When the wail of a newborn child was heard in the Faetians' house, Dzin was in the forest nearby. She crept up to the window, squatted down and, gripping her heels with her forepaws, began listening. Sensing that the hunters were returning, she leapt for cover into the undergrowth and from there she looked round at the stake-barred window.
The first native Terran had appeared in the Faetians' house. He had to be called by his father's abbreviated surname - Av, or simply Avik.
Mada doted upon her first baby. Often, with his arm round her shoulders, Ave would look for a long time at the tiny, helpless creature.
"The first boy on Terr!" boomed Gor Terr happily. "It's a good thing that a boy was born first. Let him grow up fast so that I can teach him many tricks of the trade that a r-real Faetian ought to know."
Gor Terr was a wonderful comrade. Modest, tactful, quiet in spite of his reverberating bass voice, he looked after Ave and Mada in the most touching way.
"The future of civilization is in you," he would say.
After Quest's thunderous lift-off, the Faetoids were evidently afraid of the Faetians for some time and did not come near them. But they gradually forgot their fear. The beasts became bolder; Ave and Gor noticed them several times while hunting in the forest. They even stole the trophies occasionally.
As a precaution, the Faetians decided to keep together wherever they went.
The Faetoids took advantage of this.
Once, at dusk, when Mada, left on her own in the house, went to the lake for water, three or four shaggy beasts rushed up to the barred windows and began smashing the stakes.
On hearing the baby cry out, Mada took alarm and ran back, spilling water from the home-made vessel before finally throwing it aside.
The door of the house was locked, but she could not hear Avik crying inside. She threw the door open and froze with horror.
Stakes broken out of the window were lying on the floor. The chi Id was gone. There was a foul reek of animals. Mada recognized it at once.
Snatching something from the shelf and not closing the door behind her, Mada rushed into a thicket where she had glimpsed a tawny red shadow.
Mada was not conscious of her actions. She was impelled purely by her maternal instinct, which replaced courage, strength and even cool calculation.
Her sixth sense told her that the animal that had kidnapped Avik was heading for the caves so as to tear him to pieces...
There is no knowing how she guessed which way the beast would run; she even guessed that the creature was afraid of crossing water. She twice forded a loop in the stream and reached the gully ahead of the kidnappers.
Dzin sprang down from the tree, clutching the howling infant to her hairy breast.
Mada had already heard her child crying in the distance. She ran towards the creature. The powerful beast automatically turned back, but Mada overtook her in a single bound. Then Dzin turned round and bared her fangs.
Mada boldly advanced on the shaggy beast, although Dzin could easily have snapped her fragile opponent in two. But Mada was the more intelligent. Not for nothing had she stopped in the house to snatch something from the shelf. She didn't have a firearm, but she was holding in her fist a silvery bullet, being careful not to be stung by the brown prickles.
Dzin had not yet released the stolen baby. She threateningly reached for Mada with her free paw. Mada dodged it, jumped at Dzin and struck her in the breast.
One blow by the fragile Faetess was enough for the enormous beast to crash backwards to the ground. Her paws quivered convulsively and her eyes rolled upwards.
Mada snatched up the child without noticing that he too had curled up and gone silent. She ran off, but her way was barred by two more female Faetoids who had accompanied Dzin on her raid.
Mada rushed fearlessly forward, hugging the inert little body to her breast.
Both Faetoids were struck by accurate blows in quick succession. They collapsed. Their paws curled up and their muzzles froze in a grimace.
Without pausing for breath, Mada ran back the way she had come. The spray from the stream helped to bring her to her senses. She looked at Avik for the first time and screamed.
Someone touched her shoulder. Mada looked round to find Ave bending over her. He had heard her cry in the forest and had rushed to her assistance. Gor Terr was standing close by, ready to beat off any attack.
Ave understood everything without having to be told.
"How did this happen?" he asked in a strangled voice.
Mada told him through her tears about the raid by the Faetoids.
