50 in 50

He wasn't the only one; the repugnance seemed universal. There were only a few women in the crowd, and all had apparently fainted at the moment of execution, as had a number of the men. Their friends were quickly carrying them off. The field cleared with suspicious speed; even the King and officials from the platform joined the exodus. Within a minute the two offworlders and the dead beast were alone.

"Well I'll be damned!" Kai exploded. "It wasn't that bad. Why, I've seen infinitely worse things than that. I can recall—"

"Save your sordid reminiscences.” Petion told him. "I've heard them all. In addition to which — you are correct. It wasn't that bad, particularly with the bandage to cover the wound." He walked over and looked pensively at the slain Sinnd, freed of life and bondage at last.

"What does it all mean?" Kai asked.

"We're going to have to find out. The whole thing seems meaningless now, but it was obviously of great importance to the locals. Let's get back to the base and talk to Rissby. He's been stationed here nine years, and should know what it's about."

"So you've uncovered the local secret," Commander Rissby said. "It's hard to tell if they are ashamed or proud of it. Anyway they make no attempt to stop people from watching, though they do fight strongly against any kind of publicity or official attention. Our policy during ninety-six years of occupation has been simply hands off."

"Is it a religious ceremony?" Petion asked.

"Might be, Honorable Sir. We had an anthropology team through here once, and they were getting interested until they were officially requested to leave. One of them told me that the ceremony has an historical necessity that developed into a public ritual of exorcism."

"How?"

"I don't know how much you know of this planet's history, Honorable Petion. .?" He hesitated, afraid to presume too much.

"For Empress's sake, tell us man!" Kai snapped. "If you think Sir Petion has the time to bone up on the history of every off-trail planet — you're completely wrong. He knows what I tell him because I handle the mechanics of these investigations and keep the records. All he has to do is solve the problem. We know next to nothing about this rock; we came here direct from the last job and never got back to the archives."

"Then you'll forgive a short lecture," Commander Rissby said placidly, still not knowing where he stood in the chain of command. "Early history is obscure, but it is obvious this planet passed through a simple agrarian economy after being settled. Almost Stone Age, at least as far as artifacts go, since Andriad has no heavy metals. If the Honorable Sir has deemed it necessary to make a study of anthropology he will know that one of the theories of the development of mankind on Earth concerned man's using his long legs for running, to escape predators. This happened, in actuality, right here. With no real mountains or forests, Andriad is a perfect habitat for herbivores. You've seen the gigantic herds that still roam the grasslands. Of course, as part of the ecology, there were the carnivores. One species dominated almost completely, the Sinnd that you saw today."

"Men are better carnivores.” Kai said. "So they knocked the Sinnd over the head and ate the ruminants themselves?"

"Quite the contrary. They ran away along with the other animals." Kai snorted in contempt, but the other two ignored him. "They became pure vegetarians — as they still are today. This period of food gathering and flight must have lasted quite a number of years."

"But not forever.” Petion said, "or this city wouldn't be here. Sooner or later they had to stop running and find another way to deal with the carnivores."

"Of course. They found that the Sinnd could be trapped in pits, captured alive. By this time they had developed such an aversion to taking life that they found it hard to kill. Rather they found it impossible. Yet a crime even worse than killing would be to let the animals starve to death. That was when Grom — ancestor of the present King — started the royal family. He killed a trapped Sinnd. That's the way the myths have it and for a change they're probably true. Of course the rest of the Andriadans were horrified that a man could do this — yet at the same time strangely attracted. Grom was obviously the strongest man and quickly gained the power passed on to the present King Grom. They have all had the same name."

"And the same job.” Petion said. "Killing Sinnd. Does it happen often now?"

"Only a few times a year when a Sinnd will raid one of the towns. Most of them stay away, following the herds. Then the captured Sinnd is sent here to be dispatched in the proper manner. The professor who told me all this also claimed it was a ritual murder of evil. The king-protector destroys the symbolic and the real devil at the same time."