by Roger Elwood
He traced a wavering course to the corral. Someone led forth a shambling wreck of a mount, too old to be anything but docile. Alex groped after the stirrup. It evaded him. “C’mere,” he said sharply. “C’mere, shtirrup. Ten-shun! Forward marsh!”
“Here yo’ are.” A Hoka who flickered around the edges … ghost Hoka? Hoka Superior? the Hoka after Hoka? … assisted him into the saddle. “By Pecos Bill, yore drunk as a skunk!”
“No,” said Alex. “I am shober. It’s all Toka whish ish drunk. So only drunks on Toka ish shober. Tha’s right. Y’unnershtan’? Only shober men on Toka ish uh drunks—”
His pony floated through a pink mist in some or other direction. “I’m a lo-o-o-one cowboy!” sang Alex. “I’m thuh loneliesh lone cowboy in these here parts.”
He grew amorphously aware of the herd. The cattle were nervous, they rolled their eyes and lowed and pawed the ground. A small band of Hokas galloped around them, swearing, waving their hats, trying to get the animals going in the right path.
“I’m an ol’ cowhand, from thuh Rio Grande!” bawled Alex.
“Not so loud!” snapped a Tex-Hoka. “These critters are spooky enough as it is.”
“You wanna get ’em goin’, don’cha?” answered Alex. “We gotta get going. The greenskins are coming. Simple to get going. Like this. See?”
He drew his six-shooter, fired into the air, and let out the loudest screech he had in him. “Yahoo!”
“Yo’ crazy fool"
“Yahoo!” Alex plunged toward the herd, shooting and shouting. “Ride ’em, cowboy! Get along, little dogies! Yippee!”
The herd, of course, stampeded.
Like a red tide, it suddenly broke past the thin Hoka line. The riders scattered, there was death in those thousands of hoofs, their universe was filled with roaring and rushing and thunder. The earth shook!
“Yahoo!” caroled Alexander Jones. He rode behind the longhorns, still shooting. “Git along, git along! Hi-yo, Silver!”
“Oh, my God,” groaned Slick. “Oh, my God! The tumbleweed-headed idiot’s got ’em stampeded straight toward the Injuns—”
“After ’em!” shouted a Hopalong-Hoka. “Mebbe we can still turn the herd! We cain’t let the Injuns git all that beef!”
“An’ we’ll have a little necktie party, too,” said a Lone Rider-Hoka. “I’ll bet that thar Alexander]ones is a Injun spy planted to do this very job.”
The cowboys spurred their mounts. A Hoka-brain had no room for two thoughts at once. If they were trying to head off a stampede, the fact that they were riding full tilt toward an overwhelming enemy simply did not occur to them.
“Whoopee-ti-yi yo-o-o-o!” warbled Alex, somewhere in the storm of dust.
Caught by the peculiar time-sense of intoxication, he seemed almost at once to burst over a long low hill. And beyond were the Slissii.
The reptile warriors went afoot, not being built for riding— but they could outrun a Hoka pony. Their tyrannosaurian forms were naked, save for war paint and feathers such as primitives throughout the galaxy wear, but they were armed with guns as well as lances, bows, and axes. Their host formed a great compact mass, tightly disciplined to the rhythm of the thudding signal drums. There were thousands of them … and a hundred cowboys, at most, galloped blindly toward their ranks.
Alex saw none of this. Being behind the stampede, he didn’t see it hit the Injun army.
Nobody really did. The catastrophe was just too big.
When the Hokas arrived on the scene, the Injuns—such of them as had not simply been mashed flat—were scattered over the entire visible prairie. Slick wondered if they would ever stop running.
“At ’em, boys!” he yelled. “Go mop ’em up!”
The Hoka band sped forward. A few small Injun groups
sounded their war-hisses and tried to rally for a stand, but it was too late, they were too demoralized, the Hokas cut them down. Others were chased as they fled, lassoed and hog-tied by wildly cheering teddy bears.
Presently Tex rode up to Slick. Dragging behind his pony at a lariat’s end was a huge Injun, still struggling and cursing. “I think I got their chief,” he reported.
