Book One

TERRA

PROLOGUE

(Excerpt from the Encyclopedia Galactica)

THE FIRST GALACTIC exploratory and colonization flight came as a direct outgrowth of a peculiar sociological-political situation on the planet Terra. As a result of a series of wars between nationalistic divisions atomic power was discovered. Afraid of the demon they had so loosed the nations then engaged in so-called “cold wars” during which all countries raced to outbuild each other in the stock piling of new and more drastic weapons and the mobilization of manpower into the ancient “armies.”

Scientific training became valued only for the aid it could render in helping to arm and fit a nation for war. For some time scientists and techneers of all classes were kept in a form of peonage by “security” regulations. But a unification of scientists fostered in a secret underground movement resulted in the formation of “Free Scientist” teams, groups of experts and specialists who sold their services to both private industry and governments as research workers. Since they gave no attention to the racial, political, or religious antecedents of their members, they became truly inter -national and planet —, instead of nation—, minded—a situation both hated and feared by their employers.

Under the stimulus of Free Scientist encouragement man achieved interplanetary flight. Terra was the third in a series of nine planets revolving about the sun, Sol I. It possessed one satellite, Luna.

Exploration ships made landings on Luna, and the two neighboring planets, Mars and Venus. None of these worlds were suitable for human colonization without vast expenditure, and they offered little or no return for such effort. Consequently, after the first flurry of interest, space flight died down, and there were few visitors to the other worlds, except for the purpose of research.

Three “space stations” had been constructed to serve Terra as artificial satellites. These were used for refueling interplanetary ships and astronomical and meteorological observation. One of these provided the weapon the nationalists had been searching for in their war against the “Free Scientists.”

The station was invaded and occupied by a party of unidentified armed men (later studies suggest that these men were mercenaries in the pay of nationalist forces). And this group, either by ignorant chance or with deliberate purpose, turned certain installations in the station into weapons for an attack upon Terra.

There are indications that they themselves had no idea of the power they unleashed, and that it was at once beyond their control. As a result the major portion of the thickly populated sections of the planet were completely devastated and no one was ever able to reckon the loss of life.

Among those who were the sole survivors of an entire family group was Arturo Renzi. Renzi, a man of unusual magnetic personality, was a believer in narrow and fanatical nationalist doctrines. Because of his personal loss he began to preach the evil of science (with propaganda that the Free Scientists themselves had turned the station against the earth that had apparently been carefully prepared even before the act) and the necessity for man to return to the simple life on the soil to save himself and Terra.

To a people already in psychic shock from the enormity of the disaster, Renzi appeared the great leader they needed and his party came into power around the world. But, fanatic and narrow as he was, his voiced policies were still too liberal for some of his supporters.

Renzi’s assassination, an act committed by a. man arbitrarily identified as an outlawed Free Scientist, touched off the terrible purge which lasted three days. At the end of which time the few scientists and techneers still alive had been driven into hiding, to be hunted down one by one through the following years as chance or man betrayed them.

Saxon Bort, a lieutenant of Renzi’s, assumed command of the leader’s forces and organized the tight dictatorship of the Company of Pax.

Learning, unless one was a privileged “Peaceman,” became suspect. Society was formed into three classes—the nobility as represented by the Peacemen of various grades, the peasantry on the land, and the work-slaves-descendants of suspected scientists or techneers.

With the stranglehold of Pax firmly established on Terra, old prejudices against different racial and religious origins again developed. All research, invention, and study was proscribed and the planet was fast slipping into an age of total darkness and retreat. Yet it was at this moment in her history that the first galactic flight was made.

1: THE ROUNDUP

DARD NORDIS PAUSED beneath the low-hanging branches of a pine, sheltered for the moment from the worst of the cutting wind. The western sky was striped with color, dusky purple, gold, red almost as sultry as if this were August instead of late November. But for all their splendor the colors were as bleakly chill as the wind whipping his too—thin body through the sleazy rags of clothing.

He shrugged his shoulders, trying to settle more evenly the bundle of firewood which bowed him into an old man. There came a tug at the hide thong serving him as a belt. “Dard—there’s an animal watching—over there—”

He stiffened. To Dessie, with her odd kinship for all furred creatures, every animal was a friend. She might now be speaking of a squirrel or a wolf! He looked down to the smaller, ragged figure beside him and moistened suddenly dry lips.

“Is it a big one?” he asked.

Hands, which wrappings of sackcloth made into shapeless paws, projected to measure off slightly more than a foot of air.

“’So big. I think it’s a fox—it must be cold. Could we— could we take it home?” Those eyes, which seemed to fill about a quarter of the grimy little face turned up to his, were wistful as well as filled with a too-old patience.

He shook his head. “Foxes have thick fur skins—they’re warmer than we are, honey. He probably has a home and is going there now. Think you can pull the wood all the way down to the path?”

Her mouth twisted in an indignant pout. “’Course. I’m not a baby any more. It’s awfully cold, though, isn’t it, Dardie? Wish it were summer again.”

She gave a quick jerk on a piece of hide and brought into grudging motion the flat piece of battered wood which served as a sled. It was piled high with branches and a few pieces of shredded bark. Not much of a haul today, even combining Dessie’s bits and patches with his own load. But since their axe had vanished it was the best they could do.

He followed the little girl down the slope, retracing the tracks they had made two hours before. There was a frown drawing deep lines between his black brows. That axe—it hadn’t just been mislaid—it had been stolen. By whom? By someone who knew just what its loss would mean, who wanted to cripple them. And that would be Hew Folley. But Hew had not been near the farm for weeks—or had he—secretly?

If he could only get Lars to see that Folley was a danger. Folley was a landsman which made him a fanatic servant of Pax. The once independent farmers had always believed in peace—true peace, not the iron stagnation imposed by Pax—and they had early been won over as firm followers of Renzi. When their sturdy independence had been entirely swallowed up by the strangle controls of those who had assumed command after the death of the Prophet, some had rebelled—too late. Landsmen were now as proud of their lack of education as they were retentive of the few favors allowed them. And it was from their ranks the hated Peace-men were recruited.

Folley was a fervid follower of Pax and for a long time he had wanted to add the few poor Nordis acres to his own holding. If he ever came to suspect their descent—that they were of Free Scientist blood! If he ever guessed what Lars was doing even now!

