POSTSCRIPT

Standard Year 904 and of the colony,
Year 36

When Jean reached the hilltop, Snowmelt had already come and gone. He leaned heavily on his staff and looked first at the rough stone marker, then upward and outward across the endless melt to the lake. After a time, tears came and he let the precious moisture fall upon the earth that covered his father’s body. Farewell, Jandrax. No man on this planet has made a mark so uniquely his own.

Snowmelt approached then, shyly, much as Isaac must have approached the altar. Jean smiled down at him, and reached out his hand. Snowmelt touched him fleetingly then withdrew. He scuffed the damp earth with his moccasin. He was slim, brown and powerful. The perfect savage. “Son,” Jean said, “I am leaving for a while.”

Snowmelt flashed a resentful look. “I know. Back to the island. Everyone is talking about it.”

Jean frowned his distaste. “The tribe is making me a prophet, and I never wanted that.”

“You claimed to speak to God. Prophet or liar; you left yourself no third alternative.”

“I suppose not. Well, I was warned.”

“Why are you going? Why must you leave me?”

Jean squinted at the distance and turned his face away to hide the depth of his feelings. “That I cannot answer. Rather, I will not. I will not burden you with it all, though you know part.”

Now his son turned away, for to acknowledge that his father was a cripple, to acknowledge that no woman chose to bed with him, was to acknowledge shame on them both. Yet the knowledge would not go away. “Was there never a woman of the tribe who looked favorably upon you?”

“Yes, Son; once. Briefly.”

“The winged girl was very beautiful?”

“Yes.”

“But she too will have aged.”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not.”

“And if you go to the island, there will be no way to reenact what happened before. You said yourself that the presence rejected you.”

“I can only try.”

Snowmelt turned blindly toward Jean, unaccustomed tears streaking his face. “If you loved me, you would stay.” Jean reached out to him and, for once, Snowmelt allowed himself to be embraced.

“My son! If I did not love you, I would not have stayed these twelve, long, hungry years.”

Snowmelt pushed away and turned his back. For a time, Jean let the silence lie between them, then he said, “Will you come to the lakeshore to see me off?”

He shrugged without turning. “I suppose.”

“See that you do!” Without looking back, Snowmelt began to descend the hill. Jean let him go. Soon only his shaggy head showed occasionally above the siskal.

(page break)

Excerpt from the DUBOIS HIEROS.
Manuscript discovered on the planet
Jandrax, galactic coordinates 11C 927C84.

1. In the morning of the world, the hero strove with the winds and cast down the mountains. The wind walker and the cloud dancer moved into the open air and there was rain, and from the rain, grasses, and from the grasses, cattle, and from the cattle, men.

2. The hero lay upon Sinai at the world’s edge and dreamed himself a dream.

3. First from the dream came the walker of winds, and he cleaved her to wife.

4. And from out of her loins came all manner of things, both good and evil . . .

finis

***************

One last comment —- Is this reality? Fantasy? Hallucination? The true hand of God?

You decide.

Anton. A question, out of curiosity. Did the primer actually fail?”

Dumbly Anton shook his head.

“I have been advised by better men than either of us that I own your life. That I can kill you and feel no qualms of conscience.” Jean smiled. “I think you would not even resist me much. But I will not kill you.

“You wanted the antler; you have it. I need it no longer. But I will take my son.

“You, I will let live. Your life would be more punishment than death in any case. Your crippling of me only made me stronger and the prize that you took from me was a thing of no worth – have you enjoyed Chloe?”

Anton trembled at the taunt, but did not advance. “I will take my child now.”

Why Anton did it, Jean never knew. Perhaps he saw his life laid out before him, a half-man who let his own son be stolen. It was the first and last manly act of his life. He leaped forward, his blade raised. Jean slapped it away and thrust his own knife deep between his ribs.

Anton’s knees hit the dirt floor with a quiet shock and his eyes were wide. Death came rushing in on him and he turned toward the bed, his hand reaching out for Chloe. He died there, stretched toward that for which he had strived so hard, from which he had received so little. He was stretched thus when she woke to the light of morning and her screams alerted the colony to come see this latest wonder, the returned antler, the bloody floor, the empty crib.

