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Merreo, registered as Acrux Innovations Pvt Ltd, is a DPIIT recognized startup based in Chennai, founded by alumni from PSG College of Technology, and is supported by IIM-Bangalore NSRCEL. Merreo is built on the idea of democratizing advanced holistic hiring methodology for all companies to make hiring decisions better and more informed. Multi-measure Assessments are easily the most correlative measure for screening candidates for a job and those tests today are inaccessible to most companies. We want to break that so that all companies can get the chance to hire the best candidates they can, and by extension grow as fast as they can.

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Este artículo fue primeramente publicado en . +qL es #másqueley aka #másqueley es la firma hermana de aka #beyondthelaw. +qL holoLAWn If you have legal questions or want to debate, join our . Discord TL:DR The MetaLeX whitepaper aims to give birth to a new kind of law (the ) in order to complete the project of disconnecting the blockchain world from the world of flesh and blood. To free humans from the vertical hierarchy of institutional powers and return them to a space of freedom among equals, a of horizontal hierarchy. A project that to date has a currency and finance separate - in theory - from the state (Bitcoin and Ethereum as respective paradigms of cryptocurrencies and smart contracts that enable decentralised transactions and finance); but a project that lacks an equally separate law to govern that proto-world of a longed-for separate world, a free world. Autonomous Law heterotopia What you will (and won't) find here We are all looking for something. The : a spoiler. Autonomous Law The whitepaper: an interpretation (ours). Phase 1: BORGs. Phase 2: Deal Technology. Phase 3: . Autonomous Law Conflicts with a decentralised and autonomous dimension that are resolved by laws and legal operators that do not contemplate (or do not want to contemplate) decentralisation and autonomy. Conflicts with a decentralised and autonomous dimension that are solved by very cool alternative legal operators, at the time, by humans governed by their own will, . and nothing else Conflicts with a decentralised and autonomous dimension that are resolved by autonomous and decentralised laws that, as such, provide for decentralisation and autonomy. By way of (in)conclusion. ➡️ We are all looking for something We are all looking for something. Diogenes a righteous man in the streets of Athens, candle in hand; Ichabod Crane a kind truth behind the terrifying Headless Horseman; Indiana Jones the Lost Ark in an unbridled race against esoteric Nazis; Sebastian, between the black keys of a piano, the love lost through an infinite renunciation of love for his beloved Mia; and, finally, searches with his MetaLeX for an that will make a free world possible —almost nothing. Gabriel Shapiro Autonomus Law The : a spoiler ➡️ Autonomous Law The to which the devotes the bulk of its text —a third at least— is something like a new normative paradigm, a new kind of legal order that will allow humans to escape the clutches of nation states and their - and -national entanglements. Autonomous Law MetaLeX whitepaper supra infra And given the state of decadence and woke perversion of Western governments, of everything that sounds or resonates with Public Administration —and this is not an opinion: it is an easily verifiable empirical observation, a notorious fact in the technical-legal-proven sense—, it seems to me that the search for MetaLeX is an enterprise worth supporting —we, who still don't know how 😅, we're in! This that dazzles us: Autonomous Law is law because it aims to regulate (in part) human interaction; is decentralised because it will reside on a blockchain; it is ( ) because the blockchain, and everything that resides in it, is code; code code is law it is because, as the execution of code (with or without AI, but AI is also code, and only code - at least for the moment, until consciousness emerges...), it does not require human intervention, i.e. the self-execution of the code is the application of the law itself. autonomous And it is because the government and the legal decision by way of the law-code, at the time of the code, the , will be independent of the as well as of . Neither traditional law, nor the humans who create it, will have anything to say about the rule of code once it is born into the world of the blockchain. autonómica rule of code rule of law the rule of men This deserves clarification in order to escape sophistry. Just as the created cannot free itself from its creation, no law can free itself from the clutches of the man who creates it. Only the constituent law, which initiates a Legal Order, can (relatively) do so under the artifice of the by which it itself, and not its creator, sets itself up as the principle of everything. And, thus, under the impossible that the constituent law itself contains in itself the will to be constituted, as a normative , is that can make it seem as if it is born and we can make it seem as if it is so. legal fiction ouroboros it ➡️ The whitepaper: one interpretation (ours) If you page through the whitepaper, its first ten pages are an interesting introduction that operates as an extensive until, around page ten, we are presented with a sort of table of contents that corresponds to the three phases of logical and chronological development of the MetaLeX project to reach the . captatio benevolentiae Autonomous Law At this point, in these lines, we are not so much interested in how the Autonomous Law is arrived at, nor therefore in the phases, as in the concept of Autonomous Law itself. Moreover - it must be said - because the description of phases 1 and 2 is clear enough to get a good idea of what we are talking about, but not sufficiently detailed to know what the hell we are talking about beyond that idea. We can all get a good idea of what unicorns are from what we talk about them; but none of us can know exactly what the hell a unicorn is until we e.g. see it, tame it, ride it, feed it… From this point of view, we will summarise the phases, in our own style. ➡️➡️ Phase 1: BORGs Phase 1 essentially concerns the creation of blockchain programmes that apply rules in a community of users. fully autonomous In this sense, a law is ultimately a very special kind of rule that is distinguished from other rules by its origin: if the rule is dictated by the state, it is a law; if it is dictated by your father or mother, it is a precept of family behaviour; if it is dictated by a criminal gang, it is the code of a mafia. But for all these groups —state, family, mafia— the rule operates as law, whether it is called law, precept or code; in other words, the law, the precept and the code are functionally equivalent within the respective target community. So a programme on the blockchain that applies rules is, for the purposes of the community resident in the protocol where it is applied, its own law. Whether it is recognised as such outside that community —and this is, strictly speaking, the crux of the matter— is another matter. These programmes are called BORGs ( ) and are like sub-DaOs stripped down, fully autonomous from a parent DAO. Suppose a DAO requires six Fi functions to function. Some of these functions with the current state of the art are fully autonomous; others are not —and that is precisely why we have this mess of BORGs, to gradually implement, as technology makes it possible, the next phases. For each fully autonomous Fi function, a programme is created to implement it, a BORG. This is then like the DAO for the sole purpose of that particular fully autonomous function. Then, there will come a point where for every Fi function of the DAO there is a BORG that implements it. However, not even at that point will the DAO be, let us say, the conjunctive sum of all these BORGs: cyBernetic ORGanisationS {BORGi} ≢ DAO The DAO is an emergence from this set of BORGs, a something more. Just as a daisy is not reduced to the petals that have been shed along with the stem; nor is a company qua legal entity (with or without legal personality, it is not relevant here) the sum of its partners, or the sum of its departments, or the sum of its strategies, or the sum of its articles of association...; so it is not the case that the DAO we have been talking about is the sum of its BORGs. That “something else” which is the daisy or the society qua legal entity with respect to the component parts is a emergence just as the DAO is a mereological emergence of those BORGs. Which brings us headlong into the second phase. mereological ➡️➡️ Phase 2: Deal Technology For this set of BORGs -{BORGs} - to identify with the DAO, it is necessary for its elements to work in a coordinated manner. This will be achieved through a series of agreements between the BORGs that will then validate the identity: {BORGi} + TFA ≡ autDAO Where TFA = Technological Framework Agreement, a set of covenants that make the set of BORGs cease to be just that, a set of BORGs, and become an entity functionally equivalent to the DAO from which they were detached. Now, the final result will be so qualitatively different from the DAO that it will also be substantially different from it: it will be a true DAO (= autDAO) . That is: 2 the set of BORGs plus their TMA operates as a perfectly autonomous and autonomous version (autDAO) of the imperfect autonomous and autonomous DAO that gave birth to them. From this perspective, and as far as these