 Part 25 There were few coherent memories of the ride. Some things stood out sharply like the spaceship-sized lump of burning scoria that had plunged into a lake near them, showering the line with hot drops of water. But mostly it was just a seemingly endless ride, with Jason still too weak to care much about it. By dawn the danger area was behind them and the march was slow to a walk. The animals had vanished as the quake was left behind, going their own ways still in silent armistice. The peace of mutually shared danger was over. Jason found that out when they stopped to rest and eat. He and Reeves went to sit on the soft grass near a fallen tree. A wild dog had arrived there first. It lay under the log, muscles tensed, the ruddy morning light striking a red glint from his eyes. Reeves faced it not three metres away without moving a muscle. He made no attempt to reach one of his weapons or to call for help. Jason stood still as well, hoping the parent knew what he was doing. With no warning at all the dog sprang straight at them. Jason fell backwards as Reeves pushed him aside. The parent dropped at the same time, only now his hand held the long knife yanked from the sheath strapped to his thigh. With unseen speed the knife came up, the dog twisted in mid-air trying to bite. Instead it sank in behind the dog's forelegs, the beast's own weight tearing a deadly gaping wound the length of its body. It was still alive when it hit the ground, but Reeves was astralite, pulling back the bony, plated head to cut the soft throat underneath. The parent carefully cleaned his knife on the dead animal's fur, then returned it to the sheath. There usually no trouble, he said quietly, but it was excited, probably lost the rest of the pack in the quake. His actions were the direct opposite of the city-parents. He had not looked for trouble nor started the fight. Instead he had avoided it as long as he could. But when the beast charged it had been neatly and efficiently dispatched. Now instead of gloating over his victory he seemed troubled over an unnecessary death. It made sense. Everything on Pyrrhus made sense. Now he knew how the deadly planetary battle had started, and he knew how it could be ended. All the deaths had not been in vain. Each one had helped him along the road a little more towards the final destination. There was just one final thing to be done. Reeves was watching him now and he knew they shared the same thoughts. Explain yourself, Reeves said. What do you mean when you said we could wipe out the junkmen and get our freedom? Jason didn't bother to correct the misquote. It was best they considered him a hundred percent on their side. Get the others together and I'll tell you, I particularly want to see Naxa and any other talkers who are here. They gathered quickly when the word was passed. All of them knew that the junkman had been killed to save this off-worlder that their hope of salvation lay with him. Jason looked at the crowd of faces turned towards him and reached for the right words to tell them what had to be done. It didn't help to know that many of them would be killed doing it. The small starship can't be used, he said. You all saw that it was ruined beyond repair. But that was the easy way out. The hard way is still left. Though some of you may die in the long run it will be the best solution. We are going to invade the city, break through the perimeter. I know how it can be done. A mutter of sounds read across the crowd. Some of them looked excited, happy with the thought of killing their hereditary enemies. Others stared at Jason as if he were mad. A few were dazed at the magnitude of the thought, this carrying of the battle to the stronghold of the heavily armed enemy. They quietened when Jason raised his hand. I know it sounds impossible, he said, but let me explain. Something must be done and now is the time to do it. The situation can only get worse from now on. The city pier, the junkman, can get along without your food. Their concentrates taste awful but they sustain life. But they are going to turn against you in every way they can. No more medals for your tools or replacements for your electronic equipment. Their hatred will probably make them seek out your forms and destroy them from the ship. All this won't be comfortable and there will be worse to come. In the city they are losing their war against this planet. Each year there are less of them. Some day they will all be dead. Knowing how they feel I am sure they will destroy their ship first and the entire planet as well if that is possible. How can we stop them? Someone called out. By hitting now, Jason answered. I know all the details of the city and I know how the defenses are set up. Their perimeter is designed to protect them from animal life, but we could break through it if we were really determined. What good would that do? Resnapped. We crack the perimeter and they draw back. Then counter-attack and force. How can we stand against their weapons? We don't have to. Their spaceport touches the perimeter and I know the exact spot where the ship stands. That is the place where we will break through. There is no formal guard on the ship and only a few people in the area. We will capture the ship. Whether we can fly it or not is unimportant. Who controls the ship controls Paris. Once there we threaten to destroy it if they don't meet our terms. They have the choice of mass-suicide or cooperation. I hope they have the brains to cooperate. His words shocked them into silence for an instant. Then they surged into a wave of sound. There was no agreement, just excitement, and Reeves finally brought them to order. Quiet! he shouted. Wait until Jason finishes before you decide. We still haven't heard how this proposed invasion is to be accomplished. The plan I have depends on the talkers, Jason said. Is Noxa here? He waited until the fur-wrapped man had pushed to the front. I want to know more about the talkers, Noxa. I know you can speak to Dorms and the dogs