Basil Wells

“ The little Aarthman's arms and body flashed into movement so swift that Hardan could not see what was happening. He felt himself flying through the air and jolted down a dozen paces away, his breath gone. He heard Ylda's amused laughter, and the sound spurred him to bound to his feet and leap toward the little man.
Ylda cried out in protest—the Aarthman had drawn no weapon but stood with arms folded—and Hardan's pace slowed. He could not run through a man who would not protect himself.
"Take up your club!" he cried savagely, "or one of my swords!" ”

“ Advancing through the low groves and across the mossy green meadows came perhaps a hundred of the little people, miniature spears gripped in their hands and glinting toy swords of hammered metal at their side.
Jek groaned. "You must escape," he shouted. "They will kill you and eat your flesh. You are a Moster. I will go with you. They will kill me too."
"Come on then," cried Rolf swinging Jek up to a perch on his shoulder. "Where do we go from here?"
Jek's arm thrust before Rolf's eyes, indicating the northern range of hills and the canyons beyond—the wild country of the upper Colorado. ”

“ Neilson made a sympathetic sound. Treb felt his lips twitch into a thin crooked line. This is what it meant to be human. To feel sorrow for another man's misfortunes—and then kill him!
Sure, Neilson was a good sort. Only twenty-four and in love with a girl, a woman really, widow of a dead lunar explorer. And he was a clean-living sort, nothing dishonorable or hateful about him. They even honored the same God.
But tomorrow, or the next day, or a month from now, he would kill or wound Neilson. Unless, as might well happen, Neilson got to him first. ”

“ Ruth had been with him as he painted that second picture from the jutting rock ledge five hundred feet above the river.
"I was just ten then, Essie," she chirped gaily. "I remember how afraid I was of the height and how Alex scolded."
But Alex was dead now and all she had to remember of him was the paintings and the photographs that Mother kept in a battered brown leather folder. For a moment the bright sunlight in her beloved maple tree's leaves seemed to dim and the room wavered about her. She wondered about that. She must tell her father or her mother. ”

“ If he could keep them from learning that there was actually no madness on Earth until he could contrive to destroy them.
The next words of the commander of the space cruiser sounded thunder-loud in his ears, tumbling his plans into ruin.
"We will return to Ortha with our reports at once," said Urol.
Thig sat frozen in his seat for a long moment staring at the transmitter. If he could only be certain that the Horde would find no flaws in his story; that Earth would never know the destruction that the Horde would bring. ”

“ He found his rifle, stepped through the rim of bushes beside the ancient highway and waited in their shadow. The indistinct bulk of a ystan grew larger in the pale light of Sulle II's lone satellite. At first Brink could see no rider; then he saw the huddled lump of darkness above the saddle. He stepped out into the road.
"Rea?" he said. His rifle lifted above the horizontal, its butt at his hip.
"Woa," the rider moaned faintly, and the trembling ystan came to a drooping stand.
Brink reached up to the rider to help her down.
"No," Rea whispered. "Hide me—hide—horse. Savages...." ”

“ The bitter Utah winter was at hand and the protected shelter of the hidden valley was welcome. Welcome too was the sight of several warm log cabins and a central stone building where, in its deep cellar, they found plentiful stores of dried foods and grain.
"Here we stop," announced Rolf.
"It is good," agreed Jek. "Better a spear in the eye than the cold."
"If we cannot live in the cold," laughed Rolf," neither can your people." ”

“ The stocky sarif slumped forward, clinging in his death agony to the saddle, and so they rode away into the growing daylight of the Drylands—a wounded cursing Wetlander and a jouncing bundle of dead sinews and bone that had once been a man....
Two hands of days had passed before Hardan dared leave the sheltered cave beside the Gron River not far from the ashes of the abandoned wagons. The two maars had pastured in a grassy hidden ravine and there too had he buried the stocky body of Malth Jed. ”

“ Duggan's years of blindness had given him the ability to judge and gauge distance from sound. At the proper instant he pounced, his hands clamping around a body, and a second body crashed into the leader. They went down in a tangle.
He heard Rusche shouting and fists battering and the tinkle of metal or crystal on metal. He was fighting desperately, his super mech's strength overtaxed. The unseen man's hands tore at his neck and shoulder, ripping away the synthetic flesh and baring the complex framework beneath. ”

“ Treb touched his pocket torch to a heap of shredded dry twigs. "What have you lost? Your health, your life? And will not the woman forget all else and love you?"
"Hah! She will laugh at me if I come near her. Defeated, and with a paltry ten thousand to offer. Better that I died than this."
"Perhaps you do not—know this woman, Harl. If she is good, she will come to you."
The growing firelight was on Neilson's bearded face. And beneath his eyes something glistened and beaded. He laughed bitterly.
"She's not good, Treb, understand that. She's evil and money-hungry, and ambitious. ”