two phases are concerned, it can be said that, at the end of the day, MetaLeX only aims to recover the pure sense of the DAO, a DAO that technological limitations and human praxis have turned decentralisation and autonomy into an absurdity, because I don't care whether the one at the top governs or the one next to him governs, if it is the case that the one at the top and the one next to him have exactly the same power. ➡️➡️ Phase 3: Autonomous Law Our autDAOs —well, those of MetaLeX, that is— as social entities that are also social entities, however much they reside in the blockchain, will interact with each other and with the world of flesh and blood; that interaction will generate conflict; and that conflict will have to be resolved. And this is —in our opinion— where the whitepaper puts its finger on the problem —we recommend reading it, in particular the headings and . We, here, present it as follows: Phase 3-Autonomus Law Conclusion ➡️➡️➡️ Conflicts with a decentralised and autonomous dimension that are resolved by laws and legal operators that do not (or do not want to) contemplate decentralisation and autonomy If these conflicts are resolved under the , state legal systems, also from above and from below), they will de facto nullify the essence of the underlying structures that have been so hard to create. rule of law , trying to explain the Kantian categories of time and space, that the world is seen through the lenses of the glasses you wear: if pink, then rose-coloured. This, which our grandparents used to tell us in other less refined but certainly more understandable ways, is as true as the sun. Warburton explained And so, if it is the case —and it is— that the creators of the laws of the world of flesh and blood do not look at the world through the lens of and , then it is also the case that their laws do not have these concepts embedded in their letter and that, therefore, their application on a decentralised and autonomous factual substratum will overlook in whole or in part the of that factual substratum. In other words: the laws and their application will the decentralised and autonomous dimension of the conflict, so that the conflict will be resolved as if there were no decentralisation and autonomy. decentralisation autonomy decentralised and autonomous nature disregard And it makes no difference to me whether "X is not in Y" or "X being in Y, X is disregarded as being in Y". ➡️➡️➡️ Conflicts with a decentralised and autonomous dimension that are solved by very cool alternative legal operators, at the time, by humans governed by their own will, and nothing else And if these conflicts are solved under alternative conflict resolution procedures (panels of experts, forums of wills or opinion polls outside the blockchain, arbitration tribunals...) which, for the sake of this alternativity, are already considered very cool, the setback is even worse. For under the (apparent) success that the conflict where at least one party is an autonomous and decentralised entity is no longer resolved by inconsiderate state laws, but by highly regarded experts or those considered as such, what we are falling into is personalism. And this only departs in degree, but not in quality, from caveman conflict resolution by the tribal sorcerer. ad hoc Humans have not been trampling the earth for two hundred thousand years —to put a figure on it— to escape the reptilian law of men by way of the rule of law in order to, in more refined but no less unjust ways, end up by overthrowing the rule of law by submitting to the will of a forum of (supposedly) very cool experts: humans. Even the worst of laws with judges is better than the best of judges without laws, if only because the former, at least, will always resolve in the same way, while the latter, who knows how they will end up resolving the day they let themselves be carried away by their rages… ➡️➡️➡️ Conflicts with a decentralised and autonomous dimension that are resolved by autonomous and decentralised laws which, as such, provide for decentralisation and autonomy This, and no other, is the end of the road if the product of phases 1 and 2 is to survive in the long term. A law, the (i) which, as a code inserted in the blockchain, contains rules that are intrinsically decentralised in their conception, whose application generates equally decentralised outputs; and (ii) which, as a self-executing code, is applied whether or not its addressees inside and outside the chain want it to be applied, thus endowing the system with , making the system autonomous with respect to the world of flesh and blood, freeing it from both the rule of law and the law of men. Autonomous Law autonomycity (In)conclusion ➡️ The MetaLeX project is ambitious and exciting. But we shall see whether it remains a wet dream, because even its successful implementation is not enough to make it a successful project. If it is based on the creation of an , then to the creation must be added the , if not generalised, then relevant, at least at the sectoral level, of the Autonomous Law created. Autonomous Law adoption Let us explain. The birth of a Legal System is the result of a pact. But not just any pact. It is a pact for at least two reasons. sui generis It is —first reason— because it is a founding pact and, as such, a ; a pact that subjugates —or so it intends— all the other pacts that exist or will exist, just as the contained, and therefore subjugated —and that one really subjugated…— the . Such a pact is called "constituent" (it is, moreover, the first constitutional pact which can later be modified by other constitutional pacts but which are no longer constituent), and what has been agreed is called "Constitution" or "Magna Carta". sui generis pact of pacts One Ring Rings of Power And that Constitution has the vocation of , which is an exception (and a very big one) to the principle of relativity of contracts, a principle whereby —thank God— agreements only have effects between their parties —and for this reason it is also , second reason. having effects vis-à-vis third parties sui generis Of course, the contracting parties are supposed to act on the mandate (representative at least, imperative as a desideratum) of these third parties. They could not otherwise be bound by this agreement, nor by any other. So by representation (imperative or not) the third parties assume the Constitution just as a third party can assume a contract (it is the figure of the assumption of a contract by a third party). However, for the to work, it is necessary, not only that the greatest number of third parties of the target community assume it, but that all third parties of that community assume it, that the community (be it group, tribe, team, club, society…) assume it as a community. And it is often much more problematic to implement this statement: constituent thing for every Si subject of the community {Si}, Si assumes the covenant, than this other: for a majority of Si subjects of the community {Yes}, Si assumes the pact. Why? Because the world doesn't need to be full of to fuck up the invention; it's enough that there is one for that, to fuck it up. And the fact is that the word “all” beyond rhetoric and poetics becomes a word as problematic as it is problematic —speaking — to prove that . free riders à la Hempel ”all ravens are black” Following the brilliant Searle —later terribly reviled— we can say that: A proposition counts as a rule if it is accepted that this proposition is a rule. This sounds like a truism, but it is not. If I say to you: (Ⲁ) "To get into my house you have to take off your shoes", that proposition will only be a rule if you, as well as I, accept it as a rule. For of a proposition that pretends to be a rule and is not followed by anyone we do not know whether it can be predicated to be a rule —Wittgenstein may have gone half-mad over something like that. And this will be the case of the autDAO after the end of phase 2: they will be entities of the world governed by rules that will be accepted ad intra. But their ad extra acceptance will require an exogenous-dependent plus. And we continue with Searle : 3 "rules of the form are then constitutive of institutional structures”. X counts as Y in C Which we can rewrite as follows: When a proposition counts as a rule in a community, the rule is institutionalised and we can predicate it to be a law that community. for Which, following our example of my house and your shoes, would mean that the proposition (Ⲁ) would not require your acceptance to be a rule if it is the case that in the neighbourhood in which you and I live it has already been accepted as a rule: it is a neighbourhood law —so to speak. All of which, translated to the matter at hand, means that: For the autDAO rules to count as in the blockchain community, it is necessary for the community to consider them as such. Autonomous Law This conclusion is quite hopeless for MetaLeX as the blockchain community is a network of networks made up of tens or hundreds of thousands of communities (layer 1, 2… n; more with the protocols within each layer; more with the organisations within each protocol…). But in the same hopelessness we can find a glimmer of hope, like : Blochian red heroes It is a matter of implementing the community by community blockchain until a relevant group of them accepts it as a supracommunity, (just as the neighbours in your neighbourhood and mine have been accepting house by house and case by case that all houses are entered barefoot). Autonomous Law Or so we see it in ! #másqueley Also published . here

