The Stars Are Ours! a-1 Read online

  “More sea people! Look, baby!” She directed the mar-child’s attention seaward.

  Instantly it slipped its hand free and ran to the edge of the water. But, just as it was about to plunge into the waves, it stopped and looked back at Dessie. While it teetered there, toes in the lapping waves, the two others of its race swam into the shallows and arose to their feet to wade in. The merchild made up its mind and splashed out to meet the shorter of the two advancing figures and was gathered up in eager arms. The largest of the three-an inch or two above four feet Dard judged-moved in between its mate and child and those on shore.

  “See what it’s carrying!” Rogan schooled his voice with an effort,

  But Dard needed no one to point out that discovery. The merman was armed with a spear, a spear with a mean looking many barbed head. And about his loins was a belt sup- porting a small, fastened case and a long dagger of pointed bone. This was no animal!

  The merchild struggled to free itself, slipped under the reaching hand of its father, and darted back to Dessie. Grabbing again at her hand, it tugged her toward the couple in the water. Dard moved up, he didn’t like the look of that spear.

  But before he could get to Dessie the merman thrust that weapon at something washing along the rocks. When he raised the spear its point impaled the headless body of the dragon. With a gesture of fury the merman smashed the battered corpse down on the stone, ripping it off the barbs. Then he splashed up to Dessie and caught the merchild, giving it a smart slap across its buttocks with a very human expression of exasperation. Dard chuckled and forgot his momentary fears.

  The merpeople were unhuman in appearance but they appeared to share certain emotions with the Terrans. Dard stepped cautiously into the water. The merman was instantly alert, his spear on guard, backing toward his mate and the child he had pushed out to her.

  Dard held out empty hands in the gesture of good will as old as time. The merman’s big eyes searched his. Then slowly that spear was lowered, to be laid on wet sand, with webbed toes curled over it to hold it safe, and the rainbow scaled paws were raised in the right answer.

  9. TREATY AND ALLIANCE

  “WHEN’S BLAST-OFF?” Cully was boring holes in the sand with one finger, restless away from his machines.

  Dard glanced along the line of the six men who had accompanied him down to the shore. They sat cross-legged in the sand with strict orders to keep quiet and wait. The first meeting between the Terrans and the representatives of the merpeople had been scheduled for this afternoon-if he had been able to get the idea across in gestures alone.

  Spread out on the shore several feet above the water level were those gifts the Terrans believed might please sea dwellers. Some nested plastic bowls made a bright-colored spot, a collection of empty bottles of various sizes, hastily assembled from laboratory supplies, golden apples, native grain, all there together. Objects which could be used under water had been hard to find.

  “They’re coming!” Dessie had been waiting impatiently by the waves’ sweep, and now, heedless of the water curling about her legs, she ran forward, holding out her hands to the merchild who threshed up a fountain of spray in its eagerness to meet her. Hand in hand they pattered to dry land where the merchild shrank shyly against the little girl when it saw the men.

  But Dessie was smiling, and said importantly, “Ssssat and Ssssutu are coming now.”

  Dard hid his surprise. How could Dessie so confidently mouth those queer names-how did she know? From all his questioning and Kimber’s and Kordov’s and Carlee’s-last night, they had only been able to elicit that the “sea people thought into her head.” They had been forced to accept the concept of telepathy-which could be possible with an undersea race.

  So, deciding that Dessie’s interpretation might be needed that day, they had schooled her in her part.

  Ssssat and Ssssutu-if those were the proper designations of the mermen who were borne in with the next wave came ashore. They both carried the barbed spears and wore long bone daggers at the belts which were their only articles of clothing. Without a sound they seated themselves on the seaside of the gifts, facing Dard, regarding him and the other Terrans with owlish solemnity.

  “Dessie!” Dard called, and she came trotting to him.

  “Do I give the presents now, Dard?”

  “Yes. Try to make them understand that we want to be friends.”

