STAR OF REBIRTH
BY BERNARD WALL
Atanta knew the red star was
the home of his people after
death.... And for months now
it had been growing brighter.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, February 1959.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Everyone should have known. They should have known as surely as though it were written in the curved palm of the wind. They should have known when they looked up at the empty sky; they should have known when they looked down at the hungry children. Yet somehow they did not know that their last migratory hunt was almost over.
The straggling band had woven its slow trail among the mountains for forty days of vanishing hopes and shrinking stomachs. Ahead of the main party, the scouts had crawled until their knees and palms were raw; but still there was no track of game, and the only scent was that of the pungent air that rose from the ragged peaks of ice.
At last they halted, only a few footsteps from The Cave of the Fallen Sun, the farthest western reach of their frozen domain. In the rear of the column the women threatened the children into silence and the scouts went first to the mouth of the cave to look for signs of an animal having entered. Presently the scouts stood up with their massive shoulders drooping, turned to the rest and made a hopeless gesture.
Atanta, who stood alone and motionless between the scouts and the rest of his band, knew that all were waiting for him to use his magic to make a great leopard appear in the empty cave. "A very great leopard," he thought sarcastically. Enough to feed them all for a hundred days. A leopard so huge it would whine pitifully while they killed it. A leopard so gigantic that it would not leave its footprints in the snow. Indeed, Atanta was sure, the leopard his people wanted would be much too large to fit into the cave. Well, perhaps there would be a bird.