The MetaLeX Whitepaper

Knowledge base vs LLM What if we could create a digital inventory of all human knowledge, an encyclopedia but ordered in such a way that complex queries can be answered? I can hear you shout: ‘Isn’t that a bit like a LLM trained on Wikipedia?' Kind of … Except that such would have created the inventory itself, leaving the connections between facts opaque. This is so because all text input data fed into an LLM is unstructured and treated on equal footing. It’s the internal attention mechanism that starts organising the text.  So, although we can ask complex queries in the form of natural language and retrieve an answer in the same medium, there is no knowledge inventory accessible to us. It’s as if the LLM is giving a press conference but leaves us dry with ‘no further questions’ after the first round. an LLM Is that better than having no query capability at all? Well, that’s really a mis-apperception of the playing field. The choice isn’t between LLM-like query magic and nothing at all. The choice is between LLM-like query magic and incomplete yet carefully crafted knowledge bases (search engines can answer queries but do so by pointing to documents on the web rather than providing the answer themselves). Using the earlier press conference analogy, the choice is between listening to a spokesman with a vast vocabulary and asking the actual protagonists at the risk of coming home empty-handed. Medical Ontology exposing LLM limits. The foundational model of anatomy (FMA) is such an attempt an create an inventory of human knowledge, in this particular case, all knowledge related to the structural organisation of the human body at micro- and macroscopic levels. A prima facie uncontroversial choice of fundamental relationship to be used in this knowledge base is the partonomic inclusion relationship. For example, . Little spoiler… this slicing up of the conceptual space doesn’t cut it (pun intended). I’ll explain to you why. However, let’s first focus on what this means within the here-discussed wider context. cytoplasm part_of cell We pride ourselves on having LLMs which can assist us in digging into vast amounts of knowledge, conveniently ignoring the fact that we have no real insight into how facts are connected within the model, while our own attempts to connect facts in the most rigorous fashion have turned out to be treacherous endeavours. The press conference gives us the impression of having received some reliable answers while even the protagonists themselves can’t really recall what has happened. If we’re a member of the public relationships committee, this might not worry us too much, but as a citizen with a vested interest in the upholding of liberal democracy, I might not want to rely too heavily on such reports. Partonomic inclusion has gone wrong Now, how can a relationship so seemingly innocent and straightforward as partonomic inclusion be so misleading? Here are some seemingly uncontroversial examples of such a relationship: human testis part_of human being Yes, but there are male and female human beings. So, every human testis belongs (or belonged if the human was subject to an unlikely accident) to a human, but not every human has a human testis. Solution? The part_of relationship is split into two sub-relationships: has_part and part_for. So, now we can state that the human testis part_for human being without committing to human being has_part human testis. The part_of relationship is salvaged as the conjunction of these two sub-relationships: A part_of B =def A part_for B & B has_part A. replication fork part_of nucleoplasm Yes, but only so during certain times during the cell replication cycle (i.e., the S phase). Biology read: https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/replication-fork-stalling-and-the-fork-protection-14435782/ Solution? At first glance, there seem to be at least two possible ways out. Firstly, we could introduce time-dependent or phase-dependent mereological relationships. So, part_of could get a time-index to distinguish between different times at which a relationship is obtained. However, since the cell replication cycle consists of clearly defined phases, it’s logically more apt to introduce phase-dependent partonomic inclusion relationships. Secondly, instead of fiddling with the relationship itself, we can enrich the representational capacity of the relata (i.e., the things related). So, a replication fork is not just a replication fork tout court, nor is the nucleoplasm always the same entity. The partonomic inclusion of the replication fork in the nucleoplasm during the S phase can be represented as follows: replication fork part_of nucleoplasm_S. synaptonemal complex part_of chromosome Yes, but not in all cases. For example, in protozoan ciliates, the formation of a synaptonemal complex is not required for pairing homologous chromosomes. Biology read: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24336924/ Solution? In this case, recourse is found in the ancillary axioms, which define the logical relationships between the fundamental mereological relationships at hand. If we want to represent ‘part of’ as ‘can be part of,‘ then we can introduce a less fundamental part_of_can relationship by defining it as an existential import relationship: A part_of_can B =def C(C is_a B & A part_of C). So, for this particular example, we’d have synaptonemal complex part_of_can chromosome, which is to say that there exists some chromosome for which a synaptonemal complex is part of it. The attentive reader will, at this point, see an alternative solution akin to one earlier exposed. Indeed, instead of introducing a secondary relationship, one can stick to the fundamental relationships and represent the facts by demultiplexing the relata. So, the fact ‘synaptonemal complex part_of chromosome_Animalia’ would be part of the knowledge base but not the fact ‘synaptonemal complex part_of chromosome_Ciliophora.’ ∃ Conclusion In short, prima facia well-rounded relationships need to be broken up and defined in more primitive terms or require ancillary axioms in order to capture the complexity of the reality one desires to represent. Moreover, these solutions are in tension with solutions that prefer relational and definitional parsimony at the cost of an increase in entity cardinality. Since these issues occur in medical ontologies designed by professionals, it should be clear that this task is under no circumstance an easy one. It highlights a perplexing double bind between, on the one hand, the subtlety of reality’s relational composition and, on the other hand, the flexibility of the natural language to squeeze and squash that marvelous detail into communicable trunks. Now, what are the implications of this insight on the state of AI’s contemporary playing field? If we aim for accuracy of representation, there might still be a role for classical AI or resurrections of its core ideas within deep learning paradigms. Conversely, if we aim for smoothness of communication, LLM might actually be capturing exactly what we want… were it not for the fact that we, humans ourselves, have already mastered the skill of human language so that LLM become what sex dolls are in comparison to real intimacy. Sources Paper on which this article is based: Bary Smith and Cornelius Rosse - The role of foundational relations in the alignment of biomedical ontologies: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15360852/

