Ihelian strategy, above Kriijorl's attempt to enlist +Earthwomen for Ihelian breeding colonies. It was all, she realized +suddenly, a colossal bluff, from which Cain planned to play his cards +as he went along! And now he had found a wedge of some sort, some new +bargaining point. There was still that curious look on his face, that +careless grin at his lips. "But what service I can render you," he was +continuing, "is quite another! Ladies, how good are your teleprobe +gadgets against an Ihelian screen? A big blank, aren't they? But I +still think you'd give those cute shirts of yours to find out what's +going on inside the thick skulls of our Ihelian friends." + +A puzzled look flickered across the Thrayxite commander's face, yet +she remained immobile, and her weapon held steady. + +"First of all, bright eyes," Cain said swiftly, "may you be the first +to know that they're all men! _All men_, get it?" There was a soft +gasp from Daleb, and the commander's eyes flickered, widened almost +imperceptibly. "And better yet, I'm a pal of Kriijorl, their commander +who picked us up just inside the Rim that time you followed us into +Earth. So think it over. It ought to be worth a fancy little pile to +you, ladies, since women agents would be kind of conspicuous in an +all-male civilization!" + +"You expect us to believe this fantasy? Do you expect us to accept +your proposal on the basis of nothing more than words? And the +technique you describe. It has never been used, never even considered +as a legitimate method of battle!" + +Cain laughed easily. "Then maybe you better consider it if you want to +come out on top! And as to the rest of it, if I was part of some +counter-plot against you do you think I'd've gone to the trouble of +bringing along some security?" And Judith felt something freeze inside +her as he threw a careless glance in her direction. "There she +is--Sergeant Judith Kent. Your hostage for this little operation! If I +misbehave, she should make a pretty good bargaining point with Ihelos. +From all I gather, they've got Earth sore enough at them as it is!" + +There was an instant's silence, and then the commander said, "You have +not proven your statement that our enemy is a male enemy." + +"What do you think they wanted women for on Earth after you blasted +that planetoid of theirs? A quilting party or something? Add it up." + +The quiet in the small control bubble was electric. Judith watched the +Thrayxites' faces as they weighed the incredible thing that Cain had +said. + +"I haven't got all eternity!" Cain snapped. "You think you can afford +not to believe me?" + +"Very well. Our Book has never mentioned this technique of spying, and +therefore there can be no rule against it. As for the rest--that could +be immaterial. You could be of value to us. Outline your plan." + +"That's better, girls. Only take it just a little slower. We both know +what we are, but let's haggle for awhile about the price, shall we?" + + +V + +Judith shivered, partly from an uncontrollable terror and partly from +the pre-dawn dampness creeping from the thick jungle surrounding the +small clearing which held one of the breeder planetoid's many secluded +colonies. The camp and the tangled growth which bounded it was her +prison; a place in which there was freedom, yet where none were free. +To walk or to run or to hide--but where? And so it was with the +rest--the hard-muscled, obviously drug-clouded males who had never +known any other world than this; who never questioned from whence came +the periodic groups of Thrayxite women for them to fertilize; who only +glared dully at her, dimly understanding that she was to be, although +captive here, left to herself and unmolested. Yet despite her status +as hostage and Earthwoman, she was afraid. + +The brute of a camp leader, Bruhlla.... Not drugged like the rest. +There was more to his sidelong glances than curiosity and vague +resentment. Too often, she could sense his eyes upon her. And she +wondered at the increasing frequency of his visits to the camp's well +guarded mentacom installation. + +She had lost count of night and days under the white sun of Thrayx and +its ringed host. There had been two, perhaps, or three. Three days in +which Roger Cain had been doing what? Was he with Kriijorl and Lance +posing as their friend, their fellow captive, listening to their plans +against their Thrayxite captors ... remembering? Or would they be +freed, if indeed they still lived, in order that Cain could, with +them, learn even more of Ihelian stratagems on a far