  She picked out two of the bowls, put an apple and a handful of grain into each, and carried them over to set down before the envoys.

  The one on Dard’s right held out his hand and Dessie, without hesitation, laid hers, palm down, upon it. For a long moment they made contact. Then both mermen relaxed their tense watchfulness. They put their spears behind them and one ran his hands through the fur on his head and shoulders where it was fast drying into rainbow dotted fluff.

  “They want to be friends, too,” Dessie reported. “Dardie, if you put your hand on theirs, then they can talk to you. They don’t talk with their mouths at all. This is Ssssat—”

  Dard got to his feet slowly so as not to alarm the mermen and crossed the strip of shore until he could sit face to face. Then he held out his hand. Cool and damp the scaled digits and palm of the other lay upon his warmer flesh. And, Dard almost broke the contact in his surprise and awe, for the other was talking to him! Words, ideas, swept into his mind-some concepts so alien he could not understand. But bit by bit he pieced together much of what the other was striving to tell him.

  “Big ones, land dwellers, we have watched you-with fear. Fear that you have come to lead us once more into the pens of darkness—”

  “Pens of darkness?” Dard echoed aloud and then shaped a mental query.

  “Those who once walked the land here-they kept the pens of darkness where our fathers’ fathers’ fathers’ ” … -the concept of a long stretch of past time trailed through the Terran’s receptive mind-"were hatched. The days of fire came and we broke forth and now we shall never return.” There was stern warning, an implied threat, in that.

  “We know nothing of the pens, nor do we threaten you,” Dard thought slowly. “We, too, have broken out of pens of darkness, he added with sudden inspiration.

  “It is true that you are not the color or shape of those who made the pens. And you have shown only friendship. Also you killed the flying death which would have slain my cub. I believe that you are good. Will you stay here?”

  Dard pointed inland. “We build there.”

  “Do you wish the fruits of the river?” came next.

  “The fruits of the river?” Dard was puzzled until a dear picture of one of the red spider plants formed in his mind. Then he shook his head to reinforce his unspoken denial.

  “We may then come and harvest as we have always done? And,” there was a shrewd bargaining note in this, “perhaps you will see that the flying death does not attack us, since your slaying powers are greater than ours?”

  “We like the dragons no better than you do. Let me speak with the others now—” Dard broke contact and reported to the Terran committee.

  “Sure!” Santee’s jovial boom could not be kept to a whisper and at the sound, or its vibration, both mermen started. “Let ’em come in and get their spiders. I’ll watch for dragons.”

  “Fair enough,” Kimber agreed. “We don’t care for the dragons any more than they do.”

  Before the hour had passed cordial relations had been established, and the mermen promised to return early the next morning with their harvest crew. Carrying the gifts they waded out into the sea, Ssssat’s cub riding on his father’s shoulder. The little one waved back at Dessie until all three disappeared under water.

  “Those pens they spoke of,” Kordov mused later that night when they discussed the meeting in an open convocation of all the voyagers. “They must have been imprisoned at one time by the city builders and escaped during or after the war. But surely they weren’t domestic animals.”

  “More likely slaves,” suggested Carlee S
kort. “Perhaps they were forced to do undersea work where landsmen could not venture. They are coming tomorrow? Well, why can’t we all go down and meet them? Maybe we can help in the harvesting and prove our good will.”

  The clamor which interrupted and supported her was indicative of the enthusiasm of the rest. Dessie’s merpeople had caught the imaginations of all. And Dard believed that the Terrans would have gone to meet them in any case.

  Early as the colonists came down to the river bank the next morning, the merpeople were there before them, wading along the shallows of the slowly flowing stream, sweeping between them woven basket nets, as fine as sieves, to skim up the red fungi. Merchildren paddled in and out, and a line of spear-bearing males patrolled the shoreline with attention for the cliff perches of the dragons.

