The Destruction of Faena

Chapter One TWILIGHT

The new star shone ominously in Quest’s porthole.

The Faetians maintained a shocked silence.

Suddenly, Gor Terr jumped to his feet.

“Technology! Damned technology! It’s to blame for everything. I, Gor Terr, the last of Faena’s engineers, am the first to r-renounce civilisation! To the forests! To the forests! To the caves! Wild Faetians on a wild Terr!” he boomed, foaming at the mouth. “If anyone r-refuses to leave the r-rocket. I’ll wring his neck. Let not a single metal part r-remind wretched people that they were once cultured. Beasts are much higher and nobler!”

His friends tried to calm the engineer down, still unwilling to admit to themselves that his mind had become clouded.

“Please try to understand, Gor Terr,” said Ave reassuringly, “that the five Faetians left on Terr can only have one purpose—not just to survive, but to preserve civilisation, to hand down the heritage of reason to future generations…”

“R-really?” roared Gor Terr with a glare at Mada.

Embarrassed, Mada turned away.

“There must be cultured Faetians after us,” confirmed Ave Mar, “and our duty is to preserve for them the knowledge we possess.”

“High-flown r-rubbish!” bellowed Gor Terr. “I hate those words and I hate all those instruments. Even touching the damned metal drives me frantic.”

“Gor Terr will have to pull himself together,” said Ave Mar, raising his voice. “He’s an engineer, and he’ll stay an engineer to the end of his days.”

Gor Terr roared with laughter.

“So that your sons can learn how to make r-rockets out of wall partitions? So that they can learn to slaughter animals, and then their own kind?”

“Never shall the Faetians on Terr learn how to kill their own kind!” exclaimed the outraged Ave Mar. “It will be the most terrible thing if we bow down in our grief. No! Only energy, faith in ourselves and resourcefulness will save what is left of the Faetian race.”

“For what?” asked Gor Terr gloomily.

“For the triumph of reason!”

“High-flown words again! What d’you want?”

“I want you to think about what kind of building the Faetians are going to use when they’re in the forest, what apparatus and parts will have to be taken from here to the new house, and how we can gradually dismantle the rocket: it’s the only source of metal on Terr.”

“Dismantle?” echoed Toni Fae in fright.

“Yes,” confirmed Ave Mar. “We won’t need a spaceship any more. The Faetians will use its walls for axes, knives, spear-points and arrows. We have enough metal to last us several generations for that purpose. By that time, Gor Terr’s pupils and their descendants will have learned to prospect for ore here and to smelt it. Civilisation must be preserved!”

Mada looked at her husband with rapture. How many times had he presented himself to her in a new aspect, stronger, firmer, as one who knew which course to adopt!

“Filthy despot!” roared Gor Terr. “He wants to make us serve his unborn offspring! I’ve had enough of blind obedience to a Dictator who aimed for a disintegration war and achieved it! No! I won’t tolerate any authority over me! I don’t want to obey anybody’s orders, least of all those of an offspring of Danjab’s R-ruler!”

“Gor Terr, my dear,” intervened Mada gently, putting her hand on his massive hairy arm. “Think what you are saying. We have no dictators here, or rulers, or their children. There are only Faetians, united by common grief and a common fate. Weren’t you the one who dreamed of workshops on Terr? You shall have workshops here in which we, your comrades, shall work for you, and then…” She looked into his eyes and added, “I shall raise helpers for you.”

Gor Terr scowled, glaring malevolently from under his beetling brows. Mada’s maternal tone soothed him a little. But not for long. He soon relapsed into his former fury and, without listening to anyone, began smashing up the spaceship’s control levers, bending them, trying to wrench them out of their sockets.

To save the Faetians, the madman himself and keep the ship’s equipment intact, Mada ordered Gor Terr to be confined to the airlock which was used for going out into space.

The noisy struggle with the Faetian strong man distracted the Faetians from their common misfortune. The immediate blotted out what was far away. And only after the hatch had been fastened down behind Gor Terr did Ave Mar and Toni Fae, exhausted and shattered, collapsed into the armchairs at the control panel. They stared dismally in front of them, panting for breath.

Mada was busy near the dispensary. She had decided to give Gor Terr an injection and administer a shock that would bring him to his senses.

All attempts to go into the airlock, however, merely provoked further attacks of frenzy. They could not even serve him his food.

Such was the unhappy way in which the Faetians spent the first days of their permanent exile. Below, in the common cabin, Faena’s most distinguished scientist lay dying; above, in the airlock, the last surviving engineer had gone raving mad.

Toni Fae was deeply depressed.

He heard Ala Veg’s voice again during a routine session of electromagnetic communication with Deimo. It was remote and sad. She talked about the meaninglessness of existence, about her husband’s serious illness, about the total lack of change and how the station chief, as before, hated the roundhead couple. She said that she despised life. She was terrified at the thought of the distance that separated her from Toni Fae. Was life worth living? She suggested that Toni Fae and she should both put an end to their own lives during the next communications session.

Toni Fae could not hold out against this and agreed. He stole from Mada’s dispensary an ampoule of stupefying gas, a large dose of which could be fatal. After he had inhaled a little of it, he felt blissfully happy, could not stay on his feet, swayed and sang a silly song about a lizard which ate its own tail. He then collapsed and went to sleep. Mada guessed what had happened, found the ampoule hidden on his person and confiscated it. When he came round, he made the discovery that Mada’s language could be far from endearing.

Toni Fae succumbed to apathy. Everything around him seemed dismal and wretched. Even the world of nature had changed. There were no more colourful sunsets on Terr. Night gave way to dull daylight. It never stopped drizzling, and a patchy grey pall of mist clung to the tree-tops level with the portholes of the control cabin. There were no golden apples left in the forest.

When twilight descended on Terr, it reminded them of their own gloomy planet.

Misery and homesickness seemed capable of destroying the will to live in all the other Faetians, as had happened with Toni Fae.

Mada, however, in whom nature had stirred a sense of responsibility for all, sick and well alike, could not give in to despair. She had to look after Um Sat, feed everybody, keep an eye on Toni Fae and encourage Ave with an affectionate glance from time to time.

Ave Mar was conducting himself with dignity. He had obligations which none but he could fulfil: it was necessary to go hunting in the forest. Gor Terr couldn’t help him now. Ave would go out of the ship, leaving Mada in a state of permanent anxiety, but he always returned before dark, and with his kill. By the will of circumstances, Ave, a passionate believer in the preservation of the lost Faena’s civilisation, was having to lead a very primitive mode of life. He had stopped using firearms, saving the ammunition for more urgent occasions. He had made a bow and he practised archery. Using his natural strength, he could draw a bowstring so that the arrow with its hand-made head could pierce a stout tree-branch right through.

Once, Ave Mar brought back a big fat bird hit by one of his arrows. Careful not to disturb Dm Sat, the astronauts assembled in the control cabin, talking quietly amongst themselves. Mada began inexpertly plucking the hunting trophy, pleased that it would make a good bouillon for the sick man.

Toni Fae was adjusting the electromagnetic communications set, hoping for a session with Ala Veg. Mada warned him that if he made a fool of himself again, she would ban communications with Deimo. Toni sheepishly bowed his head.

Ave Mar was relaxing after his hard day in the rain while hunting in the forest.

Mada looked round at the porthole and screamed. The snarling face of a Faetoid was staring into the cabin. His shoulders and chest were matted with curly hair, his skin showing through underneath. No thought was readable in the crazy eyes.

Only Ave Mar realised that this was Gor Terr lowering himself by rope, not a wild beast that had made its way to them. The madman had evidently torn his clothes into strips and knotted them together to make a rope. He had opened the outer airlock hatch, climbed outside and was now descending the ship’s fuselage.

In an attempt to head him off, Ave Mar rushed to the transition hatch, tore through the common cabin and disappeared into the lower airlock. He shinned down the vertical ladder, hardly touching the rungs on the way.

But however agile Ave Mar may have been, Gor Terr had time on his side.

Ave Mar was only just getting out of the lower airlock when the escapee was already clinging to the end of the home-made rope. No rational Faetian would ever have risked jumping from such a height. But Gor Terr was not being rational. He dropped to the ground in front of Ave Mar, jumped up below him, as if on springs, and made a dash for the forest.

Without realising what he was doing, Gor Terr ran into the forest straight on to the path beaten by the animals on their way to the watering place. It was sodden after the rain and his feet slipped and slithered apart. But he was conscious of only one thing: he was being pursued. He leaped aside into a small glade, unrecognisable after the rain, since it was covered with muddy puddles that disappeared into the mist. Gor Terr never suspected that there was a bog hidden underneath the wet green surface. He dived into a cloud of mist hanging over the grass and disappeared.

Ave Mar, who had been following on his heels, stopped dead. Then he immediately dashed forward. His feet sloshed through the slime. He took several careful, squelching steps and suddenly saw Gor Terr in the mist. He looked as if he was sitting down on the green grass. Only his head and torso were visible above it. It took Ave Mar a moment to realise that Gor Terr had sunk waist-deep into a quagmire.

Until recently, Ave Mar, used to dwelling in the civilised cities of Faena and to driving a steamcar along magnificent highways, had never suspected that it might be possible to sink up to the waist in the soil like that. Ave had wandered into this bog a few days back when the rain had started pouring down. But his instinctive caution, aroused by the foul, stinking mud that was squelching underfoot, had saved him, making him skirt the deceptive glade with its murky puddles. This time, however, he could not back away; he rushed to Gor Terr’s assistance. He immediately sank knee-deep into the quagmire. He made a movement to extricate himself and realised that he was sinking into the mire himself. Fortunately, he was not as heavy as Gor Terr; moreover, he was nearer to the edge of the bog. Avoiding sudden movements, he lay down and began to extricate himself by crawling, as if swimming over a shallow surface covered with wet grass.

Once he felt himself on firmer ground, Ave stood up, glanced over his shoulder and saw Gor Terr. Now only his head was showing above the grass and his outstretched hands, with which he was clutching at some roots. Gor managed to turn his head and look at Ave Mar, his bulging, glazed eyes staring out of the mist. Every movement he made sucked him down still further.

Ave Mar felt his horror physically and stopped in spite of himself, but read such reproach in the doomed man’s eyes that he shuddered. Ave abruptly turned back, crawled out a little way and, although he hardly felt himself on firm ground, jumped to his feet, ran to the nearest tree and tore off a dangling liana.

When he returned to the cloud of mist hanging over the grass, he had some difficulty in making out the shaggy head and the outstretched hands.

At the sight of Ave Mar, Gor Terr’s rounded eyes came to life again and shone with entreaty, hope and even joy.

Ave Mar threw the end of the liana to the sinking man. Understanding glimmered in Gor Terr’s eyes and he grabbed at the line.

Ave Mar was now faced with the impossible—to drag the gigantic Gor Terr out of the quagmire. Ave Mar had nothing like the strength to do such a thing. But with the liana he had brought a crooked branch which he had broken off a tree. He drove it into a firm mound and began winding the liana onto it as if onto a windlass.

Turn by turn, he gradually pulled Gor Terr out so that the latter finally managed to lie flat and crawl along, as Ave had done before him. At last, a mud-plastered Gor Terr rose to his full height in front of Ave.

