The other raised his eyes again to Travis. “When you slept under the Redax how did you ride?”
“As a warrior—raiding … living …”
“And I—I was one with go’ndi,” Buck returned simply.
“But—”
“But the white man has assured us that such power—the power of a chief—does not exist? Yes, the Pinda-lick-o-yi has told us so many things. He is busy, busy with his tools, his machines, always busy. And those who think in another fashion cannot be measured by his rules, so they are foolish dreamers. Not all white men think so. There was Dr. Ashe—he was beginning to understand a little.
“Perhaps I, too, am standing still, halfway up the stairway of the past. But of this I am very sure: For us, there will be no return to our own place. And the time will come when something new shall grow from the seed of the past. Also it is necessary that you be one of the tenders of that growth. So I urge you, take Tsoay, and the next time, Lupe. For the young who may be swayed this way and that by words—as the wind shakes a small tree—must be given firm roots.”
In Travis education warred with instinct, just as the picture Redax had planted in his mind had warred with his awaking to this alien landscape. Yet now he believed he must be guided by what he felt. And he knew that no man of his race would claim go’ndi, the power of spirit known only to a great chief, unless he had actually felt it swell within him. It might have been fostered by hallucination in the past, but the aura of it carried into the here and now. And Travis had no doubts that Buck believed implicitly in what he said, and that belief carried credulity to others.
“This is wisdom, Nantan—”
Buck shook his head. “I am no nantan, no chief. But of some things I am sure. You also be sure of what lies within you, younger brother!”
On the third day, ranging eastward along the base of the mountain range, Travis found what he believed would be an acceptable camp site. There was a canyon with a good spring of water cut round by well-marked game trails. A series of ledges brought him up to a small plateau where scrub wood could be used to build the wickiups. Water and food lay within reach, and the ledge approach was easy to defend. Even Deklay and his fellow malcontents were forced to concede the value of the site.
His duty to the clan accomplished, Travis returned to his own concern, one which had haunted him for days. Topaz had been taped by men of the vanished star empire. Therefore, the planet was important, but why? As yet he had found no indication that anything above the intelligence level of the split horns was native to this world. But he was gnawed by the certainty that there was something here, waiting … And the desire to learn what it was became an ever-burning ache.
Perhaps he was what Deklay had accused him of being, one who had come to follow the road of the Pinda-lick-o-yi too closely. For Travis was content to scout with only the coyotes for company, and he did not find the loneliness of the unknown planet as intimidating as most of the others.
He was checking his small trail pack on the fourth day after they had settled on the plateau when Buck and Jil-Lee hunkered down beside him.
“You go to hunt—?” Buck broke the silence first.
“Not for meat.”
“What do you fear? That ndendai—enemy people—have marked this as their land?” Jil-Lee questioned.
“That may be true, but now I hunt for what this world was at one time, the reason why the ancient star men marked it as their own.”
“And this knowledge may be of value to us?” Jil-Lee asked slowly. “Will it bring food to our mouths, shelter for our bodies—mean life for us?”
“All that is possible. It is the unknowing which is bad.”
“True. Unknowing is always bad,” Buck agreed. “But the bow which is fitted to one hand and strength of arm, may not be suited to another. Remember that, younger brother. Also, do you go alone?”
“With Naginlta and Nalik’ideyu I am not alone.”
“Take Tsoay with you also. The four-footed ones are indeed ga-n for the service of those they like, but it is not good that man walks alone from his kind.”
There it was again, the feeling of clan solidarity which Travis did not always share. On the other hand, Tsoay would not be a hindrance. On other scouts the boy had proved to have a keen eye for the country and a liking for experimentation which was not a universal attribute even among those of his own age.
“I would go to find a path through the mountains; it may be a long trail,” Travis half protested.
“You believe what you seek may lie to the north?”
Travis shrugged. “I do not know. How can I? But it will be another way of seeking.”
“Tsoay shall go. He keeps silent before older warriors as is proper for the untried, but his thoughts fly free as do yours,” Buck replied. “It is in him also, this need to see new places.”
“There is this,” Jil-Lee got to his feet, “—do not go so far, brother, that you may not easily find a way to return. This is a wide land, and within it we are but a handful of men alone—”
“That, too, I know.” Travis thought he could read more than one kind of warning in Jil-Lee’s words.
They were the second day away from the plateau camp, and climbing, when they chanced upon the pass Travis had hoped might exist. Before them lay an abrupt descent to what appeared to be open plains country cloaked in a dusky amber Travis now knew
