Star Rangers

by Andre Norton

  There is a giant white one who skims through the dark like a Corrob mist ghost-"

  Zor gave an exaggerated shiver. "This," he announced loudly, "is the best holiday we have ever had. I hope that it is never going to end-never!"

  The eyes of the four adults met above his head. And Kartr knew they shared the same thought. This exile would probably never end for them. But-did any of them care? Kartr wanted to ask-but he couldn't-not just yet.

  The rangers spent the day overhauling their equipment and making minor repairs. Clothing was a problem-unless they followed the example of the natives and took animal skins to cover them. Kartr speculated about the coming cold season. Should they tramp south to escape its rigor? For the sake of the Zacathans perhaps they should. He knew that exposure to extremes of cold rendered the reptile people torpid until they lapsed into complete hibernation.

  They spied upon the natives, going out in pairs to do so, turning in all information to Zicti who compiled it as if he fully intended to give a documented lecture on the subject.

  "There are several different physical types among them," he commented one evening when Fylh and

  Smitt, who had drawn that day's watch, had given their report. "Your yellow-haired, white-skinned people, Kartr, are only one. Now Fylh has seen this clan of very dark-skinned, black-haired men-"

  "By their light clothing and strange equipment they are from a warmer country," added the Trystian.

  "Odd. Such dissimilar races on the same world. But that is a humanoid characteristic, I believe," continued the hist-techneer. "I should have had more grounding in humanoid physiology."

  "But they are all very primitive. That is what I can't understand." Smitt wore a puzzled frown as he spooned up the last of his stew. "That city was built-and left all ready to run again-by men who were at a high state of technological advancement. Yet all the natives we have discovered so far live in tents made of animal hide, wear skins on their backs, and are afraid of the city. And I'll swear that that pottery I saw them trading today was made out of rough clay by hand!"

  "We don't understand that any better than you do, my boy," answered Zicti. "We never shall unless we can penetrate the fog of their history. Some powerful memory-or threat-has kept them out of the city. If they ever possessed any technical skill they forgot it long ago-maybe by deliberately suppressing such knowledge because it was sacred to the `gods,' perhaps because of a general drop in a certain type of intelligence-there could be many explanations."

  "Could they be the remains of a slave population, left behind when their masters emigrated?" ventured

  Rolth.

  "That, too, would be an answer. But slavery does not usually accompany a highly mechanized civilization. The slaves would be machine tenders-and the city people had robots which would serve them better in that capacity."

  "It seems to me," began Fylh, "that on this world there was once a decision to be made. And some men made it one way, and some another. Some went out"-his claws indicated the sky-"while others chose to remain-to live close to the earth and allow little to come between them and the wilds-"

  Kartr straightened. That-that seemed right! Men choosing between the stars and the earth! Yes, it could have happened just like that. Maybe because he, himself, was a barbarian born on a frontier world where man had not long taken to space, he could see the truth in that. And perhaps because

  Fylh's people had made just such a choice long ago and sometimes regretted it, the Trystian had been the first to sense the answer to the riddle here.

  "Decadence-degeneracy-" broke in Smitt.

  But Zacita shook her head. "If one lives by machines, by the quest for power, for movement, yes. But perhaps to these it was only a moving on to what they thought a better way of life."

  A moving on! Kartr's mind fastened on that eagerly. Maybe the time had come for his own people to make a choice which would either guide them utterly away from old paths-or would set them falling back-

  Time continued to drag for the watchers until the last of the natives departed. They even waited another five hours after the last small clan left, making sure that there would be no chance of being sighted by lingerers. And then, in the middle of an afternoon, they came down the slope at last, picking their way through the debris of the campsite and around still smoldering fires.

  At the foot of the stairs which led to the portico of the building they left their packs and bundles. There were twelve broad steps, scored and pitted by winds of time, with the tracks of hide sandals outlined in dried mud where the natives had wandered in and out. Up these steps they climbed and passed through lines of towering pillars into the interior.

  It would have been dark inside but the builders had roofed the center section with a transparent material so that they could almost believe they still stood in the open.

  Slowly, still in a compact group, they came down an aisle into the very middle of the huge hall.

  Around them on three sides were sections of seats, divided by narrow aisles, each ending at the floor level in one massive chair on the back of which was carved, in such high relief that time had not worn it away, a symbol. On the fourth side of the chamber was a dais supporting three more of the highbacked chairs of state, the center one raised another step above the other two.

  "Some type of legislative building, do you think?" asked Zicti. "The presiding officer would sit there."

  He pointed to the dais.

  But Kartr's torch beam fastened on the sign carved on the nearest of the side chairs. As he read it he stood incredulous. Then he flashed the light to illuminate the marking on the next seat and the next. He began to run, reading the symbols he knew-knew so well!"

