enriching itself with the cultures of other worlds, adapting the good, overcoming the bad.»
«In other words,» said Joe. «You're as strenuous an imperialist as your military friends. Only your methods are different.»
«I'm afraid you have defined me,» sighed Hableyat. «Furthermore I fear that in this era military imperialism is almost impossible–that cultural imperialism is the only practicable form. A planet cannot be successfully subjugated and occupied from another planet. It may be devastated, laid waste, but the logistics of conquest are practically insuperable. I fear that the adventures proposed by the Redbranch will exhaust Mang, ruin Ballenkarch and make the way easy for a Druid religious imperialism.»
Joe felt Elfane stiffen. «Why is that worse than Mang cultural imperialism?»
«My dear Priestess,» said Hableyat, «I could never argue cogently enough to convince you. I will say one word–that the Druids produce very little with a vast potentiality–that they live on the backs of a groaning mass–and that I hope the system is never extended to include me among the Laity.»
«Me, either,» said Joe.
Elfane jumped to her feet. «You're both vile!»
Joe surprised himself by reaching, pulling her back beside him with a thud. She struggled a moment, then subsided.
«Lesson number one in Earth culture,» said Joe cheerfully. «It's bad manners to argue religion.»
A soldier burst into the chamber, panting, his face twisted in terror. «Horrible–out along the road. Where's the Prince? Get the Prince–a terrible growth!»
Hableyat jumped to his feet, his face sharp alert. He ran nimbly out the door and after a second Joe said, «I'm going too.»
Elfane, without a word, followed.
Joe had a flash impression of complete confusion. A milling mob of men circled an object he could not identify–a squat green-and-brown thing which seemed to writhe and heave.
Hableyat burst through the circle, with Joe at his side and Elfane pressing at Joe's back. Joe looked in wonder. The Son of the Tree?
It had grown, become complicated. No longer did it resemble the Kyril Tree. The Son had adapted itself to a new purpose–protection, growth, flexibility.
It reminded Joe of a tremendous dandelion. A white fuzzy ball held itself twenty feet above the ground on a slender swaying stalk, surrounded by an inverted cone of flat green fronds. At the base of each front a green tendril, streaked and speckled with black, thrust itself out. Clasped in these tendrils were the bodies of three men.
Hableyat squawked, «The thing's a devil,» and clapped his hand to his pouch. But his weapon had been impounded by the Residence guards.
A Ballenkarch chieftain, his pale face distorted, charged the Son, hacking with his saber. The fuzzy ball swayed toward him a trifle, the tendrils jerked back like the legs of an insect, then snapped in from all sides, wrapped the man close, pierced his flesh. He bawled, fell silent, stiffened. The tendrils flushed red, pulsed, and the Son grew taller.
Four more Ballenkarts, acting in grim concert, charged the Son, six others followed. The tendrils thrust, snapped and ten bodies lay stiff and white on the ground. The Son expanded as if it were being magnified.
Prince Harry's light assured voice said, «Step aside... Now then, step aside.»
Harry stood looking at the plant–twenty feet to the top of the fronds while the fuzzy white ball reared another ten above them.
The Son pounced, with a cunning quasi-intelligence. Tendrils unfurled, trapped a dozen roaring men, dragged them close. And now the crowd went wild, swayed back and forth in alternate spasms of rage and fear, at last charged in a screeching melee.
Sabres glittered, swung, chopped. Overhead the fuzzy white ball swung unhurriedly. It was sensate, it saw, felt, planned with a vegetable consciousness, calm, fearless, single-purposed. Its tendrils snaked, twisted, squeezed, returned to drain. And the Son of the Tree soared, swelled.
Panting survivors of the crowd fell back, staring helplessly at the corpse-strewn ground. Harry motioned to one of his personal guard. «Bring out a heat-gun.»
The Arch-Thearchs came forward, protesting. «No, no, that is the Sacred Shoot, the Son of the Tree.»
Harry paid them no heed. Gameanza clutched his arm with panicky insistence. «Recall your soldiers. Feed it nothing but criminals and slaves. In ten years it will be tremendous, a magnificent Tree.»
Harry shook him off, jerked his head at a soldier. «Take this maniac away.»
A projector on wheels was trundled from behind the Residence, halted fifty feet from the Son. Harry nodded. A thick white beam of energy spat against the Son.
«Turn it against the top,» said Harry anxiously.
The bar of energy swung up the slender stalk, concentrated on the head of the plant. It coruscated, spattered, ducked away.
«It doesn't like it!» cried Harry. «
The Arch-Thearchs, restrained in the rear, howled in near-personal anguish. «
The white ball steadied, spat back a gout of energy. The projector exploded, blasting heads and arms and legs in every direction.
There was a sudden dead silence. Then the moans began. Then sudden screaming as the tendrils snapped forth to feed.
Joe dragged Elfane back and a tendril missed her by a foot. «But I am a Druid Priestess,» she said in dull astonishment. «The Tree protects the Druids.. The Tree accepts only the lay pilgrims.»
«
Joe now had to crane his neck to see the top of the Son. The flexible central shoot was stiffening, the little white ball, swung and twisted and peered over its new domain.
Harry came limping up beside Joe, his face a white mask. «Joe–that's the ungodliest creature I've seen on thirty-two planets.»
«I've seen a bigger one–on Kyril. It eats the citizens by the thousand.»
Harry said, «These people trust me. They think I'm some kind of god myself–merely because I know a little Earth engineering. I've got to kill that abomination.»
«You're not throwing in with the Druids then?»
Harry sneered. «What kind of patsy do you take me for, Joe? I'm not throwing in with either one of 'em. A plague on both their houses. I've been holding 'em off, teasing 'em until I could get things straightened out. I'm still not satisfied–but I certainly didn't bargain for something like this. Who the hell brought the thing here?»
Joe was silent. Elfane said, «It was brought from Kyril by order of the Tree.»
Harry stared. «My God, does the thing talk too?»
Elfane said vaguely, «The College of Thearchs reads the will of the Tree by various signs.»
Joe scratched his chin.
«Hmph,» said Harry. «Fancy decoration for a nice tight little tyranny. But that's not the problem. This thing's got to be killed!» And he muttered, «I'd like to get the main beast too, just for luck.»
Joe heard–he looked at Elfane expecting to see her flare into anger. But she stood silent, looking at the Son.
Harry said, «It seems to thrive on energy... Heat's out. A bomb? Let's try blasting. I'll send down to the warehouse for some splat.»
Gameanza tore himself loose, came running up with his gray robe flapping around his legs. «Excellency, we
