could not equate human ethics with the ethics of the Cytha. Might not human ethics, in certain cases, seem as weird and illogical, as infamous and ungrateful, to an alien?
He hunted for a twig and began working again to clean the rifle bore.
A crashing behind him twisted him around and he saw the Cytha. Behind the Cytha stalked a donovan.
He tossed away the twig and raised the gun.
“No,” said the Cytha sharply.
The donovan tramped purposefully forward and Duncan felt the prickling of the skin along his back. It was a frightful thing. Nothing could stand before a donovan. The screamers had turned tail and run when they had heard it a couple of miles or more away.
The donovan was named for the first known human to be killed by one. That first was only one of many. The roll of donovan-victims ran long, and no wonder, Duncan thought. It was the closest he had ever been to one of the beasts and he felt a coldness creeping over him. It was like an elephant and a tiger and a grizzly bear wrapped in the selfsame hide. It was the most vicious fighting machine that ever had been spawned.
He lowered the rifle. There would be no point in shooting. In two quick strides, the beast could be upon him.
The donovan almost stepped on him and he flinched away. Then the great head lowered and gave the fallen tree a butt and the tree bounced for a yard or two. The donovan kept on walking. Its powerfully muscled stern moved into the brush and out of sight.
“Now we are even,” said the Cytha. “I had to get some help.”
Duncan grunted. He flexed the leg that had been trapped and he could not feel the foot. Using his rifle as a cane, he pulled himself erect. He tried putting weight on the injured foot and it screamed with pain.
He braced himself with the rifle and rotated so that he faced the Cytha.
“Thanks, pal,” he said. “I didn’t think you’d do it.”
“You will not hunt me now?”
Duncan shook his head. “I’m in no shape for hunting. I am heading home.”
“It was the vua, wasn’t it? That was why you hunted me?”
“The vua is my livelihood,” said Duncan. “I cannot let you eat it.”
The Cytha stood silently and Duncan watched it for a moment. Then he wheeled. Using the rifle for a crutch, he started hobbling away.
The Cytha hurried to catch up with him.
“Let us make a bargain, mister. I will not eat the vua and you will not hunt me. Is that fair enough?”
“That is fine with me,” said Duncan. “Let us shake on it.”
He put down a hand and the Cytha lifted up a paw. They shook, somewhat awkwardly, but very solemnly.
“Now,” the Cytha said, “I will see you home. The screamers would have you before you got out of the woods.”
VI
They halted on a knoll. Below them lay the farm, with the vua rows straight and green in the red soil of the fields.
“You can make it from here,” the Cytha said. “I am wearing thin. It is an awful effort to keep on being smart. I want to go back to ignorance and comfort.”
“It was nice knowing you,” Duncan told it politely. “And thanks for sticking with me.”
He started down the hill, leaning heavily on the rifle-crutch. Then he frowned troubledly and turned back.
“Look,” he said, “you’ll go back to animal again. Then you will forget. One of these days, you’ll see all that nice, tender vua and—”
“Very simple,” said the Cytha. “If you find me in the vua, just begin hunting me. With you after me, I will quickly get smart and remember once again and it will be all right.”
“Sure,” agreed Duncan. “I guess that will work.”
The Cytha watched him go stumping down the hill.
Admirable, it thought. Next time I have a brood, I think I’ll raise a dozen like him.
It turned around and headed for the deeper brush.
It felt intelligence slipping from it, felt the old, uncaring comfort coming back again. But it glowed with anticipation, seethed with happiness at the big surprise it had in store for its newfound friend.
Won’t he be happy and surprised when I drop them at his door, it thought.
Will he be ever pleased!
The Shipshape Miracle
If Cheviot Sherwood ever had believed in miracles, he believed in them no longer. He had no illusions now. He knew exactly what he faced.
His life would come to an end on this uninhabited backwoods planet and there’d be none to mourn him, none to know. Not, he thought, that there would be any mourners, under any circumstance. Although there were those who would be glad to see him, who would come running if they knew where he might be found.
These were people, very definitely, that Sherwood had no desire to see.
His great, one might say his overwhelming, desire not to see them could account in part for his present situation, since he had taken off from the last planet of record without filing flight plans and lacking clearance.
Since no one knew where he might have headed and since his radio was junk, there was no likelihood at all that anyone would find him—even if they looked, which would be a matter of some doubt. Probably the most that anyone would do would be to send out messages to other planets to place authorities on the alert for him.
And since his spaceship, for the lack of a certain valve for which he had no replacement, was not going anywhere, he was stuck here on this planet.
If that had been all there had been to it, it might not have been so bad. But there was a final irony that under other circumstances (if it had been happening to someone else, let’s say), would have kept Sherwood in stitches of forthright merriment for hours on end at the
