s daughter's flight to Terr.
     "So  you don't  want her to fly?" demanded Yar  Jupi ominously. "You're
worried about  her?  I  appreciate that Would you care to  go over  to those
flowers?  They  are  beautiful, are they not? Have you  ever seen the  like?
Savour their aroma!.."
     "I  have  never  seen  anything  more  beautiful than  the daughter  of
Dictator  Yar  Jupi.  Have no doubt that  she will be the fairest  flower on
Terr..."
     "Then we  shall  leave  those  blossoms in peace," interrupted Yar Jupi
curtly.

     Chapter Seven

        THE FORGOTTEN HUMP

     The body  of Kutsi Merc was lying in  a damp underground passage behind
blank walls with a spiral ornament.
     The casing  of the  artificial hump had been pierced  and the  air  was
entering it, slowly destroying the safety fuse.
     No one on Faena, however, had an  inkling  of this danger on the day of
the ceremonial farewell to the astronauts leaving for the planet Terr.
     The expedition consisted of three Culturals and three Superiors, one of
the latter being Mada Jupi.
     For the toilers in the fields and  workshops of Powermania, the  day of
the send-off was declared a public holiday so that the Faetians could go out
on the road  all the way as far as Cape Farewell, as the Dictator  had named
part of  the  Great Beach near the cosmodrome. This  was the  usual point of
departure for  all space probes, and also for the ships of the Superiors who
were maintaining contact with Space Station  Deimo. The proprietors hoped to
gain considerable profits from the possible colonisation of the  planets and
were not parsimonious with their out lays.
     Mada  and Ave  could not escape  the feeling that they  would soon find
themselves  being pursued. They were riding in the same steam-car as Dm  Sat
The old scientist was pensive and sad.
     The young members of the expedition kept either looking back over their
shoulders or looking intently  at the Faetians who flashed past, standing on
either  side of the road  and throwing flowers under the wheels of the  car.
There  were roundheads and longfaces among  them. They stood closely  packed
side  by side,  as if  there were  no  distinction  between them.  For  many
Faetians, a  joint expedition of the two continents to a planet was a symbol
of peace and inspired them with the hope that it might be possible  not only
to come  to terms  on  Faena and  avoid a war,  so  but to send  part of the
population to other planets.
     Many Faetians had come out onto the road with their children.
     The Faetian  landworkers were conspicuous with their dark suntan. Those
who  toiled   in  the  workshop  buildings   had   earthy  complexions.  But
particularly noticeable were the Faetians from the deep mines. The coal-dust
had so  ingrained itself into their pores that their skin seemed dark, as if
they were of another race and were neither longfaces nor roundheads.
     Mada  had  withdrawn   wholly  into  herself,  depressed  by  what  was
happening. Like a  true Faetess, she evaluated everything through the images
near to her. She  hardly remembered her own mother, but her nanny was to her
a symbol of  everything  that  she  was  leaving behind on Faena.  She  felt
troubled because happiness  lay ahead of her, whereas here... She  shut  her
eyes tight.
     When  she  opened  them again, she saw  that the  road  had reached the
ocean. She looked at Ave, and her expression spoke volumes.
     Ave had  been thinking all the time about the Faetians  standing by the
roadside. Tomorrow they would return  to  workshops filled with the noise of
lathes and  the  reek  of oil. They  would take up their stations by  moving
belts  conveying  the frames of  machines in the process  of  stage-by-stage
assembly, and  they would  stay there with no hope of  Justice, compulsorily
and joylessly toiling to the end of their hopeless days.
     Ave Mar knew  that  on his  shoulders lay  the  responsibility  for the
outcome  of the space flight  and how much  it  meant to all these  deprived
people.
     Millions of  these Faetians were  also  dreaming of happiness  and  the
right to  have children, whatever shape their  heads might be.  The means of
annihilation alone must no longer be  taken  from the civilised world. Faena
could not exist like that!
     Um  Sat was thinking sadly about the same thing. He was reflecting that
the  laws  governing  life  of  the  whole  community of  the Faetians  must
evidently be understood like the laws  of nature.  The most serious mistake,
apart from  the  discovery and promulgation of the  means  of disintegrating
matter, was  that, having lived until  old age,  he did not understand those
laws. Why, for  example, were the Faetian toilers creating with their  hands
not only what was needed to all for life, but also that which was capable of
cutting that life off? Why did these crowds now seeing them off tolerate the
power of a  maniac  who had made war  his  goal  in  life? Yar  Jupi had now
conceived  the idea of making a grand gesture,  of sending out an expedition
to  look  for new "space continents". But how  would the settlers  live  out
there?  According  to  the  former laws  of Faena, taking injustice  and the
threat of  wars into  space?  No, true  wisdom  was in seeking not only  new
planets to inhabit, for which  even Yar Jupi was  prepared, but new laws  by
which to live  that would scare  the daylight  out of  him. Only why had the
half-crazed Dictator let his daughter go out into space so easily? It was no
picnic, after all!..
     As he compared  one  detail with another,  the  old  sage  of  learning
suddenly  came  to the  frightening  conclusion that the  Dictator  might be
trying to save his daughter from an imminent disintegration war on Faena.
     He looked  in a  different light  at the  crowds  of Faetians who  were
seeing him off. Would he ever see them again?
     Mada pressed Ave's hand and looked round eloquently. Ave understood her
fears...
     Her alarm was not unfounded... Much had  indeed  been discovered in the
Dictator's palace.
     Grom Alt,  the  brother of the dead Yar Alt, had stumbled on the trail.
This was the Grom Alt who had escorted Um Sat to the Dictator.
     The  officer  of  the Blood Guard noticed  a dark streak  on the  floor
running  from the  Blood Door to Mada Jupi's chambers,  to  the  underground
passage. Grom Alt was of  too  humble a rank to use the "blood" passage. But
he decided  that at all costs he  must check what that stain was. He scraped
up a sample of the dried substance and hurried to the laboratory.
     His hands shook when, in secret from the others so as  not to share his
discovery with anyone, he established the composition of the  test, a method
taught  to Blood Guard officers while at school,  where skilful use was made
of foreign science.
     He was so  agitated that his  hair became damp, although it was  almost
standing on end. He had established that the stain on the floor was blood!
     He hesitated to report his discovery  to the Dictator, especially since
Mada  had  shown  up  and  had  seen her  father.  True, she  had  not  been
accompanied by her nanny as usual. If something had happened, she could have
told the Dictator herself. But after his meeting with her, Yar Jupi had been
aloofly solemn. He  had  proclaimed a  historical decision that had left the
whole palace and after that  the whole continent dumbfounded, then delirious
with  joy. The whole leadership had choked with effusions in which they  had
pointed out to the ordinary people that the Wisest of the Wise  was also the
most Fearless of the Valiant, prepared even to  risk  his beloved daughter's
life for  the welfare of  the Faetians, thinking of their distant future and
also of universal progress and of peace between the continents.
     The  obsequious  joy  in  the  Dictator's  palace  impeded  Grom  Alt's
investigation. Everyone he met  could  talk about nothing except the exploit
of Yar Jupi and his daughter.
     In such  an atmosphere, it  was  positively dangerous to draw  anyone's
attention  to a bloodstain  that could cast a shadow on  Mada,  who had been
pronounced heroine  of  the day. Grom  Alt found  it particularly suspicious
that  Mada had not left  the Blood Door  to her chambers open  and  that her
nanny had still failed to show up.
     He decided  to consult his brother, even if it meant sharing the honour
of the possible discovery with him. But Yar Alt had disappeared.
     It  could be that Yar Jupi had sent his trusted Supreme Officer on some
mission, as often before.
     Grom  Alt  decided to act at  his  own risk. While Mada,  amid sobs and
compliments, was being seen to the  cosmodrome,  Grom  Alt, who had remained
behind on duty, went to the girl's chambers. The Blood  Door was locked, but
not by  automatic  machines this time.  All he needed was  the skeleton  key
which he had been  taught to use  in the Blood Guard  school.  Grom Alt went
cautiously into the pale-blue room.
     He not only found the body of Mada's nanny lying on the couch, but that
of his own brother.
     A poisoned bullet!
     Yar  Alt's pistol was lying nearby. Such a weapon could  only have been
carried by the Supreme Officer of the Blood Guard.
     Grom  Alt  examined the weapon. There were no bullets left  in it.  His
brother was not the kind of Faetian to  have had only one round left in  the
magazine and to have used it on himself. On whom had the others been used?
     With  mixed  feelings  of  regret and  disgust, Grom  Alt looked at his
brother's cold  body. They had never been good friends in his lifetime.  Yar
Alt had forever oppressed his  younger brother. And now there he was,  lying
dead at  Grom Alt's feet, thereby giving him a foothold on the next rung  of
the career ladder.
     Grom Alt was so pleased with his comparison of the corpse to a rung  on
the  ladder that he could not withhold himself and set his foot on the body,
but promptly jerked  it away again and hurried  out  of the nauseating  room
into the garden, then straight to the Dictator.
     It  was not easy getting through to Yar Jupi, in spite  of the shocking
news that Grom Alt was bringing him.
     The  impartial secretary box would understand nothing. Feelings did not
exist for it, and the security robots and the door automatic machines of the
Dictator's study were controlled solely by that brainless box.
     To tell the truth to the box would mean a refusal for sure, because the
stupid machine would promptly  record in its memory all the circumstances of
the  affair  and  send it  for investigation  to  the officers  of  Criminal
Investigation, who hated  the  officers of the  Blood Guard. They would risk
reporting  the  incident to  the  Dictator only  after the  findings of  the
Criminal Investigation  officers  who, of course, would squeeze Grom Alt out
of the picture.
     That was why Grom Alt decided to lie to  the secretary box, inventing a
version according to which he had a most important message for the Dictator;
it had been given to him by Mada Jupi in person on the way to Cape Farewell.
After all, she was his cousin!
     "You  may give me the gist of the beautiful Mada's words," jabbered the
box, which  was packed full with electronic  circuits.  "The Greatest of the
Great will study it when he checks my daily entries."
     "I  have nothing to  tell you, meritorious guardian  of  memory. I must
deliver a certain object to the  Greatest of the Great, the most Illustrious
of the Illustrious. If  you, as a guardian of memory, could take this object
to the Greatest of the Great, I would be at peace."
     The confounded box resisted for a long time, but gave way in the end.
     The  secretary box impartially reported to the Dictator  that Grom Alt,
officer of the Blood Guard, begged to be received without use of the screen.
     The  Dictator was very  busy.  He had held a  conference of the  higher
military ranks who,  of course, were not admitted to his presence but simply
attended  on  the  monitor  screens  in  his  office.  On  the  eve  of  the
disintegration war, no  one had  access to Yar Jupi. He  feared  his masters
from the Blood Council perhaps more than his subordinates.
     The conference ended at last.
     "Officer of  the Blood Guard Grom Alt," creaked the secretary box, "you
may pass through the  door to  genuflect before the most Illustrious of  the
Illustrious."
     The agitated Grom Alt went  into the Dictator's unprepossessing office,
afraid to  raise  his head and look at  the face of the man who had invented
the Doctrine of Hatred.  Like  his brother, he  aped the Dictator's external
appearance in every way.
     According  to  the  ritual,  Grom Alt genuflected and, staring  at  the
floor, told in a  trembling voice about the trail of blood  leading into the
beautiful Mada's chambers and about the bodies he had found in there.
     "Despicable robot of the guard! What are you drivelling about?"
     "May your wrath descend on the foul murderers  who plotted evil against
you  and your incomparable daughter, and whose traces I was able to uncover.
I grieve  over  my brother's  fate and am happy that your  daughter did  not
become a victim of the villainous conspiracy."
     "Conspiracy?" roared the Dictator, and he quivered from head to foot.
     He  stood  with clenched  fists  and glared  with crazed  eyes  at  the
terrified officer, who did not know what was going to happen next.
     Yar  Jupi  only   reflected  for  a  moment.  The   discovery  of  this
over-zealous officer of the Blood Guard could upset all his calculations and
force him to cancel the orders he had only just given to his military men.
     Yar Jupi roared with laughter.
     "So  that's  how  it  is,  is  it?"  shouted  the  Dictator through his
laughter. "You bring me news of the infinite grief of the Faetians who could
not bear to part with my incomparable Mada?"
     "I meant something altogether different"
     "Brainless insect! Answer my questions!"
     "I am in fear and trembling."
     "Why did my Supreme Officer Yar Alt die?"
     "He was poisoned by a bullet."
     "Who had such bullets, apart from him?"
     "No one."
     "Then is it  not clear to you, insect, that, enamoured of the beautiful
Mada, the Supreme Officer committed  suicide in her  room as  a mark of  his
hopeless yearning for her?"
     "But the nanny's body..."
     "Was she  not attached to  her  mistress?  Did  not  the  low  creature
understand that with the departure  of her mistress to another  planet,  she
would become an  ordinary roundhead, insignificant  and despised, as is only
right?"
     "What? She  took her own life?" Grom  Alt was  dumbfounded, remembering
the wound in Lua's throat and  shaking with fear at the thought that he  had
displeased the Dictator.
     Yes, he certainly had displeased the Dictator. Yar Jupi was  not at all
disposed to  ascertain why  only  two had been killed  when  at  any  moment
hundreds of  millions of Faetians could perish.  The more so that this could
hold up the space expedition that was meant to save Mada's life.
     "However,  this  stripling from the Blood  Guard  will hardly keep  his
mouth shut," thought Yar Jupi.
     The Dictator gently raised the terror-stricken officer off his knees.
     "My good sentinel Grom  Alt! You have every justification for replacing
your suicide brother. Thank  fate that true Faetians are the slaves of their
feelings.  If you should ever fall in love with a beautiful Faetess  and she
does  not reciprocate your feelings, behave as did your  elder  brother. But
allow me, as  one  who  is  proud of  a daughter capable  of  inspiring such
powerful  emotions, to thank you for your faithful service and for  bringing
me news that has made my  heart rejoice. I shall show you the treasure of my
flower collection,  which is  unrivalled  on  Faena.  These  blooms  are  as
beautiful as the Faetesses of our dreams. Savour their aroma."
     Grom Alt obediently went to the niche where he could see the incredibly
beautiful blossoms,  dark-blue as the sky before evening and glittering with
the gold spangles of new-lit stars.
     "How do  you  like that perfume,  my trusty sentinel?" asked Yar  Jupi,
turning away.
     "I  have never breathed anything more  enchanting. I feel  an  uncommon
lightness all over my body. I feel like flying."
     "Perhaps  you  will indeed fly  one  day,  as  the incomparable Mada is
flying at this moment. If she  discovers a life-supporting planet, then many
longfaces  will  fly  there  to  turn  new  continents  into  lands  of  the
Superiors."
     "Those words must be engraved on eternal stone. Each thought in here is
like a disintegration explosion; it flashes and it casts down."
     "The scent of the flowers is undoubtedly calling forth your  eloquence.
Order yourself the tunic of a Supreme Officer of the Blood Guard."
     A blissful Grom Alt, who had never expected such a turn of events, flew
out of the Dictator's office as if on wings.
     If the  secretary box had somehow  been  able to fathom the feelings of
living Faetians, it would have noticed Grom Alt's unusual state of mind. But
the  box was only a  machine and  merely noted how much time the visitor had
spent with the Dictator. Very little...
     And it took very little  time for Grom Alt to feel ill. He collapsed in
the Blood Guard barracks and died in dreadful agony.
     In  the meantime, the automatic secretary began compiling  a  report on
the  state  of  the  armed  forces  after the preparations announced by  the
Dictator  for a  disintegration  war.  But  Yar Jupi  switched off the power
supply to the pestilential box in a fury. He had been watching on the screen
the last moments  of the expedition's lift-off for Terr, mentally seeing off
his daughter. With his whole  being  he  suffered the parting  with her  and
squeezed his temples between the palms of his hands until it hurt.
     He had  seen Mada, with a strange look on  her face, run her eyes round
the  cosmodrome  before she  entered the lift-cage, her  gaze resting on the
ocean  with its white  bands of  foam  on the  crests of the waves.  She was
followed by a Faetian, evidently one from the other continent.
     For a moment, Yar Jupi was troubled at seeing a curly-haired half-breed
so close  to his daughter, but then  he remembered that she  would  at least
stay  alive. He sighed heavily.  He  had  a feeling that he had stepped on a
steep  and slippery surface. He could  not  keep his footing.  And below him
yawned an abyss.
     Ave Mar and Mada  were  looking through the barred lift-cage. The ocean
was expanding and the horizon seemed to be lifting up the clouds. Ave turned
round and saw on the  opposite side  another ocean, a  living  one of massed
Faetian heads with their faces  upturned to the  rocket.  As if to symbolise
Faena's overpopulation, they were jammed incredibly close together. A sudden
spasm of yearning clutched at  Ave's throat. Would he  ever come back again?
But he looked at Mada.  They had chosen this course themselves,  and  let it
not be  only  the  course  of their  own  happiness. Ave  still  had  little
understanding of the true forces driving Faena into war. He only wished with
all  his  heart that  the mysterious planet  Terr  would prove suitable  for
settlement by Faetians and that the danger of a disintegration war  would be
over and done with forever. Ave again remembered Kutsi Merc, who had brought
him here, brought him and Mada together and had, in fact, given his life for
their happiness. May his bones rest in peace...
     Kutsi Merc's  bullet-riddled hump had not been taken  to its goal,  but
the delayed-action fuse, decaying under the action of the air, was measuring
out the last moments of peace on the planet Faena.

