Stooping and breathing heavily. Um Sat lowered himself into the armchair before the control panel. His wrinkled face with its bushy white beard had sagged noticeably, his eyes were deeply sunken, but watched with their former close and sad attention. He asked Toni Fae, for the benefit of those who had come back from the forest, to re-run the recording of the last communications session. Ala Veg's chesty voice was heard in the cabin once again.
"Quest! Quest! Quest! Faetians of Terr! Your brothers and sisters, abandoned on an artificial speck of dust amid the stars, are crying out to you for help. Around us is the cold and infinite emptiness of space. We have no solid ground under our feet, we are feeding on the produce of the greenhouse, which is being destroyed by endless showers of particles discharged by the explosion of Faena. We shall not survive here unless you come to our rescue. Quest! Quest! Quest! Faetians of Quest! Remember that you are of the same flesh and blood as those who gave life to you and to us! Fly to us in your ship, which we consider ours also. Fly to us in the name of the love which shall forever be the beginning of the future and everlasting life. The Faetians must not perish! Help us in the name of Reason, whose heritage we must preserve. Quest! Quest! Quest!"
Ala Veg's voice fell silent.
The Faetians exchanged glances. Um Sat glanced inquiringly at Ave Mar and Gor Terr.
Gor Terr went up to Toni Fae and rested his enormous hand on the other man's shoulder.
"My friend Toni Fae," he said, as if his decision was the only one that mattered. "The appeal by our brothers and sisters from Deimo will r-remain bitter and unanswered, and it will break our hearts. I think we ought not to maintain electromagnetic communications with space any more."
"What?" cried Mada, outraged. "Turn our backs on our own people when they're in trouble?"
"We can't help them," Gor Terr tried to say as gently as possible. "If we flew to the station, we would just be parasites, using up all their food and oxygen."
"But they're hoping Quest will put them down on the surface of Mar," protested Toni Fae.
"Alas!" continued Gor Terr gloomily. "That's as impossible as our r-resettlement on Deimo. We could fly as far as the space station, but the ship hasn't got enough fuel for a braked landing on Mar."
With a column of figures written on a plastic tablet, Gor Terr convincingly demonstrated the impossibility of flying to the Faetians on Station Deimo.
Ave Mar, Toni Fae and Mada understood everything perfectly. Only Um Sat, apparently, could not wait until the engineer had finished. He took a turn for the worse and had to be put to bed in the control cabin this time. Mada fussed about him, trying to bring him round.
Water was needed. There wasn't any, since the reserve supply had been used up. More would have to be fetched up from below.
When he had brought some water, Gor Terr began insisting that they should all move into the house, which was now ready.
"The forest air is more likely to cure the Elder," he affirmed.
It was decided that Toni should stay behind at the communications apparatus. At the next session, he could inform the Faetians on Deimo that they could not possibly be reached on Quest.
Toni Fae was brooding silently. Mada feared for him. She carefully locked up the dispensary so that he wouldn't be able to get his hands on an ampoule of stupefying gas and she made Ave Mar collect up all the poisoned bullets.
Sadly, as if saying goodbye to their ship forever, the astronauts climbed down the vertical ladder leading out of the lower airlock.
Um Sat, whom they wanted to carry refused to be helped and actually went down the ladder himself with Mada supporting him.
The path that the Faetians took as they carried the various gear from the ship turned slippery. Gor Terr nearly fell down.
"Don't stray off the tr-rack," he warned anxiously.
The building with its sloping roof appeared among the trees.
In his time, Ave Mar, accustomed to the round buildings of Danjab, would have thought the house ugly, but the change from a round rocket to a rectangular structure now seemed right. He even sighed with relief; they had a refuge for long cycles of their forthcoming life.
Suddenly, a tawny shadow darted across the window.
Ave Mar gripped Gor Terr by the arm. He too had noticed something suspicious and he headed determinedly for the house. The door had not yet been made.