*****

Maybe this is where Jandrax should have ended. Certainly, if it were a simple adventure story on a science fiction world, this is all that needed to be said.

I didn’t feel that way. Even though I was a young writer, I had ambitions to tackle larger problems than “Who won?” and “Who lost?” The nomad and the oasis. Man and God – who was the created and who was the creator? Simple materialism vs. wrestling with whatever it is, that is larger than a man.

What really constitutes manhood? How do you balance personal independence against the need for human companionship, particularly when you can’t find a society that thinks and feels as you do?

In any case, I didn’t stop when things were settled, but went on one more step to stir them all up again. final word Monday

Old Anton was tired of power, tired of the responsibility of leading his fractious following, but he dared not relinquish it. He had taken this scepter by midnight murder and now he could not let it go if he wished to remain alive.  If only sister Angi lived to give him comfort, or her husband, Lucien, dead these several months of the tuberculosis that ate at him so many years. If only . . .

***

Young Anton stared at the ceiling in indecision. He suspected that his grandfather’s death had been at his father’s hand. It was common gossip, softly spoken. He should get up, go quietly to his father’s apartment knife in hand and end this foolishness about succession. But he would not. He seethed in impotent fury.

He would not because young Anton had not inherited his father’s intelligence or his cunning and he knew it. Whatever he did to end his father’s reign would be countered by some unexpected move. Try an assassination and he would find some unseen safeguard. Even if it were not so, the expectation of it was enough to deter him.

But let this hunt pass and he would be able to take his father’s place. Already he was leading the hunt; that was a victory.

Or was it? Had his father planned it all; did he know that his son would not return from the hunt alive? It had happened before.

Cold sweat stood upon young Anton’s face as he remembered the wild moments, the instant decision, the withholding of fire that had destroyed Jean Dubois two years ago. Jean Dubois, his rival for Chloe – Chloe the slut, whose soft womanhood had gone to fat and whose affection had gone to hatred.

He had made an instant decision then, one of the few he had ever had the nerve to make. And it had been right, but Dubois lived. If only he had had the nerve to finish what he had started. If only . . .

Again he thought of the day he stood face to face with the crippled Dubois and let him take the antler. It seemed such a small thing then, but in his mind it had grown, had unmanned him. If he had stood his ground then, he could stand his ground now. But he had not.

There was a disturbance in the air which he would not have noticed had he not been upwrought. There was a stirring of breeze and an excess of light where there should have been only darkness. Softly in the night, Marcel, his son (Dubois’s son!), whimpered. Dumezil slipped out of the bed, careful not to waken the shrew that lay beside him, and took up his blade.

He drew back the hide curtain that screened their sleeping area. The shutters were gone from his window and wan moonlight stole in. Someone was in the room!

Some assassin sent by his father?

There was – something – near the door. With his left hand Anton struck a light and touched the wick of a candle.

It was the antler, remade into a cane. It was the very one that had torn Dubois, that Dubois had taken, had carried as a visible goad. It stood against the door, taunting.

No, it could not be! It was a forgery, made and placed at his father’s command. It had to be. Something stood behind him. He tried to turn his head, but could not. He swallowed. He leaped sideways, bringing up his blade.

“Anton, you have something of mine. I have come for it. Stand aside and I will let you live.”

Anton’s face was sweaty white in the moonlight. He shook his head, but the ghosts would not go away. “No!”

“Yes, Anton. A question, out of curiosity. Did the primer actually fail?”

Dumbly, Anton shook his head. more tomorrow

Moccasin looked beautiful in her finely cured hide vest and trousers and her thigh-high white moccasins. By the standards of the tribe, who came near to worshipping fertility, she was even more beautiful for her round belly, sure indication of her pregnancy.

Jean dropped beside her where she knelt at Nightwind’s fire. Nightwind was out on a hunt and Jean had chosen to make his advances in full sight of the tribe. He could not chance a clandestine meeting but this might be taken as innocent conversation between childhood friends.

Moccasin looked shocked to see him and turned her face away. Suddenly he was unsure of himself and unwilling to pursue his intentions. “Paulette.”

