Keglar’s gaze came to rest on Hartford and Teller. A look of irritation crossed his face. While these two did not look as if they would give him trouble, it was always1 best to have no witnesses. He moved forward and would have crossed the line dividing the blue men from the green if the trader, who knew better, had not hurried forward and caught him by the arm. The trader whispered in his ear. Keglar took a quick look at the line, which he had not noticed until it was called to his attention, then backed away from it.

  “Who are you and what are you doing here?” Keglar’s voice was heavy with authority. Most men jumped when he spoke to them. He was expecting these two men to jump. The old one did jump. The young one took a step forward.

  “My name is my own business,” Hartford answered. “What I am doing here is also my own business.” He spoke impulsively, knowing his words were not diplomatic, knowing also that he was going to say them. The sight of Ruck Keglar made Hartford’s hands ball into fists.

  Keglar’s face turned red. “My name is Keglar. I am chief of police of Earth, Inc., and I have authority—”

  “You have no authority here and you know it,” Hartford interrupted. “This is Pluto. By agreement among the space companies, Pluto is free territory.”

  Keglar’s mouth hung open in surprise. Few men dared to talk back to him. Even Holm was a little afraid of his own bully boy. In Keglar’s experience, any man who talked back to him like this had friends handy. His eyes went around the room, seeking those friends. He saw about a hundred blue men quietly gathering behind a burly war chief. True, they only had clubs and knives, but in Keglar’s experience these could be deadly at close quarters. The human who was defying him had a gun and looked to be ready to use it.

  “Better remember where you are,” Hartford continued. All he meant was that Keglar should remember that Pluto was free territory, but to Keglar they meant that he should remember he was far away from the great ship where he had real authority, that he only had three men with him, excluding a shivering trader and a woman who did not count. True, the trader had told him that the green men were on his side, but after taking a second look at them, Keglar was not sure that he trusted them any farther than the blues. As Keglar hesitated, and the green men looked happy at the prospect of a fight, the woman came forward.

  “I know him, Keg,” she said. “Let me handle him.”

  Clad to get out of this situation, Keglar nodded for her to go ahead. The trader caught him by the arm and steered him to the green side of the line. The woman looked at the line, hesitated a split second, long enough to indicate she knew its meaning, then crossed it. She stood looking up at Burke Hartford.

  Hartford saw that her eyes were gray, the color of a high mountain lake under clear skies of Earth, a lake in a setting of green pines, a lake with a mirror surface that reveals white clouds in the far infinity of the sky. For a split second, he thought he had seen these eyes before, somewhere, then decided he was mistaken. He also decided that the yearning which he thought he saw in them, and inexplicable yearning for him, was a projection of his own deep and carefully hidden feelings.

  “You bluffed him, Burke,” the woman said. “But it just doesn’t make sense to bluff Ruck Keglar. He remembers things like that and waits for years to get even.”

  Hartford heard only one word, his own first name. He saw now that the gray eyes hoped he would remember her too. They also hoped for something else; that he would not judge her too harshly because of the company in which he found her.

  “It was long ago in time and far away in space; planets away. When you were just sixteen, you spent a summer with a friend named Reggie—”

  “Reggie Adcock” Hartford said. Memory flowed into him. He and Reggie had been pals that summer, then had gone their separate ways. Something had happened to Reggie, Hartford had never learned what. Reggie’s folks had been wealthy. They had had an estate high in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. He remembered all of this, including a high mountain lake which this woman’s eyes resembled, but he did not remember her. As he stared at her, memory came and went, then came again. There had been a girl around that summer, a long-legged creature of twelve, all freckles on her nose and braces on her teeth, and awkwardness in her long legs: a continuous pest who had wanted to swim and ride with Reggie and him. And though she could do neither, she had always been willing to try again, no matter how many times she hit the water flat when diving or how many times she fell off a horse.

  The gray eyes were suddenly eager, with a moisture in them that was suddenly and inexplicably like happy tears. “You do remember me after all? I see it in your eyes. You haven’t forgotten.”