“You’re not bad as an engineer, Ave Mar,” he said. “Thank you.”

These words meant more to Ave Mar than any diagnosis. He now realised that the deadly danger to which Gor Terr had been subjected in the bog had administered the nervous shock needed to save him from insanity. Gor Terr had come back to his senses.

“What happened? How did I end up here? Weren’t we out hunting together? Who undressed me? Your wife will take me for a Faetoid.”

“She’ll be happy! You’ve been seriously ill.”

“R-really?” Gor Terr was astonished. “But I’ve certainly been having nightmares. I dreamt the Dictator had thrown me into prison.”

“That’s all over. Don’t think about it any more. There are more important things to be done. We can’t live in the rocket any longer. We have to deliver food and water to the top. The Elder can’t go outside.”

“Then we’ll have to build a house in the forest.”

“I must admit I don’t know how to do that. I’m only a theoretician.”

“But the theoretician figured out how to rig up a windlass quickly enough. With a helper like you, it would be easy to knock up a house in the forest. I can already see how to set about it.”

Mada couldn’t believe her eyes when she saw Ave Mar and the recently crazed Gor Terr chatting amiably together on the way back.

“I don’t understand this at all,” whispered Toni Fae. “Oughtn’t we to help Ave Mar tie him up?”

“No, certainly not!” exclaimed Mada.

With the instinct of a Sister of Health, she had grasped that years of training and care couldn’t have given as good a result as what had happened in the forest.

…The unfamiliar thudding of axes was heard in the forest.

The enormous, round-shouldered Dzin, wringing out her wet ginger hair with her long hands, crept up to the spot where the mighty stranger, who had put paid to a Spotted Horror and to many of Dzin’s fellow tribesmen, was now slaying trees. And yet he wasn’t eating them.

Hidden in a thicket, squatting on her haunches and holding her heels with her forepaws, she was watching as he and another, who had hair only on his head, were hitting the trees with strange sticks that had what looked like wet, glittering ends. Their strength was so great that the tree fell down like a slain beast. Then the strangers skinned the trees with their clubs, breaking off all the branches, and the tree became straight and smooth. They shortened the tree with a screaming stick, then dragged it over to the other slain trees and forced them to fit together.

In this way, they helped to raise from the ground a huge tree that was empty inside. It looked like a cave.

Almost as soon as the strangers had finished banging their sticks, Dzin would hide in a thicket so as to come to the summons of the thudding noise on the next day.

Ave Mar and Gor Terr never suspected that their work was being watched. They knocked together a frame thought up by Gor Terr without any metal fixings. The work was nearing its end.

Many instruments and much equipment had to be transferred to the house into which the astronauts had to move.

Gor Terr and Ave Mar went to the ship to fetch all these things. So as not to disturb Dm Sat by hammering in the common cabin, they went straight up to the control cabin. Assisted by Ave Mar, Gor Terr began breaking off the levers and rods on which the electromagnetic communications apparatus was secured.

At this point, the always quiet and tactful Toni Fae flew off the handle.

“Gor Terr and Ave Mar can kill me first,” he screamed hysterically, “but I won’t let anything in the spaceship be damaged.”

Gor Terr bellowed with laughter, as during his recent crazy spell.

“D’you want me to pay you off, kid, tie your hands together and dump you in an empty airlock? I feel sorry for you. Just get this into your head: no one needs my Quest any more. I shall be the first to break it up. So out of the way, my dear Toni Fae.”

“Kill your old friend first!”

Ave Mar turned to Mada in his astonishment.

Her face was troubled and her eyes were sad.

“Get out of the way!” roared Gor Terr.

“Stop,” came a feeble voice from the hatch. Overcoming his weakness, Um Sat climbed up into the control cabin. (Gor Terr involuntarily froze in front of Toni Fae, not thrusting him aside after all.) “Stop,” repeated Um Sat. “The spaceship Quest is inviolable. Everything is changing in the life of the Faetians. They must choose a new way.”

Again Ave Mar looked at the alarmed, saddened Mada.

Gor Terr stood still in bewilderment.

Toni Fae rushed to the electromagnetic communications apparatus.

Chapter Two MUTINY IN SPACE

Ala Veg realised that her husband was going to die. When she made the mutual suicide pact with Toni Fae, she prepared for the forthcoming electromagnetic communications session by stealing from Mrak Luton a pistol loaded with a poisoned bullet.

Tycho Veg was fading away. Completely bald, without even eyebrows and beard, he was lying on the bed in the Vegs’ common cabin and was staring intently at his wife as if from somewhere far way. Ala Veg could not stand that anguished stare and fled into the observatory.

She went over to the electromagnetic communications apparatus and looked for a long time at the bullet with the brown prickles which she had hidden on the control panel among the instruments.

She was afraid that she might not be able to squeeze it in her fist, although somewhere out there, on faraway Terr, young Toni Fae, who loved her, must depart this life at the same time. She was afraid of inflicting this last blow on her dying husband. Ala Veg was torn by contradictory feelings. She could not recover from the knowledge that her children had perished. The starry distance that separated her from them, however, was dulling her despair. And yet the starry distance to Terr, which brought her the young man’s voice after a long delay, had not prevented her from turning his head and even persuading him to commit suicide with her. But Tycho Veg was here, close to her, was suffering, and was looking at her out of non-existence with huge sad eyes. Ala Veg wept a great deal and stopped observing the stars altogether. What was the point of all that now?

Engineer Tycho Veg died at dinner-time as quietly as he had lived. His wife remained at his side, unable to do anything to help. His naked head with the shadows of the sunken eyes, the taut skin of the face and the grin of the sagging lower jaw were indeed reminiscent of a skull.

When Ala Veg realised that her husband was no more, she was seized by a fit of rage.

Flinging the door wide open, she burst noisily into the common cabin where the Lutons and Brat Lua were having their dinner. Lada Lua was waiting on them at table.

Mrak Luton, flabby, pot-bellied and pompous, was presiding at the table.

“I accuse you, Mrak Luton!” screamed Ala Veg from the threshold. “You murdered my husband Tycho Veg! You made him charge a torpedo with a warhead that wasn’t even screened against radiation!”

Mrak Luton went purple in the face. His pendulous cheeks bulged, his small eyes darted about frantically.

“Is this mutiny?” he wheezed. “I won’t stand for it! Silence! Who incited you, a longhead, to this insubordination?”

“My husband Tycho Veg is dead. Stand up, all of you. Honour his memory and curse his murderer, who is sitting at the head of this table.”

Brat Lua and Lada rose to their feet. Nega Luton played for time, pretending that she had difficulty in rising from the table, but she stood up nevertheless. Mrak Luton remained seated, frenziedly rolling his eyes and fingering the pistol which he was holding in his hand under the table.

“There is no insubordination here, deep-thinking Mrak Luton,” said Brat Lua in a conciliatory tone of voice. “There is only the grief and despair of a Faetess, and that cannot but be respected. We all share your grief. Ala Veg. Engineer Tycho Veg was a good Faetian and of his own accord he would never have begun sending torpedoes to Station Phobo.”

“What? Is this treachery? Have you forgotten that all the power in space belongs to me, the heir of Dictator Yar Jupi? Don’t forget that the ship Quest is also subordinate to me. Only I, in the name of the Blood Council, can command it to return here in order to deliver us all to Terr, where we can enjoy a life of ease.”

“You are mistaken, deep-thinking Mrak Luton,” objected Brat Lua. “There isn’t enough fuel on board the ship to ferry us all to Terr. There isn’t enough on the station either. And there is even less fuel on Phobo.” “What happened to all the fuel? You and engineer Tycho Veg were answerable for it with your lives!”

“Deep-thinking Mrak Luton has forgotten that on his orders Engineer Tycho Veg fuelled the two torpedo-ships sent to Phobo. A similar madness was also committed on Station Phobo.”

“Madness? Silence! How dare you, as a roundhead, condemn the Dictator’s successor? I, a Supreme Officer of the Blood Guard, remain so in space! You are under arrest! I am going to shoot you like a crazed lizard!”

“Wise husband, I implore you,” intervened Nega Luton. “Why use a pistol? After the death of our beloved engineer, the roundhead will be the only one left on the station who can handle the machinery. It’s his duty to provide us with the facilities.”

“You are right, Nega! Thank the gentle lady, roundhead! You will simply get away with imprisonment in my office. Quick march!”

Brat Lua meekly went ahead of the station chief, who kept prodding him in the back with his pistol.

When both Faetians had left the common cabin, Ala Veg turned to the remaining Faetesses.

“Isn’t it enough that Faena has perished? Why must its satellite go the same fatal way? Power, dictatorship, murder?”

“What d’you want, you poor wretch? To rise up against my husband?” demanded Nega Luton angrily.

“You stopped him yourself. If he kills Brat Lua, then we won’t have anyone left who can understand the station’s machinery, and Lada Lua might well refuse to feed us. Then we’ll all perish because of that crazy old man of yours.”

“Aren’t you trying to talk me into mutiny?” sneered Nega Luton.

“Let it be mutiny, then!” confirmed Ala Veg hysterically. “If mutiny will save us, we’ll go that far.”

“How can there be any talk of salvation if there aren’t any spare ships at the stations?” insisted Nega.

“There’s Quest. It could fly here.”

“Why? To add to our starving mouths? Or because there happens to be a certain young man among the astronauts who has finally taken widow Veg’s fancy?”

“Shut up, you viper! Get it into your tiny lizard’s brain that Brat Lua planned an underground settlement on the surface of Mar. In such a shelter, on Mar, the Faetian survivors could go on living.”

“That’s not living, that’s vegetating.”

“I’ve been wanting to say for some time,” interposed Lada Lua, “that there aren’t enough fruits in the greenhouse. But my husband wanted to grow a great many nutritive greens on the surface of Mar. There would be enough not only for us, but for our children.”

“What children do you mean?” asked Nega Luton, stamping her foot. “Have you forgotten, you pug-nosed fattie, about the law forbidding you to have children in space?”

“My husband said the old laws are invalid now. We’re going to have a child!”

“Criminals!” hissed Nega Luton. “They want to ruin us! There’s food and oxygen for only six here, and no more!”

“Tycho Veg is dead,” said Ala Veg sadly. “Even if a tiny Lua is born to follow him, the station will survive. But we have to think about the future. We shall have to go down onto the surface of Mar.”

“Well, of course, you’ll be given a ship the way a big proprietor gets a steamcar,” jeered Nega Luton.

“I’ll take the responsibility for that,” announced Ala Veg.

“But first we must strip Mrak Luton of his powers.”

“What?” Nega Luton nearly choked with fury.

“You must understand yourself, as a one-time lady of importance, that you won’t survive without the Luas, even if your husband starts firing poisoned bullets in all directions. The two of you know nothing about technology or astronavigation. We Faetesses are the ones who have got to decide.”

“Decide what?”

“Who’s going to be in charge of the station.”

“I will not betray my husband.”

“Then you will betray yourself.”

“But he won’t give up his power, not for anything. And he’s armed.”

“The Faetesses can do anything if they act together.”

“I fully support the gentle Ala Veg,” declared Lada.

