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the chance to complain about the spaceship that, unprovoked, molested them, and it will be discovered
that the ship was mine. I mention these facts first, because you may not believe me when I tell you that, in
any case, the Earth authorities will be concerned if I fail to return from this trip on time." Schoenberg lifted
his arm casually and briefly glanced at his calendar watch.
Andreas smiled slightly. "No one on Earth or any of the other worlds knows where you are.
Whatever search is made for you will not be on my planet."
Schoenberg did not hesitate for a moment. So far he had not shown the slightest sign of fear. "It will be
your mistake, High Priest, if you do not believe me. But never mind that now. Let us return to what you
want. Say that I am now sitting in the command chair in the control room of my ship with you presumably
leaning over me and holding a knife against my throat. Where to?"
"Schoenberg, I am not literally going to hold a knife against your throat. Not in your control room
anyway, where you might be tempted to push something the wrong way in an effort to disrupt my plans.
There is a priest here who has been aboard spaceships before, and we are not so utterly ignorant of them
as you might suppose& I had thought you might be willing to join in a military sort of adventure. De La
Torre would be, but he is ignorant. I have questioned the other people of your party, and believe them
when they say they know nothing about the ship's drive, nor of pilotage."
"That is correct. I am the only pilot here."
"Tell me, for my curiosity, how could they have gotten home if a glacier-beast had killed you?"
"Autopilot could handle that. Just punch in a destination, and it'll deliver you in-system, near any civilized
world you want. Your priest who's been aboard spaceships must know that. I take it you want some
other kind of piloting."
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"Yes. But mainly some detailed information about the drive."
"Tell me what it's all about and maybe I'll provide that information."
Andreas's eyes probed at him, not fiercely but deeply, for what seemed a long time. "Perhaps that would
be best." The old priest sighed. "Perhaps other ways& tell me, what effect do threats of torture and
maiming have upon you?"
Schoenberg half rose, and leaned forward glaring. "High Priest, I am a powerful man out there, in the big
world that holds your little world surrounded. Do you think that just anyone can possess his own starship
and take it where he likes? I have made it in the interest of several other powerful and ruthless people to
look 'out for my safety, to avenge my death or disappearance. And those peopledo know exactly where
I am and when I am due to return. For every dol of pain you make me suffer, you will feel two, or
perhaps ten, of one kind of pain or another. My friends and I can pull down your city and your Temple if
you provoke us to it. Now threaten me no more!"
The two men's eyes were still locked when there came a tap at the door and it opened and one of the
Inner Circle put in his head, making a slight nodding signal to Andreas. Other business called.
The High Priest sighed and arose. Smiling, skull-faced, he bowed his head very slightly in salute to
Schoenberg. "You are a hard man to frighten, outworlder. Nevertheless I think it will be worthwhile to do
so. Think for a while on what I have said, and shortly we will talk again."
Suomi was afraid.
He was not simply afraid of being caught by Andreas's soldiers, who yesterday had taken the ship and
Barbara and had no doubt also swept up the four other unsuspecting outworlders with little difficulty. No,
the night in the thicket had given Suomi plenty of time to think and there was a lot more to it than that.
Hours ago he had left the thicket where yesterday his flight had come to an exhausted halt. Now he was
crouched in the poor concealment of some thin, bush-like vegetation near the road that climbed the
mountain, watching and waiting-for what he was not exactly sure. He had vague hopes of spying some
lone traveler whom he might approach in hopes of getting some kind of help.
Alternatively he imagined another pack train of the kind he had already seen, passing by, and a
convenient bag of vegetables or haunch of meat tumbling forgotten to the road, where he might spring out
a minute later to grab it up. He had as yet found nothing very palatable in the woods and thickets, and so
he had not eaten anything worth mentioning in more than a standard day.
He was' also thirsty, despite the rainwater he had licked from some dripping leaves, and he was limping
fairly badly from yesterday's fall. His back bothered him, and he thought that one of the minor cuts on his
leg might be infected, despite the routine immunological precautions taken before leaving Earth.
The thicket into which he had burrowed himself when he stopped running was so dense and extensive
that it seemed possible that a man might stay there undiscovered-until it pleased his pursuers to detail a
hundred men or so to hunt him out. But perhaps Suomi had no pursuers. On this alien planet he had
literally nowhere to go. He suspected strongly that his continued freedom, if it could be called that, was
due only to the fact that no particular effort had been made to round him up. He could not believe that the
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warriors of Hunters' were particularly afraid of dying by his rifle, so it must be that they were not hunting
him because more important things were going on.
Realizing that he could not accomplish anything there he had left the thicket. There was a warning to be
spread. At moments it seemed possible that the whole thing had been no more than a monstrous practical
joke, like an initiation& but then he recalled his dark clear thoughts of the night just past, and shivered a
little in the warmth of day. It was not only for himself that he feared, and not only for the people who had
come with him from Earth. In his mind's eye Suomi could still see with perfect clarity the robot's shattered
carapace, the debris of components spilling out. And there, mixed with all the handmade parts&
"Softly, outworlder," said a gentle voice quite close behind him.
He whirled and found he was presenting the rifle at a rather short man with sandy hair, who was standing
beside a tree six or eight meters off, muscular arms raised and hands open in an unmistakable gesture of
peace. The man wore the gray clothing Suomi had seen on Godsmountain's slaves, and tucked into the
heavy rope that served him as a belt was a short massive sledge. The killer of fallen gladiators. The man
stood taller than Suomi remembered and also had a more open and attractive face.
"What do you want?" Suomi held the rifle steady, though his gaze went darting around the woods. No
one else was in sight; the slave had come here alone.
"Only to talk with you a little." The man's tone was reassuring. He very slowly lowered his hands but
otherwise did not move. "To make common cause with you, if I can, against our common enemies." He
nodded in an uphill direction.
Did slaves on Hunters' habitually talk like this? Suomi doubted it. He scarcely remembered hearing them
talk at all. He did not relax. "How did you find me?"
"I guessed you might be somewhere near the road by this time, thinking about giving up. I have been
trying to find you for an hour, and I doubt anyone else has made the effort."
Suomi nodded. "I guessed that much. Who are you? Not a slave."
"You are right. I am not. But more of that later. Come, move back into the woods, before someone sees
us from the road."
Now Suomi did relax, lowering the rifle with shaking hands and following the other back into the trees,
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