Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1959 Read Online Free Page A

the Cold People so far. Plainly they
ignored the latitudes in which he sailed. His previous scouting adventure had
taken him to westward along the coast of South America , far up the isthmus. In three years he had
seen only a few domelike shelters of the enemy, and those in the Mexican
highlands. This time, he told himself, he would reach the Gulf Coast of the old United States , perhaps reach the Mississippi River and voyage upward and learn the
actualities of the Cold People.
                 It
was his business to remain cautious and clear-eyed, and wide awake at all
times. Yes, and it was his business to be— vicious.
                 For
had not weak adversaries triumphed over strong ones in the earlier days of
Earth's history? It was a matter of spirit, if you came down to first
principles. Spence and
                 Megan
and Capato and the others were almost sensible about the right attitude.
Darragh wished he'd thought of that when he spoke to their council; that he'd
pointed out the direction for them to continue thinking, the refusal to accept
defeat.
                 After
all, defeat was like a lot of other proffered things. It must be accepted.
Otherwise it was—well, refused. A memory came of one of his father's old books.
It had told the story of another open boat, in these very seas, not far away
from where he, Darragh, now sailed; the story of the old man who fished, who
fought what seemed the cosmic spite of fate and of nature itself, who would
have been called a failure. The moral of the tale, as Darragh had decided, was
that you had not been conquered until you yourself fell flat on your face to
kiss the foot that kicked you.
                 Now,
he was the young man and the sea, utterly determined to survive and to
succeed, and to decline to recognize that prodding offer of the baleful gift of
defeat.
                 He
remembered something else he had read once, a stanza of Kipling. All alone with
the sea and the hot sky and the taut sails, the sand the words to a tune of his
own making:
                 "Mistletoe killing an oak-Rats gnawing
cables in two-Moths making holes in a cloak— How they
must love what they do! Yes—and we Little Folk, too, We are as busy as they, Working our works out of view. Watch, and you'll see it
some dayr
                 That
passage, as Darragh remembered, referred to the crushed Picts in old Britain , plotting the downfall of mighty Rome . He wished he could think of the rest of
Kipling's powerfully spiteful verses. Since he could not, he sang the single
stanza over again, exultantly.
                 Somewhere
in there, he felt mystically sure, was the lesson for him and his own kind—the
way to fight and defeat the
                 Cold People, the way he knew existed but could not tell the
council. He'd puzzle out the lesson. It was a simple matter of concentrated
rational thinking; when he had it, he'd apply it. Back in the home jungle,
perhaps he would find and learn the rest of that Pict Song Kipling had written,
would sing it and teach it to others as a chant of battle. There was one final
line that did come back to him:
                 . . . And then we shall dance on your
graves!
                With fierce relish Darragh said
those words over. They were a good omen . ..
                 Near Martinique , on a gently rolling stretch of sea full of
black prowling sharks, he looked up and was aware of a faraway flying vehicle
of the Cold People.
                 At
once he struck his sails and sat silent in the dugout. The ship, a silvery
torpedo shape with no wings or propellers or jet streams, grew larger as it
descended out of the stratosphere. Over him it skimmed and circled, as though
to examine the face of the deep. Sharks came to nudge his craft at either
side.
                 Thank you, brother sharks, said Darragh
in his