Mutiny in Space by Avram Davidson

southwest?”
    To the southwest lay nothing but scrublands, day after endless day, until the shores of the Silent Sea. There dwelt only a scattering of fishermen, so primitive that they could build no boats, who lived by the scanty catch of their inshore fishing; so poor and mean were they, that Dame Darra had levied on them a token tax to be paid in fleas!
    “But,” O-Narra said, “northwest — ”
    “Indeed! Indeed! Northwest?” demanded Captain Rond. “What lies northwest?”
    She was evidently pondering, nodding her head, her mass of red-gold hair quivering in its loose gatherings, so different from the tightly coifed way it had been only yesterday under the hideous battle-mask. “The High Keeper, Dame Hanna, will have alerted the Warders of the Border Marches by now,” she said. “They have no septs among them, and still reckon descent by clans in the primitive manner; so each Warder holds his fief entirely at the Dame’s pleasure. It is not to be expected that they will be as effective as the real warriors. Not for all the threats in the world, not for any sept city as fief, would they venture out at night, Father. They fear the darkness worse than death. So — ”
    She knelt on one knee and drew in the sand with her finger. Jory placed one hand lightly on her shoulder, bent to look. “We are … approximately …
here
. As Rahan guided us up, I daresay he can guide us down — by the yonder slope, of course. We are still a half-day’s journey ahead of the Dame’s true troops. Suppose we can reach …
there
— ” she drew a curling line, dotted her finger in the sand — “by nightfall. The River Lin. Its meadows will be empty at this time of year, the herdswomen will be up in the hills. We go by night as far as we can … say, to
here
. And — ”
    Rond interupted her. “And where does all this
here
to
there
lead us, eventually?”
    She took hold of Jory’s hand, pulled herself up. “To the Temple of the Clouds,” she said. “To the Holy Court — and — I hope — to sanctuary.”
    • • •
    Rahan-Joe had refused the chance to return to his household and his herd.
    “Why should I return?” his question was. “Before, I was happy, even though I was only a servitor. I used to dream dreams like all the others. ‘Perhaps a Great Lady will pass by and see me and fall in love with me.’ ‘Perhaps I will find a treasure and be able to pick my own wife.’ But, really, all the while, I knew that sooner or later the bailiff would some day come and tell me that the awk-butcher or the soap-boiler had asked the Lady for a husband, and she had told the bailiff to find one, and she would pick
me
. Well, every man wants a wife, and if I got daughters enough, mine might be kind to me.”
    They were making their way down a dry watercourse. Boulders strewed the bed of the stream, making the going slow. Now and then a
tan
or
arptor
would startle them, the one with its swift and darting flight; the other with its shrill, questioning cry “Arp-
tor?
… Arp-
tor?
… Arp
-tor?
” The sun was hot, and growing hotter.
    “But now,” he said, “I am a fellow of the Great Men. Children will know my name hundreds of years from now. Why should I go back?”
    Levvis, his long legs scissoring their way around the huge, rounded stones, said, “I see what you mean, Little Joe. Well, if we get out of this, maybe we can take you with us. There’s a place you never heard of — Humboldt’s Two Worlds, in the Lace Pattern — where
nobody
is bigger’n you are, men nor women. It’s a nice place. Of course,” he said, dodging around a boulder half the size of the pettyboat, “I guess this is a pretty nice place, too … or would be, if they had a more peaceful form of government.”
    The subject of the governance of the Great North Land was under discussion in officer’s country, some several paces behind, as well.
    Jory said, “What do you think, Captain?”
    Rond smiled, wryly. “At the moment,” he