the flitter. Now hetumbled out of the hatch and ran toward them. Behind him the hatchclosed and the flitter stirred and then took off all by itself, humming.
"They'll follow it for a while," Webber panted. "It may give us a chanceto get away." He and Paula started after the running people.
Kieran balked. "I don't know why I'm running away from anybody."
Webber pulled out a snub-nosed instrument that looked enough like a gunto be very convincing. He pointed it at Kieran's middle.
"Reason one," he said. "If the Sakae catch Paula and me here we're invery big trouble. Reason two--this is a closed area, and you're with us,so _you_ will be in very big trouble." He looked coldly at Kieran. "Thefirst reason is the one that interests me most."
Kieran shrugged. "Well, now I know." He ran.
Only then did he hear the low heavy thrumming in the sky.
6.
The sound came rumbling very swiftly toward them. It was a completelydifferent sound from the humming of the flitter, and it seemed to Kieranto hold a note of menace. He stopped in a small clearing where he mightsee up through the trees. He wanted a look at this ship or flier orwhatever it was that had been built and was flown by non-humans.
But Webber shoved him roughly on into a clump of squat trees that werethe color of sherry wine, with flat thick leaves.
"Don't move," he said.
Paula was hugging a tree beside him. She nodded to him to do as Webbersaid.
"They have very powerful scanners." She pointed with her chin. "Look.They've learned."
The harsh warning barks of the men sounded faintly, then were hushed.Nothing moved, except by the natural motion of the wind. The peoplecrouched among the trees, so still that Kieran would not have seen themif he had not known they were there.
The patrol craft roared past, cranking up speed as it went. Webbergrinned. "They'll be a couple of hours at least, overhauling andexamining the flitter. By that time it'll be dark, and by morning we'llbe in the mountains."
The people were already moving. They headed upstream, going at a steady,shuffling trot. Three of the women, Kieran noticed, had babies in theirarms. The older children ran beside their mothers. Two of the men andseveral of the women were white-haired. They ran also.
"Do you like to see them run?" asked Paula, with a sharp note of passionin her voice. "Does it look good to you?"
"No," said Kieran, frowning. He looked in the direction in which thesound of the patrol craft was vanishing.
"Move along," Webber said. "They'll leave us far enough behind as itis."
* * * * *
Kieran followed the naked people through the woods, beside the tawnyriver. Paula and Webber jogged beside him. The shadows were long now,reaching out across the water.
Paula kept glancing at him anxiously, as though to detect any sign ofweakness on his part. "You're doing fine," she said. "You should. Yourbody was brought back to normal strength and tone, before you ever wereawakened."
"They'll slow down when it's dark, anyway," said Webber.
The old people and the little children ran strongly.
"Is their village there?" Kieran asked, indicating the distantmountains.
"They don't live in villages," Paula said. "But the mountains are safer.More places to hide."
"You said this was a closed area. What is it, a hunting preserve?"
"The Sakae don't hunt them any more."
"But they used to?"
"Well," Webber said, "a long time ago. Not for food, the Sakae arevegetarians, but--"
"But," said Paula, "they were the dominant race, and the people weresimply beasts of the field. When they competed for land and food thepeople were hunted down or driven out." She swung an expressive handtoward the landscape beyond the trees. "Why do you think they live inthis desert, scraping a miserable existence along the watercourses? It'sland the Sakae didn't want. Now, of course, they have no objection tosetting it aside as a sort of game preserve. The humans are protected,the Sakae tell us. They're living their natural life in their naturalenvironment, and when we demand that a program be--"
She was out of breath and had to stop, panting. Webber finished for her.
"We want them taught, lifted out of this naked savagery. The Sakae sayit's impossible."
"Is it true?" asked Kieran.
"No," said Paula fiercely. "It's a matter of pride. They want to keeptheir dominance, so they simply won't admit that the people are anythingmore than animals, and they won't give them a chance to be anythingmore."
There was no more talking after that, but even so the three outlandersgrew more and more winded and the people gained on them. The sun wentdown in a blaze of blood-orange light that tinted the trees in even moreimpossible colors and set the river briefly on fire. Then night came,and just after the darkness shut down the patrol craft returned, beatingup along the winding river bed. Kieran froze under the black trees andthe hair lifted on his skin. For the first time he felt like a huntedthing. For the first time he felt a personal anger.
The patrol craft drummed away and vanished. "They won't come back untildaylight," Webber said.
