Image of the Gods | Page 4

kind of yield from this planet. The ground won't give it, and the men

won't grow it."
The captain gave him a long look. "Really?" he said. "I think you're
wrong. I think the men will grow it."
Pete stood up slowly. "What are you trying to say? This business about
quotas and organization of labor--"
"You didn't read our credentials as we instructed you, Farnam. Mr.
Nathan is the official governor of the colony on Baron IV, as of now.
You'll find him most co-operative, I'm sure, but he's answerable
directly to me in all matters. My job is administration of the entire
Baron system. Clear enough?"
Pete's eyes were dark. "I think you'd better draw me a picture," he said
tightly. "A very clear picture."
"Very well. Baron IV is not paying for its upkeep. Taaro, after all, is
not the most necessary of crops in the universe. It has value, but not
very much value, all things considered. If the production of taaro here
is not increased sharply, it may be necessary to close down the colony
altogether."
"You're a liar," said Pete shortly. "The Colonization Board makes no
production demands on the colonies. Nor does it farm out systems for
personal exploitation."
The captain smiled. "The Colonization Board, as you call it, has
undergone a slight reorganization," he said.
"Reorganization! It's a top-level board in the Earth Government!
Nothing could reorganize it but a wholesale--" He broke off, his jaw
sagging as the implication sank in.
"You're rather out on a limb, you see," said the captain coolly. "Poor
communications and all that. The fact is that the entire Earth
Government has undergone a slight reorganization also."

* * * * *
The Dustie knew that something had happened.
Pete didn't know how he knew. The Dusties couldn't talk, couldn't
make any noise, as far as Pete knew. But they always seemed to know
when something unusual was happening. It was wrong, really, to
consider them unintelligent animals. There are other sorts of
intelligence than human, and other sorts of communication, and other
sorts of culture. The Baron IV colonists had never understood the queer
perceptive sense that the Dusties seemed to possess, any more than they
knew how many Dusties there were, or what they ate, or where on the
planet they lived. All they knew was that when they landed on Baron
IV, the Dusties were there.
At first the creatures had been very timid. For weeks the men and
women, busy with their building, had paid little attention to the
skittering brown forms that crept down from the rocky hills to watch
them with big, curious eyes. They were about half the size of men, and
strangely humanoid in appearance, not in the sense that a monkey is
humanoid (for they did not resemble monkeys) but in some way the
colonists could not quite pin down. It may have been the way they
walked around on their long, fragile hind legs, the way they stroked
their pointed chins as they sat and watched and listened with their
pointed ears lifted alertly, watching with soft gray eyes, or the way they
handled objects with their little four-fingered hands. They were so
remarkably human-like in their elfin way that the colonists couldn't
help but be drawn to the creatures.
That whole first summer, when the colonists were building the village
and the landing groove for the ships, the Dusties were among them,
trying pathetically to help, so eager for friendship that even occasional
rebuffs failed to drive them away. They liked the colony. They seemed,
somehow, to savor the atmosphere, moving about like solemn, fuzzy
overseers as the work progressed through the summer. Pete Farnam
thought that they had even tried to warn the people about the winter.
But the colonists couldn't understand, of course. Not until later. The
Dusties became a standing joke, and were tolerated with considerable

amusement--until the winter struck.
It had come with almost unbelievable ferocity. The houses had not been
completed when the first hurricanes came, and they were smashed into
toothpicks. The winds came, vicious winds full of dust and sleet and ice,
wild erratic twisting gales that ripped the village to shreds, tearing off
the topsoil that had been broken and fertilized--merciless, never-ending
winds that wailed and screamed the planet's protest. The winds drove
sand and dirt and ice into the heart of the generators, and the heating
units corroded and jammed and went dead. The jeeps and tractors and
bulldozers were scored and rusted. The people began dying by the
dozens as they huddled down in the pitiful little pits they had dug to try
to keep the winds away.
Few of them were still conscious when the Dusties had come silently,
in the blizzard, eyes closed tight against the