The Sinners of Erspia

FOUR War of the Worlds

Gauzewing and her lover Flit would delight to make love in the orchards and in the bowers, and in the scented pools and wild woods, but most of all in the air, which was where they disported now, wings beating in time together as they flew at a leisurely pace through fluffy cloud and emerged into flashing sunlight. Pivoting on the breeze, Flit seized his sweetheart. They hovered with bodies pressed close together, wings quivering, squeezing in rhythmic ecstasy. Then, the final rapture spent, they parted to go tumbling and spinning like sycamore seeds, recovering to soar and dip just above the level of the treetops.

Flit alighted on a bough which presented itself like an elegantly extended hand in the roof of the forest.

Gauzewing joined him and they sauntered to the cushioned pad of a giant green leaf. There they lay down and nestled together, gazing overhead.

It was always a fascinating sight. First, easily within flying distance, were scuds of fluffy cumulus. Far, far higher, looming over everything like a vast roof, was the upper world, with its rivers, its mountains, its seas and green plains, all upside down.

The upper world had its own clouds, too, which appeared to crawl over its surface, small and white.

Often they seemed to merge with the larger clouds of the lower world, creating a criss-cross movement.

Gauzewing averted her eyes, resting her head on Flit’s shoulder. The upper world was awesome, but menacing. At night tiny flares and spots of light could be seen. These were said to be fires which the denizens of the upper world, the gnomes, used to smelt metals from ores they dug out of the ground in deep tunnels, and to make all their fiendish contraptions, such as the catapults with which they flung rocks to the lower world to try to wreak havoc. There had been none of the bombardments lately. When they began again, the fairy folk would know the gnomes were preparing to come parachuting down in another of their attempted invasions.

Hazily she watched as, approaching from the distance, a troupe of men-fairies came flying in formation, bearing spears and bows. For a while they wheeled about, practising stabbing with their spears and shooting arrows. All men regularly had to spend a few hours training in the militia, in case the gnomes came back. But their manoeuvres were half-hearted. Soon they would descend into the foliage to lounge and rest.

Then Gauzewing jerked her head up and stared in shock. Beyond the flying warriors, soaring swiftly on, came a huge round shape. It glinted in the light of the two suns, clearly made of metal. She had never seen anything like it, and as it neared it swelled and swelled, growing huger and huger.

She trilled a scream. “Gnomes! Gnomes!”

Flit was staring too. He seemed paralysed. Overhead the militia, responding to the orders of their sergeant, whose voice floated down faintly, turned to face the monster. But their nerve soon deserted them, and they fled.

Laedo, when the projector station came in sight of what he came to think of as Erspia-3, screwed up his eyes in astonishment.

The planetoid was like a split pea, divided right through its equator. The two hemispheres were poised in space, separated by about ten miles.

He had little time to study the phenomenon in detail, because the station was already sailing into the gap.

Two immense flat landscapes were revealed, each inverted in relation to the other. Standing on either, one would see an upside-down land in the sky. Laedo thought of the ancient fairy-tale of Jack the Giant-Killer.

His respect for the engineers of the planetoid cluster—or engineer, if it really was the work of a single being—increased still further. Whoever had sculpted Erspia-3 was supreme in the use of inertial fields, able to keep the two halves of this world in position by means of invisible pillars of force.

The projector station had selected one of the two landscapes and was skimming below what now became the ‘lower’ cloud layer. A lush Eden spread out before Laedo’s gaze. It was a little reminiscent of Erspia-2, but with less colour. These were not orchid forests, but verdant woods with immense, spreading trees.

“I wonder if there are people here,” Histrina murmured, looking over his shoulder.

“We’ll find out soon, I imagine. If there are, you had better behave yourself!”

He frowned. A flock of birds, or some other flying creatures, had appeared ahead. He blinked. For a moment they looked almost like flying humans. Then they appeared to become startled and flew off.

A mass of treetops approached. The station gyrated, swerved, then made for a clearing through which there ran a silvery stream. It was effecting a more controlled landing than it had managed on Erspia-2.

Gently, with hardly a bump, it set down right way up.

“No need to check the air,” Laedo murmured. “There will be people around somewhere. All these worlds have been designed for human habitation.”

“People…” Histrina echoed greedily. She licked her lips.

“I told you to behave yourself!” Laedo snapped. “I won’t stand for any more of your crazy behaviour!”

She pouted. “But I want to have fun.”

“Don’t we all.” Laedo inspected the scenery on the viewscreen. The trees were gargantuan, much bigger than on Earth or Harkio. They were spacious, too. One seemed to be able to peer through the forest for an indefinite distance. The enormous boughs spread and intertwined in all directions, fit to make pathways through the air. The leaves looked pretty near large enough to bear a man’s weight.

The ‘sky’ did not appear on the screen. Probably he could see it by raising the viewing angle, easily done by fiddling with the control slides, but he decided to reserve that pleasure for his first excursion outside. It must be quite a sight.

“You know something? I’ll bet people round here live in the trees. They’re big enough. I don’t see any tree houses, though. Perhaps we’re in an uninhabited part. Okay, Histrina, let’s take a look outside.”

He led the way to the hatch. This time there were no complications in reaching the ground. As soon as he opened the hatch the stairway extended itself.

