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Updated: June 25, 2025
The Disan poised above him had the short-handled stone hammer raised to strike a skull-crushing blow. Ulv was clutching the man's wrist, fighting silently to keep the hammer from falling. Neither combatant said a word, the rasp of their calloused feet on the sand the only sound. Brion backed away from the struggling men, his gun centered on the stranger.
The score would be even, and his and the Disans' death avenged. Did Ulv have his blowgun ready to kill Brion with, if he should try to stop the launchings? Or had he misread the Disan entirely? "Will you stop them, Ulv?" he asked. How large was mankind's sense of obligation? The caveman first had this feeling for his mate, then for his family.
The stiffened hand moving forward in a sudden surge, all the weight and energy of his body concentrated in his joined fingertips. Plunging deep into the other's flesh. Killing, not by accident or in sudden anger. Killing because this was the only way the battle could possibly end. Like a ruined tower of flesh, the Disan crumpled and fell.
The Disan would have to drop the knife before his arm was dislocated at the shoulder. He didn't do it. With sudden horror Brion realized that he wasn't going to drop it no matter what happened. A dull, hideous snap jerked through the Disan's body and the arm hung limp and dead. No expression crossed the man's face. The knife was still locked in the fingers of the paralyzed hand.
After a number of blind passages and wrong turns he saw a stronger light ahead, and went on. There was food, metal, even artifacts of the unusual Disan design in the different rooms he passed through. Yet no people. The light ahead grew stronger, and the last passageway opened and swelled out until it led into the large central chamber. This was the heart of the strange structure.
"What you gonna do?" Telt asked, even his natural exuberation stilled by this. Brion only shook his head as the words penetrated. What could he do? What could possibly be done? "Follow me," a voice said in guttural Disan through the opening of a rear window. The speaker was lost in the crowd before they could turn.
They even have a word for it, one that never appeared in our Disan language lessons. A life form that you can live with or cooperate with is called medvirk. One that works to destroy you is umedvirk. He also understands that life forms can change, and be medvirk or umedvirk at different times. He has just decided that the brain symbiote is umedvirk and he is out to kill it.
We had ... an accident. We want to go to the city. The water." The Disan looked at the unconscious girl and made his decision. Over one shoulder he wore one of the green objects that Brion remembered from the solido. He pulled it off and the thing writhed slowly in his hands. It was alive a green length a metre long, like a noduled section of a thick vine.
No more killing!" he shouted in Disan. Then he shook his fist at Telt. "Fire that gun and I'll stuff it down your throat. I'll handle this." He turned to face Ulv, who hadn't brought the blowgun any closer to his lips. This was a good sign the Disan was still uncertain. "You have seen the body in the car, Ulv. So you must have seen that it is that of a magter.
He could use the time now, while the rest of them were asleep, to get better acquainted with the main city of Dis. As he walked the dark streets he realized how alien the Disan way of life was to everything he knew. This city Hovedstad literally meant "main place" in the native language. And that's all it was. It was only the presence of the offworlders that made it into a city.
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