On the threshold, Gor Terr collided with an enormous Faetoid with bared fangs. He charged at it, unaware that this was Dzin showing her teeth in the semblance of a smile. He grabbed the uninvited guest by the paw and nimbly threw her over his shoulder so that she landed on some tree-stumps nearby. She jumped up and fled howling into the forest.
In this way, an "attack" by Faetoids on the house was beaten off.
The Faetians went through the doorway. Gor Terr screwed up his nose in distaste. There was an animal stench inside.
Mada opened the windows to air the place.
"Home at last," she said with relief.
'Tarn afraid," said Um Sat, "that for a long time the Faetians will have to prove that this is their home."
"Just let those filthy beasts try to barge in again!" roared Gor Terr.
"I was afraid you were going to kill our uninvited guest," confessed Ave Mar.
"I would have done so, if I hadn't thought it was Dzin. We owe her so much."
"Dzin?" asked Mada, on the alert "Really?"
"Settle yourselves in," suggested Gor Terr. "I'll go to meet Ton! Fae, otherwise he might be met by someone else."
Mada smiled as he left. Such friendship between Faetians was a joy to her.
Ave began fashioning a door, skilfully wielding a home-made axe. The Faetoids might attack the sleeping Faetians in the night As he barred the windows and the door, he wondered what the future held in store for them all: it would be bleak enough if they had to live in a permanent state of siege.
When the windows had been barred with stakes, the atmosphere in the house had a depressing effect on Mada. As she watched the imperturbable Ave, however, she too was filled with confidence.
Twilight was deepening. Mada felt uneasy as she thought about Toni Fae and Gor Terr. The fate of the faraway Faetians on Deimo also gave her no peace of mind. How she wished that all the survivors could be together!
Mada peered out of the window through the stakes. It was totally dark in the forest. Tired after his walk, Um Sat was sound asleep. Mada had given him a whiff of stupefying gas from an ampoule.
Ave was admiring his newly-made door, rough-hewn, but solid. He locked it for the first time.
Mada looked at it regretfully.
"Ave, wasn't it you who said that the Faetians must preserve the civilization of their ancestors?"
"Of course, and I shall go on saying it."
"Then how is it that we, as carriers of civilization, could abandon in space the Faetians who are so close to us? Is there no way of bringing them to join us? If we could only find fuel here!.."
Ave Mar heaved a sad sigh.
"Even the fuel we found here wouldn't help. We wouldn't be able to process it the way they used to in Faena's fuel workshops. Where are we to get all the pipes and distil ling spheres?"
"Surely Engineer Gor Terr will think of something?"
"Hardly..."
"Couldn't we fly to Deimo and all work together to extend the greenhouse, improve the machinery and still live together? I'm afraid of staying here on a hostile planet. It's not at all what it seemed on that first day. D'you remember the watering place, with the baby reindeer and the beast of prey drinking together in peace? But now?"
The door opened with a creak. Mada jumped up and seized Ave by the arm. Gor Terr was standing in the doorway. He moved aside to admit a distraught and dejected Toni Fae.
Mada rushed over to him, clasped him to her breast and began sobbing.
"Was there a session?" asked Ave Mar.
Trying to control himself, Toni Fae replied:
"It would have been better to die than hear the answer that Ala Veg came out with when she heard our refusal."
"R-refusal? It's an impossibility!" interrupted Gor Terr.
"She was sobbing. Sobs have never been broadcast over the air before. It was too much. Only why did Mada take the yellow ampoule from me?.."
"Calm yourself, my dear Toni Fae. I'll give you a whiff from that ampoule in a moment. Look how well Um Sat is sleeping."
"But how can I sleep in peace if out there, on Deimo, Ala Veg has given up all hope and has lost faith in the power of love? I would fly to her without a second thought."
Ave and Mada exchanged glances.
