tally  submissive to  her powerful  stepmother, who ruled  the
family with a rod of iron in order to further its social influence.
     Dovol  Sirus, a sleek, almost bald Faetian with heavy features and thin
lips, took fright on meeting Vydum Polar.
     Usually genial, always ready to agree with the other person, he was the
personification  of prosperity, sufficiency and equanimity. But his peace of
mind had  now been shattered. His small eyes darted here and there almost in
dismay. When he heard  Vydum Polar's news, he  promptly  sent out a call for
the greenhouse nurserywoman, his wife Vlasta Sirus.
     Vydum Polar passionately tried to drive  his  point home to the station
chief.
     "I am prepared personally to take a ship to Deimo, and I am prepared to
take my wife  and  Mila Ur. Her husband  will stay behind  with  you to look
after  the  machinery.  Space  has  been   declared  peaceful.  The  war  of
disintegration that  has just broken out is our common misfortune:  we  must
share it with the personnel on Deimo."
     Dovol Sirus nodded his agreement,  glancing at  the door from  time  to
time.
     Sveta was his favourite.
     On the insistence of his vociferous wife  Vlasta, Dovol Sirus  had made
use on Faena of the  pre-war  jitters to acquire influence over Dobr  Mar in
Danjab. He  had even  obtained the rank of  general  from him. True, when  a
disintegration war became imminent, Vlasta  Sirus made General Sirus  get as
far away from Faena as possible  and become chief of a space station, taking
his stepdaughter with him and her luckless husband.
     "You'll  fly  from  here,  but  what  about  us?"   asked  Dovol  Sirus
uncertainly.
     "We'll  come  back as  soon  as  we've  discussed with our  unfortunate
brothers from Faena what's to be done next.."
     "What's the  meaning of all this gadding about?" came the fruity  voice
of Vlasta Sirus as  she entered the room. "I shall never let Sveta go. I  am
as a mother to her."
     "But, my dear-" objected the station chief.
     "What if the people on Deimo  take  our ship for a torpedo? They've got
defence rockets too, you know."
     "But, my dear..."
     "'My dear, my dear'!" mimicked Vlasta. "We have a daughter we love. She
must be rescued. By any possible means."
     Vlasta Sirus cast a withering glance at her husband  from under knitted
brows and compressed her thin lips.
     "But my  dear... I promise you. Our  ship  will surely fly  to  Station
Deimo. And you and I, you and I only, will appoint the crew members."
     Vlasta Sirus slapped the table with the flat of her hand.
     "Exactly-you and I. And  that  will be the most  reliable crew! We must
preserve our  lives!  Preserve them! In this  war, what matters  most  is to
survive!"  And she ran  a glare  of  hatred over  all  three  Faetians.  "To
survive!"


     Helplessly wringing his  hands. Brat  Lua was pacing up and down inside
the office that was now his prison.
     Tycho Veg was uncomplainingly  carrying out his assignment without even
giving a thought to the possibility that the  disintegration  warhead in the
spare cabin might  be inadequately screened and dangerous to any Faetian who
approached it.
     To get  to  the spare  cabin, he had to  float  all the  way  along the
greenhouse through the air-roots that  seemed to be trying to hold him back.
But he pulled his weightless body  forward by clutching  at  them  so as  to
carry out as quickly as possible the chief's order, which had been confirmed
by a nod from Ala Veg. He  tried not  to think about his children's fate, as
he tried not to think about anything at all: neither the Faetians on Station
Phobo, nor himself. In spite of himself, however, he was thinking that there
were only two spaceships at the station. Would six people be able to  fly to
their native planet in one ship? Of course not!  It was only a three-seater.
Evidently, they would have to wait for another ship from Faena.
     The  spare cabin, which resembled a conical  cap, was  floating not far
from the long cigar of the ship, to which it was attached by a cable.
     Tycho  Veg  put on his space-suit  and,  securing  himself with a line,
kicked  himself off  from the greenhouse  airlock and floated off  into  the
silvery darkness of space.
     He miscalculated and did not reach his goal straightway. He had to wind
himself back by pulling in the line hand over hand and then push off again.
     This  time, he propelled himself with one  leg only so  as  to give his
jump better direction.
     The  spare cabin looked rough to him, like a meteorite. Tycho Veg clung
to  it  and  crawled towards the base of the  cone,  where  the cable to the
spaceship was secured.
     He seized hold of the metal bracket outside the spare cabin and  taking
up  the cable  that ran to the  ship, began  pulling it towards him together
with the  cabin. After a short time, the cabin  came  into contact  with the
ship.  Tycho  Veg  had  steeled  himself  for  a  tough job.  To  his  great
astonishment,  however,  he  noticed that the  parts  of  the ship  had been
designed  for instant replacement. It only needed one contact with the joint
for the automatic machinery inside  to be activated and for the old cabin to
detach itself easily from this ship and sail away towards the stars. The new
cabin fitted itself into place with the same ease.
     Tycho Veg crawled inside to set the automatic pilot.
     Another  surprise awaited  him inside:  there was  no need  for him  to
readjust the settings.
     The impersonal voice of the automatic machine warned him about this the
moment he touched the control panel. All  he  had to do was to switch on the
automatic pilot and go back to the greenhouse.
     As soon  as he was there, he saw  the rocket's  nozzles begin  blazing;
after  making a precisely  calculated  turn, the ship headed for Phobo  on a
course that had been unerringly checked by the machines.
     Tycho Veg sighed. He had only been doing his duty. He never even gave a
thought to whether the warhead had been properly screened.
     When  he  emerged from the lift-cage into the station corridor, he  was
met by a pale and trembling Ala Veg.
     "What's happened, darling?" asked Tycho.
     "Our children... Children..." was all that she could say, and she burst
into tears.
     She was holding in her hands a tablet inscribed with the latest news by
electromagnetic communication. Tycho read it and swayed, resting his hand on
the lift-cage door.
     The news  was  that flocks of  disintegration torpedoes from Danjab had
descended on the continent of the Superiors. There had been devastation  and
casualties... But Yar Jupi foresaw victory and demanded rejoicing.
     Mrak Luton ran into the corridor, waving his arms.
     "The  Dictator  is alive! The Dictator is  alive! The Blood  Council is
continuing the struggle! To your stations! This is a space outpost!"
     "Can  our  observer be  in  her  place?" sneered  Nega  Luton, who  had
appeared  after him. "She should be worrying about her relatives, not  about
winning the war."
     Her eyes flashing, Ala Veg went into the observatory.
     Tycho  Veg  was left  standing in the  corridor. He just couldn't  make
sense of  what  was  happening; he just  couldn't believe  that  his  native
Pleasure City might be lying in ruins, and his children...
     He followed his wife into the observatory.
     "I can't keep watch because of my tears," said Ala Veg as she turned to
him. "Take my place  at the instrument.  A strange star has appeared in that
quarter."
     "Could it be our ship with the warhead?" "No, it's somewhere else."
     Tycho began helping his wife and they soon established that the unknown
star was not obeying the usual laws of celestial mechanics and seemed to  be
choosing its own flight trajectory.
     Summoned  by the alarm signal,  Mrak Luton rushed into  the observatory
and peered suspiciously at Tycho and Ala Veg.
     "News from  Faena? Orders from  the Dictator? An  instruction  from the
Blood Council?"
     "No," replied Ala  Veg. "Communications have broken down. We  have also
lost contact with Station Phobo."
     "With Phobo?" bellowed Mrak Luton. "Treachery? Who dared to communicate
with Phobo,  the enemy fortress in space?" He drew his pistol and brandished
it threateningly at them.
     "I am simply reporting  that communications with them do not exist. The
former channel has gone dead, as if something had happened there."
     "It  hasn't happened  yet! But it  soon  will!  Are  you  watching  our
torpedo's flight?"
     "It's flying dead on course, but..."
     "What else?"
     "It's being intercepted by an unidentified ship. Apparently from Phobo.
It  seems  to be heading  for us.  Is it possible that the station personnel
have packed and are flying to us?"
     Mrak Luton roared with laughter.
     "So as to surrender?  To dump themselves  on us? To  gobble up our food
supplies? To  breathe our oxygen?  Or  do they want  to escape  the punitive
torpedo?"
     "But they might not know we sent it."
     "But  I know their ship's  coming our way.  Engineer Tycho Veg, I order
you to fire a defence rocket. The approaching ship must be destroyed."
     "What d'you mean  'destroyed'?" protested  Ala Veg.  "Mightn't there be
living Faetians on board?"
     "Living Faetians?" jeered Mrak Luton. "As if there were living Faetians
flying in our ship with the warhead! I've issued my orders. Send out defence
rockets, knock it out, destroy it!" Mrak Luton stamped his foot  in a frenzy
and brandished his pistol.
     Tycho Veg left the observatory. He knew where the defence rockets were.
They  were not covered by the Agreement on Peace in Outer Space.  They  were
short-range missiles and could  not  reach another station,  but  they  were
capable of locating in space and destroying the target approaching Deimo.
     To activate these defence weapons,  Tycho Veg did not have  to  descend
into the greenhouse. It was enough to go to Station Deimo's Central Console.
     He  fired  the  defence  rockets when the ship  from  Station Phobo was
clearly distinguishable as a point glittering in Sol's rays.
     He  returned  to  his wife  in  the  observatory, looking  dejected and
drained of his strength. He felt he had done something dreadful.
     Ala Veg could not hold back her tears.
     "There are Faetians on board, there could be living Faetians on board,"
she kept repeating. "And no news from Faena."
     "Our children can't possibly have been killed," said Tycho Veg, who had
no grounds whatever for such a statement.
     He  squinted through the eyepiece and saw something  flare  up in space
like a nova. One of defence  rockets had exploded  on  encountering the ship
from Phobo.
     On the big screen displaying the  image,  the ship-star plunged steeply
after the explosion towards the surface of Mar. It  had been  knocked out of
orbit by the force of the blast, but not destroyed.
     All  the Faetians on the station assembled  in  the observatory, except
for the imprisoned Brat Lua.
     Mrak Luton personally came to fetch him.
     "Let him  watch!" he said, pushing Lua into the observatory and showing
him the mass of Mar in the porthole. "Let him watch with his own eyes!"
     "Are you so sure that'll knock some  sense into him?" asked  Nega Luton
quietly.
     Her husband grinned complacently.
     "I know the inner world of the Faetians too well to be wrong. Otherwise
I wouldn't be Supreme Officer of the Blood Guard."
     The six Faetians on Deimo saw another star flare up in space and go out
again.
     "They've knocked out our torpedo!" And Mrak Luton stamped his foot.
     Then, on the surface of Mar, two  disintegration explosions occurred in
succession. In  the russet  deserts,  the  trunks of fabulous trees could be
seen from space as they soared up into the sky, billowing  out into swirling
canopies.  The distinct  shadows  of first  one  and then  a second gigantic
mushroom lay across the sandy wilderness.
     "What did I tell you!" roared Mrak Luton. "They wanted to be the .first
to wipe us  out. Their ship with  its warhead  exploded first. But you  were
just whining, you were talking about living Faetians."
     "The station  chief is  right,"  sighed Tycho Veg. "He can see into the
Faetian soul."
     "Engineer Tycho Veg! Stop drivelling! I know what I'm worth! Go back to
the greenhouse at once and fit one more ship with a torpedo."
     "But  we won't have any more ships left," said Tycho in  an attempt  at
protest.
     "Victory! Victory at all costs! A ship will be sent for us as heroes of
the disintegration war from the triumphant continent of the Superiors."
     "To hear is to obey," said Tycho Veg with a covert glance at Ala Veg.
     But she sat with bowed head, her hands dangling down in despair.
     Tycho Veg left to set up another ship-torpedo.
     However, this second missile was also knocked out  by  defence  rockets
fired by the Culture Is on Phobo.
     A second volley of defence rockets  was launched from Deimo to beat off
yet another ship that  was glittering in the rays of Sol and might also have
been primed with a disintegration warhead.
     Both ships, the one  from Phobo and the one from Deimo, blew  up almost
side by side in the deserts of  Mar. First, monstrous mushrooms on stalks of
smoke rose up  on the site of the  explosions, and  then, when the smoke had
dispersed, it was  possible to see from above  craters in the deserts of Mar
which had not been there before.
     "How amazed the astronomers would be," said Ala Veg in a sinking voice,
"if they found craters like that on Mar."
     Tycho did  not react at all to these words. He  had  barely reached the
Central Console from which he  had been discharging the defence rockets.  He
was feeling  really  ill  this time. It  seemed  to him  that there had been
children flying to them in the ships and that they had been killed.