“Make up your mind, Nega Luton. You will be fed and looked after as before only if you take our side.”

“But I…” Nega Luton was still vacillating, glaring inimically at the inflexible Ala Veg.

The door was flung wide open and Mrak Luton burst in like a conqueror. He pushed out his huge belly and puffed up his cheeks to hide their flabbiness.

“Mrak Luton!” announced Ala Veg. “You have been removed by us from your post as chief of the station!”

Mrak Luton collapsed into an armchair, his little sunken eyes goggling at Ala Veg.

“What did you say, madwoman?”

“I am speaking for all the Faetesses on the station. You have got to submit to us and go into your office until your fate has been decided. Brat Lua will run the station machinery, since we have to breathe and use up energy. If you kill any of us now, then you will thereby bring about your own destruction.”

Nega Luton nodded in agreement.

“What? You too, Nega?” was all that Mrak Luton could manage to say, his eyes riveted on his hook-nosed wife.

“Mrak, I’m concerned solely for the two of us. I have obtained their agreement to take care of us and supply us with everything necessary. We shall be in the position of proprietors.”

“I refuse!” roared Mrak Luton, drawing his pistol.

However, he didn’t go so far as to use it.

Ala Veg and Lada Lua advanced on him, whereas Nega held back.

Mrak Luton rose reluctantly to his feet and, still brandishing his pistol, began backing away.

In this manner, they all went out into the corridor.

Enraged and distraught, Mrak Luton was backing towards his office door, and the two Faetesses were crowding him. Nega Luton timidly brought up the rear.

“I’ll still settle the score with you! I’m giving way out of mercy. I’ll release that mangy roundhead purely so that he can do the dirty jobs. But I’m not relinquishing my power! You’ll never get me to do that!”

“We’ll talk to you, Mrak Luton, tomorrow. But today, just think it all over carefully in your office.”

“But I didn’t get all my dinner. Let them bring the other courses here.”

“We’ll postpone your dinner until tomorrow. Thinking works better on an empty stomach. We may also cut down on the oxygen supply to your office. But not immediately, because FOR THE TIME BEING your brain cells must work normally so that you can become reconciled.”

“You’re not a Faetess, Ala Veg, you’re a monster.”

“My husband, whom you murdered, wouldn’t agree with you, Mrak Luton.”

“I have never committed murder. I served the Dictator faithfully and honestly, and I carried out his instructions. I had a secret order from him in the event of a disintegration war. I am in no way to blame. I can show you the inscribed tablet.”

“You can do that when we put you on trial. Meanwhile, you are simply relieved of your post.”

Ala Veg opened the chief’s office and let out the bewildered Brat Lua. With a businesslike air, as if nothing had happened, Mrak Luton went inside and sat down at his desk with dignity, pretending that he had urgent matters to deal with.

Ala Veg locked the door from outside and invited Brat Lua into the common cabin.

“We have to elect a new station chief,” she announced.

“Why?” protested Nega Luton. “I’ve helped you to release Brat Lua. I hope he will support me. I have risked losing my family happiness. You Faetesses ought to appreciate this.”

“Your husband is the criminal who murdered my husband to violate the Agreement on Peace in Outer Space and unleash a disintegration war between the space stations of Mar.”

“They sent torpedoes against us from Phobo too,” said Mrak Luton’s wife, in self-justification on her husband’s behalf.

“We could have defended ourselves without attacking. And then Tycho Veg would still have been alive.”

“You have been blinded by your grief. Ala Veg. I understand you with the heart of a Faetess. But can we talk about one death, when thousands of millions of Faetians have perished? Remember, we need Mrak Luton as chief of the station. We’ve got to survive. Smel Ven, as commander of the ship, will obey only his orders to fly to us.”

“Have you forgotten Ton! Fae’s message that Smel Ven had been killed? Besides, Um Sat was in charge of the expedition, not Smel Ven.”

“The destruction of Faena has deprived me of memory and reason. What are you counting on, Ala Veg?”

“On Terr’s Faetians. They won’t abandon us. But first, Mrak Luton must be removed.”

Brat Lua was listening to the women in dismay.

“Then let the gentle Ala Veg be chief of the station,” proposed Lada Lua.

“On no account!” screamed Nega Luton.

“Calm yourself, once distinguished lady. I am not making any such claim. The chief of the station must be the one who shows the Faetians the way to a future existence.”

“Who can do that except my husband?”

“The insignificant Mrak Luton is only capable of threats. He can’t even bring himself to shoot anyone now because he’s afraid for his fat belly. He’s just a stinker, and certainly not the leader of the future Marians.”

“Marians?”

“Yes, Marians, that is, the Faetians who will live on Mar in the underground cities planned by Brat Lua.”

“Aren’t you trying to say that the station chief should be a roundhead?” said Nega Luton, outraged.

“What good fortune that the Lutons can’t leave any descendants on Mar,” said Ala Veg with unconcealed contempt.

“You aren’t thinking of leaving any descendants, are you, Ala Veg? And with whose help?”

“Shut up, you viper! I’ve lost three children and a husband; all you’ve lost is your conscience.”

“I refuse to agree that Mrak Luton should have his post taken over by someone else.”

“Then off you go, join your husband and think the matter over with him.”

“I haven’t finished my dinner.”

“You can finish dining at table with him … tomorrow. If you have both changed your minds.”

“That is force!…”

“Brat Lua,” said Ala Veg, turning to the released Faetian. “We elect you chief of the station. We will now get in touch with the people on Phobo and find out how they have been faring. We shall all beseech Quest to come and fetch us.”

“Quest can only set us down on the surface of Mar,” said Brat Lua. “I will shoulder all the worry and responsibility. The Faetian race and its civilisation must be preserved. I’ve long had projects for installations that, given the efforts of all surviving Faetians, can be brought to fulfilment.”

The little Faetian stood solemnly before the Faetesses as he undertook this new mission.

After a moment’s thought, he added:

“However, everything will depend on whether the Faetians of Quest agree to abandon the bountiful and flourishing Terr and undergo fresh hardships and perils to rescue us.”

“I shall implore them!” cried Ala Veg.

“No one will risk losing happiness,” said Nega Luton. “There’s no sense in Brat Lua being chief. No one will fly to the station, no one will ferry us to the surface of Mar.”

“Not everybody there is as soft-hearted as the gentle Sister of Health,” said Lada Lua.

Nega Luton bristled with indignation. How dare this insignificant roundhead talk about her like that? But she pulled herself up at once. Lada was now the wife of the new station chief, so Nega Luton controlled herself.

“It’s just that I’m worried about us all,” she muttered through her teeth in self-justification.

“It’s nearly time for the electromagnetic communications session,” announced Ala Veg.

She left the common cabin and made for the observatory.

When she sat down at the control panel, she saw in front of her the silvery bullet with the sharp brown prickles. She picked it up gingerly by the blunt end and threw it into the rubbish chute through which it would end up in space.

The signal lamp lit up, indicating a call.

“Poor Toni Fae! He thinks he’s called Deimo for the last time,” said Ala Veg aloud, although there was no one near her.

Brat Lua walked into the observatory and announced:

“Mrak Luton has just informed us over the intercom that he has agreed to relinquish his post as station chief in return for the dinner he didn’t have time to finish.”

“Even his own greedy stomach’s against him,” replied Ala Veg.

“As the new chief, I shall have to take part in the session with the Faetians of Quest on Terr.”

“Allow me to open the session, Brat Lua. I’ll try to put it as convincingly as possible.”

“The first word is yours,” agreed the new chief.

The signal lamp began winking on the control panel.

Ala Veg switched the apparatus on.

Chapter Three IN THE NAME OF REASON

Stooping and breathing heavily. Dm Sat lowered himself into the armchair before the control panel. His wrinkled face with its bushy white beard had sagged noticeably, his eyes were deeply sunken, but watched with their former close and sad attention. He asked Toni Fae, for the benefit of those who had come back from the forest, to re-run the recording of the last communications session. Ala Veg’s chesty voice was heard in the cabin once again.

“Quest! Quest! Quest! Faetians of Terr! Your brothers and sisters, abandoned on an artificial speck of dust amid the stars, are crying out to you for help. Around us is the cold and infinite emptiness of space. We have no solid ground under our feet, we are feeding on the produce of the greenhouse, which is being destroyed by endless showers of particles discharged by the explosion of Faena. We shall not survive here unless you come to our rescue. Quest! Quest! Quest! Faetians of Quest! Remember that you are of the same flesh and blood as those who gave life to you and to us! Fly to us in your ship, which we consider ours also. Fly to us in the name of the love which shall forever be the beginning of the future and everlasting life. The Faetians must not perish! Help us in the name of Reason, whose heritage we must preserve. Quest! Quest! Quest!”

Ala Veg’s voice fell silent.

The Faetians exchanged glances. Um Sat glanced inquiringly at Ave Mar and Gor Terr.

Gor Terr went up to Toni Fae and rested his enormous hand on the other man’s shoulder.

“My friend Toni Fae,” he said, as if his decision was the only one that mattered. “The appeal by our brothers and sisters from Deimo will r-remain bitter and unanswered, and it will break our hearts. I think we ought not to maintain electromagnetic communications with space any more.”

“What?” cried Mada, outraged. “Turn our backs on our own people when they’re in trouble?”

“We can’t help them,” Gor Terr tried to say as gently as possible. “If we flew to the station, we would just be parasites, using up all their food and oxygen.”

“But they’re hoping Quest will put them down on the surface of Mar,” protested Toni Fae.

“Alas!” continued Gor Terr gloomily. “That’s as impossible as our r-resettlement on Deimo. We could fly as far as the space station, but the ship hasn’t got enough fuel for a braked landing on Mar.”

With a column of figures written on a plastic tablet, Gor Terr convincingly demonstrated the impossibility of flying to the Faetians on Station Dei mo.

Ave Mar, Toni Fae and Mada understood everything perfectly. Only Um Sat, apparently, could not wait until the engineer had finished. He took a turn for the worse and had to be put to bed in the control cabin this time. Mada fussed about him, trying to bring him round.

Water was needed. There wasn’t any, since the reserve supply had been used up. More would have to be fetched up from below.

When he had brought some water, Gor Terr began insisting that they should all move into the house, which was now ready.

“The forest air is more likely to cure the Elder,” he affirmed.

It was decided that Toni should stay behind at the communications apparatus. At the next session, he could inform the Faetians on Deimo that they could not possibly be reached on Quest.

Toni Fae was brooding silently. Mada feared for him. She carefully locked up the dispensary so that he wouldn’t be able to get his hands on an ampoule of stupefying gas and she made Ave Mar collect up all the poisoned bullets.

Sadly, as if saying goodbye to their ship forever, the astronauts climbed down the vertical ladder leading out of the lower airlock.

Um Sat, whom they wanted to carry refused to be helped and actually went down the ladder himself with Mada supporting him.

The path that the Faetians took as they carried the various gear from the ship turned slippery. Gor Terr nearly fell down.

“Don’t stray off the tr-rack,” he warned anxiously.

The building with its sloping roof appeared among the trees.

In his time, Ave Mar, accustomed to the round buildings of Danjab, would have thought the house ugly, but the change from a round rocket to a rectangular structure now seemed right. He even sighed with relief; they had a refuge for long cycles of their forthcoming life.