They stood on the platform and gawped. Above them reared the ‘sky’, but it was not a sky. It was another landscape poised upside down, like a map stretched out overhead. The sight was stunning in its stupendousness but somehow not oppressive. After a while, Laedo thought, one might cease to become aware of the other terrain.

He studied the inverted world. Was it the same as this one? A mirror image, even? Widespread green swathes mostly covered it, also sparkling inland seas and wandering veins that could be rivers. There were also brown patches, deserts perhaps. He didn’t recall seeing any of those on the approach to the lower world.

Cloud drifted over the upper landscape. It suddenly struck him that both worlds were in broad daylight.

Peering through the encompassing forest, he was able to locate a small bright sun—presumably another artificial sun like those which lit Erspias 1 and 2. It sent down slanting rays from a position near the rim of the upper world.

Examining it carefully, noting the shallow angle of its rays, he realized that it was ‘set’ from the other world’s point of view. It was not currently visible there at all.

Where, then, was the upper world getting its light from?

The question would have to wait. Stepping from the platform, Laedo descended the stairway. Once outside the station’s resident gravity field he was surprised by an abrupt drop in body-weight.

Experimentally he jumped off the step, to find himself floating slowly to the ground.

Evidently Erspia-3’s gravity was maintained at only a fraction of Earth-normal. Why was that?

Behind him, Histrina was also experiencing reduced weight. To her, it was a complete novelty. It had merely puzzled her when she saw Laedo falling with the slowness of a leaf, and on stepping down the stairs the new sensation left her confused. Unlike Laedo she was not accustomed to walking in low gravity and she bounced along the turf like a balloon.

Turning to him, she laughed the laugh of a delighted child on some fairground amusement, jumping high in the air and giggling uncontrollably as she sedately descended.

Laedo smiled. “You walk like this, see?” He showed her how to step with sliding movements which did not send one rocketing upward. She quickly mastered the trick, but for the moment seemed more interested in leaping about with abandon.

Laedo meanwhile stood quietly gazing about him. The being or beings who had made the Erspia worlds had a real talent for it, there was no question about that. A forest of normal-sized oaks might look like this to a small animal such as a squirrel, he told himself. He saw no sign of animals of any kind, but one would not necessarily see animals in a Harkio forest straight away. Arboreal creatures were good at keeping out of sight.

He recollected the flying creatures he had seen. Peering up through the foliage, he squinted.

Here they came again.

A clarion call sounded through the aerial glades. Flit turned to Gauzewing, trying to put a look of courage on his delicate features.

“We are called to arms.”

Both tilted their faces to the sky, searching for the tell-tale glints that would precede a gnome attack. So far, though, there was nothing to see. The gnome-world overhead glared at them balefully, but passively.

Perhaps the gnomes were trying something new.

“Go into the forest with the other women, Gauzewing,” Flit ordered. “Wait until it’s safe.”

“Oh, let me come and see what happens,” she implored. “I’ll fly away quickly if there’s fighting, I promise.”

Flit knew he could not change her mind once she had come to a decision. “Stay to the rear, then,” he said.

Then he was off, launching himself into the air and flying swiftly towards the armoury, past numerous tree-villages one would scarcely see unless one already knew they were there. He dipped under the forest cover until he came to the local military training camp.

The camp was unusual, for fairy habitations, in being on the ground. Gauzewing alighted on an overhead tree branch on the edge of the clearing, so slender it almost bent under her weight. Flit meanwhile fluttered to the entrance of the large storage hut.

In the glade there was an air of excitement. Other fairy men were descending on the clearing, consternation on their faces. A sergeant thrust a bow and quiver of arrows at Flit.

“Here, put these on. Did you see the strange object? It’s landed somewhere by the Arn stream.”

“Yes, I saw it. Are you sure it’s from up above?”

“Where else would it be from? We don’t make anything like that. Probably packed with a hundred gnomes. Let’s make short work of them.”

He ushered Flit out of the camp, together with everyone else who had been issued arms, to make way for the others who were arriving.

Flit found himself with the first troop to set out. They flew low over the tree cover. Glancing back, Flit spotted Gauzewing following at a distance, gliding from hiding place to hiding place in the treetops.

The clearing through which the Arn stream flowed came into view. And there was the huge, frightening gnome thing, bigger than any tree house, bigger even than the great lodges which spread over three trees or more for holding festive gatherings. Despite all the brave talk, the fairies did not launch themselves into an immediate attack. They flew round the edge of the clearing while the marshals discussed what to do.

Down below were two figures, who had presumably emerged from the giant round thing. One was jumping up and down, the other was simply gazing around as if in wonderment. The fairies had expected gangs of ferocious gnomes to come rushing out, killing everyone in sight, and the turn of events puzzled them.

Eventually the air marshal selected Flit and another trooper, Flutter, to take a closer look. Flit saw Gauzewing put her hands to her face in fright as she realized what was afoot, but he steeled himself to risk his life. He and Flutter swooped down, straight for the strangers.

The figure which had been jumping about stopped on noticing the fairies and stood staring at the surrounding troop with no apparent sign of alarm. Neither figure carried anything which looked like a weapon, which Flit also thought unusual. He and his comrade swooped so low towards the two that they could clearly see the expressions on their faces. Then their shimmering wings carried them up again to make their report.

“Well,” barked the air marshal, standing on a winding bough, “are they gnomes?”

