Morgan's position in the fighting formation of the Lontastan raid brigade was well back, but on what would be the Earthward flank. Certainly he was not out of harm's way, but neither was he particularly in it. It was important that, when the Primgranese defenders studied the records of the coming skirmish, Morgan should not look special in any way.
His left ear hissed softly as the ultralight carrier came on, and he heard the voice of the brigade's navigator: "Delay in warp exit, three point four two seven seconds. Reset cut-outs for delay in warp exit of three point four two seven seconds . . . . Exit now due in eighty-five seconds. Prediction: Combat will commence four point five seconds after exit."
Morgan reset the timing of his warp cut-out and twisted his head for a moment to gaze toward the navigator's position. He couldn't see him, of course. The distance between the two men was something over twenty-three hundred miles, and also normal vision was of scant use at superlight velocities.
But he looked anyway as he thought half sympathetically of the navigator, as burdened with equipment as an ancient was with clothing. Morgan glanced down at his own well-muscled body, bare and exposed to space except for his black minishorts, his weapons belt, and his low boots.
For an instant he entertained himself with his daydream of encountering a famed ancient, mysteriously transported forward in time about a thousand years from the Early Interstellar Age, back when men still traveled in ships. How astonished that worthy would be to see almost naked men zipping routinely about the galaxy! And how puzzled by the microchemical mysteries of a modern life-support system!
The thought made him aware of his breathing, and of the pounding of his heart which was speeding up in anticipation of the coming battle in spite of his efforts to think of other things. He inhaled deeply and slowly, conscious of the oxygen and nitrogen coming out of combination with the chemicals lining certain nasal passages to fill his lungs. Then he exhaled, and other doped surfaces, mostly in the lower throat, quickly absorbed the gases and almost as quickly broke down the carbon dioxide. After three breaths, he would be using the same oxygen over again.
Meanwhile, he had not neglected to draw both of his zerburst guns and wave them about a bit to loosen his arm muscles. His comrades of the brigade, randomly spaced with an average separation of fifteen hundred yards, were doing the same thing. Most of these men would fight the Primgranese Commonality defenders of Earth for fourteen long, furious seconds . . . and probably live to tell about it.
Morgan expected to be out of the fight within six seconds.
* * *
The brigade made warp exit less than a million miles out from Earth, and automatically went semi-inert. A quick glance at the ancestral planet assured Morgan that the navigator hadn't blundered; the brigade's trajectory was carrying it Earthward in a slanting, curving power dive that would peri at maybe two thousand miles from the surface.
And the defenders were coming in a swarm! Satellite bases were ejecting Primgranese Commonality guardsmen like slugs from antique machine guns, precisely aimed to intercept and parallel the course of the raiders of the Lontastan Federation.
The battle was quickly joined. Zerburst terminals flowered in deadly beauty in both formations as the first shots were exchanged. Pale purple lances of light . . . the beams along which zerburst energy poured from gun to terminal point . . . criss-crossed the narrowing gap between the formations.
Morgan got off a few shots in rapid succession, less conscious of his aim than his position relative to the rapidly swelling Earth. Also, he needed a terminal for cover—one not close enough to terminate him, but one sufficiently near that, with luck on the side of the Primgranese gunner, some vital area of his life-support could conceivably be knocked out.
He felt the glare on his back of the terminal he needed two seconds before the time to make his move. That time came.
Instantly he went full inert and tumbled Earthward from the raider formation, a pinwheel of flailing arms and legs that quickly spread-eagled as if his pressor system were giving way and exposing him to the effects of space vacuum. In fact, the pressors did weaken sufficiently to assure the spread-eagling did not look faked.
That far, all was according to plan. But then came the unexpected . . . the statistically possible but improbable accident.
He was holed by a zerburst lance. It could have been fired by friend or foe, and could not have been aimed at him. It terminated too many hundreds of miles away for him to pick out its flare among all the others. He felt the intense burning pain as it drilled a neat quarter-inch hole in his side, and looked down to see blood spraying out of him.
