“WHEN’S BLAST-OFF?” Cully was boring holes in the sand with one finger, restless away from his machines.
Dard glanced along the line of the six men who had accompanied him down to the shore. They sat cross-legged in the sand with strict orders to keep quiet and wait. The first meeting between the Terrans and the representatives of the merpeople had been scheduled for this afternoon-if he had been able to get the idea across in gestures alone.
Spread out on the shore several feet above the water level were those gifts the Terrans believed might please sea dwellers. Some nested plastic bowls made a bright-colored spot, a collection of empty bottles of various sizes, hastily assembled from laboratory supplies, golden apples, native grain, all there together. Objects which could be used under water had been hard to find.
“They’re coming!” Dessie had been waiting impatiently by the waves’ sweep, and now, heedless of the water curling about her legs, she ran forward, holding out her hands to the merchild who threshed up a fountain of spray in its eagerness to meet her. Hand in hand they pattered to dry land where the merchild shrank shyly against the little girl when it saw the men.
But Dessie was smiling, and said importantly, “Ssssat and Ssssutu are coming now.”
Dard hid his surprise. How could Dessie so confidently mouth those queer names-how did she know? From all his questioning and Kimber’s and Kordov’s and Carlee’s-last night, they had only been able to elicit that the “sea people thought into her head.” They had been forced to accept the concept of telepathy-which could be possible with an undersea race.
So, deciding that Dessie’s interpretation might be needed that day, they had schooled her in her part.
Ssssat and Ssssutu-if those were the proper designations of the mermen who were borne in with the next wave came ashore. They both carried the barbed spears and wore long bone daggers at the belts which were their only articles of clothing. Without a sound they seated themselves on the seaside of the gifts, facing Dard, regarding him and the other Terrans with owlish solemnity.
“Dessie!” Dard called, and she came trotting to him.
“Do I give the presents now, Dard?”
“Yes. Try to make them understand that we want to be friends.”
She picked out two of the bowls, put an apple and a handful of grain into each, and carried them over to set down before the envoys.
The one on Dard’s right held out his hand and Dessie, without hesitation, laid hers, palm down, upon it. For a long moment they made contact. Then both mermen relaxed their tense watchfulness. They put their spears behind them and one ran his hands through the fur on his head and shoulders where it was fast drying into rainbow dotted fluff.
“They want to be friends, too,” Dessie reported. “Dardie, if you put your hand on theirs, then they can talk to you. They don’t talk with their mouths at all. This is Ssssat—”
Dard got to his feet slowly so as not to alarm the mermen and crossed the strip of shore until he could sit face to face. Then he held out his hand. Cool and damp the scaled digits and palm of the other lay upon his warmer flesh. And, Dard almost broke the contact in his surprise and awe, for the other was talking to him! Words, ideas, swept into his mind-some concepts so alien he could not understand. But bit by bit he pieced together much of what the other was striving to tell him.
“Big ones, land dwellers, we have watched you-with fear. Fear that you have come to lead us once more into the pens of darkness—”
“Pens of darkness?” Dard echoed aloud and then shaped a mental query.
“Those who once walked the land here-they kept the pens of darkness where our fathers’ fathers’ fathers’ ” … -the concept of a long stretch of past time trailed through the Terran’s receptive mind-"were hatched. The days of fire came and we broke forth and now we shall never return.” There was stern warning, an implied threat, in that.
“We know nothing of the pens, nor do we threaten you,” Dard thought slowly. “We, too, have broken out of pens of darkness, he added with sudden inspiration.
“It is true that you are not the color or shape of those who made the pens. And you have shown only friendship. Also you killed the flying death which would have slain my cub. I believe that you are good. Will you stay here?”
Dard pointed inland. “We build there.”
“Do you wish the fruits of the river?” came next.
“The fruits of the river?” Dard was puzzled until a dear picture of one of the red spider plants formed in his mind. Then he shook his head to reinforce his unspoken denial.