here, but what about the wild animals? Can you make them do what you want? They're animals. Of course we can talk to them. The more talkers, the more power. Make them do just what we want. Then the attack will work, Jason said excitedly. Could you get your talkers all on one side of the city, the opposite side from the spaceport, and stir the animals up? Make them attack the perimeter? Could we? Noxa shouted, carried away by the idea. We'd bring in animals from all over. Start the biggest attack they ever saw. Then that's it. Your talkers will launch the attack on the far side of the perimeter. If you keep out of sight, the guards will have no idea that it is anything more than an animal attack. I've seen how they work. As an attack mounts, they call for reserves inside the city and drain men away from the other parts of the perimeter. At the height of the battle, when they have all their forces committed across the city, I'll lead the attack that will break through and capture the ship. That's the plan and it's going to work. Jason sat down then. Half fell down, drained of strength. He lay and listened as the debate went back and forth. Reese ordering it and keeping it going. Difficulties were raised and eliminated. No one could find a basic fault with a plan. There were plenty of faults in it, things that might go wrong, but Jason didn't mention them. These people wanted his idea to work and they were going to make it work. It finally broke up and they moved away. Reese came over to Jason. The basics are settled, he said. All here are in agreement. They are spreading the word by messenger to all the talkers. The talkers are the heart of the attack and the more we have, the better it will go off. We don't dare use the screens to call them. There is a good chance that the junkmen can intercept our messages. It will take five days before we are ready to go ahead. I'll need all of that time if I'm to be any good, Jason said. Now let's get some rest. End of Part 25 Part 26 of Death World by Harry Harrison This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Part 26 It's a strange feeling, Jason said. I've never really seen the perimeter from this side before. Ugly is about the only word for it. He lay on his stomach next to Reese looking through a screen of leaves downhill towards the perimeter. They were both wrapped in heavy furs in spite of the midday heat, with thick leggings and leather gauntlets to protect their hands. The gravity and the heat were already making Jason dizzy, but he forced himself to ignore this. Ahead, on the fore side of a burnt corridor, stood the perimeter. A high wall of varying height and texture, seemingly made of everything in the world. It was impossible to tell what it had originally been constructed of. Generations of attackers had bruised, broken, and undermined it. Repairs had been quickly made, patches thrust roughly into place, and fixed there. Crude Mason re-crumbled and gave way to a rat's nest of woven timbers. This overlapped the length of pitted metal, large plates riveted together. Even this metal had been eaten through and bursting sandbags spilled out of a jagged hold. Over the surface of the wall, detector wires and charged cables looped and hung. At odd intervals, automatic flamethrowers thrust their nozzles over the wall above and swept the base of the wall clear of any life that might have come close. Those flame things can cause us trouble, Reese said. That one covers the area where you want to break in. It'll be no problem, Jason assured him. It may look like it's firing a random pattern, but it's really not. It varies a simple sweep, just enough to fool an animal but was never meant to keep men out. Look for yourself. It fires at regularly repeated two, four, three and one-minute intervals. They crawled back to the hollow, where Noxa and the others waited for them. There were only thirty men in the party. What they had to do could only be done with a fast, light force. Their strongest weapon was surprise. Once that was gone, their other weapons wouldn't hold out for seconds against the city guns. Everyone looked uncomfortable in the fur and leather wrappings, and some of the men had loosened them to cool off. Wrap up, Jason ordered. None of you have been this close to the perimeter before, and you don't understand how deadly it is here. Noxa is keeping the larger animals away, and you can all handle the smaller ones. That isn't the danger. Every thorn is poisoned, and even the blades of grass carry a deadly sting. Watch out for insects of any kind, and once we start moving, breathe only through the wet cloths. He's right, Noxa snorted, never being closer in this myself. Death, death up by that wall. Do like he says. They could only wait then, honing down already needle-sharp crossbow bolts, and glancing up at the slowly moving sun. Only Noxa didn't share the unrest. He sat, eyes unfocused, feeling the movement of animal life in the jungle around them. On the way, he said, Biggest thing I've ever heard. Not a beast between here and the mountains ain't howling his lungs out running towards the city. Jason was aware of part of it. A tension in the air and a wave of intensified anger and hatred. It would work. He knew if they could only keep the attack confined to a small area. The talkers had seemed sure of it. They had stalked out quietly that morning a thin line of ragged men moving out in a mental sweep that would round up the peering life and send it charging against the city. They hit, Noxa said suddenly. The men were on their feet now, staring in the direction of the city. Jason had felt the twist as the attack had been driven home and knew that this was it. There was the sound of shots and the heavy booming far away. Thin streamers of smoke began to blow above the treetops. Let's get into position, Reed said. Around them the jungle hulled with an echo of hatred. The half-sensean plants writhed and the air was thick with small flying things. Noxa sweated and mumbled as he turned