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  the RUNNER

  by

  Peter J. Ponzo

  PROLOGUE

  The way of the galaxy can now be seen, it runs to here from where we've been.

  And all the stars shall wink their last when here is now and now is past.

  Carmichael, A.D. 2207

  Runr stood at the peak of the mountain, bare feet firmly planted in the hard crusted snow, green eyes gazing at the dark sky now punctuated by points of light. The wind shrieked up the slope, his blue robe billowed and his hair rose in a wild tangle - but he felt none of the cold of the mountain. One by one he watched the stars wink then vanish until the void of space was a black sheet without light. Then came the glow, first faint then growing in luminosity like a cosmic maw that slowly opened in the night sky to reveal a bright red throat filled with stars.

  It was devouring galaxies.

  The ground shivered beneath his feet as the mouth descended. He alone might save Afria. He raised his hands and began to sing, the rising and falling song of the crystals. Flashes of phonarite blue reached up from the mountain, spears of light rising to meet the opening jaws of space. He heard the echo of his song as though the galaxy had joined him in chorus. At the base of the mountain his people stood, the Afrians, silent but for a murmur. Then the jaws engulfed him and he was falling, up, into the hole filled with stars. The jaws closed and all was dark and he knew that he had failed.

  Yet, from a distance, he heard once more the echo of his song and saw the slim figure of a girl in the blackness. Aura. She could save Afria, but she smiled, that enigmatic and disdainful smile, then sang, then was gone.

  Runr awoke, shivering. Tawna stood by his bed.

  "Keeper, you have dreamed," his mate said quietly. "Is it of the evil which comes?"

  Runr sat up and stared without expression at his daughter, Aura, who leaned against the wall, smiling. After a time he spoke to Tawna.

  "It comes - and will devour us."

  He looked again at Aura for some sign of understanding, of compassion, but the tall black youth was silent, her face bearing still the thin smile, her eyes flashing green in the dimly lit room, her rust-colored hair falling in random curl across her shoulders.

  The keeper slid out of bed, drew the blue robe over his head, stared once more at his daughter.

  "Do you know of this thing that comes?" he asked. "Do you see it in your dreams, as I do?"

  "I do not dream," Aura said, still smiling. After a pause she added, with a note of contempt, "...keeper." Aura turned and left, without another word.

  "Do not grieve my keeper," murmured Tawna. "Our daughter is young, but one day -"

  Runr waved his hand and fell back onto the bed, closing his eyes, and Tawna backed slowly from the room. The keeper began again to dream, not of the star-eater, but of his youth, the beast, C-phon3 and the halcyon days of tranquility.

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER 1

  the RUNNER

  The first thin rays of morning crept pink and fragile across the cold ground, groping fingers of light caressing the rockstrewn floor, until his face was in full sun. The boy opened his eyes, yawning widely, stretching. He pulled off the heavy skins and jumped easily to his feet, letting the skins slide to the ground. At the mouth of the cave he gazed at the mounting sun, hot and white, inhaling deeply as the wind grew warmer. The lush green jungle at the base of his mountain stretched to the grassy plains beyond. On the horizon he could barely see the hazy blue of distant hills rising in the morning mist.

  His rust-colored hair hung in great rolling curls which reached to his shoulders. He was naked. He was 12 years old. He was black, and he was hungry.

  From deep within the cave came the first plaintive cry and he half-turned, smiled, his teeth almost too white. The great beast lumbered to his side and they stood, he leaning against the huge frame, the black creature slowly shaking its shaggy head from side to side. The boy reached up and scratched a ragged ear, then set off down the slope.

  When he reached the edge of the jungle below he leaped across the brook, turned and watched and laughed, a hearty laugh like the rushing waters that ran at his feet, gurgling, splashing, hurrying frothy past the rocks. Tongue lolling, the grotesque beast made its way down the slope, placing each huge clawed paw one after the other, head waving slowly in a lazy arc, intent upon the descent.

  As the bear reached the stream the boy spun about, swung up into the tangled branches of a tree, taunting, laughing. The creature lumbered to the foot of the tree, whining, leaning heavily, shaking the trunk, shaking its head. The boy giggled with delight and dropped onto its back. The beast turning abruptly and they vanished into the green haze of the jungle.