     End of Part One


        PART TWO

     Explosion

     Clubs, bills and partisans! Strike, beat them down!
     Down with the Capulets! Down with the Montagues!
     W. Shakespeare. Romeo and Juliet

     Chapter One

        THE LITTLE WORLD

     There was uproar on Space Station Deimo.
     Station engineer Tycho Veg, handsome, prematurely grey-haired, slow and
pensive,  was looking in disapproval at the bustle that  had just begun. But
it was not in  conformity with his mild nature to interfere  in anything: he
gave way  in all things to  his  wife, Ala Veg, and she was  the one who had
thought of holding a banquet in honour of the arriving spaceship Quest.
     The still unfaded beauty Ala Veg had become bored at home on Faena with
teaching  astronomy to blockheaded Superiors.  She insisted  on leaving with
her husband for the space station,  which only took married couples with the
required special qualifications. They would be able to return to their three
children left  on Faena after  earning enough to last  them for the rest  of
their lives, and Tycho Veg would finally become a workshop proprietor.
     Ala Veg, with the pedigree face of a Superior, a fine, straight nose, a
short  upper  lip and a sensual mouth, went about with a permanently haughty
frown;  she  considered  herself  and  her husband  the two  most  important
Faetians on the base.
     However, the wife  of the station chief, Nega Luton, who  had illegally
taken over the  post of Sister  of Health  without being a qualified doctor,
was  of  a  different  opinion.  Encouraged  by her  husband, Mrak Luton,  a
corpulent donkey, she  passed herself off  as  the  first lady  of space and
never  missed  an  opportunity  to  sting  Ala  Veg  with a reference to the
children  she  had abandoned. Ala  would parry these blows,  sparing neither
Nega's barrenness nor her unattractive appearance.
     Lada,  the young but well-upholstered cook and gardener, a good-natured
woman  with  an  affectionate  smile  on her  broad,  snub-nosed  face,  did
everything quickly  and efficiently, trying  to please everybody. She adored
her husband, proud  that  he, Brat  Lua, was the only one of the roundheads,
thanks to his mother's position in the Dictator's family,  who had been able
to  obtain an education on Danjab, the  continent of the  Culturals.  He was
sent  to  Deimo  both as jack-of-all-trades  and  as a representative of the
roundheads  who were to move  to the  uncomfortable planet  of Mar. Lada Lua
willingly followed him to serve all the inhabitants of Deimo.
     A  signal  from  her communications  bracelet  found  Lada  Lua in  the
greenhouse,  a  transparent cylindrical  corridor thousands  of paces  long.
Apart from Lada, no one used that corridor because it was on the axis of the
space station  and there was  no artificial  gravity created by  centrifugal
force as in the other quarters on the station. The nurserywoman did not feel
her weight as she floated  in and out among the air-roots of the plants. The
function of  soil  was  performed by  a nutritive mist of  the saps that the
roots needed. The harvest in space was much bigger than on Faena.
     The  signal found Lada Lua collecting sweet fruits for the  forthcoming
banquet.
     Holding on to the air-roots, Lada Lua hurried to answer Ala Veg's call.
She had to float quite a distance through the tangled  air-roots and then go
down  the shaft  inside a spoke of  the  giant wheel,  in whose rim all  the
station's quarters were housed.
     The cage in the shaft seemed to fall down into an abyss. The feeling of
weight  began to appear only at  the end of the  ride,  when the cage slowed
down  and stopped. The doors  opened  automatically.  Lada  Lua, her  normal
weight restored, walked out into  the corridor, which seemed to tilt upwards
before and behind her. She did not, however, have to climb any gradients.
     Ala Veg  was rushing about  her cabin, exasperated at the clumsiness of
her husband who was on his knees, unsuccessfully trying  to pin some kind of
frill to her gown.
     Lada Lua threw up her hands in delight.
     Ala  Veg unceremoniously  dismissed  her  husband and  he  went off  to
prepare the welcome for the approaching ship, which would have to refuel. He
realised that  his  wife was  bored to  death  with the monotonous  days and
tedious dinners at the common table, the faces  that she was sick of seeing,
always  the same ones, the  same words  heard  so many  times and the mutual
friction that grew worse  from day to day. Tycho Veg tried to understand his
wife, to excuse her failings, to  put them  down  to homesickness and to her
pining for  her  children. He  was missing them himself. If only one of them
was here, they  would be  so  happy! But  the  presence of children was  not
allowed on the space stations. The Superiors, when complementing  the  staff
on  Deimo,  managed to  oppress  the roundheads  there too. Nega  Luton  was
barren,  Ala Veg already had three children  and at her age, which  she kept
secret, she  had not  decided to have  a fourth. As  a result, the ban  only
affected the  young  Lua couple, who could not have children  on the planet,
nor on the space station.
     After helping Ala Veg to dress, Lada Lua ran to  the  kitchen with  its
glittering pans and dials to boil, roast and bake...
     But the communications bracelet summoned  her  again, this time to Nega
Luton. That important lady loved comforts and luxury more than anything. Her
husband,  a  Supreme Officer  of the Blood Guard, had supplied  her with all
these in full measure  on  Faena. Least of all had the  Lutons wanted  to go
into space. However, they had ended up there by order of the Dictator.
     Lada  Lua switched  the automatic kitchen machines to a set program and
hurried off to Nega Luton.


