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NARABEDLA
Marion Z. Bradley

NEW LAMPS
Robert M. Williams
 (Contents |

EDITORIAL
Ray Palmer .... — 4

^a^ er> Moore Williams 0

PERSONALS

' falcons of NARABEDLA

Marion Zimmer Bradley 28
Jlll^^p
the serpent river

u°
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i ilcl you dare to ride it to . . / the land of

Front cover painting by Ray Palmer

Adapted from a black-and-white illustration by
Malcolm Smith depicting a scene in Shaver's Caves

Photos from the movies, "Fire Maidens of Outer Space"

and ''The Mole People".

Published Every Other Month By

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\
PALMER PUBLICATIONS, INC.
806 DEMPSTER STREET
EVANSTON, ILLINOIS
[j \

^
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\

\
Entered as second-class matter at the Post Office at
Evanston, Illinois. Additional entry at Sandusky,
\ Ohio. Editorial offices: Other Worlds, Amherst, Wis-
consin. Subscriptions: 12 issues $3.00; 24 issues
\
STOK" 4 $6.00. No unsolicited manuscripts will be returned
Stl"*1 unless accompanied by return envelope and suf-
ficient postage; nor is any responsibility accepted
for such manuscripts, photographs or art work. No
specific rate of payment is offered, being by ar-
jyy^Y
Q __ rangement only. Any similarity of characters in
'
stories or articles to persons living or dead is
purely coincidental. Printed in U.S.A. by Stephens
I^Ut Mn
ICCIIE IMU. Ol /AO\
Z\ {**1)
Printing Corporation, Sandusky, Ohio. Copyright
1957 by Palmer Publications, Inc.
 Editoriah ^^^^ |

W e know now how

win a gold medal in the Olym-
pics! OTHER WORLDS,
a couple of years of slugging it out
it feels to

after
saucers and Elvis Presley! You’ve
seen the movies, and you know that
every time a ship crosses the void
in these new modern science fiction
with the times, has finally won its times, it’s a disk! Well, we’ll just
gold medal ... or what seems to have disk ships now, instead of the
us to be its equivalent; for with one old - fashioned “after - burners.”
big smash it has attained all its Sounds reasonable, eh?
goals! We think you’ll be tickled as But that’s not all. Flying saucers
we recite these achievements and have become an important part of
explain what they will mean to you our daily thinking, and in OTHER
for your future pleasure. In the WORLDS, we’re going to sort of
first place we are (1) “the most divvy up our issues, stressing first
readable magazine in the science our usual science fiction, and then
fiction field,” and this has two as- the next issue, the flying saucer
pects (a) the finest stories obtain- phase of science fiction. We’re going
able anywhere, and (b) our new to try to indicate this by a slightly
readable type is a howling success. different logotype on alternate issues,
(2) We are increasing our frequency by the simple means of stress-
to monthly publication. From now ing one month the words OTHER
on, you’ll get your favoritemagazine WORLDS and the next FLYING
every month which should be a
. . . SAUCERS. But the full title of the
pleasant surprise! (3) We are mak- magazine will be Flying Saucers
ing & slight change in our title. from OTHER WORLDS or FLYING
From the next issue on (June), we SAUCERS From Other Worlds.
will change from OTHER WORLDS To tell you we’ve got some very
Science Stories to “FLYING SAUC- fine flying saucer science fiction
ERS FROM OTHER WORLDS”. novels and novelettes on hand will
This change needs a little ex-
title be superfluous —
you ought to know
plaining, and in the first place, no we wouldn’t broaden our scope with-
need to fear that it means a change out having something to fill those
in the wonderful stories you’ve been new horizons. So, just watch for the
getting in recent months as a — June issue, and the beginning of the
matter of fact, future stories will be saga of the disk ships! One of the
even better, in the best science fic- features will be our Scientifilm
tion tradition. But we are adding a Movie Expert Forrie Ackerman’s
kind of science fiction which we tremendous feature article on flying
think has become a permanent part saucer movies. There’ll be plenty
of our world literary scene, the story of photos too. Among the other fea-
that deals with the new kind of tures will be some extremely timely
spaceship. After all, it’s just not and exciting fact articles, which
modern to talk of spaceships these OTHER WORLDS (pardon us, Fly-
days, or of Bob Crosby; but of flying ing Saucers From OTHER WORLDS)

3
will present as a regular attraction. stars in the literary field, ranging
Sometimes the truth is even stranger from magazines to movies to TV —
than fiction. arideven to serious novels. We start-
We hope you’ve noticed the new ed them out with pioneering ideas,
cover this month without too much and they blazed new trails that pros-
surprise. Actually, as we write this, pered our magazines almost incredi-
we don’t know exactly how
go- it is bly.
ing to look. When your editor start- Then there were the “stunts” we
ed out to be an artist he realized al- pulled. Greatest of all, perhaps, was

most anything could result so — the famous Shaver Mystery. We

he just closed his eyes and plunged call this a “stunt” but not in the
ahead — and let the rest up to the
5

sense that it was not the real thing

engravers and the printers. It may — because it was — but in the sense
be that we’ll drop dead when we see that it took a stunt-man technique
it ourselves, but then again, we to do it, and also a lot of just plain
might like it —
or at least hope that intestinal fortitude. It caused a fan-
you do. You might let us know what tastic ruckus. Even today, seven
you think of your editor indulging years after, we find such fans as
in such experiments? One thing a- Harlan Ellison appearing on a rath-
bout it, wearen’t hidebound by tra- er famous “wee small-hour” radio
dition — and we want to try many program (WOR), and setting the
of the new effects and inventions whole science fiction world in an up-
the art world is developing these roar by claiming the Shaver Mystery
days, along with the printing indus- was a hoax, and that your editor
try and the chemists of the ink told him so. Harlan was one of the
manufacturers. most vehement demanders that the
Back in 1926, when we picked up Mystery be killed and that it was
the first issue of AMAZING STOR- sheer blasphemy to science fiction to
IES, we experienced a pioneering have introduced it —
and now, he
sort of thrill —
and science fiction keeps trying to revive it. It all goes
has been that same kind of pioneer- to prove that the Shaver Mystery
ing thrill to us ever since. Not one really had it, when it’s the only
month has gone by without thinking subject a modern-day writer can
of something with which to blaze a talk about that will get him on the
new trail. Sometimes we’ve hit it rich, air! We hear the radio station got
and others we’ve flopped on our indignant telegrams from every-
face. But when we start listing the where. Your editor even got a letter
successful new trails we’ve blazed, from one fan who insisted that if
then we begin to realize that 31 we wanted Harlan bull-whipped,
years is a long time! And very few they’d be happy to drop down to
months have passed when there his town and do it for us. Of course
wasn’t some new pioneering going we said no, because actually Harlan
on. is a nice guy, and we like him. The
We sit and think of the authors point is, this pioneering spirit of
we started on their careers. Not just ours has always resulted in quite a
dozens, but actually hundreds! And bit of excitement, and we find it
dozens of them today’s top stars; tremendously exhilarating. Science
and more, some who’ve gone on to fiction has been and always will be
They are big-time
really big things. a tremendous adventure. One of the

4
most interesting adventures of mod- of the intelligence services. We beat
ern times is the flying saucer, and them all to the punch on many new
that is why we feel it should be in- developments, and sometimes actual-
cluded in our category. ly beat them to the scene of ex-
We wonder how many of yoti read- citing saucer events. In one adven-
ers know that at one time Project ture, the Tacoma Incident,* seven
Blue Book (the Army Air Force’s in- men died under extremely mysteri-
vestigation into flying saucers) ous circumstances. If you think the
actually named your editor as the curse of King Tut’s tomb was po-
“hoaxer” who started this whole fly- tent, it was child’s play beside the
ing saucer thing, and specifically Tacoma Flying Disk Incident. A
what is known today as “The Tacoma hoax? If so, a pretty grim one! It
Incident”. When the truth is told a- was no joke to Kenneth Arnold to
bout that incident, if it ever is, it find our warning to him over the
will shock the world. See what we -phone of a crash of his plane 100%
mean about science fiction? It goes justified —
and under circumstances
deeper than just a “story” in a mag- he claims today are impossible to
azine. understand, and wholly illogical.
Today we are living the science Yes, science fiction is an adven-
fiction of yesterday, and now some- ture. And it is only in the pages of
thing new
being added
is —
we are OTHER WORLDS that you find it
living tomorrow’s science fiction too really lived by everybody, from its
. .ahead of time! Flying saucers
. editor down to the last reader.
are real. The what and the why and A lot of science fiction in the past
the how are just as mysterious as five years was diverted to fields into
ever, and certainly the where is a which it never deserved to be pushed.
mystery. In 1945 Shaver told us of (What English!) The psychological
the flying saucers, and predicted (whatever is logical about a psy-
them. In 1947 they appeared the cho!) field, for instance. 'The psy-
world over! No wonder Shaver was chological story existed long before
a Mystery! Three days before Nikola science fiction, and in fact was more
Tesla died, Shaver predicted it. No suited to the Elizabethan age, and
wonder Shaver was a Mystery! Edgar Allen Poe. As for “shocking”
Yes, science fiction is an adven- the modern reader, you can’t do it
ture! A thrilling, blood-gripping act with vague droolings which strive
going on right on the pages of to- to imply when there is nothing to
day’s history, and only thinly dis- imply. We started with the rocket-
guised as fiction. And now, with the ship, the spaceship, roaring up off
new OTHER WORLDS, we think a the earth to wild and wonderful
new chapter in a very exciting dra- adventures on other planets and a-
ma is about to be written. We have mong the stars, and in the vast
that unexplainable feeling we al- waste-void between. Now we have
ways get when something big is a- arrived at the flying saucer, re-
bout to break. We were “in on” the versing the field, repaying our visit.
flying saucer mystery, before it We went out to them in fiction —
broke. We were "with it” all the way they have come back to us in fact!
through to today. We had the good So, that is why we are making
fortune to have hundreds of sources this new advance in OTHER
of information denied even the best WORLDS. —Rap.

5
NEW LAMPS Bv Robert Moore Williams
Ronson came to the Red Planet
on the strangest mission
of all . . .

he only knew he wanted to see Les Ro,

but he didn't know exactly why.
It was because he knew that

Les Ro had the answer to

something that had never been answered
before, if indeed, it had ever
been asked!
For Les Ro traded new lamps for old —
and they were the lamps of
life itself!

O n Mars, the dust is yellow,

microscopically fine. With the
result that it penetrates to the
sensitive lung tissues of a human be-
and language as he made the hop, to
investigate what might be here in
this granite mountain near the
south pole of the Red Planet. Some
ing, causing distress. Crossing the Martians knew what was here. In
street toward the dive set into the Mars Port, Ronson had talked to
towering wall of the cliff overhead, one who obviously knew. But the
Jim Ronson sneezed violently. He Martian either could not or would
wished fervidly that he might get not tell what he knew.
another glimpse of what Robert Across the street, squatting a-
Heinlein, two centuries before, had gainst the wall, were a dozen Mar-
nostalgically called The Cool Green tians. One was segregated from the
Hills of Earth, and again smell air rest. They watched the human get
that had no dust in it. Deep inside out of the dothar drawn cart that
of him a small voice whispered that had brought him from the jet taxi
he would be very lucky if he ever that had landed on the sand out-
saw the green hills of Earth again. pay his fare, and
side this village,
Somewhere ahead of him, in the come toward them. Taking a half-
granite core of the mountain, was hitch around his courage, Ronson
something that no human had ever moved past them. He glanced down
seen. Rumors of what was here had at the one sitting apart from the
reached Jim Ronson. They had been rest, then averted his eyes, unease
lift him out
sufficiently exciting to and discomfort rising in him. The
of an Earth laboratory and to bring Martian was a leper. Ronson forced
him on a space ship to Mars, fever- himself to look again. The sores were
ishly sleep-learning the Martian clearly visible, the eyes were dull

6
Prom the movie "Fire Maidens Of Outer
Jennie Ware gave a quick cry . . . out of the dark
Space” starring Anthony Dexter, Susan opacity a figure came. There was not a sound
Shaw, Paul Carpenter.
in the huge room. It was the Martian Messenger.

and apathetic, without hope. As if could there be a leper? How- - He

some of the leper’s hopelessness paused as one of the Martians
were communicated to him, Ronson squatting on the sidewalk rose to
felt a touch of despair. In this bar his way.
place, if the rumors were true, how On the Red Planet, humans were
7
8 OTHER WORLDS

strictly on their own. If they got the hat on his own head, where it
themselves into trouble, no consular sank down over his ears. He wiggled
agent was available to help them. his scalpand the hat danced. The
If they got killed, no representa- laughter grew stronger.
tive of Earth law came to ask why Ronson kept his temper. "I’ll take
or to bring the killers to human my hat back,” he said, politely.
justice. No amount of argument or “Ho!” the Martian said. “Try and
persuasion on the part of delegates get it.”

from Earth had ever produced a “I want my hat back,” Ronson

treaty guaranteeing the lives or even said, a little less politely. Inside, he
the safety of humans who went be- was coming to a boil. Like a stupid
yond the limits of Mars Port. The child, this Martian was playing a
Martians simply could not see any silly game. To them, this was fun.
reason for protecting these strange To the human, it was not fun. A
creatures who had come uninvited wrong move on his part, or even no
across space. Let humans look out move, and they might be on him
for themselves! like wolves, endangering the purpose
The Martian who rose in front that had brought him here. Or had
of Ronson was big and looked mean. Les Ro, catching wind somehow
Four knives hung from the belt of his visit, set these stupid crea-

circling his waist. Ronson did not tures across his path? At the
doubt that the fellow could stab thought, the anger rising inside of
very expertly with the knives or him became a feeling of cold.
“I want - -”
that he could throw them with the
accuracy of a bullet within a range Another squatting Martian rose.
of thirty feet. In the side pocket of “I’lltake his coat,” the second one
the heavy dothar-skin coat that he announced.
wore, Ronson had a zen gun which A third was rising. “Me for his
he had purchased before leaving breeks!”
Mars Port. The little weapon threw They were going to disrobe him,
an explosive bullet guaranteed to strip him naked, for the sake' of
change forever the mind of any his clothes. Ronson did not in the
human or any Martian who got in least doubt that they would do it,

the way of it. Ronson did not doubt or try to do it. The only law pro-
that he could draw and fire the tecting humans on this planet was
gun before the Martian could use what they could make up as indi-
one of the knives but he also knew viduals and enforce for themselves.
that he did not want to start a He reached for the gun in the side
fight here in the street. What was pocket of the dothar skin coat.
inside the mountain was too im- The Martian who had taken his
portant to risk. hat reached out and grabbed his
“Happy wind Ronson said.
time,” arm. The fellow had steel claws for
This greeting was good manners hands instead of flesh and blood.
anywhere on Mars. He bowed to the The claws clamped over Ronson’s
Martian. As he bowed, the fellow arm with a paralyzing grip that
snatched his hat, held it aloft as a seemed to squeeze the very nerves
trophy. in their sheaths.
Laughter echoed through the. Ronson slugged with his left fist,
watching Martians. Only the leper very hard and very fast, a blow that
was unmoved. The Martian put landed flush on the jaw of the Mar-
 NEW LAMPS 9

tian. Thefellow blinked but was The fast-acting narcotic was already
not damaged. He grinned. “Ho! Hu- taking effect. Te Hold went over
man wants to fight!” He seemed to like a falling tree.
find satisfaction in the idea. He Jim Ronson snatched the zen
reached out with his other hand, gun from his pocket, then saw that
grasping for Ronson’s neck this he did not need it. The girl had been
-
time. busy with the needle weapon. Two
Ronson had not been in a rough of the Martians were also down and
and tumble fight since he was a the rest were in full flight, except
kid but he discovered that he had the leper, who had not moved.
not forgotten how to bring up his Standing in front of the door, the
knee and jab his antagonist in the girl was calm'y shooting needles at
stomach. Only this time it didn’t their legs a ^.ey ran.
work. The Martian brought down an Not until then did Ronson really
elbow and deflected the rising leg. see the girl. He blinked startled
His groping fingers found Ronson’s eyes at her. Human women were
neck, closed there with a grip that rare on Mars, here in this place
was as tight as the grip around near the south pole they should not
the human’s right arm. The other exist at all. No woman in her right
Martians drew closer. As soon as Te mind would come here. But one
Hold had subdued this alien, they was here, and a darned attractive
intended to have his clothes right one at that. She was tall, lithe, and
down to the skin. Maybe they would full breasted.The hair peeping out
take the skin too, if they could find from under the tight fitting-helmet
any value in it. They were so en- was a shade of red. If she had a
grossed in watching Te Hold tame fault in her figure, it was the fact
this human that they did not notice that her hips were too narrow- -she
the door of the joint open behind was as slender as a boy- -but Ron-
them. Nor did they see the girl come son was not inclined to criticize her
out. for that. Not when she had just
She was not in the least surprised saved his clothes and maybe his
at the fight in the street, nor was life.

she in any doubt as to what to do As the last Martian dodged a-

about it.In her hand, she had a round the corner, she turned her
spring gun, one of those little wea- attention to him. A smile lit her
pons that are spring powered and face.
which throw steel needles coated “Dr. Ronson! A privilege to meet
with the extremely powerful synthe- you, sir.” Hand outstretched, smil-
tic narcotic, thormoline. Hardly ing, she moved around the victims
seeming to take aim, she shot the of her needle gun and came toward
Martian who was holding Ronson him.
in the back. Te Hold jumped as the Ronson stared at her in bewildered
needle stung him but he did not let consternation. He had not thought
go of Ronson. The spring gun pinged that anyone on Mars would even
again as the girl put another needle know his name, he had not wanted
in his back. anyone to know his identity. Especi-
Te Hold jumped again. He re- ally not in this place. He barely re-
leased his grip on Ronson’s throat. membered his maners in time to
The human gulped air, and slugged take the hand offered him.
Te Hold again, harder this time. “I’m Jennie Ware," the girl said.
10 OTHER WORLDS

meet you, Miss Ware.”

“It’s nice to Her name, somehow, had a
Where had he heard or seen this haunting familiarity, as if he had
name before? “I want - - ah - - to heard it somewhere before. But he
thank you for helping me out of a couldn’tremember where.
spot.” She went through the door ahead
“It was nothing,” she said smil- of him. AsRonson passed through,
ing. “Always glad to help my fellow a Martian thrust his head around
men.” the corner outside and threw a
“You certainly went into action knife.The steel blade buried in the
fast.” He glanced at Te Hold, sleep- door facing within six inches of the
ing in the street. On the sidewalk human’s head. He hastily ducked
near the corner, another Martian through the door.
was taking a nap. Only the leper Lacking annoyed, the girl' started
was still in sight and awake. back to the street outside. “I’ll fix
“I had these needles coated with him,” she said, pulling the needle
a special narcotic designed to affect gun.
the Martian nervous system. As to Ronson caught her shoulder. “Let
my going into action fast, I’ve dis- wellenough alone,” he said firmly.
covered that you have to be firm “Anyhow you were going to buy me
with these Martians,” she answered a drink.”
smiling. Her eyes held a curious mixture
Stooping, he retrieved his hat. of annoyance, defiance, and longing.
“How did you know me?” Her gaze went down to his hand
A little flicker of amusement on her shoulder. Ronson grinned
showed in his eyes. “Why shouldn’t at her. “You look as if you are about
I recognize Earth’s foremost bio- to bite me,” he said. “Go ahead, if
physicist and leading authority on you want to.” He did not move his
cellular structure? Come on in. I’ll hand.
buy you a drink. You’ll love this Wonder came into her face. “A
place. They’ve even got a waiter who great many men have tried to paw
thinks he can speak English.” me, without getting very far. But
“Thanks,” Ronson said. “I’ll take somehow, I don’t think you’re trying
you up on that.” He was astonished to do that.”

and bewildered by this woman. He “About that drink?” Ronson said.

had spent most of his life in the “Sure.” She moved toward a table
laboratories of Earth. The women set against the far wall.

who had been there had been flat- Ronson dared to breathe again.
breasted, pale creatures in low- Whatever else this girl was, she was
heeled shoes who had called him certainly full of fight and fury. She
“Sir,” and “Doctor,” and who had could have gone out into the street,
obviously been greatly in awe of in the face of thrown knives, if he
him but who had apparently never hadn’t stopped her. As she moved
had a red-blooded thought in their toward the table, he had a chance
lives. He had regarded them as a to look at the place in which he
sort of neuter sex, creatures who found himself.
had obviously been intended by na- What he saw was not reassuring.
ture to be female but who had got- Except for a big circle in the center
ten their hormones mixed up some- of the room, the place was crammed
where along the line. This girl was with Martian males of all sizes and
different. descriptions. Waiters scurried
 NEW LAMPS 11

through the crowd. The circle on the “Thanks.”

floor was outlined in red. No custo- “Then you are enjoying your va-
mer and no Martian ventured with- cation.” Her smile was very sweet.
in it. Ronson glanced at it, asked “Are you also enjoying trying to lie
the girl a question. to me - - Jim?”
“I just got here too,” she said. “I Ronson caught his start of sur-
haven’t had time to find out about prise. Jennie Ware bewildered him
it. Some superstition of their’s, I but this was a game that two could
think.” She led him to the table. play. “Of course I’m enjoying it.
Two glasses were already on it. A Lying to a woman as beautiful as
waiter appeared out of nowhere. you are is always a pleasure - - Jen-
“This is the one who speaks English. nie.” He grinned at her and watched
Talk to the gentleman, Tocko.” the anger come up on her face. Why
“Oh, yessen, missen. Me talken ze should she be angry?
English and but very gooden. Me The anger was gone as swiftly
learnen ze human talken at Mars as it had come. She leaned across
Porten. Don’t I talk him gooden?” the table, put her hand on his. “I
The last was directed at Ronson. like you Jim. I really do. And not
“You speak him very wonderful- because you called me a beautiful
len,” Ronson answered. The waiter woman but because you kicked me
beamed. in the teeth with my own act. I had
“Bring the gentleman a mariwau- it coming and you gave it to me

kee,” the girl said. very neatly.”

“Oh, yessen, missen.” The touch of her hand was very
“On second thought, make it a pleasant. “No hard feelings. What - -
double shot,” the girl said. “The gen- ah - - are you doing here, Jennie?”
tleman looks like he needs it.” She She smiled sweetly at him. “I’m
nodded brightly to Ronson as if she on a vacation too, Jim.”
had selected the very medicine he “Touche!” The females in the
needed. “Now tell me what you are laboratories back on earth had
doing on Mars, Dr. Ronson?” never touched his hand or called him
Ronson glanced hastily at the by his first name. He wondered
waiter, to make certain that he about the man with whom she had
was out of earshot. “I — I came here been drinking. Also he was very un-
on a vacation,” he said firmly and easy about her real reason for being
loudly. “I’ve wanted to see Mars here. No woman with good sense
ever since I was a kid. Who - - ah - - would make the rough rocket trip
was sitting here with you before I to Mars for a vacation; presuming
came?” she did come to Mars, she would not
“A man,” she answered. “He went willingly come to this place. But
to the little boy’s room just before Jennie Ware was here, an enigma
you got into trouble in the street. I wrapped up in a beautiful smile. He
guess he’s still there, if some Mar- took his eyes off her long enough
tian hasn’t slit his throat. Are you to look around the place again.
enjoying your vacation?” In Mars Port, he had seen the
“Of course.” native dives, but Mars Port had
“ Do you mind if I call you Jim?” nothing like this. To the natives,
She smiled at him. this was a place of pleasure, filled
“I would be very pleased.” with sights, sounds, and smells that
“Good. You can call me Jennie.” made them happy. Over against the
12 OTHER WORLDS

farther wall a tribal chieftan was stant, he thought she was going to
absorbing narseeth through the spit at him. ,

skin of his hands, thrusting them The waiter arrived with the drink.
again and again into the sirupy, “I ’have putten you on ze listen,”
smoky-colored mixture in the bowl he said, confidentially, to Ronson.
in front of him. Ever so often he “On the listen?”
stopped, whereupon the Martian fe- “He means list,” Jennie Ware
male with him carefully dried his said.
hands. After they were dry, he made “What list?” Ronson asked.
fumbling passes at her. She accepted “On ze listen of zozen waiten to
the passes without resistance. Ron- see ze great Les Ro,” the waiter
son stared at the sight. answered.
“Relax. You’ll get used to it,” Inside of him, Ronson felt cold
Jennie Ware said. come up. Strictly on his own, he had
At another table a huge Martian to decide how he was going to han-
was sitting. Two others were with dle this. He made up his mind on
him. One sat facing the rear, the impulse. “Who the devil is Les Ro?”
other faced the front. Ronson had Across the table, Jennie Ware
the impression of two alert dogs lifted startled eyes toward Ronson.
guarding thier master. A little chill The waiter’s face showed astonish-
passed through him at the thought. ment, then embarrassment, at the
Odors were in the place, of sweat idea that anyone existed who had
dried into dothar skin garments, of not heard of Les Ro, Ronson thought.
stale drinks. Dim but distinct was “You do not knowen ze great Les
the all-pervading clinging, cloying Ro. He is ze greatest zinker, ze
odor of tamil, the Martian equiva- greatest doer, ze greatest - -”
lent of musk. Though an opening “Stinker?” Jennie Ware said.
at the right, Ronson could see fe- “That sounds about right.”
males lounging at ease in what was
“You are maken ze kidden wiz
apparently a reception room to a
me,” the waiter said, indignation in
brothel.
his voice.“You have hearden of ze
Unease came up in him again. great Les Ro. You came here to
How could this place be the way to
see him. You musten haven. Every-
Les Ro? But the rumors he had body who comes here, comes to see
picked up and carefully checked in him.” The waiter spoke with author-
Mars Port had all been in agree- ity.
ment, if you wanted to see Les Ro, “I’m sorry,” Ronson said. “If he is
you came here. What happened that important, I would like to talk
after that was obviously fate.
to him, of course. But do you mean
Watching, Ronson saw that no all of these Martians are waiting to
Martian entered the circle on the
see him?” A wave of his hand in-
floor.
dicated the group in the room.
He nodded toward the Martian The waiter, mollified, leered at
females. “What do you think of Ze
Ronson. “Ze girls didn’t. girls
this?”
come here for anuzzer purpose.”
“Oh, a girl has to live,” she said, The leering gesture included Jennie
shrugging. “What do you think?” Ware in it. It said that obviously
“Oh, a Martian has to have fun, she had come here for the same pur-
I suppose.” His shrug was as indif- pose. What other purpose was there?
ferent as hers had been. For an in- The girl gasped. Fire shot from
 NEW LAMPS 13

From Uie movie "Fire Maidens Of

To the Martian natives, this was a place of
Outer Space" starring Anthony Dex- pleasure, filled with sights, sounds and
ter. Susan Shaw, Paul Carpenter.
smells — but behind it all there was danger.

her eyes. “I’ll have you know - Some of ze noffers outside have
“Shut up,” Ronson said. been waiting since last wind
Fire flashed at him. “Hasn’t it time
occurred to you that you are in “Almost an Earth year,” Ronson
danger of getting your pretty little said, calculating rapidly. Once dur-
throat slit if you talk out of turn ing each circle of the sun the great
here?” Ronson whispered. winds blew across Mars. This was the
“Even ze noffers outside are on biggest natural event on the planet.
ze listen,” the waiter added. Since it occurred with the regularity
“What about me? Am I on it?” of clock work, it served as the start-
Jennie asked. ing point for their year.
The waiter showed great aston- “Sometimes ze great Les Ro call
ishment. “But of course not. You you right away,” the waiter said.
are a female.” , “How will I know if I’m called?”
“What difference does that Ronson said.
make?” This time the fire really A shudder passed over the waiter.
shot from her eyes. “You villknow. Of a most certain,
“How long do you have to wait you villknow. Ze Messenger vill
after you’re on the listen?” Ronson call.” The shudder came again. As if
hastily asked. he had already said too much, the
The waiter spread hands and
his waiter hurried away. Ronson turned
twisted his shoulders. “Who knows? back to Jennie Ware. She was
 14 OTHER WORLDS

sparkling with fury. in this place, where their lives might

“If they think they’re going to ride on the blinking of an eye-lash,
keep me from seeing Les Ro just or on not blinking it, a temper tan-
because I’m a woman - trum thrown by Jennie Ware - - or
“Why do you want to see him? by anybody else - - was the last
He probably isn’t pretty.” thing he wanted to see.

“Because I want to write a book A tall figure loomed beside the

about him.” table.A deep voice asked, laughing-
ly,“Well, Jim, since you’ve already
“A book - Ronson’s memory
met our lady authofess, how do you
suddenly came alive and he remem-
like her?”
bered where he had seen her name
before. He stared at her, startled Ronson looked up, then got up,
and almost aghast. Back on Earth, his hand going out, a grin spurting
this woman was almost a legend. to his face. The man standing there.

Every tabloid and every Sunday Sam Crick, took the outstretched
supplement had carried her picture hand and grinned back at him.
and stories about her. The programs Crick was tall and lean. His
beamed to space had carried tales of skin was tanned a deep brown, a
her exploits. She had explored the color that had resulted from facing
depths of the Venusian jungles, she all the winds that had ever blown
had ridden a dothar across half of on Mars and all the sun that had
Mars. When Deep Space Flight One ever shown there. Crick was some-
had blasted off from Pluto, bound thing of a legend on the Red Planet.
for the exploration of deep space, He was the eternal adventurer, the
the news telecasts back to Earth lonely wanderer of the waste place,
had carried the information that a the type of human who was always
stowaway had been discovered and looking for something that lay just
ejected from the ship just before over the edge of the horizon.
blast off. No one had been surprised Jim Ronson and Sam Crick had
when this stowaway had turned out grown up together as boys on Earth.
to be Jennie Ware. Subsequent ru- Ronson had gone into a laboratory,
mors had whispered that she had Crick had hopped a freighter bound
* practically torn Pluto Dome apart for Mars. Ronson had not seen his
because she had been ejected from old friend in many years, but he
the ship. Even the fact that the ship had heard from him and about him.
had never returned had not cooled A feeling of deep warmth came up
her anger. inside the scientist at the sight of
In addition, she was also a very the tanned face grinning at him.
competent author. Ronson had read “Then you did get my space
two of her books and had admired radio?” Ronson said. “I couldn’t lo-
her deft touch with words and the cate you in Mars Port and I was
deep sincerity that had showed never sure.” Relief at finding Crick
through in even the most hard- here was a surging feeling deep
boiled and raucous passages. Un- within him. With Crick here, he not
questionably Jennie Ware was a very only had a man experienced in Mar-
unusual human being. tian ways and customs to help him,
But in spite of this, Ronson stared but what was more important, he
at her in growing horror. Her repu- had a friend.
tation across the solar system was Crick’s face lost its smile. Wrink-
that of an uninhibited vixen. Here les showed on his forehead. “What
 NEW LAMPS 15

space radio, Jim?” vine had it.”

“The one I sent you, asking you “I don’t care how the grapevine
to meet me here. Quit kidding me. had it. I know my own motives and

If you didn’t get my space radio, my purpose in coming here.” An

how does it happen that you’re here? edge crept into his voice as he rea-
Don’t tell me this is a coincidence.” lized one possible result of what she
Crick shook his head. A doleful was saying.
expression appeared on his face. “That may be true. But do the
“I sure didn’t get it, Jim. As to Martians know them?”
what I’m doing here, I’m chaper- Ronson was silent, his thinking
oning our lady authoress. Meet my perturbed.
boss.” He nodded to Jennie Ware.
“So I hired Sam and came here,”
Ronson turned startled eyes to- Jennie Ware continued. “If Les Ro
ward the girl.
was big enough to attract you, he
“I caught him flat broke in Mars was also big enough to provide me
Port just before you arrived,” she with copy for my next book.”
answered. “Since he was broke, I “So you could find copy for a
took advantage of him and hired damned book, you risked my neck!”
him as my bodyguard. Not that I Ronson said, his voice hot.
would really need a bodyguard, but “I didn’t risk it a tenth as much
in case I fell and broke a leg, he as you’re doing, by yelling at the
might be handy. But his being here top of your lungs where half of
wasn’t a coincidence.” Mars can hear you. Anyhow, I saved
“Eh?” Ronson said. It was diffi- your clothes and maybe your hide
cult to follow her thinking. She out in front a while ago. Doesn’t
seemed to say a lot, or nothing, all that count for something?”
with the same words, the only dif- “Sorry,” Ronson said abruptly. “I
ference being the voice tone she lost my temper.”
used. If she chose, she had all the “I’d like to make one point,” Crick
gifts of a man in concealing her said. “We’ve got a mighty hot col-
true feelings and real opinions. lection of thieves, crooks, and killers
Her voice was calm, her face ex- present in this joint.”
pressionless. “The grapevine in Mars Jennie Ware and Jim Ronson
Port said the Earth’s top-flight bio- stared at him.
physicist was coming here, that old Crick gestured toward the Martian
Les Ro was thought to have some- with the two guards. “That’s Tal
thing that human scientists were Bock. He belongs in the upper lentz
all hotted up about, and that you country, where he is the leader of a
were coming here to investigate, and gang of killers and thieves. The one
to chisel Les Ro out of a piece of it, over there soaking his hands in
it he would stand still for such treat- smoke is Kus Dorken. He’s not any
ment.” better than Tal Bock.”
Ronson blinked at her. She had “What are they doing here?” the
delivered a bombshell and she had girl asked.
done it as if she thought what she “I don’t know,” Crick answered.
said was of no importance: “I’m “Unless maybe they’ve been listen-
not trying to chisel Les Ro or any- ing in on the grapevine too.”
body out of anything.” His calm For a moment, it looked as if
matched her aplomb. Jennie Ware was about to cry. She
“That’s not the way the grape- seemed, suddenly, to become a small
16 OTHER WORLDS

girl who had done something wrong solid stone itself seemed to be in
and was very sorry for it and was motion. A sort of melting, shifting
trying to find some way to express flow seemed to be taking place as
her sorrow. Her hand came across if the molecules and perhaps even

the table again, touched Ronson’s the atoms themselves were dissolv-
hand hesitantly. ing.

