The Women-Stealers of Thrayx

was a vertical trail of fireabove them as a Thrayxite ship hurtled skyward.

  "By Jhavuul--"

  "No!" Mason exclaimed. "The blast was from in front of us, he didn'tdouble back! Must be another colony near our own, and he stumbled outof this overgrown mess and right into it. There was simply an emptyship--"

  "Then the traitor has won!" Kriijorl's face was tilted upward, and inthe faint glow of the planetesimal belt that girdled Thrayx, it seemedmore than ever that of an heroic Viking king of ages gone.

  "There's a chance he hasn't!" Mason breathed. He had the thought now,pinned down, clear in his head. "If there has been no alarm back atour own camp we may still have the mentacom to ourselves. We'll signalIhelos as you planned and then--then there is something else you willsay. Something else that I think will, as the saying goes on Earth,kill two birds with a single blast."

  Mason had lost track of time; perhaps it was as many as two hoursbefore they had fought their way through the clutching undergrowthback to the mentacom at the fringe of their own camp. Several timesthey had had to stop, for there had been sounds in the jungle otherthan those they had made themselves. Animals, Kriijorl had said, whohad got the scent of their blood. But the noises had not been fast andcrashing--more those of stealth, as were those of their own steps. Asingle animal, perhaps, with the scent of their blood; or that of thebreeder guard they had slain. And stalking.

  The dome was still silent, and the stiff corpses outside it layundisturbed in the thick undergrowth. In the clearing the six emptyThrayxite ships towered in the sleeping quiet, star-shine glintingfaintly from their polished hulls.

  Wordlessly, they entered the dome, and it was as they had left it.

  Kriijorl again adjusted the headset, and the orange glow pulsed andwaned as Mason watched.

  And then at length, "If they are to know, they know now," Kriijorlsaid. "And the Thrayxite host as well. What was there you wished toadd, Lieutenant?"

  Mason spoke quickly. "Say that you have discovered that thepriceless--and you must say _priceless_--Book of the Saints is in theForest of Saarl on Thrayx. Say that we have discovered it to be lesswell protected than is generally believed. Then give the location ofthe subterranean vault as precisely as you can!"

  "But my people are well aware--"

  "I realize that, but our friend Cain doesn't!"

  The Ihelian's face was still puzzled, but he projected thethought-message Mason had dictated.

  And then in seconds the Ihelian had hastily but thoroughly wrecked thementacom, and the two men left its silent dome for the empty shipsthat beckoned so tantalizingly a scant quarter-mile distant.

  They had run perhaps a dozen steps when the undergrowth behind themripped and tore, and Mason spun.

  There was a muffled cry, and he had barely time to catch Judith'sbleeding body as she fell in exhaustion into his arms.

  VI

  The muscles in his arms and legs trembled with fatigue as he liftedthe semi-conscious girl up to Kriijorl, and then with what seemed animpossible effort, hauled himself through the deserted ship's sternairlock.

  The Ihelian seemed to carry Judith as though she were a feather as heclimbed the narrow ladder above Mason, infinitely upward, the Earthmanthought ... an infinite distance to the ship's forehull, to itscontrol banks.

  There was only the sound of his own hoarse breathing in his ears as heclimbed, rung after rung, and the hollow echo of Kriijorl's boots asthey mounted resolutely above him.

  Then they had made it, and were strapping Judith into a hammock, weretaking their own shock-seats before the control-banks of theThrayxite shuttle-craft.

  The Ihelian did not hesitate. His fingers deliberated for only amoment above the firing studs in the blue-green glow of the banks, andthen they flicked home, and engines muttered, roared into terrifyinglife.

  Within moments, saying nothing, moving the swift, silent movements ofdesperation, they had freed themselves of the grasping snare of thejungle beneath them; were once more strong, liberated things in thevast freedom of Space.

  "And now Ihelos!" Kriijorl cried as they broke swiftly from theecliptic of the great spangled ring of Thrayx. "If we can but escapetheir fleet. Any moment they should be on the scanner, forming to meetthe onslaught of Ihelian squadrons--"

  "No!" Mason said, and his voice was like a solid thing clogging histhroat. "No, not Ihelos--not yet!" His eyes burned, and the red weltsthat covered his body had begun to sting, to pain, and it was hard tothink.

