The Avengers of Carrig by John Brunner Page B

It’s the devil’s own job sorting fact from fantasy in these tales, even when you know pretty well how the natives’ minds work. We
must
get an agent into Carrig again, soon, to see if this is true or not. I’ve even been trying to invent a reason why I should go there myself—perhaps I ought to trek north with a caravan of pilgrims, or something, even though it’ll puzzle the hell out of my friends who take me for an incurable sceptic. I wish to goodness the standard of living would rise to the level where they invent the notion of tourism!”
    Langenschmidt shut the recording off. He looked at Maddalena. “Sounds as though you’re really needed down there,” he murmured. “Are you all ready to go? We’re due to break into real space soon—we’re just maneuvering out to the night-side of the planet.”
    Maddalena nodded. Her throat felt terribly dry.
    “Get your suit on, then, and have your gear put in the landing-craft. I’ll join you in a minute.”
    “You’re taking me down yourself?”
    “I’ve done it before,” Langenschmidt grunted. “Move it along!”
    Seated behind him in the needle-shaped boat that would sneak them unobtrusively down to the surface of Fourteen, Maddalena struggled to get her awkward clothing organized inside her spacesuit, and listened to the exchange between Langenschmidt and the pilot of the cruiser as they ran down the preflight checklist. You didn’t go aboard a landing-craft without a spacesuit and helmet—it was far too risky.
    The checks on the landing-craft completed, the pilot gave the standard all-hands warning about breaking through into real space, and they braced themselves for the peculiar shuddering-grinding sensation that always accompanied dropping out of hyperphotonic drive. One moment later the pilot was speaking again, his voice half-strangled with astonishment.
    He said, “Of all the—! That’s a
ship
out there, in orbit around Fourteen!”
    Maddalena froze. Langenschmidt snapped, “A ship? What kind of—?”
    He got no further. There was a huge cracking sound followed by a rending of metal, and Maddalena’s last thought before she passed out was that she was probably going to die.

CHAPTER NINE
    Saikmar son of Corrie, penniless refugee, headed down the long draughty corridor of the sanctuary toward the twisted doorway across which the wind already whined and occasionally howled. He walked with determination, as though alert for the possibility of ambush.
    Indeed, as he came close to the exit, he was waylaid by the old priestess Nyloo and her constant companion, a girl-child of about seven or eight—one of those that a woman pilgrim had borne during a pious visit and left as an offering. The child’s eyes were round and prematurely wise. Saikmar was always disquieted by such children.
    The old priestess said, “You’re bound outward, Saikmar son of Corrie?” She spoke the queerly accented antique dialect that he had now come to understand well. “Outside it grows cold. Not long from now to build snow-walls at the door and close the chill away.”
    Saikmar had long passed the stage when he had addressed the staff of the sanctuary obsequiously. He answered in a harsh tone, “And what is it to you if I freeze out there? Will you not have one less useless mouth to stuff with food this winter?”
    Nyloo looked at him steadily. She was very, very old; the skin on her skull, which was almost bald, seemed dry and crackly, like poor-grade parchment. She said, “You take complaining from your fellows too much to heart. Not I nor any other priest or priestess blames you that we lack our due this summer. For more generations than it is remembered we have served by giving asylum to those who flee injustice and tyranny, as you yourself do, hoping only that we might receive, each summer, gifts from fertile climes to fill our bellies during the long winter night. From Carrig nothing has come this year—yet how can it be the fault of a fugitive?” She gave