“I’m sorry, Jim, if I got you into “That’s atomic disintegration, or

trouble. But I knew your reputation. atomic shifting, under control!”
If you were coming here, something Sam Crick gasped.
big was here. I - - I wanted to “It’s a mirage,” Jennie Ware whis-
be in on it. I guess all my life I’ve pered. “It must be.”
wanted to be in pn something big. “If it’s a mirage, everybody in the
If I actually got you into trouble, place is seeing it,” Ronson said.
Sam and I are here to help you
There was not a sound in the huge
get out of it. Isn’t that right, Sam?”
room. The waiters had come to at-
“Right, Jennie.” A growl sounded tention like trained soldiers. The fe-
in the tall adventurer’s voice. males had abruptly lost all interest
“Thanks, both of you,” Ronson said. in what they were doing. Out of the
He was deeply touched: In spite of corner of his eyes, Ronson saw one
the shell of bravado that she wore, female make a sudden darting
and her sudden spurting anger, he movement across the room. One foot
liked this girl. She might have the touched the circle on the floor as she
reputation of an uninhibited vixen, ran. She took two more steps and
but somewhere inside of her was a fell, sagging downward as if every
small girl looking out from awed muscle in her body had suddenly
and wondering eyes at the vastness refused to function. She lay on the
of the world. floor without moving. Not a head
“Watch it!” Crick’s whisper was was turned toward her, not a Mar-
shrill and sharp. His eyes were fo- tian moved to help her. In her ac-
cused on the ceiling. tion Ronson saw one reason why the
All the sounds of the place, the Martians avoided the circle on the
rattle of glasses, the sharp giggling floor. Something was definitely
of soliciting women, the deep voices wrong with that circle. Looking at
of the Martian males, had gone the roof, he saw the reason.
into sudden and complete silence. The flowing, shifting movement
Like Crick, they were looking up- there had formed into a circle the
ward. Ronson followed their gaze same size as the circle on the floor
to the ceiling. Jennie Ware gave a and directly above it. Little flickers
quick cry. Glass tinkled and broke of light, like the discharge of high
as she dropped her drink. frequency currents, were flowing be-
Jim Ronson did not hear the tween the two circles. Swiftly the
sound. His entire attention was fo- flickers of light became an opaque
cused on what was happening on cylinder of misty flame extending
the ceiling. from the ceiling to the floor.
The dive itself had been cut into From the opaque cylinder of light,
the side of the cliff. The solid rock a Martian stepped.
of the ceiling had not been disguised Without quite knowing how he
or masked. knew it, Ronson knew that this was
At firstglance, Ronson thought Les Ro’s Messenger.
his eyes were deceiving him. The The Messenger was old, perhaps
 NEW LAMPS 17

as old as the granite mountain above ceiling to the floor. “Just step into
them, if the network of fine wrinkles the light, my
son.”
on his face were an accurate indica- “Jim!” Jennie’s voice had a fran-
tion of his age. With age, calmness tic plea in it.

and serenity had come to this Mar- “May my friends go with me?”
tian. His eyes gave thg impression Ronson said.
that they had seen everything. What The Messenger shook his head. His
they had not seen, the brain behind face said he was very sorry but that
them had imagined. Peace was in the answer was no. “I have no in-
the eyes and on the face, the deep structions for them. Only you, my
peace that many human saints son. Les Ro has waited very long
had sought and had found. for someone like you.”
“I like him,” Jennie Ware whis- Ronson did not know whether he
pered. was pleased or not. But he knew
The Messenger carried himself he was greatly excited. If the rumors
with a sureness that was full of had been right, if the grapevine
meaning. He glanced around the had reported correctly, something
room. His eyes settled on the three was here in the heart of the Martian
humans at the table. A sort of a mountain that had never existed be-
glow appeared on his face, lighting fore in the solar system and
it as if with a halo. He moved to- perhaps not in the universe. He
ward them, stopped and stood look- stepped boldly into the opaque ra-
ing down at them. For a moment, his diance.
face was blank, and even his eyes To Jennie Ware and Sam Crick
seemed to be withdrawn. it looked \s if he had stepped out
“ESP!” Crick whispered. “Guard of existence.
your thinking.’-’ To Jim Ronson, when he stepped
The eyes flicked toward Crick, into the light, it seemed to him that
then came to Ronson. The human millions of tiny hands instantly
felt a touch that was feather-light grasped him. They lifted him up-
appear in his brain. It seemed to run ward. It seemed as if they changed
like lightning through the nerve directions, but he could not be sure
cells. Then it was withdrawn. The of that. The motion stopped. He
smile came back to the face of the felt a firm substance under his feet.
Messenger. The tiny hands released him, the
"Les Ro has waited a long time opaque light fell away from him.
for one like you, my son. He will He was standing' in the center of a
see you.” The voice was deep and circle in a room cut out of solid
pleasant. Somewhere in it were tones stone, aroom that had no exit and
that were bell pure. no entrance except the one under
Ronson rose to his feet. through
his feet, the solid stone floor
“Watch it!” Crick whispered. “This which the microscopic hands had
may not be on the up and up.” lifted him.
“I came here to see Les Ro.” Ron- Panic came up in him then and
son answered. “I’m not going to back his hand .dived for the gun in his
out now. Which way do I go?” The coat pocket. It came away empty.
last was spoken to the Messenger. The gun had been removed without
The Martian bowed. The wave of his knowledge on the transit up-
his hand indicated the cylinder of ward. Examination revealed that
misty radiance flowing from the every bit of metal had been removed
18 OTHER WORLDS

from his pockets. Only his wrist perception in operation had some
watch had been left and that appar- basis in fact?
ently because the metal strap around “I said Les Ro waited a long time
his wrist had resisted removal. for someone like you.” For a mo-
Automatically he pushed the but- ment hope showed on the wrinkled
ton on the side of the watch. On the face. “But not necessarily for you.
dial the tiny green light glowed. You have certain qualities that Les
Neither the light that had lifted Ro seeks, but until you have proved
him upward nor this room contained that you have other qualities as
lethal radiations. The sight of the well - Sadness replaced the hope.
green light made him feel better. “Tell me what you seek here?”
But not much. Sweat appeared on Ronson felt rebellion come up in
his skin as he waited. Inside his him. Then he remembered that on
chest, he felt his heart begin to Mars the only law protecting hu-
speed up its beating. mans was what they could make
Light danced in the wall. The and enforce for themselves. “Rumors
stone seemed to dissolve. The Mes- have reached us on Earth of Les Ro’s
senger came through. The wrinkles great accomplishments. It is our
on the fine face glowed like ivory' hope that we can share our knowl-
at the sight of Ronson. edge, pool our discoveries. It is
“I hope you will forgive me for our belief that great advances can
keeping you waiting. Other - - ah - - come from this sharing - for both
tasks demanded my attention at humans and Martians.”
the moment.” Ronson spoke quietly. Only the
“It’s quite all right. Finding my- tone of his voice expressed the very
self here unexpectedly was a little deep and very real feeling he was
hard on my nerves but the chance putting into words. Yet in the quiet-
to see Les Ro will be worth the
ly spoken words his dream was ex-
shock to my nervous system. I as- pressed - - and the dream of every
sume this is the way.” Ronson moved real scientist in the history of Earth
toward the light dancing on the - - of progress, of forward motion,
wall, then stopped as he saw the of leaving behind them a world a
Martian was not following. “What’s little better than the one they had
wrong?” known. Once this dream had been
The smile was gone from the face only for humans. Now it included
of the Messenger. “One must prove Martians too, and every other race
himself worthy of seeing Les Ro.” within the solar system.
“Eh?” A little touch of fear came The Messenger smiled at the
up in the human. “Worthy?” words. But under the smile was con-
“Also, it would be well to tell me cern. “Do you mean that you hu-
why you want to see Les Ro. I will mans still face problems that you
carry your request to him.” cannot solve? But you have made
“But you said Les Ro wanted -to tremendous scientific advances,
see me, that he had waited a long much greater than we of Mars have
time for someone like me. Though made. Space flight is only one illus-
how he knows anything about tration -
me - -” Ronson ’s voice went into un- “Unfortunately, many of oui
easy silence. Had the grapevine re- scientific advances have brought
ported his coming here? Or had more problems than they have
Crick’s whisper about extra-sensory solved.” Grimness crept into Ron-
 NEW LAMPS 19

son’s voice “Before atomic energy was becoming heavier.

was released, it was prophesied that The Messenger moved up and
the release of this energy would down the cell, pacing, his right hand
solve all the problems of our planet. rubbing his chin. “Yes, it is the
This was over two hundred years same something. Les Ro has talked
ago. We are still striving to regain of it often. It has defeated even
the losses suffered in the first and him. He calls it change. There seems
second atomic wars.” to be a law in this universe against
“Wars?” The face of the Martian anything remaining the same - -
showed amazement. “You humans But why did you come here? Do you
are fools.” seek a new way to cure this disease
called cancer?”
“We are trying to stop being fools.
Or some of us are. But something “Yes. A permanent
way. A way
seems to defeat our efforts.” that goes behind the law of change.”
“Yes.” Keen interest showed on “Do you think you could find such
the face of the Martian. “Do you a thing here?”
have this problem too? I wonder if “Yes. And here I have proof. De-
it^s the same something - tailed reports from human physic-
“We live in the same universe.” ians at Mars Port. In three instances,
“Can you state the problem more Martian patients admitted to the
exactly?” human hospital there were found
“I can give you an illustration to be suffering from inoperable can-
of it. At the same time. I will give cer. Each was discharged, as incur-
you my reason for being here.” Ron- able. Within the following two years,
son took a deep breath, considered each patient returned to the hospi-
the words he was going to use. “I’m tal there, one to have a knife wound
a bio-physicist. This means that my treated, a second to have a broken
specialty is the living cell and the bone set, a third because of injuries
changes that can and do take place suffered in an accident. As soon
in it. We have a name for one of the as they were admitted, the records
changes that may take place there were checked, and the previous diag-
- - cancer.”
,
nosis of cancer was found. Each
“A disease.” case of cancer had been cured. Each
“Yes. And a very serious one. Often Martian told the same story, that
tied up with radioactivity, it is a he had been here, and that Les Ro
change that takes place in the in- had cured the disease.”
terior of a living cell.” “And you came here seeking the
-”
“I know - < ninth solution from Les Ro for your
“No less than eight times in the people?”
past hundred years, human doctors “Yes. And for one other reason.”
have found a cure for this mutation “Eh?”
within the cell. Each cure worked, “The cancer I am trying hardest
perfectly, for a time.” to cure is - - here.” Very gently,
“And then - -” Jim Ronson rubbed his chest. At the
“Then this something defeated action, and at his thought, his heart
their efforts. A change took picked up an anxious beat.
place. A new form of cancer appear- For an instant, the face of the
ed, which did not yield to the treat- Martian showed blank astonish-
ment that had been effective previ- ment. Compassion followed the as-
ously.” Ronson found his breathing tonishment, a flood of it. “My son!”
20 OTHER WORLDS

The voice had pity and understand- The sound had come from Tal
ing and sympathy in it. “Les Ro will Bock, squatting on the sand near
see you.” him. Tal Bock was also naked. Un-
“Good!” Relief surged up inside like Ronson, the millions of micro-
Jim Ronson. He had travelled many scopic hands in the darkness had
a weary mile for this moment. He not left even a wrist watch on the
had faced frustration and despair. Martian.
The best doctors on Earth had told “Happy - - ah - - wind time,”
him they could do nothing for him. Ronson said. Tal Bock grunted, but
Now, here, in the heart of a moun- did not answer.
tain near the south pole of Mars - - “Where are we?”
“Follow me.” the Messenger said. “Hell,” Tal Bock said. He got up
The wall swirled in front of him. and walked into the shrubbery be-
He stepped into the misty opaque- hind him.
ness and Ronson followed him. In- Ronson rose. He was shaky, his
side the light, the human felt the legs seemed too long to reach the
t
millions of microscopic hands take sand, a subjective impression that
hold of him. Their touch was gentle almost amused him, but didn’t quite.
and caressing, softly tender. Sud- To the left another Martian was
denly their touch was firm and squatting cross-legged on the sand.
strong. He felt them seize his cloth- Ronson looked, then looked again.
ing and rip it from his body. Their He moved toward the Martian to
gentle, caressing touch was gone. make certain.
In its place was an almost manic It was the leper who had been
fury. A scream ripped involuntarily on the street outside the dive. With-
from his throat. out the rags, the Martian was hardly
The scream was flung into com- recognizable. The sores provided a
plete silence. No echo of it came certain means of identification.
back to his ears. .There was no mistaking them.
Blackness beat at him, flowed in “How did you get here?” Ronson
over him, flowed through him. The asked.
blackness ransacked every nook and The leper made a weak gesture
corner of his body. It probed to the with his hands which said, “Go a-
bottom of his soul. way.” His attitude was resigned but
It swallowed him whole. It dis- about his manner was an air of ex-
sected his consciousness, tore it to pectancy.
shreds, then yanked away even the Ronson discovered that the place
shreds. He seemed to be falling into in which he had found himself was
a black hole that had no end. a cavern about half a mile in d'ia-
Ronson did not know how long meter. It was adequately lighted
the blackness lasted. The first sense though the light sprang from no
to come back was hearing. Some- source that he could detect. The
where near him he heard a gTunt. place was pleasant enough. There
Then the sense of feeling came back was water here. It flowed in little
and he realized he was lying naked rills set in stonework. Grass and
on sand. He didn’t much want to desert shrubs grew here. The air
open his eyes. Finally he forced was moist, with a fragrant sweet-
them open. His vision was blurred ness somewhere about it.
and vague. When it cleared he saw Something was in the air besides
the source of the grunt. the moisture and the fragrant
 NEW LAMPS 21

sweetness. It was intangible, almost seeking for an was Te Hold.

exit. It
imperceptible. Ronson cocked his Te Hold had recovered from the
head, trying to catch this something. effect of the thormoline and had
It was always out of the range of been brought here. Ronson watched
his sensory perception, an intang- the Martian run along the walls,
ible, elusive quality that perplexed searching desperately for a way out.
him. Te Hold screamed as he ran but
“Subliminal.” he thought. “Maybe he didn’t find an exit. The screams
super-sonic sound just above the died out as he reached the far end
range of hearing.” of the oval, then grew stronger as he
Why super-sonic sound? He did came back again upon his own steps.
not know. He felt dazed. There was Kus Dorken slid out of sight. Tal
a heavy feeling through his whole Bock was somewhere in that shrub-
body. Why was he here? He had been bery too, where, Ronson didn’t know.
told he would see Les Ro. There And didn’t care. A feeling of hope-
was also talk about a man proving lessness was coming up in him. He
if he was worthy - - moved back to the leper, squatted
He did not like this thinking. He on the sand beside the man, asked
tried to shut it off, but it was a a question.
persistent gadfly that returned to The leper’s eyes flicked at him
buzz again and again in his brain. in response but there was no other
The out-of-hearing sound seemed answer. An ecstacy was in the eyes
to buzz with it, slipping in and out now. The leper was so lost in this
of hearing too fast for the mind to ecstacy that such things as grunted
grasp it. Each time it slipped into noises from a member of an alien
hearing for the fractional part of a race made no impression on him.
second, it brought a flick of agony Ronson envied him. The leper was
with it. At the touch, he became close to death but he was so lost in
almost giddy. Alarm bells rang sud- some inner ecstacy that death was
denly inside his head. The note went unimportant to him.
out of hearing again, the giddiness “Did Les Ro’s Messenger promise
passed, the alarm bells went into you that you would be cured of your
silence. leprosy?” Ronson asked, persisting.
In the shrubbery ahead of him, The leper nodded. Again his hand
a figure moved - - Kus Dorken. waved in the “Go away,” gesture.
Two of the worst killers on Mars “Go away and let you die in
were here in this place. A leper. A peace?” Ronson said.
human. Unease came up inside Jim “Just go away,” the leper answer-
Ronson, a sharp stab of it. Inside ed.
his chest a surge of pain broke Ronson rose to his feet, angry.
through the barriers he had erected What farce was being perpetrated
around it, reminding him of what here? What - - The super-sonic note
was there. came into hearing. Pain stabbed at
He had come here seeking relief his chest.
for that surge of pain. Instead of He lifted his hand involuntarily.
getting what he had asked for, he The sight of the dial on his wrist
had been thrust into place. With watch forced itself through the
two killers and a leper and - - A pulses of pain.
shout broke into his thinking. A As a part of his research into
Martian was running along the walls, cell structure, Ronson had worked
22 OTHER WORLDS

extensively with radioactivity. In and death with - -

order to protect himself, he had had Te Hold came past him, screaming.
a microscopically small radiation The Martian was beginning to stum-
detector built into the watch itself. ble as he ran. The screams were
Three tiny glow tubes were set into only gasping sounds in his throat.
the dial. If the green tube glowed, * Voices rose in shouted argument
radiation was present but was safe. somewhere in the shrubbery. Ron-
If the amber light glowed, be wary. son moved away.
If the red light glowed, get out “What’s going on there?” he asked
fast! the leper.
The red light was glowing now. “Tal Bock - - and Kus Dorken - -
As Ronson stared, it winked out. have disagreed - - as to which is the
Before he could take his eyes away bigger killer - - and therefore which
from the dial, the red light flicked is the more worthy. They fight - -

on again. The super-sonic note came to decide the problem.”

with it. A flick of very real pain The words were quietly spoken.
came with the note. The red light The tone said the matter was of
flicked out, the note vanished. The no importance. After he had fin-
pain was gone. ished speaking, the leper’s eyes went
“Regular pulsations of radiation back to the inner ecstacy that he
are being poured through this seemed to be watching. Or was it
place!” Ronson whispered. future ecstacy that he was imagin-
ing?
It was being done deliberately.
The whole cavern was being flooded “I is a heaven for Mar-
hope there
periodically with bursts of radiation. tians,” Ronson
said. So far as he
This meant deliberate intention, knew, only in heaven could this
purpose, plan. He did not know what leper’s health be restored. Was the
impact this radiation might have on same true for him?
Martian flesh but he could guess Voices screamed in the shrubbery.
the effect it might have on human Giving ground before the heavy
tissue. blows Tal Bock was striking at him,
Fear came up in him, a flood of it. Kus Dorken came stumbling back-
Anger followed it. The lights on ward. He slipped in the sand and
his watch danced. Pain, agony, and fell heavily. Tal Bock leaped at him.
the shrill note of the super-sonic Kus Dorken screamed once, a sound
came again, Grimly, he began to that gasped into silence as Tal
prowl the cavern, searching for the Bock’s fingers closed over his throat.
source of the radiations. The radi- For a time, they threshed in the
ation counter in his watch led him sand. Then Kus Dorken went limp.
to it, by the increased intensity of Viciously Tal Bock slapped his foe
its glow. The radiations were coming across the face. When there was no
from a single spot in the wall of response, he poured sand into Kus
the cavern. So far as he could tell, Dorken’s mouth, scooping it up in
the was solid storje at this
wall handfuls and cramming it down his
place, but he had seen solid stone foe’s gullet.
walls dissolve in this madhouse. Be- Tal Bock got to his feet. The
hind this spot there was intelligent scream that ripped from his lips was
direction of the bursts of radiation. pure triumph. Utterly naked, he
Back there Les Ro, or someone stood beside the body of his victim,
with him, was playing games of life shaking his fist at the roof of the
 NEW LAMPS 23

cavern, screaming defiance at the “How - - how did you get here?”
universe. Ronson gasped.
Ronson fervidly hoped that the Crick nodded to the Martian on
radiation flowing through the Mar- the floor. “We persuaded Tocko to
tian would strike him dead. The bring us. He knew a little more
scream went into silence. Tal Bock’s about this place than he ever let
gaze fell on the leper, he moved in on. After he brought us here, we
that direction. Viciously he kicked gave him a needle, to keep him quiet
the leper. while we rescued you.” The tall ad-
The sick Martian slipped from his venturer grinned as he spoke.
squatting position and lay inert. “Come on, Jim. We know the way
Ronson moved forward. With all out of here. If we get out before
the strength that he possessed, he they discover what has happen-
hit Tal Bock behind the ear. As he ed - -” The girl was all frantic mo-
struck the blow, the super-sonic note tion moving toward escape.
screamed through him. “I’m not going,” Ronson said.
Ronson’s blow knocked Tal Bock “What?” the girl gasped.
sprawling. Like a gigantic cat, the Ronson turned to Crick. “Do you
Martian came to his feet. have an extra gun?”
Ping! “Of course. But, Jim - -”
Tal Bock moved toward Ron- “Lend it to me, will you? I may
son in little short steps. He was need it before I’m finished here.”
like a cat getting ready to pounce. ‘.‘Eh?” Crick was startled.
The grin on his face said he was Ronson explained what he meant.
going to anticipate destroying this Crick’s face grew grim. He took an
human. extra needle gun out of his coat
Ping! pocket. “I guess maybe you could
Tal Bock lost his footing. He fell use a little help on this job, Jim. Eh,
heavily and tried to rise. A con- Jennie?” He glanced at the girl.
fused expression was on his face. Fear was on her face. She wanted
The effort to rise was more than to run, to get away, forever, from
he could manage. Collapsing, he lay But some things
this place of horror.
without moving. were more important than running.
“Jim! Here! Quick!” The voice “We’ll make it a threesome,” she
came from the shrubbery. His first said.
thought was that he was hallucinat- “Good girl!” Ronson spoke.
ing. Jennie Ware and Sam Crick A passage circled the oval cavern.
could not be there in that shrubbery, With Ronson in the lead, they fol-
fully Jennie
clothed, beckoning lowed it until they came to the
frantically to him, Crick with a spot from which the radiations were
needle gun in his hand. being poured into the cavern. Here
They came him, on the run.
to was a large room. The passage led
Jennie caught one arm, Crick caught directly into it.

the other. Supporting him between Inside the room was a tremendous
them, they ran through the shrub- array of complex electrical appara-
bery. In the opposite wall, a hole tus. Ronson had never seen anything
showed, an honest opening, not a as good as this in even the best
light-swirling mirage. Inside it, Crick laboratories back on Earth. He could
swung shut a door. A Martian lay not even guess the purpose of most
on the floor of the tunnel. of the equipment, it had been de-
24 OTHER WORLDS

signed by a Martian mind and con- “This? This is only a part. It was
structed by Martian hands - - with a long task. Many weary years I
”
a Martian goal in view. have spent here
Set in the middle of the room “He’s telling- the truth, Jim,” Jen-
were the control panels of the equip- nie Ware whispered.
ment. Directly above the panels was “But one pair of hands, to build
a smoky visio screen that revealed all of this.” Shock was in Ronson,
dimly what was happening in the perhaps even greater shock than he
cavern. Just rising from his place had experienced in the cavern. He
at the controls was - - the Messen- stared at Les Ro. Respect was in
ger. him and admiration, if not liking.
He looked up and into the muzzle “Then you are indeed a genius. The
of the needle gun Ronson was hold- rumors were partly right, after all.”
ing. A tiny startled reaction played “Thank you.”
across his poised face, disturbing
“But why couldn’t you get some-
the many wrinkles there, then was one to help you?”
gone. A smile replaced it.
Sadness showed on Les Ro’s face.
“Ah, yes. I had just discovered
“You have seen the people in the
you were missing and I was start-
drinking room below. Which of them
ing to look for you.” could understand how an electron
Behind him, Ronson heard Jen- circles in its orbit? Many times I
nie Ware catch her breath. He knew have tried to train the brightest of
she was thinking that they should them. The result was inevitable fail-
have run while they had the chance. ure. That is why, when you came
“We saved you the trouble, Les ” Longing came into Les Ro’s
Ro,” Ronson said. eyes.
The startled reaction was more “Watch him, Jim,” Crick whis-
pronounced this time. “You guess- pered.
ed?” “I know it doesn’t track,” Ronson
“That Les Ro and his Messenger said. His voice grew grim and hard.
were one and the same? It was ob- Bitterness boiled in it. He was fac-
vious when you did not need to ing his own frustration here, in the
communicate what I had said to Les failure of his deep hopes in coming
Ro. How many others are here with to this place. A touch of pain mov-
you?” ing through his chest told him what
The question was important. that failure meant to him. He ges-
Their own survival depended on the tured toward the cavern. “Out there
number of Martians here. I saw Martians destroying each oth-
The startled reaction was very real er. In this, they were wiser than
this time. “No one else is here?” they knew. The ones who died quick-
“You are alone!” ly were lucky. The choice was be-
“I am alone. Many times I have tween a quick death and slow, hor-
- - ”
longed -
rible death from the radiation pour-
“Watch him Jim.” Crick whis- ing through that place.”
pered. “This doesn’t smell right to Pain and consternation showed on
me.” Les Ro’s face. He seemed to hear
“Do you mean that you
to tell me only Ronson’s last words. “How did
alone built this apparatus?” Ronson you detect the radiation?”
gestured toward the array of equip- “With this.” Ronson nodded to-
ment in the room. ward his watch.
 NEW LAMPS 25

“This wonderful. You humans

is “But this is a miracle.”
actually have a reliable method of Again Les Ro denied the state-
detecting radiation! I have striven ment. “This is natural law in op-
so hard to build such a device. Let eration, though to you the laws may
me see it.” He moved toward Ronson be unknown. Watch.”
as if nothing else were of any The leper would have dropped to
importance in comparison to the his knees and kissed Les Ro’s hand,
detector. but the Martian forbade it, sending
“Stand back. Kus Dorken and Te him to wait elsewhere.
Hold and the leper would not have Te Hold came through the swirl-
thought the radiation pouring ing light - - - a Te Hold who was
through them was wonderful, if they without fear. Then, Kus Dorken
had known about it. Nor will Tal came. He was still spitting sand out
Bock, before he dies.” of his mouth but the bluster and the
Real pain darkened the fine pa- bravado and the anger were gone
tina of the Martian’s face. “Do you from him. He was a new Kus Dor-
really believe this of me?” ken. Inside, he had been subtly
“I saw it happen,” Ronson answer- changed. Flowing outward, the
ed. “I was there. I saw Tal Bock change showed on his face as a gen-
”
destroy Kus Dorken tle kindliness.

“One moment, please.” Les Ro’s “He was a killer when I saw him
hand moved among the controls. first,” Jennie Ware said. “Now
Ronson’s hand tightened on the he looks like a saint.”
trigger. He held off firing. Some- Les Ro smiled at her. “He will be
where a relay thudded home. Pow- a saint, from now on. He knows
er surged. The wall in the front of how to be one, now. As to Tal Bock,
the room began to glow with light. he has not yet recovered from your
“Wait, please! Walt!” needles. When he does recover, he
The leper came first through the will come out of the cavern a saint
swirling mistiness. He walked erect, too.”
his back straight and his head up. “But why didn’t you tell me about
The light of eager anticipation was this?” Ronson whispered. “Why
still in his eyes but something new did you just thrust me, and presum-
had been added now realization. ably the others too, in there without
“But Tal Bock killed him. I saw warning. Why didn’t you tell us?”
it,” Ronson whispered. “To have told you, might have de-
“No,” Les Ro gently negated. feated my purpose, or prolonged its
“When Tal Bock attacked him, I put achievement. I put all who come to
him into a trance condition, to save me in the cavern. There, the killer
him.” coward will run,
will try to kill, the
Ronson hardly heard'the answer. the brave man As the
will fight.
His eyes were fixed on something he will use the re-
killer tries to kill,
else. “The sores - - - ” The sores action patterns he has known all
were not gone but they had dimin- his life As he uses them, I throw
ished in size. Replacing the rotten bursts of energy at him. I discon-
tissue, new flesh had already begun nect the kill patterns. The energy
to form. penetrates right down to the levels
“This is what he asked, when he of the cells, and even goes lower
came to me,” Les Ro said. “This is than that, changing old patterns
what he got.”
26 OTHER WORLDS

“New lamps for old,” the girl whis- knowing I really couldn’t, because
pered. I was a woman. I’m tired of this.
Ronson was silent. His thinking I’m sick and tired of it!” Her voice
was perturbed, almost bewildered. grew frantic for a moment. Then
What Les Ro had said made sense. she was calm again.
Reaction patterns had to change “I want to be a woman. Do you
down to and through the cellular think that if I went in there ”
level. the patterns were struck
If she gestured toward the cavern,
by burst of radiant enegry but “that you could help me be a - - -
this was the method nature used! woman?” The appeal in her eyes
This was the method of the some- and in her voice begged for one an-
thing they had sought but which swer.
had always eluded them. The change “I have never worked with a hu-
in the cells that was called cancer man woman ”
again pain flicked through his
“Then use me as a guinea pig!”
chest more often than not this
As if the answer were predeter-
change was brought about by ra-
mined, her chin up, with not a look
diant energy operating on cellular
behind her, she moved through the
structure! Les Ro had organized
misty light and out of sight like
this something, this wild talent of
Eve stepping into the Garden of
nature, and was making it do use-
Eden in the dawn of a new world.
ful work.
Les Ro’s hands moved over the
“But it did not work for me,” Ron-
switches.
son protested.
Jim Ronson dropped the needle
“Human cellular structure and gun. For a split second, he hesita-
Martian cellular structure are dif- ted. Then he walked toward the
ferent,” Les Ro answered. “This is swirling light.
the first opportunity I have had to Les Ro’s voice stopped him. “When
work with humans. More time is you are cured, my son, when you are
needed to produce the changes in finished in there, come back, and
them. That is all.” A beatific smile" we will work together on the prob-
lit the face of the old Martian. It lems of your world and mine. This I
went slowly away as his eyes came have dreamed of since the first day
to focus on the girl. Ronson turned, I began work here, that someone
gasped when he saw what she was with sufficient intelligence might
doing. come to work beside me.”
She was stripping herself. With- Ronson smiled, nooded. As he
out embarrassment and shame, she stepped into the mistiness, Les Ro’s
took off her clothes. She stood be- face beamed at him, enhaloed, like
fore them, naked. a saint.
“A human woman!” Les Ro said. The girl was wandering through
“Outside, I’m a woman,” Jennie the shrubbery. She seemed not to
Ware answered. “But inside I’ve got see him but when he came into step
more of the organization of a man beside her, she looked up and smiled.
than a woman. The result has been Arm in arm, they walked together,
that all my life there’s been a fight in a place that had been hell, but
within me. Instead of being a wo- was now heaven, waiting for the
man, I have only succeeded in being miracle to take place within them.
a bitch, all jangle of nerves, always And little by little, in minute bursts
trying to do what the men did, but of spurting quanta, Jim Ronson
 NEW LAMPS 27

feltthe pain in his chest go away. creation and herself. She was be-
The girl beside him was no long- coming something else a wom-
er the bitter harriden who had al- an. The fact showed in the gentle-
most turned Pluto Dome upside ness of her smile.
down when she had been ejected . His arm went around her and she
from a space ship that never re- came closer without hesitation. A
turned. She was no longer the un- glow came up inside of both them,
happy roamer who had wandered and grew stronger.
the paths of the planets, defying all THE END

For sale: hundreds of stf mag’s dating Conan, etc). Willing to buy, but would
from 1949, stf books, some Burroughs; rather trade for the following: A Tramp
dozens of fanzines, several SAPS mail- Abroad, by Mark Twain, 635 pages, pub.
ings, all reasonably priced, or will trade 1879 poor condition, Great Tales of Ter-
for 1940-45 ASF or such stf books or ror and the Supernatural pub 1944, 1080.
fantasy which I have not read. Carol Me- pages good condition. Adventures to Come,
Kinney, 4239 Oak Knoll Dr., Carmichael, pub 1938, good condition. Also have Mad,
Calif . .
. Thousands of comics back to Incredible SF, Weird SF, ,Airboy, Buster
1938 for sale. Rare issues of Famous Crabbe, Forbidden Worlds, Riot, Cockeyed,
Funnies, Classics, E.C.’s and others. May Panic, etc. have many comics printed in
trade for stf mags and items or other Spanish, such as Cuentos de Brujas, Bru-
comics. I’ll buy any older than 1950. Send jas y Vampiros, Cumbres de Tortura,
your wants for trade or sale. Want stf Titanes Planetarious, Superman. D. M.
stills. Billy Meyers, 4301 Shawnee Circle, McCarroll, 644 Avenue C, Boulder City,
Chattanooga 11, Tenn . Back issues,
. . Nev. . . Wanted, all Science Stories,
.

late 40s, early 50s, also 50 copies English Other Worlds, Universe in excellent con-
si. Also out-of-print stf books. I want Alan Lewis, Jewett-Holmwood Rd.,
dition.
Worm Ourobourous, Gray Lensman, East Aurora, N. Y. Wanted, any . . .

2nd Stage Lensman, Children of the Lens. Amazing previous to 1949. Also OW,
Welcome correspondence; interested in Madge previous to 1952. Brian Caden,
Shaver, Dianetics, psychology, Club or- 3528 Vermont Ave., Louisville, Ky. . . .

ganization, Esper and fantasy in general. Fellow Presley-Haters. Send a 3 cent

Seth A. Johnson, 339 Stiles St., Vaux stamp for the issue of Anti-Elvis publi-
Hall, N. J. Wanted, all early issues
. . cation, “The Croaker”. Also Vol. 2, Num-
of EC.s, Weird Science and Weird Fan- ber 2, of Planet Stories (1939) for #1.50.
tasy. Also other “new trend” E. C. comics. Leslie Gerber, 201 Linden Blvd., Brooklyn
Will pay fair price or trade. Douglas Pay- 6, N.Y. Wanted: Flash, Green Lan-
. . .

son, Box 272, Steilacoom, Wash . . . tern comics. Few DCs before 1950. State
Wanted, books and migazine stories by condition, price, and issue. Tom Cagle,
Max Brand (David Manning, George 3403 Harrison St., El Paso, Texas . . .

Challis, etc). Will buy or trade for fan- Am selling 800 mags from 1947 on, 46
tasy and sf books and mags. Michael Fo- titles. Mostly stf. 25c each. State wants.
garis, 492 Lafayette Ave., Passaic, N. J. Leon Novich, 1897 McCarter, Apt. 6 E,
. Want back issues Planet, Orbit, Amaz-
. . Newark 4, N. J. 44 books, all stf or
. . .

ing, Fantastic, If. Send list, condition, fantasy, bargains. Write for list. Harold
price. Bob Sergeant, 2902 Paul St.,
St. A. Dunster, 241 South St. Road, Auburn
Indianapolis 3, Ind. . . Any Other Worlds N.Y .... Wants copy for fanzine. John W.
before 1952 regardless of condition, also Thiel, 4901 Hamlin Ave., Midlothian, III.
Conan books (Conan the Barbarian, King THE END
Somewhere on the Time Ellipse Mike Kenscott became Adric;
and the only way to return to his own identity was to find the
Keep of the Dreamer, and loose the terrible

FALCONS of NARABEDLA
By Marion Zimmer Bradley

I could see a slim, young figure clad in silken silver Photo from "The Mole Peo-
ple,” Universal International
veiling with opalescent flesh shining through the picture starring John Agar
silvery silks. and Cynthia Patrick.