     When the spaceship Quest went into orbit round Deimo and approached the
station for docking, Mada and Ave never left the porthole.
     The  enormous  planet Mar  with its convex  rim  filled  over half  the
window.  Sol no longer looked like a brilliant round star, but had  become a
blinding disc  with a  magnificent corona.  For a  short  while,  the planet
blotted out its own star, plunging the ship into a swiftly-passing night.
     Hand in hand, Mada and Ave greeted this unusual dawn of their new life,
waiting for the brilliant, curly-fringed Sol to begin rising from behind the
hump of Mar.  The black surface  of the deserts turned brown, and gradually,
according to height, there followed one after another all the most  delicate
hues of a gigantic rainbow  that did not  hang  over the rain-washed forests
and plains, as on their native Faena,  but embraced the desert  planet  in a
crescent that  merged with  the rim of the gigantic sphere.  Mada caught her
breath. She could only squeeze Ave's fingers in silence.
     Then the rainbow glittered  at one point  and  the Faetians  saw Deimo,
their first  destination.  It was the brightest  star in the heavens, rising
swiftly over the rim of the rainbow.
     As it drew nearer, Deimo became  a gigantic, irregularly shaped lump of
rock,  and  soon  a small  star  became visible next  to it. This  was Space
Station Deimo, the Faetians' destination.
     Then they were able to see that this star was a ring inclined at slight
angle to the  mass of Mar. Comparable to  the planet Sat, it was a satellite
of Mar's  satellite. Finally, their eyes began to ache with  staring at this
artificial metal structure, which was reflecting the rays of Sol.
     The first pilot of Quest, Smel  Ven, the  celebrated astronaut  of  the
Superiors, was executing a complicated manoeuvre to approach the axis of the
station's wheel and dock on to  the central compartment. The silvery tail of
the greenhouse extended  from the station,  a bright line  receding into the
darkness.
     When Quest moved up to  Deimo station, engineer Tycho Veg summoned Brat
Lua  to the central compartment as the mechanic who did the heavy work. Mrak
Luton, the chief of the station, did not  consider it  necessary to go up to
the  central compartment  in  order to "float  about  on the  loose" in null
gravity.  He  preferred to  stay  in the  ring corridor and paced  round it,
important and pompous, with his hands thrust behind his back.
     The  name Mrak (Gloom), given  to him in his early youth, suited him: a
pudgy, rectangular face, sparse grey hair and  small, suspicious eyes  under
the tufted eyebrows.
     He  did not linger by the lift-cage but continued  promenading  in  the
same direction all the time until finally, after he had gone round the whole
outer ring, he turned up in the corridor on the other side.
     However, all three Faetesses,  unable to restrain  their curiosity, met
at the lift-cage.
     The  first to  come out into the corridor was the exceptionally tall Dm
Sat.
     The ladies respectfully inclined their heads.
     Two Faetians came next.
     The giant Gor  Terr, up to the eyes in whiskers, was  the ship's flight
engineer  and one  of  the men  who designed it.  He had a pronounced stoop,
thanks to which  his arms seemed  uncommonly long. His friends used  to joke
that in height,  strength and appearance he resembled  the  ancestors of the
Faetians. However, his low, hairy brow hid an exceptional mind.
     His new friend, Toni Fae, educated and refined, wrote poetry.  He had a
round face, a thin nose and wide-open eyes behind big spectacles.
     Nega  Luton took  charge of the  gigantic Gor  Terr.  Ala Veg  took the
youthful Toni Fae under her wing.
     Um Sat went of his own accord to the roundhead Lada Lua.
     "Will the gentle Faetess show me to where I can have a rest?"
     Lada Lua blushed and, beside herself with happiness, led the great sage
to his appointed cabin.
     Ala  Veg ran down the corridor with a provocative laugh, beckoning Toni
Fae to catch up with her. She conducted him into a comfortable cabin and sat
down in a light chair.
     "And so is it not true, Toni Fae, that we have kindred souls.  Is it by
chance that we are both astronomers,  that we find ourselves amid  the stars
and are sitting within reach of one another?"
     Toni Fae took off his spectacles to see more clearly.
     "The stars have made us friends, is it not so?" continued Ala Veg, well
aware of the effect she was having on the young visitor.
     "For the sake of everything I see here, it was well worth flying to the
stars," he murmured, lowering his eyes.
     "I  already know that you're a  poet. But you are also an astronomer. I
want us to have views in common."
     "I would like that so much!"
     They were silent for a moment as they gazed at one another.
     "Soon there will be a banquet. We shall sit side by side."
     "Oh,  yes!" Toni Fae nodded his  head. "But we must  also take Gor Terr
under our wing. He is as helpless as I am."
     "I love  the  helpless ones," laughed Ala Veg, affectionately  touching
Toni Fae's  hand. "You are  a  charming boy and  I'm so happy that  you have
arrived. If only you knew how fed up we are with one another here!"
     Mrak  Luton, who was  finishing his stroll  along the corridor as if no
one had  arrived  at the station, had in fact been  carefully measuring  his
pace. Of  all the new arrivals, he regarded the  Dictator's daughter as most
important.  For  that  reason, he went up to  the  lift-cage at the  precise
moment when Mada, Ave and Smel Ven, the first pilot, came out of it.
     The  chief of  the station  was  chewing  it over in  his  mind:  after
lift-off from Faena, the Dictator's daughter had married Ave Mar, son of the
Ruler of the Culturals. What was this? Politics?
     "May they be prolonged, the successful cycles in the life of the Wisest
of the  Wise  who had the good  fortune to have such  a daughter,"  was  the
flowery welcome with which  he  greeted Mada, and he  announced that she and
Ave had been given two  magnificent cabins in opposite  compartments  of the
station.
     Mada flared up.
     "Was not Station Deimo  in electromagnetic  communication  with Quest?"
she asked angrily.
     Mrak Luton shrugged his shoulders apologetically.
     "If  the customs  of  the  Superiors  are  effective  on  the station,"
continued Mada, as if giving an  order, "then you  must give  my husband and
myself a double cabin and send the roundheaded Lua couple there at once."
     The station chief bowed respectfully as low as his paunch would allow.
     "They exist  to serve. May the cycles in the lives  of the Dictator and
the Ruler be prolonged," he concluded, glancing at Ave for the first time.
     Mrak  Luton personally conducted the young couple to the best  cabin on
the  station, and on the way he showed the glowering Smel Ven his  quarters.
Then he found Brat Lua and Tycho Veg who had just  emerged from the  central
compartment.  He ordered Brat Lua to find  his  wife and report with  her to
Mada and Ave. Only then did he  notice that  Smel  Ven  was  still  standing
outside  his cabin door. Mrak  Luton  went up to him and heard the following
words, uttered in a half-whisper:
     "The Dictator will hardly approve of such hasty hospitality."  Smel Ven
vanished, slamming the door behind him.
     Mrak Luton stared dully at the plastic-covered door.
     Brat Lua  not only brought his  wife to Ave  and Mada,  he also brought
drawings. He  was a calm Faetian of medium height, with a tight, glossy skin
and intent eyes.
     Since his mother had become Mada's nanny he had grown up away from her,
but had always felt her influence. She had even managed to bring her son and
her charge  together and make them friends. However, their meetings had soon
become  impossible.  The  Dictator  shut himself off  from the  world behind
walls. The  boy learned humiliation and injustice. Impressionable and proud,
he became more and more withdrawn.
     He had a rare determination. Mother Lua taught  him that only knowledge
would  compel  even  those who  were oppressing the roundheads  to  take him
seriously. And so he fought stubbornly for every crumb of knowledge.
     The  result  was  that even  in  early  youth,  his  face  acquired  an
expression of firmness and concentration.
     He fell in  love  with Lada  Nep before his  departure for  Danjab, the
continent of the Gutturals, to finish his education there. Finally persuaded
by the nanny  and Mada herself, Yar Jupi agreed, although  he kept his  real
opinion to himself.
     For several cycles, Lada devotedly  waited for her betrothed, intending
after  his return to  leave  immediately on the  Dictator's orders for Space
Station Deimo, created by him to consolidate his authority and ostensibly to
fulfil his plan of resettling the roundheads on Mar.
     Brat Lua was now hurrying  to share with Mada and Ave the fruits of his
reflections and of sleepless nights spent at his drawings.
     "I've been planning how to make  life better  for the  roundheads,"  he
said  hurriedly  but  firmly.  "I've  planned   the  construction   of  deep
underground cities with an artificial atmosphere.  On the surface of Mar, in
the midst of the deserts which you see in the porthole, I have been planning
oases  of fertility. It will be enough to  water them with melted water from
the polar ice and  deliver it to them along underground  rivers.  These will
have to be  excavated." He looked trustingly at his  listeners. "I have been
waiting so long for real men of learning!"
     Mada went up to Brat Lua.
     "We have known one another since childhood,  and we  both loved  Mother
Lua."
     " 'Loved' her?" The Faetian went suddenly on his guard, staring hard at
Mada.
     Inwardly alarmed, Lada Lua went over to her husband.
     "I... I must tell you everything..." continued Mada.
     "What is it? Is the war beginning?"
     "Mother Lua tried to  stop it," said Mada in a flash of intuition. "And
she was killed. Brat..."
     "Killed?" The Faetian went white in the face.
     "She was murdered by that scoundrel  Yar Alt But your mother, and mine,
has been avenged."
     Brat Lua let his head fall onto  the table with the drawings spread  on
it and  began sobbing.  Mada  held Ave by the hand, herself almost in tears.
Lada Lua rushed to the door.
     "Mrak Luton is coming to invite us to a banquet," she whispered.
     "He must not know anything," warned Mada.
     The  little  world of the tiny inhabited islet in the Universe was like
the big world of the planet, rent by hostile forces.