“Dardie, why must we run?”

Dard caught his breath in a half sob and slowed. That prick of frantic panic which had sent him plunging down to the main trail still goaded him. It was always this way when he was away from the farm even for an hour or two. Each time he feared to return to… Resolutely he closed his mind to the picture his imagination was only too ready to supply him. He forced his lips into a set half-smile for Dessie’s sake.

“Going to be dark early tonight, Dessie. See those big clouds?”

“Snow, Dardie?”

“Probably. We’ll be glad to have this wood.”

“I hope that the fox gets home to his den before the snow comes. He will, won’t he?”

“Of course he will. We’d better, too. Let’s try to run, Dessie—here along the trail—”

She regarded doubtfully the almost shapeless blobs of wrappings which concealed her feet. “My feet don’t run very well, Dardie. Too many coverings on them, maybe. And they’re cold now—”

Not frostbite—not frostbite! he prayed. They had been lucky so far. Of course they were always cold, and very often hungry. But they had had no accidents, nor serious illnesses.

“Run!” he commanded sharply, and Dessie’s short-legged shuffle became a trot.

But, when they reached the screen of second-growth brush at the end of the north field, she halted in obedience to old orders. Dard shrugged off the bundle of firewood and dropped to his hands and knees, crawling forward under cover until he could look down across the broken field-stone wall to the house.

Carefully he examined the sweep of snow about the half-ruined dwelling. There were the tracks he and Dessie had made about the yard. But the smooth expanse of white between house and main road was unbroken. There had been no invaders since they had left. Thankfully, though without any lessening of his habitual apprehension, he went back to gather up the wood.

“All right?” Dessie shifted impatiently from one cold foot to the other.

“All right.”

She jerked the sled into motion and plodded on along the wall where the snow had not drifted. There was a faint gleam of light in one of the windows below. Lars must be in the kitchen. Minutes later they stamped off snow and went in.

Lars Nordis raised his head as his daughter and then his brother entered. His smile of welcome was hardly more than a stretch of parchment skin over thrusting bones and Dard’s secret fear deepened as he studied Lars anxiously. They were always hungry, hut tonight Lars had the appearance of a man in the last stages of starvation.

“Good haul?” he asked Dard as the boy began to shed his first layer of the sacking which served him as a coat.

“Good as we could do without the axe. Dessie got a lot of pine cones.”

Lars swung around to his daughter who had squatted down before the small fire on the hearth where she began to methodically unwind the strips of burlap which were her mittens.

“Now that was lucky! Did you see anything interesting, Dessie?” He spoke to her as he might have addressed an adult.

“Just a fox.” she reported gravely. “It was watching us— from under a tree. It looked cold—but Dardie said it had a home—”

“So it did, honey,” Lars assured her. “A little cave or a hollow tree.”

“I wish I could have brought it home. It would be nice to have a fox or a squirrel—or something—to live with us.” She stretched her small, grime-encrusted, chapped hands out to the fire.

“Maybe someday…” Lars’ voice trailed oil He stared across Dessie’s head at the scanty flames.

Dard hung up the cobbled mass of tatters which was his outdoor coat and went to the cupboard. He lifted down an unwholesome block of salted meat as his brother spoke again.

“How are supplies?”

Dard tensed. There was more to that question than was merely routine. He surveyed the pitiful array on the shelves jealously.

“How much?” he asked, unable to keep out of his voice the almost despairing resentment he felt.

“Maybe enough for two days—if you can put up such a packet.”

Swiftly Dard’s eyes measured and portioned. “If it is really necessary—” he couldn’t stop that half-protest. This systematic robbing of their own, too scanty hoard—for what? If Lars would only explain! But he knew Lars’ answer to that, too: The less one knew, the better, these days. Even in a family that could be so. All right, he’d make up that packet of food and leave it here on the table and in the morning it would he gone—given to someone be didn’t know and would never see. And within a week, or maybe a month it would happen again…

“Tonight?” He asked only that as he sawed away at the wood-like meat.

“I don’t know.”

And at the tone of his brother’s answer Dard dropped the dull knife to turn and watch Lars’ face. There was a new light in the man’s eyes, a brightness about him that his younger brother had never seen since Dessie’s mother had died two years before.

“You’ve finished,” Dard said slowly, hardly daring tobelieve what might be true, that they might be free!

“I’ve finished. They’ll pass the word and then we’ll be sent for.”

“’Honey,” Dard called to Dessie, “bring in the pine cones. We’ll have a big fire tonight.”

As she scampered toward the shed Dard spoke over her head.

“There’s a heavy snow on the way, Lars.”

“So?” the man at the table did not appear worried.

“Well, snow’s never stopped them from coming before.” He was relaxed, at peace.

Dard was silent but his eyes flickered beyond Lars’ shoulder to the objects leaning against the wall. They were never mentioned, those crutches. But in deep snow! Lars never went outside in winter, he couldn’t! How could they get away unless the mysterious others had a horse or horses. But perhaps they did. That was always his greatest fault—worrying over the future-borrowing trouble ahead, as if they didn’t have enough already to go around!

Dessie was back to feed the fire slowly one cone at a time. Dard scraped the meat slivers into the iron pot and added a shriveled potato carefully diced. Then he grew reckless and wrenched off the lid of a can to pour its treasured contents to thicken the water. If they were going away they’d need feeding up to make the trip and there would be little sense in hoarding supplies they could not carry with them.

“Birthday?” Dessie watched this move in wide-eyed surprise. “But my birthday’s in the summer, and Daddy’s was last month, and yours,” she counted on her fingers, “is not for a long time yet, Dardie.”

“Not a birthday. Just a celebration. Get the spoon, Dessie, and stir this carefully.”

“’Celebration,” she considered the new word thoughtfully. “I like celebrations. You going to make tea, too, Dardie? Why, this is just like a birthday!”

Dard shook the dried leaves out on the palm of his hand Their aromatic fragrance reached him faintly.Mint, green and cool under the sun. He sensed that he was different from Lars—colors, scents, certain sounds meant more to him. Just as Dessie was different in her way-in her ability to make friends with birds and animals. He had seen her last summer, sitting perfectly still on the wall, two birds on her shoulders and a squirrel nuzzling her hand.

