The Keeper

: The Keeper

When he heard the deer crashing through brush and scuffling the dead

leaves, he stopped and stood motionless in the path. He watched them

bolt down the slope from the right and cross in front of him, wishing

he had the rifle, and when the last white tail vanished in the

gray-brown woods he drove the spike of the ice-staff into the

stiffening ground and took both hands to shift the weight of the

pack. If he'd had the ri le, he could have shot only one of them. As

it was, they were unfrightened, and he knew where to find them in the

morning.



Ahead, to the west and north, low clouds massed; the white front of

the Ice-Father loomed clear and sharp between them and the blue of the

distant forests. It would snow, tonight. If it stopped at daybreak, he

would have good tracking, and in any case, it would be easier to get

the carcasses home over snow. He wrenched loose the ice-staff and

started forward again, following the path that wound between and among

and over the irregular mounds and hillocks. It was still an hour's

walk to Keeper's House, and the daylight was fading rapidly.



Sometimes, when he was not so weary and in so much haste, he would

loiter here, wondering about the ancient buildings and the

long-vanished people who had raised them. There had been no woods at

all, then; nothing but great houses like mountains, piling up toward

the sky, and the valley where he meant to hunt tomorrow had been an

arm of the sea that was now a three days' foot-journey away. Some said

that the cities had been destroyed and the people killed in wars--big

wars, not squabbles like the fights between sealing-companies from

different villages. He didn't think so, himself. It was more likely

that they had all left their homes and gone away in starships when the

Ice-Father had been born and started pushing down out of the north.

There had been many starships, then. When he had been a boy, the old

men had talked about a long-ago time when there had been hundreds of

them visible in the sky, every morning and evening. But that had been

long ago indeed. Starships came but seldom to this world, now. This

world was old and lonely and poor. Like poor lonely old Raud the

Keeper.



He felt angry to find himself thinking like that. Never pity yourself,

Raud; be proud. That was what his father had always taught him: "Be

proud, for you are the Keeper's son, and when I am gone, you will be

the Keeper after me. But in your pride, be humble, for what you will

keep is the Crown."



The thought of the Crown, never entirely absent from his mind, wakened

the anxiety that always slept lightly if at all. He had been away all

day, and there were so many things that could happen. The path seemed

longer, after that; the landmarks farther apart. Finally, he came out

on the edge of the steep bank, and looked down across the brook to the

familiar low windowless walls and sharp-ridged roof of Keeper's House;

and when he came, at last, to the door, and pulled the latchstring, he

heard the dogs inside--the soft, coughing bark of Brave, and the

anxious little whimper of Bold--and he knew that there was nothing

wrong in Keeper's House.



The room inside was lighted by a fist-sized chunk of lumicon, hung in

a net bag of thongs from the rafter over the table. It was old--cast

off by some rich Southron as past its best brilliance, it had been old

when he had bought it from Yorn Nazvik the Trader, and that had been

years ago. Now its light was as dim and yellow as firelight. He'd have

to replace it soon, but this trip he had needed new cartridges for the

big rifle. A man could live in darkness more easily than he could live

without cartridges.



The big black dogs were rising from their bed of deerskins on the

stone slab that covered the crypt in the far corner. They did not come

to meet him, but stayed in their place of trust, greeting him with

anxious, eager little sounds.



"Good boys," he said. "Good dog, Brave; good dog, Bold. Old Keeper's

home again. Hungry?"



They recognized that word, and whined. He hung up the ice-staff on the

pegs by the door, then squatted and got his arms out of the

pack-straps.



"Just a little now; wait a little," he told the dogs. "Keeper'll get

something for you."



He unhooked the net bag that held the lumicon and went to the ladder,

climbing to the loft between the stone ceiling and the steep snow-shed

roof; he cut down two big chunks of smoked wild-ox beef--the dogs

liked that better than smoked venison--and climbed down.



He tossed one chunk up against the ceiling, at the same time shouting:

"Bold! Catch!" Bold leaped forward, sinking his teeth into the meat as

it was still falling, shaking and mauling it. Brave, still on the

crypt-slab, was quivering with hunger and eagerness, but he remained

in place until the second chunk was tossed and he was ordered to take

it. Then he, too, leaped and caught it, savaging it in mimicry of a

kill. For a while, he stood watching them growl and snarl and tear

their meat, great beasts whose shoulders came above his own waist.

While they lived to guard it, the Crown was safe. Then he crossed to

the hearth, scraped away the covering ashes, piled on kindling and

logs and fanned the fire alight. He lifted the pack to the table and

unlaced the deerskin cover.



Cartridges in plastic boxes of twenty, long and thick; shot for the

duck-gun, and powder and lead and cartridge-primers; fills for the

fire-lighter; salt; needles; a new file. And the deerskin bag of

trade-tokens. He emptied them on the table and counted them--tokens,

and half-tokens and five-tokens, and even one ten-token. There were

always less in the bag, after each trip to the village. The Southrons

paid less and less, each year, for furs and skins, and asked more and

more for what they had to sell.



He put away the things he had brought from the village, and was

considering whether to open the crypt now and replace the bag of

tokens, when the dogs stiffened, looking at the door. They got to

their feet, neck-hairs bristling, as the knocking began.



He tossed the token-bag onto the mantel and went to the door, the dogs

following and standing ready as he opened it.



The snow had started, and now the ground was white except under the

evergreens. Three men stood outside the door, and over their shoulders

he could see an airboat grounded in the clearing in front of the

house.



"You are honored, Raud Keeper," one of them began. "Here are strangers

who have come to talk to you. Strangers from the Stars!"