     Chapter Two

        THE GOLDEN APPLE

     Mada's  strongest  sensation was one of  light. It  was  falling  in  a
brilliant mosaic  onto  the ground through the  leaves  of the trees,  whose
trunks  resembled  compactly  grown  roots.  Above,  they  spread  out  like
transparent canopies filled with light. Each fruit up there was like a  tiny
star.
     A stream of foam,  tumbling down  from a  stone ledge, was lit up by  a
quivering  rainbow. The  smooth  lake  that fed  the  current lay tranquilly
there, crossed by a sparkling mother-of-pearl footpath.
     Round  the  banks grew fantastic trees bearing  golden  apples. And the
water lured Mada  from the  depths with the same vivid fruits, very slightly
tinged  with haze, that you could touch so easily by just reaching  out your
hand.
     She thought how ugly the two unwieldy, clumsy creatures  seemed in such
a  setting. They moved  about on their hind legs, holding their bodies erect
but rolling from side to side at  each step. Their sturdy bodies, with belts
high on  the  hips,  were decorated with  a spiral ornament  Their upper and
lower  extremities  were covered  with inflated bubbles and their heads were
enclosed in hard spheres with slits for the eyes.
     Two  enormous birds were swimming across the lake with proudly upcurved
necks; they turned their heads with  their red beaks and made trustingly for
the shore.
     Several light  quadrupeds  came out of the  forest.  They  had the same
wondrous trees with root-branches growing on their heads, but without fruits
or foliage. The creatures began drinking the water.
     A mighty beast with greenish, glittering eyes softly  sprang  onto  the
bright patches in the shade of the canopied trees. His hide merged  with the
bright mosaic. Lithe and powerful,  he made his way soundlessly towards  the
water,  paying no attention to the horned denizens of the  forest nor to the
strange newcomers.
     "I'm not even frightened," said Mada through her helmet intercom.
     "A virgin, unfrightened world," responded Ave.
     "And there's so much light!"
     "The experts on Faena thought it could kill."
     "It can kill only darkness, ignorance and hatred. We have found a world
where evil and hatred do not and cannot exist."
     Mada went up quite close to the watering place. A young reindeer looked
round curiously,  leapt out of the water and dug its wet muzzle into  Mada's
glove.
     "Could you think of such a thing on Faena?" she cried.
     "Alas, there's no room left for them there!"
     "These  are  children  of  light. Open  your visor  and  look. Don't be
afraid, the eye is a  most  self-accommodating organ. They won't believe our
stories on Faena."
     "Millions of Faetians are waiting for them."
     "Aren't we  cheating this way? Why  this  envelope shutting us off from
the new world. I've opened my visor all the way!"
     "Mada, my dear!" warned Ave. "That's dangerous."
     "We've found a  world of amazing beauty, but we haven't proved  that we
can live on it."
     "We must remember Dm Sat's warning."
     "What  is there to be afraid of? Dangerous invisible beings?  But light
is the best medicine for them. I myself am a Sister of Health. Our ancestors
didn't take thought, they injected themselves with illness-creating microbes
in order  to rid all  Faetians of deadly diseases. It is the doctor  on Terr
who should be  the first to shed a space-suit! It is a duty! Besides, I want
to bathe  in the lake. Will  my  Ave, who tamed the ocean waves  on a board,
back out now? Take  the tablets I gave you. They will protect  you from  the
unknown  world of the Planet of Light.  And its light will help us. Take off
your space-suit! And help me."
     "Why are you tempting me, Mada?"
     "So that we can be the first to do what must be done anyway. After all,
we can't go back to Faena without having tried to live here in real freedom.
And not in a shell."
     So saying, Mada plucked a golden apple and held it out to Ave.
     "Peel it for me, please. It has a skin as bright as Sol and as tough as
one of our space-suits."
     When Quest began  approaching the orbit  of  Terr,  the members of  the
expedition found  the  brilliant light of Sol more and more  intolerable. It
became particularly searing when the ship went into orbit round the planet.
     Mada  established that Terr's atmosphere  was strikingly like  that  of
Faena.  Except that  there  was  little  carbon dioxide  and  there  was  no
greenhouse effect.  The planet freely  emitted the  excess  solar  heat into
space. The conditions of  existence on it were consequently similar to those
on Faena, as Ave Mar had once suggested.
     Toni Fae, the astronomer, observed the planet with the enthusiasm  of a
poet. Most of  it was under water and seemed to be hatched with the lines of
the waves. The land and  sea surfaces were strikingly varied in  colour. But
most of all, there were clouds over Terr. Singly, they cast distinct shadows
onto the surface of  the planet, and  in  the misty oceans here and there it
was possible  to distinguish the spiral whirlwinds of hurricanes raging down
below.
     But  nowhere, neither on land  nor on the sea coast, could they see the
patches of  towns stretching out the tendrils of roads. This was what struck
everyone at the first sight of Terr from space.
     "Must be a dead planet," suggested Flight Engineer Gor Terr.
     "It's a live  one!" exclaimed  Toni Fae. "The  green of the  continents
means vegetation. And the others..."
     "That's the whole point; you won't guess what they mean."
     "Why not?" said Toni Fae animatedly. "It's easy!"
     "R-really?" said Gor Terr, astonished.
     "The priests in  ancient times  believed  that every  living  being was
surrounded  by  an aura.  Its  colour  was supposed to  enable the  'psychic
vision' to recognise the most secret thoughts and feelings."
     "You  mean  the  pr-riests  would  have looked  on  Terr  as  a  living
cr-reature?"
     "Yes, so as to draw a map of it," laughed Toni Fae.
     "All  r-right, let's  get  on with it.  I  can  see  black gaps in  the
mountain r-range."
     "That means the Mountains of Bitterness and Hate."
     "Much as on our Faena. There are dirty green valleys r-running into the
distance."
     "The Valleys of Jealousy."
     "And the black and gr-reen ones?"
     "Base Deceit."
     "Is it worth it, starting with such gr-rim names?"
     "Then look at the big land areas."
     "Bright gr-reen."
     "The priests considered that colour to be  a sign of worldly wisdom and
subtle deceit."
     "Let's  be indulgent  to  Terr  and call the dry land the  Continent of
Wisdom without any deceit. And  here is a  narrow  sea with r-red  lightning
flashing over it."
     "The Sea of Wrath."
     "It has a pink bay."
     "The Bay of Love."
     "And the sea coast here is r-russet brown."
     "The Coast of Greed."
     "Not  bad  for  future Terrans.  Will it be  better with  the dark blue
ocean, perhaps?"
     "The Ocean of Hope."
     "And its light blue bay?"
     "The Bay of Justice."
     "That's  better  already.  And these fire-breathing mountains  with the
r-red flames and the black smoke?"
     "The Volcanoes of Passions."
     As  they  carried on with their game, the young Faetians gradually drew
the  first map  of Terr with  amusing names  recalling the  members  of  the
expedition.
     "As for Mada's aura," continued Toni Fae, "that's a spectrum of dawn in
space."
     "And what about Toni Fae himself? Hasn't he  been blazing with a bright
r-red aura ever since the visit to Deimo?"
     Toni looked embarrassed.
     "You see," continued Gor Terr, "I interpret your aura no worse than one
of those ancient pr-riests." And he laughed knowingly.
     "It's not so difficult," said Toni  Fae in an attempt  at self-defence.
"You can see into Ave and even into Smel Ven."
     "R-really?.. Even into Smel Ven?"
     "We're  all  blazing red,"  sighed  Toni Fae, "only the shades are  all
different."
     "Then  shouldn't  we  name  the  seas  after lovers?"  said  Gor  Terr,
clutching at this playful idea.
     "It would be better to call Terr the Planet of Eternal Passions."
     Toni Fae had been right not only about Terr, but about Smel Ven. If  he
had an aura, then it must inevitably be fiery red. He  was burning with love
for Mada, and  the  feelings she inspired would have  streaked his  own aura
with black and dirty-green.
     Fate's  darling on Faena, a celebrated  astronaut, the favourite of the
Faetesses, he had not even dared to make Mada's acquaintance although he had
often admired her on the Great Shore. He had hoped that the prompt departure
into  space  would cure him, but..  Mada was close at hand to  humiliate and
destroy  him with her marriage  to an insignificant half-breed whose  father
had gained the Ruler's chair by nefarious means.
     Like many longfaces, Smel Ven never did things  by halves. Which is why
he had become a celebrated and fearless astronaut and  had flown to Terr. He
had not  been unpleasant or cunning  as a young man, but Mada's contempt had
stirred up the hidden  sides of his character. Seeing how happy Mada and Ave
were together  and hating them  for that reason,  he  brooded  on  plans  of
revenge  as cunning as  they were cruel... But he had to remain  beyond  all
suspicion. The planet Terr itself was going to help him!
     Quest,  its  braking engines  switched  on,  was decelerating,  without
friction in the atmosphere  and without any overheating of the cabin's outer
surface. Gor Terr, the ship's designer, carried out the landing as "lift off
in reverse", in his own words. He did not apply the parachute brakes typical
of  the  early  stages in  Faetian astronavigation. The spaceship could make
landfall as slowly as it had lifted off.
     Quest came down  on its three landing feet, towering  above the tallest
trees  and   listing   dangerously.   The   automatic  controls  immediately
straightened it up.
     The astronauts pressed their  faces  up against  the portholes. A dense
forest of unrecognisable trees rose on either side of a river.
     "This is  Terr," announced Dm Sat, "that is to  be the  birthplace  of
our successors! In the meantime,  however,  we  must refrain from taking off
our space-suits. We have yet to explore the unknown world of this planet."
     First, they lowered  the  instruments  through  the  open  hatch,  then
dropped  the ladder, and strange  figures  wearing  stiff  space-suits began
climbing down to the ground.
     The last to  emerge were Smel Ven and Mada. Smel Ven helped Mada to put
on her helmet.
     "Could it be that a Faetess like Mada Jupi..."
     "Mada Mar," she corrected him.
     "Could it  be  that a Faetess  like Mada could agree  with  Dm  Sat and
disgrace herself with this garb?"
     "You are suggesting a brave deed that is worthy of you, Smel Ven."
     "There is  nothing  in the world that could frighten me. But  I  am the
ship's pilot, and an element of return is vital to Um Sat."
     Mada frowned at his pompousness.
     "You consider yourself the most valuable?" Smel Ven restrained himself;
it was not in his interests to annoy Mada.
     "You are a  Sister of  Health yourself  and will feel a need to discard
that clothing as soon as  you go  into the new world." Mada pulled down  her
visor.


     The sunset on Terr was spreading over the river.
     In space, the astronauts had become  familiar with Sol and his furious,
raging brilliance. But here,  in the evening of  their first day on Terr, it
was  possible to  stare with  the naked  eye  at the reddish, flattened Sol,
shorn of his space corona. Elongated  clouds were  beginning to  gather near
its oval disc.  Two of them, coming from different directions, joined up and
divided Sol  into  two. And then  a miracle happened.  Instead  of  one, two
heavenly  bodies  hung over  the  horizon one  after the other, each of them
purple in colour.
     Mada could not take her eyes off this spectacle as  she watched the two
bodies  change in size: the lower one touched the sea of forest,  the  upper
one became thinner  and  thinner, dwindling to  a mere segment of a disc and
finally disappearing altogether. The  lower part of Sol also vanished behind
a big cloud. Now the whole sky  flickered with fire. And, as if in a crimson
ocean spreading above the clouds, there hung  lilac waves, and very high up,
illumined by  the sinking Sol, there floated  a solitary  white island,  its
red-hot edges blazing.
     The sunset glow was gradually dying away,  but the  little cloud burned
on without going out. Then,  as if all  of a sudden, darkness  came down  on
Terr. Night had fallen, just as on Faena. And even the stars were the same.
     Except  that  Terr did  not have at that time  a  magnificent nocturnal
luminary like Faena's satellite, Lua, which  gave such beauty to the Faetian
night and  which had  appeared near Terr a  million years  later. The planet
Ven, however, was particularly brilliant here. Toni Fae pointed  out to Mada
the  evening star that had begun shining  on the horizon like a spark in the
flames of dawn. It was still the brightest object in the night sky.
     The astronauts continued admiring the sky of Terr for  quite some time.
Strange nocturnal sounds came from the forest.
     Urn Sat suggested spending the night in the rocket.
     Mada  went back  inside  reluctantly, although she  could  take off her
heavy space-suit in there.
     She could  not shake off the unpleasant impression  made  by Smel Ven's
remarks.
     Next  morning,  the Faetians went for a  stroll through  the  forest in
pairs. They were to assemble by the rocket at a prearranged time.
     Long shadows  lay on the ground. According  to the  instruments, it had
turned cooler. They were about to see Sol set on Terr for the second time.
     Ave and Mada  were  late. Urn  Sat was alarmed. Toni Fae  painstakingly
kept  calling  the  missing  pair.  Mada  and  Ave  did  not  reply,  as  if
electromagnetic communications had broken down.
     Gor Terr sent up two signal rockets in succession. They soared up  into
the  colourful evening sky,  leaving  curly trains of smoke behind them. The
red and yellow curves floated across the heavens for a long time.
     "From  red  to  yellow,"  quipped  Toni  Fae.  "From love to  wisdom. A
hopeless call."
     Gor Terr shook the inflated sleeve of his space-suit at him.
     Smel Ven kept apart as  if nothing had happened. His  helmet  concealed
tightened lips and downcast eyes.
     His hopes were  finally fulfilled. Mada ran out  of  the  forest in her
skin-tight, wet undergarment. She had taken off her space-suit!
     Smel Ven trembled and raised his visor.
     This was the Mada whom the sculptors had tried to catch sight of on the
Great Shore and  whom Smel Ven himself had admired.  Head flung back  on the
slender neck, dark  blue, ecstatic eyes. She  was  holding a golden apple in
each hand.
     "Ave and I are now the first inhabitants of Terr. It'll go down  in the
planet's history!"
     Ave  followed  behind  her,  also  without  his  space-suit.  They  had
evidently been enjoying a swim. He was also carrying two golden fruits.
     "Maybe we are  at fault," he  said  in  response to  the reproach in Dm
Sat's eyes, "but  it's now been proved that Faetians can  live on Terr.  The
planet  will  feed them.  The labours  of  the  colonists will be generously
rewarded. This means an end to overpopulation on Faena!"
     Dm  Sat  merely  gave   Ave  a  look;  the  other  bowed  his  head  in
embarrassment.
     "We simply carried out an experiment.  Someone had  to, otherwise there
would have been no point in flying here."
     Smel Ven waited for  many days, but in vain. Ave and Mada, Terr's first
inhabitants, enjoyed all the benefits of the paradise they had found and did
not succumb to any form of illness.
     After  a sufficient  period of  time had elapsed. Dm  Sat permitted the
other Faetians to take off their space-suits.
     They took  this  alien world of  nature at once: the  air,  filled with
strange  perfumes,  the bright light, unknown  on  Faena, and the unfamiliar
sounds coming from  the forest. Something  would be walking about  in there,
hiding, leaping from branch to branch, shrieking, bellowing. Then, suddenly,
all the noises would die down  and from  the  depths of the  forest  Silence
itself would seem to be watching the uninvited guests.