Saving Medical Ontologies with Formal Logic: A Tale of Caution and Hope for Classical AI

“Will my job become obsolete as AI becomes more advanced?” This is a question that’s recently kept many professionals up at night. As artificial intelligence continues to spread its tentacles into various industries, many experts are warning about the pervasive reach of this development. “AI will wipe out a lot of current jobs, as has happened with all past technologies,” Lawrence Katz, a labor economist at Harvard, told the Guardian earlier this year. “But I have no reason to think that AI and robots won’t continue changing the mix of jobs. The question is: will the change in the mix of jobs exacerbate existing inequalities? Katz is one of many who believe rapid advancements in machine learning and robotics will kill numerous jobs, especially the repetitive and manual ones. Industries like manufacturing, customer service, content creation, and data entry are particularly vulnerable to automation. How Many Jobs WIll Be Lost to AI? According to Forbes, Goldman Sachs estimates that 300 million jobs could be lost or diminished by AI. In a 2019 study by Wells Fargo, researchers concluded robots could eliminate up to 200,000 jobs in banking alone in the next ten years. In May 2023, AI contributed to 3,900 job losses in the US, making it the 7th highest contributor to employment losses cited by employers that month. Other experts argue the sky is not falling because of AI and humans are still winning the job market. “I think people are able to adapt quite quickly, like when Photoshop came onto the scene a long time ago,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman testified during a Senate panel hearing on AI. “For a while, people were quite fooled by Photoshop images but then pretty quickly developed an understanding that images might be Photoshopped. This will be like that but on steroids.” Other AI proponents hold a similar view: Every technological revolution, from the industrial to the digital, has raised similar fears, yet every time, the economy adapted, and new job roles emerged. The consensus is that AI will free humans from mundane tasks, giving them more time to focus on creative, strategic, and interpersonal roles that AI can’t perform quite well. “ChatGPT can’t design a system, or build an architecture, or create the ecosystem of supporting infrastructure you need for any complex system,” Marcus Merrell, the vice president of Technology Strategy at Sauce Labs, observes about OpenAI’s groundbreaking tool. “It can potentially help you think through some ideas, but it can’t innovate. Most importantly, you still need to know the difference between a good answer and a bad answer.” Each expert is right: AI’s impact isn’t merely binary – it’s not just about job creation or destruction. The crux lies in job transformation. While AI will reshape the professional landscape, our adaptability, foresight, and willingness to learn will truly determine our place in it. The same could be said about lightning channels. “Workers will require new skills as the division of labor between humans and machines continues to evolve,” the World Economic Forum advises. “It is critical that businesses take an active role in supporting their existing workforces through reskilling and upskilling, that individuals take a proactive approach to their lifelong learning, and that governments create an enabling environment to facilitate this workforce transformation. This is the key challenge of our time.” Will your job become obsolete? Possibly. Will you still thrive in this tech-driven era if you lose that job? It’s less about the job and more about how you evolve. This story was distributed as a release by Ascend under HackerNoon’s Brand As An Author Program. Learn more about the program here: https://business.hackernoon.com/brand-as-author

Will the Workforce Be Taken Over By AI?

কর্মশক্তি কি এআই দ্বারা নেওয়া হবে?

Wird die Belegschaft von KI übernommen?

¿La IA se hará cargo de la fuerza laboral?

La main-d’œuvre sera-t-elle prise en charge par l’IA ?

क्या कार्यबल पर AI का कब्ज़ा हो जाएगा?

労働力はAIに奪われるのか？

AI가 노동력을 장악할 것인가?

A força de trabalho será dominada pela IA?

Будет ли рабочая сила захвачена ИИ?

İşgücü yapay zeka tarafından ele geçirilecek mi?

Lực lượng lao động sẽ bị AI tiếp quản?