Suddenly, a tawny shadow darted across the window.

Ave Mar gripped Gor Terr by the arm. He too had noticed something suspicious and he headed determinedly for the house. The door had not yet been made.

On the threshold, Gor Terr collided with an enormous Faetoid with bared fangs. He charged at it, unaware that this was Dzin showing her teeth in the semblance of a smile. He grabbed the uninvited guest by the paw and nimbly threw her over his shoulder so that she landed on some tree-stumps nearby. She jumped up and fled howling into the forest.

In this way, an “attack” by Faetoids on the house was beaten off.

The Faetians went through the doorway.

Gor Terr screwed up his nose in distaste. There was an animal stench inside.

Mada opened the windows to air the place.

“Home at last,” she said with relief.

’Tarn afraid,” said Um Sat, “that for a long time the Faetians will have to prove that this is their home.”

“Just let those filthy beasts try to barge in again!” roared Gor Terr.

“I was afraid you were going to kill our uninvited guest,” confessed Ave Mar.

“I would have done so, if I hadn’t thought it was Dzin. We owe her so much.”

“Dzin?” asked Mada, on the alert “Really?”

“Settle yourselves in,” suggested Gor Terr. “I’ll go to meet Ton! Fae, otherwise he might be met by someone else.”

Mada smiled as he left. Such friendship between Faetians was a joy to her.

Ave began fashioning a door, skilfully wielding a home-made axe. The Faetoids might attack the sleeping Faetians in the night As he barred the windows and the door, he wondered what the future held in store for them all: it would be bleak enough if they had to live in a permanent state of siege.

When the windows had been barred with stakes, the atmosphere in the house had a depressing effect on Mada. As she watched the imperturbable Ave, however, she too was filled with confidence.

Twilight was deepening. Mada felt uneasy as she thought about Toni Fae and Gor Terr. The fate of the faraway Faetians on Deimo also gave her no peace of mind. How she wished that all the survivors could be together!

Mada peered out of the window through the stakes. It was totally dark in the forest. Tired after his walk, Um Sat was sound asleep. Mada had given him a whiff of stupefying gas from an ampoule.

Ave was admiring his newly-made door, rough-hewn, but solid. He locked it for the first time.

Mada looked at it regretfully.

“Ave, wasn’t it you who said that the Faetians must preserve the civilisation of their ancestors?”

“Of course, and I shall go on saying it.”

“Then how is it that we, as carriers of civilisation, could abandon in space the Faetians who are so close to us? Is there no way of bringing them to join us? If we could only find fuel here!…”

Ave Mar heaved a sad sigh.

“Even the fuel we found here wouldn’t help. We wouldn’t be able to process it the way they used to in Faena’s fuel workshops. Where are we to get all the pipes and distil ling spheres?”

“Surely Engineer Gor Terr will think of something?”

“Hardly…”

“Couldn’t we fly to Deimo and all work together to extend the greenhouse, improve the machinery and still live together? I’m afraid of staying here on a hostile planet. It’s not at all what it seemed on that first day. D’you remember the watering place, with the baby reindeer and the beast of prey drinking together in peace? But now?”

The door opened with a creak. Mada jumped up and seized Ave by the arm. Gor Terr was standing in the doorway. He moved aside to admit a distraught and dejected Toni Fae.

Mada rushed over to him, clasped him to her breast and began sobbing.

“Was there a session?” asked Ave Mar.

Trying to control himself, Toni Fae replied:

“It would have been better to die than hear the answer that Ala Veg came out with when she heard our refusal.”

“R-refusal? It’s an impossibility!” interrupted Gor Terr.

“She was sobbing. Sobs have never been broadcast over the air before. It was too much. Only why did Mada take the yellow ampoule from me?…”

“Calm yourself, my dear Toni Fae. I’ll give you a whiff from that ampoule in a moment. Look how well Dm Sat is sleeping.”

“But how can I sleep in peace if out there, on Deimo, Ala Veg has given up all hope and has lost faith in the power of love? I would fly to her without a second thought.”

Ave and Mada exchanged glances.

Mada gently calmed Toni Fae down. Sitting by the window stakes, Gor Terr was plunged in gloom. The damp came wafting in from the forest. It had started raining again. The Faetians couldn’t possibly have imagined so much water coming down from the sky. There had never been anything like it on Faena.

Toni dozed off, but tossed and turned, moaning in his sleep.

Ave Mar squatted down at the rough-hewn table, took a split branch and began making marks on it.

Gor Terr, his shoulders hunched, was still sitting by the window. He looked like a huge boulder. He was asleep.

Exhausted by all she’ had been through during the day, Mada settled down on some bedding not far from Dm Sat and Toni Fae, who were sleeping side by side.

Ave Mar was doing his best to save the batteries for the portable lamp. He switched it off and lit a taper which he had improvised out of a resinous splinter similar to the one he had split to make a tablet.

The rain finally stopped in the morning, the wind dispersed the clouds and Sol peeped into the Faetians’ new house. A mother-of-pearl footpath showed through the trees, the water on it shimmering.

Mada, barely awake and already busy with the household chores, instantly noticed a change in Ave.

Gor Terr was in a bad mood.

Mada offered everyone some plain food, economising in the stores brought from the ship.

“If only you’d heard her voice,” said Toni Fae to no one in particular.

Gor Terr exploded.

“They’re selfish! All they think about is themselves. Who gave them the r-right to demand such a sacrifice of us as the r-re-fusal to live on a bountiful planet? And they’re the ones who tried to blow up a space station like their own! If I was deciding whether we should fly to them or not, I wouldn’t allow it!”

Mada was frightened to detect a familiar ring in his booming bass voice.

Toni Fae looked dismally at his friend.

’They’re not all in the wrong. We’ve got to distinguish between the station chief, the Supreme Officer of the Blood Guard, and Ala Veg and the roundhead Luas, neither of whom is in the least to blame.”

“And there are some Faetians on Phobo who aren’t in the least to blame either,” interposed Mada.

“No matter how many of them there may be, how can we possibly help them?” snapped Gor Terr.

“It’s not quite like that,” intervened Ave suddenly.

All turned to look at him. Even Dm Sat, lying on a bench near the table, tried to raise himself on one elbow.

“I did some calculations during the night Gor Terr, as an engineer, could verify them.”

“A specialist on elementary particles has been checking the engineer who designed the spaceship Quest?” inquired Gor Terr darkly.

“Excuse me, Gor Terr, but I’ve been going through your calculations and I found them correct”

“Well, well!… I’m so glad,” said Gor Terr, heaving a sigh of relief.

“What a pity!” responded Toni Fae.

“Even so, Gor Terr’s calculations can be taken further.”

“R-really?” Gor Terr looked sharply round at Ave Mar.

“His calculations were based on the assumption that all the Faetians of Quest must fly to Deimo.”

“But of course! How can we possibly split up?” exclaimed Mada.

“Only by doing that could we save the civilisation of Faena.”

“Let Ave clarify his idea,” requested Dm Sat.

“To economise in fuel for Quest, only two of us must go up in her, not five. Then the remainder of the fuel plus the reserves of fuel on Deimo and Phobo will enable us to deliver the Faetians on the space stations to Mar. Quest, of course, will not be able to return to Terr.”

“Which means,” shouted Toni Fae, “that only one Faetian can go with the pilot Gor Terr!”

“Ave Mar can also fly the ship,” commented Gor Terr. “After all, he’s been fighting so hard for the preservation of Faena’s culture.”

Mada looked at her husband in alarm.

“I haven’t had the time to discuss it with Mada, but she can express her opinion now.

In the name of Reason, I am prepared to stay on Terr if Mada stays with me. True, after Quest has gone, we’ll be living like savages who will from then on have to make axes and arrowheads out of stone.”

“I am prepared to stay with my Ave,” said Mada, “as I would be prepared to fly with him to Deimo.”

“Then I can fly with Gor Terr!” whispered Toni Fae with unconcealed joy.

“No,” objected Ave firmly. “If a great sacrifice has to be made in the name of Reason, then the continued Faetian civilisation on Mar can only be headed by Faena’s Great Elder, Urn Sat, its first man of learning.”

Toni Fae buried his head in his hands.

Dm Sat looked at him with compassion and said:

“I am old and ill. Is it worth counting on me when you speak of a new civilisation on Mar?”

“Surely it is not for a Great Elder to live like a savage in the primeval forest?” objected Ave. “That is the lot of the younger ones.”

“I agree to anything,” said Toni Fae in a dead voice.

“I swear it’s not going to be like that!” Gor Terr suddenly banged his fist on the table. “Urn Sat will, of course, fly on Quest to head the civilisation of the Marians. They’ll have to apply the technology of the space stations. Without technology, the Marians won’t survive. However, it is not Engineer Gor Terr who will fly to Mar with the great scientist, but his fr-riend Toni Fae.”

“But I can’t fly spaceships!” exclaimed the agitated Toni Fae.

Mada looked admiringly at Gor Terr.

“I’m r-right, am I not?” continued Gor Terr. “Those who stay behind on Terr won’t have it any easier than the ones flying to Mar. They’ll have to fight for every step they take in this confounded forest. Toni Fae would find it hard protecting the family of Ave and Mada here.”

“But I can’t fly spaceships,” repeated Toni Fae sadly.

“You’ll learn. Let the first university also start work in this first house, knocked together on Terr. It will have only one student, but three professors: the gr-reat scientist Um Sat, his celebrated pupil Ave Mar and the modest engineer, Gor Terr.”

“Two professors will eventually become savages,” said Ave Mar with a smile. “Gor Terr has just shown us what true friendship is. I will undertake to help Toni Fae in every way so that he can fly to Deimo with Um Sat”

The Elder rose from his bench.

“However hard the history of future generations of Terrans and Marians may be, it is a good thing that it begins with such noble sentiments!”

Tears were trickling down the old man’s wrinkled face.

There was never a more terrible day than the one when Quest had to lift off from Terr for space.

Left behind on Terr, Ave Mar, Mada and Gor Terr tried not to show what it cost them to see the others off.

The giant rocket loomed above the forest like a pointed tower. The last farewells were imminent.

The Elder embraced in turn each of the two sturdy, strong Faetians who were staying behind on the alien planet. Would they be able to survive?

Then Mada came up to him. Resting her head on his white beard, she raised her head and said something. The Elder drew her close to him and kissed her hair.

“Does Ave Mar know about it yet?”

“No, not yet,” replied Mada.

“May Reason remain to live on in your descendants!”

Ave Mar, who had just come up, understood everything without having to be told. He hugged his wife in gratitude.

When Um Sat followed by Toni Fae, climbed with difficulty up the vertical ladder, he looked round and called:

“At least teach them how to write!”

Gor Terr understood and smiled bitterly.

“They’ll have to learn hunting, not writing. And how to make stone axes!”

The Elder disappeared through the hatch.

As the engines fired, the three Faetians moved away from the rocket and raised their hands in a last farewell. They were seeing off forever those who, in the name of Reason, were taking away with them the heritage of Faetian civilisation.

Clouds of black smoke burst out from under the rocket.