     Chapter Six

        JUDGEMENT

     Sheltering in  the deep  abandoned  mine-shaft, Kutsi Merc had survived
the disintegration blast. The thunder above had long since died away.
     It was damp underfoot. The  raindrops  were  falling  from  above as if
counting the  moments.  It seemed  to  Kutsi that they  were  measuring  out
infinite  time. He  sat there  without strength or thoughts, dozing or in  a
faint. Only hunger made him rise to his feet. But he was afraid to  see what
awaited him above; he was afraid even to imagine it.
     The  raindrops were falling noisily, the  only sounds to indicate  that
the  world still  existed.  The  world? What  world?  Dead puddles  and dead
raindrops?
     His ravenous  hunger drove Kutsi up  the slippery metal rungs.  Some of
them wobbled. Kutsi could fall to  the bottom of the well. And  it would all
be over. But the metal  rungs  held. There was a little  blue circle high up
above.  Strange!  The  Nepts'  cabin  had  been   built  directly  over  the
mine-shaft.
     The sky! With stars in it! Was it really night?
     Kutsi  climbed on upwards. The circle above  him was growing bigger and
brighter,  and  the  stars were gradually  disappearing.  But  certainly not
because  day was breaking.  It was simply the  effect of a darkened chimney,
when stars are visible from the  bottom  in the daytime. The circle overhead
was growing bigger while they were disappearing. Kutsi climbed out on to the
surface.
     Sol  was  at its  zenith. The  Nepts' cabin no  longer existed. It  had
evidently been blown away when the stones were falling on to his shoulders.
     The  Faetian looked round and was dumbfounded. Not only had  the Nepts'
cabin  disappeared,  not  a  single   roundhead  shack  was  left  standing.
Everything around  had  been  turned into an enormous refuse tip of garbage,
pathetic kitchen utensils,  smashed furniture and rubble. A jagged wall rose
at an angle in the distance.
     Kutsi  made his way over to  it. And  immediately stumbled on the first
corpses. The Faetians had been killed by the windstorm that had followed the
disintegration  explosion. Many were  buried  under the  wreckage  of  their
shacks, many had been carried through  the air and  dashed against any solid
object in their way.
     That  was what had  happened to the  old Nept  couple. Kutsi recognised
their mangled bodies by their clothes.
     A chill  ran up and  down Kutsi's spine. He had heard plenty about  the
disintegration  weapon, but had never imagined that it would look like  this
after an explosion.
     The wall he had  reached proved to be part of some huge  workshops in a
suburb of  Pleasure City. The  building had collapsed,  burying machines and
the Faetians who worked in it. In its place towered an ugly pile of rubble.
     Had no one survived at all?
     Kutsi Merc's two hearts were thudding painfully in his breast  and  his
temples throbbed accordingly. Why had the wounded one recovered?
     Himself not knowing  why, perhaps in the hope of meeting  at  least one
living Faetian,
     Kutsi began wandering round Pleasure City.
     His  hunger,  dulled  by the  initial horror,  made  itself felt again.
Kutsi's  mind  was in  shock, and  instinct was  forcing  him  to  look  for
something edible in the mass of rubble.
     Two mountainous ramparts rose like grey barkhans on either side of what
had been a street. In one place,  under the fused stones, he  thought he saw
food containers.  He began digging into the pile and came upon a  protruding
hand. He could  not force himself to dig any further and went on between the
dunes of ash-covered rubble.
     He  had the  feeling  that  he was wandering along an  enormous dump of
builders' rubble.
     Kutsi had never thought that  the devastation could be so  complete. It
was even impossible to  make out the shapes of former buildings. There could
be no thought of finding something to eat in this pile of rubble.
     Kutsi was  suffering  the torments  of hunger. And  this combination of
horror  with the  pangs of hunger was unnatural. He  was disgusting even  to
himself.
     However,  a more powerful emotion  was beginning  to get the  better of
Kutsi.
     Who  was  to  blame  for what  had been done?  Who  had  made a war  of
disintegration  the purpose of his doctrine? Who  had  turned  the continent
into such a wilderness strewn with ashes?
     Kutsi  was  overcome by a  frenzied  hatred  of Dictator Yar  Jupi;  it
flooded his whole being, it overshadowed everything that he had  known, even
the stipulations which the  Great Circle  of  the proprietors had made about
unleashing  a disintegration war and which he had once reported to Dobr Mar.
Kutsi  Merc had failed  to carry out  his  mission!  The  automatic  systems
console was intact. Yar Jupi had begun the disintegration war first!
     When he climbed  up the  cone of rubble, Kutsi saw the ocean. Its shore
was disfigured by a  gigantic crater, now flooded with sea water. A  torpedo
had  evidently  exploded in  the port. The  enormous  crater was ringed by a
rampart that had covered part of the ruins. Clouds of sand and ooze had been
thrown up from the seabed into the air  during  the  explosion  and had then
fallen as dry ash onto the ruins.
     Hatred, horror and the hopelessness of his position drove Kutsi further
on. The results of a shock wave are freakish. In  one place,  he stumbled on
the cross-section  of  a  rocky  hill with  window  openings  and  shapeless
patches. When he  went closer, Kutsi saw a pile of  scrap iron driven into a
wall.
     In front of him he saw the wreckage of a steamcar that had been passing
that way at the time of the explosion.
     Nearby,  on  the  fused  stone, shone  patches  vaguely  suggestive  of
Faetians.
     Kutsi shuddered:  "The  white shadows of  passers-by!" The  pedestrians
themselves had been vapourised by the incredible heat, but their shadows had
been  imprinted  by the  exploding  star right  there  on the wall where the
outlines, the mangled images of those who not long ago had been living human
beings now showed up as lighter, less fused areas on the wall...
     Kutsi could not bear it  any longer.  He ran  back.  His foot struck  a
stone that rolled over the slag  of the  roadway. A smashed jar of something
edible! He  picked it up.  It proved to  be carbon inside. The unprecedented
heat had coked the contents, converting it into a black, coagulated mass.
     Kutsi wanted to get to the central quarters of the city. But he already
knew what he was going to see there: shadows on the walls, if the stones had
not been piled into shapeless heaps, and endless ramparts of rubble...
     Then  Kutsi made a  decision. What he had  been through had clouded his
mind. Not a single Faetian in possession of his faculties would have decided
on the crazy plan that hatched out in Kutsi's inflamed brain.
     Kutsi  knew that he  was doomed:  the  deadly radiation  had long since
penetrated his body. It would soon begin to make itself felt. There was very
little time left. He had no hope of survival whatever! Nor had he any desire
to live among the dead.
     However, he considered himself under obligation to do his last duty.
     With his characteristic determination, he went back across the heaps of
rubble to the Great Shore where, not so long ago, a sea wave had brought Ave
and Mada together.
     The further away  he was from the site of  the explosion, the more hope
there was of finding something to eat. A house lizard with  charred skin was
lying under  a  wall  just like  the bodies of the Nepts.  The affectionate,
quick-moving, nimble lizard had, of course, been a general  favourite of the
dead couple.
     Kutsi  laughed bitterly. The Supreme Officer of the Blood Guard had met
him on the ship and  had called him  a carrion-eater. Had it occurred to the
man that he would prove to be right?
     Only at night  did Kutsi reach  the  Temple of Eternity, or rather  the
mountain of stones lying where it had once stood. If his "hump" had been the
cause  of the explosion,  then  it  might be possible to find a way into the
underground by way of the crater.
     Kutsi  was certain that the electric  power system had been put out  of
action and that the automatic doors would not be working.
     He proved right in one respect and wrong in the other.
     Only  in the  morning did he  manage  to  find  the way  into  the deep
corridor where  the  explosion had occurred. The gallery was less  cluttered
with stones than everything else around, since the gases had shot  out of it
as from a gun-barrel.
     Kutsi's frenzied will-power helped him to dig out the entrance into the
underground where he had been "killed" by Yar Alt.
     His  old  self again, Kutsi made his  way like a  spy along  the walls,
lighting his path with a  pocket  torch. But suddenly a bright light came on
of its  own accord.  Kutsi Merc was  overjoyed  at  this,  but  he  was also
frightened by it. If the supply to the underground rooms was  still working,
he would not  be able to  get through  the closed walls.  Yar Jupi was still
alive.  He was still sending  disintegration torpedoes against Danjab. Kutsi
Merc had no right to retreat.
     A  blank  wall rose up in front  of him. When Kutsi had crawled outside
from there,  the  walls had  been  divided,  which meant that  this  must be
another route leading to the Dictator's underground Lair.
     Kutsi Merc tried in  vain to separate the walls, driving into a chink a
piece of metal he had picked out on the surface.
     Beads of  cold sweat started up on  his brow. He could not back out, he
simply could not  do it! He fixed a  glare  full  of  hatred at  the  spiral