  They stopped all these activities as the Terrans came into sight, and when they began again it was with a certain self-consciousness. Dard and the others who had been on the seashore the day before went up to meet the sea people, their hands outstretched.

  A party of the armed males split off to face them. In the center of their group was one portly individual who, though there was no way save by size for the humans to guess at merman ages, gave the impression of dignity and authority.

  Dard touched palms with the leading warrior.

  “This is Aaaatak, our ‘Friend of Many.’ He would communicate with your ‘Giver of Law.’”

  “Giver of Law.” Kordov came the nearest to being the leader of the colonists. Dard beckoned to the First Scientist.

  “This is their chieftain, sir. He wants to speak to our leader.”

  “So? I can not call myself leader,” Kordov met the hands of the older merman, “but I am honored to speak to him.” As Kordov and the merchief clasped hands the rest of the colonists came up, timidly. But an hour later merpeople and humans mingled with freedom. And when the Terran party set out food, the mermen brought in their own supplies, flat baskets of fish and aquatic plants, kept in water until time to eat. They accepted the golden apples eagerly, but kept away from the fires where their hosts cooked the fish they offered in return. Although each fire had a ring of amazed spectators, standing at a safe distance to gaze at the wonder.

  Three dragons that dared to invade were brought down with rays, to the savage exultation of the merpeople. They asked to inspect the weapons and returned them regretfully when they understood that such arms would not last in their water world.

  “Though,” Cully said thoughtfully, when this had been explained, “I don’t see why they couldn’t use some of the metal forged by Those Others. It seems to resist rust and erosion on land-it might in the water.”

  “Nordis!”

  The urgency in that call brought Dard away from the engineer to the small group of Kimber, Kordov, the mer-chief and several others. Harmon was there, as well as Santee, and some techneers.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “You’ve seen the lizards, ask Oaaatak if those are what he is trying to tall us about. We can’t get the right impression of what he means and it seems to be vitally important.” Kordov edged back for the boy to take his place. Dard clasped the readily extended claws of the merchief.

  “Do you wish to tell us about—” He shut his eyes in order to concentrate better upon a mental image of the huge reptiles,

  “No!” The answer was a decided negative. “Those we have seen, yes-hunting down other land dwellers. They were once subordinate to those we speak of now. These—”

  Another picture indeed-a biped-humanoid in outline-but somehow all wrong. Dard had seen nothing like it. And the image was fuzzy, indistinct as if he observed it from a distance-or through water!

  Through water! That was caught up eagerly by Aaaatak.

  “Now you are thinking straight. We do not come out of hiding when those are about! So we see them in that fashion—”

  “They live on land then? Near here?” Dard demanded. The emotion of fear colored so strongly all the impressions he received from the merchief.

  “They live on land, yes. Near here, no, or we should not be here. We hunt out shores where they do not come. Once they were very, very many, living everywhere-here-across the sea. They were the builders of those pens where creatures of my kind were imprisoned for them to work their will upon. Then something happened. There came fire raining from the sky, and a sickness which struck them. They died, some quickly, some much more slowly, when my people burst from the pens.” There was a cold and deadly satisfaction in that flash of memory. “After that we fled into the wilds of the sea where they could not find us. Even when I was but a new-hatched cub we lived in the depths. But through the years our young warriors went out to search for food and for a safer place to live-there are monsters in the deeps as horrible as the lizards of the land. And these parties discovered that those”—again Dard saw the queer biped—“were gone from long stretches among the reefs, as we had always longed to do. There are none of those left in this land now but—” The chief hesitated before suddenly withdrawing his hand from Dard’s and turning to his followers as if consulting them. Dad took the opportunity to translate to the others what he had learned.

  “Survivors of Those Others,” Kimber caught him up. “But not here?”

  “No. Aaaatak says that his people will not come where they are. Wait-he has more to tell.”

  For Aaaatak was holding out his hand and Dard met it readily.