She walked beside Ave, pressing the stiff little Avik to her breast. They did not say another word until they were home.
"Isn't there any antidote at all?" cried Mada, wringing her hands after she had laid the infant on its tiny bed.
Ave stood at the shelf, counting up the rounds of ammunition. Then he turned to Mada.
"Let Mada warm her son. Fortunately, what's missing here is a stun bullet, not a poisoned one. Warmth will bring Avik round."
Gor Terr was carefully refixing the stakes in the window.
Avik's first cry as he came round was no less of a joy to Mada than his very first wail, heard in the house not so long ago.
"This means the Faetoids will recover too," observed Mada.
"That's bad," responded Gor Terr. "They've found the way here!"
Gor Terr proved right. The Faetoids had become completely fearless and began to fight a real war with the newcomers.
Several times, the beasts openly attacked the hunters, who only beat off the animals by using firearms. Their reserves of ammunition were limited. They would hardly last out for more than a few local cycles.
Gor Terr had the idea of fixing a bullet to the end of a spear so as to strike the beasts without losing the bullet. The inspiration for this had been Mada's desperate behaviour in the battle with Dzin.
Ave insisted that stun bullets should be used, not the poisoned ones. He did not want to exterminate the Faetoids, who were Terr's indigenous population.
Gor Terr grumbled about this, but finally agreed.
However, this softness on the part of the Faetians led to even more ferocity and determination from the Faetoids. The realization that, if they had a brush with the newcomers, they would wake up alive after only a brief sleep, led to the beasts imagining that they could always get away with it.
It came to the point at which the herd laid systematic siege to the house. The men could not go out hunting and each time they were forced to disperse the frenzied Faetoids waiting for them outside the door.
Gor Terr began determinedly insisting that the enemy should be wiped out.
"Ave's right," objected Mada. "Can we really bring the ill-fated Faena's terrible principles to Terr? The Faetoids didn't come to us, we came to them uninvited. Perhaps we could find a common language with them."
"R-really?" said Gor Terr, astonished, and he became thoughtful.
The situation deteriorated. The Faetoids were no longer the stupid beasts who had originally seized the newcomers in the forest so as to eat them alive. They now seemed guided by will and thought inspired by someone more rational. They were fighting to exterminate the Faetians or drive them away. Mada could not go outside alone for water or golden apples any more. Shaggy bodies could always drop on her from a tree to strangle her or tear her to pieces.
Hit by the stun weapon, they recovered consciousness to attack again on the next day. Their brazen determination was impressive and, perhaps, had indeed been born of a feeling of immunity to punishment. The beasts could evidently understand only crude force and deadly danger.
"They'll all have to be killed off," decided Gor Terr.
But Mada and Ave didn't agree.
"It would be better if we went away from here," suggested Mada. "This is their place. They have the right to drive uninvited guests away."
"Will you ever get away from them?" asked Gor Terr, gloomily doubtful.
"D'you remember the snowy mountains we saw through the upper porthole on Quest? We'll go where it's too cold for the Faetoids. They won't come after us."
"You have no r-right to risk the child's life," boomed Gor Terr. "But you're right about one thing. Someone's got to leave here. Either the Faetians or the Faetoids."
From that time on, Gor Terr began disappearing frequently from the house and returning without the usual hunting trophies.
Ave and Mada didn't ask him where he was going, believing that it was up to him to tell them.
He was, in fact, secretly making his way to the gully with the caves. He had selected a reliable shelter and spent a long time observing how the Faetoids lived.
He had marked out an enormous shaggy Faetoid who was evidently the leader of the tribe. Wasn't it he who was conducting the war on the newcomers?
Exceptionally burly and fierce, he dealt ruthlessly with anyone who displeased him. He once gave Dzin a terrible beating: Gor Terr spotted her unerringly among the other beasts. However, it was not just strength that made him superior to the rest of the Faetoids. His brain must have been more developed than that of any other individual.