28
 ” ”

FALCONS OF NARABEDLA 29

CHAPTER ONE Then the screaming eagle was

gone and Andy’s angry grip was on
Voltage — from Nowhere! my shoulder, shaking me roughly.
Somewhere on the crags above us His voice, furious and frightened,
I heard a big bird scream. was hardly recognizable. “Mike!
I turned to Andy, knee-deep in Mike, you darned idiot, are you all
the icy stream beside me. “There’s right? You must be crazy!”
your eagle. Probably smells that I blinked, rubbing my hand across
cougar I shot yesterday.” I started my eyes. The .hand came away wet.
to reel in my
knowing what
line, I was standing in the clearing, the
my brother’s next move would be. knife in my hand red with blood.
“Get the camera, and we’ll try for Bird blood. I heard myself ask, stu-
a picture.” pidly “What happened?”
We crouched together in the un- My brother’s face came clear out
derbrush, watching, as the big bird of the thickness in my mind, scowl-
of prey wheeled down in a slow ing wrathfully. “You tell me what
spiral toward the dead cougar. Andy, happened! Mike, what in the devil
was trembling with excitement, the were you thinking about? You told
camera poised against his chest, me yourself that an eagle will attack
his eyes glued in the image-finder. a man if he’s bothered. I had him
“Golly —
” he whispered, almost square in the camera when you
prayerfully, “six foot wing spread — jumped out of there like a bat out
maybe more — of a belfry and went for the eagle

The bird screamed again, warily, with your knife ! You must be clean
crazy!”
head cocked into the wind. We were
to leeward; the scent of the carrion I let the knife drop out of my

masked our enemy smell from him. hand. “Yeah —

” I said heavily,

The eagle failed to scent or to see “Yeah, I guess I spoiled your pic-
us, swooping down and dropping on ture, Andy. I’m sorry —
I didn’t —
the cougar’s head. Andy’s camera my voice trailed off, helpless. The
clicked twice. The eagle thrust in boy’s hand was still on my shoulder;
its beak — he let it drop and knelt in the grass,
red-hot wire flared in my brain.
A groping there for his camera. “That’s
The bird —
the bird —
I leaped
all right, Mike,” he said in a dead
voice, “you scared the daylights out
out of cover, running swiftly across
of me, that’s all.” He stood up
the ten-foot clearing that separated
swiftly, looking straight into my
us from the attacking eagle, my
hand tugging automatically at the face. “Darn it, Mike, you’ve been

hunting knife in my belt. Andy’s acting crazy for a week! I don’t

shout of surprised anger was a fara- mind the blamed camera, but when
way noise in my ears as the eagle you start going for eagles with your
started away with flapping, angry bare hands —
” abruptly he flung

wings —
then, in fury, swept down the camera away, .turned and began
at me, pinions beating around my to run down the slope in the dir-

head. I heard and felt the wicked ection of the cabin.

beak dart in, and thrust blindly up- I took a step to follow, then stop-
ward with the knife, ripped, slash- ped, bending to retrieve the broken
ing, hearing the bird’s scream of pieces of Andy’s cherished camera.
pain and the flapping of wide wings. The kid must have hit the eagle
A red haze spun around me — ^vith it. Lucky thing for me; an eagle
 ”

30 OTHER WORLDS

can be a mean bird. But why, why in “Must be real important,” Andy
the living hell had I done a thing said sourly, “if it makes you act
like that? I’d warned Andy time likebughouse bait.”
and time again to stay clear of the I shrugged without answering.
big birds. Now that the urgency of We’d been over that before. I’d
action had deserted me, I felt stu- known it when they threw me out of
pid and a little lightheaded. I did^* the government lab, just after the
n’t wonder Andy thought I was big blowup. I thought, angrily. I’m
crazy. I thought so myself more heading for another one, bu,t I
than half the time. I stowed the don’t care.
broken camera in my tackle box, “Sit down, Andy,” I told him. “You
mentally promising Andy a better don’t know what happened down
one; hunted up the abandoned lines there. Now that the war’s over, it’s
and poles, carefully stowed them, no military secret, and I’ll tell- you
cleaned our day’s catch. It was dark what happened.”
before I started for the cabin; I paused, swallowing down the
I
could hear the hum of the electric knowing that it scalded
coffee, not
dynamo I’d rigged up and see the my mouth. “That is —
I will if I
electric light across the dusk of the
can.”
Sierras. A smell of bacon greeted
Six months before they settled
me as I crossed intb the glare of the
the war in Korea, I was working in
unshielded bulb. Andy was stand-
a government radio lab, on some
ing at the cookstove, his back stub-
new communications equipment.
bornly to me. He did not turn.
“Andy —” I said.
Since I never finished it, there’s no
point in going into details; it’s
“It’s okay, Mike. Sit down and
enough to say it would have made
eat your supper. I didn’t wait for radar as obsolete as the stagecoach.
the fish.’’’ I’d built a special supersonic con-
“Andy — I’ll get you another denser, and had had trouble with
camera — a set of magnetic coils that would-
“I said, it’s okay. Now, damn it, n’t wind properly. When the thing
eat.’’ blew up I hadn’t had any sleep for
He didn’t speak again for a long three nights, but that wasn’t the
time; but as I stretched back for a reason. I was normal then; just an-
second mug of coffee, he got up other communications man, intent
and began to walk around the room, on radio and this new equipment
restlessly. “Mike —
” he said entreat- and without any of the crazy im-
ingly, “you came here for a rest! practical notions that had lost me
Why can’t you lay off your everlast- my job later. They called it over-
ing work for a while and relax?” He work, but I knew they thought the
looked disgustedly over his shoul- explosion had disturbed my brain.
der at the work table where the light I didn’t blame them. I would have
spilled over a confused litter of liked to think so.
wires and magnets and coils. “You’ve one day in the lab with
It started
turned this place into a branch a shadow on the sun and an elusive
office of General Electric!” short circuit that gave me shock
“I can’t stop now!” I said vio- after shock until I was jittery. By
lently. “I’m on the track of some- the time I had it fixed, the oscil-
thing — and if I stop I’ll never find lator had gone out of control. I got
it!” a series of low-frequency waves that
 FALCONS OF N ARAB EDLA 31

were like nothing I’d ever seen be- his head to look at me.
fore.Then there was something like “I know all that, Kenscott. No
a voice speaking out of a very old, electrical storms reported in the vi-
jerry-built amateur radio set. Ex- cinity; no radio disturbance within
cept that there wasn’t a receiver a thousand miles. But ” his jaw —
in the lab, and no one else had heard grew stubborn, “the lab was wrecked
it. I wasn’t sure myself, because and you were hurt. We’ve got to
right then every instrument in the have something for the record.”
place went haywire and five minutes I could understand all that. What
later, part of the ceiling hit the I resented was the way they treated
floor and the floor went up through me after I went back to work. They
the roof. They found me, they say, transferred me to another division
lying half-crushed under a beam, and another line of work. They
and I woke up eighteen hours later turned down my request to follow up
in a hospital with four cracked ribs, those nontypical waves. My pri-
and a feeling as if I’d had a lot vate notes were ripped out of my
of voltage poured into me. It went notebook while I was at lunch and
in the report that I’d been struck I never saw them again.- And as
by lightning. soon as they could, they shipped
It took mea long time to get me to Fairbanks, Alaska, and that
well. The ribs healed fast faster — was the end of that.
than the doctor liked. 1 didn’t mind The Major told me all I needed
the hospital part, except that I to know, the day before I took the
couldn’t walk without shaking, or plane to Alaska. His scowl said more
light a cigarette without burning than his words, and they said plenty.
myself, for months. The thing I “I’d let it alone, Kenscott. No sense
minded was what I remembered be- stirring up more trouble. We can’t
fore I woke up. Delirium; that was
bother with side alleys,* anyhow.
what they told me. But the kind and' Next time you monkey with it, you
type of scars on my body didn’t might get your head blown off, not
ring true. Electricity —
even freak just a dose of stray voltage out of
lightning —
doesn’t make that kind the blue. We’ve done everything
of burns. And my corner of the
but stand on our heads trying to
world doesn’t make a habit of brand- find out where that spare energy
ing people. came from —
and where it went.
But before I could show the scars But we’ve marked that whole line
to anybody outside the hospital, of research closed, Kenscott. If I
they were gone. Not healed'; just were you, I’d keep my mouth shut
gone. I remembered the look on the about it.”
medic’s face when I showed him “It wasn’t a message from Mars,”
the place where the scars had been.
T suggested unsmiling, and he didn’t
He didn’t think I was crazy; he think that was funny either. But
thought he was. there was relief on his face as I
I knew the lab hadn’t been struck left the office and went to clean
by lightning. The Major knew it out my drawer.
too; I found that out the day I re- I got along air right in Alaska, for
ported back to work. All the time we a while. But I wasn’t the same. The
talked, his big pen moved in stubby armistice had hardly been signed
circles across the page of his log- when they sent me back to the
book, and he talked without raising States with a recommendation of
 ”

32 OTHER WORLDS

overwork. I tried to explain it to “Try another station;” the kid

Andy. “They said I needed a -rest. insistedstubbornly. I pushed all
Maybe so. The shock did something the buttons in succession; the
funny to me .... tore me open .... static crackled and buzzed, the panel
like the electric shock treatments light flickered on and off in little
they give catatonic patients. I know cryptic flashes. I sighed. “And re-
a lot of things I never learned. Or- ception was perfect at noon,” I
dinary radio work doesn’t mean told him, “You were listening to
anything to me any more. It doesn’t the news.” I took my hand away
make sense. When people out west again. “I don’t want to blow the
were talking about flying saucers thing up.”
or whatever they were —
and when Andy came over and switched the
they talked about weather disturb- button back on. The little panel
ances after the atomic tests, things light glowed steadily, and the mel-
did make sense for a while. And low voice of Milton Cross filled the
when we came down here ” I — room . “now conduct the Boston
. .

paused, trying to fit confused im- Philharmonic Orchestra in the Fifth

pressions together. He wasn’t going or ‘Fate’ symphony of Ludwig von
to believe me, anyhow, but I wanted Beethoven .” the noise of mixed
. .

him to. A tree slapped against the applause, and then the majestic
cabin window; I jumped. “It started chords of the symphony, thundering
up again the day we came up in the through the rooms of the cabin.
mountains. Energy out of nowhere, “Ta-da-da-dumm Ta-da-da-
following me around. It can’t knock DUMM !
”

me out. Have you noticed I let you My brother stared at me as rac-

turn the lights on and off? The ing woodwinds caught up with the
day we came up, I shorted my brasses. There was nothing wrong
electric razor and blew out five with the radio. “Mike. What did
fuses trying to change one.” you do to it?”
“Yeah, I remember, you had to “I wish I knew,” I told him.
drive to town for them ” My — Reaching, I touched the volume
brother’s eyes watched me, uneasy. button again.
“Mike, you’re kidding — Beethoven died in a muttering
static like a thousand drums.
“I wish I were,” I said. “That en-
ergy just drains into me, and noth- I swore and Andy sucked in his

ing happens. I’m immune.” I breath between his teeth, edging

shrugged, rose and walked across to warily backward. He touched the
the radio I’d put in here, so care- dials again; once more the smooth-
fully, before the war. I picked up ness of the “Fate” symphony rolled
the disconnected plug; thrust it into out and swallowed us. I shivered.
the socket. I snapped the dial on. “You’d better let it alone!” Andy
“I’ll show you,” I told him. said shakily.
The panel flashed and darkened; The turned in early, but I
kid
confused static came cracking from stayed in the main room, smoking
the speaker, erratic. I took my hand restlessly and wishing I could get a
away. drink without driving eighty miles
“Turn it up —” Andy said un- over bad mountain roads. Neither
easily. of us had thought to turn off the
My hand twiddled the dial. “It’s radio; it was moaning out some
already up.” interminable throbbing jazz. I turn-
 ”

FALCONS OF NARAB EDLA 33

ed over my notes, restlessly, not with a phosphorescent glow as the

really seeing them. Once Andy’s entire house current poured into
’

voice came sleepily from the al- my body. I tingled with weird shock;
cove. I heard my own teeth chattering.
“Going to read all night, Mike?” And something snapped wide open
“If I feel likei it,” I said tersely in my brain. I heard, suddenly, an
and began walking up and down excited voice, shouting.
again. “Rhys! Rhys! That is the man!”
“Michael! For the luvvagod stop
itand let me get some sleep!” Andy CHAPTER TWO
exploded, and I sank down in the
chair again. “Sorry, Andy.” Rainbow City
Where had the intangible part of “You are mad,” said the man with
me been, those eighteen hours when the tired voice.
I first lay crushed under a fallen I was drifting. I was swaying, bodi-
beam, then under morphine in the less, over a huge abyss of caverned
hospital?Where had those scars space; chasmed, immense, limit-
come from? More important, what less. Vaguely, through a sleeping
had made a radio lab blow up in the distance, I heard two voices. This
first .place? Electricity sets fires; it one was old and very tired.
shocks men into insensibility or “You are mad. They will know.
death. It doesn’t explode. Radio Narayan will know.”
waves are in themselves harmless. “Narayan is a fool.” said the
Most important of all, what maniac second voice.
freak of lightning was I carrying in “Narayan is the Dreamer,” the
my body that made me immune tired voice said. “He is the Dreamer,
to electrical current? I hadn’t told and where the Dreamer walks he
Andy about the time I’d deliberately will know. But have it your way. I
grounded the electric dynamo in am very old and it does not matter.
the cellar and taken the whole I give you this power, freely — to
voltage in my body. I was still alive. spare you. But Gamine —
It would have been a hell of a way “Gamine —
the second voice
”
to commit suicide — but I hadn’t. stopped. After a long time “You are
I slamming down the win-
swore, old, and a fool, Rhys,” it said. “What
dow. was going to bed. Andy was
I is Gamine to me?”
right. Either I was crazy or there Bodiless, blind, I drifted and sway-
was something wrong; in any case, ed and swung in the sound of the
sitting wouldn’t help. If it
here voices. The humming, like a million
didn’t let up, I’d take the first high-tension wires, sang around me
train home and see a good electri- and I felt myself cradled in the
cian —
or a psychiatrist. But right pull of a great magnet that held me
now, I was going to hit the sack. suspended surely on nothingness and
My hand went out automatically drew me down into the field of
and switched the light off. some force beneath. Far below me
“Damn!” I thought incredulously. the voices faded. I swung free —
I’d shorted the dynamo again. The fell —plunged downward in sicken-
radio stopped as if the whole orches- ing motion, head over heels, into
tra had dropped dead; every light the abyss
in the cabin winked swiftly out, My feet struck hard flooring. I
but my hand on the switch crackled wrenched back to consciousness with
34 OTHER WORLDS

a jolt. Winds blew coldly in my face; brewing.”

the cabin walls had been flung back I tasted the liquid in the mug;
to the high-lying stars. I was stand- it had an indeterminate greenish
ing at a barred window at the very look and a faint pungent taste I
pinnacle of a tall tower, in the lap could not identify, although it re-
of a weird blueness that arched minded me variously of anis and
flickeringly in the night. I caught garlic. It seemed to remove the
a glimpse of a startled face, a lean last traces of shock. I handed the
tired old face beneath a peaked cup back empty and looked sharp-
hood, in the moment before my ly at the old man in the Lama cos-
knees gave way and I fell, striking tume.
my head against the bars of the “You’re — Rhys?” I said. “Where
window. in hell have I gotten to?” At least,
I was lying on a narrow, high that’s what I meant to say. Imagine
bed in a room filled with doors and my surprise when I found myself
bars. I could see the edge of a asking —
in a language I’d never
carved mirror set in a frame, and heard, but understood perfectly —
the top of a chest of some kind. “To which of the domains of Zandru
On a bench at the edge of my field have I been consigned now?” At the
of vision there were two figures same moment I became conscious
sitting. One was the old grey man, of what I was wearing. It seemed to
hunched wearily beneath his robe, be an old-fashioned nightshirt,
wearing robes like a Tibetan Lama’s, chopped off at the loins, deep crim-
somber black, and a peaked hood son in color. “Red flannels yet!” I
of grey. The other was a slimmer thought with a gulp of dismay. I
younger figure, swathed in silken checked my impluse to get out of
silvery veiling, with a thin opacity bed. Who could act sane in a red
where the face should have been, nightshirt?
and a sort of opalescent shine of “You might have the decency to
flesh through the silvery-sapphire explain where I am,” I said. “If
silks. The figure was that of a boy you know.”
or a slim immature girl; it sat erect, Thetiredness seemed part of Rhys
motionless, and for a long time I voice. “Adric,” he said wearily. “Try
studied it, curious, between half- to remember.” He shrugged his lean
opened lids. But when I blinked, it shoulders. "You are in your own
rose and passed though one of the Tower. And you have been under
multitudinous doors; at once a soft restraint again. I am sorry.” His
sibilance of draperies announced re- voice sounded futile. I felt prickling
turn. I sat up, getting my feet to
shivers run down my backbone. In
the floor, or almost there; the bed spite of the weird surroundings, the
was higher than a. hospital bed. The phrase “under restraint” had struck
blue-robe held a handled mug, like home. I was a lunatic in an asylum.
a baby’s drinking-cup, at me. I took
— The blue-ro'bed one cut in in that
it in my hand hesitated
smooth, sexless, faint-sarcastic voice.
“Neither drug nor poison,” said “While Karamy holds the amnesia-
the blue-robe mockingly, and the ray, Rhys, you will be explaining
voice was as noncomittal as the it to him a dozen times a cycle. He
veiled body; a sexless voice, soft wall never be of use to us again.
alto, a woman’s or a boy’s. “Drink This time Karamy won. Adric; try
and be glad it is none of Karamy’s to remember. You are at home, in
 ”

FALCONS OF NARABEDLA 35

Narabedla.” I strode to
a mirror that lined one
I shook my head. Nightshirt or of the doors. Above the crimson
no nightshirt, I’d face this on my nightshirt I saw a face —
not my
feet. I walked to Rhys; put my own. The sight rocked my mind.
clenched hands on his shoulders. Out of the mirror a man’s face
“Explain this! Who am I supposed looked anxiously; a face eagle-thin,
to be? You called me Adric. I’m no darkly moustached, with sharp green
more Adric than you are!’ eyes. The body belonging to the
“Adric, you are not amusing!” face that was not mine was lean
The blue-robe’s voice was edged and long and strongly muscled —
with anger. “Use what intelligence and not quite human. I squeezed
you have left! You have had enough my eyes shut. This couldn’t be —
sharig antidote to cure a tharl. I opened my eyes. The man in the
Now. Who are you?” red nightshirt I was wearing was
The words were meaningless. I still reflected there.
stared, trapped. I clung to hold on I turned my back on the mirror,
to identity. “Adric —” I said, be- walking to one of the barred win-
wildered. That was my name. Was dows to look down on the familiar
it? Wasn’t it? No. I was Mike Ken- outline of the Sierra Madre, about
scott. Hang on to that. Two and two a hundred miles away. I couldn’t
are four. The circumference equals have been mistaken. I knew that
the radius squared times pi. -Four ridge of mountains. But between
rulls is the chemming of twilp — me and the mountains lay a thick-
stop that! Mike Kenscott. Summer ly forested expanse of land which
1954. Army serial number 13-48746. looked like no scenery I had ever
Karamy. I cradled my bursting head seen in my life. I was standing
in my
hands. “I’m crazy. Or you near the pinnacle of a high tower;
are. Or we’re both sane and this I dimly saw the curve of another,
monkey-business is all real.” .just out of my line of vision. The
“It is real,” said Rhys, compassion whole landscape was bathed in a
“He has been very
in his tired face. curiously pinkish light; through
far on the Time Ellipse, Gamine. an overcast sky I could just make
Adric, try to understand. This was out, dimly, the shadowy disk of a
Karamy’s work. She sent you out watery red sun. Then —
no, I wasn’t
on a time very far into
line, far, dreaming, I really did see it be- —
the past. Into a time when the yond it, a second sun; blue-white,
Earth was different she hoped — shining brilliantly, pallid through
you would come back changed, or the clouds, but brighter than any
mad.” His eyes brooded. “I think sunlight I had ever seen.
she succeeded. Gamine, I have long It was proof enough for me. I turn-
outstayed my leave. I must return ed desperately to Gamine behind
to my own tower —
or die. Will you me. “Where have I gotten, to? Where
explain?” — when am Two suns — those
“I will.” A
hint of emotion flick- mountains — I?
ered in the voice of Gamine. “Go, The change in Gamine’s voice was
Master.” swift; the veiled face lifted ques-
Rhys left the room, through one tioningly to mine. What I had
of the doors. Gamine turned impa- thought a veil was not that; it
tiently to me again. “We waste time seemed to be more like a shimmer-
this way. Fool, look at yourself!” ing screen wrapped around the fea-
 ”

36 OTHER WORLDS
tures so that Gamine was faceless, Mike Kenscott, and your hanky-
an invisible person with substance panky doesn’t impress me. Take off
but no apprehensible characteristics. that veil and let me see your face.”
Yes, it was like that; as if there “I wish you meant that ” a —
was an invisible person wearing the mournfulness breathed in the soft
curious silken draperies. But the contralto. A sudden fury blazed up
invisible flesh was solid enough. in me from nowhere. “And what
Hands like cold steel gripped my right have you to pry for that old
shoulders. “You have been back? fool Rhys? Get back to your own
Back to the days before the second place, then, spell-singer — ” I broke
sun? Adric, tell me; did Earth truly off, appalled. What was I saying?
have but one sun?” Worse, what did I mean by it? Ga-
“Wait —
” I begged. “You mean mine turned. The sexless voice was
I’ve travelled in time?” coldly amused. “Adric spoke then.
The exultation faded from Ga- Whoever sits in the seat of your
mine’s voice imperceptibly. “Never soul,you are the same —
and past
mind. It is improbable in any case. redemption!” The robes whispered
No, Adric; not really travelling. You sibilantly on the floor as Gamine
were only sent out on the Time moved to the door. “Karamy is wel-
Ellipse, till you contacted some one come to her slave!”
in that other Time. Perhaps you The door slammed.
stayed in contact with his mind Left alone, I flung myself down
so long that you think you are on the high bed, stubbornly concen-
he?” trating on Mike Kenscott, shutting
“I’m not Adric —
” I raged. “Adric out the vague blurred mystery in
sent me here — my mind that was Adric impinging
I saw the blurring around Ga- on consciousness. I was not Adric.
mine’s invisible features twitch in a I would not be. I dared not go to
headshake. “It’s never been proven the window and look out at the
that two minds can be interchanged terrifying two suns, even to see the
like that, Adric’s body. Adric’s brain. reassurance of the familiar Sierra
The brain convolutions, the memory Madre skyline. A homesick terror
centers, the habit patterns you’d — was hurting in me.
still be Adric. The idea that you
But persistently the Adric memor-
are someone else is only an illusion
ies came, a guilty feeling of a shirk-
of your conscious mind. It will wear
ed' duty, and a frightened face —
off.”
a real face, not a blurred nothing-
I shook my head, puzzled. “I ness —
beneath Gamine’s blue veils.
don’t believe it. Where am I?”
still Memories of strange hunts and a
Gamine moved impatiently. “Oh, big bird on the pommel of a high
very well.You are Adric of Nara- saddle. A bird hooded like a falcon,
bedla; and if you are sane again, in crimson.
Lord of the Crimson Tower. I am Consciousness of dress made me
Gamine.” The swathed shoulders remember the —
nightshirt I —
moved a little. “You don’t remem- stillwore. Moving swiftly, without
ber? I am a spell-singer.” conscious thought, I went to a door
I jerked my elbow toward the and slid it open; pulled out some
window. “Those are my own moun- garments and dressed in them. Every
tains out there,” I said roughly. “I’m garment in the closet was the same
not Adric, whoever he 4s. My name’s color; deep-hued crimson. I glanced
 ”

FALCONS OF NARAB EDLA 37

in the mirrorand a phrase Gamine the Time Ellipse till you are only
had used broke the surface of my a shadow of yourself. But all this
mind like a leaping fish. “Lord of is beside the point. Karamy says you
the Crimson Tower.” Well, I looked are to be freed, so the seals are off
it.There had been knives and swords all the doors, and the Crimson Tower
in the closet; I took out one to is no longer a prison to you. Come
look at it, and before I realized and go as you please. Karamy —
what I was doing I had belted it his lips formed a sneer, “If you
across my hip. I stared, decided to call that freedom!”
let it remain. It looked all right I said slowly “You think I’m not
with the rest of the costume. It felt crazy?”
right, too. Another door folded back Evarin snorted. “Except where
noiselessly and a man stood look- Karamy is concerned, you never
ing at me. were.What that to me? I have
is

He was young and would have everything I need. The Dreamer

been handsome in an effeminate gives me good hunting and slaves
way if his face had not been so enough to do my bidding. For the
arrogant. Lean, somehow catlike, rest, I am the Toymaker. I need
itwas easy to determine that he little. But you —
” his voice leaped
was akin to Adric, or me, even be- with contempt, “you ride time at
fore the automatic habit of memory Karamy’s bidding —
and your
fitted name and identity to him. Dreamer walks —
waiting the com-
_

“Evarin,” I said, warily. ing of his power that he may de-

He came forward, moving so softly stroy us all one day!”
that for an uneasy moment I won- I stared somberly at Evarin, stand-
dered he had pads like a cat’s
if ing still near the door. The words
on his feet. He wore deep green seemed to wake an almost personal
from head to foot, similar to the shame in me. The boy watched and
crimson garments that clothed me. his face lost some of his bitterness.
His face had a flickering, as if he He said more quietly “The falcon
could at a moment’s notice raise a flown cannot be recalled. I came
barrier of invisibility like Gamine’s only to tell you that you are free."
about himself. He didn’t look as He turned, shrugging his thin shoul-
human as I. ders, and walked to the window. “As
“I have seen Gamine,” he said. I say, if you call that freedom.”
“She says you are awake, and as I followed him to the window.
sane as you ever were. We of Nara- The clouds were clearing; the two
/bedla are not so strong that we can suns shone with a blinding bril-
afford to waste even a broken tool liance. By looking far to the left I
like you.” could see a line of rainbow-tinted
Wrath —
Adric’s wrath —
boiled towers that rose into the sky, tall
up in me; but Evarin moved lithely and capped with slender spires. I
backward. “I am not Gamine,” he could distinguish five clearly; one,
warned, “And I will not be served the nearest, seemed made of a jewel-
like Gamine has been served. Take led blue; one, clear emerald green;
care.” golden, flame-colored, violet. There
“Take care yourself,” I muttered, were more beyond, but the colors
knowing" little else I could have were blurred and dim. They made
said. Evarin drew back thin lips. a semicircle about a wooded park;
“Why? You have been sent out on beyond them the familiar skyline
38 OTHER WORLDS
of the mountains tugged old mem- into an elevator shaft which went
ories in my brain. The suns swung down, curved around corners with
high in a sky that held no tint of a speed that threw me against the
blue, that was as clear and color- wall, then began, slowly, to rise.
less as ice. Abruptly I turned my I had long since lost all sense of
back on it all. Evarin murmured direction. Abruptly the door of the
“Narabedla. Last of the Rainbow shaft opened and we began to walk
Cities. Adric — how long now?” along a long, brilliantly illuminated
I did not answer. “Karamy wants passage. From somewhere we heard
me?” singing; a voice somewhere in the
Evarin’s laugh was only a sound- range of a trained boy’s voice or a
less shaking of his thin shoulders. woman’s mature contralto. Gamine’s
‘‘Karamy can wait. Better for you if voice. I could make no sense of the
she waited forever. COme along with words; but Evarin halted to listen,
me, or Gamine will be back. You swearing in a whisper. I thought the
don’t want to see Gamine, do you?” faraway voice sang my name and
He sounded anxious; I shook my Evarin’s, but I could not “What
tell.
head. Emphatically, I did not want is it, Evarin?”
to see that insidious spook again. He gave a short exclamation, the
“No. Why? Should I?” sense of which was lost on me.
Evarin looked relieved. “Come a- “Come along,” he said irritably,
long, then. If I know Gamine, you’re “It is only the spell-singer, singing
pretty well muddled. Amnesiac. I’ll old Rhys back to sleep. You waked
explain. After all —” his voice mock- him this time, did you not? I won-
ed, “you are my brother!” der Gamine permitted it. He is very
He
thrust open the door and mo- near his last sleep —
old Rhys. I
tioned me through. Instinctively I think you will send him there soon.”
drew back, gesturing him to lead the Without giving me a chance to
way; he laughed soundlessly and answer —
and for that matter, I
went, and I followed, letting it slide had no answer ready he pulled —
shut behind me. me aside between recessed walls and
We went down 'stairs and more again the shaft in which we stood
stairs. I walked at Evarin’s side, began to ride. Eventually we step-
one part of me wondering why I ped into a room at the top of an-
was not more panicky. I was a other tower, a room lavishly, even
stranger in a world gone insane, yet garishly furnished. Evarin flung
I had that outrageous calmness with himself carelessly on a divan em-
which men do fantastic things in broidered in silken purple and ges-
a dream. I was simply taking one tured me to follow his example.
step after another; knowing what to “Well, now tell me. Where in Time
do with that part of me that was has Karamy sent you now?”
Adric. Gamine had spoken of habit “Karamy?” I asked tentatively.
patterns, the convolutions of the Evarin’s raucous laugh rang out
brain. I had Adric’s body. Only a again. He said with seeming irrele-
superficial me, an outer ego, was vance, but with an odd air of con-
still a strange, muddled Mike Ken- fiding “My one demand of the
scott. The subconscious Adric was Dreamer is — freedom from that
guiding me. I let him ride. I felt witch’s spells. Some day I shall
it would be wise to be very much fashion a Toy for her. I am not the
Adric around Evarin. We stepped Toymaker of Narabedla for noth-
 —
FALCONS OF NARABEDLA 39

ing. I demand little enough of the our forefathers, after the Cata-
Dreamers, Zandru knows! I do not clysm, ruled this planet and built
like to pay their price, but Karamy the Rainbow Cities. That was be-
does not care what she pays. So fore the Compact that killed ma-
— ” he made a spreading move- chines. Some people say the Dream-
ment of his hands, “she has power ers were bom from the dead ma-
over everyone, except me. Yes; as- chines.”
suredly I must make her .a Toy. He began to pace the floor rest-
She sent you out on the Time Ellipse. lessly. “They were men once,” —
I wonder who brought you back?” he “They are born from men
said,
I shook my head. “I’ve been out and women. Mendel knows what
of my body too long. I can’t re- caused them. But one in every ten
member much.” million men is such a freak a —
“You remember me,” Evarin said. Dreamer. Some say they came out
“I wonder why she left you that? of the Cataclysm; some say they are
Karamy’s amnesia-rays took the the souls of the dead Machines.
rest of your memory. She never They are human —
and not human.
trusted me that far before.” They were telepaths. They could
But caught the crafty look in
I control everything —
things, minds,
his face. I knew only this about
people. They could throw illusions
Evarin; Karamy was right not to around things and men they con-—
trust him. I said "I only remember tested our rules.”
your name. Nothing more.” He sat down; his voice became
Because Evarin I knew —
was — brooding, quiet. “One of us, here in
never ten minutes the same. He Rainbow City, a dozen generations

would profess friendship and mean ago, found a way to bind the Dream-
friendship; ten minutes later, still ers,” he said. “We could not kill
in friendship, he would flay the them; they were deathless, normal-
skin from my body and count it ly. But we could bind them in sleep.

only an exquisite joke. I did not As they slept, under a forced stasis,
like those perverted and subtle eyes. we could make them give up their
He seemed to read my thought. powers -
- to us. So that we con-
“Good, we will be strangers. Broth- trolled the things they controlled.
ers are too — ” he let the word trail For a price.” There was a glimpse of
off, unfinished. “What have you for- horror behind his eyes. “You know
gotten?” the price. It is high.”
Could I trust him wth my terrible I kept silent. I wanted Evarin to
puzzlement? How much could I, as go on.
Adric —
and I must «be Adric to him He shivered a little, shook his
— get along without knowing? What head and the horror vanished. “So
was even more to the point, how each of us has a Dreamer of his own
many questions could I dare ask who can grant him power to do as
without betraying my own help- he wills. And after years and years,
lessness? I compromised. “What are as the Dreamers grow old, they grow
the Dreamers?” mortal. They can be killed. And
That had been the wrong ques- fewer are bom, now; fewer to each -

tion. generation. As they grow older and

“Zandru, Adric,
you have been weaker, it is safe to let them wake;
far indeed! You must have been but never too strongly, or too long.”
back before the Cataclysm! Well- He laughed, bitterly. A fury came
40 OTHER WORLDS

from nowhere into his face. can be had from his old, old mind.
“And you loosed a Dreamer!” he And does not pay.”
cried. “A Dreamer with all his pow- “Who is Gamine?” I asked again.
er hardly come upon him! He is Evarin still hesitated.
harmless as yet - - but he wakes, “Karamy hates Gamine,” he said,
and he walks! And one day the pow- after minutes, no man sees
“So
er will come upon him - - and he Gamine’s would not ask too
face. I
will destroy us all ” Evarin’s thin fea-
! many questions - - unless you ask
tures were drawn with despair; not them of Karamy.” A smile flickered
arrogant, now, but full of suffering. on the mobile features, “Ask Kara-
“A Dreamer - - ” he sighed, “A my,” he said gleefully, “She will
Dreamer, and you had been made tell!”
one with him already! Can you see “She will?” I said stupidly, be-
now why we do not trust you - - cause I could think of nothing else
brother?” to say. Evarin’s grin was delicately
Without answering I rose and malicious. “Oh, I am sure of that!
went to the window. This window Karamy quick to strike. Gamine
is

did not look on the neat little park, and I have little love lost, but we
but on a vast tract of wild country. agree on one 'thing; that KAramy’s
Far away, curious trails of smoke procession of slaves is monstrous.
spiralled up into the sunlight and And that you are a fool to help
a wispy fog lay in the bottomlands. Karamy pay for her - - desires. Kar-
“Down there,” said Evarin in a low amy is far too fond of power in her
Voice,“Down there the Dreamer own hands, to pay to put it into
walks and waits! Down there - - ” yours.”
But I did not hear the rest, for Karamy. Karamy who took my
my mind completed it. Down there memory - -