     Chapter Three

        PARADISE FOUND

     Dm Sat  was  regarding his companions with a kind  of  strange sadness,
trying not  to go near them. He made  a sign to Smel Ven and climbed up into
the  rocket. The First Pilot of Quest  found the  scientist already lying on
the couch in the common cabin. His  cheeks were hollow and the pouches under
his eyes were even more pronounced.
     Smel Ven stopped  a short distance  away. His narrow  face with the big
bald  patches on his  head looked even longer because of the straggly little
goatee beard.
     "I feel a great weakness," said the Elder. "I have no headache or rash.
It might pass off. Let the Sister of Health stay with me; the rest can carry
on with their work. However,  I still  consider  it my duty to hand over the
leadership of the expedition to you, as the ship's commander."
     "So be it,"  declared Smel Ven  solemnly, drawing  himself up  as if on
parade.  "I  assume all the  authority! Henceforth, I  shall be in charge of
everything. And I order you, my aged friend, to lie down. You know where the
provisions are. I forbid all subordinates to come near the rocket."
     "Even the Sister of Health?" asked Um Sat quietly.
     "Even her," snapped Smel Ven. "She will be useful to the others if they
fall ill as well."
     Um Sat laughed weakly but said nothing.
     "I am leaving now," Smel Ven hastened to say.
     "I am  replacing you," said the  old man  after him,  but the hatch had
already slammed shut.
     Um Sat wearily closed his eyes. When would he stop making mistakes? Why
ever did they think him wise?
     Smel Ven assembled all the astronauts.
     "Um Sat has ordered me to inform you that the camp is being transferred
from the rocket into the forest. As it will be hard for the old man to spend
the night there, he has delegated the leadership  of the camp to  me  as his
deputy."
     "But the forest's dangerous at night," commented Toni Fae.
     Smel Ven looked at him contemptuously.
     "I don't  know who is more graced with cowardice: the astronomer or the
poet."
     Toni Fae flushed. Gor Terr interceded on his behalf.
     "Caution is useful, even in a leader."
     "What risk can there be," said Smel Ven aggressively, "if we've come to
a world of love and harmony?" And he turned to Mada and Ave.
     "Who's threatening us?" said Mada, backing him up.
     Ave nodded silently.
     The explorers collected up everything they needed, armed  themselves at
Gor  Terr's  insistence with pistols, though loaded  only with  stun bullets
harmless to animal life, and set off into the forest.
     Mada urgently wanted to see Um Sat, but Smel Ven refused to let her; he
was anxious to get into the forest before darkness fell.
     They pitched camp  on the shore of the lake from  which the stream fell
into  the chasm. White  birds  with curved  necks were  swimming on rippling
water that was tinged with mother-of-pearl.
     "Why do they have such long necks?" asked Toni Fae.
     "To fetch up underwater weeds," replied Mada.
     "A very peaceful occupation," commented Gor Terr.
     The  evening glow was already flickering in  the sky when Smel Ven sent
Mada and Ave to survey  the other shore of the lake. They had  to make their
way across the stream, jumping from rock to rock.
     They walked on,  occasionally  stooping under  low branches, dressed in
their  clinging black  suits and  delightedly looking  about them. Suddenly,
they both stopped in their tracks.
     A reindeer, its antlered head flung back, raced past  in front of them.
A powerful beast with a spotted hide was following it in  great soft bounds.
It  overtook the reindeer and pounced on its  neck.  The victim,  its artery
bitten  through, made  a last  desperate bound and collapsed  under  a tree.
There was a bellowing sound. The beast was tearing its prey to pieces.
     Ave snatched at his pistol to reload it with poisoned bullets.
     "We daren't  take  lives  here,"  intervened  Mada. "We  mustn't  bring
Faena's morals with us."
     "I'm afraid they already exist here."
     "But why?"
     "The laws of life's development on the planets are exactly the same."
     "But what about the watering place?" protested  Mada  weakly. "None  of
them attacked any of the others there."
     "A  beast  of prey  can't just slaughter animals.  It  lets them  live,
drink, propagate  and grow. Otherwise  it won't  have  anything to eat. It's
like a forest animal-breeder: by catching the weakest when  out  hunting, it
improves the selection of the herd."
     Mada made  no objection.  She  walked  along at  Ave's  side, dejected,
conscious of his hand  on her shoulder. But suddenly he snatched it away and
slapped his  forehead.  Mada involuntarily did the same. Then she  stared in
bewilderment at her fingers, which were  stained with  blood. It had  become
dark in the forest and there  was  a  buzzing noise  everywhere. Tiny flying
creatures swooped  on the Faetians and began stinging them. Ave and Mada had
to pluck branches and beat the flies off.
     They found Smel Ven  alone in the camp. He was frantically slapping his
cheeks and neck.
     "Filthy creatures!" he swore. "We'd be better off in our space-suits."
     "I was terribly wrong," began Mada at once.  "Ave and I  have just seen
murder in the forest. Murder is committed here as on Faena! We must move the
camp  back to  the rocket as  soon  as possible,  to open ground where there
aren't any insects or beasts of prey."
     "We're  not going back to the rocket," snapped Smel Ven. "There's a far
more terrible death in store for us there-the one that was lying in wait for
Dm Sat."
     "What  d'you  mean?" Mada  was outraged.  "And you.  Dm  Saf's  deputy,
wouldn't allow me, as a doctor, to be with him?"
     "Such was his will. It's  not  just filthy flying creatures  or spotted
predators, but the hidden microworld that's bared its teeth at us."
     "I'm going to Um Sat!" declared Mada.
     "With me," added Ave.
     "Only  cowards who've found a  pretext escape by running away!" shouted
Smel Ven after them, forgetting his own false warning.
     Mada  ran ahead.  Ave could  hardly  see  her  outline in  the  swiftly
approaching darkness. Suddenly, his heart contracted with pain. It seemed to
him that Mada had  been stopped by a gigantic round-shouldered creature with
long, dangling  arms. He drew his pistol, which he  still hadn't loaded with
live  ammunition, but noticed  that Mada was not  in the least  afraid.  Ave
gasped with relief. That showed how badly his nerves had been set on edge by
the forest episode! He hadn't recognised Gor Terr. And now the puny Toni Fae
also turned up.
     Ave put his pistol away and only then  did he see at least five figures
like Gor Terr with  him. The Faetoids  knocked Toni Fae and  the frantically
resisting Mada off their feet. The whole gang of them charged at Gor Terr.
     Ave  dashed towards Gor Terr,  but couldn't  tell him  from  among  the
similar round-shouldered,  shaggy beasts. They sorted themselves out and all
five of them hurled themselves on Ave.
     He hadn't time  to draw his pistol. He merely shook off  the assailants
clinging to him. They were bigger  than Ave, but had  no idea  how to fight.
Using his fists and his feet, Ave scattered the beasts as  they fell on him.
Two of them writhed under a tree, the others flung themselves at  Ave again.
Throwing over his shoulder one who stank  of sweat  and mud, he glimpsed Gor
Terr dealing with his opponents. Several shaggy carcasses  were squirming at
his feet. But  still more of the enemy were tumbling down onto his shoulders
from the trees. Ave tried to shout  that he should run to open ground, but a
shaggy paw clamped  itself over his face. Ave twisted the paw till the bones
cracked.
     Mada  was nowhere to be seen. Nor was Toni  Fae.  Only Gor Terr and Ave
Mar continued the unequal struggle.
     "Hold out, Ave!" shouted Gor Terr. "These are all of one local family!"
     Ave flung aside the first assailants,  but at  least a dozen fresh ones
leapt on him. Four taloned paws fastened on to each of his hands and feet.
     The  young Faetian summoned up all his strength,  heaved and crashed to
the ground, crushing his  enemies  underneath  him. More shaggy beasts leapt
onto the  pile of weltering  bodies. He felt as if  he had  been buried in a
mine shaft: he could neither move nor breathe.
     On seeing Ave's predicament, Gor Terr  rushed to help him. But it would
have probably  been easier to fell with one shoulder the wide-spreading tree
under which the scrum had taken place than to come to Ave's assistance. Then
Gor Terr made a sudden leap and grabbed hold  of a low  branch. Two or three
of  the  Faetoids, no shorter in stature  than he was himself, hung onto his
legs. The bough bent,  threatening to  crack.  With  an incredible  burst of
strength, Gor Terr hoisted  himself up  onto  the bough with all the animals
clinging to him. They dived head-downwards off  it, howling frantically. Two
more seemed to be waiting above Gor Terr, but were thrown down.
     With an  agility denied  to  his shaggy  opponents, Gor Terr  literally
soared up to the topmost branches of the tree.
     Despairing shrieks and roars came from below.
     Gor Terr jumped  down from the topmost branch  and, it seemed, ought to
have crashed into the paws of the beasts galloping in a frenzy round it, but
by some miracle he seized  hold of  a branch on a neighbouring  tree and ran
lightly along it, although it bent under his considerable weight.
     A way had been found, the only escape from the bellowing herd below.
     Gor Terr  couldn't  understand why none of the fanged beasts had bitten