But Lars had gifts, too. Only he had been taught to use them. Dard shook the last crumbling leaf from his hand into the pot and wondered for the thousandth time what it would have been like to live in the old days when the Free Scientists had the right to teach and learn and experiment. It probably had been another kind of world altogether—the one which existed before the Big Burning, before Renzi had preached the Great Peace.

All he could remember of his early childhood in those days was a vague happiness. The purge had come when he was eight and Lars twenty-five, and after that things simply got worse and worse. Of course, they’d been lucky to survive the purge at all belonging to a Scientific family. But their escape had left Lars a twisted cripple. He and Lars and Kathia had come here. But Kathia was different—she forgot everything, mercifully. And after Dessie had been born five months later it had been like caring for two babies at once. Kathia had been sweet and obedient and lovely, but she lived in her own dream world and neither of them had ever tried to bring her out of it. Seven, almost eight years now, they bad been here. But in all that time Dard had never quite dared to believe they were safe. He lived always on the ragged edge of fear. Maybe Kathia had been the luckiest one of all.

He took over the stirring of the stew and Dessie set the table, putting out the three wooden spoons, the battered crockery howl, the tin basin and the single chipped soup dish, the two tin cups and the graceful fluted china one which had been Dessie’s last birthday gift after he had found it hidden on a rafter out in the barn.

“Smells grand, Dard. You’re a good cook, son.” Lars offered praise.

Dessie bobbed her head in agreement until her two pencil-thick braids flopped up and down on shoulders where the blades, as she moved, took on the angular outlines of wings. “I like celebrations!” She announced. “Tonight may we play the word game?”

“We certainly shall!” Lars returned with emphatic promptness.

Dard did not pause in his stirring though he was alert to every inflection in Lars’ voice. Did he read a special significance into that last answer? Why did Lars want to play the word game? And why did he himself feel this aroused wariness—as if they were secure in a den while out in the dark danger prowled!

“I have a new one, Dessie went on. “It sings—”

She put her hands down on the table on either side of her soup plate and tapped her little broken nails in time to the words she recited:

“Eesee. Osee, Icksee, Ann,

Fullson, Follson, Orson, Cann.”

Dard made an effort and pushed the rhythm out of his mind—no time now to “see” the pattern in that. Why did he always “see” words mentally arranged in the up and down patterns of lines? That was as much a part of him as his delight in color, texture, sight and sound. And for the past three years Lars had encouraged him to work upon it, setting him problems of stray lines of old poetry.

“Yes, that sings, Dessie,” Lars was agreeing now. “I heard you humming it this morning. And there is a reason why Dard must make us a pattern—” he broke off abruptly and Dard did not try to question him.

They ate silently, ladling the hot stuff into them, lifting the dishes to drink the last drops. But they lingered over the spicy mint drink, feeling its warmth sink into their starved, chilled bodies. The light given out by the fire was meager; only now and again did it reach Lars’ face, and shadows were thick in the corners of the room. Dard made no move to light the greased fagot supported by the iron loop above the table. He was too tired and listless. But Dessie rounded the table and leaned against Lars’ crooked shoulder.

“You promised—the word game,” she reminded him.

“Yes— the game—”

With a sigh Dard stooped to pick up a charred stick from the hearth. But he was sure now about the suppressed excitement in his brother’s voice. With the blackened wood for a pencil and the table top for his writing pad he waited.

“Suppose we try your verse now, Dessie,” Lars suggested.

“Repeat it slowly so Dard can work out the pattern.”

Dard’s stick moved in a series of lines up, down, up again. It made a pattern right enough and a clear one. Dessie came to look and then she laughed.

“Legs kicking, Daddy. My rhyme made a picture of legs kicking!”

Dard studied what he had just done. Dessie was right, legs kicked, one a little more exuberantly than the other. He smiled and then glanced up with a start, for Lars had struggled to his feet and was edging around the table without the aid of his crutches. He looked at the straggling lines his brows drawn together in a frown of concentration. From the breast pocket of his patched shirt he took out a scrap of peeled bark they used for paper-keeping it half-concealed in the palm of his hand so that what was noted on it remained a secret. Taking the writing stick from Dard he began to make notations, but the scratchings were all numbers not words.

Erasing with the side of his hand now and again he worked feverishly until at last he gave a quick nod as if in self-reassurance, and let his last combinations stand among the line pattern Dard had seen in Dessie’s nonsense rhyme.

“This is important—both of you—” his voice was almost a whip lash of impatient command “The pattern you see for Dessie’s lines, Dard—but—these words.” Slowly he recited, accenting heavily each word he spoke.

“Seven, nine, four and ten.

Twenty, sixty, and seven again.”

Dard studied the smudged diagram on the table top until he was sure that it was engraved on his memory for all time.

When he nodded, Lars turned and tossed the note chip into the fire. Then his eyes met his brother’s in a straight measuring look over the little girl’s bent head.

“It’s all yours, Dard, just remember—”

But the younger Nordis had only said, “I’ll do it,” when Dessie, uncomprehendingly, broke in.

“Seven, nine, four and ten,” she repeated solemnly,

“Twenty, sixty, and seven again. Why, it sings just as mine does—you’re right, Daddy!”

“Yes. Now how about bed.” Lars lurched back to his chair. “It’s dark. You’d better go, too, Dard.”

That was an order. Lars was expecting someone tonight, then. Dard raked two bricks away from the fire and wrapped them up in charred pieces of blanket. Then he opened the door to the crooked stairs which led to the room overhead. There it was dark and the cold was bitter. But moonlight made a short path from the uncurtained window—enough to show them the pile of straw and ragged bed covers huddled close to the chimney where some heat came up from the fire below. Dard made a nest with the bricks laid in to warm it and pushed Dessie back as far as he could without smothering her. Then he stood for a moment looking out across the moonlit snow.

They were a safe mile from the road and be had taken certain precautions of his own to insure that no sneaking patrol of Peacemen could enter the lane without warning. Across the fields was only Folley’s place—though that was a lurking danger. Behind loomed the mountains, which, wild as they were, promised safety of a kind. If only Lars were not crippled they could have gone into the hills long ago.

