Turning, I looked in the other direction. That meant I faced the full blast of sleet and icy cold. I couldn’t be sure, but it seemed as if a monstrous plain or steppe of snow and ice was in that direction.

  I shivered. It would be hellish out there. Was this the worst weather or the best? The answer would make a huge difference to my survival.

  Turning away from the wind, I staggered down the ziggurat on the other side. It was treacherous, high up here, the stone steps slick with ice.

  About halfway down, with ice-free patches and less howling wind and sleet, I finally noticed the monuments nearby. These were not stone buildings but colossal statues, Neanderthal statues in poses of scholars and thinkers. The far one over there might have been a Neanderthal citizen soldier holding a rifle of some kind. The statues had stone clothing as a statue of a man on Earth would have. The statues all looked toward the ziggurat. They circled it. Each face had unmistakable Neanderthal features, the kind of Neanderthals I’d seen on the world of the Ophidians.

  There were a dozen statues, some taller than the ziggurat itself. They stood around it, perhaps with a stone plaza between the ziggurat and them. A few of the statues observed or seemed to ponder the ziggurat.

  How old was this place? Did the Neanderthals of Garm still have a high civilization? Or were they like the rest of us and had fallen upon hard times when the Harmony of Planets had shattered?

  I suspected the latter. But how was I to know until I found evidence?

  Possibly because there was no committee to meet me, I should assume the world had shattered long ago.

  In any case, I worked down the ziggurat steps. As I did, the sleet and howling wind abated to a degree. The ziggurat and possibly some of the statues helped shield me from the wind coming off the steppes.

  Was the world in a grip of an ice age? Maybe, or maybe it was just an intensely cold winter or this was one of the world’s poles. I had no idea.

  Soon, I reached the plaza.

  I thought about my present survival and checked what I had with me. I only had a few supplies of food, mainly packets of almonds. Water, I could put snow in my mouth and melt it until it was water and drink it. That wasn’t the fastest way to slake one’s thirst, but I didn’t need to worry about dying of dehydration. Food—I’d definitely need another food source soon.

  I had the phasor, with however many charges left. I had the special glasses, a knife and a few other pieces of survival equipment, and I had my garments. But in my haste to flee, I hadn’t taken much else.

  I hadn’t expected to need it, since I hadn’t anticipated coming to Garm. I’d thought I was going to the Vega System, where all the amenities would have been taken care of.

  Where was the obelisk on this planet, or whatever to take me back to Earth? Did I want to go back to Antarctica? Go back to a world on the brink of nuclear devastation, with everybody employing their highest tech weapons? I thought about the THOR projectiles and Poseidon torpedo. What else were they letting loose on Earth at each other?

  I wandered around the plaza, looking at the colossal statues. Was this like the lonely world I’d first reached Traveling like this? Were only the monuments left? Or was this an inhabited world?

  I had no idea yet.

  I kept walking, checking each of the colossal statues to see if there were any hidden doors or hatches in their feet or legs. There was nothing but stone, nothing to indicate high technology other than the fact of the statues themselves and the poses of academia rather than brutish cavemen as we used to think of Neanderthals.

  At the end of my survey, I shook my head. What was the best thing to do now? I didn’t even know what kind of fauna this place had.

  As I considered that, as I wondered about fauna, I heard a snarl, a feline, a lion-like snarl.

  I whirled around.

  I saw a short, heavily bundled man, perhaps a Neanderthal. He ran through the snow toward the statues, toward me. Behind him followed three huge saber-toothed tigers, hunting beasts.

  That answered one question. The place was inhabited all right, and I might be joining the fugitive for lunch, as lunch for the great feline monsters tracking him.

  -9-

  The scene before me seemed incredible, and I stared in shock and perhaps even in dumbfounded amazement at the saber-toothed tigers.