“Yes,” said Flit.

“No,” said Flutter at the same time.

The air marshal looked from one to the other.

“They must be gnomes,” Flit insisted. “They don’t have wings.”

“They don’t have wings,” Flutter agreed, “but they are not gnomes. They look more like us.” He glanced sidelong at Flit. “You can see they’re not gnomes.”

“What else can they be if they don’t have wings?” Flit argued in puzzlement.

Once more the air marshal peered down into the clearing.

Suddenly Gauzewing was by their side. “I think one of them’s a girl!” she proclaimed.

Before they could stop her she had spread her wings and was lunging fearlessly in a steep glide into the clearing. Pulling herself up sharp, she dropped her feet on the grass before the two visiting strangers.

Above her towered the metal wall of the strange flying building. She glanced at it only briefly, before looking directly into the faces first of the woman, then the man.

“Hello,” she said.

Laedo was astounded.

They weren’t birds, or bats, or flying reptiles.

They were people.

On first seeing them circling the clearing, Laedo had assumed them to be wearing nullgrav packs. He hadn’t quite believed his eyes on sighting the shimmer of dragonfly-type wings. Only when two of their number descended into the clearing for a closer look, hurriedly returning to their perches, had he realized the truth.

A fair-sized number of the winged humans were looking down on them, and they all carried primitive weapons—spears, bows and arrows—causing Laedo’s hand to go instinctively to the gun at his waist.

“Let’s get back inside the station, Histrina,” he said. He didn’t want to be alarmist, but a well-aimed arrow could kill as surely as a bullet or e-beam.

But the slim figure who came gliding down was empty handed, and her unthreatening demeanour checked his caution. With the lightness of a butterfly she set herself deftly on the grass, and smiled at them.

“Hello,” she said, in a cool, friendly voice.

“Hello,” Laedo answered.

“Why, she’s a fairy!” Histrina exclaimed. “Only bigger.”

“Yes, I’m a fairy,” answered the flying girl innocently. “But what are you?”

They stared at her. She was small and slim, hardly bigger than a child of ten or eleven. A loose, silky garment partly concealed her body, caught at the waist by a braided cord. Her golden hair fell loosely to her shoulders. Her features were delicate.

Her gauzy iridescent wings were attached somewhere near her shoulder blades. There were only two of them—Laedo would have expected four, like a dragonfly’s—and they were oval in shape. When not in use they came together behind her like the wings of a butterfly, though they did not touch.

“I am Gauzewing,” the self-confessed fairy said.

Laedo smiled at the name. “I am Laedo. And this is Histrina.”

Gauzewing pointed to the sky. “You are not from… ?”

Laedo glanced at the overhead landscape. “No, we are not from there. We are from a different world altogether.”

She frowned, having difficulty with the concept. Then she indicated the fairy militia in the treetops.

“My friends think you are our enemies the gnomes.”

She hesitated, then spoke again. “What happened to your wings?”

Now more of the strange inhabitants of this land were quitting the treetops and alighting beside Gauzewing, making Laedo uneasy. He noted that Histrina showed no fear. She was gleefully eyeing the winged men, though her glance went periodically back to Gauzewing.

“You see, they aren’t gnomes,” Gauzewing announced.

The first of the newcomers to land had placed a proprietorial hand on Gauzewing’s arm. He made a perfect match for her, with his poetic features and a bow slung over his shoulder.

“Perhaps the gnomes have cut off their wings,” he suggested.

“They do that, sometimes.”

Watching the troop flutter down from the trees, one mystery was solved for Laedo. The fairies were the reason why Erspia-3’s gravity was so low. It was to enable them to fly. Their moderately sized membrane wings would have been useless for carrying normal human body weight. Even then, the fairies were all small and light-boned. The tallest among them did not exceed five feet in height.

Klystar—if there was a Klystar—had designed the planetoid with the human fairies in mind. At the same time, he must have had the ability to redesign the human stock at his disposal genetically. Laedo did not see how the fairies’ wings could have evolved naturally.

Glancing up, he saw yet more armed fairies arriving. Evidently the appearance of the station in this idyllic setting was cause for great alarm.

A spear-bearing individual, a leader of some sort by his bearing, pushed his way through to confront Laedo.

“Do you come from the gnome world?”

“You mean up there?” Laedo pointed. “No. We come from a different world altogether.”

“There are only two worlds,” the other said doubtfully. Then he shrugged. “Still, you are clearly not gnomes, and you do not belong to our race either. You are too tall.”

He let his gaze rove over the towering space station. “Neither have I known the gnomes to make anything like this. How does it move through the air? There was no parachute.”

“It’s hard to explain.” Nervously Laedo watched as Histrina moved close to one of the men fairies and began stroking his arm. He considered inviting one or two leading fairies into the station, then thought better of it. They might interpret it as an attempted capture. Besides, he did not know how to adjust the internal gravity, or even know if that was possible at all. The fairies would barely be able to stand up once they got inside.

“Histrina!” he said sharply. “Come over here.”

With a sulky pout she obeyed him.

“My name is Laedo,” he said to the spear-carrying fairy. “And this my companion is Histrina. What shall I call you?”

“I am called Highbreeze,” the other replied, “and I am an air marshal of the defence militia. This one, who so bravely came down to meet you, though with reckless disregard for her own safety, is Gauzewing.

