Stephen Marlowe

“ Now I remember."
"Yes, I'm Steve Cantwell."
"I'm not going anyplace, young fellow."
"But you can't stay here, without any good water to drink, without—"
"I'm staying," the old man said, still without self-pity, just matter-of-factly. "The Earth folks have no room for me and I can't blame 'em. The Kumaji'll kill me for a renegade, I figure. I lived a good, long life. I've no regrets. Go after your people, young fellow. They'll need every extra strong right arm they can get. You got any weapons?" ”

“ The wind-driven sand would obliterate their trail.
Two days later they reached the caravan. As they rode up, Mary said, "Steve, do you have to tell them?"
"We can tell them this," Steve said. "Your father died a hero's death, sending the Kumajis off in the wrong direction."
"And not—not what he'd planned to do at first."
"No. We'll tell them that was his intention all the while. A man can make a mistake, can't he?"
"I love you, Steve. I love you."
Then they rode down on the caravan. Somehow Steve knew they would all reach Oasis City in safety. ”

“ Five hundred miles of trackless sands and hundred-and-thirty-degree heat....
"They have to," the old man said. "And they have to hurry. Men, women and children. The Kumaji are after them."
Steve felt irrational hatred then. He thought it would help if he could find some of the nomadic tribesmen and kill them. It might help the way he felt, he knew, but it certainly wouldn't help the fleeing colonists, trekking across a parched wilderness—to the safety of Oasis City—or death.
"Come on," Steve said, making up his mind. "The unicopter can hold two in a pinch." ”

“ Now they're gone."
"But you stayed here—"
"To die," the old man said, without self-pity. "I'm too old to flee, too old to fight, too old for anything but death. More water."
Steve gave him another drink. "You still haven't told me what happened." Actually, though, Steve could guess. With the twenty-second century Earth population hovering at the eleven billion mark, colonies were sought everywhere. Even on a parched desert wasteland like this. The Kumaji tribesmen had never accepted the colony as a fact of their life on the desert, and in a way Steve could not blame them. ”

“ They had gone perhaps fifteen miles, with almost five hundred to go across searing desert, the Kumaji seeking them....
"Hullo!" Steve shouted, and a man armed with an atorifle came striding clumsily through the sand toward him. "Cantwell's the name," Steve said. "I'm one of you."
Bleak hostility in his face, the man approached. "Cantwell. Yeah, I remember you. Colony wasn't good enough for young Steve Cantwell. Oh, no. Had to go off to Earth to get himself educated. What are you doing here now on that fancy aircraft of yours, coming to crow at our wake?" ”

“ But now, now that you're a prisoner, what if I don't talk? Don't you see, they'll torture you. They'll make you talk. And that way—we get nothing. I couldn't stand to see them hurt you."
"They can do—what they think they have to do. ”

“ Steve turned the little turbo-jet engine over, then on impulse ran back to the old man and gave him his canteen, turning away before it could be refused and striding quickly back to the unicopter and getting himself airborne without looking at the deserted village or the old man again.
The old man's voice called after him: "Tell the people ... hurry ... Kumaji looking for them to kill ... desert wind ought to wipe out their trail ... ”