“She Evarin murmured, and

did.”
Down there is my lost memory. I realized I had spoken aloud. The
Down there was my life. room seemed full of a weighty si-
Somewhere down there I h,ad left lence. Evarin’s prowling footsteps
my soul. made no noise as he came to my
side. “I can give it back to you,
CHAPTER THREE though. I have made you a Toy.”
His effete voice rather disgusted me,
Flowers of Danger and I moved away, but he followed.
I turned my back on the window. “Look here, and find your memory.”
“Rhys is a Dreamer,” I said with
.
And he put something small and
slow certainty. “What is Gamine?” hard into my hand; something
Evarin nodded slowly, ignoring wrapped in silvery silks.
the question. “Rhys is a Dreamer, I raised my hand curiously, un-
yes. He is old - - so old he is almost twisting the wrappings. They were
mortal now; so he wakes, and he smooth and shining and colorless,
too walks. But he was one of us with a bluish cast, like Gamine’s
once - the only Dreamer ever born veils; no fabric I had ever seen. Eva-
within the Rainbow City. His loyal- rin backed slowly away from me.
ty is double; but he will never harm For an instant all I could see was
Narabedla, because he is of our a blurred invisibility - - like Gam-
blood.” Evarin cleared his throat. ine’s face behind the veils then —
“So Gamine takes what knowledge a sort of mirror became slowly visi-
 FALCONS OF NARABEDLA 41

ble, It did not seem to reflect any- roomful of buzzing machinery I dis-
thing; rather, it was a coldly shin- missed with a glance of familiarity;
ing surface, cloudy, glittering from and finally found myself in the
within. I bent to examine the pat- open, the semicircle of rainbow tow-
tern of the shadows that moved on ers around me.
the surface. There was a curious Overhead the suns, red and white,
pull from the mirror, a cold that sent a curious, double-shadowed
crept sluggishly from hand. A my lightdownward through the neatly-
familiar, soothing As if drawn
cold. trimmed trees. A little day moon,
by a magnet, my eyes bent closer - - smaller than any moon I had known,
Recognition crashed in my mind. peeped, a curious crescent, over the
Evarin - - and his gilt deadly Toys edge of a mountain. The grass un-
. I dashed the colorless thing to
. der my feet was just grass, but the
the floor, giving it a savage kick. brightly-tinted flowers in mathema-
The blurred invisibility wavered; I tically regular beds were strange to
caught a glimpse of a tiny jewelled me. Paths, bordered by narrow
mechanism, before it sprang back ditches to keep the pedestrian off
to gray ice again. Evarin had backed the flowers, wandered in and out of
halfway across the room; I leaped this strange pleasaunce; I accepted
at him, collaring the dandy and all this without conscious thought,
wrenching him close. “I’ve a good but some unconscious scrap of mem-
mind to tie the thing across your ory gave me a vague practical reason
throat!” I grated. for the ditches. I carefully avoided
Evarin’s lip twisted up. Suddenly them.
his whole face melted in a blurring Faint shrill music tugged siren-
invisibility and I felt his whole sub- like at my ears; wordless, like Gam-
stance evaporate from between my ine’s crooning. Staring, I realized
hands. He writhed like smoke, and that the flowers themselves sang.
I leaped backward just as he ma- The singing flowers of Karamy’s
terialized,whole and deadly, too garden - I remembered their lotus
close. “I am always - -guarded!” song. A song of welcome? Or of
he jerked out at me, “I might have danger?
known - - ” I was not alone in the garden.
He stooped, reaching for the fall- Men, kilted and belted in the same
en kicked the little mirror
toy. I gaudy red and gold as the flowers,
out of his reach, bent to retrieve it. passed and repassed restlessly, un-
“I’ll keep this,” I said, and wadding quiet as chained flames. For a mo-
the insulated silk around it, I thrust ment the old vanity turned upper-
itinto a pocket. Evarin’s eyes glared most in my mind. For all her slaves,
at me helplessly. “You’ll stay solid all her — lovers, Karamy paid tri-
for awhile now,” I jeered. “Toymak- bute to the Lord of the Crimson
er! Damned freak - - ” I stormed Tower! Paid —
would continue to
out of the room, leaving him rub- pay!
bing his bruised shoulder. The men passed me, silent. They
Now
that Adric was back in con- were sworded, but their swords were
trol, had no trouble discovering
I blunt, like children’s toys; they were
where wanted to go. Some blind
I a regiment of corpses, of zombies.
instinct led me through the maze of Their salutes as I passed were jerky,
elevators and staircases; I stepped mechanical.
into servant’s quarters, kitchens, a A high note sang suddenly in the
42 OTHER WORLDS

flowers; I felt, not heard, their howled with agony, clutching the
empty parading cease. In a weird severed fingers. I heard my own
ballet they ranged themselves into voice, savage, inhuman, the thin
blind lines that filed away nowhere; laughter of Evarin snarling through
toy soldiers, all alike. it. “Sign?? There’s a sign for you!”
And between the backs of the toy- The man threw himself out of
soldiers and the patterned, painted range; but his face, convulsed with,
flowers, I saw a man running. An- pain, held a stunned bewilderment.
other me, from another world, “Adric - - Narayan promised - you
thought briefly of the card-soldiers, were sane - -” he breathed.
flat on their faces in the Red I forced my sword back into the
Queen’s garden. Wonderland. I
scabbard, staring without compre-
heard myself say. with half- con- hension at the blood from the
scious amusement “They all look so wound I had inflicted, and at the
alike until you turn them over!”
darting heads of the flowers. I could
The man running between the not kill this man who carried the
ditched flower-beds was no dummy name of Narayan on his tongue.
from a pack of cards. I saw him The flowers twitched - - stirred
beckon, still running. He called to - - threw tendrils at the man’s
me; to Adric.
bleeding hand. A quick nausea
“Adric! Karamy walks here - - tightened my throat; I motioned ur-
just listen to the flowers! I was gently to him.
afraid I’d have to get all the way “Run!” I begged, “Quick, or I
into the tower to find you!” His can’t —
”
voice was urgent, breathless; he slid The flowers shrilled. The man
to a stop not three feet from me. threw back his head, his eyes wide
“Narayan knew they’d freed you! with panic, and screamed.
He’s outside the gates. He sent me “Karamy! Aiiieeeee — !” he stag-
to help. Come on!”
gered back wildy, teetering on the
The sight of the man touched edge of the ditch. I cried another
another of those live-wires in my warning, incoherent —
but too late.
brain; the name of Narayan, an- He trod on the flowers —
stumbled
other still. “Narayan - I said in across the little ditch. The writh-
dull recognition. The word, on my ing flower-heads shot up shoulder-
lips, hit a chord of fear, of dread high. They screamed a wild paean
and danger - - of flower-music, and he fell among
But I had come straight from Eva- them, sprawling, floundering help-
rin. I knew the man; I knew the re- lessly. I heard him scream, hoarsely,
sponse he expected, but the brief horribly —
I turned my eyes away.
glimpse into Evarin’s mirror had set There was a wild thrashing, a flail-
up a chain of actions I could not ing, a yell that died and echoed
control. I tried to put out my hand among the brilliant towers. There
in friendly greeting; instead I felt, was a sort of purring murmur from
with horror, my fingers at my belt the blossoms.
and tried, without success, to halt Then the flowers stilled and were
the sword that flew without voli- quiet, waving innocently behind
tion from its sheath. The man back- their ditches.
ed away, his eyes full of terror. “Ad- Karamy, gold and fire, walked
ric - - no - - the Sign - - ” he held along the winding path through
up one arm, deprecatingly, then the trees. And in the space of a
 ”

FALCONS OF NARABEDLA 43

second I forgot the man who lay — my lover?”

lifeless in the bed of the terrible Itfang phony! Phony, was the
flowers. way put it to myself. Part of me
I
Karamy was all gold. From her felt calling her a lying she-
like
glowing crown of hair to the tips devil and having that much, at
of her little slippers, she was one least, on record.. But I was fast
sunny shimmer; there was amber acquiring a double cunning. The
on her brows and at her throat, and animal cunning of Adrie’s old ha-
an amber rod twisted lightly be- bit — and
desperate, trapped
a
tween her fingers, its delicate move- cunning of my own, born of a des-
ment outlining my face. Karamy’s perate fear of this -unfamiliar world.
smile of welcome was a dream which There was nothing I could do ex-
made me know I could be well con- cept ride on the surface and let
tent if this were my world. my hunches take me where they
But old habit made me turn my would. Karamy was very soft and
face away; her eyes, cat-eyes of sweet and something more than
wide yellow, watched me slyly, but lovely in my arms and I held her
her face was turned to the sprawled crushingly close while I struggled
man in the flowers. “So? I thought with a memory. Who was Karamy?
I heard —
something.” Without Who —
and what —
was I?
taking her eyes from my face, she Karamy dropped her arms. The
spun the lucent rod. The flower- mantle of lazy seductiveness dropped
song rose again, a soft keening wail. with them. She spoke with eager
Two of the silent guards moved annoyance. “You are still angry be-
noiselesslythrough the garden, and cause I sent you on the Time Ellipse!
at an expressive movement of the You do not know it was for your
rod, they lifted the corpse and bore own good —
you haven’t learned
it away. The music died. The wo- your lessqji yet —
man’s hands went out to pull me That talk meant danger for me.
close. I could think of only one way to
“Adric, Adric! As soon as you are silence it. She seemed to like it;
free, they pursue you! That is not but even with her lips acquiescent
what you want, is it?” under mine, I was wary. Was I
“Isn’t it?” I asked shortly. I still fooling her —
or was she only play-
could not look full at the cat-eyes, ing my own game, and playing it
the caressing face. A memory scut- a little better?
tled, rabbit-fashion, across my mind, “Now we can make plans,” she
giving name and identity to the said a little later, “First, Gamine.”
man I had betrayed to the flowers. She looked sharply at me, but I
Karamy slid in front of me so kept my face expressionless. “Ga-
I had to look at her, and the lovely mine is always with the old Dream-
lazy voice murmured the name I er; she lets him wake; he will grow
was beginning to know. “You are too strong. We must send Rhys away
angry,” the soft voice caressed me, from Narabedla. Gamine may stay
“I knew it was not right to let Evarin or follow him to exile. But Rhys
near you! Adric, we need you, Nara- must go.”
bedla needs you!,We felt betrayed “Rhys must go,” I conceded.
when you left us, when you shut “He should be slain, but Gamine
yourself up alone with your stars! will never do it,” said Karamy with
Have you forgotten, or are you still a shrug that disposed of Rhys.
44 OTHER WORLDS
“Evarin —” she snapped her jewel- that might give a clue to Adric’s
led fingers. “His Dreamer sleeps mystifying past. I was puzzled about
sound! Evarin fears even his own this Adric who came and went as
power! My Dreamer grows strong — he pleased in the chambers of my
but he serves me!’’ The beautiful memory. But I found nothing; who-
face looked ruthless and savage. ever had stolen Adric’s memory,
“Your Dreamer walks —
free in had made sure that nothing in his
the forest! Only you can re-bind surroundings should clear up the
him. You, with my help —
Adric puzzle in his mind. I knew only
of the Crimson Tower!” one thing. Adric was feared, dis-
Her eyes smoldered. “Yes, and my liked, distrusted by all the Nara-
Dreamer shall serve you as well, bedlans, and all except Gamine had
till then!” She breathed. “I will pay something to gain by feigning
to put power in your hands!” friendship. I could not decide wheth-
The very phrase Evarin had used! er Karamy’s attitude was love that
A shudder stung me briefly. pretended contempt to mold Adric,
Her glowing face burned through or me, to her will, or contempt
my sting of fear. “I go to the that pretended love for the same
Dreamer this night, Adric Ride with
! reason. And although habit found
me, and he shall lead you where affection for Evarin, I could not
the Dreamer walks —
and lead you trust him long. Trust a cyclone
back to power! I have said enough sooner than that half-mad effemin-
— ” the lambent eyes tilted at me, ate! The name, Narayan, stuck burr-
“Have I not?” like in my mind. Friend, or enemy?
She had, and too much. For I Isat at the barred window of Adric’s
knew now how the Dreamer must high room, trying to force memory
be paid. And the small part of me from the alien mind in which I
that was still Mike Kenscott cow- was prisoner. And whether it was
ered; the rest of me accepted the sheer effort of will, or the result of
memory with a shrug. It was this the fragmentary look in Evarin’s
Adric part that spoke. “I’ll go. And mirror, or whether, as Gamine in-
afterward, I’ll go into the forest sisted, I was really Adric and Mike
where the Dreamer walks and — Kenscott was a mere superficial
bring him back to you!” illusion of my conscious mind, mem-
But even as I swept Karamy into ory did begin to pulse back.
my arms and bent her head back In the early days
roughly under my mouth, a warning In the early days, before the
prickle iced my spine. I said, insinu- vagueness. came on my mind, I, Adric
atingly “And then, Karamy ”
of the Crimson Tower, had been a
but my eyes narrowed over her gold- power in the Rainbow City. The
en head. memories of that time were not
Karamy had tricked me before the kind Mike Kenscott would have
this. cared to own, but I, as Adric, found
them vastly pleasing. Unlike Ga-
CHAPTER FOUR mine, who loved only knowledge,
or Evarin, who toyed with pleasure
Trapped! and trickery, I had wanted power.
when I had found my
Afterward, I had it, unlimited, from a Dreamer
way back Crimson Tower, I
to the who stirred only vaguely in sleep.
searched for hours for something Half the known portions of this
 FALCONS OF NARABEDLA 45

world had known the Crimson Tow- Adric had escaped. He had reached,
er as lord. And Karamy — drawn Mike Kenscott back and —
Some memories were triumphant. switched the two. It was a perfect
Some were humorous in Adric’s cyni- escape *rom a life Adric had come
cal mind. Some were terrible be- to hate.
yond guessing —
for Adric had not But I was Auric. There was an
counted cost, and even he shud- explanation for that, too. The physi-
dered from the price the Dreamer cal body could not make the tran-
had exacted. sit in time. I had Adric’s body;
Then, to this wilful and wild man, the convolutions of his brain, the
something had happened. I had no synaptic links of habit. His mem-
idea what; Karamy had reached ory banks. Only the Ego, the super-
that far back and blurred, though imposed pattern of the conscious
not entirely erased, my memory. It identity, insisted I was Mike Ken-
had something to do with a blonde scott.In Adric’s body, the old pat-
boy’s face, lifted in incredulous ter- terns ruled, and to all intents and
ror —or joy; and a fleeing form, purposes, I was Adric. And back in
down the long
veiled, that retreated my own time, I thought, Adric was
corridor of my mind, averting its living in my body — living Mike
face as I followed. Whatever had Kenscott’s life, going through the
happened, had come when Adric
it motions, with only the same queer
was sick with blood and horror, lapses I was making here. And after
when he was surfeited, even if mo- a while, even these would stop. I
mentarily, with conquest, and sick- was wholly trapped. Here, living
ened at the price the Dreamer ex- Adric’s life, the part of me that
torted. The power, forced through was Adric would grow stronger and
the mind of the Dreamer, called for stronger till he?— —
unseated the
energy; kinetic energy, available other identity wholly. And he, in
from one source and one only. Adric my body? Andy, I thought with a
had fed the Dreamer with that pow- wild swift fear, what will he do to
er. For a while. Andy?
One day, as a whim, I had re- Nothing. He could not hurt Andy
deemed a young woman slave — — not in my pattern —
any more
then the vagueness came and chok- than I could hate Evarin. Or could
ed me. I might think; I might burst he?
my brain, but so far and no farther I had to get back! God, I had
my memories would carry me. I to get back!
could not force memory of that When the white sun had set and
chain of events. But after that, the red sun glowed a darkening
Adric’s reign had collapsed like the ember across the Sierra, a summons
unstable arch it had been. His arm- came, Brought by one of Karamy’s
and he had shut him-
ies scattered, toy-soldier cohorts. I dressed in —
selfup or been imprisoned in his crimson again, for there was no
Tower; his memories had been stol- other clothing anywhere and fol-—
en and he had gone, or been sent, lowed the voiceless sentry down
spinning along a time line for- through a labyrinth of elevators,
ward, or perhaps back, until some- finally emerging into a long corri-
where in the abyss of time he dor. I strode down it, hearing my
touched Mike Kenscott. own steps echo; a second rhythm
It had been then, perhaps, that joined them imperceptibly, and, Ga-
46 OTHER WORLDS
mine stole out of the darkness, she said in her curious lazy voice,
swathed in the luminous veiling, “Your allegiance to Adric —
chil-
creeping noiselessly as a ghost be- dren of the Rainbow!”
hind me. Later I became conscious I stood at her side, mute, waiting;
of Evarin’s padding cat-steps be- a guard of silent men behind us.
hind Gamine, trailing us, single- “Lord Idris;” Karamy summoned.
file. And other figures came from The hunchback came to bow jerkily
darkened recesses to stretch the before us. “Welcome home —
Lord!”
silent parade; a slim girl in a wing- The girl in flame-color darted to
ed cloak, flame color; a dwarfed man where we stood and her dipping
who walked beneath the amethyst curtsy was like the waver of a moth
huddle of purple Cap and furs. toward a flame. “Adric —
” she mur-
Memory fitted names them, but I
to mured. The wings of her cloak lift-
did not speak to them, or they to ed and fluttered across her shoulders
me. as if they would fly of themselves.
After a long time, the immense She was a shy thing, and her dark
corridor began to tilt upward, climb- hair waved softly as if it too were
ing toward a glimmer of light at winged. I touched her fingers lightly,
the end. Without realizing it I had but under the smolder of Karamy’s
swung into an arrogant, loping gaze I let her go. She watched me,
stride; now I brushed away the shyly, with averted face.
slave-soldier who headed the co- Evarin’s face was slyly malicious,
lumn and took the lead myself. Be- but his voice was pure silk. “It is —
hind me the others fell into place pleasure to follow you again, my
as if I had bidden them; the flame- brother,” he almost purred, and I
clothed girl in the winged cloak, scowled at the mockery at his face
the cat-footed Evarin, the dwarf and refused his offered hand. Only
bent in his jester’s cap. Gamine in Gamine said nothing, coming for-
the blue shroud. Without warning, ward on gliding feet to bow briefly
we came out into a vast court; an and retire; but the silver-sweet,
enclosed space, yet wide as the out- sexless voice of the spell-singer
doors, a yard, a plaza, a place of murmured in a singing, almost
imposing grandeur. A place of mem- wordless, croon.
ory.
“Save your spells, Gamine,” said
The red sun above us glowed like Karamy savagely, and Evarin jerked
a lurid coal. There were tall pillars round at the shrouded form, but
on three sides of the courtyard, and Gamine heeded neither of them,
at the far end, a vaulted archway and the sweet contralto chanting
led into a treelined drive that went on.
stretched away for miles into the
From somewhere the silent men
twilight. Between two pillars, Kara-
my waited; slim, shimmering gold-
brought horses. Horses —
here, in
this nightmare world? I had never
en from head to foot. A hungry
been on a horse in my life. I found
impatience sparked in her cat’s
myself vaulting, with a nice co-
eyes. “You’re late.”
ordination of movement, into the
“I’m ready,” I said. What I was saddle. The courtyard, for all the
ready for, I was not sure. bustle of department, seemed to
Karamy waved an impatient hold the silence of a grave. Karamy
signal to the Narabedlans who were kept me close to her. When we were
coming up. “Adric is with us again,” all mounted, she threw the amber
 FALCONS OF NARABEDLA 47

rod upward, and the last rays of command to the horse.

the red sun caught its rays and Good God! I was Mike Kenscott
sent a pure shaft of light down the — but prisoner in a body that
darkened alleyway lined with trees. would not obey —
me
a mind that
At the sight of that gleam, a curi- persisted in thoughts and habits I
ously familiar emotion stole through could not share, a —
soul? —
that
me. I threw up one arm over my would carry me to destruction! I
head, mimicking Karamy’s gesture. was Mike Kenscott — trapped on a
“Ride!” I shouted. nightmare ride through hell!
«
And the flying steeds kept pace
with mine. CHAPTER FIVE
The driveway under the arch of
trees led for miles under the thick Where the Dreamer Walks
boughs. Through the easy drumming I had been scared before. Now I
of hooves, I could still hear the was panicked, wild with a nerve-
sweet distant sound of Gamine’s destroying fright. I’m not a coward.
singing, which floated on the wind, I set up a radar transmitter in
keeping pace with the rise and fall Okinawa within ninety feet of a nest
of the rolling road, in a quick ca- of Japs. That was something real.
dence. The wind whipped Karamy’s I could face it. But under two suns
golden hair like a halo about her and a pair of little moons, with
head. I glanced over my shoulder weird people I knew were not hu-
to where the rainbow towers stood, man — all right; I was a coward.
now black, silhouetted against the I steadied myself in the saddle, try-
greater darkness of the mountains. ing with every scrap of my will to
Overhead in the pink sky, the cres- calm myself. If this was a night-
cent of the tiny moon was brighten- mare, well, I’d had some beauties —
ing, and lower in the sky I saw an-
But it wasn’t. I knew that. The
other, wider disc, nearly at full.
frost hurting my the sound
face,
Cold air was stinging my cheeks
of shod steel on stones, the vivid
and nipping my bones with frost, colors around me, told me I was
and I felt the sparks struck from wide awake. Dreams are not techni-
hooves beating on the frozen ground.
colored. And through all this I was
Cold! Yet in Karamy’s garden
riding hell-for-leather, my knees
flowers had glowed in a tropical
glory — gripped on the saddle, guiding the
horse with the grip of my thighs
And for a moment, it was en- — and I’d never been on a horse’s
tirely Mike Kenscott — be-
sick, back in my life. Rode and rode — —
wildered and panicky — who glanced We had ridden about seven miles,
about him with horror, feeling the
and stopped twice to breathe the
swirling cold and a colder chill
horses, but we were still beneath
from the golden sorceress at my the great archway of trees. The
side. It was Mike Kenscott’s will that
sky’s pink sunset light had faded;
jerked at the reins of the big geld-
the land was flooded with a blue,
ing to end this farce now — fluorescent starlight, a light I’d'
“What is it?” Karamy cried, over never seen before. I strained my
the noise of the hooves. eyes upward through the black foli-
And I heard my own voice, raised age. I suppose I had some confused
above the galloping rhythm, cry idea of guessing when I was by the
(back “Nothing!” and call out a stars. But the view to the North was
48 OTHER WORLDS
hidden by mountains, and I don't shadows around us. I had the
starlit
know one constellation from an- sudden feeling of having re-lived
other, with that single exception. this moment before, then the veiled
A glance at Karamy, in this fright, shoulders twitched impatiently.
un-nerved me; I touched the reins, “Is this an inquisition?”
dropped back till I rode between Ga- Rebuked, and stung by the arro-
mine and the girl in flame-color. gant voice, I touched my heel to
“Adric,” the spell-singer saluted my horse’s flank and rode forward to
coolly, and the girl in the winged rejoin Karamy. Gamine! The hell
cloak threw back her hood; I saw with Gamine!
dark eyes watching me from a pure, For several minutes the road had
sweet young face. Before the lumin- been climbing, and now we topped
ous innocence of those eyes I want- the summit of a littte rise and ab-
ed to cry out in protest. I was not ruptly the trees came to an end.
Adric, warlock of Narabedla. I was By tacit consent we all drew our
just a poor guy named Mike, I horses to a walk. We stood atop
was just —
me. I rode beside Ga- the -lip of a broad bowl of land,
mine for minutes, trying to think perhaps thirty miles across, filled
what would say.
I to the brim with thick dark forest.
Gamine’s musical voice was not Far out in this valley lay a cleared
raised, yet it carried perfectly to' space, and in the center of that
my ears. "You seem wholly your- space lay a great tower; but not a
self again.” slender and fairylike spire like the
I didn’t answer. What was there Towers of Rainbow City. This was a
to say? Still, there seemed to be massive donjon thrusting heavy
sympathy in the sharply-edged shoulders upward into the moon-
tones. “You will remember per- — washed sky.
haps too much —
at the Dreamer’s The Keep of the Dreamers.
Keep.” Something in me murmured “This
“Gamine,” I asked, “Who is Nara- is the forest where the Dreamer
yan?” walks!” — or had the murmured
I saw the blue robes quiver a voice come from Gamine, motionless
little;across from Gamine, I saw behind me? Karamy rode eagerly,
a curious flickering look pass across her face drawn tautly together, her
the face of the girl in the orange slim tanned hands clenched on the
winged cloak. But Gamine’s answer reins. All this while I was Mike Ken-
was perfectly even and disinterested. —
scott but a Mike who watched him-
“The name is not familiar to me. self without knowing what he would
Have you heard it, Cynara?” do next, like those puzzling night-
The girl did not answer, only mares where a man is both actor
moved her dark head a little. and audience to some mummery
“I should know,” I mused. But the being played. I watched myself say
name Cynara had touched another and do things as if I were two
of those live wires within my mind. men at once. In effect, I suppose I
Narayan. Cynara. Cynara and Nara- was Karamy turned in her
yan! If I could only remember! Sud- saddle, facing me.
denly I turned. “Gamine who — “Adric,” she murmured, “Lead me
are you?” Gamine sat quiet, eerily where the Dreamer walks!”
motionless on the tall horse. The I knew, with a sudden surety, that
robed figure seemed to blend into the because of some bond between the
 ” ”

FALCONS OF NARABEDLA 49

freed Dreamer and myself, I could my to get back, get back,but her
do this. But again, something out- own momentum carried her on; I
side myself told me what to say. saw her light body fly out of the
“That bond is broken, Karamy. Did saddle and disappear. The others,
you not break it yourself? How can rounding the curve in a wild dash,
I guide you then?” And for my re- were fairly on the barrier already,
ward I saw unsureness leap in her and the place was a bedlam, a
cat’s eyes. That shot had told. Kara- scramble, with riderless horses mil-
my had been guessing, then! ling in a melee of curses and the
The answer had shaken her. But screaming of women and the thresh-
this woman was a past mistress at ing of feet. I was out of my saddle
subtlety. She murmured “It can be in an instant, thrusting Gamine’s
forged again. That I swear.” mount back from the stabbing points
Ah, but I knew how far to trust fixed invisibly against the dark bar-
even Karamy ’s oaths! rier in the road, shouting to Evarin
We had dipped down into the and Idris. Evarin leaped to my side,
bowl of forest and we were riding catching at Karamy’s wild horse,
through thick woods, along a road while I tore madly at the barrier
that struggled windingly, with many where the woman had been thrown.
curves and sharp corners. Adric Idris bore down on me, mounted.
knew this country; his knowledge “Go pcund!” he shouted. I plunged
made Mike Kenscott shiver. He had through the underbrush at the side
hunted here, and for no fourlegged of the road, with hasty feet twice
game. As if Karamy read my snaked by long creepers. Past the
thoughts I hear her low laughter. barrier, the road lay open and de-
“So. My wrist aches for the feel of serted, and Karamy lay in a shimmer
a falcon. We’ll hunt here again — of crumpled silk, motionless. “Ga-
soon, you and I!” I was partly be- mine, Evarin — ” I bellowed, “No
wildered by her words, but they Quick, Karamy is
—here!
one’s
gave me a shivering excitement, hurt
an insidious thrill. .The head and shoulders of Idris’
Behind me, I heard Gamine’s horse thrust through the thick
chanting take on a new note. The brushwood. “Is she dead?” the
words were still indistinguishable, dwarf muttered. I bent, thrusting
but the very tune screamed warn- my hand to her breasts. “Her heart’s
ing. A pulse began to twitch jerkily beating. Only stunned. Get down,”
in my neck. I ordered. Idris scrambled, monkey-
Without any warning, the road fashion, from the saddle. I lifted the
twisted. Karamy and I spurred our woman in my arms, but she did not
horses and rounded the curve in move or open her eyes. Idris touch-
one swift, facing burst of speed — ed my arm.
—
and were fairly in the trap be- “Put her on the saddle,” he sug-
fore we knew it. gested, and together we laid her
across the pommel. Suddenly, the
It was the agonized whinny of
my horse, and the jolt of my body dwarf cried out.

righting itself automatically from “What?” I asked sharply.

the plunging animal beneath me, “I hear —
that made me realize we had rid- I never knew what Idris heard.
den straight on a chevaux-de-frise. His head vanished, as if snatched
I yelled, cursing, shouting to Kara- away by a giant’s hand; a rough
 ”

50 - OTHER WORLDS
grip collared me, choking fingers the intolerable weight on my chest
clawed at my throat, a thousand was suddenly gone and I sucked in
rockets went off in my head and air with relief. The fat man eased
I lay sprawling in the brushwood, himself cautiously up, and I felt
eating dust, with an elephant sit- a steel point caress my lowest rib.
ting on my chest and threatening The threat didn’t need words. I
hands gouging my throat. My last could see the Narajpedlans gathered,
coherent thought before the breath a tight little knot in the road. The
went out of me, was — snipers around me were still holding
“I’m waking up!” their weapons, but the fat man
commanded in a low voice “Don’t
CHAPTER SIX fire! They’re sure to have guards
riding behind them —
” the voice

Narayan died to a rasping mutter, and I

But I wasn’t. When came to —

I
lay motionless, trying to dredge up
some of Adric’s memories that might
it could only have been a few sec-
onds that was
I unconscious — it
help; but the only thing I got was
a fleeting memory of my own foot-
was to hear Evarin snarling curses
ball days and a flying tackle by
and Idris barking incoherently with
a Penn State halfback that had
rage. I heard Karamy screaming my
knocked me ten feet. Adric was
name, and started to answer, but the
gone; clean gone.
steely fingers were still at my throat
and with that weight on top of me, The Narabedlans were talking
in low tones, Gamine the rallying-
I hadn’t a chance. The fall, or
something, had knocked Adric clean point round which they clustered.
out of me, I was fuzzy-brained, but Evarin had his sword out, but even
sane. I was an innocent bystander he did not step toward the mantling
thicket. Cynara was holding Evarin’s
again.
arm, protesting wildly. “No, no, no,
I could see Evarin and Idris in
the road, casting wary glances at no! They’ll kill Adric
—
the brushwood all around them. I Suddenly, between two breaths,
could just make out the face of the road was alive with mounted
the man who was holding me pinned men. Who they were, I never knew;
to the earth with his body. He had I was quickly dragged to my feet
the general build of a hippopotamus and, jerked away. Behind me I
and a face to match. I squirmed, but heard shouting, and steel, and saw
the theatening face came closer thin flashes of colored flame. Spots
and I subsided. The man could have of black danced before my eyes as
broken me in two like a match. I stumbled along between two cap-
Around me in the thicket were tors. I felt my sword dragged from
dozens of crouching forms, fantas- my scabbard. Oh well, I thought
tic snipers with weapons at their wryly, now that Adric’s run out on
shoulders. Weapons that could have the party I don’t know how to use
been crossbows or disintegrators, or it anyway.
both. “Enter Buck Rogers,’’ I thought Under the impetus of a knife I
wearily. I was beginning to feel faint found myself clambering awkwardly
again, and old welter-weight on my into a saddle, felt the horse running
stomach didn’t help any. Abruptly beneath me. There wasn’t a chance
he moved, delicate fingers knotting of getting away, and the frying
a gag in my gasping mouth; then pan couldn’t be much worse than
 FALCONS OF NARABEDLA 51

the fire, anyway. he that? I was as furiously em-

tell
Behind us the noises of battle died barrassed as if I’d been accused
away. The horse I rode raced, sure- of wearing stolen clothing. My
footed, into the darkness. I hung beefy captor was as angry as I was.
on with both hands to keep from “What do you mean, this isn’t
falling; only Adric’s habitual re- Adric?” he demanded belligerently,
flexes kept me from tumbling igno- “We took him right out of their
miniously to the ground. I don’t accursed cavalcade! If it isn’t Adric,
think I had any more coherent who is it?”
thoughts until the jolting rhythm wish I knew,” Narayan mutter-
“I
broke and we came out of the for- ed under his breath. His eyes, still
est into full moonlight and a glare fixed on my face, were level, discon-
of open fires. certing. He was tall and straightly
I raised my head and looked built, with pale blonde hair cut
around me. We were in a grove, tree- square -around his shoulders like a
ringed like a Druid temple, lit by squire from a Provencal ballad, and
watch-fires and the waver of torch- grey eyes that looked grave, but
es. Tents sprouted in the clearing, friendly. I liked his looks, but he had
giving it an untidy, gypsy appear- a trace of the- uncanny stillness I’d
ance; at the back was a white noticed in old Rhys, in Gamine. For
frame house with a flat roof and a moment I decided to tell my whole
wide doors, but no windows. fantastic story to this man with
Men and women were coming out the grave eyes. He would surely be-
of the tents everywhere. The talk lieve it. But to my surprise, he spoke
was a Pentecost of tongues, but I and called me Adric; definitely, as
heard one name, repeated over and if he had forgotten his doubts.
over again. “Adric,” he said, “Do you still re-
“Narayan! Narayan!” the shouts member me? Or did Karamy take
clamored. that too?”
A slim young man, blonde, dressed I sighed. I didn’t dare tell the
in rough brown, came from one of truth, and I felt too chilled and ex-
the larger tents and walked deliber- hausted and disoriented to lie con-
ately toward me. The crowd drew vincingly. Yet lie I must, and do it
back, widening to let him approach; well.
before he came within twenty yards The fat man scowled and fronted
he made a signal to one of. the men Narayan. “Karamy —
Zandru’s eye-
to untie my gag and let me down. I lashes!” he growled!. “Look you, did
stood, clinging to the saddle, ex- Brennan come back this afternoon?
hausted; the young man came for- He knows his way around Rainbow
ward until he could almost have city. Ask Adric what happened to
touched me, and studied my face Brennan!”
dispassionately. At last he raised The clamoring broke out around
his head, turning to the fat man, us again, but Narayan never took
my captor. his eyes from my face as he answer-
"This isn’t Adric,” he said. “This ed gently “There is always danger,
man is a stranger.” Raif.Blame no man unjustly. Bren-
I should have been relieved; I nan knew he faced all the dangers
don’t know why I wasn’t. Instead, of Rainbow City, And even Adric
my first reaction was bewilderment is not to blairte if a she-witch has
and angry annoyance. How could him under her spells.”
 ” ” ”