  Hartford’s memory gave him a name. “Micki Adcock. Reggie’s half sister! The long-legged .tomboy that I ducked in the lake.”

  “You tried to drown me because I was a nuisance,” Micki answered.

  “You were a nuisance, but I did not try to drown you,” Hartford answered. Suddenly he was shaking her hand as if she were a man and he was trying to tell her in this way how glad he was to see her. Because she was not a man, he was inclined to grab her in his arms and hug her. Then he was demanding, “But what happened to the tomboy?” His eyes went down her figure. The long legs had grown no longer, but in spite of the bulky clothing the fact that she was a woman was clearly evident. Hartford tried not to think about this. In his life, he had had no time for women.

  Micki blushed. “The tomboy grew up into me,” she answered.

  “A fine job he did of it too,”‘Hartford commented. Her blush deepened into embarrassment, but there was happiness in her smile, the kind of happiness that comes from deep, vital roots. Seeing her blush, Hartford was reminded how she had hung around him that summer so long ago when he had been discovering what it meant to be a man. “You were twelve that summer and I was sixteen. I’m thirty now and you’re—”

  “Please! Would you reveal a lady’s age before everybody?” Her happy laugh faded as she looked again at the big man. Into her gray eyes came wonder. She looked over his shoulder at Ed Teller, then on past him at the blue men. In her eyes questions formed.

  Hartford, in his turn, was remembering what he had momentarily forgotten. “You keep strange company these days, Micki.” He nodded across the room. Over there, the trader was introducing Keglar and his men to Thethal. The green men were grinning. Now they had human allies too, with guns! Many throats might yet be cut, many brains blown to bits, with the help of these allies.

  “I was thinking the same of you,” Micki said, glancing at the blue men.

  “These are my friends,” Hartford answered. “Can you say the same for Ruck Keglar?”

  He watched shadows come into the gray eyes. “No. But I’m here for a reason. Don’t judge me too harshly until you know the truth, Burke.”

  “Do you work for Keglar or for Holm? Or is this just sort of a pleasure trip?”

  “I work for Holm. I am one of his many private secretaries, one of the trusted ones who are taught how to use a gun and are sometimes sent on secret missions.”

  As she mentioned Holm’s name, Ed Teller seemed to stop breathing.

  “Is Holm here?” Hartford asked.

  “His ship is in orbit around the planet. He sent Keglar down on a job which he didn’t explain to me. He sent me along to take notes, actually, I think, to act as a private spy on Keglar. I don’t think he quite trusts Keglar.’’

  “He doesn’t trust anybody—he doesn’t dare. The blood of too many men is on his hands.” Behind him, Hartford knew that Teller had hissed between his teeth. “What does Holm want here on Pluto?”

  “I don’t know, Burke. His ship has been on a pleasure cruise but he has been keeping it near Pluto for the past month. Suddenly he ordered it brought in close, put into orbit, and he sent Keglar down in a landing barge to meet a trader. The trader brought us here. Probably Keglar knows what Holm wants, but I don’t.”

  “It must be important to interest the president of Earth, Inc. This is the biggest of the great space companies, you know.”

  “I know.” Micki’s gray eyes regarded him with growing concern. “You’re trying to learn something from me, Burke, but I don’t know the answer to your question. What—what are you doing here?”

  “I hope my reason and Holm’s reason are not the same.” Anger came lip in Hartford, a burst of it which was mixed with fear. Had the great space companies gotten an inkling of the great secret that might exist here on Pluto? Was there more here than even Ed Teller had imagined?

  “That’s not an answer, Burke,” Micki said.

  “I’m afraid you won’t get an answer from me.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you work for Cyrus Holm. That’s good enough reason in my book, any day.”

  He watched shadows come into her eyes as he spoke. The shadows became a tautness on her face and a line between her eyebrows.

  “Is Holm all beast, Burke?”

  “No honest beast would admit to kinship.”

  “Does that make me lower than a beast too?”

