“Oh, that one. You say it very nicely, Jonnie.”
“It’s my fault,” said Jonnie morosely. “I should have made my father listen. There is something wrong with this place. I am certain that if he had listened and we moved elsewhere, he would be alive today. I feel it!”
“Where else is there?”
“There’s that whole great plain out there. Weeks of riding on it, I am sure. And they say man once lived in a big village out there.”
“Oh, no, Jonnie. The monsters.”
“I’ve never seen a monster.”
“You’ve seen the shiny flashing things that sail overhead every few days.”
“Oh, those. The sun and moon sail overhead, too. So do the stars. And even shooting stars.”
Chrissie was frightened suddenly. “Jonnie, you’re not going to do something?”
“I am. With first light I am going to ride out and see if there really was a big village in the plains.”
Chrissie felt her heart contract. She looked up at his determined profile. It was as though she was sinking down, down into the earth, as though she lay in today’s grave.
“Please, Jonnie.”
“No, I’m going.”
“Jonnie, I’ll go with you.”
“No, you stay here.” He thought fast, something to deter her. “I may be gone for a whole year.”
Water got into her sight. “What will I do if you don’t come back?”
“I’ll come back.”
“Jonnie, if you don’t come back in a year, I’ll come looking for you.”
Jonnie frowned. He scented blackmail.
“Jonnie, if you’re leaving, you see those stars up there? When they come back to the same place next year and you haven’t returned, I will come looking.”
“You’d be killed out in the plains. The pigs, the wild cattle . . .”
“Jonnie, that is what I will do. I swear it, Jonnie.”
“You think I’d just wander off and never return?”
“That’s what I will do, Jonnie. You can go. But that’s what I will do.”
5
The first dawn light was painting Highpeak rose. It was going to be a beautiful day.
Jonnie Goodboy was completing the packing of a lead horse. Windsplitter was sidling about, biting at the grass, but not really eating. He had his eye on Jonnie. They were obviously going somewhere, and Windsplitter was not going to be left out.
Some wisps of smoke were coming from the breakfast fire of the Jimson family nearby. They were roasting a dog. Yesterday at the funeral feast nearly a score of dogs had gotten into an idiot fight. There had been plenty of bones and meat as well. But the pack had gotten into a fight and a big brindle had been killed. Looked like the Jimson family would have meat all day.
Jonnie was trying to keep his mind on petty details and off Chrissie and Pattie, who were standing there watching him quietly.
Brown Limper Staffor was also there, idling about in the background. He had a clubfoot and should have been killed at birth, but he was the only child the Staffors had ever had, and Staffor was parson after all. Maybe mayor, too, since there wasn’t any now.
There was no affection whatever between Jonnie and Brown Limper. During the funeral dancing, Brown had sat on the sidelines making sneering remarks about the dancing, about the funeral, about the meat, about the strawberries. But when he had made a remark about Jonnie’s father—“Maybe never had a bone in the right place”—Jonnie had hit him a backhand cuff. Made Jonnie ashamed of himself, hitting a cripple.
Brown Limper stood crookedly, a faint blue bruise on his cheek, watching Jonnie get ready, wishes of bad luck written all over him. Two other boys of similar age—there were only five in the whole village who were in their late teens—wandered up and asked Brown what was going on. Brown shrugged.
Jonnie kept his mind carefully on his business. He was probably taking too much, but he didn’t know what he’d run into. Nobody knew. In the two buckskin sacks he was roping on either side of the lead horse, he had flint stones for fire, rat’s nests for tinder, bundles of cut thongs, some sharp-edged rocks that were sometimes hard to find and cut indifferently well, three spare kill-clubs—one heavy enough to crush a bear’s skull just in case—some warm robes that didn’t stink very much, a couple of buckskins for spare clothes . . .
He gave a start. He hadn’t realized Chrissie had come within a foot of him. He hoped he wouldn’t have to talk.
Blackmail, that’s what it was—plain as possible and all bad. If she’d said she would kill herself if he didn’t come back, well, one could have put that down to girl vaporings. But threatening to follow him in a year put another shadow on it entirely. It meant he would have to be cautious. He’d have to be careful not to get himself killed. It was one thing to worry about his own life; he didn’t care a snap for risk or danger. But the thought of Chrissie going down on the plains if he didn’t come back made him snow-cold at the pit of his stomach. She’d be gored or mauled or eaten alive and every agonizing second of it would be Jonnie’s fault. She had effectively committed him to caution and care—just what she intended.
She was holding something out to him. Two somethings. One was a large bone needle with a thong hole in it, and the other was a skin awl. Both were worn and polished and valuable.
“They were mama’s,” said Chrissie.
“I don’t need anything.”
“No, you have them.”
“I won’t need them!”
“If you lose your clothes,” she wailed, “how are you going to sew?”
The crowd had thickened. Jonnie didn’t need any outbursts. He snatched the needle and awl out of her hand and unlashed the neck of a sack and dropped them in, made sure they hadn’t missed and dropped out, and then relashed the sack.