And this is her companion Flit.”

An ever-thickening flock of fairies was circling overhead. Laedo decided on a pacificatory gesture. “Let us talk,” he said, and sat cross-legged on the grass, dragging Histrina down beside him, preferring to have her where she could get up to no mischief.

“You are wrong when you think there are only two worlds,” he told Highbreeze, once he and half a dozen other fairies had followed his example. “There are other worlds far off, too far away for you to see. We come from one of those, in the… moving house you see behind me.”

“Were you not actually here, that would be almost impossible to believe,” Highbreeze commented. “Do you intend to stay with us long?”

“That depends.”

Laedo pondered. “So you have a militia. You fight. There are wars between you?”

“Not between ourselves!” Highbreeze told him emphatically. “We are peaceful people who wish only to be left alone to enjoy our lives and raise our children. We are forced to fight to defend ourselves from the gnomes, who want to destroy us.” He raised his eyes. “They live on that accursed world up there, and every so often attempt to invade us.”

“Then it’s possible to cross between the two worlds? Can you fly across the gap?”

Highbreeze shook his head. “No, it is not possible to fly that high. The gnomes, who have no wings and cannot fly at all, manage it because they are expert engineers. They hurl themselves away from their world by means of catapult machines, and once past the midpoint parachute down to us. They are not content with one world. They want two.”

Laedo thought to himself that it might be interesting to visit the gnomes’ world. They might have metal-workers who could make a better job of casting a transductor for his spaceship than had Hoggora’s mechanic on Erspia-1.

“How do the gnomes get back home?” he asked curiously.

“They don’t! We see to that!” boasted Highbreeze. “Except in the beginning, when we accorded them the status of guests and allowed them to build catapult machines for the return journey. Now that they are enemies all who come here have been killed or captured.”

Having said that, he eyed Laedo thoughtfully. Laedo hastily reassured him.

“We have no unfriendly intentions towards you,” he said. “We have lost our way and wish to go home, that is all. You must judge for yourselves whether we most resemble the gnomes or yourselves.”

“It is true that you look like us, but on the other hand…”

Highbreeze rose and strolled to where the projector station rested. He touched the stairway, then stroked the silver-grey metal of the bulging hull.

“Fairies do not make metals,” he said simply. “That is something gnomes do.”

There was a stirring among the militiamen on hearing this.

“There are many worlds, with many different kinds of people,” Laedo said hurriedly. “Many of them make metals. You can learn to do it yourselves if you wish. I can teach you.”

While saying this he was measuring the distance to the projector station’s entrance. The air marshal shook his head, then came back and sat down again.

“We are happy with our way of life.”

The others relaxed.

Laedo said slowly, “Have you ever heard of someone called Klystar?”

No, the fairy folk had not heard of Klystar. Like the inhabitants of Erspias 1 and 2, they had no real knowledge of their origins.

It was the second day of their sojourn on the split planetoid. Laedo and Histrina lounged on the grass in front of the projector station, eating fruit the fairies had brought them.

A large insect, resembling a dragonfly, but three or four times the size, hummed past. Watching its shimmering wings, Laedo thought of the miraculous mutation wrought on the local humans. The design of their wings was somewhat like that of a dragonfly or damselfly. They did not beat as fast, of course—one could clearly see their sculling motion. Neither was there an ugly hump of muscle to power them, as one might have expected: just a tendon-like triangle near each shoulder blade which was barely noticeable.

By now he had been able to discern something of the mechanics of this world. Like the other Erspias it kept to a day of about twenty-eight hours, but unlike those, it had two suns, sharing the same orbit in diametric opposition to one another. That orbit was tilted with respect to the planetoid’s sundered diameter, meaning that both suns shone through the gap at the same time, but from opposite directions.

They also ‘set’ and ‘rose’ at roughly the same time, again in opposite directions.

The arrangement was neat. The prime reason for it, as far as Laedo could see, was that the suns were not visible at an elevation higher than about twenty-five degrees, and if there were only one of them there would always be long shadows. Presumably this was displeasing to the split world’s designer. As it was, long shadows appeared for a short time in mornings and evenings, since the higher sun remained in line of sight for a brief period after the lower sun had set.

On the approach to Erspia-3 he had noticed that life was restricted to the two flat surfaces, and had not spread to the outsides of the hemispheres. That probably meant that they were bare to the void. The inertial fields which kept the hemispheres poised a few miles apart also hemmed in the air.

It was a tribute to ‘Klystar’s’ ingenuity that the whole arrangement continued to work after a fairly long period of time. People spoke with slightly different accents on each of the three Erspias Laedo had visited, and from that he deduced that the worldlets had been set up at least a hundred years ago.

Just how many Erspias were there? And what was the reason for such an eccentric piece of world construction?

“Are we going to stay here?” Histrina asked lazily, tickling herself with a stalk of grass. “It’s nice here, isn’t it? And there are such pretty people.”

“We may have to stay for a while, Histrina.”

Until I figure out how to take control of the projector station’s drive, or to fix my spaceship, he told himself in aggravation. He was going to have to keep close tags on Histrina. The flying folk were not the helpless children the people in the orchid forest were. They would retaliate if she harmed any of them.

