They moved from cover to cover, at last crawling snakewise to reach a point from which they could see clearly.
“Rolth was right!” Dalgre’s voice rose to a squeak in his amazement as he looked down at the white mass. “My father was stationed at Headquarters one year—we lived in Central City. I tell you that’s the Place of Free Planets down there!”
Kartr’s hand pushed him flat. “All right, we’ll take your word for it. But keep your voice and your head down. Those men below are trained hunters—they could easily spot you.”
“But how did it get here?” Dalgre turned an honestly bewildered face to the sergeant.
“Maybe”—Kartr brought out the thought which had been born in him during the night—“this came first—”
“Came first!” Smitt wriggled up and screwed the lenses tight to his eyes. “Came first—but how?”
“You mean it could be that old?” breathed Rolth.
“You’ve the lenses, Smitt. Take a good look at the edge of the roof and the steps leading up to the portico—”
“Yes,” the com-techneer agreed a moment later. “Erosion—that place is very old.”
“Older than the city even—” he added. “Unless being set out alone in the open had hastened decay. I’d like to have a closer look—”
“Wouldn’t we all?” Zinga interrupted him. “How long do you suppose our friends down there are going to sit around?”
“Some days at least. We’ll just have to button up our curiosity until they do leave,” Kartr answered. “It’ll probably keep us busy to just elude parties coming in and going out. We had better stay some distance away from now on.”
Smitt uttered a slight groan of protest and Kartr could sympathize with him. To be so near and yet have to refrain from covering that last quarter mile which kept them from the mystery was enough to irritate anyone. But they did withdraw and there was no argument over the wisdom of keeping aloof from the natives.
Their account of the building intrigued Zicti and the next morning he calmly appropriated the services of Zinga, saying:
“Since I am unfortunately not acquainted with the proper methods of lurking, crawling, and dodging, I shall require the aid of an expert to teach this old one new tricks. Alas, even when removed, perhaps permanently, from my lecture halls, I cannot suppress my desire to collect knowledge. The customs of these natives are certainly of great interest and with your permission, Sergeant, we shall lurk and crawl to watch them—”
Kartr grinned. “With my permission, or without it, sir. Who am I to interfere with the gathering of knowledge? Though—”
“Though”—Zicti caught his thought smoothly—“it may be the first time in many years that one of my rank has gathered source material personally in the field? Well, perhaps that is one of the ills of our civilization. A little personal attention can often stop leaking seams, and a fact learned from a fragment of one culture can be applied to salve the ills of another.”
Kartr ran his hands through his hair. “They are a good people—primitive—but we could help them. I wish—”
“If we only had the medical skill and learning we could mingle with them in safety. Or you could. Whether they would ever accept a Bemmy”—Zicti stabbed a talon at his own arched breast—“is another question. Among primitives, what is the general attitude toward the unknown? They fear it.”
“Yes—that poor boy thought that Zinga was a demon,” Kartr replied reluctantly. “But in time—when they learned that we meant them no harm—”
Zicti shook his head regretfully. “What a pity that we do not have a medico among us. That is one of the few limitations of our present situation which bothers me.”
“You are ready to march, Haga Zicti?” Zinga came up to them, bowing his head and addressing the elder Zacathan with one of the Four Titles of Respect, which confirmed Kartr’s suspicions that the hist-techneer was a noble on his own world.
“Coming, my boy, coming. There is one thing which I and my household may thank the First Mother for,” he added, “and that is that we have such companions in misfortune!”
Kartr, warm with pleasure, watched the two Zacathans out of sight. He realized that Zicti, much as he withheld from giving any opinion until asked, or from intruding upon the ranger councils, was a leader. Even Smitt and Dalgre, for all their inborn suspicion not only of unhumans but also of sensitives, had fallen under the spell of the urbane charm and serene good nature of the hist-techneer and his family. The Patrolmen fetched and carried cheerfully and readily for Zacita and Zora, and preserved a lordly, big-brother-plagued-by-small-tag-along attitude toward Zor. Just as the difference between ranger and crewman had vanished, so had that between human and Bemmy.
“And what are you thinking of when you stand there smiling at nothing at all?” Fylh dropped a bundle of firewood and stretched. “You should come and haul in some of these logs—if you have nothing better to do.”
“I was thinking that there have been a lot of changes,” began the sergeant.
But for once he found Fylh as intuitive as Zinga. “No more Bemmys, no more crew and rangers, you mean? It just happened—somehow.” He sat down on the woodpile. “It may be that when we got out of the city they”—he jerked his head in the direction Smitt and Dalgre had taken a few minutes previously—“had to make a choice, once and for all. They made it, and they aren’t looking back. Now they don’t think about differences—any more than you and Rolth ever did—”
“We were almost Bemmy ourselves, Rolth with his night sight, and I a sensitive. And I was a barbarian into the bargain. Those two are both inner-system men, more conventional in their conditioning. We must give them credit for conquering some heavy prejudices.”
“They just started to use their brains.” Fylh’s crest lifted. He raised his face to the sky and poured out a liquid run of notes, so pure and heart tearing a melody that Kartr held his breath in wonder. Was this Fylh’s form of happy release from emotion?
Then came the birds, wheeling and fluttering. Kartr stiffened into statue stillness, afraid to break the spell. As Fylh’s carol rose, died, and rose again, more and more of the flyers gathered, with flashes of red feathers, blue, yellow, white, green. They hopped before the Trystian’s feet, perched on his shoulders, his arms, circled about his head.
Kartr had seen Fylh entice winged things to him before but never just this way. It appeared to his bewildered eyes that the whole campsite was a maze of fluttering wings and rainbow feathers.
The trills of song died away and the birds arose, a flock of color. Three times they circled Fylh, hiding his head and shoulders from sight with the tapestry of tints they wove in flight. Then they were gone—up into the morning. Kartr could not yet move, his eyes remained fixed on Fylh. For the Trystian was on his feet, his arms outstretched, straining upward as if he would have followed the others up and out. And for the first time, dimly, the sergeant sensed what longings must be born in Fylh’s people since they had lost their wings. Had that loss been good—should they have traded wings for intelligence? Did Fylh wonder about that?
Someone beside him sighed and he glanced around. The three Zacathans—Zacita, Zora, and Zor—stood there. Then the boy stooped to pick up a brilliant red feather and the spell was broken. Fylh dropped his arms, his feather crest folded neatly down upon his head. He was again a ranger of the Patrol and not a purveyor of winged magic.
“So many different kinds—” That was Zacita, with her usual tact. “I would not have dreamed that these trees give harborage to so many. Yes, Zor, that is indeed an unusual color for a sky creature. But every world has its own wonders.”
Fylh joined the Zacathan boy who was smoothing the scarlet feather delicately between two talons. “If you wish,” he said with a friendliness he had not often displayed before, “I can also show you those who fly by night—”
Zor’s yellow lips stretched in a wide smile. “Tonight, please! And can you bring them here in the same way?”
“If you remain quiet and do not alarm them. They are more timid than those who live by the sun. There is a giant white one who skims through the dark like a Corrob mist ghost—”
Zor gave an exaggerated shiver. “This,” he announced loudly, “is the best holiday we have ever had. I hope that it is never going to end—never!”
The eyes of the four adults met above his head. And Kartr knew they shared the same thought. This exile would probably never end for them. But—did any of them care? Kartr wanted to ask—but he couldn’t—not just yet.