Version 0.5 dtd 032500

Kingsley Amis is one of the more astute critics of science
fiction and recently, while speaking  about the mainstream
writer Anthony Burgess and his occasional forays into SF,
Amis said ". . . he's a stylist and that's rare in this field." Quite
true. But we do have lack Vance and his haunting, mood-pos-
sessed visions of the distant future, written in a style that stirs
the reader to reaction and response. Here, in this award
winning story, he once more spins his seductive magic.

 Nebula Award, Best Novella 1966

THE LAST CASTLE

Jack Vance

Toward the end of a stormy summer afternoon, with the sun
finally breaking out under ragged black rain clouds, Castle
Janeil was overwhelmed and its population destroyed.
Until almost the last moment the factions among the castle
clans were squabbling as to how Destiny properly should be
met. The gentlemen of most prestige and account elected to
ignore the entire undignified circumstance and went about
their normal pursuits, with neither more nor less punctilio
than usual. A few cadets, desperate to the point of hysteria,
took up weapons and prepared to resist the final assault.
Others still, perhaps a quarter of the total population, waited
passively, readyalmost happyto expiate the sins of the
human race.
In the end death came uniformly to all; and all extracted as
much satisfaction in their dying as this essentially graceless
process could afford. The proud sat turning the pages of their
beautiful books, or discussing the qualities of a centufy-old
essence, or fondling a favorite Phane. They died without
deigning to heed the fact. The hot-heads raced up the muddy
slope which, outraging all normal rationality, loomed above
the parapets of Janeil. Most were buried under sliding rubble,
but a few gained the ridge to gun, hack, stab, until they
themseves were shot, crushed by the half-alive power-wagons,
hacked or stabbed. The contrite waited in the classic posture
of expiation, on their knees, heads bowed, and perished, so
they believed, by a process in which the Meks were symbols
and human sin the reality. In the end all were dead: gentle-
men, ladies, Phanes in the pavilions; Peasants in the stables.
Of all those who had inhabited Janeil, only the Birds survived,
creatures awkward, gauche and raucous, oblivious to pride
and faith, more concerned with the wholeness of their hides
than the dignity of their castle.
As the Meks swarmed over the parapets, the Birds departed
their cotes. They screamed strident insults as they flapped east
toward Hagedorn, now the last castle of Earth.
Pour months before, the Meks had appeared in the park
before Janeil, fresh from the Sea Island massacre.
Climbing to the turrets and balconies, sauntering the Sunset
Promenade, from ramparts and parapets, the gentlemen and
ladies of Janeil, some two thousand in all, looked down at the
browngold warriors. Their mood was complex:  amused
indifference, flippant disdain, over a substratum of doubt and
foreboding. All these moods were the product of three basic
circumstances: their own exquisitely subtle civilization, the
security provided by Janeil's wall and the fact that they could
think of nothing to do to alter the circumstances.
The Janeil Meks had long since departed to join the revolt.
There only remained Phanes, Peasants and Birds from which
to fashion what would have been the travesty of a punitive
..force.
At the moment there seemed no need for such a force.
Janeil was deemed impregnable. The walls, two hundred feet
tall,  were  black-  rock-melt  contained  in  the  meshes  of  a
silver-blue steel alloy. Solar cells provided energy for all the
needs of the castle, and in the event of emergency food could
be synthesized from carbon dioxide and water vapor, as well
as syrup for Phanes, Peasants and Birds. Such a need was not
envisaged. Janeil was self-sufficient and secure, though incon-
veniences might arise when machinery broke down and there
were no Meks to repair it. The situation, then, was disturbing
but hardly desperate. During the day the gentlemen so in-
clined brought forth energy-guns and sport-rifles and killed as
many Meks as the extreme range allowed.
After dark the Meks brought forward power-wagons and
earth-movers, and began to raise a dike around Janeil.
The folk of the castle watched without comprehension until
the dike reached a height of fifty feet and dirt began to spill
down against the walls. Then the dire purpose of the Meks
became apparent, and insouciance gave way to dismal fore-
boding.
All the gentlemen of Janeil were erudite in at least one
realm of knowledge. Certain were mathematical theoreticians,
others had made a profound study of the physical sciences.
Some of these, with a detail of Peasants to perform the sheer
physical exertion, attempted to restore the energy-cannon to
functioning condition. Unluckily, the cannon had not been
maintained in good order. Various components were obvi-
ously corroded or damaged. Conceivably these components
might have been replaced from the Mek shops on the second
sub-level, but none of the group had any knowledge of the
Mek nomenclature or warehousing system. Warrick Madency
Arban (which is to say, Arban of the Madency family on the
Warrick clan) suggested that a work-force of Peasants search
the warehouse. But in view of the limited mental capacity of
the Peasants, nothing was done and the whole plan to restore
the energy-cannon came to naught.
The gentlefolk of Janeil watched in fascination as the dirt
piled higher and higher around them, in a circular mound like
a crater. Summer neared its end, and on one stormy day dirt
and rubble rose above the parapets, and began to spill over
into the courts and piazzas. Janeil must soon be buried and 'all
within suffocated.
It was then that a group of impulsive young cadets, with
more elan than dignity, took up weapons and charged up the
slope. The Meks dumped dirt and stone upon them, but a
handful gained the ridge where they fought in a kind of
dreadful exaltation.
Fifteen minutes the fight raged and the earth became
sodden with rain and blood. For one glorious moment the
cadets swept the ridge clean. Had not most of their fellows
been lost under the rubble anything might have occurred. But
the Meks regrouped, thrust forward. Ten men were left,-then
six, then four, then one, then none. The Meks marched down
the slope, swarmed over the battlements, and with somber
intensity killed all within. Janeil, for seven hundred years the
abode of gallant gentlemen and gracious ladies, had become a
lifeless hulk.
The Mek, standing as if a specimen in a museum case, was
a man-like creature native, in his original version, to a planet
of Etamin. His tough rusty-bronze hide glistened metallically
as if oiled or waxed. The spines thrusting back from scalp and
neck shone like gold, and indeed they were coated with a
conductive copper-chrome film. His sense organs were gath-
ered in clusters at the site of a man's ears; his visageit was
often a shock, walking the lower corridors, to come suddenly
upon a Mekwas corrugated muscle, not dissimilar to the
look of an uncovered human brain. His maw, a vertical
irregular cleft at the base of his 'face', was an obsolete organ
by reason of the syrup sac which had been introduced under
the skin of the shoulders, and the digestive organs, originally
used to extract nutrition from decayed swamp vegetation and
coelenterates, had atrophied. The Mek typically wore no
garment except possibly a work apron or a tool-belt, and in
the sunlight his rust-bronze skin made a handsome display.
This was the Mek solitary, a creature intrinsically as effective
as manperhaps more by virtue of his superb brain which
also functioned as a radio transceiver. Working in the mass,
by the teeming thousands, he seemed less admirable, less
competent: a hybrid of sun-man and cockroach.
Certain savants, notably Morninglight's D. R. Jardine and
Salonson of Tuang, considered the Mek bland and phlegmat-
ic,  but the profound Claghorn of Castle  Hagedorn  asserted
otherwise. The emotions of the Mek, said Claghorn, were
different from human emotions, and only vaguely comprehen-
;sible to man. After diligent research Claghorn isolated over a
dozen Mek emotions.
In spite of such research, the Mek revolt came as an utter
surprise, no less to Claghorn, D. R. Jardine and Salonson than
to anyone else. Why? asked everyone. How could a group so
long submissive have contrived so murderous a plot?
The most reasonable conjecture was also the simplest: the
Mek resented servitude and hated the Earthmen who had
removed him from his natural environment. Those who
argued against this theory claimed that it projected human
emotions and attitudes into a nonhuman organism, that the
Mek had every reason to feel gratitude toward the gentlemen
who had liberated him from the conditions of Etamin Nine.
To this, the first group would inquire, "Who projects human
attitudes now?" And the retort of their opponents was often:
"Since no one knows for certain, one projection is no more
absurd than another."

II
Castle Hagedom occupied the crest of a black diorite crag
overlooking a wide valley to the south. Larger, more majestic
than Janeil, Hagedom was protected by walls a mile in
circumference, three hundred feet tall. The parapets stood a
full nine hundred feet above the valley, with towers, turrets
and observation eyries raising even higher. Two sides of the
crag, at east and west, dropped sheer to the valley. The north
and south slopes, a trifle less steep, were terraced and planted
with vines, artichokes, pears and pomegranates. An avenue
rising from the valley circled the crag and passed through a
portal into the central plaza. Opposite stood the great Rotun-
da, with at either side the tall Houses of the twenty-eight
families.
The original castle, constructed immediately after the re-
turn of men to Earth, stood on the site now occupied by the
plaza. The tenth Hagedom had assembled an enormous force
of Peasants and Meks to build the new walls, after which he
demolished the old castle. The twenty-eight Houses dated
from this time, five hundred years before.
Below the plaza were three service levels: the stables and
garages at the bottom, next the Mek shops and Mek living
quarters, then the various storerooms, warehouses and special
shops: bakery, brewery, lapidary, arsenal, repository, and the
like.
The current Hagedom, twenty-sixth of the line, was a
Claghorn of the Overwheles. His selection had occasioned
general surprise, because 0. C. Charle, as he had been before
his elevation, was a gentleman of no remarkable presence. His
elegance, flair, and erudition were only ordinary; he had never 
been notable for any significant originality of thought. His
physical proportions were good; his face was square and
bony, with a short straight nose, a benign brow, narrow gray
eyes. His expression was normally a trifle abstractedhis
detractors used the word 'vacant'. But by a simple lowering of
the eyelids, a downward twitch of the coarse blond eyebrows,
it at once became stubborn and surly, a fact of which 0. C.
Charle, or Hagedorn, was unaware.
The office, while exerting little or no formal authority,
exerted a pervasive influence, and the style of the gentleman
who was Hagedorn affected everyone. For this reason the
selection of Hagedorn was a matter of no small importance,
subject to hundreds of considerations, and it was the rare
candidate who failed to have some old solectem or gaucherie
discussed with embarrassing candor. While the candidate
might never take overt umbrage, friendships were inevitably
sundered,  rancors augmented, reputations blasted. 0.  C.
Charle's elevation represented a compromise between two
factions among the Overwheles, to which clan the privilege of
selection had fallen.
The gentlemen between whom 0. C. Charle represented a
compromise were both highly respected, but distinguished by
basically different attitudes toward existence. The first was the
talented Garr of the Zurnbeld family. He exemplified the
traditional virtues of Castle Hagedorn:  he was a notable
connoisseur of essences, he dressed with absolute savoir, with
never so much as a pleat nor a twist of the characteristic
Overwhele rosette awry. He combined insouciance and flair
with dignity. His repartee coruscated with brilliant allusions
and turns of phrase. When aroused his wit was utterly
mordant. He could quote every literary work of consequence;
he performed expertly upon the nine-stringed lute, and was
thus in constant demand at the Viewing of Antique Tabards.
He was an antiquarian of unchallengeable erudition and knew
the locale of every major city of Old Earth, and could
discourse for hours upon the history of the ancient times. His
military expertise was unparallelled at Hagedorn, and chal-
lenged only by D. K.. Magdah of Castle Delora and perhaps
Brusham of Tuang. Faults? Flaws? Few could be cited:
over-punctilio which might be construed as waspishness; an
intrepid pertinacity which could be considered ruthless.
0. Z. Garr could never be dismissed as insipid or indeci-
sive, and his personal courage was beyond dispute. Two years
before a stray band of Nomads had ventured into Lucerne
Valley, slaughtering Peasants, stealing cattle, and going so far
as to fire an arrow into the chest of an Isseth cadet. 0. Z.
Garr instantly assembled a punitive company of Meks, loaded
them aboard a dozen power-wagons and set forth in pursuit
of the Nomads, finally overtaking them near Drene River, by
the ruins of Worster Cathedral. The Nomads were unexpect-
edly strong, unexpectedly crafty, and were not content to
turn tail and flee. During the fighting 0. Z. Garr displayed the
most exemplary demeanor, directing the attack from the seat
of his power-wagon, a pair of Meks standing by with shields
to ward away arrows.
The conflict ended in a rout of the Nomads. They left
twenty-seven lean black-cloaked corpses strewn on the field,
while only twenty Meks lost their lives.
0. Z. Garr's opponent in the election was Claghorn, elder
of the Claghorn family. As with 0. Z, Garr, the exquisite
discriminations of Hagedorn society came to Claghorn as
easily as swimming to a fish.
He was no less erudite than 0. Z. Garr, though hardly so
versatile, his principal field of study being the Meks, their
physiology, linguistic modes, and social patterns. Claghom's
conversation was more profound, but less entertaining and
not so trenchant as that of 0. Z. Garr. He seldom employed
the extravagant tropes  and  allusions which  characterized
Garr's discussions, preferring a style of speech which was
almost unadorned. Claghorn kept no Phanes; 0. Z. Garr's
four matched Gossamer Dainties were marvels of delight, and
at the viewing of Antique Tabards Garr's presentations were
seldom outshone. The important contrast between the two
men lay in their philosophic outlook. 0. Z. Garr, a traditional-
ist, a fervent exemplar of his society, subscribed to its tenets
without reservation. He was beset by neither doubt nor guilt;
he felt no desire to alter the conditions which afforded more
than two thousand gentlemen and ladies lives of great rich-
ness.  Claghorn,  while  by  no  means  an  Expiationist,  was
known to feel dissatisfaction with the general tenor of life at
Castle Hagedorn, and argued so plausibly that many folk
refused to listen to him, on the grounds that they became
uncomfortable. But an indefinable malaise ran deep, and
Claghorn had many influential supporters.
When the time came for ballots to be cast, neither 0. Z.'
Garr nor Claghorn could muster sufficient support. The office
finally was cofaferred upon a gentleman who never in his most
optimistic reckonings had expected it: a gentleman of deco-
rum and dignity but no great depth; without flippancy, but
likewise without vivacity; affable but disinclined to force an
issue to a disagreeable conclusion: 0. C. Charie, the new
Hagedorn,
Six months later, during the dark hours before dawn, the
Hagedom Meks evacuated their quarters and departed, taking
with them power-wagons, tools, weapons and electrical equip-
ment. The act had clearly been long in the planning, for
simultaneously the Meks at each of the eight other castles
made a similar departure.
The initial reaction at Castle Hagedom, as elsewhere, was
incredulity, then shocked anger, thenwhen the implications
of the act were pondereda sense of foreboding and calam-
ity.
The new Hagedorn, the clan chiefs, and certain other
notables appointed by Hagedorn met in the formal council
chamber to consider the matter. They sat around a great table
covered with red velvet: Hagedorn at the head; Xanten and
Isseth at his left; Overwhele, Aure and Beaudry at his right;
then the others, including 0. Z. Garr, 1. K. Linus, A. G.
Bernal, a mathematical theoretician of great ability, B. F.
Wyas, an equally sagacious antiquarian who had identified the
sites of many ancient cities: Palmyra, Lubeck, Eridu, Zanes-
ville, Burton-on-Trent, Massilia among others. Certain family
elders filled out the council: Marune and Baudune of Aure;
Quay, Roseth and Idelsea of Xanten; Uegus of Isseth, Clag-
horn of Overwhele.
All sat silent for a period of ten minutes, arranging their
minds and performing the silent act of psychic accommoda-
tion known as 'intression'.
At last Hagedorn spoke. "The castle suddenly is bereft of
; fits Meks. Needless to say, this is an inconvenient condition to
be adjusted as swiftly as possible. Here, I am sure, we find
ourselves of one mind."
He looked around the table. All thrust forward ivory
tablets to signify assentall save Claghorn, who however did
not stand it on end to signify dissent.
Isseth, a stern white-haired gentleman magnificently hand-
some in spite of his seventy years, spoke in a grim voice, "I
see no point in cogitation or delay. What we must do is clear.
Admittedly the Peasants are poor material from which to
recruit an armed force. Nonetheless, we must assemble them,
equip them with sandals, smocks and weapons so that they do
not discredit us, and put them under good leadership: 0. Z.
Garr or Xanten. Birds can locate the vagrants, whereupon we
will track them down, order the Peasants to give them a good
drubbing and herd them home on the double."
Xanten, thirty-five years old, extraordinarily young to be a
clan chief, and a notorious firebrand, shook his head. "The
idea is appealing but impractical. Peasants simply could not
stand up to the Meks; no matter how we trained them."
The statement was manifestly accurate. The Peasants, small
andromorphs originally of Spica Ten, were not so much timid
as incapable of performing a vicious act.
A dour silence held the table. 0. Z. Garr finally spoke.
"The dogs have stolen our power-wagons, otherwise I'd be
tempted to ride out and chivvy the rascals home with a
whip."*
"A matter of perplexity," said Hagedorn, "is syrup. Natu-
rally they carried away what they could. When this is ex-
haustedwhat then? Will they starve? Impossible for them to
return to their original dietwhat was it, swamp mud? Eh,
Claghom, you're the expert in these matters. Can the Meks
return to a diet of mud?"
"No," said Claghom. "The organs of the adult are atro-
phied. If a cub were started on the diet, he'd probably
survive."
"Just as I assumed." Hagedorn scowled portentously down
at his clasped hands to conceal his total lack of any construc-
tive proposal.
A gentleman in the dark blue of the Beaudrys appeared in