Her head came up sharply. “Do not call me that; I am Moccasin.”

“Paulette, do you wish to stay here? Would you rather return to the colony?”

“Why do you taunt me; you aren’t of the tribe.”

“I am not taunting you.”

“Are you asking if I want you to rescue me?” She cocked her head in the attitude of derision so often affected by the girls of the tribe. “Well, what do you offer?”

Now it was Jean’s turn to hesitate, for he was not sure how far his duties to her ran. He had known her when they were children and had desired her as a young man, but much had passed between that time and this.

Moccasin gestured toward the others. “They mock me, they belittle me, but my day will come. I have talked to the older women who were captives in their time. They made their own paths here and so can I.”

She looked around her again, at the lushness of the eternal melt just visible beyond the firelight. “Could I leave all this? This wild freedom, this eternal beauty. Could I exchange all this for a drab wooden cubicle and a man who is brutalized by too much slaughter in one season and too much leisure in the other? I can be one of them,” she gestured toward Mist-an-water and her comrades. “How could I ever go back to being what I was?

“Could you?”

Chapter 17

Night closed about the town, enfolding it in arms of darkness. Anton Dumezil, the elder, lay silent in the apartment that his own father had occupied and stared at the ceiling. Anton Dumezil, the younger, lay beside his wife staring likewise. Each wondered in the privacy of his own mind how went the machinations that each had set against the other.

Anton the elder swung his feet to the floor and paced his rickety way about his apartment. His feet crushed the fur of the same rug that Nightwind had wrapped himself in a year earlier. His arthritic hips would not let him sleep, nor would his own son’s knowledge of those same hips. He could not hunt again. The preparations had been made, the barges were loaded, the melt was on, but Old Anton would not make his kill this year. His own son was leading barge number one.

His mind rushed back over the years to the night he had stood over his father’s corpse, knife in hand. Young Anton didn’t have that kind of nerve. He was a weakling. If he wrested power from his father, he would not hold it long.

Old Anton was tired of power, tired of the responsibility of leading his fractious following, but he dared not relinquish it. He had taken this scepter by midnight murder and now he could not let it go if he wished to remain alive. more tomorrow

Jean showed Mist-on–water how to fire his rifle and she in turn instructed him in the fine points of archery and use of the lance. His leg still hurt with exertion, but he ignored it as always and found that he, could hold his own with Vapor and the others as long as they kept their speed to a fast walk. He could not trot or run.

Jean and Mist went hunting using Jean‘s technique of a slow stalk upwind and she killed a herby with the rifle. No other young member of the tribe had ever fired a rifle and she did an impromptu war dance around the carcass.

The lake lay far to the south and preparations for the turnabout were underway. For weeks the tribe had killed in excess, drying the meat against the flight. Now it came.

The herds had been restless for days. The herbies were milling in the brush, unsure of themselves, and the trihorns were even more belligerent than usual. Longnecks came within sight of the camp and the tribe’s children were held close at hand. All nature seethed with the imminent change.

Then they started. Here a humpox turned its shaggy head southward and there a herd of trihorns stampeded nervously, now trotting, now running, south. The herbies were quick on their heels.

The sun was southing, The melt growth still lay untouched to the north but the wildlife had turned away back toward the southeast, cutting away from the crumpled swath they had made and into the dry region of unharvested growth. The sun, too, had turned south, but there was no snow to melt. Snow there was – for it had followed the melt – but it lay far to the south and the herds were hurrying on to find it.

Some of the animals continued north. Always there were a few less gifted with instinctive intelligence and they went on into a fool’s paradise of heavy growth, munching their way toward starvation.

The tribe, too, turned southward. Now the animals were wary and lean. Jandrax could still kill them and now Jean’s rifle proved its worth. There was some fresh meat and some dried fruit and seeds, but mostly the tribe subsisted on the meat that they had dried in previous weeks.

They moved at the speed of the sun and even the tribe’s boisterousness was subdued by the barren land. It was low winter for a springtime tribe and their spirits were not accustomed to it.