* * * * *
He handed out little flat packets of concentrated food from his pockets.They munched as they walked. Nobody said anything. The wind, which haddropped at sundown, picked up from a different quarter and began to blowagain. It got cold. After a while they caught up with the people, whohad stopped to rest and eat. The babies and old people for whom Kieranhad felt a worried pity were in much better shape than he. He drank fromthe river and then sat down. Paula and Webber sat beside him, on theground. The wind blew hard from the desert, dry and chill. The treesthrashed overhead. Against the pale glimmer of the water Kieran couldsee naked bodies moving along the river's edge, wading, bending,grubbing in the mud. Apparently they found things, for he could see thatthey were eating. Somewhere close by other people were stripping fruitor nuts from the trees. A man picked up a stone and pounded somethingwith a cracking noise, then dropped the stone again. They moved easilyin the dark, as though they were used to it. Kieran recognized theleader's yellow-eyed daughter, her beautiful slender height outlinedagainst the pale-gleaming water. She stood up to her ankles in the softmud, holding something tight in her two hands, eating.
The sweat dried on Kieran. He began to shiver.
"You're sure that patrol ship won't come back?" he asked.
"Not until they can see what they're looking for."
"Then I guess it's safe." He began to scramble around, feeling for driedsticks.
"What are you doing?"
"Getting some firewood."
"No." Paula was beside him in an instant, her hand on his arm, "No, youmustn't do that."
"But Webber said--"
"It isn't the patrol ship, Kieran. It's the people. They--"
"They what?"
"I told you they were low on the social scale. This is one of the basicthings they have to be taught. Right now they still regard fire as adanger, something to run from."
"I see," Kieran said, and let the kindling fall. "Very well, if I can'thave a fire, I'll have you. Your body will warm me." He pulled her intohis arms.
* * * * *
She gasped, more in astonishment, he thought, than alarm. "What are youtalking about?"
"That's a line from an old movie. From a number of old movies, in fact.Not bad, eh?"
He held her tight. She was definitely female. After a moment he pushedher away.
"That was a mistake. I want to be able to go on disliking you withoutany qualifying considerations."
She laughed, a curiously flat little sound. "Was everybody crazy in yourday?" she asked. And then, "Reed--"
It was the first time she had used his given name. "What?"
"When they threw the stones, and we got back into the flitter, youpushed me ahead of you. You were guarding me. Why?"
He stared at her, or rather at the pale
blur of her standing close tohim. "Well, it's always been sort of the custom for the men to-- But nowthat I think of it, Webber didn't bother."
"No," said Paula. "Back in your day women were still taking advantage ofthe dual standard--demanding complete equality with men but clinging totheir special status. We've got beyond that."
"Do you like it? Beyond, I mean."
"Yes," she said. "It was good of you to do that, but--"
Webber said, "They're moving again. Come on."
The people walked this time, strung out in a long line between the treesand the water, where the light was a little better and the way moreopen. The three outlanders tagged behind, clumsy in their boots andclothing. The long hair of the people blew in the wind and their barefeet padded softly, light and swift.
Kieran looked up at the sky. The trees obscured much of it so that allhe could see was some scattered stars overhead. But he thought thatsomewhere a moon was rising.
He asked Paula and she said, "Wait. You'll see."
Night and the river rolled behind them. The moonlight became brighter,but it was not at all like the moonlight Kieran remembered from long agoand far away. That had had a cold tranquility to it, but this light wasneither cold nor tranquil. It seemed somehow to shift color, too, whichmade it even less adequate for seeing than the white moonlight he wasused to. Sometimes as it filtered through the trees it seemed,ice-green, and again it was reddish or amber, or blue.
They came to a place where the river made a wide bend and they cutacross it, clear of the trees. Paula touched Kieran's arm and pointed."Look."
Kieran looked, and then he stopped still. The light was not moonlight,and its source was not a moon. It was a globular cluster of stars, hungin the sky like a swarm of fiery bees, a burning and pulsing of manycolors, diamond-white and gold, green and crimson, peacock blue andsmoky umber. Kieran stared, and beside him Paula murmured, "I've been ona lot of planets, but none of them have anything like this."
The people moved swiftly on, paying no attention at all to the sky.
Reluctantly Kieran followed them into the obscuring woods. He keptlooking at the open sky above the river, waiting for the cluster to risehigh so he could see it.
It was some time after this, but before the cluster rose clear of thetrees, that Kieran got the feeling that something, or someone, wasfollowing them.
7.