him. There was no time to think about it, and he continued running along the
upper branches. He might well have been envied by his remote ancestors,  who
had come down from the trees of Faena once upon a time.
     His pursuers, however, were running along below every bit as fast as he
was himself.
     At this  point,  Gor Terr saw  something like a Faetian  liana. It hung
down from  a distant, very high tree and was caught on one  of the  branches
near  him. Gor  Terr seized hold of the  living cable and flew downwards. He
had a  glimpse of the  infuriated herd.  Gathering  speed  like  a  swinging
pendulum, he sailed over his pursuers' heads and managed to kick the biggest
of them. He was followed by a despairing wail.
     Gor Terr caught sight of  a  waterfall below him. The liana carried him
across to the other bank. He clutched at a branch, jumped down to the ground
and started running.
     The  shouts of pursuit  died down far  behind him.  The  Faetoids  were
evidently afraid of water and could not cross to the other side of the river
after him.
     Gor Terr slowed  down and breathed heavily,  inflating his  chest,  and
only then did he  discover that  in his confusion he had forgotten to  bring
his  pistol  from the  camp, although he  had been  the one to  insist  that
everybody should be armed.
     He was overcome with horror. There was no one left now, except himself.
He must hurry back to the  rocket,  but his news of what had happened to all
the Faetians would be the death of Urn Sat.
     He  had  no  alternative,  however.  He  decided  to wait  until  dawn,
believing that the Faetoids were nocturnal and feared the daylight.
     He climbed a tree and settled himself on the topmost branch.
     As he  pictured his  friends  torn to pieces, he  wept  with grief  and
helplessness. The tears stuck in his beard, which was as  matted as the hair
of a Faetoid. At times, his reason was clouded with frenzy. Suddenly, in the
pale glimmer  of dawn, he saw one of the abominable creatures slowly  coming
along under the tree.
     Round-shouldered,  almost  the same height, it was rolling from side to
side  at every step. Its back was covered with wool. The beast turned round,
and Gor  Terr  realised that it was a female Faetoid. She was walking erect,
and her forepaws  dangled down to her  knees. From time to time, she stooped
to pluck a plant or grub up a root.
     Gor Terr shook with fury, making  ready to pounce on the beast and deal
with her.
     At  that moment, something flashed past  below and the  Faetoid fell to
the ground. She  was  being suffocated by the spotted  animal that  Mada had
told him about.
     Himself not  knowing why,  Gor  Terr jumped  down on the predator.  The
animal roared, trying to struggle free of the weight that had landed on  its
back. But  Gor  Terr jumped off and gripped it by the  hind legs.  The human
giant  pulled  the  beast  towards  him,  raised  it  into  the  air on  his
outstretched hands  and dashed its head against a tree-trunk, then flung the
inert body to one side.
     The Faetoid  rose to  her feet and  stared at Gor  Terr with  curiosity
rather than in fear. He even took offence.
     "Am I really so like  her fellow-creatures that I didn't even  frighten
her?"
     She approached him trustingly and said, "Dzin!"
     Yes, that was what she  said! These animals  could pronounce articulate
words. If they were not wholly rational,  then in a million  or more  cycles
they could become like the rational Faetians.
     "Gor," said  the Faetian, pointing at his naked, hairy chest. His shirt
had been ripped down to the waist.
     "Dzin," repeated the Faetoid, and she pointed  at  herself. It would be
hard to say what thought process was taking place in the low-browed, sloping
skull. However, she too was capable  of the gratitude innate in many Faetian
animals.
     Dzin had obviously been overtaken by some kind of thought. She clutched
Gor Terr by the hand and pulled him along, gibbering incoherently.
     Was  she taking him to  her  lair, acknowledging  him not  only as  her
saviour, but as her master?
     Gor Terr frowned. He wanted  to shoo her away and even raised his hand.
But she waited for the blow so meekly that he thought better of hitting her.
It  occurred to  him  that  she  might  lead him  to  the  dwelling  of  her
fellow-creatures.  What  if his friends were still alive?  Could he  miss  a
chance  of  going to their assistance? He pushed her forward and went  after
her.
     Dzin was overjoyed and  ran off, looking  round at Gor Terr. Both moved
fast and soon crossed the same stream. She knew where  a tree lay across it.
Dzin was afraid of water.
     Then they walked through the Faetian camp on the shore of the lake. Gor
Terr  could  see the  traces of  a  violent struggle.  Bags  and  scientific
instruments lay scattered all  round, but the victims of the  struggle  were
nowhere to be  seen. Smel  Ven had evidently not been able to use his weapon
and had been seized by the beasts.
     Dzin  looked at Gor Terr, but he prodded her firmly in the  back.  That
was evidently the kind  of treatment she understood best. She looked  round,
bared her fangs in the semblance of a grin and joyfully ran on ahead.
     Soon she stopped and  made  a warning sign, if the movement of her  paw
meant anything at all.
     Gor Terr looked cautiously out from  behind a tree growing on  the edge
of a gully. On the opposite side he  could see caves, and down below swarmed
a  herd of  shaggy  beasts.  He  could  hear them  growling,  bellowing  and
shrieking.
     Gor Terr saw Smel  Ven among  the Faetoid  predators.  He was  standing
proudly in their  midst, with  many of them clutching  him. For some reason,
they had not yet killed him.
     At this point, Gor  Terr  realised that these creatures  could not  tie
people up,  they could  only hold  the  prisoner  with their forepaws  while
standing on their hind legs. But what  if they didn't slaughter their victim
before devouring him? What if they didn't like dead flesh?
     The  Faetoids began roaring  down below.  Smel  Ven  was hurled  to the
ground and the shaggy bodies piled on top of him, tearing him to pieces.
     It was too much for Gor Terr. He felt sick.
     But Smel Ven never uttered a groan or a cry. Gor Terr had never thought
it possible to have such  superhuman  fortitude. He felt  ashamed of his own
weakness. He was almost about  to  jump down, but saw Mada, Ave and Toni Fae
on the opposite cliff. They had evidently  not been slaughtered so that they
could be eaten alive.  All of them, like Smel  Ven,  were  unbound. But four
beasts were holding each by the  hands and  feet. The Faetians couldn't move
an inch.
     Gor  Terr  turned  to  Dzin. She  sprang  back and  lay on the  ground,
pretending to have fallen asleep. Then she jumped up,  waved her paw towards
the beasts who were devouring their victim and again threw  herself down  on
the ground.
     The engineer understood. Dzin was trying to explain that they would  go
to sleep as soon as they had gorged themselves.
     Dzin was right. She knew her fellow-creatures well.
     They soon lay down in a heap and began snoring.
     Only the sentries stayed in their places, pretending to  be awake,  but
actually nodding their shaggy heads.
     Gor Terr was not very hopeful of success. Still, he crawled to one side
and silently moved across the  gully.  When he had crawled up to the cave in
which the prisoners were lying, he jumped to his feet at the entrance.
     Ave Mar was lying nearest to him with a useless pistol at his side.
     Before the flesh-glutted sentries could make a move, Gor Terr proceeded
to  dispatch  them  by  methods ordered  by  Yar  Jupi  in  schools  for the
Superiors. He  struck  with precision in  the  morning  light. The sensitive
spots of  the Faetoids were  almost the  same as those of the  Faetians. The
shaggy  beasts rolled over  without a  sound. Gor Terr snatched up Ave Mar's
pistol  and  fired point-blank at the fourth  Faetoid who was still gripping
Ave by the hand. It was  a stun bullet; the creature fell in convulsions and
lay still.
     The crash of the explosion  terrified the other guards.  They  let Mada
and Toni Fae go free. Mada seized her  chance and hit one  of them so deftly
that he rolled down over the rocks.
     Toni Fae had barely recovered his breath when Ave and Gor  Terr  hurled
themselves on the dumbfounded guards.
     Gor Terr fired a few more shots. Ave was throwing the  feebly resisting
beasts  down to the  bottom of the gully. Indescribable panic broke out down
there.
     The beasts  had no idea of how to put up a fight. They had seized their
victims with  the sole  purpose of eating  them.  After devouring the first,
they had slept peacefully without even  mounting  a guard. And now-deafening
claps of  thunder, of which  they had  always gone in terror. Moreover,  the
corpses of their  fellow-creatures were raining down  on them as if from the
sky.
     The herd scattered, shrieking and abandoning the dead and maimed on the
bottom of the gully.
     Mada threw herself on Ave Mar's breast and sobbed her heart out.
     Toni Fae offered his hand to his friend and saviour.
     In  the corner  of  his eye, Ave noticed  one more  Faetoid at the cave
entrance who was evidently intending to attack Gor Terr from behind.
     He promptly sprang  to  the rescue, but  Gor Terr's huge arm  held  him
back.
     "This is Dzin, a female. She helped me to r-rescue you."
     Mada stared in amazement at the shaggy creature, who was not hiding her
delight at Gor Terr's strength and fearlessness.