The animals grew gaunt and many died. The children of the tribe ranged wide cutting seedpods for the domestic herbies and the elders rode more now, for they were the first to feel the short rations. Jean’s leg hurt constantly and he was hard pressed to keep up and to hunt. Mist-on-water was with him often, but had the decency not to comment on the pain she read in his face.

They came to the region of scanty growth. Snow had fallen here, though not in abundance, and every day southward brought them to greater moisture. It was not the unfolding of the melt as the colonists experienced it, for every day saw them in the latitude of the lal, but each day there were more young shoots and soon the headlong flight had slowed to the even pace of the long march.

Jean felt more at one with the tribe for their shared tribulation. He had been wrong in characterizing them as the children of eternal spring, for this ordeal was theirs twice yearly.

Now they were heading southward again and every day brought them closer to the colony and – home? more tomorrow

In the months that followed, Jandrax and Jean shared in the hunt and in the telling of tales. Jean learned from his father of the precursor ruins scattered about Harmony and they speculated on the nature of the presence. Jandrax questioned Jean closely about the colony, the details of Angi’s life after the purge. They discussed how old Marcel Dumezil had been killed mysteriously in his sleep. Jandrax refused credit for that act and pointed out that it had been done during low winter when the tribe was elsewhere. They speculated as to who might have done it and concluded that it could very well have been his son Anton.

“The other Anton, old Dumezil’s grandson, the one who betrayed you. What did you do about him? Did you kill him?” Jean stung under the implied criticism and explained, then added, “How could I challenge him when I don’t know that he withheld fire? Primers do fail.”

“Rarely.”

“Rarely – but they do fail and I am not content to take his life while my reasoning may be wrong.”

Jandrax merely nodded, offering no advice. “What about your son?”

“Once again, I don’t know that he is mine.”

“But you are sure in your own mind?”

“Yes.”

“What will you do about him?”

Jean shrugged, “I don’t know – yet. Before I decide that, I must know if I am welcome here. I am a stranger, after all. My original intention was to return to the colony.”

“And now? . . . ”

“Now I am not sure. There is little for me there, but I wonder if there is anything for me here. Your people are independent to the point of cruelty. They have your arrogance, but they have never had to face up to the opinions of others. They consider themselves the lords of creation and the colonists as subhumans.”

“They accept you.”

“Yes, they accept me. But did they ever inquire as to whether or not I accept them?”

“Do you?”

“No, not entirely, although I confess a certain respect for their independence. But it it is an independence based on childish bravado and an unwarranted sense of superiority.”

Jandrax was silent then, pondering. He stirred his chota and sipped. “It is an old story, Jean, played out on Earth centuries before either of us was born – the story of the nomad and the oasis. The nomad lives his life wild and, he thinks, free, looking down upon the dwellers in the oasis while all the time he is dependent on them. It is thus with us. Likewise the oasis dweller looks with a mixture of fear and derision at the ignorant nomad, whose crude existence lies beyond the pale of civilization.”

“You don’t depend on the colony.”

“No? Where did our women come from?”

Jean waved his hand as if to brush away a side issue. “You have women enough now. Nightwind could have found a woman without kidnapping Paulette.”

Jandrax shook his head. “There is more to it than having an equal number of males and females. Our gene pool is too small, not only among us but on the whole planet. We – the tribe and the colonists – need each other. The day will come when we trade together again. I think it is inevitable.”

“The elders don’t even acknowledge your existence.”

“So? We exist. Let them acknowledge or not, they can’t keep their children in ignorance forever. Did you not speculate on the disappearances? The day will come when they can no longer ignore us.” more tomorrow

He forced her back to the mud and overcame her.

She lay on her back, panting, and the entire camp was leaping about in mad abandon. He grinned down at her and she smiled, this time without derision.

“Stubborn would be a good name for you, but I don’t think you’re afraid of women at all.”

“Ha!” came an exclamation from beyond the fire, “I see I got back just in time for the entertainment.” The speaker entered the firelight. Jean would have known him even if his express pistol had not hung at his side like a badge of authority. His pale hair had turned white, but otherwise his face and frame were ageless. Jean grinned up at him, never letting go of Mist-on-water’s struggling form and said, “Welcome back, Papa.”