His life-support went to work on the injury immediately. Localized pressor intensity stopped the blood loss, and internal reagents threw up sturdy walls of pseudo-tissues to contain organ ruptures for the hour that would be needed for normal healing.
But that lance of energy had punctured more than human flesh. From the way the injury felt, Morgan suspected it had also holed a major life-support packet carried in that part of his body.
Which could prove disastrous.
* * *
When he hit the upper fringes of the atmosphere he discovered what the damage was. His re-entry field came on full, taking up the heat of impact with the air and braking his fall. But he did not go semi-inert for even an instant! The inertial unit had been smashed.
It could have been worse, he told himself. With his re-entry field fully extended for maximum atmospheric retardation he could slow for a reasonably soft landing. But he was going to take a battering from G-forces on the way down.
At least his life-support wouldn't let him black out, and would give brain damage priority attention. He had to remain alert to pick out a landing site where he might expect some privacy for a while, since he was going to be in bad shape.
His target area was in the northern Rockies, on the dawn line and just breaking out of Earth's unmodified winter season. That area was, perhaps, the key spot in the galaxy, so far as the future of humanity was concerned, but if the Primgranese suspected nothing there shouldn't be a human within eighty miles at this time of year.
At an altitude of ten miles his ionization trail began to dim as he slowed, and soon vanished. Unless there was a very close tracking antenna, the Primgranese would not be able to pinpoint the remainder of his descent. He tilted himself to slant his fall slightly north of vertical as soon as he picked out the place he wanted to ground.
It was at the south end of a high valley, on a slope where snow lingered in—he hoped—a heavy drift. He wanted the snow not for softness but for concealment, because his body was overwhelming him with painful distress signals. He was quite sure that, once he was on the ground, he would not be able to move about, seeking cover, for quite some time.
He killed his re-entry field a split-second before hitting, to avoid making a broad dent in the snow. There was an icy crust on top, which shattered easily with his impact, and his body came to a halt several feet below the surface. Gratefully, he blacked out.
* * *
His revival came slowly, like a drowsy awakening. For a minute he remained motionless, monitoring his body sensations and considering his position. He had been out for a little more than two hours—a dangerously long time if the Primgranese were making a serious effort to find him. Since he was still buried under the snow and not in captivity, it seemed a reasonable assumption that the Primgranese had disregarded him, thinking he was merely one more dead or dying Lontastan whose inert trajectory had happened to intercept Earth. Or at most, they had made a cursory search from the air, and given up when they found no clear trace of him, perhaps assuming that his re-entry system had failed and he had burned like a meteor in the final stage of his fall.
For the moment, then, he was probably safe.
He pushed against the weight of snow that had caved on top of him, to come to his hands and knees. Then he began wriggling and crawling, pushing his way downhill through the drift.
Finally his head contacted harder stuff, and he butted through the icy crust and into the morning sunlight. As he looked around he felt his breathing mode change, his life-support having automatically sampled the air and found it suitable—with minor nasal warming—for human respiration. Now he could smell as well as see the snow and, not many yards away, the stunted trees and early growth of grass of this high and rugged valley. Off to his left somewhere he could hear the roar of water.
He pulled himself free of the snowdrift and ate two rations from his food pouch. It was an easy, well-prepared-for task of a few seconds to modify the appearance of his boots, weapons belt, and shorts to pass for an ordinary Primgran citizen. Then he turned his attention to the scars left by the zerburst lance.
Mentally he constructed an image of the area through which the lance of energy had passed, and ran a straight line from scar to scar. The line passed through the center of the inertial control complex of the life-support packet, but touched nothing else of importance.
However, the damage done was important enough. Without inertial control, his entire transport system was of little practical use. His repulsors wouldn't raise him a millimeter off the ground against full inertia; nor, if he should manage somehow to get into space, could he go into warp.
If he hoped to get home, he would have to stun or kill a Primgranese, and take the inertial-control complex from the enemy's body.
But that could be dealt with when the opportunity arose, or when it became necessary. What he had to do now was get out of this valley and start his quest.
