At this point, the infuriated leader decided to put the wild one in his place. He began bellowing with wrath, but this had no effect on the newcomer, who knocked another beast over and hurled him down to the bottom of the gully.
The leader’s patience snapped. He snatched up a heavy stone and threw it at the rebel. Neither Gor Terr nor Ave Mar had been expecting this. Ave nearly fired, drawing a bead on the leader, but desisting when he saw that Gor Terr had nimbly dodged the stone.
That Faetoid knew how to use weapons! This meant that he was more developed than the others!
Ave didn’t know what Gor Terr was going to do next, but his friend didn’t stop to think. He, too, picked up a stone and threw it at his enemy with much better results.
The leader jumped and then bellowed with fury, hurling himself at Gor Terr. But the other was already rushing to meet his enemy.
The Faetoids were bunched together at the rocky wall, watching the savage battle. Their enormous leader, compared with whom the newcomer was merely a small animal, crushed Gor Terr underneath his own weight.
At this point, Ave realised what he must do.
The Faetoids howled with glee at this duel and the lesson being taught to the newcomer by their leader. Because of all the shouting, the crack of a shot went unnoticed. Ave didn’t miss, aiming at the leader’s shaggy back just below the powerful neck.
Half-crushed by the heavy body, Gor Terr realised what had happened. As if continuing the fight, he raised the massive, convulsed body of the leader up on his outstretched arms and hurled him from a rocky ledge down to the bottom of the gully.
The Faetoids tried to look down, gibbering. Those thrown down by Gor Terr had recovered from their beating, had successfully climbed up onto the ledge and were crowded together in the rear of the herd; but their leader was still lying motionless.
Ave had fired the first live round on Terr. The leader was dead.
Dzin bounded nimbly down to the bottom of the gully and began dancing frenziedly near the overthrown body.
Dealing out punches and blows, sometimes knocking the beasts over, Gor Terr drove all the Faetoids back into their caves. He had put a stop to the aggressive campaign evidently launched by his predecessor.
The stranger’s incredible strength convinced the beasts that it was useless to resist him.
“The tyrant has seized power,” thought Ave. “Now he will teach the Faetoids to use clubs, he will make their hunting more successful, the herd will no longer starve and will be content with the new leader.”
Thus did the naked leader appear in the herd of Faetoids.
Ave and Mada never managed to find out anything more about Gor Terr.
Their self-sacrificing friend kept his word, however. He led the herd of Faetoids away somewhere else. No longer did the shaggy beasts annoy the solitary Faetians.
Chapter Six
THE TESTAMENT OF THE GREAT ELDER
Polar, great-great-great grandson of Vydum Polar, the first Marian inventor, who was honoured on Mar alongside Brat Lua, the creator of the first cave shelter, had inherited from his remote ancestor a daring and penetrating mind that was immune to all prohibitions.
He was a young Marian with a handsome, calm and self-confident face, a straight chin and a curly head on the long, sturdy neck typical of the Marians.
He recognised no obstacles in life, being always ready to tear them down. He learned easily and eagerly, flummoxing the teachers with his questions. It seemed to him that the writings of his ancestors concealed something about the origin of the Marians.
Tome Polar would put on a space-suit, without which Marians could not breathe their planet’s atmosphere, and would often wander over the desert sands. He was looking among the mountain ridges for a cave that could be used as a laboratory. In it, mentally, he was already carrying out daring experiments on matter.
However, he had neither the instruments nor a cave for his research.
Once upon a time, the first Marians had been lucky. They had found in the mountains an interconnected network of caves with an underground river flowing through them which they named the River of Life.
Most probably of all, his ancestors had come from a remote region of Mar where the conditions had once been different: the air had been breathable and there had been rivers flowing on the surface of the planet (as now in the caves). That was why the legends told of incredibly large areas of water. After all, every drop of the River of Life in the underground city was precious. They even obtained water artificially, extracting it from mines sunk in distant caves. Water, together with the metal found in the depths, was the basis of Marian civilisation. Owing to the small amount of oxygen in the atmosphere, metal was native. This baffled Tome somewhat. After all, his remote ancestors had breathed in the open air.
Tome Polar finally discovered a convenient little cave with a narrow entrance which could easily be converted into an airlock.
Excited and happy, he went down on to the sandy plain from where he would make his way direct to the oasis of cultivated plants and further on down into the underground city.
In his short life. Tome Polar had not known any landscapes other than the dead Marian sands. They were dear to him and he thought them beautiful. As he walked over them, he sometimes tried to imagine himself crossing the bed of one of the fabulous seas of the ancient Marians. But his sceptical reason gained the uppermost over fantasy.
He could not imagine what was absolutely impossible.
Tome Polar was hoping to return to the city not alone, but with Ena Fae, the most wonderful girl on the planet. At least, so she seemed to him.
He knew where to find her and headed for the clumps of nutritive plants irrigated by water from the underground river. Tome knew from the ancient folk tales that there was even supposed to be water on the surface at their planet s poles, and at a low heat level it solidified there in the form of a hard cap. This cap sometimes melted under Sol’s rays. A lovely folk tale! If it could be proved true, the Marians would one day deliver the melted water from the poles to their oases. But, in the meantime, the fabulous accumulations of solid water on Mar, if they existed, were infinitely far away from the underground Marian city.
To the inhabitants of the legendary Faena, the local plants would have looked like sickly bushes. But to Tome Polar, they were an impassable thicket in which it was possible to make out with difficulty several figures in space-suits.
They could all have seemed identical, but not to Tome Polar. He had no difficulty in recognising Ena, who was gathering fruits.
She was the only creature on Mar to whom Tome Polar could confide his secret thoughts. He had decided to do that today. He and Ena would begin experimenting in the new cave together and they would revolutionise Marian civilisation.
The Marian girl, lissom in spite of her garb, was gathering fruits. Tome Polar went up to the bushes.
Ena Fae recognised him, signalled to him with a wave and followed after him.
They did not switch on the intercom in their helmets so that the others wouldn’t hear them talking. They understood one another without words.
The love story of Tome and Ena was touchingly simple. They were brought together by Great Chance, which seemed to be answering a legitimate need. They met during the celebrations for the end of their studies. The young people were singing and dancing in one of the remoter caves.
The stone icicles of stalactites hung from the roof to meet the needles of stalagmites reaching up from the floor. Joined in some places, they formed fantastic columns that seemed to be supporting the roof.
Lit up so that they seemed almost transparent, these colonnades, demolished in other caves to make way for buildings, gave a magical appearance to the place where the young were celebrating.