He recognized the speaker, in sealskin boots and deerskin trousers and

hooded overshirt like his own--Vahr Farg's son, one of the village

people. His father was dead, and his woman was the daughter of Gorth

Sledmaker, and he was a house-dweller with his woman's father. A

worthless youth, lazy and stupid and said to be a coward. Still,

guests were guests, even when brought by the likes of Vahr Farg's son.

He looked again at the airboat, and remembered seeing it, that day,

made fast to the top-deck of Yorn Nazvik's trading-ship, the Issa.



"Enter and be welcome; the house is yours, and all in it that is mine

to give." He turned to the dogs. "Brave, Bold; go watch."



Obediently, they trotted over to the crypt and lay down. He stood

aside; Vahr entered, standing aside also, as though he were the host,

inviting his companions in. They wore heavy garments of woven cloth

and boots of tanned leather with hard heels and stiff soles, and as

they came in, each unbuckled and laid aside a belt with a holstered

negatron pistol. One was stocky and broad-shouldered, with red hair;

the other was slender, dark haired and dark eyed, with a face as

smooth as a woman's. Everybody in the village had wondered about them.

They were not of Yorn Nazvik's crew, but passengers on the Issa.



"These are Empire people, from the Far Stars," Vahr informed him,

naming their names. Long names, which meant nothing; certainly they

were not names the Southrons from the Warm Seas bore. "And this is

Raud the Keeper, with whom your honors wish to speak."



"Keeper's House is honored. I'm sorry that I have not food prepared;

if you can excuse me while I make some ready...."



"You think these noblemen from the Stars would eat your swill?" Vahr

hooted. "Crazy old fool, these are--"



The slim man pivoted on his heel; his open hand caught Vahr just below

the ear and knocked him sprawling. It must have been some kind of

trick-blow. That or else the slim stranger was stronger than he

looked.



"Hold your miserable tongue!" he told Vahr, who was getting to his

feet. "We're guests of Raud the Keeper, and we'll not have him

insulted in his own house by a cur like you!"



The man with red hair turned. "I am ashamed. We should not have

brought this into your house; we should have left it outside." He

spoke the Northland language well, "It will honor us to share your

food, Keeper."



"Yes, and see here," the younger man said, "we didn't know you'd be

alone. Let us help you. Dranigo's a fine cook, and I'm not bad,

myself."



He started to protest, then let them have their way. After all, a

guest's women helped the woman of the house, and as there was no woman

in Keeper's House, it was not unfitting for them to help him.



"Your friend's name is Dranigo?" he asked. "I'm sorry, but I didn't

catch yours."



"I don't wonder; fool mouthed it so badly I couldn't understand it

myself. It's Salvadro."



They fell to work with him, laying out eating-tools--there were just

enough to go around--and hunting for dishes, of which there were not.

Salvadro saved that situation by going out and bringing some in from

the airboat. He must have realized that the lumicon over the table was

the only light beside the fire in the house, for he was carrying a

globe of the luminous plastic with him when he came in, grumbling

about how dark it had gotten outside. It was new and brilliant, and

the light hurt Raud's eyes, at first.



"Are you truly from the Stars?" he asked, after the food was on the

table and they had begun to eat. "Neither I nor any in the village

have seen anybody from the Stars before."



The big man with the red hair nodded. "Yes. We are from Dremna."



Why, Dremna was the Great World, at the middle of everything! Dremna

was the Empire. People from Dremna came to the cities of Awster and

fabulous Antark as Southron traders from the Warm Seas came to the

villages of the Northfolk. He stammered something about that.



"Yes. You see, we...." Dranigo began. "I don't know the word for it,

in your language, but we're people whose work it is to learn things.

Not from other people or from books, but new things, that nobody else

knows. We came here to learn about the long-ago times on this world,

like the great city that was here and is now mounds of stone and

earth. Then, when we go back to Dremna, we will tell other people

what we have found out."



Vahr Farg's son, having eaten his fill, was fidgeting on his stool,

looking contemptuously at the strangers and their host. He thought

they were fools to waste time learning about people who had died long

ago. So he thought the Keeper was a fool, to guard a worthless old

piece of junk.



Raud hesitated for a moment, then said: "I have a very ancient thing,

here in this house. It was worn, long ago, by great kings. Their

names, and the name of their people, are lost, but the Crown remains.

It was left to me as a trust by my father, who was Keeper before me

and to whom it was left by his father, who was Keeper in his time.

Have you heard of it?"



Dranigo nodded. "We heard of it, first of all, on Dremna," he said.

"The Empire has a Space Navy base, and observatories and relay

stations, on this planet. Space Navy officers who had been here

brought the story back; they heard it from traders from the Warm Seas,

who must have gotten it from people like Yorn Nazvik. Would you show

it to us, Keeper? It was to see the Crown that we came here."



Raud got to his feet, and saw, as he unhooked the lumicon, that he was

trembling. "Yes, of course. It is an honor. It is an ancient and

wonderful thing, but I never thought that it was known on Dremna." He

hastened across to the crypt.



The dogs looked up as he approached. They knew that he wanted to lift

the cover, but they were comfortable and had to be coaxed to leave it.

He laid aside the deerskins. The stone slab was heavy, and he had to

strain to tilt it up. He leaned it against the wall, then picked up

the lumicon and went down the steps into the little room below,

opening the wooden chest and getting out the bundle wrapped in

bearskin. He brought it up again and carried it to the table, from

which Dranigo and Salvadro were clearing the dishes.



"Here it is," he said, untying the thongs. "I do not know how old it

is. It was old even before the Ice-Father was born."



