Accidentally, Yorgh sent whirling
off into space a grim, 200-year-old
message ... and lived to see his
dead world meet the vibrant future.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories January 1952.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The Star was obscured by blowing sand, and Yorgh could not see much ofThe World either. The wolly he rode snorted in panic at the howl of thesandstorm. Finally, the big hunter swung down to the ground and draggedthe six-legged beast by the guide rope.
"Where are those trees I passed this morning?" he muttered.
He longed for a drink from the water-skin slung at his shoulder withhis rolled cloak, but there was so much sand in his short, goldenbeard that he would probably choke himself.
The sand whipped against his gray pants of coarse wool and the darkred tunic for which he had given the Sea People two dozen copperarrowheads, and twirled loosely beneath his calf-high leather boots.Yorgh squinted his eyes till they were mere gleams of bright blue amongthe laughter wrinkles.
"And I didn't even find the copper rocks!" he growled. "I should havestayed in the flatlands, hunting with the others."
He discovered that he was heading into a gully where the ripping windshad scooped sand from between ridges of dark rocks. Yorgh was not surewhether it offered shelter or the chance to be buried alive, but heplunged ahead to investigate. Within fifty paces, the howl at his backdiminished.
"Not the rocks; it's a lull," he exclaimed, peering upward.
The sky was an ugly reddish brown, dark and menacing. He wonderedhow soon more tons of sand would sweep down to refill the gully. Ashe gazed upward, a round stone rolled under his foot and he sprawledforward. Even as he dropped, it seemed that he was falling further thanhe should be.
He brushed sand from his eyes and looked up. From the edge of a hollowwhirled from the floor of the gully by opposing winds, the wolly stareddown at him with an expression of scared idiocy. The ends of his hornbow and copper-tipped lance thrust up beside the saddle.
As Yorgh scrambled up and his head came above ground level, he saw thatthe hollow was at the junction of his gully with another. Sand wasalready beginning to collect again as the wind shifted. Behind a wornrock at his side, Yorgh glimpsed a glint of metal.
Copper? he wondered, stepping forward.
It was not copper, nor any other metal he had ever seen.
To judge from what protruded above the sand, the thing was shapedslightly like the wagons the people of the Hunter tribe used in theirmigrations. Every part of it was smoothly rounded, even the skeletonsitting in the front seat.
Yorgh stared, feeling the prickle of rising hairs on his neck.
The moan of rising wind made him shiver. At least, he told himself itwas the wind. It sounded uncomfortably like a wailing spirit.
Any skins or leather padding on the seat had long since crumbled. Onlysand-scoured bones and metal remained. Except—
Something gleamed from the small deposit of sand remaining about thefeet of the skeleton. Yorgh reached out cautiously and touched the endof a whitish metal cylinder as thick as his thumb. It was loose enoughto pull out. He did, and it lay in his palm, about six inches long.
Yorgh could see no mark of any kind on the surface. He wondered if itwould stand sharpening as a spearhead.
"Must have been one of the Old Ones," he muttered uneasily. "It is saidthey had strange and wonderful powers. I wonder if this was one of thewagons that skimmed over the ground with nothing pulling t