Chapter 2

Meg leaped astride the doe, and kicked her heels into its flanks. With a wild leap it sprang into motion through the ranks of the little men.

She was halfway across the open walk-avenue of the village before the first startled cry of warning seared an invader's throat. She was flaming down upon the god-box, the narrow gateway of the magic wall, by the time that shout had spun its guardians' heads about.

Then there was mad confusion. Meg cried, "Nessa! Leap, Nessa!" even as Togi and his companion guards fumbled for their ray-sticks. The foremost was the first to lift his weapon to her breast—but even as he would have released its charge Meg's sword was biting through the thin plate of his shoulder-harness.

The Japcan screamed horribly and clutched with his free hand at a grisly stump from which spurted a scarlet ribbon of blood. The fingers of his severed arm contracted in an insensate reflex; cherry flame spewed from a stick rolling aimlessly upon the ground—and another of the guards crisped into steaming filth before it.

Now a jolt shook Meg as Nessa's cloven hooves met solid earth, and a brazen cry of gladness split the air.

"On, Nessa!"

It was like part of some nightmarish dream to see that beneath and behind her lay groveling bodies of those who would have stayed her passage; that the blade of her once gleaming sword now glinted with the bright crimson of death. But it was a joyous dream—for she was over the portal, through the barrier. Just a few more strides of the frightened doe, now, and she would be safe within the forest.

If—she glanced back over her shoulder. If one of those now springing from the camp did not succeed in snaring her brain once again with that green ray. Or if—but Meg did not want to think about that other more ruthless weapon.

Her deft hands guided Nessa right ... then left ... a zigzag path to spoil the dwarfling's aim. Once air hissed and crackled beside her head as a burst of cherry-flame just missed her, flashed by to cinder a huge tree instantly into a withered, massive twig. Her nostrils caught the stench of scorched hair, and Nessa whimpered piteously—but the doe's hoofbeats never faltered.

Once again Meg's brain spun with a brief moment of dizziness; she found herself thinking how pale and lovely was the sunset—and knew, instantly, that the green ray had found her. She ducked her head with a last conscious gesture, and was rewarded by feeling sense flood back like a cleansing tide.

And then green branches were whipping across her face, her fair skin was slashed with the hungry clutch of forest brambles—but she did not feel their hurt. Joy rose in her heart, joy like the glory of the newborn moon. Free! Free to find aid for her Clanswomen!

Free to—

At the last moment she saw it! Saw it and screamed a sharp cry to Nessa. The trained doe obeyed that cry, but both Meg and the deer were powerless before the eternal force that bore them onward—the force of gravitation.

For that which Meg, too late, had seen, was a patch of green soil too fresh, too even, to match the surrounding earth. Even as Nessa's scrambling feet struggled vainly for security, even as Meg felt herself pitching headlong and helpless from the doe's back, she knew that Daiv—gone, now, forever—had been right in cursing the traps with which her Clan destroyed the Wild Ones.

It was one of these traps that now, in her moment of triumph, had destroyed her!

Then Nessa's querulous bleat was in her ears; her loins quivered with the fall-feeling; the sunlight fled, and darkness engulfed all. Darkness and great, dizzying circles of pain that drove the breath from her body. She tried to cry out. The cry died in her throat. Fiery needles scored her arm, and breath deserted her. Dull silence....

CHAPTER V

Wrath and Uprising

It was a strange heaven and hell in which she stirred feebly. Heaven because she rested on a soft, warm couch of fur; hell because a horde of flaming pain-imps wrenched and tugged and twisted at her sword-arm. Heaven because a thick, earthy fragrance was about her; hell because dinning in her ears was a babble of coarse and indistinguishable chatter.

Meg opened her eyes—then closed them, shuddering violently—knowing, now, that this was neither heaven nor hell, but life. Life futile and unwanted.

