“Dawn!” she spoke the word softly yet urgently, as she began to make out the first hint of a moonlit horizon separating earth and sky.
“Ssh!” The reply was equally soft. It sounded like Dawn, but it was echoed many times and by many voices. “Ssh—ssh—ssh—ssh—ssh.” They all spoke at once, from a point to Topaz’s left.
She peered in that direction. She had the conviction that she was being watched, by many eyes, and yet she could not see a thing. It took all her nerve to walk slowly and steadily in that direction. The night was quiet, the squelching of her shoes on the soaked vegetation the only sound.
“Dawn?” she said again, in hardly more than a whisper. She walked even slower. When they had settled down to sit in the drenching darkness, she knew there had been nothing between them and the scrubby thickets, forty to fifty yards away. That had been one of her objections to the place, the lack of possible hiding places. Now, only a few yards in front of her, she sensed a clump of indistinct objects.
Decreased distance, and a tiny increase in light from the cloud-shrouded moon, made all the difference. Suddenly, the amorphous, soft-edged view ahead became a clear and surprising tableau. Dawn was sitting on the ground, facing Topaz. In front of her, bodies turned so that the heads were also pointing toward Topaz, sat a dozen animals. Even without being able to make out eyes in the sleek heads, Topaz was sure from their size and posture that they were ruperts.
The hardest thing was to keep quiet, suppressing even the urge to gasp. Topaz forced herself to walk forward, very slowly and calmly, and sit down without a word at Dawn’s side. She did not move, even when the whole group rose up onto their hind legs and came to surround her. If she was interested in them, they surely felt the same about her. Even so, it took every ounce of self-control not to flinch or cry out, when a rough-furred paw reached out and lifted a lock of her rain-soaked hair.
Don’t make any sudden moves. But let them know that you are interested, too. Topaz saw that one of them was wearing a kind of shoulder satchel, supported by broad straps. Very gently and slowly, she lifted her hand and touched it. The rupert reached down, did something invisible with stubby fingers, and held out to her the open satchel. Presumably she was supposed to be able to see what was inside, but it was too dark. If they were nocturnal they must have excellent night vision, supplemented by the son of bat like echolocation made possible by those wide-spreading ears. But she had neither. Topaz put one hand carefully inside the satchel, and felt a sharp and hard-edged object.
She drew it out. It was a knife. So far as she was concerned, here in her fist sat the final proof of intelligence. The ruperts were tool-makers and tool-users. But Brewster, and almost all humans, still insisted that the ruperts were no more than animals. That meant that they had no more rights than animals.
“Dawn.” She knew the danger of making a noise—if they were too shy and nervous they would surely flee—but she had to speak, and she had to make herself understood. “We must find a way to take a rupert with us to the camp. We must make them understand how important it is for all of them, that one of them go with us. This planet belongs to the ruperts, not to us, and we have to make people realize that.”
Dawn said nothing. There was an almost irresistible urge to speak again, to repeat the same urging on the assumption that Dawn had not grasped its meaning the first time. Topaz fought against it. She said to herself, over and over, Dawn is smart, Dawn is smart, she knows what you are saying, and she managed to sit silent and motionless. After a while she realized that she was still holding the rupert’s knife. She reached out, and gently returned it to the pouch.
“This planet belongs to the ruperts, not to us,” Dawn suddenly repeated. At those words, Topaz felt excitement and a tremendous relief. Dawn had understood. Now, if only she could do what Topaz suspected that she herself could never do, and find a way of communicating their message to the ruperts… One of them sat very close to Dawn, and she was holding its paw as though they were old friends.
This planet belongs to the ruperts, not to us. But this time Topaz breathed it herself. She repeated it a hundred times in the next twenty-four hours. She said it to herself. She said it to Dawn, while the latter was busy exchanging incomprehensible drawings with half a dozen of the ruperts. And finally, she would say it to Josh and the rest of the trainees, when she returned travel-stained and weary to the camp with a fresh-as-ever Dawn—and with Gussie.
This planet belongs to the ruperts, not to us.
Unfortunately, no one took any notice. It was too late, and all mineral rights had been assigned to Unimine. The strip-mining of Solferino, ripping off the upper layers of the planet to get at the stable transuranics below, was under way. The Avernus Fissure provided a starting point for those monstrous world-mining automata. The smallest of them, two kilometers long, began to widen and deepen the great crack in the planetary surface. It tore away forests, plains, and streams, to leave behind the smoking, red-hot underlayers.
As habitats vanished, the ruperts retreated. Josh and Topaz ran with then under cold Solferino moonlight, toward highlands where rupert survival was marginally possible. Higher and higher, into more and more difficult and inhospitable badlands. The air grew hotter, sulfurous and steamy. Black-and-red fuming magma rolled across the landscape, pursuing then as they fled. The retreat went on, day after day and mile after mile until finally, one evening, Josh saw the deadly red glow ahead as well as behind. He watched the surface around them vanish, engulfed by mile-high maws. With the last of the ruperts, he stood at bay on a final small island of untouched surface.
The mining machine reared far above, blocking out the fading red light of Grisel. It threw a dark shadow across Josh and his companions. There was no place to run. Josh watched helplessly as the great black jaws opened, moved forward, and began to close.
It was the end. He put his arms around Topaz. As he did so, something lifted and shook him…
Josh awoke, sweating and gasping, and found himself staring up into Winnie Carlson’s face. She had him by the shoulders, and she was shaking him.
“Josh. Wake up. I need you.”
He looked at her, dazed. “The rupert—Gussie. And Topaz. Are they all right?”
“Perfectly fine. The rupert is with Dawn. Topaz is dressing. I need both of you for something. Get your clothes on, quick, and come outside.”
Josh sat up. The vision of doomed ruperts and a Solferino turned to hell was slowly fading. “What do you need me for?” he asked, as Winnie hurried out of the door.
“As a witness,” she said over her shoulder.
Which told him absolutely nothing. Witness to what?
He dressed in seconds, and hurried outside. Winnie had vanished, but Sig, Sapphire, and Topaz stood waiting. He stared at Topaz. His dream had been so real, he expected her to say something about the destruction of Solferino and the death of all the ruperts. Instead Topaz said, “What is this? Winnie wouldn’t tell me why she needs me.”
“She needs witnesses,” said Sapphire. “But we’re really too young, all of us, so I don’t see how it helps legally, no matter how many of us there are.”