*This is only an approximate translation and fails to capture the pun-
gency of the language. Several words have no contemporary equivalents.
'Skirkling', as in 'to send skirkling', denotes a frantic pell-mell flight in
all directions accompanied by a vibration or twinkling or a jerking motion.
To 'volith' is to toy idly with a matter, the implication being that the
person involved is of such Jovian potency that all difficulties dwindle
to contemptible triviality. 'Raudelbogs' are the semi-intelligent beings of
Etamin Four, who were brought to Earth, trained first as gardeners, then
construction laborers,  then  sent home  in disgrace because  of  certain
repulsive habits they refused to forgo.
The statement of 0. Z. Garr, therefore, becomes something like this:
"Were power-wagons at hand. I'd volith riding forth with a whip to send
the raudelbogs skirkling home."
the doorway: he poised himself, he4d high his right arm,
bowed.
Hagedom rose to his feet. "Come forward, B. F. Robarth;
what is your news?" For this was the significance of the
newcomer's genuflection.
"The news is a message broadcast from Halcyon. The Meks
have attacked; they have fired the structure and are slaughter-
ing all. The radio went dead one minute ago."
All swung around, some jumped to their feet. "Slaughter?"
Croaked Claghom.
"I am certain that by now Halcyon is no more."
Claghom sat staring with eyes unfocused. The others dis-
cussed the dire news in voices heavy with horror.
Hagedom once more brought the council back to order.
"This is clearly an extreme situation; the gravest, perhaps, of
our entire history. I am frank to state that I can suggest no
decisive counteract."
Overwhele inquired, "What of the other castles? Are they
secure?"
Hagedom turned to B. F. Robarth: "Will you be good
enough to make general radio contact with all other castles,
and inquire as to their condition?"
Xanten said, "Others are as vulnerable as Halcyon: Sea
Island and Delora, in particular, and Maraval as well."
Claghom emerged from his reverie. "The gentlemen and
ladies of these places, in my opinion, should consider taking
refuge at Janeil or here until the uprising is quelled."
Others around the table looked at him in surprise and
puzzlement. 0. Z. Garr inquired in the silkiest of voices:
"You envision the gentlefolk of these castles scampering to
refuge at the cock-a-hoop swaggering of the lower orders?"
"Indeed I do, should they wish to survive," responded
Claghom politely. A gentleman of late middle-age, Claghom
was stocky, strong, with black-gray hair, magnificent green
eyes, a manner which suggests great internal force under stern
control. "Flight by definition entails a certain diminution of
dignity," he went on to say. "If 0 Z. Garr can propound an
elegant manner of taking to one's heels. I will be glad to learn
it, and everyone else should likewise heed, because in the days
to come the capability may be of comfort to all."
Hagedom interposed before 0. Z. Garr could reply. "Let
us keep to the issues. I confess I cannot see to the end of all
this.  The Meks have demonstrated themselves to be mur-
derers. How can we take murderers back into our service?
But if we don'twell, to say the least, conditions will be
austere until we can locate and train a new force of techni-
cians."  
"The spaceships!" exclaimed Xanten. "We must see to them
at once!"
"What's this?" inquired Beaudry, a gentleman of rock-hard
face. "How do you mean: 'see to them'?"
"They must be protected from damage! What else? They
are our link to the Home Worlds. The maintenance Meks
probably have not deserted the hangars, since, if they propose
to exterminate us, they will want to deny us the spaceships."
"Perhaps you care to march with a levy of Peasants to take
the hangars under firm control?" suggested 0. Z. Garr in a
somewhat supercilious voice. A long history of rivalry and
mutual detestation existed between himself and Xanten.
"It may be our only hope," said Xanten. "Stillhow does
one fight with a levy of Peasants? Better that I fly to the
hangars and reconnoiter. Meanwhile, perhaps you, and others
with military expertise, will take in hand the recruitment and
training of a Peasant militia."
"In this regard," stated 0. Z. Garr, "I await the outcome of
our current deliberations. If it develops that here lies the
optimum course, I naturally will apply my competences to the
fullest degree. If your own capabilities are best fulfilled by
spying out the activities of the Meks, I hope you will be
large-hearted enough to do the same."
The two gentlemen glared at each other.
A year previously their enmity had almost culminated in a
duel. Xanten, a gentleman tall, clean-limbed, nervously active,
was gifted with great natural flair, but likewise evinced a
disposition too easy for absolute elegance. The traditionalists
considered him 'sthross', indicating a manner flawed by an
almost imperceptible slackness and lack of punctilio: not the
best possible choice for clan chief.
Xanten's response to 0. Z. Garr was blandly polite. "I shall
be glad to take this task upon myself. Since haste is of the
essence I will risk the accusation of precipitousness and leave
at once. Hopefully I return to report tomorrow." He rose,
performed a ceremonious bow to Hagedorn, another all-inclu-
sive salute to the council and departed.
He crossed to Esledune House where he maintained an
apartment on the thirteenth level: four rooms furnished in the
style known as Fifth Dynasty, after an epoch in the history of
the Altair Home Planets, from which the human race had
returned to Earth.
His current consort, Araminta, a lady of the Onwane
family, was absent on affairs of her own, which suited Xanten
well enough. After plying him with questions she would have
discredited his simple explanation, preferring to suspect an
assignation at his country place. Truth to tell, he had become
bored with Araminta and had reason to believe that she felt
similarlyor perhaps his exalted rank had provided her less
opportunity to preside at glittering social functions than she
had expected. They had bred no children. Araminta's
daughter by a previous connection had been tallied to her.
Her second child must then be tallied to Xanten, preventing
him from siring another child.*
Xanten doffed his yellow council vestments. Assisted by a
young Peasant buck, he donned dark yellow hunting-breeches
with black trim, a black jacket, black boots. He drew
a cap of soft black leather over his head, slung a pouch over
his shoulder, into which he loaded weapons: a coiled blade, an
energy gun.
Leaving the apartment he summoned the lift and descended
to the first level armory, where normally a Mek clerk would
have served him. Now Xanten, to his vast disgust, was forced
to take himself behind the counter, and rummage here and
there. The Meks had removed most of the spotting rifles, all
the pellet ejectors and heavy energy-guns. An ominous cir-
cumstance, thought Xanten. At last he found a steel sling-
- whip, spare power-slugs for his gun, a brace of fire grenades,
,a high-powered monocular.
He returned to the lift, rode to the top level, ruefully
considering the long climb when eventually the mechanism

*The population of Castle Hagedorn was fixed; each gentleman and
each lady was permitted a single child. If by chance another were born
he must either find someone who had not yet sired to sponsor it, or
dispose of it another way. The usual procedure was to give the child into
the care of the Expiationists.
broke down, with no Meks at hand to make repairs. He
thought of the apoplectic furies of rigid fraditionalists such as
Beaudry and chuckled. Eventful days lay ahead!
Stopping at the top level he crossed to the parapets,
proceeded around to the radio room. Customarily three Mek
specialists connected into the apparatus by wires clipped to
their quills sat typing messages as they arrived. Now B. F.
Robarth stood before the mechanism, uncertainly twisting the
dials, his mouth wry with deprecation and distaste for the job.
"Any further news?" Xanten asked.
B. F. Robarth gave him a sour grin. "The folk at the other
end seem no more familiar with this cursed tangle than 1. I
hear occasional voices. I believe that the Meks are attacking
Castle Delora."
Claghom had entered the room behind Xanten. "Did I hear
you correctly? Delora Castle is gone?"
"Not gone yet, Claghom. But as good as gone. The Delora
walls are little better than a picturesque crumble."
"Sickening situation!" muttered Xanten. "How can sentient
creatures perform such evil? After all these centuries, how
little we actually knew of them!" As he spoke he recognized
the tactlessness of his remark; Claghom had devoted much
time to a study of the Meks.
"The act itself is not astounding," said Claghom shortly. "It
has occurred a thousand times in human history."
Mildly surprised that Claghom should use human history as
referent to a case involving the sub-orders, Xanten asked:
"You were never aware of this vicious aspect to the Mek
nature?"
"No. Never. Never indeed."
Claghom seemed unduly sensitive, thought Xanten. Under-
standable, all in all. Claghorn's basic doctrine as set forth
during the Hagedorn selection was by no means simple, and
Xanten neither understood it nor completely endorsed what
he conceived to be its goals; but it was plain that the revolt of
the Meks had cut the ground out from under Claghorn's feet.
Probably to the somewhat bitter satisfaction of 0. Z. Garr,
who must feel vindicated in his traditionalist doctrines.
Claghom said tersely, "The life we've been leading couldn't
last forever. It's a wonder it lasted as long as it did."
"Perhaps so," said Xanten in a soothing voice. "Well, no
matter. All things change. Who knows? The Peasants may be
planning to poison our food... I must go." He bowed to
Claghorn, who returned him a crisp nod, and to B.:.:;F.
Robarth, then departed the room.
He climbed the spiral staircasealmost a ladderto the
cotes, where the Birds lived in an invincible disorder, occupy-
ing themselves with gambling at the game of quarrels, a
version of chess, with rules incomprehensible to every gentle-
man who had tried to understand it.
Castle Hagedorn maintained a hundred Birds, tended by a
gang of long-suffering Peasants, whom the Birds held in vast
disesteem. They were garish garrulous creatures, pigmented
red, yellow, blue, with long necks, jerking inquisitive heads,
an inherent irreverence which no amount of discipline or
tutelage could overcome.  Spying Xanten,  they emitted a
chorus of rude jeers: "Somebody wants a ride! Heavy thing!"
"Why don't the self-anointed two-footers grow wings for
themselves?" "My friend, never trust a Bird! We'll sky you,
then fling you down on your fundament!"
"Quiet!" called Xanten. "I need six fast, silent Birds, upon
an important mission. Are any capable of such a task?"
"Are any capable, he asks!" "A ros ros ros! When none of
us have flown for a week!" "Silence? We'll give you silence,
yellow and black!"
"Come then. You. You. You of the wise eye. You there.
You with the cocked shoulder. You with the green pompon.
To the basket."
The Birds designated, jeering, grumbling, reviling the Peas-
ants, allowed their syrup sacs to be filled, then flapped to the
wicker seat where Xanten waited. "To the space depot at
Vincenne," he told them. "Fly high and silently. Enemies are
abroad. We must learn what harm if any has been done to the
spaceships."
"To the depot then!" Each Bird seized a length of rope tied
to an overhead framework; the chair was yanked up with a
jerk calculated to rattle Xanten's teeth, and off they flew,
laughing, cursing each other for not supporting more of the
. load, but eventually all accommodating themselves to the task
apd flying with a coordinated flapping of the thirty-six sets of
wings. To Xanten's relief, their garrulity lessened; silently
they flew south, at a speed of fifty or sixty miles per hour.
The afternoon was already waning. The ancient country-
side, scene to so many comings and goings, so much triumph
and so much disaster, was laoed with long black shadows.
Looking down, Xanten reflected that though the human stock
was native to this soil, and though his immediate ancestors
had maintained their holdings for seven hundred years, Earth
still seemed an alien world.
The reason of course was by no means mysterious or
rooted in paradox. After the Six-Star War, Earth had lain
fallow for three thousand years, unpopulated save for a
handful of anguished wretches who somehow had survived
the cataclysm and who had become semi-barbaric Nomads.
Then seven hundred years ago certain rich lords of Altair,
motivated to some extent by political disaffection, but no less
by caprice, had decided to return to Earth. Such was the
origin of the nine great strongholds, the resident gentlefolk
and the staffs of specialized andromorphs.
Xanten flew over an area where an antiquarian had di-
rected excavations, revealing a plaza flagged with white stone,
a broken obelisk, a tumbled statue. The sight, by some trick
of association, stimulated Xanten's mind to an astonishing
vision, so simple and yet so grand that he looked around, in
all  directions,  with  new  eyes.  The  vision  was  Earth  re-
populated with men, the land cultivated. Nomads driven back
into the wilderness.
At the moment the image was far-fetched. And Xanten,
watching the soft contours of old Earth slide below, pondered
the Mek revolt which had altered his life with such startling
abruptness.
Claghom had long insisted that no human condition en-
dured forever, with the corollary that the more complicated
such a condition, the greater its susceptibility to change.
In that case the seven hundred year continuity at Castle
Hagedomas artificial, extravagant and intricate as life could
bebecame an astonishing circumstance in itself. Claghom
had pushed his thesis further. Since change was inevitable, he
argued that the gentlefolk should soften the impact by antici-
pating and controlling the changesa doctrine which had
been attacked with great fervor. The traditionalists labeled all
of Claghorn's ideas demonstrable fallacy, and cited the very
stability of castle life as proof of its viability. Xanten had
inclined first one way, then the other, emotionally involved
with neither cause. If anything, the fact of 0. Z. Garr's
traditionalism had nudged him toward Claghorn's views.
Now it seemed as if events had vindicated Claghom.
Change had come, with an impact of the maximum harshness
and violence.
There were still questions to be answered, of course. Why
had the Meks chosen this particular time to revolt? Conditions
had not altered appreciably for five hundred years, and the
Meks had never previously hinted dissatisfaction. In fact, they
had revealed nothing of their feelingsthough no one had
ever troubled to ask themsave Claghorn.
The Birds were veering east to avoid the Ballarat Moun-
tains, to the west of which were the ruins of a great city,
never satisfactorily identified. Below lay the Lucerne Valley,
at one time a fertile farm land. If one looked with great
concentration the outline of the various holdings could some-
times be distinguished. Ahead, the spaceship hangars were
visible,  where  Mek technicians  maintained  four spaceships
that were jointly the property of Hagedorn, Janeil, Tuang,
Mominglight and Maraval, though, for a variety of reasons,
the ships were never used.
The sun was setting. Orange light twinkled and flickered on
the metal walls. Xanten called instructions up to the Birds:
"Circle down; alight behind that line of trees, but fly low so
that none will see."
Down on stiff wings curved the Birds, six ungainly necks
stretched toward the ground. Xanten was ready for the
impact. The Birds never seemed able to alight easily when
they carried a gentleman. When the cargo was something in
which they felt a personal concern, dandelion fluff would
never have been disturbed by the jar.
Xanten expertly kept his balance, instead of tumbling and
rolling in the manner preferred by the Birds. "You all have
syrup," he told them. "Rest: make no noise; do not quarrel.
By tomorrow's sunset, if I am not here, return to Castle
Hagedorn and say that Xanten was killed."
"Never fear!" cried the Birds. "We will wait forever!" "At
any rate till tomorrow's sunset!" "If danger threatens, if you
are presseda ros ros ros! Call for the Birds!" "A ros! We
are ferocious when aroused!"
"I wish it were true," said Xanten. "The Birds are arrant
cowards, this is well known. Still I value the sentiment.
Remember my instructions, and be quiet above all! I do not
wish to be set upon and stabbed because of your clamor."
The Birds made indignant sounds. "Injustice, injustice! We
are quiet as the dew!"
"Good." Xanten hurriedly moved away lest they shouli
bellow new advice or reassurances after him.

