She nodded again, and obeyed: “Thus we on Dondromogon live and have lived. This world is ours, its good and evil. But,” and her voice, from a soft, shy murmur, turned hard, “there are those who do not wish it so. The Newcomers—the invaders!”
“Ill be their fate,” growled Gederr beside her, as if rehearsed.
“They came to us, not long ago in years … but I forget, Yandro does not know as yet the length of Dondromogon’s year, or Dondromogon’s day. They came, then, no longer ago than the time needed for a baby to become a child.”
Three years of my own reckoning I decided, and wished she had not mentioned babies and children. I still disliked that arbitrary survival-of-the-fittest custom. “Where did they come from?” I asked.
“Who can tell? Perhaps from the forgotten world where came our ancestors. Somehow they had learned of our conquest here, our advances and wealth-gathering in spite of natural obstacles. That is what they hope to plunder from us, these conquering Newcomers!”
“Ill be their fate,” repeated Gederr, and two or three of the Council with him.
“But the winds are too high for a final battle to happen quickly. After some fighting, they seized upon the other strip of habitable land, on Dondromogon’s other side. We fight them at the two poles—mostly underground. Do you understand?”
“I seem to,” I replied. “But now what about me? The story of Yandro?”
“Did not Sporr tell everything?” broke in Gederr. “He should have done so. Sporr, the Council is not pleased.”
“I had to go slowly,” apologized the old man, and Elonie took up the tale:
“It is known to all on Dondromogon. The days of the First Comers held great minds that could see the future. Then it was foreseen that, in Dondromogon’s hour of peril and need, a time set by the destruction of an enemy great and mighty—”
“Barak,” I said aloud, still puzzling over that strangely familiar name.
“At that time,” finished Elonie, “a leader to be called Yandro, the Conquering Stranger, would come. Even clothing was supplied—clothing not like that we wear today.”
She gestured toward me. Indeed, the garments I wore were different from those of my companions. I shook my head slowly, and tried to digest what I had heard once again. But one bit of it still clamored for rejection.
“About these eliminations,” I harked back. “Who decides on which person must die to keep the number down to seven hundred?”
“We do,” replied Gederr, almost bleakly.
“And the Newcomers, have they a similar custom?”
“Not they, the greedy interlopers.” Gederr looked very greedy himself. “They delve and destroy in Dondromogon, feeding ever new spates of arrivals.”
“It seems,” I offered, “that you would be well advised to grow in number, and so win this war.”
But Gederr shook his head. “We checkmate them at the two poles, where the way into our territory is narrow. And more than seven hundred would be hard to make comfortable.”
“Friends, I do not like it,” I stated flatly. “There seems to be ruthlessness, and waste.”
“Why waste?” spoke up another of the Council, the narrow man, whose name was Stribakar. “This war has begun only recently, but it will last forever. At least, so I see it.”
“Now that Yandro is here, it shall be brought to an end,” pronounced Elonie, her green eyes fixed on me. “Will it please Yandro to see something of this war?”
“Since you make it so much my business, I would be pleased indeed,” I told her, and Sporr rose from his seat. He went to an oblong of white translucency, on a side wall of the stage within sight of us all. It was about twice a man’s height by thrice a man’s width.
“The screen of a televiso,” he said to me, and touched a dial beside it. The screen lighted, with confused blurrings of color and movement. He dialed quickly and knowingly.
“We see an underground passage,” he said. “And those who dispute therein.”
I could see a gloomy stretch of earth-walled passage, lighted from somewhere by a yellow radiance that became dim and brown toward one end. I had no way of judging the true size of the object whose image I saw, until I made out stealthy movement at the darker end. Sporr’s dialing made parts of the scene clear, and the movement proved to be that of a human figure, prone and partially concealed in a depression of the floor. That figure was no more than half-height, by which I estimated the passage itself to be some fifteen or eighteen feet to the top of its rough-dug ceiling.
“A scout,” breathed Doriza beside me, pointing to the prone man. “See, Yandro, he wears earth-colored cloth over his armor, and his arms and face are smeared with mud. The thing he holds is a ray-digger, whereby he burrows his way forward to the enemy.
“Enemy in the same tunnel with him?” I asked.
“Right.” I saw her blond head dip. “Our tunnel broke into one of theirs, by accident or plan. At point of contact, both forces are cautious, fearing ambush. Now—”
She said no more. The scout on the screen was apparently creeping forward through the solid soil of the floor, only the top of his head and shoulders showing. Once or twice I saw the object he employed, a baton-like tool of black metal with a bulb or ball at one end. It emitted faint sparks and shudders of light, which melted or vaporized the earth ahead of him.
“See! He senses danger near.”
Indeed he did; for he paused, and took something else from his belt—a disk the size of his palm. This he held close to his face, studying it.
“Televiso,” explained Doriza. “It has limited power of identifying both sound and sight near at hand. The scout knows that enemy approach.”
Still working his dials, Sporr made the scene slide along. The bright end of the tunnel came into view for some yards. All who