ornament on the accursed wall.
     The wall divided.
     Kutsi  was well versed  in  the  technology of automatic  machines that
could  memorise the  brain biocurrents. He instantly  realised that they had
been programmed  to  a particularly strong  character trait  of  the  chosen
Faetians. For Yar Jupi himself, whom all automatic machines had, of  course,
to obey,  the predominant  characteristic was hatred. It was answered by the
"blood doors", which were also tuned to Mada's kindly nature and that of her
nanny. But Kutsi's  hatred now was  evidently not inferior to  that  of  the
Dictator  himself.  And  so the  automatic machines  of the  Lair went  into
action.
     Kutsi ran along the illuminated corridor. Each time the wall barred his
way, Kutsi's glare of hatred opened it.
     After a steep downward slope, the corridor made a turn, emerging into a
spacious  apartment reminiscent of  a  palace hall with  a vaulted  ceiling.
There  was  no  furniture  in it  except for a  huge  cupboard  with shining
vertical slits.
     Two  enormous  robots with  cubic heads and  articulated tentacles came
rushing straight at him.
     Kutsi  guessed  that  he  must have  reached  his goal.  The Dictator's
bunker!
     Hatred  made  Kutsi Merc  invincible. He rushed at the robots, ordering
them  to follow him.  And the robots obeyed,  programmed to  respond to  the
Dictator's principal emotion.
     Kutsi Merc stopped  before the secretary-box, not admitting to  himself
that it might refuse to obey him.
     "Open the  study door!" he commanded, fixing his gaze on  the machine's
glowing slits.
     The  machinery of the Faetians was so  sophisticated that  it  detected
their moods. This height of development had its vulnerable side.
     The secretary-box, manufactured in Dan-jab, was simply a machine always
obedient  to  the  will  of its  owner, the Dictator  of Powermania. It  now
recognised this will in Kutsi and obeyed it.
     The door to Yar Jupi's study opened.
     Yar Jupi  jumped up from the table and stared  in  terror at the  burly
stranger with a wrestler's neck and a sneer on his face.
     "Who are you?" shouted the Dictator, shaking from head to foot.
     "Your judge," replied Kutsi coldly, advancing on him.
     If Yar Jupi  had not been in such  a panic fear of living  Faetians and
had not kept  them at  a distance, Kutsi's plan would  not  have worked. But
this time Kutsi was face to face with the Dictator in person.
     "Robots!  Security  robots!"  yelled Yar  Jupi in a  voice hoarse  with
terror.
     The robots ran in, ready for action.
     "Tie his hands together!"
     It  was not Yar Jupi, but Kutsi who  gave the order in a voice  full of
hatred.
     Yar Jupi  raged,  screamed and ordered the  robots to obey him, but his
brain was radiating terror, not the hatred so familiar to the robots.
     The robots unthinkingly bound the Dictator's hands.
     "You  are  the greatest criminal of  all  time!" announced  Kutsi Merc,
standing before the  helpless Dictator. He  considered himself the  only one
who had survived to act on behalf of all the  victims. "I bear within me the
hatred  of all the victims of your criminal doctrine,  whose goal  you  made
destruction and whose meaning was hatred. But there is a hatred greater than
yours.  I  bring that hatred down  on  you  in the name  of  the history  of
Reason!"
     "I pray you for mercy,"  whined the Dictator. "Not many are left  alive
on Faena. I shall  work humbly, like the last roundhead; I shall acknowledge
the  Doctrine  of Justice, I shall grow  flowers.  Just look at the beauty I
have  raised. Let us go  to the niche, let  us savour the fragrance of those
blossoms together."
     "Silence. I shall not let you  breathe the scent of  your own  flowers.
Prepare  yourself for the  most  shameful execution  of all.  I  am going to
switch on all  the monitor screens and before the eyes of your fellows /  am
going to hang you!"
     Kutsi Merc tore down  the curtains covering the screens.  The  monitors
lit up.
     The terrified military leaders and members of the Blood Council watched
helplessly from them.
     Kutsi deftly  pulled a cord out of the curtains, deftly  tied a  noose,
jumped onto the desk and attached the cord to the chandelier hook. The noose
dangled directly under the lamps. The table had to be moved aside.
     Then  Kutsi  stood  Yar  Jupi,  who was  shaking  with  terror,  on the
Dictator's chair as if he were no more than a will-less puppet.
     The  robots moved away, watching  the  proceedings  impassively.  Kutsi
noticed that on several screens the military leaders  had covered their eyes
with their hands, while on the others, the Faetians, with their cowls thrown
back, were watching the progress of the execution with malignant glee.
     "In the name of History," announced Kutsi Merc, and he kicked the chair
from under the Dictator's feet.
     Dobr  Mar only  came round  from  time to time,  half-recumbent in  the
Ruler's chair and in a far from comfortable position.
     All  the screens in the bunker were  dead. The  lamps of  the emergency
lighting glowed dully.
     The military  leaders  and the  anguished  Sister of  Health were still
fussing over the Ruler. Her  name was, Vera Fae. All her family had perished
up above: father, mother, husband,  three daughters-all except  her son, who
had flown to Terr with a  space  expedition. Vera  Fae was  in  despair. She
could find strength only in attending to the sick Ruler.
     Dobr Mar had lost the power of speech. His tongue, right hand and right
leg were paralysed. He could only communicate with his eyes. Vera Fae  alone
could understand him.
     Haggard, her hair turned white in the last few hours, with tear-stained
eyes,  she had  not lost the gentle touch and warm  voice  of the doctor-all
that the Ruler could respond to.
     There was no one  to take over from him. The  "Ruler's friend", who was
supposed  to do  so according to  the law, had  been killed  up above,  like
millions of other Faetians.
     The  military  leaders  announced  through  Vera Fae  that the  reserve
torpedoes had been expended. But barbarians' torpedoes were  still showering
down on their own continent, leaving a scene of total devastation.
     The Ruler made an attempt to move. The Sister of Health looked into his
eyes, trying to read his thoughts.
     The chief of the disintegration weapons came up. He had been  entrusted
with that terrible means of  aggression  because of  his known cowardice and
reluctance to make his own decisions. Even this time  he, too, wanted at all
costs  the  Ruler's  written  consent  to  the  detonation  of   the   last,
superpowerful  underwater  disintegration  device which  had  been delivered
under Kutsi Merc's supervision  to the Great Shore, almost to the very place
where Ave and Mada had once been surf-riding.
     Dobr Mar could not understand the showily overdressed general who,  his
voice  rising  to a falsetto,  tried to convince  the  Sister of  Health  by
saying,  "The  destruction of  the  Dictator's underground  Lair is our only
salvation. Such is the will of the Great Circle."
     Dobr Mar wearily closed his eyes.
     "He agrees! He agrees!" said the hunchbacked general delightedly.
     But Dobr Mar opened his eyes  again and, in an effort to say something,
stared at his desk.
     Vera Fae took some inscribed tablets off it and held  them  in front of
his eyes.
     On seeing one of them, Dobr Mar looked down.
     Vera Fae showed the tablet to the general.
     "I  know that!"  he screeched like  a cockerel.  "When he  invented the
disintegration weapon,  the honoured Elder Dm Sat wanted to restrict its use
and frightened the  Faetians with the apparent prospect of all the  planet's
oceans being blown up."
     Dobr Mar closed his eyes.
     "Does Ruler Dobr  Mar agree?" persisted the general. "Can the Sister of
Health sign  on  his behalf  a document authorising  the detonation  of  the
underwater disintegration device?"
     "How can I  do  that if the Ruler himself  has reminded us of the great
Elder's warning?"
     "A naive fabrication! As if all the waters of the oceans, in the  event
of  a  superpowerful explosion,  would  immediately  disintegrate, releasing
their  energy like a supernova.  And as if our whole planet  would be turned
into a tiny supernova."
     "Don't you find that terrifying?" asked the Sister of Health.
     "What  could be  more  terrifying  than  what's  already  happened? The
Dictator of Powermania must be stopped at all costs. An underwater explosion
by the Great Shore will start an earthquake; it will destroy his bunker down
there.  The oceanic tidal wave will  rise to the heavens, crash down on  the
Lair and flood  it. If the Sister of Health can convince the  Ruler, he will
agree.  His  written  order  is  needed  for  the  explosion.  He  alone  is
responsible for everything."
     The Sister of  Health looked  into  the  dim eyes of  the  sick man. He
closed them.
     "He agrees, at last he agrees!" howled the general, seizing the Ruler's
lifeless  hand  and  applying  it  to the  plate. "Explode it!" shouted  the
general  in  a thin voice  and, his leg dragging, he  ran out of the  study,
plate in hand.
     Dobr  Mar  watched  him  go with  a  frightened look. He wanted to  say
something, but was unable to.
     The Sister of Health came to her senses and  tried to stop the general,
but the Ruler felt worse and she had to help  him, wiping  his face that was
twisted in a grimace and was covered with beads of sweat.
     The general returned. The order had been passed on. The explosion would
take place...
     "I take no responsibility for anything!" he shouted.