IV
Passing through the forest, he came to an open meadow at the
far edge of which, perhaps a hundred yards distant, was the
rear of the first hangar. He stopped to consider.
Several factors were involved. First, the maintenance Meks,
with the metal structure shielding them from radio contact,
might still be unaware of the revolt. Hardly likely, he decided,
in view of the otherwise careful planning. Second, the Meks,
in continuous communication with their fellows, acted as a
collective organism. The aggregate functioned more complete-
ly than its parts, and the individual was not prone to initiative.
Hence, vigilance was not likely to be extreme. Third, if they
expected anyone to attempt a discreet approach, they would
necessarily scrutinize most closely the route which he pro-
posed to take.
Xanten decided to wait in the shadows another ten minutes,
until the setting sun shining over his shoulder should most
effectively blind any who might watch.
Ten minutes passed. The hangars, burnished by the dying
sunlight, bulked long, tall, completely quiet. In the intervening
meadow long golden grass waved and rippled in a cool breeze.
Xanten took a deep breath, hefted his pouch, arranged his
weapons, strode forth. It did not occur to him to crawl
through the grass.
He reached the back of the nearest hangar without chal-
lenge. Pressing his ear to the metal he heard nothing. He
walked to the corner, looked down the side: no sign of life.
Xanten shrugged. Very well then; to the door.
He walked beside the hangar, the setting sun casting a long
black shadow ahead of him. He came to a door opening into
the hangar administrative office. Since there was nothing to be
gained by trepidation, Xanten thrust the door aside and
entered.
The offices were empty. The desks, where centuries before
underlings had sat, calculating invoices and bills of lading,
were bare, polished, free of dust. The computers and informa-
tion banks, black enamel,  glass, white and red switches,
looked as if they had been installed only the day before.
Xanten crossed to the glass pane overlooking the hangar
floor, shadowed under the bulk of the ship.  
He saw no Meks. But on the floor of the hangar, arranged
in neat rows and heaps, were elements and assemblies of the
ship's control mechanism. Service panels gaped wide into the
hull to show where the devices had been detached.
Xanten stepped from the office out into the hangar. The
spaceship had been disabled, put out of commission. Xanten
looked along the neat rows of parts. Certain savants of
various castles were expert  in  the  theory of space-time
transfer; S. X. Rosenhox of Maraval had even derived a set of
equations which, if translated into machinery, eliminated the
troublesome Hamus Effect. But not one gentleman, even were
he so oblivious to personal honor as to touch a hand to a tool,
would know how to replace, connect and tune the mecha-
nisms heaped upon the hangar floor.
When had the malicious work been done? Impossible to
say.
Xanten returned to the office, stepped back out into the
twilight, walked to the next hangar. Again no Meks; again the
spaceship had been gutted of its control mechanisms. Xanten
proceeded to the third hangar, where conditions were the
same.
At the fourth hangar he discerned the faint sounds of
activity. Stepping into the office, looking through the glass
wall into the hangar, he found Meks working with their usual
economy of motion, in a near silence which was uncanny.
Xanten,  already  uncomfortable  because  of  skulking
through the forest, became enraged by the cool destruction of
his property. He strode forth into the hangar. Slapping his
thigh to attract attendon he called in a harsh voice, "Return
the components to place! How dare you vermin act in such a
manner?"
The Meks turned about their blank countenances, studied
him through black beaded lensclusters at each side of their
' heads.
"What?" Xanten bellowed. "You hesitate?" He brought
forth his steel whip, usually more of a symbolic adjunct than
a punitive instrument, and slashed it against the ground.
"Obey! This ridiculous revolt is at its end!"
The Meks still hesitated, and events wavered in the balance.
None made a sound, though messages were passing among
them, appraising the circumstances, establishing a consensus.
Xanten could allow them no such leisure. He marched for-
ward, wielding the whip, striking at the only area where the
Meks felt pain: the ropy face. "To your duties," he roared. "A
fine maintenance crew are you! A destruction crew is more
like it!" .
The Meks made their soft blowing sound which might
mean anything. They fell back, and now Xanten noted one
standing at the head of the companionway leading into the
ship: a Mek larger than any he had seen before and one in
some fashion different. This Mek was aiming a pellet gun at
his head. With an unhurried flourish Xanten whipped away a
Mek who had leapt forward with a knife, and without deigning
to aim fired at and destroyed the Mek who stood on the
companionway, even as the slug sang past his head.
The other Meks were nevertheless committed to an attack.
All surged forward. Lounging disdainfully against the hull,
Xanten shot them as they came, moving his head once to
avoid a chunk of metal, again reaching to catch a throw-knife
and hurl it into the face of him who had thrown it.
The Meks drew back, and Xanten guessed that they had
agreed on a new tactic: either to withdraw for weapons or
perhaps to confine him within the hangar. In any event no
more could be accomplished here. He made play with the
whip and cleared an avenue to the office. With tools, metal
bars and forgings striking the glass behind him, he sauntered
through the office and out into the night. He did not look
behind.
The full moon was rising, a great yellow globe casting a
smoky saffron glow, like an antique lamp. Mek eyes were not
well adapted for night seeing, and Xanten waited by the door.
Presently Meks began to pour forth, and Xanten hacked at
their necks as they came.
The Meks drew back inside the hangar. Wiping his blade
Xanten strode off the way he had come, looking neither right
nor left. He stopped short. The night was young. Something
tickled his mind: the recollection of the Mek who had fired
the pellet gun. He had been larger, possibly a darker bronze,
but, more significantly, he had displayed an indefinable poise,
almost authoritythough such a word, when used in connec-
tion with the Meks, was anomalous. On the other hand,
someone must have planned the revolt, or at least originated
the concept of a revolt in the first place.
It  might  be  worthwhile  to  extend  the  reconnaissance,
though his primary information had been secured.
Xanten turned back and crossed the landing area to the
barracks and garages. Once more, frowning in discomfort, he
felt the need for discretion. What times these were when a
gentleman must skulk to avoid such as the Meks! He stole up
behind the garages, where a half-dozen power-wagons* lay
dozing.
Xanten looked them over. All were of the same sort, a
metal frame with four wheels and an earth-moving blade at
the front. Nearby must be the syrup stock.
Xanten presently found a bin containing a number of
containers. He loaded a dozen on a nearby wagon and slashed
the rest with his knife, so that the syrup gushed across the
ground. The Meks used a somewhat different formulation;
their syrup would be stocked at a different locale, presumably
inside the barracks.
Xanten mounted a power-wagon, twisted the 'awake' key,
tapped the 'Go' button, pulled a lever which set the wheels
into reverse motion. The power-wagon lurched back. Xanten
halted it and turned it so that it faced the barracks. He did
likewise with three others, then set them all in motion, one
after the other.
They trundled forward. The blades cut open the metal wall
of the barracks, the roof sagged. The power-wagons con-
tinued, pushing the length of the interior, crushing all in their
way.
Xanten nodded in profound satisfaction, returned to the
power-wagon he had reserved for his own use. Mounting to
the seat, he waited. No Meks issued from the barracks.
Apparently they were deserted, with the entire crew busy at
the hangars. Still, hopefully, the syrup stocks had been de-
stroyed. Many might perish by starvation.
From the direction of the hangars came a single Mek,
evidently attracted by the sounds of destruction. Xanten
*Power-wagons, like the Meks, were originally swamp-creatures from
Etamin 9. They were great rectangular slabs of muscle, slung into a
rectangular frame and protected from sunlight, insects and rodents by a
synthetic  pelt.  Syrup  sacs communicated  with  their digestive apparatus,
wires led  to motor nodes in the rudimentary brain. The muscles were
clamped to rocker arms which actuated rotors and drive-wheels. The
power-wagons were economical, long-lived and docile, and so they were
principally used for heavy cartage, earth-moving, heavy-tillage, and other
arduous jobs.
crouched on the seat and as it passed, coiled his whip around
the stocky neck. He heaved; the Mek spun to the ground,
Xanten leapt down, seized its pellet-gun. Here was another
of the larger Meks, and now Xanten saw it to be without a
syrup sac, a Mek in the original state. Astounding! How did
the creature survive? Suddenly there were many new ques-
tions to be asked; hopefully a few to be answered. Standing
on the creature's head, Xanten hacked away the long antenna
quills which protruded from the back of the Mek's scalp. It
was now insulated, alone, on its own resources; a situation
certain to reduce the most stalwart Mek to apathy.
"Up!" ordered Xanten. "Into the back of the wagon!" He
cracked the whip for emphasis.
The Mek at first seemed disposed to defy him, but after a
blow or two obeyed. Xanten climbed into the seat, started the
power-wagon, directed it to the north. The Birds would be
unable to carry both himself and the Mekor in any event
they would cry and complain so raucously that they might as
well be believed at first. They might or might not wait until
the specified hour of tomorrow's sunset. As likely as not they
would sleep the night in a tree, awake in a surly mood and
return at once to Castle Hagedorn.
All through the night the power-wagon trundled, with
Xanten on the seat and his captive huddled in the rear.