That was too much for Vahr. "See, I told you he's crazy!" he cried.

"The Ice-Father has been here forever. Gorth Sledmaker says so," he

added, as though that settled it.



"Gorth Sledmaker's a fool. He thinks the world began in the time of

his grandfather." He had the thongs untied, and spread the bearskin,

revealing the blackened leather box, flat on the bottom and domed at

the top. "How long ago do you think it was that the Ice-Father was

born?" he asked Salvadro and Dranigo.



"Not more than two thousand years," Dranigo said. "The glaciation

hadn't started in the time of the Third Empire. There is no record of

this planet during the Fourth, but by the beginning of the Fifth

Empire, less than a thousand years ago, things here were very much as

they are now."



"There are other worlds which have Ice-Fathers," Salvadro explained.

"They are all worlds having one pole or the other in open water,

surrounded by land. When the polar sea is warmed by water from the

tropics, snow falls on the lands around, and more falls in winter than

melts in summer, and so is an Ice-Father formed. Then, when the polar

sea is all frozen, no more snow falls, and the Ice-Father melts faster

than it grows, and finally vanishes. And then, when warm water comes

into the polar sea again, more snow falls, and it starts over again.

On a world like this, it takes fifteen or twenty thousand years from

one Ice-Father to the next."



"I never heard that there had been another Ice-Father, before this

one. But then, I only know the stories told by the old men, when I was

a boy. I suppose that was before the first people came in starships to

this world."



The two men of Dremna looked at one another oddly, and he wondered, as

he unfastened the brass catches on the box, if he had said something

foolish, and then he had the box open, and lifted out the Crown. He

was glad, now, that Salvadro had brought in the new lumicon, as he put



the box aside and set the Crown on the black bearskin. The golden

circlet and the four arches of gold above it were clean and bright,

and the jewels were splendid in the light. Salvadro and Dranigo were

looking at it wide-eyed. Vahr Farg's son was open-mouthed.



"Great Universe! Will you look at that diamond on the top!" Salvadro

was saying.



"That's not the work of any Galactic art-period," Dranigo declared.

"That thing goes back to the Pre-Interstellar Era." And for a while he

talked excitedly to Salvadro.



"Tell me, Keeper," Salvadro said at length, "how much do you know

about the Crown? Where did it come from; who made it; who were the

first Keepers?"



He shook his head. "I only know what my father told me, when I was a

boy. Now I am an old man, and some things I have forgotten. But my

father was Runch, Raud's son, who was the son of Yorn, the son of

Raud, the son of Runch." He went back six more generations, then

faltered and stopped. "Beyond that, the names have been lost. But I do

know that for a long time the Crown was in a city to the north of

here, and before that it was brought across the sea from another

country, and the name of that country was Brinn."



Dranigo frowned, as though he had never heard the name before.

"Brinn." Salvadro's eyes widened. "Brinn, Dranigo! Do you think that

might be Britain?"



Dranigo straightened, staring, "It might be! Britain was a great

nation, once; the last nation to join the Terran Federation, in the

Third Century Pre-Interstellar. And they had a king, and a crown with

a great diamond...."



"The story of where it was made," Rand offered, "or who made it, has

been lost. I suppose the first people brought it to this world when

they came in starships."



"It's more wonderful than that, Keeper," Salvadro said. "It was made

on this world, before the first starship was built. This world is

Terra, the Mother-World; didn't you know that, Keeper? This is the

world where Man was born."



He hadn't known that. Of course, there had to be a world like that,

but a great world in the middle of everything, like Dremna. Not this

old, forgotten world.



"It's true, Keeper," Dranigo told him. He hesitated slightly, then

cleared his throat. "Keeper, you're young no longer, and some day you

must die, as your father and his father did. Who will care for the

Crown then?"



Who, indeed? His woman had died long ago, and she had given him no

sons, and the daughters she had given him had gone their own ways with

men of their own choosing and he didn't know what had become of any of

them. And the village people--they would start picking the Crown apart

to sell the jewels, one by one, before the ashes of his pyre stopped

smoking.



"Let us have it, Keeper," Salvadro said. "We will take it to Dremna,

where armed men will guard it day and night, and it will be a trust

upon the Government of the Empire forever."



He recoiled in horror. "Man! You don't know what you're saying!" he

cried. "This is the Crown, and I am the Keeper; I cannot part with it

as long as there is life in me."



"And when there is not, what? Will it be laid on your pyre, so that it

may end with you?" Dranigo asked.



"Do you think we'd throw it away as soon as we got tired looking at

it?" Salvadro exclaimed. "To show you how we'll value this, we'll give

you ... how much is a thousand imperials in trade-tokens, Dranigo?"



"I'd guess about twenty thousand."



"We'll give you twenty thousand Government trade-tokens," Salvadro

said. "If it costs us that much, you'll believe that we'll take care

of it, won't you?"



Raud rose stiffly. "It is a wrong thing," he said, "to enter a man's

house and eat at his table, and then insult him."



Dranigo rose also, and Salvadro with him. "We had no mind to insult

you, Keeper, or offer you a bribe to betray your trust. We only offer

to help you fulfill it, so that the Crown will be safe after all of us

are dead. Well, we won't talk any more about it, now. We're going in

Yorn Nazvik's ship, tomorrow; he's trading in the country to the west,

but before he returns to the Warm Seas, he'll stop at Long Valley

Town, and we'll fly over to see you. In the meantime, think about

this; ask yourself if you would not be doing a better thing for the

Crown by selling it to us."