She was lying at the bottom of the Wild One trap, her right arm bent crookedly beneath her, her body aching with a hundred bruises. But alive. Alive because the warm, furry bed on which she lay was the body of Nessa, cruelly pierced and broken by the sharp-pointed sticks from which the doe's bulk had saved Meg.

Meg's eyes filled with waters of sorrow and pain. Sweet Nessa, gallant Nessa, was gone. And now—

And now above her, squat silhouettes against the blue sky, were the Japcans from whom she hadalmostescaped. Even now one of their number was being lowered into the pit; was reaching for her warily, one hand clutching a ray-stick. Meg groped, with her good left hand, for the sword she had dropped, but the yellow dwarf's finger tightened, green radiation expunged all thought from her brain. As in a dream she felt herself being lifted and borne, surrounded by fat figures whose voices were raised in angry condemnation.

Then she was again within the confines of the camp and Grensu was before her, his tiny, slant eyes aflame with bitterness.

"You have animal cunning, priestess of a barbarian race," spat the Japcan commander. "I erred in believing you docile. Henceforth your taming will be that of the scourge and the chain."

Meg said nothing. But she noticed, her head lifting proudly, that some of the little man's confidence had deserted him, and that as he spoke he moved his stiff neck gingerly from side to side. There was throttling strength in the crook of Meg's elbow.

Leekno, his sallow face rebellious, was at Grensu's side.

"What is your command, O Grensu? Shall we destroy the white-limbed one?"

Leadership and desire met in conflict on Grensu's swart features. "The woman pleases me—" he growled.

"She slew," reminded the lesser officer, "Togi, Ras and Yinga. Two others lie wounded. It is written in the Law 'Death shall be punished with death—'"

"I know the Law!" snapped Grensu. "But now we are not in Mayco. Here,Iam the Law. And I am minded to—" A hesitation halted his words. Of Meg he demanded, "Make your plea, Woman. Grensu listens."

There was a coursing pain in Meg's arm that began at her fingertips, sped through forearm and upper arm, spread even to the rest of her body, turning her stomach with nausea. Her heart was sick with disappointment. Almost had she succeeded. But "almost" was a bitter draught from the waters of might-have-been.

This day, which had dawned so fair and with such great hopes, had become a leaden weight to her heart. There was nothing, now, worth living for. Daiv, her mate, in combat had proven a coward. The beloved Mother of her Clan lay dying. A score of her sisters were pellets of death, heaped in a pile of rubble. Her last, desperate attempt at freedom had failed.

"I make no plea, yellow man," she said haughtily.

The Japcan warriors muttered amongst themselves. Grensu's ripe lips pursed irately.

"You do not understand, ivory one. I offer you one last opportunity. Pledge fealty to me at even this late moment and your life will be spared. Your wounds will be soothed by our healers, and, yes, even now Grensu will permit you the great honor of becoming his mate." His slant eyes probed hers. "Well, Woman? What is your answer?"

A laugh of sheer hysteria; a laugh that was half a sob, broke from Meg's throat. She stepped toward the little yellow commander.

"This is my answer!"

And she spat squarely in the dwarfling's face!

Grensu turned livid. Beneath his yellow skin the blood surged unhealthily, turning him to a sallow parody of a man. Fat fingers shook as he wiped his face, screamed viciously, "Seize her! Put her to the sword, Leekno! No—wait!"

Flames of pure hatred danced from his eyes. "Who defiles the haughty blood of Japcan shall not die thus painlessly. Her death shall be a slow one; one in which, shrieking for mercy, she shall have time to remember this moment!"

He stood quivering, shaken, searching the dregs of his mind for a fitting torment. Meg, waiting, saw from the corner of her eye a faint movement to her right. The Warrior Chieftain, Lora, had stolen close to one of the stunted invaders; her hand was even now reaching for his sword. Meg knew the meaning of that trial. Lora well knew she had no chance to fight or escape; her sole purpose was to clutch that sword and plunge it through Meg's heart to spare the priestess worse horrors. Then, though both of them died, their deaths would be clean and welcome....