  “My people now believe that you are not like those. You do not seem in body quite the same, your skin is of a different color,” he drew his claw finger across the back of Dard’s hand to emphasize his meaning, “and you have received us as one free people greets another. This those others do not-there is much hate and bitterness between us from the far past-and they always delight in killing.

  “We have watched you ever since you first came out of the sky. Those others once traveled in the sky-though of late we have not seen their bird ships-and so we thought you of the same breed. Now we know that that is untrue. But we must tell you-be on your guard! For on the other side of the sea those others still live, even if their numbers are few, and there is a blackness in their minds which leads them to raise spears against all living things!

  “Now,” Dard had a strong impression that the merchief was coming to the main point, “we are a people who know much about the sea, but little of the land. We have learned that you are not native to this world, having fallen from the sky-but, did you not also say that you came from a place where you, too, were penned by enemies?”

  Dard assented, remembering his statement to the first envoys.

  “If you are wise you will not seek out those who would lay such bonds upon you again. For that is what those others will do. In this world they recognize no other rights or desires than are born of their own wills. We have warriors of our race who keep watch upon them secretly and bring news of their coming and going. Against their might-though they have lost much of their ancient knowledge-we have only our own cunning and knowledge of the sea. And what good is a spear against that which may kill at a distance? But you have mightier weapons. And should we two peoples join skills and hearts against them- But do you now say this to your Giver of Laws and other Elder Ones so that they may understand.” He withdrew his hand again and left Dard in interpret.

  “An alliance!” Tas Kordov caught the meaning of that offer. Hmm,” he plucked his lower lip. “Better tell him- No, let me. I’ll explain that we shall talk it over.”

  “What’s all this ’bout Those Others?” Harmon demanded.

  “Did they,” he indicated the merpeople, “say that they’re still here-the ones who lived in that city?”

  “Not here-across the sea,” Dard was beginning when Rogan broke in.

  “That chieftain doesn’t think much of them, does he?”

  “He says they’re enemies.”

  “They aren’t his kind,” Harmon pointed out. “And his people were their slaves once.”

  “We,” Kimber said slo
wly, “have had some experience with slavery ourselves, haven’t we? On Terra we’d have been in labor camps, if we hadn’t been lucky-that is if we weren’t shot down in cold blood. I have a pretty good memory of the last few years there.”

  Harmon sifted a palmful of sand from one hand to an- other. “Yeah, I know. Only we don’t want to get into no local war.”

  That echoed after his voice died away. No entangling alliances to drag them into any war! Dard sensed the electric agreement which ran through them at that thought. Only Kimber, Santee, and maybe Kordov, did not wholly agree with Harmon.

  Dard gazed down to the river bank. The merpeople had almost completed the harvest and were gathering up their possessions and slipping in family groups back to the sea. He wondered what Kordov would tell the chief.

  Suddenly he could not stand the uncertainty any longer. He wanted to get away-to escape from the thought that perhaps it was going to start all over again-the insecurity- the constant guard duty against a hostile force.

  According to the merchief Those Others were now across the sea-but would they remain there? Wouldn’t this fertile, deserted land where they had once ruled draw them back again? And they would not accept new settlers kindly.

  If the Terrans only knew more about them! Those Others had blasted their world. Dard remembered the callous cruelty of that barn in the valley. Raids, looting, the blasted city, the robot-controlled guns to shoot anything passing out of the air, the warnings of the merpeople.

  He plodded across the sand to the inner valley, beading for the cliff house. Rogan had set up the projector the night before, and they had put the first of the discovered tapes in it. If something about the rulers of this world could be learned from those-this was the time to do it!

  “Where’re you bound for, kid?” Kimber fell into step.

  “The cliffs.” Dard was being pushed by the feeling that time was not his to waste, that he must know-now!

  The pilot asked no more questions but followed Dard into the rock cell where Rogan had installed his machine. The boy checked the preparation made the night before. He turned off the light-the screen on the wall was a glowing square of blue-white and then the projector began to hum.