v
The gentlefolk of the castles, for all their assurance, dis-
liked to wander the countryside by night, by reason of what
some derided as superstitious fear. Others cited travelers
benighted beside mouldering ruins and their subsequent vi-
sions: the eldritch music they had heard, or the whimper of
moon-mirkins, or the far horns of spectral huntsmen. Others
had seen pale lavender and green lights, and wraiths which
ran with long strides through the forest; and Hode Abbey,
now a dank tumble, was notorious for the White Hag and the
alarming toll she exacted.
A hundred such cases were known. While the hard-headed
scoffed, none needlessly traveled the countryside by night.
Indeed, if truly ghosts haunt the scenes of tragedy and
heartbreak, then the landscape of Old Earth must be home to
ghosts and specters beyond all numbering; especially that
region across which Xanten rolled to the power-wagon, where
every rock, every meadow, eyery vale and swale was crusted
thick with human experience.
The moon rose high. The wagon trundled north along an
ancient road, the cracked concrete slabs shining pale in the
moonlight. Twice Xanten saw flickering orange lights off to
the side, and once, standing in the shade of a cypress tree, he
thought to see a tall quiet shape, silently watching him pass.
The captive Mek sat plotting mischief, Xanten well knew.
Without its quills it must feel depersonified, bewildered, but
Xanten told himself that it would not do to doze.
The road led through a town, certain structures of which
yet stood. Not even the Nomads took refuge in these old
towns, fearing either miasma or perhaps the redolence of
grief.
The moon reached the zenith. The landscape spread away
in a hundred tones of silver, black and gray. Looking about,
Xanten thought that for all the notable pleasures of civilized
life, there was yet something to be said for the spaciousness
and simplicity of Nomadland. . . The Mek made a stealthy
movement. Xanten did not so much as turn his head. He
cracked his whip in the air. The Mek became quiet.
All through the night the power-wagon rolled along the old
road, with the moon sinking into the west. The eastern
horizon glowed green and lemon-yellow, and presently, as the
pallid moon disappeared over the distant line of the moun-
tains the sun came up.
At this moment, Xanten spied a drift of smoke off to the
right.
He halted the wagon. Standing up on the seat he craned his
neck to spy a Nomad encampment about a quarter-mile
distant. He could distinguish three or four dozen tents of
various sizes, a dozen dilapidated power-wagons. On the
hetman's tall tent he thought to see a black ideogram which
 he thought he recognized. If so, this would be the tribe which
not long before had trespassed on the Hagedorn domain, and
which 0. Z. Garr had repulsed.
Xanten settled himself upon the seat, composed his gar-
ments, set the power-wagon in motion and guided it toward
the camp
A hundred black-cloaked men, tall and lean as ferrets,
watched his approach. A dozen sprang forward and whipping
arrows to bows aimed them at his heart. .Xanten tarned them
a glance of supercilious inquiry, drove the wagon up to the
hetman's tent, halted. He rose to his feet. "Hetman," he called.
"Are you awake?"
The hetman parted the canvas which closed off his tent,
peered out and after a moment came forth. Like the others
he wore a garment of limp black cloth, swathing head and
body alike. His face thrust through a square opening: narrow
blue eyes, a grotesquely long nose, a chin long, skewed and
sharp.
Xanten gave him a curt nod. "Observe this." He jerked his
thumb toward the Mek in the back of the wagon. The hetman
flicked aside his eyes, studied the Mek a tenth-second, re-
turned to a scrutiny of Xanten. "His kind have revolted
against the gentlemen," said Xanten. "In fact they massacre
all the men of Earth. Hence we of Castle Hagedom make this
offer to the Nomads. Come to Castle Hagedom! We will feed,
clothe and arm you. We will train you to discipline and the
arts of formal warfare.  We will  provide the most expert
leadership within our power. We will then annihilate the
Meks, expunge them from Earth. After the campaign, we will
train you to technical skills, and you may pursue profitable
and interesting careers in the service of the castles."
The hetman made no reply for a moment. Then his
weathered face split into a ferocious grin and he spoke in a
voice which Xanten found surprisingly well-modulated. "So
your beasts have finally risen up to rend you! A pity they
forebore so long! Well, it is all one to us. You are both alien
folk and sooner or later your bones must bleach together."
Xanten pretended incomprehension. "If I understand you
aright, you assert that in the face of alien assault, all men
must fight a common battle; and then, after the victory,
cooperate still to their mutual advantage; am I correct?"
The hetman's grin never wavered. "You are not men. Only
we of Earth soil and Earth water are men. You and your
weird slaves are strangers together. We wish you success in
your mutual slaughter."
"Well then," declared Xanten, "I heard you aright after all.
Appeals to your loyalty are ineffectual, so much is clear.
What of self-interest then? The Meks, failing to expunge the
gentlefolk of the castles, will turn upon the Nomads and kill
them as if they were so many ants."
"If they attack us, we will war on them," said the hetaian.
"Otherwise let them do as they will."
Xanten glanced thoughtfully at the sky. "We might be
willing even now, to accept a contingent of Nomads into the
service of Castle Hagedorn, this to form a cadre from which a
larger and more versatile group may be formed."
From the side another Nomad called in an offensively
jeering voice: "You will sew a sac on our backs where you
can pour your syrup, hey?"
Xanten replied in an even voice, "The syrup is highly
nutritious and supplies all bodily needs."
"Why then do you not consume it yourself?"
Xanten disdained reply.
The hetman spoke. "If you wish to supply us weapons, we
will take them, and use them against whomever threatens us.
But do not expect us to defend you. If you fear for your lives,
desert your castles and become Nomads."
"Pear for our lives?" exclaimed Xanten. "What nonsense!
Never! Castle Hagedorn is impregnable, as is Janeil, and most
of the other castles as well."
The hetman shook his head. "Any time we choose we could
take Hagedorn, and kill all you popinjays in your sleep."
"What?" cried Xanten in outrage. "Are you serious?"
"Certainly. On a black night we would send a man aloft on
a great kite and drop him down on the parapets. He would
lower a line, haul up ladders and in fifteen minutes the castle
is taken."
Xanten pulled at his chin. "Ingenious, but impractical. The
Birds would detect such a kite. Or the wind would fail at a
critical moment . . . All this is beside the point. The Meks fly
no kites. They plan to make a display against Janeil and
Hagedorn and then, in their frustration, they will go forth and
hunt Nomads."
The hetman moved back a step. "What then? We have
survived similar attempts by the men of Hagedorn. Cowards
 )lll! Hand to hand, with equal weapons, we would make you
eat the dirt like the contemptible dogs you are."
Xanten raised his eyebrows in elegant disdain. "I fear that
you forget yourself. You address a clan chief of Castle
Hagedorn. Only fatigue and boredom restrain me from pun-
ishing you with this whip."
"Bah," said the hetman. He crooked a finger to one of his
archers. "Spit this insolent lordling."
The archer discharged his arrow, but Xanten had been
expecting some such act. He fired his energy gun, destroying
arrow, bow, and the archer's hands. He said, "I see I must
teach you common respect for your betters; so it means the
whip after all." Seizing the hetman by the scalp, he coiled the
whip smartly once, twice, thrice around the narrow shoulders.
"Let this suffice. I cannot compel you to fight, but a't least I
can demand decent respect from scuttling dung beetles." He
leapt to the ground and, seizing the hetman, pitched him into
the back of the wagon alongside the Mek. Then, backing the
power-wagon around, he departed the camp without so much
as a glance over his shoulder, the thwart of the seat protecting
his back from the arrows of the hetman's stunned subjects.
The hetman scrambled erect, drew his dagger. Xanten
turned his head slightly. "Take care! Or I will tie you to the
wagon, and you shall run behind in the dust."
The hetman hesitated, made a spitting sound between his
teeth, drew back. He looked down at his blade, turned it over,
sheathed it with a grunt. "Where do you take me?"
Xanten halted the wagon. "No farther. I merely wished to
leave your camp with dignity, without dodging and ducking a
hail of arrows. You may alight. I take it you still refuse to
bring your men into the service of Castle Hagedorn?"
The hetman once more made the spitting sound between
his teeth. "When the Meks have destroyed the castles, we
shall destroy the Meks. Then Earth will be cleared of star-
things for all time!"
"You are a gang of intractable savages. Very well, alight,
return to your encampment. Reflect well before you again
show disrespect to a Castle Hagedorn clan chief."
"Bah," muttered the hetman. Leaping down from the
wagon, he stalked back down the track toward his camp. He
did not look back.

VI
About noon Xanten came to Far Valley, at the edge of the
Hagedom lands.
Nearby was a village of Expiationists: malcontents and
neurasthenics in the opinion of castle gentlefolk, and a
curious group by any standards. A few had held enviable
rank; certain others were savants of recognized erudition; but
others yet were persons of neither dignity nor reputation,
subscribing to the most bizarre and extreme of philosophies.
All now performed toil, no different from that relegated to the
Peasants, and all seemed to take a perverse satisfaction in
what by castle standards was filth, poverty and degradation.
As might be expected, their creed was by no means
homogenous. Some might better have been described as
'nonconformists', and others still, a minority, argued for a
dynamic program.
Between castle and village was little intercourse. Occasion-
ally the Expiationists  bartered fruit or polished wood for
tools, nails, medicaments; or the gentlefolk might make up a
party to watch the Expiationists at their dancing and singing.
Xanten had visited the village on many such occasions and
had been attracted by the artless charm and informality of the
folk at their play. Now, passing near the village, Xanten
turned aside and followed a lane which wound between tall
blackberry hedges and out upon a little common, where goats
and cattle grazed. Xanten halted the wagon in the shade, saw
that the syrup sac was full. He looked back at his captive.
"What of you? If you need syrup, pour yourself full. But no,
you have no sac. What then do you feed upon? Mud?
Unsavory fare. I fear none here is rank enough for your taste.
Ingest syrup or munch grass, as you will; only do not stray
overfar from the wagon, for I watch with an intent eye."
The Mek, sitting hunched in a corner, gave no signal that it
comprehended. Nor did it move to take advantage of Xan-
ten's offer.
Xanten went to a watering trough. Holding his hands under
the trickle which issued from a lead pipe, he rinsed his face,
then drank a swallow or two from his cupped hand.
Turning, he found that a dozen folk of the village had
approached. One he knew well, a man who might have
become Godalming, or even Aure, had he not become in-
. -fected with expiationism.
Xanten performed a polite salute. "A. G. Philidor. It is I,
Xanten."
"Xanten, of course. But here I am A. G. Philidor no
longer; merely Philidor."
Xanten bowed, "My apologies. I have neglected the full
rigor of your informality."
"Spare me your wit," said Philidor. "Why do you bring us a
shorn Mek? For adoption, perhaps?" This last alluded to the
gentlefolk practice of bringing over-tally babies to the village.
"Now who flaunts his wit? But you have not heard the
news?"
"News arrives here last of all. The Nomads are better
informed."
"Prepare yourself for surprise. The Meks have revolted
against the castles. Halcyon and Delora are demolished, and
all killed; perhaps others by this time."
Philidor shook his head. "I am not surprised."
"Well, then, are you not concerned?"
Philidor considered. "To this extent. Our own plans, never
very feasible, become more far-fetched than ever."
"It appears to me," said Xanten, "that you face grave and
immediate danger. The Meks surely intend to wipe. out every
vestige of humanity. You will not escape."
Philidor shrugged. "Conceivably the danger exists . . . We
will take counsel and decide what to do."
"I can put forward a proposal which you may find attrac-
tive," said Xanten. "Our first concern, of course, is to sup-
press the revolt. There are at least a dozen Expiationist
communities, with an aggregate population of two or three
thousandperhaps more. I propose that we recruit and train
a corps of highly disciplined troops, supplied from the Castle
Hagedorn armory, led by Hagedorn's most expert military
theoreticians."
Philidor stared at him incredulously. "You expect us, the
Expiationists, to become your soldiers?"
"Why not?" asked Xanten ingenuously. "Your life is at
stake no less than ours."
"No one dies more than once."
Xanten in his turn evinced shock. "What? Can this be a
former gentleman of Hagedorn speaking? Is this the face a
man of pride and courage turns to danger? Is this the lesson
of history? Of course not! I need not instruct you in this; you
are as knowledgeable as 1."
Philidor nodded. "I know that the history of man is not his
technical triumphs, his kills, his victories. It is a composite: a
mosaic of a trillion pieces, the account of each man's accom-
modation with his conscience. This is the true history of the
race."
Xanten made an airy gesture. "A. G. Philidor, you over-
simplify grievously. Do you consider me obtuse? There are
many kmds of history. They interact. You emphasize moral-
ity.  But  the  ultimate  basis  of  morality  is  survival.  What
promotes survival is good, what induces mortefaction is bad."
"Well spoken!" declared Philidor. "But let me propound a
parable. May a nation of a million beings destroy a creature
who otherwise will infect all with a fatal disease? Yes, you
will say. Once more. Ten starving beasts hunt you, that they
may eat. Will you kill them to save your life? Yes, you will
say again, though here you destroy more than you save. Once
more: a man inhabits a hut in a lonely valley. A hundred
spaceships descend from the sky, and attempt to destroy him.
May he destroy these ships in self-defense, even though he is
one and they are a hundred thousand? Perhaps you say yes.
What then if a whole world, a whole race of beings, pits itself
against this single man? May he kill all? What if the attackers
are as human as himself? What if he were the creature of the
first instance, who otherwise will infect a world with disease?
You see, there is no area where a simple touchstone avails.
We have searched and found none. Hence, at the risk of
sinning against Survival, we1, at least; I can only speak for
myselfhave chosen a morality that at least allows me calm.
I killnothing. I destroy nothing."
"Bah," said Xanten contemptuously. "If a Mek platoon
entered this valley and began to kill your children, you would
not defend them?"
Philidor compressed his lips, turned away. Another man
spoke. "Philidor has defined morality. But who is absolutely
moral? Philidoror I, or youmight in such a case desert
his morality."
Philidor said, "Look about you. Is anyone here you recog-
nize?"
Xanten scanned the group. Nearby stood a girl of extraor-
dinary beauty. She wore a white smock and in the dark hair
curling to her shoulders she wore a red flower. Xanten
nodded. "I see the maiden 0. Z. Garr wished to introduce
hMo his menage at the castle."
"Exactly,"  said  Philidor.  "Do  you recall the  circum-
stances?"
"Very well indeed," said Xanten. "There was vigorous
objection from the Council of Notablesif. for no other
reason than the threat to our laws of population control. 0. Z.
Garr attempted to sidestep the law in this fashion. 1 keep
Phanes,' he said. 'At times I maintain as many as six, or even
eight, and no one utters a word of protest. I will call this girl
a Phane and keep her among the rest.' I and others pro-
tested. There was almost a duel on this matter. 0. Z. Garr
was forced to relinquish the girl. She was given into my
custody and I conveyed her to Far Valley."
Philidor nodded. "All this is correct. Wellwe attempted
to dissuade Garr. He refused to be dissuaded, and threatened
us with his hunting force of perhaps thirty Meks. We stood
aside. Are we moral? Are we strong or weak?"
"Sometimes it is better," said Xanten, "to ignore morality.
Even though 0. Z. Garr is a gentleman and you are but
Expiationists .. . Likewise in the case of the Meks. They are
destroying the castles, and all the men of earth. If morality
means supine acceptance, then morality must be abandoned!"
Philidor gave a sour chuckle. "What a remarkable situa-
tion! The Meks are here, likewise Peasants and Birds and
Phanes, all altered, transported and enslaved for human
pleasure. Indeed, it is this fact that occasions our guilt, for
which we must expiate. And now you want us to compound
this guilt!"
"It is a mistake to brood overmuch about the past," said
Xanten. "Still, if you wish to preserve your option to brood, I
suggest that you fight Meks now, or at the very least take
refuge in the castle."
"Not I," said Philidor. "Perhaps others may choose to do
so."
"You will wait to be killed?"
"No. I and no doubt others will take refuge in the remote
mountains."
Xanten clambered back aboard the power-wagon. "If you
change your mind, come to Castle Hagedorn."
He departed.
The road continued along the valley, wound'up ahillside,
crossed a ridge. Far ahead, silhouetted against the sky, stood
Castle Hagedorn.

