The Godmakers by Frank Herbert Read Free Book Online

know the word," Orne said. "It's HELP!"
    Bow down to Ullua, the star wanderer of the Ayrbs. Let no blasphemy occur, nor permit a blasphemer to live. May blasphemy shrivel the mouth.
    Blasphemers are accursed of God and accursed of the blessed. Let this curse strike a blasphemer from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head, sleeping and waking, sitting and standing . . .
    -- Invocation for the Day of Bairam
    Gray mud floor and gloomy aisles between monstrous blue tree trunks -- that was the Gienah jungle. Only the weakest glimmering of sunlight penetrated to the mud.
    Orne's disguised sled, its paragrav units turned off, lurched and skidded around buttress roots. The headlights swung in wild arcs across the trunks and down to the mud. Aerial creepers, great looping vines of them, swung down from the towering forest ceiling. A steady drip of condensation spattered the windshield, forcing Orne to use screen blowers.
    In the bucket seat of the sled's cab, Orne fought the controls while trying to watch on all sides for sign of the Gienahn raiding party. He felt plagued by the vague slow-motion-floating sensations a heavy planet native always experienced in lighter gravity. It gave him an unhappy stomach.
    Things skipped through the air around the lurching vehicle -- flitting and darting things, blue, red, green, violet, iridescent and dull things. Gienahn insects with fuzzy wings came in twin cones, siphoned toward the headlights.
    An endless cluttering screeching whistling chiming tok-tok-toking sounded in the gloom beyond the sled's lights.
    Stetson's voice hissed suddenly through Orne's surgically implanted speaker:
    "How's it look?"
    "Alien."
    "Any sign of that mob?"
    "Negative."
    "Right. We're taking off. Good luck."
    From behind Orne, there came the deep rumbling roar of the scout cruiser climbing its jets. The racket receded. All other sounds hung suspended in after-silence, then resumed: the strongest first and then the weaker.
    A heavy dark object arced through the headlights, swinging on a vine. It disappeared behind a tree. Another. Another. Ghostly shadows on vine pendulums looped across both sides of the sled. Something banged down heavily on the hood.
    Orne braked to a creaking stop that shifted the load behind him. He found himself staring through the windshield at a native of Gienah. The native crouched on the hood, a Mark XX exploding-pellet rifle in his right hand directed at Orne's head. In the abrupt shock of meeting, Orne recognized the weapon: standard issue to marine guards on all R&R survey ships.
    The native appeared the twin of the one Orne had seen on the translite screen, even to the belt with its pouched artifacts. The four-fingered hand looked practiced and capable around the stock of the Mark XX.
    Slowly, Orne put a hand to his throat, activated the hidden microphone, moved his speaking muscles: "Just made contact. One of that mob's on the hood now.
    He has one of our Mark XX rifles aimed at my head."
    The surf-hissing of Stetson's voice came through the implanted speaker: "Want us back?"

    "Negative. Stand by. He looks more curious than hostile."
    "Be careful. You can't be sure of reactions in an unknown species."
    Orne took his right hand from his neck, held it up, the palm out. He had a second thought, held up his left hand, too. Universal symbol of peaceful intentions: empty hands. The rifle muzzle lowered slightly. Orne called to mind the Gienahn language that had been hypno-forced into him. Ocheero? No, that meant "The People." Ahh . . . And he recalled the heavy fricative greeting sound.
    "Ffroiragrazzi," he said.
    The native shifted to the left, answered in pure, unaccented high Galactese:
    "Who are you?"
    Orne fought down sudden panic. The lipless mouth had appeared so odd forming the familiar words.
    Stetson's voice hissed: "Was that the native speaking Galactese?"
    Orne touched his throat: "You heard him."
    "Who are you?" the Gienahn demanded.
    Orne dropped his hand, said: "I'm Lewis