They wanted to leave the dishes and the new lumicon, and he permitted

it, to show that he was not offended by their offer to buy the Crown.

He knew that it was something very important to them, and he admitted,

grudgingly, that they could care for it better than he. At least, they

would not keep it in a hole under a hut in the wilderness, guarded

only by dogs. But they were not Keepers, and he was. To them, the

Crown would be but one of many important things; to him it was

everything. He could not imagine life without it.



He lay for a long time among his bed-robes, unable to sleep, thinking

of the Crown and the visitors. Finally, to escape those thoughts, he

began planning tomorrow morning's hunt.



He would start out as soon as the snow stopped, and go down among the

scrub-pines; he would take Brave with him, and leave Bold on guard at

home. Brave was more obedient, and a better hunter. Bold would jump

for the deer that had been shot, but Brave always tried to catch or

turn the ones that were still running.



He needed meat badly, and he needed more deerskins, to make new

clothes. He was thinking of the new overshirt he meant to make as he

fell asleep....



It was past noon when he and Brave turned back toward Keeper's House.

The deer had gone farther than he had expected, but he had found them,

and killed four. The carcasses were cleaned and hung from trees, out

of reach of the foxes and the wolves, and he would take Brave back to

the house and leave him on guard, and return with Bold and the sled to

bring in the meat. He was thinking cheerfully of the fresh meat when

he came out onto the path from the village, a mile from Keeper's

House. Then he stopped short, looking at the tracks.



Three men--no, four--had come from the direction of the village since

the snow had stopped. One had been wearing sealskin boots, of the sort

worn by all Northfolk. The others had worn Southron boots, with ribbed

plastic soles. That puzzled him. None of the village people wore

Southron boots, and as he had been leaving in the early morning, he

had seen Yorn Nazvik's ship, the Issa, lift out from the village and

pass overhead, vanishing in the west. Possibly these were deserters.

In any case, they were not good people. He slipped the heavy rifle

from its snow-cover, checked the chamber, and hung the empty cover

around his neck like a scarf. He didn't like the looks of it.



He liked it even less when he saw that the man in sealskin boots had

stopped to examine the tracks he and Brave had made on leaving, and

had then circled the house and come back, to be joined by his

plastic-soled companions. Then they had all put down their packs and

their ice-staffs, and advanced toward the door of the house. They had

stopped there for a moment, and then they had entered, come out again,

gotten their packs and ice-staffs, and gone away, up the slope to the

north.



"Wait, Brave," he said. "Watch."



Then he advanced, careful not to step on any of the tracks until he

reached the doorstep, where it could not be avoided.



"Bold!" he called loudly. "Bold!"



Silence. No welcoming whimper, no padding of feet, inside. He pulled

the latchstring with his left hand and pushed the door open with his

foot, the rifle ready. There was no need for that. What welcomed him,

within, was a sickening stench of burned flesh and hair.



The new lumicon lighted the room brilliantly; his first glance was

enough. The slab that had covered the crypt was thrown aside, along

with the pile of deerskins, and between it and the door was a

shapeless black heap that, in a dimmer light, would not have been

instantly recognizable as the body of Bold. Fighting down an impulse

to rush in, he stood in the door, looking about and reading the story

of what had happened. The four men had entered, knowing that they

would find Bold alone. The one in the lead had had a negatron pistol

drawn, and when Bold had leaped at them, he had been blasted. The

blast had caught the dog from in front--the chest-cavity was literally

exploded, and the neck and head burned and smashed unrecognizably.

Even the brass studs on the leather collar had been melted.



That and the ribbed sole-prints outside meant the same

thing--Southrons. Every Southron who came into the Northland, even the

common crewmen on the trading ships, carried some kind of an

energy-weapon. They were good only for fighting--one look at the body

of Bold showed what they did to meat and skins.



He entered, then, laying his rifle on the table, and got down the

lumicon and went over to the crypt. After a while, he returned, hung

up the light again, and dropped onto a stool. He sat staring at the

violated crypt and tugging with one hand at a corner of his beard,

trying desperately to think.



The thieves had known exactly where the Crown was kept and how it was

guarded; after killing Bold, they had gone straight to it, taken it

and gone away--three men in plastic-soled Southron boots and one man

in soft boots of sealskins, each with a pack and an ice-staff, and two

of them with rifles.



Vahr Farg's son, and three deserters from the crew of Yorn Nazvik's

ship.



It hadn't been Dranigo and Salvadro. They could have left the ship in

their airboat and come back, flying low, while he had been hunting.

But they would have grounded near the house, they would not have

carried packs, and they would have brought nobody with them.



He thought he knew what had happened. Vahr Farg's son had seen the

Crown, and he had heard the two Starfolk offer more trade-tokens for

it than everything in the village was worth. But he was a coward; he

would never dare to face the Keeper's rifle and the teeth of Brave and

Bold alone. So, since none of the village folk would have part in so

shameful a crime against the moral code of the Northland, he had

talked three of Yorn Nazvik's airmen into deserting and joining him.



And he had heard Dranigo say that the Issa would return to Long

Valley Town after the trading voyage to the west. Long Valley was on

the other side of this tongue of the Ice-Father; it was a good fifteen

days' foot-journey around, but by climbing and crossing, they could

easily be there in time to meet Yorn Nazvik's ship and the two

Starfolk. Well, where Vahr Farg's son could take three Southrons, Raud

the Keeper could follow.



