The Ties That Bind Part 8

"Pick it up."

The native hesitated. Slowly, his brown hand reached for the hilt, and fascination was in his eyes.

"You know what it is for?" the a.n.a.lyst asked.

The native shook his head slowly.

Then it was in his hand, fingers shaping themselves around the hilt--as the fingers of his fathers had done in the ages before the Star Exodus.

His jaw fell slightly, and he looked up, clutching it.

"_Now_ do you know?" the baron gasped.

"My--my hand--_it_ knows," the native whispered.

Ven Klaeden glanced sourly at Meikl, losing his balance slightly, eyes glazed with pain. "He'll need it now, won't he, a.n.a.lyst?" he breathed, then fell to the moss.

Evon stood up slowly, moistening his lips, feeling the grip of the sword and touching the red-stained steel. He peered quickly up at Meikl. Meikl brandished the gun slightly.

The low rumble of a dynamite blast sounded from the direction of the mines.

"You loved her too," Evon said.

He nodded.

The native held the sword out questioningly, as if offering it.

"Keep it," the a.n.a.lyst grunted. "You remembered its feel after twenty thousand years. That's why you'll need it."

Some deeds, he thought, would haunt the soul of Man until his end, and there was no erasing them ... for they _were_ the soul, self-made, lasting in the ghost-grey fabric of mind as long as the lips of a child greedily sought the breast of its mother, as long as the child mirrored the mind of the man and the woman. _Kulturverlaengerung._

The a.n.a.lyst left the native with the sword and went to seek the next in line of command. The purpose of the fleet must be kept intact, he thought, laughing bitterly. Yet still he went.

THE END