  ______________________________________________________

  The hot and searing winds had begun to sweep across the grassy plains and up the slope to the mountain cave, yet it was still cool and damp beneath the jungle canopy. Several times, the boy slipped from the beast's back and knelt to inspect a new impression in the mossy ground, sniffing the moist earth, running his hand across a gnarled root. Several times he held his ear to the ground, then stood and gazed into the darkness of the forest. The blue lights winked and he smiled knowingly, then continued to the edge of the jungle, to the expanse of waving grass. He climbed across the beast's back and into the lowest branch of a large tree, a branch smooth from earlier climbs, a branch which arched to receive his slim body.

  Now, the hunt would begin.

  The beast loped parallel to the line of trees, turned suddenly in practised ritual and moved into the long grasses now swaying violently in the searing wind. It was a familiar manoeuvre and the boy waited until he heard the first frantic cry, then the pounding of hooves, then saw the tall grasses bend like a waving stream, rushing to the jungle's edge, to the giant tree with swooping branches that stood dark and solemn by the edge of the veldt.

  The black youth dropped onto the first small antelope, the others fanning out in bleating disarray. The great beast stopped to watch, and wait, impatiently, whining, rocking slowly from foot to foot.

  Within an hour they were back at the cave, the antelope skinned and the carcass lying on a low fire. A grey ribbon of smoke rose vertically, quivered, then was sucked out the mouth of the cave by the hot and howling winds. The beast munched contentedly on a bush covered in yellow berries and the boy licked his lips, rubbing his hands in anticipation. He grunted and his black companion stopped momentarily, responded with a similar grunt, then returned to chew on the berries.

  Blue lights flickered from the deeper recesses of the cave. The boy gazed at the lights, and smiled.

  ______________________________________________________

  "Gravic isn't going to like this."

  Kevn peered through half-open eyelids. Why did Gry insist upon stating the obvious? Kevn grunted, turned the temperature control to warmer, slid deeper into his sleeping bag and closed his eyes.

  Morning came with a vengeance. The sun leapt into the sky, a white orb rising from a pool of red on the horizon. The vanishing of the night frost signalled the onset of the infamous searing winds of C-phon3.

  Kevn rolled out of his bag, waving his arms by his side as though to cool himself. He was dressed in the standard green monotunic characteristic of transworld travellers. His taffy-colored hair was thinning prematurely and his swarthy face provided ample evidence of a life in the sun, yet his eyes sparkled with childish enthusiasm. He was perhaps thirty years old.

  Gry was gulping hot coffee and chewing on a foodstick. He was thin, some might say emaciated, with bony hands and hawkish nose and long black hair. Although he wore the regulation monotunic, his hair had been pulled out at the collar and hung to beyond his shoulders. Several rings
dangled from each ear.

  "How can you drink coffee? The temperature is already over 30," gasped Kevn, now waving his hands in front of his face.

  "I always drink coffee in the morning, even on this ... uh, miserable planet."

  Kevn jumped to his feet and gazed out over the field of tall grass, then at the ground-car. Without a word they gathered their gear, pulled themselves up onto the massive air bags which supported the all-terrain vehicle and entered the compact cabin.

  "Since there ain't no more phonarite on this miserable planet," Gry groaned, pulling constantly at his rings, "and since we're supposed to go Home with the stuff, and ... uh, since we have another three miserable weeks on C-phon3 to gather these nonexistent crystals, and ... uh ..."

  "Gry, you complain too much. Sometimes I think you're not happy unless you're unhappy," interrupted Kevn, grinning at his friend. "Anyway," he continued, "I've already reported the extinction of phonarite on this planet. Gravic, if he reads my reports at all, might very well expect this."

  "Well ... uh, we cleaned out C-phon1 didn't we? And we cleaned out C-phon2, didn't we? And there ain't no more planets in the C-phon belt. Am I right?"

  "No more ... as far as we know," said Kevn quietly, absentmindedly, staring out the window of the g-car at the dark mountain in the distance, a mountain where they had earlier seen a rising wisp of grey smoke.

  "What now?" mumbled Gry, nervously pushing back his long hair and pulling the rings on his left ear.