* * * * *



Their tracks led up the slope beside the brook, always bearing to the

left, in the direction of the Ice-Father. After an hour, he found

where they had stopped and unslung their packs, and rested long enough

to smoke a cigarette. He read the story they had left in the snow, and

then continued, Brave trotting behind him pulling the sled. A few

snowflakes began dancing in the air, and he quickened his steps. He

knew, generally, where the thieves were going, but he wanted their

tracks unobliterated in front of him. The snow fell thicker and

thicker, and it was growing dark, and he was tiring. Even Brave was

stumbling occasionally before Raud stopped, in a hollow among the

pines, to build his tiny fire and eat and feed the dog. They bedded

down together, covered by the same sleeping robes.



When he woke, the world was still black and white and gray in the

early dawn-light, and the robe that covered him and Brave was powdered

with snow, and the pine-branches above him were loaded and sagging.



The snow had completely obliterated the tracks of the four thieves,

and it was still falling. When the sled was packed and the dog

harnessed to it, they set out, keeping close to the flank of the

Ice-Father on their left.



It stopped snowing toward mid-day, and a little after, he heard a

shot, far ahead, and then two more, one upon the other. The first shot

would be the rifle of Vahr Farg's son; it was a single-loader, like

his own. The other two were from one of the light Southron rifles,

which fired a dozen shots one after another. They had shot, or shot

at, something like a deer, he supposed. That was sensible; it would

save their dried meat for the trip across the back of the Ice-Father.

And it showed that they still didn't know he was following them. He

found their tracks, some hours later.



Toward dusk, he came to a steep building-mound. It had fared better

than most of the houses of the ancient people; it rose to twenty times

a man's height and on the south-east side it was almost perpendicular.

The other side sloped, and he was able to climb to the top, and far

away, ahead of him, he saw a tiny spark appear and grow. The fire

could not be more than two hours ahead.



He built no fire that evening, but shared a slab of pemmican with

Brave, and they huddled together under the bearskin robe. The dog fell

asleep at once. For a long time, Raud sat awake, thinking.



At first, he considered resting for a while, and then pressing forward

and attacking them as they slept. He had to kill all of them to regain

the Crown; that he had taken for granted from the first. He knew what

would happen if the Government Police came into this. They would take

one Southron's word against the word of ten Northfolk, and the thieves

would simply claim the Crown as theirs and accuse him of trying to

steal it. And Dranigo and Salvadro--they seemed like good men, but

they might see this as the only way to get the Crown for

themselves.... He would have to settle the affair for himself, before

the men reached Long Valley town.



If he could do it here, it would save him and Brave the toil and

danger of climbing the Ice-Father. But could he? They had two rifles,

one an autoloader, and they had in all likelihood three negatron

pistols. After the single shot of the big rifle was fired, he had only

a knife and a hatchet and the spiked and pickaxed ice-staff, and

Brave. One of the thieves would kill him before he and Brave killed

all of them, and then the Crown would be lost. He dropped into sleep,

still thinking of what to do.



He climbed the mound of the ancient building again in the morning, and

looked long and carefully at the face of the Ice-Father. It would take

the thieves the whole day to reach that place where the two tongues of

the glacier split apart, the easiest spot to climb. They would not try

to climb that evening; Vahr, who knew the most about it, would be the

last to advise such a risk. He was sure that by going up at the

nearest point he could get to the top of the Ice-Father before dark,

and drag Brave up after him. It would be a fearful climb, and he would

have most of a day's journey after that to reach the head of the long

ravine up which the thieves would come, but when they came up, he

could be there waiting for them. He knew what the old rifle could do,

to an inch, and there were places where the thieves would be coming up

where he could stay out of blaster-range and pick them all off, even

with a single-loader.



He knew about negatron pistols, too. They shot little bullets of

energy; they were very fast, and did not drop, like a real bullet, so

that no judgment of range was needed. But the energy died quickly; the

negatrons lived only long enough to go five hundred paces and no more.

At eight hundred, he could hit a man easily. He almost felt himself

pitying Vahr Farg's son and his companions.



When he reached the tumble of rocks that had been dragged along with

and pushed out from the Ice-Father, he stopped and made up a

pack--sleeping robes, all his cartridges, as much pemmican as he could

carry, and the bag of trade-tokens. If the chase took him to Long

Valley Town, he would need money. He also coiled about his waist a

long rawhide climbing-rope, and left the sled-harness on Brave, simply

detaching the traces.



At first, they walked easily on the sloping ice. Then, as it grew

steeper, he fastened the rope to the dog's harness and advanced a

little at a time, dragging Brave up after him. Soon he was forced to

snub the rope with his ice-staff and chop steps with his hatchet.

Toward noon--at least he thought it was noon--it began snowing again,

and the valley below was blotted out in a swirl of white.



They came to a narrow ledge, where they could rest, with a wall of ice

rising sheerly above them. He would have to climb that alone, and then

pull Brave up with the rope. He started working his way up the

perpendicular face, clinging by the pick of his ice-staff, chopping

footholds with the hatchet; the pack and the slung rifle on his back

pulled at him and threatened to drag him down. At length, he dragged

himself over the edge and drove the ice-staff in.



"Up, Brave!" he called, tugging on the rope. "Good dog, Brave; come

up!"



Brave tried to jump and slipped back. He tried again, and this time

Raud snubbed the rope and held him. Below the dog pawed frantically,

until he found a paw-hold on one of the chopped-out steps. Raud hauled

on the rope, and made another snub.



It seemed like hours. It probably was; his arms were aching, and he

had lost all sense of time, or of the cold, or the danger of the narrow

ledge; he forgot about the Crown and the men who had stolen it; he

even forgot how he had come here, or that he had ever been anywhere

else. All that mattered was to get Brave up on the ledge beside him.



