He was a man of a hundred planets, drawn
from the blackness of space to save a
tech-galaxy from disintegration. He was Kane,
the warrior-mechanic ... memory-king of
knowledgeless worlds ... savior to
millions ... maniac to the ruling few—so
they threw a dragnet over the
stars to stop the heretic.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories March 1954.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The relentless heat of yellow-white twin suns boiled the thin desertair and it seared his laboring lungs, and he knew why this was calledthe Desert of One Thousand Mirages. The Desert of One Thousand Hellswould have been a better name.
They said a man could go mad here. If not from the crazily twisting,undulating heat shapes themselves, then from the pain-tortured vagariesof his own brain. But mad or not, Jonny Kane knew he must somehowstay in the saddle that was not fashioned for human buttocks; stayastride the silver skinned, hairless beast never bred for humantransportation, and ride.
They could be all around him, of course, and he might never know untilit was too late to wheel his fleet qharaak and dash again for freedomin yet another direction across the shifting, low-duned wastes. Theycould be but yards behind him but there was not the strength to lookback, only to grip the thick reins twined about his bleeding wrists,to keep his cramped legs stiff about the qharaak's sloping flanks. Andride, and choke on the smoking sand.
His brain bubbled inside his head, and he shut his eyes.
He would tire and lose his grip, and so lose his mount, and fry todeath on the blinding whiteness of the sand. Or he would go crashinginto them, and they would lead him back to the outpost village, andhis death would be of their making. What chance, after all, had anEarth-descendant against the copper skinned native police of a Procyonplanet, who rode its deserts as if they were the cool, green fields ofthe mother world of which his father had so often spoken? What chance?
There was flame in his lungs, and fire was burning the insides of hishalf naked, once strong young body into crumbling, blackened ash. Ride—
"Hold! Hold, or there's a barb through your evil heart!"
The booming command was from the left. And he wheeled the qharaak sosharply it reared and nearly lost its sextuple footing in the shiftingsand. A sudden thrummm went past one ear. He tried to loose his legsenough for a kick in the lunging animal's flanks, but the muscles inthem were like steel clamps. They would not move.
The reins about his wrists were slippery and stinging with sweat andsand as both mixed with his blood, and were pulled easily enough fromhis grasp by the vicious, sudden tug from one side.
And then the overpowering odor of the other lathered qharaaks floodedhis nostrils as the Dep-Troopers closed in upon him. He retched withit, and was sick.
"Come on, you! You're lucky our orders were dead or alive! Straightenup in that saddle or you'll go back dragged from it!"
A uyja-wood quirt split the skin across his back and somehow broughthim nearly erect in the saddle. He let his eyes open a little at a timeagainst the searing blaze of the desert. They had him ringed with theirbows and barb shafts, already had his qharaak tethered to one of theirown.
And then they were taking him back. Back to the shimmering thing atthe horizon that was the outpost village; back to the place where thegear box of his track-car had stalled for want of proper lubricant, andwhere the chase had begun.
But he would not think about that. He knew