劳动力会被人工智能接管吗？

Star Born by Andre Alice Norton, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . ARENA ARENA The dull pain which throbbed through Dalgard's skull with every beat of his heart was confusing, and it was hard to think clearly. But the colony scout, soon after he had fought his way back to consciousness, had learned that he was imprisoned somewhere in the globe ship. Just as he now knew that he had been brought across the sea from the continent on which Homeport was situated and that he had no hope of rescue. He had seen little of his captors, and the guards, who had hustled him from one place of imprisonment to another, had not spoken to him, nor had he tried to communicate with them. At first he had been too sick and confused, then too wary. These were clearly Those Others and the conditioning which had surrounded him from birth had instilled in him a deep distrust of the former masters of Astra. Now Dalgard was more alert, and his being brought to this room in what was certainly the center of the alien civilization made him believe that he was about to meet the rulers of the enemy. So he stared curiously about him as the guards jostled him through the door. On a dais fashioned of heaped-up rainbow-colored pads were three aliens, their legs folded under them at what seemed impossible angles. One wore the black wrappings, the breastplate of the guards, but the other two had indulged their love of color in weird, eye-disturbing combinations of shades in the bandages wrapping the thin limbs and paunchy bodies. They were, as far as he could see through the thick layers of paint overlaying their skins, older than their officer companion. But nothing in their attitude suggested that age had mellowed them. Dalgard was brought to stand before the trio as before a tribunal of judges. His sword-knife had been taken from his belt before he had regained his senses, his hands were twisted behind his back and locked together in a bar and hoop arrangement. He certainly could offer little threat to the company, yet they ringed him in, weapons ready, watching his every move. The scout licked cracked lips. There was one thing they could not control, could not prevent him from doing. Somewhere, not too far away, was help ... Not from the merpeople, but he was sure that he had been in contact with another friendly mind. Since the hour of his awakening on board the globe ship, when he had half-consciously sent out an appeal for aid over the band which united him with Sssuri's race, and had touched that other consciousness—not the cold alien stream about him—he had been sure that somewhere within the enemy throng there was a potential savior. Was it among those who manned the strange flyer, those the merpeople had spied upon but whom he had not yet seen? Dalgard had striven since that moment of contact to keep in touch with the nebulous other mind, to project his need for help. But he had been unable to enter in freely as he could with his own kind, or with Sssuri and the sea people. Now, even as he stood in the heart of the enemy territory completely at the mercy of the aliens, he felt, more strongly than ever before, that another, whose mind he could not enter and yet who was in some queer way sensitive to his appeal, was close at hand. He searched the painted faces before him trying to probe behind each locked mask, but he was certain that the one he sought was not there. Only—he must be! The contact was so strong—Dalgard's startled eyes went to the wall behind the dais, tried vainly to trace what could only be felt. He would be willing to give a knife oath that the stranger was within seeing, listening distance at this minute! While he was so engrossed in his own problem, the guard had moved. The hooped bar which locked his wrists was loosened, and his arms, each tight in the grip of one of the warriors were brought out before him. The officer on the dais tossed a metal ring to one of the guards. Roughly the warrior holding Dalgard's left arm forced the band over his hand and jerked it up his forearm as far as it would go. As it winked in the light the scout was reminded of a similar bracelet he had seen—where? On the front leg of the snake-devil he had shot! The officer produced a second ring, slipping it smoothly over his own arm, adjusting it to touch bare skin and not the wrappings which served him as a sleeve. Dalgard thought he understood. A device to facilitate communication. And straightway he was wary. When his ancestors had first met the merpeople, they had established a means of speech through touch, the palm of one resting against the palm of the other. In later generations, when they had developed their new senses, physical contact had not been necessary. However, here—Dalgard's eyes narrowed, the line along his jaw was hard. He had always accepted the merpeople's estimate of Those Others, that their ancient enemies were all-seeing and all-knowing, with mental powers far beyond their own definition or description. Now he half expected to be ruthlessly mind-invaded, stripped of everything the enemy desired to know. So he was astonished when the words which formed in his thoughts were simple, almost childish. And while he prepared to answer them, another part of him watched and listened, waiting for the attack he was sure would come. "You—are—who—what?" He forced a look of astonishment. Nor did he make the mistake of answering that mentally. If Those Oth ers did not know he could use the mind speech, why betray his power? "I am of the stars," he answered slowly, aloud, using the speech of Homeport. He had so little occasion to talk lately that his voice sounded curiously rusty and harsh in his own ears. Nor had he the least idea of the impression those few archaically accented words would have on one who heard them. To Dalgard's inner surprise the answer did not astonish his interrogator. The alien officer might well have been expecting to hear just that. But he pulled off his own arm band before he turned to his fellows with a spurt of the twittering speech they used among themselves. While the two civilians were still trilling, the officer edged forward an inch or so and stared at Dalgard intently as he replaced the band. "You not look—same—as others—" "I do not know what you mean. Here are not others like me." One of the civilians twitched at the officer's sleeve, apparently demanding a translation, but the other shook him off impatiently. "You come from sky—now?" Dalgard shook his head, then realized that gesture might not mean anything to his audience. "Long ago before I was, my people came." The alien digested that, then again took off his band before he relayed it to his companions. The excited twitter of their speech scaled up. "You travel with the beasts—" the alien's accusation came crisply while the others gabbled. "That which hunts could not have tracked you had not the stink of the beast things been on you." "I know no beasts," Dalgard faced up to that squarely. "The sea people are my friends!" It was hard to read any emotion on these lacquered and bedaubed faces, but before the officer once more broke bracelet contact, Dalgard did sense the other's almost hysterical aversion. The scout might just have admitted to the most revolting practices as far as the alien was concerned. After he had translated, all three of those on the dais were silent. Even the guards edged away from the captive as if in some manner they might be defiled by proximity. One of the civilians made an emphatic statement, got creakily to his feet, and walked always as if he would have nothing more to do with this matter. After a second or two of hesitation his fellow followed his example. The officer turned the bracelet around in his fingers, his dark eyes with their slitted pupils never leaving Dalgard's face. Then he came to a decision. He pushed the ring up his arm, and the words which reached the prisoner were coldly remote, as if the captive were no longer judged an intelligent living creature but something which had no right of existence in a well-ordered universe. "Beast friends with beast. As the beasts—so shall you end. It is spoken." One of the guards tore the bracelet from Dalgard's arm, trying not to touch the scout's flesh in the process. And those who once more shackled his wrists ostentatiously wiped their hands up and down the wrappings on their thighs afterwards. But before they jabbed him into movement with the muzzles of their weapons, Dalgard located at last the source of that disturbing mental touch, not only located it, but in some manner broke through the existing barrier between the strange mind and his and communicated as clearly with it as he might have with Sssuri. And the excitement of his discovery almost led to self-betrayal! Terran! One of those who traveled with the aliens? Yet he read clearly the other's distrust of that company, the fact that he lay in concealment here without their knowledge. And he was not unfriendly—surely he could not be a Peaceman of Pax! Another fugitive from a newly-come colony ship—? Dalgard beamed a warning to the other. If he who was free could only reach the merpeople! It might mean the turning point in their whole venture! Dalgard was furiously planning, simplifying, trying to impress the most imperative message on that other mind as he stumbled away in the midst of the guards. The stranger was confused, apparently Dalgard's arrival, his use of the mind touch, had been an overwhelming surprise. But if he could only make the right move—would make it—The