Finally Brave came up and got first his fore-paws and then his body

over the edge. He lay still, panting proudly, while Raud hugged him

and told him, over and over, that he was a good dog. They rested for a

long time, and Raud got a slab of pemmican from the pack and divided

it with Brave.



It was while they rested in the snow, munching, that he heard the

sound for the first time. It was faint and far away, and it sounded

like thunder, or like an avalanche beginning, and that puzzled him,

for this was not the time of year for either. As he listened, he heard

it again, and this time he recognized it--negatron pistols. It

frightened him; he wondered if the thieves had met a band of hunters.

No; if they were fighting Northfolk, there would be the reports of

firearms, too. Or might they be fighting among themselves? Remembering

the melted brass studs on Bold's collar, he became more frightened at

the thought of what a negatron-blast could do to the Crown.



The noise stopped, then started again, and he got to his feet, calling

to Brave. They were on a wide ledge that slanted upward toward the

north. It would take him closer to the top, and closer to where Vahr

and his companions would come up. Together, they started up, Raud

probing cautiously ahead of him with the ice-staff for hidden

crevasses. After a while, he came to a wide gap in the ice beside him,

slanting toward the top, its upper end lost in swirling snow. So he

and Brave began climbing, and after a while he could no longer hear

the negatron pistols.



When it was almost too dark to go farther, he suddenly found himself

on level snow, and here he made camp, digging a hole and lining it

with the sleeping robes.



The sky was clear when he woke, and a pale yellow light was glowing in

the east. For a while he lay huddled with the dog, stiff and

miserable, and then he forced himself to his feet. He ate, and fed

Brave, and then checked his rifle and made his pack.



He was sure, now, that he had a plan that would succeed. He could

reach the place where Vahr and the Southrons would come up long before

they did, and be waiting for them. In his imagination, he could see

them coming up in single file, Vahr Farg's son in the lead, and he

could imagine himself hidden behind a mound of snow, the ice-staff

upright to brace his left hand and the forestock of the rifle resting

on his outthrust thumb and the butt against his shoulder. The first

bullet would be for Vahr. He could shoot all of them, one after

another, that way....



He stopped, looking in chagrined incredulity at the tracks in front of

him--the tracks he knew so well, of one man in sealskin boots and

three men with ribbed plastic soles. Why, it couldn't be! They should

be no more than half way up the long ravine, between the two tongues

of the Ice-Father, ten miles to the north. But here they were, on the

back of the Ice-Father and crossing to the west ahead of him. They

must have climbed the sheer wall of ice, only a few miles from where

he had dragged himself and Brave to the top. Then he remembered the

negatron-blasts he had heard. While he had been chopping footholds

with a hatchet, they had been smashing tons of ice out of their way.



"Well, Brave," he said mildly. "Old Keeper wasn't so smart, after all,

was he? Come on, Brave."



The thieves were making good time. He read that from the tracks

--straight, evenly spaced, no weary heel-dragging. Once or twice, he

saw where they had stopped for a brief rest. He hoped to see their

fire in the evening.



He didn't. They wouldn't have enough fuel to make a big one, or keep

it burning long. But in the morning, as he was breaking camp, he saw

black smoke ahead.



A few times, he had been in air-boats, and had looked down on the back

of the Ice-Father, and it had looked flat. Really, it was not. There

were long ridges, sheer on one side and sloping gently on the other,

where the ice had overridden hills and low mountains, or had cracked

and one side had pushed up over the other. And there were deep gullies

where the prevailing winds had scooped away loose snow year after year

for centuries, and drifts where it had piled, many of them higher than

the building-mounds of the ancient cities. But from a distance, as

from above, they all blended into a featureless white monotony.



At last, leaving a tangle of cliffs and ravines, he looked out across

a broad stretch of nearly level snow and saw, for the first time, the

men he was following. Four tiny dots, so far that they seemed

motionless, strung out in single file. Instantly, he crouched behind a

swell in the surface and dragged Brave down beside him. One of them,

looking back, might see him, as he saw them. When they vanished behind

a snow-hill, he rose and hastened forward, to take cover again. He

kept at this all day; by alternately resting and running, be found

himself gaining on them, and toward evening, he was within

rifle-range. The man in the lead was Vahr Farg's son; even at that

distance he recognized him easily. The others were Southrons, of

course; they wore quilted garments of cloth, and quilted hoods. The

man next to Vahr, in blue, carried a rifle, as Vahr did. The man in

yellow had only an ice-staff, and the man in green, at the rear, had

the Crown on his pack, still in the bearskin bundle.



He waited, at the end of the day, until he saw the light of their

fire. Then he and Brave circled widely around their camp, and stopped

behind a snow-ridge, on the other side of an open and level stretch a

mile wide. He dug the sleeping-hole on the crest of the ridge, making

it larger than usual, and piled up a snow breastwork in front of it,

with an embrasure through which he could look or fire without being

seen.



Before daybreak, he was awake and had his pack made, and when he saw

the smoke of the thieves' campfire, he was lying behind his

breastwork, the rifle resting on its folded cover, muzzle toward the

smoke. He lay for a long time, watching, before he saw the file of

tiny dots emerge into the open.



They came forward steadily, in the same order as on the day before,

Vahr in the lead and the man with the Crown in the rear. The thieves

suspected nothing; they grew larger and larger as they approached,

until they were at the range for which he had set his sights. He

cuddled the butt of the rifle against his cheek. As the man who

carried the Crown walked under the blade of the front sight, he

squeezed the trigger.



