Prison of Night

Warned, the herdsmen were waiting. They had assembled the beasts and urged them past her in line so she could make her selections. Yenne, the master-herder, sat on his mount close to her side, brand-gun in hand ready to shoot colored dyes at her signal.

"That, one!" she pointed. "That and that and that…" She glanced at him as he fired a blotch of ebon on the shoulder of a beast without her signal. "Why cull that one?"

"Weak in the legs, my lady. I've been keeping an eye on her. I'd hoped that her foal would be free of the weakness but it must be a dominant gene."

"The foal?"

His shrug gave the answer. Dead, of course, culled as soon as the fault was recognized. The mother, now caught in the general sweep, would shortly follow, bones, meat, hair and hide all put to good purpose.

The way of nature-only the fit and strong could be allowed to survive.

And the herd must be kept in prime condition.

As the animals passed and she continued to select the beasts Lavinia studied the old man. Later they would pick over the selection together for his final approval. It would be given discreetly, of course, sometimes by no more than the lift of an eyebrow, but he would not permit her to make expensive or stupid errors. But her attention had nothing to do with his skill or her determination to match it.

He was married, she knew, and had sired children. Would he have culled his own offspring?

Would Dumarest?

If the child she was now certain reposed in her womb proved defective in any way would he permit it to survive?

Small, yes, size was a variable. The color of hair and eyes was not important. The shade of skin would be determined by their ancestry. But if it were blind, or deaf or with a grotesque and swollen skull? If it had a split spline or misplaced features or internal organs wrongly placed? If it were a freak like some she had heard about which were displayed on barbaric worlds for the enjoyment of those with money to spend?

Dumarest would kill it.

He would do it with speed and love and mercy but the mite would die and so be spared the lifetime of agony and humiliation, the knowledge of inadequacy and the burden of handicap which had been its heritage.

He would spare it that, she was sure of it, as sure that she sat on her mount and watched beasts pass before her eyes. His face-she had seen it when he had killed. The face of a trait, not of a man, the naked determination to survive.

Would he condemn anyone to a life of hell?

She remembered the rumors of him having killed a wounded and dying man to give him peace. Would he deny that peace to his own child?

"Lavinia!" Roland was at her side, his hand touching her arm. "Here!"

She took the bottle he gave her and tilted it and felt the touch and burn of brandy in her mouth and down her throat. It helped ease the chill which had gripped her despite the warmth of the suns but did nothing to ease the turmoil of her mind.

A traveler, moving through the varied radiations of space, one who had spent years traversing the void and who had spent time beneath violent suns. A man who more than most had been exposed to the conditions favoring mutations.

What were the chances of his siring a normal child?

"Lavinia!" Roland's hand closed on her arm. "You shouldn't be out here. You're tired and worried. Dismount and rest for a while. Yenne can handle the selection."

"No." She took another swallow of brandy. "I'm all right."

"You looked distant."

"I was thinking."

Of Dumarest and his child and the moment which would come when she would show it to him and watch and wait-did all pregnant women feel this way? She would have to find out.

It was late when she returned and she was aching with weariness but when she saw the converted raft lying in the courtyard she went directly to the room which Dumarest used as his office. He was alone, seated at a desk littered with papers; maps, overlays, projections, lists. As he saw her he rose and, taking her hands, sat her in a chair.

"You're a fool," he said, gently. "A good soldier knowns when to rest. If you overdo things you'll fall sick and we'll have another casualty."

"Don't humor me, Earl! Success?" She frowned as she listened to his report. "They knew you were coming, they must have!"

"It's obvious!"

"It could have been coincidence, that isn't important, what is, is why they left?"

"To save themselves, of course!" She was annoyed at his apparent inability to recognize the obvious., "A simple matter of the need to survive you keep preaching at the men. The wisdom of knowing when to hide and run so as to fight another day. The doctrine of cowardice, I think it's called, at least that's what my ancestors would have called it. They believed in meeting their enemies face to face."

He said, sharply, "Who told you that?"

"About my ancestors? It's a matter of record."

"No, the other, the part about men being cowards if they develop a regard for their lives. Who!"