The Keeper | Page 7

ship and the two Starfolk. Well,
where Vahr Farg's son could take three Southrons, Raud the Keeper could follow.
* * * * *
Their tracks led up the slope beside the brook, always bearing to the left, in the direction
of the Ice-Father. After an hour, he found where they had stopped and unslung their
packs, and rested long enough to smoke a cigarette. He read the story they had left in the
snow, and then continued, Brave trotting behind him pulling the sled. A few snowflakes
began dancing in the air, and he quickened his steps. He knew, generally, where the
thieves were going, but he wanted their tracks unobliterated in front of him. The snow
fell thicker and thicker, and it was growing dark, and he was tiring. Even Brave was
stumbling occasionally before Raud stopped, in a hollow among the pines, to build his
tiny fire and eat and feed the dog. They bedded down together, covered by the same
sleeping robes.
When he woke, the world was still black and white and gray in the early dawn-light, and

the robe that covered him and Brave was powdered with snow, and the pine-branches
above him were loaded and sagging.
The snow had completely obliterated the tracks of the four thieves, and it was still falling.
When the sled was packed and the dog harnessed to it, they set out, keeping close to the
flank of the Ice-Father on their left.
It stopped snowing toward mid-day, and a little after, he heard a shot, far ahead, and then
two more, one upon the other. The first shot would be the rifle of Vahr Farg's son; it was
a single-loader, like his own. The other two were from one of the light Southron rifles,
which fired a dozen shots one after another. They had shot, or shot at, something like a
deer, he supposed. That was sensible; it would save their dried meat for the trip across the
back of the Ice-Father. And it showed that they still didn't know he was following them.
He found their tracks, some hours later.
Toward dusk, he came to a steep building-mound. It had fared better than most of the
houses of the ancient people; it rose to twenty times a man's height and on the south-east
side it was almost perpendicular. The other side sloped, and he was able to climb to the
top, and far away, ahead of him, he saw a tiny spark appear and grow. The fire could not
be more than two hours ahead.
He built no fire that evening, but shared a slab of pemmican with Brave, and they
huddled together under the bearskin robe. The dog fell asleep at once. For a long time,
Raud sat awake, thinking.
At first, he considered resting for a while, and then pressing forward and attacking them
as they slept. He had to kill all of them to regain the Crown; that he had taken for granted
from the first. He knew what would happen if the Government Police came into this.
They would take one Southron's word against the word of ten Northfolk, and the thieves
would simply claim the Crown as theirs and accuse him of trying to steal it. And Dranigo
and Salvadro--they seemed like good men, but they might see this as the only way to get
the Crown for themselves.... He would have to settle the affair for himself, before the
men reached Long Valley town.
If he could do it here, it would save him and Brave the toil and danger of climbing the
Ice-Father. But could he? They had two rifles, one an autoloader, and they had in all
likelihood three negatron pistols. After the single shot of the big rifle was fired, he had
only a knife and a hatchet and the spiked and pickaxed ice-staff, and Brave. One of the
thieves would kill him before he and Brave killed all of them, and then the Crown would
be lost. He dropped into sleep, still thinking of what to do.
He climbed the mound of the ancient building again in the morning, and looked long and
carefully at the face of the Ice-Father. It would take the thieves the whole day to reach
that place where the two tongues of the glacier split apart, the easiest spot to climb. They
would not try to climb that evening; Vahr, who knew the most about it, would be the last
to advise such a risk. He was sure that by going up at the nearest point he could get to the
top of the Ice-Father before dark, and drag Brave up after him. It would be a fearful climb,

and he would have most of a day's journey after that to reach the head