Image of the Gods

Image of the Gods, by Alan
Edward Nourse

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Title: Image of the Gods
Author: Alan Edward Nourse
Release Date: October 3, 2007 [EBook #22882]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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THE GODS ***

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Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from The Counterfeit Man More Science
Fiction Stories by Alan E. Nourse published in 1963. Extensive

research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this
publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have
been corrected without note.

Image of the Gods

It was nearly winter when the ship arrived. Pete Farnam never knew if
the timing had been planned that way or not. It might have been
coincidence that it came just when the colony was predicting its first
real bumper crop of all time. When it was all over, Pete and Mario and
the rest tried to figure it out, but none of them ever knew for sure just
what had happened back on Earth, or when it had actually happened.
There was too little information to go on, and practically none that they
could trust. All Pete Farnam really knew, that day, was that this was the
wrong year for a ship from Earth to land on Baron IV.
Pete was out on the plantation when it landed. As usual, his sprayer had
gotten clogged; tarring should have been started earlier, before it got so
cold that the stuff clung to the nozzle and hardened before the spray
could settle into the dusty soil. The summer past had been the colony's
finest in the fourteen years he'd been there, a warm, still summer with
plenty of rain to keep the dirt down and let the taaro get well rooted
and grow up tall and gray against the purple sky. But now the taaro
was harvested. It was waiting, compressed and crated, ready for
shipment, and the heavy black clouds were scudding nervously across
the sky, faster with every passing day. Two days ago Pete had asked
Mario to see about firing up the little furnaces the Dusties had built to
help them fight the winter. All that remained now was tarring the fields,
and then buckling down beneath the wind shields before the first winter
storms struck.
Pete was trying to get the nozzle of the tar sprayer cleaned out when
Mario's jeep came roaring down the rutted road from the village in a
cloud of dust. In the back seat a couple of Dusties were bouncing up
and down like happy five-year-olds. The brakes squealed and Mario

bellowed at him from the road. "Pete! The ship's in! Better get
hopping!"
Pete nodded and started to close up the sprayer. One of the Dusties
tumbled out of the jeep and scampered across the field to give him a
hand. It was an inexpert hand to say the least, but the Dusties seemed
so proud of the little they were able to learn about mechanized farming
that nobody had the heart to shoo them away. Pete watched the fuzzy
brown creature get its paws thoroughly gummed up with tar before he
pulled him loose and sent him back to the jeep with a whack on the
backside. He finished the job himself, grabbed his coat from the back
of the sprayer, and pulled himself into the front seat of the jeep.
Mario started the little car back down the road. The young colonist's
face was coated with dust, emphasizing the lines of worry around his
eyes. "I don't like it, Pete. There isn't any ship due this year."
"When did it land?"
"About twenty minutes ago. Won't be cool for a while yet."
Pete laughed. "Maybe Old Schooner is just getting lonesome to swap
tall stories with us. Maybe he's even bringing us a locker of T-bones.
Who knows?"
"Maybe," said Mario without conviction.
Pete looked at him, and shrugged. "Why complain if they're early?
Maybe they've found some new way to keep our fields from blowing
away on us every winter." He stared across at the heavy windbreaks
between the fields--long, ragged structures built in hope of outwitting
the vicious winds that howled across the land during the long winter.
Pete picked bits of tar from his beard, and wiped the dirt from his
forehead with the back of his hand. "This