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Duncan raised his spear and howled, and charged the wolf. For a moment the
fire-eyes looked steadily at him, appearing to be a full hand apart. Then the
wolf turned away; it made one deep questioning sound, and was gone into the
darkness out beyond the firelight.
Duncan stopped, drawing a gasping breath of relief. The wolf would probably
have killed him if it had faced his charge, but it did not yet dare to face
him in the firelight.
The sheep's eyes were on Duncan, a hundred glowing spots in the huddled mass
of the flock. One or two of the animals bleated softly.
He paced around the flock, sleepiness and introspection jarred from his mind.
Legends said that men in the old Earthland had animals called dogs that
guarded sheep. If that were true, some might think that men were fools for
ever leaving Earthland.
But such thoughts were irreverent, and Duncan's situation called for prayer.
Every night now the wolf came, and all too often it killed a sheep.
Duncan raised his eyes to the night sky. "Send me a sign, sky-gods," he
prayed, routinely. But the heavens were quiet. Only the stately fireflies of
the dawn zone traced their steady random paths, vanishing halfway up the
eastern sky. The stars themselves agreed that three fourths of the night was
gone. The legends said that Earthland was among the stars, but the younger
priests admitted such a statement could only be taken symbolically.
The heavy thoughts came back, in spite of the nearby wolf. For two years now
Duncan had prayed and hoped for his mystical experience, the sign from a god
that came to mark the future life of every youth. From what other young men
whispered now and then, he knew that many faked their signs. That was all
right for lowly herdsmen, or even for hunters. But how could a man without
genuine vision ever be much more than a tender of animals? To be a priest, to
study the things brought from old Earthland and saved-Duncan hungered for
learning, for greatness, for things he could not name.
He looked up again, and gasped, for he saw a great sign in the sky, almost
directly overhead. A point of dazzling light, and then a bright little cloud
remaining among the stars. Duncan gripped his spear, watching, for a moment
even forgetting the sheep. The tiny cloud swelled and faded very slowly.
Not long before, a berserker machine had come sliding out of the interstellar
intervals toward Duncan's planet, drawn from afar by the Sol-type light of
Duncan's sun. This sun and this planet promised life, but the machine knew
that some planets were well defended, and it bent and slowed its hurtling
approach into a long cautious curve.
There were no warships in nearby space, but the berserker's telescopes picked
out the bright dots of defensive satellites, vanishing into the planet's
shadow and reappearing. To probe for more data, the berserker computers
loosed a spy missile.
The missile looped the planet, and then shot in, testing the defensive net.
Low over nightside, it turned suddenly into a bright little cloud.
Still, defensive satellites formed no real obstacle to a berserker. It could
gobble them up almost at leisure if it moved in close to them, though they
would stop long-range missiles fired at the planet. It was the other things
the planet might have, the buried things, that held the berserker back from a
killing rush.
It was very strange that this defended planet had no cities to make sparks of
light on its nightside, and also that no radio signals came from it into
space.
With mechanical caution the berserker moved in, toward the area scouted by
the spy missile.
In the morning, Duncan counted his flock-and then recounted, scowling. Then
he searched until he found the slaughtered lamb. The wolf had not gone
hungry, after all. That made four sheep lost, now, in ten days.
Duncan tried to tell himself that dead sheep no longer mattered so much to
him, that with a sign such as he had been granted last night his life was
going to be filled with great deeds and noble causes. But the sheep still did
matter, and not only because their owners would be angry.
Looking up sullenly from the eaten lamb, he saw a brown-robed priest, alone,
mounted on a donkey, climbing the long grassy slope of the grazing valley
from the direction of the Temple Village. He would be going to pray in one of
the caves in the foot of the mountain at the head of the valley.
At Duncan's beckoning wave-he could not leave the flock to walk far toward
the priest-the man on the donkey changed course. Duncan walked a little way
to meet him.
"Blessings of Earthland," said the priest shortly, when he came close. He was
a stout man who seemed glad to dismount and stretch, arching his back and
grunting.
He smiled as he saw Duncan's hesitation. "Are you much alone here, my son?"
"Yes, Holy One. But-last night I had a sign. For two years I've wanted one,
and just last night it came."
"Indeed? That is good news." The priest's eyes strayed to the mountain, and
to the sun, as if he calculated how much time he could spare. But he said,
with no sound of impatience: "Tell me about it, if you wish."
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