He got to his feet. Over the gargantuan treetops a group of flyers came in sight. This time they carried no weapons. They glided gracefully down into the clearing, their wings sculling the air as they pulled up to set their feet on the ground with perfect skill.

There were six of them, including Gauzewing and Flit.

“You asked to see one of our gnome prisoners,” Flit said.

Laedo nodded. He wanted to question a representative of this reputedly skilled race.

“The elders see no objection. However, wingless as you are…”

Two fairies unrolled a long mat which one of them had been carrying. It was made of wooden slats linked together, and was gaily coloured red and blue. At each corner was a thong. Four fairies stationed themselves one to a corner, placing a thong over one shoulder.

“It would take you a long time to walk to where the prisoner cages are,” Flit said. “We will carry you on this litter. We use it for transporting sick and injured people.”

Laedo blinked and swallowed as he imagined himself borne through the air on the flimsy mat. He tried to estimate the impact velocity if he tumbled from a height in this gravity. Still enough, he guessed, to cause death or serious injury.

Or would the fairies simply zoom down and catch him as he fell?

It was not something he cared to put to the test. “I don’t have wings,” he said, “but I can fly. Wait here for a minute.”

Like any spaceship, the exterior of the projector station was studded with footholds and handrails. Laedo clambered up these until he came to the port of his cargo ship. Inside, he went to the equipment store room and found one of two gravpacks, strapping it to his back like a satchel.

Back at the port, he put a hand on the control knob on the chest strap and soared gently up and forward.

Flying with a gravpack was simplicity itself. The knob controlled the degree of ‘lift’ or inertial push, enabling one to rise or sink in a gravity field. To go forward, one leaned forward. To go back, one leaned back. To turn, one simply—turned.

Playfully he rotated, dipped and rose, showing off in front of the fairy people before setting himself down on the grass. They didn’t seem as impressed as he would have thought, but simply shrugged and rolled up the litter again.

“I don’t know how you do that, but very well,” Flit said. He paused. “It’s just as well the gnomes don’t have anything like it. Our one big advantage over them is that we can fly and they can’t.”

“I doubt if they’ll get that clever,” Laedo responded.

Suddenly he noticed Histrina’s reaction. The girl was enthralled. She didn’t know about gravpacks, of course.

He turned to her. “Histrina,” he said firmly, “I want you to stay here until I get back. I would prefer it if you stayed in the station, but in any case I don’t want you to go wandering off. Do you understand?”

She pouted. “I want to come. Show me how to fly like you just did.”

“There isn’t another gravpack,” Laedo lied. “Stay here, I won’t be long.”

He followed the fairies as they flittered into the air. It was easy to keep up with them. They flew with arms dangling and bodies aslant, much as he did. The enormous trees fell away below. From a height the forest canopy looked like a panorama of hills, dells and meadows, all covered in a frizzy moss. Here and there were clearings and glints of streams.

The fairies did not seem to tire as their wings bore them onward. They seemed able to fan their wings indefinitely. At length, they dipped, and as they neared the tree cover Laedo saw a cleft in the foliage which would not easily have been visible from higher in the air. Through this the flying party slipped, then went spearing and side-stepping among the boughs, making for the shadowed depths.

Soon they were on the ground, walking the bank of a rippling stream. Despite the size of the trees—or perhaps because of it—there was no gloom. Sufficient sunlight filtered through to dapple the forest floor with glowing, dancing spots.

A cave of branches opened up: not a clearing as such, but a domed hollow matted with boughs end foliage. Laedo wondered whether this was deliberate camouflage. Did the gnomes in the world above possess telescopes?

About a dozen cages were set in the hollow. In them, figures huddled. Flit led Laedo to the nearest one.

And so, for the first time, he saw a gnome.

An uglier creature was hard to imagine. The gnome was short, no taller then the fairies, but it was squat and round, almost ball-shaped, giving an impression of compact strength. It had bulbous, muscular limbs.

Its naked skin was an angry red, as if it had been scalded, and was covered in warts. As for the face, with its bulging eyes and pointed ears, it was a fanged grimace.

The gnome clambered to his feet on seeing the two, and shook the bars of his cage with a defiant snarl, while along the line his fellows did the same.

Laedo hoped the cage was strong enough to withstand the creature’s frustration. He stood pensively, thinking of what had been wrought to produce such a travesty of a human being. To think that human stock had been intentionally modified to produce this result displeased him.

Evidently Klystar had delved into human mythology to produce both fairies and gnomes. Traditionally the latter were miners and skilled metal-workers. For all their ugliness and ferocity, the gnomes could perhaps prove useful to him.

Politely he asked, “Do you have a name?”

The gnome replied in a thick, rasping voice.

“KILL ALL FAIRIES! THIS LAND WILL BE OURS!”

“Hmm,” said Laedo.

Admittedly, it was not a promising start. He studied the leering face in front of him, and found that it was actually possible to discern a family resemblance with the fairies and with the other Erspians such as Histrina, despite the grotesqueness of that resemblance. It strengthened his belief that the Erspia worlds had been stocked from a relatively small number of original settlers.

Flit responded to the gnome’s taunt with a superior smile, and wandered away to join his fellows.

Such innocence was touching. How could he be sure that Laedo was not, after all, in league with his enemies?

Laedo edged closer to the cage and caught a whiff of the creature, a smell like rotten potatoes. He spoke quietly. “Look at me. You will see that I am not a fairy. My face is different. I am taller. I have no wings.”

