They had reached the lower slopes of the rise which would take them to the cave when he leaned against a tree. Kimber’s face, stark and drawn, all the easy good humor pounded out of it by fatigue, was in outline against a snowbank.
It was in that moment of silence that Dard caught the distant sound-very faint, borne to them by some freak of air current-the bay of a hunting dog running a fresh and uncomplicated trail. Kimber’s head jerked up. Dard ran his tongue around a dry mouth. That cave up there with its narrow entrance! He wasted no breath on explanation, instead he began doggedly to climb.
But—there was something wrong about the stone before them. Maybe his eyes—snow blindness—Dard shook his head, trying to clear them. But that different look remained. So that he was partly expecting what he found when he reached the crest. Sick, shaken to the point of nausea, he stared at the closed door of the cave—closed with rocks and something else—and then he reeled retching to the other side of the hill top.
He was scrubbing out his mouth with a handful of snow when Kimber joined him.
“So, now we know about Sach-“
Dard raised sick eyes. The pilot’s mouth was stone-hard.
“Left him there like that as a threat,” muttered Kimber, “and a warning. They must have discovered that this was one of our regular posts.”
“How could any one do that?”
“Listen, son, somebody starts out with an idea—maybe in the beginning a good one. Renzi wasn’t a crook, he was basically a decent man. I heard his early speeches and I’m willing to agree that much he said was true. But he had no—well, ‘charity’ is the best word for it. He wanted to force his pattern for living on everyone else, for their own good, of course. Because he was great and sincere in his own way he gained a following of honest people. They were sick of war and they were terribly shocked by the Big Burn, they could readily believe that science had led to evil. The Free Scientists were too independent—they made closed guilds of their teams. There was a separation between thinking and feeling. And feeling is easier to us than thinking. So Renzi appealed to feeling, and against the aloofness of science he won. He was joined by other fanatics, and by those who want power no matter how it comes into their hands. Then there has always been some human beings who enjoy that sort of thing—what we just saw over there. They’re lower than animals because animals don’t torture their own kind for pleasure. Fanatics, power lovers, sadists—let them get a tight hold on the government and there is no room for decency. The best this world can hope for now is a break in their ranks, an inner struggle for control.
“This type of fight against freedom of thought and tolerance has happened before. Centuries ago there was the Inquisition in the name of religion. And during the twentieth century the dictators did the same under political systems of one kind or another. Fanatic belief in an idea—a conviction that an idea or a nation is greater than the individual man-it has scrounged us again and again. Utter power over his fellow men changes a man, rots him through and through. When we are able to breed men who want no influence over each other—who are content to strive equally for a common goal—then we’ll pull ourselves above that—“ He gestured to that pitiful thing now hidden from their eyes. “The Free Scientists came close to reaching that point. Which is why Renzi and his kind both hated and feared them. But they were only a handful-drops lost in a sea. And they went under as have others before them who have followed the same vision. Nothing worse can he done to man than what he has done to himself. But listen to this—“
Kimber’s head was high, he was watching that peak which guarded the distant Cleft. Now he repeated slowly:
“’Frontiers of any type, physical or mental, are but a challenge to our breed. Nothing can stop the questing of men, not even Man. If we will it, not only the wonders of space, hut the very stars are ours!’ “
“The stars are ours!” echoed Dard. “Who said that?”
“Techneer Vidor Chang, one of our martyrs. He helped to bring the star ship here, ventured out on the first fuel research and—But his words remain ours.
“That’s what we’ve geared our lives to, we outlaws. It doesn’t matter what a man was in the past—Free Scientist, techneer, laborer, farmer, soldier—we’re all one because we believe in freedom for the individual, in the rights of man to grow and develop as far as he can. And we are daring to search for a place where we can put those beliefs into practice. The earth denied us—we must seek the stars.”
Kimber started down slope. Dard caught up to point out the ruse which he had used with Dessie and which might now baffle the hounds. They found a higher ledge and made a more perilous dive, so that Dard landed on pine boughs and spilled to the earth with a jolt which drove the breath out of his lungs until Kimber pounded air back into him.
To his surprise the pilot did not keep to cover now. The night was falling fast and they could not hold their present pace without rest. But Kimber plunged on until they came to the open space flanking the river. There the pilot brought out the same flat disc with which he had cut their way out of the temple barrier, and hurled it out into the open.
A column of green fire shot from it up into the night, standing steady for at least five minutes. In the dusk it made a good show, turning the surrounding snow and the faces of the fugitives verdant as it burned.
“Now we wait,” Kimber’s voice held a faint shadow of the old humor. “The boys will be down to pick us up before Pax can connect,”
But waiting was not so simple when each minute meant the difference between life and death. They swallowed the last of the food and bedded down between two fallen trees at the edge of the clearing. The flame died down, but a core of green glow would continue to shine for several hours, Kimber said.
A wind was rising. And its wails through the trees did not drown out the distant yapping of the hounds. Dard fingered his stun gun—two charges for him, one in Kimber’s weapon. Little enough with which to meet what panted on their trail. The trailers would be armed with rifles.
Kimber stirred and then scuttled on hands and feet out from their shelter. From the night sky a dark shape came down-a ‘copter. But the pilot summoned Dard to meet with it. A door opened and he was shoved into the machine by his companion. Then as they were air borne Dard rested his head against a cushion, only half hearing the excited questions and answers of the others.
When he awoke the whole wild adventure of the past forty-eight hours might only have been a dream, for he was back on the same cot where he had rested before. Only now Kimber was not with him. Dard lay there, trying to separate dream from reality. Then a clang which could only have been an alarm brought him up. With clumsy hands he pulled on the clothes lying in a heap on the floor and opened the door to peer out into the corridor.
Two men, pushing before them a small cart, crossed its lower end, The cart wheel caught on the edge of a doorway and both men cursed as they worked swiftly to pry it loose. Dard padded in that direction, but before he could join them they were gone. He followed as they broke into a trot and started down a ramp leading into the heart of the mountain.
This brought them to a large cave which was a scene of complete confusion. Dard hesitated, trying to pick out of the busy throng some familiar face. There were two parties at work. One was carrying and wheeling boxes and containers out into the narrow valley where the star ship was berthed. And in this group women toiled with the men. The second party, which had been joined by the men with the cart, was wholly masculine and all armed.
“Hey, you!”
Dard realized that he was being hailed by a black- bearded man using a rifle as a baton to direct the movements of the armed force. He went over there, only to have a rifle thrust into his hands and to be urged into line with the men taking a tunnel to the right. They were bound for a defense point, he decided, but no one explained.