Wearing soft moccasins, Grantin crept noiselessly into the library. An oily black night coated the manor house's windows. As was customary for this time of the month, Greyhorn was away from the house, off on some wizard's business which he refused to discuss or reveal.
Grantin carried a blanket in his arms. He closed the library door behind him and then carefully hung the cloth over the window. When he was certain it was secure he ignited a crude oil lantern and then removed the scribbler's great masterpiece. Settling himself into the softest chair, he opened the book and began again to read:
Amis Hartford stared for a moment at the spot where the Fanist had slipped between the crates. By some unknown method the native had disappeared. After a moment Hartford slowly shook his head and turned back to the captain. Clearly the colonists must be allocated guns. Captain Marvin disliked passing out arms to passengers, but these were strange circumstances. He hesitantly agreed to honor Hartford's demand.
The colonists went back to their duties. Those without specific tasks relaxed in the warm afternoon sun. Several of the criminals borrowed decks of cards from the crewmen. Only Gogol and his assistant, Windom, remained aloof. Standing at the edge of the clearing, Gogol seemed to fidget. He turned this way and that and scented the air like a predatory beast.
A few minutes later crewmen bearing boxes of weapons left the ship. One of the crates was opened and pistols were brought forth. They consisted of hundreds of long, slender rods bundled together side by side, polished and shiny on each end. The cylinder of glass rested upon a thick baseplate, underneath which extended a metal handle.
One by one the colonists marched up to receive their weapons. The sixth man in line was a laborer named Blotho who, having gotten into trouble on the docks of his native world, had joined the Lillith as an apprentice colonist.
Blotho was large, even for a human, and towered more than twice my height. His skin was the color of copper. Curly black hair sprouted from between the openings of his garments, the wire-like tendrils protruding at his throat, hands, ears, eyebrows, and toes. Blotho grasped the pistol firmly in one great fist, then walked toward the edge of the clearing where he waved the weapon back and forth like a scythe. Amis Hartford noticed his reckless behavior and shouted to Blotho to stop playing with the gun as if it were a toy.
At the sound of the order Blotho suddenly turned. Catching his foot in a root, he fell, landing in an ungainly sprawl. The pistol flew from his hand and smashed against one of the rocks which marred the face of the meadow. Showers of pulverized crystal erupted from the barrel and Blotho uttered a roaring oath:
"Damn the idiots who gave us guns of glass! Blast them and all their broken toys!"
The words had hardly left his throat when his body seemed to change. The colonist's skin began to harden. It glistened even as he struggled to his feet. Barely had Blotho arisen before his joints froze and his voice strangled into silence. His flesh became like polished mail. Light danced in shimmers through his arms. In a few minutes every inch of him, even his hair, teeth, and eyes, had become a glowing crystalline material. His ship-issued clothes were the only aspect which remained untainted, his few pieces of clothing rustled free in the breeze. Blotho's head was as hard as diamond, his fingers as unbreakable as steel. All of us sensed, in that instant, that what the native had said was true: Fane was a very special world and we did not know the words or the way.
When the sun set two moons appeared, one shortly after the other. The first cast a pale pink light across the meadow and Amis Hartford named it Dolos. About an hour later the second, promptly named Minos, rose into the sky and shed a pale yellow glow, filling the fields with twin, jagged shadows as if a Fane were bathed in the radiance of some strange crooked moon.
Grantin sat up and thrust back first his left shoulder, then his right. Arching his neck he lolled his head around in a counterclockwise motion. The book was too awkward to hold in his lap and he huddled over it, like a miser counting his gold. Awkwardly he twisted his torso in an attempt to quiet a host of complaining aches.
Grantin leaned forward again. One by one he lifted the lower right-hand corners of the remaining pages, counting as he went. Only a few more and he would finish volume one. He adjusted the chair until his stomach was only a foot and a half from the edge of the table, then slid the book toward him until it lay tilted, one edge resting on his belt buckle, with the spine against the table's edge. In this condition he pressed on, anxious to finish before Greyhorn's return.