52 OTHER WORLDS

“Traitor!” Raif snarled at me and The blonde man looked at her

spat. without speaking for long moments.
loosed the saddle-horn and step-
I At last he said gravely “Sister, you
ped dizzily forward. “You might must go back to Narabedla. I would
try asking me,” I said with a weary not make you go if there was an-
anger. other way; but you must, for a
“Are you Adric of the Crimson time.” He beckoned to one of the
Tower?” fat Raif snapped. men. “Kerrel —
” he commanded,
“I don’t know —
” I said tiredly. “Take Cynara back to Rainbow-City,
“I don’t know, I don’t know!” but don’t get caught. Cynara; tell
Narayan’s eyes met mine in skepti- them you were lost in the woods, or
cal puzzlement. Abruptly he put
that you were caught and escaped.”
out one hand 'and took my wrist The childish mouth trembled, and
in a firm grip. “We can’t talk here, she turned to me appealingly, but
whoever you are,” he said, “Come I gave a little shrug. What was I

along.” supposed to do? Narayan gave

He led me through the thinning Cynara a gentle push. “Go with
Kerrel, little sister,” he ordered in a
crowd into the frame house at the
grove’s edge; Raif and one other quiet voice; Kerrel took her arm
man trailed after us, the rest clust- and they hurried out of the room,
ering hive-fashion around the door. the winged cloak she wore fluttering
Inside, in a great timbered room, a on her shoulders. Narayan motioned
burned and glowing globes to Raif to follow them through the
fire
chased away darkness. I went grate- door. “I’ll talk with him alone.”
fully toward the fire; I was stiff Raif’s thick lips set stubbornly.
with riding and I felt chilled and He looked as if he’d be nasty in a
stupid and empty with the cold. fight. he’s Adric, and if he’s
“If
From a wood settle near the fire, a under Karamy’s devilments, then —
woman She was slight and
rose. “I have faced Adric, and Karamy
dark and around her shoulders the too,” said Narayan with a friendly
luminescent shimmer of her winged grin at the man. “Get out, Raif;
cloak flowed like another flame. you’re not my bodyguard, or even
Cynara. my nurse!”
“Adric —
” she said half-aloud, The fat man accepted dismissal
holding out her hands. I took them, reluctantly, and Narayan came to
partly because she seemed to ex- my There was real friendliness
side.
pect it, partly because the girl seem- in his grin. “Well,” he said, “Now
ed the only thing real in a world we will talk. You cannot kill me,
gone haywire. She flung her arms any more than I could kill you, so
suddenly around my neck and held we may as well be truthful with
herself to me with a shy delibera- each other. Why did you leave us,
tion. “Adric, Adric, Adric ” she — Adric? What has Karamy done to
begged, “I slipped away in the you this time?”
dark —I suppose Gamine knows — The room reeled around me. I
but they’ll never find me here, no,
— put out a hand to steady myself —
never when the dizziness cleared, Nara-
Narayan’s hand pulled the girl yan’s arm was around my shoulders
sternly away from me; she shrank and he was holding me up with a
before the annoyance in his eyes. strength suprising in his slight
“Please —
Narayan, no — frame. He let me settle down on the
 ”

FALCONS OF NARABEDLA 53

seat Cynara had left. “You have me; and when I finally pushed the
been roughly handled,” he said in empty plate aside, he put back his
apology, “Just sit still a minute. glass and said “Now. Who are you,
—
My men ” he made a deprecating and what happened?”
little gesture, “have had orders. I felt better and stronger; more
And if I know Karamy’s
ways, you’ve like myself than I’d felt since Rhys
been heavily drugged for a long had catapulted me into this world.
time.” His eyes studied me intently. But now that I was on the carpet,
“Better come and have a drink. I felt I must talk fast and convinc-
And —
when did you eat last? You ingly before those searching grey
look half starved. That’s the way eyes.
of the sharig — “Karamy had me shut in the
I rubbed my forehead. “I can’t Tower,” I told him, “I was freed
remember,” I told him honestly. today, and we were on our way to
“I thought so. Come along.” Nara- the Dreamers Keep. Then your
yan went into the next room, as- men came along. I didn’t know if
suming that I would follow and that I was being rescued or captured. I

I knew my way around. After the stilldon’t.” I stared with purposeful

insanely fornished rooms in Rain- blankness at Narayan; he stared
bow City, I was a little surprised back and I could feel him debating
when the next room proved to be what to do and say. Obviously, an
a strictly functional and ordinary Adric sane and glib and possibly
'

kitchen, equipped with the usual untruthful was a different thing

items. Out of a relatively un-ex- than an Adric too bewildered and
traordinary icebox he assembled shaken to tell anything but the
something that looked rather like truth. Finally Narayan said “I’m
the food I was accustomed to from not sure what I ought to do or
the 20th century, and poured some say, Adric. The bond between us
kind of liquid into an oddly shaped isn’t as it was. You know
strong as
glass. He motioned me into a chair that.”
and set the things on the table. I nodded, perturbed. Adric’s
thoughts seemed to be surging
“Here, eat this. I know the drugs
back, insidiously, as if Narayan held
they give you; you’ll have more
the key to unlock them. What crazy
sense when you’ve eaten. We’ve
plenty of time to talk, all night if
drama was going to be unfolded in
we choose.” He saw me glance side- my mind now?
wise at the glass, laughed sketchily, Narayan said, low; “Karamy did
and from the same bottle poured it, I think.”
himself a drink and sat down oppo- “Yes.” My own was as quiet
voice
site me, sipping it slowly. “Go ahead. as his own. “Karamy sent me on
I won’t poison you till I find out the Time Ellipse. She knew I’d come
what Karamy’s up to.” back changed —
or mad or not —
laughed apologetically and start-
I at all. I think —
I think she wanted

ed eating, with a mental shrug. It me you again.”

to betray
had been at least forty-e'ight hours “Adric!” Narayan reached out
since I had last tasted food, and I quickly and grabbed my arm, hard,
did justice to the plateful before me. above the elbow, till I cried out
Narayan sipped his drink which, — with the pain of that steely grip
-

when I tasted mine, appeared to be and twisted away, rubbing numbed

excellent cognac —
and watched flesh. “Adric —” Narayan repeated,
 ”

54 OTHER WORLDS

unsteadily, "Why do you say be- — ing at bay, “It wasn’t Karamy who
tray me again? Betray me? Adric — sent me here, I’m not Adric. You
it was your hand that freed me! were perfectly right. I’m no more
Zandru! Adric —
” he begged, “How Adric than —
than you are. I’m in
much have you forgotten?” Adric’s body, yes. He moves me like
a puppet! I have his memories, his
CHAPTER SEVEN — some of his thoughts but he —
— ” my voice cracked suddenly cn
Battle in my Brain a note of panic; I knew I sounded
The fire in the other room had like a hysterical kid, but I could-
burned down to an ember. Without n’t stop my own crackup once it
a glance my way, Narayan mended had broken loose. “I’m not Adric,

the fire; sat down, his legs stretch- I’m not! I don’t belong here at all!
ed toward the little blaze, his shin I don’t —
in his hands; waiting. I could not Narayan jumped up from the
stand still. I walked, restless, around bench and I heard his hurrying
the room, speaking in little jerks and steps, then his steel hands were
half-sentences. hard on my shoulders, swinging me
“You are the Dreamer,” I said, around to face him. “All right,” he
“I —
I remember a little. I remem- said, “Steady. It’s all right.”

ber being bound to you. I remem- I drew a long breath and let it
member when I —
freed you. Not out again. “Thanks,” I said briefly,
knowing what it might mean, not shamed. “I’ll be all right now.”
knowing you could have slain me Narayan shrugged wearily. “It’s all
on the ground of sacrifice.” right. I guessed you weren’t Adric,
“No!” Narayan was as motion- of course, from the beginning. But
less as Gamine’s veils, but his voice I didn’t think Adric, when it came
was harsh, strident. “No, Adric, to the test, would really do that
never that! We cannot —
kill each to me. I had his promise. I sup-
other, you and I. I could order you pose, for him, it was an easy way
killed, I suppose, but I —
I would out. A perfect way of escape.” He
never do that unless there was no sank down on the bench again,
other way. Adric —
is there any dropping his head in his hands.
other way for me, for you?” After a little, he looked up, and
bitterness spoke in my voice;
A his voice sounded tired. “This is
neither side trusted Adric, both difficult,” he said. “My men think
wanted his allegiance. I tried to trim you are Adric. I’d never be able to
my words carefully between the two convince them you aren’t. Would
personalities that were battling for you mind —
pretending? You’ll
—
mastery in me. have to; otherwise ” he paused,
was Karamy,” I said, “Who
“It and I saw disquiet in his face. He
took Adric from you, and sent him, was not a man who would enjoy
half-mad, back to the Crimson Tow- threatening, but I could understand
er. Karamy’s magic stripped him his situation.They didn’t know me
of power, and sent him, gone mad, from Adam; I was just an outsider
back stargazing in Narabedla.
to who messed things up by resembling
But it was not Karamy’s ” the — Adric. Well, I was stuck. I hadn’t
voice that was not quite mine shook, liked the Narabedlans enough to
suddenly, with my own weariness give a hang what Narayan meant
and the blank terror I’d been keep- to do to them. Narayan, by com-
 FALCONS OF NARABEDLA 55

parisoii,looked pretty decent. And to use my power only through the

there was no other way to save my Sacrifice. It had to learn to use it
skin. Adric wasn’t too popular, it without. It wasn’t easy.”
seemed and in Adric’s body I hadn’t “Why?” I asked thoughtlessly.
a chance. I laughed. “I’ll try,” I Narayan’s eyes froze me. “To use
told him. “But what’s this all a- that power.” he said in a tense, con-
bout?” trolled voice, “Took human life.”
Narayan looked up again. “That’s
right. You wouldn’t know. You have Outside the door I could hear the
some of Adric’s memory, I suppose, noises of the camp; the light of
but not all. You remember who I their watch-fires crept in through
am?” the cracks. It was too dark to see
“Not entirely — ” I told him. I Narayan’s face now, but I heard
remembered some things. Narayan him moving restlessly about the
had been born, some thirty years room. “I have harnessed the power
ago, into a respectable country fam- somewhat,” he said, “I can use it,
ily who were appalled to discover myself, a little. Not much. Adric
they had given birth to a mutant helped me; so did my sister. She
Dreamer, and were only too glad had been taken for Sacrifice, but
to deliver him to the Narabedlans you— Adric— redeemed her. Then
for the enforced stasis. I told Nara- — we were able to throw an illusion
yan. around Cynara. She is not of Nara-

“You remember the old Dreamer bedla; but we made it seem as if

who served your House?” she had always been there, in .Rain-
I nodded. He had become old,
bow City. We could do that because
mortal, weak —
and had been eli- Evarin is weak, and because Karamy
minated. I bowed my head, al- did not care. It was Rhys who
though I had no personal guilt. made the Illusion.”

Afterward, Narayan and I had “Rhys!” The old Dreamer, the

been bound. “I slept in the Dream- only one born in Narabedla —
er’s Keep —
” Narayan sounded re- Gamine is careless with
“Yes;
flective, almost guilty, “I was wak- Rhys and lets him wake too long.
ened, and —
given sacrifice. I learn- Rhys and I have been in contact
ed to use my power and to give it for a long time.”
up to Adric.” A brooding horror was I was hearing scraps of conversa-
in grey eyes; I realized that
the tion from a vast abyss of time and
Narayan dwelt in his own personal space, when I had been drawn in
private hell with the memory of electric coma through Karamy’s
what he had done under the spell Time They will know, Nara-
Ellipse.
of Narabedla. “Adric was strong.”— yan know. That had been old
will
Yes, I thought; Adric had called Rhys. And Adric; What have I to do
on Narayan’s new power without with Narayan? Adric had been still —
counting cost. What wonder the was —
playing a fancy double game
memory maddened Narayan? The with Narayan; I started to open my
young Dreamer seemed to win his si- young Dreamer about
lips to tell the
lent fight for self-control. “Well, you it, but he was still talking. “Rhys
— Adric,
. I mean — freed me. I found will not act, not directly, against
my sister again; Cynara. I was like Rainbow City. But he did that much
a child; I had to learn to live, to for us, and Gamine and Cynara are
be alive again. I had been trained friends. We forgot —
we all forgot
 ” ”

56 OTHER WORLDS
— that Adric’s allegiance belonged tine smile. “I’d better apologize,
to Narabedla first. Until he van- Adric. I had orders.”
ished.” I heard the brooding heavi- “Find him a place to sleep,” Nara-
ness in Narayan’s voice. These men yan suggested, and I followed Raif
#

had been friends. Narayan went on up a flight of low stairs into an

“I- sent Brennan today, to find out. inner room. There was a bed there,
He didn’t come back.” clean, but tumbled as if it had
I lowered my head and miserably had another occupant not long ago.
told him what had happened to Raif said “Karrel’s gone with Cy-
Brennan. Narayan’s face in a flick- nara. You can sleep here.”
er of firelight looked drawn and I kicked off my boots and crawled
haggard. “He was a — brave man,” between the blankets, suddenly too
Narayan said at last. “But I don’t weary even to answer. I had been
blame you. After the interchange, two days without sleep, and most
I think, there was a time when you of that time I had been under ex-
went on living Adric’s life. Think- hausting physical and mental strain.
ing his thoughts. But now, I think, I saw Raif cautiously finger his
he will grow weaker in you. I hope. weapons and sensed that whatever
You —
who are you, in your own Narayan said, he was reserving
world?” judgment. He didn’t take chances,
I shrugged. The words would have this outside lieutenant of Nara-
meant nothing to Narayan. “My yan’s. Sleepily I said “You can put
name’s Mike Kenscott.” that up, my
friend. I’m not going
“Mi-ek,” Narayan repeated, turn- to move I’ve had a good, long
till
—
ing the strange word on his tongue. even finish the sentence
I didn’t

“The men you Adric.

will call to myself. Instead I' went to sleep.
I’d better, too. Later ” he shrug-— I had slept for hours. I came ab-

ged. I didn’t say anything; I was ruptly out of confused dreams to

still convinced that I hadn’t seen hear a shrill voice and to feel small
the last of Adric. But I didn’t want hands pulling me upright. Cynara!
to tell Narayan this. I liked the “Wake up, Adric —
” she wailed,
man. “Karamy and Evarin are riding to-
Without warning, Narayan switch- day — hunting you!”
ed on lights. “It’s near dawn, and I sat up, dizzy-brained, far from
you must be worn out. We’ve taught alert. “Cynara! How —
them stay clear of the forests
to “Oh, never mind that — ” her
at night, so we’re safe enough here. voice was impatient, “What can
They can’t do much till they’ve we do?”
been to the Dreamers Keep, in I didn’t know. I was still stupid
any case.” With a sudden boyish with sleep, but I put a reassuring
friendliness he put out his hand arm around her shoulders. “Don’t
and I took it. “I’m glad you’re not be afraid,” I told her, then, re-
Adric. He might be hard to handle leasing her, bent and began to pull
now —
if he’s changed so much.” on my boots. I heard the swift
As the lights had been a signal,
if pound of steps on the stairs, and
fat Raif came without knocking Narayan shoved open the door,
into the room. Narayan crossed his dragging a brown tunic over his
hostile stare at me. “He’s all right, head as he came. He stopped short
Raif,” the Dreamer said. The fat at the door, staring at his sister.
face broke into a sudden, elephan- “Cynara, what are you doing here?”
 ”

FALCONS OF NARABEDLA 57

She repeated her news, and he anyhow, meddling with my memory!

sighed. He looked as if he hadn’t And she had the audacity to fly
slept at “Well, never mind,” he
all. Evarin’s devil-birds after me Adric, —
told her, “The game was almost lord of the Crimson Tower! She
over, anyhow. Sooner or later they should have a lesson she would not
would, have broken through the forget —and so should the pre-
Illusion; Rhys is too old now for sumptous Gamine —
and so should
that. You were lucky to get away. this walking zombie who was star-
We’ll have storm the Keep to-
to ing at me stupidly, as if I were his
night —
unless they have too-good equal! I said with a slow savagery
hunting.” He fumbled with the laces “I think I can manage Gamine!”
of his shirt. A dead weariness was Narayan was watching me anxi-
in his grey eyes; they looked flat, ously. Gods of the Rainbow, what
almost glazed. He met my question- preposterous things had I said and
ing stare and smiled ruefully. “The done last night? I said “We’ll take
Dreamers stir,” he told me, “I am not them at the Dreamer’s Keep,” and
yet free of —
their need. So I must saw his face clear.
be careful.” Cynara shuddered and But what you do not know, Nara-
threw her arms around her brother’s yan, I added to myself with a se-
neck, clutching him with a fiercely cret satisfaction, is that you will
sheltering clasp. “Narayan, no — join them there!
oh, no — don’t — It never occurred to them to ques-
But he was already deep in tion, to wonder if Adric today were
thought again. He freed her arms the Adric of last night. W<e went
without impatience. “We’ll meet downstairs and snatched a quick
that when the time comes, little breakfast; Cynara tore off her wing-
sister. So Karamy and Evarin ride ed flame-color cloak and stuffed it
hunting. Who else. Idris?” A't her wrathfully into t|ie fireplace. Her
nod, his brows contracted. “All of coarse grey dress beneath it made
them —
but Gamine,” he mused, her shy prettiness more striking
and turned to me. “Could you con- than ever; Cynara was not Karamy,
ceivably get through to Rhys? I but she was a pretty thing; and
don’t dare —
not with that that — Narayan could hardly fail to trust
stirring.” me when Cynara perched on the
I understood, Narayan was still arm of my chair and ran her dainty
attuned to the terrible need of the fingers over the bruises on my face.
sleeping Dreamers in the Keep. But “Your roughs nearly killed him!”
I reminded him that only Gamine she pouted at her brother.
could control old Rhys. He looked “Oh, I’m not hurt,” I smiled at
at me with a strange curious ques- her, making my voice gentle for
tion in his eyes, but made no com- her ear alone. But scowled darkly
I
ment. My own mind was working into my plate; pushed the food
strong. I was unsure how I had away and strode out into the camp.
gotten here in the house of the Narayan shouted quickly, jumping
freed Dreamer. Just what had hap- up, sending his chair crashing to the
pened last night? I had thought floor, and he ran after me so that
Narayan would never trust me a- we went down the steps together.
gain; but now, when I needed it “Wait,” he commanded in my ear,
most, I seemed to be in his com- softly,“Don’t forget, to them you’re
plete confidence. Damn Karamy still a traitor!” He took my arm,
58 OTHER WORLDS

and we walked through every row Evarin and Karamy rode a-hunting
of tents together, Narayan’s expres- today —
and I knew what their
sion almost belligerent. I saw the game would be!
faces of the men as they came from
their improvised shelter, saw sus- CHAPTER EIGHT
picion gradually give way to toler-
ance and then casual acceptance. Falcons of Evarin
Finally Narayari called to Raif. I pulled my cloak closer about me,
“Stick to him, will you, Raif? He’s prickling with excitement, as I
.

all right, but the men don t know :

knelt between Raif and Kerrel in
it yet.” the tree-platform. Just beneath me,
I glanced at Narayan. “Raif,” I Narayan clung to a lower branch.
said tentatively, “Can you find me My ears picked up the ring of dis-
twelve men who know the way to tant hooves on frozen ground, and
Rainbow-city and aren’t afraid to I smiled; I knew every nuance of
come close to it?” this hunt, and Evarin might find
“I can,” Raif said, and went to his deadly birds not so obedient to
do it. I had to hide a smile. Before his call today. Not a scrap of me
long I would win back the place remembered another ’world where
my foolishness had lost. The idiot a dazed and bewildered man had
whose body I had shared briefly flown at a living bird with his pock-
had almost put it beyond recovery, etknife.
but in a way he- had helped, too. Coldly I found myself considering
His weakness had won Narayan’s possibilities.A snare there must be;
confidence. Well, one thing I knew, but who: Narayan himself? No; he
that futile idiot should not share was my only protection until I got
the coming triumph. Nor should clear of this riffraff. Besides, if he
Narayan. ever unsheathed his power, un-
Narayan —
fumbling in my pock- guarded like this, he could drain me
et, I touched something smooth and as a spider sucks a trapped fly. No;
hard. Evarin’s mirror. Narayan, it would have to be Raif. I had a
looking over my shoulder as I drag- grudge against the fat man, any-
ged it out, asked curiously “What’s way. I pulled at his sleeve. “Wait
that?” here for me,” I said cunningly, and
I pulled it out with a secret made as if to leave the platform.
smile. “One of Evarin’s toys. Look Raif walked smiling into the trap.
at it, if you like.” “Here, Adric! Narayan gave orders
Narayan took it in his hand for a you weren’t to rum into any danger!”
moment, without, however, untwist- Good, good! I didn’t even have
ing the silk. “Go ahead,” I urged, to order the man to his death; he
“Unwrap it.” volunteered. “Well,” I protested,
I might have sounded too eager. “We want a scout out, to carry word
Abruptly Narayan handed it back. when they come.” As if we wouldn’t
“Here. I don’t know anything about know!
Evarin.” “I’ll Raif said laconically,
go,”
I had to conceal my disappoint- and leaned past me, touching Nara-
ment. With a feigned indifference yan’s shoulder. He explained in a
I thrust it back into the pocket. whisper —
we were all whispering,
It xlid not matter. One way or an- although there was no reason for
other,' Narayan would lose. For it —and Narayan nodded. “Good
 ”

FALCONS OF NARABEDLA 59

idea. Don’t show yourself.” toward us, knives out and ready.
I held back laughter. As if that The bird screamed wildly, flew up-
would matter! ward a little ways, and hung watch-
The man swung down into the ing us with those curiously intelli-
road. I heard his footsteps ring on gent eyes. Another falcon and an-
the rock; heard them diminish, die other winged across the road, and
in distance. Then — a thin, uncanny screeing echoed in
A clamoring, bestial cry ripped the the icy air. I heard the jingle of
air; a cry that seemed to ring and little bells. Three birds, golden-
echo up out of hell, a cry no hu- trapped and green-trapped and
man throat could compass but I
. — harnessed in royal purple, swung
knew who had screamed. That set- above us; three pairs of unwinking
tled the fat man. Narayan jerked jewel-eyes hung motionless in a row.
around, his blonde face whiter. Beyond them the darkening red
“Raif!” The word was a prayer. sun made a tne of blackening trees
We half-scrambled, half-leaped and silhouetted three figures, a
we ran
into the road. Side by side, horse, motionless against the back-
down the road together. ground of red sky. Evarin Idris — —
The screaming of a bird warned and Karamy, intent on the falcon-
me. I looked up — dodged quickly play, three traitors baiting the one
— over my head a huge scarlet fal- who had escaped their hands.
con, wide-winged, wheeled and dart- The falcons poised —
swept in-
ed in at me. Narayan’s yell cut the ward in massed attack. They darted
air and I ducked, flinging a fold of between my knife and Narayan’s.
cloak over my
I head.
ripped a Behind me a bestial scream rang
knife from my slashed up-
belt; out and I knew one of the falcons,
ward, ducking my
head, keeping at least, had drawn blood that —
one arm before my
eyes. The bird one of the men behind us was not —
wavered away, hung in the air, ours! Turning and stumbling, the
watching me with live green eyes stricken man ran blindly through
that shifted with my every move- the clearing, down the road half- —
ment. The falcon’s trappings were way to those silhouetted figures he
green, bright against the scarlet reeled, tripping across the body of
wings. a man who lay beneath his feet.
I knew who had flown this bird. Narayan gave a gasping, retching
The falcon wheeled, banking like sound, and I whirled in time to see
a plane, and rushed in again. No
1
him jerk out his electrorod, spas-
egg had hatched these birds! I modically, and fire shot after wild
knew who had shaped these slap- shot at the stumbling figure that
ping pinions! Over one corner of my had been our man. “Fire ” he —
cloak I saw Narayan pull his pistol- panted to me, “Don’t let him he —
like electro-rod, and screamed warn- wouldn’t want to get to them — —
ing. “Drop it —quick!” The birds I struck the weapon down.
could turn gunfire as easily as could “Idiot!” I said savagely, “Some hunt-
Evarin himself, and if the falcon ing they must have!” Narayan
drew one drop of my blood, then began protesting, and I wrenched
I was lost forever, slave to who- the rod from his hand. The man
ever had flown the bird. I thrust up- was far beyond firing range now.
ward with the knife, dodging be- At Narayan’s convulsed face I near-
tween the bird’s wings. Men leaped ly swore aloud. This weak ‘fool
60 other worlds
would ruin everything! I said hastily razor beak darted in, ready to cut.
“Don’t waste your fire! We can take I threw myself forward, unprotect-
care of them later —
” I waved a ed, off balance, ready to strike.
quick hand at the three on the At the last minute talons and
ridge. “There is no help for those beak turned aside —
drew back —
caught by Evarin’s birds.” darted swiftly, straight at me. And
Narayan breathed hard, bracing my knife was turned aside, guarding
himself in the road. I beckoned the Narayan!
others close. “Don’t fire on the But Narayan jerked aside. His
birds,” I cautioned, tensely; “It knife fell in the road, and his arm
only energizes them; they drain the shot out —
grabbed the bird behind
energy from your fire! Use knives; the head, twisting convulsively so
cut their wings —
look out!” The the stabbing needle of a beak could
falcons, like chain-lightning, traced not reach him. The darting head
thin orbits down in a slapping con- lunged, pecking at the cloak that
fusion of wings and darting beaks. wrapped his forearm; thrown for-
I backed away from the purple- ward, I stumbled against Narayan,
harnessed birds, flicking up my carried by my own momentum, and
cloak, beating at the flapping wings. we fell in a tangle of cloaks and
knives and thrashing legs and wings,
Our men, standing
_
in a closed cir-
asprawl in the road. The deadly
cle back to back, fought them off
talons raked my face and his, but
with knives and with the ends of
their cloaks thrown up, swatting
Narayan hung on grimly, holding
them off; and three times I heard the deadly beak away. I thrust with
the inhuman scream, three times I the knife again and again; thin
heard the lurching footsteps as a yellow blood spurted in great gushes,
man —
not human any more — splattering us both with burning
broke from us and ran blindly to venom; I snatched the wounded
bird from the Dreamer’s weakening
the distant ridge. I heard Narayan
shouting, whirled swiftly to face
hands twisted till I heard the lithe
him —
he ran to me, beating back neck snap in my fingers. The bird
the green-trapped bird that darted slumped, whatever had given it
in and out on swift agile wings.
life — gone!
The screeing of the falcons, the And high on the ridge the dwarfed
flapping of cloaks, the panting of figure of Idris threw up his hands —
men hard-pressed, gave the whole fell — collapsed across the pom-
scene a nightmare unrealness in mel of his saddle!
which the only real thing was Nara- Narayan’s breath went out limply
yan, fighting at my side. His gasp in a long sigh aswe untangled our
of inhuman effort made me whirl, twisted bodies. Our eyes met as we
by instinct, flinging up my cloak to mopped away the blood. We grin-
protect my back, my knife thrust ned spontaneously. I liked this man!
out to cover his throat. He raked Almost I wished I need not send him
a long gash across the down-turned back to tranced dream —
what a
head of the falcon, was rewarded waste!
with an unbirdlike scream of agony He said, quietly “There is a life
and the spasmodic open-and-shut between us now.”
of the razor talons. They raked I twisted my
face into a smile
out —
clawing. They furrowed a matching his. “That’s only one,”
slash in the Dreamer’s arm. The I said. “The rest —
” I turned, watch-
 FALCONS OF NARABEDLA 61

ing for a moment as the falcons snatched a hurried meal, cared for
tore at the ring of men. “Come on," our slashed cuts, and tried to plan
Narayan shouted, and we flung further. The others had not been
ourselves into the breach. I flung idle while we fought the falcons.
down my knife, snatched a sword All day Narayan’s vaunted army had
from someone and swung it in great been accumulating, I could hardly
arcs which seemed somehow right say assembling, in that great bowl
and natural to me. The men scatter- of land between Narabedla and the
ed before the sword like scared chick- Dreamer’s Keep. There were per-
ens. and I went mad with hate, haps four thousand men, armed
sweeping the sword in vicious semi- with clumsy powder weapons, with
circles against the lashing birds worn swords that looked as if they
the sword cut empty air, and I had been long buried, with pitch-
realized startlingly that both birds forks, scyths, even with rude clubs
lay cut to ribbons at my feet, their viciously knobbed. I had been put to
blood staining the dead leaves. Nara- it to conceal my contempt for this
yan’s eyes swam, through a red haze, ragtag and bobtail of an army. And
into my field of vision. They were Narayan proposed to storm Rain-
watching me, trouble and fright in bow City —
with this! I was flab-
their greyness. I forced myself to bergasted at the confidence these
sanity; dropped the sword atop the men had in their young leader. So
dead birds. I wiped my forehead. much the better, I thought, take
“That’s that," I said banally. him from them and they’ll scatter
We took toll of our losses, silently. to their rat-holes and crofts again!
Narayan, gasping with pain, rub- I felt my twisting in a bitter
lips
bed a spot of the yellow blood from smile. They trusted Adric, too. When
his face. “That stuff burns!” he I had shown myself to them, their
grimaced. I laughed tightly; he did- shouts had made the very trees
n’t have to tell me. We’d both have echo. Well —
again the ironic smile
badly festered burns to deal with came unbidden, that was just as well,
tomorrow. But now, there was too. When Narayan was re-prisoned,
work — I could use the power of their lost
“Look!” One of the men stared leader to tear down what he him-
and pointed upward, his face tense self had built. The thought was
with fright. Another great bird of exquisitely funny.
prey hung on poised pinions above “Whatare you laughing about,”
_

us, sapphire eyes intent; but as we Narayan asked. We were lounging

watched, it wheeled and swiftly on the steps of the house, watching
winged toward the Rainbow City. the men thronging around the camp.
Not, however, before I had caught His slumbrous grey eyes held deep
the azure shimmer of the bells and sparks of fire, and without waiting
harness. A thin, sweet tinkling came for myanswer he went on “Think
from the flying bells, like a mock- of The curse of the Dreamer’s
it!
ing echo of the spell-singer’s voice. magic lifted —
what would it mean
Gamine! to this land, Adric? It means life —
hope — for millions of people!”
CHAPTER NINE In a way, Narayan was right. I
could remember when I had shared
The Return of Adric that dream; when it had seemed
Back in the windowless house, we somehow more worthy than a dream
62 OTHER WORLDS
of personal power. Cynara came and you never told me!” she accused.
down the steps, bent and slipped her “Come this minute and let me take
softarms around my shoulder, and I care of it!” I almost laughed. Me —
drew her down. A volcano of hate Adric of the Crimson Tower being —
so great I must turn my face away ordered around by a little country
burned up in me. This man was girl! I snorted, but spoke pleasantly.
my equal — no, I admitted grudging- “I’ll live, I expect. Come and sit here
ly, my superior — and I hated him with us.” I pulled her down at my
for it.hated him because I knew
I side, but she leaned her head on
that in his dream of power no one her brother’s knee, an unquietness
must suffer. I hated him because, in her face. She was a pretty thing,
once, I had been weak enough to although the cause of all my trou-
share his feelings. bles. When I redeemed her from
I said abruptly “Your plans are Karamy’s slaves, for a whim, I had
good, Narayan. There’s just one not known she was Narayan’s sis-
thing wrong with them; they won’t ter — Zandru’s hells, but I had
work. Storming Rainbow City won’t made a ghastly slip! I had told
get you anywhere. You could kill Narayan there was no help for those
Karamy’s slaves by the thousands, touched by the birds, when I my-
or the millions, or the billions. But self had redeemed his own sister!
you couldn’t kill Karamy, and you’d Had he noticed? Would he attri-
only leave her free to enslave others. buteit to Karamy’s meddling with
You’ve got to strike at them when my mind? I smothered an exclama-
they’re in the Dreamer’s Keep. When and Cynara and Narayan look-
tion,
the Dreamers wake is the only mo- ed up anxiously. “You are hurt,
ment when they are vulnerable.” Adric!”
“But how can we get to the
I shook my head. I fancied Nara-
Dreamer’s Keep, Adric? They go at me with suspicion,
yan looking
guarded a hundred times over,
but I controlled myself. I reached
there.”
out to draw Cynara to me, but she
“What’s your army for?” I asked had drawn back, rising lithely to
him roughly, “To knock down hay- her feet, like a dove poised for flight;
cocks? Send your men to chase off only her hands, small darting hands
the guards. I told you I could handle like candle-flames, remained in
Rhys, if it came to that. He’ll get mine to pull me lightly to my feet.
us through to the Dreamer’s Keep, I tried hold her, but she pro-
to
if need be.” tested “Thereis so much to be
“What about Gamine?” Cynara done —” and I raised the slim hands
asked practically. Gamine was the to my lips before I let her go. The
least of my worries, but I did not gesture pleased her, I could see; so
Cynara that. I listened to
tell their much that I watched with contempt
comments and suggestions a little as she tripped away. Silly, simple
contemptuously. Didn’t they know girl! It would please her!
that when the Dreamers woke, the In the end it was only Narayan
Narabedlans were vulnerable to — and Cynara who rode with me to
the Dreamers alone? If I were Rainbow City. Kerrel had taken the
there with Narayan, there was no army, in sections, to set an am-
question about who would win. bush for Karamy’s guards; we rode
Cynara scowled at the rip of tal- in the opposite direction, by a twist-
ons across my face. “You’re hurt ing side road. Cynara rode beside
 FALCONS OF NARABEDLA 63

me, her dark eyes glowing. There black ballsinto the road. “We’ll
was dainty witchery in Cynara, and scatter them like that!”
a pretty trust that made me smile We were lucky; the drive was de-
and promise recklessly “We will serted. Ijf there were guards out for
win.’’ It pleased me to think that us at all, they had been posted
I could comfort Cynara for her Somewhere on the secret paths.
brother’s downfall.Once conditioned Straight toward the towers we rode,
to Rainbow City, she would forget under the westering red sun, and
her silly fancies and be a fair and just before dusk we checked our
lovely comrade. If she continued to horses and tethered them within a
please me, it would be amusing to mile of the Rainbow City, going
see this unformed country girl wield forward cautiously on foot.
the power that had belonged to I objected to this arrangement.
Karamy the Golden! “I’llget in alone,” I told them, "If
•

took us an hour of hard riding

It anything happens to me, we must-
to reach the lip of the great cup of n’t lose you as well!”
land, where we paused, looking down “I’ll stay,” said Narayan briefly.
the dark, almost-straight avenue of “If anything goes wrong, I’ll be
trees that led to the walls of Rain- here to help.” Silently I damned
bow City. I whistled tunelessly be- the man’s loyalty, but there was
tween my teeth. “Whatever we do, nothing I could say without spoiling
it will be wrong. We’d be taking the illusion I had worked so hard
quite a chance to ride up to the to create. I took his hand for a
main gate; at the same time, they’ll minute. “Thank you.” His voice was
toe expecting us to sneak in the equally abrupt. “Good luck, Adric.”
back way. They’d never expect us Cynara glanced at me briefly and
to come by the front avenue.” away again. I walked away from
“The deer walks safest at the them without looking back.
hunter’s door,” Narayan quoted It wsfe easy enough to find my
laughing. “But won’t they be ex- way into the labyrinthine towers. I
pecting us to use that kind of logic?” was not Lord of the Crimson Tow-
Cynara giggled, subsided at my er without knowing its secrets. I
frown. “At that rate,” I said, “We climbed the stairs swiftly, ransacked
could go on all night.” the place. To no avail. When she
Narayan reached overhead, took my memories, Karamy had also
snatching down a crackling sheaf been careful to take everything
of frost-berries; selected one nar- which could conceivably give me
row pod. He held it between finger any power over any of theDream-
and thumb. “Chance. Two seeds, we ers, even old Rhys. I went up more
go around. Three, we ride straight stairs stood at the very pin-
till I
up the main gate. Agreed?” I nodded, nacle of the tower, in Adric’s star-
and he crushed the dry husk. One, room into which I had been cata-
two —
three seeds rolled into my pulted —
was it less than three days
outstretched palm. ago? I stood at the high window,
“Fate,” Narayan said with a shrug. vaguely thinking of an older Adric,
“Ready, then?” an Adric who had watched the stars
I jounced the seeds in my palm. here, and not alone. I traced back
“One for Evarin, and one for Idris, through the years, diving down deep
and one for Karamy,” I said con- into the seas of sudden memory,
temptuously, and flung the little and brought up the knowledge of —
 ”

