Tales From High Hallack, Volume 3 by Andre Norton

Author:Andre Norton [Norton, Andre]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Anthologies (Multiple Authors), Collections & Anthologies, Fantasy, Fiction, Science Fiction
ISBN: 9781624672736
Amazon: 1624672736
Publisher: Open Road Media Sci-Fi & Fantasy
Published: 2014-08-26T16:00:00+00:00

Set in Stone

Far Frontiers (2000) DAW

If some mad god had deliberately set out to create a planet utterly alien from all that was normal to the crew of First-In Scout S-9, he or she could not have been more successful than with this one. A man had to force his offworld eyes to report matters that brain patterns found too grotesque to believe.

A dull throb was spreading down from Kannar’s temples, reaching out for room in neck and shoulders. This place was just wrong; yet, along the starways, one could never rightfully judge anything, no matter how it appeared—

“Get scruffing, you Gart!”

That sharp mind-beam smote like a blow, though it was a prodding he had come to expect during the past three years. Yes, he was a Gart. Not many of them could be left by now, as Garthold had long since been wiped from the maps. As for his kind, they were the least blessed of all their kin. Kannar no longer grasped at memory, which grew—mercifully—ever fainter with each recall.

Fifteen planet years ago . . . The young man plodded along through the dense gray sand, weighed down by his heavy pack but careful to avoid the thick pad-patches of yellow-green growth. Fifteen cycles past, he had been at Herber, a child selected by rigorous testing intended to prove his fitness for special service to Garthold’s need.

Two hellish days and a burning, blood-filled night had put an end to that life, though some Veep among the invaders did think to keep Kannar and some of his fellows alive for use in “experiments.” More trials were visited upon them by their new masters, during which many died, while others were rendered mindless and thrown into the Pits. What quality the alien overseers believed Kannar possessed had brought him into the Quasing Exploration Service—not, of course, as an equal, but rather as a living test-beast for the unknown perils of distant worlds.

The boy’s thick gray skin itched now, as it had ever since Captain O’ju had ordered him to gather a liver-red growth for the science officer using his bare hands. His masters had given Kannar no treatment for the fiery result; they had merely watched its progress detachedly, as yet another investigation.

“You damned dirtworm—gun it! We want to get this crawler going before dark!”

As that order rang in Kannar’s head, he could see below him the land vehicle in question, its curved nose almost touching one of the standing rocks. No trees graced this world of Henga, or at least the Scouts had observed none during any of the preliminary flybys; but rising upright in rough circles which, in places, clustered thick together, were the stones.

Those formations had presented the planet’s first great mystery. Though to the eye they were only crude pillars of a granitelike stuff, they could not be touched, nor even approached closely enough for any to attempt to set hand upon them. They were, it seemed, impregnably shielded by some unknown force against close examination.

Kannar did not quicken his pace.

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