The Women-Stealers of Thrayx Part 5

Mason felt his features twisting into an incredulous expression despite his efforts to realize and appreciate the wide gap of cultural differences between them.

"Don't _know_! But you can't fight a war without knowing why! You--"

"It is in the Book of the Saints," the Ihelian said, "and, therefore, it is our command. And--" he looked into the Earthman's face with the slightest hint of a smile, "from what I've learned of Earth's history from your own lips, Lieutenant, what of your own past wars? Who among your own soldiery has really known why he fought?"

"Well, but--" And then Mason returned the smile. "No, it isn't so different, is it? But tell me more about this Book. Is it based on law, religion, ethics?"

And this time there was no smile on the Ihelian's broad face.

"Legend says all three," he replied.

"Legend? And yet you blindly obey--"

"We always have. Its writings, such as we understand them to be, have governed us for millenia, Lieutenant. The Book is our way, our life.

We are told we could not be a civilization without it."

Mason was silent for a long moment. He did not want to question too deeply the beliefs sacred to another, yet it was so d.a.m.nably peculiar.

They fought bitterly, and they did not know why.

"Could you--would you let me see a copy of this Book, Kriijorl?"

"If I could I'd be glad to, Lieutenant. For I have often wished I could see the words it contains myself."

"You've never read it?"

"Never. Nor has any Ihelian or Thrayxite for thousands of years. There is, you must understand, only one Book of the Saints."

"Just one copy?"

"Yes. It has long been deemed sacrilege for mortal eyes to view the ancient writings. The single copy is kept in a great vault, built of indestructible metals, and protectively sheathed to last for all Time.

The spot above its burial place is marked by a tall spire of stone. It is jealously protected."

"You said that its commands commit you and Thrayx to eternal battle.

But if you could only read it, you might learn the basic cause of your conflict--and, knowing, certainly--"

"The thought has often occurred to me. But, there is even more prohibiting such an impossible undertaking than the powerful bondage of tradition and belief alone, Lieutenant. And that is the Book's very location."

"And that--?"

"The subterranean vault in which it rests is guarded in the Forest of Saarl. And the Forest of Saarl, my friend, is on Thrayx."

IV

"It is something completely beyond my understanding," the Ihelian was saying. The two men stood, each flanked by two guards, at the threshold of a great ramp which led from the main air lock of the Thrayxite ship to the reddish surface of the s.p.a.ceport upon which it had landed but minutes before. Mason felt a chill of awed amazement, not because of the unexpected beauty of the verdant hills that rolled in a delicate blend of kaleidoscopic pastels on every side of the 'port and as far as the eye could see, nor was it even from the sight of the exquisite towers that rose as though from the heart of some fabled fairyland scant miles to the south.

"They're all--all _women_!" Mason breathed. "Not a single man!" And he looked quickly to Kriijorl. "You mean you did not know this?"

"Know? By the teeth of Jhavuul, we never so much as suspected, Lieutenant! We have not looked upon a Thrayxite face for five thousand years."

The guards spoke to them tersely in the common tongue of Ihelos and Thrayx, although peculiarly accented to Ihelian ears, and Kriijorl gestured with a slight movement of his head to Mason. At a quick pace they started down the ramp.

"We're sunk, kid," Mason said. And he saw the heaviness in the great Viking's face. "We'll never make it out of here in a million years.

Even if we made a break for it; even if we had our hands free, where could we hide? Couldn't make a move. Two men among an entire female populace--"

He let the sentence trail off as he realized that Kriijorl wasn't hearing him. And as their brief view of Thrayx was terminated by their entrance into a smaller shuttle-ship, he saw the hint of a smile flicker at the corners of the Ihelian's lips.

Their captors strapped them into hammocks, and when they had gone to a.s.sist others in herding a portion of the Earthwomen aboard the same craft, Kriijorl finally spoke.

"I think for the moment their probes may be off us," he said quickly.

"I was relieved of my own during my unconsciousness, so we're no longer screened. And the fact that we speak in your tongue does us little good. But hear me. If we are being taken where I hope we are, then they are playing into our hands almost as well as we could have asked. There will be a limited freedom there, and a chance, if we are clever enough, to get to a mentacom installation. A planetary unit of unlimited range."

"But among women?" Mason asked, and his throat was dry.

"That is the point," Kriijorl replied tersely. "We shall be among males almost exclusively, save for the Earthwomen and those Thrayxites who periodically will be sent to breed."

"You mean the planetoid that you talked of before...? But I--"

"Think a moment! Thrayxite is a matriarchy, something we of Ihelos never suspected. And therefore we erred further--what we believed to be a labor planetoid is not, of course!"

"Breeders!"

"Exactly. And if we can make it to one of their mentacoms, perhaps our problem will be solved. Except that--" His voice hesitated, and Mason saw doubt in the sudden frown. "I--I have no right to sacrifice your life nor those of your women. If we were to get to a mentacom it would be to contact my people, to inform them of the planetoid's true nature, so that we may even the score for what was done to our own breeders, and perhaps even form a plan to take prisoners to replace them. But such a message would be intercepted, of course."

"h.e.l.l, we could dodge 'em long enough--"

"Perhaps we could, Lieutenant. But the ships I summon will be fighting their way through a trebled Thrayxite guard--and once within range of our enemy's breeder satellite, they will have little time to seek us out and effect our rescue. Destruction will have to be immediate. Now do you understand?"

Mason wet his lips. He understood. Death for the breeders. For the Earthwomen. And for themselves.

"Nuts!" he clipped out. "That means that as far as you're going to be concerned, I'm just another Ihelian private first cla.s.s for awhile, not a s.p.a.ce-neurotic Earthman! And our girls ... well, I think--I think they'd prefer anything to the living death in store for them--the rotting away of their lives in some infested alien jungle.

Anyway, somebody's got to be judge. So let's get this d.a.m.ned thing doped out!"

The Ihelian began a reply, but the words were stopped in his throat by the sudden pressure of acceleration as powerful engines fumbled suddenly to throbbing life and lifted the Thrayxite craft quickly toward the eye of a great white sun.

For the second time in her life, Judith Kent watched the warp configurations of the Large Magellanic Cloud from the far side of the Rim; somehow it frightened her, as though some awful deadliness must lie within it.

Helplessly, she carried out Cain's orders, and as hopelessly, wondered of the fate of Lance and Kriijorl. Captives, with the Earthwomen, in the Thrayxite ship with which Cain was so rapidly closing? Or lying dead somewhere, as she more than half believed, in the chill wilds of northern Canada? The odds had been so great. She knew that to hope without reason was folly, and yet not to hope was no longer to care.

She twisted away quickly from Cain's muscular arm.

"What's eating you, d.u.c.h.ess? Your conscience giving you trouble, or are you just plain scared?" When she didn't reply, he laughed shortly, and gestured toward the scanner. In it, the slender Thrayxite craft was growing steadily larger as Cain's swift pursuit gradually folded the gap of curved s.p.a.ce between them. "In a couple of minutes, we'll be ready to talk turkey, sweetheart. They ought to be aware of us right this minute. I think they'll listen to what we have to offer."

"To what _you_ have to offer!"

He laughed again. "It's more than Mason ever had! You know, sometimes I think you were torching for that s.p.a.ce-happy has-been!"