64 OTHER WORLDS
“Mike Kenscott!” said a voice be- he said in the raw voice that had
hind me, and I whirled to look into been mine for so long, “I my-
the face of a man I had never seen self couldhardly have done better.”
before. With a swift movement he snatched
He ha'd the primitive look of a something from a little recess in
man out of some forgotten past. I the wall —
pointed and fired —
had seen such men as I swam in point-blank. A lance of grey mist
the light of the Time Ellipse. He stabbed out at me —
was tall and clean-shaven; he look- To my amazement, only a plea-
ed athletic; his eyes were 'a ridi- sant heat warmed me. I had enough
culous color, dark brown. He had split-second reasoning reflex left
hair. He looked angry, if he could to fall in a slumped huddle to the
be said to have an expression. ground. I knew that was what he
But he spoke, clearly and with a expected. Adric fumbled in his pock-
deliberate calm. “Well, Mike Ken- ets, took out the little mirror I had
scott,” he said, in a language I had taken from Evarin, still wrapped in
never heard, but found myself un- its protective silk. I watched, breath-
derstanding .perfectly, “You have less,between narrowed eyelids. If
taken my place very nicely. I sup- he would only open it but instead —
pose I should thank you. You’ve he gave a shudder of disgust and
given me freedom, and Narayan’s flung it straight at me. With a
trust — the rest I can do for my- braced, agonizing effort I made my-
self!” He laughed. “In fact, you’re self lie perfectly still, without
so much me that I’m not much of flinching to avoid the blow. The
myself. But I can force you back mirror struck my forehead. I felt
into your own body — blood break to the surface and
The man must be mad! At any trickle wetly down my face. I heard
rate, he’d insulted the Lord Adric, Adric moving; heard receding steps
in his own Tower, and by Eandru’s and the risp of a closing door. He
eyelashes, he’d pay for it! I flung was gone. *
myself at him with a yell of rage.
moved. To this day I am not
My fingers dug into his throat — I
sure how I escaped death from A-
And I cried out in the stifling
dric’s weapon; but I think it was be-
clutch of lean fingers grabbing at
cause I was in my own body. After
me, biting at my neck, my shoul-
had touched Adric the first time,
ders — an agonizing wrench shud-
I
was immune to Earth electricity.
dered over my body — I
In this world, I think, I was immune
I faced — to their force. I wiped the blood
Adric! from my temple. Good Lord, there
was Narayan —
waiting with Cynara
CHAPTER TEN — I forgot that I had plotted against
Narayan, remembering only that I
When the Dreamers Wake had liked the man. I couldn’t let
Of course I understood, even while Adric get to them —
I fought, dizzy and reeling, to loose grabbed the mirror, crammed
I
the deathgrip I had put on my own itinto a pocket. Against the night-
body. I was —
back, I was Mike mare haste that drove me I ran to
Kenscott again —
Adric loosed his
- the closet, quickly, from the racks
hands of his own will, and stepped of weapons, chose a short ugly
away, breathing hard. “Thank you,” knife. I didn’t need swordsman’s
 ”

FALCONS OF NARABEDLA 65

training to use that. Thank God, I again in his own body, to destroy,
knew my way around, I could re- betray them! I hated Adric as I
member everything I’d done when hope I may never hate again.
I was Adric —
but wait! I could And yet, I cpuld not hate him
also “remember” what he had done wholly. To know all is to forgive
when he was me! That meant Adric much, and I had lived for three
could “remember” everything had I days and n;ghts in Adric’s body
done and planned with Narayan! and brain; knowing his strengths
This crazy business of Identity! Even and his weaknesses, his dreams and
now, could I be sure which of us torments, I could not condemn him
was who? utterly. A man may be forgiven
I dashed out of the room, ran much that he does for a woman’s
down the endless stairs three at a bewitchments, and few men could
time. At the entrance to Gamine’s be blamed for allowing Karamy to
blue tower, a dangerous whirring enslave them. Adric had done good,
of wings beat around me; I stagger- once, too; he had freed the Dream-
ed, almost fell backward. One of er, he had loved —
but he had
the murderous falcons the one — trapped me here, and for that, my
in blue —
darted, hanging poised in hate would make him pay —
the stair-well above me. I backed thoroughly!
against the wall, hoping the bird A shadow flitted across my sight;
would not attack. Gamine had not the robed Gamine barred my way,
flown falcon with the others. an air of cold amusement around
The strong wings flapped in the the poise of the hood and the blur-
closed space; I saw the dart of red invisible head. The Spell-singer
the vicious little beak. Blindly I laughed, mocking. “How like you
struck upward with the knife, this body, Adric? You are beaten
shielding my eyes with the other now, for sure! The stranger works
hand, and was rewarded with a with Narayan —
in your body,
splatter of thin burning blood and Adric!”
a scream of unbirdlike agony. I “I’m not Adric,” I shouted. “Adric’s
ducked beneath the thrashing wings, in hisown body again! He’s going
and ran on up the stairs; behind afterNarayan —
me the dying falcon flapped, thresh- “You expect me to believe that?”
ed and rolled down the stairs, a tan- Contempt stung me in Gamine’s
gle of wings, landing far below with clear, sexless voice.
a flailing thump. “Let me to Rhys,” I begged, “He’ll
I was not quite sure what I meant know I’m telling the truth — damn
to do. As I climbed, I thought swift- it, let me by!” Infuriated by the
ly.Gamine was no friend to Adric, mocking laughter, I thrust my arm
I knew that. Adric had known much to move Gamine forcibly from my
of Gamine and Rhys, and I drew path. Whatever Gamine was man, —
on that knowledge, but even Adric woman, imp or boy —
it was not hu-
had not known much of the Spell- man. Steel wires writhed between
singer cloaked in that blurred halo my hands., I struggled impotently
of invisibility. Had he ever seen in that bone-breaking grip; then
Gamine? with a swift impulse thrust my
What was Adric doing now? I hand quickly at the blurred invisi-
had served him well; won him Nara- bility where Gamine’s face should
yan’s trust, then turned him loose have been.
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66 OTHER WORLDS

Gamine screamed —
a thin cry must go with him to the Dreamer’s
of horror. Suddenly I knew where I Keep.”
had been those two weeks I lay in “No —
” Gamine whispered in pro-
the hospital. —
when Adric lay. in test, “Narayan —
cannot go! His —
my body, gone mad, in the hospital his —
talisman was destroyed! Only
in my place. An instinct I had grown outside the tower —
he cannot go
to trust warned me to pull away in!”
sharply from Gamine’s relaxed grip. “There is still —
mine. Give it to
I shouldered by and ran like hell. him.” At Gamine’s cry of dismay,
Halfway up the stairs I heard the Rhys voice was suddenly a whip-
Spell-singer’s feet running behind lash. “Give it to him, Gamine! I
me, and I quickened my stride ahd still have power to — compel that!
sprinted for the heavy door that What does it matter what happens
barred my way. I could feel Rhys to me? I am old; it is Narayan’s
presence behind the door. I threw turn; your turn.”
my weight against the door, twist- “I’ll — keep it for Narayan —
ing the handle frantically. Gamine faltered.
The door was locked. “No!” Rhys spoke sharply. “While
Behind me, I heard the padding you keep it —
and I am bound to
tread of Gamine. Hopelessly, I put you —there is still the bondage.
my back to the door, pulling my Give it to him!”
knife out again, and defied the Gamine sobbed harshly. From the
creature. silken veils she drew forth a small
Behind me the door suddenly jewelled thing; wrapped in insulat-
opened and I was flung backward, ing silk like Evarin’s mirror. She un-
sprawling, into the room within.
twisted the silk. It was a tiny sword;
“Well, Mike,” the old tired voice of not a dagger, but a perfectly model-
Rhys said, “Gamine is a fool, but led sword, a Toy. Evarin’s too; but
you are ho better. Yes, I knew you different. I recalled that Evarin
were coming, I knew Adric is going,
had called himself Toy-Maker. Ga-
I know where Narayan is and I mine clung to it, the robed shoulders
know what they plan to do. There is bent.
only one person who can stop all
“Mike must take it,” Rhys voice
this,Mike Kenscott. You.”
was gentler, “If you keep it, I am
Gaping stupidly, I picked myself stillbound to you. If Adric had it, it
up from the floor. The old Dreamer, would bind Narayan again. If Mike
his wrinkled face serene under the
keeps it —
near Narayan Nara- —
peaked hood, watched me placidly. yan is free. Free to go where he will,
“What — —
how ” I stammered. even in the Dreamer’s Keep. Give
“Gamine is a prescient. And I am it to him, Gamine.” Rhys sat down,
not a complete fool.” Rhys smiled wearily, as if the effort of speech had
wearily. The dreamy look of the tired him past bearing. I stood and
very old or the very young was on listened with a rebellious patience;
his face. “I cannot help you; but I I was eager to be gone. But my eyes
will make Gamine help.”. were on the little jewelled Toy in
The spell-singer came into the Gamine’s hands. It winked blue.
room, and I could almost see re- It shimmered. It pulsed with a cur-
sentment through that strange halo ious heartbeat, hypnotic. Rhys
of nothingless. "Gamine,” Rhys watched, too, his tired face intent
said, “It is time. You, and Narayan, and almost eager. “Gamine; if Adric
 ! ”

FALCONS OF NARABEDLA 67

had seen you, had remembered — flight of Together we fled

stairs.
"I want him to remember!” Ga- through the subterranean passages
mine’s low wail keened weirdly in of Rainbow City. Outside, in the
the silent room. Rhys sighed. pillared court, a man ran toward us.
“I am Narabedlan,” he said at His brown tunic was ripped and
last, “I could not destroy my own torn; his blond hair was rumpled.
people. Gamine is not bound nor— A smudge of blood reddened his
you, Mike Kenscott. I suppose I am forehead. I gasped “Narayan!”
a traitor; but when I was born Nara- The man whirled saw us — —
bedla was a fair city —
without so pulled his weapon from his belt.
many crimes on its head. Go and There was no time for explanations.
warn Narayan, Mike.” I threw myself at his knees in a
Gamine hovered near me, intent, no football coach would
flying tackle
jealous, the shrouded eyes fixed approve, butit did the trick. Nara-

on Rhys. The old man spoke on in yan went down under me, kicking.
a fading voice. “My poor city — Gamine was not one to stand aside
now, Gamine. Now. Give it to him in a fight; the robed figure rocketed
and let me Stand away from
rest. forward, flung itself on the prone
me, Mike; well away; I do not want Narayan, holding him motionless
the bondage again from you.” with that steely strength. I wrench-
I did not understand and stood ed the electrorod from Narayan’s
stupidly still. Gamine gave me an relaxed fingers. “Listen ” — I urged,
angry push. “Over there, you fool!” “I’m not one of Karamy’s men —
I recovered my balance,
reeled, Gamine, let him up!”
stood about six feet from the couch “He’s got Cynara — ” the Dreamer
where Rhys half-sat, half-lay. The muttered dizzily, “Cynara — who
old man laid one wrinkled hand on in Zandru’s hells are you?” He
the toy sword Gamine held. He picked himself up, gazing at me
took his hand away. with a stunned, blank look. “My
“Now.” he said quietly. name’s Kenscott,” I said briefly.
Gamine thrust the sword into my Suddenly, feeling it was the best
handi, and I felt a sudden stinging way to establish my good-faith, I
shock, like electric current, jolt my pulled out the Toy Gamine had put
whole body. I saw Gamine’s robed in my hand. “I’ve seen Rhys. He
body shiver with the same jolt. The sent — this.”
Toy in my hand was suddenly heavy; Narayan stared at the thing in my
heavy as if it were made of lead, hand, a double grief in his young
and the tiny winking in the hilt face. “Rhys
—
” he muttered, “I
was darkened. The peaked hood of felt he was —
gone!” With bent
Rhys drooped until it covered the head, he reached out to take the
face. small thing from me.
Gamine caught my arm roughly In his hand it came alive. The
and the steel of those narrow fingers small jewelled Toy seemed suddenly
bit to thebone as they hauled me al- brilliant, flaring, dazzling with a
most bodily from the room. I heard wild burst of faceted light, blue,
the echo of a sob in the Spell-sing- golden, crimson, flame-color. Ga-
er’swhispering croon. mine’s low sweet voice breathed “In
Rhys —Farewell the Dreamer’s hands!”
The next thing I knew we were “In my hands,” Narayan murmur-
racing side by side down flight after ed in a choked, almost a tranced
68 OTHER WORLDS

ecstasy. I broke in on their raptures arm to knock away one serpentine

rudely. “Here, Narayan! Is it Adric neck. My terrified horse plunged
who’s got Cynara?” and I rocked in the saddle near-
He gulped; swallowed hard; thrust ly falling. Another bird swooped
the Toy into a pocket and came down on Narayan — another —
back to himself, but that light was then there were swarms of them,
still in his eyes. He spoke with a gold and purple and green, crimson,
hard restraint. “Yes. Adric surprised blue, flame-color. The air was thick
me — knocked me out. When I came with their wings. Gamine screamed;
to, they were gone.’’ He blinked I saw Narayan beat the air with
once or twice; rubbed his eyes; then, his cloak. The veiled Spell-singer,
resolutely fumbled for the little crouched in the saddle, was lash-
Toy and extended it to me. “Here. ing at them with the whip from her
Keep this till we get to the Dream- saddle. The lash kept the falcons
er’s Keep.” at bay, but the razor talons caught
I took without comment. Ga-
it at the blue shroudings. Narayan,
mine slipped away; came back, whip in one hand, sword in the
leading horses. “I couldn’t find a other, beat round him in great arcs,
single guard,” the cold voice mur- and I heard one bird’s death-cry
mured, “I wonder where they are?” sending ringing echoes to the sky.
“Adric knows,” said Narayan, I flung round me with my knife —
tight-lipped. “The mirror —
” screamed Ga-
We mounted. mine, “Evarin’s mirror! Quick, they-
The wind was
rising. Above us the ’re coming by millions!”
moons swung slowly in an indigo They were coming in scores —
sky. Sparks flew from our hooves hundreds, whirling and screeing.
against the frosty stones. We were These were not the soul-falcons,
racing against time, and a night- belled and elaborately endowed with
mare panic had me while I gripped the intelligence and cunning of
the saddle of my racing horse. It their launcher. These were —ma-
took all my concentration to stick chines. Alive, yes, but not a life we
on the animal’s back, but I was ac- knew. Only the nightmare freak of
quiring balance and a feel for rid- a science gone mad could produce —
ing. The ill wind was blowing some or control —
these hateful things
good, I thought inanely. Narayan ’s that were the clean air,
filling
blonde hair was frosty pale in the groping for us with needle beaks
moonlight, and the eerie Gamine was and talons and wild wings. Only
a nightmare ghost, a phantom from Evarin —
nowhere. Far away we heard the I fumbled blindly for the mirror,
spatter of gunfire, the screams of clumsily stripping the silks. A nee-
dying men, the ring of swords and dle-talon raked at my wrist, and by
spears. Thinly Gamine chanted in sheerest instinct I struck upward,
the night. Narayan’s face looked turning the face of the mirror to-
haunted. “There are the guards — ward the bird.
attacking. —
” he jerked out over the The bird reeled in mid-air —
hoof -noises. flapped —
fell. A tingling shock rat-
The scream of falcons rang swiftly tled through my arm. I dropped the
above Gamine’s chant. The too- mirror —
leaped to catch it. The
familiar beat of wings slapped a- thing was a perfect conductor. It —
round my head, and I flung up my drained energy. I knew now why
 FALCONS OF NARABEDLA 69

Evarin had been so anxious to have veils.The noise of battle behind us

me —
or Adric —
look into its grew more distinct; I could make out
depths. It could have touched the the explosions and the distant flash-
energy waves of my brain through es of colored flame. I shuddered;
my eyes. The birds were brainless; even now that frightful army of fal-
all energy. I grabbed the mirror cons might be winging to join Adric
and held it upright; I caught a and Evarin. The rebels could kill
half-glimpse, from the tail of my some of them, but for every falcon
eye, of the weird lightnings coiled dead there would be twenty more
inside it, but even that glimpse coil- slaves for Narabedla! What could
ed my stomach in nervous knots. Narayan ’s men with their scythes
Shielding my face, I held it upward. and pitchforks and rude rusty guns
The birds flew toward it like a do against the incredible science of
moth to the candle. Shock after a Toymaker? Narayan’s strained
shock flowed along my arm. Three face was ghastly in the moonlight;
more of the horrible falcons fell I needed no telepathy to read his
limp, lifeless — drained. thoughts. Slaughter for his men —
A
strange exhilaration began to what for his sister? Our horses
buoy me up. The force from the seemed to lag,drag through a
to
birds was not electricity but a kin- mire of motionless, yet they were at
dred force, which my nerves drank the full gallop of their endurance.
greedily. I thrust the mirror out; The sound of fighting grew closer.
was rewarded again by the surge of Everything in me cried out that I
power, and again the birds, this was an utter fool, riding full tilt
time by dozens, flapped and fell. into a battle in which I had no
Then, as if whatever had loosed stake. Yet something else told me,
the army of falcons had realized coldly and with a grim truth, that
their uselessness, the whole remain- all I possessed was what I might
ing force of the birds wheeled and win today, for this was the only
fled, winging swiftly over the land world I would ever know; that I
to the distant donjon that rose would never see my own world again.
high and far into the black mid- Never! And Adric should rot in a
night. hell of his own choosing for that!
Recalled — to the Dreamer’s The sounds of fighting seemed
Keep! very close. Narayan pulled up his
horse so quickly that it nearly sent
CHAPTER ELEVEN Gamine plunging into his back. He
said in a low, concentrated voice
The Last Sacrifice “Adric isn’t at the battle! This way
The flow
of strength had renew- — quick!” He whirled the horse and
ed me; I felt that I could face dashed down a side road at right
whatever came. I thrust Evarin’s angles to the way we had been rid-
mirror into my pocket; nung a worn ing. If we had raced before, now our
to Narayan and we were riding a- horses seemed to fly. The battle
gain, Gamine racing behind us. The raged behind us; I heard dim
blue shroudings had been torn to screams, the neighing of wounded
ribbons by the snappings of falcon- horses, the muffled sound of earth
claws; I could see the pallid gleam flying upward, exploded in fire. But
of naked flesh through the torn it had a dreamy unreal quality,
 ”

70 OTHER WORLDS
like noisesthrough a nightmare. We as well as my own! Adric rode to
had left the forest and were riding the sacrifice —
and before him,
across a dark and hummocky plain. limp across his saddle, he bore Cy-
Moss padded our hoof-noises; now nara!
and then some small furry thing The rest of that nightmare ride
skittered across the track we were is a blank in my mind. The next
following and twice my horse shied thing I remember clearly is reining
at swooping birds and my heart up beneath the lee of the gaunt
stopped until I saw they were not pile of rocks-on-rocks that was the
the falcons of Evarin. Dreamer’s Keep. There was no sign
Stark and black against a tree- of Adric or Cynara, no sign of any
lesshorizon I could see the Deamer’s living person, nothing but the in-
Keep, between the small crescents candescent blue lightning that rayed
of the two lesser moons. The largest out now every four seconds or so;
one rode a golden orbit over my Narayan’s face was a white death-
head. I rode hunched in the saddle, mask, and Gamine’s breathing came
my eyes on the vast cairn only a few in short sobbing pants. I alone was
miles away. free from the effect. My body throb-
Suddenly a vast arch of lightning bed and tingled with the weird ener-
spanned the sky above the Dreamer’s gy set free in the night. We flung
keep. Blue lightning. I heard Nara- ourselves from our horses. Gamine
yan groan like a man in his death- tugged futilely at the torn veilings
agony. Twisting in my saddle, I to conceal her face, and for the first
saw brooding horror on his face — time the blurred invisibility wavered
mingled with pain —
and a terri- and I caught a glimpse of one blue
fied satisfaction. “The sacrifice — eye, blue as the sky lightnings
I still — feel it,” he breathed in la- that rose and flared and died.
bored gasps, “I still —
take from it The lee of the tower dwarfed us
— Mike! Mike — ” His voice held with its massive bulk. Gamine
unbearable torture, and the veins clutched my arm, the cruel fingers
in the fair face stood out, black digging bruisingly into my flesh.
and congested with effort, “If I “Listen!”
start to work for — them —
promise strained my could
— promise to shoot me — I ears.
hear was a low, not unpleasant hum-
All I

“Oh God —” I gasped. ming, like the singing drone of great

“Mike, promise! Gamine!” bees or high-tension wires; but the
Gamine spurred the horse to his sound struck both aliens with hor-
side; I heard the low voice, sweet, ror. Narayan opened his lips —
almost crooning. Again the vast I dug frantically in my other pock-
arch of blueness spanned the sky. et; brought out the Toy Rhys had
Narayan dug spurs savagely into given me. At sight of it Narayan’s
the side of his horse and raced haggard face relaxed a little. He
ahead of us. On the plain, limned caught it from me with quick hands.
starkly against the sky, a horseman “Free of Adric —
” he breathed
appeared. He rode low in the saddle, with that swift erasure of tension
his horse carrying a double burden, I had seen before. He drew a long,
but racing fleetly — to the Keep of moaning sigh. He closed his eyes
the Dreamers. I cursed —
I knew for a moment.
that lean crouched figure, knew it Somewhere above us a scream
 ” ”

FALCONS Ot NARABEDLA 71

rang out; a cry bestial in its mad ward, into the space between the
appeal. It broke the static immo- coffins, toward the nexus of the
bility that held us, and Narayan, blue light —
toward the Sacrifice-
sliding the Toy inside his shirt, stone of the Dreamers!
turned and began to ^un around The sight put us beyond caution.
the Tower, Gamine and I panting at We threw ourselves from the ledge
his heels. — and went down into a writhing,
We came around the corner be- sprawling mass of living flesh. A
neath an arching outcrop of stone- barked command from Idris, and
work. No one needed to give or- the slaves swarmed on us, drowning
ders; as one, we scrambled up on us in smothering bodies. I kicked
the ledge, crowding close together. and sprawled and thrashed and
I gripped my hand on the knife scratched and bit my way to the top
in my belt. It had a comforting of the heap and somehow for a
feel. I needed that. second, I rolled free. That instant
A framed archway let us look was enough. I was on my feet, the
down into the inside of the Keep. knife in my hand. Dragging bodies
Below us a voice cried out despair- clung at my heels; I kicked out
ingly —
unbelievingly. “Adric — savagely, felt my boot strike naked
we heard Cynara cry out, “Adric, flesh, felt and
heard the pulpy
no —
oh, no —
” Under our com- sound of a skull crushing under
bined weight the glass shattered; the impact of my heel. The sound
we hurled inward. We found our- rocked my stomach, but I was not
selves standing on a great shelf, in a position to be fastidious. My
about ten feet above the interior eyes were swimming in trickling
floor of the Keep, looking down blood. Gamine clawed and thrust
at a scene framed in stark horror. free and together we elbowed out
Golden Karamy, dwarfed Idris, of the press.
Evarin —
stood in a close circle Evarin sprang at me. I thrust
about a ring of coffins which gleam- blindly with the knife in my hand,
ed crystal —
glowed with scintillant ripped into his shoulder, missing the
radiance. In the hand of each of throat by inches. I caught the Toy
them was a tiny, jewelled, faceted from his hand as it fell free. A mo-
Toy, and in the coffins — ment of the clinging, tearing mel-
Gamine screamed. ee —then we three Gamine—
“The Dreamers — and Narayan and I were standing
Not till then did we see Adric back to back in the centre of the
ring of coffins. There was a long
and what he was doing. In the
center of the ring of coffins a dais howl of pain and terror from Evarin
rose upright, horribly altar-like, and and the four Narabedlans flung
themselves backward in a panic ter-
a line of the mindless slaves, nude,
vacant-eyed, defiled before the altar. ror. For within the coffins the
As each slave stepped forward there Dreamers were waking!
was a shuddering moan from the But Adric was no coward. He
others, the tiny swords rose and threw himself quickly forward —
fell and in a brilliant flame of blue caught at Cynara again, and with
light, the slave —
was not! And all the force in his lean arms he
Adric —
Cynara struggling between flung her — straight toward the
his hands —
was thrusting her for- nexus of blue light! Narayan and
 ”

72 OTHER WORLDS

Gamine stood frozen, bound by the and to old Rhys — and Narayan,
Toys in their hands against the within the circle of the Dreamers,
light, but I broke free I passed — reached out and flung the tattered
straight across the cone of blue veils from Gamine. A triumphant
lightning — chant rushed sweetly from the lips
Unharmed! The blasting energy of the Spell-singer as the veils
tingled pleasantly in my body as I came away and in the center of the
caught Cynara in mid-air and reeled mutants stood Gamine the Dreamer,
away from the force that would dwarfing them all by a pure ma-
have meant annihilation for her. jesty; the majesty of a Dreamer
Narayan broke away from the pa- who had never slept! A woman she
ralysis momentarily and caught Cy- was, slender and fair and very
nara’s staggering body from my beautiful and as like to Narayan as
arms. Then I the impact as
felt a twin sister, and I thought of Isis
Adric’s tall, heavy body crashed a- and the young Osiris as the blue
gainst me, felt the shock as my eyes blazed out and the lovely body
fist smashed against his jaw and arched upward in tall freedom from
heard him grunt as we locked into the shrouding veils. Blue lightning
a clinch that carried us nearer — swirled and faded and the Dreamer’s
and nearer to that center of blue tower was bathed in trembling irri-
energy. A moment we swayed there, descent rainbows. Karamy and Idris
at the very edge of the lightning — retreated step by step, slinking back
then Evarin’s tensed cat-body lit into the shadows. Only Adric stood
in the centre of my back — his ground.
Again the heat thrust needles The Rainbows died. The air was
through me. Adric was flung clear, void and empty of energy. The
but there was an arch of blue that Dreamers stood looking on the
spanned the vault, a wild scream crouching Karamy with her hidden
like the death-cry of a panther, face, on the bent, gnarled dwarf,
and the Toy-maker was — on Cynara, kneeling white and ra-
Gone! diant, on Adric, who stood with his
Within the coffins the blue lights lips parted, staring at Gamine like

wakened, as if the last flare of a man released from a spell. It was

energy had freed them. Quickly Gamine who spoke, her eyes rest-
Idris and Karamy ran forward, ing on Karamy.
quickly Adric leaped to join them, “She has done much evil.”
thrusting the Talisman Toys against The others clamored, but Gamine
the very lids of the coffins but — shook her head, long pale hair lift-
too late. The Toys in the hands of ing electrically around her face.
Narayan and Gamine spat glaring “No,” she disclaimed softly, “Why
blue fire, and step by step the should they die? They are only an
Narabedlans retreated; farther, far- old dwarf —
a silly fool who could
ther, farther — not make up his own mind —
The coffins were suddenly empty. her eyes dwelt disquietingly on Adric,
As if by magic, three old men and “And Karamy. They have no power,
a woman of surpassing beauty ma- now we are freed. Pity them — now
terialized about Narayan and Ga- we are freed.”
mine. In their faces I could distin- Adric, slowly, drew himself up-
guish a curious likeness to Narayan right. His slackly-parted lips set
 ”

FALCONS OF NARABEDLA 73

firmly and he looked at Narayan for the change that book place be-
with a dispassionate, stubborn shrug. fore our eyes. I was sick and retch-
“Kill me, if you like.” ing with horror before the meta-
“No, Gamine.” Narayan stepped morphosis was half complete, and
toward the man in crimson, “Adric,” turned away my eyes; Cynara was
he said in a strange, half-choked sobbing softly into her skirt; but
excitement,, “I want to see what Adric, frozen, could not look away.
you saw before —
to see what sent Gamine’s laugh — low and sweet
you away —
to see the thing that and doubly deadly for its sweet-
drove you mad. Gamine’s veils — ness — reached my ears. “Shall I
Gamine, let him see! Show him, lend you my veils —sister?” She
Gamine! Show him what he saw murmured, mocking, and again the
then!” horrible laugh. “NO? Go forth!”
Gamine came forward slowly to Her voice was a lashing whip, and
where Karamy knelt. “Stand up!" with a broken wail, the thing that
Slowly Karamy rose to her feet. had been Karamy threw up an arm
There was no hope in her eyes; no across the staring sockets and fled
mercy in Gamine’s. The two pairs away into the night. And we never
of eyes, cat-yellow and blue, fought saw it again.
for a moment; it was Karamy 's So that was the end of Karamy
that fell. The Dreamer woman smil- the Golden —
the end —
ed faintly. “My brothers and my A later I found that Adric
little
sisters,” she said at last, “Karamy is and were staring stupidly at one
I
beautiful, is she not?” another, puzzled, but without animo-
I suppose no woman on earth
sity. Cynara came and slipped an
has ever been or ever will be as arm round Adric, and I turned away,
beautiful as Karamy the Golden. embarrassed, for the man was sob-
She stood proudly, turning to Adric, bing like a child. I was amazed and
and I saw longing and love break sick with the enormity of all that I
forth in the man’s eyes. He gazed had seen and done. I stood and shiv-
and gazed, and Karamy laughed ered and shook with deadly chill. I
and held out her arms, and Adric, suppose it was reaction.
bemused, went toward her — “Steady!” Narayan’s steely hand
“Hold him,” commanded Nara- on my shoulder kept me once again
yan tersely. from making an ass of myself.
One of the Dreamers made a “You’ve done us a big favor,” he
curious sign with his left hand and said after a few minutes. ”1 wish I
Adric was arrested; stood gripped had some adequate way of thanking
in a vise of invisible force. you —not for myself —for millions
“See?” Gamine said in a ringing of people. Perhaps one day we’ll find
voice, “But now see Karamy shorn — a way of sending you back to your
of the Illusion her Dreamer threw! own world, but —
” his shoulders
See the form of Karamy that she moved negatively, “I can’t say —
made me wear! This!” She reached Adric’s lean non-human face peer-
out and touched Karamy with the ed over Narayan’s shoulder. He look-
little Talisman she held. ed subdued, and spoke with a curious
There was a gasp of horror from humility. He sounded sane. “There
many throats. Karamy — Karamy will be a way, some day. It will
the golden — there are no words take time to find it, now, but —
 ” ”

74 OTHER WORLDS

there will be.” helped me. One day Adric found out.
Spontaneously we grinned at each It —
changed Adric. He we freed —
other. I could not hate this man. I Narayan together. Then Karamy
knew him too well. I knew, suddenly, made me what I was what you —
that we would be friends. Which, in- saw. It hurt Adric hurt some-—
deed, is what happened. thing in him. I could have cured
Narayan looked from one to the him, in time, but Karamy had him
other of us, troubled; then Gamine’s bewitched. She stripped him of
intent face was at his elbow. power, of memory. I do not know,
“I’ll see to these men,” she said but perhaps some day, Adric may
quietly.“Narayan, they need you, remember that I was I was — —
and it’s your responsibility. They “Gamine! Gamine!” Adric’s voice
have to be told why they were cried from within, and the next
wakened, and how; there are slaves moment he rushed forth —- caught
to be freed, armies
' — the Dreamer woman in his arms,
Narayan glanced guiltily over his and his mouth met hers and she
shoulder at the other Dreamers who stood swaying in his arms, laughing
stood huddled together in a be- and crying together. Cynara, follow-
wildered little knot. “That’s so,” ing slowly, smiled with gentle satis-
he acknowledged gravely, and went faction. I said, stunned, “What —
to his people. Iwatched him, feel- Over Adric’s shoulder Gamine’s
ing as if my one friend here had blue eyes met mine in liquid satis-
deserted me; but it had to be that faction and she finished her inter-
way. Narayan was not our kind. rupted sentence. “I was Adric’s
He was the sort of man who could wife,” she said, gently.
remodel a world; but the look he Cynara’s voice was tenderly hu-
sent us over his shoulder told Adric morous as we left them together
and I that we should, if we liked, “Poor
in the glory of the rising sun.
have a share in that work. Gamine,” she said, “and poor Adric,
“Now Mike Kenscott,” said Ga- too. I was sorry for them both. But
mine, “I want to talk to you.” I wish these men would make up
We left Adric and Cynara in that their minds!”
place, and I cast a wistful glance I had an idea.
back at them. Cynara was lovely, made up his mind,” I
“Adric’s
and very human, and I suppose I said, turning my head a little to-
had hoped that in some way she ward the couple who stood, clasped,
would compensate for my enforced as if they could never let go. “I
stay in this world. But there was suppose —
” I came a little closer
Adric — to Cynara, who stood looking up at
Gamine andI stood on the steps me with wide, innocent eyes and
of the Keep, and her
Dreamer’s lips ingenuously parted, “I suppose

voice, and wistful, mourned

soft that gives me the right to make
in the grey dawn. “No one ever up my mind. Doesn’t it?”
knew I had the Dreamer powers — She smiled. “Does it?” But her
except old Rhys. Rhys and I were bright eyes had given me my answer,
bound together —
he knew, and and I never had to make up my
kept me close to him, hid me and mind again.