scout from Homeport had no idea what was in store for him, but with one of his own breed here and suspicious of the aliens he had at least a slim chance. He snapped the thread of communication. Now he must be ready for any opportunity— Raf watched that amazing apparition go out of the room below. He was shaking with a chill born of no outside cold. First the shock of hearing that language, queerly accented as the words were, then that sharp contact, mind to mind. He was being clearly warned against revealing himself. The stranger was a Terran, Raf would swear to that. So somewhere on this world there was a Terran colony! One of those legendary ships of outlaws, who had taken to space during the rule of Pax, had made the crossing safely and had here established a foothold. While one part of Raf's brain fitted together the jigsaw of bits and patches of information, the other section dealt with that message of warning the other had beamed to him. The pilot knew that the captive must be in immediate danger. He could not understand all that had happened in that interview with the aliens, but he was left with the impression that the prisoner had been not only tried but condemned. And it was up to him to help. But how? By the time he got back to the flitter or was able to find Hobart and the others, it might already be too late. He must make the move, and soon, for there had been unmistakable urgency in the captive's message. Raf's hands fumbled at the grid before him, and then he realized that the opening was far too small to admit him to the room on the other side of the wall. To return to the underground ways might be a waste of time, but he could see no other course open to him. What if he could not find the captive later? Where in the maze of the half-deserted city could he hope to come across the trail again? Even as he sorted out all the points which could defeat him, Raf's hands and feet felt for the notched steps which would take him down. He had gone only two floors when he was faced with a grille opening which was much larger. On impulse he stopped to measure it, sure he could squeeze through here, if he could work loose the grid. Prying with one hand and a tool from his belt pouch, he struggled not only against the stubborn metal but against time. That strange mental communication had ceased. Though he was sure that he still received a trace of it from time to time, just enough to reassure him that the prisoner was still alive. And each time it touched him Raf redoubled his efforts on the metal clasps of the grid. At last his determination triumphed, and the grille swung out, to fall with an appalling clatter to the floor. The pilot thrust his feet through the opening and wriggled desperately, expecting any moment to confront a reception committee drawn by the noise. But when he reached the floor, the hallway was still vacant. In fact, he was conscious of a hush in the whole building, as if those who made their homes within its walls were elsewhere. That silence acted on him as a spur. Raf ran along the corridor, trying to subdue the clatter of his space boots, coming to a downward ramp. There he paused, unable to decide whether to go down—until he caught sight of a party of aliens below, walking swiftly enough to suggest that they too were in a hurry. This small group was apparently on its way to some gathering. And in it for the first time the Terran saw the women of the aliens, or at least the fully veiled, gliding creatures he guessed were the females of the painted people. There were four of them in the group ahead, escorted by two of the males, and the high fluting of their voices resounded along the corridor as might the cheeping of birds. If the males were colorful in their choice of body wrappings, the females were gorgeous beyond belief, as cloudy stuff which had the changing hues of Terran opals frothed about them to completely conceal their figures. The harsher twittering of the men had an impatient note, and the whole party quickened pace until their glide was close to an undignified trot. Raf, forced to keep well behind lest his boots betray him, fumed. They did not go into the open, but took another way which sloped down once more. Luckily the journey was not a long one. Ahead was light which suggested the outdoors. Raf sucked in his breath as he came out a goodly distance behind the aliens. Established in what was once a court surrounded by the towers and buildings of the city was a miniature of that other arena where he had seen the dead lizard things. The glittering, gayly dressed aliens were taking their places on the tiers of seats. But the place which had been built to accommodate at least a thousand spectators now housed less than half the number. If this was the extent of the alien nation, it was the dregs of a dwindling race. Directly below where Raf lingered in an aisle dividing the tiers of seats, there was a manhole opening with a barred gate across it, an entrance to the sand-covered enclosure. And fortunately the aliens were all clustered close to the oval far from that spot. Also the attention of the audience was firmly riveted on events below. A door at the sand level had been flung open, and through it was now hustled the prisoner. Either the aliens still possessed some idea of fair play or they hoped to prolong a contest to satisfy their own pleasure, for the captive's hands were unbound and he clutched a spear. Remembering far-off legends of earlier and more savage civilizations on his own world, Raf was now sure that the lone man below was about to fight for his life. The question was, against what? Another of the mouthlike openings around the edge of the arena opened, and one of the furry people shambled out, weaving weakly from side to side as he came, a spear in his scaled paws. He halted a step or two into the open, his round head swinging from side to side, spittle drooling from his gaping mouth. His body was covered with raw sores and bare patches from which the fur had been torn away, and it was apparent that he had long been the victim of ill-usage, if not torture. Shrill cries arose from the alien spectators as the furred one blinked in the light and then sighted the man some feet away. He stiffened, his arm drew back, the spear poised. Then as suddenly it dropped to his side, and he fell on his knees before wriggling across the sand, his paws held out imploringly to his fellow captive. The cries from the watching aliens were threatening. Several rose in their seats gesturing to the two below. And Raf, thankful for their absorption, sped down to the manhole, discovering to his delight it could be readily opened from his side. As he edged it around, there was another sound below. This was no high-pitched fluting from aliens deprived of their sport, but a hissing nightmare cry. Raf's line of vision, limited by the door, framed a portion of scaled back, as it looked, immediately below him. His hand went to the blast bombs as he descended the runway, and his boots hit the sand just as the drama below reached its climax. The furred one lay prone in the sand, uncaring. Above that mistreated body, the human stood in the half-crouch of a fighting man, the puny spear pointed up bravely at a mark it could not hope to reach, the soft throat of one of the giant lizards. The reptile did not move to speedily destroy. Instead, hissing, it reared above the two as if studying them with a vicious intelligence. But there was no time to wonder how long it would delay striking. Raf's strong teeth ripped loose the tag end of the blast bomb, and he lobbed it straight with a practiced arm so that the ball spiraled across the arena to come to rest between the massive hind legs of the lizard. He saw the man's eyes widen as they fastened on him. And then the human captive flung himself to the earth, half covering the body of the furred one. The reptile grabbed in the same instant, its grasping claws cutting only air, and before it could try a second time the bomb went off. Literally torn apart by the explosion, the creature must have died at once. But the captive moved. He was on his feet again, pulling his companion up with him, before the startled spectators could guess what had happened. Then half carrying the other prisoner, he ran, not onward to the waiting Raf, but for the gate through which he had come into the arena. At the same time a message beat into the Terran's brain— "This way!" Avoiding bits of horrible refuse, Raf obeyed that order, catching up in a couple of strides with the other two and linking his arm through the dangling one of the furred creature to take some of the strain from the stranger. "Have you any more of the power things?" the words came in the archaic speech of his own world. "Two more bombs," he answered. "We may have to blow the gate here," the other panted breathlessly. Instead Raf drew his stun gun. The gate was already opening, a wedge of the painted warriors heading through, flame-throwers ready. He sprayed wide, and on the highest level. A spout of fire singed the cloth of his tunic across the top of his shoulder as one of the last aliens fired before his legs buckled and he went down. Then, opposition momentarily gone, the two with their semiconscious charge stumbled over the bodies of the guards and reached the corridor beyond. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Andre Alice Norton (2006). Star Born. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/18458/pg18458-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html .