back the animals that crashed towards them. By the time they reached the last screen of foliage before the burned out area, they had lost four men. One had been stung by an insect. Jason got the medikit to him in time, but he was so sick he had to turn back. The other three were bitten and scratched and treatment came too late. Their swollen twisted bodies were left behind on the trail. Yeah, and beasts heard him head. When we go in. Not yet, Reed said, we wait for the signal. One of the men carried the radio. He sat it down carefully, then threw the aerial over a branch. The set was shielded, so no radiation leaked out to give them away. It was turned on, but only a hiss of atmospheric static came from the speaker. We could have timed it, Reed said. No, we couldn't, Jason told him, not accurately. We want to hit that wall at the height of the attack when our chances are best. Even if they hear the message it won't mean a thing to them inside, and a few minutes later it won't matter. The sound from the speaker changed. A voice spoke a short sentence, then cut off. Bring me three barrels of flour. Let's go, Reed's urged as he started forward. Wait, Jason said, taking him by the arm. I'm timing the flamethrower. It's due in... there. A blast of fire sprayed the ground, then turned off. We have four minutes to the next one. We hit the long period. They ran, stumbling in the soft ashes, tripping over charred bones and rusted metal. Two men grabbed Jason under the arm and half carried him across the ground. It hadn't been planned that way, but it saved precious seconds. They dropped him against the wall and he fumbled out the bombs he had made. The charges from Cranon's gun, taken when he was killed, had been hooked together with a firing circuit. All the moves had been rehearsed carefully and they went smoothly now. Jason had picked the metal wall as being the best spot to break in. It offered the most resistance to the native life, so the chances were it wouldn't be reinforced with sandbags or fill the way other parts of the wall were. If he was wrong, they were all dead. The first men had slapped their wads of sticky congeal sap against the wall. Jason pressed the charges into them and they stuck, a roughly rectangular pattern as high as a man. While he did this, the detonating wire was run out to its length and the raiders pressed back against the base of the wall. Jason stumbled through the ashes to the detonator, fell on it and pressed the switch at the same time. Behind him a thundering bang shook the wall and red flame burst out. Reeves was the first one there, pulling at the twisted and smoky metal with his gloved hands. Others grabbed on and bent the jagged pieces aside. The hole was filled with smoke and nothing was visible through it. Jason, dived into the opening, rolled on a heap of rubble, and smacked into something solid. When he blinked the smoke from his eyes he looked around him. He was inside the city. The others poured through now, picking him up as they charged in, so he wouldn't be trampled underfoot. Someone spotted the spaceship and they ran that way. A man ran around the corner of a building towards them. His parent reflexes sent him springing into the safety of a doorway, the same instant he saw the invaders. But they were parents too. The man slumped slowly back onto the street, three metal bolts sticking out of his body. They ran on without stopping, running between the low-store houses. The ship stood ahead. Someone had reached it ahead of them. They could see the outer hatch slowly grinding shut. A hail of bolts from the bows crashed into it with no effect. Keep going! Jason shouted. Get next to the hull before he reaches the guns. This time three men didn't make it. The rest of them were under the belly of the ship, whenever gun let go at once. Most of them were aimed away from the ship. Still the scream of shells and electric discharges was ear-shattering. The three men still in the open dissolved under fire. Whoever was inside the ship had hit all the gun-trips at once, both to knock out the attackers and summon aid. He would be on the screen now calling for help. Their time was running out. Jason reached up and tried to open the hatch while the others watched. It was locked from the inside. One of the men brushed him aside and pulled at the inset handle. It broke off in his hand, but the hatch remained closed. The big guns had stopped now and they could hear again. Did anyone get the gun from the dead man, he asked. It would blow this thing open. No, Reese said. We didn't stop. Before the words were out of his mouth, two men were running back towards the buildings, angling away from each other. The ship's guns roared again, a string of explosions cut across one man. Before they could change direction and find the other man, he had reached the buildings. He returned quickly, darting into the open to throw the gun to them. Before he could dive back to safety, the shells caught him. Jason grabbed up the gun as it skidded almost to his feet. They heard the sound of wide open truck turbines screaming towards them as he blasted the lock. The mechanisms sighed and the hatch sagged open. They were all through the airlock before the first truck appeared. Noxa stayed behind with the gun to hold the lock until they could take the control room. Everyone climbed faster than Jason once he had pointed them the way, so the battle was over when he got there. The single city pyrrhon looked like a pincushion. One of the techs had found the gun controlled and was shooting wildly, the sheer quantity of his fire driving the trucks back. Someone get on the radio and tell the talkers to call the attack off, Jason said. He found the communication screen and snapped it on. Kirk's wide-eyed face stared at him from the screen. Eew! Kirk said, breathing the word like a curse. Yes, it's me, Jason answered. He talked without looking up while his hands were busy at the control board. Listen to me, Kirk, and don't doubt anything I say. I