vn
Xanten reported to the council.
"The spaceships cannot be used. The Meks have rendered
them inoperative. Any plan to solicit assistance from the
Home Worlds is pointless."
"This is sorry news," said Hagedorn with a grimace. "Well
thenso much for that."
Xanten continued. "Returning by power-wagon I encoun-
tered a tribe of Nomads. I summoned the hetman and
explained to him the advantages of serving Castle Hagedorn.
The Nomads, I fear, lack both grace and docility. The hetman
gave so surly a response that I departed in disgust.
"At Far Valley I visited the Expiationist village, and made
a similar proposal, but with no great success. They .are as
idealistic as the Nomads are churlish. Both are of a fugitive
tendency. The Expiationists spoke of taking refuge in the
mountains. The Nomads presumably will retreat into the
steppes."
Beaudry snorted. "How will flight help them? Perhaps they
gain a few yearsbut eventually the Meks will find every last
one of them; such is their methodicity."
"In the meantime," 0. Z. Garr declared peevishly, "we
might have organized them into an efficient combat corps, to
the benefit of all. Well, then, let them perish! We are secure."
"Secure yes," said Hagedorn gloomily. "But what when the
power fails? When the lifts break down? When air circulation
cuts off so that we either stifle or freeze? What then?"
0. Z. Garr gave his head a grim shake. "We must steel
ourselves to undignified expedients, with as good a grace as
possible. But the machinery of the castle is sound, and I
expect small deterioration or failure for conceivably five or
ten years. By that time anything may occur."
Claghorn, who had been leaning indolently back in his seat,
spoke at last: "Essentially this is a passive program. Like the
defection of the Nomads and Expiationists, it looks very little
beyond the immediate moment."
0. Z. Garr spoke in a voice carefully polite. "Claghorn is
well aware that I yield to none in courteous candor, as well as
optimism and directness: in short, the reverse of passivity. But
,1 refuse to dignify a stupid little inconvenience by extending it
serious attention. How can he label this procedure 'passivity'?
Does the worthy and honorable head of the Claghorns have a
proposal which more effectively maintains our status, our
standards, our self-respect?"
Claghorn nodded slowly, with a faint half-smile which 0.
Z. Garr found odiously complacent. "There is a simple and
effective method by which the Meks might be defeated."
"Wen then!" cried Hagedom. "Why hesitate? Let us hear
it!"
Claghorn looked around the red velvet-covered table, con-
sidered the faces of all: the dispassionate Xanten; Beaudry,
with his burly, rigid, face muscles clenched in an habitual
expression unpleasantly like a sneer; old Isseth, handsome,
erect and vital as the most dashing cadet; Hagedorn, troubled,
glum, his inward perplexity all too evident; the elegant Garr;
Overwhele, thinking savagely of the inconveniences of the
future; Aure, toying with his ivory tablet, either bored, morose
or defeated; the others displaying various aspects of doubt,
foreboding, hauteur, dark resentment, impatience; and in the
case of Floy, a quiet smileor as Isseth later characterized it,
an imbecilic smirkintended to convey his total disassocia-
tion from the entire irksome matter.
Claghorn took stock of the faces, and shook his head. "I
will not at the moment broach this plan, as I fear it is
unworkable. But I must point out that under no circumstances
can Castle Hagedorn be as before, even should we survive the
Mek attack."
"Bah!" exclaimed Beaudry. "We lose dignity, we become
ridiculous, by even so much as discussing the beasts."
Xanten stirred himself. "A distasteful subject, but re-
member! Halcyon is destroyed, and Delora and who knows
what others? Let us not thrust our heads in the sand! The
Meks will not waft away merely because we ignore them."
"In any event," said 0. Z. Garr, "Janeil is secure and we
are secure. The other folk, unless they are already slaught-
ered, might do well to visit us during the inconvenience, if
they can justify the humiliation of flight to themselves. I
myself believe that the Meks will soon come to heel, anxious
to return to their posts."
Hagedorn shook his head gloomily. "I find this hard to
believe. Very well then, we shall adjourn."
The radio communications system was the first of the
castle's vast array of electrical and mechanical devices to
break down.
The failure occurred so soon and so decisively that certain
of the theoreticians, notably 1. K. Harde and Uegus, postu-
lated sabotage by the departing Meks. Others remarked that
the system had never been absolutely dependable, that the
Meks themselves had been forced to tinker continuously with
the circuits, that the failure was simply a result of bad
engineering. Harde and Uegus inspected the unwieldy appara-
tus,  but  the  cause  of  failure  was  not  obvious.  After  a
half-hour of consultation they agreed that any attempt to
restore the system would necessitate complete re-design and
re-engineering, with consequent construction of testing and
calibration devices, and the fabrication of a complete new
family of components. "This is manifestly impossible," stated
Uegus in his report to the council. "Even the simplest useful
system would require several technician-years. There is not
even one single technician to hand. We must therefore await
the availability of trained and willing labor."
"In retrospect," stated Isseth, the oldest of the clan chiefs,
"it  is  clear  that  in  many  ways  we  have  been  less  than
provident. No matter that the men of the Home Worlds are
vulgarians! Men of shrewder calculation than our own would
have maintained interworld connection."
"Lack of 'shrewdness' and 'providence' were not the deter-
ring factors," stated Claghorn. "Communication was discour-
aged simply because the early lords were unwilling that Earth
should be overrun with Home-World parvenus. It is as simple
as that."
Isseth grunted, and started to make a rejoinder, but Hage-
dorn said hastily, "Unluckily, as Xanten tells us, the space-
ships  have  been  rendered  useless.  While  certain  of  our
number have a profound knowledge of the theoretical consid-
erations, again who is there to perform the toil? Even were
the hangars and spaceships themselves under our control."
0. Z. Garr declared, "Give me six platoons of Peasants and
six power-wagons equipped with high-energy cannon, and I'll
regain the hangars. No difficulties there!"
Beaudry said, "Well, here's a start, at least. I'll assist in the
training of the Peasants,  and though I know' nothing of
cannon operation, rely on me for any advice I can give."
Hagedorn looked around the group, frowned, pulled at his
' chin. "There are difficulties to this program. First, we have at
hand only the single power-wagon in which Xanten returned
from his reconnaissance. Then what of our energy cannons?
Has anyone inspected them? The Meks were entrusted with
maintenance, but it is possible, even likely, that they wrought
mischief here as well. 0. Z. Garr, you are reckoned an expert
military theoretician. What can you teU us in this regard?"
"I have made no inspection to date," stated 0. Z. Garr.
"Today the 'Display of Antique Tabards' will occupy us all
until the 'Hour of Sundown Appraisal'."* He looked at his
watch. "Perhaps now is as good a time as any to adjourn, until
I am able to provide detailed information in regard to the
cannons."
Hagedom nodded his heavy head. "The time indeed grows
late. Your Phanes appear today?"
"Only two," replied 0. Z. Garr. "The Lazule and the
Eleventh Mystery. I can find nothing suitable for the Gos-
samer Delights nor my little Blue Fay, and the Gloriana still
requires tutelage. Today B. Z. Maxelwane's Variflors should
repay the most attention."
"Yes," said Hagedom, "I have heard other remarks to this
effect. Very well then, until tommorow. Eh, Claghorn, you
have something to say?"
"Yes, indeed," said Claghorn mildly. "We have all too little
time at our disposal. Best that we make the most of it. I
seriously doubt the efficacy of Peasant troops; they are like
rabbits against wolves. What we need, rather than rabbits, are
panthers."
"Ah, yes," said Hagedom vaguely. "Yes indeed."
"Where, then, are panthers to be found?" Claghorn looked
inquiringly around the table. "Can no one suggest a source? A
pity. Well then, if panthers fail to appear, I suppose rabbits
must do. Let us go about the business of converting rabbits
into panthers, and instantly. I suggest that we postpone all
fetes and spectacles until the shape of our future is more
certain."
Hagedom raised his eyebrows, opened his mouth to speak,
closed it again. He looked intently at Claghorn to ascertain
whether or not he joked. Then he looked dubiously around
the table.
Beaudry gave a rather brassy laugh. "It seems that erudite
Claghorn cries panic."
0. Z. Garr stated: "Surely, in all dignity, we cannot allow
the impertinence of our servants to cause us such eye-rolling
alarm. I am embarrassed even to bring the matter forward."
"I am not embarrassed," said Claghorn, with the full-faced

*'Display  of  Antique  Tabards';  'Hour  of  Sundown  Appraisal':  the
literal  sense  of  the  first  term  was  yet  relevant;  that of  the  second  had
become lost and the phrase was a mere formalism, connoting that hour
of late afternoon when visits were exchanged, wines, liqueurs and essences
tasted:  in short, a time  of  relaxation and small  talk before the more
formal convivialities of dining,
complaeence which so exasperated 0. Z. Garr. "I see no
reason why you should be. Our lives are threatened, in which
case a trifle of embarrassment, or anything else, becomes of
secondary importance."
0, Z. Oarr rose to his feet, performed a brusque salute in
Claghom's direction, of such a nature as to constitute a
calculated affront. Claghorn, rising, performed a similar sa-
lute, this so grave and overly complicated as to invest Garr's
insult with burlesque overtones. Xanten, who detested 0. 2.
Garr, laughed aloud.
0. Z. Garr hesitated, then, sensing that under the circum-
stances taking the matter further would be regarded as poor
form, strode from the chamber.
The Viewing of Antique Tabards, an annual pageant of
Phanes wearing sumptuous garments took place in the Great
Rotunda to the north of the central plaza.
Possibly half of the gentlemen, but less than a quarter of
the ladies, kept Phanes. These were creatures native to the
caverns of Albireo Seven's moon: a docile race, both playful
and affectionate, which after several thousand years of selec-
tive breeding had become sylphs of piquant beauty. Clad in a
delicate gauze which issued from pores behind their ears,
along their upper arms, down their backs, they were the most
inoffensive of creatures, anxious always to please, innocently
vain. Most gentlemen regarded them with affection, but ru-
mors sometimes told of ladies drenching an especially hated
Phane in tincture of ammonia, which matted her pelt and
destroyed her gauze forever.
A gentleman besotted by a Phane was considered a figure
of fun. The Phane, though so carefully bred as to seem a
delicate girl, if used sexually became crumpled and haggard,
with gauzes drooping and discolored, and eveiyone would
know that such and such a gentleman had misused his Phane.
In this regard, at least, the women of the castles might exert
. their superiority. They did so by conducting themselves with
such extravagant provocation that the Phanes in contrast
seemed the most ingenious and fragile of nature sprites. Their
life-span was perhaps thirty years, during the last ten of
which, after they had lost their beauty, they encased them-
selves in mantles of gray gauze and performed menial tasks in
boudoirs, kitchens, pantries, nurseries and dressing rooms.
The Viewing of Antique Tabards was an occasion more for
the viewing of Phanes than the tabards, though these, woven
of Phanegauze, were of intricate beauty in themselves.
The Phane owners sat in a lower, tier, tense with hope and
pride, exulting when one made an especially splendid display,
plunged. into black depths when the ritual postures were
performed with other than grace and elegance. During each
display highly formal music was plucked from a lute by a
gentleman from a clan different to that of the Phane owner.
The owner never played the lute to the performance of his
own Phane. The display was never overtly a competition and
no formal acclamation was allowed, but all watching made up
their minds as to which was the most entrancing and graceful
of the Phanes, and the repute of the owner was thereby
exalted.
The current Viewing was delayed almost half an hour by
reason of the defection of the Meks, and certain hasty
improvisations had been made necessary. But the gentlefolk
of Castle Hagedorn were in no mood to be critical and took
no heed of the occasional lapses as a dozen young Peasant
bucks struggled to perform unfamiliar tasks. The Phanes were
as entrancing as ever, bending, twisting, swaying to plangent
chords of the lute, fluttering their fingers as if feeling for
raindrops, crouching suddenly, gliding, then springing upright
straight as wands, finally bowing and skipping from the
platform.
Halfway through the program a Peasant sidled awkwardly
into the Rotunda, and mumbled in an urgent manner to the
cadet who came to inquire his business. The cadet at once 
made his way to Hagedorn's polished jet booth. Hagedorn
listened, nodded, spoke a few terse words and settled calmly
back in his seat as if the message had been of no consequence.
and the gentlefolk of the audience were reassured.
"The entertainment proceeded. 0. Z. Garr's delectable pair
made a fine show, but it was generally felt that Lirlin, a young
Phane belonging to Isseth Floy Gazuneth, for the first time at
a formal showing, made the most captivating display.
The Phanes appeared for a last time, moving all together
through a half-improvised minuet. Then they performed a
final half-gay, half-regretful salute and departed the rotunda.
For a few moments more the gentlemen and ladies would
remain in their booths, sipping essences, discussing the dis-
play, arranging affairs and assignations. Hagedorn sat frown-
ing, twisting his hands.
Suddenly he rose to his feet. The rotunda .instantly became
silent.
"I dislike intruding an unhappy note at so pleasant an
occasion," said Hagedorn. "But news has just been given to
me, and it is fitting that all should know. Janeil Castle is
under attack. The Meks are there in great force, with
hundreds of power-wagons. They have circled the castle with
a dike which prevents any effective use of the Janeil energy-
cannon.
"There is no immediate danger to Janeil, and it is difficult
to comprehend what the Meks hope to achieve, the Janeil
walls being all of two hundred feet high.
"The news nevertheless is somber, and it means that
eventually we must expect a similar investmentthough it is
even more difficult to comprehend how Meks could hope to
inconvenience us. Our water derives from four wells sunk
deep into the earth. We have great stocks of food. Our energy
is  derived  from  the  sun.  If  necessary,  we  could  condense
water and synthesize food from the airat least I have been
so assured by our great biochemical theoretician X. B. Ladis-
name. Stillthis is the news. Make of it what you will.
Tomorrow the Council of Notables will meet."