He had stopped to catch his breath and shake an accumulation of sand outof his boots. He was leaning against a tree with his back to the wind,which meant that he was facing their back-trail, and he thought he saw ashadow move where there was nothing to cast a shadow. He straightened upwith the little trip-hammers of alarm beating all over him, but he couldsee nothing more. He thought he might have been mistaken. Just the same,he ran to catch up with the others.
The people were moving steadily. Kieran knew that their senses were farkeener than his, and they were obviously not aware of any danger otherthan the basic one of the Sakae. He decided that he must have beenseeing things.
But an uneasiness persisted. He dropped behind again, this time onpurpose, after they had passed a clearing. He stayed hidden behind atree-trunk and watched. The cluster-light was bright now but veryconfusing to the eye. He heard a rustling that he did not think waswind, and he thought that something started to cross the clearing andthen stopped, as though it had caught his scent.
Then he thought that he heard rustlings at both sides of the clearing,stealthy sounds of stalking that closed in toward him. Only the wind, hetold himself, but again he turned to run. This time he met Paula, comingback to look for him.
"Reed, are you all right?" she asked. He caught her arm and pulled heraround and made her run. "What is it? What's the matter?"
"I don't know." He hurried with her until he could see Webber ahead, andbeyond him the bare backs and blowing hair of the people. "Listen," hesaid, "are there any predators here?"
"Yes," Paula said, and Webber turned sharply around.
"Have you seen something?"
"I don't know. I thought I did. I'm not sure."
"Where?"
"Behind us."
Webber made the harsh barking danger call, and the people stopped.Webber stood looking back the way they had come. The women caught thechildren and the men fell back to where Webber stood. They looked andlistened, sniffing the air. Kieran listened too, but now he did not hearany rustlings except the high thrashing of the branches. Nothing stirredvisibly and the wind would carry away any warning scent.
The men turned away. The people moved on again. Webber shrugged.
"You must have been mistaken, Kieran."
"Maybe. Or maybe they just can't think beyond the elementary. If theydon't smell it, it isn't there. If something is after us it's comingup-wind, the way any hunting animal works. A couple of the men ought tocircle around and--"
"Come on," said Webber wearily.
* * * * *
They followed the people beside the river. The cluster was high now, ahive of suns reflected in the flowing water, a kaleidoscopic rippling ofcolors.
Now the women were carrying the smaller children. The ones too large tobe carried were lagging behind a little. So were the aged. Not much,yet. Kieran, conscious that he was weaker than the weakest of these,looked ahead at the dim bulk of the mountains and thought that theyought to be able to make it. He was not at all sure that he would.
The river made another bend. The trail lay across the bend, clear of thetrees. It was a wide bend, perhaps two miles across the neck. Ahead,where the trail joined the river again, there was a rocky hill.Something about the outlines of the hill seemed wrong to Kieran, but itwas too far away to be sure of anything. Overhead the cluster burnedgloriously. The people set out across the sand.
Webber looked back. "You see?" he said. "Nothing."
They went on. Kieran was beginning to feel very tired now, all theartificial strength that had been pumped into him before his awakeningwas running out. Webber and Paula walked with their heads down, stridingdeterminedly but without joy.
"What do you think now?" she asked Kieran. "Is this any way for humansto live?"
The ragged line of women and children moved ahead of them, with the menin the lead. It was not natural, Kieran thought, for children to be ableto travel so far, and then he remembered that the young ofnon-predacious species have to be strong and fleet at an early age.
Suddenly one of the women made a harsh, shrill cry.
Kieran looked where she was looking, off to the left, to the river andthe curving line of trees. A large black shadow slipped across the sand.He looked behind him. There were other shadows, coming with long easybounds out of the trees, fanning out in a shallow crescent. Theyreminded Kieran of some animal he had once seen in a zoo, a partlycatlike, partly doglike beast, a cheetah he thought it had been called,only the cheetah was spotted like a leopard and these creatures wereblack, with stiff, upstanding ears. They bayed, and the coursing began.
"Nothing," said Kieran bitterly. "I count seven."
Webber said, "My God, I--"
* * * * *
The people ran. They tried to break back to the river and the trees thatcould be climbed to safety, but the hunters turned them. Then they fledblindly forward, toward the hill. They ran with all their strength,making no sound. Kieran and Webber ran with them, with Paula betweenthem. Webber seemed absolutely appalled.
"Where's that gun you had?" Kieran panted.
"It's not a gun, only a short-range shocker," he said. "It wouldn't stopthese things. Look at them!"