Chrissie stood more quietly. Jonnie turned and faced her. He was a little bit shocked. There wasn’t even a smudge of color in her face. She looked like she hadn’t slept and had tick fever as well.
Jonnie’s resolution wavered. Then beyond Chrissie he saw Brown Limper tittering and talking behind his hand to Petie Thommso.
Jonnie’s face went tight. He grabbed Chrissie and kissed her hard. It was as though he had taken a board from an irrigation trough: the tears went down her cheeks.
“Now look,” said Jonnie. “Don’t you follow me!”
She made a careful effort to control her voice. “If you don’t come back in a year, I will. By all the gods on Highpeak, Jonnie.”
He looked at her. Then he beckoned to Windsplitter, who sidled over. With one smooth spring he mounted, the lead rope of the other horse gripped in his hand.
“You can have my other four horses,” said Jonnie to Chrissie. “Don’t eat them; they’re trained.” He paused. “Unless you get awful hungry, of course, like in the winter.”
Chrissie hung on to his leg for a moment and then she stepped back and sagged.
Jonnie thumped Windsplitter with a heel and they moved off. This was going to be no wild free ride to adventure. This was going to be a tiptoe scout with care. Chrissie had seen to that!
At the entrance to the defile he looked back. About fifteen people were still standing there watching him go. They all looked dejected. He used a heel signal to make Windsplitter rear and waved his hand. They all waved back with sudden animation.
Then Jonnie was gone down the dark canyon trail to the wide and unknown plains.
The rest of the people drifted off. Chrissie still stood there, hoping with a wild crazy hope that he would ride into sight, returning.
Pattie tugged at her leg. “Chrissie. Chrissie, will he come back?”
Chrissie’s voice was very low, her eyes like ashes in a dead fire. “Goodbye,” she whispered.
6
Terl belched. It was a polite way to attract attention, but the belch didn’t make much impression through the whine and howl of machines in the transport department maintenance dome.
Zzt’s concentration on his work
became more marked. Minesite Sixteen’s transport chief had little use for the security head. Every time a tool or a car or fuel turned up missing—or something was broken—it got attention from security.
Three crashed cars were strewn about in various stages of reassembly, one of them very messy with splotches of green Psychlo blood in the interior upholstery. The big drills that dangled from the ceiling rails pointed sharp beaks this way and that, idling in their programming. Lathes with nothing in their jaws spun waiting for something to twist and shave. Belts snarled and slapped at each other.
Terl watched the surprisingly nimble talons of Zzt disassemble the small concentric shells of a high-speed jet engine. Terl had hoped to detect a small tremble or two in Zzt’s paws—if the transport chief’s conscience was bothering him, it would be much easier to do business. There was no tremble.
Zzt finished the disassembly and threw the last ring on the bench. His yellow orbs contracted as he looked at Terl. “Well? What have I done now?”
Terl lumbered closer and looked around. “Where are your maintenance men?”
“We’re fifteen mechanics under complement. They were transferred to operations over the last month. I know it and you know it. So why are you here?”
As chief of security, Terl had learned through experience not to be very straightforward. If he simply asked for a manual reconnaissance plane, the transport chief would demand the emergency voucher, not get it, and say “No transport.” And there were no emergencies for security on this dull planet. Not real ones. In hundreds of years of operation, there had not been the slightest security threat to Intergalactic Mining operations here. A dull security scene, and consequently the chief of that department was not considered very important. Apparent threats had to be manufactured with guile as their sole ingredient.
“I’ve been investigating a suspicion of conspiracy to sabotage transport,” said Terl. “Kept me busy for the last three weeks.” He eased his bulk back against a wrecked car.
“Don’t lean on that recon. You’ll dent its wing.”
Terl decided it was better to be friendly and rumbled over to a stool at the bench where Zzt was working. “Confidentially, Zzt, I’ve had an idea that could get us some outside personnel. I’m working on it, and that’s why I need a manual recon.”
Zzt batted his eyebones and sat down on another stool, which creaked despairingly under his thousand-pound bulk.
“This planet,” said Terl confidingly, “used to have a sentient race on it.”
“What race was that?” asked Zzt suspiciously.
“Man,” said Terl.
Zzt looked at him searchingly. A security officer was never noted for his sense of humor. Some had been known to bait and entrap and then file charges. But Zzt couldn’t help himself. His mouthbones started to stretch, and even though he sought to control them, they spread and suddenly his laugh exploded in Terl’s face. Zzt hastily got it under control and turned back to his bench to resume work.
“Anything else on your mind?” asked Zzt, as an afterthought.
This was not going well, thought Terl. Well, that’s what happened when you were frank. It just didn’t mix with security.
“This suspicion of conspiracy to sabotage transport,” said Terl as he looked around at the wrecked cars with half-lowered eyebones, “could reach to high places.”
Zzt threw down a wrench with a clang. A low snarl rumbled in him. He sat there, staring in front of him. He was thinking.
“What do you really want?” he asked at last.
“A recon plane. For five or six days.”
Zzt got up and yanked a transport schedule clipboard off the wall and studied it. He could hear Terl almost purring.
“You see this schedule?” said Zzt, pushing it under Terl’s nose.