When they first reached the farm it had seemed a haven of safety after two years of hiding and being hunted. There was so much confusion after Renzi’s assassination and the following purge, with the Peacemen busily consolidating their power, that small fry among the remaining techneers and scientists had managed to stay free of the first nets. But now patrols were combing everywhere and some day, sooner or later, one would come here—especially if Folley revealed his suspicions to the right people. Folley wanted the farm, and he hated Lars and Dard because they were different. To be different nowadays was to sign your own death warrant. How much longer would they escape the notice of a roundup gang?

Dard was aroused from the blackest of forebodings to discover that he was biting savagely on the knuckles of a balled fist. With two quick steps he crossed the small room and felt along the shelf. His heart leaped as his groping fingers closed about the haft of a knife. Not much good against a stun rifle maybe. But when he held it so, he did not feel completely defenseless.

On impulse he put it inside his clothing, against skin which shrunk from the icy metal. And then he crawled into the nest of straw.

“Hmm— ?” came a sleepy murmur from Dessie.

“It’s Dardie,” he whispered reassuringly. “Go to sleep.”

It might have been hours later, or minutes, when Dard came suddenly awake. He lay rigid, listening. There was no sound in the old house, not even the creak of a board. But he pulled out into the cold and crawled to the window. Something had awakened him, and the fear he lived with put him on guard.

He strained to see all the details of the bright white and black landscape. A shadow moved between moon and snow. There was a ’copter coming down, making a silent landing just before the house. Figures leaped out of it and flitted to right and left, encircling the dwelling.

Dard ran back to scoop Dessie out of the warmth of the bed, clapping his hand over her mouth. Her eyes opened, wide with fear. as he put his lips close to her car.

“Go down to Daddy,” he ordered. “Wake him!”

“Peacemen?” She was shaking with more than cold as she started down the stairs. “Say that I think so. They came in a ’copter.” That was the one thing he had not been able to guard against surprise from above. But they had so few of the ’copters left, now that it was forbidden to manufacture any of the prepurge machines. And why should they use one to raid an insignificant farmhouse sheltering a child a cripple and a boy? Unless Lars’ work was important—so important that they dared not allow him to pass along his findings to the underground.

Dard watched the dark shapes take cover. They were probably all around the house by this time, moving in. They wanted to take the inhabitants alive. Too many cornered scientists in the past had cheated them. So they would move slowly now—slow enough to—Dard’s smile was no more than a drawn grimace.He still had one secret, one which might save the Nordis family yet.

Having watched the last of the raiders take cover Dard ran down into the kitchen. The fire was still burning and before it crouched Lars.

“They came by air. And they have the house surrounded,” Dard reported in a matter-of-fact voice. Now that the worst had at last happened he was surprisingly calm. “But they don’t have their trap completely closed as they are going to discover!”

He brushed past Lars and jerked open the cupboard doors. Dessie stood beside her father, and now Dard threw her a bag.

“Food— everything you can pack in,” he ordered. “Lars, here!”

From the pegs he pulled down all the extra clothing they had. “Get dressed to go out.”

But his brother shook his head. “You know I can’t make it, Dard.”

Dessie went on stuffing provisions into the hag “I’ll help you, Daddy,” she promised “’just as soon as I can.”

Dard paid no attention to his brother. Instead he ran to the far end of the room and raised the trap door of the cellar.

“Last summer,” he explained as he came back to gather up the clothing, “’I found a passage down there behind the wall. It leads out to the foundations of the barn. We can hide there—”

“They know we are here They’ll be looking for a move such as that,” objected Lars.

“Not after I cover our trail.”

He saw that Lars was pulling on the remnants of a coat. Dessie was almost ready to go and now she helped her father not only to dress but to crawl across the floor to the hole. Dard gave her a pine knot torch before he went to work.

The doors and all the downstairs shutters were barred. Those ought to hold just long enough—

He took a small can from the cupboard and poured its long-saved contents liberally about the room. Then he withdrew to the head of the cellar ladder before hurling a second blazing torch into the nearest patch of liquid. A billow of fire sent him hurtling down with just enough time to pull the trap door shut behind him.

As he shoved aside the rotting bins which concealed the opening to the passage, he could hear the crackling above, and smoke drifted down through the flooring cracks.

A moment later Dessie scuttled into the passage ahead as Dard hauled Lars along with him. Over their heads the house burned. These outside might well believe that their prey burned with it. At the very least the blaze would cover their escape for the precious minutes which meant the difference between life and death.

2: HIDING OUT

BEFORE THEY REACHED the outlet below the barn, Dard brought them to a halt. There was no use emerging into the arms of some snooping Peaceman. It was better to stay in hiding until they could see whether or not the enemy had been fooled by the burning house.

The passage in which the three crouched was walled with rough stone and so narrow that the shoulders of the two adults brushed both sides. It was cold, icy with a chill which crept up from the bare earth underneath through their ill-covered feet to their knees and then into their shivering bodies. How long they could stay there without succumbing to that cold Dard did not know. He bit his lip anxiously as he strained to hear the sound from above.

He was answered by an explosion, the sound and shock of which came to them down the passage from the house. And then there was a slightly hysterical chuckle from Lars.

“What happened?” began Dard, and then answered his own question, “The laboratory!”

“Yes, the laboratory,” Lars said, leaning against the wall. There was relaxation in both his pose and voice. “They’ll have a mess to comb through now.

“All the better!” snapped Dard. “Will it feed the fire?”

“Feed the fire! It might blow up the whole building. There won’t be enough pieces left for them to discover what was inside before the blast.”

“Or who might have been there!” For the first time Dard saw a ray of real hope. The Peacemen could not have known of this passage, they probably believed that the dwellers in the farmhouse had been blown up in that explosion. The escape of the Nordis family was covered—they now had a better than even chance.

But still he waited, or rather made Lars and Dessie wait in hiding while he crept on into the barn hole and climbed up the ladder he had placed there for such a use as this. Then, making a worm’s progress crawling, he crossed the rotting floor to peer out through the doorless entrance.

The outline of the farmhouse walls was gone, and tongues of blue-white flame ate up the dark to make the scene day-bright. Two men in the black and white Peace uniforms were dragging a third away from the holocaust. And there was a lot of confused shouting. Dard listened and gathered that the raiders were convinced that their prey had gone up with the house, taking with them two officers who had just beaten in the back door before the explosion. And there had been three others injured. The roundup gang was hurrying away, apprehensive of other explosions. Peacemen, who prided themselves on their lack of scientific knowledge, were apt to harbor such suspicions.