  He saw the frown forming on Kriijorl's face.

  "Thrayx, and the Forest of Saarl," he bit from between teeth clenchedagainst the creeping agony in him. "The Book of the Saints, Kriijorl.It is the key, don't you see. Key to all this, your feud."

  For an instant the Ihelian said nothing, but groped in hidden pocketsof his battered space harness. His long fingers quickly produced atablet, thrust it into Mason's hand. The Earthman swallowed it andalmost at once energy coursed as though from some hidden well in hisbody through his flagging muscles and nerves.

  Then Kriijorl spoke. "I do not understand, Lieutenant. I know onlythat it would be almost certain death. Intrusion near the vault wouldbring a flight of guard ships within minutes."

  "I know that," Mason said. "But perhaps not down upon us! And we musthave that Book. I've been thinking about it, comparing it with similarwritings in Earth's own past. Such books are not new, such motives,such methods. Your Book is priceless in a way that even you don'tknow, Kriijorl. I'm certain of it. For it must contain the reason thatyou fight."

  "And that reason?"

  "A reason, if I'm right, that would end your feud once and for all. Anasty bit of logic which the people of Ihelos and Thrayx were quitedeliberately kept from knowing from the beginning. I'd make book on itthat at one time both planets were very hungry places--"

  "But if you are wrong, Lieutenant?"

  Mason fastened his gaze straight before him on the diamond-studdedscanner, and saw that some of the smaller diamonds were moving in atiny echelon.

  "Then I guess we die young," he answered the Ihelian. "Want to try?"

  The Ihelian's face loosened into a wry smile. "Sometimes you askrather foolish questions, Lieutenant! I've been bred to such business,and not given my life so much thought before this! But--"

  "Yes. Judith."

  And then they heard a woman's voice speaking behind them. "Thrayxiteacceleration hammocks could stand improvement," it said. "And when weleave the Forest of Saarl, I think I'll just lie on the deck instead."

  * * * * *

  Kriijorl's knowledge of the spot's location in the great forest wasfar more accurate than he had given Mason reason to hope. And with adeftness that matched that with which he had eluded the screens of theThrayxite fleet hurtling to protect its breeder planetoid, he broughtthe ship to rest at Mason's direction, little more than a quarter-milefrom where the Book of the Saints lay entombed.

  It was marked by two spires. One was of hewn stone, as Kriijorl hadsaid, immobile, with ancient symbols carven from its base to itspinnacle.

  And the other was smooth, and of metal; its gaping airlock testimonyto the haste with which it had been landed, unhidden by the naturalcamouflage of the soaring trees with which the grass-carpeted clearingwas surrounded.

  "Who--"

  "Muscles," Mason answered her. The three were crouched at theclearing's edge, waiting. "Thought he'd made it some way. Must'veducked in before their fleet got into Space. Gambling that our signalthat he picked up wouldn't bring out a special reception committeeready and waiting to meet him."

  "But he has preceded us by many minutes," Kriijorl said. "I do notsee--"

  "Not so many. He was in flight two full hours before you mentacommedIhelos. And if I know him, it was straight out of this galaxy at fullblast! So he had to back-track all that time and distance. He had torisk a trap down here, as well as the Thrayxite fleet which he knewwould be rushing to protect its breeders."

  "You had counted on those facto
rs, Lieutenant?"

  "Two birds with one blast, like I told you before," Mason said. "AskJudith, here. She'll tell you how well I know him." The girl wassilent, but her eyes voiced her thoughts more eloquently than hertongue might have.

  "Some will do anything to obtain the 'priceless'--" Kriijorl saidsoftly.

  "Cain, any time!"

  "You have laid a clever trap, Lieutenant."

  "If it springs, sure. But where are those guard ships you were soworried about? I was counting on them, too. They should be all overthe place by now."

  And he was interrupted by the high-pitched scream of the flat, finnedshapes that hurtled