The Faetoids had not yet developed as far as rational speech, but they nevertheless communicated amongst themselves with monosyllables that differed mainly in cadence. After being beaten, Dzin fled the cave and came upon Gor Terr hiding in a thicket.
She took fright at first, then squatted in silence not far from him, clutching her heels with her forepaws, and began making soft, piteous sounds. When he realized that she was not going to make a noise at the sight of him, Gor Terr didn't strike her with his stun-spear. He was conceiving a plan of insane daring, and Dzin could be useful to him.
Every day after that, when Gor Terr went to the hiding-place that he had picked between two close-growing tree-trunks, he would find Dzin waiting for him.
She became a kind of ally to him. Gor Terr could not explain anything to her. But she behaved exactly as he wanted. With her animal instinct, she was able to guess his intentions. Several times, when one of the Faetoids drew near to Gor Terr's hiding-place, Dzin jumped up, screamed threateningly and gesticulated to drive the uninvited beast away.
Gor Terr's dangerous plan was soon ripe for action. He decided to disclose it to the others.
When she heard him, Mada decided that he was having another crazy spell and offered to shock him out of it with an injection.
But Gor Terr was adamant.
"One thing's certain," he affirmed. "The herd's got to be driven out of here; it must be led away. They'll take me for one of themselves. I look sufficiently like them and I know their habits. I'll deal quickly enough with the disobedient ones. I'll become their tyrant, their r-ruler, their dictator. And to their own advantage. I'll teach them sense and r-reason."
It proved impossible to dissuade Gor Terr. He regarded his scheme as the duty of a friend.
"We certainly won't win a war with them," he said. "I'll lead them off into the mountains. When they're settled there, I'll come back to you. You'll already have had lots of children. I'll turn your little ones into r-real Faetians."
Gor Terr began preparing for his exploit as if for an afternoon stroll. In fact, he didn't need to take anything with him.
Ave could not let him go out alone and decided to back him with small-arms fire from under cover if events did not work out as Gor Terr planned.
As Gor Terr had requested, Ave Mar was following Gor Terr at a distance so as not to frighten Dzin. They had embraced as they left the house and had said goodbye in silence. But Mada had wept in the doorway as she waved Gor Terr goodbye.
Dzin was sitting in her usual attitude. She was waiting.
Ave watched the strange scene from a distance.
Gor Terr went up to the Faetoid, who met him amicably, even warmly. He then took off his Faetian clothes.
He was covered with dense hair, but compared with one of the shaggy beasts he looked almost naked, although in general body shape, height, broad shoulders and stoop he vaguely resembled a Faetoid. He could have been mistaken for one in the dark, but, of course, not in broad daylight or at dusk. So, at least, it seemed to Ave Mar, who feared greatly for his friend. But Gor Terr, unarmed, went fearlessly down into the gully with Dzin.
Ave was gripping a pistol so as to come to Gor Terr's aid; his friend was already approaching the cave from which he had rescued his captive friends.
Ave watched as the Faetoids who met Dzin paid no attention to her companion at first. Then they noticed something unusual about him and began gathering in twos and threes to study the newcomer with the thin hair whom Dzin had brought back with her. At last, the rest returned from the hunt.
Accompanied by Dzin, Gor Terr went bravely up to them.
Dzin began shrieking something, squatting, falling onto the stones and jumping up again. She must have been explaining that she was starting a new family and was presenting the one of her choice to the others.
The Faetoids didn't take the one of her choice very much. One beast, at the far end, stood up, rudely thrust Dzin aside and struck the stranger with his forepaw. To be more precise, he had intended to strike. But before he could do so, he shot up into the air and crashed to the ground several paces away. Bellowing, he got up on all fours and sprang at his assailant like a spotted predator. But the stranger dealt him such a blow that the Faetoid spun round on the stones, howling. The others reacted to the incident with what seemed like total indifference. However, no one else dared try his strength with the newcomer.
Interestingly enough, Gor Terr had only to take his clothes off for the beasts not to recognize their former enemy and not even to see any difference between him and themselves.