VIII
"Well, then," said Hagedorn to the council, "for once let us
dispense with formality. 0. Z. Garr: what of our cannon?"
0. Z. Garr, wearing the magnificent gray and green uni-
form of the Overwhele Dragoons, carefully placed his morion
on the table, so that the panache stood erect. "Of twelve
cannon, four appear to be functioning correctly. Four have
been sabotaged by excision of the power-leads. Four have
been sabotaged by some means undetectable to careful invest-
igation.  I have commandeered  a half-dozen  Peasants  who
 demonstrate a modicum of mechanical ability, and have
instructed them in  detail.  They  are currently  engaged in
splicing the leads. This is the extent of my current informa-
tion in regard to the cannon."
"Moderately good news," said Hagedorn. "What of the
proposed corps of armed Peasants?"
"The project is under way. A. F. Mull and 1. A. Berzelius
are now inspecting Peasants with a view to recruitment and
training. I can make no sanguine projection as to the military
effectiveness of such a corps, even if trained and led by such
as A. F. Mull, 1. A. Berzelius and myself. The Peasants are a
mild ineffectual race, admirably suited to the grubbing of
weeds, but with no stomach whatever for fighting."
Hagedom glanced around the council. "Are there any other
suggestions?"
Beaudry spoke in a harsh, angry voice, "Had the villains but
left us our power-wagons, we might have mounted the cannon
aboard! The Peasants are equal to this, at least. Then we
could roll to Janeil and blast the dogs from the rear."
"These Meks seem utter fiends!" declared Aure. "What
conceivably do they have in mind? Why, after these centuries,
must they suddenly go mad?"
"We all ask ourselves the same," said Hagedorn. "Xanten,
you returned from reconnaissance with a captive: have you
attempted to question him?"
"No," said Xanten. "Truth to tell, I haven't thought of him
since."
"Why not attempt to question him? Perhaps he can provide
a clue or two."
Xanten nodded assent. "I can try. Candidly I expect to
learn nothing."
"Claghorn, you are the Mek expert," said Beaudry. "Would
you have thought the creatures capable of so intricate a plot?
What do they hope to gain? Our castles?"
"They are certainly capable of precise and meticulous
planning," said Claghorn. "Their ruthlessness surprises me
more, possibly, than it should. I have never known them to
covet our material possessions, and they show no tendency
toward what we consider the concomitants of civilization: fine
discriminations of sensation and the like. I have often specu-
lated1 won't dignify the conceit with the status of a theory
that the structural logic of a brain is of rather more
consequence than we reckon with. Our own brains are remark-
able for their utter lack of rational structure. Considering the
haphazarded manner in which our thoughts are formed,
registered, indexed and recalled, any single rational act be-
comes a miracle. Perhaps we are incapable of rationality.
Perhaps all thought is a set of impulses generated by one
emotion, monitored by another, ratified by a third. In contrast
the Mek brain is a marvel of what seems careful engineering.
It is roughly cubical and consists of microscopic cells inter-
coimected by organic fibrils, each amonofilament molecule of
negligible electrical resistance. Within each cell is a 'film of
silica, a fluid of variable conductivity and dielectric proper-
ties, a cusp of a complex mixture of metallic oxides. The
brain is capable of storing great quantities of information in
an orderly pattern. No fact is lost, unless it is purposely
forgotten, a capacity which the Meks possess. The brain also
functions as a radio transceiver, possibly as a radar transmit-
ter and detector, though this again is speculation.
"Where the Mek brain falls short is in its lack of emotional
color. One Mek is precisely like another, without any per-
sonality differentiation perceptible to us. This, clearly, is a
function of their communicative system. It would be unthink-
able for a unique personality to develop under these condi-
tions. They served us efficiently andso we thoughtloyally,
because they felt nothing about their condition, neither pride
in achievement, nor resentment, nor shame. Nothing what-
ever. They neither loved us nor hated us. Nor do they now.
It is hard for us to conceive this emotional vacuum, when
each of us feels something about everything. We live in a
welter of emotions. They are as devoid of emotion as an
ice-cube. They were fed, housed, maintained in a manner they
found satisfactory. Why did they revolt? I have speculated at
length, but the single reason which I can formulate seems so
grotesque and unreasonable that I refuse to take it seriously.
If this after all is the correct explanation ..." His voice
drifted away.
"Well?" demanded 0. Z. Garr peremptorily. "What then?"
"Thenit is all the same. They are committed to the
destruction of the human race. My speculation alters noth-
ing."
Hagedom turned to Xanten. "All this should assist you in
your inquiries."
"I was about to suggest that Claghorn assist me, if he is so
inclined," said Xanten.
-   "As you like," said Claghorn, "though in my opinion the
information, no matter what, is irrelevant. Our single concern
should be a means to repel them and to save our lives."
"Andsave the force of 'panthers' you mentioned at our
previous sessionyou can conceive of no subtle weapon?"
asked Hagedom wistfully. "A device to set up electrical
resonances in their brains, or something similar?"
"Not feasible," said Claghorn. "Certain organs in the crea-
tures' brains function as overload switches. Though it is true
that during this time they might not be able to communicate."
After a moment's reflection he added thoughtfully: "Who
knows? A. G. Bernal and Uegus are theoreticians with a
profound knowledge of such projections. Perhaps they might
construct such a device, or several, against a possible need."
Hagedorn nodded dubiously, and looked toward Uegus. "Is
this possible?"
Uegus frowned. " 'Construct'? I can certainly design such
an instrument. But the componentswhere? Scattered through
the storerooms helter-skelter, some functioning, others not. To
achieve anything meaningful I must become no better than an
apprentice, a Mek." He became incensed, and his voice hard-
ened. "I find it hard to believe that I should be forced to point
out this fact! Do you hold me and my talents then of such
small worth?"
Hagedorn hastened to reassure him. "Of course not! I for
one would never think of impugning your dignity."
"Never!" agreed Claghorn. "Nevertheless, during this pres-
ent emergency, we will find indignities imposed upon us by
events, unless now we impose them upon ourselves."
"Very well," said Uegus, ahumoi'less smile trembling at his
lips. "You shall come with me to the storeroom. I will point
out the components to be brought forth and assembled, you
shall perform the toil. What do you say to that?"
"I say yes, gladly, if it will be of real utility. However, I can
hardly perform the labor for a dozen different theoreticians.
Will any others serve beside myself?"
No one responded. Silence was absolute, as if every gentle-
man present held his breath.
Hagedorn started to speak, but Claghorn interrupted. "Par-
don, Hagedorn, but here, finally, we are stuck upon a basic
principle, and it must be settled now."
Hagedorn looked desperately around the council. "Has
anyone relevant comment?"
"Claghorn must do as his innate nature compels," declared
0. Z. Garr in the silkiest of voices. "I cannot dictate to him.
As for myself, I can never demean my status as a gentleman
of Hagedorn. This creed is as natural to me as drawing
breath; if ever it is compromised I become a travesty of a
gentleman, a grotesque mask of myself. This is Castle Hage-
dorn, and we represent the culmination of human civilization.
Any compromise therefore becomes degradation; any expe-
dientdimilUition of our standards becomes dishonor. I have
heard the word 'emergency' used. What a deplorable senti-
ment! To dignify the rat-like snappings and gnashings of such
as the Meks with the word 'emergency' is to my mind
unworthy of a gentleman of Hagedorn!"
Amurmur of approval went around the council table.
Claghorn leaned far back in his seat, chin on his chest, as if
in relaxation. His clear blue eyes went from face to face, then
returned to 0. Z. Garr whom he studied with dispassionate
interest. "Obviously you direct your words to me," he said. "I
appreciate their malice. But this is a small matter." He looked
away from 0. Z. Garr, to stare up at the massive diamond
and emerald chandelier. "More important is the fact that the
council as a whole, in spite of my earnest persuasion, seems to
endorse your viewpoint. I can urge, expostulate, insinuate no
longer, and I will now leave Castle Hagedorn. I find the
atmosphere stifling. I trust that you survive the attack of the
Meks, though I doubt that you will. They are a clever
resourceful race, untroubled by qualms or preconceptions,
and we have long underestimated their quality."
Claghom rose from his seat, inserted the ivory tablet into
its socket "I bid you all farewell." Hagedorn hastily jumped
to his feet, held forth his arms imploringly. "Do not depart in
anger, Claghorn! Reconsider! We need your wisdom, your
expertise."
"Assuredly you do," said Claghorn. "But even more you
need to act upon the advice I have already extended. Until
then we have no common ground, and any further inter-
change is futile and tiresome." He made a brief all-inclusive
salute and departed the chamber.
Hagedorn slowly resumed his seat. The others made uneasy
motions, coughed, looked up at the chandelier, studied their
ivory tablets. 0. Z. Garr muttered something to B. F. Wyas
who sat beside him, who nodded solemnly. Hagedorn spoke in
a subdued voice: "We will miss the presence of Claghorn, his
penetrating if unorthodox insights . . . We have accomplished
little  Uegus, perhaps you will give thought to the projector
under discussion. Xanten, you were to question the captive
Mek. 0. Z. Garr, you undoubtedly will see to the repair of the
energy cannon . . . Aside from these small matters, it appears
that we have evolved no general plan of action, to help either
ourselves or Janeil."
Marune spoke. "What of the other castles? Are they still
extant? We have had no news. I suggest that we send Birds to
each castle, to learn their condition."
Hagedorn nodded. "Yes, this is a wise motion. Perhaps you
will see to this, Marune?"
"I will do so."
"Good. We will now adjourn for a time."
The Birds were dispatched by Marune of Aure and one by
one returned. Their reports were similar:
"Sea Island is deserted. Marble columns are tumbled along
the beach. Pearl Dome is collapsed. Corpses float in the Water
Garden."
"Maraval reeks of death. Gentlemen, PeasantsPhanes
all dead. Alas! Even the Birds have departed!"
"Delora: a ros ros ros! A dismal scene! No sign of life to be
found!"
"Alume is desolate. The great wooden door is smashed.
The eternal Green Flame is extinguished."
"There is nothing at Halcyon. The Peasants were driven
into a pit."
"Tuang: silence."
"Morninglight: death."
IX
Three days later, Xanten constrained six Birds to a lift
chair. He directed them first on a wide sweep around the
castle, then south to Far Valley.
The Birds aired their usual complaints, then bounded down
the deck in great ungainly hops which threatened to throw
Xanten immediately to the pavement. At last gaining the air,
they flew up in a spiral. Castle Hagedorn became an intricate
miniature far below, each House marked by its unique cluster
of turrets and eyries, its own eccentric roof line, its long
streaming pennon.
The Birds performed the prescribed circle, skimming the
crags and pines of North Ridge. Then. setting wings aslant the
upstream, they coasted away toward Far Valley.
Over the pleasant Hagedorn domain flew the Birds and
Xanten: over orchards, fields, vineyards. Peasant villages.
They crossed Lake Maude with its pavilions and docks, the
meadows beyond where the Hagedorn cattle and sheep
grazed, and presently came to Far Valley, at the limit of
Hagedom lands.
Xanten indicated where he wished to alight. The Birds, who
would have preferred a site closer to the village where they
could have watched all that transpired, grumbled and cried
out in wrath and set Xanten down so roughly that had he not
been alert the shock would have pitched him head over heels.
Xanten alighted without elegance but at least remained on
his feet. "Await me here!" he ordered. "Do not stray; attempt
no flamboyant tricks among the lift-straps. When I return I
wish to see six quiet Birds, in neat formation, lift-straps
untwisted and untangled. No bickering, mind you! No loud
caterwauling, to attract unfavorable comment! Let all be as I
have ordered!"
The Birds sulked, stamped their feet, ducked aside their
necks, made insulting comments just under the level of
Xanten's hearing. Xanten turned with a final glare of admoni-
tion and walked down the lane which led to the village.
The vines were heavy with ripe blackberries and a number
of the girls of the village filled baskets. Among them was the
girl 0. Z. Garr had thought to pre-empt for his personal use.
As Xanten passed, he halted and performed a courteous
salute. "We have met before, if my recollection is correct."
The girl smiled, a half-rueful, half-whimsical smile. "Your
recollection serves you well. We met at Hagedom, where I
was taken a captive. And later, when you conveyed me here,
after dark, though I could not see your face." She extended
her basket. "Are you hungry? Will you eat?"
Xanten took several berries. In the course of the conversa-
tion he learned that the girl's name was Glys Meadowsweet,
that her parents were not known to her, but were presumably
gentlefolk of Castle Hagedom who had exceeded their birth
tally. Xanten examined her even more carefully than before
but could see resemblance to none of the Hagedom families.
"You might derive from Castle Delora. If there is any family
resemblance I can detect, it is to the Cosanzas of Deloraa
family noted for the beauty of its ladies."
"You are not married?" she asked artlessly.
"No." said Xanten, and indeed he had dissolved his rela-
tionship with Araminta only the day before "What of you?"
She shook her head. "I would never be gathering blackber-
ries if I were. It is work reserved for maidens. Why do you
come to Far Valley?"
"For two reasons. The first to see you." Xanten heard
himself say this with surprise. But it was true, he realized with
another small shock of surprise. "I have never spoken with
you properly and I have always wondered if you were as
charming and gay as you are beautiful."
The girl shrugged and Xanten could not be sure whether
she were pleased or not, compliments from gentlemen some-
times setting the stage for a sorry aftermath. "Well, no matter.
I came also to speak to Claghorn."
"He is yonder," she said in a voice toneless, even cool, and
pointed. "He occupies that cottage." She returned to her
blackberry picking. Xanten bowed, proceeded to that cottage
the girl had indicated.
Claghorn, wearing loose knee-length breeches of gray
homespun, worked with an axe chopping faggots into stove-
lengths. At the sight of Xanten he halted his toil, leaned on
the axe, mopped his forehead. "Ah, Xanten. I am pleased to
see you. How are the folk of Castle Hagedorn?"
"As before. There is little to report, even had I come to
bring you news."
"Indeed, indeed?" Claghorn leaned on the axe handle,
surveyed Xanten with a bright blue gaze.
"At our last meeting," went on Xanten, "I agreed to
question the captive Mek. After doing so I am distressed that
you were not at hand to assist, so that you might have
resolved certain ambiguities in the responses."
"Speak on," said Claghorn. "Perhaps I shall be able to do
so now."
"After the council meeting I descended immediately to the
storeroom where the Mek was confined. It lacked nutriment; I
gave it syrup and a pail of water, which it sipped sparingly,
then evinced a desire for minced clams. I summoned kitchen
help and sent them for this commodity and the Mek ingested
several pints. As I have indicated, it was an unusual Mek,
standing as tall as myself and lacking a syrup sac. I conveyed
it to a different chamber, a storeroom for brown plush furni-
ture, and ordered it to a seat.
"I looked at the Mek and it looked at me. The quills which
I removed were growing back; probably it could at least
receive from Meks elsewhere. It seemed a superior beast,
showing neither obsequiousness nor respect, and answered my
questions without hesitation.
"First I remarked: "The gentlefolk of the castles .are as-
tounded by the revolt of the Meks. We had assumed that your
life was satisfactory. Were we wrong?'
" 'Evidently.' I am sure that this was the word signaled,
though never had I suspected the Meks of wit of any sort.
" 'Very well then,' I said. In what manner?'
" 'Surely it is obvious. We no longer wished to toil at your
behest. We wished to conduct our lives by our own traditional
standards.'
"The response surprised me. I was unaware that the Meks
possessed standards of any kind, much less traditional stand-
ards."
Claghom nodded. "I have been similarly surprised by the
scope of the Mek mentality."
"I reproached the Mek: 'Why kill? Why destroy our lives in
order to augment your own?' As soon as I had put the question
I realized that it had been unhappily phrased. The Mek, I
believe, realized the same; however, in reply he signaled
something very rapidly which I believe was: 'We knew we
must act with decisiveness. Your own protocol made this
necessary. We might have returned to Etamin Nine, but we
prefer this world Earth, and will make it our own, with our
own great slipways, tubs and basking ramps.'
"This seemed clear enough, but I sensed an adumbration
extending yet beyond. I said, 'Comprehensible. But why kill,
why destroy? You might have taken yourself to a different
region. We could not have molested you.'
" 'Infeasible, by your own thinking. A world is too small
for two competing races. You intended to send us back to
Etamin Nine.'
"'Ridiculous!' I said. 'Fantasy, absurdity. Do you take me
for a mooncalf?'
" 'No,' the creature insisted. 'Two of Castle Hagedorn's
notables were seeking the highest post. One assured us that, if
. elected, this would become his life's aim.'
" 'A grotesque misunderstanding,' I told him. 'One man, a
lunatic, can not speak for all men!'
'"No? One Mek speaks for all Meks. We think with one
mind. Are not men of a like sort?'
" 'Each thinks for himself. The lunatic who assured you of
this tomfoolery is an evil man. But at least matters are clear.
We do not propose to send you to Etamin Nine. Will you
withdraw from Janeil, take yourselves to a far land and leave
us in peace?'
" 'No. Affairs have proceeded too far. We will now destroy
all men. The truth of the statement is clear: one world is too
small for two races.'
" 'Unluckily then, I must kill you,' I told him. 'Such acts
are not to my liking, but, with opportunity, you would kill as
many gentlemen as possible.' At this the creature sprang upon
me, and I killed it with an easier mind than had it sat staring.
"Now you know all. It seems that either you or 0. Z. Garr
stimulated the cataclysm. 0. Z. Garr? Unlikely. Impossible.
Hence, you, Claghorn, you! have this weight upon your soul!"
Claghom frowned down at the axe. "Weight, yes. Guilt, no.
Ingenuousness, yes; wickedness, no."
Xanten stood back. "Claghorn, your coolness astounds me!
Before, when rancorous folk like 0. Z. Garr conceived you a
lunatic"
"Peace, Xanten!" exclaimed Claghorn irritably. "This ex-
travagant breast-beating becomes maladroit. What have I done
wrong? My fault is that I tried too much. Failure is tragic, but
a phthisic face hanging over the cup of the future is worse. I
meant to become Hagedorn, I would have sent the slaves
home. I failed, the slaves revolted. So do not speak another
word. I am bored with the subject. You can not imagine how
your bulging eyes and your concave spine oppress me."
"Bored you may be," cried Xanten. "You decry my eyes,
my spinebut what of the thousands dead?"
"How long would they live in any event? Lives are as cheap
as fish in the sea. I suggest that you put by your reproaches
and devote a similar energy to saving yourself. Do you realize
that a means exists? You stare at me blankly. I assure you
that what I say is true, but you will never learn the means
from me."
"Claghorn," said Xanten, "I flew to this spot intending to
blow your arrogant head from your body" But Claghorn,
no longer heeding, had returned to his wood-chopping.
"Claghorn!" cried Xanten.
"Xanten, take your outcries elsewhere, if you please. Re-
monstrate with your Birds."
Xanten swung on his heel, marched back down the lane.
The girls picking berries looked at him questioningly and
moved aside. Xanten halted, looked up and down the lane.
Glys Meadowsweet was nowhere to be seen. In a new fury he
continued. He stopped short. On a fallen tree a hundred feet
from the Birds sat Glys Meadowsweet, examining a blade of
grass as if it had been an astonishing artifact of the past. The
Birds for a marvel had actually obeyed him and waited in a
fair semblance of order.
Xanten looked up toward the heavens, kicked at the turf.
He drew a deep breath and approached to Glys Meadow-
sweet. He noted that she had fucked a flower into her long
loose hair.
After a second or two she looked up and searched his face.
"Why are you so angry?"
Xanten slapped his thigh, seated himself beside her.
" 'Angry'? No. I am out of my mind with frustration. Clag-
horn is as obstreperous as a sharp rock. He knows how Castle
Hagedom can be saved but he will not divulge his secret."
Glys Meadowsweet laughedan easy merry sound, like
nothing Xanten had ever heard at Castle Hagedom. "Secret?
When even I know it?"
"It must be a secret," said Xanten. "He will not tell me."
"Listen. If you fear the Birds will hear it, I will whisper."
She spoke a few words into his ear.
Perhaps the sweet breath befuddled Xanten's mind. But the
explicit essence of the revelation failed to strike home into his
consciousness. He made a sound of sour amusement. "No
secret there.  Only what the  prehistoric Scythians termed
'bathos'. Dishonor to the gentlemen! Do we dance with the
Peasants? Do we serve the Birds essences and discuss with
them the sheen of our Phanes?"
" 'Dishonor' then?" She jumped to her feet. "Then it is also
dishonor for you to talk to me, to sit here with me, to make
ridiculous suggestions!"
"I made no suggestions!" protested Xanten. "l_sit here in all
decorum"
"Too much decorum, too much honor!" With a display of
passion which astounded Xanten, Glys Meadowsweet tore the
flower from her hair, buried it at the ground. "There. Hence!"
"No," said Xanten in sudden humility. He bent, picked up
the flower, kissed it, replaced it in her hair. "I am not
over-honorable. I will try my best." He put his arms on her
shoulders, but she held him away.
"Tell me," she inquired with a very mature severity, "do
you own any of these peculiar insect-women?"
"I? Phanes? I own no Phanes."
With this Glys Meadowsweet relaxed and allowed Xairtci
to embrace her, while the Birds clucked, guffawed and made
vulgar scratching sounds with their wings.

