examination. Behind, the sound of the dying engine was horrible—grating and grinding out its last few seconds of life.
Fors gained the cabin, bringing Lura in with him. They crouched together with pounding hearts as Arskane fumbled with the wheel. But the last spurt of power set the big truck moving, rubber shredding away from the remains of the tires as they turned. The engine faltered and died as they rolled out of the garage and reached the rise, but the momentum carried on and they sped faster and faster down the steep hill to the valley below.
Only pure luck had given them that clear street ahead. Had it not been for the smashed truck corking the street at its head they might have crashed into wreckage which would have killed them all. Arskane fought the wheel, steering only by instinct, and brought them along the pavement at a pace which grew ever wilder as the truck gained speed.
Twice Fors closed his eyes, only to force them open again. His hands were buried deep in the fur of the squalling Lura who wanted none of this form of travel. But the truck went on and on and they were at last on level land, bumping over the rusted tracks of the railroad. The truck slowed, and at last it stopped as it buried its front bumper in a heap of coal.
For a moment the three simply remained where they were, shaken and weak. Then they roused enough to tumble out. Arskane laughed, but his voice was going up scale as he said.
“If anyone followed us they must be well behind now. And we must labor so that such a distance grows even wider.”
They took advantage of any cover afforded by the wreckage in the train yards, and struck south at a trotting pace until, at last, the valley of the river looped away again from the southern path they had set themselves. Then they climbed the slope and went on across the tree-grown ruins of the city outskirts.
The sun was overhead, hot on head and shoulders. There was a fishy scent in the breeze which blew inland from the lake. Arskane sniffed it loudly.
“Rain,” was his verdict, “and we could not hope for better fortune. It will cover our trail—”
But the Beast Things would not follow any prey out of a city—or would they? They must be ranging farther afield now—there was that track left by the deer hunter. And Fors’ father had been brought down by a pack, not within a city but in the fringes of the true forest land. It was not well to count themselves safe merely because they were drawing out of the ruined area.
“At least we travel without the weight of baggage,” Arskane observed some time later as they paused to rest and drink the thick juice with which Fors had filled the canteen that morning.
Fors thought regretfully of the mare and the plunder which she had carried only yesterday. Not much remained now to prove his story—just the two rings on his fingers, and the few small things in the Star pouch. But he had the map and his travel journal to turn out before the Council when he had that accounting with the Eyrie which he thirsted for.
Arskane had even less than the mountaineer. The museum club in his hand was the only weapon he still had left except his belt knife. In his pouch he carried flint and steel, two fishhooks and a line wound about them.
“If we but had the drum,” he regretted. “Were that in my hand we should even now be talking with my people. Without signals it will be chancy matter to find them— unless we cross the trail of another scout.”
“Come with me—to the Eyrie!” Fors said impulsively.
“When you told me your story, comrade, did you not say that you fled your tribe? Will they be quicker to welcome you back with a stranger at your heels? This is a world in which hate lives yet. Let me tell you of my own people—this is a story of the old, old days. The flying men who founded my tribe were born with dark skins— and so they had in their day endured much from those born of fairer races. We are a people of peace but there is an ancient hurt behind us and sometimes it stirs in our memories to poison with bitterness.
“As we moved north we strove to make friends with the Plainpeople—three times that I have knowledge of did we send heralds unto them. And each time were we greeted by a flight of war arrows. So now we have hardened our hearts and we stand for ourselves if the need be. Can you promise that those of the mountains will hold out friendly hands if we seek them out?”
Hot blood stung Fors’ cheeks. He was afraid that he knew the answer to that question. Strangers were enemies—that was the old, old ruling. Yet why should it be so? This land was wide and rich and men were few. Surely there was enough of it for all—and it went on and on to the sea. And in the old days men had fashioned ships and sailed across seas to other wide lands.
He said as much aloud and Arskane gave hearty and swift agreement.
“You reason with straight thoughts, comrade. Why should there be distrust between the twain of us because our skin differs in color and our tongues sound different to the ear? My people live by tilling the land, they plant seed and food grows from it, they herd sheep from which comes the wool to weave our wind cloaks and night coverings. We make jars and pots from clay and fire them into stone hardness, working with our hands and delighting in it. The Plainspeople are hunters, they have tamed horses and run the herds of cattle—they love to keep ever moving—to know far trails. And your people—?”
Fors screwed his eyes against the sun. “My people? We are but a small tribe of few clans and often in the winter we needs must go lean and hungry for the mountains are a hard country. But above all do we love knowledge, we live to loot the ruins, to try to understand and relearn the things which made the Old Ones great in their time. Our medicine men fight against the ills of the bodies, our teachers and Star Men against the ignorance of the mind—”
“And yet these same people who fight ignorance have made of you a wandering one because you differ from them—”
For the second time Fors’ skin burned red. “I am mutant. And mutant stock is not to be trusted. The—the Beast Things are also mutant—” He could not choke out more than that.
“Lura is mutant also—”
Fors blinked. The four quiet words of that answer meant more than just a statement of fact. The tenseness went out of him. He was warm, and not with shame, nor with the sun which was beating down on him. It was a good warmness he had not remembered feeling before— ever.
Arskane propped his chin on his and stared out over the tangle of bush and vine. “It seems to me,” he said slowly, “that we are like the parts of one body. My people are the busy hands, fashioning things by which life may be made easier and more beautiful. The Plainspeople are the restless, hurrying feet, ever itching for new trails and the strange things which might lie beyond the sunrise and the sunset. And your clan is the head, thinking, remembering, planning for feet and hands. Together—”
“Together,” Fors breathed, “we would make such a nation as this land has not seen since the days of the Old Ones!”
“No, not a nation such as the Old Ones knew!” Arskane’s answer was sharp. “They were not one body—for they knew war. And out of that warfare came what is today. If the body grows together again it-must be because each part, knowing its own worth and taking pride in it, recognizes also the worth of the other two. And color of skin, or eyes, or the customs of a man’s tribe must mean no more to strangers when meeting than the dust they wash from their hands before they take meat. We must come to one another free of such dust—or it will rise to blind our eyes and what the Old Ones started will con- • tinue to live for ever and ever to poison the earth.”
“If that could only be—”
“Brother,” for the first time Arskane used the more intimate word to Fors, “my people believe that all the actions in this life have behind them some guiding power. And it seems to me that we two were brought to this place so that we might meet thus. And from our meeting perhaps there will be born something stronger and mightier than what we have known before. But now we linger here too long, death may still sniff at our heels. And it is not to my mind that we shall be turned from the path marked out for us.”
Something in the solemn tones of the big man’s voice reached into Fors. He had never had a real friend, his alien blood had set him too far apart from the other boys of the Eyrie. And his relationship with his father had been that of pupil with teacher. But he knew now that he would never willingly let this dark-skinned warrior go out of his life again, and that where Arskane chose to go, there he would follow.
When the sun was almost overhead they were in a wilderness of trees where it was necessary to go slowly to avoid gaping cellar holes and lengths of moldering beams.
But in this maze Lura picked up the trail of a wild heifer and within the hour they had brought it down and were .broiling fresh meat. With enough for perhaps two more meals packed in the raw hide they went on, Fors’
