Enchantress from the Stars by Sylvia Engdahl

Author:Sylvia Engdahl
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

This man was different from the rest of his people, Jarel thought. He didn’t act as scared as the others. Oh, you could tell that he was scared, but he put on a better front than most. He strode into camp boldly, all alone, and walked directly toward the rockchewer, the mere sight of which petrified the average native. Did he too think it was a dragon? Jarel wondered. He almost appeared to be challenging it.

Jarel, Kevan, and another man—one who was still wearing a pressure suit and helmet—approached the native; reluctantly, Jarel stunned him, while the others grasped his arms. This whole business of taking innocent men (he couldn’t help thinking of them as “men”) into custody was still repugnant to Jarel, and it was clearly beyond the scope of his job as a medical officer. But Dulard had ordered it, and Jarel told himself that he was showing the prisoners more kindness than someone else might. This case was particularly disquieting, though. He admired courage and did not look forward to seeing it eroded, as it inevitably must be, by the psychological impact of the stunning.

The continued use of stunners was Jarel’s pet gripe, for it was hardly conducive to a friendly relationship between captive and guard. He realized that very likely he was suffering from this more than the natives, who didn’t want to be friends in any event. Still, sometimes he thought that if a man like Kevan ever had a taste of it himself, he’d be less inclined to call it a humane method of controlling prisoners. The possibilities of this idea would have been quite tempting, were it not that the use of a stunner on an Imperial citizen was classed as an assault—a form of antisocial behavior that was not treated lightly.

Once the native’s arms had been securely gripped, Jarel freed him from paralysis; they could carry him to the barracks, but it was easier to let him walk, and, Jarel believed, less degrading. The poor guy was in no position to give them any trouble, certainly. As they started across the clearing, however, Jarel inexplicably dropped his stunner. It was as if it had been torn from his grasp, almost. Just as he reached for it, Kevan’s stunner too fell to the ground, fell slowly, as if under low gravity, or so it seemed. The native was speaking words that did not have the ring of the local language, and his eyes, Jarel noted, were wild with a desperation more intense than the panic of a timid man.

“What the—!” Kevan muttered, bending to retrieve the weapon. At that moment the native wrenched free from the third man’s grasp and struck out fiercely with the sword that no one had yet bothered to take from him. The sword made no impression on the tough plastic of the man’s pressure suit, but enough harm had already been done. Kevan acted without hesitation. The stunner was still on the ground, but there was another weapon at his belt that he had no scruples about using.

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