The gnome pulled a face and looked puzzled.

“If you’re not a gnome you’re a fairy,” he grunted flatly.

Laedo let it pass. “Is it true you have good metal-workers in Gnomeland?” he asked. That was what the fairies called the upper world. “Can you make any shape in metal?”

Once again the gnome seemed to be puzzled by what Laedo was saying. “Yes!” he boasted finally. “We can make anything! We are not like those useless fairies who cannot make anything at all, except in wood, and do not deserve their world. There are metal ores here! They rightly belong to us!”

Despite their belligerence, Laedo began to sense a workmanlike intelligence in these squat, solid beings.

Metal-work seemed to be an obsession with them.

It could be just what he needed.

He lowered his voice yet further, ducking his head.

“Don’t repeat what I’m saying. Do you want to go back home?”

Suspicion and incomprehension glared from the gnome’s bulbous eyes. “Uh?”

“Do your people know how to make steel?”

The gnome nodded.

“There’s something I want made. I have nothing to do with the fairy folk. I come from a different world altogether—one you know nothing about. If I free you and return you to Gnomeland, can you get this thing made for me?”

The squat creature made no response to the talk of other worlds, if the idea penetrated his brain at all.

He thought for a moment, then made a gesture to one side, swivelling his eyes.

“My comrades, too.”

“I can’t manage that,” Laedo said. “I’m not even sure I can get you away.”

“The fairies are returning,” the gnome muttered, coming close to the bars of his cage. “If you do what you promise, then we shall see.”

“Have you had enough of the ruffian?” Flit asked as he rejoined Laedo.

“I think so.”

“I imagined it would take little to satisfy your curiosity. They are nothing but brutes.”

Laedo had to admit his plan had dangers. He was basing his optimism on his experiences with Hoggora and his horde on Erspia-1. While a caricature of evil—no, not altogether a caricature, he and his followers committed real evil—Hoggora had treated Laedo hospitably, intrigued to have such an exotic visitor. Laedo was hoping he would fare similarly among the gnomes, if they didn’t try to seize his spaceship.

It would, of course, be a great advantage to have someone along who could introduce him. Laedo was really here to see if a rescue attempt was practicable. On the way in he had looked for a nearby clearing where he could put the spaceship down. There was one a mile or so away. Then there was the question of guards. If the prisoners were heavily guarded, he would have to abandon the idea.

It didn’t seem that they were. The fairies had only a loose social structure and disliked routine. After all, if the gnomes managed to break their cages and escape, they would simply be captured again. There was nowhere for them to go.

“Would you like us to escort you back to your flying house?” Flit enquired politely.

“Just back to where we entered the forest, thanks.”

He took careful note of his surroundings as they walked beside the stream. He recalled how Histrina had described the childlike innocents of Erspia-2 as ‘like fairies’. Perhaps there was something to that. The winged people of Erspia-3 were far too trusting.

None of the tree villages which usually were scattered about the forest seemed to be anywhere nearby.

The prisoners were placed from distance from any habitation. Which, too, was convenient.

Abducting the gnome would undoubtedly sour his relations with the fairies. They had accepted his tale of coming from some unknown world, and seemed content to leave him and Histrina to their own devices.

But before long he would be questioned as to his future intentions.

He and Flit soared up through the vent in the forest and went separate ways, Laedo back to the projector station. He wanted to check out his cargo carrier before nightfall.

It was not very often that he saw flying folk over the forest canopy. The population of Fairyland was not large, and the fairies did not spend their time flitting about in the upper air. Their economy was simple.

They gathered fruit, nuts and vegetables from their copious environment, and seemed never to have heard of agriculture.

There was one occasion when they did soar far above the forest. That was when courting or lovemaking.

Flight seemed to be inextricably linked with sex. Couples would hurtle, swoop and pirouette, then mate on the wing, membranes thrumming.

Laedo thought he saw some such display as he approached the projector station, but he received a surprise on coming closer. Not two, but several figures were involved. And one of them was Histrina.

She had shown her usual enterprise during his short absence. She had found the spare gravpack and had learned how to use it. Now she was disporting in the air with three female fairies, laughing wildly.

The fairies clearly found her playfulness infectious. They too were laughing, darting and dodging, as Histrina tried to catch them.

Then Histrina suddenly succeeded in seizing hold of one of them. Histrina’s expression changed. She clamped her arms around the other girl’s thorax, preventing her wings from beating, so that she was like a transfixed insect. Alarm came to the fairy’s face as she realized she was helpless.

Histrina was looking evilly at the fairy girl’s wings.

“Histrina!”

She looked round furtively on hearing Laedo’s voice.

“Let her go!” Laedo ordered in a stentorian voice.

Histrina obeyed. The fairy girl fell a few feet, then fluttered away, glancing back before fleeing into the distance.

The others, too, were holding back, hovering, puzzled by events. Laedo pointed. “Back into the station, Histrina.”

“You lied to me,” Histrina accused as she adjusted the knob on the strap of her gravpack. “You said there wasn’t another one of these.”

“That was to keep you out of trouble.”

