The Women-Stealers of Thrayx Part 9

"Muscles," Mason answered her. The three were crouched at the clearing's edge, waiting. "Thought he'd made it some way. Must've ducked in before their fleet got into s.p.a.ce. Gambling that our signal that he picked up wouldn't bring out a special reception committee ready and waiting to meet him."

"But he has preceded us by many minutes," Kriijorl said. "I do not see--"

"Not so many. He was in flight two full hours before you mentacommed Ihelos. And if I know him, it was straight out of this galaxy at full blast! So he had to back-track all that time and distance. He had to risk a trap down here, as well as the Thrayxite fleet which he knew would be rushing to protect its breeders."

"You had counted on those factors, Lieutenant?"

"Two birds with one blast, like I told you before," Mason said. "Ask Judith, here. She'll tell you how well I know him." The girl was silent, but her eyes voiced her thoughts more eloquently than her tongue might have.

"Some will do anything to obtain the 'priceless'--" Kriijorl said softly.

"Cain, any time!"

"You have laid a clever trap, Lieutenant."

"If it springs, sure. But where are those guard ships you were so worried about? I was counting on them, too. They should be all over the place by now."

And he was interrupted by the high-pitched scream of the flat, finned shapes that hurtled suddenly over the tree tops, circled, slid quickly downward.

"FLAT!" Mason yelled. And as they stretched p.r.o.ne, they saw Cain running toward the ship from a great open shaft in the ground, a round, shiny thing beneath one arm.

A probing needle of white hot flame stabbed out from one of the descending ships, and there was a scream, and then Cain fell, a charred skeleton, to the ground. The shiny thing he had carried rolled lazily along the gra.s.s, teetered on edge, plopped silently over.

Mason was poised like a runner awaiting the starting gun. For a split second he hesitated as the guard ships touched down, their weapons momentarily screened by the lush foliage at the clearing's edge.

And then Mason was running, Judith and Kriijorl only steps behind him.

There were perhaps seconds before the armed women of the Thrayxite guard detail would break from the forest's edge.

He stumbled, fell, and his outstretched hands touched the round, shiny thing, and he could smell the reek of Cain's smouldering skeleton.

Kriijorl and Judith hesitated.

"d.a.m.n it, run!" and he felt his scream tear at his dry throat, and then clutched the metal disk to him and regained his feet in a single whip-like motion, and bolted after them toward the gaping air lock of the ship that Cain had never reached.

There was a hissing sound and a wave of heat crackled behind him, seared his flesh beneath his tattered tunic. And there was another, inches before him, scorching smoking scars in the soft green turf, and shouted orders filled the air scant yards behind him.

Then somehow he was at the air lock, and strong hands were pulling him over its edge, and it swung to, glowed red as a bolt of raw energy spent itself harmlessly against it.

"Now Ihelos!" Mason said as he fought for new breath.

It was white, all white around him.

He tried to sit up but there was the touch of gentle hands that stayed him, lowered him back upon the bed.

There were two of them--tall, like Vikings, and memory returned slowly. There was a smaller one, too, standing straight and erect beside him, like a proud queen from the pages of Earth's colorful history.

Judith. And Kriijorl. And another. And in his hands there was the silver disk. The can.

The can of records. The Book of the Saints.

He tried again to straighten, and then heard the voice of the one whom he did not know.

"I am Yhevvak, Grand Liege of Ihelos," the voice said. "And I hold in my hands, Earthman, the Book of the Saints. I have read it, and I have broadcast to all of Thrayx what I have read. A truce delegation has already departed from that planet to meet us here in s.p.a.ce."

"But--" the word stuck in his throat, and it was hard to think.

"Commander Kriijorl said that you suspected it was the key to our great trouble. You were right.

"For it tells of a conference among the leaders of our two worlds many millenia ago; a conference held in secret, because of the nature of its subject--the very people of our worlds themselves. Secret, because of the decision concerning them and their staggering number. Too staggering for either planet any longer to feed. And the record itself was then committed to this single microtape, and itself, kept in secrecy since the day it was recorded.

"At first shrouded in deliberate mysticism, it was at length remembered only as the Last Word of the Saints in the sudden wars which so quickly followed its creation, the true cause of which was skillfully falsified to the people of the time, and truly known only to those who made the microtape I hold here.

"They were our greatest leaders; in them was invested the responsibility for the welfare and livelihood of our two planets, both materially and spiritually.

"When they lived, those records say, travel in s.p.a.ce beyond the speed of light had not been accomplished; they believed such a feat an impossibility imposed by a condescending Nature that could be challenged too far. And they therefore knew no way of reaching beyond the planets of Ihelos and Thrayx for the food and resources that became so sorely depleted as both planets became, at length, stripped nearly bare as their populations swelled beyond saturation point.

"Medical science had permitted the old to grow older; granted the new-born an almost certain purchase on life once first breath had been drawn. Yet its greatest offering was rejected by the people; there were indignant cries at the merest suggestion that they intelligently regulate their number, so that their posterity might live in greater plenty than had they.

"There was but one solution for our desperate leaders. For although warfare had long since vanished from our civilization as it had matured, it took with it Nature's own unpleasant balance for her overgenerous fecundity.

"The new balance, then, had to be of Man's making. And so it was made.

"Our leaders, our Saints, as we have come through the years to know them, were of course adept masters at the many subtle arts of propaganda, and they used those arts to the very limits of their skill. They deliberately fomented, as their ancient record shows, the wars, small at first and then ever larger, between Ihelos and Thrayx.

"They could not have foreseen that one day there would be conflict for existence between the s.e.xes; logically calculating intellect against intuitive, wily cunning in a battle to determine the most fit, who would then enjoy the right to survive.

"Nor could they have foreseen that one day, because of the very conflict they fomented, the science of controlled genetics would at last be recognized as a necessity of survival to both factions.

"Today we have our answer to the age old problem of keeping our consumption within the limits of our ability to produce for it; we have used it to survive. But to survive war, not peace.

"And that, as you apparently suspected, Earthman, is the key.

"We know now why we fought. And with the knowledge of the life forces with which we insured our continued existence during our years of battle, we may now become united worlds of peace again. For we shall use that knowledge to take more advisedly of Nature's fruits than we took before.

"Well done, Earthmen. And with our thanks, know that we shall be always in your debt."

Then Yhevvak bowed low, and left just the three of them together in the white hospital bay of his flagship.

Kriijorl was smiling, and there was a shininess in Judith's eyes.

Mason grinned. "I hope those Thrayxite babes get a wiggle on," he said. "Those Earth gals gotta get 'em home! Their mothers'll be frantic. Hey, girl, not in front of company!"