Read Ebook: The night of no moon by Fyfe H B Horace Bowne Orban Paul Illustrator

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Ebook has 226 lines and 9926 words, and 5 pages

Release date: August 31, 2023

Original publication: New York, NY: Royal Publications, Inc, 1957

The Night of No Moon

Illustrated by ORBAN

The same lack, however, would not have tempted Pete Guthrie to survey such conditions from the surface of the planet as part of his exploratory and mapping duties. But it was too late now to be sorry he had not secured his rocket properly against the incredible tides of the shoreline he had rashly chosen for a landing.

He mentioned this, for about the hundredth time, to Polf.

"Huh! Cables! Braces! No matter when wind-spirits want you," retorted the local humanoid, darting a cowed glance at the sky from beneath his heavy brow-ridge. "They want you stay, we will keep you."

"And I'll be stuck with you forever! Don't you have to make a living?"

"I am appointed. Like Retho, who sleeps at your door in the nights."

Guthrie scowled and examined the sky. It was a clear blue. One of the moons, named Jhux, was a yellow-white disk, faintly blurred at the edge by its thin envelope of air. The spacer wished he had remained on Jhux to do his observing. With an oxygen mask, a man could be fairly comfortable there.

The clear blue sky above him, on the other hand, would be a fearsome sight in a month or so when the storms closed in.

"It is good some spoke for you," said Polf, nodding in quiet satisfaction.

Guthrie frowned at him. Every so often, his companion's thought pattern eluded him. The Skirkhi, as they named themselves, used a typically developed humanoid language, and he had managed to learn enough for communication. It was the way they thought that baffled him.

"Last season was not as bad as some," continued Polf, staring over the flat plain from their trifling eminence on the hill. "Elders say living will be hard this storm. It is a time of heat."

Guthrie also stared off into the distance, toward the seacoast beyond the plain. He tried to show no expression, for he suspected that these people were cunning at reading faces.

His looks, to be sure, must be a handicap to them. He was long and lean of face where they tended to be round and pudgy. His reddish hair and blue eyes were certainly outside their experience, for they had aroused much frightened comment when he had first been discovered near his landing site.

He turned his head slowly to study Polf. The Skirkh crouched with bowed legs folded under him and his big head thrust forward. His profile was flat against the blue sky, for his nose was a wide-nostriled snout. The eyes that gazed moodily at the horizon were black glints between brow and cheek ridges.

The lower part of the native's face, though the chin receded, completed the design of blunt, durable strength. It symbolized, Guthrie reflected, Skirkhi life. The delicate had simply not survived on this world.

On the other hand, Polf was not very large compared to the Terran. Guthrie guessed him to be an inch or two over five feet, although his squat, straddling stance made the estimate a rough one.

The village of two hundred was part of a tribe of six or seven times that number. There were other tribes in surrounding areas, but Guthrie had learned little about them. The Skirkhi said they were evil people. He assumed that that meant they treated prisoners with the same eager cruelty he had seen his captors display.

His naturally tan face flushed to an alarming coppery hue, a process Guthrie had previously observed when village arguments came to blows.

The flaring light streaked deliberately across the sky, pulsing repeatedly, and descended in a direction Guthrie fancied was southeast.

He realized that he, too, had risen at the sight. He turned to follow the vapor trail in the sky, and noticed that the lower end wavered erratically.

He realized that Polf had scampered back after a few steps downhill, and was now crouched at Guthrie's feet more like an animal than a man. The Skirkh uttered a sound between a snarl and a whimper.

"Get up, Polf!" said Guthrie. "It's a spaceship. I told you what mine was like. Go tell the elders! They will think well of the bearer of such news."

Polf bobbed his thick head and took a step downhill. Then duty halted him.

"Oh, all right; I'll come with you," sighed Guthrie. "Maybe they'll appoint us to lead the search if you tell them there will be other Terrans."

Two days later, about noon, a sound of excited voices approaching roused Guthrie and his shadow, neither of whom had been permitted to join the search. They sat up, where they had been sunning themselves on the roof of their house.

"They're back," exclaimed Guthrie, poking Polf eagerly.

Then, as he caught sight of two taller figures with the search party, he slid down from the roof and started to run as soon as he hit the ground.

At first, Guthrie found his approach deliberately blocked by several of the village elders.

"What do you fear in this moment?" he snarled in Skirkhi, as he shoved his way through the inner ranks. "Who else will tell you what they say?"

He managed to jab old Kilki on the side of his thick skull with one elbow, a limited satisfaction because Kilki ranked only about fourth in the Council of Elders. Guthrie wished he could get at Thyggar, who had ruled that he be kept inside one of the cramped stone huts for several weeks following his capture.

Kilki rubbed the knobby side of his head philosophically and said, "How we know they are not good spirits called to steal you back to the sky, Gut'rie?"

"Huh!" snorted the Terran, pointing to the disheveled pair with the search party. "They don't look like good spirits to me!"

The man was Guthrie's height or an inch taller, and broad of shoulder. He had a strong face with bold, regular features slightly spoiled by a thick stub of a nose. High cheekbones gave his eyes a masked expression. Though sweat-darkened, his hair appeared to be blond and wavy.

The girl did not stare at Guthrie with the same blend of irritation and expectancy. Instead, her gray eyes shone with a trusting relief that caused the spacer to grimace uncomfortably. He thought she was probably pretty, if a trifle thin, but could not be sure. Somewhere on the way--he guessed in the marsh about a mile south of the village--she had fallen flat in the mud.

He almost succeeded in controlling a querulous note in his voice by trying to assume the buddy-to-buddy tone of one Terran discussing with another the universal peculiarity of aborigines. He watched Guthrie carefully.

"What did you come down in?" asked the latter abruptly.

The other stared. The girl, who had been sagging wearily against the stocky form of the nearest Skirkh, straightened up with a hurt look.

"Explosion and fire just before we were to pass this system on the way to Altair," explained Trent rapidly. He had retreated from hope to a worried expression. "I don't know what did it; they braked from interstellar drive to give the rockets a chance at these planets. It all went pretty fast."

Trent glanced at the jostling Skirkhi, then at Guthrie. His brow furrowed.

"Aw, hell!" grunted Guthrie contemptuously.

Trent's voice trailed off. Then, ignoring Guthrie's scowl, he tried to pick up where he had left off.

"... but I thought, perhaps ... couldn't you send a message about us?"

Guthrie regarded the crowd of Skirkhi, who gaped back with gleaming eyes and hanging jaws. Old Thyggar raised a thick, four-fingered hand at him and demanded, "What do they say?"

"Later, Old One," retorted Guthrie, turning to look at the girl.

"Oh--this is Miss Norsund," Trent explained. "Listen, if you don't want to send a message, couldn't you have some of these people guide us?"

"First," said Guthrie, "travel is dangerous. You might get eaten or made into window-flaps. Secondly, I don't know where they could guide you to."

He let them absorb that, then went on.

"And I can't send any message because I don't know the right spells and incantations to summon any good spirits to carry the message."

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