may not know how to fly one of these ships, but I do know how to blow them up. Do you hear that sound? He flipped over a switch and the far away wind of a pump droned faintly. That's the main fuel pump. If I let it run, which I won't right now, it could quickly fill the drive chamber with raw fuel. Pour in so much that it would run out of the stern tubes. Then what do you think would happen to your one and only spacer if I press the firing button? I'm not asking you what would happen to me since you don't care. But you need this ship the way you need life itself. There was only silence in the cabin now. The men who had won the ship turned to face him. Kirk's voice grated loudly through the room. What do you want, Jason? What are you trying to do? Why did you leave those animals in here? His voice cracked and broke as anger choked him and spilled over. Watch your tongue, Kirk, Jason said with soft menace. These men you are talking about are the only ones on Pyrrhus who have a spaceship. If you want them to share it with you, you had better learn to talk nicely. Now come over here at once and bring Brucko and Metta. Jason looked at the other man's floored and swollen face and felt a measure of sympathy. Don't look so unhappy. It's not the end of the world. In fact, it might be the beginning of one. And another thing. Leave this channel open when you go. I haven't hooked into every screen of the city so everyone can see what happens here. Make sure it's taped, too, for replay. Kirk started to say something, but changed his mind before he did. He left the screen, but the set stayed alive, carrying the scene in the control room to the entire city. End of Part 26 Part 27 of Death World by Harry Harrison This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Part 27 The fight was over. It had ended so quickly the fact hadn't really sunk in yet. Reeves rubbed his hand against the gleamy metal of the control console, letting the reality of touch convince him. The other man milled about looking out through the view screens or soaking in the mechanical strangeness of the room. Jason was physically exhausted, but he couldn't let it show. He opened the pilot's meta-box and dug through it until he found the stimulants. Three of the little gold pills washed the fatigue from his body, and he could think clearly again. Listen to me, he shouted. The fight's not over yet. They'll try anything to take this ship back and we have to be ready. I want one of the techs to go over these boards until he finds the lock controls. Make sure all the airlocks and ports are sealed. Send men to check them if necessary. Turn on all the screens to scan in every direction so no one can get near the ship. We'll need a guard in the engine room. My control would be cut if they broke in there. And there had better be a room by room search of the ship in case somebody else is locked in with us. The men had something to do now and felt relieved. Reeves split them up into groups and set them to work. Jason stayed at the controls, his hands next to the pump switch. The battle wasn't over yet. There's a truck coming, Reeves called, going slow. Should I blast it? The man at the gun controls asked. Hold your fire, Jason said, until we can see who it is. If it's the people I sent for, let them through. As the truck came on slowly, the gunner tracked it with his sights. There was a driver and three passengers. Jason waited until he was positive who they were. Those are the ones, he said. Stop them at the lock, Reeves. Make them come in one at a time. Take their guns as they enter, then strip them of all their equipment. There was no way of telling what could be a concealed weapon. Be especially careful of Brucko. He's the one with a face like an X-Wedge. Make sure you strip him clean. He's a specialist in weapons and survival. And bring the driver too. We don't want him reporting back about the broken airlock or the state of our guns. Waiting was hard. His hand stayed next to the pump switch, even though he knew he could never use it. Just as long as the others thought he would. There were stampings and muttered curses in the corridor. The prisoners were pushed in. Jason took one look at their deadly expressions and clenched fists before he called to Reeves. Keep them against the wall and watch them. Bowman, keep your weapons up. He looked at the people who had once been his friends and who now swam in hatred for him. Metta, Kirk, Brucko. The driver was scopped. The man, Kirk, had once appointed to guard him. He looked ready to explode now that the roles had been reversed. Pay close attention, Jason said, because your lives depend upon it. Keep your backs to the wall and don't attempt to come any closer to me than you are now. If you do, you will be shot instantly. If we were alone, any one of you would undoubtedly reach me before I threw this switch. But we're not. You have pyranary flexes and muscles, but so do the bowman. Don't gamble. Because it won't be a gamble, it will be suicide. I'm telling you this for your own protection. So we can talk peaceably without one of you losing his temper and suddenly getting shot. There is no way out of this. You are going to be forced to listen to everything I say. You can't escape or kill me. The war is over. And we lost and all because of you, you traitor, Metta snarled. Wrong on both counts, Jason said blandly. I'm not a traitor because I owe my allegiance to all men on this planet, both inside the perimeter and out. I never pretended differently. Estaluzzi, why? You haven't lost anything. In fact, you've won, won your war against this planet if you will only hear me out. He turned to Reeves, who was frowning in angry puzzlement. Of course, your people have won also, Reeves. No more war with the city. You'll get medicine, off-planet contact, everything you want. Pardon me for being cynical, Reeves said, but you're promising the best of all possible worlds for everyone. That will be a little hard to deliver when our interests are opposed