  "Deneb, Sirius, Rigel, Capella, Procyon." He did not realize it, but his voice was rising to a shout as if he were calling a roll-calling such a roll as had not sounded in that chamber for four thousand years or more. "Betelgeuse, Aldebaran, Pollux-"

  "Regulus." Smitt was answering him from the other side of the hall, the same wild excitement in his voice. "Spica, Vega, Arcturus, Altair, Antares-"

  Now Rolth and Dalgre began to understand in turn.

  "Fomalhaut, Alphard, Castor, Algol-"

  They added star to star, system to system, in that roll call. In the end they met before the dais. And they fell silent while Kartr, with a reverence and awe he had never known before, raised his torch to give more light to the last of those symbols. That bright one which should gleam in this place was there!

  "Terra of Sol." He read it aloud and the three words seemed to echo more loudly down the hall than any of the shouted names of the kindred stars. "Terra of Sol-man's beginning!"

  16 - TERRA CALLING

  "I don't believe it." Smitt's voice sounded thin; his attention was fixed on that high seat and the incredible sign it bore. "This can't be the Hall of Leave-Taking. That was just a legend-"

  "Was it?" asked Kartr. "But legends are not always fables."

  "And out there"-Dalgre pointed toward the doorway without turning his head from the dais-"is the

  Field of Flight!"

  "How long-?" Rolth's question dwindled off into silence, but his words continued to echo down the hall.

  Kartr wheeled to face those rows of chairs and the section of seats each one headed. There-why, right there had sat the commanders, and behind them crews and colonists! And so they must have gathered, shipful after shipful for years-maybe centuries. Gathered, spoke together for the last time, received their last orders and instructions-then went out to the field and the waiting ships and blasted off into the unknown-never to return. Some-a few-had won through to their goals. They, Smitt,

  Dalgre, Rolth and he, were living proof of that. Others-others had reached an end in the cold of outer space or on planets which could not support human life. How long had it gone on, that gathering, that leave-taking? With no return. Long enough to drain Terra's veins of life-until only those were left who were temperamentally unfitted to try for the stars? Was that the an
swer to the riddle of this halfand- half world?

  "No return-" Rolth had picked that out of his thoughts somehow. "No return. So the cities died and even the memory of why this exists is gone. Terra!"

  "But we remember," Kartr answered softly. "For we have made the full circle. The green-that is the green of Terra's hills. It has been a legend, an ancient song, a dim folk memory, but it has always been ours, going with us from world to world across the galaxy. For we are the sons of Terra-inner system, outer system, barbarian and civilized-we are all the sons of Terra!"

  "And now," Smitt observed with wistful simplicity, "we have come home."

  It was a home which bore no resemblance to the dark mountains and chill valleys of Rolth's halffrozen

  Falthar, to his own tall forests and stone cities now forever dust, to the highly civilized planets which had been the birthplaces of Smitt and Dalgre. It was a planet of wilderness and dead cities, of primitive natives and forgotten powers. But it was Terra and, as different as their races might be today, they were all originally of the stock which had walked this earth.

  Once more he surveyed that assembly of empty seats. Almost he could people it. But those he summoned to sit there could not be the ones who had once done so. The men of Terra had been gone too long-were scattered too far-

  He walked slowly down the center of the hall. The Zacathans and Fylh had drawn apart. They must have watched with amazement the actions of the humans. Now Kartr tried to explain.

  "This is Terra-"

  But Zicti knew what that meant. "The ancient home of your species! But what an amazing discovery!"

  What else he might have added was drowned out in a shout which drew all their attention to the dais again. Dalgre stood at the left of it beckoning to them. Rolth and Smitt had disappeared. In a body they hurried to join Dalgre.

  The new discovery was behind the dais, hidden by a tall partition-and it covered most of the wall. A giant screen of some dark glass on which pin points of light made patterns.

  Below it was a table top of which was inlaid with a paneling of switches and buttons. Smitt crouched on the bench before it, his face intent.

  "A communication device?" asked Kartr.

  "Either that or some kind of a course plotter," Dalgre answered. Smitt merely grunted impatiently.

  "Could it still be in working order?" Zacita marveled.

  Dalgre shook his head. "We can't tell yet. The city functioned again after they pulled the right switches. But this"-he indicated the giant star map and the intricate controls on the table-"will have to be studied before we can push the right levers. Why, we don't understand any of their wiring methods-"

  The techneer, any techneer, might possibly put the machine into working order again. But, Kartr knew, such a feat was totally beyond the rangers. He studied the star map slowly, identifying the points he could recognize. Yes, here was the galaxy as it appeared from this ancient planet close to its rim. He noted the brilliance of Sarmak, moved on to Altair and the others. Had this board once plotted the course on which man went out to those far-off suns and the worlds they nourished?

  It was growing darker as the evening closed down. But even as the light faded from overhead, a soft glow outlined the star map and illumined the table-although the rest of the hall remained shrouded with shadows.

