Part 2

The weeks of no-gravity played havoc with them. They ran heavily, sobbing and falling, through the woods. Some of them lost their way. They struggled ever so slowly through the open forest and slowed down to a walk on the mountain side that rose abruptly before them. Jan found a huge boulder and crouched behind it. Sister Ellen came after him. She was gasping with fatigue and terror.

He reached out and seized her white robe. "Here," he cried. "Take cover here."

Her hand closed on his desperately. Then she let go in terror and fell to her knees beside him. She locked her hands across her breast and looked upward to the pale green-blue sky.

Suddenly it seemed as though the whole earth were on fire. The sky turned to absolute white and the tops of the trees glowed orange red. There was a rending crash beyond any possibility of sound; then the absolute darkness and deafness of too much.

Jan struggled back to consciousness with a sense of beatitude. He was locked with Sister Ellen in a complete embrace, mouth to mouth, breast to breast, hip to hip. He watched the sky flame orange and red and finally gray black through her hair. He knew in that moment that without a ship, almost without humanity, life was good on Aphrodite.

And then the woman was struggling with him. "Oh, Allah, oh Buddha, oh Lenin, oh Lord, I have sinned, I have sinned!" she cried, and fled aimlessly into the burning forest.

Hours later, attracted by shot after shot from the Prophet's blaster, they assembled on a mountaintop. The fire had spent itself in the damp forest. Below them was a blackened area down to the sea. There was a bay where the rocket ship had been.

It was a sad and tired little column that filed down to the sea. On the beach they knelt and sang a hymn of deliverance and a service for the dead. Jan and the 13 surviving spacemen stood uncertainly in a group apart from the others.

At last the Prophet, who had taken his posture on a large, sea-worn boulder, arose and held up his hands for silence.

"With us are certain godless ones. We will spare their lives but there is no need to associate with them. I order the spacemen to march immediately to the north end of the island. We will not communicate with them or have any dealings with them. I warn them on pain of death to stay to themselves. Spacemen, march!"

Jan and the others trudged down the beach. As they left the group Jimpson grinned insolently.

"You'll pay for that grin," Jan whispered.

They had not marched more than two miles up the beach when they heard the sound of blasters. They looked back and saw hundreds of the great birds rising from the trees. Other hundreds joined them as they wheeled northward. The sky above them was filled with the rush of frightened wings and low, throaty whimpers of terror. Then a dozen birds turned back and began to fly low over the treetops.

"I'll bet those are spies," Jan told his spacemen.

They marched on until the brief arctic night came. Then, weary with excitement and fatigue, they dropped to the beach.

"I'm sorry, men," Jan said. "I hoped we would be able to outwit them some way, but it looks like the Mohcans have licked us. However, I'm just as glad we weren't present when they shot the birds. Those creatures are believed to be highly intelligent."

"What do you call them, chief?"

"The books refer to them as Species X-78 because no naturalist has ever made a study of their habits. Spacemen call them lovebirds or loverbirds because they can talk and because they're very affectionate with each other. When I was here before they learned to talk to us in no time at all. They're not real birds. They're life-bearing-like mammals but don't nurse their young."

As a matter of discipline, Jan posted a guard although he felt confident that the Mohcans were at least as exhausted as the spacemen. He had slept for only an hour or two when the man on watch woke him.

"Here's one of the birds to talk to you, captain."

It was very light. There were three full moons in the sky and the sky was reddening toward dawn.

The lovebird was a giant cock with bright red wing tips.

"I remember you, spaceman, from the other time you were here. I was a young fellow then but I can still talk." He spoke carefully in a low, cooing manner.

"You are friends, aren't you? The ones in white are enemies. They killed and ate three of us. We never heard of intelligent beings eating each other."

"We are friends, and the ones in white are our enemies," Jan said.

"You will be happy, then, if we destroy them?"

"I will be very happy. But how will you do it? Remember, they have very dangerous weapons. We have none."

"First we must learn about them. Tell us all you know. Then we will spy on them for a long time."