  "I suggest we look for the runner." Kevn's voice was now eager. "We're not expected back for weeks. There's no phonarite to mine. Why not see if we can catch it this time?" He swung about to look at Gry, eyes dancing with delight. "Who knows, if we bring it home, Gravic may be pleased. He's always talking about expanding the gene pool of the Dome. He'd like some new DNA, don't you think?"

  Gry grumbled. "How do you know the runner even has genes ... uh, or DNA? And what would you do with this runner back on Home planet? Maybe it likes it here, on C-phon3. Ever think of that? Do you want to bring it back for your sake - or its sake? We should leave wild things where we find them."

  Gry was rocking back and forth, still pulling at his rings, disturbed by the prospect of returning Home with a strange beast. "What would you feed it? Where would you keep it? There ain't no zoos in the Dome. Hell, there's barely enough room for the citizens."

  Kevn finished his foodstick, drew his sleeve across his mouth and pushed the start tab. The g-car heaved, sighed and rose several meters off the ground.

  "Hang on! We're going to catch us a runner!" Kevn punched the speed to maximum. He was grinning, his face flushed with excitement, like a child.

  "Hey! Hey! Maybe I don't want to look for the runner! It's damn hot and windy. I'd be happier in the ship, going Home. It'll take more than a month to get back ..."

  Gry shouted to be heard over the hum of the engines, but the ground-car was already heading across the grassy plains toward the distant blue hills, and the mountain beyond.

  First Citizen

  The door dissolved as Jan entered. The office was spacious by the standards of the Dome, as befit the First Citizen. She walked swiftly to his desk and waited. The door shimmered and reestablished itself. Jan had a delicate face with fine features, a stout body, hair closely cropped and hanging straight and black about her head, barely reaching her ears. She seemed uncomfortable in the tight monotunic and kept pulling the sides down around her hips.

  "What is it, Jan?" said Gravic without looking up.

  "First citizen, there is a message from C-phon3. They report a complete extinction of phonarite." She said it very quickly, with the appropriate degree of professionalism.

  Gravic looked up, wearily. "Who's on the team?"

  "Kevn, Gry and an android." Jan had pronounced it Gry, rhyming with cry.

  "Gry," muttered Gravic absentmindedly, rhyming the name with free. He leaned back in his chair and stared without seeing at his administrative assistant.

  He could still recall Gry shouting the words after the trial: See! See! Gry is free! Gravic smiled. Gry was a strange fellow. His general appearance had alienated the judges, but he had refused to cut his hair or remove the rings from his ears. The citizens of the domed city were unaccustomed to variations in dress, speech, actions or appearance. That was sad. It was important to encourage variety in thought and that meant accepting variety in appearance. Indeed, the limited DNA pool meant that differences should be nurtured. Alas, were it not for Kevn's intervention, the outlandish Gry would almost certainly have been banished from the Dome because of a minor infraction of Dome regulations.

  Gravic focussed on Jan, realized he was smiling and wiped the smile from his face, leaned forward, hands upon the desk before him, then continued sternly. "Kevn must have seen this extinction coming."

  "He reported an imminent extinction after his last trip to C-phon3," said Jan, almost apologetically.

  "And the teams on C-phon1? C-phon2?"

  "You may recall, First Citizen, that the two inner planets were abandoned ..."

  "Yes ... yes ... I know ... I remember ... extinction," mumbled Gravic, running his hand across the bald strip atop his head, frowning. He was getting old, he knew that. His memory was not what it used to be. He knew that, too. He had been First Citizen of the Dome community for too long. It was time to turn over the problems of office to a younger man. For a moment he leaned heavily on his desk, looking weary and concerned, then he straightened. "Jan - thanks for the information."

  Gravic rose, turned and walked to the window. His office was one of the few places where you could actually see the Barrens. Home planet was not particularly hospitable. The Domed city stood on a featureless plain extending to the mist which all but obscured the horizon. Small spirals of dust moved ceaselessly across the Barrens. Today, the sky was clear and without clouds and in the distance one could barely discern the Dolom Mountains. Gravic stared for some time, his hands clasped behind his back.

  "One last thing, First Citizen," Jan said quietly. "It may not be of any importance - but the Lab says that there are certain inconsistencies in the star charts." She waited for some response but Gravic was quiet. "It seems that some stars are ... well, missing. At least in one particular sector. Phrinene, I think."