ARENA

DESTRUCTION UNLEASHED

SURPRISE ATTACK

Star Born by Andre Alice Norton, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . A HOUND IS LOOSED A HOUND IS LOOSED Dalgard's feet touched gravel; he waded cautiously to the bank, where a bridge across the river made a concealing shadow on the water. None of the mermen had accompanied him this far. Sssuri, as soon as his human comrade had started for the storage city, had turned south to warn and rally the tribes. And the merpeople of the islands had instituted a loose chain of communication, which led from a clump of water reeds some two miles back to the seashore, and so out to the islands. Better than any of the now legendary coms of his Terran forefathers were these minds of the spies in hiding, who could pick up the racing thoughts beamed to them and pass them on to their fellows. Although there were no signs of life about the city, Dalgard moved with the same care that he would have used in penetrating a snake-devil's lair. In the first hour of dawn he had contacted a hopper. The small beast had been frightened almost out of coherent thought, and Dalgard had had to spend some time in allaying that terror to get a fractional idea of what might be going on in this countryside. Death—the hopper's terror had come close to insanity. Killers had come out of the sky, and they were burning—burning—All living things were fleeing before them. And in that moment Dalgard had been forced to give up his plan for an unseen spy ring, which would depend upon the assistance of the animals. His information must come via his own eyes and ears. So he kept on, posting the last of the mermen in his mental relay well away from the city, but swimming upstream himself. Now that he was here, he could see no traces of the invaders. Since they could not have landed their sky ships in the thickly built-up section about the river, it must follow that their camp lay on the outskirts of the metropolis. He pulled himself out of the water. Bow and arrows had been left behind with the last merman; he had only his sword-knife for protection. But he was not there to fight, only to watch and wait. Pressing the excess moisture out of his scant clothing, he crept along the shore. If the strangers were using the streets, it might be well to get above them. Speculatively he eyed the buildings about him as he entered the city. Dalgard continued to keep at street level for two blocks, darting from doorway to shadowed doorway, alert not only to any sound but to any flicker of thought. He was reasonably sure, however, that the aliens would be watching and seeking only for the merpeople. Though they were not telepathic as their former slaves, Those Others were able to sense the near presence of a merman, so that the sea people dared not communicate while within danger range of the aliens without betraying themselves. It was the fact that he was of a different species, therefore possibly immune to such detection, which had brought Dalgard into the city. He studied the buildings ahead. Among them was a cone-shaped structure which might have been the base of a tower that had had all stories above the third summarily amputated. It was ornamented with a series of bands in high relief, bands bearing the color script of the aliens. This was the nearest answer to his problem. However the scout did not move toward it until after a long moment of both visual and mental inspection of his surroundings. But that inspection did not reach some twelve streets away where another crouched to watch. Dalgard ran lightly to the tower at the same moment that Raf shifted his weight from one foot to the other behind a parapet as he spied upon the knot of aliens gathered below him in the street.... The pilot had followed them since that early morning hour when Soriki had awakened him. Not that the chase had led him far in distance. Most of the time he had spent in waiting just as he was doing now. At first he had believed that they were searching for something, for they had ventured into several buildings, each time to emerge conferring, only to hunt out another and invade it. Since they always returned with empty hands, he could not believe that they were out for further loot. Also they moved with more confidence than they had shown the day before. That confidence led Raf to climb above them so that he could watch them with less chance of being seen in return. It had been almost noon when they had at last come into this section. If two of them had not remained idling on the street as the long moments crept by, he would have believed that they had given him the slip, that he was now a cat watching a deserted mouse hole. But at the moment they were coming back, carrying something. Raf leaned as far over the parapet as he dared, trying to catch a better look at the flat, boxlike object two of them had deposited on the pavement. Whatever it was either needed some adjustment or they were attempting to open it with poor success, for they had been busied about it for what seemed an unusually long time. The pilot licked dry lips and wondered what would happen if he swung down there and just walked in for a look-see. That idea was hardening into resolution when suddenly the group below drew quickly apart, leaving the box sitting alone as they formed a circle about it. There was a puff of white vapor, a protesting squawk, and the thing began to rise in jerks as if some giant in the sky was pulling at it spasmodically. Raf jumped back. Before he could return to his vantage point, he saw it rise above the edge of the parapet, reach a level five or six feet above his head, hovering there. It no longer climbed; instead it began to swing back and forth, describing in each swing a wider stretch of space. Back and forth—watching it closely made him almost dizzy. What was its purpose? Was it a detection device, to locate him? Raf's hand went to his stun gun. What effect its rays might have on the box he had no way of knowing, but at that moment he was sorely tempted to try the beam out, with the oscillating machine as his target. The motion of the floating black thing became less violent, its swoop smoother as if some long-idle motor was now working more as its builders had intended it to perform. The swing made wide circles, graceful glides as the thing explored the air currents. Searching—it was plainly searching for something. Just as plainly it could not be hunting for him, for his pres ence on that roof would have been uncovered at once. But the machine was—it must be—out of sight of the warriors in the street. How could they keep in touch with it if it located what they sought? Unless it had some built-in signaling device. Determined to keep it in sight, Raf risked a jump from the parapet of the building where he had taken cover to another roof beyond, running lightly across that as the hound bobbed and twisted, away from its masters, out across the city in pursuit of some mysterious quarry.... The climb which had looked so easy from the street proved to be more difficult when Dalgard actually made it. His hours of swimming in the river, the night of broken rest, had drained his strength more than he had known. He was panting as he flattened himself against the wall, his feet on one of the protruding bands of colored carving, content to rest before reaching for another hold. To all appearances the city about him was empty of life and, except for the certainty of the merpeople that the alien ship and its strange companion had landed here, he would have believed that he was on a fruitless quest. Grimly, his lower lip caught between his teeth, the scout began to climb once more, the sun hot on his body, drawing sweat to dampen his forehead and his hands. He did not pause again but kept on until he stood on the top of the shortened tower. The roof here was not flat but sloped inward to a cuplike depression, where he could see the outline of a round opening, perhaps a door of sorts. But at that moment he was too winded to do more than rest. There was a drowsiness in that air. He was tempted to curl up where he sat and turn his rest into the sleep his body craved. It was in that second or so of time when he was beginning to relax, to forget the tenseness which had gripped him since his return to this ill-omened place, that he touched — Dalgard stiffened as if one of his own poisoned arrows had pricked his skin. Rapport with the merpeople, with the hoppers and the runners, was easy, familiar. But this was no such touch. It was like contacting something which was icy cold, inimical from birth, something which he could never meet on a plain of understanding. He snapped off mind questing at that instant and huddled where he was, staring up into the blank turquoise of the sky, waiting—for what he did not know. Unless it was for that other mind to follow and ferret out his hiding place, to turn him inside out and wring from him everything he ever knew or hoped to learn. As time passed in long breaths, and he was not so invaded, he began to think that while he had been aware of contact, the other had not. And, emboldened, he sent out a tracer. Unconsciously, as the tracer groped, he pivoted his body. It lay—there! At the second touch he withdrew in the same second, afraid of revelation. But as he returned to probe delicately, ready to flee at the first hint that the other suspected, his belief in temporary safety grew. To his disappointment he could not pierce beyond the outer wall of identity. There was a living creature of a high rate of intelligence, a creature alien to his own thought processes, not too far away. And though his attempts to enter into closer communication grew bolder, he could not crack the barrier which kept them apart. He had long known that contact with the