They bounded, sporting around them, howling with a sound like laughter.They were as large as leopards and their eyes glowed in thecluster-light. They seemed to be enjoying themselves, as though huntingwas the most delightful game in the world. One of them ran up towithin two feet of Kieran and snapped at him with its great jaws,dodging agilely when he raised his arm. They drove the people, fasterand faster. At first th
e men had formed around the women and children.But the formation began to disintegrate as the weaker ones droppedbehind, and no attempt was made to keep it. Panic was stronger thaninstinct now. Kieran looked ahead. "If we can make it to that hill--"
Paula screamed and he stumbled over a child, a girl about five, crawlingon her hands and knees. He picked her up. She bit and thrashed and toreat him, her bare little body hard as whalebone and slippery with sweat.He could not hold onto her. She kicked herself free of his hands andrushed wildly out of reach, and one of the black hunters pounced in andbore her away, shrieking thinly like a fledgling bird in the jaws of acat.
"Oh my God," said Paula, and covered her head with her arms, trying toshut out sight and sound. He caught her and said harshly, "Don't faint,because I can't carry you." The child's mother, whichever of the womenit might have been, did not look back.
An old woman who strayed aside was pulled down and dragged off, and thenone of the white-haired men. The hill was closer. Kieran saw now whatwas wrong with it. Part of it was a building. He was too tired and toosick to be interested, except as it offered a refuge. He spoke toWebber, with great difficulty because he was winded. And then herealized that Webber wasn't there.
* * * * *
Webber had stumbled and fallen. He had started to get up, but thehunters were on him. He was on his hands and knees facing them,screaming at them to get away from him. He had, obviously, had little orno experience with raw violence. Kieran ran back to him, with Paulaclose behind.
"Use your gun!" he yelled. He was afraid of the black hunters, but hewas full of rage and the rage outweighed the fear. He yelled at them,cursing them. He hurled sand into their eyes, and one that was creepingup on Webber from the side he kicked. The creature drew off a little,not frightened but surprised. They were not used to this sort of thingfrom humans. "Your gun!" Kieran roared again, and Webber pulled thesnub-nosed thing out of his pocket. He stood up and said unsteadily, "Itold you, it's not a gun. It won't kill anything. I don't think--"
"Use it," said Kieran. "And get moving again. Slowly."
They started to move, and then across the sky a great iron voice spokelike thunder. "Lie down," it said, "please. Lie down flat."
Kieran turned his head, startled. From the direction of the building onthe hill a vehicle was speeding toward them.
"The Sakae," said Webber with what was almost a sob of relief. "Liedown."
As he did so, Kieran saw a pale flash shoot out from the vehicle andknock over a hunter still hanging on the flanks of the fleeing people.He hugged the sand. Something went whining and whistling over him, therewas a thunk and a screech. It was repeated, and then the iron voicespoke again.
"You may get up now. Please remain where you are." The vehicle was muchcloser. They were bathed in sudden light. The voice said, "Mr. Webber,you are holding a weapon. Please drop it."
"It's only a little shocker," Webber said, plaintively. He dropped it.
The vehicle had wide tracks that threw up clouds of sand. It cameclanking to a halt. Kieran, shading his eyes, thought he distinguishedtwo creatures inside, a driver and a passenger.
* * * * *
The passenger emerged, climbing with some difficulty over the steep stepof the track, his tail rattling down behind him like a length of thickcable. Once on the ground he became quite agile, moving with a sort ofoddly graceful prance on his powerful legs. He approached, his attentioncentered on Kieran. But he observed the amenities, placing one delicatehand on his breast and making a slight bow.
"Doctor Ray." His muzzle, shaped something like a duck's bill,nevertheless formed Paula's name tolerably well. "And you, I think, areMr. Kieran."
Kieran said, "Yes." The star-cluster blazed overhead. The dead beastslay behind him, the people with their flying hair had run on beyond hissight. He had been dead for a hundred years and now he was alive again.Now he was standing on alien soil, facing an alien form of life,communicating with it, and he was so dog-tired and every sensory nervewas so thoroughly flayed that he had nothing left to react with. Hesimply looked at the Saka as he might have looked at a fence-post, andsaid, "Yes."
The Saka made his formal little bow again. "I am Bregg." He shook hishead. "I'm glad I was able to reach you in time. You people don't seemto have any notion of the amount of trouble you make for us--"
Paula, who had not spoken since the child was carried off, suddenlyscreamed at Bregg, "Murderer!"
She sprang at him, striking him in blind hysteria.
8.