Jan told him all that he knew of the Mohcans as individuals and as a sect. The sun was well up when he finished. The bird leaped into the air with a long musical cry as piercing as a trumpet call. In a few moments hundreds of birds settled about them with fruit and fish in their claws.

"We will help you to live, and, in return, you and your men must teach all of us your language."

For three weeks Jan and his men lived idly on the beach without turning a hand for food. They made friends with the birds and taught them language. In return, the birds taught them of the ways of the planet. Neither birds nor spacemen went near the Mohcans except for small groups of winged spies.

* * * * *

"The Mohcans are doing well," the red-winged chief reported. "They are catching fish and they know what fruit is good. Every morning and evening they come together on the beach and sing."

Then, several days later, the bird chief said to Jan, "Tonight we attack. There will be no moons for several hours."

"What will you do?"

"Listen and learn."

"If you can, spare the woman named Sister Ellen."

"I promise nothing, but we will try."

As the sun sank, the sky was suddenly filled with a great rhythm of wings. For a quarter of an hour there was silence. Then there began a song with a sensual quality to it, a low, sad insistent yearning. It became stronger, more determined, more vibrant with urgency. Jan thought of all the women he had had and of those he had longed to have, and finally the dream woman who existed on none of the worlds but only in his own mind.

And then the music shifted, and he began to hate the men who had taken women away from him and the women he could never have because of the men who had them.

Suddenly there was a blow and a shout of pain in the darkness, and Jan could dimly see two spacemen fighting, an almost unheard of thing among those men conditioned and disciplined to comradeship. Jan leaped between them. They had their hands clenched on each other's throats and it was not easy to separate them.

"What's the matter with you, Smith? Have you gone crazy, Knorsky?" Jan shouted.

"It's that dame on Tartarus, Captain. He stole her from me."

Jan remembered the dame, a sloe-eyed little spaceman's tart. Smith and Knorsky had placed playful bets on who would have her first. Smith won, and Knorsky paid with a laugh. They were the best of friends.

"Calm down, you guys--" Jan started to say. Suddenly there was a rattle of blaster fire. A moment's silence was followed by more shots. Then random shots with decreasing frequency. The bird song had ceased completely.

Then a long silence broken by a sound like laughter. It grew wilder and wilder. Then it came north on wings. The birds settled on the beach and in the forest. The red-winged chief strutted beside Jan.

"It was easy to do, spacecaptain," the bird said. "We watched them until we understood how many longed for each other's mates. Then we drove the men to women who did not belong to them and the women to the men. Then we turned to the foolishness of jealousy. There are 27 men and seven women less. There now remain 10 men and 23 women."

"Is the woman named Ellen all right?"

"Yes. She stayed on her knees throughout the fight and no one touched her."

At sundown the next evening the bird chief said, "Perhaps we will complete our victory tonight."

Jan made his men stuff medical cotton in their ears. It was a wise precaution. The bird song, muted by the cotton was one of pure hate and the desire for vengeance. Jan remembered that he was a captain and that his men might have cause to resent his discipline. He crept quietly away and hid in the woods.

And at last came the sound of blasters, burst after burst in the clear night air. And then silence, followed by the wild thunder of bird laughter.

"The black one was the first to act," the bird chief said. "He killed the one called the Prophet in a terrible manner, burning off his arms and legs with the blaster.

"Then someone killed the black man, and after that there was a general battle. The foolish spaceman named Jimpson tried to dig a hole in the sand, but 20 of us flew down and picked him up and carried him out to sea. He could not swim. There are now no men and 20 women left, including your woman called Ellen."

The next evening the birdsong did not begin until two moons arose. It was pleasant, calm, full of promise. Without any discussion the spacemen started to walk south along the beach. They had not gone far when they saw the Mohcan women walking toward them. Both parties began to run.

Jan held Ellen in his arms. "I thought it was a sin, what I was feeling for you. Now I know it isn't. The birds are telling us that it isn't, aren't they, darling?"

For answer, Jan kissed her.

Later he talked to all of them. "There are 14 men and 20 women," he said. "There will be polygamy, but there must be no jealousy. We must work everything out reasonably."

"You will be reasonable," the bird chief said. "We have songs which will make you be reasonable."