He walked toward the sound of water and soon came to the rushing, swollen stream, with the intention of following its course down through the southwest end of the valley. The going was difficult, at times through a solid jumble of boulders, and after a mile Morgan found his route blocked completely. The valley narrowed to a steep-walled canyon. He could neither follow the stream nor climb the wall.
For a moment he eyed the water speculatively, but it was a rolling rapid, and even with the protection of his skin-field he could be battered into a lifeless pulp if he tried swimming down it.
It was annoying indeed to be impeded this way by such petty trivialities as a minor river and a rock wall! But without inertial-control, which would let him leap over such obstacles without a thought . . . well, he would have to find another way out.
He turned back upstream, found a place where he could cross the water by leaping from boulder to boulder, and began exploring along the western slope of the valley, which was free of snow and appeared less steep than the eastern side. At several promising looking spots he tried to climb, but always he was stopped by a blank stretch of rock where he could find no further holds for hands or feet.
Finally he halted, sat down on a boulder, and tried to develop a solution to his problem. In the distant past, he knew, men had climbed mountains often—perhaps because they could not fly. Mountains far higher than the walls of this valley, and steeper too. But they had used equipment of some sort, judging by pictures he had seen: ropes, and spikes which could be driven into stone.
He glanced down at the items attached to his weapons belt, but raiders traveled light. He had nothing that could be improvised into a rope or spike. Of course, if he had kept his zerburst guns he could blast his way out—and take a chance on attracting the Primgranese to the energy release—but he had let his primary weapons go flying when he pretended to be wounded. His remaining gun was a stunner, effective enough on a human enemy at close range, but no hewer of stone.
His eyes swept the valley, in search of anything that might prove useful.
A stone clattered loudly behind him.
He refused to let himself go tense. He turned, more with the appearance of alert curiosity than startled fright.
But it wasn't an enemy, nor even a man. It was merely a mountain goat, standing high on the rim of the valley and looking down at him. Such creatures were thought to be numerous in these mountains, he recalled. In fact, the Primgranese had set aside most of the Rockies as a wildlife preserve for such animals as this one.
Morgan started to look away just as the goat moved. It began descending toward him with an ease and agility he found hard to believe, its hooves locating firm footings where he would have sworn his fingertips would have found nothing but blank stone. As the animal came closer to the floor of the valley, he ceased to marvel at its movements and began to puzzle at its purpose. He frowned. Wild animals had territorial instincts. Did this one consider him an invader to be attacked? He did not wish to inflict pain and injury on the animal, but he drew his stunner to use if he had to.
The shaggy beast stopped ten feet away and regarded the man curiously. Morgan watched and waited.
"Looks like you got in a hole, mister," said the goat in rough but perfectly understandable Universal. "What's your name?"
The man blinked. A talking goat was no great cause for surprise. Men had experimented with genetic modification of several animal species. It was puzzling, however, to find an intelligent goat living in the wild. Also, this animal's skull was no bigger than that of an unmodified goat.
"I'm Morgan," he replied.
"And I'm called Ezzy," said the goat.
"Where do you carry your brain, Ezzy?" Morgan asked.
"Under the shoulder hump," said Ezzy. "A goat's skull ain't the place for a brain. Takes too many licks. But like I was saying, Morgan, looks like you got yourself in a hole."
"You mean this valley? Yes, I'm having a little trouble getting out. Is there a path?"
"Afraid not," said Ezzy.
"Well, where can I climb out?"
"If you can't do it at them places I watched you try, you can't do it nowhere," said Ezzy. Morgan was sure the goat was grinning at him.
"I hope I'm not violating your territory," he said rather stiffly.
"Matter of fact, you are," said the goat. "but that's okay, I saw you don't want to stay. I guess this place don't look much like home to you, does it? What Lontastan planet you from, anyhow?"
Morgan's grip on the stunner tightened. "What makes you think I'm a Lontastan?" he demanded.
"Cause you landed way up here, and cause you ain't calling for help. I guess some of your stuff ain't working, or you could get out, but some of it is, or you'd be freezing. So you could get help if you wanted to call the Primgranese."
