Alexander Kazantsev - The Destruction of Faena

It was possible to build an underground settlement with an artificial atmosphere, constantly purified and enriched with oxygen.

Quest was preparing for its last trip.

Station Phobo would forever be an artificial satellite of the planet Mar.

Since only nine instead of thirteen Faetians were landing on the planet, this meant that they could take with them considerably more cargo, technical appliances, instruments and inscribed tablets for study by future Marians.

Vydum Polar envisaged an acute shortage of the metal necessary to build underground shelters with an artificial air supply, and so he suggested dropping part of Station Phobo onto the planet’s surface. This would entail dismantling a third of the station’s structure and fitting it with one of the remaining defence rockets.

Station Phobo was much bigger than Station Deimo. A reduction in its accommodation space would not affect the future life of the condemned.

Needless to say, they themselves refused point-blank to take part in this operation, leaving it to the future Marians.

Some of the metal pipes used as corridors and the premises of the disused laboratories were detached from the station. Braked by the reactive force of the defence rocket, they were to leave the station’s orbit and, reducing speed relative to the Marian orbital velocity, were to begin their descent onto the planet. Because of its thinness and low oxygen content, Mar’s atmosphere should add to the braking effect on the falling metal without causing re-entry burn-up.

The whole of Vydum Polar’s operation took a considerable time, during which all the Faetians lived together. The condemned, however, kept apart from the rest and their attitude to them was hostile.

The leave-taking of the Marians and the condemned was consequently not a particularly sad occasion. On the contrary, both sides had a feeling of relief.

Dm Sat and Toni Fae were the first to cross over into Quest. Both were thinking about Ave, Mada and Gor Terr who had self-sacrificingly given up their places on the ship to the Faetians from the space stations. How were the other three finding it on Terr? Would they hold out in the battle with the Faetoids?

Then all the other Faetians who were leaving went into the ship through the airlock of the station’s central section.

Ala Veg went up to Toni Fae.

“We’re going to a new world together,” she said, putting her hand on his shoulder.

The young Faetian nearly choked with emotion. Incredible trials and tribulations lay ahead of them, but he was happy.

Toni Fae had to determine the exact landing place for the reserve metal to be used by future generations of Marians.

Um Sat ordered that Quest should land as near as possible to the metal dropped onto Mar. Initially, they would have to dig the first deep shelter themselves. Afterwards, perhaps, they would be able to find natural caves into which future generations would move.

Remembering the lessons taught to him by his friends on Terr, Toni Fae began the gradual undocking of the ship from the central section of Station Phobo.

“Will some other spaceship ever come close to this station?” he wondered. “And when will it be?”

None of those remaining behind was in the central section.

Nega Luton and Vlasta Sirus locked themselves in their cabins.

Mrak Luton, his arms thrust behind his back, was pacing up and down the ring corridor onto which the lifts opened. He was considering how to seize power on Station Phobo. It was Vlasta Sirus whom he regarded as his main opponent, not the bloated Dovol Sirus.

He mentally assigned them all to the various sections leaving the sole leadership to himself. They had many, many cycles to live yet!

The Faetians may not have known about the behaviour of spiders in a jar and how they devour one another. Consequently, the court in space, when leaving the condemned on Phobo, was not influenced by this example. However…

Dovol Sirus became the chronicler on Phobo. He solemnly wrote memoirs which, in his view, would tell the truth about the tragedy of Faena and its space colonies.

A long, long time afterwards, they did indeed, in certain respects, help to establish the fate of the condemned.

When the wail of a newborn child was heard in the Faetians’ house, Dzin was in the forest nearby. She crept up to the window, squatted down and, gripping her heels with her forepaws, began listening. Sensing that the hunters were returning, she leapt for cover into the undergrowth and from there she looked round at the stake-barred window.

The first native Terran had appeared in the Faetians’ house. He had to be called by his father’s abbreviated surname—Av, or simply Avik.

Mada doted upon her first baby. Often, with his arm round her shoulders, Ave would look for a long time at the tiny, helpless creature.

“The first boy on Terr!” boomed Gor Terr happily. “It’s a good thing that a boy was born first. Let him grow up fast so that I can teach him many tricks of the trade that a r-real Faetian ought to know.”

Gor Terr was a wonderful comrade. Modest, tactful, quiet in spite of his reverberating bass voice, he looked after Ave and Mada in the most touching way.

“The future of civilisation is in you,” he would say.

After Quest’s thunderous lift-off, the Faetoids were evidently afraid of the Faetians for some time and did not come near them. But they gradually forgot their fear. The beasts became bolder; Ave and Gor noticed them several times while hunting in the forest. They even stole the trophies occasionally.

As a precaution, the Faetians decided to keep together wherever they went.

The Faetoids took advantage of this.

Once, at dusk, when Mada, left on her own in the house, went to the lake for water, three or four shaggy beasts rushed up to the barred windows and began smashing the stakes.

On hearing the baby cry out, Mada took alarm and ran back, spilling water from the home-made vessel before finally throwing it aside.

The door of the house was locked, but she could not hear Avik crying inside. She threw the door open and froze with horror.

Stakes broken out of the window were lying on the floor. The chi Id was gone. There was a foul reek of animals. Mada recognised it at once.

Snatching something from the shelf and not closing the door behind her, Mada rushed into a thicket where she had glimpsed a tawny red shadow.

Mada was not conscious of her actions. She was impelled purely by her maternal instinct, which replaced courage, strength and even cool calculation.

Her sixth sense told her that the animal that had kidnapped Avik was heading for the caves so as to tear him to pieces…

There is no knowing how she guessed which way the beast would run; she even guessed that the creature was afraid of crossing water. She twice forded a loop in the stream and reached the gully ahead of the kidnappers.

Dzin sprang down from the tree, clutching the howling infant to her hairy breast.

Mada had already heard her child crying in the distance. She ran towards the creature. The powerful beast automatically turned back, but Mada overtook her in a single bound. Then Dzin turned round and bared her fangs.

Mada boldly advanced on the shaggy beast, although Dzin could easily have snapped her fragile opponent in two. But Mada was the more intelligent. Not for nothing had she stopped in the house to snatch something from the shelf. She didn’t have a firearm, but she was holding in her fist a silvery bullet, being careful not to be stung by the brown prickles.

Dzin had not yet released the stolen baby. She threateningly reached for Mada with her free paw. Mada dodged it, jumped at Dzin and struck her in the breast.