was his.
“No, but all the village is talking about it. I will tell them about the wolf, but probably no man will come to help you for a day or two. They are all dancing and talking, thinking of nothing but the sky flash.” She raised puzzled eyes beyond Duncan. “Look.”
It was the priest, rushing past half a mile from them on his way down-Valley from the caves, doing his best to make his donkey gallop toward the Temple Village.
“He may have met your wolf,” Colleen suggested.
“He doesn’ t look behind him. Maybe in the caves he received an important sign from the earth-gods.”
They talked a while longer, sitting on the grass, while he ate the cakes she had brought him.
“I must go!” She sprang up. The sun was lowering and neither of them had realized it.
“Yes, hurry! At night the wolf may be anywhere on the plain.”
Watching her hurry away, Duncan felt the wolf in his own blood. Perhaps she knew it, for she looked back at him strangely from the hilltop. Then she was gone.
On a hillside, gathering dried brush for the night’s watchfires, Duncan paused for a moment, looking at the sunset.
“Sky-gods, help me,” he prayed. ”And earth-gods, the dark wolf should be under your dominion. If you will not grant me a sign, at least help me deal with the wolf.” He bent routinely and laid his ear to a rock. Every day he asked some god for a sign, but never—
He heard a voice. He crouched there, listening to the rock, unable to believe. Surely it was a waterfall he heard, or running cattle somewhere near. But no, it was a real voice, booming and shouting in some buried distance. He could not make out the words, but it was a real god-voice from under the earth.
He straightened up, tears in his eyes, even the sheep for a moment forgotten. This wonderful sign was not for half the world, it was for him! And he had doubted that it would ever come.
To hear what it said was all-important. He bent again and listened. The muffled voice went on unceasingly, but he could not understand it. He ran a few steps up the hill, and put his ear against another exposed earth-bone of rock. Yes, the voice was plainer here; sometimes he could distinguish a word. “Give,” said the voice. Mumble, mumble. “Defend,” he thought it said. Even the words he recognized were spoken in strange accents.
He realized that darkness was falling, and stood up, in fearful indecision. The sheep were still his responsibility, and he had to light watchfires, he had to, for the sheep would be slaughtered without them. And at the same time he had to listen to this voice.
A form moved toward him through the twilight, and he grabbed up his club—then he realized it was Colleen.
She looked frightened. She whispered: “The sun went down, and I feared the dark. It was a shorter way back to you than on to the village.”
The berserker moved in toward the nightside of the planet, quickly now, but still with caution. It had searched its memory of thousands of years of war against a thousand kinds of life, and it had remembered one other planet like this, with defensive satellites but no cities or radios. The fortifiers of that planet had fought among themselves, weakening themselves until they could no longer operate their defenses, had even forgotten what their planet-weapons were.
The life here might be shamming, trying to lure the berserker within range of the planet-weapons. Therefore the berserker sent its mechanical scouts ahead, to break through the satellite net and range over the land surface, killing, until they provoked the planet’s maximum response.
The fires were built, and Colleen held the spear and watched the sheep. Wolf or not, Duncan had to follow his sign. He made his way up the dark hillside, listening at rock after rock. And ever the earth-god voice grew stronger.
In the back of his mind Duncan realized that Colleen had arranged to be trapped with him for the night, to help him defend the sheep, and he felt limitless gratitude and love. But even that was now in the back of his mind. The voice now was everything.
He held his breath, listening. Now he could hear the voice while he stood erect. There, ahead, at the foot of a cliff, were slabs of rock tumbled down by snowslides. Among them might be a cave.
He reached the slabs, and heard the voice rumble up between them. “Attack in progress. Request human response. Order one requested. This is defense control. Attack in progress—”
On and on it went. Duncan understood some of it. Attack, request, human. Order one requested—that must mean one wish was to be granted, as in the legends. Never again would Duncan laugh at legends, thinking himself wise. This was no prank of the other young men; no one could hide in a cave and shout on and on in such a voice.
No one but a priest should enter a cave, but probably not even the priests knew of this one. It was Duncan’s, for his sign had led him here. He had been granted a tremendous sign.
More awed than fearful, he slid between slabs of rock, finding the way down, rock and earth and then metal under his feet. He dropped into a low metal cave, which was as he had heard the god-caves described, very long, smooth, round and regular, except here where it was bent and torn under the fallen rocks. In the cave’s curving sides were glowing places, like huge animal eyes, giving light enough to see.
And here the shouting was very loud. Duncan moved toward it.
We have reached the surface, the scouts radioed back to the berserker, in their passionless computer-symbol language. Here intelligent life of the earth-type lives in villages. So far we have killed eight hundred and thirty-nine units. We have met no response from dangerous weapons.
A little while longer the berserker waited, letting the toll of life-units mount. When the chance of this planet’s being a trap had dropped in computer-estimation to the vanishing point, the berserker moved in to close range, and began to mop the remaining defensive satellites out of its way.
“Here I am.” Duncan fell on his knees before the metal thing that bellowed. In front of the god-shape lay woven twigs and eggshells, very old. Once priests had sacrificed here, and then they had forgotten this god.
“Here I am,” said Duncan again, in a louder voice.
The god heeded him, for the deafening shouting stopped.
“Response acknowledged, from defense control alternate 9,864,” said the god. “Planetary defenses now under control of post 9,864.”
How could you ask a god to speak more plainly?
After a very short time of silence, the god said: “Request order one.”
That seemed understandable, but to make sure, Duncan asked: ”You will grant me one wish, mighty one?”
“Will obey your order. Emergency. Satellite sphere ninety percent destroyed. Planet-weapon responses fully programmed, activation command requested.”
Duncan, still kneeling, closed his eyes. One wish would be granted him. The rest of the words he took as a warning to choose his wish with care. If he wished, the gods would make him the wisest of chiefs or the bravest of warriors. The god would give him a hundred years of life or a dozen young wives.
Or Colleen.
But Colleen was out in the darkness, now, facing the wolf. Even now the wolf might be prowling near, just beyond the circle of firelight, watching the sheep, and watching the tender girl. Even now Colleen might be screaming—
Duncan’s heart sank utterly, for he knew the wolf had beaten him, had destroyed this moment on which the rest of his life depended. He was still a herdsman. And if he could make himself forget the sheep, he would not want to forget Colleen.
“Destroy the wolf! Kill it!” he choked out.
“Term wolf questioned.”
“The killer! To destroy the killer! That is the only wish I can make!” He could stand the presence of the god no longer, and ran away through the cave, weeping for his ruined life. He ran to find Colleen.
Recall, shouted the electronic voice of the berserker. Trap. Recall.
Hearing, its scattered brood of scout machines rose at top acceleration from their planet work, curving and climbing toward their great metal mother. Too slow. They blurred into streaks, into fireworks of incandescent gas.