Jan Andrax squatted down beside his son, ignoring his squirming rug, and nodded with satisfaction. “I don’t know how you got here, but I’ll bet it’s some tale.”

***

Jean ate that night with Jandrax and his wives and retold his story, including the details of his encounter on the island. Jandrax shook his head and asked, “Did you tell anyone else this story?”

“Of course. Everyone else has heard it.”

“Damn! How did they take it?”

“With skepticism.”

“Only skepticism, not outright disbelief?”

“No.”

Jandrax cursed. Jean was taken aback by his vehemence. “Come, Papa; even Mentor Louis Dumezil recognized the possibility of further enlightenment.”

“Jean, we aren’t even speaking the same language. You know that the original crew members were cast out for religious reasons.”

“Yes,” Jean answered, “But only Nur Mohammet was not a Monist, so Helene told me; you were tarred with the same brush, but you surely haven’t all become Muslims since then.”

Jandrax got up to pace. “Jean, for twenty years Helene has been preaching Monism and I have been scoffing.”

Jean was bewildered now. “Are you trying to tell me that you don’t accept the Monomythos? That’s absurd.”

Jandrax opened and closed his hands spasmodically.

That old, hated, trapped feeling had returned at this reminder that he was enmeshed in a community too small for anonymity. “I do not believe in your presence,” he said, “or your winged girl. I do not accept the Monomythos or any supernatural being. I believe only in life, death, and oblivion.”

“My God! That’s horrible.”

“At times, Son. At times – do you want to be a prophet?”

“No!”

“You will be if you don’t watch yourself. I have infected the tribe with enough of my discontent to make them susceptible to a new doctrine.”

“I am a Monist,” Jean snapped. “I don’t want to start a new religion.”

“Neither did Jesus.”

Jean could only shudder at the blasphemy.

“They are ripe for a religion tied to this particular planet. Earth is three planets and five generations removed. They no longer need the Gods of Earth.”

“I cannot deny what I have seen.”

“Visions always come to lone and lonely men, cast out from their people and suffering great personal tribulations. They are nothing more than projections of unconscious needs in conditions of deprivation.”

“No. I saw what I saw.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“And if you are wrong?”

Jandrax scowled still more deeply. “Then I would truly fear. I have seen what men can do under the delusion that they have a god’s approval. If they really had it . . . unthinkable!” more tomorrow

Jean sat beside the fire one night as Vapor made the rounds of the young girls, teasing each in turn and caressing where they would allow it. The girls were as fiercely independent as their brothers and their prowess as hunters and survivors was no less. Vapor dropped beside Jean with a grin and began his customary teasing. As always Jean took it in serious silence.

“Jean Dubois. What a name; you need a good name like mine. Vapor – now there is a name.”

“Vapor is the promise of substance which fades away when confronted,” called one of the girls who was watching from the edge of the firelight. Vapor snarled back at her, then turned his attention back to Jean.

“Let’s see, what would be a good name for you? Turtle for your speed, hey. I’ve never seen a turtle, but you remind me of the tales the Old Man tells.”

“1 am happy with my name as it is.”

“Ha, girls, do you hear that? I try to do him a favor and he is ‘happy with my name as it is’,” Vapor mocked. “What you need is a name to suit you. Let’s see, Mud? No. Herby? No, you aren’t domesticated.” The girls broke into laughter at this.

“I know what I’ll call you – Stubborn. Then every time you refuse to answer to your name you will be proving it.” 

Jean looked straight at Vapor and said, “Go ahead. Call me Stubborn and I’ll call you Big-mouth-without-teeth.”

Vapor dissolved into laughter, rolling on the ground and leaping up to pound Jean on the back. Jean smiled within himself; he was learning to hold his own with these wildly independent people. He knew that his solitary march had been watched for weeks before he was contacted and that if he had not made it on his own, they would not even have bothered burying him. But he had made it, and they were willing to accept him because he had shown himself not to need them. It was backward logic by his own life-way, but he respected and understood it.