Meg wrenched her eyes away; tensed her body for the moment of cold fire. And then—

There came a shout from the portal. The voice of a Japcan guard crying amusedly, "By the Serpent, O Grensu—we are attacked by a band of naked apes! Come you and view this wonder!"

All wheeled. And a swift hope flamed in Meg as she saw that the new besiegers were—a host of the Wild Ones!

Lora, at Meg's side in one swift bound, cried out hoarsely, "What other marvels shall the Gods send us this day, my priestess? Behold, even the skulking rats of the forest have this day turned against us! Are we, then, accursed?"

But Meg, forgetting her pain as for the moment she had been forgotten, gasped as the full import of this raid broke upon her.

"It is notusthey attack, Lora! See who commands the Wild Ones!"

The leader was not hard to discern. His supple, hairless body stood out like a living white flame against the background of gnarled, hairy ones. His chestnut mane towered a full head above the tallest of the Wild Ones, and he bore a great, rusted, two-handed sword in one hand, waving it as a child a shaking-gourd. It was Daiv!

Then Grensu's hand was upon Meg's shoulder, spinning her about. To a brace of yellow warriors he was howling, "To thehoamswith this prisoner. We will attend to her when we have broken these foolish Man-things from the forests. Come!"

He moved away with his lieutenants as Meg was taken to thehoamwherein her sisters had been confined. Brutally she was shoved inside; the two guards took their posts at the doorway. Meg pushed her way to a window to better watch the battle.

There was little—pitifully little—to watch. By the time she reached her vantage point, the horde of Wild Ones had deployed in a great circle about the Jinnia village; now, at a signal from Daiv, they rose like a great, swarthy tide and rushed down upon their enemy.

With their advance, a groan of despair rose from the imprisoned women. Daiv had made his escape too soon. He had not seen, had not suspected, the existence of a weapon such as the Japcans' force-wall. At one moment a throng of roaring Wild Ones was racing upon the village; at the next, scores were piled, shaken and bruised, before that invisible barrier, unharmed, but—futile!

How futile, they did not at first realize. There was courage in the hearts of the Wild Ones. Courage the existence of which the Clanswomen had not dreamed. Despite their bruises and the racking pain which—Meg knew from experience—was throbbing through their veins, they rose from the ground; they hurled themselves once again and viciously at the wall they could not see.

Lances shattered against that impenetrable force-field; swords were hammered into blunt grips—but the Wild Ones could not effect entry.

Daiv was everywhere at once; begging, pleading, cajoling his new-found army into greater effort. Twice Meg trembled as he threw himself vainly against that force; she matched, with her own cheeks, the whiteness in his as the second time he picked himself up weak, pain-racked, exhausted. She gripped the arm of the Woman nearest her; it was Lora.

An invisible wall seemed to rear itself before him as Daiv hurled his body forward.

"They outnumber the Japcans. That is what my mate counted on; that though many might fall before the rays of the yellow ones, enough would break through to free us! We must help them!"

Lora shook her head grimly.

"The Gods know we want to. But we cannot."

"We can! If we can turn off that god-box before it is too late—!"

Meg screamed the final words. For she had seen, now, that which must ultimately destroy the attackers. The Japcans, having had their fill of mirth at the sight of this impossible attack, were now preparing to go into action. In full view of the Wild Ones they were spreading out, taking positions behind the invisible wall. Their ray-sticks were poised and ready. A signal came from Grensu, grinning evilly in the center of the walk-avenue.

"Drop screen! Fire! Up screen!"

As swiftly as he spoke, the events occurred. The engineer at the god-box threw up his lever; instantly sticks in two score hands spewed cherry flame into the ranks of the Wild Ones. Steam rose; bodies disappeared; weapons dropped from hands now dwindled into cinders. Then the force-field was replaced. By sheer chance, one or two hurled weapons flashed through in the brief instant the barrier was down. One dwarf clutched, screaming miserably, at a pronged lance that split his throat in twain, bore him backward and pinned him to the ground to writhe out his life. Another collapsed, moaning, his thigh-bone shattered by a huge, hurled stone.