  When it was clear that the First Citizen would not respond, Jan turned and walked to the door. It dissolved to let her through. She stood in the doorway, gazed back at Gravic for a moment, then stepped through as the door reestablished. Smiling, she walked eagerly to the levitator and pushed the tab marked "Phonarite Research Laboratory".

  ______________________________________________________

  Professor Kriss was just finishing his seminar and the young student scientists in the audience simultaneously applauded and rose from their seats to leave. Collecting his papers from the desk, Kriss headed toward a small door at the front of the lecture hall. He looked up at his audience milling about the two large doors at the rear, saw Jan descending the stairs and waited for her to join him.

  Jan looked back, once, to see that no one was near, then whispered in his ear. Kriss smiled, looked pensive, then chuckled. She was pleased. If Kriss should succeed Gravic as First Citizen then there would certainly be an important place for her in the new order.

  They both left the lecture hall, Kriss pushing first through the small door, Jan standing back, smiling and bowing slightly as he passed. Down the corridor they stopped. The sign above the door read: KRISS, Chief of Phonarite Research. The portal dissolved and Kriss headed for a large chair by the window, swinging it about to face Jan. She slid into a smaller chair by the door. It was clear that this routine had been repeated many times before.

  Kriss was a short stocky man with an unruly head of curly black hair and a dirty black-grey beard, equally unkempt. His pug nose barely protruded from his beard and his eyes were beady and too small for his head. The oversized lips were red, erotic. When he lectured, h
is students stared at his lips. Jan now stared, waiting for him to speak.

  "So. It has finally happened. The phonarite is gone - and Gravic will have to listen to me."

  Kriss said it slowly, enunciating carefully, his lips curling, convoluting, contorting. He was staring at the portrait on the far wall, above Jan's head. It was a portrait of him and it was as though he spoke to the picture, to himself, words that he had whispered beneath his breath a hundred times before.

  "I know why the phonarite computers break down." He would say it again and again, his voice rising, trembling with anger and frustration. "We've demonstrated this slow destruction in the lab. We never should have gone to phonarite in the first place."

  He sneered, waved his arm to encompass the room. "The entire Dome and all transworld vehicles use this blasted phonarite technology - because of that bastard, Kevn." He stared at his portrait, leaning forward, eyes squinting. "He gets the Turing prize, then what does he do? Solve the problems of phonarite? No!"

  Kriss rose to his feet, now shouting. "He leaves Home planet, wanders the galaxies, looks for more of the goddam crystals!" Abruptly, he stopped talking, sank slowly into his chair, still gazing at his portrait.

  Jan spoke in a low voice. "Kriss, dear, don't underestimate Kevn. He'll be back in a few months ... sooner, now that there is no longer any phonarite, and he's surely Gravic's choice for -"

  "Woman, forget Kevn!" Kriss jumped to his feet, lowered his eyes to stare at Jan, frowned. "Kevn will never make it Home!" Then he smiled as though he had remembered something and the remembrance soothed him. He sat again and continued to gaze at his portrait, his ruddy lips curled in smile amid the tangle of dark grey beard.

  Jan opened her mouth, then closed it again. What had Kriss said? Kevn will never make it Home? Is that what he had said? She leaned back and stared at the man. Was she looking, now, at the next First Citizen? Would he appreciate, really appreciate the information she periodically brought from Gravic's files? Would there be an important place for her in the new order? Would Gravic insist that Kevn return to the Phonarite Research Lab and work on an alternative to phonarite? Without the host of computers which controlled the Dome environment, would life on Home planet be untenable? The only recourse would surely be to return to Earth, to admit that the Dome project had failed.

  Earth: polluted, barren, devoid of plants except for the moss which covered the uninhabited continents, devoid of animal life except for the deformed creatures confined to the zoos of the world, devoid of fresh water except for the stinking swamps from which Earthlings extracted and purified their water. A return to Earth was not an appealing option.

  Jan leaned forward in her chair and stared intently at Kriss. The question needed asking. She hesitated only for a moment.

  "What did you mean, Kevn will never make it Home?" she asked.

  Kriss lowered his eyes, gazed at her for a moment, grinned, but said nothing.