     Chapter Seven

        THE STAR OF HATRED

     Every Sister of Health has something of the mother in her.
     Her desire  to help  a sick man, her maternal  attitude  to a suffering
person, now helpless as a child and therefore  as dear to her as if  he were
her  own,  were  struggling  in  Mada  with  a  keen,  unjustified,  as  she
considered, homesickness.
     Unable  to  understand  this  feeling  and  rejecting  it,  she  looked
devotedly after Um Sat, whose life was now fading...
     With his  large  beard, his piercing, yearning (for Faena, of  course!)
eyes,  he was lying motionless on  his couch. His illness was  delaying  the
return  of  Quest  and  intensifying  the  homesickness  that  Mada  and her
colleagues felt for Faena.
     As a Sister of Health,  however, she had to  rise  above  her  personal
sufferings and  she  looked after the Elder, trying to  cure  his mysterious
illness, since a speedy return might mean his salvation. But there could  be
no  thought of that with Um  Sat so  seriously  ill. Mada  looked after  him
devotedly; she  was not  only  a Sister of  Health to  him,  but a spiritual
confidante.  She  admitted  to him  her  yearning  for Faena and received in
return  the Elder's terrible confession that all the  oceans on Faena  might
blow up as  a result of a disintegration  war. Mada shuddered,  frowned  and
shook her head in protest.
     By shouldering  part of the Elder's  alarm,  she eased  his  condition,
affirming that  matters could not go as  far as such a  catastrophe and they
would surely go back to their Faena where they were so eagerly awaited.
     On Mada's  instructions,  Ave and Gor Terr went hunting in the  forest.
She would not let them touch the provisions intended for the return journey.
     Return journey! It was a goal, a dream, a passionate desire, and it was
not felt by Mada alone.
     She  told  Toni  Fae to  stay  by  the  electromagnetic  communications
apparatus which,  for  some  strange  reason,  had  gone  silent. The thread
linking Quest and their native planet  had  snapped. Mada reassured Toni Fae
that  the  atmosphere of  Terr  was  to  blame:  it  was blanketing off  the
electromagnetic waves from Faena and Mar.
     Toni  Fae was desperate to go home.  He could not  sleep. He would doze
off at  the apparatus, then wake up in a cold sweat, now hearing his mother,
Vera Fae, calling him,  now imagining that it was  Ala Veg laughing  at him.
But the apparatus remained silent. There were times when  Toni  Fae couldn't
bear it  any more. Then  Jvlada's gentle hand  would rest on  his  trembling
shoulder and her calm, soft voice would assure him that the state of  Terr's
atmosphere  would change;  they  need  only  wait,  and  he  would hear  the
longed-for signal.
     Um  Sat, however, was not so easily pacified. Mada knew what he thought
about a disintegration  war and how it  had been tormenting him even  before
they had left Faena.
     Ave was gloomy for the same reason.
     He was no longer the sensitive youth who had made such an impression on
Mada as he rode  the ocean waves.  He had changed  inwardly  and  outwardly.
After growing a moustache and a beard on Terr, he looked much older, calmer,
more self-assured and stronger.
     Mada knew that  by sending her  husband out hunting, she was subjecting
him  to  danger. But as she thought  about all the crew, she  could  not act
otherwise, for she had faith in his strength, agility and courage.
     Consequently, when, apart from a reindeer rescued from a beast of prey,
Ave brought back a spotted hide with its jaws fixed in a snarl, Mada was not
surprised, seeing it as only natural.
     Ave was morose. He  said nothing to Mada, but she knew  everything! And
she feared not so much the  something  terrible that could happen out there,
perhaps somewhere far away, as for her "children" whom she was looking after
here, although these children were Ave, Um Sat, Toni Fae and Gor Terr.
     The long-armed and stooping Faetian giant was missing his native planet
as badly as  everyone else. The primitive  mode of life which he and Ave, as
the  main providers, had to lead here was unpleasant and even offensive to a
skilled engineer.
     As he wandered  through  the  densely packed  tree-trunks  on the alien
planet,  Gor  Terr  never  ceased  making   grandiose  plans  for  technical
improvements that there was no one to implement on  Terr: there were neither
workshops, nor assistants, and  so  there  could  not  be  any  progress  or
civilisation.
     Around them lay the alien,  primeval  forest. From time  to time,  they
would glimpse antlers  or the  spotted hide of  a predator. Who was going to
win?
     Gor Terr stubbornly shook his  head. No! This life was not for him!  He
didn't  want to  be like  his ancestors  with  their  clubs  and stone axes,
however much he might resemble them physically.  He was not going to be like
the savages of the Stone Age. Let other Faetians colonise other planets, but
he was going to return to workshops, steamcars, rockets and skyscrapers!
     One  starry  night,  in  despair  of ever  hearing  a signal  over  the
electromagnetic communications, Ton! Fae began searching among the stars for
the faintly visible Faena, as if hoping to see a light signal.
     And then he saw one!
     The  young astronomer couldn't believe his eyes and rushed to  the star
map. Was he looking at the right place? No,  he hadn't made a mistake. Faena
should be passing through that particular constellation between Alt and Veg.
     The little star had evidently been swamped by the brilliant flare of  a
supernova. Somewhere immeasurably far away, beyond the fringe of the Galaxy,
the latest cosmic disaster had taken place and the light of a once exploding
star had  finally reached  Sol and its planets. And only by  chance had  the
supernova blotted out Faena.  He must now wait  until the planet, travelling
across the sky on a complex path  divergent from  that of the stars, emerged
from the  brilliant light of the supernova  and began to shine at a distance
with its usual faint, but so very dear and appealing light.
     The supernova, however, shining more brightly than all the other stars,
except for Sol in the daytime, seemed not to want Faena to  get away. It was
moving across the sky, not like a star, but like a planet...
     Ton! Fae  caught  his breath. He started  rousing  Gor Terr, who simply
wouldn't wake up and merely bellowed in his sleep.
     Ave Mar woke up and applied his eye to the eyepiece.
     Yes, an unusually bright  star was  blazing in  the night  sky.  It was
clearly  visible to  the naked eye;  it  was like a lantern  in the sky. But
there was something in its effulgence that made Ton! Fae's heart beat faster
in alarm.
     Ave understood everything at once. He had long  been keeping to himself
the  secret that Dm Sat had entrusted to him about the danger hidden  in the
oceans. And now out there...
     Mada came in from the big cabin in which Um Sat slept. She was as white
as a  sheet. She  had only been  suspecting it,  but  when she looked at her
husband, she understood everything.
     "My dear Toni  Fae," said  Mada.  "Prepare yourself for the worst. Tell
me, is your new star moving across the sky the way Faena should be moving?"
     "It doesn't make sense, but it's true."
     "Faena  doesn't exist any more," said Ave Mar gloomily, and he  put his
arm round Mada's shoulders.
     "To  be more precise, the  former  inhabited Faena  doesn't  exist  any
more," corrected Mada. "A star has lit up in its place, but not for long."
     Toni Fae looked at Mada and Ave with  frightened eyes. He took  off his
spectacles and methodically wiped the lenses.
     "So  Faena doesn't exist? And what about Mother?" The  young astronomer
looked with childlike  eyes at Mada,  as if she ought to  dispel  a terrible
dream. "Why hasn't it  lit up for long? No! Isn't it just that they've found
a way of signalling to us?"
     "My dear Toni Fae, it really is a signal to us..."
     "Just as I said!" exclaimed the young Faetian happily.
     Ave stood with bowed head.
     "It's a signal that there is nowhere for us to return to," he said with
an effort.
     "What's going on here?" came Gor Terr's rolling bass voice.
     Ave Mar took a deep breath.
     "The disintegration  war,  which we have  all  been  so afraid  of, has
evidently  taken  place  on  our unhappy  Faena.  And its  civilisation  has
committed suicide."
     "What  utter  r-rubbish!" yelled Gor Terr. "Leave  our  civilisation in
peace. It gave us all we have here."
     "That's not enough for us to carry on living here."
     "That's the last thing I'm aiming to do!"
     Toni Fae rushed to his friend as he had done that time in the cave...
     "They're  saying  that..." he whimpered  like  a  child, "that life has
perished on Faena, that the planet has flared up for a time like a star."
     "That's  impossible," objected the engineer calmly. "There's been  some
kind of observation error here. A disintegration war can wipe out a planet's
inhabitants, I'm  not disputing that.  But it can't annihilate a planet as a
heavenly  body. Mass  is mass, it  can't just disappear. And what does  'has
flared up for a time' mean?"
     Mada looked inquiringly at Ave.
     "We must go down  to Um Sat," he said. "Back on Faena, he told me about
one  of the  secrets  of the  disintegration  of matter. If  a  superviolent
explosion  should take place in  the depths of the sea and if the heat level
should  reach  the critical limit,  then  all the  water in the oceans would
instantly split  into oxygen  and  hydrogen, and  the  hydrogen would become
helium, in this way releasing so much energy that the planet  would flare up
like a star during the reaction."
     "Damnation!" whispered the engineer.
     "Um Sat warned both Dobr Mar and Yar Jupi of this. They wouldn't listen
to him."
     "If all the oceans blow up at the same time, then  the planet shouldn't
just  flare  up,"  said the engineer. "Under  the  impact of  shock from all
directions, it should be broken up into pieces..."
     "To  be scattered  later," confirmed  Ave  Mar. "And  countless  cycles
later, its  fragments, colliding and breaking  up, would  spread  out  along
Faena's former orbit."
     "How can you say all that?" shouted Toni Fae,  clenching his fists. "My
mother was there, and my little sisters..."
     "My mother was there too," replied Ave Mar sadly.
     Toni Fae began sobbing. Gor Terr drew him towards  himself, patting him
on the shoulder.
     Ave  and Mada exchanged glances and  said  more by  doing so than could
ever have been conveyed in words. Then they held hands.
     "So that's why there were no electromagnetic communications," said Toni
Fae, still sobbing. "War had started up there."
     "And on the Mar stations?" boomed Gor Terr.
     "Perhaps on them too," confirmed Ave Mar sadly.
     "No, no!" protested Toni Fae, looking in terror at  Ave  with eyes full
of tears. "It can't be possible out there too!"
     Ave shrugged his shoulders.
     "There are Faetians on them as well."
     "Ala Veg is there!" shouted Toni Fae. "She's not one of them!"
     "Calm yourself, Toni Fae," said Mada  gently. "I think we  should still
tell Dm Sat about the end of Faena."
     "Wretched  carr-rion-eaters!  Why couldn't  they value what  they  had?
They've destroyed thousands  of millions of  lives! How much higher and more
humane the local Faetoids are!"
     As he shouted this, Gor Terr charged round the cabin in a frenzy.
     "Calm down,  friend Gor Terr," said Ave. "It's hard  for us to bear the
horror that's come down on all of us when we've not only lost our dear ones,
but..."
     "Towns, fields, r-rivers, forests, seas, oceans!" wailed Gor Terr.
     "Yes. And oceans," confirmed Ave Mar sadly.
     Gor Terr glared at him almost with hatred.
     Then he sighed and said very quietly this time:
     "Yes, it's easier for you. There are two of you."
     "There are five of us," said Mada.
     "If the Elder survives the shock."
     "He has been  readying himself for it  too long," replied Mada. "He saw
it all coming."
     "I was the one who didn't see anything coming. I was dreaming about new
spaceships, about wonderful cities on new planets, about incredible machines
that I was inventing in my mind."
     "It will all have to be done on Terr," said Mada softly.
     Gor Terr burst into a roar of forced laughter.
     "Forget about  civilisation once  and for all, forget about technology.
Make clubs and stone axes. If you have children, you won't  be able to teach
them anything that  the unhappy Faetians knew. Civilisation means  workshops
and Faetians toiling in them.  Civilisation means writings that preserve the
treasures of thought. All that is gone, gone, gone! And it cannot exist here
either!"
     Gor Terr was  shouting in a frenzy. Toni Fae was frightened by this fit
of   fury,   but  his  attention   was  distracted  by  a  signal  from  the
electromagnetic apparatus. The indicator  lamp was  winking  on and off. The
astronomer rushed to the set.
     "At last! Now the nightmare is over! You see, they're worried about us,
they want to tell us that it was a supernova, not Faena at all. How could we
have assumed such a thing?"
     The Faetians watched Ton! Fae, each trying to retain at least a glimmer
of hope.
     Finally the chesty  voice  of a  Faetess  was heard in  the cabin. Toni
recognised it as Ala Veg's.
     "Quest!  Quest!  Quest!  Can you hear  me?  There  has  been a dreadful
catastrophe! We shall never have  a homeland again.  Faena  has blown up for
some  unaccountable reason, although it was recently  intact, in spite of  a
disintegration  war that broke  out on  it. Quest! Quest! Quest! Hostilities
between Deimo and Phobo have ceased. If  you  too have been fighting amongst
yourselves, stop the conflict.  There  aren't any  more Gutturals  and there
aren't  any more  Superiors.  There are only three small  groups  of unhappy
Faetians who  have lost their homeland. Are you alive? If only you are still
alive! Can we live on Terr?"
     Ave Mar put out the light in the observation cabin.  The starry sky was
now  clearer than ever, and so was the new star blazing in it, the malignant
Star of Hatred.

     End of Part Two


     ________________________________________________________
     Did an exploded planet actually exist in the Solar System?
     In 1596, when he was investigating the laws governing  the structure of
the  Solar  System, Kepler suspected there might be a planet missing between
Mars and Jupiter. At the end of  the 18th century, the scientists Titius and
Bode gave a series of numbers:  0.4-0.7-1.0-1.6-2.8-5.2... It reflected  the
distance of the planets from the Sun. The distance of the Earth from the Sun
was taken as unit. But there was  no fifth planet with an Earth-Sun distance
of 2.8.  The astronomers searched and  began discovering, one after another,
the "minor planets" and even smaller bodies, or asteroids, which were moving
on  a common orbit. They were fragmentary in shape and seemed to have formed
during  the  DISINTEGRATION  of  a  destroyed planet.  The German astronomer
Hermann Oberth 150 years ago expressed the hypothesis that such a planet had
once  existed. In  our  own times,  Professor  Sergei Orlov,  analysing this
hypothesis, gave  the planet the romantic  name  of  Phaeton.  His work  was
continued by Academicians  Alexander  Zavaritsky  and  Leonid Kvasha. Soviet
research, notably that  of Yekaterina Gusakova, has  shown that the residual
magnetism of the  meteorites could be explained only by  their magnetisation
as parts of a  big mother planet. Felix Zigel  (1963) determined its size as
approaching  that of  the Earth.  However, neither  the  advocates  nor  the
opponents of this hypothesis have successfully accounted for the destruction
of the planet. If Phaeton blew up like a high-explosive bomb, its  fragments
would have flown  apart in elongated  elliptical  orbits round  the Sun, but
they have remained  in their  old circular orbit... If two cosmic bodies had
collided in space, then their fragments would also have flown  in elliptical
orbits and would not have formed a  ring  on the former orbit of the planet.
It is suggested that meteorite swarms  form in at  least ten  places  on the
ring of asteroids. It is possible that they are created by the collision and
disintegration of the former planet's fragments.  Meteorites are falling  on
Earth to this day, but they include so-called tektites  which, perhaps, fell
on  Earth only  once as a  consequence of a  colossal  nuclear explosion  in
space.  All  the more so that the form, composition and  dehydration  of the
tektites are identical with nuclear slag.

     Thus,  a supposition about the  cause of its destruction has been added
to the hypothesis of a Phaeton that existed in the past.