The rifle belched pink flame and roared and pounded his shoulder. As

the muzzle was still rising, he flipped open the breech, and threw out

the empty. He inserted a fresh round.



There were only three of them, now. The man with the bearskin bundle

was down and motionless. Vahr Farg's son had gotten his rifle unslung

and uncovered. The Southron with the other rifle was slower; he was

only getting off the cover as Vahr, who must have seen the flash,

fired hastily. Too hastily; the bullet kicked up snow twenty feet to

the left. The third man had drawn his negatron pistol and was trying

to use it; thin hairlines of brilliance were jetting out from his

hand, stopping far short of their mark.



Raud closed his sights on the man with the autoloading rifle; as he

did, the man with the negatron pistol, realizing the limitations of

his weapon, was sweeping it back and forth, aiming at the snow fifty

yards in front of him. Raud couldn't see the effect of his second

shot--between him and his target, blueish light blazed and twinkled,

and dense clouds of steam rose--but he felt sure that he had missed.

He reloaded, and watched for movements on the edge of the rising

steam.



It cleared, slowly; when it did, there was nothing behind it. Even the

body of the dead man was gone. He blinked, bewildered. He'd picked

that place carefully; there had been no gully or ravine within running

distance. Then he grunted. There hadn't been--but there was now. The

negatron pistol again. The thieves were hidden in a pit they had

blasted, and they had dragged the body in with them.



He crawled back to reassure Brave, who was guarding the pack, and to

shift the pack back for some distance. Then he returned to his

embrasure in the snow-fort and resumed his watch. For a long time,

nothing happened, and then a head came briefly peeping up out of the

pit. A head under a green hood. Raud chuckled mirthlessly into his

beard. If he'd been doing that, he'd have traded hoods with the dead

man before shoving up his body to draw fire. This kept up, at

intervals, for about an hour. He was wondering if they would stay in

the pit until dark.



Then Vahr Farg's son leaped out of the pit and began running across

the snow. He had his pack, and his rifle; he ran, zig-zag, almost

directly toward where Raud was lying. Raud laughed, this time in real

amusement. The Southrons had chased Vahr out, as a buck will chase his

does in front of him when he thinks there is danger in front. If Vahr

wasn't shot, it would be safe for them to come out. If he was, it

would be no loss, and the price of the Crown would only have to be

divided in two, rather than three, shares. Vahr came to within two

hundred yards of Raud's unseen rifle, and then dropped his pack and

flung himself down behind it, covering the ridge with his rifle.



Minutes passed, and then the Southron in yellow came out and ran

forward. He had the bearskin bundle on his pack; he ran to where Vahr

lay, added his pack to Vahr's, and lay down behind it. Raud chewed his

underlip in vexation. This wasn't the way he wanted it; that fellow

had a negatron pistol, and he was close enough to use it effectively.

And he was sheltered behind the Crown; Raud was afraid to shoot. He

didn't miss what he shot at--often. But no man alive could say that he

never missed.



The other Southron, the one in blue with the autoloading rifle, came

out and advanced slowly, his weapon at the ready. Raud tensed himself

to jump, aimed carefully, and waited. When the man in blue was a

hundred yards from the pit, he shot him dead. The rifle was still

lifting from the recoil when he sprang to his feet, turned, and ran.

Before he was twenty feet away, the place where he had been exploded;

the force of the blast almost knocked him down, and steam blew past

and ahead of him. Ignoring his pack and ice-staff, he ran on, calling

to Brave to follow. The dog obeyed instantly; more negatron-blasts

were thundering and blazing and steaming on the crest of the ridge. He

swerved left, ran up another slope, and slid down the declivity

beyond into the ravine on the other side.



There he paused to eject the empty, make sure that there was no snow

in the rifle bore, and reload. The blasting had stopped by then; after

a moment, he heard the voice of Vahr Farg's son, and guessed that the

two surviving thieves had advanced to the blasted crest of the other

ridge. They'd find the pack, and his tracks and Brave's. He wondered

whether they'd come hunting for him, or turn around and go the other

way. He knew what he'd do, under the circumstances, but he doubted if

Vahr's mind would work that way. The Southron's might; he wouldn't

want to be caught between blaster-range and rifle-range of Raud the

Keeper again.



"Come, Brave," he whispered, looking quickly around and then starting

to run.



Lay a trail down this ravine for them to follow. Then get to the top

of the ridge beside it, double back, and wait for them. Let them pass,

and shoot the Southron first. By now, Vahr would have a negatron

pistol too, taken from the body of the man in blue, but it wasn't a

weapon he was accustomed to, and he'd be more than a little afraid of

it.



The ravine ended against an upthrust face of ice, at right angles to

the ridge he had just crossed; there was a V-shaped notch between

them. He turned into this; it would be a good place to get to the

top....



He found himself face to face, at fifteen feet, with Vahr Farg's son

and the Southron in yellow, coming through from the other side. They

had their packs, the Southron had the bearskin bundle, and they had

drawn negatron pistols in their hands.



Swinging up the rifle, he shot the Southron in the chest, making sure

he hit him low enough to miss the Crown. At the same time, he shouted:



"Catch, Brave!"



Brave never jumped for the deer or wild-ox that had been shot; always

for the one still on its feet. He launched himself straight at the

throat of Vahr Farg's son--and into the muzzle of Vahr's blaster. He

died in a blue-white flash.



Raud had reversed the heavy rifle as Brave leaped; he threw it,

butt-on, like a seal-spear, into Vahr's face. As soon as it was out of

his fingers, he was jumping forward, snatching out his knife. His left

hand found Vahr's right wrist, and he knew that he was driving the

knife into Vahr's body, over and over, trying to keep the blaster

pointed away from him and away from the body of the dead Southron. At

last, the negatron-pistol fell from Vahr's fingers, and the arm that

had been trying to fend off his knife relaxed.