This goat had a brain all right, Morgan thought tensely. But . . . although it could guess he was Lontastan, it could not be certain. Maybe it was trying to verify its suspicions by tricking him into admitting his identity, after which it would curry favor with its Primgranese masters by reporting his presence.
Morgan grinned. "With all respect for your territorial preferences, what would a Lontastan be doing in such a nowhere place as this?"
The goat waggled its head. "Humans hang around a lot of nowhere places. Like where there ain't even air."
There was a long pause.
At last Morgan said, "Your reasoning about my identity could be right, Ezzy. But it's also possible that I hesitate to call for help because my predicament is a silly one to be in, and I would be embarrassed to let my friends know a mere mountainside bested me."
The goat appeared to consider this possibility before saying, "That don't tell why you lit here to start with."
"Sheer accident," said Morgan. "I misjudged the terrain."
"Well, it ain't much business of mine, nohow," said Ezzy. "I guess you want me to help you get out."
"I would appreciate it if you'll tell me the way.''
"There ain't no way. Like I said, where you was climbing is as good places as any, and you couldn't make it." The goat looked him over—rather belittlingly, Morgan thought. "Guess I'll have to tug you out."
"Tug me?"
"Yep. You take ahold of my hind quarters and jest hang on tight."
Morgan visualized what Ezzy was suggesting, then glanced up the steep slope. Maybe the goat could do it, but did the goat really mean to help him? Morgan realized that, once the climb was started he would be utterly dependent on Ezzy's good intentions. A sudden backlash from those sharp rear hooves and Morgan would be dislodged from goat and ground alike. He would tumble back to the valley floor. And his life-support system had not been intended to solve this kind of problem in this manner. It would afford him little protection during such a tumble.
"No, thanks, Ezzy. I don't care to risk it."
"Up to you," the goat said airily. "I don't mind having you for company, so long's you don't eat no grass." Ezzy turned away from him and began munching the spring greenery.
Morgan kept a cautious eye on the goat as it wandered slowly away, but its sole interest appeared to be in filling its belly. And his own interest should be in getting out of the valley, he reminded himself. And there was no reason to take the goat's word that he couldn't get out without help. After all, a rough, tumbled valley like this . . . surely there was some way!
He resumed his search along the western slope, moving slowly up the valley floor, attempting to ascend at every promising break in the wall. It was arduous and tiring work, which left him exhausted within a few fruitless hours.
He stopped, drank from the stream, ate a ration, and sat down to rest a while.
"Hey, Morgan!"
He turned to face the approaching goat. "What is it, Ezzy?
"I been thinking, Morgan. You don't trust me, do you?"
"Not much," the man admitted.
"Can't blame you for that. This here's a Primgranese Commonality world, and you'd be foolish to trust anybody on it. Particular if they didn't level with you."
"Didn't you level with me?" asked Morgan, half amused.
"I reckon not. Thing is, Morgan, I know who you are, and what brings you to these parts. There was Primgranese all over these hills, eight years ago just about, for the same reason. I know, cause I helped 'em what I could, showing where the old diggings and things are, stuff like that, and hearing them talk about what they was after. So I got that reason I didn't tell you about to know you come from the Lontastan Federation."
Morgan had grown tense. "That search eight years ago. How did it turn out?" he demanded.
"They didn't have no luck. Guess there weren't nothing to find. Least, that's what they finally figured. Morgan, you give yourself away with that question, and the way you ask it. Why don't you quit butting the ground?"
"You assume I'm hunting for what the other search failed to find?" asked the man.
"That's all I can figure," said the goat.
"And what was that?"
"Sometimes they called it the Grail," Ezzy replied.
Morgan paused, then nodded. Why not talk about it? The goat obviously had helpful information and—if the goat became a threat in any way—it could be killed.
"The Grail is as good a name as any, I suppose," he said. "Or it can be called cornucopia, or Aladdin's Lamp—or perhaps Pandora's Box. Its precise appearance and function is uncertain. The only certain information is that it has vast power, and has been around a long time."
The goat chortled. "That's what them Primgranese was after, all right. That's just like they talked about it. They was sure it was around here in the mountains somewheres. Said it had to be. I never could tell jest how they figured that."