Sol was rising. It was the beginning of the magnificent dawn that had impressed the Faetians so much during the first days of their sojourn on Terr.
The Faetoids, however, were not admiring it. They were lying down to sleep in their caves.
Only one particularly large beast with repulsive features, flared nostrils and brown fangs protruding from his mouth, wandered from cave to cave as if checking something.
His mental powers were unlikely to have been so developed that he could really have been capable of checking anything at all. He might simply have been wandering aimlessly from one cave to another.
Any beast he found outside, however, hurriedly disappeared into the darkness under the vaulted roof.
Ave had still not left his observation post, fearing for Gor Terr's safety.
He had stayed there all day, well aware how alarmed Mada must be for him. He was waiting for, and dreading, the showdown between Gor Terr and the leader.
The leader appeared earlier than the rest and summoned all the others with a throaty scream.
Stretching and yawning, the Faetoids emerged reluctantly from their shelters. Gor Terr also came out. Compared with all the others, he now looked almost puny. No wonder the beasts were looking askance at the new arrival. He didn't wait to be attacked, but exhibited his own character.
For no apparent reason, he attacked a fairly inoffensive Faetoid, nimbly knocking him off his hind legs and hurling him down to the bottom of the gully. Another was outraged at this conduct on the newcomer's part, but paid dearly for it. Gor Terr rushed at him in a fury and, pinning him to the stone wall, began banging his head so hard against it that the other howled with pain.
At this point, the infuriated leader decided to put the wild one in his place. He began bellowing with wrath, but this had no effect on the newcomer, who knocked another beast over and hurled him down to the bottom of the gully.
The leader's patience snapped. He snatched up a heavy stone and threw it at the rebel. Neither Gor Terr nor Ave Mar had been expecting this. Ave nearly fired, drawing a bead on the leader, but desisting when he saw that Gor Terr had nimbly dodged the stone.
That Faetoid knew how to use weapons! This meant that he was more developed than the others!
Ave didn't know what Gor Terr was going to do next, but his friend didn't stop to think. He, too, picked up a stone and threw it at his enemy with much better results.
The leader jumped and then bellowed with fury, hurling himself at Gor Terr. But the other was already rushing to meet his enemy.
The Faetoids were bunched together at the rocky wall, watching the savage battle. Their enormous leader, compared with whom the newcomer was merely a small animal, crushed Gor Terr underneath his own weight.
At this point, Ave realized what he must do.
The Faetoids howled with glee at this duel and the lesson being taught to the newcomer by their leader. Because of all the shouting, the crack of a shot went unnoticed. Ave didn't miss, aiming at the leader's shaggy back just below the powerful neck.
Half-crushed by the heavy body, Gor Terr realized what had happened. As if continuing the fight, he raised the massive, convulsed body of the leader up on his outstretched arms and hurled him from a rocky ledge down to the bottom of the gully.
The Faetoids tried to look down, gibbering. Those thrown down by Gor Terr had recovered from their beating, had successfully climbed up onto the ledge and were crowded together in the rear of the herd; but their leader was still lying motionless.
Ave had fired the first live round on Terr. The leader was dead.
Dzin bounded nimbly down to the bottom of the gully and began dancing frenziedly near the overthrown body.
Dealing out punches and blows, sometimes knocking the beasts over, Gor Terr drove all the Faetoids back into their caves. He had put a stop to the aggressive campaign evidently launched by his predecessor.
The stranger's incredible strength convinced the beasts that it was useless to resist him.
"The tyrant has seized power," thought Ave. "Now he will teach the Faetoids to use clubs, he will make their hunting more successful, the herd will no longer starve and will be content with the new leader."
Thus did the naked leader appear in the herd of Faetoids.
Ave and Mada never managed to find out anything more about Gor Terr.
Their self-sacrificing friend kept his word, however. He led the herd of Faetoids away somewhere else. No longer did the shaggy beasts annoy the solitary Faetians.