        PART THREE

     Fragments

     Where be these enemies?- Capulet! Montague!
     See what a scourge is laid upon your hate...
     W. Shakespeare. Romeo and Juliet

     Chapter One

        TWILIGHT

     The new star shone ominously in Quest's porthole.
     The Faetians maintained a shocked silence.
     Suddenly, Gor Terr jumped to his feet.
     "Technology! Damned technology!  It's  to blame for everything.  I, Gor
Terr,  the   last  of  Faena's  engineers,  am  the   first   to  r-renounce
civilisation! To the forests! To the forests! To the caves! Wild Faetians on
a  wild  Terr!"  he  boomed, foaming at  the mouth. ."If anyone r-refuses to
leave the  r-rocket.  I'll  wring  his  neck. Let not  a  single  metal part
r-remind  wretched people  that  they were once  cultured. Beasts  are  much
higher and nobler!"
     His  friends tried to calm the  engineer down, still unwilling to admit
to themselves that his mind had become clouded.
     "Please  try to understand, Gor Terr," said Ave reassuringly, "that the
five  Faetians left on Terr can only  have one purpose-not just to  survive,
but to preserve civilisation, to hand down the heritage of reason to  future
generations..."
     "R-really?" roared Gor Terr with a glare at Mada.
     Embarrassed, Mada turned away.
     "There must be cultured Faetians after us," confirmed Ave Mar, "and our
duty is to preserve for them the knowledge we possess."
     "High-flown r-rubbish!"  bellowed Gor Terr. "I hate  those words and  I
hate  all  those  instruments.  Even touching  the damned  metal  drives  me
frantic."
     "Gor Terr will have to  pull  himself together,"  said Ave Mar, raising
his  voice. "He's an engineer, and he'll  stay an engineer to the end of his
days."
     Gor Terr roared with laughter.
     "So  that  your  sons  can  learn how  to  make  r-rockets out of  wall
partitions? So  that they can learn to slaughter animals, and then their own
kind?"
     "Never shall the  Faetians on  Terr  learn how to kill their own kind!"
exclaimed  the outraged Ave Mar.  "It will  be the most terrible thing if we
bow  down  in   our   grief.  No!  Only   energy,  faith  in  ourselves  and
resourcefulness will save what is left of the Faetian race."
     "For what?" asked Gor Terr gloomily.
     "For the triumph of reason!"
     "High-flown words again! What d'you want?"
     "I want you to think about what kind of building the Faetians are going
to use when they're in the forest, what apparatus and parts  will have to be
taken  from here to the  new house, and how we  can  gradually dismantle the
rocket: it's the only source of metal on Terr."
     "Dismantle?" echoed Toni Fae in fright.
     "Yes," confirmed  Ave Mar.  "We  won't need a spaceship  any more.  The
Faetians  will use its  walls for  axes, knives, spear-points and arrows. We
have  enough metal to last us  several generations for that purpose. By that
time, Gor Terr's pupils and their  descendants will have learned to prospect
for ore here and to smelt it. Civilisation must be preserved!"
     Mada  looked  at her husband  with  rapture.  How  many  times  had  he
presented himself to her in a new aspect,  stronger, firmer, as one who knew
which course to adopt!
     "Filthy despot!" roared Gor Terr. "He wants to make us serve his unborn
offspring! I've had enough of blind  obedience to a Dictator who aimed for a
disintegration  war and achieved it! No! I won't tolerate any authority over
me!  I  don't  want  to  obey  anybody's  orders, least of  all those of  an
offspring of Danjab's R-ruler!"
     "Gor Terr, my  dear,"  intervened Mada gently, putting her hand on  his
massive hairy arm. "Think what you are saying. We have no dictators here, or
rulers, or their  children. There are only Faetians,  united by common grief
and a common fate. Weren't you the one who dreamed of workshops on Terr? You
shall  have workshops here in which we, your  comrades, shall work  for you,
and then..." She looked  into his eyes and added, "I shall raise helpers for
you."
     Gor Terr scowled, glaring malevolently  from  under his beetling brows.
Mada's  maternal tone  soothed  him  a little.  But not for  long.  He  soon
relapsed into  his  former  fury and, without  listening  to  anyone,  began
smashing up  the spaceship's  control levers, bending them, trying to wrench
them out of their sockets.
     To save the Faetians, the madman himself and  keep the ship's equipment
intact, Mada ordered Gor Terr  to be confined to the airlock which  was used
for going out into space.
     The noisy struggle with the  Faetian strong man distracted the Faetians
from  their common  misfortune. The immediate blotted out what was far away.
And only after the hatch had been fastened  down behind Gor Terr did Ave Mar
and Toni Fae,  exhausted  and shattered, collapsed into the armchairs at the
control panel. They stared dismally in front of them, panting for breath.
     Mada was  busy near the dispensary. She had decided to give Gor Terr an
injection and administer a shock that would bring him to his senses.
     All attempts to  go into the airlock, however, merely provoked  further
attacks of frenzy. They could not even serve him his food.
     Such was the unhappy way in which the Faetians spent the first  days of
their  permanent   exile.  Below,   in  the   common  cabin,   Faena's  most
distinguished scientist lay dying; above, in the airlock, the last surviving
engineer had gone raving mad.
     Toni Fae was deeply depressed.
     He   heard   Ala  Veg's  voice   again  during  a  routine  session  of
electromagnetic communication with Deimo. It was remote and sad. She  talked
about the meaninglessness of existence, about her husband's serious illness,
about the total  lack of change and how the station chief, as before,  hated
the roundhead couple. She  said that she despised life. She was terrified at
the thought of the distance that separated her from Toni Fae. Was life worth
living? She suggested that Toni Fae and she  should both put an end to their
own lives during the next communications session.
     Toni Fae  could not  hold out  against  this and  agreed. He stole from
Mada's dispensary an  ampoule of stupefying gas, a large dose of which could
be fatal.  After he  had inhaled a little of it,  he felt  blissfully happy,
could not stay  on  his feet,  swayed and  sang a  silly song about a lizard
which  ate its own  tail. He then collapsed and went to  sleep. Mada guessed
what  had happened, found  the ampoule hidden  on his person and confiscated
it. When he came round, he made the discovery that Mada's language could  be
far from endearing.
     Toni Fae succumbed to apathy.  Everything around him  seemed dismal and
wretched. Even the world of nature had changed. There were no more colourful
sunsets  on  Terr.  Night  gave  way  to  dull  daylight. It  never  stopped
drizzling, and a patchy grey pall of mist clung  to the tree-tops level with
the portholes of the control cabin. There were no golden  apples left in the
forest.
     When twilight  descended on Terr, it reminded  them of their own gloomy
planet.
     Misery  and homesickness seemed capable of destroying the  will to live
in all the other Faetians, as had happened with Toni Fae.
     Mada, however, in whom nature had stirred a sense of responsibility for
all, sick and well alike,  could not give in to  despair. She  had  to  look
after Um Sat, feed everybody, keep an eye on Toni Fae and encourage Ave with
an affectionate glance from time to time.
     Ave Mar was conducting himself with dignity. He had  obligations  which
none but he could fulfil: it was  necessary to go hunting in the forest. Gor
Terr couldn't help him now. Ave would go  out of the ship, leaving Mada in a
state of permanent anxiety, but he always returned before dark, and with his
kill.  By the  will of  circumstances, Ave,  a  passionate  believer  in the
preservation  of  the  lost Faena's civilisation, was having to lead a  very
primitive mode of life. He had stopped using firearms, saving the ammunition
for more urgent occasions. He had made a bow and he practised archery. Using
his natural strength,  he could draw a bowstring so that  the arrow with its
hand-made head could pierce a stout tree-branch right through.
     Once, Ave Mar  brought back  a  big fat bird hit by one of  his arrows.
Careful  not  to disturb  Dm Sat, the  astronauts assembled  in the  control
cabin, talking  quietly  amongst themselves. Mada began  inexpertly plucking
the hunting trophy, pleased that it would make a good bouillon for  the sick
man.
     Toni Fae was  adjusting the electromagnetic communications  set, hoping
for a  session  with  Ala Veg. Mada warned  him  that if  he made a fool  of
himself again,  she  would  ban communications with  Deimo. Toni  sheepishly
bowed his head.
     Ave Mar was relaxing after  his hard day in the rain while  hunting  in
the forest.
     Mada looked round at the porthole and screamed.  The snarling face of a
Faetoid was staring into the cabin. His shoulders and chest were matted with
curly hair, his skin  showing through underneath. No thought was readable in
the crazy eyes.
     Only Ave Mar realised that this was Gor Terr lowering himself  by rope,
not a wild beast  that  had  made its way to them. The  madman had evidently
torn  his clothes into strips and knotted them together to  make  a rope. He
had opened  the outer airlock hatch,  climbed outside and was now descending
the ship's fuselage.
     In an attempt to head  him off, Ave Mar rushed to the transition hatch,
tore through  the  common cabin and disappeared  into the lower airlock.  He
shinned down the vertical ladder, hardly touching the rungs on the way.
     But however agile Ave Mar may have been, Gor Terr had time on his side.
     Ave Mar was only just getting out of the lower airlock when the escapee
was already clinging to the end of the home-made  rope. No rational  Faetian
would ever have risked jumping  from  such a height.  But Gor  Terr  was not
being  rational. He dropped  to the ground  in front of Ave  Mar, jumped  up
below him, as if on springs, and made a dash for the forest.
     Without  realising  what he was  doing,  Gor  Terr  ran into the forest
straight on to the  path beaten by the animals on their  way to the watering
place. It  was sodden  after the rain and  his  feet  slipped and  slithered
apart. But  he was conscious of only  one thing:  he was  being pursued.  He
leaped aside into a small glade, unrecognisable after the rain, since it was
covered with  muddy  puddles that disappeared into  the mist. Gor Terr never
suspected that  there was a bog  hidden underneath the wet green surface. He
dived into a cloud of mist hanging over the grass and disappeared.
     Ave Mar, who had  been following on his  heels, stopped  dead. Then  he
immediately dashed  forward. His feet  sloshed through the  slime.  He  took
several careful, squelching  steps and suddenly saw Gor Terr in the mist. He
looked as if he was sitting down on the green grass. Only his head and torso
were visible above it. It took Ave Mar a moment to realise that Gor Terr had
sunk waist-deep into a quagmire.
     Until  recently, Ave  Mar, used to dwelling in the civilised cities  of
Faena  and to  driving  a steamcar  along  magnificent  highways, had  never
suspected that it might be possible to sink up to the waist in the soil like
that. Ave  had  wandered into this  bog a  few days back when the  rain  had
started  pouring  down. But his  instinctive caution,  aroused by the  foul,
stinking  mud that was squelching underfoot, had saved him, making him skirt
the deceptive glade with its murky puddles. This time, however, he could not
back away; he rushed to Gor Terr's assistance. He immediately sank knee-deep
into the quagmire. He made a movement to extricate himself and realised that
he was  sinking into the  mire himself. Fortunately, he was not as  heavy as
Gor  Terr; moreover, he was nearer  to the edge of  the bog. Avoiding sudden
movements,  he lay  down and began  to  extricate himself by crawling, as if
swimming over a shallow surface covered with wet grass.
     Once he felt himself on firmer ground, Ave stood  up,  glanced over his
shoulder and saw Gor Terr. Now only his head was showing above the grass and
his outstretched  hands, with  which he  was  clutching at  some  roots. Gor
managed  to  turn  his head and  look  at Ave Mar, his  bulging, glazed eyes
staring  out of the  mist.  Every  movement  he  made sucked him down  still
further.
     Ave Mar felt his horror physically and stopped in spite of himself, but
read  such reproach in the doomed man's eyes that he shuddered. Ave abruptly
turned back,  crawled out a little way and, although he  hardly felt himself
on  firm ground, jumped to his feet, ran to the  nearest tree and tore off a
dangling liana.
     When he returned to the cloud of mist hanging over  the  grass,  he had
some difficulty in making out the shaggy head and the outstretched hands.
     At the sight of Ave Mar, Gor Terr's rounded eyes came to life again and
shone with entreaty, hope and even joy.
     Ave  Mar threw the end of the liana to  the  sinking man. Understanding
glimmered in Gor Terr's eyes and he grabbed at the line.
     Ave Mar was now faced with the impossible-to drag the gigantic Gor Terr
out of  the  quagmire. Ave  Mar  had nothing like  the strength to do such a
thing. But  with  the liana  he had brought a  crooked  branch  which he had
broken off a tree. He drove it into a firm mound and began winding the liana
onto it as if onto a windlass.
     Turn by turn, he gradually  pulled  Gor  Terr out  so that  the  latter
finally managed  to lie flat and crawl along, as Ave had done before him. At
last, a mud-plastered Gor Terr rose to his full height in front of Ave.
     "You're not bad as an engineer, Ave Mar," he said. "Thank you."
     These words meant more  to Ave Mar than  any diagnosis. He now realised
that the deadly danger to which  Gor Terr had been subjected in the bog  had
administered the nervous shock  needed to save  him from insanity.  Gor Terr
had come back to his senses.
     "What happened? How did I end up here? Weren't we out hunting together?
Who undressed me? Your wife will take me for a Faetoid."
     "She'll be happy! You've been seriously ill."
     "R-really?"  Gor Terr  was astonished. "But  I've certainly been having
nightmares. I dreamt the Dictator had thrown me into prison."
     "That's  all  over.  Don't think  about  it any  more.  There  are more
important things to be done. We can't live in the rocket any longer. We have
to deliver food and water to the top. The Elder can't go outside."
     "Then we'll have to build a house in the forest."
     "I must admit I don't know how to do that. I'm only a theoretician."
     "But  the  theoretician  figured out how to rig  up a  windlass quickly
enough.  With a helper like you, it would be easy to knock up a house in the
forest. I can already see how to set about it."


