The Link | Page 5

them, stored until a new resting place was found. The history of a
people was recorded on that film, a people once proud and strong, now
equally proud, but dwindling in numbers as toll for the constant roving.
A proud people, yet a people who would turn and run without thought,
in a panic of age-old fear. They had to run, Nehmon knew, if they were
to survive.
And with a blaze of anger in his heart, he almost hated the two young
people waiting here with him for the last ship to be filled. For these two
would not go.
It had been a long and painful night. He had pleaded and begged, tried
to persuade them that there was no hope, that the very idea of
remaining behind or trying to contact the Hunters was insane. Yet he
knew they were sane, perhaps unwise, naive, but their decision had
been reached, and they would not be shaken.
The day was almost gone as the last ships began to fill. Nehmon turned
to Ravdin and Dana, his face lined and tired. "You'll have to go soon,"
he said. "The city will be burned, of course, as always. You'll be left
with food, and with weapons against the jungle. The Hunters will know
that we've been here, but they'll not know when, nor where we have
gone." He paused. "It will be up to you to see that they don't learn."
Dana shook her head. "We'll tell them nothing, unless it's safe for them
to know."
"They'll question you, even torture you."
She smiled calmly. "Perhaps they won't. But as a last resort, we can
blank out."

Nehmon's face went white. "You know there is no coming back, once
you do that. You would never regain your memory. You must save it
for a last resort."
Down below on the street the last groups of people were passing; the
last sweet, eerie tones of the concert were rising in the gathering
twilight. Soon the last families would have taken their refuge in the
ships, waiting for Nehmon to trigger the fire bombs to ignite the
beautiful city after the ships started on their voyage. The concerts were
over; there would be long years of aimless wandering before another
home could be found, another planet safe from the Hunters and their
ships. Even then it would be more years before the concerts could again
rise from their hearts and throats and minds, generations before they
could begin work again toward the climactic expression of their
heritage.
Ravdin felt the desolation in the people's minds, saw the utter
hopelessness in the old man's face, and suddenly felt the pressure of
despair. It was such a slender hope, so frail and so dangerous. He knew
of the terrible fight, the war of his people against the Hunters, so many
thousand years before. They had risen together, a common people, their
home a single planet. And then, the gradual splitting of the nations, his
own people living in peace, seeking the growth and beauty of the arts,
despising the bitterness and barrenness of hatred and killing--and the
Hunters, under an iron heel of militarism, of government for the
perpetuation of government, split farther and farther from them. It was
an ever-widening split as the Hunters sneered and ridiculed, and then
grew to hate Ravdin's people for all the things the Hunters were losing:
peace, love, happiness. Ravdin knew of his people's slowly dawning
awareness of the sanctity of life, shattered abruptly by the horrible wars,
and then the centuries of fear and flight, hiding from the wrath of the
Hunters' vengeance. His people had learned much in those long years.
They had conquered disease. They had grown in strength as they
dwindled in numbers. But now the end could be seen, crystal clear, the
end of his people and a ghastly grave.
Nehmon's voice broke the silence. "If you must stay behind, then go

now. The city will burn an hour after the count-down."
"We will be safe, outside the city." Dana gripped her husband's hand,
trying to transmit to him some part of her strength and confidence.
"Wish us the best, Nehmon. If a link can be forged, we will forge it."
"I wish you the best in everything." There were tears in the old man's
eyes as he turned and left the room.
* * * * *
They stood in the Jungle-land, listening to the scurry of frightened
animals, and shivering in the cool night air as the bright sparks of the
ships' exhausts faded into the black starry sky. A man and a woman
alone, speechless, watching, staring with awful longing into the skies as
the bright rocket jets dwindled to specks and flickered out.
The city burned. Purple spumes of flame