Mada gently calmed Toni Fae down. Sitting by the window stakes, Gor Terr was plunged in gloom. The damp came wafting in from the forest. It had started raining again. The Faetians couldn't possibly have imagined so much water coming down from the sky. There had never been anything like it on Faena.
Toni dozed off, but tossed and turned, moaning in his sleep.
Ave Mar squatted down at the rough-hewn table, took a split branch and began making marks on it.
Gor Terr, his shoulders hunched, was still sitting by the window. He looked like a huge boulder. He was asleep.
Exhausted by all she' had been through during the day, Mada settled down on some bedding not far from Um Sat and Toni Fae, who were sleeping side by side.
Ave Mar was doing his best to save the batteries for the portable lamp. He switched it off and lit a taper which he had improvised out of a resinous splinter similar to the one he had split to make a tablet.
The rain finally stopped in the morning, the wind dispersed the clouds and Sol peeped into the Faetians' new house. A mother-of-pearl footpath showed through the trees, the water on it shimmering.
Mada, barely awake and already busy with the household chores, instantly noticed a change in Ave.
Gor Terr was in a bad mood.
Mada offered everyone some plain food, economising in the stores brought from the ship.
"If only you'd heard her voice," said Toni Fae to no one in particular.
Gor Terr exploded.
"They're selfish! All they think about is themselves. Who gave them the r-right to demand such a sacrifice of us as the r-re-fusal to live on a bountiful planet? And they're the ones who tried to blow up a space station like their own! If I was deciding whether we should fly to them or not, I wouldn't allow it!"
Mada was frightened to detect a familiar ring in his booming bass voice.
Toni Fae looked dismally at his friend.
'They're not all in the wrong. We've got to distinguish between the station chief, the Supreme Officer of the Blood Guard, and Ala Veg and the roundhead Luas, neither of whom is in the least to blame."
"And there are some Faetians on Phobo who aren't in the least to blame either," interposed Mada.
"No matter how many of them there may be, how can we possibly help them?" snapped Gor Terr.
"It's not quite like that," intervened Ave suddenly.
All turned to look at him. Even Um Sat, lying on a bench near the table, tried to raise himself on one elbow.
"I did some calculations during the night Gor Terr, as an engineer, could verify them."
"A specialist on elementary particles has been checking the engineer who designed the spaceship Quest?" inquired Gor Terr darkly.
"Excuse me, Gor Terr, but I've been going through your calculations and I found them correct"
"Well, well!.. I'm so glad," said Gor Terr, heaving a sigh of relief.
"What a pity!" responded Toni Fae.
"Even so, Gor Terr's calculations can be taken further."
"R-really?" Gor Terr looked sharply round at Ave Mar.
"His calculations were based on the assumption that all the Faetians of Quest must fly to Deimo."
"But of course! How can we possibly split up?" exclaimed Mada.
"Only by doing that could we save the civilization of Faena."
"Let Ave clarify his idea," requested Um Sat.
"To economise in fuel for Quest, only two of us must go up in her, not five. Then the remainder of the fuel plus the reserves of fuel on Deimo and Phobo will enable us to deliver the Faetians on the space stations to Mar. Quest, of course, will not be able to return to Terr."
"Which means," shouted Toni Fae, "that only one Faetian can go with the pilot Gor Terr!"
"Ave Mar can also fly the ship," commented Gor Terr. "After all, he's been fighting so hard for the preservation of Faena's culture."
Mada looked at her husband in alarm.
"I haven't had the time to discuss it with Mada, but she can express her opinion now. In the name of Reason, I am prepared to stay on Terr if Mada stays with me. True, after Quest has gone, we'll be living like savages who will from then on have to make axes and arrowheads out of stone."
"I am prepared to stay with my Ave," said Mada, "as I would be prepared to fly with him to Deimo."
"Then I can fly with Gor Terr!" whispered Toni Fae with unconcealed joy.