  “Nothing could make you as low as Holm. But you are working for him. You have admitted it.”

  “I just work for him.” Micki’s voice had grown toneless. “Burke, if you can’t believe me, try to remember that I was a good kid that summer so long ago. I took my jolts and I got up and came back for more. I’ve taken a lot of jolts since then but I’m still coming back for more. It doesn’t matter who I work for, or why. I’m still Micki Adcock.”

  At her words, a wave of feeling came up in Burke^Hartford, a feeling that he could not name, a vague intangible longing for something he knew not what. All his life he had searched for something that lay beyond beyond. He did not know for what he searched. Perhaps it was for the meaning of life. He wondered now if the long-legged tomboy that he had known so long ago and so many planets away shared that same feeling. Was she also searching for something that lay farther out than beyond, something that words could not name, something that had the elements of a fine man-woman relationship in it but also went far beyond this? Life was all over the solar system, ready for the living of it, but who could state its purpose and its meaning? Did Micki Adcock share this same search?

  As Hartford tried to find words to answer the woman who had come so suddenly and so perturbingly out of his past, he was aware that Korder had stiffened and was standing at attention. Across the line, the green men had left off their chatter and had become quiet. Behind him, Hartford heard Teller hiss a warning.

  Lifting his eyes past Micki Adcock, Hartford saw that someone had come through the entrance of the Zylon.

  Someone, whose mere presence had stiffened these wild, warlike natives to instant attention, had come into the room; someone the natives called the peacemaker.

  Hartford’s eyes came to focus on this peacemaker. In his mind was great and growing surprise.

  2

  Burke Hartford had a mental image in his mind of a peacemaker. The evidence he and Teller had gathered indicated that such a person might be a Martian, dry and spindle legged, as sere as the ocher deserts on which he had been bom, and the same color. He might be a bulbous Venusian, squishy because of a high water content, his voice the croak of a frog from which most of the life forms on the Veiled Planet seemed to have evolved. He might even be one of the round creatures from giant Jupiter, looking like a small butter ball on top of a much larger one, with steel-strong muscles developed to overcome the heavy gravity of his home world. If he came from Jupiter, he would be certain to be wearing a face mask and a back tank to give him a breathing atmosphere similar to that of his own world.

  If he was human—and here was the real mental image that Burke Hartford had in his mind—he would be an old, old man with a long white beard and a body gaunt from much fasting. He would have a lined but serene face. His mind, having known all of hate and fear, treachery and cunning; having cast all these aside for the real meaning of true peace, was willing and able to share with others.

  Perhaps he would be so old and so frail that he would have to lean upon a staff for support, but even if he was old, he would have authority, power, and knowledge.

  With this image in his mind, Hartford looked at the man who had just entered. The mental image suffered a rude shock. The man was human. This much was certain. But he wasn’t a man yet in the full meaning of the word. He was a stripling, a slender reed of a youth, who looked as if he had not yet turned sixteen, and whose face had never known the bite of a razor. Adding a last startling touch, curling hair fell in ringlets around his shoulders.

  He did have a staff but it was not made of wood and he did not lean upon it. He spun it in his fingers. As he did this, the staff glowed with soft colors which shifted and changed through all the hues of the rainbow.

  He was not armed—at least no weapon was in sight—but he could not have carried himself with more calm assurance if he had had a C-bomb under each arm.

  At the sight of this stripling, Hartford felt a gulp come into his throat. He, Burke Hartford, had almost been this, once! At least he had been this in physical appearance and calm assurance, though his hair had been close cropped. Somewhere he had gone astray! Youths, such as this strip* ling, in the long-gone past of Earth’s history had thronged the Yard at Harvard, manned shells on the Charles, learned their manners on the playing fields of Eton. They had been at MIT and Cal Tech, engrossed there in the equations of the atom, the intricacies of quantum physics, and Riemann’s geometry. Some of them had caught far-flung passes and had run for yardage on the football fields of America. They had raced jalopies in that ancient day, they had manned highflying jets. And when the space age had dawned, and man had blasted off for the moon, they had ridden that ship. As officers and crews, they still manned the ships of space.