Dard got to his feet. The last man, trailing a stun rifle, was going around the fire now, keeping a careful distance from the chemically fed flames, such a distance that he plunged waist deep through snow drifts. And a few moments later Dard saw the ’copter rise, circle the farm once, and head west. He sighed with relief and went back to get the others.

“All clear,” he reported to Lars as he supported the crippled man up the ladder. “They think we went up in the explosion and they were afraid there might be another so they left fast—”

Again Lars chuckled. “They won’t be back in a hurry then.”

“Dard,” Dessie was a small shadow moving through the gloom, “if our house is gone where are we going to live now?

“My practical daughter,” Lars said. “We will find some other place… ”

Dard remembered. “The messenger you were expecting! He might see the blaze from the hills and not come at all!”

“And that’s why you’re going to leave him a sign that we’re still in the land of the living, Dard. As Dessie points out we haven’t a roof over us now, and the sooner we’re on our way the better.Since our late callers believe us to be dead there’s no danger in Dessie and I staying right where we are now, while you do what’s necessary to bring help. Follow the wall in the top pasture to the corner where the old woods road begins. About a quarter of a mile beyond is a big tree with a hollow in it.Put this inside.” Lars pulled a piece of rag out of his wrappings. “Then come back here. That’ll bring our man on down even if he sees an eruption going on. It tells him that we’ve escaped and are hiding out waiting to make contact. If he doesn’t come by morning— we’ll try moving up closer to the tree.”

Dard understood. His brother daren’t attempt the journey through the snow and brush at night. But tomorrow they could rig some kind of a board sled from the debris and drags Lars into the safety of the woods. In the meantime it was very necessary to leave the sign. With a word of caution to them both, Dard left the barn.

By instinct he kept to the shadows east by the trees and brush which encroached on the once fertile fields. Near the farm buildings was a maze of tracks left by the Peacemen, and he used them to hide the pattern of his own steps. Just why he took such precautions he could not tell, but the wariness which had guided every move of his life for years had now become an ingrown part of him. On the other hand, now that the raid he had feared for so long had come, and he and his were still alive and free, he felt eased of some of the almost intolerable burden.

As he tramped away from the dying fire the night was very still and cold. Once a snowy owl slipped across the sky, and deep in the forest a wolf, or one of the predatory wild dogs, howled. Dard did not find it difficult to locate Lars’ tree and made sure that the rag was safe in the black hollow of its trunk.

The cold ate into him and he hurried on his back trail. Maybe they might dare light a small fire in the cellar pit, just enough to keep them from freezing until morning. How close was the dawn, he wondered, as he stumbled and clutched at a snow-crowned wall to steady himself. Bed—sleep—warmth— He was so tired—so very tired—

Then a sound ripped through the night air. A shot! His face twisted and his hand went to the haft of the knife. A shot! Lars had no gun! The Peacemen—but they had gone!

Clumsily, slipping, fighting to keep his footing in the treacherous snow drifts, Dard began to run. Within a matter of minutes he came to his senses and dodged into cover, making his way to the barn in such a manner as to provide no target for any marksman lurking there. Dessie, Lars— there alone without any means of defense!

Dard was close to the building when Dessie’s scream came. And that scream tore all the caution from him. Balancing the knife in his hand, he threw himself across the churned snow of the yard for the door. And his sacking covered feet made no sound as he ran.

“Got ya’—imp of Satan!”

Dard’s arm came up, the knife was poised. And, as if for once Fortune was on his side, there was a sharp tinkle of breaking glass from the embers of the house and a following sweep of flame to light the scene within the barn.

Dessie was fighting, silently now, with all the frenzy of a small cornered animal, in the hands of Hew Folley. One of the man’s hard fists was aimed straight for her face as Dard threw the knife.

The months he had practiced with that single weapon were now rewarded. Dessie flew free as the man hurled her away. On hands and feet she scuttled into the dark. Hew turned and bent over as if to grope for the rifle which lay by his feet. Then he coughed, and coughing, went down. Dard grabbed the rifle. Only when it was in his hands did he come up to the still-coughing man. He pulled at Folley’s shoulder and rolled him over. Bitter hatred stared up at Dard from the small dark eyes of the other.

“Got— dirty— stinkman—” Folley mouthed and then coughed. Blood bubbled from his slack lips. “Thought—he—was—hiding—right—Kill—kill—” The rest was lost in a gush of blood. He tried to raise himself but the effort was beyond him. Dard watched grimly until it was over and then, fighting down a rising nausea, undertook the dirty business of retrieving his knife.

The sun did not show when he came out of the barn with Dessie after some hours which he did not want to remember. From a gray sky whirled flakes of white. Dard regarded them blankly at first and then with a dull relief. A snow storm would hide a lot. Not that anyone would ever find Lars poor twisted body, now safely walled up in the passage. But Folley’s people might be detained by a heavy storm if they started a search. The landsman had been a tyrant and the district bully—not beloved enough to arouse interest for a sizable searching party.

“Where are we going, Dardie?” Dessie’s voice was a monotone. She had not cried, but she had shivered continually, and now she looked at the outer world with a shadow of dread in her eyes. He drew her closer as he shouldered their bag of supplies.

“Into the woods, Dessie. We’ll have to live as the animals do—for a while. Are you hungry?”

She did not meet his eyes as she shook her head. And she made no effort to move until his hand on her shoulder drew her along. The snow thickened in a wild dance, driven by gusts of wind to hide the still smoldering cellar of the farmhouse. Pushing Dessie before him Dard began the hike back along his path of the night before—toward the hollow tree and the meeting place. To contact Lars’ messenger might now be their only chance.

Under the trees the fury of the storm was less, but the snow packed against their bodies, clinging to their eyelashes and a wisp of hair which hung across Dessie’s forehead so that she brushed at it mechanically. Food, heat, shelter, their needs made a pattern in Dard’s mind and he clung to it, shutting out memories of the past night. Dessie could not stand this tramping for long. And he was almost to the end of his own strength. He used the rifle as a staff.

The rifle—and three shells—he had those. But he dared not use the weapon except as a last resort. The sound of a shot carried too far. There were only a few guns left and they were in the hands of those whom the Peacemen had reason to trust. Anyone hunting for Folley would be attracted by a shot. If their escape became suspected… He shivered with something other than cold.