     Mada couldn't believe  her eyes when she  saw Ave  Mar and the recently
crazed Gor Terr chatting amiably together on the way back.
     "I  don't understand this at all," whispered Toni  Fae. "Oughtn't we to
help Ave Mar tie him up?"
     "No, certainly not!" exclaimed Mada.
     With the instinct of a Sister of Health, she  had grasped that years of
training and care  couldn't have given as good a result as what had happened
in the forest.


     ...The unfamiliar thudding of axes was heard in the forest.
     The enormous, round-shouldered Dzin,  wringing out her wet ginger  hair
with her long hands, crept up to the spot where the mighty stranger, who had
put paid to a Spotted Horror and to many of Dzin's fellow tribesmen, was now
slaying trees. And yet he wasn't eating them.
     Hidden  in a thicket,  squatting on her haunches  and holding her heels
with her forepaws, she was  watching as he and another, who had hair only on
his head, were hitting the  trees  with strange sticks that  had what looked
like wet, glittering ends. Their  strength was so great that  the  tree fell
down  like a slain beast. Then  the strangers skinned  the trees with  their
clubs,  breaking  off  all  the branches, and the tree  became  straight and
smooth. They shortened the tree with a screaming stick, then dragged it over
to the other slain trees and forced them to fit together.
     In this way,  they helped to raise from the ground a huge tree that was
empty inside. It looked like a cave.
     Almost as soon as the strangers had finished banging their sticks, Dzin
would hide in a  thicket so as to come to the summons of  the thudding noise
on the next day.
     Ave Mar and Gor Terr never suspected that their work was being watched.
They knocked  together  a frame  thought up by  Gor Terr  without  any metal
fixings. The work was nearing its end.
     Many  instruments and much equipment had to be transferred to the house
into which the astronauts had to move.
     Gor Terr and Ave Mar went to the ship to fetch all these  things. So as
not to disturb Dm Sat by hammering  in the common cabin,  they went straight
up to  the control cabin.  Assisted by Ave Mar, Gor Terr began breaking  off
the  levers and rods on which  the electromagnetic communications  apparatus
was secured.
     At this  point, the always  quiet  and  tactful Toni  Fae flew  off the
handle.
     "Gor  Terr  and Ave Mar can kill  me first," he screamed  hysterically,
"but I won't let anything in the spaceship be damaged."
     Gor Terr bellowed with laughter, as during his recent crazy spell.
     "D'you want me to pay  you off, kid,  tie your hands together and  dump
you in an empty airlock? I feel sorry for you. Just get this into your head:
no one needs my Quest any more. I shall be  the first to break it up. So out
of the way, my dear Toni Fae."
     "Kill your old friend first!"
     Ave Mar turned to Mada in his astonishment.
     Her face was troubled and her eyes were sad.
     "Get out of the way!" roared Gor Terr.
     "Stop," came a feeble voice from the hatch. Overcoming his weakness, Um
Sat  climbed  up into the control  cabin.  (Gor  Terr involuntarily froze in
front of Toni  Fae, not thrusting him  aside after all.) "Stop," repeated Um
Sat. "The spaceship Quest is inviolable. Everything is changing in the  life
of the Faetians. They must choose a new way."
     Again Ave Mar looked at the alarmed, saddened Mada.
     Gor Terr stood still in bewilderment.
     Toni Fae rushed to the electromagnetic communications apparatus.