  C-phon3

  They sat in the ground-car, staring out the dusty window across the plains, past the jungle, past the hills rising to the base of the mountain. From here they had seen a ribbon of smoke rising from the side of a cliff. Twice they had seen the black creature scrambling over the loose rocks at the base of a mountain. On the second occasion it had seemed smaller, somehow. But two days had passed and there had been no further sighting.

  "It's time to go back to the ship ... uh, head for Home," complained Gry.

  Kevn turned to his companion. Perhaps it was time to leave. Perhaps, next time, they would be successful, but with the crystals gone, would there be a next time? Was this to be the last visit to this planet? Kevn looked up as though he expected to see the huge mining vessel in orbit about C-phon3. He was reluctant to leave. The ascetic life agreed with him. Life on board K-47, life at Home, it was too easy, too comfortable. It dulled the senses, enfeebled the mind. Somehow he envied the runner, free of societal constraints, an animal required to live by wits and imagination.

  He was staring at Gry, without seeing. Then he shook his head, smiled.

  "We did see smoke that first day, remember?" He pointed. "From somewhere in those hills. That, at least, was some evidence."

  "Smoke ... we saw smoke the last trip to C-phon3. Maybe this miserable planet just smokes a lot! I wouldn't ... uh, call that a sign of the runner."

  "Let's head for those woods up ahead and camp for the night. If we don't see anything by noon tomorrow, we'll head back to the ship. Okay?"

  Gry said nothing. He leaned forward, rubbed the dust from the window of the g-car and stared at the woods which loomed dark and sinister in the distance. The vehicle rose gently, vertically, lurched forward amid a cloud of dust caused as much by the winds of C-phon3 as by the air stream of the g-car, and headed for the hills.

  ______________________________________________________

  That evening they crouched close to the fire at the edge of the jungle and Gry chewed on foodsticks. Kevn ate little, but Gry seemed to have a limitless reservoir for food in his thin body and he was continually feeding it. It was dark now and the day time winds had vanished as quickly as they had come.

  Gry was thinking of Home planet, his girlfriend Lori, hot simmering greenstew, the shows at the video coliseum, his new red skooter with all the latest features: video scanner, audiophones, phonarite computer. When he thought of the computer he yanked the foodstick from his mouth, straightened up and pulled the rings on his ear. That was something he had meant to ask.

  "Kevn? I bought a skooter just before this trip ..." he began.

  "What!" said Kevn in mock surprise. "The Dome is small enough to walk anywhere you want to go. Why do you need a skooter?"

  Gry stuttered and coughed, then mumbled, embarassed, "Well ... uh, you see - my girlfriend, Lori, she said ...," then he leaned forward with a grimace. "Never mind why I bought a skooter. I wanted to ask you something. It has a phonarite computer." He pulled the hair from his forehead and laid it on his shoulder. "If we can't find any phonarite, what will happen when the computers become extinct? I mean, there are several Dome computers already defective and ... uh, if DOC goes, then we're in big trouble. We keep bringing back crystals and the Lab keeps regrowing the computers - but, one day, we'll run out of phonarite. Then we're in big trouble. Am I right?"

  Kevn looked pensive. "The old silicon computer technology has probably been forgotten by now," he whispered. He shrugged and seemed distant.

  "Why this crystal? Won't ... uh, something else do?"

  Kevn didn't answer for some time, staring into the fire, then spoke as though he were giving a well-rehearsed lecture on the subject.

  "Phonarite crystals come in 117 different molecular structures, including the zero state: the hyperdion series ... 29 of those corresponding to the 29 geometries available in dion spaces. Then there are ..."

  Gry groaned and Kevn stopped talking and turned to look at Gry.

  "You're ... uh, giving me a lecture? Am I right?"

  "Sorry Gry." Kevn chuckled. "Well, it goes something like this. We grow a sheet of crystals from a single crystal, the structure of each molecule in the sheet being determined by the structure of that single crystal ... the growth of the entire crystal sheet obeying the blueprint imposed by the geometry of that single, original crystal."

  He looked at Gry who seemed to be listening intently, so he continued.

  "It's like the DNA from a single human cell determining the growth and cell characteristics of an entire, complex organism - like you and me." Kevn grinned. "Well, me at least."