     Chapter Four

        AT THE PEAK OF CIVILISATION

     When Quest lifted off for space, the body of Kutsi Merc was lying in an
underground corridor. But the pool  of blood under him did not dry up, as if
the stiletto-pierced heart was still  bleeding. Suddenly, Kutsi Merc's  hand
twitched,  fell on the  wound  and  stanched it.  The  blood  coagulated and
stopped flowing.
     It was a  long  time  before Kutsi Merc  moved  again. Not one  of many
millions of Faetians  could  have survived  his  condition; not a single one
except Kutsi Merc himself.
     Kutsi Merc  came from a roundhead family who had  fled the continent of
the Superiors  after the Uprising of Justice was defeated. Yar Jupi was only
beginning  the Blood Bath there. Kutsi was still a small boy  without a name
of his  own. Kutsi's father,  Khrom Merc, suspected of  being sympathetic to
the Doctrine of Justice,  was earmarked for  elimination by the Blood Guard.
The Mercs were poor  and  could not  afford  to escape by ship. The three of
them  made an incredible journey on a raft knocked  together  by Khrom Merc.
After  harrowing days  at sea, enduring storms that  swept away their meagre
provisions and a lull  that  brought  an  intolerable  thirst,  they avoided
pursuit (none of  the Blood Guard ever thought of  looking for a raft in the
ocean!) until finally,  emaciated and  at  the  end  of  their  tether, they
reached the  coast  of Danjab. But no one there had prepared  a warm welcome
for the refugees. They could not  even find work in the fields and workshops
of the proprietors, who  were  indifferent to anything that did not  promise
gain.
     Reduced to desperation by poverty, Khrom Merc steeled himself  for what
he would have  formerly  rejected with disgust: he decided to make money out
of his deformed little son.
     Kutsi had  two  hearts. This  "deformity"  is exceedingly rare.  On the
continent of the  Superiors,  the parents had kept quiet  about their  son's
abnormality, afraid that he might be pronounced unfit and destroyed.
     But here, on the continent of the Culturals, anything that could arouse
even morbid curiosity could be a source of profit.
     They  began exhibiting  the  little  boy at show-booths.  Crowds of the
curious  came rolling in. And  each spectator felt himself entitled to  feel
the naked, terrified "monster". He was roughly turned round, cold tubes were
applied  to  his  chest and  back, or  ears were  pressed to his  skin in  a
repulsive manner. He was made to squat, dance to general guffaws and shouts,
then  again he was  examined  and  auscultated.  The rubbernecks shook their
heads in bewilderment, marvelled and went away to tell, exaggerating wildly,
about the weird monster they had seen with their own eyes.
     The enterprising Khrom Merc managed to earn so much that he  became the
owner,  first of a small workshop, then  of big  ones in which thousands  of
Faetians were employed by him.
     Kutsi Merc grew up, remembering  with shame and revulsion the days when
his deformity had been "put  on show". However, not only his father profited
by  it. Soon,  it transpired  that the little  boy  was  becoming uncommonly
strong and  tough. By tacit agreement between the son  and his parents,  his
two  hearts now  became a family secret so as  not  to attract  a  wearisome
curiosity about  the  boy in school.  When  he was given a  new  name on his
coming-of-age (he was called Khrom-Merc Junior), he was named Kutsi (Shorty)
because of his ungainly shape as a result of his having a double heart.
     Kutsi soon grasped that he could make a virtue of his deformity. During
the  humiliating career of the "show-booth freak", Kutsi  Merc developed the
traits of character that were to decide his profession.
     Unsociable, cunning, venomous,  hating the Superiors across  the ocean,
he  possessed rare  strength and stamina.  He caught the  attention  of  the
Special  Service.   He  was  found  suitable  for  intelligence  work.   His
irreproachable  knowledge of  barbarian  mores  and the  barbarian  language
enabled him to carry out many dangerous transoceanic assignments (but not on
a raft any more).
     Making  his  way up the secret ladder,  intelligent  and self-effacing,
rational and decisive, the son of a  proprietor and in no way sympathetic to
the Doctrine of Justice, he came to enjoy a position of trust among the  big
proprietors who were selecting convenient rulers for themselves.
     Dobr Mar's predecessor had been so afraid of  a disintegration war that
he had been ready  to give way to  Dictator Yar Jupi, and  so he had  become
useless  to the proprietors.  Kutsi Merc  was able at that time to warn "the
Ruler's  friend", Dobr Mar, on  what terms he could himself become Ruler, by
being the first  to start a disintegration war.  That was the only  way  the
proprietors, who were members of  the Great  Circle, thought of dealing with
the proprietors of the Blood Council.
     On becoming Ruler,  Dobr Mar manoeuvred  skilfully on the brink of war.
When  his  re-election  fell due  and he had to take the prescribed step, he
sent Kutsi on  a diversionary escapade, even risking  his own son's life  in
his personal interests.  Kutsi Merc was  such an eminent  spy that  he could
have refused the mission. But ever since childhood he had  had his own score
to settle with the Superiors. He could forgive  them neither the Blood Bath,
nor the misfortunes of his own family, nor the oppression of the roundheads.
That  is  why Kutsi  Merc  became  a  "hunchback", carrying  on his  back  a
disintegration charge  to destroy the Dictator's Lair together with  all the
technology delivered by the short-sighted proprietors of Dan jab.
     Kutsi Merc had  taken a dangerous risk and had lost, struck down by Yar
Alt's stiletto.
     But it  could  never  have entered Yar Alt's mind,  when he tugged  the
stiletto out of Kutsi's heart, that the hunchback had a second heart.
     Kutsi took a long, long time to regain consciousness. The  second heart
continued beating. Only an organism as unusual as  his could win. But he was
too weak owing to the enormous loss of blood.
     When he came round and realised what had happened, he first of all took
off his "hump" and examined it. It had been punctured in several places. The
delayed-action fuse had been rendered useless. He threw the "hump" aside.
     He was  spurred on by a ravenous hunger.  He must get out of this place
somehow, although it seemed impossible. Kutsi, however, was not  one to give
up, even when the situation was hopeless.
     Overcoming  his  pain  and  stomach spasms,  he crawled over  the stone
floor, convinced that  the Wall would bar his way.  He could not believe the
evidence of  his own eyes when he saw a gap  in it. After the battle  of the
brain  biocurrents, when Yar Alt  had mentally  been trying to open the door
and Lua to close it, no one had ordered the automatic system to close up the
Wall. Also  still open were the next two barriers through which Yar  Alt had
hurried and through which the  dying Mother Lua  had managed to crawl on her
hands and knees.
     At the  familiar turn in the palace gardens,  which Kutsi was hoping to
reach, his way was barred by a high wall. He  crawled off along Lua's bloody
trail. He would crawl a little way, stop out of exhaustion and then carry on
further. And still Kutsi Merc was alive!
     During the few  hours that had  elapsed, the spaceship Quest had lifted
off  from Cape  Farewell.  Yar  Jupi  himself  had  gone down into  the deep
underground bunker  to begin the disintegration war on which he had  finally
decided.
     The  palace was empty. After  switching  off  the energy  that  fed the
palace's  automatic systems, the security  robots carried  a heavy  box with
slits on it down into the shelter.
     And  now the Wall  in front of Kutsi Merc trembled slightly. He managed
to insert his  fingers into the gap and, to his great surprise, was able  to
assure  himself that the  Wall  was yielding to  his  pressure. Finally,  it
parted enough for him to crawl through.
     Then, without understanding how,  he got to  his feet and  leaned  back
against the  Wall. It trembled  again and moved. Kutsi Merc fell down.  (The
power supply had been switched on again.)
     Kutsi lay  there  gritting his teeth and  trying to understand what had
happened. He suddenly realised that the disintegration war was beginning and
that he had failed to prevent it nevertheless.
     He forced himself to rise to his feet. Everything went dark. He screwed
up his eyes and  stood swaying slightly,  then supported himself  by holding
onto the priceless wood panelling  on the walls. It finally led him out into
the  garden, fragrant with the Dictator's  celebrated flowerbeds. Kutsi felt
very much  like lying  down and dying.  He  had  even stopped thinking about
food.
     He decided  that the  disintegration war  had evidently  not yet broken
out. He couldn't hear any explosions, which meant that he must go on living!
He did not  allow  himself to remain lying  on the  sand in  the avenue, but
crawled on until  he  was able to stand  up  from the kneeling position.  He
wanted to get to the Blood Door, hoping that it, too, would be  open. He was
right, and he crawled into the  ruined shrine. He could wait there till dark
in the familiar niche and  at night he could make his way to the aged Nepts,
a  couple who were friendly with  Kutsi's parents.  They lived  in  a former
miners'  settlement near Pleasure  City.  Their youngest daughter, Lada, was
married  to a roundhead who  had been educated in Danjab. They had flown  to
Space Station Deimo together.
     Only Kutsi Merc, with his insatiable lust for life,  could have made it
to the Nepts that night.
     When he entered their home, he collapsed on the floor in a dead faint.
     The  solicitous old couple,  both overweight, flabby and  white-haired,
looking very much like one another as is often the case with  a married pair
who have  lived together for a long time,  carried his heavy, bleeding  body
across  the  room  with difficulty  and laid it down on some bedding  in the
corner.
     Kutsi Merc  had overlooked the fact that the cover  of his  "hump"  had
been  riddled  with bullet-holes and  the subterranean air had been  leaking
into the charge. Although the  detonator had not been activated, it was sure
to explode after a time because of contact with the air.


     That explosion was being awaited with terror by Ruler Dobr Mar, who was
tired  of guessing  when  it might happen.  By  destroying  the anti-torpedo
defence, the explosion would be the signal for a strike, with  no  chance of
retaliation,  against  Powermania  by  rockets   armed  with  disintegration
warheads, as was desired by the proprietors who had put Dobr Mar in power.
     Against  any possible emergency, Dobr  Mar had  taken refuge in a  deep
bunker,  still  hoping that  Kutsi Merc  would  be  killed  before he  could
detonate  his  "hump" and  that  the war  desired  by  the  Great Circle  of
proprietors would be postponed for a time. The Ruler of Danjab was preparing
for a war, but he was afraid of it.
     Above all, he wanted the disintegration weapon to stay where it was and
things to settle down somehow ... at least, until the next election.
     Deep down below,  a luxurious  government office had been reproduced in
every  detail, circular in shape with a  vaulted  ceiling and  highly placed
oval  windows that  looked out on  nothing.  The communications monitors had
been mounted underneath them.
     Dobr Mar had changed. His face had lost its hardness and his eyes their
penetration. He  had become garrulous and seemed to be justifying himself to
someone all the time. He even  said to one of his military leaders  with the
intention of making it known to everyone:
     "History will not forget the Ruler who started the  disintegration war.
Is that not so?" And he stared past the other man.
     Dobr Mar  was troubled by  Ave  Mar's sudden departure for outer space,
not because of his son's fate, but because of  Kutsi Merc. Why  had the  man
allowed that flight? And  what had become of him? Had he really  perished in
the end?


     But  everything  turned  out differently  from  what Dobr  Mar had been
expecting, and not as  his enemy. Dictator Yar Jupi, had planned. Nor as the
proprietors of the Great Circle or of the Blood Council had planned.
     The  moment  came  when  the  fuse  in  Kutsi  Merc's  artificial  hump
functioned  of its own accord.  A deep  underground disintegration explosion
took place.
     Kutsi  Merc, who  had been sitting on the  Nepts' bedding, felt himself
hurled upwards. The floor  of the cabin shook,  the crockery rattled on  the
rickety  shelves and the portrait of Dictator  Yar Jupi  fell  down from its
place on the wall. The  transparent film in the window was torn apart  and a
violent gust  of  wind blew into the humble room, overturning the table. The
sheets of paper covered with writing over which old Nept had bent his  back,
having taken  it into his  head  to learn  to  write in his declining years,
began whirling about in mid-air.
     Kutsi Merc cringed as he waited for the  blast. But the ceiling did not
collapse. Kutsi limped over to the window.
     Nothing, apparently, had happened. But there was no sign of  the  black
spire over the Temple of Eternity.
     One of Kutsi Merc's eyebrows shot up. The left side of his face smiled,
the  other  remained  watchful.  Suddenly, his face  grew longer,  his  eyes
widened and he turned pale.
     Directly in front  of the window, an enormous flowerbed rose up in  the
centre of the  square and out from underneath it glided a smooth cylindrical
body with a pointed nose. It grew taller before Kutsi Merc's eyes and became
a lofty tower. A moment later, black  smoke began  billowing  from the shaft
hidden underneath and the tower began, to rise on a  column of fire. Then it
detached itself from the square, gained height and set course for the ocean.
Soon, the rear end of the rocket  turned  into a fiery cross which  steadily
diminished to a tiny glittering star. Only then did it vanish altogether.
     Kutsi Merc's hair stood on end. He already knew that not only here, but
at a thousand  other  points on the  continent, from identical  subterranean
shafts,  from under  the surface of  the  seas, perhaps even from buildings,
terrible rockets were bursting forth to head in a deadly swarm for Danjab.
     Kutsi  Merc was right. Activated by  the automatic systems, the rockets
had indeed burst out of their hiding places and, programmed to hit the vital
points of Danjab, were speeding across  the ocean. One of those rockets rose
from  the  multistorey block  in which Ave and Kutsi had  been staying,  and
another was to  soar  straight up from the Temple of  Eternity, where it had
been camouflaged  as one  of the columns.  The  temple  had collapsed at the
subterranean  explosion  of Kutsi's "hump". However,  the  Central Automatic
Defence Console, which  was  at a  great  depth, had not  been  damaged. Its
sensitive  instruments,  only  just  detecting the radiation  caused  by the
disintegration  explosion, immediately  sent  their signals to thousands  of
rocket installations.


     Dictator Yar Jupi was terrified when the bunker  shook. He learned from
the instruments  about the  explosion  and  the response  of  the  automatic
systems and  he realised that the disintegration war had  begun earlier than
he  had  intended.  He rushed up  and down the  cramped  shelter. He  craved
action. But it had all been done without him.
     He  was alone. No one could see  him except the mindless secretary  box
which was unable to appreciate the Dictator's joy and triumph. Forgetful  of
his  personal fears, he  giggled and  danced about.  He  was  filled with  a
delicious excitement  at the knowledge that  in a short  time the cities and
industrial centres of Dan jab  would be destroyed and tens, perhaps hundreds
of millions of enemy Faetians would cease to exist. He had never experienced
a pleasure like this before. Now that the war had started, let it spread! He
had achieved his aim: to command life and death over the whole of the planet
Faena!  And  so, grimacing  because  of a nervous tic,  he pulled  back  the
curtain in front of the live screens.
     The  questioning and  distraught  faces of the  military  leaders  were
staring at him from them. Yar Jupi directed a mad glare at the servile faces
and, foaming at the mouth in a burst of inspiration, he screamed:
     "What? You  weren't expecting  it? You  were marking  time?  Well, hear
this. I've  done  it! I! I've blown up the Temple of Eternity and the palace
to activate the automatic systems! What? Are you frightened?"
     He  ran round the bunker, shouting, although  the screens were blacking
out one after another.  The military leaders were obviously not in agreement
with their  lord and master  and  preferred  to  take cover  as  quickly  as
possible in  their bunkers, which  were similar to the  Dictator's own. When
the secret screens  of the Blood  Council's  members were switched on,  they
revealed  the unhooded, frightened  faces  of the  first  proprietors of the
ancient continent.