Bregg sighed. He caught Paula in those fine small hands that seemed tohave amazing strength and held her, at arm's length. "Doctor Ray," hesaid. He shook her. "Doctor Ray." She stopped screaming. "I don't wishto administer a sedative because then you will say that I drugged you.But I will if I must."
Kieran said, "I'll keep her quiet."
He took her from Bregg. She collapsed against him and began to cry."Murderers," she whispered. "That little girl, those old people--"
Webber said, "You could exterminate those beasts. You don't have to letthem hunt the people like that. It's--it's--"
"Unhuman is the word you want," said Bregg. His voice was exceedinglyweary. "Please get into the car."
They climbed in. The car churned around and sped back toward thebuilding. Paula shivered, and Kieran held her in his arms. Webber saidafter a moment or two, "How did you happen to be here, Bregg?"
"When we caught the flitter and found it empty, it was obvious that youwere with the people, and it became imperative to find you before youcame to harm. I remembered that the trail ran close by this old outpostbuilding, so I had the patrol ship drop us here with an emergencyvehicle."
Kieran said, "You knew the people were coming this way?"
"Of course." Bregg sounded surprised. "They migrate every year at thebeginning of the dry season. How do you suppose Webber found them soeasily?"
Kieran looked at Webber. He asked, "Then they weren't running from theSakae?"
"Of course they were," Paula said. "You saw them yourself, coweringunder the trees when the ship went over."
"The patrol ships frighten them," Bregg said. "Sometimes to the point ofstampeding them, which is why we use them only in emergencies. Thepeople do not connect the ships with us."
"That," said Paula flatly, "is a lie."
Bregg sighed. "Enthusiasts always believe what they want to believe.Come and see for yourself."
She straightened up. "What have you done to them?"
"We've caught them in a trap," said Bregg, "and we are presently goingto stick needles into them--a procedure necessitated by your presence,Doctor Ray. They're highly susceptible to imported viruses, as youshould remember--one of your little parties of do-gooders succeeded inwiping out a whole band of them not too many years ago. So--inoculationsand quarantine."
* * * * *
Lights had blazed up in the area near the building. The car sped towardthem.
Kieran said slowly, "Why don't you just exterminate the hunters and havedone with them?"
"In your day, Mr. Kieran--yes, I've heard all about you--in your day,did you on Earth exterminate the predators so that their natural preymight live more happily?"
Bregg's long muzzle and sloping skull were profiled against the lights.
"No," said Kieran, "we didn't. But in that case, they were all animals."
"Exactly," said Bregg. "No, wait, Doctor Ray. Spare me the lecture. Ican give you a much better reason than that, one even you can't quarrelwith. It's a matter of ecology. The number of humans destroyed by thesepredators annually is negligible but they do themselves destroy anenormous number of small creatures with which the humans compete fortheir food. If we exterminated the hunters the small animals wouldmultiply so rapidly that the humans would starve to death."
The car stopped beside the hill, at the edge of the lighted area. A sortof makeshift corral of wire fencing had been set up, wi
th wide wings tofunnel the people into the enclosure, where a gate was shut on them. TwoSakae were mounting guard as the party from the car approached thecorral. Inside the fence Kieran could see the people, flopped around inpositions of exhaustion. They did not seem to be afraid now. A few ofthem were drinking from a supply of water provided for them. There wasfood scattered for them on the ground.
Bregg said something in his own language to one of the guards, wholooked surprised and questioned him, then departed, springing stronglyon his powerful legs. "Wait," said Bregg.
They waited, and in a moment or two the guard came back leading one ofthe black hunting beasts on a chain. It was a female, somewhat smallerthan the ones Kieran had fought with, and having a slash of white on thethroat and chest. She howled and sprang up on Bregg, butting her greathead into his shoulder, wriggling with delight. He petted her, talkingto her, and she laughed doglike and licked his cheek.
"They domesticate well," he said. "We've had a tame breed forcenturies."
* * * * *
He moved a little closer to the corral, holding tight to the animal'schain. Suddenly she became aware of the people. Instantly thegood-natured pet turned into a snarling fury. She reared on her hindlegs and screamed, and inside the corral the people roused up. They werenot frightened now. They spat and chattered, clawing up sand and pebblesand bits of food to throw through the fence. Bregg handed the chain tothe guard, who hauled the animal away by main force.
Paula said coldly, "If your point was that the people are not kind toanimals, my answer is that you can hardly blame them."
"A year ago," Bregg said, "some of the people got hold of her two youngones. They were torn to pieces before they could be saved, and she sawit. I can't blame her, either."
He went on to the gate