  Gry grunted. "You put the plans for a whole computer into a single crystal." He said it as though he had deduced it himself.

  "Mm-hmm," Kevn hummed, staring again into the fire.

  "So why phonarite? Why not something else, something that isn't extinct?"

  Kevin looked up, then back at the fire. "We know of no other crystal which has this property ... just phonarite ... and after a tim
e it goes extinct, so we have to regrow the computers ..." His voice trailed off.

  Gry shook his head. "You should still be working in the Phonarite Labs," he said.

  Kevn looked deeply into the flames, seeing beyond, thinking back.

  "How come you're flittin' from planet to planet on a mining ship?" Gry continued. "Any ... uh, lowlife can do that. Sure, tell me you prefer this miserable planet to Home, and the Dome." Gry ran his hand through his long black hair, parting the hair at his ears so his rings could swing freely. "So? How come?"

  Kevn wasn't listening. He slid against a large rock warmed by the fire and was deep in thought. Gry stopped talking. When Kevn got into one of these moods there was no point in talking. Gry pulled open his sleeping bag, turned the control to warmer and slid inside. Soon he was asleep, dreaming of greenstew, a bright red skooter, and his girl friend Lori.

  ______________________________________________________

  After a time, Kevn moved closer to the fire, now a red glow filled with white points of light, like stars winking in a red night sky. He thought of the Research Lab and his excitement, as a young scientist, when he constructed the first, simple automaton based upon the replication properties of a strange crystal which had been carried Home by some transworld traveller. The automaton was a talking computer with the ability to mimic human speech, complete with correct intonations and all the rules of phonetics built into memory. He had christened the computer the phoneticron and the crystals, phonarite. Before long he had grown a simple general purpose computer from a single crystal. He was ecstatic as were his young colleagues.

  Then came the scoffing of the older researchers ... and the accolades from the other young scientists when he received the Turing Prize. Then the alienation. There were many problems to solve concerning phonarite, in particular the unexplicable, spontaneous decay of the crystals, but the environment in the Lab had become stifling. He couldn't stay; had to get away.

  Humans, by and large, are motivated by their own selfish interests, he thought. What appears to be concern for others is often self gratification. Life was infinitely better on a transworld vessel. Better, still, was the opportunity to spend time in isolation, on some uninhabited planet, with the most meagre of amenities.

  He looked at Gry, now asleep in his bag, and grinned. Even Gry was a better companion than most. He was straighforward, honest, unselfish, every feeling openly expressed. He complained a lot and that had bothered Kevn at first, but after a few months together on the transworld vessel K-47 he got used to it and actually looked forward to hearing Gry's views - even if they were usually embedded within a complaint.

  ______________________________________________________

  It wasn't until the frost had started to form on his boots that Kevn noticed the cold. The jungle seemed to breath like a wheezing old man. He looked up from the dead fire and stared into the dark; there seemed to be blue lights, winking and moving through the undergrowth, a curious phenomenon he had observed before on C-phon3. Indeed, he had also seen it on the other C-phon planets.

  Kevn shivered, slid into his sleeping bag and lay there for some time before setting the temperature control. Maybe Gry was right. This is a miserable planet. Why did he find excursions to the C-phon planets exhilarating? Why didn't he stick it out at the Research Lab? Was his work with LIZ getting anywhere? Would they ever solve the crystal decay problem?

  And why was he fascinated by the prospect of finding the runner?

  The runner ... he remembered their first sighting of the creature. He and Gry were exhausted after several hours of scraping phonarite crystals from the walls of the cliff and loading them into the hauler. Sure, the autoarm of the g-car did the dirty work, but it was still mentally exhausting to spend hours making the decisions on which orientation of the arm was optimal and punching, in sequence, the appropriate control tabs. And the weather was always hot and windy.

  They had been resting just inside the mouth of a cave to avoid sitting in the searing wind. They heard the low whine and saw the gigantic black creature disappearing into the jungle at the base of the cliff. They both jumped to their feet and leaned over the rocky lip to get a better look. Nothing. Later that same day they had returned to camp, skimming over the long grasses with the g-car pulling a hauler loaded with crystals. The base of the cliff was hidden by the jungle. That's when they saw the creature again, climbing rapidly up the mountain, but now it appeared much smaller. When it reached the top it ran back and forth along the edge of the cliff. It was fast and they had named it the runner. It was also as black as night. By the time Gry had turned on the televiewer the creature was gone. Since then Kevn had been intrigued by the idea of returning to Home planet with this creature. Why? Envy? Curiosity?

