The Ties That Bind Page 6

shins.

  "_Party, halt!_"

  The elders murmured conversationally among themselves as they continued.

  "HALT, I SAID."

  "Take the one in the middle," ordered ven Klaeden.

  The guard lifted the snub-nosed shoulder weapon. There was a briefrattling hiss. The back of the elder's robe went crimson, and hecrumpled at the entrance of the pathway.

  The other two continued on their way, their stride unbroken.

  "Shoot for the legs, you fool!" barked the baron.

  The rattling hiss came again. They fell in the shrubs, whimperingsoftly.

  Meikl turned away with a choking spasm in his throat, looked around forLetha. She had vanished from the glade.

  "Haul them to the dispensary, keep them prisoner," the baron wasgrowling.

  Meikl turned on him. "Now it's come to this, has it?" he snapped. "Fromthe beginning, they were willing--even eager, to give what we wanted.Why did they _stop_ being willing?"

  "That's enough, Meikl!"

  "I've hardly started. You came here like a tyrant, and they served youlike a friend. You couldn't bear it. 'Brethren', they said. But there'snothing about 'brethren' in the tactical handbooks, is there, Baron?"

  "Shut up."

  Ven Klaeden said it quietly, as if bored. He crossed slowly to standbefore the analyst and stare at him icily.

  "You speak of the unconscious inheritance of culture, analyst--thekulturverlaengerung. And you have accused me for being a carrier of thewar plague, eh?"

  Meikl paused. The baron's eyes were narrowed, stabbing as if in judgmentor triumph.

  "Well, Meikl? Is that what we've done? Inflicted them with conflict?Brought back the old seeds of hate?"

  The analyst drew himself up slightly. "You just killed a man, a man ofdignity," he snarled, "and you cut two others down like weeds."

  "Innocent old men." The baron's mouth twisted into a snarl.

  "They wanted nothing but to help us."

  "Yes, Meikl? And we are the barbarians, eh?"

  The analyst spoke disdain with his eyes.

  The baron straightened in sudden hauteur. "_Look down at the ground,Analyst_," he hissed.

  Ven Klaeden's sudden change of tone impelled him to obey. His eyes fellto the turf at his feet--moss covered sod, rich and dark beneath thegreen.

  The baron kicked a hole in the moss with the toe of his boot. "Tell mewhere the infection came from, Analyst," he growled. He scraped at thehole with his heel. "And why is the dirt so _red_ right here?"

  Meikl glanced up slowly. Two men were coming through the shrubs, walkingwarily along the path toward the clearing. Ven Klaeden seemed unaware.He leaned forward to speak through his teeth.

  "I give them nothing but what they gave our fathers--their own innerhell, Meikl--the curse they so carefully forgot. In their Eden."

  The man was mad ... perhaps. Meikl's eyes followed the men whoapproached through the shrubs. One of them carried a burden--the limpbody of a girl, occasionally visible through the low foliage as theydrew nearer. One of the men was a junior officer, the other a native.After a moment, he recognized the native....

  "Evon!"

  As he called out, the baron whirled, hand slipping to the hilt of theceremonial sword he wore in the presence of the Geoark. The men stopped.Meikl stared at the limp figure in the arms of the native.

  "_Letha!_"

  "Dead," Evon hissed. "They killed her for running...."

  They emerged from the shrubs into full view. The officer was holding agun.

  "Put that away!" ven Klaeden snapped.

  The young officer laughed sourly. "Sorry, baron, I'm from thecommittee."

  "_Guard!_"

  There's no one in earshot, Baron."

  "Fool!" Ven Klaeden arrogantly whipped out the sword. "Drop that gun, orI'll blade-whip you!"

  "Easy, baron, easy. I'm your executioner...."

  The baron straightened haughtily and began a slow advance, a toweringfigure of icy dignity in the sun that filtered through the foliage.

  "... but I want to take care of this one first." The renegade waved thegun toward Meikl. "You, Baron, you can have it slower--a needle in yourofficial rump."

  Ven Klaeden, a figure of utter contempt, continued the slow advance withthe sword. The officer's lips tightened. He squeezed the trigger. VenKlaeden hesitated, jerking slightly, then continued, his hand pressingagainst his abdomen, doubling forward slightly. The officer firedagain--a sharp snap of sound in the glade. The baron stopped, wrestlingwith pain ten feet from the pale renegade.

  Suddenly he flung the sword. It looped in mid-air and slashed the man'sface from chin to cheekbone. He tripped and tumbled backward as venKlaeden slipped to his knees on the moss.

  Meikl dived for the gun. By the time he wrestled it away from theofficer with the bloody face, ven Klaeden was sitting like a gauntBuddha on the moss, and the body of Letha lay nearby, while a confusedEvon clutched his hands to his face and rocked slowly. Meikl came slowlyto his feet. The renegade officer wiped his face of blood and shrankback into shrubs.

  "Get him," croaked ven Klaeden.

  Scarcely knowing why, the analyst jerked the trigger, felt the gunexplode in his fist, saw the renegade topple.

  There was a moment of stillness in the glade, broken only by venKlaeden's wheezing breath. The baron looked up with an effort, his eyestraveling over the girl, then up to the figure of the child of Earth.

  "Your woman, Earthling?"

  Evon lowered his hands, stood dazed and blinking for a moment. Heglanced at Meikl, then at the girl. He knelt beside her, staring, nottouching, and his knee encountered the blade of the sword.

  "You have brought us death, you have brought us hate," he said slowly,his eyes clinging to the sword.

  "Pick it up," hissed the baron.

  "You will never leave. A party of men is wrecking what you have done.Then we shall wreck your ships. Then we...."

  "Pick it up."

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

  "You know what it is for?" the analyst asked.

  The native shook his head slowly.

  Then it was in his hand, fingers shaping themselves around the hilt--asthe 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, eyesglazed with pain. "He'll need it now, won't he, Analyst?" he breathed,then fell to the moss.

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

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

  "You loved her too," Evon said.

  He nodded.

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

  "Keep it," the analyst grunted. "You remembered its feel after twentythousand years. That's why you'll need it."

  Some deeds, he thought, would haunt the soul of Man until his end, andthere 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 childgreedily sought the breast of its mother, as long as the child mirroredthe mind of the man and the woman. _Kulturverlaengerung._

  The analyst left the native with the sword and went to seek the next inline of command. The purpose of the fleet must be kept intact, hethought, laughing bitterly. Yet still he went.

  THE END

 
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