roken only by ven
Klaeden's wheezing breath. The baron looked up with an effort, his eyes
traveling over the girl, then up to the figure of the child of Earth.

"Your woman, Earthling?"

Evon lowered his hands, stood dazed and blinking for a moment. He
glanced at Meikl, then at the girl. He knelt beside her, staring, not
touching, and his knee encountered the blade of the sword.

"You have brought us death, you have brought us hate," he said slowly,
his eyes clinging to the sword.

"Pick it up," hissed the baron.

"You will never leave. A party of men is wrecking what you have done.
Then we shall wreck your ships. Then we...."

"Pick it up."

The native hesitated. Slowly, his brown hand reached for the hilt, and
fascination was in his eyes.

"You know what it is for?" the analyst asked.

The native shook his head slowly.

Then it was in his hand, fingers shaping themselves around the hilt--as
the fingers of his fathers had done in the ages before the Star Exodus.
His jaw fell slightly, and he looked up, clutching it.

"_Now_ do you know?" the baron gasped.

"My--my hand--_it_ knows," the native whispered.

Ven Klaeden glanced sourly at Meikl, losing his balance slightly, eyes
glazed with pain. "He'll need it now, won't he, Analyst?" he breathed,
then fell to the moss.

Evon stood up slowly, moistening his lips, feeling the grip of the sword
and touching the red-stained steel. He peered quickly up at Meikl. Meikl
brandished the gun slightly.

The low rumble of a dynamite blast sounded from the direction of the
mines.

"You loved her too," Evon said.

He nodded.

The native held the sword out questioningly, as if offering it.

"Keep it," the analyst grunted. "You remembered its feel after twenty
thousand years. That's why you'll need it."

Some deeds, he thought, would haunt the soul of Man until his end, and
there was no erasing them ... for they _were_ the soul, self-made,
lasting in the ghost-grey fabric of mind as long as the lips of a child
greedily sought the breast of its mother, as long as the child mirrored
the mind of the man and the woman. _Kulturverlaengerung._

The analyst left the native with the sword and went to seek the next in
line of command. The purpose of the fleet must be kept intact, he
thought, laughing bitterly. Yet still he went.

THE END

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Ties That Bind, by Walter Miller

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