He straightened and tried to stand--he had been kneeling on Vahr's

body, he found--and reeled giddily. He got to his feet and stumbled to

the other body, kneeling beside it. He tried for a long time before he

was able to detach the bearskin bundle from the dead man's pack. Then

he got the pack open, and found dried venison. He started to divide

it, and realized that there was no Brave with whom to share it. He had

just sent Brave to his death.



Well, and so? Brave had been the Keeper's dog. He had died for the

Crown, and that had been his duty. If he could have saved the Crown by

giving his own life, Raud would have died too. But he could not--if

Raud died the Crown was lost.



The sky was darkening rapidly, and the snow was whitening the body in

green. Moving slowly, he started to make camp for the night.



It was still snowing when he woke. He started to rise, wondering, at

first, where Brave was, and then he huddled back among the robes--his

own and the dead men's--and tried to go to sleep again. Finally, he

got up and ate some of his pemmican, gathered his gear and broke camp.

For a moment, and only a moment, he stood looking to the east, in the

direction he had come from. Then he turned west and started across the

snow toward the edge of the Ice-Father.



* * * * *



The snow stopped before he reached the edge, and the sun was shining

when he found a slanting way down into the valley. Then, out of the

north, a black dot appeared in the sky and grew larger, until he saw

that it was a Government airboat--one of the kind used by the men who

measured the growth of the Ice-Father. It came curving in and down

toward him, and a window slid open and a man put his head out.



"Want us to lift you down?" he asked. "We're going to Long Valley

Town. If that's where you're going, we can take you the whole way."



"Yes. That's where I'm going." He said it as though he were revealing,

for the first time, some discovery he had just made. "For your

kindness and help, I thank you."



In less time than a man could walk two miles with a pack, they were

letting down in front of the Government House in Long Valley Town.



He had never been in the Government House before. The walls were clear

glass. The floors were plastic, clean and white. Strips of bright new

lumicon ran around every room at the tops of all the walls. There were

no fires, but the great rooms were as warm as though it were a

midsummer afternoon.



Still carrying his pack and his rifle, Raud went to a desk where a

Southron in a white shirt sat.



"Has Yorn Nazvik's ship, the Issa, been here lately?" he asked.



"About six days ago," the Southron said, without looking up from the

papers on his desk. "She's on a trading voyage to the west now, but

Nazvik's coming back here before he goes south. Be here in about ten

days." He looked up. "You have business with Nazvik?"



Raud shook his head. "Not with Yorn Nazvik, no. My business is with

the two Starfolk who are passengers with him. Dranigo and Salvadro."



The Southron looked displeased. "Aren't you getting just a little

above yourself, old man, calling the Prince Salsavadran and the Lord

Dranigrastan by their familiar names?" he asked.



"I don't know what you're talking about. Those were the names they

gave me; I didn't know they had any others."



The Southron started to laugh, then stopped.



"And if I may ask, what is your name, and what business have you with

them?" he inquired.



Raud told him his name. "I have something for them. Something they

want very badly. If I can find a place to stay here, I will wait until

they return--"



The Southron got to his feet. "Wait here for a moment, Keeper," he

said. "I'll be back soon."



He left the desk, going into another room. After a while, he came

back. This time he was respectful.



"I was talking to the Lord Dranigrastan--whom you know as Dranigo--on

the radio. He and the Prince Salsavadran are lifting clear of the

Issa in their airboat and coming back here to see you. They should

be here in about three hours. If, in the meantime, you wish to bathe

and rest, I'll find you a room. And I suppose you'll want something to

eat, too...."



* * * * *



He was waiting at the front of the office, looking out the glass wall,

when the airboat came in and grounded, and Salvadro and Dranigo jumped

out and came hurrying up the walk to the doorway.



"Well, here you are, Keeper," Dranigo greeted him, clasping his hand.

Then he saw the bearskin bundle under Raud's arm. "You brought it with

you? But didn't you believe that we were coming?"



"Are you going to let us have it?" Salvadro was asking.



"Yes; I will sell it to you, for the price you offered. I am not fit

to be Keeper any longer. I lost it. It was stolen from me, the day

after I saw you, and I have only yesterday gotten it back. Both my

dogs were killed, too. I can no longer keep it safe. Better that you

take it with you to Dremna, away from this world where it was made. I

have thought, before, that this world and I are both old and good for

nothing any more."



"This world may be old, Keeper," Dranigo said, "but it is the

Mother-World, Terra, the world that sent Man to the Stars. And

you--when you lost the Crown, you recovered it again."



"The next time, I won't be able to. Too many people will know that the

Crown is worth stealing, and the next time, they'll kill me first."



"Well, we said we'd give you twenty thousand trade-tokens for it,"

Salvadro said. "We'll have them for you as soon as we can draw them

from the Government bank, here. Or give you a check and let you draw

them as you want them." Raud didn't understand that, and Salvadro

didn't try to explain. "And then we'll fly you home."



He shook his head. "No, I have no home. The place where you saw me is

Keeper's House, and I am not the Keeper any more. I will stay here and

find a place to live, and pay somebody to take care of me...."



With twenty thousand trade-tokens, he could do that. It would buy a

house in which he could live, and he could find some woman who had

lost her man, who would do his work for him. But he must be careful of

the money. Dig a crypt in the corner of his house for it. He wondered

if he could find a pair of good dogs and train them to guard it for

him....