The punishment for any infraction of the rules was invariably amnesia; the child-like result of this operation being trained again in the frozen tenets of the System until the least spark of individuality was extinguished. There was no bloodshed in all the System's worlds and prisons were forgotten mounds of crumbling masonry and metal. Instead there were the gentle blanking rays of the System Police and the inevitable hospitalization afterward.
From this threat of complete forgetfulness Besan Wur's father and mother had escaped by spacer to this forbidden jungle planet of Saaar. Her RZX rating and that of Besan's father had not coincided within the narrow limits prescribed. But they had mated and stolen a System police craft in making their getaway.
They found that Saaar was a tropical savage world alive with ferocious and gigantic animals. The System's aversion for shedding blood—even animal blood—had led them to bypass Saaar until the semi-civilized natives of that world would have tamed it. So it was a safe refuge for the parents of Besan ... as long as they could evade the bloodthirsty denizens of the steaming jungles and broad grasslands!
Strangest of all was the discovery that the cooler uplands of Saaar supported a well-advanced civilization: the Saaaran bi-peds who called themselves Garros. Their cities were underground, in the cavern-honeycombed cliffs and deep canyons, and they were linked together by highways that ran through great tubes of a rustless metal mesh. These tubes were designed to prevent the encroachment of vegetation and wandering animals on the roadway—no animal would face the threat of the stripe-headed men's scent but their vehicles were so swift they had little warning of the Garros' approach.
And so they had disguised themselves, as other Terrans before them had done, and mingled with the Garros of the cone city of Rhilg.
"We must leave these trees, Besan," Nard Rost shouted, his voice jolting the Earthman back to reality.
The tree was jolting and swaying as the mighty press of saurian juggernauts lumbered madly beneath. Inevitably it would be torn from its roots if the stampede continued. Nor was there any apparent end to the green-crested flood that rolled out of the northern purplish horizon.
"Think you can climb now, Relsa?"
The blonde-striped head of the girl nodded. Her deep blue eyes smiled into his own purple-tattooed ones.
"Forest widens out that way." Nard Rost's muscular arm pointed out the north-western loom of hills and the belt of vine-festooned trees linking them with it. "That's our road."