“ Rolf told her soberly, "but with the food and supplies already stored in the Vulcan we can live for fifty years in space. We should find a habitable sphere in that time."
"Hiyuh, Big Boy," rang out a cheery greeting from the trail above the engrossed pair. "Trying to play Romeo to Janet? No use playing up to her, Rolf. Her heart is pure asbestos. She thinks necking is a kin to hanging."
"Listen, brat," Janet cried, her face flushing beautifully, "do you ever think of anything but wisecracks? Beat it!"
"Begorra!" squealed Jean. "You've got her talking human, Rolfy. Ain't love the nuts?" ”

“ Kern Rensom said, his finger pointing out a squatty ovoid of darker rock, "that our ship from beyond the stars landed. It was broken, and all save two women and one man died."
"You came from up there?" demanded Ylda. "Then you are of the race of the true gods, Zo Aldan and Ung Roth?"
The Aarthman shook his head. "No, we are mortals. I have read your mind and learned about your gods. Perhaps your gods, too, were mortals from another world who landed here safely on Osar."
Hardan's ears tingled at such heresy. And yet he was forced to admit what the little man said was logical. ”

“ But she no longer wore the garb of a novice. Instead she wore the green cloak of a Consar over her bulky vurth-stuffed coverings. A moment later he saw that her legs were linked by a short length of chain, riveted to either ankle by a cuff of metal. And across the fire squatted an armed man, a guard.
Hardan was puzzled at her change of garb, but his blood pounded with joy as he saw her apparently unharmed and well-fed. With the coming of darkness he could rescue her, and, Ung Roth willing, the priests and their wives as well. ”

“ Until he came to Earth, Thig had never known that there was such a thing as a lie. Among the men of Ortha there was no deceit or treachery. If they killed or destroyed, it was necessary. If they related any happening, however unimportant, it was painstakingly accurate. Imagination was a word that was meaningless among the disciplined billions of the Horde. They would not detect a lie for they would not recognize one! Earth was safe.
"That is good," he said. "I will wait until you leave Earth, and then I will destroy the ship and myself." ”

“ Rolf emptied three more of the shotguns, reloaded them and fired again. A third time he emptied all his weapons into those clustering ranks; dropped the last gun, and raced for the cellar and the tunnel opening out from it.
Along a narrow, rough-timbered drift he ran for a hundred feet and emerged in the shelter of a heap of rocks and clustering brush. Less than fifty feet distant, at the base of a weathered yellow cliff, opened the hidden entrance to the cavern where the ancient rebuilt spaceship pointed its blunt nose skyward. ”

“ Duggan glared down into the carefully pretty face, the solar-lamp tan and the knife-smoothed wrinkles.
"Now see here, Blanche," he said, and spluttered impotently.
"See here yourself, Merle Duggan," the woman spat back sharply. "After all! You come running back just because she's hurt. Why didn't you come back like this a year ago?"
"I was with her a year ago."
"That wasn't you. You didn't have guts enough to rent a super mech and go back to your old job." The woman laughed. "Janith tried to insult and needle you into being a man again. And you just crawled."
"That's a lie," Duggan cried. ”

“ He could hear Carby clearly now. He was calling for Rea. Brink swore under his breath and turned to re-enter the cabin, but Carby had seen him and hailed him.
"Rea left in the night," the big man said. "She took one of the horses and a rifle. And she left a note. Says she is going back to live in one of the domes."
Brink whistled. The "horse" she had taken, actually a ystan according to the Commission, was only half-broken and a giant animal three times as large as its Earthly counterpart.
"The loneliness must have driven her insane," the big man cried. ”

“ Hardan's stomach knotted—and then dissolved into a glowing spot of fire. His fingers bit into the leather handles of his twin short swords. He had no eyes for the grinning minority clustered about Nitka Porn. Nor did he see the puzzled empty faces of the other trekkers, the slow-minded plodding sarifs caught in this bloody trailside struggle.
"You stand alone against us all," snarled Nitka Porn, swaggering forward, his muddy green eyes slitted watchfully. "The Consars are dead, swimming in their fine wagon tanks for the last time. Their wagons and riding maars are ours now." ”

“ For the good of the Horde, the alien that was Lewis Terry knew, the patrolmen would transmit the information they received, and then destroy themselves. In their narrow philosophy of life only the Horde mattered. He had been like that when his name was Thig, and the memories of Lewis Terry were not yet part of his life.
And now another space ship was coming to Earth, coming to check on the findings of that earlier ill-fated expedition, and he alone could checkmate them!... If he had only kept watch on Ortha! ”

“ Carefully they checked every strap and spring of each canoe-like suspended bed designed to ease the sudden pressure of several times normal gravity.
"Here goes," shouted Rolf as his fingers snapped over the primary firing lever.
A mighty surge of power, a great hand that pressed chokingly against their chests, bore them back, until their hammocks flattened against the padded walls behind each hammock cubicle. Blackness snapped a sudden curtain across their brains.
The thin rock shell left above the old Vulcan's nose parted like rotten tissue as the great cigar of metal blasted skyward. ”

