Blinking against the glare, he looked around. He was lying on a floor of crude planking, the setting sun shining into his eyes through the doorless entrance of the building. There was a ploughed field outside stretching down the curve of hill to the edge of the jungle. It was to dark to see much inside the hut.

Something blocked the light of the doorway, a tall animal-like figure. On second look Jason realized it was a man with long hair and thick beard. He was dressed in furs; even his legs were wrapped in fur leggings. His eyes were fixed on his captive, while one hand fondled an axe that hung from his waist.

“Who’re you? What y’want?” the bearded man asked suddenly.

Jason picked his words slowly, wondering if this savage had the same hairtrigger temper as the city dwellers.

“My name is Jason. I come in peace. I want to be your friend….” “Lies!” the man grunted, and pulled the axe from his belt.

“Junkman tricks. I saw y’hide. Wait to kill me. Kill you first.” He tested the edge of the blade with a horny thumb, then raised it.

“Wait!” Jason said desperately. “You don’t understand.”

The axe swung down.

“I’m from off-world and-”

A solid thunk shook him as the axe buried itself in the wood next to his head. At the last instant, the man had twitched it aside.

He grabbed the front of Jason’s clothes and pulled him up until their faces touched.

“S’true?” he shouted. “Y’from off-world?” His hand opened and Jason dropped back before he could answer. The savage jumped over him, toward the dim rear of the hut.

“Rhes must know of this,” he said as he fumbled with something on the wall. Light sprang out.

All Jason could do was stare. The hairy, fur-covered savage was operating a communicator. The calloused, dirt-encrusted fingers deftly snapped open the circuits, dialed a number.

16

16

It made no sense. Jason tried to reconcile the modern machine with the barbarian and couldn’t. Who was he calling? The existence of on communicator meant there was at least another. Was Rhes a person or a thing?

With a mental effort, he grabbed hold of his thoughts and brake them to a stop. There was something new here, factors he hadn’t counted on. He kept reassuring himself there was an explanation for everything, once you had your facts straight.

Jason closed his eyes, shutting out the glaring rays of the sun where it cut through the treetops, and reconsidered his facts.

They separate evenly into two classes: those he had observed for himself, and those he had learned from the city dwellers. This last class of “facts” he would hold, to see if they fitted with what he learned. There was a good chance that most, or all, of them would prove false.

“Get up,” the voice jarred into his thoughts. “We’re leaving.”