The World Menders

a pile of water-soaked quarm logs.

The logs were a danger signal. Quarin was strictly rationed, the olz never had enough, and they kept their meager reserve in storage huts. The soggy logs meant that this village had not had a fire for many nights, and that meant serious trouble.

Farrari crept under the cart for shelter from the driving rain while he lit a torch, and they went quickly from hut to hut. All of the olz had the strange swelling on their spines. More than half of them were already dead. Farrari mutte’ed, “They’re so weak from hunger that they have no resistance.”

“We’ll need help,” Liano whispered.

He stood guard while she talked with base. Then he violated a fundamental rule of ol existence—fires permitted only during the hours of darkness. He dragged dry quarm logs from the storage hut and started a roaring blaze around the clay pot. While the water heated they carried the dead to the death huts, splashing through thick, oily smoke that hung near the ground over, yellowing puddles. The death huts were quickly filled, and they laid the overflow to rest in a neat row beside them.

The miracle was that so few of them were children. He mentioned this to Liano, and she said, “During the winter, the children eat first.”

Farrari cleaned accumulated filth from the empty huts, and when the water had heated Liano transformed some of it into a nourishing broth with a sorcery no native yilesc could have achieved. They bathed the living olz, forced broth past their fever-swollen lips, and carried them to clean huts.

When darkness came on Farrari moved the cart to the edge of the wasteland and turned on a direction signal. A short time later an IPR platform floated down. Dr. Garnt clambered over the side, muttering, “So you’ve got yourselves a situation.”

“Is that what you call it?” Farrari asked glumly.

When they reached the firelight he had to laugh in spite of his dark mood. The portly doctor was ineffectually disguised in an of loin cloth. “If a durrl sees you, he’ll make four olz out of you,” Farrari hissed.

“I didn’t have time to diet,” the doctor whispered sourly.

The platform’s pilot, one of Isa Graan’s men, helped Farrari to unload supplies. They packed in as much as the cart would hold under its false bottom and concealed the remainder behind quarm logs in a storage hut.

Dr. Garnt returned to the platform swearing softly to himself. “Some damned virus,” he whispered to Farrari. “This world has already given us some choice specimens, but we haven’t encountered this one. Did you notice the in flammation along the spine? Nasty. Put up the tent and I’ll go to work.”

They stretched a tent over the platform, and the doctor fussed and muttered and clanked equipment for hours until Farrari anxiously began to watch for the dawn. Finally he emerged with a flask of clear liquid.

“It complicates things, having to give it to them orally,” he explained. “But I’d be cashiered and sent home if I started mass injections. That doesn’t apply to you, of course. Let’s have your arm.”

He inoculated Farrari and Liano and delivered terse instructions about the antitoxin he’d concocted. Graan’s man muttered about the time and took off while the doctor was climbing aboard. “Have you checked the neighboring villages?” he called. “Better do that. We’ll start mass-producing this, just in case. I’ll be back tonight.” The platform vanished into the thinning darkness.

Liano crept into the yilesc’s hut for some badly-needed sleep. Farrari continued to make the rounds of the huts, this time coaxing the swollen lips to accept Dr. Garnt’s medicine. A gray day pushed aside the gray dawn; the rain changed to wet snow and the wasted bodies of the dead lying outside the death huts were mercifully cloaked in white shrouds.

A distant, sputtering bray brought Farrari scrambling from a hut. Through the snow he dimly saw, on the skyline where the dying ol must have seen them, a durrl mounted on a gril. Farrari watched uneasily until he passed from sight. The smoke from the forbidden fire still hung near the ground, and Farrari could only hope that the durrl had not seen it; but a short time later he heard the braying close at hand and the durrl rode slowly into the village.

He halted, looking down at the fire, and Farrari instantly averted his eyes. An ol did not look directly at a durrl.

The durrl grunted an ol word. “Sickness?”

“Much sickness,” Farrari said.

At a nudge from the durrrs knee the gril reared gracefully and started away. Suddenly the durrl saw the yilesc’s cart and narmpf. He leaped from the gril with a bellow of anger.

Liano stepped from the hut and bowed her head respectfully. He started toward her.

Then he saw the long row of snow-shrouded dead. He strode among them, scattering the snow and now and then kicking at a wasted body. He whirled and ran toward Liano. His sputtering rage left him momentarily speechless, and when he found his voice he screamed incoherently, but there was no mistaking the fury that throbbed in every choked syllable. Liano faced him calmly, eyes downcast.

He leaped to the waiting gril, snatched his zrilm whip, and with all of his strength brought it whistling down on Liano.

Farrari had started forward when the durri reached for his whip. It was in its clownstroke when he seized him from behind and jerked him backward. The dry leaves no more than brushed Liano’s robes, but they raked Farrari’s leg with excruciating pain. He hurled the durrl to the ground, secured the whip, and slowly backed away, his leg dripping blood onto the snow.

The durri dazedly regained his feet. He said nothing; the shock of being attacked by an ol left him not only incoherent, but almost comatose. Farrari calmly tossed the zrilm onto the fire and turned to confront him. Looking a durrl in the eyes for the first time, he had the inward apprehension of having unleashed a clap of doom, but he could not resume the subservient posture that his role demanded.

He could not think like an ol.

A gril raced down on them with a patter of small hooves. Farrari whirled, caught the flutter of gold-embossed robes, and hastily lowered his eyes. Doom had arrived, and he felt more astonished than apprehensive.

An aristocrat, in this remote ol village!

The durrl was as dumbfounded as Farrari. He stared for long seconds before he remembered to avert his eyes.

The aristocrat halted outside the circle of huts, a shout rang out, and the durri approached him haltingly. A question was flung in harsh Rasczian syllables, and the durri began a stumbling reply. They were too far away for Farrari to understand what was said, but it was obvious that the durrl’s explanation did not sound convincing, even to him, and his discomfiture increased as he fumbled for words. Farrari enjoyed the situation while he could; his own turn would inevitably follow and there was no justice for an o/—only greater or lesser punishment.

The aristocrat snarled a reply that ended with a rasping command. The durrl turned silently, mounted his gril, and rode away.

The aristocrat turned his back on Farrari and Liano, made a sweeping motion that could not be misunderstood, and rode away. Obeying his unspoken command they followed him on foot.

He led them a short distance along the hedge-lined lane and turned, flourishing a spear. Farrari tensed himself to dodge or attack.

The aristocrat leaned forward. “Of all the idiotic things to do—are you trying to blow the planet?”

Liano said quietly, “Hello, Orson.”

“What sort of indoctrination did this halfwit have?” the aristocrat demanded. “An ol