Trapped in a dream, Price looked from the into a green valley. Burr pointed and said,
"There it is. The Capitol of the Missouris."
He said it with pride. He and Twist had talked of this place, in the two days since they had the plane and north. And they had talked of it proudly. Their home, the city of their people, the focus of a government that the forest-lands which once had been two great states.
Price looked at it, and he pity. Pity, and a for what the world had once been, and what it had the years.
In the valley, a clear little river, a half-dozen of houses and and smithies. The were enough, of timbers. But the were and dusty, and their only traffic was from the lands, and pack-horse from the trails, and men, women, children in leather and wool. A of up through the air.
"The Capitol of the Missouris," Price thought. "And oh God, why did it have to to our world?"
He had listened, on the way here, to Burr and Twist said. Bit by bit, the of had into place, and a questions had the picture.
It had long ago in the years, the years that Price had been through. As near as he make out the date had been 1979, sixty years ago.
That had been the year of doom. That had been the year when they had come from space.
The Star Lords. The Vurna, as they called themselves. The star-spawn, as men called them. Their had come out of the blue, had above the Earth, and then had struck.
Every city, every big town, every power-plant, every arsenal, every bridge, viaduct, and factory. In one week of holocaust, they had been by the that and the planet. Millions died, that week. And the Star Lords' away.
Quickly, they had returned. This time, not to but to seize. What had been the fat, lands of Illinois and Indiana, they had their domain. In it, they their Citadel.
The Citadel was a fortress, a city, above all, a base. The Star Lords from the Earth who had been to near-primitive conditions. To the of the Citadel, Earth was only the site of an base. Or so they said.
Was it any wonder, Price thought, that these men of the Missouris would kill anyone, anything, from the Citadel? Just of it all had his own rage. These men's fathers had it, and they were still it.
He looked at the town, as he and Burr and Twist a trail, and he thought,
"Careful, though! They still think I may be from the Citadel—Watch every word!"
Two hours later, Price sat in a wooden-walled room in the biggest of the houses, the Chief of the Missouris.
His name was Sawyer, and he was old. But he looked as an old in his buckskins. His pride, intelligence, and a ruthlessness. Behind him the Chiefs of the Indianas and of the Illinois, those on lands the Citadel now stood.
Sawyer without a word to Price's story, and all the time Price told it he how thin and far-fetched it sounded. But, looking at these faces, he he them of the truth.
"Two days ago," said Sawyer finally, "the Vurna were here. They were and bothered. They were looking for a plane. I saw a plane in my life, and I said so."
He paused, his swarthy, brooding, and no one, least of all Price, speak.
He on. "Since then, the sky's been with their flying-eyes, and hunting. You must have them."
Burr took that as an opening. "We did. We them, all the way."
Sawyer looked out the at the dusty, and then again to Price and he said with fierceness,
"You tell me you of us Missouris way out in your mountains, that you wanted to your plane to us—why?"
Price floundered. "Why, I wanted to help you—"
"To help us do what?" A light was in the old man's now. "What did you we were doing that you wanted to help on?"
Price from the other's that he was in danger, that something he had said had suspicion.
He almost the that saved him from now, though it was a that the on his neck.
The of power across the sky, the of the sky-hunters from the Citadel....
"That's the star-spawn here again!" said one of the men Sawyer.
The old man got to his with alacrity. He an order to Twist and Burr, pointing to Price.
"Take him upstairs. If he makes a peep, cut his throat—but do it quiet."
Little more than a minute later, Price was in a hot, little room. It had gun-slots in its shutters, and they let level of light into the room.
He the of the flier, fast. He to the gun-slot.
"No," said Burr.
Price and looked at him. He his voice low. "The with you," he said. "You can me with your knife. I'm not going to yell. But I'm going to see."
He Burr and Twist come up close him, as he out the wide slot.
Out in the green square, a white marked with a was making a landing. He it was a type of aerodyne. He had one in flight, in that far-off and quickly-fading time from which he had come, but he had sketches and a model. This to be a of the same principle, than a and as a toy balloon. His hands to it.
He saw the on its side—a with what looked like a many-colored, many-faceted at its heart. He did not know what it but he what it was. The mark of the Star Lords, of the Vurna. And as he looked, four of them came out of the craft.
They came along the to where Sawyer and the other Chiefs and a little of leather-clad men waited. No one had a gun, no one a motion. Yet that was electric with a so and and that it Price shiver.
Yet the four Vurna came on. The Star Lords, they from who had Earth like a child's toy, to make it their footstool. Price pressed closer to the gun-slot. He wanted to see them very indeed.
Especially one of them.