In the dense forest, the trees were dotted with shaggy Faetoids. With malignant curiosity, they watched their two-legged victims, who were to be eaten in the gully.

The strongest of the Faetoids would seize the hairless ones and not let them return to their “cave without rocks”.

Suddenly, under the smooth stone tree into which two of the hairless ones had disappeared, such a terrible thunder roared that even the fiercest of the Faetoids fell from their branches. Then, from under the smooth stone tree, black clouds billowed forth, as before the water falling from above, and flames gushed forth.

The beasts fled helter-skelter in all directions.

The path to the house of the depleted Faetians on Terr had been cleared.

This time they were able to return to their refuge, not suspecting that, in dispersing their enemies, their departed friends had rendered them their last service.

Chapter Four SPIDERS IN AJAR

After picking up all the Faetians from Station Deimo, Quest was approaching Phobo. An increasingly brilliant star was already conspicuous in the porthole.

Vydum Polar, Phobo’s engineer, had become the new station chief.

When the disintegration war began on Faena and when Phobo and Deimo each sent out two torpedoes, the young Faetians on Phobo, insisting on a peaceful visit by spaceship to Deimo and outraged by the station chief’s conduct, had replaced Dovol Sirus even before the destruction of Faena and before communicating with Deimo about the changes on Phobo.

Dovol Sirus had not resisted. He had even willingly surrendered his powers to Vydum Polar, believing that at last he was going to get some peace of mind and all his worries would be shouldered by the inventor. He was, however, cruelly mistaken.

Quest flew to Phobo with all Deimo’s Faetians and with Dm Sat and Toni Fae from Terr.

Vydum Polar and Ala Veg had to sit with Dm Sat in order to pass judgement on the war criminals. Um Sat named them as the Lutons and Dovol Sirus.

The concave cabin walls were hung with landscapes of Faena—forests, meadows, rivers, towns and seas that did not exist any more.

Terrified and outraged, totally unprepared for such a state of affairs, the accused sat before the judges on a black bench and behind, against the silvery walls, stood all the Faetians left in space.

The space station always turned on its axis. The gigantic sphere of Mar kept appearing in the portholes and floating away again with inexorable regularity. The baleful, reddish-brown colours of the planet during the strange, swift-passing night alternated in the cabin with the daytime glow of Sol.

Um Sat proved to be a Faetian with a will of iron. He had been seriously ill on Terr and had only fully recovered on the journey. Now, enormously tall, white-haired and white-bearded, he had vigorously taken charge of the Faetian colony. The first thing he had done was to put the war criminals of space on trial. He now sat calmly at the table, rhythmically tapping it with his finger.

The interrogation began. Vlasta Sirus, smirking nastily, put up an evasive and spirited resistance.

“The self-appointed court has no right to try us. There are no laws in space and you cannot pass sentence.”

“The law is the will of the Faetians here,” replied Um Sat firmly. His knitted brows boded ill for the accused. He glanced significantly at the landscapes in their frames, which were now black in token of mourning.

The old scientist inspired Vydum Polar with great respect. He did not look like the other men of learning who had refused to recognise him. On the contrary, Um Sat was interested in Vydum’s inventions and immediately invited him to implement Brat Lua’s project.

In spite of her assumed arrogance, Vlasta Sirus had the shivers. She looked pathetic, although her tone of voice was defiant.

“Then look for war criminals among the chiefs of the space stations, not among the serving girls.”

These words aroused general laughter among the Faetians, who knew the real part played by Phobo’s greenhouse nursery-woman.

General Dovol Sirus, gasping at the insult to his wife, was forced to confirm that the decision to send torpedoes to Deimo had been suggested by Vlasta. When he was being questioned, he would hastily jump to his feet, though with an effort. He was now very annoyed, emphasising this in every possible way.

“I can only be condemned for weakness of character in my family life and not for my military actions. I am only a Faetian businessman. My general’s rank was conferred on me for the trade-mark of the munitions workshops. As a Faetian businessman, I was intending to acquire territory on Mar so as to sell plots of land at a profit to the Faetian settlers.” And he smiled trustingly.

“Whom did you force to prime the disintegration torpedoes?” asked Ala Veg bluntly.

“I primed them myself.”

“Was it safe?” asked Ala Veg, pursuing her inquiry further.

“Absolutely. The warheads were well screened to prevent radiation.”

“So at no risk to yourself, you took measures to destroy Deimo?” Ala Veg was remorselessly driving the accused into a corner.

“I had to come to terms with fear. I mean above all my fear of my wife, Vlasta Sirus,” replied Dovol Sirus, wiping the perspiration from his bald patch.

“I was right not to trust the Faetians on Deimo,” interposed Vlasta Sirus. “They were the first to try and destroy our Phobo.”

“But wasn’t Vlasta Sirus plotting the same move against Deimo?” asked Vydum Polar, coming forward.

Vlasta Sirus glared from under close-knit black eyebrows with contempt at her failure of a son-in-law who had dared to condemn her.

“War isn’t a picnic,” she said defiantly.

“Did the accused really not know of the Agreement on Peace in Outer Space?” Um Sat reminded her, calmly pouring himself some water and motioning to Dovol Sirus that he could sit down.

“How could that be known to a simple nurserywoman who was serving in space for the benefit of the Faetians?” said Vlasta, lowering her eyes.

At this point, even her meek spouse jumped up again and shouted:

“All of us here knew about it!”

“Then why did you lay in torpedoes for the station?” inquired Ala Veg nastily, looking the former chief of Phobo straight in the eye.

“The Faetians on Deimo couldn’t be trusted.” And Dovol Sirus smiled disarmingly at her again.

“And what has the former chief of Deimo, Supreme Officer of the Blood Guard Mrak Luton, to say about his misbehaviour?” asked Um Sat.

Mrak Luton rose heavily to his feet.

“I, at least, don’t vegetate under someone’s heel. I am a soldier. I was carrying out the orders given to me. Here is an order from Dictator Yar Jupi. I was under obligation to carry it out in the event of a disintegration war. I cannot be condemned for my integrity as a soldier. The one to blame is certainly not me, his officer, but Yar Jupi himself, who violated an order he had signed in person.” Mrak Luton laid the written tablets down on the table.

“Mrak Luton, did you know that the warhead was not screened and that it was lethally dangerous to be anywhere near it; yet you still drove my husband Tycho Veg to certain death?”

Mrak Luton grinned and shrugged his fat shoulders.

“An officer sent his soldier ahead in battle. There was a war on.”

“The reference to war is irrelevant,” observed Um Sat. “It shouldn’t happen on a planet, much less in space, for war is an unjustifiable crime.”

“Even if it is defensive?” asked Mrak Luton challengingly.

“A disintegration weapon is an attack weapon. It can never be defensive.”

“The inventor of the disintegration weapon, of course, has a clearer idea of what to call it,” commented Vlasta Sirus maliciously. “Perhaps it would be more correct to condemn the one who created this weapon, not the ones who were forced to use it! But he is passing judgement!” And she sighed heavily with affected bitterness.

“Very well, then! Condemn me, Um Sat, scientist of matter, because I made my discovery public on two continents simultaneously, hoping that the fear of exterminating all living things would prevent the insanity of wars; condemn me because I did not ban dangerous knowledge as I would do now. But those who, after surviving in space, used that knowledge to harm others—they should answer for their crimes.”

The Elder had remained true to himself. As before, he had not been learned in the profundities of the soul; he still thought that it was enough to punish the guilty and ban dangerous knowledge for all time so that evil would be averted. But he was the oldest of the survivors, no one could doubt his integrity, and so he was putting on trial those guilty of a disintegration war in space. An unfamiliar harshness rang in his voice and his eyes burned darkly.

Vlasta Sirus cringed at his words as if she were being whipped.

It was hard to tell from the faces of the judges what was in store for the accused.

Unlike Vlasta Sirus, Nega Luton was completely crushed at being judged by Ala Veg, of all people!…

Lada Lua came up to the judges’ table. She was embarrassed and didn’t know what to do with her red hands.

“The gentle lady Nega Luton is in no way to blame. When the station chief had to be removed, she sided with us Faetesses on Deimo.”

“Will Ala Veg confirm that?” asked Vydum Polar.

“I confirm it,” said Ala Veg to her rival’s great astonishment. “Mrak Luton went mad with fury when his wife refused to obey him. She is only to blame for wanting to become first lady of the station.”

Nega Luton flushed. Better she had been condemned than made to hear such words. She could have incinerated her judges with a single glance.

Ala Veg sat with lowered eyes, and Ton! Fae, standing behind all the Faetians, watched her admiringly. How beautiful she was, and how fair-minded!

The great Elder read out the court’s sentence.

Dovol Sirus, Vlasta Sirus and Mrak Luton were guilty of launching disintegration torpedoes with the intention of destroying space stations and were sentenced to imprisonment on Station Phobo. They would not be taken to Mar. They would provide their own services for the rest of their days: they would be left the necessary machinery and the greenhouse.

Nega Luton was acquitted and would be taken to Mar.

Mrak Luton stamped his foot when he heard the sentence.

“This is violence! This is lawlessness! This is a crime!” He began foaming at the mouth. He clutched at his heart and collapsed into his chair.

Dovol Sirus watched him in fright. “I implore you,” he whined, “don’t leave a maniac with us. Send him back to Deimo… He is a Supreme Officer of the Blood Guard, after all. His hands are steeped in blood.”

“Certain Faetians claim to be fair-minded, but they want to destroy us without mercy!” shrieked Vlasta Sirus. “So let them fly away! We’re banishing them from our station! We’re sending them into exile on barren deserts! Exile! Exile! Exile!”

The Faetians gradually dispersed, trying not to look at the condemned.

Nega Luton went up to the judges.

“Thank you for acquitting me. But please leave me with the condemned.”

Vydum Polar eyed Nega Luton closely and with distaste. He didn’t believe that she wanted to stay behind with that flabby, corpulent Faetian who was choking with rage. This was more likely a matter of calculated self-interest: there would be less work to do on the station than on inhospitable Mar, where they would be compelled to build underground refuges for the Faetians and their descendants.

Vydum Polar was right, but he still hadn’t reckoned with Nega Luton’s obsessive hatred for Ala Veg at the time.

It took a considerable time to complete Brat Lua’s project, augmented, as it was, with many of Vydum Polar’s own technical ideas.

It was possible to build an underground settlement with an artificial atmosphere, constantly purified and enriched with oxygen.

Quest was preparing for its last trip.

Station Phobo would forever be an artificial satellite of the planet Mar.

Since only nine instead of thirteen Faetians were landing on the planet, this meant that they could take with them considerably more cargo, technical appliances, instruments and inscribed tablets for study by future Marians.

Vydum Polar envisaged an acute shortage of the metal necessary to build underground shelters with an artificial air supply, and so he suggested dropping part of Station Phobo onto the planet’s surface. This would entail dismantling a third of the station’s structure and fitting it with one of the remaining defence rockets.

Station Phobo was much bigger than Station Deimo. A reduction in its accommodation space would not affect the future life of the condemned.

Needless to say, they themselves refused point-blank to take part in this operation, leaving it to the future Marians.