Sorry: No room for "Scientifilm Searchlight"; Letters/ Back next month,

 3L SERPENT RIVER
By Don Wilcox
The Code was rigid— no fraternization with the
peoples of other planets! Earth wanted no
"shotgun weddings" of the worlds of space!

Campbell and I brought Will Expeditions.) We were under

J^our ship down to a quiet the EGGWE Code. We were the first
landing on the summit of a expedition to this planet, but we
mile-wide naked rock, and I turned had come equipped with two impor-
to the telescope for a closer view tant pieces of advance information.
of the strange thing we had come The Keynes-Roy roving cameras
to see. (unmanned) had brought back to
It shone, eighteen or twenty miles the Earth choice items of fact a-
away, in the light of the late after- bout various parts of the universe.
noon sun. It was a long silvery ser- From these photos we knew (1)
pent-like something that crawled that man lived on this planet, a
slowly over the planet’s surface. humanoid closely resembling
the
There was no way of guessing humans of the Earth; and
(2) that
how large it was, at this distance. a vast cylindrical “rope” crawled
It might have been a rope rolled the surface of this land, continu-
into shape out of a mountain — or ously, endlessly.
a chain of mountains. It might have We had intentionally landed at
been a river of bluish-gray dough what we guessed would be a safe dis-
that had shaped itself into a great tance from the rope. If it were a
cable. Its diameter? If it had been living thing, like a serpent, we pre-
a hollow tube, cities could have flow- ferred not to disturb it. If it gave
ed through it upright without bend- off heat or poisonous gases or dead-
ing their skyscrapers. It was, to the ly vibrations, we meant to keep our
eye, an endless rope of cloud oozing distance. If, on the other hand, it
along the surface of the land. No, proved to be some sort of vegetable
not cloud, for it had the compact- — a vine of glacier proportions — or
ness of solid substance. a river of some silvery, creamy sub-
We could see it at several points stance — we would move in upon it
among the low'foothills. Even from gradually, gathering facts as we pro-
this distance we could guess that gressed. I could depend upon “Split”
it had been moving along its course to record all observable phenomena
for centuries. Moving like a sluggish with the accuracy of split-hairs.
snake. It followed a deep-worn path Split was working at the reports
between the nearer hills and the high like a drudge at this very moment.
jagged mountains on the horizon. I looked up from the telescope,
What was it? expecting him to be waiting his
“Split” Campbell and I had been turn eagerly. I misguessed. He didn’t
sent here to learn the answers. Our even glance up from his books. Rare
sponsor was the well known young Campbell! Always a man of
“EGGWE” (the Earth-Galaxy Good duty, never a man of impulse!

75
 ” ” ” ”

76 OTHER WORLDS

“Here Campbell, take a look at the splitting the hairs that cropped up
‘rope’.” in the middle of the part. That was
“Before I finish the reports, sir? when I had nicknamed him “Split”
If I recall our Code, Section Two,
—
—and the wide ears that stuck out
Order of Duties upon Landing: A from his stubble-cut blond hair had
“Forget the Code. Take a look at glowed with the pink of selfconsci-
the rope while the sun’s on it. .See . ousness. Plainly, he liked the kid-
it?” ding. But if I thought I could rescue
“Yes sir.” him from the weight of dignity and
“Can you see it’s moving? See the duty, I was mistaken.
clouds of dust coming up from
little Now he had turned the telescope
under its belly?” for a view far to the right. He paused.
“Yes sir. An excellent view, Cap- “What do you see?” I asked.
tain Linden.” “I cannot say definitely. The ex-
“What do you think of it, Split? act scientific classification of the
Ever see a sight like that before?” object I am observing would call for
“No, sir.” more detailed scrutiny —
“Well, what about it? Any com- “You’re seeing some sort of ob-
ments?” ject?”
Split answered me with an enthusi- “Yes sir.”
astic, “By gollies, sir!” Then, with “What sort of object?”
restraint, “It’s precisely what I ex- “A living creature, sir — upright,
pected from the photographs, sir. wearing clothes —
Any orders, sir?” “A man?”
“Relax, Split! That’s the order. “To all appearances, sir —
Relax!” “You bounder, give me that tele-

“Thanks —
thanks, Cap!” That scope!”
was his effort to sound informal, 2 .

though coming from him it was

strained. His training had given him
If you have explored the weird
an exaggerated notion of the im- life of many a planet, as I have,
portance of dignity and discipline. you can appreciate the deep sense
He was naturally so conscientious of excitement that comes over me
it was painful. And to top it all, his when, looking out at a new world
scientific habit of thought made for the first time, I see a man-like
him want to stop and weigh his animal.
words even when speaking of casual Walking upright!
things such as how much sugar he Wearing adornments in the na-
required in his coffee. ture of clothing!
Needless to say, I had kidded him I gazed, and my lungs filled with
unmercifully over these traits. A- the breath of wonderment. A man!
cross the millions of miles of space Across millions of miles of space —
that we had recently traveled (our a man, like the men of the Earth.
first voyage together) I had amused Six times before in my life of
myself at his expense. I had sworn exploration I had gazed at new
that he would find, in time, that realms within the approachable
he couldn’t even trim his finger- parts of our universe, but never be-
nails without calipers, or comb his fore had the living creatures borne
hair without actually physically such wonderful resemblance to the
 THE SERPENT RIVER 77

human life of our Earth. female,” I said.

A man! “Another hypothesis,” said Split.
He might have been creeping on all The late evening sunshine gave us
fours. a clear view of our two “friends.”
He might have been skulking like They were fully a mile away. Split
a lesser animal. was certain they had not seen our
He might have been entirely nak- ship, and to this conclusion I was
ed. in agreement. They had apparently
He was none of these — and at the come up out of the barren rock hill-
very first moment of viewing him side to view the sunset. I studied
I felt a kinship toward him. Oh, them through the telescope while
he was primitive in appearance — Split checked over equipment for a
but had my ancestors not been the hike.
same? Was this not a mirror of The man’s walk was unhurried.
my own race a million years or so He moved thoughtfully, one might
ago? I sensed that my own stream guess. His bare chest and legs show-
of life had somehow crossed with ed him to be statuesque in mold,
his in ages gone by. How? Who can cleanly muscled, fine of bone. His
ever know? By what faded charts skin was almost the color of the
of the movements through the sky cream-colored robe which flowed
will man ever be able to retrace from his back, whipping lightly in
relationships of forms of life among the breeze. He wore a (brilliant red
planets? sash about his middle, and this was
“Get ready to go out and meet matched by a red headdress that
him, Campbell,” I said. “He’s a came down over his shoulders as a
friend.” circular mantle.
Split Campbell gave me a look The girl stood several yards dis-
as if to say, Sir, you don’t even tant,watching him. This was some
know what sort of animal he is, sort ritual, no doubt. He was
of
actually, much less whether he’s not concerned with her, but with
friendly or murderous. the setting sun. Its rays were al-
“There are some things I can sense most horizontal, knifing through
on first sight, Campbell. Take my a break in the distant moun-
word for it, he’s a friend.” tain skyline. He went through
“I didn’t say anything, sir.” some routine motions, his moving
“Good. Don’t. Just get ready.” arms highlighted by the lemon-col-
“We’re going to go out ?” — ored light of evening.
“Yes,” I said. “Orders.” The girl approached him. Two
“And meet both of them?” Split other persons appeared from some-
was at the telescope. where back of her . . . Three . . .

“Both?” I took the instrument Four Five

. . . . . .

from him. Both! “Well!” “Where do they come from?”

“They seem to be coming out of Split had paused in the act of check-
the ground,” Split said. “I see no ing equipment to take his turn at
signs of habitation, but apparently the telescope. If he had not done so,
we’ve landed on top of an under- I might not have made a discovery.
ground city —
though I hasten to The landscape was moving.
add that this is only an hypothesis.” The long shadows that I had not
“One’s a male and the other’s a noticed through the telescope were a
78 OTHER WORLDS

prominent part of the picture I saw for protection. The caves they live
through the ship’s window when I in must be narrow, so they pad their
looked out across the scene with the elbows.”
naked eye. The shadows were mov- “Why don’t they pad their shoul-
ing. ders? They don’t have anything on
They were tree shadows. They were their shoulders.”
moving toward the clearing where “Are you complaining?”
the crowd gathered. And the reason We became fascinated in watch-
for their movement was that thei ing,from the seclusion of our ship.
trees themselves were moving. If we were to walk out, or make
“Notice anything?” I asked Split. any sounds, we might have inter-
"The crowd is growing. We’ve rupted their meeting. Here they were
certainly landed on top of a city.” in their native ritual of sunset, not
He gazed. “They’re coming from knowing that people from another
underground.” world watched. The tall leader must
Looking through the telescope, be making a speech. They sat around
obviously he didn’t catch the view him in little huddles. He moved his
of the moving trees. arms in calm, graceful gestures.
“Notice anything else unusual?” “They’d better break up!” Split
it
I persisted. said suddenly. “The jungles are mov-
“Yes. The females —
I’m speaking ing in on them.”
hypothetically —
but they must be “They’re spellbound,” I said.
females —
are all wearing puffy “They’re used to spongetrees. Didn’t
white fur ornaments around their you ever see moving trees?”
elbows. I wonder why?”
Split said sharply. “Those trees
“You haven’t noticed the trees?” are marching! They’re an army
“The females are quite attractive,” under cover. Look!”
said Split. I saw, then. The whole line of ad-
I forgot about the moving trees, vancing vegetation was camouflage
then, and took over the telescope. for a sneak attack. And all those
Mobile trees were not new to me. I natives sitting around in meeting
had seen similar vegetation on other were as innocent as a flock of sit-
planets —
“sponge trees” which — ting ducks. Split Campbell’s voice
possessed a sort of muscular quality. was edged with alarm. “Captain!
If these were similar, they were no Those worshippers —
how can we
doubt feeding along the surface of warn them? Oh-oh! Too late. Look!”
the slope below the rocky plateau. All at once the advancing sponge
The people in the clearing beyond trees were tossed back over the
paid no attention to them. heads of the savage band concealed
I studied the crowd of people. within. They were warriors fifty—
Only the leader wore the brilliant or more of them —
with painted
garb. The others were more scantily naked bodies. They dashed forward
clothed. All were handsome of build. in a wide semicircle, swinging crude
The lemon-tinted sunlight glanced weapons, bent on slaughter.
off the muscular shoulders of the
males and the soft curves of the fe- 3.
males.
“Those furry elbow ornaments on They were waving short clubs or
the females,” I said to Split, “they’re whips with stones tied to the ends.
 THE SERPENT RIVER 79

They charged up the slope,about came to life. It jerked and jumped

sixty yards, swinging their weird spasmodically down the slope. And
clubs with a threat of death. our siren kept right on singing.
Wild disorder suddenly struck the “Ready for that hike, Campbell?
audience. Campbell and I believed Give me my equipment coat.” I got
we were about to witness a massacre. into it. I looked back to the tele-
“Captain — Jim! You’re not going scope. The tall man of the party
to let this happen!” had behaved with exceptional calm-
Our sympathies had gone to the ness. He had turned to stare in our
first groups, the peaceable ones. I direction from the instant the siren
had the same impulse as Campbell sounded. He could no doubt make out
— to do something —
anything! Yet the lines of our silvery ship in the
here we sat in our ship, more than shadows. Slowly, deliberately, he
half a mile from our thirty-five or marched over the hilltop toward us.
forty “friends” in danger. Most of his party now scampered
Our friends were panicked. But back to the safety of their hiding
they didn’t take flight. They didn’t places in the ground. But a few —
duck for the holes in the rocky hill- the brave ones, perhaps, or the
top. Instead, they rallied and packed officials of his group —
came with
themselves around their tall leader. him.
They stood, a defiant wall. “He needs a stronger guard than
“Can we shoot a ray, Jim?” that,” Campbell grumbled.

I didn’t answer. Later I would Sixteen was still wailing. “Set it

recall that Split could drop his digni- for ten minutes and come on,” I

ty under excitement —
his “Captain
said. Together we descended from
Linden” and “sir.” Just now he the ship.
wanted any sort of splitsecond order. We took into our nostrils the tan-
We saw the naked warriors run out gy breathing fiercely, at first.
air,

in a wide circle. They spun and We slogged along over the rock sur-
weaved, they twirled their deadly face feeling our weight to be one-
clubs, they danced grotesquely. They
and-a-third times normal. We glanc-
were closing in. Closer and closer. ed down the slope apprehensively. We
It was all their party. didn’t want any footraces. The trees,

“Jim, can we shoot?” however, were still retreating. Our

“Hit number sixteen, Campbell.” sirenwould sing on for another eight
Split touched the number sixteen
minutes. And in case of further dan-
ger, we were equipped with the
signal.
The ship’s siren wailed out over standard pocket arsenal of special
the land. purpose capsule bombs.
You could tell when the sound Soon we came face to face with
struck them. The circle of savage the tall, stately old leader in the
ones suddenly fell apart. The danc- cream-and-red cloak.
ing broke into the wildest contor- Split and I stood together, close
tions you ever saw. As if they’d been enough to exchange comments a-
spanked by a wave of electricity. gainst the siren’s wail. Fine looking
The siren scream must have sounded people, we observed. Smooth faces.
like an animal cry from an unknown Like the features of Earth men.
world. The attackers ran for the These creatures could walk down
sponge trees. The rootless jungle any main street back home. With a
80 OTHER WORLDS
bit of makeup they would pass. ‘‘No- sions well enough to be sure.
tice, Captain, they have strange Gravgak was a guard, tall and
looking eyes.” “Very smooth.”. “It’s muscular, whose arms and legs were
because they have no eyebrows. . . painted with green and black dia-
no eye lashes.” “Very smooth — mond designs.
handsome —
attractive.” By motions and words we didn’t
Then the siren went off. understand, we inferred that we
The leader stood before me, ap- were invited to accompany the party
parently unafraid. He seemed to be back home, inside the hill, where we
waiting for me to explain my pre- would be safe. I nodded to Campbell,
sence. His group of twelve gathered “It’s our chance to be guests of
in close. Tomboldo.” Nothing could have
I had met such situations with pleased us more. For our big purpose
ease before. "EGGWE” explorers — to understand the Serpent River—
come equipped. I held out a gift to- would be forwarded greatly if we
ward the leader. It was a singing me- could learn, through the people,
dallion attached to a chain. It was what its meanings were. To analyze
discshaped, patterned after a large the river’s substance, estimate its

silver coin. It made music at the rate, its weight, its temperature, and
touch of a button. In clear, dainty to map course
its —
these facts
bell tones it rang out its one tune, were only a part of the information
“Trail of Stars.” we sought. The fuller story would
As it played I held it up for in- be to learn how the Inhabitants of
this planet regarded it: whether
spection. I placed it around my
own neck, then offered
they loved or shunned it, and what
it to the
leader. I thought he was smiling. legends they may have woven a-
He was not overwhelmed by the round it. All this knowledge would
“magic” of this gadget. He saw it for be useful when
future expeditions
what it was, a token of friendship. of men fromthe Earth followed us
There was a keenness about him that (through EGGWE) for an exten-
sion of peaceful trade relationships.
I liked. Yes. he was smiling. He bent
his head forward and allowed me Tomboldo depended upon the
to place the gift around his neck. guard Gravgak to make sure that
“Tomboldo,” he said, pointing to the way was safe. Gravgak was sup-
himself. posed to keep an eye on the line of
Split and I tried to imitate his floating trees that had taken flight
breathy accents as we repeated a- down the hillside. Danger still lurk-
loud, “Tomboldo.” ed there, we knew. And now the
We pointed to ourselves, in turn, siren that had frightened off the at-
and spoke our own names. And tack was silent. Our ship, locked a-
then, as the names of the others gainst invaders, could be forgotten.
were pronounced, we tried to mem- We were guests of Tomboldo.
orize each breathy sound that was Gravgak was our guard, but he
uttered. I was able remember
to didn’t work at it. He was too anxious
four or five of them. One was Grav- to hear all the talk. In the excite-
gak. ment of our meeting, everyone ignor-
Gravgak’s piercing eyes caused me ed the growing darkness, the lurk-
to notice him. Suspicious eyes? I ing dangers. Gravgak confronted us
did not know these people’s expres- with agitated jabbering:
 —
THE SERPENT RIVER 81

“Wollo - yeeta - vo - vandartch - party it must have appeared that

vandartch! Grr - see - o - see - o - he was bravely rushing to his death.
see - o!” Yet the gesture of the club he swung
“See o - o - see - - see - o,” one so wildly could have been intended
of the others echoed. as a warning! It could have meant,
It began to make sense. They Run back, you fools, or these strange
wanted us to repeat the siren noises. devils will throw fire at you.
The enemy had threatened their I threw fire. And so did my lieu-
lives. There could very well have tenant. He didn’t wait for orders,
been a wholesale slaughter. But as thank goodness. He knew it was
long as we could make the “see - o - their lives or ours. Zip, zip, zip —
see - o” we were all safe. BLANG-BLANG-BLANG! The bursts
Split and I exchanged glances. of fire at their feet ripped the rocks.
He touched his hand to the equip- The spray caught them and knocked
ment jacket, to remind me we were them back. Three or four warriors
armed with something more mir- in the fore ranks were torn up in
aculous than a yowling siren. the blasts. Others were flattened
“See - o - see - o - see - o!” Others and those who were able, ran.
of Tomboldo’s party echoed the de- They ran, not waiting for the
mand. They must have seen the cover of sponge-trees. Not bother-
sponge trees again moving toward ing to pick up their clubs.
our path. “See - o - see - o!” But the operation was not a com-
Our peaceful march turned into plete success. We had suffered a
a spasm of terror. The sponge trees serious casualty. The guard Gravgak.
came rushing up the slope, as if He had rushed out too far, and the
borne by a sudden gust of wind. first blast of fire and rock had
They bounced over our path, and knocked him down. Now Tomboldo
the war party spilled out of them. and others of the party hovered over
Shouting. A wild swinging of clubs. him.
And no cat-and-mouse tricks. No de- His eyes opened a little. I thought
liberate circling and closing in. An he was staring at me, drilling me
outright attack. Naked bodies gleam- with suspicion. I worked over him
ing in the semi-darkness. Arms
.

with medicines. The crowd around

swinging weapons, choosing the us stood back in an attitude of awe
nearest victims. The luminous rocks as Split and I applied ready band-
on the ends of the clubs flashed. ages, and held a stimulant to his
Shouting, screeching, hurling their nostrils that made him breath back
clubs. The whizzing fury filled the to consciousness.
air.
Suddenly he came to life. Lying
I hurled a capsule bomb. It struck
there on his back, with the club
at the base of a bouncing sponge
stillat his fingertips, he swung up
tree,and blew the thing to bits. on one elbow. The swift motion
The attackers ran back into a hud- caused a cry of joy from the crowd.
dle,screaming. Then they came for- I heard a little of it —
and then
ward, rushing defiantly. blacked out. For as the muscular
Our muscular guard, Gravgak was Gravgak moved, his fingers closed
too bold. He had picked up one of over the handle of the club. It whiz-
their clubs and he ran toward their zed upward with him —
apparent-
advance, and to all of Tomboldo’s ly all by accident. The stone that
 ” ”

82 OTHER WORLDS

dangled from the end of the club “Section Four?”

crashed into my head. “Section Four,” he repeated in a
I went into instant darkness. low voice, as if to pacify me and
Darkness, and a long, long silence. put me to sleep. “Conduct of EGGWE
agents toward native inhabitants:
4. A, No agent shall enter into any
diplomatic agreement that shall be
Vauna, the beautiful daughter of construed as binding —
Tomboldo, came into my life during I interrupteds “Clause D?”
the weeks that I lay unconscious. He picked it up. “D, no agent
I must have talked aloud much shall enter into a marriage contract
during those feverish hours of dark- with any native. H-m-m. You’re
. .

ness. not trying to warn me, are you,

"Campbell!” I would call out of a Captain Linden? Or are you warning
nightmare. “Campbell, we’re about yourself?”
to land. Is everything set? Check
At that moment my eyes opened
the instruments again, Campbell.”
a little. Swimming before my blur-
“S-s-sh!” The low hush of Split red vision was the face of Vauna.
Campbell’s voice would somehow I did remember her —
yes, she must
penetrate my dream. have haunted my dreams, for now
The voices about me
were soft. my eyes burned in an effort to de-
My dreams echoed the soft female fine her features more clearly. This
voices of this new, strange language. was indeed Vauna, who had been one
“Campbell, are you there? . . . of the party of twelve, and had
Have you forgotten the Code, Camp- walked beside her father in the face
bell?” of the attack. Deep within my sub-
“Quiet, Captain.” conscious the image of her beauti-
“Who is it that’s swabbing my ful face and figure had lingered. I
face? I can’t see.” murmured a single word of answer
“It’s Vauna. She’s smiling at you, to Campbell’s question. “Myself.”
Captain. Can’t you see her?” In the hours that followed, I came
“Is this the pretty one we saw to knowthe soft footsteps of Vauna.
through the telescope?” The caverns in which she and her
“One of them.” father and all these Benzendella
“And what of the other? There people lived were pleasantly warm
were two together. I remember — and fragrant. My misty impressions
“Omosla is here too. She’s Vauna’s of their life about me were like the
attendant. We’re all looking after first impressions of a child learning
you, Captain Linden. Did you know about the world into which he has
I performed an operation to relieve been born.
the pressure on your brain? You Sometimes I would hear Vauna
must get well, Captain.” The words and her attendant Omosla talking
of Campbell came through insistent- together. Often when Campbell
ly. would stop in this part of the cavern
After a silence that may have to inquire about me, Omosla would
lasted for hours or days, I said, drop in also. She and Campbell were
“Campbell, you haven’t forgot the learning to converse in simple words.
EGGWE Code?” And Vauna and I —
yes. If I could
“Of course not, Captain.” only avoid -blacking out.
 THE SERPENT RIVER 83

I wanted to see her. “I have learned to talk,” I said.

So often my eyes would refuse to “You have had a long sleep.”
oper A thousand nightmares. Space “I am well again. See, I can al-
shi;. shooting through meteor most walk.” But as I started to rise,
swar ms. Stars like eyes. Eyes like the wave of blackness warned me,
star... The eyes of Vauna, the daugh- and I restrained my ambition. “I
ter Tomboldo. The sensitive stroke will walk soon.”
of .vuna’s fingers, brushing my
. “We will have much to talk about.
foi ad, pressing my hand.
..
Your friend has pointed to the stars
I gained my health gradually. and told me a strange story of your
you quite awake?” Vauna coming. We have walked around
‘
|
woimm ask me in her musical Ben- the ship. He has told me how it rides
zene la words. “You speak better to- through the sky. I can hardly make
day Your friend Campbell has myself believe." Tomboldo’s eyes
brought you more recordings of our cast upward under the strong ridge
language, so you can learn to speak of forehead where the eyebrows
more .My father is eager to talk should have been. He was evidently
with you. But you must sleep more. trying to visualize the flight of a
You are still weak.” space ship. “We will have "much to
tell each other.”
It gave me a weird sensation to
“I hope “Campbell and
so,” I said.
awaken in the night, trying to ad-
my
The I came about the serpent
to learn
just myself to surroundings.
Benzendellas were sleep-singers. By
my own language
river.” I resorted to
for the last two words, not know-
night they murmured mysterious
ing the Benzendella equivalent. I
littlesongs through their sleep.
Strange harmonies whispered
made an eel-like motion with my
arm. But they didn’t understand.
through the caves.
And before I could explain, the foot-
And if I stirred restlessly, the foot-
steps of other Benzendellas ap-
steps of Vauna might come to me proached, and presently I looked a-
through the darkness. In her sleep-
round to see that quite an audience
ing garments she would come to me,
had gathered. The most prominent
faintly visible in the pink light that
figure of the new group was the big
filtered through from some corridor.
muscular guard of the black and
She would whisper melodious Ben- —
green diamond markings Gravgak.
zendella words and tell me to go
back to sleep, and I would drift
“You get well?” Gravgak said to

into the darkness of my endless

me. His eyes drilled me closely.

dreams. “I get well,” I said.

The day came when I awakened “The blow on the head,” he said,
to seeboth Vauna and her father “was not meant.”
standing before me. Stern, old Tom- I looked at him. Everyone was
boldo, with his chalk-smooth face looking at him, and I knew this was
and not a hint of an eyebrow or meant to be an occasion of apology.
eyelash, rapped his hand against But the light of fire in Vauna’s eyes
my ribs, shook the fiber bed lightly, told me that she did not believe. He
and smiled. From a pocket concealed saw her look, and his own eyes
in his flowing cape, he drew forth flashed darts of defiance. With an
the musical watch, touched the but- abrupt word to me, he wheeled and
ton, and played, “Trail of Stars.” started off. “Get well!”
84 OTHER WORLDS

The crowd of men and women through the sky in time to save us
made way for him. But in the arched from being destroyed. We must
doorway he turned. “Vauna. I am never forget this kindness. When we
ready to speak to you alone.” ascend the Kao-Wagwattl, the ever
She started. I reached and barely moving rope of life, these friends
touched her hand. She stopped. “I shall come with us. On the back
will talk with you later, Gravgak.” of the Kao-Wagwattl they shall ride
“Now!” he shouted. “Alone.” with us across the land.”
He stalked off. A moment later
Vauna, after exchanging a word with 5.
her father, excused herself from
the crowd and followed Gravgak. From that moment on, there was
From the way those in the room more buzzing around the caverns
looked, I knew this must be a dra- than a hive of bees. It was like a
matic moment. It was as if she had spaceport before the blastoff of a
acknowledged Gravgak as her mas- big interplanetary liner. The excite-
ter — or her lover. He had called ment was enough to cause a sick
for her. She had followed. man to have^a relapse —
or get well
But Ijer old father was still the in a hurry to join in on the commo-
master. He stepped toward the door. tion. I did my best to get well quick!
“Vauna! . . . Gravgak! . . . Come “Where is Campbell? Bring me
back.” my friend Campbell, please.”
always wonder what might
(I will
Omosla, the pretty attendant and
have happened if he hadn’t called
companion of Vauna, was always
them! Was my distrust of Gravgak
glad, I noticed, to be sent on an
justified? Had I become merely a
errand to Split Campbell, wherever
jealous lover —
or was I right in
he was.
my hunch that the tall muscular
guard was a potential traitor?)
From all reports he was reinforc-
ing the defenses at one point or an-
Vauna reappeared at onoe. I be-
other where these caverns led up
lieve she was glad that she had been
to the surface. They told me he was
called back.
a busy man. The attacks of the
Gravgak came sullenly. At the
savage ones had grown more vicious.
edge of the crowd in the arched
They had evidently learned that the
doorway he stood scowling. Benzendellas intended to move back
“While we are together,” old Tom- to other lands; so they had grown
boldo said quietly, looking around bold in their raids, attempting to
at the assemblage, “I must tell you steal not only the Benzendellas’
the decision of the council. Soon treasurers but also their women.
we will move back to the other part They had not been successful. My
of the world.” good lieutenant, navigator and
There were low murmurs of ap- scientist-, equipped with capsule ex-
proval through the chamber. plosives, had blown one group of
“We few days,” Tom-
will wait a them into a fountain of dismember-
boldo went on, “until our new friend ed arms and legs. I could just picture
— ” he pointed to me “is well — him hurling those miniature bombs
enough to travel. We would never at the split-second when they would
leave him here to the mercy of the create the most panic.
savage ones. He and his helper came The Benzendellas had been quick
 THE SERPENT RIVER 85

to recognize a good thing. They only talk. There.” She pressed my hand.
wished he were quadruplets or bet- “That is all you need to understand,
ter, to stand guard continuously at isn’t it? I am the one who does
many entrances. They brought him not understand you.”
their rare foods, and furnished him “How do you mean?”
with a comfortable couch; they of- “I do not see how you live. I
fered him gifts. In short, they loved do not hear how you talk.” She gave
him for his efficiency, and for him- a little laugh. “Only see how you
self. Especially (according to the walk when you think, but I do not
rumors that reached my. ears) Omo- know what you think.”
sla. “I think about you,” I said.
Pretty little Omosla, I fear, loved “That is very nice. I think about
him with a might have
love that you, too, Jim. Since the night you
overwhelmed a man. But I
lesser saved us from the savage ones, I
knew that Split Campbell would not have thought about you.”
be swerved. He wai devoted to duty, I stopped walking in circles and
dignity, and the Code. The Code for- looked at her. The soft light from
bade intermarriage with the natives. the luminous rock walls gave an
Why did I keep thinking of the ivory tint to her bare shoulders. She
Code? It shouldn’t have crossed my wore a dress of soft woven material,
thoughts so often. I hardly, dared designed with a diagonal line of
stop to ask myself what continually little hand-painted sponge trees.
brought it to mind. But I knew. The From the curve of her breasts to
flare of jealously I had felt when the lithe gracefulness of her thighs,
Gravgak had tried to call Vauna the close-fitting garment accentu-
away from the crowd. . . ated her beauty.
“You are feeling better, Captain?” She was backing away from me,
Vauna said to me as she watched smiling as if wondering if I would
me pace the floor. “You find that follow her. Her arms were bare ex-
you can walk, so you keep walking?” cept for the ornaments of fur a-
“I need to walk so I can think.” round her elboWs. These were evi-
“If you wish to think, you should dently an insignia of Benzendella
sit out on the hillside at the time of womanhood, for no woman of this
sunset. You understand my words?” realm was to be seen without them.
“I understand,” I smiled. Then, “Come,” Vauna said, beckoning me.
rashly, I added, “I understand your “Put your ear against the wall. What
words. I don’t always understand do you hear?”
you.” She pressed her head against the
“And you wish to understand me?” wall and I did the same. Finally I
“Yes.” made out the faint vibrations of
“Why?” some distant rumbling. I asked,
“What is it?”
I think of more answers
could
“Kao-Wagwattl.”
than my
vocabulary could handle.
I said simply, "When L go back to
“The round river that moves like

my own world I should be able to a serpent?”

say that I understand the people “It' is an endless rope,” she said.
of this world.” “It is life.”
“But you do understand us. You “Life?”
see how we live. You hear how we “It gathers water and food within
 ” ” ”

86 OTHER WORLDS
itself. It gives life to those who seek The self-discipline of an EGGWE
life. It gives life — agent is supposed to be his defense
She stopped, and her pretty poetic against any natives’ invitations, no
expression vanished. My hands matter how beautiful or charming
touched her hands, my fingers mov- the native. All I could say was, “You
ed gently along her wrists, her fore- don’t understand us, do you, Vauna?”
arms —
then as my touch neared “Don’t I?”
her fur-covered elbows, a look of “Your people I love. And you,
shock came into her eyes. "Jim!” Vauna. But our orders are to re-
"Yes,Vauna?” turn. I must not think of disobey-
“Iwas trying to tell you — ing my orders. And I assure you
"What?” Campbell is one who would never
For a moment she only looked at disobey.”
me, searching my eyes. “We don’t “The big silver shell will take you
understand each other, do we?” away from us?”
Finally I said, “Then why don’t “Yes.”
we ask each other questions?” “You will remember me?”
“Yes. . .Yes, ask me questions.” “Yes, always.”
“All right.” I had an impulse to “Thank you, Jim.” She was weep-
start pacing again. I walked about ing. I started to take her in my arms,
for a moment. “Tell me, Vauna. but thought better of it. She dried
When your friend Gravgak demand- her eyes. “I will remember you too.
ed that you come and talk with him When I see Campbell and Omosla,
alone, what would have happened I will have a dream of. this hour,
if your father hadn’t called you and how we didn’t understand.”
back?” I was quick to make a correction.
She smiled faintly. “I will tell “You’ll not be seeing Campbell. I’ll
you a secret, Jim. I had already have to take him back with me, you
made my father promise to call me know.”
back. I whispered to him, ‘Call me “No, he will be here. It is our
”
back.’ rule that he should stay.”
“Why?” “Why?”
She gave an evasive little laugh. “Because he has become the mate
of our girl, Omosla.”
“You understand enough already.
I looked at her, not believing I
Now it is my question. Tell me,
Captain Jim, why do you keep say- had heard her words correctly. A
ing that you are going back to an- fever swept my brain. In my own
language I said harshly, “It’s a lie!
other world?”
Campbell would never violate —
“Because I am. That’s my duty.”
“I do not understand your words,”
“When you ride with us on the Vauna said softly.
Kao-Wagwattl you will come with Then in my broken Benzendella
us to another part of this world. It accents I asserted, calmly but de-
is more beautiful than here. We are
cisively, what you
“I don’t believe
only a few. Our race lives in the Campbell
say. I don’t believe that
other part. My father came here has become the mate of Omosla.”
only to study, but soon tl^e Kao- “You will believe,” Vauna said,
Wagwattl will take us all back. And “when Omosla’s baby is born.”
you and your friend Campbell will
go with us and belong to us.” 6 .
 ”

THE SERPENT RIVER 87

I had already sent for Campbell. the furnishings. I walked

cavern
Mentally I chastized myself for hav- steadily. Iwas getting used to the
ing sent Omosla. For if what I had planet’s stronger gravity. I was
been told was true, his life had be- learning to like the sandals they
come complicated enough already. had given me to wear, cushioned
(I must admit that for the moment with shreds of sponge-tree vegeta-
I had something less than proper tion.
consideration for her.) Tonight as always I walked to the
Omosla didn’t return from the right from the arch, through one of
errand Campbell. Maybe
for the Tomboldo’s rooms, and on past the
news of my concern for him had storage rooms. The way opened into
frightened her away. One of her a long amber-lighted tunnel. The
friends told me that Campbell was city branched off in little tunneled
out on the surface somewhere; that avenues from this passageway.
he couldn’t be located just now. Would Campbell be found on guard
When he returned they would send tonight — this way — or this wa!y
him to me. — or —
I then sought the counsel of Tom- I heard light footsteps, sounds of
boldo.
two persons somewhere in the dis-
“It can’t be true, this story about tance. I moved back toward Tom-
Campbell,” I said. “There’s been boldo’s part of the cave to wait until
some mistake.” the ways had cleared.
Tomboldo’s answer was soft spok- Two men were coming through
en. “Much has happened. You have the corridor, conversing in low whis-
been ill for many
weeks. You must pers.
take our word. Do you find the news
I moved back into the shadows,
not to your liking? Omosla is a de-
scarcely breathing.
voted girl. And if our hero Campbell
The glow of amber light from the
became her husband, all of us would
corridor revealed them, silhouetted.
be proud.”
The taller man was driving the
There was no use talking of the smaller one ahead of him, threaten-
EGGWE Code to him, that was plain. ing him with a short-bladed knife.
All I could say at the moment was, They slowed their steps. Their low
“I’ll talk with Campbell.”
whispers were audible.
For the next few nights, after the “If you breathe a word I’ll rip
whole cavern city seemed to be a- you.” The agitated words of the tall
sleep, I would walk forth a little guard, Gravgak. The light revealed
distance. This was more than pacing. the lines of green-and-black dia-
It was a test of my Strength and my monds painted on his thighs.
wits, and most of all my confidence The smaller man, also a guard,
that I would not black out. It was muttered, “Have I ever told any-
proof to myself that I was a well thing?”
man again. It was a willful act of “You understand, then,” said
striking out on my own purposes. I Gravgak. “If anything happens,
would find Campbell. you’ll swear there was an intruder —
Each night I ventured a little one of the savages.”
farther. The artificial lights burned “I’ll swear it. I’ll say that I
—
low. All was quiet. The luminous “Say that*he knocked you down
rock walls stared out from among and forced his way in. Like this!”
 ”

88 OTHER WORLDS

Gravgak struck him with his fist. “Who?”

