Public-domain ebook
Calling World-4 of Kithgol
by H. B. Fyfe
Language: en341 downloads on Project Gutenberg
Subjects
In: Science-Fiction & Fantasy·Adventure
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #64053.
The opening · free to read
By H. B. FYFE
Accidentally, Yorgh sent whirling off into space a grim, 200-year-old message ... and lived to see his dead world meet the vibrant future.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories January 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The Star was obscured by blowing sand, and Yorgh could not see much of The World either. The wolly he rode snorted in panic at the howl of the sandstorm. Finally, the big hunter swung down to the ground and dragged the six-legged beast by the guide rope.
"Where are those trees I passed this morning?" he muttered.
He longed for a drink from the water-skin slung at his shoulder with his rolled cloak, but there was so much sand in his short, golden beard that he would probably choke himself.
The sand whipped against his gray pants of coarse wool and the dark red tunic for which he had given the Sea People two dozen copper arrowheads, and twirled loosely beneath his calf-high leather boots. Yorgh squinted his eyes till they were mere gleams of bright blue among the laughter wrinkles.
"And I didn't even find the copper rocks!" he growled. "I should have stayed in the flatlands, hunting with the others."
He discovered that he was heading into a gully where the ripping winds had scooped sand from between ridges of dark rocks. Yorgh was not sure whether it offered shelter or the chance to be buried alive, but he plunged ahead to investigate. Within fifty paces, the howl at his back diminished.
"Not the rocks; it's a lull," he exclaimed, peering upward.
The sky was an ugly reddish brown, dark and menacing. He wondered how soon more tons of sand would sweep down to refill the gully. As he gazed upward, a round stone rolled under his foot and he sprawled forward. Even as he dropped, it seemed that he was falling further than he should be.
He brushed sand from his eyes and looked up. From the edge of a hollow whirled from the floor of the gully by opposing winds, the wolly stared down at him with an expression of scared idiocy. The ends of his horn bow and copper-tipped lance thrust up beside the saddle.
As Yorgh scrambled up and his head came above ground level, he saw that the hollow was at the junction of his gully with another. Sand was already beginning to collect again as the wind shifted. Behind a worn rock at his side, Yorgh glimpsed a glint of metal.
Copper? he wondered, stepping forward.
It was not copper, nor any other metal he had ever seen.
To judge from what protruded above the sand, the thing was shaped slightly like the wagons the people of the Hunter tribe used in their migrations. Every part of it was smoothly rounded, even the skeleton sitting in the front seat.
Yorgh stared, feeling the prickle of rising hairs on his neck.
The moan of rising wind made him shiver. At least, he told himself it was the wind. It sounded uncomfortably like a wailing spirit.
Any skins or leather padding on the seat had long since crumbled. Only sand-scoured bones and metal remained. Except--
Something gleamed from the small deposit of sand remaining about the feet of the skeleton. Yorgh reached out cautiously and touched the end of a whitish metal cylinder as thick as his thumb. It was loose enough to pull out. He did, and it lay in his palm, about six inches long.
Yorgh could see no mark of any kind on the surface. He wondered if it would stand sharpening as a spearhead.
"Must have been one of the Old Ones," he muttered uneasily. "It is said they had strange and wonderful powers. I wonder if this was one of the wagons that skimmed over the ground with nothing pulling them, as are told of in the legends."
He had been turning the cylinder over in his hands as he considered. One end moved beneath his fingers and the opposite extreme abruptly flashed a bluish green light at him.
"Gaaghk!" choked Yorgh, and flung the thing from him.
It arched over the edge of the hollow, and its flight was followed by the thud of hooves as the wolly scampered away. The growing wind was again raising stinging flurries of sand.
"Ho! Come back here, you knob-headed idiot!" roared the man, scrambling up the side of the hole to give chase.
The animal, stung by the flying sand, ran faster. Yorgh stooped, groping for a stone to throw ahead of it, so as to turn it back in his direction. His fingers grasped upon something hard, but the shape felt wrong and he looked down.
It was the white metal cylinder.
I never should have touched it, he thought. Naturally, it would have a curse on it. I must put it back!
Glancing over his shoulder, he saw there would be little time. Sand was heaping up again all along the gully. But the wolly had disappeared up a slope to the surface of the desert.
"I'll come right back!" said Yorgh aloud, with an uneasy feeling that there just might be someone to hear him.
He thrust the object into the leather pouch on his belt beside his bronze knife, and ran up the slope with long-legged strides, even in the sliding sand. The wolly was out of sight.
The moan of wind rose to a shriek from the blackening sky.
Yorgh staggered blindly ahead. Once, peering between his fingers, he thought he caught a glimpse of the animal, but a gust whirled him around and he lost the direction. He floundered onward, wishing he had stayed in the gully. Then he remembered the company he would have had, and wondered if the Old One had been trapped by a similar false hope of shelter there.
With fumbling fingers, Yorgh unslung the cloak that hung behind his shoulder and wrapped it about his head. It gave some relief, and he plodded forward, afraid to stop in one spot.
Something jarred his shoulder roughly. Yorgh reached out, but his wild grab did not find the wooly fur of his mount.
"The trees!" he gasped in relief.
It was the only shelter this side of the hills that separated the desert from the grassy plain. Yorgh pulled off his cloak, tied one corner to the tree with the strap of his water-skin, and set about making as good an imitation of a tent as possible. It might at least give him breathing room till the storm ended.
The Star shone hotly at noon the next day before Yorgh tramped wearily into the shade of the tree-lined creek that would lead him to his people's camp on the plain. He was lured to this route partly by the promised coolness and partly by the sight of a herd of kromp out on the open flat. These were six-legged, like every animal on The World except man. There were eighty or a hundred, and a few of the ill-tempered bulls were already sniffing the air and aiming their four horns about.
Yorgh splashed water over his face and neck. He wished he could stop for a swim, but he had walked all night after the sandstorm died down to get through the hills and out of the desert. The only thing which could have kept him from the camp, where he could hope for badly needed sleep, was a chance to find the gully again. When the sand had settled, however, he had found--not entirely to his surprise--that he had completely lost the direction.
"It's like the old legends," he murmured, standing up and taking the cylinder out of his pouch to look at it again. "Things like this always happened to the ancient heroes. They even flew among the stars--huh! That's a likely tale! But this...?"
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