The Star Fox

“I shouldn’t think that would make for advance beyond savagery,” Bragdon remarked.

“They managed it on Staurn, for a while. I don’t know how. But then, does anybody know for sure what the evolutionary laws of human civilization are? Maybe being winged, more mobile than us, helped the Staurni. In time they got a planet-wide industrial culture, split into confederations. They invented the scientific method and rode the exponential curve of discovery on up to nuclear engines and gravitronics.”

“I think,” Uthg-a-K’thaq grunted, “those nations were wuilt on conquest and slawery. Unnatural, and hence unstawle.”

Heim gave the tendriled face a surprised glance, shrugged, and went on: “Could be. Now there is one stabilizing factor. A Staurni male is fiercer than a man during his reproductive years, but when he reaches middle age he undergoes a bigger endocrine change than we do. Without getting weak otherwise, he loses both sex drive and belligerence, and prefers to live quietly at home. I suppose under primitive conditions that was a survival mechanism, to give the females and cubs some protection around the Nest while the young males were out hunting. In civilization it’s been a slightly mellowing influence. The oldsters are respected and listened to, somewhat, because of their experience.

“Nevertheless, the industrial society blew itself apart in a nuclear war. Knowledge wasn’t lost, nor even most of the material equipment, but organization was. Everywhere the Staurni reverted to these baronial Nests. Between the productivity of its automated machines and the return of big game to hunt, each such community is damn near independent. Nobody’s interested in any more elaborate social structures. Their present life suits them fine.”

“What about the Lodge?” Jocelyn asked.

“Oh, yes. There has to be some central group to arbitrate between Nests, defend the planet as a whole, and deal with outworlders. The Lodge grew up as a—I suppose quasi-religious organization, though I don’t know a thing about the symbolism. Its leaders are old males. The more active jobs are done by what you might call novices or acolytes, younger sons and such, who sign on for the adventure and the concubines and the prospect of eventually becoming full initiates. It works pretty well.”

“It wouldn’t with humans,” Bragdon said.

“Yeh,” Koumanoudes answered, “but these people aren’t human.”

“That’s about everything I know,” Heim said. “Nothing you haven’t found in books and journals, I’m sure.”

He looked outside again. The prairie was sliding swiftly beneath; he could hear the whistle and feel the vibration of their passage. A herd of grazing beasts darkened the land and was gone. Eastward the last mountain-tops vanished. No one spoke for a considerable period. Heim was in fact startled to note how much time had gone by while they all sat contemplating the view or their own thoughts, before Brag-don ended the silence.

“One item I have not seen explained,” he said. “Apparently each Nest maintains a nuclear arsenal and military production equipment. What for?”

“To fight,” Koumanoudes said. “They get an argument the Lodge can’t settle, like over territory, and hoo! They rip up the landscape. We’ll probably see a few craters.”

“But … no. That sort of insanity smashed their civilization.”

“The last phase of their civilization, you mean,” Heim said. “The present one isn’t vulnerable. A Nest is mostly underground, and even the topside buildings are nearly blast-proof. Radiation affects a Staurni a lot less than a human, he gets so much of it in the normal course of life; and they have medicines for an overdose here, same as us. And there are no incendiary effects, not in a hydrogen atmosphere. In fact, before atomic energy, the only way to smelt metals was to use a volcanic outlet—which there are plenty of on a big planet with a hot core.”

“So they have no restrictions,” Jocelyn murmured. “Not even on selling the things offworld, for others to kill with.”

“We’ve been over that ground too mucking often,” Koumanoudes growled.

“Free-fall, Greg,” Heim warned. The woman’s face was so unhappy.

Koumanoudes shifted in his seat, glared out, and grew suddenly rigid.

“Hey!” he barked.

“What’s the matter?” Bragdon asked.

“Where do you think you’re headed?”

“Why, to the Aerie of Trebogir.”

The Greek half rose. His forefinger stabbed at the bow viewports. Above the horizon, ghostly in its detachment, floated a white cone. The plain beneath rolled down toward a thread which wound blinding silver through a valley where cloud shadows ran.

“What the hell!” he exploded. “That’s the River Morh. Got to be. Only I know the map. Trebogir doesn’t live anywhere in sight of a snowpeak. It must belong to Kimreth upland. We’re a good five hundred kilometers north of where we should be!”

Sweat sprang forth on Bragdon’s forehead. “I did set a roundabout course, to get a better look at the countryside,” he admitted.