“Well, yes.”
“Do you see where it has six drone recons assigned to security?”
“Of course.”
“And do you see where this has been going on for”— Zzt peeled back sheet after sheet—“blast! For centuries, I suppose.”
“Have to keep a minesite planet under surveillance,” said Terl complacently.
“Under surveillance for what?” said Zzt. “Every scrap of ore was spotted and estimated long before your and my living memory. There’s nothing out there but mammals. Air organisms.”
“There might be a hostile landing.”
“Here?” sneered Zzt. “Company probes in outer space would detect it ages before it ever arrived here. Terl, transport has to fuel and maintain and recondition those drones two and three times a year. You know and I know the company is on an economy wave. Tell you what.”
Terl waited sourly to be told.
“If you will let us cancel those recon drones, I’ll put a tri-wheel ground cycle at your disposal for a limited time.”
Terl let out a small, shrill scream.
Zzt amended his bargain. “A ground car at your disposal when ordered.”
Terl lumbered over to the crashed vehicle that had blood on its seats. “Wonder if this was caused by faulty maintenance.”
Zzt stood there, unrelenting. The crash had been caused by too much kerbango on duty.
“One recon drone programmed to cover the whole planet once a month,” said Zzt. “One ground car at your permanent disposal.”
Terl looked at the other wrecks but couldn’t think of anything. These investigations were done and dead. Teach him to close investigations!
He wandered back to Zzt. “One drone recon programmed to cover the whole planet once a month. One armored and firepower ground car at permanent disposal with no questions on ammunition, breathe-gas, or fuel requisitions.”
Zzt took the forms from the bench drawer and made them out. He shoved the papers and clipboard at Terl.
As he signed, Terl thought to himself that this transport chief really ought to be looked into. Maybe for ore robbery!
Zzt took the papers back and removed from the switchboard the combination keycard of the oldest and rattiest ground car that was gathering dust in the garage dome. He coupled it with a coupon book for ammo, another for breathe-gas and another for fuel.
The deal would never actually become part of recorded history as a deal, for the dates of the orders were carefully not coincident. Neither suspected that they had just materially altered the future of the planet. And not for the better of Intergalactic. But that is sometimes the way with large commercial companies.
When Terl had left to get his Mark II (armored, firepower) ground car, Zzt thought to himself that it was wonderful what lies executives told just to be able to go hunting. Kill-mad they all were. Machine kill-mad, too, from the jam-ups he had to repair. What a story! Man a sentient race indeed! He laughed and got back to work.
7
Jonnie Goodboy Tyler galloped free across the vast ocean of grass, Windsplitter exuberantly stretching his legs, the lead horse rollicking along behind.
What a day. Blue sky and the wind a cooling freshness on his face.
Now two days out, he had come down from the mountains, through the foothills, and into the vastest plain he had ever imagined. He could still see the tiniest tip of Highpeak behind him, and with the sun, it kept him true on course and reassured him that he could find his way home whenever he wanted.
Total security! The herds of wild cattle were many, but he had been living with those all his life. A few wolves, but what were wolves? No bear, no puma so far. Why, in all reverence to the gods, did anybody ever stay cooped up in the mountains?
And monsters—what monsters? Phagh! Crazy tales!
Even that shiny, floating cylinder that had gone overhead every few days the whole of his life was overdue down here. It had come from west to east with the regularity of every other heavenly body, but even it seemed to have stopped. On his present course he would have seen it.
In short, Jonnie Goodboy Tyler was suffering from a bad case of overconfidence. And the first disaster that hit him had to do with pig
s.
Pigs were usually easy to kill—if you were a bit nimble and watched out for charges of the boars. And a small suckling pig was exactly what one could use for supper.
Right there ahead of him, clear in the late-afternoon light, was a compact herd of pigs out in the open. There were big ones and small ones, but they were all fat.
Jonnie pulled Windsplitter to a halt and slid off. The wind was not quite right, a bit too downwind to the pigs. They’d smell him if he approached directly.
With a bent-knee run, he brought himself silently around them until the wind was at right angles.
He stopped and hefted his club. The tall grass was nearly to his waist.
The pigs were rooting around a shallow depression in the plain, where water stood in the wet months, making a temporary marsh. There must be roots to be had there, Jonnie supposed. There were dozens of pigs, every one with his snout down.
With a crouching gait, staying below the grass tops, Jonnie went forward closing the distance yard by yard.
Only a few feet separated him now from the outermost fringe of pigs. Silently he rose until his eyes were just above the level of the grass. A small porker was only three arm-spans from him, an easy throw.
“Here’s for supper,” breathed Jonnie and heaved his kill-club straight and true at the head of the pig.
Dead on, a direct hit. The pig let out an ear-splitter and dropped.
But that wasn’t all that happened. Instant confusion roared.
Hidden from Jonnie by the tall grass and slightly behind him and to his right, a five-hundred-pound boar who had become tired of eating had lain down for a nap.
The squeal of the hit pig acted like a whip on the whole herd and away they went in an instant charge, straight upwind at Jonnie’s horses.