The town gambler nodded happily. “Yep, you have. He’s wearin’ a high chief’s paint. Swell! With him for a hostage, we can make t’other Injuns talk turkey—not that they’re gonna bother this hyar country for a long time to come.”
As a matter of fact, Canyon Gulch has entered the military textbooks with Cannae, Waterloo, and Xfisthgung as an example of total and crushing victory.
Slowly, the Hokas began to gather about Alex. The old utter awe shone in their eyes.
“He done it,” whispered Monty. “All the time he was playin’ dumb, he knew a way to stop the Injuns—”
“Yo’ mean, make ’em bite the dust,” corrected Slick solemnly.
“Bite the dust,” agreed Monty. “He done it single-handed! Gents, I reckon we should’a knowed better’n to go mistrustin’ o’ a … human!”
Alex swayed in the saddle. A violent sickness gathered itself within him. And he reflected that he had caused a stampede, lost an entire herd of cattle, sacrificed all Hoka faith in the Terrestrial race for all time to come. If the natives hanged him, he thought grayly, it was no more than he deserved.
He opened his eyes and looked into Slick’s adoring face.
“Yo’ saved us,” said the little Hoka. He reached out and took the sheriff’s badge off Alex’s tunic. Then, gravely, he handed over his Derringer and playing cards. “Yo’ saved us all, human. So, as long as yo’re here, yo’re the town gambler o’ Canyon Gulch.”
Alex blinked. He looked around. He saw the assembled Hokas, and the captive Slissii, and the trampled field of ruin … why, why—they had won!
Now he could get to the Draco. With human assistance, the
Hoka race could soon force a permanent peace settlement on their ancient foes. And Ensign Alexander Braithwaite Jones was a hero.
“Saved you?” he muttered. His tongue still wasn’t under very close control. “Oh. Saved you. Yes, I did, didn’t I? Saved you. Nice of me.” He waved a hand. “No, no. Don’t mention it. Noblesse oblige, and all that sort of thing.”
An acute pain in his unaccustomed gluteal muscles spoiled the effect. He groaned. “I’m walking back to town. I won’t be able to sit down for a week as it is!”
And the rescuer of Canyon Gulch dismounted, missed the stirrup, and fell flat on his face.
‘To’ know,” murmured someone thoughtfully, “maybe that’s the way humans get off their hosses. Maybe we should all—”
Day of Burning
For who knows how long, the star had orbited quietly in the wilderness between Betelgeuse and Rigel. It was rather more massive than average—about half again as much as Sol—and shone with corresponding intensity, white-hot, corona and prominences a terrible glory. But there are no few like it. A ship of the first Grand Survey noted its existence. However, the crew were more interested in a neighbor sun which had planets and could not linger long in that system either. The galaxy is too big; their purpose was to get some hint about this spiral arm which we inhabit. Thus certain spectroscopic omens escaped their notice.
No one returned thither for a pair of centuries. Technic civilization had more than it could handle, let alone comprehend, in the millions of stars closer to home. So the fact remained unsuspected that this one was older than normal for its type in its region, must indeed have wandered in from other parts. Not that it was very ancient, astronomically speaking. But the great childless suns evolve fast and strangely.
By chance, though, a scout from the Polesotechnic League, exploring far in search of new markets, was passing within a light-year when the star exploded.
Say instead—insofar as simultaneity has any meaning across interstellar distances—that the death agony had occurred some months before. Ever more fierce, thermonuclear reaction had burned up the last hydrogen at the center. Unbalanced by radiation pressure, the outer
layers collapsed beneath their own weight. Forces were released which triggered a wholly different
order of atomic fusions. New elements came into being, not only those which may be found in the planets but also the short-lived transuranics; for a while, technetium itself dominated that anarchy. Neutrons and neutrinos flooded forth, carrying with them the last balancing energy. Compression turned into catastrophe. At the brief peak, the supernova was as radiant as its entire galaxy.
So close, the ship’s personnel would have died had she not been in hyperdrive. They did not remain there. A dangerous amount of radiation was still touching them between quantum microjumps. And they were not equipped to study the phenomenon. It is rare; this was the first chance in our history to observe a new supernova. Earth was too remote to help. But the scientific colony at Catawrayannis could be reached fairly soon. It could dispatch laboratory craft.