x
The summer waned. On June 30 Janeil and Hagedom
celebrated the Fete of Flowers, even though the dike was
rising high around Janeil.
Shortly after, Xanten flew six select Birds into Castle Janeil
by night and proposed to the council that the population be
evacuated by Bird-liftas many as possible, as many who
wished to leave. The council listened with stony faces and
without comment passed on.
Xanten returned to Castle Hagedom. Using the most care-
ful  methods,  speaking  only  to  trusted  comrades,  Xanten
enlisted thirty or forty cadets and gentlemen to his persuasion,
though inevitably he could not keep the doctrinal thesis of his
program secret.
The first reaction of the traditionalists was mockery and.
charges of poltroonery. At Xanten's insistence, challenges
were neither issued nor accepted by his hot-blooded asso-
ciates.
On the evening of September 9 Castle Janeil fell. The news
was brought to Castle Hagedom by excited Birds who told the
grim tale again and again in voices ever more hysterical.
Hagedom, now gaunt and weary, automatically called a
council meeting; it took note of the gloomy circumstances.
"We then are the last castle! The Meks cannot conceivably do
us harm; they can build dikes around our castle walls for
twenty years and only work themselves to distraction. We are
secure; but yet it is a strange and portentous thought to
realize that at last, here at Castle Hagedom, live the last
gentlemen of the race!"
Xanten spoke in a voice strained with earnest conviction:
"Twenty yearsfifty yearswhat difference to the Meks?
Once they surround us, once they deploy, we are trapped. Do
you comprehend that now is our last opportunity to escape
the great cage that Castle Hagedom is to become?"
" 'Escape', Xanten? What a word! For shame!" booted 0.
Z. Garr. "Take your wretched band, escape! To steppe or
swamp or tundra! Go as you like, with your poltroons,, but be
good enough to give over these incessant alarms!"
"Garr, I have found conviction since I became a 'poltroon'.
Survival is good morality; I have this from the mouth of a
noted savant."
"Bah! Such as whom?"
"A. G. Philidor, if you must be informed of every detail."
0. Z. Garr clapped his hand to his forehead. "Do you refer
to Philidor the Expiationist? He is of the most extreme stripe,
an Expiationist to out-expiate all the rest! Xanten, be sensible,
if you please!"
"There are years ahead for all of us," said Xanten in a
wooden voice, "if we free ourselves from the castle."
"But the castle is our life!" declared Hagedom. "In essence,
Xanten, what would we be without the castle? Wild animals?
Nomads?"
"We would be alive."
0. Z. Garr gave a snort of disgust, turned away to inspect a
wallhanging. Hagedom shook his head in doubt and perplex-
ity. Beaudry threw his hands up into the air. "Xanten, you
have the effect of unnerving us all. You come in here, inflict
this dreadful sense of urgency, but why? In Castle Hagedom
we are as safe as in our mother's arms. What do we gain by
throwing aside allhonor, dignity, comfort, civilized niceties
for no other reason than to slink through the wilderness?"
"Janeil was safe," said Xanten. "Today where is Janeil?
Death, mildewed cloth, sour wine. What we gain by 'slinking'
is the  assurance  of survival.  And I plan much more than
simple 'slinking'."
"I can conceive of a hundred occasions when death is
better than life!" snapped Isseth. "Must I die in dishonor and
disgrace? Why may my last years not be passed in dignity?"
Into the room came B. F. Robarth. "Councilmen, the Meks
approach Castle Hagedom."
Hagedom cast a wild look around the chamber. "Is there a
. consensus? What must we do?"
Xanten threw up his hands. "Everyone must do as he
thinks best! I argue no more; I am done. Hagedom, will you
adjourn the council so that we may be about our affairs? I to
my 'slinking'?"
"Council is adjourned," said Hagedom, and all went up to
stand on the ramparts.
Up the avenue into the castle trooped Peasants from the
suiToanding .countryside, packets slung over their shoulders.
Across the valley, at the edge of Bartholomew Forest, was a
clot of power-wagons and an amorphous brown-gold mass:
Meks.
Aure pointed west. "Lookthere they come, up the Long'
Swale." He turned, peered east. "And look, there at Barn-
bridge: Meks!"
By common consent, all swung about to scan North Ridge.
0. Z. Garr pointed to a quiet line of brown-gold shapes.
"There they wait, the vermin! They have penned us in! Well
then, let them wait!" He swung away, rode the lift down to
the plaza, crossed swiftly to Zurnbeld House, where he
worked the rest of the afternoon with his Gloriana, of whom
he expected great things.
The following day the Meks formalized the investment.
Around Castle Hagedorn a great circle of Mek activity made
itself  apparent:  sheds,  warehouses,  barracks.  Within  this
periphery, just beyond the range of the energy cannon,
power-wagons thrust up mounds of dirt.
During the night these mounds lengthened toward the
castle; similarly the night after. At last the purpose of the
mounds became clear: they were a protective cover above
passages or tunnels leading toward the crag on which Castle
Hagedorn rested.
The following day several of the mounds reached the base
of the crag. Presently from the far end began to flow a
succession of power-wagons loaded with rubble. They issued,
dumped their loads and once again entered the tunnels.
Eight of these above-ground tunnels had been established.
From each trundled endless loads of dirt and rock, gnawed
from the crag on which Castle Hagedorn sat. To the gentle-
folk who crowded the parapets the meaning of the work at
last became clear.
"They make no attempt to bury us," said Hagedorn. "They
merely mine out the crag from below us!"
On the sixth day of the siege, a great segment of the hillside
shuddered, slumped, and a tall pinnacle of rock reaching
almost up to the base of the walls collapsed.
"If this continues," muttered Beaudry, "our time will be
less than that of Janeil."
"Come then," called 0. Z. Garr in sudden energy. "Let us
try our energy cannon.  We'll  blast open their wretched
tunnels, and what will the rascals do then?" He went to the
nearest emplacement, shouted down for Peasants to remove
the tarpaulin.
Xanten, who happened to stand nearby, said, "Allow me to
assist you." He jerked away the tarpaulin. "Shoot now, if you
will."
0. Z. Garr stared at him uncomprehendingly, then leapt
forward, swiveled the great projector about so that it aimed at
a mound. He pulled the switch; the air crackled in front of
the ringed snout, rippled, flickered with purple sparks. The
target area steamed,  became  black,  then  dark red,  then
slumped into an incandescent crater. But the underlying
earth, twenty feet in thickness, afforded too much insulation;
the molten puddle became white-hot but failed to spread or
deepen. The energy cannon gave a sudden chatter, as electric-
ity short-circuited through corroded insulation. The cannon
went dead.
0. Z. Garr inspected the mechanism in anger and disap-
pointment. Then, with a gesture of repugnance, he turned
away. The cannons were clearly of limited effectiveness.
Two hours later, on the east side of the crag, another great
sheet of rock collapsed, and just before sunset, a similar mass
sheared from the western face, where the wall of the castle
rose almost in an uninterrupted line from the cliff below.
At midnight Xanten and those of his persuasion, with their
children and consorts, departed. Castle Hagedom. Six teams of
Birds shuttled from the flight deck to a meadow near Far
Valley, and long before dawn had transported the entire
group.
There were none to bid them farewell.

