While his father had lived it had not been so bad. The other children had yelled at him and there had been fights. But somehow, his father’s confidence in him had made even that seem natural. And in the evenings, when they had shut out the rest of the Eyrie, there had been long hours of learning to read and write, to map and observe, the lore of the high trails and the low. Even among the Star Men his father had been a master instructor. And never had it appeared doubtful to Langdon that his only son Fors would follow him into the Star Hall. So even after his father had failed to return from a trip to the lowlands, Fors had been confident of the future. He had made his weapons, the long bow now lying beside him, the short stabbing sword, the hunting knife—all with his own hands according to the Law. He had learned the trails and had found Lura, his great hunting cat—thus fulfilling all the conditions for the Choosing. For five years he had come to the Fire each season, with diminishing hope to be sure, and each time to be ignored as if he did not exist. And now he was too old to try again.
Tomorrow—no, today—he would have to lay aside his weapons and obey the dictates of the Council. Their verdict would be that he live on sufferance—which was probably all a mutant could expect—as a worker in one of the cave-sheltered Hydro farms.
No more schooling, no fifteen or twenty years of roving the lowlands, with further honored years to look forward to as an instructor and guardian of knowledge—a Star Man, explorer of the wilderness existing in the land where the Great Blow-up had made a world hostile to man. He would have no part in tracing the old cities where forgotten knowledge might be discovered and brought back to the Eyrie, in mapping roads and trails, helping to bring light out of darkness. He couldn’t surrender that dream to the will of the Council!
A low questioning sound came out of the dark and ab-~ sently he answered with an assenting thought. A shadow detached itself from a jumble of rocks and crept on velvet feet, soft belly fur dragging on the moss, to him. Then a furred shoulder almost as wide as his own nudged against him and he dropped a hand to scratch behind pricked ears. Lura was impatient. All the wild scents of the woods were rich in her widened nostrils and she wanted to be on the trail. His hand on her head was a restraint she half resented.
Lura loved freedom. What service she gave was of her own choosing, after the manner of her kind. He had been so proud two years ago when the most beautifully marked kitten of Kanda’s last litter had shown such a preference for his company. One day Jarl himself—the Star Captain —had commented on it. How that had raised Fors’ hopes—but nothing had come of the incident, only Lura herself. He rubbed his hot cheek against the furry head raised to his. She made again the little questioning sound deep in her throat. She knew his unhappiness.
There was no sign of sunrise. Instead black clouds were gathering above the bald top of the Big Knob. It would be a stormy day and those below would keep within shelter. The moisture of the mist had become a drizzle and Lura was manifestly angry at his stubborness in not going indoors. But if he went into any building of the Eyrie now it would be in surrender—a surrender to the loss of the life he had been born to lead, a surrender to all the whispers, the badge of shameful failure, to the stigma of being mutant—not as other men. And he could not do that—he couldn’t!
If Langdon had stood before the Council last night— Langdonl He could remember his father so vividly, the tall strong body, the high-held head with its bright, restless, seeking eyes above a tight mouth and sharp jaw. Only—Langdon’s hair had been safely dark. It was from his unknown Plainswoman mother that Fors had that too fair hair which branded him as one apart.
Langdon’s shoulder bag with its star badge hung now in the treasure room of the Star Hall. It had been found with his battered body on the site of his last battle. A fight with the Beast Things seldom ended in victory for the mountaineers.
He had been on the track of a lost city when he had been killed. Not a “blue city,” still forbidden to men if they wished to live, but a safe place without radiation which could be looted for the advantage of the Eyrie. For the hundredth time Fors wondered if his father’s theory concerning the tattered bit of map was true—if a safe city did lie somewhere to the north on the edge of a great lake, ready and waiting for the man lucky and reckless enough to search it out.
“Ready and waiting—” Fors repeated the words aloud. Then his hand closed almost viciously on Lura’s fur. She growled warningly at his roughness, but he did not hear her.