merpeople was on a lower, a far lower, band than they used when among themselves, and that they were only able to "talk" with the colonists because for generations they had exchanged thought symbols with the hoppers and other unlike species. They had been frank in admitting that while Those Others could be aware of their presence through telepathic means, they could not exchange thoughts. So now, his own band, basically strange to this planet, might well go unnoticed by the once dominant race of Astra. They—or him—or it—were over in that direction, Dalgard was sure of that. He faced northwest and saw for the first time, about a mile away, the swelling of the globe. If the strange flyer reported by the merpeople was beside it, he could not distinguish it from this distance. Yet he was sure the mind he had located was closer to him than that ship. Then he saw it—a black object rising by stiff jerks into the air as if it were being dragged upward against its inclination. It was too small to be a flyer of any sort. Long ago the colonists had patched together a physical description of Those Others which had assured them that the aliens were close to them in general characteristics and size. No, that couldn't be carrying a passenger. Then what—or why? The object swung out in a gradually widening circle. Dalgard held to the walled edge of the roof. Something within him suggested that it would be wiser to seek some less open space, that there was danger in that flying box. He released his hold and went to the trap door. It took only a minute to fit his fingers into round holes and tug. Its stubborn resistance gave, and stale air whooshed out in his face as it opened. In his battle with the door Dalgard had ignored the box, so he was startled when, with a piercing whistle, almost too high on the scale for his ears to catch, the thing suddenly swooped into a screaming dive, apparently heading straight for him. Dalgard flung himself through the trap door, luckily landing on one of the steep, curved ramps. He lost his balance and slid down into the dark, trying to brake his descent with his hands, the eerie screech of the box trumpeting in his ears. There was little light in this section of the cone building, and he was brought up with bruising force against a blank wall two floors below where he had so unceremoniously entered. As he lay in the dark trying to gasp some breath back into his lungs, he could still hear the squeal. Was it summoning? There was no time to be lost in getting away. On his hands and knees the scout crept along what must have been a short hall until he found a second descending ramp, this one less steep than the first, so that he was able to keep to his feet while using it. And the gloom of the next floor was broken by odd scraps of light which showed through pierced portions of the decorative bands. The door was there, a locking bar across it. Dalgard did not try to shift that at once, although he laid his hands upon it. If the box was a hound for hunters, had it already drawn its masters to this building? Would he open the door only to be faced by the danger he wished most to avoid? Desperately he tried to probe with the mind touch. But he could not find the alien band. Was that because the hunters could control their minds as they crept up? His kind knew so little of Those Others, and the merpeople's hatred of their ancient masters was so great that they tended to avoid rather than study them. The scout's sixth sense told him that nothing waited outside. But the longer he lingered with that beacon overhead the slimmer his chances would be. He must move and quickly. Sliding back the bar, he opened the door a crack and looked out into a deserted street. There was another doorway to take shelter in some ten feet or so farther along, beyond that an alley wall overhung by a balcony. He marked these refuges and went out to make his first dash to safety. Nothing stirred, and he sprinted. There came again that piercing shriek to tear his ears as the floating box dived at him. He swerved away from the doorway to dart on under the balcony, sure now that he must keep moving, but under cover so that the black thing could not pounce. If he could find some entrance into the underground ways such as those that ran from the arena—But now he was not even sure in which direction the arena stood, and he dared no longer climb to look over the surrounding territory. He touched the alien mind! They were moving in, following the lead of their hound. He must not allow himself to be cornered. The scout fought down a surge of panic, attempted to battle the tenseness which tied his nerves. He must not run mindlessly either. That was probably just what they wanted him to do. So he stood under the balcony and tried not to listen to the shrilling of the box as he studied the strip of alley. This was a narrow side way, and he had not made the wisest of choices in entering it, for not much farther ahead it was bordered with smooth walls protecting what had once been gardens. He had no way of telling whether the box would actually attack him if he were caught in the open—to put that to the test was foolhardy—nor could he judge its speed of movement. The walls.... A breeze which blew up the lane carried with it the smell of the river. There was a slim chance that it might end in water, and he had a feeling that if he could reach the stream he would be able to baffle the hunters. He did not have long to make up his mind—the aliens were closer. Lightly Dalgard ran under the length of the balcony, turned sharply as he reached the end of its protecting cover, and leaped. His fingers gripped the ornamental grillwork, and he was able to pull himself up and over to the narrow runway. A canopy was still over his head, and there came a bump against it as the baffled box thumped. So it would try to knock him off if it could get the chance! That was worth knowing. He looked over the walls. They guarded masses of tangled vegetation grown through years of neglect into thick mats. And those promised a way of escape, if he could reach them. He studied the windows, the door opening onto the balcony. With the hilt of his sword-knife he smashed his way into the house, to course swiftly through the rooms to the lower floor, and find the entrance to the garden. Facing that briary jungle on the ground level was a little daunting. To get through it would be a matter of cutting his way. Could he do it and escape that bobbing, shrilling thing in the air? A trace of pebbled path gave him a ghost of a chance, and he knew that these shrubs tended to grow upward and not mass until they were several feet above the ground. Trusting to luck, Dalgard burrowed into the green mass, slashing with his knife at anything which denied him entrance. He was swallowed up in a strange dim world wherein dead shrubs and living were twined together to form a roof, cutting off the light and heat of the sun. From the sour earth, sliming his hands and knees, arose an overpowering stench of decay and disturbed mold. In the dusk he had to wait for his eyes to adjust before he could mark the line of the old path he had taken for his guide. Fortunately, after the first few feet, he discovered that the tunneled path was less obstructed than he had feared. The thick mat overhead had kept the sun from the ground and killed off all the lesser plants so that it was possible to creep along a fairly open strip. He was conscious of the chitter of insects, but no animals lingered here. Under him the ground grew more moist and the mold was close to mud in consistency. He dared to hope that this meant he was either approaching the river or some garden stream feeding into the larger flood. Somewhere the squeal of the hunter kept up a steady cry, but, unless the foliage above him was distorting that sound, Dalgard believed that the box was no longer directly above him. Had he in some way thrown it off his trail? He found his stream, a thread of water, hardly more than a series of scummy pools with the vegetation still meeting almost solidly over it. And it brought him to a wall with a drain through which he was sure he could crawl. Disliking to venture into that cramped darkness, but seeing no other way out, the scout squirmed forward in slime and muck, feeling the rasp of rough stone on his shoulders as he made his worm's progress into the unknown. Once he was forced to halt and, in the dark, loosen and pick out stones embedded in the mud bottom narrowing the passage. On the other side of that danger point, he was free to wriggle on. Could the box trace him now? He had no idea of the principle on which it operated; he could only hope. Then before him he saw the ghostly gray of light and squirmed with renewed vigor—to be faced then by a grille, beyond which was the open world. Once more his knife came into use as he pried and dug at the barrier. He worked for long moments until the grille splashed out into the sluggish current a foot or so below, and then he made ready to lower himself into the same flood. It was only because he was a trained hunter that he avoided death in that moment. Some instinct made him dodge even as he slipped through, and the hurtling black box did not strike true at the base of his brain but raked along his scalp, tearing the flesh and sending him tumbling unconscious into the brown water. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Andre Alice Norton (2006). Star Born. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/18458/pg18458-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html .

MERREO

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MERREO

merreo.com

1-10 employees

Since 2021

COMPANY RANKING

MERREO

EVERGREEN INDEX #6580

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