Meg's eyes sought Daiv frantically; found him. He still lived, but even at that distance she could read the sickness in his eyes as he stared dazedly at the dead about him.

Even as she watched, Grensu gave the triple order again. "Drop screen! Fire! Up screen!"

And once more death stalked amongst the attackers, choosing his victims with fingers of cherry-flame....

Lora's grasp shook the dread from Meg's eyes.

"You are the swiftest among us, priestess," cried the Warrior Chieftain. "Youmust reach the god-box."

Then Meg saw that Lora had not been inactive. She had gathered about her all those of the Clan who were not disabled. A motley crew they were. Hard-lipped Warriors, coarse-skinned Workers. There were even—amazingly—three breeding-mothers in that little band! Their billowing hips and pale, soft faces were strange attributes for a fighting woman, but their eyes were lighted with the same fire that suffused the eyes of Meg and Lora.

One of these, a woman named 'Ana, said now to Meg, "Once long ago, Priestess, I too aspired to be a Mother. It was not so fated, and this more humble lot became mine. But I will do my little part for you, for the Mother, and for the Clan—"

Lora interrupted crisply, "You're slim, Meg, and you're fast. We will create a disturbance at the door—" A tight and humorless smile played upon her lips. "Then must you break through the window, somehow reach the god-box."

Meg nodded. Her right arm dangled loosely at her side, but the pain that had seared it was devoured now in a greater intensity, a more vital urge. "So be it, Lora!"

"Then strike, Women!" cried the chieftain. Strong shoulders struck the door with ravaging force; wood splintered, and the door burst from its hinges like a splitting pod. Outside, the two yellow guards wheeled, their eyes wide, their hands streaking for the ray-sticks in their harnesses. One raised a shout.

Meg had only time to see that her Clanswomen were pounding through the doorway, that both guards had fallen before them, that the tumult had drawn the attention of the yellow men assembled in their tactical circle. All eyes were focused on the escaping prisoners spilling from the door; no one noticed as she clambered awkwardly from the window on the farther side of thehoam.

It was Meg's village; she knew its every twist and turn. She did not take at all times to the shortest route; she chose that which would disclose her least as she moved toward the vulnerable spot of the Japcan defense; the god-box.

But if the dwarfs could not see her, neither could she see them. She marked the progress of the split battle by those few sounds she could identify. Most important was the fact that she did not again hear Grensu's voice raised in the commands to drop and raise the force-wall. Destruction was, then, not presently breathing through the ranks of the Wild Ones....

But her own folk? Meg could only pray silently to the gods that their bravery might not be in vain—and continue running.

It was a short journey, but the torment within her brain made it endless. It seemed hours later that Meg found herself finally slipping through the last shaded alley, facing the spot which was her destination—the spot on the invisible circle's perimeter where lay the god-box.

Now confronted her but a few scant yards, and these the most dangerous of all. Could she cross these without drawing the fire of the guards about the box, she could lift that lever, if only for a moment, and let in the battering host of Wild Ones. Once she had raised it, Meg vowed, the lever would remain upright so long as she had a hand to hold it.

The Gods favored her in two ways. The guards about the box were looking the other way, gaping at this astonishing counter-attack being made by the supposedly vanquished Women. And—at Meg's feet lay something that had been overlooked by the detail of yellow soldiery assigned to cleaning up evidence of the first battle! One of the yellow invaders' ray-sticks!

With difficulty Meg stifled the cry that leaped to her lips. From force of habit, she stopped to lift the stick with her right hand; winced with pain when those benumbed fingers touched the ground and refused to grasp the object. Her left hand gripped it, held it; her questing fingers found the button that activated its ray.