     Chapter Two

        MUTINY IN SPACE

     Ala  Veg realised that her husband  was going to die. When she made the
mutual  suicide  pact  with  Toni  Fae,  she  prepared  for the  forthcoming
electromagnetic communications session by stealing  from Mrak Luton a pistol
loaded with a poisoned bullet.
     Tycho Veg was fading away. Completely bald,  without even  eyebrows and
beard,  he  was lying on the  bed in the Vegs' common cabin  and was staring
intently at his wife as if from somewhere far  way. Ala  Veg could not stand
that anguished stare and fled into the observatory.
     She  went  over to  the  electromagnetic communications  apparatus  and
looked for a long time at  the bullet with  the brown prickles which she had
hidden on the control panel among the instruments.
     She was afraid that she might  not be able to squeeze it  in  her fist,
although  somewhere out  there, on  faraway Terr, young Toni Fae, who  loved
her, must  depart  this life at the  same time. She was afraid of inflicting
this last  blow on  her dying  husband. Ala  Veg  was torn by  contradictory
feelings.  She could not  recover from  the  knowledge that her children had
perished.  The starry  distance that separated her  from  them, however, was
dulling her despair.  And yet the starry distance to Terr, which brought her
the young man's voice after a long delay, had not prevented her from turning
his head and even persuading him  to commit suicide with her. But  Tycho Veg
was  here, close  to  her,  was  suffering,  and was looking at  her out  of
non-existence with  huge sad  eyes. Ala Veg wept a  great  deal and  stopped
observing the stars altogether. What was the point of all that now?
     Engineer Tycho Veg died at dinner-time as quietly as he had  lived. His
wife remained  at his side, unable to do anything  to help. His  naked  head
with the shadows of the sunken  eyes, the taut skin of the face and the grin
of the sagging lower jaw were indeed reminiscent of a skull.
     When Ala Veg realised that her husband was no more, she was seized by a
fit of rage.
     Flinging  the door wide open, she burst  noisily into  the common cabin
where the Lutons and Brat Lua were having their dinner. Lada Lua was waiting
on them at table.
     Mrak  Luton,  flabby, pot-bellied  and pompous,  was presiding  at  the
table.
     "I accuse  you, Mrak Luton!" screamed Ala Veg from  the threshold. "You
murdered my husband  Tycho Veg! You made him charge a torpedo with a warhead
that wasn't even screened against radiation!"
     Mrak  Luton went purple  in the  face. His pendulous cheeks bulged, his
small eyes darted about frantically.
     "Is  this mutiny?"  he  wheezed.  "I won't stand  for it! Silence!  Who
incited you, a longhead, to this insubordination?"
     "My husband Tycho Veg is dead.  Stand up, all of you. Honour his memory
and curse his murderer, who is sitting at the head of this table."
     Brat  Lua and  Lada  rose  to their feet. Nega Luton  played  for time,
pretending that  she had difficulty in rising from the  table, but she stood
up nevertheless. Mrak Luton remained seated, frenziedly rolling his eyes and
fingering the pistol which he was holding in his hand under the table.
     "There is no insubordination here, deep-thinking Mrak Luton," said Brat
Lua in a conciliatory tone of voice. "There is only the grief and despair of
a Faetess, and that cannot but  be respected.  We  all share your grief. Ala
Veg. Engineer Tycho Veg was  a good Faetian and of  his  own accord he would
never have begun sending torpedoes to Station Phobo."
     "What?  Is  this  treachery?  Have you forgotten that all the power  in
space  belongs to me, the heir of  Dictator Yar Jupi? Don't  forget that the
ship  Quest is also subordinate to me. Only  I,  in  the  name  of the Blood
Council, can command it to  return here in order  to deliver us all to Terr,
where we can enjoy a life of ease."
     "You are mistaken, deep-thinking Mrak Luton," objected Brat Lua. "There
isn't enough fuel on board the  ship  to ferry us all to Terr.  There  isn't
enough  on the station either. And there is even less  fuel on Phobo." "What
happened to all the fuel? You and engineer  Tycho Veg were answerable for it
with your lives!"
     "Deep-thinking  Mrak  Luton has  forgotten that on his orders  Engineer
Tycho Veg fuelled the two torpedo-ships sent to Phobo. A similar madness was
also committed on Station Phobo."
     "Madness? Silence! How dare you, as a roundhead, condemn the Dictator's
successor? I, a Supreme  Officer of the Blood Guard, remain so in space! You
are under arrest! I am going to shoot you like a crazed lizard!"
     "Wise  husband, I implore  you,"  intervened  Nega  Luton. "Why  use  a
pistol? After the  death of our beloved engineer, the roundhead  will be the
only  one left on the station who can handle the machinery. It's his duty to
provide us with the facilities."
     "You are right, Nega! Thank the gentle lady, roundhead! You will simply
get away with imprisonment in my office. Quick march!"
     Brat Lua meekly went  ahead of the station chief, who kept prodding him
in the back with his pistol.
     When both  Faetians  had left the common  cabin, Ala Veg  turned to the
remaining Faetesses.
     "Isn't it enough that Faena has perished? Why must its satellite go the
same fatal way? Power, dictatorship, murder?"
     "What  d'you  want,  you  poor wretch? To rise up against  my husband?"
demanded Nega Luton angrily.
     "You  stopped him yourself. If he kills Brat Lua,  then we  won't  have
anyone left who can  understand the station's machinery, and Lada  Lua might
well refuse to feed us. Then  we'll all perish because of that crazy old man
of yours."
     "Aren't you trying to talk me into mutiny?" sneered Nega Luton.
     "Let it be  mutiny, then!" confirmed Ala Veg hysterically.  "If  mutiny
will save us, we'll go that far."
     "How can there be any talk of salvation if there aren't any spare ships
at the stations?" insisted Nega.
     "There's Quest. It could fly here."
     "Why?  To add to  our starving mouths? Or because there happens to be a
certain  young  man among the astronauts who  has  finally taken widow Veg's
fancy?"
     "Shut up, you viper! Get it into your tiny lizard's brain that Brat Lua
planned an underground settlement on the surface of Mar. In such a  shelter,
on Mar, the Faetian survivors could go on living."
     "That's not living, that's vegetating."
     "I've  been  wanting to say for some  time," interposed Lada Lua, "that
there aren't enough fruits in  the greenhouse. But my husband wanted to grow
a great many nutritive greens on the surface  of Mar.  There would be enough
not only for us, but for our children."
     "What children do you mean?" asked Nega Luton, stamping her foot. "Have
you forgotten, you  pug-nosed fattie, about  the  law forbidding you to have
children in space?"
     "My husband said the old laws are invalid  now. We're going  to have  a
child!"
     "Criminals!" hissed Nega Luton. "They want to ruin us! There's food and
oxygen for only six here, and no more!"
     "Tycho Veg is dead," said Ala Veg sadly. "Even if a tiny Lua is born to
follow him, the station will survive. But we have to think about the future.
We shall have to go down onto the surface of Mar."
     "Well, of course, you'll be given a  ship the way a big proprietor gets
a steamcar," jeered Nega Luton.
     "I'll take the responsibility for that," announced Ala Veg.
     "But first we must strip Mrak Luton of his powers."
     "What?" Nega Luton nearly choked with fury.
     "You must understand  yourself, as a one-time lady  of importance, that
you  won't  survive without  the Luas, even if  your husband  starts  firing
poisoned bullets  in all  directions.  The two  of  you  know  nothing about
technology or astronavigation. We Faetesses  are the  ones who  have  got to
decide."
     "Decide what?"
     "Who's going to be in charge of the station."
     "I will not betray my husband."
     "Then you will betray yourself."
     "But he won't give up his power, not for anything. And he's armed."
     "The Faetesses can do anything if they act together."
     "I fully support the gentle Ala Veg," declared Lada.
     "Make  up your mind, Nega  Luton. You  will  be fed and looked after as
before only if you take our side."
     "But I..." Nega Luton was still vacillating, glaring inimically at  the
inflexible Ala Veg.
     The door was flung wide open and Mrak Luton  burst in like a conqueror.
He  pushed  out  his  huge  belly  and puffed  up his cheeks  to  hide their
flabbiness.
     "Mrak Luton!" announced Ala Veg. "You have been removed by us from your
post as chief of the station!"
     Mrak Luton collapsed into an armchair,  his little sunken eyes goggling
at Ala Veg.
     "What did you say, madwoman?"
     "I  am speaking for all  the Faetesses on the  station. You have got to
submit to  us and go into your office until your fate has been decided. Brat
Lua will run  the  station machinery,  since we have to breathe and  use  up
energy. If you kill any of us now, then  you will  thereby  bring about your
own destruction."
     Nega Luton nodded in agreement.
     "What? You too, Nega?" was all that Mrak Luton could manage to say, his
eyes riveted on his hook-nosed wife.
     "Mrak,  I'm  concerned solely  for the two of us. I have obtained their
agreement to  take care of us and  supply us with  everything  necessary. We
shall be in the position of proprietors."
     "I refuse!" roared Mrak Luton, drawing his pistol.
     However, he didn't go so far as to use it.
     Ala Veg and Lada Lua advanced on him, whereas Nega held back.
     Mrak Luton  rose  reluctantly to  his feet and, still  brandishing  his
pistol, began backing away.
     In this manner, they all went out into the corridor.
     Enraged and distraught, Mrak Luton was backing towards his office door,
and the  two Faetesses were crowding him. Nega Luton timidly brought  up the
rear.
     "I'll still  settle the score with  you! I'm  giving way  out of mercy.
I'll release that mangy  roundhead purely so that he can do  the dirty jobs.
But I'm not relinquishing my power! You'll never get me to do that!"
     "We'll  talk to you, Mrak Luton, tomorrow. But today, just think it all
over carefully in your office."
     "But  I didn't  get all  my  dinner.  Let them bring  the other courses
here."
     "We'll postpone your dinner until tomorrow. Thinking works better on an
empty stomach. We may also cut down on the oxygen supply to your office. But
not immediately, because FOR  THE  TIME  BEING  your  brain cells must  work
normally so that you can become reconciled."
     "You're not a Faetess, Ala Veg, you're a monster."
     "My husband, whom you murdered, wouldn't agree with you, Mrak Luton."
     "I have never committed  murder.  I served  the Dictator faithfully and
honestly, and I carried out his instructions. I had a secret order from  him
in the event of a  disintegration war. I am  in no way to  blame. I can show
you the inscribed tablet."
     "You can do  that when we  put  you on trial. Meanwhile, you are simply
relieved of your post."
     Ala Veg opened the chief's office and let out the  bewildered Brat Lua.
With a businesslike air,  as if nothing had happened, Mrak Luton went inside
and sat down at his desk with dignity, pretending that he had urgent matters
to deal with.
     Ala Veg locked  the door from  outside  and invited Brat  Lua  into the
common cabin.
     "We have to elect a new station chief," she announced.
     "Why?"  protested  Nega Luton. "I've helped you to release Brat Lua.  I
hope  he will  support me. I  have risked losing  my family  happiness.  You
Faetesses ought to appreciate this."
     "Your husband  is the criminal  who murdered  my husband to violate the
Agreement on Peace in Outer Space and  unleash  a disintegration war between
the space stations of Mar."
     "They sent  torpedoes against us  from Phobo  too,"  said  Mrak Luton's
wife, in self-justification on her husband's behalf.
     "We could have defended ourselves without attacking. And then Tycho Veg
would still have been alive."
     "You have been blinded  by your grief.  Ala Veg.  I understand you with
the heart of a Faetess. But can  we talk about one death, when  thousands of
millions of Faetians have perished? Remember, we need Mrak Luton as chief of
the station. We've got to survive. Smel Ven, as commander of  the ship, will
obey only his orders to fly to us."
     "Have you forgotten Ton!  Fae's message  that Smel Ven had been killed?
Besides, Um Sat was in charge of the expedition, not Smel Ven."
     "The destruction of  Faena has  deprived me of memory and reason.  What
are you counting on, Ala Veg?"
     "On Terr's Faetians. They won't abandon us. But first, Mrak  Luton must
be removed."
     Brat Lua was listening to the women in dismay.
     "Then  let the gentle Ala Veg be chief  of the station,"  proposed Lada
Lua.
     "On no account!" screamed Nega Luton.
     "Calm  yourself,  once distinguished  lady.  I am not  making  any such
claim.  The chief of the station must be the  one who shows the Faetians the
way to a future existence."
     "Who can do that except my husband?"
     "The insignificant Mrak Luton is only capable of threats. He can't even
bring  himself to shoot anyone now because  he's  afraid for  his fat belly.
He's just a stinker, and certainly not the leader of the future Marians."
     "Marians?"
     "Yes,  Marians, that  is,  the  Faetians  who will live  on Mar in  the
underground cities planned by Brat Lua."
     "Aren't  you  trying  to  say  that  the  station  chief  should  be  a
roundhead?" said Nega Luton, outraged.
     "What good fortune that the Lutons can't leave any descendants on Mar,"
said Ala Veg with unconcealed contempt.
     "You aren't thinking of leaving any descendants, are you, Ala  Veg? And
with whose help?"
     "Shut up, you viper! I've lost three children and a husband; all you've
lost is your conscience."
     "I refuse to  agree that Mrak  Luton should have his post taken over by
someone else."
     "Then off you  go, join  your husband  and think the matter  over  with
him."
     "I haven't finished my dinner."
     "You can finish dining at table with him ... tomorrow. If you have both
changed your minds."
     "That is force!.."
     "Brat  Lua,"  said Ala Veg,  turning to the released Faetian. "We elect
you chief of the station.  We will now get in touch with the people on Phobo
and find out how they have been faring.  We  shall all beseech Quest to come
and fetch us."
     "Quest  can only set us down on the surface of Mar," said Brat Lua.  "I
will  shoulder all  the worry  and responsibility. The  Faetian race and its
civilisation  must be preserved.  I've  long had projects  for installations
that,  given  the  efforts of  all  surviving  Faetians,  can be  brought to
fulfilment."
     The little Faetian stood solemnly before the Faetesses as he  undertook
this new mission.
     After a moment's thought, he added:
     "However, everything will depend on whether the Faetians of Quest agree
to abandon  the bountiful and flourishing Terr and undergo  fresh  hardships
and perils to rescue us."
     "I shall implore them!" cried Ala Veg.
     "No one will risk losing happiness," said Nega Luton. "There's no sense
in Brat Lua being chief. No  one will fly to the station, no one will  ferry
us to the surface of Mar."
     "Not  everybody  there  is as  soft-hearted as  the  gentle  Sister  of
Health," said Lada Lua.
     Nega  Luton  bristled  with indignation.  How  dare this  insignificant
roundhead talk about  her like that? But she pulled herself up at once. Lada
was now the wife of the new station chief, so Nega Luton controlled herself.
     "It's just that I'm  worried  about us  all," she muttered  through her
teeth in self-justification.
     "It's  nearly  time  for  the  electromagnetic communications session,"
announced Ala Veg.
     She left the common cabin and made for the observatory.
     When she  sat down at  the  control panel, she  saw in front of her the
silvery bullet with the sharp brown prickles.  She picked  it up gingerly by
the blunt end and threw it into the rubbish chute through which it would end
up in space.
     The signal lamp lit up, indicating a call.
     "Poor Toni Fae!  He thinks  he's called  Deimo for the last time," said
Ala Veg aloud, although there was no one near her.
     Brat Lua walked into the observatory and announced:
     "Mrak Luton  has just informed us  over the intercom that he has agreed
to  relinquish  his post as station chief in return for the dinner he didn't
have time to finish."
     "Even his own greedy stomach's against him," replied Ala Veg.
     "As the new chief, I  shall have to take part in the  session with  the
Faetians of Quest on Terr."
     "Allow  me  to open  the  session,  Brat  Lua.  I'll try to put  it  as
convincingly as possible."
     "The first word is yours," agreed the new chief.
     The signal lamp began winking on the control panel.
     Ala Veg switched the apparatus on.

