Stephen Marlowe

“ Final chance for Mandmoora. Boy hurt and you save him. Man go to ships for good medicine. Could stay, but come back to help boy. You save boy. Princeling. I have no faith in your medicine, but he live. He live. Then you hurt. You bleed. Life blood run out. You bleed. You have faith, faith in chief of Mandmoora, to heal you. You have much faith." He raised his voice suddenly, shouting:
"I can no heal! You die if you do not heal yourself. I can no heal! Faith? Your faith in me kill you. Faith? If Sun-Lord fail us. Faith ..." he wailed, a broken man.
Sid Masters said, "Keep your faith, chief. ”

“ Three thousand die-hard sun-worshippers, facing certain death at the altar of the very deity they adore. File that story from Deneb, Miss Crowley."
"It's been filed a hundred times already," Jane said, shaking her head. "You know it has."
The Colonel shrugged. "I refuse to authorize your going out to Mandmoora Island. Be reasonable, miss, can't you? We have evacuated a hundred million Mandmoorans in history's greatest mass exodus. Three thousand fanatics don't want out. Three thousand fanatics will broil with their world, then. ”

“ He needs the kind of medical care I can't give him. The kind of care he can get aboard the exodus ships. Let him go, chief. Let us take him back. We can save his life."
The shaman leaped from the hillock and—for all his bag-of-bones appearance—alighted athletically beside them. "I heard!" he cackled, showing a toothless black hole of a mouth. "I heard! A trick to leave our island. A trick to leave our planet! A trick...."
"Just the boy then," Jane said. "If you want him to live. But you'll never know about it. Because if you stay here you'll all be killed." ”

“ We've evacuated all the Mandmoora who want to go. What remains is a hard core of Mandmooranian fanatics who refuse to leave their native planet under any circumstances. They've got an island just off shore here, you see. They're sun-worshippers. Ironical, isn't it? Sun-worshippers. Their sun about to go nova on them, boiling all the oceans of this waterworld and killing every speck of life on Mandmoora, and they're sun-worshippers. They just won't go. They want to stay. They say we can't make them go and they're right, we can't. ”

“ Still, anything was better than the fatalistic Mandmooran attitude.
"Shaman say," the chief went on, "we offer sacrifice to wrath of Lord Sun. For long time our people no offer sacrifice in human form. Human sacrifice now, at moment of trial, work. So say shaman."
Turning, the chief shouted something. Three spearmen stalked within the circle around the Earthmen and came out with the uniformed figure of the corporal. The ancient shaman jabbered excitedly, but the chief did not look happy.
Sid Masters came brawling through the ring of spearmen, fighting clear with flailing arms and legs. ”

“ Sid Masters said in answer to Jane's question half an hour later. "I thought it would be a good idea to set up camera equipment on the island itself, to show the galaxy the last sun-worshipping rites of the Mandmoorans—before their god killed them. Maybe it's heartless, but it's good journalism. Besides, it isn't up to me to get the Mandmoorans off their island. I'd gladly film their exodus instead, and first-hand, not with automatic equipment. ”

“ The chief nodded solemnly and turned to face the water. Ahead of the flotilla, a single runabout was quite close to land now. Jane recognized the corporal who had chased her out on the quay. With him were two other soldiers.
"Halloa!" the corporal shouted. "Hallo, Miz Crowley. Won't do you no good to try and hide. We got orders to take you back. Mr. Masters with you, ma'am. You'll come peacefully?"
"We won't come any way at all," Sid said defiantly. "Not until we're good and ready."
The chief suddenly strode forward, to the edge of the water and then ankle deep in the surf. ”

“ The Chief raised his hand. Another line of spearmen came trotting forward. "Go back," Sid shouted. "They'll kill you!"
But the runabout came toward them on the heaving surf. Before the chief could raise his hand a second time, the corporal stood up in the prow of the runabout and fired a blaster toward the beach. He had fired it high and he waited for it to disperse the spearmen. When it did not, he fired again, lower. The chief lifted his hand and brought it down. A volley of spears leaped from muscular arms, arching in the sunlight, dropping toward the runabout.... ”

“ A ring of Mandmooran guards surrounded Jane, Sid Masters and the three soldiers, but when Jane walked through the ring, quite close to two of the spearmen, they did not try to stop her. It was because of the Mandmooran women, she decided: the Mandmooran women were so small and fragile-looking that their men would never take the guarding of a woman seriously.
Jane went over to where the chief was kneeling by his stricken son. "Unless you stop the bleeding," she said quietly, "he's going to die. ”

“ He opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came. Then, finally, in a soft voice he said: "Your people save my people. Millions of them. Take to new home, because old home, old world, die. Some stay. Some—us. ”