Andre Norton (ed)

by Space Pioneers

  "Him heap scared, bwana," he grinned.

  Miles' voice was not quite steady, though whether because of relief, nervous reaction or gratitude it would be hard to say. A mixture of all, perhaps. "Thank you, Lin," he said. "Thanks for catching on so quickly!"

  Lin's eyes hooded over their secret amusement. "Do you think you can make it underground unassisted?"

  "I'm a little stiff, but I'll do." Miles gazed unseeingly through the open back door at the black hills which were even now receiving lord and his "pursuers." A futile wolf hunt; the hunters incapable of the kill—the wolf fleeing toward a death more inevitable and horrible than the imaginary one from which he fled.

  "Poor Jord—" and Miles' voice was without sarcasm. In these days, on these worlds, men were needed—many men, to work together for the good of themselves and of their culture. Jord, with his intelligence, had probably once been such a man. . . .

  Miles shrugged. It was a problem for psychologists, not farmers. In his report of the incident he would suggest that Jord's children, if he had any, be checked. Although, on second thought, it was undoubtedly already being done.

  The binary-chart let out its last warning, a chordal scream that rattled the metaglas windows in their grooves. Miles hurriedly shut it off.

  "Better hurry, bwana," Lin grunted.

  "Bwana, bwana—be damned if I'll ever lend you another book!" Miles grinned and started for the door. "I don't know why you Alcronians go around acting like a bunch of heathens. You've got a Utopian system wrapped up in those Hives—at least to hear you tell it, since you won't let us in to see for ourselves—and yet you work all day picking kanl!"

  Lin laughed easily. "Perhaps those who live under double suns must live double lives." He trailed after the little Earth-man.

  "That's very pretty, but it doesn't make much sense."

  "And I, frankly, don't understand polo." They halted by the door to the underground and Lin seemed to listen a moment, then went on:

  "Jord—" whose name Lin had not been told, Miles thought— and then somehow forgot all about it—"is high in the hills. He will not escape Grandpa."

  Miles dropped his legs onto the metal ladder, looked briefly at the sky, then grinned at the big Crony. "If you insist upon acting like a savage, Lin, go on out to your sunrise ceremony." He ducked down the shaft and his words echoed hollowly: "Poor Jord. He had about the chance of Eliza crossing the—"

  The door clanged shut.

  "Asteroids." Lin finished his employer's thought. He addressed the metal surface that shone dully in the approaching glow. "To the outsider, Miles, I suppose it does resemble a form of pagan worship. To be truthful, however, we find the Babe's day a little chilly."

  The Earthmen were all right—some of them. Lin was glad that he'd been able to help—and in a way that left Miles unaware that the helpless page had had a Player. Earthmen would, he was sure, resent the fact that their minds were accessible to Cronies. That was why they didn't know it.

  Lin thought that maybe in another thousand years, or two or three, Earthmen could take that blow with unbowed ego. Along with certain other inevitable and well-deserved blows. Then— and again, maybe—they would be admitted into the Hives to study.

  In the meantime it was probably best to let them colonize, let them stick around where they could be easily watched. The Cronies—and the natives of Hon, Lyra, Tabas, Jason, Oro and several thousand other systems many of which the Earthmen hadn't even discovered yet—had all agreed upon that. For the Earthmen might decide to develop into a menace, a rogue—they showed some of the signs.

  The Cronies and the others knew how to deal with that. No violence, either.

  The Galactic Council didn't like violence.

  Lin heard Miles think:

  "By golly, I bet I know why the Cronies group in the open for the rise of Grandpa—"

  Smiling, he trotted off to join his fellow beings. . . .

  Grandpa shoved his gigantic blue-white shoulder over the horizon and the sky seemed to explode into flame.

  Blinded instantly, Jord turned and fled. He stumbled, crashed shrieking down a long slope to huddle slant-wise behind a boulder. And through the racing, churning clouds, through the uncaring stone, Grandpa reached out, touched him. . . .

  After seven hours the gong rang and the door rumbled open, awaking Miles. So he'd slept after all! He dogeared the book to keep his place and walked up the long corridor, mounted the ladder.

  The warm, tempestuous winds were dying down. The Babe was rising, shedding near-earthly light. Grandpa had disappeared to the south and there other Earthmen were retreating into their undergrounds and other Cronies stood almost at attention to drink in the infernal radiations of the big fellow.

  Miles turned and made for the cottage, passing the lower en

  trance to the Hive and knocking cheerfully on the door. He received an answering knock—probably an infant, still sheltered against the cool of the Babe's day.

  So the Cronies gathered in the valley every other morning to warm themselves. He was rather proud of having figured that out. Proud, too, of having gotten rid of Jord so neatly.

  Both ideas had come to him in an identical manner. Out of the blue. Inspiration.

  Farther on he left the path to finger the racked kanl leaves. With Grandpa, he thought in paraphrase, it was luckily "not the heat but the short radiations." The alien radiations. Otherwise the leaves would have been ashes. As it was, they were nicely toasted, ready to be shipped to Three Major.

  Lin came down from the hills and around the sunmill with a large, bulky sack folded over a wide shoulder. Miles shuddered and told him to put it behind the linla crib.

  That would have to be shipped to Three Major too.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ANDRE NORTON was bom in Cleveland, Ohio, where she now resides. She is editor of the Gnome Press teen-age science-fiction department, as well as author and editor of thirteen books of mystery, adventure, and science-fiction. World has published her edition of Malcolm Jameson's Bullard of the Space Patrol, and Space Service, an anthology of science-fiction tales. Miss Norton was a Children's Librarian at the Cleveland Public Library, and is an avid student and collector of science-fiction.