so. You strike through to the heart of the matter, Jason said. Thank you. This mess will be settled by seeing that everyone's interests are not opposed. Peace between the city and forms with an end to the useless war you have been fighting. Peace between mankind and the peer-and-life forms, because that particular war is at the bottom of all your troubles. The man's mad, Kirk said. Perhaps you'll judge that after you hear me out. I'm going to tell you the history of this planet, because that is where both the trouble and the solution lie. When the settlers landed on Pyrrhus 300 years ago, they missed the one important thing about this planet, the factor that makes it different from any other planet in the galaxy. They can't be blamed for the oversight. They had enough other things to worry about. The gravity was about the only thing familiar to them. The rest of the environment was a shocking change from the climate-controlled industrial world they had left. Storms, volcanism, floods, earthquakes—it was enough to drive them insane, and I'm sure many of them did go mad. The animal and insect life was a constant annoyance, nothing at all like the few harmless and protected species they had known. I'm sure they never realized that the Pyrrhus life was telepathic as well. That again, Braco snapped. True or not, it's of no importance. I was tempted to agree with your theory of psionic-controlled attack on us, but the deadly fiasco you staged proved that theory wrong. I agree, Jason answered. I was completely mistaken when I thought some outside agency directed the attack on the city with psionic control. It seemed a logical theory at the time, and the evidence pointed that way. The expedition to the island was a deadly fiasco. Only, don't forget, that attack was the direct opposite of what I wanted to have done. If I had gone into the cave myself, none of the deaths would have been necessary. I think it would have been discovered that the plant creatures were nothing more than an advanced life form with unusual sciability. They simply resonated strongly to the psionic attack on the city. I had the idea backwards, thinking they instigated the battle. We'll never know the truth, though, because they are destroyed, but their deaths did prove one thing. It allows us to find the real culprits, the creatures who are leading, directing, and inspiring the war against the city. Who, Kirk, breathed the question rather than spoke it. Why, you, of course, Jason told him. Not you alone, but all of your people in the city. Perhaps you don't like this war. However, you are responsible for it and keep it going. Jason had to force back a smile as he looked at their dumb, founded expressions. He had to prove his point quickly before even his allies began to think him insane. Here is how it works. I said pure in life was telepathic, and I mean all life. Every single insect, plant, and animal. At one time in this planet's violent history, these psionic mutations proved to be survival types. They existed when other species died, and in the end I'm sure they cooperated in wiping out the last survivors of the nun-sci strains. Cooperation is the key word here, because while they still competed against each other under normal conditions, they worked together against anything that threatened them as a whole. When a natural upheaval or a tidal wave threatened them, they fled from it in harmony. You can see a milder form of this same behavior on any planet that is subject to forest fires. But here, mutual survival was carried to an extreme because of the violent conditions. Perhaps some of the life forms even developed precognition like the human equatement. With this advance warning, the larger beasts fled. The smaller ones developed seeds or birds or eggs that could be carried to safely by the wind or in the animal's fur, thus ensuring racial survival. I know this is true, because I watched it myself when we were escaping a quake. Admitted, all your points admitted, Brookow shouted, but what does it have to do with us? So all the animals run away together. What does that have to do with the war? They do more than run away together, Jason told him. They work together against any natural disaster that threatens them all. Someday, I'm sure ecologists will go into raptures over the complex adjustments that occur here in the advent of blizzards, floods, fires, and other disasters. There was only one reaction we really care about now, though. That's the one directed towards the city people. Don't you realize yet? They treat you all as another natural disaster. We'll never know exactly how it came about, though there is a clue in that diary I found, dating from the first days on this planet. It's said that a forest fire seemed to have driven new species toward the settlers. These weren't new beasts at all, just old ones with new attitudes. Can't you just imagine how those protected, over-civilized settlers acted when faced with a forest fire? They panicked, of course. If the settlers were in the path of the fire, the animals must have rushed right through their camp. Their reaction would undoubtedly have been to shoot the fleeing creatures down. When they did that, they classified themselves as a natural disaster. Disasters take any form. Bi-peds with guns could easily be included in the category. The peering animals attacked were shot, and the war began. The survivors kept attacking and informed all the lifeforms what the fight was about. The radioactivity of this planet must cause plenty of mutations, and the favorable survival mutation was now one that was deadly to man. I'll hazard a guess that the sci-function even instigates mutations. Some of the deadlier types are just too one-sided to have come about naturally in a brief 300 years. These settlers, of course, fought back and kept their status as a natural disaster intact. Through the centuries they improved their killing methods, not that it did the slightest good, as you know. You city people, their descendants, are