“We’ll simply have to go back with enough people to take the books away — and I’m sure you want Nils’s fire-lighter, too, even though we don’t use fire. It is knowledge and should go into the libraries.”
The Teacher made the affirmative hand motion.
“You are quite right, up to a point. However, it is more than doubtful that we could force the return of the material. Did you not say that the books had been taken into a shelter among the hot-water pools?”
“Yes, but — they can’t have been kept there!”
“I am less sure than you. In any case if we made an attack as you suggest they would have the time, and probably the inclination, to hide the things elsewhere.”
“But couldn’t we make them tell where?” asked Kruger. “Once we captured the place it could be a simple bargain — their lives for our property.”
The Teacher looked steadily at the boy for a moment, using both eyes.
“I don’t think I could approve of taking their lives,” he said at last. Kruger felt a little uncomfortable under the steady stare.
“Well — they needn’t know that we wouldn’t actually do it,” he pointed out rather lamely.
“But suppose their Teachers still have the things? What good will threatening the people do?”
“Won’t we have the Teachers too?”
“I doubt it.” The dryness of the answer escaped Kruger completely.
“Well even if we don’t, don’t they care enough about their people to give up the things in order to save them?”
“That might be.” The Teacher paused. “That might — very — well — be. I am rendered a little uncomfortable by some of your ideas, but I must confess there are germs of value in that one. We need not threaten to kill, either; simply removing the people would be enough — or rather, threatening to do it. I must discuss this with the others. You may stay and examine the library if you wish, but I imagine you will want to be back at the outpost when a decision is reached.”
Kruger had seen all he wanted of the book-storing process and of the librarians, who were people of Dar’s stature rather than Teachers, so he signified his intention of returning to the surface. Dar Lang Ahn came along and the long walk up the tunnel commenced. It was enough to keep Kruger warm, though the temperature was about forty-five Fahrenheit. He wondered as they traveled at the need for such a shelter — there was half a mile of rock and over three miles of ice overhead, according to the Teacher. Even more remarkable was the construction of such a place by people whose tools seemed to be of the simplest. But no doubt they had had tools when they first came; Kruger now believed that the accident which had marooned Dar’s people on Abyormen must have occurred several generations before. For one thing there was obviously more than one shipload of them on the planet.
The discussion of Kruger’s projects and its modification by the Teachers took quite some time, and the boy spent the interval seeing what he could do both inside the station and out.
The temperature outside was just about freezing, as might have been expected with so much ice in the vicinity. Kruger could not stay out for very long at a time, since his coveralls had been improvised with the thought in mind of keeping him cool. Fortunately the synthetic of which they were made was windproof, and by tightening the wrists, ankles, and neck he was able to gain some protection. Dar Lang Ahn, who accompanied him on most of his trips outside, seemed indifferent to the cold as he had been to the heat.
On one occasion Kruger did remain outside for a long time, but it was quite involuntary. He had gone out alone, and after plowing through drifts and over treacherous crust for half an hour or so had returned to find the door locked. He had not checked it on leaving to find what sort of latch it had, and apparently it was a spring lock. No amount of pounding attracted anyone’s attention, since the door was a quarter of a mile from the main cavern on that level, and at last Kruger had to strike off around the mountain to the landing platform. He reached it more dead than alive, and thereafter was quite careful about doors.
Even inside he occasionally made mistakes, as well. Once he nearly suffocated in a food-storage bin he was examining, and on another occasion came within an ace of dropping through what later proved to be the trap of a rubbish-disposal chute. He learned later that the chute led to a narrow canyon full of melt-water which normally carried away the rubbish. Thereafter he went nowhere alone. He was decidedly relieved when the deliberations ended and the plan of attack was decided.
It was reasonably ingenious, he felt. He and Dar were to return to the city by glider, circling over the village to be sure they were seen. In the meantime a large force of bowmen were to land on the other side, far enough from the city to be assured of secrecy, and enter it. The two groups were to meet at a point which Dar selected, drawing a map with the aid of his photographic memory and marking the position on it.
The assumption was that the villagers would once more send a force to capture the intruders. This group would be led into a square by Dar and Kruger, which was surrounded by buildings in which the bowmen from the ice cap would be sheltered. There was the possibility that the two decoys would be held as hostages or even killed out of hand, but Dar did not appear worried and Kruger therefore preferred not to show his own feelings.
Kruger made sure that food and water were stowed in the big glider this time, though Dar appeared to consider them unnecessary for such a trip.
The return to the tropics, of course, pleased Kruger only briefly. After a very short time in the steamy air on the wrong side of the ocean he found himself thinking wistfully of the winds from the ice cap — quite humanly ignoring the fact that those winds had nearly been the death of him on one occasion. It is hard to imagine just how Dar Lang Ahn would have reacted had he known his companion’s thoughts. Since Kruger kept them carefully to himself the pilot was able to concentrate on his business.
The volcanic cones were found without difficulty. Most of the other gliders were already down on the beach a few miles short of the mountains; as before, the lighter craft had made better time. Dar and Kruger could see the crews below them gathering for the trip to the city and decided to remain airborne for a while longer to make sure that the bowmen would have time to get into position.
They went on up the coast beyond the cones and cast about in an attempt to find the village of their captors from the air.
The huts themselves were too well concealed by the trees, it turned out, but the area of the geysers was easy enough to locate. The heat from this region provided a splendid updraft and Dar circled in it for several minutes while the two examined the area minutely, but there was no sign of life now. At length Dar took his glider back to the volcanoes and landed on the beach as close as he could get to the city.
They entered the place on foot, fully aware that they were leaving a plain trail in the sand of the beach but not worried about it. At least, Dar Lang Ahn was not worried; Kruger was beginning to wonder whether or not they might be getting just a little too blatant about the whole business. He suggested this to his companion, to whom the idea was wholly new.
“I don’t think we need worry too much,” Dar said at length. “They will see that we had to land on the beach; we certainly could not bring the glider down in the jungle, and there is no way of walking across sand without leaving a trail. We can be less obvious inside the city.”
“All right.” Kruger was coming to suspect that Dar Lang Ahn’s people had had little practice in military matters. However, with luck, the villagers they sought to trap might prove equally naive; there was nothing much that could be done about it at this point.
The city lay silent, as it had before. There had been a recent rainstorm, and puddles of water were still present on the flatter portions of the pavement. Occasionally it was difficult to avoid wading through these, and wet footprints marked portions of their route to the square where the bowmen should be waiting for them. How long these would last in the nearly saturated air was a question that bothered Kruger slightly, though Dar did not appear to give it a thought.
They reached the designated point ahead of the others, in spite of the extra time spent in the air. When the force finally arrived no further time was wasted in placing the ambush. That completed, there seemed nothing for Dar and Kruger to do but start exploring buildings.
“I don’t see what we’re likely to find that will be of much interest,” the boy remarked. “We’ve already been through most of the places around here. We should at least have picked a neighborhood we hadn’t explored so thoroughly.”
“Then I could not have been sure that it would lend itself to our ambush,” pointed out Dar. “I could go only by memory, you know.”
“I suppose that’s so. Well let’s go in here and see what’s to be seen.” Kruger led the way into a nearby