Which ray, Meg had no way of knowing. Nor could she take time to experiment. Like a swift, golden ghost she sprang from the shelter of her alley into the cleared space. She was halfway across that space when one of the guardians of the god-box, by sheer chance, happened to turn and see her.

His mouth opened in a shout of warning that never emerged. For Meg lifted the stick—pressed the button! A spurt of cherry-flame engulfed the dwarf, and he sank lifeless to the ground.

But his death was warning enough. Shock slowed the turn of the other guardians, and in their slowness lay their doom. Meg's finger remained rigid on the button; her ray swept clear the defenders of the force-field—and she had reached her goal!

With a great shout of triumph she stumbled through that foul, steamy mist, feeling scorched cinders beneath her feet, and found the lever. With a mighty heave of her shoulders she forced it upward—

Then all was Bedlam!

CHAPTER VI

"The Old Order Changeth—"

A new note rose suddenly in the din of battle. It had been a howling note of despair before; the outraged cries of impotent Wild Ones mingling with the dying screams of the gallant Women. Now there rose to the skies a paean of joyous triumph. Hoarse masculine voices cheered madly as the horde of hairy Wild Ones found the barrier before them gone. Daiv foremost, their avenging circle closed in upon the village.

Where but a few moments before this engagement had been a slaughter of the Jinnians upon which the Wild Ones had been forced to look helplessly, now the battle became a free-for-all, split into a half-hundred tiny sectors.

Here a cherry-flame, wielded by a retreating dwarf in tarnished armor, winked its ruddy eye amongst Men who cried out, steamed, and fell. There a dozen Wild Ones hurled themselves upon a tiny knot of Japcans, literally ripped the yellow men into bloody shreds, and raced on—with one of the Wild Ones now brandishing a lethal ray-stick!

Still another place a handful of Mayco invaders fought vainly to fight a diverse foe—the Women before them and the Wild Ones who charged upon their flank. Up to now the Japcans had been content to subdue this Jinnia uprising with the green, stupefying ray; now they broke out their red weapon. Meg curdled with agony to see Women die beneath that cherry-flame.

But—Daiv?

Even as her mind asked the question, she found him. He had been at the farthermost perimeter of the circle; now he was racing recklessly across the central arena toward her. In haste or sheer bravado he had picked up no ray-weapon, but still brandished the huge, two-handed sword with which he had stormed the citadel.

But it was not this that miraculously saved his life from the lightning of crimson that flashed about him. It was his instinctive grace and agility, his perfect sense of timing. More than once Meg's lips formed a wordless shout as it seemed one of those flaming tubes must surely spend its charge on his smooth, gallant body. Each time Daiv saw the new danger, swerved to avoid the ray. And more than once his mighty sword accounted for the dwarf who would have been his destroyer.

Then, from another angle of the courtyard, burst a fat, bustling figure. Grensu. His golden armor, once so proud, was now dented in a score of places; there was a red stain upon his forehead, his ripe lips were working with a fearsome rage.

His objective was Meg, and upon her he was advancing, mouthing vile threats.

"So, ivory one, you think to triumph at last? Know, then, that Grensu takes with him in defeat his adversaries!"

And he raised his ray-weapon to cover Meg. For the first time in all those hectic moments, a sense of personal fear weakened the Priestess' knees. It had not seemed ill to die for a worthy cause. But now—when the cause was almost won, and when, in moments, her lover's arms would have been about her—But, as ever, Grensu's vaingloriousness was his own undoing. Once too often had he stayed his vengeance for a speech. Now as his finger tightened on the button that would blast Meg into rancid oblivion a tremendous object came hurtling through the air.

It was Daiv's claymore. Seeing there was no other way to halt Grensu's move, Daiv had heaved it squarely at the dwarfling commander with all the strength his mighty arms possessed. It was like a whistling flail of the Gods as it cleft the air; ripped the ray-tube from Grensu's hand, and with the spitting stick sheared yellow fingers.