heirs to this heritage of hatred. You fight and are slowly being defeated. How can you possibly win against the biological reserves of a planet that can recreate itself each time to meet any new attack? Silence followed Jason's words. Kirk and Metta stood white-faced as the impact of the disclosure sunk in. Brucco mumbled and checked points off on his fingers, searching for weak spots in the chain of reason. The fourth city peering, Skopp ignored all these foolish words that he couldn't understand or want to understand, and would have killed Jason in an instant if there had been the slightest chance of success. It was Rhys who broke the silence. His quick mind had taken in the factors and sorted them out. There's one thing wrong, he said. What about us? We live on the surface of Perus without perimeters or guns. Why aren't we attacked as well? We're human, descended from the same people as the junkmen. You're not attacked, Jason told him, because you don't identify yourself as a natural disaster. Animals can live on the slopes of a dormant volcano fighting and dying in natural competition, but they'll flee together when the volcano erupts. That eruption is what makes the mountain a natural disaster. In the case of human beings, it is their thoughts that identify them as a life form or disaster, mountain or volcano. In the city, everyone radiates suspicion and death that enjoy killing, thinking about killing, and planning for killing. This is natural selection too, you realize. These are the survival traits that work best in the city. Outside the city men think differently. If they are threatened individually, they fight as will any other creature. Under more general survival threats, they cooperate completely with the rules of universal survival that the city people break. How did it begin? This separation, I mean, between the two groups, Reece asked. We'll probably never know, Jason said. I think your people must have originally been formers or psionic sensitives who were not with the others during some natural disaster. They would of course act correctly by parent's standards and survive. This would cause a difference of opinion with the city people who saw killing as the answer. It's obvious, whatever the reason, that two separate communities were established early and soon separated except for the limited amount of border that benefited both. I still can't believe it, Kirk mumbled. It makes a terrible kind of truth every step of the way, but I still find it hard to accept. There must be another explanation. Jason shook his head slowly. None. This is the only one that works. We've eliminated the other ones, remember? I can't blame you for finding it hard to believe, since it is in direct opposition to everything you've understood to be true in the past. It's like altering a natural law, as if I gave you proof that gravity didn't really exist, that it was a force altogether different from the immutable one we know, one you could get around when you understood how. You'd want more proof than words. Probably want to see someone walking on air. Which isn't such a bad idea that, he added, turning to Noxa. Do you hear any animals around the ship now? Not the ones you're used to, but the mutated, violent kind that live only to attack the city. Places crawling with him, Noxa said, just looking for something to kill. Could you capture one, Jason asked, without getting yourself killed, I mean? Noxa snorted contempt as he turned to leave. Beasts not born yet, that'll hurt me. They stood quietly, each one wrapped tightly around by his own thoughts, while they waited for Noxa to return. Jason had nothing more to say. He would do one more thing to try and convince them of the facts. After that, it would be up to each of them to reach a conclusion. The talker returned quickly with a sting wing tied by one leg to a length of leather. It flapped and shrieked as he carried it in. In the middle of the room, away from everybody, Jason told him, can you get that beast to sit on something and not flap around? My hand good enough, he asked, flipping the creature up so it clung to the back of his garment. That's how I caught it. Does anyone doubt that this is a real sting wing? Jason asked. I want to make sure you all believe there is no trickery here. The thing's real, Braco said. I can smell the poison in the wing-closs from here. He pointed to the dark marks on the leather where the liquid had dripped. If that eats through the gloves, he's a dead man. Then we agree it's real, Jason said, real and deadly, and the only test of the theory will be if you people from the city can approach it like noxie here. They drew back automatically when he said it, because they knew that sting wing was synonymous with death, past, present, and future. You don't change a natural law. Metta spoke for all of them. We can't. This man lives in the jungle like an animal himself. Somehow he's learned to get near them, but you can't expect us to. Jason spoke quickly before the talker could react to the insult. Of course I expect you to. That's the whole idea. If you don't hate the beast and expect it to attack you, why it won't? Think of it as a creature from a different planet, something harmless. I can't, she said. It's a sting wing. As they talked, Braco stepped forward. His eyes fixed steadily on the creature perched on the glove. Jason signaled the bowman to hold their fire. Braco stopped at a safe distance and kept looking steadily at the sting wing. It rustled its leathery wings uneasily and hissed. A drop of poison formed at the tip of each great poison claw on its wings. The control room was filled with a deadly silence. Slowly he raised his hand, carefully putting it out over the animal. The hand dropped a little, rubbed the sting wing's head once, then fell back to his side. The animal did nothing except stir slightly under the touch. There was a concerted sigh as those who had been unknowingly holding their breath breathed again. How did you do it? Metta asked