  Kartr moved. "Shall we camp outside or return to the hills?" he asked Zicti.

  "I see no reason for returning," the Zacathan replied. "If all the natives have withdrawn, as they apparently have, surely there can be no objection to our staying-"

  Behind him Zinga laughed and pointed a talon at Smitt. "If you think that you can drag him away from here even by force, you are sadly in error, Sergeant."

  Which, of course, was true. The com-techneer, confronted by a mysterious device in his own field, refused to leave even for food, preferring to gulp down a cup of water and chew on a piece of tough meat absently while his eyes were busy with the marvels before him.

  They chose to drag their bedrolls into the hall when the full night fell, putting out their cooking fire and lying closely together below the empty seats of the vanished colonists.

  "There are"-Zicti's voice boomed through the emptiness-"no ghosts in this place. Those who gathered here once were already voyaging on in spirit, even as they sat here, eager to be gone. They have left nothing of themselves behind."

  "In a way," Rolth agreed, "that was also true of the city. It was-"

  "Discarded." Kartr produced the right word as the Faltharian hesitated. "Discarded as might be a garment grown too small for its wearer. But you are right, sir, we shall meet no ghosts here. Unless

  Smitt can awaken some with his tinkering. Is he going to stay there all night?"

  "Naturally," Zinga replied. "And let us hope that he will not raise any voices out of the past-even out of your human past, friend. I have an odd desire to spend this night in slumber."

  Kartr awakened twice during the night. And by the faint glow which crept around the edges of the partition he saw that Smitt's bedroll was still unoccupied. The com-techneer must be hypnotized by his discovery. But there was a limit to everything. So, at his second awakening, Kartr pulled himself out of the warmth of his bed with an impatient sigh, shivered in the chill, and padded on bare feet across the cold stone. Either Smitt would come willingly or he would be dragged to bed now.

  The com-techneer was still on the seat, his head thrown back, his gaze fixed on the star map. In the reflection of the light his eyes appeared sunken and there were dark shadows like bruises along his cheek bones.

  Kartr followed the direction of the other's set stare. He saw what held Smitt fascinated, blinked, and gave a gasp.

  There was a red dot on the black glass surface, a dot which moved in a steady curve.

  "What is it-"

  Smitt replied without taking his eyes from the traveling dot.

  "I'm not sure-I'm not sure!" He passed his hands across his face. "You do see it, too?"

  "I see a red dot moving. But what is it?"

  "Well, I've guessed-"

  And Kartr knew the nature of that guess. A ship-moving through space-headed in their general direction!

  "Coming here?"

  "It's on a course-but-how can we tell? Look!"

  Another dot had sprung into being on the screen. But this moved with a purpose. It was on the track of the first, a hunter on the trail. Kartr pushed down beside Smitt on the bench. His heart was thumping so that he could feel the sullen beat of blood in his temples. It was very important-that flight and pursuit-somewhere within him he knew that-so important he feared to watch.

  The first dot was moving in a series of zigzags now.

  "Evasive action." Smitt mouthed the words. He had served on a battle cruiser, Kartr knew.

  "What kind of ships are they?"

  "If I understood this"-Smitt swept his hand over the controls before him-"maybe I could answer that. Wait-!"

  The first dot engaged in a complicated maneuver which had no meaning as far as the sergeant could see but which flipped it back on a level with its pursuer.

  "That's a Patrol ship! It's offered battle-but why-"

  They were even, those two dots. And then-a third appeared on the board! It was slightly larger and moved more slowly, avoiding the two which would shortly be locked in combat. And, in making the arc to avoid the fight, it headed straight toward Sol's system.

  "Covering action," Smitt translated. "The Patrol is covering for this other ship! A suicide mission, I think. Look-their battle screens are up now!"

  A faint, very faint orange haze encircled the two dots near the outer verge of Sol's system. Kartr had never been in space action, but he had heard enough tales, seen enough visigraphs, to be able to create in his mind a picture of the struggle now beginning. The larger dot had no part in the struggle. Instead it crept at its snail's pace on and on, away from the dead-locked fighters.

  Pressure-pressure of screen against screen. And when one of thos
e screens failed-flaming and instant death! That was a Patrol ship out there holding the enemy at bay while a defenseless prey escaped.

  "If I could only read this!" Smitt smashed his fists against the edge of the table.

  On the board a tiny bubble of light blazed suddenly to light.

  "Set off by the ship coming this way?"

  Smitt nodded. "Could be." He leaned forward with quick decision and pressed his finger on the button set under that pinprick of light. There followed sound-a vast roar as of rushing winds. They stared at the map almost deafened. And then through the roar came the chatter of something else, a sharp clicking which formed a pattern. Smitt jumped to his feet.

  "Patrol summons, Patrol summons-TARZ-TARZ-"