“We may then come and harvest as we have always done? And,” there was a shrewd bargaining note in this, “perhaps you will see that the flying death does not attack us, since your slaying powers are greater than ours?”
“We like the dragons no better than you do. Let me speak with the others now—” Dard broke contact and reported to the Terran committee.
“Sure!” Santee’s jovial boom could not be kept to a whisper and at the sound, or its vibration, both mermen started. “Let ’em come in and get their spiders. I’ll watch for dragons.”
“Fair enough,” Kimber agreed. “We don’t care for the dragons any more than they do.”
Before the hour had passed cordial relations had been established, and the mermen promised to return early the next morning with their harvest crew. Carrying the gifts they waded out into the sea, Ssssat’s cub riding on his father’s shoulder. The little one waved back at Dessie until all three disappeared under water.
“Those pens they spoke of,” Kordov mused later that night when they discussed the meeting in an open convocation of all the voyagers. “They must have been imprisoned at one time by the city builders and escaped during or after the war. But surely they weren’t domestic animals.”
“More likely slaves,” suggested Carlee Skort. “Perhaps they were forced to do undersea work where landsmen could not venture. They are coming tomorrow? Well, why can’t we all go down and meet them? Maybe we can help in the harvesting and prove our good will.”
The clamor which interrupted and supported her was indicative of the enthusiasm of the rest. Dessie’s merpeople had caught the imaginations of all. And Dard believed that the Terrans would have gone to meet them in any case.
Early as the colonists came down to the river bank the next morning, the merpeople were there before them, wading along the shallows of the slowly flowing stream, sweeping between them woven basket nets, as fine as sieves, to skim up the red fungi. Merchildren paddled in and out, and a line of spear-bearing males patrolled the shoreline with attention for the cliff perches of the dragons.
They stopped all these activities as the Terrans came into sight, and when they began again it was with a certain self-consciousness. Dard and the others who had been on the seashore the day before went up to meet the sea people, their hands outstretched.
A party of the armed males split off to face them. In the center of their group was one portly individual who, though there was no way save by size for the humans to guess at merman ages, gave the impression of dignity and authority.
Dard touched palms with the leading warrior.
“This is Aaaatak, our ‘Friend of Many.’ He would communicate with your ‘Giver of Law.’”
“Giver of Law.” Kordov came the nearest to being the leader of the colonists. Dard beckoned to the First Scientist.
“This is their chieftain, sir. He wants to speak to our leader.”
“So? I can not call myself leader,” Kordov met the hands of the older merman, “but I am honored to speak to him.” As Kordov and the merchief clasped hands the rest of the colonists came up, timidly. But an hour later merpeople and humans mingled with freedom. And when the Terran party set out food, the mermen brought in their own supplies, flat baskets of fish and aquatic plants, kept in water until time to eat. They accepted the golden apples eagerly, but kept away from the fires where their hosts cooked the fish they offered in return. Although each fire had a ring of amazed spectators, standing at a safe distance to gaze at the wonder.
Three dragons that dared to invade were brought down with rays, to the savage exultation of the merpeople. They asked to inspect the weapons and returned them regretfully when they understood that such arms would not last in their water world.
“Though,” Cully said thoughtfully, when this had been explained, “I don’t see why they couldn’t use some of the metal forged by Those Others. It seems to resist rust and erosion on land-it might in the water.”
“Nordis!”
The urgency in that call brought Dard away from the engineer to the small group of Kimber, Kordov, the mer-chief and several others. Harmon was there, as well as Santee, and some techneers.
“Yes, sir?”
“You’ve seen the lizards, ask Oaaatak if those are what he is trying to tall us about. We can’t get the right impression of what he means and it seems to be vitally important.” Kordov edged back for the boy to take his place. Dard clasped the readily extended claws of the merchief.