in a hushed voice. What? Braco said, apparently snapping out of a daze. Oh, touching the thing? Simple, really. I just pretended it was one of the training aids I use. A realistic and harmless duplicate. I kept my mind on that single thought, and it worked. He looked down at his hand, then back to the sting wing. His voice quieter now, as if he spoke from a distance. It's not a training aid, you know. It's real, deadly. The off-worlder is right. He's right about everything he said. With Braco's success and example, Kirk came close to the animal. He walked stiffly as if on the way to his execution, and runnels of sweat poured down his rigid face. But he believed and kept his thoughts directed away from the sting wing, and he could touch it unharmed. Metta tried, but couldn't fight down the horror it raised when she came close. I'm trying, she said, and I do believe you now, but I just can't do it. Sculp screamed when they all looked at him, shouted it was all a trick, and had to be clubbed unconscious when he attacked the bowman. Understanding had come to Pyrrhus. End of Part 27 What do we do now? Metta asked. Her voice was troubled, questioning. She voiced the thoughts of all the parents in the room and the thousands who watched in their screens. What will we do? They turned to Jason, waiting for an answer. For the moment their differences were forgotten. The people from the city were staring expectantly at him, as were the crossbowmen with half-lowered weapons. The stranger had confused and changed the old world they had known, and presented them with a newer and stranger one with alien problems. Hold on, he said, raising his hand. I'm no doctor of social ills. I'm not going to try and cure this planet full of muscle-bound sharpshooters. I've just squeezed through up to now, and by the law of averages I should be ten times dead. Even if all you say is true, Jason, Metta said, you are still the only person who can help us. What will the future be like? Suddenly weary, Jason slumped into the pilot's chair. He glanced around at the circle of people. They seemed sincere. None of them even appeared to have noticed that he no longer had his hand on the pump switch. For the moment at least the war between city and form was forgotten. I'll give you my conclusions, Jason said, twisting in the chair, trying to find a comfortable position for his aching bones. I've been doing a lot of thinking the last day or two, searching for the answer. The very first thing I realized was that the perfect and logical solution wouldn't do at all. I'm afraid the old ideal of the lion laying down with the lamb doesn't work out in practice. About all it does is make a fast lunch for the lion. Ideally now that you all know the real causes of your trouble, you should tear down the perimeter and have the city and forest people mingled and brotherly love, makes justice pretty a picture as the one of lion and lamb, and would undoubtedly have the same result. Someone would remember how really filthy the grubbers are or how stupid junkmen can be and there would be a fresh corpse cooling. The fight was spread and the victors would be eaten by the wildlife that swarmed over the undefended perimeter. No, the answer isn't that easy. As the parents listened to him they realized where they were and glanced around uneasily. The guards raised their crossbows again and the prisoners stepped back to the wall and looked surly. See what I mean? Jason asked. Didn't take long, did it? They all looked a little sheepish at their unthinking reactions. If we are going to find a decent plan for the future, we'll have to take inertia into consideration. Mental inertia for one. Just because you know a thing is true in theory doesn't make it true in fact. The barbaric religions of primitive worlds hold not a germ of scientific fact, yet they claim to explain all. Yet if one of these savages had all the logical ground for his beliefs taken away, he doesn't stop believing. He then called his mistaken beliefs faith because he knows they are right, and he knows they are right because he has faith. This is an unbreakable circle of false logic that can't be touched. In reality it is plain mental inertia. A case of thinking what always was will also always be and not wanting to blast the thinking patterns out of the old rut. Mental inertia alone is not going to cause trouble. There is cultural inertia too. Some of you in this room believe my conclusions and would like to change, but will all your people change? The unthinking ones, the habit-ridden, reflex-formed people who know what is now will always be. They'll act like a drag on whatever plans you make, whatever attempts you undertake to progress with the new knowledge you have. Then it's useless? There's no hope for our world? Rees asked. I didn't say that, Jason answered. I merely meant that your troubles won't end by throwing some kind of mental switch. I see three courses open for the future, and the chances are that all three will be going on at the same time. First and best will be the rejoining of city and form-pirans into the single human group they came from. Each is incomplete now, and has something the other one needs. In the city here you have science and contact with the rest of the galaxy. You also have a deadly war. Out there in the jungle your first cousins live at peace with the world, but lack medicine and the other benefits of scientific knowledge, as well as any kind of cultural contact with the rest of mankind. You'll both have to join together and benefit from the exchange. At the same time you'll have to forget the superstitious hatred you have of each other. This will only be done outside of the city, away from the war. Every one of you who is capable should go out voluntarily, bringing some fraction of the knowledge that needs sharing. You won't be harmed if you go in good faith, and you will learn how to live with this planet rather than against it. Eventually you'll have civilized communities that won't be either