Now to track in detail what was going to happen, considerable resources were demanded. Among these were a place where men could live and instruments be made to order as the need for them arose. Such things could not well be sent from the usual factories. By the time they arrived, the wave front carrying information about rapidly progressing events would have traveled so far that inverse-square enfeeblement would create maddening inaccuracies.
But a little beyond one parsec from the star—an excellent distance for observation over a period of years—was a G-type sun. One of its planets was terrestroid to numerous points of classification, both physically and biochemically. Survey records showed that the most advanced culture on it was at the verge of an industrial-scientific revolution. Ideal!
Except, to be sure, that Survey’s information was less than sketchy and two centuries out of date.
§
“No.”
Master Merchant David Falkayn stepped backward in startle-ment. The four nearest guards clutched at their pistols. Peripherally and profanely, Falkayn wondered what canon he had violated now.
“Beg, uh, beg pardon?” he said.
Morruchan Long-Ax, the Hand of the Vach Dathyr, leaned forward on his dais. He was big even for a Merseian, which meant that he overtopped Falkayn’s rangy height by a good fifteen centimeters. Long, shoulder-flared orange robes and horned miter made his bulk almost overwhelming. Beneath them, he was approximately anthropoid, save for a slanting posture counterbalanced by the tail which, with his booted feet, made a tripod for him to sit on. The skin was green, faintly scaled, totally hairless. A spiky ridge ran from the top of his skull to the end of that tail. Instead of earflaps, he had deep convolutions in his head. But the face was manlike, in a heavy-boned fashion, and the physiology was essentially mammalian.
How familiar the mind was, behind those jet eyes, Falkayn did not know.
The harsh basso said: “You shall not take the rule of this world. If we surrendered the right and freehold they won, the God would cast back the souls of our ancestors to shriek at us.”
Falkayn’s glance flickered around. He had seldom felt so alone. The audience chamber of Castle Afon stretched high and gaunt, proportioned like nothing men had ever built. Curiously woven tapestries on the stone walls, between windows arched at both top and bottom, and battle banners hung from the rafters did little to stop echoes. The troopers lining the hall down to a hearth whose fire could have roasted an elephant wore armor and helmets with demon masks. The guns which they added to curved swords and barbed pikes did not seem out of place. Rather, what appeared unattainably far was a glimpse of ice-blue sky outside.
The air was chill with winter. Gravity was little higher than Terrestrial, but Falkayn felt it dragging at him.
He straightened. He had his own side arm, no chemical slug-thrower but an energy weapon. Adzel, abroad in the city, and Chee Lan, aboard the ship, were listening in via the transceiver on his wrist. And the ship had power to level all Ardaig. Morruchan must realize as much.
But he had to be made to cooperate.
Falkayn picked his words with care: “I pray forgiveness, Hand, if perchance in mine ignorance I misuse thy … uh … your tongue. Naught was intended save friendliness. Hither bring I news of peril impending, for the which ye must busk yourselves betimes less ye lose everything ye possess. My folk would fain show your folk what to do. So vast is the striving needed, and so scant the time, that perforce ye must take our counsel. Else can we be of no avail. But never will we act as conquerors. ’Twere not simply an evil deed, but ’twould boot us naught, whose trafficking is with many worlds. Nay, we would be brothers, come to help in a day of sore need.”
Morruchan scowled and rubbed his chin. “Say on, then,” he replied. “Frankly, I am dubious. You claim Valenderay is about to become a supernova—”
“Nay, Hand, I declare it hath already done so. The light therefrom will smite this planet in less than three years.”
The time unit Falkayn actually used was Merseian, a trifle greater than Earth’s. He sweated and swore to himself at the language problem. The Survey xenologists had got a fair grasp of Eriau in the several months they spent here, and Falkayn and his shipmates had acquired it by synapse transform while en route. But now it turned out that two hundred years back, Eriau had been in a state of linguistic overturn. He wasn’t even pronouncing the vowels right.