Some of the metal pipes used as corridors and the premises of the disused laboratories were detached from the station. Braked by the reactive force of the defence rocket, they were to leave the station’s orbit and, reducing speed relative to the Marian orbital velocity, were to begin their descent onto the planet. Because of its thinness and low oxygen content, Mar’s atmosphere should add to the braking effect on the falling metal without causing re-entry burn-up.

The whole of Vydum Polar’s operation took a considerable time, during which all the Faetians lived together. The condemned, however, kept apart from the rest and their attitude to them was hostile.

The leave-taking of the Marians and the condemned was consequently not a particularly sad occasion. On the contrary, both sides had a feeling of relief.

Dm Sat and Toni Fae were the first to cross over into Quest. Both were thinking about Ave, Mada and Gor Terr who had self-sacrificingly given up their places on the ship to the Faetians from the space stations. How were the other three finding it on Terr? Would they hold out in the battle with the Faetoids?

Then all the other Faetians who were leaving went into the ship through the airlock of the station’s central section.

Ala Veg went up to Toni Fae.

“We’re going to a new world together,” she said, putting her hand on his shoulder.

The young Faetian nearly choked with emotion. Incredible trials and tribulations lay ahead of them, but he was happy.

Toni Fae had to determine the exact landing place for the reserve metal to be used by future generations of Marians.

Um Sat ordered that Quest should land as near as possible to the metal dropped onto Mar. Initially, they would have to dig the first deep shelter themselves. Afterwards, perhaps, they would be able to find natural caves into which future generations would move.

Remembering the lessons taught to him by his friends on Terr, Toni Fae began the gradual undocking of the ship from the central section of Station Phobo.

“Will some other spaceship ever come close to this station?” he wondered. “And when will it be?”

None of those remaining behind was in the central section.

Nega Luton and Vlasta Sirus locked themselves in their cabins.

Mrak Luton, his arms thrust behind his back, was pacing up and down the ring corridor onto which the lifts opened. He was considering how to seize power on Station Phobo. It was Vlasta Sirus whom he regarded as his main opponent, not the bloated Dovol Sirus.

He mentally assigned them all to the various sections leaving the sole leadership to himself. They had many, many cycles to live yet!

The Faetians may not have known about the behaviour of spiders in a jar and how they devour one another. Consequently, the court in space, when leaving the condemned on Phobo, was not influenced by this example. However…

Dovol Sirus became the chronicler on Phobo. He solemnly wrote memoirs which, in his view, would tell the truth about the tragedy of Faena and its space colonies.

A long, long time afterwards, they did indeed, in certain respects, help to establish the fate of the condemned.

Chapter Five THE NAKED LEADER

When the wail of a newborn child was heard in the Faetians’ house, Dzin was in the forest nearby. She crept up to the window, squatted down and, gripping her heels with her forepaws, began listening. Sensing that the hunters were returning, she leapt for cover into the undergrowth and from there she looked round at the stake-barred window.

The first native Terran had appeared in the Faetians’ house. He had to be called by his father’s abbreviated surname—Av, or simply Avik.

Mada doted upon her first baby. Often, with his arm round her shoulders, Ave would look for a long time at the tiny, helpless creature.

“The first boy on Terr!” boomed Gor Terr happily. “It’s a good thing that a boy was born first. Let him grow up fast so that I can teach him many tricks of the trade that a r-real Faetian ought to know.”

Gor Terr was a wonderful comrade. Modest, tactful, quiet in spite of his reverberating bass voice, he looked after Ave and Mada in the most touching way.

“The future of civilisation is in you,” he would say.

After Quest’s thunderous lift-off, the Faetoids were evidently afraid of the Faetians for some time and did not come near them. But they gradually forgot their fear. The beasts became bolder; Ave and Gor noticed them several times while hunting in the forest. They even stole the trophies occasionally.

As a precaution, the Faetians decided to keep together wherever they went.

The Faetoids took advantage of this.

Once, at dusk, when Mada, left on her own in the house, went to the lake for water, three or four shaggy beasts rushed up to the barred windows and began smashing the stakes.

On hearing the baby cry out, Mada took alarm and ran back, spilling water from the home-made vessel before finally throwing it aside.

The door of the house was locked, but she could not hear Avik crying inside. She threw the door open and froze with horror.

Stakes broken out of the window were lying on the floor. The chi Id was gone. There was a foul reek of animals. Mada recognised it at once.

Snatching something from the shelf and not closing the door behind her, Mada rushed into a thicket where she had glimpsed a tawny red shadow.

Mada was not conscious of her actions. She was impelled purely by her maternal instinct, which replaced courage, strength and even cool calculation.

Her sixth sense told her that the animal that had kidnapped Avik was heading for the caves so as to tear him to pieces…

There is no knowing how she guessed which way the beast would run; she even guessed that the creature was afraid of crossing water. She twice forded a loop in the stream and reached the gully ahead of the kidnappers.

Dzin sprang down from the tree, clutching the howling infant to her hairy breast.

Mada had already heard her child crying in the distance. She ran towards the creature. The powerful beast automatically turned back, but Mada overtook her in a single bound. Then Dzin turned round and bared her fangs.

Mada boldly advanced on the shaggy beast, although Dzin could easily have snapped her fragile opponent in two. But Mada was the more intelligent. Not for nothing had she stopped in the house to snatch something from the shelf. She didn’t have a firearm, but she was holding in her fist a silvery bullet, being careful not to be stung by the brown prickles.

Dzin had not yet released the stolen baby. She threateningly reached for Mada with her free paw. Mada dodged it, jumped at Dzin and struck her in the breast.

One blow by the fragile Faetess was enough for the enormous beast to crash backwards to the ground. Her paws quivered convulsively and her eyes rolled upwards.

Mada snatched up the child without noticing that he too had curled up and gone silent. She ran off, but her way was barred by two more female Faetoids who had accompanied Dzin on her raid.

Mada rushed fearlessly forward, hugging the inert little body to her breast.

Both Faetoids were struck by accurate blows in quick succession. They collapsed. Their paws curled up and their muzzles froze in a grimace.

Without pausing for breath, Mada ran back the way she had come. The spray from the stream helped to bring her to her senses. She looked at Avik for the first time and screamed.

Someone touched her shoulder. Mada looked round to find Ave bending over her. He had heard her cry in the forest and had rushed to her assistance. Gor Terr was standing close by, ready to beat off any attack.

Ave understood everything without having to be told.

“How did this happen?” he asked in a strangled voice.

Mada told him through her tears about the raid by the Faetoids.

She walked beside Ave, pressing the stiff little Avik to her breast. They did not say another word until they were home.

“Isn’t there any antidote at all?” cried Mada, wringing her hands after she had laid the infant on its tiny bed.

Ave stood at the shelf, counting up the rounds of ammunition. Then he turned to Mada.

“Let Mada warm her son. Fortunately, what’s missing here is a stun bullet, not a poisoned one. Warmth will bring Avik round.”

Gor Terr was carefully refixing the stakes in the window.

Avik’s first cry as he came round was no less of a joy to Mada than his very first wail, heard in the house not so long ago.

“This means the Faetoids will recover too,” observed Mada.

“That’s bad,” responded Gor Terr. “They’ve found the way here!”

Gor Terr proved right. The Faetoids had become completely fearless and began to fight a real war with the newcomers.

Several times, the beasts openly attacked the hunters, who only beat off the animals by using firearms. Their reserves of ammunition were limited. They would hardly last out for more than a few local cycles.

Gor Terr had the idea of fixing a bullet to the end of a spear so as to strike the beasts without losing the bullet. The inspiration for this had been Mada’s desperate behaviour in the battle with Dzin.

Ave insisted that stun bullets should be used, not the poisoned ones. He did not want to exterminate the Faetoids, who were Terr’s indigenous population.

Gor Terr grumbled about this, but finally agreed.

However, this softness on the part of the Faetians led to even more ferocity and determination from the Faetoids. The realisation that, if they had a brush with the newcomers, they would wake up alive after only a brief sleep, led to the beasts imagining that they could always get away with it.

It came to the point at which the herd laid systematic siege to the house. The men could not go out hunting and each time they were forced to disperse the frenzied Faetoids waiting for them outside the door.

Gor Terr began determinedly insisting that the enemy should be wiped out.

“Ave’s right,” objected Mada. “Can we really bring the ill-fated Faena’s terrible principles to Terr? The Faetoids didn’t come to us, we came to them uninvited. Perhaps we could find a common language with them.”

“R-really?” said Gor Terr, astonished, and he became thoughtful.

The situation deteriorated. The Faetoids were no longer the stupid beasts who had originally seized the newcomers in the forest so as to eat them alive. They now seemed guided by will and thought inspired by someone more rational. They were fighting to exterminate the Faetians or drive them away. Mada could not go outside alone for water or golden apples any more. Shaggy bodies could always drop on her from a tree to strangle her or tear her to pieces. Hit by the stun weapon, they recovered consciousness to attack again on the next day. Their brazen determination was impressive and, perhaps, had indeed been born of a feeling of immunity to punishment. The beasts could evidently understand only crude force and deadly danger.

“They’ll all have to be killed off,” decided Gor Terr.

But Mada and Ave didn’t agree.

“It would be better if we went away from here,” suggested Mada. “This is their place. They have the right to drive uninvited guests away.”

“Will you ever get away from them?” asked Gor Terr, gloomily doubtful.

“D’you remember the snowy mountains we saw through the upper porthole on Quest? We’ll go where it’s too cold for the Faetoids. They won’t come after us.”

“You have no r-right to risk the child’s life,” boomed Gor Terr. “But you’re right about one thing. Someone’s got to leave here. Either the Faetians or the Faetoids.”

From that time on, Gor Terr began disappearing frequently from the house and returning without the usual hunting trophies.

Ave and Mada didn’t ask him where he was going, believing that it was up to him to tell them.

He was, in fact, secretly making his way to the gully with the caves. He had selected a reliable shelter and spent a long time observing how the Faetoids lived.

He had marked out an enormous shaggy Faetoid who was evidently the leader of the tribe. Wasn’t it he who was conducting the war on the newcomers?

Exceptionally burly and fierce, he dealt ruthlessly with anyone who displeased him. He once gave Dzin a terrible beating: Gor Terr spotted her unerringly among the other beasts. However, it was not just strength that made him superior to the rest of the Faetoids. His brain must have been more developed than that of any other individual.

The Faetoids had not yet developed as far as rational speech, but they nevertheless communicated amongst themselves with monosyllables that differed mainly in cadence. After being beaten, Dzin fled the cave and came upon Gor Terr hiding in a thicket.

She took fright at first, then squatted in silence not far from him, clutching her heels with her forepaws, and began making soft, piteous sounds. When he realised that she was not going to make a noise at the sight of him, Gor Terr didn’t strike her with his stun-spear. He was conceiving a plan of insane daring, and Dzin could be useful to him.

Every day after that, when Gor Terr went to the hiding-place that he had picked between two close-growing tree-trunks, he would find Dzin waiting for him.

She became a kind of ally to him. Gor Terr could not explain anything to her. But she behaved exactly as he wanted. With her animal instinct, she was able to guess his intentions. Several times, when one of the Faetoids drew near to Gor Terr’s hiding-place, Dzin jumped up, screamed threateningly and gesticulated to drive the uninvited beast away.