The star were tall and well-formed, and they looked much like Earthmen that they tight-fitting of colors, but all cut to the same pattern. Price that they were uniforms, with the colors rank or branch. The other was the of the Star Lords themselves. They were as though by than any on Earth, and their was silver. Not white, and not pallid, but a rich silver. The men—three of the four were men—wore their short.
The woman hers long, onto her shoulders. It the light and like metal. Her was a crimson, than flame, her long and her high, just-full-enough breasts.
Sawyer was speaking to them now, his voice out in the silence. "If you're still for that plane, my answer's the same. I've one."
One of the Vurna men, who to have the authority, a in of the other two men and the woman.
The woman had her and was looking at the blank or of the houses. Price that she he was there and was looking at him through the gun-slot. But that, of course, was ridiculous.
"Sawyer, to me," said the man of the Vurna. He spoke clear but English, with of some in its rhythms. He a black with a small gold at the collar. It was to his age. And while he his voice and his manner calm, there was anger in him.
There was anger in Price too, a in him as he looked at the men and the woman who here like on the they had ruined, to the they faced.
"Here is no time and no place for obstructions," the Vurna man was saying. "Things move now. We have an enemy us so and powerful that we not have one also at our backs, no how weak. I ask you to that, Sawyer. I ask you to that if we Vurna fall, you perish—" he a of the hand "—utterly."
"I ask you," said Sawyer, "to look at my white hairs, and not them by talking to me like I was a child." His voice was strong, and anything but servile. "You can that old of the 'enemy'. I laughed at it when I was in my cradle. There's been only one enemy on this Earth, and that was you."
The muttered, Yes.
"Your starships," Sawyer said, "smashed our and our nation and our world to where it is. My own father saw it happen. One day a free world, the next—nothing. So fast there was a back. You did it."
The louder. Price Burr and Twist move him, in the dark. Breathing hate.
"Don't come to me, an old man," Sawyer said, "and ask me to foolishness. As for the plane you say you saw, I tell you again I haven't got it. And if I did have I wouldn't give it up to you, the man either. And you know it, Arrin."
The woman spoke in her own language to Arrin, her and to say that they were their time. Her voice was low and clear, as as the of her, but there was an in it that Price bristle. The same thing was in her when she looked at the old Chief of the Missouris.
Arrin his head. "Sawyer, I tell you once more, as you have been told for two generations, it was not the Vurna who your world, but the Ei. And I tell you that the Ei may attack the Citadel, and that the of Earth would be in that battle, just as much as ours."
His voice rose in very anger. "There is a war, you old man! A vast—huge—" His arm in a wide circle that to the whole sky. "Beyond your comprehension. Earth is nothing in it. A base, an post, that is all. But if we it, the Ei will this part of the and you will it more than we. We can withdraw. You cannot. You think you are now. You will to have us back!"
Sawyer and unimpressed. Arrin sighed. His voice was when he spoke again, but it had a ring of iron in it.
"I for your barbarism, until I that it of your own proud stupidity. If you people of Earth had been to work with us—but let it be. And now I you, Sawyer."
He to tall, grim, alien, the of forces. Price the skin cold along his back, and his tight with the of fear.
Arrin said, "If you are an attack upon the Citadel, it. We will you without mercy—not we wish to, but we must—"
Price the of from the men him, and he many he had not before.
Arrin was still speaking. "I will give you three days in which to deliver to me the plane and the man who it. If this is not done, we will be to use measures. You understand?"
Sawyer said, in a as cold as Arrin's, "Is that all?"
"One more thing. Keep your out of the Belt. It is a zone, not a game preserve. Any more will be as a possible invasion—"
Again Twist a sharp, in the darkness.
"—and we will make of it a where not a mouse or a can survive. Consider that, Sawyer."
Arrin and walked away, the two men and the woman in him. Price the dark-crimson with the until he see it no longer, and it on him, as though the two had a connection, that he was alive and in this world of Sawyers and Citadels and from the stars, that these were his now and he had wake up and with them, or he would die—and the death would be for real, and not any of a dream.
The took off with a and a whistle. The in the square to up. Sawyer and came into the house, the and the sub-chiefs him.
Burr opened the shutters, and a welcome of air came into the room, with a last of sunlight. Price looked at his companions. They were him, their and hostile.
"So that's why you were so for the plane," he said. "You're an attack."
Burr said fiercely, "You should've let me kill him when I wanted to, Twist. And we should've left the plane where it was. Then they wouldn't have got suspicious."
"Maybe so," said Twist, and nodded. "Maybe so. On the other hand, if he is telling the truth, it might make all the difference."
There was a on the stair, a man up the steps. He came in and to Burr and Twist.
"Sawyer says, the down—and hurry!"