"Historical investigation," said Morgan. "Evidently they saw the same pattern our own historians discovered—the similarity of legendary evidence that couldn't be satisfactorily accounted for in terms of human imagination alone. The Primgranese historians seem to have been a few years ahead of ours."
"Well, it didn't do them no good," said Ezzy. "Maybe it ain't for me to say, being just a goat, but I wonder about them historians sometimes. You sure they ain't chewing on cobweb?"
Morgan shook his head. "Historical investigation is an exact science, limited only by the completeness and accuracy of available information. And information weakness can be taken into ample consideration in making a historical evaluation. In this instance, the probability that the so-called 'Grail' object is now located within fifty miles of this spot is . . ." He hesitated, reluctant to disclose the 95.3 per cent figure to a creature of the Primgranese, " . . . is very high," he finished.
"That's what the Primgranese thought," said Ezzy. "They talked about something called fortune-shifts, way I recollect, that showed how the thing was carried about in ancient times. They figured it was in a place called France for a while, but was brung over the ocean by the first Yankans."
"Between 1720 and 1750, probably," agreed Morgan.
"And they figure it's got to be right around here," the goat continued, "cause this is where the Yankans hung on in their diggings in whichever year that was."
"In 2106," said Morgan. "The key fact there, of course, was that the Yankans were in an impossible position but managed to win that war just the same. Their victory is the strongest single piece of evidence in favor of the 'Grail' object's reality."
Ezzy chortled again. "It sure beats me. All the fancy molecules and things you humans got, to fly you in space, or so you can walk on places like Jupiter. Looks to me like if you wanted a Grail thing, you ought to jest figure out and build yourself one. Anything all them thousands of years old I reckon is easy for you to build, cause you learned so much."
Morgan frowned at this speech. Ezzy's vocabulary seemed limited, and his sentence structures clumsy, which left the man with occasional doubts of the goat's meaning.
"As I said before," he explained slowly, "we don't know what it does, much less how it works. Thus, we don't know how to start building one. We only know it appears to assure the survival and success of whatever society has it in possession."
"So the Lontastan Federation wants it," said the goat.
"Of course. And not just for our own benefit. You see, Ezzy, the econo-war with the Primgranese Commonality has lasted for centuries, but almost always the fighting has adhered strictly to a set of unwritten rules which keeps the damage to both sides down to an acceptable level. Some people call it a game, but it is a serious game. Lately, our side has developed a permanent superiority. And the Primgranese are slowly but definitely losing the war.
"At some stage, and perhaps soon," the man continued, "the Primgranese will become desperate enough to throw out the rule book. We will have total war, and that could spell the end of interstellar civilization. Unless the 'Grail' object, in our hands, can prevent it. In fact, it's possible that the Primgranese, knowing that we possessed the object, would be deterred from total war. So, for everybody's good, the Lontastans must have it."
The goat was chewing a wad of grass, and swallowed it before speaking. "Got my own angle on that, Morgan. Don't want the war moving in on me."
"But if the Primgranese go all-out," said the man, "we may have to attack Earth."
"Yeah. That's what I figure. Especially if you think that Grail's around here somewheres. That's how come I offered to help you up the rocks, Morgan. If you can find the thing and tote it off the Earth, or satisfy yourself and the Lontastans that it ain't here to start with, I figure on being a lot safer."
Morgan considered this at length. "Don't you feel any loyalty to the Primgranese?" he asked.
"Well, maybe a little. But it ain't my fight."
The man nodded thoughtfully. "I wonder," he mused, "how a prehistoric Greek would have felt, watching the war of the Gods and the Titans. Or a Norseman the battle of his Gods and the Frost Giants. You're in a similar situation, Ezzy."
"Then I reckon the way they felt was, they didn't want no stray lightning bolts hitting them," said the goat.
Morgan made his decision and stood up. "All right, Ezzy. Get me out of this valley, and I'll do what I can to keep lightning bolts out of the Rockies."
