Heritage of Stars by Clifford D. Simak

Author:Clifford D. Simak
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Fiction, General
ISBN: 0425037738
Publisher: Sidgwick & Jackson
Published: 1978-11-15T05:00:00+00:00

“We’ll find grizzly west of the river,” said Cushing.

Andy had eaten the scant bitter prairie grass in the East with reluctance, consuming only enough of it to keep life within his body. Now he stood knee-deep in the lush grass of the valley. With grunts of satisfaction, his belly full to bulging, he luxuriated by rolling on the sandy beach that ran up from the river’s edge, while killdeer and sandpiper, outraged by his invasion of their domain, went scurrying and complaining up and down the sands.

Later Andy helped Rollo and Cushing haul in driftwood deposited by earlier floods on the banks along the river. Out of the driftwood Cushing and Rollo constructed a raft, chopping the wood into proper lengths and lashing the pieces together as securely as possible with strips of green leather cut from the hides of deer. When they crossed the river, Rollo and Meg rode the raft—Meg because she couldn’t swim, Rollo because he was afraid of getting wet since his oil supply was low. The others clung to the raft. It helped them with their swimming and they tried as best they could to drive it across the stream and keep it from floating too far down the river. Andy, hesitant to enter the swift-flowing water, finally plunged in and swam so lustily that he outdistanced them and was waiting for them on the other side, nickering companionably at them when they arrived.

Since that mid-morning hour, they had climbed steadily. Ezra, for once, had not insisted on stopping to talk with plants. Behind them the river had receded slowly; ahead of them the great purple upthrust never seemed closer.

Cushing walked down the short slope of ground to reach the evening fire. Tomorrow, he thought, tomorrow we may reach the top.

Five days later, from far off, they sighted Thunder Butte. It was no more than a smudge on the northern horizon, but the smudge, they knew, could be nothing other than the butte; there was nothing else in this flat emptiness that could rise up to make a ripple on the smooth circle of horizon.

Cushing said to Meg, “We’ve made it. We’ll be there in a few more days. I wonder what we’ll find.”

“It doesn’t matter, laddie boy,” she told him. “It’s been a lovely trip.”

Three days later, with Thunder Butte looming large against the northern sky, they found the wardens waiting for them. The five wardens sat their horses at the top of a slight billowing rise, and when Cushing and the others approached them, one of them rode forward, his left hand lifted, open-palmed, in a sign of peace.

“We are the wardens,” he said. “We keep the faith. We mount guard against wanderers and troublemakers.”

He didn’t look much like a warden, although Cushing was not quite sure how a warden should look.

The warden looked very much like a nomad who had fallen on hard times. He carried no spear, but there was a quiver resting on his back, with a short bow tucked in among the arrows.

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