Tom Godwin

“ Gorman paused, and the dead eyes looked into his. "There the mad dog is—we must kill it."
"We can kill it later if it's mad. We'll watch it a while, first."
The suspicion became like something almost tangible about Gorman and his blaster started the first movement toward Thane.
"Why?"
"I think it can see something—"
Gorman fired, so swiftly that he felt the heat of the beam even though he had been expecting it. He shot for the heart and Gorman collapsed before he could fire again. He lay still on the ground, the eyes that stared up into the sky no deader than when he had been alive. ”

“ Thane said. "And you want my cooperation so that Technogration won't fall by the wayside?"
"Your willingness to accept a subordinate position would give me an intact force of both crewmen and Guardsmen." Curry's lips thinned. "But there will be Technogration, with or without your support. There will be no retrogression back into the Outlanders' hallowed Dark Ages."
"There is no argument—we both want Technogration," Thane said. "We only disagree over who should be in command." ”

“ Thane met him at the second fire; a gaunt old man with a jutting gray beard and sharp blue eyes under bristling gray brows. He stepped out from the fire and spoke:
"Captain Thane—I'd like to ask a question."
Thane stopped. "What is it?"
"My name is Paul Kennedy and I speak for all of us," the old man said. "Captain Curry has locked up all arms from us—he's already starting the regimentation for a permanent Technograte colony here and making sure we can't object. For two hundred years Technogration has failed on Earth except to turn men into robots. ”

“ Thane stared.
It was a dog.
He had not seen one for thirty years. Technogration prohibited the owning of pets as an unnecessary drain upon the planned economy and as non-contributive to the Common Good.
"We knew about the regulations," Kennedy said, "but children need pets to love and be loved by. She's going to have pups—only she and Lornie's kitten were left." The old man's eyes watched him closely, questioningly. "Surely, no one will object to them?"
The dog circled back and a dark haired young woman beyond another fire called to it: "Binkie—come here!" ”

“ It was typical of Curry; to him subordinates were only automatons to carry out his orders.
"We were discussing a mad dog, Thane," Curry said. "Not the health of my men." He spoke to Bellam. "As I recall, rabies was a pre-Technogration plague, often fatal."
"The bite of a rabid animal is invariably fatal, the death prolonged and painful," Bellam said. "There is no preventative or cure among the medical supplies on the ship. The dog must be killed at once, together with all other animals in the Outlander camp."
"If the dog was mad, why hasn't it bitten any of the Outlanders," Thane asked Curry. ”

“ When it had lifted clear of the horizon it flooded the land with a cold silver light that made the searchlights of the guards unnecessary and revealed the camp with metallic light-and-shadow clarity.
The search party was halfway through the camp, Gorman with them and Bellam in command. They were ransacking the possessions and temporary shelters of the Outlanders with swift efficiency, ignoring the protests of the women and their blasters leveled warningly on the men. ”

“ The ones on the ship had been bound for Capella Five where men accustomed to wrestling a living from hostile environments were needed. Under such circumstances Outlanders were given certain rights and freedoms. Until they were no longer needed. Then, again, they became a people without a world....
"For two hundred years the Outlanders have hated Technogration and wanted a world where they could set up their own archaic form of society," Curry said. "Now, those down there will think their millenium has arrived and they can refuse to recognize Technograte authority." ”

“ It was a parasite; a highly intelligent parasite that could take over the mind of its host as well as the body. The parasites had had only the forest monsters as hosts, before, but with the coming of the humans they had the opportunity for hosts of a far higher order. They possessed a means of locomotion but apparently it was limited in its duration or else they would not have needed to control the leaders of the monster bands and stage the attack that would carry them to the guard lines.
The dog, with the acute sixth sense of some animals, could sense the hostile alienness of the things. ”

“ Thane made the rounds where his guards patrolled with their searchlights probing out into the darkness. All of Curry's men but two had been added to reinforce the guard ring around the Outlander camp; most of the crewmen along the east and south lines, leaving the more experienced Guardsmen to patrol the two lines facing the forest.
Guardsmen and crewmen patrolled in silence, watching one another with the calculating regard of men who knew they might soon be ordered to kill one another. ”

“ It was sunset when she settled heavily to earth on a grassy slope beside a forest, leaning at a dangerous angle with only her failing antigravity plates to hold her from falling. The dead had been disposed of in space and the living filed out of her: fifty Outlander men, women and children, eighteen ship's crewmen, and ten Frontier Guards. ”

“ She emerged into normal space in an unknown region of the galaxy, broken and driveless, but near enough a planet that she could descend by means of her antigravity plates before the last of her air was gone. ”