greater scale? + +And the Earth girls--she had heard the cries of some, the desperate +curses of others. + +Bruhlla, entitled to use of the mentacom for daily contact reports +with Thrayx as he was, was the only other alien being on the planetoid +who could converse with her. He had lost little time in probing her to +learn her tongue. And he had already hinted at the fate of the women +from her planet. In other camps on the planetoid, held in small +isolated groups, unmolested, Bruhlla had said. But prisoners, as was +she. + +Somehow, the Ihelians would have to know. + +For there was no Earth to which to turn now. + +The shiver again shook her slender body, and her tattered uniform did +little to shield her from the damp cold. + +"Still one apart from the rest of us, are you?" The growl of Bruhlla's +voice behind her startled her, and she turned quickly to face the +loose grimace of derision on his thick lips. + +"I am to be left to myself," she said with what assurance she could +muster. "That is your order." + +"I know my order, little one! No need to tell Bruhlla his orders! But +perhaps you will grow colder; perhaps you will grow hungry." + +"You couldn't--" + +"I have no order about feeding you, little one!" + +Somehow she found the strength to voice her defiance. For she could +still think. And thought, Lance had once told her, was the ultimate +strength.... + +"You lie! There was such an order! But if you wish to bring the wrath +of your masters down upon your ugly head." She watched his unkempt +face, fanned the sudden puzzlement she saw growing in his red, +sadistic eyes. If his intelligence were blurred enough by the +self-made drug of his lust. "I myself heard such an order; and if you +can prove me mistaken you may do with me what you will!" _God, would +he stop to realize that she understood not a word of the Thrayxite +tongue?_ + +"Quickly proven, my little one! Quickly enough proven! And then if +what you say is untrue...." He left the sentence mercifully +unfinished, and turned toward the sturdily-built cubicle that housed +the colony's mentacom. + +"Wait! I'll only believe your proof if I can hear it for myself!" + +"Come along then and you shall hear it!" The thick lips slackened into +a lascivious grin that sickened her, but she hastened to follow him. +And he did not see her as she scooped the jagged stone from the +ground, thrust it into a tattered tool-pocket of her uniform. + +Past the quiescent, sweat reeking bodies of the bull-muscled guards, +into the dimly lit chamber beyond, Bruhlla half walking, half +shambling before her. + +She watched him as he switched the device into life; waited until its +dull orange glow assured that it was ready for use. So much like the +communications room of an ordinary ship of Earth, she thought. So like +the familiar things of her life, yet so alien. + +He had barely slipped the mentacom's headpiece on his skull and +adjusted a simply calibrated control dial when she struck him at the +base of his thick neck with the stone, all the force of her supple +young body behind it. + +Blood spurted as its ragged edges tore through flesh, bone and nerves, +and slowly, Bruhlla crumpled from the rude chair that held his dying +bulk. + +Thought images as well as words, Kriijorl had explained during their +flight so long ago in the helio. Language would be no barrier. Over +the head, like this ... and this switch-- + +She twirled the large dial from its setting, watched a slender thread +of light within a transparent sphere above it fluctuate in breadth as +the dial twisted. And when it was at its widest, she gambled that it +indicated the broadest transmitting beam of which the mentacom was +capable. + +And then she marshalled her thoughts, carefully chose the simplest +words. + +_Warning, Ihelos! There is an Earthman among you at work as a spy for +Thrayx! I am a captive._ + +Over and over, the same words, the same thought images which they +formed; of Cain, of this hell-planetoid itself. + +The orange glow pulsated as though itself alive with the desperation +of her signal. And she heard the guard barely in time. + +A howl of rage bellowed from him as she turned, twisted frantically +just outside his grasp, darted headlong through the door. + +And she was quicker than those outside; she was beyond them, running, +the breath sobbing in her throat. + +Away from the blood-soaked thing she'd left crumpled in death behind +her, and toward the jungle's edge. Toward some new horror, perhaps, +and toward a freedom that would be short-lived at best. For she had +killed Bruhlla, and she knew they would not stop now until she had +been run to earth. + + * * * * * + +The three men watched as the six ships landed in the jungle clearing; +emptied of the selected Thrayxite women who would in little more than +a day's time re-enter them, the breeders' seed within their bodies, +for the journey back to the mother planet. + +It had been the same the day before, and the day before that, and in +the distance, they had watched similar craft descend toward other of +the many colonies with which the lush planetoid was dotted. + +"Nuts!" Cain said. He turned to Mason. "What the hell else is there to +do? Sit here and rot? They won't kill us. They'll just let Nature take +its course--" + +"There's more to be done than simply make a run for it to one of their +ships," Mason snapped. "The mentacoms on them, Kriijorl's said a dozen +times, haven't the necessary range." + +"So what's your plan? Or don't I get to hear any of the details?" + +Mason studied the big man's face. Captured in his attempt to rescue +the Earthwomen, he had said. His explanation had been that simple. +New-UN hadn't believed Judith, but she had convinced him, and so he'd +tried on his own responsibility, and simply hadn't made it. And then +they'd brought him here, scarcely hours after Mason and Kriijorl had +themselves been delivered to the teeming colony. + +Logical enough, yes. Cain was the kind who would try such a crazy +stunt, alone, with such supreme overconfidence in his own muscle +power. Yet-- + +"We must not be impatient," Kriijorl interrupted his thought. He stood +up, his blond head nearly touching the top of the plastifabric tent. +"We must be certain and wait for the best time, Mister Cain. For if we +fail in our first attempt, there will not be a second. And it has only +been three days. As yet, we have been left quite to ourselves; even my +life has not been threatened." + +Mason noticed the puzzled frown that was across the Ihelian's +forehead. "Do you think--" + +"I cannot even guess the reason for that," Kriijorl murmured, as +though more to himself than in answer to Mason's question. "By all the +rules of our conflict, I should be stretched naked for the jungle +beasts by now." + +"Forget it!" Cain broke in quickly. "You're alive now, and if we can +have a little action around here maybe you'll stay that way. We've +watched long enough. They don't guard those ships at all. These +breeders they keep drugged to the eyes, so why should they? I say we +just grab one and blast off! Unless somebody's got a better plan, and +I still haven't heard one--" + +"Awfully anxious, aren't you, Mister Cain?" Mason asked. + +"I'm not afraid of 'em if that's what you mean!" + +Lance turned to Kriijorl. "Maybe he's right. We've watched for three +days. What do you think?" + +The Ihelian looked out across the colony of low, square-shaped +enclosures and to its far side where the twisted jungle began; to the +spot where the mentacom was housed in a squat, guarded dome of +crudely-shaped steel. Then he turned back to the Earthman, and Mason +saw the uncertainty in his eyes. + +"We have gained far less than I had hoped by watching," he said +slowly. "We have learned the number of their guards, and the period of +their change, but perhaps that is all we shall learn. If you think +that as soon as there is darkness--" + +"About time!" Cain said sourly. "And it'll be straight for the--" + +"To the mentacom first," Mason said quietly. "And after that, to the +ships if we can, Mister Cain." He felt strangely calm as his eyes met +Cain's squarely. Somewhere within him, there was something changing. +"Take it from an ex-has-been, big man! That's how it's going to be!" + + * * * * * + +The camp was dark and silent as the three men left the tent. They +walked as if from boredom, changing direction often as though at +random; yet they moved with a deceiving swiftness, and each step +brought them closer to the crude dome. The sound of their movements +was as a whisper that lost itself with the quiet murmur of the night +wind through the web of the jungle, and when they were close enough, +they halted, to wait; to watch. + +There was the soft clink of metal on metal and the mutter of +dead-toned voices as the guard changed. Four hulking shapes walked at +last in a tired shamble from the structure housing the mentacom. Four +others prepared to take their posts. + +And there was little to disturb the silence after that. + +A muffled grunt, a choked off curse lost in a brief rustle of +undergrowth as though a sudden breeze