All of us crowded around Blotho's statue. A few of the more adventurous persons walked close. Hesitantly they slid their palms along the surface of his cheek. There the flesh was cool, hard, and slick like finely polished marble. Dr. Milton, the geologist, closed his hand into a tiny fist and rapped lightly three times against Blotho's temple. The knocks produced a sonorous thump, thump, thump, as though Milton had been rapping on a solid piece of soft, light wood. Experimentally one of the crewmen brushed a questing palm across the top of Blotho's head. He yipped in surprise and yanked back a bleeding hand. So hard and sharp were the individual strands of hair that he might as well as have petted a cactus. Small drops of blood oozed from the tips of two of his fingers. At the sight of this injury the crowd retreated a pace or two, then halted in a frightened, nervous circle.
One of the crewmen ran to fetch the captain. In a few moments Captain Marvin shouldered his way through the spectators. He looked first at Blotho, then turned an inquiring gaze to Dr. Milton.
"What in the bloody blue blazes happened to him?"
"As best I can tell he's turned to stone, or, more accurately, a crystalline substance similar to diamond."
"He smashed one of the pistols," Able Starman Norberg volunteered.
"Just before it happened he cursed the glass," Mary Allen chimed in.
"It's witchcraft, just like the native said," another voice whispered from the edge of the crowd. "Sorcery."
"Nonsense!" Amis Hartford pushed his way to the captain's side. "Don't let your imagination run away with you. There's no such thing as spells and witchcraft."
Captain Marvin stared quizzically at Blotho, then strode forward and gave the head a backhanded rap on the point of the nose. Blotho remained as insensate as a tree while the captain pulled back his hand and thrust a skinned knuckle between his lips.
Marvin looked truculently around the clearing. He saw only golden afternoon sunlight slanting through the trees and dappling the heavy grasses with yellow specks.
"Everyone back in the ship," he called. 'Tomorrow I'll decide what to do."
Reluctantly, the colonists climbed the gangplank. Inside the Lillith they split into pairs and returned to their bare metal cubicles. In the meadow, crewmen armed with rifles mounted a watch where the grass met the trees.
The next morning the colonists arose early. Without consultation with the captain, Amis Hartford ordered them to finish unloading. So determined was Hartford to complete the job that even the criminals were pressed into service. The work was done quietly. Few words were spoken. After the incident with Blotho, each person took care with what he said. No shouts or arguments marred the early-morning silence. All worked diligently, even Gogol and Windom, although these two were often seen muttering softly to each other.
Shortly after breakfast Captain Marvin left the Lillith. Descending the gangplank, he was amazed to see such furious activity. He wandered through the camp and found Amis Hartford chairing a meeting with his subordinates.
"Hartford, I want to talk to you," Marvin said brusquely.
Hartford spoke to his associates, then turned to join the captain. The two men walked to the edge of the meadow to a point where they could converse more or less in private.
"Hartford, I don't think this planet is going to do for you. All taken with all, I suspect that the best thing is to load your people and proceed to New Ossening. After we've gotten rid of the criminals I'll let you off at Clarion or Marissa on the way back."
"Captain, we're all quite satisfied with Fane," Hartford replied. "The climate is harmonious, the water sweet, the air pure, the land fruitful, the produce nourishing, and the natives friendly."
"Listen, Hartford, I've been talking with my chief engineer. Between you and me, the equipment is beginning to deteriorate. The magnetic field seems to shift in some kind of harmony with Pyra's sunspots. Certain of the frequencies are able to penetrate our shielding. It's getting worse. Already systems are breaking down. If we don't get out of here in the next ten hours we may never lift the ship at all. Mussman thinks that sooner or later every engine and electronic circuit you've got will decay into a worthless pile of junk. Your colony doesn't have a chance here. In a week you'll be back to the Stone Age."
As he talked the captain's eyes darted back and forth, checking to see if anyone were near enough to have overheard the conversation. Amis Hartford, though, seemed calm, serene, after the fashion of an admiral in command of a battleship which is about to attack a rowboat.
"Captain, it is to be expected that no planet will be perfect. We assume that there will be a few minor problems here and there."