grubber or junkman. They'll be peering. But what about our city here, Kirk Est? It'll stay right here and probably won't change in the slightest. In the beginning you'll need your perimeter and defenses to stay alive while the people are leaving, and after that it will keep going because there are going to be any number of people here who you won't convince. They'll stay and fight and eventually die. Perhaps you will be able to do a better job in educating their children. What the eventual end of the city will be, I have no idea. They were silent as they thought about the future. On the floor Scop groaned but did not move. Those are two ways, Metta said. What is the third? The third possibility is my own pet scheme, Jason smiled, and I hope I can find enough people to go along with me. I'm going to take my money and spend it all on outfitting the best and most modern spacer with every weapon and piece of scientific equipment I can get my hands on. Then I'm going to ask for peering volunteers to go with me. What in the world for, Metta frowned? Not for charity. I expect to make my investment back and more. You see, after these past few months I can't possibly return to my old occupation. Not only do I have enough money now to make it a waste of time, but I think it would be an unending bore. One thing about Paris, if you live, is that it spoils you for the quieter places. So I'd like to take this ship that I mentioned and go into the business of opening up new worlds. There are thousands of planets where men would like to settle, only getting a foothold on them is too rough or rugged for the usual settlers. Can you imagine a planet a peering couldn't lick after the training you've had here and enjoyed doing it? There would be more than pleasure involved, though. In the city your lives have been geared for continual, deadly warfare. Now you're faced with the choice of a fairly peaceful future or staying in the city to fight an unnecessary and foolish war. I offer the third alternative of the occupation you know best that would let you accomplish something constructive at the same time. Those are the choices. Whatever you decide, it is up to each of you personally. Before anyone could answer, livid pains circled Jason's throat. Scop had regained consciousness and surged up from the floor. He pulled Jason from the chair with a single motion, holding him by the neck, throttling him. Kirk, Metta! Scop shouted hoarsely. Grab guns, open the locks. Our people will be here. Kill the grubbers in their lies. Jason tore at the fingers that would choke in the life out of him, but it was like pulling at bent steel bars. He couldn't talk and the blood hammered in his ears. Metta hurdled forward like an uncoiled spring and the cross-sprows twanged. One bolt caught her in the leg, the other transfixed her upper arm, but she had been shot as she jumped, and her inertia carried her across the room to her fellow Pyran and the dying off-walder. She raised her good arm and chopped down with the edge of her hand. It caught Scop a hard blow on the biceps, and his arm jumped past modically, his hand leaping from Jason's throat. What are you doing? He shouted in strange terror to the wounded girl who fell against him. He pushed her away, still clutching Jason with his other hand. She didn't answer. Instead, she chopped again, hard and true, the edge of her hand catching Scop across the windpipe, crushing it. He dropped Jason and fell to the floor, retching and gasping. Jason watched the end through a haze, barely conscious. Scop struggled to his feet, turned pain-filled eyes to his friends. You're wrong, Kirk said. Don't do it. The sound the wounded man made was more animal than human. When he dived toward the guns on the far side of the room, the crossbows twanged like harps of death. When Brucko went over to help Metta, no one interfered. Jason gasped air back into his lungs, breathing in life. The watching glass eye of the viewer carried the scene to everyone in the city. Thanks, Metta, for understanding, as well as helping. Jason had to force the words out. Scop was wrong and you were right, Jason, she said. Her voice broke for a second as Brucko snapped off the feathered end of the steel bolt with his fingers and pulled the shaft out of her arm. I can't stay in the city. Only people who feel as Scop did will be able to do that, and I'm afraid I can't go into the forest. You saw what luck I had with the Stingwing. But it's all right, I'd like to come with you. I'd like to very much. It hurt when he talked so Jason could only smile, but she knew what he meant. Kirk looked down in unhappiness at the body of the dead man. He was wrong, but I know how he felt. I can't leave the city. Not yet. Someone will have to keep things in hand while the changes are taking place. Your ship is a good idea, Jason. You'll have no shortage of volunteers, though I doubt if you'll get Brucko to go with you. Of course not. Brucko snapped, not looking up from the compression bandage he was tying. There's enough to do right here on Purus. The animal life, quite a study to be made. Probably have every ecologist in the galaxy visiting here. Kirk walked slowly to the screen overlooking the city. No one attempted to stop him. He looked out of the buildings, the smoke still curling up from the perimeter, and the limitless sweep of green jungle beyond. You've changed it all, Jason, he said. We can't see it now, but Purus will never be the way it was before you came. For better or worse. Better! Jason croaked, rubbing his aching throat. Now, get together and end this war so people won't really believe it. Reece turned, and after an instant hesitation, extended his hand to Kirk. The gray-haired Piran felt the same repugnance himself about touching a grubber. They shook hands then because they were both strong men. End of part 28. End of Death World by Harry Harrison. This book performed by Phil Chenevere. May of 2019 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Hope you enjoyed it.