had momentarily ruffled its +languid calm. And that was all. + +Four breeders lay dead outside the dome. + +Mason felt the warm stickiness of blood on his face, and the sting of +a deep cut somewhere upon it. He saw that Cain was straightening over +a mangled form; that Kriijorl had overcome odds of two to one. The +breeder at his own feet had died swiftly of a deftly broken neck, a +reddened dirk still clutched in his stiffening fingers. + +Then they were inside the dome, and Kriijorl was placing the head-unit +of the mentacom over his matted yellow hair. + +Mason watched in the half-light of the pulsing orange glow, listened +to the heaviness of Cain's breathing. + +And he saw Kriijorl's face stiffen suddenly. With a swift movement the +Ihelian had handed him the head-unit, and with slippery fingers he +fumbled the device into place over his own head. + +Before he could think he had given Cain all the warning that he had +needed. + +"My God, it's Judith! Somehow she's--" + +Kriijorl lunged too late. The man whom Judith's mentacom message had +branded as a spy was already through the dome's door, running. + +Mason moved more quickly than the Ihelian then. Ahead in the jungle +there was a crashing sound, and Mason tripped suddenly himself as he +ran, fell. Kriijorl leapt past him in the darkness, as though he could +somehow see through it, and then Mason had regained his feet and was +following blindly. + +And suddenly he thought of the empty ships behind them, and Cain's +abrupt uselessness to his Thrayxite employers. Then-- + +But the gamble was too great. Cain might not double back, but instead +plunge headlong further and further into the concealing morass before +him. No, Cain would not double back. Not now. For in Kriijorl he had +met an even match, and now he was afraid! + +Fully an hour had passed when, his tunic torn and the exposed flesh +bleeding, Mason caught up with Kriijorl. + +"He was nearly within my hands for a moment--" the giant whispered +hoarsely. He breathed with difficulty, and there were long slashes +gleaming redly in the darkness across his great muscles. + +Mason stood silently for moments, toying with a thought that nagged +insistently at the edge of his brain. He knew Cain. He knew the man. + +Then suddenly his thoughts were interrupted by the muffled sound of a +rocket blast, and within moments there was a vertical trail of fire +above them as a Thrayxite ship hurtled skyward. + +"By Jhavuul--" + +"No!" Mason exclaimed. "The blast was from in front of us, he didn't +double back! Must be another colony near our own, and he stumbled out +of this overgrown mess and right into it. There was simply an empty +ship--" + +"Then the traitor has won!" Kriijorl's face was tilted upward, and in +the faint glow of the planetesimal belt that girdled Thrayx, it seemed +more than ever that of an heroic Viking king of ages gone. + +"There's a chance he hasn't!" Mason breathed. He had the thought now, +pinned down, clear in his head. "If there has been no alarm back at +our own camp we may still have the mentacom to ourselves. We'll signal +Ihelos as you planned and then--then there is something else you will +say. Something else that I think will, as the saying goes on Earth, +kill two birds with a single blast." + +Mason had lost track of time; perhaps it was as many as two hours +before they had fought their way through the clutching undergrowth +back to the mentacom at the fringe of their own camp. Several times +they had had to stop, for there had been sounds in the jungle other +than those they had made themselves. Animals, Kriijorl had said, who +had got the scent of their blood. But the noises had not been fast and +crashing--more those of stealth, as were those of their own steps. A +single animal, perhaps, with the scent of their blood; or that of the +breeder guard they had slain. And stalking. + +The dome was still silent, and the stiff corpses outside it lay +undisturbed in the thick undergrowth. In the clearing the six empty +Thrayxite ships towered in the sleeping quiet, star-shine glinting +faintly from their polished hulls. + +Wordlessly, they entered the dome, and it was as they had left it. + +Kriijorl again adjusted the headset, and the orange glow pulsed and +waned as Mason watched. + +And then at length, "If they are to know, they know now," Kriijorl +said. "And the Thrayxite host as well. What was there you wished to +add, Lieutenant?" + +Mason spoke quickly. "Say that you have discovered that the +priceless--and you must say _priceless_--Book of the Saints is in the +Forest of Saarl on Thrayx. Say that we have discovered it to be less +well protected than is generally believed. Then give the location of +the subterranean vault as precisely as you can!" + +"But my people are well aware--" + +"I realize that, but our friend Cain doesn't!" + +The Ihelian's face was still puzzled, but he projected the +thought-message Mason had dictated. + +And then in seconds the Ihelian had hastily but thoroughly wrecked the +mentacom, and the two men left its silent dome for the empty ships +that beckoned so tantalizingly a scant quarter-mile distant. + +They had run perhaps a dozen steps when the undergrowth behind them +ripped and tore, and Mason spun. + +There was a muffled cry, and he had barely time to catch Judith's +bleeding body as she fell in exhaustion into his arms. + + +VI + +The muscles in his arms and legs trembled with fatigue as he lifted +the semi-conscious girl up to Kriijorl, and then with what seemed an +impossible effort, hauled himself through the deserted ship's stern +airlock. + +The Ihelian seemed to carry Judith as though she were a feather as he +climbed the narrow ladder above Mason, infinitely upward, the Earthman +thought ... an infinite distance to the ship's forehull, to its +control banks. + +There was only the sound of his own hoarse breathing in his ears as he +climbed, rung after rung, and the hollow echo of Kriijorl's boots as +they mounted resolutely above him. + +Then they had made it, and were strapping Judith into a hammock, were +taking their own shock-seats before the control-banks of the +Thrayxite shuttle-craft. + +The Ihelian did not hesitate. His fingers deliberated for only a +moment above the firing studs in the blue-green glow of the banks, and +then they flicked home, and engines muttered, roared into terrifying +life. + +Within moments, saying nothing, moving the swift, silent movements of +desperation, they had freed themselves of the grasping snare of the +jungle beneath them; were once more strong, liberated things in the +vast freedom of Space. + +"And now Ihelos!" Kriijorl cried as they broke swiftly from the +ecliptic of the great spangled ring of Thrayx. "If we can but escape +their fleet. Any moment they should be on the scanner, forming to meet +the onslaught of Ihelian squadrons--" + +"No!" Mason said, and his voice was like a solid thing clogging his +throat. "No, not Ihelos--not yet!" His eyes burned, and the red welts +that covered his body had begun to sting, to pain, and it was hard to +think. + +He saw the frown forming on Kriijorl's face. + +"Thrayx, and the Forest of Saarl," he bit from between teeth clenched +against the creeping agony in him. "The Book of the Saints, Kriijorl. +It is the key, don't you see. Key to all this, your feud." + +For an instant the Ihelian said nothing, but groped in hidden pockets +of his battered space harness. His long fingers quickly produced a +tablet, thrust it into Mason's hand. The Earthman swallowed it and +almost at once energy coursed as though from some hidden well in his +body through his flagging muscles and nerves. + +Then Kriijorl spoke. "I do not understand, Lieutenant. I know only +that it would be almost certain death. Intrusion near the vault would +bring a flight of guard ships within minutes." + +"I know that," Mason said. "But perhaps not down upon us! And we must +have that Book. I've been thinking about it, comparing it with similar +writings in Earth's own past. Such books are not new, such motives, +such methods. Your Book is priceless in a way that even you don't +know, Kriijorl. I'm certain of it. For it must contain the reason that +you fight." + +"And that reason?" + +"A reason, if I'm right, that would end your feud once and for all. A +nasty bit of logic which the people of Ihelos and Thrayx were quite +deliberately kept from knowing from the beginning. I'd make book on it +that at one time both planets were very hungry places--" + +"But if you are wrong, Lieutenant?" + +Mason fastened his gaze straight before him on the diamond-studded +scanner, and saw that some of the smaller diamonds were moving in a +tiny echelon. + +"Then I guess we die young," he answered the Ihelian. "Want to try?" + +The Ihelian's face loosened into a wry smile. "Sometimes you ask +rather foolish questions, Lieutenant! I've been bred to such business, +and not given my life so much thought before this! But--" + +"Yes. Judith." + +And then they heard a woman's voice speaking behind them. "Thrayxite +acceleration hammocks could stand improvement," it said. "And when we +leave the