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.”