     The barbarians' rockets went above the limits of the atmosphere as they
flew over the ocean. Their approach was spotted at once by the ever-vigilant
automatic observers far from the  targets to  which the rockets were flying.
Without any  help  from the  military  or from  Ruler  Dobr Mar, the  rocket
defence system went  automatically into action.  A flock of defence missiles
soared up  from Danjab and headed for the disintegration  armada. They  were
themselves packed  with disintegration  warheads  intended  to  explode when
close to any missiles that flew towards them.
     And the  disintegration  explosions  occurred one after another in  the
upper layers of  the atmosphere,  over the ocean. The shock waves  threw the
rockets off course or simply destroyed them. Mangled fragments and sometimes
even  whole torpedoes fell into the  ocean, to the great horror of seafarers
from both continents. It was as if  a meteorite shower had  plunged into the
ocean, raising to the cloudy sky columns  of water like the weird trees of a
forest that had suddenly sprung up in the sea.
     Over  eight  hundred  rockets  were  destroyed  by  Danjab's  automatic
sentinels. But over two hundred continued on their way.
     During those first moments  of the disintegration  war,  not  a  single
Faetian  took part except for  the  wounded Kutsi Merc. Not one Faetian  was
killed in that appalling battle of the rockets.
     But this was only during the first few moments.
     Soon,  Danjab  began  to  tremble  under  disintegration  explosions in
hundreds of different places.
     A disintegration explosion!
     Is there  anything to compare  with it? Perhaps only the supernovas  or
the  mysterious  processes  which astronomers  have  observed  on Sol,  when
enormous  tongues of white-hot matter have  been ejected over distances many
times greater than the star's diameter.
     Matter itself was disintegrating, part of it was ceasing to  be matter,
its  mass  was  diminishing.  The  energy of the  internal  bonds was  being
unleashed and,  converted into heat energy  according to the laws of nature,
was  raising the heat  level  at the place  of disintegration by a factor of
millions. All  the surrounding  matter that remained as matter was instantly
converted into white-hot gas  that  shot out in  all  directions, wiping out
everything in its path. But even faster was the action of the radiation that
accompanies the  disintegration of matter.  Penetrating  living  tissue, its
impact  was fatal. Even long after the  explosion, the impact  of those rays
was  to destroy  all who had  survived  the  firestorm  or  the  devastating
hurricane.
     On the site of each disintegration explosion, a fireball rose up first,
immeasurably brighter  than Sol itself. Light  of such brilliance had  never
been known on the gloomy planet Faena. This brilliant  ball  became a pillar
of fire that rose up like the white trunk of a magic, gigantic tree, growing
up and soaring into the sky, where it spread out in a swirling canopy.
     Shuddering, Dobr Mar saw  on the  communications monitors those ominous
mushrooms sprouting on the sites of flourishing cities.
     He was appalled. As  he paced round his study, he felt  himself keeling
over; his knees buckled and  he  slumped into an armchair, scarcely able  to
clutch hold of it.
     What had happened? How had the enemy anticipated him? What about Kutsi?
     What had become of the Faetians who were to elect him for another term?
They were dead, dead! Thousands, maybe millions,  maybe hundreds of millions
had ceased to exist!
     The  military leaders rushed into his office and  hastened  to help the
old  Faetian with the  shaking  head...  He was groaning; his left  leg  was
twitching, but his right leg, like his arm, had gone numb.
     The military leaders bustled about the circular office and sent for the
Sister  of Health. They tried to pour  water and broke the tumblers.  No one
was yet capable of understanding the full gravity of the position.
     The disintegration war,  when they mentioned it, sounded like something
horrible but impossible, like  a children's fairy  tale. Even now, when  the
ominous mushrooms could be seen on nearly all the monitors in the bunker and
many of the screens were black  and networking, the scurrying Faetians still
didn't want to believe that it was all over  up above.  It was somewhere far
away, but here, what  was close and visible was  the  Ruler's weakness,  the
Sister of Health fussing over him and the unpleasant odour of medicines.
     The dejected military leaders made no decisions and issued no orders.
     Once again, commands were given by automatic systems.
     Dictator  Yar Jupi,  who had not such  secret  communications with  the
enemy continent like  those maintained by Kutsi Merc through  the roundheads
did not suspect that Danjab had no less reliable a "retaliation system" than
the Superiors.
     Instruments recording the disintegration radioactivity in  the air, the
seismic  effects of  the explosions on Danjab territory and the force of the
heat  blasts, gave firing commands to countless  rocket installations,  also
camouflaged on  the  seabed, in deep mine  shafts and in mountain gorges. An
armada  of  vengeance  had  already  set  off  to  fly  across the ocean  to
Powermania.
     Only Kutsi Merc had foreseen this. No sooner had the coloured, swirling
cloud risen up before his  eyes than he managed to dive into a disused shaft
in which Nept had worked all his life and over which, when it was exhausted,
he had  built  his own cabin.  Kutsi Merc took cover in  a narrow stone well
down which he climbed by means of damp metal rungs.
     His weakness seemed to have  passed off.  Nervous tension had given him
back his strength.
     He couldn't see anything any  more, but could hear and, it seemed, felt
with every cell in his body the terrible explosion that rocked the vicinity.
Stones  rained  down  on  Kutsi;  one  of  them struck  him painfully on the
shoulder. But Kutsi clung convulsively to the rungs. Even now, he refused to
give in.

     Chapter Five

        CRATERS IN THE WILDERNESS

     The exultant and triumphant news about the outbreak of a disintegration
war was picked up by Ala Veg on Space Station Dei-mo.
     Terribly  frightened, unable  to believe her own  eyes,  she  read  the
automatically taped report  in which there was news of disintegration strike
unleashed on Danjab, the continent of the Gutturals, about the extermination
of tens of millions of the enemy, if not more.
     With the sole feeling that  the explosions had fortunately taken  place
on  the other  continent and  her children  were alive, Ala Veg  ran out  to
report about this terrible event to Mrak Luton, the station commander.
     He did not admit  her. Puffed up and pompous, as if his office had been
invaded by  dozens of Faetians awaiting  an audience, he made  Ala Veg stand
for a long time outside the door before he let her in.
     He glanced over the proffered papers, stood up and shouted hoarsely:
     "Joy! This  means happiness for us! May they be without end, the cycles
in the blissful life of Dictator Yar Jupi! At last it has  come to pass! The
continent of Danjab is being cleansed of the scum that settled there!"
     Nega  Luton ran in and, after a  glance at the  papers, threw her  arms
round Ala Veg's neck.
     "What  happiness,  my  dear!   At  last  our  mission   here  is  being
accomplished and the roundheads needn't move to this  accursed Mar, but will
be settled on the newly available spaces of Faena. I've been so homesick for
comforts, services and refined society. Haven't you too, my dear?"
     Ala Veg seemed turned to stone.
     "Is the disintegration war over  already?" was all she could  manage to
say.
     "Not yet, of course!" announced  Mrak Luton portentously, "but this war
will be won by whoever delivers the most devastating salvo. And we are going
to do the same too."
     "Who are 'we'?" asked Ala Veg uncomprehendingly.
     Mrak Luton sounded the general  alarm  and left his office for  the big
cabin next door in which Mada and Ave had stayed only recently.
     Soon, the entire crew of  the  space station was  assembled there.  The
timid Tycho Veg came, as did the flustered, out-of-breath Brat and Lada Lua.
     Mrak Luton read  out the news  concerning  the annihilation of Danjab's
main cities.
     Nega  Luton  closely  watched  the expressions on the  faces  of  those
present.  She did not miss Brat Lua's  horror. His now  pale  face was  like
polished bone. Lada Lua burst into tears.
     "I will not tolerate treachery," Mrak Luton shouted at her, "even if it
expresses itself in pity for the enemy. I order an automatic ship to be sent
to Phobo immediately."
     "What? To the enemy?" said Nega Luton in astonishment.
     "With a disintegration warhead," explained Mrak Luton.
     "That's another matter." And Nega Luton sighed with relief.
     "The gentle lady should be ashamed to say such things!" Lada  Lua could
not help saying. "She is a Sister of Health, after all!"
     "Silence!" roared Mrak Luton. "Engineer Tycho Veg and assistant servant
Brat Lua! In the name of the Dictator, I order you to fit  a missile  with a
disintegration warhead on the  station's ship and program  it for  automatic
flight to Phobo."
     "A disintegration warhead?"  asked  Tycho Veg. "But there  isn't one on
the station."
     Mrak Luton roared with laughter so that his flabby jowls quivered.
     "Don't be so  naive.  Engineer Tycho Veg! You will find the  warhead in
space at  the  end of the  greenhouse to which  it  was delivered as a spare
cabin for the ship."
     "I object, profoundly thoughtful Mrak Luton," exclaimed Brat Lua.  "The
blessed Dictator of Powermania concluded a treaty with the Ruler of Dan jab.
There cannot be any disintegration weapon in space."
     "Treachery!"  roared  Mrak  Luton. "You're under arrest,  you roundhead
traitor! Engineer Tycho Veg, tie the mutineer's hands!"
     Tycho Veg glanced in indecision at his wife.
     "If the disintegration war has begun, it means... Clearly, all treaties
are invalid," she said timidly.
     Tycho Veg  reluctantly obeyed the order. He  and Mrak Luton pushed Brat
Lua into the chief's office. Mrak Luton locked the door.
     "Now proceed to the greenhouse, quickly," he ordered Tycho Veg. "I took
measures for the disintegration warhead to be close at hand!.."
     With a  glance  at  his  wife,  Tycho  Veg  went  despondently  to  the
lift-cage.
     "I proclaim the  station  to be in  a  state of emergency.  Any act  of
disobedience will be dealt with not by arrest, but with a poisoned  bullet!"
And Mrak Luton brandished his pistol.
     "Gentle sir, please spare my husband.  He  didn't know  that the treaty
wasn't valid any more," said Lada Lua, rushing up to the station chief.
     "Quick march to  your stations, all  of you!" roared Mrak  Luton.  "The
astronomer Ala  Veg will  report all space observations  to  me and maintain
electromagnetic communications. But your place, roundhead  woman,  is in the
kitchen."
     Mrak Luton collapsed into his armchair, exhausted. His rectangular face
with the pendulous jowls went purple,  his  neck swelled.  He tugged at  his
collar, unable to breathe properly for want of air.


     On  the  other  Marian  orbit, on the  station near Phobo, news of  the
disintegration war  had been brought by Engineer Vydum (Inventor) Polar. His
intelligent face,  always  keenly alert, now expressed horror and dismay. He
had earned his name for an early inclination to invention. He had once built
a walking  steamcar, had  made magnetic  fastenings  for  clothes and sprung
running shoes, and had obtained  a fine strip of dried  wood which  in  some
other  age  on  some other  planet  would have  been  called paper.  He  was
invariably assisted by his friend,  the talented, always cheerful, small and
mercurial craftsman Al Ur, who regarded Vydum  as an unrecognised genius. He
was with him this time too,  and  had  hurried after  him  into  the station
chief's office to back his friend's demands.
     There was  one  more Faetian  who had taken  note  of  the unsuccessful
inventor. This  was Dovol (Content) Sirus, a powerful proprietor. He was not
averse to profiting  by Vydum  Polar's abilities, and, on his wife's advice,
had  married Vydum to  Sveta,  his daughter by  his  first marriage, a mild,
quiet girl, to