Herding Dessie at a steady pace he fought his way to the hollow tree. There was no need to worry about the trail they had left, the snow filled it in a matter of minutes. But they must stay near here—for Lars’ messenger to find them.

Dard set Dessie to treading back and forth in a space he marked out for her. That not only kept her moving and so fighting the insidious cold numbness, but it packed down a flooring for the shelter he built. A fallen tree gave it backing and pine branches, heaped up and covered with snow, provided a roof.

He could see the hollow in the tree from this lair and he impressed upon Dessie the necessity of watching for anyone coming along the path.

They ate handfuls of snow together with wooden bits of salted meat. But the little girl complained of sleepiness and at last Dard huddled in the shelter with Dessie in his arms, the rifle at hand, fighting drowsiness to keep his grim vigil. At length he had to put the rifle between his feet, the end of the barrel just under his jaw, so that when he nodded, the touch of the cold metal nudged him into wakefulness. How long they dared stay there was a question which continued to trouble him. What if the messenger did not come today or tomorrow? There was a cave back in the hills which he had discovered during the past summer but—

The jab of the rifle barrel made his eyes water with pain. The snow had stopped falling. Branches, heavily burdened, were bent to the ground, but the air was free. He pulled back his top covering and studied Dessie’s pinched face. She was sleeping, but now and again she twisted uneasily and once she whimpered. He changed position to aid his cramped legs and she half roused.

But right on her inquiring “Dardie?” came another sound and his hand clamped right across her lips. Someone was coming along the woods trail, singing tunelessly.

The messenger?

Before Dard’s hope was fully aroused it was dashed. He saw a flash of red around a bush and then the wearer of that bright cap came into full view. Dard’s lips drew back in a half-snarl.

Lotta Folley!

Dessie struggled in his arms and he let her crawl to one side of the tiny shelter. But, though he brought up the rifle, he found he could not aim it. Hew Folley—betrayer and murderer—yes. His daughter—though she might be of the same brutal breed-though he might be throwing away freedom and life—he could not kill!

The girl, a sturdy stout figure in her warm homespuns and knitted cap, halted panting beneath the very tree he must watch. If she glanced up now—if her woodsight was as keen as his—and he had no reason to doubt that it was.

Lotta Folley’s head raised and across the open expanse of snow her eyes found Dard’s strained face. He made no move in a last desperate attempt to escape notice. After all he was in the half-shadow of the shelter, she might not see him— the protective “playing dead” of an animal.

But her eyes widened, her full mouth shaped a soundless expression of astonishment. With a kind of pain he waited for her to cry out.

Only she made no sound at all. After the first moment of surprise her face assumed its usual stupid, slightly sullen solidity. She brushed some snow from the front of her jacket without looking at it, and when she spoke in her hoarse common voice, she might have been addressing the tree at her side.

“The Peacemen are huntin’.”

Dard made no answer. She pouted her lips and added,

“They’re huntin’ you.”

He still kept silent. She stopped brushing her jacket and her eyes wavered around the flees and brush walling in the old road.

“They say as how your brother’s a stinkman—”

"Stinkman,” the opprobious term for a scientist. Dard continued to hold his tongue. But her next question surprised him.

“Dessie— Dessie all right?”

He was too slow to catch the little girl who slipped by him to face the Folley girl gravely.

Lotta fumbled in the breast of her packet and brought out a packet folded in a piece of grease-blotted cloth. She did not move up to offer it to Dessie but set it down carefully on the end of a tree stump.

“For you,” she said to the little girl. Then she turned to Dard. “You better not stick around. Pa tol’ the Peacemen about you.” She hesitated. “Pa didn’t come back las’ night—”

Dard sucked in his breath. That glance she had shot at him, had there been knowledge in it? But if she knew what lay in the barn—why wasn’t she heading the hue and cry to their refuge? Lotta Folley, he had never regarded her with any pleasure. In the early days, when they had first come to the farm, she had often visited them, watching Kathia, Dessie, with a kind of lumpish interest. She had talked little and what she said suggested that she was hardly more than a moron. He had been contemptuous of her, though he had never showed it.

“Pa didn’t come back las’ night,” she repeated, and now he was sure she knew—or suspected. What would she do? He couldn’t use the rifle—he couldn’t

Then he realized that she must have seen that weapon, seen and recognized it. He could offer no reasonable explanation for having it with him. Folley’s rifle was a treasure, it wouldn’t be in the hands of another—and surely not in the hands of Folley’s enemy—as long as Folley was alive.

Dard caught the past tense. So she did know! Now— what was she going to do?

“Pa hated lotsa things,” her eyes clipped away from his to Dessie. “Pa liked t’ hurt things.”

The words were spoken without emotion, in her usual dull tone.

“He wanted t’ hurt Dessie. He wanted t’ send her t’ a work camp. He said he was gonna. You better give me that there gun, Dard. If they find it with Pa they ain’t gonna look around for anybody that ran away.”

“But why?” he was shocked almost out of his suspicion.

“Nobody’s gonna send Dessie t’ no work camp,” she stated flatly. “Dessie—she’s special! Her ma was special, too. Once she made me a play baby. Pa—he found it an’ burned it up. You—you can take care of Dessie—you gotta take care of Dessie!” Her eyes met his again compellingly. “You gotta git away from here an’ take Dessie where none of them Peacemen are gonna find her. Give me Pa’s rifle an’ I’ll cover up.”

Driven to the last rags of his endurance Dard met that with the real truth.

“We can’t leave here yet—”

She cut him off. “Some one comin’ for you? Then Pa was right—your brother was a stinkman?”

Dard found himself nodding.

“All right,” she shrugged. “I can let you know if they come again. But you see to Dessie—mind that!”

“I’ll see to Dessie.” He held out the rifle and she took it from him before she pointed again to the packet.

“Give her that. I’ll try to git you some more—maybe tonight. If they think you got away they’ll bring dogs out from town. If they do—” She shuffled her feet in the snow.

Then she stood the rifle against the hollow tree and unbuttoned the front of her jacket. Her hands, clumsy in mittens, unwound a heavy knitted scarf and tossed it to the child.

“You put that on you,” she ordered with some of the authority of a mother, or at least of an elder sister. “I’d leave you my coat, only they’d notice.” She picked up the rifle again. “Now I’ll put this here where it belongs an’ maybe they won’t go on huntin’.”