Then, even as Grensu howled his pain and turned to flee, Daiv was upon him. He lifted the squat, heavy dwarf, massive armor and all, above his head; shook him as a dog might shake a ground-rat. Grensu's thick lips blubbered incoherent pleas, his eyes bulged wildly. But there was stone in Daiv's breast.

By the head and the calves he grasped the screaming commander; his arms made one sweeping motion. Grensu's fearful bleat ended in a choked wail of agony ... something snapped like a forest twig....

Grensu lay still.

Afterward, one of the Wild Ones came to Daiv where he stood with Meg beside a god-box that now lay quiescent on the ground.

"They call for the Priestess, Master," he grinned. "The Old One lies dying. Will you bring the lovely one to thehoam?"

Daiv said, "I have told you, Wilm, that it is not necessary to call me 'Master.' I am a Man, like yourself; we are all Men, proud and noble. Do not forget." To Meg he said, "You remember Wilm; don't you, Golden One?"

Meg did, though it was difficult to see behind the grinning, confident features of this hairy one the same terrified creature whom Daiv had rescued from the pit just the day—could it be so short a time?—before. She nodded.

"I remembered Wilm," Daiv told her with a happy-look, "when the lemon-skinned dwarf band attacked us. From the first I knew our defense was futile. We were too few. We needed more, and stronger fighters. So I went for the aid of the Wild Ones—aid which Wilm had pledged me should I need it.

"Though," he shook his head ruefully, "I did not know they would have this other weapon, the wall-that-cannot-be-seen, when we returned. Without your help, Golden One, all would have been lost."

"And without his," mused Meg, "I should be the pale bride of death." It was an unprecedented gesture for a Woman and a Priestess of the Jinnia Clan to make, but Meg made it. She stretched forth her hand. "I would grip your hand in my own, Man of the forests. Henceforth let there be peace between us."

She winced at Wilm's enthusiastic grip. Then, "But let us make haste, O Daiv, my love. The Mother sends for me; I fear she will soon go to join the Gods."

There was already the God-look in the Mother's eyes when they reached thehoam. A look of strange peace, mingled with one of happiness, as she looked fondly upon Meg.

"I am to be with you but a little while longer, my daughter," she breathed quietly. "The Gods have called me, their voices stirred in my ears like the whisper of night-winds in the trees. Soon I shall go."

Meg's happiness was suddenly gray with the cloud of heart-hunger. She dropped to her knees beside the older woman's side.

"You must not go, O Mother!" she sobbed. "There is much to be done, and only thy wisdom can achieve it."

The pale hand of the tribal guardian sought, found, Meg's golden head.

"You speak the truth, daughter mine. There is so much to be done. But already you know how to lead our Clan upward to the stature of the Ancient Ones. With your mate at your side—"

There was a concerted gasp from the assembled Women of the Clan. The Mother, hearing, smiled wanly.

"Yes, thus openly do I approve that of which, from the beginning, my heart approved. Listen, my children—Meg was right. In her pilgrimage she learned, as did I many winters ago, that the Gods were Men. Men like Daiv. She rebelled against the Law that said a Priestess might not mate—but she was right in her rebellion.

"List, now, for with the all-seeing eyes of one on the threshold of death I tell you truth. It is right that Women should mate with Men. There should be no Workers, no Warriors, no breeding-mothers. Our Clan should own no stud-males, pale chattels like our kine and horses. All this is wrong."

Lora, her harsh-lined face sagging with confusion, cried, "But, Mother—the Wild Ones!"

"Never again must we prey upon the Wild Ones. Do you not see that the Gods avenged our doing so when they permitted Meg to be captured in one of the pits we dug?