  The blue lights of the jungle continued to wink long after Kevn was asleep.

  ______________________________________________________

  Gravic rose before the suns. He was always the first person at the office of the First Citizen and he intended to keep it that way. His staff joked about his being there when they arrived and still being there when they left. He liked that. Since his appointment to the office, on a planet which the settlers had immediately called Home, he involved himself only with the affairs of state. His wife had died long ago from one of the radiation plagues, and he had no children - which suited him fine. Life in the Dome was fragile at best and he saw it as his duty to improve its stability. There had been numerous disasters: the plagues, the breaches in the integrity of the Dome itself, and now the random and unexplainable failures in the computing systems. And now he had to deal with the extinction of the phonarite supplies.

  Before the discovery of these self-replicating crystals the old-technology computers had all failed and there had been talk of abandoning Home planet and returning to Earth. The problems of maintaining the Dome, amid the Barrens, seemed insurmountable. Most of the small community had been engaged in surveillance and control. Too few were involved in producing the goods and services which made life in the Dome feasible, comfortable, appealing. The critical population necessary for sustained growth was at least twice the existing population. Then a bright young scientist in PRL discovered the properties of phonarite and within a year, Barren surveillance and environmental control, foodstick production and transportation ... it was all handled by a host of automatons which were eventually networked to create an extensive phonarite computer called DOC. The entire Dome was now under the control of this omniscient automaton. Gravic was delighted that it happened during his term as First Citizen. He was particularly pleased, in a ceremony that was televiewed by all the citizens of the Dome, to award the Turing Prize to Kevn.

  Gravic gazed at the Barrens through the small window. What a waste to have a bright young scientist like Kevn clawing phonarite from the surface of some remote planet ... but Kevn had insisted, and there was little profit in forcing a scientist to stay at PRL. How do you force someone to be creative? It was unlikely that Kevn could make significant scientific progress in solving the extinction problem while on these trips. Perhaps Kevn had already made a sufficient contribution to the stability of the Dome. Of course he had. But Gravic would soon step down as First Citizen. Before that happened he must arrange that the principle positions within the Dome were filled by competent citizens. Kevn must be included - somehow. Perhaps as First Citizen. Most certainly as First Citizen!

  Gravic turned and walked through the door. The office of the First Citizen was just down the corridor. He would arrive before any of his staff.

  ______________________________________________________

  The beast awoke with a growl. The cave was filled with winking blue lights. The boy was sitting, cross-legged, facing the deepest wall of the cave, his black skin almost invisible in the gloom. His chin was buried in his chest, his eyes were closed and he was leaning forward, both hands placed firmly against the cold and damp wall. He moaned periodically and the lights seem to dance
in concert. After a moment the boy opened his eyes and leaped to his feet. The blue lights blinked briefly then vanished. The only illumination was the pale red glow at the mouth of the cave; the first appearance of the sun.

  The black youth was worried. The beast whined and shuffled to the boy, head low. When his ear was not scratched the beast whined again. The boy looked up and smiled. In a series of grunts and coughs the boy spoke to the beast. It left the cave immediately.

  Strangers were sleeping in the jungle below. He must leave the cave and run quickly to the distant hills, to hide. He could not wait for the beast to follow. The beast must fend for itself.

  After a moment of hesitation he ran to the mouth of the cave and along the edge of the cliff. In spite of the chaos of rocks he ran smoothly and quickly, leaping easily over the yawning crevices and gnarled bushes. Then he bounded down the edge of the cliff landing readily on the jutting boulders, leaping across the wide cracks and swinging from the vines that hung twisted along the face of the cliff. By the time the sun was at its zenith he would be out of the jungle and deep in the tall grasses that lined the foot of the distant hills and he would hide for several days. He knew that the beast would hide too. Soon the strangers would stop scraping crystals from the cliff. Soon they would leave the planet as they had in the past; the crystals would tell him when. He would then find a large bush with the very sweetest yellow berries, and a tasty antelope. He and the beast would celebrate.