Mason jumped to his feet. "There ought to be several hours yet before
the fleet arrives. We might have time to rig up a field generator and
set up a dummy here to make the Disciples believe we're hiding under
it, while we actually take off for the moon."
"That's it!" Underwood exclaimed. "Only we'll have to move around the
planet to avoid detection by the local garrison. But that will do it!"
The interphone sounded. Illia said, "We're finished, Del. Jandro is
alive, but he'll be dead within an hour. If you want to see him, you'd
better come now."
_CHAPTER FIFTEEN_
Underwood started for the door without hesitation. "We'll try your
plan, Mason. Take over. Dreyer, Phyfe--please come along with me."
They hurried to the room next to surgery where Jandro lay in bed,
motionless and unseeing. Only Illia and Akers were with him.
At the sight of that unmoving figure, Underwood experienced a depth
of sorrow and pity that wiped out all other thoughts for a moment.
He felt that he alone of all the Earthmen could understand the deep
rebellion, the dreams and the hopes that had been the driving force in
Jandro's life. And this was a mean end for such bright dreams--death at
the hands of crazed fanatics on a Heaven World that had proved to be
anything but that.
Underwood thought of the green, shining moon of the refugee Dragbora
where men lived in peace with one another. The moon that Jandro would
never see again.
Jandro's eyes fluttered open slowly and gradual recognition came into
them. Dreyer said softly, "We're sorry. If there were anything within
our power to get you back to your own world and your own people, we
would do it. I hope you know that."
"Of course," said Jandro slowly. "I would like my _seaa-abasa_ to be
with those of my ancestors for the day when life will return. But I
think perhaps it never will. It is like our dream of the gods, only a
delusion. As for death, that is certain for every man. How or when it
comes is not important. It is strange for me to observe the grief of
animals for a man. Strange--"
"Doesn't he suppose there was a time when the Dragbora never had the
mother-flesh and the secret of the _abasa_?" Asked Underwood, and
Dreyer translated for him.
"Naturally," Jandro replied. "We were merely animals then, as you are
now. When you came in your ships of metal, all of us thought surely the
gods had come to return us to Heaven World again. You did us a great
favor in showing us how wrong we were in our legends and our dreams.
But until we arrived on this planet, I still thought you were superior
beings because I could not detect your _epthalia_. None of us have the
ability to hide it from each other."
"But you knew it when we were attacked?" said Dreyer.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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