Speechless Dard watched her turn down trail, still at a loss to understand her actions. Was she really going to return that rifle to the barn—how could she, knowing the truth? And why?

He knelt to wind the scarf around Dessie’s head and shoulders. For some reason Folley’s daughter wanted to help them and he was beginning to realize that he needed all the aid he could get.

The packet Lotta had left contained such food as he had not seen in years—real bread, thick buttered slices of it, and a great hunk of fat pork. Dessie would not eat unless he shared it with her, and he took enough to flavor his own meal of the wretched fare they had brought with them. When they had finished he asked one of the questions which had been in his mind ever since Lotta’s amazing actions.

“Do you know Lotta well, Dessie?”

She ran her tongue around her greasy lips, collecting stray crumbs.

“Lotta came over often.”

“But I haven’t seen her since—” he stopped before mentioning Kathia’s death.

“She comes and talks to me when I am in the fields. I think she is afraid of you and—Daddy. She always brings me nice things to eat. She said that some day she wanted to give me a dress—a pink dress. I would very much like a pink dress, Dardie. I like Lotta—she is always good—inside she is good.”

Dessie smoothed down the ends of her new scarf.

“She is afraid of her Daddy. He is mean to her. Once he came when she was with me and he was very, very mad. He cut a stick with his knife and he hit her with it. She told me to run away quick and I did. He was a very bad man, Dardie. I was afraid of him, too. He won’t come after us?”

“NO!”

He persuaded Dessie to sleep again and when she awoke he knew that he must have rest himself and soon. Impressing upon her how much their lives depended on it, he told her to watch the tree and awaken him if anyone came.

It was sunset when he aroused from an uneasy, nightmare-haunted sleep. Dessie squatted quietly beside him, her small grave face turned to the trail. As he shifted his weight she glanced up.

“There was just a bunny,” she pointed to small betraying tracks. “But no people, Dard. Is—is there any bread left? I’m hungry.”

“Sure you are!” He crawled out of the shelter and stretched cramped limbs before unwrapping the remains of Lotta’s bounty.

In spite of her vaunted hunger Dessie ate slowly, as if savoring each crumb. The light was fading fast, although there were still red streaks in the sky. Tonight they must remain here—but tomorrow? If Lotta’s return of the rifle to the barn did not stop the search—then tomorrow the fugitives would have to take to the trail again.

“Is it going to snow again, Dardie?”

He studied the sky. “I don’t think so. I wish it would.”

“Why? When the snow is so deep, it’s hard to walk.”

He tried to explain. “Because when it snows, it is really warmer. Too cold a night…” he didn’t finish that sentence, but encircled Dessie with a tong arm and drew her back under the shelter with him. She wriggled about, settling herself more comfortably, then she jerked upright again.

“Someone’s coming!” her whisper was warm on his cheek.

He had heard that too, the faint creak of a foot on the icy coated snow. And his hand closed about the haft of his knife.

3. THE CLEFT DWELLERS

HE WAS A SMALL MAN, the newcomer, and Dard overtopped him by four inches or more. And that gave the boy confidence enough to pull out of the shelter. He watched the stranger come confidently on, as though he knew just how many steps lay between himself and some goal. His clothing, what could be seen of it in the fast deepening dusk, was as ragged and patched as Dard’s own. This was no landsman or Peaceman scout. Only one who did not hold all the important “confidence cards” would go about so unkempt. Which meant that he was an “unreliable,” almost as much an outlaw as a techneer or a scientist

The newcomer stopped abruptly in front of the tree. But he did not raise his hand to the hollow, instead he studied the tracks left by Lotta. But finally he shrugged and reached into the hole.

Dard moved and the other whirled in a half-crouch. There was the gleam of teeth in his bearded face, and another glint—of bare metal—in his hand.

But he made no sound and it was Dard who broke the quiet.

“I am Dard Nordis—”

“So?…” The single word was lengthened to approximate a reptile’s hiss.

And Dard sensed that he was facing a dangerous man, a menace far worse than Hew Folley or any of his brutal kind.

“Suppose you tell me what has happened?” the man added.

“Roundup raid—last night,” Dard returned laconically, his initial relief at the other’s coming considerably dampened. “We thought we had escaped. I came up to leave that message for Lars.” He motioned to the rag. “When I got back Lars was dead—killed by the neighbor who probably set them on us. So Dessie and I came here to wait for you.”

“Peacemen!” the man spat. “And Lars Nordis dead! That’s a bad piece of luck—bad.” He made no move to put away the gun he held. It resembled a hand stun gun, but certain peculiarities of the stub barrel suggested that it was more deadly a weapon than that.

“And now,” the man moved a step or two in Dard’s direction, “what do you expect me to do with you?”

Dard moistened dry lips with a nervous tongue. He had not considered that, without Lars and what Lars had to offer, the mysterious underground might not wish to burden themselves with an untrained boy and a small child. Grim necessity was the law among all the present outlaws, and useless hands coupled with another mouth to feed were not wanted. He had a single hope…

Lars had been so insistent about that word pattern that Dard dared now to believe that he must carry his brother’s discovery in that memorized design of lines and numbers. He had to believe that and impress the importance of his information upon this messenger. It would be their passport to the underground.

“Lars had finished his work,” Dard schooled his voice to conversational evenness. “I think you need the results—”

The man’s head jerked. And now he did put away that oddly shaped gun.

“You have the formula?”

Dard took a chance and touched his own forehead. “I have it here. I’ll deliver it when and if I reach the proper persons.”

The messenger kicked moodily at a lump of snow. “It’s a long trip—back into the hills. You have supplies?”

“Some. I’ll talk when we’re safe—when Dessie is safe—”

“I don’t know—a child—the going’s pretty tough.”

“You’ll find we can keep up,” Dard made a promise he had no surety of keeping. “But we had better start now— there’s just a chance that they may be after us.”

The man shrugged. “All right. Come ahead—the two of you.”

Dard handed the bag of supplies to the other and took Dessie’s hand. Without another word the man turned to retrace the way he had come and the other two followed, keeping as well as they could to the trail he had broken.