* * *
But Morgan did not escape the valley that day. Even hanging onto the haunches of the sure-footed Ezzy did not make the ascent easy. He was constantly in the goat's way, and Ezzy had to climb with unaccustomed caution, making no jumps and being careful not to put a rear hoof on the man's foot or in his groin.
Morgan spent the night on a fairly comfortable ledge about halfway up. When they reached the spot he threw himself on the ground and said, "I don't know how you made it, Ezzy."
"Weren't easy," the goat replied. "Some places I had to use my fingers. Don't never do that very much."
"Fingers?" said the man.
"Yeah." The goat lifted a foreleg, and Morgan watched the hoof snap into two heavy, horn-backed fingers and a similar opposing thumb. Ezzy flexed the digits a few times, then closed them into a fist once more and put the hoof down. "I reckon you humans figure if they give us big brains, they got to give us hands, too. Like they have to go together. I ain't real sure of that, myself. Don't hardly ever use it." The goat paused, then finished, "I'm going back down where the water and grass is. Be back about sunrise."
With a couple of leaps Ezzy was out of sight. Morgan sighed with misgiving. He had to trust the goat to return. But finally he slept.
And Ezzy was back with the sun, and the climb was resumed.
They reached the crest shortly before midday.
"I reckon you can make it without me from here," the goat said.
The man studied the terrain for a moment and nodded. "Yes. Many thanks, Ezzy."
"Weren't nothing," said the goat. "Where you figure to head?"
"I have to find a way into the old caverns."
Ezzy said, "Well, I showed the Primgranese how to get in, so I reckon I could do the same for you. Got a map?"
Morgan nodded, drew a sheet from his belt pouch and unfolded it. The goat studied it and then put a finger on a spot. "Right there. It's a tight crevice with a hole in the side. Nothing close to mistake it for. Best way to get there from here is like this . . ." The horn-backed finger described a route across the map as the man watched closely.
"Good," he said, "and thanks again."
"Well, but don't figure on finding nothing," warned the goat. "I don't reckon there's something there to find. The Primgranese is already looked."
"That's my problem, Ezzy. Don't worry about it. Goodbye."
* * *
The goat stood on the crest watching the Lontastan questor depart in search of the Grail.
Lontastans and Primgranese . . . they were pretty much the same. All shared Earth as their ancestral home . . . a home they had grown up and left. Even the Primgran citizens who resided on the planet weren't Earthmen. Not really. Like all other humans, they were . . .
The goat paused in his thought.
. . . They were Spacemen. Or Starmen. Or Galaxymen.
Were they like the ancient Gods and Titans and Frost Giants mentioned by Morgan? Ezzy had not heard of those mythological races before; no Primgran had ever happened to mention them to a goat. But it could be, he meditated, that long ago other creatures had matured and left the Earth, to fight battles in the sky. And primitive man waited in awed fear for the chance blow that would doom him . . .
Now, however, man was in the sky and goats were on the ground. In times still distant, would goats be stupid and forgetful, and follow the same pattern?
Ezzy lifted a foreleg, studied the hand man had given his kind, and made an annoyed sound in his throat.
But the distant future would have to take care of itself. Ezzy had his duty to perform in the present, to perhaps assure the survival of his kind.
There was no question of where the Grail object really belonged. Not with the Primgranese, and not with the Lontastans. They had passed beyond the Earth. And Whoever or Whatever had endowed this planet with the object had meant it for Earth's creatures, not for conquerors of the universe. Else, why was the object still here after all the ages?
Also, there was no question of who really needed the object's protection. Earthlings needed it.
Ezzy turned to survey the valley from which he had assisted Morgan, and felt a mild pride in a job diplomatically done. He had been worried for a while, because the man had chosen this particular spot to land. But that was mere happenstance. Morgan had suspected nothing, and had been very glad indeed to leave the valley empty-handed, to do his questing elsewhere.
Once more Ezzy turned to look in the direction the man had taken and caught sight of him passing over a ridge about a mile away, following the route Ezzy had suggested.
Then the goat trod northward along the crest, continuing his watchful guarding of the Valley of the Grail.