"Henceforth—" The Mother's voice grew weaker, and a hurt-devil pierced Meg's heart. "There will be peace and amity between Women and the Wild Ones. I see a day—a day in the future to come—when mankind may again attain to the heights of the Ancient Ones. In that day the children of the Ancient Ones may return from the evening star to find a new world happier than that from which they fled—"

Daiv whispered to Meg, "Her holiness is one with the Gods. Hear now her sacred vision!" and Meg saw that his eyes were wet with heart-rains.

Then said the Mother to Meg, "Once I deferred judgment upon you, my child. Now I give my approval of you ... and of this Man who is thy mate ... and of all you have done. Lead well thy people...." And she was gone.

A soft murmur stirred through the room, a murmur that was the sobbing of a bereaved Clan. One by one the Women left the presence of death for the sunshine and life of the world outside.

Only a huddled group of Japcan captives, over whom grim-jawed Warriors stood guard, the bodies of those who had fallen in the battle, the scarred and blastedhoams, told of that which had been. Soon all this would be changed; a new and better existence would rise out of the mistakes of yesterday.

Wilm was capering at Daiv's side, plucking at his elbow feverishly. "Daiv, Master—"

"Not 'Master,' Wilm!" reminded Daiv sternly.

"Daiv, friend," corrected the Wild One. "Will the Women do as the aged one told them? Will they now, perhaps, become our mates?"

There was a pathetic eagerness in his voice. Meg was strangely stirred by it. Not so the angular Lora, who sniffed aloud.

"The Mother's word is the Law, O hairy thing that smells." Her voice was derisive. "What Woman of our Clan so excites your fancy? One of those, I suppose?" She nodded toward a young and buxom breeding-mother, white-fleshed and not yet plump from over-bearing, who strolled down the walk-avenue with hips swaying enticingly.

But Wilm shook his head.

"That?" he exclaimed. "Pah! What Man would want such a wobbly thing? I like a strong Woman; a Woman with arms like a weathered oak. A fighting Woman. A Woman like—" He paused breathlessly. Then, "A Woman like—you!"

"Me!"

The Warrior Chieftain gasped. Then the slow crimson started at her throat, spread slowly upward until it mantled her cheeks. And her voice was choked. "Likeme, Man?"

"Not justlikeyou," said Wilm staunchly. "You!"

Meg waited for the Chieftain's reply, atingle inside with wonderment and tickling little fun-bubbles. Then Lora spoke, and her answer was the answer of all womankind to the new regime....

"You must be mad, Man!" she declared. "But—but I think I like your madness. We'll discuss it further if you'll go bathe the smell from your body. And shave off thatawfulbeard...."

Meg looked at Daiv; he looked back at her, and a happy-look was on his lips. He whispered, "The change has begun, Golden One. The change for which I hoped. We will live in a new world soon. Surely the poet of the Ancient Ones wrote truth."

"Poet?" asked Meg. "I do not understand, Daiv."

"His name," said Daiv softly, "was Tensun. Long ages ago he wrote, 'The old order changeth, giving way to new ... and the Gods fulfill themselves in many ways....'"

[1]In the 20th Century a tiny group of scientists, laboring under the direction of Dr. Frazier Wrenn, escaped the holocaust of war that bathed civilization by fleeing to the planet Venus in the first spaceship. Their rocketdrome was in the desertlands of Arizona. ("The Fugitives from Earth," Amazing Stories, December, 1939.)—Ed.

[2]When womankind, wearying of man's incessant warfare, finally cast all men save a few breeders from their cities and established a matriarchal form of government, the men rapidly reverted to a life of savagery. In Meg's day they were known and hunted as the "Wild Ones."—Ed.

[3]The matriarchal commune was made up of Warriors, Workers and breeding-mothers, all headed by a learned Mother whose mantle of leadership was handed down from generation to generation. Upon reaching maturity, each girl was permitted to choose which branch of service she should adopt. The Priestess, Meg, was studying to become the Mother of her Clan; hence her pilgrimage to the Place of the Gods.—Ed.

[4]Linber—to kidnap, (derived from Lindbergh?)—Ed.

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