He tried to update his grammar. “Would ye, uh, I mean if your desire is … if you want confirmation, we can take you or a trusty member of your household so near in our vessel that the starburst is beheld with living eyes.”
“No doubt the scientists and poets will duel for a berth on that trip,” Morruchan said in a dry voice. “But I believe you already. You yourself, your ship, and companions are proof.” His tone sharpened. “At the same time, I am no Believer, imagining you half-divine because you come from outside.
Your civilization has a technological head start on mine, nothing else. A careful reading of the records from that other brief period when aliens dwelt among us shows they had no reason more noble than professional curiosity. And that was fitful; they left, and none ever returned. Until now.
‘‘So: what do you want from us?”
Falkayn relaxed a bit. Morruchan seemed to be his own kind despite everything, not awestruck, not idealistic, not driven by some incomprehensible nonhuman motivation, but a shrewd and skeptical politician of a pragmatically oriented culture.
Seems to he, the man cautioned himself. What do I really know about Merseia?
§
Judging by observations made in orbit, radio monitoring, initial radio contact, and the ride here in an electric groundcar, this planet still held a jumble of societies, dominated by the one which surrounded the Wilwidh Ocean. Two centuries ago, local rule had been divided among aristocratic clans. He supposed that a degree of continental unification had since been achieved, for his request for an interview with the highest authority had got him to Ardaig and a confrontation with this individual. But could Morruchan speak for his entire species? Falkayn doubted it.
Nevertheless, you had to start somewhere.
“I shall be honest, Hand,” he said. “My crew and I are come as naught but preparers of the way. Can we succeed, we will be rewarded with a share in whatever gain ensueth. For our scientists wish to use Merseia and its moons as bases wherefrom to observe the supernova through the next dozen years. Best for them would be if your folk could provide them with most of their needs, not alone food but such instruments as they tell you how to fashion. For this they will pay fairly; and in addition, ye will acquire knowledge.
“Yet first must we assure that there remaineth a Merseian civilization. To do that, we must wreak huge works. And ye will pay us for our toil and goods supplied to that end. The price will not be usurious, but it will allow us a profit. Out of it, we will buy whatever Merseian wares can be sold at home for further profit.” He smiled. “Thus all may win and none need fear. The Polesotechnic League compriseth nor conquerors nor bandits, naught save merchant adventurers who seek to make their”—more or less—“hone
st living.”
“Hunh!” Morruchan growled. “Now we bite down to the bone. When you first communicated and spoke about a supernova, my colleagues and I consulted the astronomers. We are not altogether savages here; we have at least gone as far as atomic power and interplanetary travel. Well, our astronomers said that such a star reaches a peak output about fifteen billion times as great as Korych. Is this right?”
“Close enough, Hand, if Korych be your own sun.”
“The only nearby one which might burst in this manner is Valenderay. From your description, the brightest in the southern sky, you must be thinking of it, too.”
Falkayn nodded, realized he wasn’t sure if this gesture meant the same thing on Merseia, remembered it did, and said: “Aye, Hand.”
“It sounded terrifying,” Morruchan said, “until they pointed out that Valenderay is three and a half light-years distant. And this is a reach so enormous that no mind can swallow it. The radiation, when it gets to us, will equal a mere one-third of what comes daily from Korych. And in some fifty-five days” (Terrestrial) “it will have dwindled to half … and so on, until before long we see little except a bright nebula at night.
“True, we can expect troublesome weather, storms, torrential rains, perhaps some flooding if sufficient of the south polar ice cap melts. But that will pass. In any case, the center of civilization is here, in the northern hemisphere. It is also true that, at peak, there will be a dangerous amount of ultraviolet and X-radiation. But Merseia’s atmosphere will block it.
“Thus.” Morruchan leaned back on his tail and bridged the fingers of his oddly humanlike hands. “The peril you speak of scarcely exists. What do you really want?”
Falkayn’s boyhood training as a nobleman’s son on Hermes rallied within him. He squared his shoulders. He was not unimpressive, a tall, fair-haired young man with blue eyes bright in a lean, high-cheekboned face. “Hand,” he said gravely, “I perceive you have not yet had time to consult your folk who are wise in matters—”