"No," objected Ave firmly. "If a great sacrifice has to be made in the name of Reason, then the continued Faetian civilization on Mar can only be headed by Faena's Great Elder, Urn Sat, its first man of learning."
Toni Fae buried his head in his hands.
Um Sat looked at him with compassion and said:
"I am old and ill. Is it worth counting on me when you speak of a new civilization on Mar?"
"Surely it is not for a Great Elder to live like a savage in the primeval forest?" objected Ave. "That is the lot of the younger ones."
"I agree to anything," said Toni Fae in a dead voice.
"I swear it's not going to be like that!" Gor Terr suddenly banged his fist on the table. "Urn Sat will, of course, fly on Quest to head the civilization of the Marians. They'll have to apply the technology of the space stations. Without technology, the Marians won't survive. However, it is not Engineer Gor Terr who will fly to Mar with the great scientist, but his fr-riend Toni Fae."
"But I can't fly spaceships!" exclaimed the agitated Toni Fae.
Mada looked admiringly at Gor Terr.
"I'm r-right, am I not?" continued Gor Terr. "Those who stay behind on Terr won't have it any easier than the ones flying to Mar. They'll have to fight for every step they take in this confounded forest. Toni Fae would find it hard protecting the family of Ave and Mada here."
"But I can't fly spaceships," repeated Toni Fae sadly.
"You'll learn. Let the first university also start work in this first house, knocked together on Terr. It will have only one student, but three professors: the gr-reat scientist Um Sat, his celebrated pupil Ave Mar and the modest engineer, Gor Terr."
"Two professors will eventually become savages," said Ave Mar with a smile. "Gor Terr has just shown us what true friendship is. I will undertake to help Toni Fae in every way so that he can fly to Deimo with Um Sat"
The Elder rose from his bench.
"However hard the history of future generations of Terrans and Marians may be, it is a good thing that it begins with such noble sentiments!"
Tears were trickling down the old man's wrinkled face.
There was never a more terrible day than the one when Quest had to lift off from Terr for space.
Left behind on Terr, Ave Mar, Mada and Gor Terr tried not to show what it cost them to see the others off.
The giant rocket loomed above the forest like a pointed tower. The last farewells were imminent.
The Elder embraced in turn each of the two sturdy, strong Faetians who were staying behind on the alien planet. Would they be able to survive?
Then Mada came up to him. Resting her head on his white beard, she raised her head and said something. The Elder drew her close to him and kissed her hair.
"Does Ave Mar know about it yet?"
"No, not yet," replied Mada.
"May Reason remain to live on in your descendants!"
Ave Mar, who had just come up, understood everything without having to be told. He hugged his wife in gratitude.
When Um Sat followed by Toni Fae, climbed with difficulty up the vertical ladder, he looked round and called:
"At least teach them how to write!"
Gor Terr understood and smiled bitterly.
"They'll have to learn hunting, not writing. And how to make stone axes!"
The Elder disappeared through the hatch.
As the engines fired, the three Faetians moved away from the rocket and raised their hands in a last farewell. They were seeing off forever those who, in the name of Reason, were taking away with them the heritage of Faetian civilization.
Clouds of black smoke burst out from under the rocket.
In the dense forest, the trees were dotted with shaggy Faetoids. With malignant curiosity, they watched their two-legged victims, who were to be eaten in the gully.
The strongest of the Faetoids would seize the hairless ones and not let them return to their "cave without rocks".
Suddenly, under the smooth stone tree into which two of the hairless ones had disappeared, such a terrible thunder roared that even the fiercest of the Faetoids fell from their branches. Then, from under the smooth stone tree, black clouds billowed forth, as before the water falling from above, and flames gushed forth.
The beasts fled helter-skelter in all directions.
The path to the house of the depleted Faetians on Terr had been cleared.
This time they were able to return to their refuge, not suspecting that, in dispersing their enemies, their departed friends had rendered them their last service.