The guard tumbled in a heap against “The savages. And if they succeed,

the cavern wall. He lay there, eyes I am your successor. Tell your
closed. Gravgak tiptoed past my hid- daughter it’s so. Tell her that if a
ing place. His eyes glinted with pur- knife blade descends from some dark
pose. He paused at Tomboldo’s door, corner - - look out! Someone behind
weighed the knife in his hand, then you!”
sheathed it. He went on toward It was a ruse to cause old .Tom-
Vauna’s room. boldo to whirl about and turn his
I skipped to one side of the storage back to Gravgak. Tomboldo didn’t
room where I had seen my equip- whirl. But he musf have seen what
ment coat hanging. Without it I I saw, glittering in the dim light
could have been no match for this
-
— the knife in Gravgak’s hand. It
man. My fingers caught it off the flashed up - -
wall, I got into it as I hurried back. I flung a capsule bomb at the arch.
Automatically my hands checked the Fire flashed, and the voices were
contents, everything in place — swallowed up in the concussion.
Gravgak was conversing with
Vauna through the partly opened 7 .

door. “I told you I would come.”

“You have no right. I told you — The swirl yellow dust sifted
of
There was strength, not fear, in through the cavern passages. Cough-
Vauna’s low voice. ing and puffing hard, I fought my
“Your father means for me to way into the heap - - in time to
win you, if necessary by force.” catch sight of Gravgak staggering
“You lie. Go or I’ll sound the off toward an exit tunnel.
alarm.”
The three of us stood together.
“You are in love with that strang-
A strange trio. Two Benzendellas,
er.” His voice trembled with rage.
one Earth man. Bound together in
“See, you don’t answer. If you want
an allegiance that all the space in
him to live, get rid of him. Send him the universe could never divide.
back in his silver shell.”
Vauna was weeping softly, holding
“You threaten my father’s guest?” her arms tight about herself, her
“The great Tomboldo will not live hands cupped over the fur wrap-
long. I have heard the savages plan pings of her elbows.
to come in some night soon and
She said she could not under-
murder him.”
stand Gravgak’s behavior. Once he
At that instant old Tomboldo’s had had a chance to become the
voice sounded from the next room.
leader. Was it all because he was
“Who’s there, Vauna?” insane with jealousy - - because she
“Gravgak!” It was Gravgak him- loved me?
self who answered. “I came to pro-
Her father thought it \yas more
tect you, Tomboldo. There’s dan- than this. He had evidently read
ger - -”
signs of disloyalty in Gravgak, even
Tomboldo’s voice thundered with before my coming. Too many plans
anger at this unaccountable intru- had filtered out to the savage ene-
sion. “What do you mean?” mies. For a long time Gravgak had
“They mean to kill you, and if been impatient for a chance to suc-
they do - ceed Tomboldo; my coming had
 THE SERPENT RIVER 89

thwarted the original plan - - the of one of the tunnels - - my long

murderous attack on the sunset awaited visit - - I did not spend all
meeting. Yes, Gravgak had been my time complimenting him for his
twisting the sponge-tree bands into fine achievements.
his own schemes even then. “You’re going to be ready to make
The fine boldness showed in Tom- the trip with the tribe, I presume?”
boldo’s eyes as he talked. People I asked, when we got around to the
had gathered, and they saw clearly plans for the migration.
the truth of his charges. “And leave the ship here? I shall
But now there were delays in get- follow orders, Captain, but I should
ting ready to go to the better land prefer to stay with the ship, and to
on another side of this planet. Part proceed with the remainder of the
of the delay was caution. Gravgak scientific assignments.”
would probably lie in waiting for He handed hiis over
field glasses
the Benzendella migration to the to one of the guards, and led
relief
serpent river. would plan an at- me to a bench quar-
in his primitive
tack.Some waiting, some scouting ters. A slice of sunlight knifed
and much preparation would be a through from the out-of-doors, the
matter of wisdom. Meanwhile, if first I had seen for a long time.
Gravgak could be found, let him be “A little sunlight’s not a bad
killed on sight. thing,” I said casually. “I’ve been
Several weeks passed. Secret pre- needing a little light.”
parations for the twenty mile mi- He looked up at me as if he knew
gration were completed. I was pleas- what was coming. “If you’ve been
er to hear that Campbell had had a hearing a rumor, don’t believe it.”
share in these plans. He had made “You’ve heard it too?”
several night hikes back to the ship, “They say I’m supposed to become
and had kept watch through the the husband of Omosla.”
telescope by day, and made valuable “All I want is your word, Lieuten-
observations by means of infra-red ant Campbell,” I said.
photography by night. He knew “My word. Captain.” Split said
where the nests of the savage bands dryly. “You know I wouldn't break
were located. Moreover, I learned the Code.”
that he and a few of Tomboldo’s “I believe you Okay, we’re in
. . .

choice scouts, under cover of dark- a spot. The fact is, the girl’s going
ness, crossed through the sponge- to have a baby. When she does, she’ll
tree area to examine the Serpent declare you her mate. And the tribe
River at close range and determine will be proud. Have you thought
upon a suitable place for getting the this through?”
Benzendella tribe aboard. “I’ve tried to.”
For these observations, and for an I began to pace. “You know we
abundance of scientific data which can’t afford to offend the tribe. If
he picked up about the Serpent you bluntly deny that you’ve had
River itself, I was deeply grateful. anything to do with the girl, they’ll
If this expedition succeeded in its be insulted. They’re ready to believe
purposes, the success would be to his her, not you.”
credit, not mine. “How soon will the child be born?”
Nevertheless, when I was at last “Within a few days.”
conducted to his quarters at the end “How long have we been here?”
90 other worlds
“Long enough.” the world that you’re tops. But we’ve
“Why doesn’t her true mate speak stillgot a problem with this tribe
up, whoever he is?” - - and this girl.”
I said, "That’s one of the strange “I’m not asking for compliments,”
circumstances. I haven’t heard them Split said. “For the record I’m tell-
mention any other man but you. You ing you what did happen, and what
see, Split, you’re the hero of the didn’t. And here’s what did.” Now
hour.- You’re the one they want.” itwas his turn to pace twice around
“I hope you’re not suggesting that the bench. “How do I begin?”
I marry this girl.”
“With Omosla.”
“I haven’t suggested it, have I?
“Omosla comes to me often. She
But ask this: Do you like, the
I will
brings me food and drink. She
girl? .Love her??
. . Enough . . .
hangs around a pet. She doesn’t
like
to marry her?”
“Under more favorable conditions
touch me —
anymore. I put a stop
to that soon after the first time she
- -yes. I’ve
never loved anybody be-
fore. But Omosla —
from the first
put her arms around me. Yes, she
did that. I was busy watching the
time I saw her, that evening, in the
sponge-trees move down the valley.
sunset - -”
She was nearby, murmuring words,
But you
“All right, Split. still tell most of which I could only half un-
me you haven’t made love to her?” derstand. I didn’t stop her when she
“Absolutely, no. You may not slipped her arms around me - - not
know it, Jim, but Iwas with you al- for quite awhile. I remember plenty
most constantly for days and nights well the way those pins in her el-
after your knockout. You came bow furs scratched my arms. They
through the operation - - the risk- stuck in like thorns. Look, you can
iest thing I ever tried in my life. still see the marks.” He rolled up his
When you began to pull out of it, sleeves to show me the slight scars
I could have gladly taken you back on his upper arms, just above the el-
to the ship and blasted off for home. bows. “I figured either she didn’t
But they were giving you care - - know those pins were sticking me,
Vauna and Omosla - - and damned or else it was some sort of tricky
intelligent care, according to my or- test that girls use on men to test
ders. By that time the savages were their metal. So I took it, and didn’t
knocking our doors again, and I wince. Sure, I was enjoying letting
wents onto the defense job with my her hug me. But after that one time
pockets full of scare bombs, and the I always kept my distance. This all
other kind too. From then on, I happened when we first came. You’d
couldn’t have held to tighter disci- think she’d have forgotten. Especial-
pline if I’d been in a planetary war, ly if she had a real husband some-
I swear it.” where on the scene.”
I beat my fist lightly on Split’s I groaned. "Every tribe has strange
shoulder. The fellow was great, no customs. When the baby comes,
doubt about it, and I felt like a fool, that’s when they’ll insist on a hus-
asking him questions about matters band.”
outside the bounds of duty. “You’re “I wonder who it really is.”
okay, Split.You could violate a hun- “Unfortunately we can’t prove
dred codes, as far as I’m concerned, anything by giving the baby a blood
and I’d swear before any court in test. These primitives wouldn’t un-
 THE SERPENT RIVER 91

derstand.” Campbell did hot come. That was

“Proofs are out,” Campbell said. according to plan. He kept in touch
“However, we still have the eye- with me by radio through the final
lash test,” I suggested. hours of the twenty-mile crossing.
“You mean - “ ... Do you read me, Captain? I’ve
“I mean that you and I are the drawn them to the north with fire
only two human animals on this bombs from the ship’s guns . . .

planet with eyebrows and eyelashes. They’ve never guessed your course.”
When Omosla’s baby arrives without “No signs of Gravgak? Or Lee-
a trace of an eyelash, that might ger?”
go a long way toward convinc- “Not a sign. The city’s empty.”
ing - -” “Keep on the radio, Campbell.”
“You’ll help me fight it, then?” “Right, Captain. By the way, how
“If you’re sure you don’t want to is Omoslo?”
change your mind, throw out the “Expecting. I’ll let you know. She
Code, and claim the girl.” talks about the bravest man on
still

A look of disdain was all the an- the planet, someone named Camp-
swer Campbell gave me, at first. bell.”

Finally he said, “You’d had ample “H-m-m. You’ll sort of look after
reasons for nicknaming me Split, her, won’t you?”
Captain. But so far, I’ve given you It was two hours before dawn
no grounds for applying the term to when the last of the tribe (Leeger
my personality. I prefer to remain a excepted) gathered at the mountain-
member of EGGWE, in good stand- side station to board Kao-Wagwattl.
ing, and to return to Earth with a We waited for daylight. Strange
clear record. Let Omosla name the smells filled our nostrils. Smells of
true father, whoever he is.” wood fires, sparked to life by fric-
tion under the pressures of the
8 . crawling monster. Smells of rocks
being ground to powder. Smells of
The whole Benzendella tribe made the saccharine-sweet breathing from
its way across to the Kao-Wagwattl the pores of the thing itself, the
#
with only one casualty reported. giant Kao-Wagwattl.
Leeger, the short, slight guard who The faint gray of dawn gradually
had once been brutally knocked out changed to pink. In the growing
by Gravgak, was reported missing. light we could make out the contour
Everyone else came through with- of the vast misty creeping form.
out a scratch. It was a triumph for Its rounded sides moved along only
oldTomboldo. His superhuman cour- yards from where we stood. As the
age had carried the day. Children light of morning came on we could
were delighted over the adventure. distinguish the immensebox-
Old folks were happy over achieving shaped scales that covered its sides.
what they had feared would be an Clouds of sponge-trees rose and fell
impossible undertaking. They could around it. Unrooted vegetation
believe, now, that they would live would sift downward, to be bumped
all through to the end of the jour- into the air again, or to be rolled
ney - - for Kao-Wagwattl, the ser- under. Small fires were continually
pent river, was a legendary giver being ignited by friction, and often
of life. smothered before they were well
92 OTHER WORLDS
started. Sometimes the burning movement was sluggish. Younger
would creep up around the curved members could leap across from an
sides,only to be snuffed out by the overhanging platform. Once safely
surface-breathing of the massive in the folds of the surface, they
thing’. could climb the rounded wall at
I was relieved to note that the their leisure.
curved top - - the “spine”, so to Three or four hours were required
speak —was so gradually rounded for the entire tribe to get aboard.
that there could be no danger of This meant that a long line was
anyone’s falling off. Its immensity formed. Over a span of many miles
had to be seen to be appreciated. this headless, tailless serpent be-
As to its length, I took the word came inhabited with tiny human
of Tomboldo and others. It was end- fleas, figuratively speaking.
less. It wound around the whole Amongthe stragglers who boarded
planet like a fifty-thousand mile last were a few older persons who
serpent that had swallowed its own had to be coaxed and pampered be-
tail. An unbroken rope of life, for- fore they would get into the swing-
ever crawling. ing basket.
A gigantic creature? A gargantuan Then, too, there was Omosla, look-
vine? A living thing! I should not ing very pretty and thoroughly
say that it was more animal than frightened. She caused a slight de-
plant. When I asked Tomboldo’s lay at the very last by deciding it
counsellors. Was it animal or vege- was time for her to have her baby.
table, their answer was, Yes. Yes,
what? Yes, it was animal or vege- 9 .

table. They stressed the OR. Must

it be one and not the other? Evi- Finally we were all aboard, and
dently the Kao-Wagwattl was not the mighty Kao-Wagwattl, unaffec-
to be compared, not to be classified, ted by this addition of a few specks
but to be accepted - - and utilized. of human dust, moved on at its dog-
For this wandering tribe it was a ged pace through the mountain val-
means of escape from enemies, and leys.
a mode of travel. With the coming No lives had been lost. No one
of daylight, they went to work. had been seriously injured. Tombol-
Crude cranes. Swinging baskets. do was the heroic leader. I went for-
Hoists. One group after another was ward over the lumpy slabs of scales,
tossed up into the rubbery purplish- to find him and congratulate him.
gray scales that covered the Kao- He said, “The glad feelings are to
Wagwattl’s spine. be shared,” and he spoke with high
No one cried out. The landing was praise of my own help and that of
soft. And harmless. The speed of my friend Campbell. “But we are
the crawl was not great. It must not yet out of danger. Pass the
have averaged not more than ten word.”
or fifteen miles an hour. But there Pass the word. Keep down. Out of
were variations, to be taken advan- sight.For several days we would be
tage of. The outsides of a curve crawling through the lands of sav-
moved swiftly. Foresighted Tombol- ages.
do had selected the inside of a Vauna found me. She had made
curve for our mounting, where the sure that Omosla and the baby
 THE SERPENT RIVER 93

would have the best of care, and ... A little girl! Very beautiful. Al-
now she meant to look after me. ready she looks like you. She has
“My dear one,” she called me. precious little lines of hair on her
“Here, my d.ear one. I have your eyelids, and above her eyes, just
valuable coat. Come out of sight. like yours.”
The enemy must not see you'.” The damage was done! There was
glanced up the long curved spine
I no point in my lying to Campbell
of Kao, moving steadily through the to spare his feelings. Her words were
sunshine. Little groups of Benzen- the simple innocent truth. She was
dellas could be seen ahead, as far as happy and proud to tell the won-
the eye could reach. The young derful news. Her words implied that
children of the party had never had Campbell would of course come and
such a trip before, and the older join us when his work was done, so
ones found it a strenuous game to he could be Omosla’s husband, as all
keep them down out of sight. Fol- the Benzendellas expected.
lowing Tomboldo’s order, they rapid- About all I could say to Campbell
ly ducked down into hiding. The wa s, “What she says is true, Split.
great rubber-like scales resembled It’s beautiful baby. Any father
a
up-ended boxes, set in criss-cross should be proud. I have nothing to
rows. The deep flexible crevices thus add.”
formed were ideal for hiding.
For hours afterward I could think
I needed my radio. I must talk
of nothing else.. I sat hidden among
with Campbell. Vauna had taken my
the deep soft scales, listening. Now
coat.
and then the gentle movement
She called to me. “Come, my dear
would cause the crevices around me
one.” She slipped down into a crev-
to gape open, wide enough to re-
ice a little toone side of the crest.
veal a strip of sky. I wondered if
“Come, I hear the voice of your
sometime I might catch sight of a
friend Campbell in the box.”
space ship bolting off into the blue.
“I’m coming. Speak to him, Vau- The only sounds I heard were the
na. Tell him to wait.” faint muffled rumblings of the Kao-
“Shall I tell him the news?” Wagwattl moving along, like gentle
I The vertical sur-
didn’t answer. thunder echoing up from some-
faces of the scales folded together, where down in the earth. It lulled
parted, folded again, with the mo- me into relaxation, yet I could not
tions of the great creature, and for dispel the mental image of Camp-
a moment Vauna. But
I lost sight of bell sitting there in the ship, alone,
I could hear her voice as I fought brooding over the news. And temp-
my way down to her hiding place. ted, no doubt, to touch the controls
She was talking through the radio and leave this planet behind him.
with Campbell. Later I talked with him again,
“You are safe on the big silver but we did not mention Omosla. He
ship? Yes, we are on Kao-Wag-
. . . said he was busy with his scientific
wattl. I have been looking after findings. I relayed to him descrip-
Omosla .” . . tions of the Kao-Wagwattl - - the
I could hear the eagerness in “inside” story, from one who was
Campbell’s voice as he asked about concealed within its scales. We were
Omosla. Vauna answered him in ac- back to our original assignment,
cents of joy. “She has had her baby now. For days and days to come, we
94 OTHER WORLDS

pursued the scientific facts, compar- fur things off your elbows, to be
ing notes by radio. more comfortable?”
At air-cruise speed, Campbell She smiled, and kissed me as I
made trips around the planet, and had taught her to kiss. “You want
completed his charts and maps. He me to?” And she removed the furry
reported that the beautiful land to- white elbow ornaments. It was very
ward which we were moving was in- strange While we hovered close,
. . .

deed a land of promise. But he gave she whispered to me of the secrets

slower estimates of the Kao-Wag- of life this planet, unlike any
on
wattl’s speed, and he estimated that other world I had known. And there
it would take us the larger part of were curious legends of Kao-Wag-
a year to reach our destination. wattl, things she had carried in her
However, he managed to get an in- heart to tell me if such a time as
side view of the larger Benzendella this should ever come.
tribes who dwelt there. They were As she talked, the pressure of the
truly waiting for old Tomboldo’s re- scale wallsaround us increased. The
turn, and were firm in their faith great Kao-Wagwattl was evidently
that the rope of life, Kao-Wagwattl, moving through a dip, so that its
would bring him. upper surfaces were compressed.
Such were the scientific and There was no lack of air for breath-
ethnological studies that Campbell ing, but the darkness and the pres-
and I were to share, by radio, in the sure added strangeness to the sen-
weeks and months to come. . .
sation. The tightness of Vauna’s
Now Vauna was beside me. We, arms against my own caused my
like the others, were settled down
head to spin. Perhaps it was the
for the long journey. fever returning from my recent ill-
Innocent Vauna! She was trying ness. My arms felt the stinging sen-
so hard to please me. She sat very sation of being penetrated by need-
close, whispering to me. les.My thoughts flicked back to
and smiled, and tried
I listened,
something Split Campbell had once
to take my thoughts away from the
told me . . .

image of Campbell, his honor shat-

Later, when the Kao curved over
tered by her recent words to him
about the baby
—
—
a baby with eye-
a summit, and the patches of sun-
light dashed in, I suggested that
lashes a baby that resembled him.
Vauna go forward to see about her
If I remained silent, Vauna would
father. She answered me with a
tease me into talking with her. “Do
curious smile. I snuggled deeper into
my words displease you, Captain?” the shade of the scales and slept.
“Your words please me very Hours later, when I awakened, she
much.” was again beside me.
“You do not look at me. You only
look away. Do you want me to sit 10 .

close beside you?”

I drew her in my
arms and held If Omosla’s baby had been a boy,
her. In silence I thought a thousand I believe that old Tomboldo would
thoughts that I had brought with have named it for the highest honor
me across millions of miles of space. in the Benzendella world. He was
Later I said to her, “Your arms searching for a successor. Not a-
are warm. Why don’t you take these mong the grown-up warriors and
 THE SERPENT RIVER 95

counsellors. Among
the infants. He Would you know him to be ap out-
sought a child favored by nature. sider?”
Omosla was a beauty and a court “Come,” Vauna said. “We’ll walk
favorite, even though she had been from one end of the tribe to the
a servant. And Campbell, who was other.”
considered to be her mate, (though While the great endless Kao-Wag-
marriage had been delayed by cir- wattl carried us on, through deep
cumstances) was of course a re- valleys and across wide plains, Vau-
nowned hero. If the child had only na and I went about, day by day,
been a boy! studying the looks of each male
I was kept busy reporting the rea- member of the tribe.
sons for Campbell’s absence. He had I scrutinized the eyes of each. I
stayed with our ship to guarantee listened to the native enunciations.
Benzendella safety. Yes, it was true I got acquainted with each man by
that he could fly through the air name and personality. Vauna’s
and catch up with us. But there friendship to all was a help. Through
were duties which kept him away. her I began to gain a bond of affec-
My excuses wore thin. Vauna and tion for all these people, deep and
her father begged me to tell him, solid. Their ways became natural
over the radio, that Omosla was to me. In the night their sleep-sing-
growing into a person of sorrow. ing could be heard, welling up soft-
The shadow of tragedy hovered over ly through the scales within which
her. they rested. In the mornings one
I complied. I talked, by radio, with could see the parties of agile ones
Campbell. He was in another part of gathering food and liquid fruits that
the land, now, pursuing the purposes rolled within reach along the sides
for which we had come. My mention of the moving Kao.
of Omosla’s plight aroused his de- We crossed a series of islands.
fiance. He said he would rather be For long spaces there would be dan-
a deserter than serve a captain who ger of dips under the surfaces of
did not accept his word. “For the waters. We would close ourselves
last time, Captaih Linden, I repeat tightly within the Waterproof inter-
that I am not the mate of Omosla. stices until the danger had passed.
Do you believe me?” Later, when the slimy surfaces of the
“I don’t know what to believe,” scales had dried off, we would

I said.
emerge.
His radio clicked off.
And now, out of a chance conver-
sation, I learned of another danger
Vauna and her father and I se- which had been with us all along.
cluded ourselves among the scales
Gravgak was also on the Kao-Wag-
and talked. My one question was, wattl.
Could there have been any other
person among them who had come
“How did you know this?” I asked
Vauna sharply.
from another planet?
“Didn’t my father tell you? I re-
“You and Campbell. No others.”
ceived a warning soon after we be-
“How can you be sure?” I pursued. gan the journey.”
“Suppose someone from my world
wished to pass for a native. Suppose
“Warning —
from whom?”
he should pluck the hairs from his “From Leeger.”
eyelids and cut away his eyebrows. “Leeger! I thought he was miss-’
 ”

96 OTHER WORLDS
ing.” We were down, now, almost out
“He reappeared. He had known of of sight, yet peering over. Suddenly
our plan. He had boarded, some- the form of Leeger bobbed up again,
where. He was back there, beyond only a few feet from us.
the end of our party. He shouted the “Go back!” Leeger cried, flinging
warning to me. That is why you and a hand at us. “Go back! He’s com-
I moved up the line, and have kept' ing!”
ourselves hidden.” It all happened in less time than
“He shouted a warning to you — it can be told. Leeger rose up to
“That Gravgak is also on board, warn us. We saw
the knife fly
looking for me.” through the air at him. He fell with
the blade through his throat.
11 . On the instant we saw the dark
muscular form of Gravgak rearing
Weeks earlier, a search party had up among the scales. The green-
given up. It had happened
all quietly.
and-black diamond-shaped mark-
Tomboldo had kept a few of his top ings- on his arms and legs glinted
scouts on the job (as I now learned) in the light. He had hurled his
and for months after our journey knife true. Triumph shone in his
had begun they had scoured the murderous eyes. He had killed the
scaly surfaces of Kao-Wagwattl,
man who had stalked him to pro-
looking in vain for Gravgak.
tect Vauna and Tomboldo. And now
Could we rest assured, then, that he must have believed that one of
Gravgak had been bluffed out? his prizes was within easy reach.
That he had given up his purpose
His arm flashed upward. It held
of trying to take Vauna? That he
one of those rockstrung clubs that
had long since climbed off the Kao-
the savages used so skillfully.
Wagwattl and gone back home?
We hoped so. Nevertheless we mov- The weighted club whizzed
ed cautiously as our searches took through the air. I swung Vauna off
us back through the long line of her feet. I’ll swear the rolling move-
Benzendellas. ment of Kao-Wagwattl helped me
Then, without warning, we sud- or I wouldn’t have succeeded. We
denly came upon Leeger. He saw us tumbled into the crevice.
from a distance of fifty yards or Then I scrambled upward. An-
less. We had come to the end of other glimpse of Gravgak. He dived
our tribe’s settlement —
evidently down among the crevices, moving
beyond the end; for in the last in our direction. A moment of dark-
quarter of a mile we had found no ness. The scale-tops closed out the
persons dwelling among the scales. light. When they opened, he was
“He motioned to us,” Vauna said. there, coming at us.
“I’m sure it was Leeger.” locked with him. We fought. The
I
But Leeger had disappeared from movement of the surfaces gave us
view. Back of us now was the wild- an upward thrust. I kicked and
erness of scales, their curved sur- tumbled to the surface. He caught
face glistening and alive with color my wrist, but the upthrust of the
as the endless crawling spine follow- Kao favored me and I jerked him
ed us out of the distant blue haze. upward, onto the top of the scales.
Miles of Kao-Wagwattl, and nothing We fought in the open. The rub-
showing on the surface. bery footing was deadly, but it play-
 THE SERPENT RIVER 97

ed no favorites. I struck a heavy living thing. When it wished it could

blow that made the green-and- devour.
black lined arms shudder. Gravgak’s Many of the tribe came back to
eyes flashed as he plunged back at this spot to examine what remained
me. I struck him again, with the of the traitorous guard. I too ob-
full force of my body. He bounced served him closely. I examined his
and tumbled. He rolled out of sight. eyes with a glass. Also the eyes of
But not for long. It was an inten- the murdered Leeger. Neither show-
tional trick. He disappeared in the ed any traces of eyelashes or eye-
crevice where Leeger had fallen. brows.
When he came up, the bloody knife
was in his hand. I heard Vauna’s 12 .

warning cry.
The rode on tranquilly.
tribe
leaped down into the* crevice.
I
There would be new legends of Kao-
She was trying to get my coat. She Wagwattl, after what had occurred.
knew there were explosives in it, if Many were the stories, and I relay-
she could only get them into my ed them to Campbell, at the ship,
hands. who faithfully recorded them all.
No time for that. Gravgak leaped There was a tragedy to be added.
down at me. The knife was rigid It could not have been otherwise.
from his hand, coming down with a For some months the news of Omosla
plunge. I kicked back, floundering and her little daughter had been
against the tricky walls of the vague. It was the Benzendella tradi-
scales, and Gravgak fell down deep tion that weddings should not be
where Ihad been. I saw it happen. delayed for long after the arrival
A sight I never expect to see sepeat- of the first-born child. It was rum-
ed. ored that this young mother now
His descent to the base of the faced the shame of having been left
where the walls joined, might
scales, without a mate. It was hard to get
have been a harmless fall. Yet who exact information. Even though
knows how sensitive is the ma- Vauna and I had always sought an
terial of the vast living thing called understanding between us, some
Kao-Wagwattl? The knife plunged things were not talked about freely.
into deep Kao flesh beneath our Deepest, most important truths in
feet. The flesh opened. Gravgak new worlds are often the most elu-
whirled, tried to escape the open- sive.Now I questioned Vauna close-
ing. His arm twisted under him. And ly, and
I learned of the tragic end
went down. As if something drew it. of Omosla.
His back —
his whole body, from “She and her baby are no longer
hips to shoulders —
was caught in with us,” Vauna said quietly. “It
the gaping hole that he had seem- happened one night when the stars
ingly opened with a plunge of the seemed very close. They say she had
knife blade. It closed on him. It studied the sky each night, wonder-
severed him. Part of him was gone. ing which of the worlds beyond was
Before our eyes there remained his the world of Campbell.”
legs, cut clean away. And his head, “And then?”
and part of one shoulder. “Two of her caretakers saw it hap-
The rest of him? It would not re- pen, but they could not stop it. With
turn to sight. Kao-Wagwattl was a the babe in her arms, she walked
 ”

98 OTHER WORLDS

over the side of Kao-Wagwattl. And ing.”

went down. Under.” I told him of the death of Omosla
Vauna went on to tell me that and the child. He was deeply grieved.
Tomboldo had urged silence about It was a long time before he found
it. He would always believe that the voice to speak.
girl had lost faith too soon — that “Go ahead, Linden. I’m listening.”
Campbell might have come back “I have more news,” I said. “But
when his work was done. Moreover, tell me of yourself, Campbell. Have
Tomboldo felt that it was important you gone ahead, playing your lone
to the morale of the tribe that both hand?”
Campbell and I be held in high es- “I’ve found my way into the cus-
teem. toms of the savages, Linden. They
When Vauna finished telling me have their own legends of Kao-Wag-
these things, she said she would ask wattl. I can predict that in time the
Hie the questions she had been sav- gap can be bridged between them
ing for many days. “Did you believe, and the Benzendellas, if we work
Jim, that you would find some other carefully — men like you, Linden,
person among us from your world?” working from within, and other a-
“I didn’t know.” gents from EGGWE that are sure
“If you had found such a person, to follow. I believe this planet can
what would you have believed then?” be spared the torments of great
“That he, and not Campbell, was wars.”
the father of Omosla’s child.”
“Yes, Campbell and you, per- . . .

“And what,” Vauna asked, “are you sonally are you well? Are you
.
. .

going to believe about us when our

still bristling with your usual self-
child is born?”
discipline?”
“In case you have any doubts a-
13.
bout the matter," his voice was
We
were around on the other side slightly caustic, “I haven’t broken
of the planet by now. I estimated the Code.”
that we had traveled more than sev- “In Omosla’s case I wish you had,”
en thousand hours. I said.
By this time many things had “I wish it too,” Campbell’s voice
happened. So much that I doubted came back, now in a lowered tone.
my ability to convey all the news to “I lovedOmosla. I would have been
Campbell so that he would get a her mate, gladly.”
dear understanding. I had lain a- “But you were, Campbell.”
wake nights trying to formulate my “Now, don’t start that again, Lin-
message. If my words failed, I only den, or I’ll —
hoped that my tone of voice would “Wait, Campbell, don’t cut me off.
convey my appreciation. My appre- You must hear all of my news, first.
ciation of him. Of what he had Most important of all, old Tomboldo
gone through. Of what he must yet has chosen my own son to be his
go through. successor. He’ll be groomed for the
He talked with me quietly through job all through his childhood, and
the radio, and I could visualize him I’ve decided to stay right here, Code
as if I were sitting beside him again or no Code, and see him through."
in the space ship. “Your son?” Campbell’s voice was
“Yes, Linden. Go on. I’m listen- mostly breath. “Who are you talking
 ” ”” ”

THE SERPENT RIVER 99

about?” knowing the score, we were inno-

“Our baby — Vauna’s and mine. cent bystanders - well, more or less
It’s several days old. Doing fine. innocent —
and pitifully ignorant.
Has eyebrows just like mine. Chalk- Unfortunately for us, these were
dust skin like hers.” matters the Benzendellas don’t talk
Campbell blurted. “Do you mean about freely.”
to tell me that as soon as you and Campbell paused for a moment
Vauna boarded the Kao — of confused thinking. “Just a min-
“The ways of life on this planet ute, Captain. I’ve been observing
are something j;ou and I ought to these savages —
home life and all.
know about, Campbell. Listen close- There’s no lack of normal affections
ly — among them, in our own sense of the
“Shoot!” word. They’re equipped physically,

In words of one syllable I explain-

just as we are —
plus the arm
thorns. They have the same organs,
ed, then, what I had at last learned:
the same functions —
that the human beings of this planet
were not precisely like those of the “For purposes of affection, yes.

Earth. They were unquestionably re- But the arms — that’s separate —
for conception.”
lated, somewhere back down through
the ages. But Nature had worked a “Well be blasted!” Campbell
I’ll

significant change in the process by was speechless for a long moment.

which new life could be started. Then, “I think I’ll go back to Earth.”
Fertilization in the female was ac- I was not surprised at his decision.
complished by her own action and It was what I expected, what I
her own preference. Nature had would have advised. He had had
equipped her arms — more than one man’s share of this
“Arms, did you say?” Campbell planet, for one who didn’t expect to
fairly shouted through the radio. take root here. But my own life here
“Go on.” was just beginning.
I continued. Nature had equipped I had thought it out. My guess
her arms, I explained, with tiny was that my long record of service
thorn-like projections which could for the EGGWE could withstand
penetrate the arms or sides of the some variation. An application for
male like needles. By this means she release would very likely win an
drew blood from his bloodstream. A approval, especially in view of my
very slight transfusion of male blood change to serve the EGGWE
pur-
into the female bloodstream was poses even better by becoming a
the act that accomplished fertiliza- Benzendella.
tion. When I announced this plan, by
“You see, Campbell, woman does radio, to the new Captain Campbell,
not bear a child except by her own formerly known as Split, but now
premeditated choice,” I explained. commonly referred to on this planet
“You and I were puzzled by the el- as the hero of the Benzendella mi-
bow furs all these women wear. Now gration,he said he was not surprised.
you see. It’s a natural bit of extra “Congratulations, Linden, for know-
clothing. The dictates of modesty.” ing what you wanted. Stay aboard
“Well!” Campbell said. “Then you that Kao-Wagwattl. There’s a
and I allowed ourselves — beautiful land waiting for you up
“We were simply chosen. Not ahead.”
 Jn yawz
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