It was the Healer who answered him. “By nature’s laws, if not man’s, you speak the truth. It is guessed that men are different today from what they once were. A mutant—” He coughted behind his hand. “Truly any here might be termed mutant to some degree.”
Horsf ord held up his hand to still the babble of sound. His powerful voice boomed around the circle.
“There has been a weighty thing done here tonight, brothers. The Star Men have broken faith with the past. Can we do less? They speak of two roads—I shall speak of growing. We have put our roots in narrow and stony ground. We have held stubbornly to it. But now comes a time when we must move or die. For the only end to growth is death. And in the name of the Council I am choosing growth. If the stars were once promised us— then shall we reach for them again!”
Someone raised a cheer—it came from the outer edges where the youths stood. And that cheer gathered voices and grew. Men were on their feet now, their voices eager, their eyes alight. Never had this reserved and too serious people seemed so like their cousins of the Plains. The tribe was coming to a new life.
“So be it,” Jarl’s voice broke through the din. At his gesture of command some of it died away. “From this hour we shall walk new ways. And in remembrance of that choice do we now set upon Fors a star which is like unto no other worn here. And in his turn, when the time comes, he shall raise up those who will wear it after him. Thus there will be always those among us who shall speak with other peoples as a friend, think with neutral minds, and hold the peace of nations in their hands!”
Jarl came to Fors holding out a chain from which hung a star, not of five points but of many, so that it was a compass sign pointing in all directions at once. And this fell cool and smooth below the mutant’s throat.
Then the tribe shouted the cry which was the welcome to a Star Man newly raised up. But in this too there was a difference. For now was a born a new star and from it would follow what no man standing there that night might rightly foresee—not even he who wore it as a trust.