     Chapter Three

        IN THE NAME OF REASON

     Stooping  and breathing  heavily.  Dm  Sat  lowered  himself  into  the
armchair before the control  panel. His  wrinkled face  with its bushy white
beard had  sagged noticeably, his eyes were deeply sunken, but  watched with
their  former close and sad attention. He asked Toni Fae, for the benefit of
those who had come back from the forest, to re-run the recording of the last
communications  session. Ala Veg's chesty voice was heard in  the cabin once
again.
     "Quest!  Quest!  Quest! Faetians of Terr!  Your brothers  and  sisters,
abandoned on an  artificial speck of dust  amid the stars, are crying out to
you for help. Around us is the cold and infinite emptiness of space. We have
no solid  ground  under  our  feet, we  are feeding  on  the  produce of the
greenhouse,  which  is  being destroyed  by  endless  showers  of  particles
discharged  by the explosion of Faena.  We shall not survive here unless you
come to our  rescue. Quest! Quest!  Quest! Faetians  of Quest! Remember that
you are of the same flesh and blood as those who gave life to you and to us!
Fly to us in your ship, which  we consider ours also. Fly to us  in the name
of  the love  which shall  forever  be  the  beginning  of  the  future  and
everlasting  life. The Faetians  must  not perish!  Help us in  the  name of
Reason, whose heritage we must preserve. Quest! Quest! Quest!"
     Ala Veg's voice fell silent.
     The Faetians exchanged glances. Um  Sat glanced  inquiringly at Ave Mar
and Gor Terr.
     Gor Terr went up to Toni Fae and  rested his enormous hand on the other
man's shoulder.
     "My friend Toni Fae," he said, as if his decision was the only one that
mattered.  "The appeal  by our brothers and sisters from Deimo will r-remain
bitter and unanswered, and it will break our hearts. I think we ought not to
maintain electromagnetic communications with space any more."
     "What?" cried Mada, outraged.  "Turn  our backs  on our own people when
they're in trouble?"
     "We can't help them,"  Gor Terr tried to say as gently as possible. "If
we  flew to the station, we would just be parasites, using up all their food
and oxygen."
     "But  they're hoping Quest will put them down  on the surface  of Mar,"
protested Toni Fae.
     "Alas!" continued Gor  Terr  gloomily.  "That's  as  impossible as  our
r-resettlement on Deimo.  We could fly  as far as the space station, but the
ship hasn't got enough fuel for a braked landing on Mar."
     With  a  column  of  figures written  on  a plastic  tablet,  Gor  Terr
convincingly demonstrated the  impossibility  of  flying to the Faetians  on
Station Dei mo.
     Ave Mar, Toni  Fae  and Mada understood everything  perfectly. Only  Um
Sat,  apparently,  could not wait until the engineer had finished. He took a
turn  for the worse and had to be put to bed in the control cabin this time.
Mada fussed about him, trying to bring him round.
     Water was needed. There wasn't any,  since the reserve supply  had been
used up. More would have to be fetched up from below.
     When  he had brought some  water, Gor Terr  began  insisting that  they
should all move into the house, which was now ready.
     "The forest air is more likely to cure the Elder," he affirmed.
     It was  decided  that  Toni should  stay behind  at the  communications
apparatus. At the next session, he could inform the Faetians  on Deimo  that
they could not possibly be reached on Quest.
     Toni  Fae  was brooding silently.  Mada feared  for him. She  carefully
locked up the dispensary so that he wouldn't be able  to get his hands on an
ampoule of stupefying  gas and she made Ave Mar collect  up all the poisoned
bullets.
     Sadly,  as if saying goodbye  to their  ship  forever,  the  astronauts
climbed down the vertical ladder leading out of the lower airlock.
     Um Sat,  whom they wanted  to carry refused to be  helped  and actually
went down the ladder himself with Mada supporting him.
     The path that  the Faetians took as they carried the  various gear from
the ship turned slippery. Gor Terr nearly fell down.
     "Don't stray off the tr-rack," he warned anxiously.
     The building with its sloping roof appeared among the trees.
     In  his  time, Ave  Mar, accustomed to the round  buildings of  Danjab,
would have thought  the house ugly, but the change from a round rocket to  a
rectangular structure now seemed right. He even sighed with relief; they had
a refuge for long cycles of their forthcoming life.
     Suddenly, a tawny shadow darted across the window.
     Ave Mar  gripped  Gor  Terr by  the arm.  He too had  noticed something
suspicious and he  headed determinedly for  the house. The door  had not yet
been made.
     On the threshold, Gor Terr collided with an enormous Faetoid with bared
fangs. He charged at it, unaware that this was Dzin showing her teeth in the
semblance of a smile. He  grabbed the uninvited guest by the paw and  nimbly
threw  her over his  shoulder so that she landed on some tree-stumps nearby.
She jumped up and fled howling into the forest.
     In this way, an "attack" by Faetoids on the house was beaten off.
     The Faetians went through the doorway.
     Gor Terr  screwed up his  nose in distaste. There  was an animal stench
inside.
     Mada opened the windows to air the place.
     "Home at last," she said with relief.
     'Tarn afraid,"  said  Um Sat,  "that for a long  time the Faetians will
have to prove that this is their home."
     "Just let those filthy beasts try to barge in again!" roared Gor Terr.
     "I was afraid you  were  going to kill our uninvited  guest," confessed
Ave Mar.
     "I would  have done so, if I hadn't thought it was Dzin. We  owe her so
much."
     "Dzin?" asked Mada, on the alert "Really?"
     "Settle yourselves in," suggested Gor Terr. "I'll go to meet  Ton! Fae,
otherwise he might be met by someone else."
     Mada  smiled as he  left. Such friendship between Faetians was a joy to
her.
     Ave began fashioning a  door,  skilfully  wielding a home-made axe. The
Faetoids  might attack  the sleeping Faetians in the night As he  barred the
windows and the door, he wondered  what the future held  in  store for  them
all:  it would be bleak enough  if they had to  live in a permanent state of
siege.
     When  the  windows had been barred with  stakes, the atmosphere  in the
house had a depressing effect on Mada. As she watched the imperturbable Ave,
however, she too was filled with confidence.
     Twilight was deepening. Mada felt uneasy as she  thought about Toni Fae
and  Gor  Terr. The  fate of the faraway Faetians on Deimo also gave  her no
peace of mind. How she wished that all the survivors could be together!
     Mada peered out  of the window  through the stakes. It was totally dark
in the forest. Tired after his walk, Um Sat was sound asleep. Mada had given
him a whiff of stupefying gas from an ampoule.
     Ave was admiring his newly-made door, rough-hewn,  but solid. He locked
it for the first time.
     Mada looked at it regretfully.
     "Ave, wasn't  it  you  who  said  that the Faetians  must  preserve the
civilisation of their ancestors?"
     "Of course, and I shall go on saying it."
     "Then how is it that we,  as carriers of civilisation, could abandon in
space the Faetians who are so  close to us? Is there no way of bringing them
to join us? If we could only find fuel here!.."
     Ave Mar heaved a sad sigh.
     "Even  the fuel we  found  here wouldn't help. We  wouldn't  be able to
process it the  way they used to in Faena's fuel workshops. Where are we  to
get all the pipes and distil ling spheres?"
     "Surely Engineer Gor Terr will think of something?"
     "Hardly..."
     "Couldn't  we  fly  to  Deimo  and  all  work  together  to  extend the
greenhouse, improve  the machinery and still  live together?  I'm afraid  of
staying here  on a  hostile planet. It's not at  all what  it seemed on that
first day. D'you remember the watering place, with the baby reindeer and the
beast of prey drinking together in peace? But now?"
     The door opened with a creak. Mada jumped up and seized Ave by the arm.
Gor Terr was standing in the doorway. He moved aside  to  admit a distraught
and dejected Toni Fae.
     Mada rushed over to him, clasped him to her breast and began sobbing.
     "Was there a session?" asked Ave Mar.
     Trying to control himself, Toni Fae replied:
     "It would  have been better to die than  hear  the answer that  Ala Veg
came out with when she heard our refusal."
     "R-refusal? It's an impossibility!" interrupted Gor Terr.
     "She was sobbing.  Sobs have never been broadcast over the air  before.
It was too much. Only why did Mada take the yellow ampoule from me?.."
     "Calm  yourself,  my  dear Toni Fae. I'll give  you a  whiff from  that
ampoule in a moment. Look how well Dm Sat is sleeping."
     "But how can I sleep in peace if out there, on Deimo, Ala Veg has given
up all hope and has lost faith in  the power  of love? I  would fly  to  her
without a second thought."
     Ave and Mada exchanged glances.
     Mada  gently calmed Toni Fae  down. Sitting  by the window  stakes, Gor
Terr was plunged in gloom. The damp came wafting in from  the forest. It had
started raining again. The Faetians couldn't  possibly have imagined so much
water coming  down from the sky.  There had never been anything  like it  on
Faena.
     Toni dozed off, but tossed and turned, moaning in his sleep.
     Ave Mar squatted down  at the rough-hewn table, took a split branch and
began making marks on it.
     Gor Terr,  his  shoulders hunched, was still sitting by the window.  He
looked like a huge boulder. He was asleep.
     Exhausted by all she' had  been  through during the  day, Mada  settled
down on some bedding  not  far from Dm  Sat and Toni  Fae, who were sleeping
side by side.
     Ave Mar was doing his best to save the batteries for the portable lamp.
He switched it off and lit a taper which he had improvised out of a resinous
splinter similar to the one he had split to make a tablet.
     The rain finally stopped in the morning, the wind dispersed the  clouds
and Sol peeped into the  Faetians'  new  house. A  mother-of-pearl  footpath
showed through the trees, the water on it shimmering.
     Mada,  barely  awake  and  already  busy  with  the  household  chores,
instantly noticed a change in Ave.
     Gor Terr was in a bad mood.
     Mada  offered  everyone  some  plain food,  economising  in  the stores
brought from the ship.
     "If only you'd heard her voice," said Toni Fae to no one in particular.
     Gor Terr exploded.
     "They're selfish! All they think about is themselves. Who gave them the
r-right to  demand such a sacrifice of  us  as the r-re-fusal to live  on  a
bountiful planet? And they're the ones who tried to blow up a space  station
like their own! If I was  deciding whether  we should fly to them or  not, I
wouldn't allow it!"
     Mada  was  frightened  to  detect a familiar  ring in his booming  bass
voice.
     Toni Fae looked dismally at his friend.
     'They're  not all  in the wrong.  We've  got to distinguish between the
station chief, the  Supreme Officer of the Blood Guard, and  Ala Veg and the
roundhead Luas, neither of whom is in the least to blame."
     "And  there are some Faetians on Phobo who aren't in the least to blame
either," interposed Mada.
     "No matter how many  of  them  there may be,  how  can we possibly help
them?" snapped Gor Terr.
     "It's not quite like that," intervened Ave suddenly.
     All turned to  look at  him.  Even Dm  Sat,  lying on a  bench near the
table, tried to raise himself on one elbow.
     "I did  some calculations during the night Gor  Terr,  as  an engineer,
could verify them."
     "A specialist on  elementary particles has been checking  the  engineer
who designed the spaceship Quest?" inquired Gor Terr darkly.
     "Excuse me, Gor Terr, but I've been going through your calculations and
I found them correct"
     "Well, well!.. I'm so glad," said Gor Terr, heaving a sigh of relief.
     "What a pity!" responded Toni Fae.
     "Even so, Gor Terr's calculations can be taken further."
     "R-really?" Gor Terr looked sharply round at Ave Mar.
     "His calculations were based on the assumption that all the Faetians of
Quest must fly to Deimo."
     "But of course! How can we possibly split up?" exclaimed Mada.
     "Only by doing that could we save the civilisation of Faena."
     "Let Ave clarify his idea," requested Dm Sat.
     "To  economise in fuel for Quest, only two of us must go up in her, not
five. Then the remainder of the fuel  plus the reserves of fuel on Deimo and
Phobo will enable us to deliver the Faetians on the  space stations  to Mar.
Quest, of course, will not be able to return to Terr."
     "Which means," shouted Toni Fae, "that only one Faetian can go with the
pilot Gor Terr!"
     "Ave Mar can also fly the ship,"  commented  Gor Terr. "After all, he's
been fighting so hard for the preservation of Faena's culture."
     Mada looked at her husband in alarm.
     "I haven't  had the time to discuss  it with Mada, but she can  express
her opinion now.
     In the name of Reason, I am prepared to stay on Terr if Mada stays with
me. True, after Quest has gone, we'll be living like savages who  will  from
then on have to make axes and arrowheads out of stone."
     "I am prepared to stay with my Ave," said Mada, "as I would be prepared
to fly with him to Deimo."
     "Then  I  can  fly with Gor Terr!"  whispered Toni Fae with unconcealed
joy.
     "No,"  objected Ave firmly. "If a great sacrifice has to be made in the
name of Reason, then the continued  Faetian  civilisation on Mar can only be
headed by Faena's Great Elder, Urn Sat, its first man of learning."
     Toni Fae buried his head in his hands.
     Dm Sat looked at him with compassion and said:
     "I am old and ill.  Is it worth counting on  me when you speak of a new
civilisation on Mar?"
     "Surely it  is not for  a Great  Elder  to live like a  savage  in  the
primeval forest?" objected Ave. "That is the lot of the younger ones."
     "I agree to anything," said Toni Fae in a dead voice.
     "I swear it's not going to be like that!" Gor Terr  suddenly banged his
fist on the  table.  "Urn  Sat  will, of  course, fly  on Quest to head  the
civilisation of the Marians.  They'll have  to apply  the  technology of the
space stations. Without technology, the  Marians won't survive. However,  it
is not Engineer Gor Terr  who will fly to Mar  with the great scientist, but
his fr-riend Toni Fae."
     "But I can't fly spaceships!" exclaimed the agitated Toni Fae.
     Mada looked admiringly at Gor Terr.
     "I'm  r-right, am I not?" continued Gor Terr. "Those who stay behind on
Terr won't have it any easier than the ones flying  to Mar. They'll have  to
fight for  every step they take  in  this confounded  forest. Toni Fae would
find it hard protecting the family of Ave and Mada here."
     "But I can't fly spaceships," repeated Toni Fae sadly.
     "You'll learn. Let the  first university also start  work in this first
house, knocked  together on Terr. It will have only one student,  but  three
professors: the gr-reat  scientist Um  Sat, his celebrated pupil Ave Mar and
the modest engineer, Gor Terr."
     "Two  professors will eventually become savages," said  Ave Mar with  a
smile. "Gor Terr has just shown us what true friendship is. I will undertake
to help Toni Fae in every way so that he can fly to Deimo with Um Sat"
     The Elder rose from his bench.
     "However hard the history of future generations of  Terrans and Marians
may be, it is a good thing that it begins with such noble sentiments!"
     Tears were trickling down the old man's wrinkled face.
     There was never a more terrible