“Do you wish to tell us about—” He shut his eyes in order to concentrate better upon a mental image of the huge reptiles,
“No!” The answer was a decided negative. “Those we have seen, yes-hunting down other land dwellers. They were once subordinate to those we speak of now. These—”
Another picture indeed-a biped-humanoid in outline-but somehow all wrong. Dard had seen nothing like it. And the image was fuzzy, indistinct as if he observed it from a distance-or through water!
Through water! That was caught up eagerly by Aaaatak.
“Now you are thinking straight. We do not come out of hiding when those are about! So we see them in that fashion—”
“They live on land then? Near here?” Dard demanded. The emotion of fear colored so strongly all the impressions he received from the merchief.
“They live on land, yes. Near here, no, or we should not be here. We hunt out shores where they do not come. Once they were very, very many, living everywhere-here-across the sea. They were the builders of those pens where creatures of my kind were imprisoned for them to work their will upon. Then something happened. There came fire raining from the sky, and a sickness which struck them. They died, some quickly, some much more slowly, when my people burst from the pens.” There was a cold and deadly satisfaction in that flash of memory. “After that we fled into the wilds of the sea where they could not find us. Even when I was but a new-hatched cub we lived in the depths. But through the years our young warriors went out to search for food and for a safer place to live-there are monsters in the deeps as horrible as the lizards of the land. And these parties discovered that those”—again Dard saw the queer biped—“were gone from long stretches among the reefs, as we had always longed to do. There are none of those left in this land now but—” The chief hesitated before suddenly withdrawing his hand from Dard’s and turning to his followers as if consulting them. Dad took the opportunity to translate to the others what he had learned.
“Survivors of Those Others,” Kimber caught him up. “But not here?”
“No. Aaaatak says that his people will not come where they are. Wait-he has more to tell.”
For Aaaatak was holding out his hand and Dard met it readily.
“My people now believe that you are not like those. You do not seem in body quite the same, your skin is of a different color,” he drew his claw finger across the back of Dard’s hand to emphasize his meaning, “and you have received us as one free people greets another. This those others do not-there is much hate and bitterness between us from the far past-and they always delight in killing.
“We have watched you ever since you first came out of the sky. Those others once traveled in the sky-though of late we have not seen their bird ships-and so we thought you of the same breed. Now we know that that is untrue. But we must tell you-be on your guard! For on the other side of the sea those others still live, even if their numbers are few, and there is a blackness in their minds which leads them to raise spears against all living things!
“Now,” Dard had a strong impression that the merchief was coming to the main point, “we are a people who know much about the sea, but little of the land. We have learned that you are not native to this world, having fallen from the sky-but, did you not also say that you came from a place where you, too, were penned by enemies?”
Dard assented, remembering his statement to the first envoys.
“If you are wise you will not seek out those who would lay such bonds upon you again. For that is what those others will do. In this world they recognize no other rights or desires than are born of their own wills. We have warriors of our race who keep watch upon them secretly and bring news of their coming and going. Against their might-though they have lost much of their ancient knowledge-we have only our own cunning and knowledge of the sea. And what good is a spear against that which may kill at a distance? But you have mightier weapons. And should we two peoples join skills and hearts against them- But do you now say this to your Giver of Laws and other Elder Ones so that they may understand.” He withdrew his hand again and left Dard in interpret.
“An alliance!” Tas Kordov caught the meaning of that offer. Hmm,” he plucked his lower lip. “Better tell him- No, let me. I’ll explain that we shall talk it over.”
“What’s all this ’bout Those Others?” Harmon demanded.
“Did they,” he indicated the merpeople, “say that they’re still here-the ones who lived in that city?”
“Not here-across the sea,” Dard was beginning when Rogan broke in.
“That chieftain doesn’t think much of them, does he?”
“He says they’re enemies.”
“They aren’t his kind,” Harmon pointed out. “And his people were their slaves once.”