Forest of Saarl, I think I'll just lie on the deck instead." + + * * * * * + +Kriijorl's knowledge of the spot's location in the great forest was +far more accurate than he had given Mason reason to hope. And with a +deftness that matched that with which he had eluded the screens of the +Thrayxite fleet hurtling to protect its breeder planetoid, he brought +the ship to rest at Mason's direction, little more than a quarter-mile +from where the Book of the Saints lay entombed. + +It was marked by two spires. One was of hewn stone, as Kriijorl had +said, immobile, with ancient symbols carven from its base to its +pinnacle. + +And the other was smooth, and of metal; its gaping airlock testimony +to the haste with which it had been landed, unhidden by the natural +camouflage of the soaring trees with which the grass-carpeted clearing +was surrounded. + +"Who--" + +"Muscles," Mason answered her. The three were crouched at the +clearing's edge, waiting. "Thought he'd made it some way. Must've +ducked in before their fleet got into Space. Gambling that our signal +that he picked up wouldn't bring out a special reception committee +ready and waiting to meet him." + +"But he has preceded us by many minutes," Kriijorl said. "I do not +see--" + +"Not so many. He was in flight two full hours before you mentacommed +Ihelos. And if I know him, it was straight out of this galaxy at full +blast! So he had to back-track all that time and distance. He had to +risk a trap down here, as well as the Thrayxite fleet which he knew +would be rushing to protect its breeders." + +"You had counted on those factors, Lieutenant?" + +"Two birds with one blast, like I told you before," Mason said. "Ask +Judith, here. She'll tell you how well I know him." The girl was +silent, but her eyes voiced her thoughts more eloquently than her +tongue might have. + +"Some will do anything to obtain the 'priceless'--" Kriijorl said +softly. + +"Cain, any time!" + +"You have laid a clever trap, Lieutenant." + +"If it springs, sure. But where are those guard ships you were so +worried about? I was counting on them, too. They should be all over +the place by now." + +And he was interrupted by the high-pitched scream of the flat, finned +shapes that hurtled suddenly over the tree tops, circled, slid quickly +downward. + +"FLAT!" Mason yelled. And as they stretched prone, they saw Cain +running toward the ship from a great open shaft in the ground, a +round, shiny thing beneath one arm. + +A probing needle of white hot flame stabbed out from one of the +descending ships, and there was a scream, and then Cain fell, a +charred skeleton, to the ground. The shiny thing he had carried rolled +lazily along the grass, teetered on edge, plopped silently over. + +Mason was poised like a runner awaiting the starting gun. For a split +second he hesitated as the guard ships touched down, their weapons +momentarily screened by the lush foliage at the clearing's edge. + +And then Mason was running, Judith and Kriijorl only steps behind him. + +There were perhaps seconds before the armed women of the Thrayxite +guard detail would break from the forest's edge. + +He stumbled, fell, and his outstretched hands touched the round, shiny +thing, and he could smell the reek of Cain's smouldering skeleton. + +Kriijorl and Judith hesitated. + +"Damn it, run!" and he felt his scream tear at his dry throat, and +then clutched the metal disk to him and regained his feet in a single +whip-like motion, and bolted after them toward the gaping air lock of +the ship that Cain had never reached. + +There was a hissing sound and a wave of heat crackled behind him, +seared his flesh beneath his tattered tunic. And there was another, +inches before him, scorching smoking scars in the soft green turf, and +shouted orders filled the air scant yards behind him. + +Then somehow he was at the air lock, and strong hands were pulling him +over its edge, and it swung to, glowed red as a bolt of raw energy +spent itself harmlessly against it. + +"Now Ihelos!" Mason said as he fought for new breath. + + * * * * * + +It was white, all white around him. + +He tried to sit up but there was the touch of gentle hands that stayed +him, lowered him back upon the bed. + +There were two of them--tall, like Vikings, and memory returned +slowly. There was a smaller one, too, standing straight and erect +beside him, like a proud queen from the pages of Earth's colorful +history. + +Judith. And Kriijorl. And another. And in his hands there was the +silver disk. The can. + +The can of records. The Book of the