Gor Terr’s dangerous plan was soon ripe for action. He decided to disclose it to the others.

When she heard him, Mada decided that he was having another crazy spell and offered to shock him out of it with an injection.

But Gor Terr was adamant.

“One thing’s certain,” he affirmed. “The herd’s got to be driven out of here; it must be led away. They’ll take me for one of themselves. I look sufficiently like them and I know their habits. I’ll deal quickly enough with the disobedient ones. I’ll become their tyrant, their r-ruler, their dictator. And to their own advantage. I’ll teach them sense and r-reason.”

It proved impossible to dissuade Gor Terr. He regarded his scheme as the duty of a friend.

“We certainly won’t win a war with them,” he said. “I’ll lead them off into the mountains. When they’re settled there, I’ll come back to you. You’ll already have had lots of children. I’ll turn your little ones into r-real Faetians.”

Gor Terr began preparing for his exploit as if for an afternoon stroll. In fact, he didn’t need to take anything with him.

Ave could not let him go out alone and decided to back him with small-arms fire from under cover if events did not work out as Gor Terr planned.

As Gor Terr had requested, Ave Mar was following Gor Terr at a distance so as not to frighten Dzin. They had embraced as they left the house and had said goodbye in silence. But Mada had wept in the doorway as she waved Gor Terr goodbye.

Dzin was sitting in her usual attitude. She was waiting.

Ave watched the strange scene from a distance.

Gor Terr went up to the Faetoid, who met him amicably, even warmly. He then took off his Faetian clothes.

He was covered with dense hair, but compared with one of the shaggy beasts he looked almost naked, although in general body shape, height, broad shoulders and stoop he vaguely resembled a Faetoid. He could have been mistaken for one in the dark, but, of course, not in broad daylight or at dusk. So, at least, it seemed to Ave Mar, who feared greatly for his friend. But Gor Terr, unarmed, went fearlessly down into the gully with Dzin.

Ave was gripping a pistol so as to come to Gor Terr’s aid; his friend was already approaching the cave from which he had rescued his captive friends.

Ave watched as the Faetoids who met Dzin paid no attention to her companion at first. Then they noticed something unusual about him and began gathering in twos and threes to study the newcomer with the thin hair whom Dzin had brought back with her.

At last, the rest returned from the hunt.

Accompanied by Dzin, Gor Terr went bravely up to them.

Dzin began shrieking something, squatting, falling onto the stones and jumping up again. She must have been explaining that she was starting a new family and was presenting the one of her choice to the others.

The Faetoids didn’t take the one of her choice very much. One beast, at the far end, stood up, rudely thrust Dzin aside and struck the stranger with his forepaw. To be more precise, he had intended to strike. But before he could do so, he shot up into the air and crashed to the ground several paces away. Bellowing, he got up on all fours and sprang at his assailant like a spotted predator. But the stranger dealt him such a blow that the Faetoid spun round on the stones, howling. The others reacted to the incident with what seemed like total indifference. However, no one else dared try his strength with the newcomer.

Interestingly enough, Gor Terr had only to take his clothes off for the beasts not to recognise their former enemy and not even to see any difference between him and themselves.

Sol was rising. It was the beginning of the magnificent dawn that had impressed the Faetians so much during the first days of their sojourn on Terr.

The Faetoids, however, were not admiring it. They were lying down to sleep in their caves.

Only one particularly large beast with repulsive features, flared nostrils and brown fangs protruding from his mouth, wandered from cave to cave as if checking something.

His mental powers were unlikely to have been so developed that he could really have been capable of checking anything at all. He might simply have been wandering aimlessly from one cave to another.

Any beast he found outside, however, hurriedly disappeared into the darkness under the vaulted roof.

Ave had still not left his observation post, fearing for Gor Terr’s safety.

He had stayed there all day, well aware how alarmed Mada must be for him. He was waiting for, and dreading, the showdown between Gor Terr and the leader.

The leader appeared earlier than the rest and summoned all the others with a throaty scream.

Stretching and yawning, the Faetoids emerged reluctantly from their shelters. Gor Terr also came out. Compared with all the others, he now looked almost puny. No wonder the beasts were looking askance at the new arrival. He didn’t wait to be attacked, but exhibited his own character.

For no apparent reason, he attacked a fairly inoffensive Faetoid, nimbly knocking him off his hind legs and hurling him down to the bottom of the gully. Another was outraged at this conduct on the newcomer’s part, but paid dearly for it. Gor Terr rushed at him in a fury and, pinning him to the stone wall, began banging his head so hard against it that the other howled with pain.

At this point, the infuriated leader decided to put the wild one in his place. He began bellowing with wrath, but this had no effect on the newcomer, who knocked another beast over and hurled him down to the bottom of the gully.

The leader’s patience snapped. He snatched up a heavy stone and threw it at the rebel. Neither Gor Terr nor Ave Mar had been expecting this. Ave nearly fired, drawing a bead on the leader, but desisting when he saw that Gor Terr had nimbly dodged the stone.

That Faetoid knew how to use weapons! This meant that he was more developed than the others!

Ave didn’t know what Gor Terr was going to do next, but his friend didn’t stop to think. He, too, picked up a stone and threw it at his enemy with much better results.

The leader jumped and then bellowed with fury, hurling himself at Gor Terr. But the other was already rushing to meet his enemy.

The Faetoids were bunched together at the rocky wall, watching the savage battle. Their enormous leader, compared with whom the newcomer was merely a small animal, crushed Gor Terr underneath his own weight.

At this point, Ave realised what he must do.

The Faetoids howled with glee at this duel and the lesson being taught to the newcomer by their leader. Because of all the shouting, the crack of a shot went unnoticed. Ave didn’t miss, aiming at the leader’s shaggy back just below the powerful neck.

Half-crushed by the heavy body, Gor Terr realised what had happened. As if continuing the fight, he raised the massive, convulsed body of the leader up on his outstretched arms and hurled him from a rocky ledge down to the bottom of the gully.

The Faetoids tried to look down, gibbering. Those thrown down by Gor Terr had recovered from their beating, had successfully climbed up onto the ledge and were crowded together in the rear of the herd; but their leader was still lying motionless.

Ave had fired the first live round on Terr. The leader was dead.

Dzin bounded nimbly down to the bottom of the gully and began dancing frenziedly near the overthrown body.

Dealing out punches and blows, sometimes knocking the beasts over, Gor Terr drove all the Faetoids back into their caves. He had put a stop to the aggressive campaign evidently launched by his predecessor.

The stranger’s incredible strength convinced the beasts that it was useless to resist him.

“The tyrant has seized power,” thought Ave. “Now he will teach the Faetoids to use clubs, he will make their hunting more successful, the herd will no longer starve and will be content with the new leader.”

Thus did the naked leader appear in the herd of Faetoids.

Ave and Mada never managed to find out anything more about Gor Terr.

Their self-sacrificing friend kept his word, however. He led the herd of Faetoids away somewhere else. No longer did the shaggy beasts annoy the solitary Faetians.

Chapter Six THE TESTAMENT OF THE GREAT ELDER

Polar, great-great-great grandson of Vydum Polar, the first Marian inventor, who was honoured on Mar alongside Brat Lua, the creator of the first cave shelter, had inherited from his remote ancestor a daring and penetrating mind that was immune to all prohibitions.

He was a young Marian with a handsome, calm and self-confident face, a straight chin and a curly head on the long, sturdy neck typical of the Marians.

He recognised no obstacles in life, being always ready to tear them down. He learned easily and eagerly, flummoxing the teachers with his questions. It seemed to him that the writings of his ancestors concealed something about the origin of the Marians.

Tome Polar would put on a space-suit, without which Marians could not breathe their planet’s atmosphere, and would often wander over the desert sands. He was looking among the mountain ridges for a cave that could be used as a laboratory. In it, mentally, he was already carrying out daring experiments on matter.

However, he had neither the instruments nor a cave for his research.

Once upon a time, the first Marians had been lucky. They had found in the mountains an interconnected network of caves with an underground river flowing through them which they named the River of Life.

Most probably of all, his ancestors had come from a remote region of Mar where the conditions had once been different: the air had been breathable and there had been rivers flowing on the surface of the planet (as now in the caves). That was why the legends told of incredibly large areas of water. After all, every drop of the River of Life in the underground city was precious. They even obtained water artificially, extracting it from mines sunk in distant caves. Water, together with the metal found in the depths, was the basis of Marian civilisation. Owing to the small amount of oxygen in the atmosphere, metal was native. This baffled Tome somewhat. After all, his remote ancestors had breathed in the open air.

Tome Polar finally discovered a convenient little cave with a narrow entrance which could easily be converted into an airlock.

Excited and happy, he went down on to the sandy plain from where he would make his way direct to the oasis of cultivated plants and further on down into the underground city.

In his short life. Tome Polar had not known any landscapes other than the dead Marian sands. They were dear to him and he thought them beautiful. As he walked over them, he sometimes tried to imagine himself crossing the bed of one of the fabulous seas of the ancient Marians. But his sceptical reason gained the uppermost over fantasy.

He could not imagine what was absolutely impossible.

Tome Polar was hoping to return to the city not alone, but with Ena Fae, the most wonderful girl on the planet. At least, so she seemed to him.

He knew where to find her and headed for the clumps of nutritive plants irrigated by water from the underground river. Tome knew from the ancient folk tales that there was even supposed to be water on the surface at their planet s poles, and at a low heat level it solidified there in the form of a hard cap. This cap sometimes melted under Sol’s rays. A lovely folk tale! If it could be proved true, the Marians would one day deliver the melted water from the poles to their oases. But, in the meantime, the fabulous accumulations of solid water on Mar, if they existed, were infinitely far away from the underground Marian city.

To the inhabitants of the legendary Faena, the local plants would have looked like sickly bushes. But to Tome Polar, they were an impassable thicket in which it was possible to make out with difficulty several figures in space-suits.

They could all have seemed identical, but not to Tome Polar. He had no difficulty in recognising Ena, who was gathering fruits.

She was the only creature on Mar to whom Tome Polar could confide his secret thoughts. He had decided to do that today. He and Ena would begin experimenting in the new cave together and they would revolutionise Marian civilisation.

The Marian girl, lissom in spite of her garb, was gathering fruits. Tome Polar went up to the bushes.

Ena Fae recognised him, signalled to him with a wave and followed after him.

They did not switch on the intercom in their helmets so that the others wouldn’t hear them talking. They understood one another without words.

The love story of Tome and Ena was touchingly simple. They were brought together by Great Chance, which seemed to be answering a legitimate need. They met during the celebrations for the end of their studies. The young people were singing and dancing in one of the remoter caves.

The stone icicles of stalactites hung from the roof to meet the needles of stalagmites reaching up from the floor. Joined in some places, they formed fantastic columns that seemed to be supporting the roof.

Lit up so that they seemed almost transparent, these colonnades, demolished in other caves to make way for buildings, gave a magical appearance to the place where the young were celebrating.

The young Marians used to enjoy themselves here with all their hearts, donning airtight helmets for a lark to make themselves unrecognisable.