  I realized as I thought that—I didn’t know how I could think so quickly and so deeply in what I was sure was only seconds. But I remembered reading that saber-toothed tigers weren’t related to tigers. The saber-toothed cats were obviously feline, but they were Smilodons from ancient times, belonging to a different family of feline than tigers and lions.

  These three were massive, perhaps four feet high at the shoulders and much smaller in the haunches, giving them a decidedly sloped appearance like giant hyenas. They were robustly built, much heavier and thicker than a lion of that size would have been. I thought they must have weighed a thousand pounds each. Perhaps the shaggy hair threw me off, although I doubt it. That meant each was half a ton of feline fury. They were monstrous.

  The man wasn’t huge, but shorter, although much stockier than me. He wore fur garments, as I would expect in this harsh environment. The garments looked machine manufactured, not crude skins or hand-sewn in a cave. In his gloved hand was a heavy piece of bent iron, a crowbar, perhaps. In his other, he gripped a heavy iron or steel-headed mallet.

  Was he some kind of miner or technician, a car mechanic perhaps?

  I shouted in fear and anger, reaching into my parka pocket, grabbing my phasor.

  I thought: No, I won’t show my highest tech item if I don’t need to.

  I felt the reassuring weight of a holster and its accompanying weapon strapped to my waist. Thus, I hiked up the bottom of my parka and drew a heavy automatic, an old-style Colt .45.

  The beasts stared at me with far too much understanding, maybe even intelligence.

  I looked across the distance at them, trying to discern more.

  Their braincases seemed far too big for creatures of this type. And you might call me mad, but it looked as if each of them sprouted a single antenna, a metal thing, and the tip of one sparked.

  Did that mean the Smilodons wore furry helmets? Did it mean perhaps that they’d been modified in some grotesque and evil fashion?

  The man had seen me. He stopped and stared in what seemed to be wonderment.

  I couldn’t see his face, so I didn’t know if he was indeed a Neanderthal, as these statues would indicate. He wore what the Eskimos of old would have had: a piece of what looked like hardened cardboard over his eyes with slits to see. Those would help against snow glare, although there wasn’t any glare now. He also had woolens wrapped around his face, perhaps protecting him from the freezing cold.

  I shouted at him to hurry to me.

  Even as I spoke, I realized I didn’t use my American English. Once again, as had happened on other occasions, the transfer from one ancient monument to another had granted me the language of the planet.

  I could tell the man understood me, for he put his hooded head down and ran through the snow toward me, his arms moving smoothly as he held onto the crowbar and heavy mallet.

  The three great cats, the Smilodons, snarled back and forth to each other. I had the uncanny feeling that they planned openly and freely among themselves, talking things over.

  Two of them, one on each side, flanked me wide in an effort to encircle both of us.

  The center one slunk toward me with slow and deliberate steps. It had huge paws, which might help to distribute its great weight when traversing across snow. The beast watched me with far too much interest, and I would say intelligence. I found that unnerving.

  However, I had the automatic in my grasp. I chambered a round. Still, the beast watched me intently as if I was a great mouse that it desired to eat.

  The short, squat man labored, with his breath hard and his booted feet tramping through the snow.

  “I’m a friend,” I said.

  “Yes,” he said in a guttural, harsh voice. “Friend, I am Krull. Help me, please.”

  “I’m Jake Bayard. I will help you.” I brought up the Colt.

  The approaching Smilodon snarled in a harsh and intimidating manner, and it broke into a lumbering charge directly at me.

  The beast didn’t charge gracefully and speedily as you’d expect a lion would when watching a nature film. This beast was far heavier and built on a different pattern, not for speedy charges. I remembered reading that Smilodons were ambush creatures. They ambushed large and mighty beasts like the great sloths that had once lived in North America. Perhaps they’d even attacked woolly mammoth calves.

  I brought up my trusty Colt, holding it with both hands. Neither had gloves and my fingers were freezing. Despite a beating heart and a bone-dry mouth, I aimed and fired with deliberate care once, twice, three times.