Saints. + +He tried again to straighten, and then heard the voice of the one whom +he did not know. + +"I am Yhevvak, Grand Liege of Ihelos," the voice said. "And I hold in +my hands, Earthman, the Book of the Saints. I have read it, and I have +broadcast to all of Thrayx what I have read. A truce delegation has +already departed from that planet to meet us here in Space." + +"But--" the word stuck in his throat, and it was hard to think. + +"Commander Kriijorl said that you suspected it was the key to our +great trouble. You were right. + +"For it tells of a conference among the leaders of our two worlds many +millenia ago; a conference held in secret, because of the nature of +its subject--the very people of our worlds themselves. Secret, because +of the decision concerning them and their staggering number. Too +staggering for either planet any longer to feed. And the record itself +was then committed to this single microtape, and itself, kept in +secrecy since the day it was recorded. + +"At first shrouded in deliberate mysticism, it was at length +remembered only as the Last Word of the Saints in the sudden wars +which so quickly followed its creation, the true cause of which was +skillfully falsified to the people of the time, and truly known only +to those who made the microtape I hold here. + +"They were our greatest leaders; in them was invested the +responsibility for the welfare and livelihood of our two planets, both +materially and spiritually. + +"When they lived, those records say, travel in Space beyond the speed +of light had not been accomplished; they believed such a feat an +impossibility imposed by a condescending Nature that could be +challenged too far. And they therefore knew no way of reaching beyond +the planets of Ihelos and Thrayx for the food and resources that +became so sorely depleted as both planets became, at length, stripped +nearly bare as their populations swelled beyond saturation point. + +"Medical science had permitted the old to grow older; granted the +new-born an almost certain purchase on life once first breath had been +drawn. Yet its greatest offering was rejected by the people; there +were indignant cries at the merest suggestion that they intelligently +regulate their number, so that their posterity might live in greater +plenty than had they. + +"There was but one solution for our desperate leaders. For although +warfare had long since vanished from our civilization as it had +matured, it took with it Nature's own unpleasant balance for her +overgenerous fecundity. + +"The new balance, then, had to be of Man's making. And so it was made. + +"Our leaders, our Saints, as we have come through the years to know +them, were of course adept masters at the many subtle arts of +propaganda, and they used those arts to the very limits of their +skill. They deliberately fomented, as their ancient record shows, the +wars, small at first and then ever larger, between Ihelos and Thrayx. + +"They could not have foreseen that one day there would be conflict for +existence between the sexes; logically calculating intellect against +intuitive, wily cunning in a battle to determine the most fit, who +would then enjoy the right to survive. + +"Nor could they have foreseen that one day, because of the very +conflict they fomented, the science of controlled genetics would at +last be recognized as a necessity of survival to both factions. + +"Today we have our answer to the age old problem of keeping our +consumption within the limits of our ability to produce for it; we +have used it to survive. But to survive war, not peace. + +"And that, as you apparently suspected, Earthman, is the key. + +"We know now why we fought. And with the knowledge of the life forces +with which we insured our continued existence during our years of +battle, we may now become united worlds of peace again. For we shall +use that knowledge to take more advisedly of Nature's fruits than we +took before. + +"Well done, Earthmen. And with our thanks, know that we shall be +always in your debt." + +Then Yhevvak bowed low, and left just the three of them together in +the white hospital bay of his flagship. + +Kriijorl was smiling, and there was a shininess in Judith's eyes. + +Mason grinned. "I hope those Thrayxite babes get a wiggle on," he +said. "Those Earth gals gotta get 'em home! Their mothers'll be +frantic. Hey, girl, not in front of company!" + + * * * * * + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Women-Stealers of Thrayx, by Fox B. 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