"This isn't a minor problem. In three months standard you'll be plowing the ground with a sharp stick and living in a mud hut. Brute force is the only thing that will stand between you and starvation. This isn't a suitable planet."
"Captain, as you well know," Hartford replied, "the colonists decide what is and is not a suitable planet. We're staying here. If you're worried about our not having enough muscle power, perhaps we'll keep the criminals as indentured servants. I am sure they would choose to stay here in preference to New Ossening."
"Those men are cargo!" Marvin shouted. "They are my responsibility, and nobody takes…"
The captain halted in mid-sentence, speechless with astonishment and fury. Quiet, well-mannered, precise Amis Hartford stood there pointing a pistol at the captain's stomach. Without spoken orders other colonists appeared at the captain's side and relieved him of his weapons. As if by a common signal the crewmen guarding the meadow were also disarmed. Within a few moments captain, crew, and criminals were herded into a tight circle at the foot of the ship's ramp. Amis Hartford addressed the entire complement.
"The captain has decided that for the good of his ship he must depart immediately. I, and those who follow me, will remain. Yonder is the ship, and here is the site of the first city of the New Reformed Credentialists. Those who wish to help us found our city come to me. Those who wish to return to space, and perhaps New Ossening, may board the Lillith."
The captain's anger had now transformed itself into a cold frenzy. He said not a word, but it was clear from his expression that he was determined to return and send everyone, colonists and criminals alike, to New Ossening. No one contravened Marvin's commands or hijacked his cargo.
The colonists moved to Amis Hartford's side. Next, hesitantly, one of the expurgators arose and slowly walked toward Hartford as well.
"Come back here, you scum!" Marvin shouted. The expurgator stopped and looked back at Marvin uncertainly. Then he turned.and studied Hartford. In his years of strife and travail the expurgator had learned one thing: always take orders from the man with the gun. With barely a second's hesitation, he turned his back on the captain and crossed the meadow to stand a few feet apart from the ranks of colonists.
"The rest of you transportees, if you wish to stay you must spend the next ten years as our indentured servants. After that time you will be freed. If this does not please you, go back aboard the ship."
The rest of the criminals crossed the meadow, and a few of the crewmen as well, myself and six of my brother and sister Ajaj among them. In a few minutes it was done. The captain and two thirds of the crew boarded the ship. The ramp slid away. The hatch began to close.
A few seconds later the whine of the Lillith's generators filled the air. As the great cryogenic magnets began to fill with charge, slowly she bucked her way through Fane's oscillating magnetic field. While the colonists focused their attention on the rising ship I sensed a new source of power and wandered toward its focus. At the edge of the clearing stood Gogol and Windom, waving their hands in a complex pattern of interwoven circles.
With the Lillith a pinpoint two thousand yards in the sky, Gogol and Windom simultaneously clapped their hands, pointed their fingers, and uttered a great curse. The Lillith fragmented and shattered like a bullet-blasted mirror. A twinkling rain of metal fragments cascaded across the sky. The colonists stood transfixed by the disaster.
In that instant Gogol, Windom, and three of the zombiests seized five guns, four women, and three Ajaj and fled into the forest. Though chase was given almost at once no sign of the fugitives or their captives could be discovered. All had fled into the heartland of Fane to found their own empire.
So it began. This is the history, the source, the genesis, of the Gogols and the Hartfords, the twin camps which inhabit our world. There is much to tell of my brother Ajaj, the Grays, who serve the Gogols, and my people, the Pales, who share Fane with the Hartfords, and of the Fanists. Always the Fanists, but the story is long and I must rest. Later, perhaps I will tell the tale.
Grantin pushed the book away from him and stretched his arms above his head. He had finished volume one. The flame on his lantern popped and flickered and seemed ready to sputter out. It was late, later than he had meant to stay.
Downstairs, he heard the creak of the great front door opening under Greyhorn's hand. Grantin stumbled about the room in a flurry of sudden activity. He replaced the book, blew out the flame, and took down the blanket. Now, stoop-shouldered, bent and sore, only a few seconds ahead of Greyhorn's tread, he tottered off to his bunk.