“We,” Kimber said slowly, “have had some experience with slavery ourselves, haven’t we? On Terra we’d have been in labor camps, if we hadn’t been lucky-that is if we weren’t shot down in cold blood. I have a pretty good memory of the last few years there.”
Harmon sifted a palmful of sand from one hand to an- other. “Yeah, I know. Only we don’t want to get into no local war.”
That echoed after his voice died away. No entangling alliances to drag them into any war! Dard sensed the electric agreement which ran through them at that thought. Only Kimber, Santee, and maybe Kordov, did not wholly agree with Harmon.
Dard gazed down to the river bank. The merpeople had almost completed the harvest and were gathering up their possessions and slipping in family groups back to the sea. He wondered what Kordov would tell the chief.
Suddenly he could not stand the uncertainty any longer. He wanted to get away-to escape from the thought that perhaps it was going to start all over again-the insecurity- the constant guard duty against a hostile force.
According to the merchief Those Others were now across the sea-but would they remain there? Wouldn’t this fertile, deserted land where they had once ruled draw them back again? And they would not accept new settlers kindly.
If the Terrans only knew more about them! Those Others had blasted their world. Dard remembered the callous cruelty of that barn in the valley. Raids, looting, the blasted city, the robot-controlled guns to shoot anything passing out of the air, the warnings of the merpeople.
He plodded across the sand to the inner valley, beading for the cliff house. Rogan had set up the projector the night before, and they had put the first of the discovered tapes in it. If something about the rulers of this world could be learned from those-this was the time to do it!
“Where’re you bound for, kid?” Kimber fell into step.
“The cliffs.” Dard was being pushed by the feeling that time was not his to waste, that he must know-now!
The pilot asked no more questions but followed Dard into the rock cell where Rogan had installed his machine. The boy checked the preparation made the night before. He turned off the light-the screen on the wall was a glowing square of blue-white and then the projector began to hum.
“This one of those rolls from the carrier?”
But Dard did not answer. For now the screen was in use. He began to watch…
“Turn it off! Turn that off!”
His frenzied fingers found the proper button. They were surrounded by honest light, clean red-yellow walls.
Kimber’s face was in his hands, the harshness of his breathing filled the room. Dard, shaken, sick, dared not move. He gripped the edge of the shelf which supported the projector, gripped so tightly that the flesh under his nails turned dead white. He tried to concentrate upon that phenomenon-not on what he had just seen.
“What- what did you see?” he moistened his lips and asked dully. He had to know. Maybe it was only his own reaction. But-but it couldn’t be! The very thought that only he had seen that led to panic-to a terror beyond bearing.
“I don’t know…” Kimber’s answer dragged out of him word by painful word. “It wasn’t meant-ever meant for man—our kind of man—to see—”
Dard raised his head, made himself stare at that innocuous screen, to assure himself that there was nothing there now.
“It did something to me—inside,” he half whispered.
“It was meant to, I think. But-Great Lord-what sort of minds-feelings-did they have! Not human-totally alien. We have no common meeting point-we never shall have-with that!”
“And it was all just color, twisting, turning color,” Dard began.
Kimber’s hand dosed about his wrist with crushing intensity.
“I was right,” Dard did not feel the pain of that grip, “they used color as a means of communication. But— but—”
“What they had to say with it! Yes, not for us-never for us. Keep your mind off it, Dard. Five minutes more of that and you might not have been human—ever again!”
“We couldn’t establish contact with them— with— ”
“Minds that could conceive that? No, we can’t. So that was what brought you here-you wanted to see if Harmon was right in his neutral policy? Now you know-with that we have no common ground. And we’ll have to make the others understand. If we do meet Those Others—the result will undoubtedly be war.”
“Fifty- three of us-maybe a whole nation of them left.” Dard was still sick and shaken-sensing a deep inner violation.
First there had been the tyranny of Pax, which had been man-made and so understandable, in all its narrow cruelty, because it had been the work of human beings. And now this-which man dared not-touch!