Mist-on-water stood up and cast her knife aside. Even around the fire the tribe seldom went unarmed. “Stubborn-Jean,” she said, “I think I’ll call you Afraid-of-women. Eleven times I have said that I wrestle better than you and eleven times I have been spurned. I swear, Stubborn-Jean-afraid-of-women, that I will never ask you again.”

Jean realized that the entire camp was silent, watching, and he knew that there was more to this challenge than met the eye. Helene sat near the fire, watching, her eyes sparkling slightly. He stood up, casting his blade aside also. Vapor whooped and Mist-on-water charged.

She hit him low on the left side, driving her shoulder into his scarred thigh and striking up at his crotch with her fist. Completely unprepared for this, Jean took both blows and went down in agony. His head swam and his throat tightened on the surge his stomach sent rising. He rolled over and looked up to where she stood, legs straddled, her firm breasts pushing against her fur vest, head cocked to one side, taunting. The others were hooting their derision.

He staggered to his feet and ignored her, starting back toward the fire. All around him were taunting voices. Mist turned away in contempt and he moved when she turned, lunging forward on his good leg and reaching for her. His fingers caught in the waistband of her hide trousers and he heaved as he fell, jerking her down so that her rump hit the muddy ground with a splat.

He was upon her before she could retreat and they fought in earnest. She had been schooled by Jandrax himself, but Jean’s training had been but little worse and he was both angry and aroused. She was vicious, kicking, biting, and tearing his hair, but he would not be moved. He forced her back to the mud and overcame her. more tomorrow

Nightwind in turn had taken a wife from the daughters of the colony – Paulette Dumezil.

She was called Moccasin for some reason Jean could not comprehend. All of the tribe except the elders took fanciful names for themselves. Why Nightwind had taken Paulette instead of one of the girls of the tribe was a mystery to Jean. She was quiet and reserved, clearly a captive rather than a member of the tribe, while the others were laughing and forward. Jean was quite unused to their actions.

One, called Mist–on-water, was particularly trying.

She never failed to show off her prowess with a bow or lance in Jean’s presence and offered twice daily to best him in a wrestling match, ignoring his crippled condition. It shamed him as nothing had done before and bewildered him as well. Helene watched the proceedings out of wise old eyes that told nothing.

Jean could not get Mist out of his mind, nor could he forget Paulette. His training cried out for him to rescue Paulette from her slavery but he was powerless to do so. He tried to get near enough to speak to her on several occasions, but it was a danger to do so for she was Nightwind’s woman. She in turn evaded him, perhaps in shame.

Jean kept up with the company well enough but could not hunt with them. They hunted in quintets; two would go out without warding amulets while the other three would circle about scaring game toward the waiters. Then all five would close in to share the kill if the animal was dangerous.

They did not need rifles and Jean felt worse than useless. Twice he slipped away in the night and stalked a herby or humpox, killing them with his rifle along the path the tribe must take.

The elders did not make the trek entirely afoot, though Helene and Valikili were fit enough. They often rode in the flatboats made from light wood cut in the mountains and drawn by domesticated herbies. These creatures were another of Jandrax‘s triumphs and they made the nomadic life easier by serving as beasts of burden. Domestic herbies were not eaten since there was an abundance of wildlife to serve that purpose. The boats were slim, flat boxes which would float in water and could be dragged like sleds through mud, allowing them to be used in the two media which were the natural habitat of the tribe.

The Old Man had gone off alone as he was wont to do and none of the tribe worried for him. Of them all, he was the fittest and the one most immune to discipline. His fierce independence had affected them all.

He would return when he chose, bringing with him prime furs, or precious wood for the repair of the flatboats, or perhaps some precursor relic.

Jean became a mass of ill concealed excitement at the mention of the precursors, but the tribe took them in stride. Jandrax had found numerous ruins of an ancient civilization and was always looking for more. What, Jean wondered, would he say to his son’s tale of the island?

*****

As a matter of full disclosure, the idea a species or civilization predating our own is a very old one, and has frequently appeared in science fiction. Atlantis comes to mind. My own strongest personal debt in that direction is to Andre Norton, who always seemed to have some elder race lurking in the background. I call mine precursors because she has already used the better word, forerunners. more tomorrow