Back in the station, he relieved her of the pack. “I like those fairies,” she said. “The girls are so delicate. ”

She leered. “Do you know what I’d like to do? I’d like to take one of them right up in the air, you know, really high, then break her wings and watch her go tumbling to the ground, trying to fly with broken wings. That would be fun, wouldn’t it?”

“Histrina, you must behave yourself!” Laedo shouted. “Stop thinking those things! Do you know what these fairies will do to you if you do anything like that? They’ll kill you!”

She pouted.

Laedo debated within himself. What to do with Histrina during his trip to Gnomeland? She was a danger to others and to herself if left alone. On the other hand, he would endanger her life if he took her to Gnomeland with him. Should things go wrong, the gnomes would kill him or take him prisoner.

All in all, her chances would be better in Fairyland than in Gnomeland. Unfortunately he could not put a time lock on the projector station and lock her in temporarily.

“I’m going on a trip tonight,” he told her. “You are to stay here in the station, and not leave until I get back. Do you understand?”

“I suppose so.”

Laedo decided that if he reached an understanding with the gnomes he would return and collect Histrina without waiting for the transductor to be manufactured.

Fairies did not care much for fire, and did not bother to light their homes after dark. As night fell the whole population would be asleep, though Laedo had been unable to ascertain whether a watch was kept on the world above. Probably not. He wouldn’t put it past the fairies simply to assume that the gnomes would not attack by night.

With a final stern warning to Histrina, Laedo left the projector station and climbed up the hull to his cargo ship. Briefly he paused, looking overhead. Fairyland was very dark at night, due to there being little starlight, but the looming overhead landscape was not completely lightless. Glows and sparkles could be seen. The gnomes remained busy during the hours of darkness, tending their furnaces.

Once in his ship, he uncoupled it from the projector station. With a low whine the manoeuvring engine carried it through the darkness. Switching an external screen to infrared, he spotted the cleft in the canopy where he had planned to land. Softly, the cargo ship settled through the gargantuan trees and on to a moss-like surface.

Donning infrared goggles, he left the ship and set off. It was not long before he found the stream that led to the prisoner compound. In less than half an hour, he had arrived.

Cautiously he surveyed the enclosure through his goggles. Raucous snoring came from the cages.

Incredibly, there were no guards at all. The domed clearing was empty of fairies. Presumably they relied on the strength of the cages to hold their captives.

Using a small flashlight, he sidled up to the nearest cage wherein slept the gnome he had talked with earlier. He directed the beam into the cage.

The creature was lying down, but was not asleep. The gnome had been waiting for him. Bulging eyes stared back over a rounded shoulder.

Laedo had a cutting tool in his pocket. Stealthily the gnome climbed to his feet and watched as the vibrating blade sliced easily through the thick timbers of the prisoner cage.

“Fairies could not do that,” he whispered hoarsely, as if in appreciation.

“Do not wake the others,” Laedo whispered back.

The bars fell away. The gnome stepped through and stood on the moss, looking about him and snuffing the air.

“Free,” he whispered. “Free.”

He looked again at Laedo. The ferocity in his eyes made Laedo wonder if he meant to kill his rescuer and free his own comrades. Laedo’s hand went to the butt of his gun. But the gnome did not move.

Laedo gestured. “Follow me.”

He kept the gnome in sight as they left the clearing and made their way along the bank of the stream by the dim flashlight. When they came to his cargo vessel he widening the flashlight beam and let the gnome see the humped shape. The gnome was clearly astonished. He stepped forward and ran his hand over the skin of the hull.

“How do you make such a big shape?” he said in his rasping voice.

“It would take a long time to explain. As I told you, I come from a world which is neither yours nor the fairies. A world a long, long way from here. I have no interest in your world, or in the fairies’ world. I simply aim to return home.”

The gnome took this in without comment, but with no sign of puzzlement. It was as if he digested the information and simply accepted it.

Laedo gestured the gnome to follow and mounted the steps to the port, opening it. With an air of mystification his new companion entered the cargo ship and padded down the short passage to the main cabin.

Arms akimbo, the gnome stood in the middle of the room, mouth open as he looked about him, eyes narrowed in concentration.

“You live here?”

“This is not a house,” Laedo informed him. “It is a vehicle for travelling from place to place.”

For the first time he inspected the single body-garment the gnome wore. It clung to his torso from shoulders to groin, and appeared to be made of greenish-coloured woven metal. Perhaps chain mail for protection against arrows, he thought.

He pointed to a couch. “Sit there. We’re going up into the sky, to your own world.”

He heard a gasp from the gnome as he switched on the external screen and the dark forest was revealed, dimly illumined by the ship’s lights. The huge boles slid by as he lifted off using the manoeuvring engine.

Then they were in the open air, stars shining through the ring-like gap between the two world-hemispheres.

At first the manoeuvring engine met little difficulty in raising the ship against Erspia’s low gravity. Then, about a quarter of the way across the gap, the gravity field suddenly intensified. This answered another of Laedo’s questions. The fairies had told him they were unable to fly to the upper world, even had they wanted to. He had assumed they did not have the stamina for such a long climb, but now he saw there was a different cause. The planetoid had two gravity levels. Up to a certain height gravity was slight, enabling the fairies to fly. Beyond that, a stronger field took hold, confining them to their world. It would also, he reflected, hem in the atmosphere—as well as prevent the fairies from launching themselves into space.

The engine groaned, but was able to cope with the increased gradient, just as it had on Erspias 1 and 2.