Kimber had regained control of himself. There was even a trace of the familiar impish grin on his face as he said:
“When the fighting is the toughest, that’s when our breed digs in toes. And we needn’t borrow trouble. Get Kordov and Harmon in here. If we are going to discuss the offer of the mermen we want them to know what to expect from overseas.”
But- to Dard’s dismay-the projection of Those Others’ tapes aroused in Harmon no more than a vague uneasiness -though it shook Kordov. And, as they insisted on the rest of the men viewing it, they discovered that it varied in its effects upon different individuals. Rogan, sensitive to communication devices, almost fainted after a few moments’ strict attention. Santee admitted that he did not like it but couldn’t say why. But, in the end, the weight of evidence was that they could not hope to deal with Those Others.
“I’m still sayin’,” Harmon insisted, “that we shouldn’t get pulled into anything them sea people has started. You say them pictures make Those Others regular devils. Well, they’re still across the sea. We shouldn’t go lookin’ for trouble-then maybe we don’t find none!”
“We’re not suggesting an expeditionary force, Tim,” Kimber answered mildly. “But if they are alive overseas they may just get the idea to reclaim this land-and you’d want to know about it ahead of time if they did. The mermen will keep us informed. Then we could supply them with better arms.”
“Yeah, and right there you’ve got trouble! You make sea-goin’ ray guns and the first thing you know they’re gonna use ’em. They hate Those Others don’t they? Back on earth we picked off a Peaceman whenever we got the chance, didn’t we? And let that happen a coupla times and Those Others are gonna come lookin’ for where those new guns came from. I ain’t sayin’ we oughta turn our backs on the mermen-they seem peaceful. But we’re plain foolish if we get mixed up in any war of theirs. I said it before and I’m gonna keep on sayin’ it!”
“All right, Tim. And you’re speaking the truth. But this is good land, ain’t it?”
“Sure, it’s good land! We’re gonna have a mighty fine farm here. But farmin’ and fightin’ don’t mix. What about that fella what lived fight over there? He didn’t live out the last war, did he?”
“Suppose they want this good land back? How long can we defend it?”
For the first time a shadow of doubt appeared in Tim Harmon’s eyes.
“Okay!” he flung up a hand in surrender. “I’ll go with you halfway. I say be friends with the mermen and help ’em-some. But I’m not gonna vote for no gangin’ up with ’em in a private war!”
“That’s all we want you to do, Tim. We’ll ally with the mermen and make plans for defense,” Kordov soothed him.
Dard smiled wryly. Inside he was amused, amused and tired. They had come across the galaxy to escape to freedom, only to live again under the shadow of fear. It was a long way to travel to come-home!
A new frontier to guard. What was that thing Kimber had once quoted while standing on a mountainside in the Terran winter?
"Frontiers of any type, physical or mental, are but a challenge to our breed. Nothing can stop the questing of men, not even Man. If we will it, not only the wonders of space, but the very stars are ours!”
They had known the wonders of space, the stars were theirs-if they could hold them! But who-or what-dared to say that they could not? Why, Dard savored the new pride growing hotly within him, they had broken the bonds of space-
There was a wide world before them, unlimited in its possibilities. On distant Terra this ill-assorted group had drawn into tight alliance because they believed alike-in what? Freedom-Man’s freedom! They had faced the sterility of Pax clear-eyed and refused to be bound by it- entrusting their lives to the knowledge Pax had outlawed- and it had brought them here. They-if they willed it-worked for a united goal-they could do anything!
Dard’s eyes were on the painted cliffs but inwardly he saw beyond-across the wide and waiting land. Alliance with the merpeople-taming of the land-building a new civilization-his breath came faster. Why a lifetime was not going to be time enough to do everything that even he could see had to be done.
Could their breed be defeated? He gave his answer to the uncertain future with a single word: