The Helpful Hand of God Read online

we meet one will have to kill the other."

  She turned away, and vanished among the trees like a shadow.

  He was unaware of the passage of time as he stood there on the hillthat was silent with her going and remembered the day he had met herand the way the song swans had been calling. When he looked up at thesky, it was bright gold in the east and the blazing stars of theWhirlpool were fading into invisibility. He looked to the west, wherethe road wound its long way out of the valley, and he thought he couldsee her trudging up it, tiny and distant. He looked at his watch andsaw he had just time enough to reach the ship before it left.

  * * * * *

  Brenn was standing by his gate, watching the dawn flame intoincandescence and looking more frail and helpless than ever. Thecruiser towered beyond, blotting out half the dawn sky like a sinisteromen. A faint, deep hum was coming from it as the drive went into thepreliminary phase that preceded take-off.

  "You have only seconds left to reach the ship," Brenn said. "You havealready tarried almost too long."

  "You're looking at a fool," he answered, "who is going to tarry in theAzure Mountains and beyond the Emerald Plain for a hundred days. Thenthe Occupation men will kill him."

  There was no surprise on Brenn's face but it seemed to Kane that theold man smiled in his beard. For the second time since he was sixteen,Kane heard someone speak to him with gentle understanding:

  "Although you have not been of much help to my plans, your intentionswere good. I was sure that in the end this would be your decision. Iam well pleased with you, my son."

  A whine came from the ship and the boarding ramp flicked up like adisappearing tongue. The black opening of the air lock seemed towink, then was solid, featureless metal as the doors slid shut.

  "_Bon voyage_, Y'Nor!" Kane said. "We'll be waiting for you with ourbows and arrows."

  "There is no one on the ship but Y'Nor," Brenn said. "Graver saw to itthat the Ready lights were all going on the command room controlboard, then he and all the others followed my ... suggestion."

  Kane remembered Graver's calmness and his statement concerning hismen: "... It would be suicide for part of them to desert."

  For _part_ of them. But if every last one deserted--

  The drives of the ship roared as Y'Nor pushed a control button and theship lifted slowly. The roaring faltered and died as Y'Nor pushedanother button which called for a crewman who was not there. The shipdropped back with a ponderous thud, careened, and fell with a forcethat shook the ground. It made no further sound or movement.

  He stared at the silent, impotent ship, finding it hard to realizethat there would be no hundred-day limit for him; that the new world,the boundless frontier--and Barbara--would be his for as long as helived.

  "Poor Commander Y'Nor," Brenn said. "The air lock is now under theship and we shall have to dig a tunnel to rescue him."

  "Don't hurry about it," Kane advised. "Let him sweat in the dark for afew days with his desk wrapped around his neck. It will do him good."

  "We are a kind and harmless race, we could never do anything likethat."

  "Kind? I believe you. But harmless? You made monkeys out of Vogar'schoicest fighting men."

  "Please do not use such an uncouth expression. I was only the humbleinstrument of a greater Power. I only ... ah ... encouraged thenatural affection between man and maid, the love that God intendedthem to have."

  "But did you practice your Golden Rule? You saw to it that fifty youngmen were forced to associate day after day with hundreds ofalmost-naked girls. Would you really have wanted the same thing doneto you if you had been in their place?"

  "Would I?" There was a gleam in the old eyes that did not seem to comefrom the brightness of the dawn. "I, too, was once young, my son--whatdo _you_ think?"

  * * * * *