  They had been daredevils, ready to laugh or to fight, always ready to die, wearing life as a bright garment to be carelessly tossed aside when the time came. Always they had been ready to kiss a maiden hard on her full red lips. Hartford knew their history, he knew they still existed on Mother Earth, he knew they were still looking at the planets and wondering what lay in the space sea beyond the rim of the Solar System.

  As the stripling came into the room, Korder went down flat on his face. His lieutenants and his mien followed their chieftan’s lead. Hartford knew Korder well. To the best of his knowledge, the blue chieftan did not know the meaning of fear. But Korder, his great war club beside him, was flat on the floor.

  Across the room, Thethal stood erect, to stare defiantly at this youth who had come into the Zylon. The green chieftan’s face was scarred, he was two feet taller than the youth, he was broader and stronger, but when the stripling glanced sharply at him, Thethal went to the floor. The stripling looked like a puppy, Thethal looked like a grim old war dog, but it was the war dog that went to its knees, then went flat on its face. Keglar and his four men stared at the youth. Apparendy Keglar wanted to laugh. The trader spoke quickly to him and the laugh vanished from Keglar’s face. He and his men also went down.

  Hartford, Micki, and Ed Teller were left standing. Micki looked as if she was in a trance, Teller had an expression in his eyes which indicated he did not know where he was. The stripling was walking directly toward them. The expression on his face indicated he wanted to know why they stayed erect when all others went down.

  Hands pulled at Hartford, he saw one native fumbling for a knife. “Down! Down!” the blue man hissed at him. Hartford remained standing. He had done nothing wrong, he feared no man. Why should he lower himself?

  “Tsen na!” the stripling spoke in the blue dialect to the native who was reaching for his knife. “No violence here!”

  His voice was firm but not sharp. It was the voice of a man accustomed to giving orders and having them obeyed. The native recognized the tone of command. The knife clattered to the floor. “No val esto, human.” The native protested. “They do not kneel.”

  “Tsen na! the stripling repeated.

  Instantly, the blue man ceased his argument. Then Hartford had the full attention of the stripling. He saw that the youth’s body was very slender and that his skin was almost pink. Hartford wondered if he was actually sixteen. Perhaps fifteen would be a better age for him! But though his body was young, his eyes were old, as old as the oldest hills on Earth, as old as the oldest planet, but—startling contrast—a youthful twinkle was present in them.

  “They come of a proud and stubborn breed that has not yet learned how to bow its stiff neck,” the stripling spoke, in the blue dialect, to the native who had drawn the knife.

  “We bow to The All,” Hartford answered, in English. “All lesser breeds have to prove their right to our respect.”

  This comment got Hartford the full attention of the ancient eyes in the beardless face. The youth looked a trifle startled. “You understand the blue tongue?” he said, in English. “Not many humans have bothered to leant it”

  “I understand it,” Hartford answered.

  The old, wise eyes in the face that had never known a razor studied him thoughtfully.

  “You are Einer?” Hartford questioned.

  “I am. There is something strange about you, my friend,” the stripling said slowly. “You are a seeker, a searcher, a man with a thirst for knowledge so great that it will not let him stand still. Always you must be hunting, for what, you know not”

  “If I knew what it was, I wouldn’t have to hunt for it.”

  “An excellent answer,” Einer replied. “What are you doing here on this planet?”

  “Hunting for something.”

  “What?”

  “It could be you!”

  “Eh?” The eyes were startled. “But I am young. You did not know I existed.” He waved the staff as he talked. The plastic tube glowed with living colors.

  “We knew something existed, we did not know it was you. As to your youth, your body tells me that. But your eyes are those of a man who has seen much and has thought about what he has seen.”

  “You see too much,” Einer answered. Again he studied Hartford thoughtfully. “But when I am finished with these unruly children—” the shaft shone with shifting colors as he used it to gesture at the natives on the floor, “I will talk further with you.”

 

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