  The creature snarled horribly.

  I’d hit it, but not in the braincase where I had aimed. I saw blood on its shoulder. It kept coming. I wondered what fantastic vitality a creature like this would have.

  I kept my cool even as the adrenaline of combat flowed through me. This was what I did. I was Jake Bayard the Killer. I was Jake Bayard the Marine. I took very deliberate shots.

  One of the bullets slammed into the oversized braincase. The great furry beast plowed into the snow a bare few feet from my newfound friend, Krull, dead and twitching.

  The other two great cats stopped, hunched, and glared at my smoking automatic. Then they stared at me with malice, with hatred.

  I felt their emanations washing against me, a most uncomfortable sensation. Did they have telepathic powers or was it pure malice?

  They didn’t charge as I expected, which was a good thing because I was nearly out of bullets in this magazine. I needed to swap out. Did that mean I needed to bring out my phasor? I wasn’t sure my cold-numbed fingers could change the magazine quickly enough.

  Even so, I stumbled forward as I watched them.

  They stared at me and slowly backed away.

  Krull reached me, nodding, whirling around to face the creatures. He grunted with what I took to be surprise.

  “You killed it,” he said.

  “I did.”

  He looked back at me. “Who are you?”

  “Let’s deal with the Smilodons first.”

  He nodded, facing them again.

  I realized I hadn’t said “Smilodons,” but used the word the dominant species on the planet Garm did for them.

  I was going to assume for the moment that this was the planet Garm, although I didn’t know that with certitude.

  The two great cats began to slink away, as if they understood I had a weapon that could reach out, but not too far.

  “What do we do now?” Krull asked. “Can you kill them?”

  “If I need to,” I said. “Are they going to keep tracking us?”

  “Yes,” Krull said. “They’re hunting me. They’re guardians for the Corporation.”

  The word startled me.

  “What Corporation?” I asked.

  He turned and grunted. “As you said before, perhaps now is not the time to speak of it. Let us take care of the Smilodons first. Then we can decide what to do next.”

  “You’ve a good head on your shoulders, Krull.”

  I slammed a fresh magazine into the handle. I had another ready in my parka pocket.

  Then I did what was probably an insane thing, but it fit my M.O. I started to stalk toward the rightmost Smilodon. I stalked toward it, the automatic held down, but ready to lift in a moment.

  The creature watched me, cocking its monstrous head as if puzzled by what I was doing.

  I heard Krull marching by my side. He clenched both the heavy mallet, which had a steel head, and the crowbar.

  “If they charge us, I will fight to the death,” Krull said. “It is an honor to meet you. Did you say your name was Bayard?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you a warrior?”

  “I am. And you?”

  “I am a technician and a slave, a slave of the Corporation, but I escaped. They sent the guardian beasts after me.”

  “Why do they have antenna sticking out of their heads?”

  Krull paused. “You are not of this world, are you?”

  “How do you figure that?”

  “Because of where we’re at,” Krull said. “This is the ancient site. Once we Traveled between worlds. I came here because there was nowhere else to go, and this site guards the way to the plains. Bayard, are you from another planet? You do not seem like one of the people.”

  “People?” I asked. “You mean Neanderthals?”

  The construction of my word was very different from the English word Neanderthal. I realized that in essence I’d said people in the language of Garm. Again, that was a supposition that this was the name of the planet.

  It was time to fix that.

  “Is this the planet Garm?” I asked.

  “What else would it be named?”

  “Nothing else,” I said.

  The Smilodon held its ground. Maybe it didn’t like the idea of fleeing from me. I had the feeling it would turn and run at any moment.

  Before it did that, I ran through the snow at it, raised my forty-five and began to fire one deliberate shot after the other. Each shot smacked into the great shaggy body.

  The beast snarled with rage. It did not turn. It did not run, but it roared with ferocious malice.

  I put several slugs into its head.