They traveled on all that night. Dard first led and then carried Dessie, until, after one halt, the guide waved him on and raised the little girl to his shoulder, leaving Dard to stumble along unburdened. They rested at intervals but never long enough to relax, and Dard despaired of being able to keep up the pace. This messenger was a tireless machine, striding as might a robot along some hidden trail of which he alone knew the landmarks.

At dawn they were close to the top of a rise. Dard pulled himself up the last of a steep slope, panting, to discover the other waiting for him. With a jerk of his thumb the man indicated the crest of the divide.

“Cave— camp—” he got out the two words stiffly and put Dessie down. “Can you make it by yourself?” he asked her.

“Yes,” her hand sought his confidently. “I’m a good climber.”

There was a hint of smile, an awkward smile, pulling long forgotten muscles about his tight mouth. “You sure are, sister!”

The cave was fairly deep, the narrow entrance giving little hint of the wide room one found after squeezing through. It was a revelation to Dard as the guide snapped on a hand beam from a tiny carrying case he took from a ledge by the entrance. This was, the boy gathered, a regular camping place used by the underground travelers. He sank down on a bed of leaves and watched their companion pull out a black box, adjusting a dial on its side. Within seconds they began to feel the heat radiating from it. Free Scientist equipment all of this—all top contraband. Dard had dim pre-purge memories of such aids to comfort,

Dessie gave a sigh of pure content and curled up as close to that wonder as she could get. She watched with sleepy eyes the owner of this marvel break open a can of soup and pour its half-frozen contents into a pan which he set on top of the heating unit. He rummaged through the bag of supplies Dard brought, grunting at the scantiness of the pitiful collection.

“We didn’t have much time to pack,” said Dard, finally irritated by the other’s unspoken contempt.

“What brought them down on you?” the man asked, squatting back on his heels. He had the strange gun out, checking the clip which carried its charge, squinting down its few inches of barrel.

“Who knows? There was a landsman—he wanted the farm. He was the one who shot Lars.”

“Hmm—” The man peered into the now bubbling soup. “Then it may have been only a routine raid after all—sparked by just general malice?”

That, Dard gathered from his tone, was the answer more desired by this stranger. And his own thoughts went back to the last evening in the farm house when Lars had made his announcement of success. The raid had followed too aptly—almost as if Lars’ discovery at all costs had to be prevented from reaching those who might make use of it. What had Lars been working on, and why was it so important? And did he, Dard Nordis, actually know anything about it?

“What’s your name?” Dessie eyed their companion over the cup of soup he had poured for her. “I never saw you before—”

For the second time that shadow smile appeared on the guide’s lips.

“No, you never saw me, Dessie. But I’ve seen you—several times. And you may call me Sach.”

“Sach,” she repeated. “That is a funny name. But this is very good soup, Sach. Is this a celebration?”

He looked startled. “Don’t know about its being a celebration, Dessie. But it is going to be a day of sleep for all of us. We still have a long way to go. Suppose you bed down over there and close your eyes.”

Dard was nodding over his own supply of food and a very short time later followed the same orders.

He awoke with a start. Sach was stooping over him, his grimed hand over Dard’s mouth as he shook him by the shoulder. As soon as he saw the awareness in the boy’s eyes, he dropped down on one knee to whisper:

“There’s a ’copter circling—been up and around overhead for a half hour. Either we’ve been trailed or they’ve found out about this cave and put a watch on it. Now you listen and get this straight. What Lars Nordis was doing means more than life to the Cleft Dwellers. They’ve been waiting for the results of his last tests.” He paused and in quite a different voice as if repeating some talisman added two words Dard had once heard from Lars “Ad Astra.” Then in a harsh command he continued, “They’ve got to have it and have it quick. We’re some five miles from the valley. Set a line straight to the peak you can see from this cave entrance and keep to it. Give me a good start and watch. If the ’copter follows me, then it’s okay for you to make a break to reach the peak. Keep undercover all you can. There’s only one long stretch where you cross the river that you have to be in the open.”

“But you—” Dard was trying to pull his sleep scattered thoughts together.

“I’ll go down slope the opposite way. If they are suspicious of this hiding hole and are watching it, they may take out after me. And I’ve played this type of hide and seek before, I know the game. You watch from the entrance while I go—now!”

Dard followed him to the narrow opening where Sach lingered just within the shadow listening. Now Dard could hear it too, the faint whine of a ’copter beating through the cold afternoon air. It grew to a steady drone, passed overhead, and faded. Sach still waited. Then he gave a curt nod to Dard and melted away.

The boy crawled to the very edge of the concealing overhang. Sach by some trick had won a good ten feet down slope. It would be difficult for anyone sighting him now to guess just where he had appeared from. He slid down, in only enough hurry to suggest that he was bolting from a position he considered dangerous.

Now the ’copter was on its way back—either on a routine sweep or because the dark figure of Sach had been sighted. He leaped into the shelter of a pine grown thicket, but not soon enough to escape detection. The ’copter circled down. There was a loud crack awaking echoes from the surrounding rocks. Somebody had shot at the fugitive.

“Dardie!”

“It’s all right,” the boy called reassuringly over his shoulder into the cave. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

Sach had probably wormed his way down to the edge of the deep woods. The ’copter made another smaller and tighter circle and came closer to the ground, to allow three men to leap into the snow. Before they could gain their feet and their balance a pencil of green light beamed a tight ray at one. He screamed and threshed the snow into a high shower of drift. The others threw themselves flat but continued to snake toward the wood from which that attack had come, and the ’copter swooped to spray death into the silent trees. Sach had not only drawn the attention of the trackers, he was using every means of keeping it on him. The ’copter soared above the trees, westward, away from the cave. When the two men broke into the brush undercover Dard watched them out of sight.

It would be evening soon. And the eastern slope was well provided with cover. There were sections of bare rock on the slope where no snow clung. Dard’s eyes narrowed—footprints were easy to see from the air. But there was another way of getting down to the valley, one which would leave no such tell-tale traces. He went inside and clicked on the light Sach had left.

“Time to go, Dardie?” Dessie asked.

“First we eat.” He made himself move deliberately. If Sach’s information was right they still had a long trip before them. And they must not start it with empty stomachs. He used supplies recklessly before tying up enough of the remains to provide them with food for at least one more day.

“Where is Sach?” Dessie wanted to know.

“He had to go away. We will travel alone now. Eat all that, Dessie.”