XI
A week later another section of the east cliff fell away,
.taking a length of rock-melt buttress with it. At the tunnel
mouths the piles of excavated rubble had become alarmingly
large.
The terraced south face of the crag was the least disturbed;
the most spectacular damage having occurred to east and
west. Suddenly, a month  after the initial assault, a great
section of the terraces slumped forward, leaving an irregular
crevasse which interrupted the avenue and hurled down the
statues of former notables eniplaced at intervals along the
avenue's balustrade.
Hagedorn called a council meeting. "Circumstances," he
said in a wan attempt at facetiousness, "have not bettered
themselves. Our most pessimistic expectations have been ex-
ceeded. A dismal situation! I confess that I do not relish the
prospect of toppling to my death among all my smashed
belongings."
Aure made a desperate gesture. "A similar thought haunts
me! Deathwhat of that? All must die! But when I think of
my precious belongings I become sick. My books trampled!
My fragile vases smashed! My tabards ripped! My rugs
buried! My Phanes strangled! My heirloom chandeliers flung
aside! These are my nightmares."
"Your possessions are no less precious than any others,"
said Beaudry shortly. "Still they have no life of their own;
when we are gone, who cares what happens to them?"
Marune winced. "A year ago I put down eighteen dozen
flasks of prime essence; twelve dozen Green Rain; three each
of Balthazar and Faidor. Think of these, if you would
contemplate tragedy!"
"Had we only known!" groaned Aure. "I would have1
would have . . ." His voice trailed away.
0. Z. Garr stamped his foot in impatience. "Let us avoid
lamentation at all costs! We had a choice, remember? Xanten
beseeched us to flee; now he and his like go skulking and
foraging through the north mountains with the Expiationists.
We chose to remain, for better or worse, and unluckily the
'worse' is occurring. We must accept the fact like gentlemen."
To this the council gave melancholy assent. Hagedom
brought forth a flask of priceless Rhadamanth, and poured
with a prodigality which previously would have been unthink-
able. "Since we have no futureto our glorious pasti"
That night disturbances were noted here and there around
the ring of Mek investment: flames at four separate points, a
faint sound of hoarse  shouting.  On the  following day it
seemed that the tempo of activity had lessened a trifle.
But during the afternoon a vast segment of the east cliff fell
away. A moment later, as if after majestic deliberation, the
tall east wall split off, toppled, leaving the backs of six great
houses exposed to the open sky.
An hour after sunset a team of Birds settled to the
ffight-deck. Xanten jumped from the seat. He ran down the
circular staircase to the ramparts, came down to the plaza by
.Hagedorn's palace.
Hagedorn, summoned by a kinsman, came forth to stare at
Xanten in surprise. "What do you do here? We expected you
to be safely north with the Expiationists!"
"The Expiationists are not safely north," said Xanten.
"They have joined the rest of us. We are fighting."
Hagedorn's jaw dropped. "Fighting? The gentlemen are
fighting Meks?"
"As vigorously as possible."
Hagedom shook his head in wonder. "The Expiationists
too? I understood that they had planned to flee north."
"Some have done so, including A. G. Philidor. There are
factions among the Expiationists just as here. Most are not
ten miles distant. The same with the Nomads. Some have
taken their power-wagons and fled. The rest kill Meks with
fanatic fervor. Last night you saw our work. We fired four
storage warehouses, destroyed syrup tanks, killed a hundred
or more Meks, as well as a dozen power-wagons. We suffered
losses, which hurt us, because there are few of us and many
Meks. This is why I am here. We need more men. Come fight
beside us!"
Hagedorn turned, motioned to the great central plaza. "I
will call forth the folk from their Houses. Talk to everyone."
The Birds, complaining bitterly at the unprecedented toil,
worked all night, transporting gentlemen, who, sobered by the
imminent destruction of Castle Hagedorn, were now willing
to abandon all scruples and fight for their lives. The staunch
traditionalists still refused  to compromise their honor,  but
Xanten gave them cheerful assurance: "Remain here then,
prowling the castle like so many furtive rats. Take what
comfort you can in the fact that you are being protected; the
future holds little else for you."
'  And many who heard him stalked away in disgust.
Xanten turned to Hagedorn. "What of you? Do you come
or do you stay?"
Hagedorn heaved a deep sigh, almost a groan. "Castle
Hagedorn is at an end. No matter what the eventuality. I will
come with you."
The situation suddenly had altered. The Meks, established
in a loose ring around Castle Hagedom, had calculated upon
no resistance from the countryside and little from the castle.
They had established their barracks and syrup depots with
thought only for convenience and none for defense; raiding
parties, consequently, were able to approach, inflict damages
and withdraw before sustaining serious losses of their own.
Those Meks posted along North Ridge were harassed almost
continuously and finally were driven down with many losses.
The circle around Castle Hagedorn became a cusp; then two
days later, after the destruction of five more syrup depots, the
Meks drew back even farther. Throwing up earthworks before
the two tunnels leading under the south face of the crag, they
established a more or less tenable defensive position, but now
instead of beleaguering, they became the beleaguered, though
still fighting.
Within the area thus defended the Meks concentrated their
remaining syrup stocks, tools, weapons, ammunition. The area
outside the earthworks was floodlit after dark and guarded by
Meks armed with pellet guns, making any frontal assault
impractical.
For a day the raiders kept to the shelter of the surrounding
orchards, appraising the new situation. Then a new tactic was
attempted. Six light carriages were improvised and loaded
with bladders of light inflammable oil, with a fire grenade
attached. To each of these carriages ten Birds were harnessed,
and at midnight sent aloft, with a man for each carriage.
Flying high, the Birds then glided down through the darkness
over the Mek position, where the fire bombs were dropped.
The area instantly seethed with flame. The syrup depot
burnt; the power-wagons, awakened by the flames, rolled
frantically back and forth, crushing Meks and stores, colliding
with each other, adding vastly to the terror of the flames. The
Meks who survived took shelter in the tunnels. Certain of the
floodlights were extinguished and, taking advantage of the
confusion, the men attacked the earthworks.
After a short bitter battle, the men killed all the sentinels
and took up positions commanding the mouths of the tunnels,
which now contained all that remained of the Mek army. It
seemed as If the Mek uprising had been put down.

XII
The flames died. The human warriorsthree hundred men
froftl the castle, two hundred Expiationists and about three
hundred Nomadsgathered about the tunnel mouth and,
during the balance of the night, considered methods to deal
with the immured Meks.
At sunrise those men of Castle Hagedorn whose children
and consorts were yet within the castle went to bring them
forth. With them, upon their return, came a group of castle
gentlemen: among them Beaudry, 0. Z. Garr, Isseth, and
Aure. They greeted their onetime peers, Hagedorn, Xanten,
Claghorn and others, crisply, but with a certain austere
detachment, which recognized that loss of prestige incurred
by those who fought Meks as if they were equals.
"Now what is to happen?" Beaudry inquired of Hagedorn.
"The Meks are trapped but you can't bring them forth. Not
impossibly they have syrup stored within for the power-
wagons. They may well survive for months."
0. Z. Oarr, assessing the situation from the standpoint of a
military theoretician, came forward with a plan of action.
"Fetch down the cannonor have your underlings do so
and mount them on power-wagons. When the vermin are
sufficiently weak, roll the cannon in and wipe out all but a
labor force for the castle. We formerly worked four hundred,
and this should suffice."
"Ha!" exclaimed Xanten. "It gives me great pleasure to
inform you that this will never be. If any Meks survive they
will repair the spaceships and instruct us in the maintenance
and we will then transport them and Peasants back to their
native worlds."
"How then do you expect us to maintain our lives?"
demanded Garr coldly.
"You have the syrup generator. Fit yourself with sacs and
drink syrup."
Garr tilted back his head, stared coldly down his nose.
"This is your voice, yours alone, and your insolent opinion.
.'Others are to be heard from. Hagedorn, is this your philos-
ophy, that civilization should wither?"
"It need not wither," said Hagedorn, "provided that all of
usyou as well as wetoil for it. There can be no more
slaves. I have become convinced of this."
0. Z. Garr turned on his heel, swept back up the avenue
into the castle, followed by the most traditional-minded of his
comrades. A few moved aside and talked among themselves
in low tones, with one or two black looks for Xanten and
Hagedorn.
From the ramparts of the castle came a sudden outcry:
"The Meks! They are taking the castle! They swarm up the
lower passages! Attack, save us!"
The men below stared up in consternation. Even as they
looked the castle portals swung shut.
"How is this possible?" demanded Hagedorn. "I swear all
entered the tunnels!"
"It is only too clear," said Xanten bitterly. "While they
undermined, they drove a tunnel up to the lower levels!"
Hagedorn started forward as if he would charge up the
crag alone, then halted. "We must drive them out! Unthinka-
ble that they pillage our castle!"
"Unfortunately," said Claghorn, "the walls bar us as effec-
tually as they did the Meks."
"We can send up a force by Bird-car! Once we consolidate,
we can exterminate them!"
Claghorn shook his head. "They can wait on the ramparts
and flight-deck and shoot down the Birds as they approach.
Even if we secured a foothold there would be great
bloodshed: one of us killed for every one of them. And they
still outnumber us three or four to one."
Hagedorn groaned. "The thought of them revelling among
my possessions, strutting about in my clothes, swilling my
essencesit sickens me!"
"Listen!" said Claghorn. From on high they heard the
hoarse yells of men, the crackle of energy-cannon. "Some of
them, at least, hold out on the ramparts!"
Xanten went to a nearby group of Birds who were for once
awed and subdued by events. "Lift me up above the castle,
out of range of the pellets, but where I can see what the Meks
do!"
"Care, take care!" croaked one of the Birds. "Ill things
occur at the castle."
"Never mind! Convey me up, above the ramparts!"
The Birds lifted him, swung in a great circle around the
crag and above the castle, sufficiently distant to be safe from
the Mek pellet-guns.
Beside those cannon which yet operated stood thirty men
and women. Between the great Houses, the rotunda and the
palace, everywhere the cannon could not be brought to bear,
swarmed Meks. The plaza was littered with corpses: gentle-
men, ladies and their childrenall those who had elected to
r.emain at Castle Hagedorn.
At one of the cannon stood 0. Z. Garr. Spying Xanten he
gave a shout of hysterical rage, swung up the cannon, fired a
bolt. The Birds, screaming, tried to swerve aside, but the bolt
smashed two. Birds, car, Xanten, fell in a great tangle. By
some miracle, the four yet alive caught their balance and a
hundred feet from the ground, with a frenzied groaning effort,
they slowed their fall, steadied, hovered an instant, sank to
the ground.
Xanten staggered free of the tangle. Men came running.
"Are you safe?" called Claghom.
"Safe, yes. Frightened as well!" Xanten took a deep breath,
went to sit on an outcrop of rock.
"What's happening up there?" asked Claghom.
"All dead," said Xanten, "all but a score. Garr has gone
mad. He fired on me."
"Look! Meks -on the ramparts!" cried A. L. Morgan.
"There!" cried someone else. "Men! They jump!... No,
they are flung!"
Some were men, some were Meks whom they had dragged
with them; with awful slowness they toppled to their deaths.
No more fell. Castle Hagedorn was in the hands of the Meks.
Xanten considered the complex silhouette, at once so famil-
iar and so strange. "They can't hope to hold out. We need
only destroy the sun-cells, and they can synthesize no syrup."
"Let us do it now," said Claghom, "before they think of
this and man the cannon! Birds!"
He went off to give the orders, and forty Birds, each
clutching two rocks the size of a man's head, flapped up,
circled the castle and presently returned to report the sun-cells
had been destroyed.
Xanten said, "All that remains is to seal the tunnel en-
trances against a sudden eruption, which might catch us off
..- guardthen patience."
"What of the Peasants in the stablesand the Phanes?"
asked Hagedorn in a forlorn voice.
Xanten gave his head a slow shake. "He who was not an
Expiationist before must become one now."
Claghom muttered, "They can survive two months at most
no more."
But two months passed, and three months, and four
months. Then one morning the great portals opened, a hag-
gard Mek stumbled forth.
He signaled: "Men: we starve. We have maintained your
treasures. Give us our lives or we destroy all before we die."
Claghom responded: "These are our terms. We give you
your lives. You must clean the castle, remove and bury the
corpses. You must repair the spaceships and teach us all you
know regarding them. We will then transport you to Etamin
Nine."
"The terms you offer are accepted."
Five years later Xanten and Glys Meadowsweet, with their
two children, had reason to travel north from their home near
Sande River. They took occasion to visit Castle Hagedorn,
where now lived only two or three dozen folk, among them
Hagedom.
He had aged, so it seemed to Xanten. His hair was white;
his face, once bluff and hearty, had become thin, almost
waxen. Xanten could not determine his mood.
They stood in the shade of a walnut tree, with castle and
crag looming above them. "This is now a great museum," said
Hagedorn. "I am curator, and this will be the function of all
the Hagedorns who come after me, for there is incalculable
treasure to guard and maintain. Already the feeling of anti-
quity has come to the castle. The Houses are alive with
ghosts. I see them often, especially on the nights of the fetes
. . . Ah, those were the times, were they not, Xanten?"
"Yes indeed," said Xanten. He touched the heads of his
two children. "Still, I have no wish to return to them. We are
men now, on our own world, as we never were before."
Hagedorn gave a somewhat regretful assent. He looked up
-at the vast structure, as if now were the first occasion he had
laid eyes on it. "The folk of the futurewhat will they think
of Castle Hagedorn? Its treasures, its books, its tabards?"
"They will come, they will marvel," said Xanten. "Almost
as I do today."
"There is much at which to marvel. Will you come within,
Xanten? There are still flasks of noble essence laid by."
"Thank you no," said Xanten. "There is too much to stir
old memories. We will go our way, and I think that we will
do so immediately."
Hagedorn nodded sadly. "I understand very well. I myself
am often given to reverie these days. Well then, good-by, and
journey home with pleasure."
"We will do so, Hagedom. Thank you and good-by," said
Xanten, and turned away from Castle Hagedom, toward the
world of men.