  Then, it, too, sagged down dead.

  With speed, I changed magazines so I’d have a full one ready for the last beast. I whirled around—

  The last Smilodon was gone. It had vanished.

  “It is going to tell the others,” Krull said, “the masters of the Corporation.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Who runs the Corporation?”

  “Everyone knows the First Folk do.”

  My stomach turned with shock. If I understood Krull right, he meant the Homo habilises like Philip. Those sly hominids ran the Corporation.

  “You said you were a slave?” I asked.

  Krull nodded.

  I shoved the Colt into its holster. Then, I held out my bare right hand.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Krull.”

  He stared at my hand and stared at me. Clearly understanding, for he took off his glove and he had a broad, huge hand, he clasped mine. I could feel the strength in his grip. Whatever else this Krull was, he was one strong sucker.

  Finally, he unwound the woolens from his face. He indeed had the features of a typical Neanderthal: white skin, such as I had, a weak chin, but a broad flat nose, that would be perfect for this terrain. He could breathe in through those nostrils, letting the vast cavities warm the air before he took it deeper into his lungs. In a sense, Krull was fit for this winter planet. He had a bridge of bone across his eyes like a brow, and a sloping forehead. It gave him the appearance of being an idiot, perhaps even a retard. Yet, I knew from my studies that the Neanderthals, or the average ones at least, had a greater braincase than we Homo sapiens. That meant their brains were larger than ours were.

  Likely, Krull was of high intelligence.

  His piercing brown eyes looked into mine. Yes, I could see he was an intelligent man, and most likely a brave man.

  We shook hands again.

  “Krull, we’re going to have to decide what to do next.”

  “Yes, Bayard, we will. Thank you for coming to my aid. You saved my life. I think they were toying with me and letting me see this great and ancient relic before they slew me. Now that I have seen it, now that I know that it is true, and not just a mystery, now I have renewed hope. And now I think things are going to be different, Jake Bayard. Let us be friends, you and I. Do you agree?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I totally agree. What’s the best thing to do now? What’s the plan?”

  “Indeed,” Krull said. “That is the question.”

  -10-

  We didn’t see the last Smilodon anytime soon. It must have done as Krull suggested, leaving the area in order to report on what had taken place here.

  After the fight, we settled at the base of the ziggurat, resting. Krull told me he had a cache of food perhaps half a mile back. If I cared to join him, we could go get it. Soon, we climbed to our feet and started for the food.

  I kept my Colt ready. Krull kept his heavy mallet and crowbar ready.

  I imagined if he got close enough and if the Smilodons gave him time, he could crack one of their skulls. I’d felt his grip. He wasn’t that big, although he was broad.

  I’d say he was 5’5”, much smaller than I was, although his shoulders were at least as broad as mine.

  I wondered if the legend of dwarves had originated from Neanderthals back in the day when they’d lived on Earth. Of course, Homo sapiens had been shorter back then, but maybe Neanderthals had been even considerably shorter. From what I’d read about the past, though, 5’5” seemed to be their general ancient height.

  Soon, we found the food where he’d stashed it, at the base of some boulders. Krull laughed and said if the great cats had had time, they would have pissed all over the food, making it inedible.

  His food must have come from the mine. The sack contained rations such as I’d eaten as a Marine. He gave me one. I broke it open and devoured it. The cold had made me ravenous.

  Krull ate slowly and deliberately. The food was tough and it didn’t taste like much, but I was famished.

  Afterward, we started back for the ziggurat and the statues around it.

  We hadn’t spoken much. We both kept our eyes open, searching for a prowling Smilodon to ambush us.

  I was curious, though. I wanted to know more.

  “So you’re a slave in the Corporation?” I said.

  It took him time before Krull said, “Yes, I was a technician. I helped to keep the machine working.”

  “What machine?”

  He looked at me suspiciously before shaking his head. “No, you fought to save my life. I would be dead now if it wasn’t for you.”