Tome Polar somehow managed to fall for his dancing partner, although he hadn’t yet seen her face. It seemed to him that it ought to be beautiful, so vibrant and tender was her voice, even when muffled by the mask.

When Ena took off her helmet, she turned out to be exactly what he had been expecting.

A straight brow sloping slightly backwards to continue the line of the nose, elongated eyes with a slight slant up towards the temples, russet hair with a heavy bun on the neck so that it did not fit easily into a helmet-such was his new acquaintance, Ena Fae. There was something in her of her great-great-great-grandmother, Ala Veg; but neither Tome nor Ena had the slightest idea of what she had looked like.

It was love at first sight between the two Marians, as if two torches had been brought to the same fire.

The young couple passed through the entrance airlock, which had always been a source of puzzlement to Tome Polar. Why had it been made entirely of metal (and when there was a permanent metal famine!), round in shape and straining upwards, like the ancient skyscrapers of the legendary Faena? Had the first Marians perhaps wanted to set up a monument to the beautiful fairy tale? Tome Polar, of course did not share the superstitions according to which the tower had once voyaged among the stars with no mechanical means of propulsion. This legend had been born of the unusual shape of the installation which served as an entrance airlock to the city.

There was only one real monument in the city, the one to the Great Elder. Sculpted out of a stalagmite, the Elder of ancient times towered to his full enormous stature, with his stone beard falling onto his chest and with mystery in the dark, piercing cavities of his eyes.

New deposits had formed with the years on the stone sculpture, and these smoothed over (as in memory) the features of the great Marian of the past who had called himself a Faetian.

The monument to the Great Elder stood in the cave of the young.

It was towards this that Tome Polar and Ena Fae made their way when they had taken off their space-suits.

Nothing, it seemed, could ever come between them to spoil their radiant love and happy life together. Tome and Ena, however, had a hard trial ahead of them.

According to the ancient Marian tradition, it was by the monument to the Great Elder that vows of love and faithfulness were sworn, and also the work was chosen which, from that moment on, the future married couple would take upon themselves. On Mar, the young people bound themselves with ties of marriage which, as they understood it, concerned no one else.

On this spot, the lovers had to declare to one another which path in life each had chosen.

“Ena!” said Tome. “There can be no greater happiness for me than to be with you always, not only in the family but at work. I want you to be a loyal helpmate to me in the scientific research which I have decided to do.”

“Am I ready for this?” said Ena doubtfully, looking admiringly at her betrothed.

“It will be enough for me if you are by my side in our cave-laboratory.”

“What cave?” asked Ena, brightening up. “Are they going to give us a small hall?”

“No. I’ve found myself a cave in the mountains. We’ll fit it out ourselves. We’ll make airlocks and we’ll take with us the air-recycling equipment from spare space-suits.”

“But what for?” asked Ena, amazed. “Surely you could find a cave in the underground city?”

“The experiments we are going to do are dangerous. No one believes me, but I suspect that matter has a tendency to disintegrate into even smaller particles than the ‘indivisible’ ones of which matter consists.”

“Matter has a tendency to disintegrate?” echoed Ena in horror.

“Yes, that’s the thought I’ve reached. Of course, it’s only a scientific hunch, nothing more. You and I will take a vow here to enrich the Marians with the energy of disintegration.”

“No,” said Ena Fae firmly. “You’re mad to have such ambitions.”

“But why? Are you really going to become one of those who misunderstand me?”

“Listen to what, as a Marian girl, I have to say to you. We who bear within us new generations of Marians have had passed down to us the injunction of the Great Elder at whose monument we now stand.”

“The Great Elder bequeathed to us the power of knowledge. What else?”

“Follow me,” commanded Ena.

Tome obediently went after her.

Ena took him by a roundabout path. Descending steeply, it led them into a stalagmite cave which was evidently directly underneath the Cave of Youth.

Ena pointed at the roof.

“The Elder above is pointing downwards, and if you follow the line of direction, it runs through a stalactite to indicate some writings.”

Sure enough, under the stalactite there was a stone slab fashioned from the base of a removed stalagmite. The deposits on it had been carefully cleaned off.

“Read it!” commanded Ena.

Some passages in the inscription seemed particularly strange to Tome Polar.

“Never must the Marians, descendants of the Faetians, touch those fields of knowledge which led to the destruction of the beautiful Faena. Never must they strive to learn of what matter consists, never must they strive to achieve movement without propulsion. These prohibitions are for the protection of future generations who must be saved from the suffering that comes from such knowledge.”

Tome turned to Ena.

“What crude superstition! What did this Elder do to be called great? What do the structure of matter and movement without propulsion have in common? Apart from that, the deciding question should be, ‘Who is in possession of the knowledge?’ ”

“I don’t know enough to argue with you,” said Ena, “but what rational people know today can become the property of very different ones tomorrow. That is why the Prohibitions of the Great Elder have been imposed on the Marian women. That duty of ours is higher than anything else. No one must know what is forbidden.”

“What d’you mean by ‘higher than anything else’?” said Tome, much put out. “Higher than love?”

Ena lowered her eyes.

“Yes, my Tome, even higher than love.”

“I don’t recognise you!”

Tome Polar could not bear objections, especially if they weren’t upheld by the logic of reason. He despised and rejected everything that seemed unfounded. This had been encouraged in him since early childhood by his parents, whom he remembered vaguely (he had been the youngest of nine children), and it had subsequently developed thanks to his own outstanding abilities, enabling him to laugh off any lack of understanding. But to meet with no response from the girl of his choice was too hard for Tome Polar. A spoiled darling of fate, he refused to believe his ears. His mood darkened and he said haughtily:

“I didn’t expect your love to be so feeble that it would pale before the first flash of superstition.”

“You must make a vow,” demanded Ena in a ringing voice that echoed under the roof of the cave, “you must make a vow never again to try and learn the secret of matter which is supposed to be liable to disintegration.”

“How can I make such a vow if that is the one thing I yearn for?”

“I thought you were yearning for me…”

Tome Polar was taken aback. He had been ready for anything in the marriage ceremony with Ena Fae except this unreasonable stubbornness. He did not know that his bride was speaking for generations of Faetesses who had handed down their concern for posterity to her. Perhaps the terrible disaster on Faena had awakened in the exiles on Mars a new feature which should guarantee life for the Marians. This had found expression in the Great Elder’s Prohibitions, which had been passed on to all without exception.

The tragedy of Faena must not happen again.

Ena realised that Tome Polar would only respond to conviction. She sat beside him on a rock near the stalactite with the inscriptions and told him in a sad voice everything she had learned from her mother about the destruction of Faena.

The exasperated Tome Polar refused to listen. To him, the Marian girl’s story was an ignorant fairy tale full of senseless superstitions. What use was the mere assertion that the Faetians who escaped the destruction of their planet had flown from it in a kind of projectile that, it was claimed, moved on its own without pushing itself off from anything? Incidentally, the possible disintegration of matter was quite rightly not in any way connected with such movement.

Convinced that a Marian girl’s fictitious duty, to save the population of Mar from future disasters, was being put higher than her own love for him. Tome Polar decided that she did not truly love him.

Hot-tempered, vain, and, moreover, not one to acknowledge half-measures, he broke it off with the girl he loved and walked out of the stalactite cave on his own.

Behaving like that in the heat of the moment, however, proved much easier than living without Ena afterwards.

Tome Polar began pining away. The population of the underground City of Life (it was so named after the River of Life in the caves) was not so great that Tome and Ena could avoid one another. On the contrary, they kept meeting one another accidentally all the time, and Ena seemed even more beautiful than ever to Tome Polar. He started trying to make a date with her, but Ena was cold and distant. At least she managed to make that impression on him.

He was suffering. “She’s simply oppressed by ignorant superstitions,” he thought, trying to justify her to himself.

He soon became convinced that he couldn’t live without Ena. By this time, his dreams of setting up a laboratory for himself in a distant cave had also faded away. He hadn’t the strength to equip it by himself, and the Marians he approached for help refused, mentioning the hostility of their wives. These, evidently, were prisoners of the same superstitions as the young Ena.

Tome Polar was in despair. The ancient traditions were tightening round him in a ring, as if squeezing the breathing tubes of a space-suit.

Civilisation on Mar had developed in an unusual way. Receiving the heritage of a more ancient culture, the Marians on the whole devoted all their energies not to the struggle with the representatives of the animal world, since the planet’s atmosphere was unfavourable for the development of certain species, but to the struggle with the harsh natural environment. It was only possible to live in shelters supplied with artificial air and go out to the surface in space-suits. Plants could be grown successfully at the oases, but the Marians had to supply artificial irrigation and tend them while wearing space-suits. The struggle of rational beings with one another remained only in the memories of long-past generations that had become embodied in the duty of the Marian women and girls.

Perhaps like no other Marian of her kind, Ena felt the full burden of that duty. She suffered more than Tome Polar, because she could renounce her duty in the name of love. She didn’t do so, however, never doubting for a moment that she was protecting the whole population of Mar from destruction.

Yet she was the first to call Tome Polar into the Cave of Youth.

Tome Polar was overjoyed. He was no longer hoping for mutual vows at the monument to the Great Elder. He simply wanted to see her.

Ena came to her beloved fully armed with the cunning of her great-grandmothers, who had not lived solely on Mar. She knew perfectly well about his unsuccessful attempts to equip a cave and make the instruments he had invented. She brought with her a flower grown at the oasis.

“Isn’t it more important for the Marians to devote all their energies to the struggle for water?” she said, ruffling the petals with her fingers. “I would like my Tome” (she said MY TOME, and his heart missed a beat) “to lay the foundations of an enormous task for the future—to create a river deep underground that will bring the melted waters from the poles to new oases. Isn’t that more important than seeking the conditions for the disintegration of matter, forbidden by the Great Elder? Leaves, flowers, fruits…”

Tome Polar had a lively mind. One hint was enough for him to imagine the vast installations of the future irrigation system, as fabulous as the ice caps at the poles. Moreover, he was game for anything just so long as it would bring Ena back to him.

“I surrender, my incomparable Ena,” he said, taking the flower from her. “Rather let me leave for the poles in search of melted water than lose you.”

So Tome and Ena were joined after overcoming the obstacle that had come between them, and in this way was buried the idea of the disintegration of matter that had arisen so unexpectedly among the Marians. The Great Elder’s behest had been fulfilled.

…The struggle for power on Phobo was fought between Vlasta Sirus and Mrak Luton. It ended in favour of the intractable Faetess when Mrak Luton, skilfully driven by her to a heart attack, suddenly died.

Next, Nega Luton, who did not wish to yield her supremacy, was poisoned by a fruit specially grown by Vlasta in the greenhouse.

Left on Phobo, its native inhabitants, the Siruses, lived for many cycles, sick to death of each other’s company.

When Dovol Sirus, at an advanced age, fell ill, Vlasta, “desirous of relieving his sufferings”, reduced the oxygen supply to his cabin and then, to put an end to them, turned the tap right off.

Vlasta Sirus continued her husband’s memoirs and, reduced to despair, with no one left on the station to order about, took her own life by jumping outside without a space-suit. Her rigid corpse, preserved by the absolute cold of interplanetary space, became an eternal satellite of Station Phobo.