“ The rules of a duel between gentlemen are quite different from the rules of war between nations. Is it because gentlemen do not fight wars, or is it that men in war cease to be gentlemen?
The bullet slapped rotted leaves and dirt into Gram Treb's eyes. He wormed backward to the bole of a small tree.
"Missed!" he shouted. He used English, the second tongue of them both. "Throw away your carbine and use rocks."
"You tasted it anyhow," Harl Neilson's shrill young voice cried. ”

“ Hardan scented the raw reek of alcohol, of garack, as he crept closer. The guard's thick lips smacked, he rubbed a rasping fist across his mouth and snorted appreciatively. Then the jar tilted again, gurgled.
The guide sprang, his fingers clamping about the startled throat of the sarif. He squeezed hard, choking back the gasp of terror, and the jug crashed to the hard ground. Then his fist chopped in a short vicious punch to the sarif's neck that felled the man. ”

“ They were the last of the belligerents here within Earth Satellite. For two months, since what would be May on Earth, they had carried on this mad duel. Of the other eighteen who had started the war in November of the preceding year, only four had survived their wounds. The United Nations' supervisory seconds had transported them to their homes in Andilia and in Baryt....
Treb wormed his way as noiselessly as possible into the undergrowth, sprawling at last in the shelter of an earthen mound thirty feet from the grenade's raw splash. He waited—and thought.
Memories can be unpleasant. ”

“ Thus do they kill the Mosters."
"Jek," demanded Rolf, "what are these monsters you talk about, the ones we go to find?"
"Giants," said Jek eagerly. "Men like you. Men who Would not submit to the Great Change."
Rolf had lost all count of the days. For many weeks they had roamed the desolate tree-clad canyons of Northern Arizona and Southwestern Utah searching for men like himself. They found weedy cultivated fields in hidden box canyons and the clean-picked bones of men and women about the ashes of dead fires beside the empty walls of nearby cabins. ”

“ For the first time in centuries men were living an active, brain-stimulating life.
Let the great hothouse domes with their dwarfish inbred animals in their parks, and their controlled atmosphere, and odor content index, and mass-produced pleasure booths go their way. Let the pale, thready-muscled humans nibble their synthetic promines and yea-steaks—the pioneers had no need for substitutes....
Brink's arm went around Tzal's shoulders and he was looking into her shaken, tear-stained eyes. He smiled. It was the first time he had ever seen his placid partner so moved. ”

“ Thig looked to his decomposition blaster to see that it was thoroughly charged. This was perhaps the hundredth time he had examined his weapon. He chuckled at the ease with which the leader of the mother planet's ship had been tricked into believing his fantastic tale. All that remained now was to gain admission into the space ship.
He left his own little life boat and walked toward the space cruiser. He reached the outer lock and attempted to open it. It was stuck. He tugged futilely at the pitted metal of the controls, and after a moment hammered at the door with a lump of volcanic rock. ”

“ No grass could grow so uniform and short.
So they moved together, speaking no more, through the hushed silence of growing dusk, into the shadows of the vast vertical mass of the ancient wall that dipped southward. They searched for a way to scale that soaring obstacle, vainly.
The rim of the upper sea, the false sea that was vurth floating lightly above the true sea far below, they reached and Hardan felt the tingling thrill of a stranger returning home as the delicate moist tendrils contacted his exposed flesh. ”

“ Venus and Mars are of course overrun by the Little People so we knew that only on some distant world we might find human beings like ourselves."
"Why not go anyway?" Rolf questioned. "I would like to see Earth from empty space before I die. I have always dreamed of spaceflight and of exploring some new world. Eventually the runts will find us and jab out our eyes; so why not take a chance on blasting off for Ganymede or Io? Better to die in space than in these forsaken canyons."
"You are right!" cried Janet impulsively springing to her feet and facing the man. ”

“ He loaded the little ship to its capacity with explosives from the stores on the island, and before he left he touched a match to the buildings. Then he blasted off, with the water clearing explosively from his spacer's overloaded jets to arouse the sleeping warriors of the Mikado.
After that first foray Thig raided many an outlying island, and looted the sunken transports that lay in the shallowed water between some of the captured islands. He mounted a heavy machine gun in the nose of his agile little craft, and many a yellow man never returned to his home landing field. ”

“ In his latest dream an extremely shapely and smiling young woman with dark hair was heaving a grenade into a pit where he lay bound and helpless. The grenade swelled until it became a space ship heading directly toward the frail scout craft he piloted....
And a tiny blob of dislodged mud from the dugout spatted his face. He sat up.
Another day to hunt or be hunted. Or to lie here and try to rest and make plans. There was slight possibility that Neilson could find him here. ”