Lloyd Biggle Jr. - The World Menders

Now the terrible revenge upon which he had focused his existence for so long was exposed as ludicrous folly, and even the savoring was denied to him. The fury that unexpectedly lashed at the olz could also strike Farrari.

Farrari’s instinct told him to leave immediately, but he could not. Bran was the one person who might be able to help him. In his uncertainty he did nothing, and several more days passed.

Then Bran became unaccountably cheerful, led Farrari about the valley to show him the networks of caves, reminisced voluably about his life with the olz, about the IPR Academy, and even resurrected forgotten memories of his childhood when he learned that he and Farrari came from adjacent star systems. At night he brought out crocks of wine he had made from zrilmberries— Thorald Dallum would have adored him—and for hours they sipped wine and talked.

The abrupt change of mood aroused Farrari’s suspicion. After several such nights he began to wonder if Bran were not too generous with his wine while drinking too little himself.

Farrari awoke suddenly to find the sleeping room silent. Bran’s quiet snores, his shallow, whistling breathing—he even breathed like an ol— were missing. Farrari checked Bran’s empty bed and then, with a hand-light, searched the cave. He went to the opening, sent a call echoing across the valley, got no answer. He felt his way through the darkness to the place where, under a ledge of rock, Bran had been keeping his platform. It was gone.

He returned to the cave and went to Bran’s handmade communication center. At once he got a beam on a platform, approaching rapidly, so he switched off the instrument, returned to his bed, and feigned sleep. Bran shuttled in a short time later and went directly to his own bed.

The following night Bran left as soon as he thought Farrari asleep, and Farrari tracked his platform until it landed or his low altitude took him out of range. Half an hour passed, and then Farrari picked up the platform again, returning. The next two nights Bran remained in bed, and then he was off again—three expeditions in a row, all to widely-separated places. The pattern continued, days passed, and then Farrari, kicking himself for crass stupidity, thought to make further use of Bran’s equipment and monitor the IPR communications channels.

Peter Jorrul’s crisp voice: “… Mass movement of the kru’s cavalry into the hilngol. At least six durrlz have been murdered, and in two instances an ol is known to have been responsible… presumed to have been an ol in every case, though probably not the same ol, the locations are too widely separated… no ol agents in the hilngol and a bad time to try to place one… possibly Farrari, but he couldn’t have done all of it, no one person could be covering that much ground on foot… very much afraid a mass slaughter of olz is in the offing… comment and suggestions invited…no, requested … from all stations…”

Bran tiptoed into the dark cave, and an enraged Farrari seized him.

“You’ve condemned to death whole villages of olz!”

“They’re going to die anyway,” Bran said indifferently. “They want to die. I’m making the rascz pay a little in advance.”

Farrari released him. “Don’t you see what you’re doing? By arousing the rascz against the olz, you’ll make it impossible to do anything meaningful to help them.”

“I can go right on killing durrlz,” Bran said. “That’s meaningful. As soon as the soldiers get here I’ll switch to another district. That’ll give ’em something to think about.”

“This is my fault,” Farrari muttered. “I knew you were sneaking out at night. I should have stopped you.”

“How would you do that?” Bran asked with a chuckle.

He dropped onto his bed and fell asleep at once, and Farrari went to work on the platform. He smashed the operating mechanism, went through Bran’s stores looking for replacement parts and smashed them, and then he resolutely turned his back on Bran and the valley and strode off toward the nearest ol village.

“These olz,” he told himself determinedly, “are mine.” The kru and all of his minions of iniquity could take notice: this one small village was private property—Farrari’s to cherish, to protect to the death if need be.

He could not have said why. The fate of one ol village in this land was as the fate of a drop of water in the ocean, and though the olz still fascinated him he neither loved nor respected them. Perhaps like Bran he merely hated the rascz, though more impersonally. He would have hated anyone who treated another creature as the durrlz did the olz.

He joined the olz in the fields and immediately discovered his error. Bran had been too wise to carry out his depredations so close to his valley. These olz went calmly about their work. At mid-morning the durrl arrived, watched impassively, and continued on his rounds.

The soldiers certainly would not molest olz whom the durrl so obviously had under complete control. The village Farrari had lately sworn to protect did not need it. As soon as the durrl left, Farrari quietly made his own departure. He was determined to find a village that needed him, and he would have to travel fast. The olz he intended to protect might be dead before he reached them.

As he headed down into the lower hingol the heat became sweltering. The ground underfoot was parched and hard, fields of grain had turned a mottled brown, and even the deadly zrilm leaves drooped and shriveled—and remained deadly. Farrari traveled south for no better reason than that he expected the soldiers to come from that direction, and he recklessly traveled by daylight because he could move faster. He passed village after village of humdrum activity, forcing himself to hurry and at the same time trying to pace himself because he had no notion of how far he must go. The land, the people, the silly mission he had propelled himself on—all seemed unreal under the heat of a somnolent summer day, and so it happened that when he abruptly came upon a ravished ol village the sight stunned him.

The lane took a sudden turning, and before him lay the still-smoldering ashes of collapsed huts and the pathetic scattering of dead olz, and the clinging, sweetly rancid odor of burned flesh seared his nostrils. Farrari gripped his staff with trembling fingers and contemplated the holocaust. These were the olz who should have had his protection, and he was too late.

Not until then did he notice other plumes of smoke pointing skyward against the scorching sun.

A shout and the patter of many small hooves shattered his bleak mood and sent him scrambling for a zrilm hedge. Moments later he saw the prancing gril legs as the kru’s cavalry flashed past. Farrari acted without thinking: he thrust his staff through a tangle of zrilm roots and braced himself, and he was quite as astonished as the rider must have been when a gril stumbled and crashed to the ground.

A bundle of spears dropped beside the hedge, and Farrari gathered it in, slipped through the opposite side of the hedge, and trotted along the edge of a field of tubers. At the end of the field he poked his way back through the zrilm and looked up the lane to where the soldiers had gathered about the fallen grit. Thoughtfully he balanced a spear in his hand. He stepped into the lane, took aim, and let fly.

With a dozen soldiers and grilz blocking the narrow lane he thought he could not miss; but the light spear, perfectly designed for throwing, whipped unnoticed above the heads of the soldiers.