“As we moved north we strove to make friends with the Plainpeople—three times that I have knowledge of did we send heralds unto them. And each time were we greeted by a flight of war arrows. So now we have hardened our hearts and we stand for ourselves if the need be. Can you promise that those of the mountains will hold out friendly hands if we seek them out?”
Hot blood stung Fors’ cheeks. He was afraid that he knew the answer to that question. Strangers were enemies—that was the old, old ruling. Yet why should it be so? This land was wide and rich and men were few. Surely there was enough of it for all—and it went on and on to the sea. And in the old days men had fashioned ships and sailed across seas to other wide lands.
He said as much aloud and Arskane gave hearty and swift agreement.
“You reason with straight thoughts, comrade. Why should there be distrust between the twain of us because our skin differs in color and our tongues sound different to the ear? My people live by tilling the land, they plant seed and food grows from it, they herd sheep from which comes the wool to weave our wind cloaks and night coverings. We make jars and pots from clay and fire them into stone hardness, working with our hands and delighting in it. The Plainspeople are hunters, they have tamed horses and run the herds of cattle—they love to keep ever moving—to know far trails. And your people—?”
Fors screwed his eyes against the sun. “My people? We are but a small tribe of few clans and often in the winter we needs must go lean and hungry for the mountains are a hard country. But above all do we love knowledge, we live to loot the ruins, to try to understand and relearn the things which made the Old Ones great in their time. Our medicine men fight against the ills of the bodies, our teachers and Star Men against the ignorance of the mind—”
“And yet these same people who fight ignorance have made of you a wandering one because you differ from them—”
For the second time Fors’ skin burned red. “I am mutant. And mutant stock is not to be trusted. The—the Beast Things are also mutant—” He could not choke out more than that.
“Lura is mutant also—”
Fors blinked. The four quiet words of that answer meant more than just a statement of fact. The tenseness went out of him. He was warm, and not with shame, nor with the sun which was beating down on him. It was a good warmness he had not remembered feeling before— ever.
Arskane propped his chin on his and stared out over the tangle of bush and vine. “It seems to me,” he said slowly, “that we are like the parts of one body. My people are the busy hands, fashioning things by which life may be made easier and more beautiful. The Plainspeople are the restless, hurrying feet, ever itching for new trails and the strange things which might lie beyond the sunrise and the sunset. And your clan is the head, thinking, remembering, planning for feet and hands. Together—”
“Together,” Fors breathed, “we would make such a nation as this land has not seen since the days of the Old Ones!”
“No, not a nation such as the Old Ones knew!” Arskane’s answer was sharp. “They were not one body—for they knew war. And out of that warfare came what is today. If the body grows together again it-must be because each part, knowing its own worth and taking pride in it, recognizes also the worth of the other two. And color of skin, or eyes, or the customs of a man’s tribe must mean no more to strangers when meeting than the dust they wash from their hands before they take meat. We must come to one another free of such dust—or it will rise to blind our eyes and what the Old Ones started will con- • tinue to live for ever and ever to poison the earth.”
“If that could only be—”
“Brother,” for the first time Arskane used the more intimate word to Fors, “my people believe that all the actions in this life have behind them some guiding power. And it seems to me that we two were brought to this place so that we might meet thus. And from our meeting perhaps there will be born something stronger and mightier than what we have known before. But now we linger here too long, death may still sniff at our heels. And it is not to my mind that we shall be turned from the path marked out for us.”
Something in the solemn tones of the big man’s voice reached into Fors. He had never had a real friend, his alien blood had set him too far apart from the other boys of the Eyrie. And his relationship with his father had been that of pupil with teacher. But he knew now that he would never willingly let this dark-skinned warrior go out of his life again, and that where Arskane chose to go, there he would follow.
When the sun was almost overhead they were in a wilderness of trees where it was necessary to go slowly to avoid gaping cellar holes and lengths of moldering beams.
But in this maze Lura picked up the trail of a wild heifer and within the hour they had brought it down and were .broiling fresh meat. With enough for perhaps two more meals packed in the raw hide they went on, Fors’ small compass their guide.
Abruptly they came out on the edge of the old place of flying men. So abruptly they were almost shocked into dodging back into the screen of trees when they first saw what lay there.
Both were familiar with the pictures of such machines. But here they were real, standing in ordered rows—some of them. And the rest were piled in battered confusion, torn and rent or half engulfed in shell holes.
“Planes!” Arskane’s eyes gleamed. “The sky-riding planes of my fathers’ fathers! Before we fled the shaking of the mountains we went to look our last upon the ones which brought the first men of our clan to that land-and they were like unto some of these. But here is a whole field of planes!” ,
“These were struck dead before they reached the sky,” Fors pointed out. A queer feeling of excitement burned inside him. The ground machines, even the truck which had helped them out of the city, never moved him so. These winged monsters—how great—how very great in knowledge must the Old Ones have been! That they could ride among the clouds in these—where now their sons must crawl upon the ground! Hardly knowing what he did Fors ventured out and drew his hand sadly along the body of the nearest plane. He was so small beside it— a whole family clan might have once ridden in its belly—
“It was with such as these that the Old Ones sowed death over the world—”
“But to ride in the clouds,” Fors refused Arskane’s somber mood, “above the earth—They must have been god-like-the Old Ones!”
“Say rather devil-like! See—” Arskane took him by the arm and led him between the two orderly rows on the edge of the field to look at the series of ragged, ugly craters which made a churned mess of the center of the airport. “Death came thus from the air, and men dropped that death willingly upon their fellows. Let us remember that, brother.”
They passed around the wreckage, following the line of unwrecked planes until their way led to a building. There were many bones here. Many men had died trying to get the machines into the air—too late.
When they reached the building, both turned and looked back at the path of destruction and the two lines of curiously untouched bombers still waiting. The sky they would never again travel was clear and blue with small, clean-cut white clouds drifting across it in patterns. In the west other and darker clouds were gathering. A storm was in the making.
“This,” Arskane pointed down the devastated field, “must never happen again. No matter what heights our sons rise to—we must not tear the earth against each other—Do you agree, brother?”