Then, as it passed the midpoint, the ship suddenly appeared to be descending. Laedo flipped the vessel over so as to gain his bearings, bringing the other landscape below him.

He started nervously as the gnome left the couch and came to stand close by him. But the creature appeared to be offering no threat. He stared out of the screen at his homeland, glancing at the controls as Laedo manipulated them.

“What is your name?” Laedo asked, attempting a friendly tone.

“I am called Ruzzok.”

“I am Laedo.”

The gnome made no answer. Below them, the landscape of the ‘upper’ world loomed large. In infrared the fires proved dazzling and Laedo switched instead to image intensification. They viewed the land as if by daylight.

It was a ravaged world of smoke and fire, an industrial wasteland. Vast slagheaps spread far and wide, roads and tramways winding round them. No wonder the gnomes wanted the fairies’ world: they had ruined this one. Probably, too, they were running short of ores and were having to reclaim metal from scrap.

True, there were stretches of greenery. The gnomes weren’t stupid enough to end up with a deoxygenated atmosphere. But what woods and grasslands Laedo did see seemed to have grown on top of old slagheaps.

How deep did the gnomes burrow in their search for ores? Laedo could imagine them breaking through the exterior of their world-hemisphere, causing their entire atmosphere to go whistling into the void.

Presumably the designer of Erspia-3 had incorporated some measure to prevent that happening.

“Where to, Ruzzok?”

The gnome grunted uncertainly, perhaps unable to recognise his homeland’s geography from the air.

Laedo sent the ship swinging over what looked like a line of blast furnaces. Nearby was an array of enigmatic shapes, and beyond that a level area composed of cinders or ash of some sort.

Gently he set the ship down on the cinders. As he neared the ground, gnomes turned to gape upward.

Laedo turned to his passenger. “All right, Ruzzok, I’ve kept my part of the bargain. I want you to do what you can for me in return.”

Again Ruzzok grunted. Laedo led him down the corridor to the port, opened it, extended the steps, and invited him to take his leave. Already gnomes were running towards the ship from the direction of the industrial complex.

As he closed the port behind Ruzzok’s back, Laedo wondered what had driven the gnomes to such manic metallurgical efforts. Surely they were not prompted by their economic needs, which must be simple. Perhaps it was obsessive behaviour, bred into them in accordance with their mythic characterisation.

He returned to the main cabin and watched events on the viewscreen. Ruzzok was talking to his compatriots and gesticulating up at the cargo carrier. Consternation and puzzlement appeared on a dozen gnome faces.

Let them keep guessing for a while, he told himself. He would sleep for a few hours, then see how his new hosts behaved.

When Laedo awoke the two suns had appeared and he was able to look out on his surroundings in broad daylight.

A group of gnomes squatted not far from his cargo ship, staring steadfastly up at it. All wore the same one-piece knitted metal garment worn by Ruzzok, but he was unable to tell if his short-time companion was present. They all looked alike to him.

Beyond the immediate area, which was covered in ash and clinker, were the tall shapes of furnaces and the big, strange contraptions he had seen earlier. His attention went to the latter. They sported immense long beams and massive laminated steel springs. At the end of each long beam was what looked like a cabin large enough to cram in four to six gnomes.

It was a minute or two before he guessed their purpose. These must be examples of the powerful catapults designed to propel cargoes high into the air and through the gravity barrier to the other world.

The machines were spectacular, both in appearance and in intention. Laedo wondered about the shock to the human body of being slammed into the sky in so sudden a manner. Presumably the tough, stocky gnomes were able to withstand it, but he wondered if all of them survived the experience.

Checking his handgun for charge, he opened the port, extended the steps, and stood in the doorway looking out. At the first threatening move, he had decided, he would retreat into the ship and take off.

At his appearance two of the gnomes rose to their feet and walked forward. As they mounted the steps one of them gave him a nod and a look of recognition. It was Ruzzok.

He led them into the main cabin and invited them to be seated. They ignored this and continued to remain standing, their bearing stiff.

Ruzzok spoke. “This is Mezzen, mechanic and engineer. Tell him what it is you want.”

Briefly Laedo studied the newcomer. He had the same stolid impassivity as Ruzzok himself. It was impossible to read anything from his face.

“What metals do you work in, here in Gnomeland?” he asked.

The answer was fiercely proud. “We work in steel!”

Laedo nodded. He rummaged in a drawer and came out with the sketch he had made for Hoggora’s metal-worker, spreading it in front of the gnome technician.

“Can you make this? It has to be exact to the specified measurements, to one part in a thousand.”

One part in a thousand was barely enough in fact, but Hoggora’s man had been incapable of achieving anything like that. Laedo imagined that it would push the gnomes’ ideas of precision engineering to their utmost as well.

Mezzen peered at the drawing for a while.

“We can make it,” he pronounced.

“How long will it take?”

The gnome shrugged, and looked about him. “How long did it take your people to make this vehicle?”

Laedo gave an embarrassed laugh. “I’ve no idea.”

“Why do you want this part made?”

Laedo saw no reason to lie. “So that I can return home to my own world far off in space. My ship is damaged and I am stranded here.”

“Then this is a matter of great importance to you,” the gnome replied quickly. “If we are to help you, you must help us.”

“I have helped you already. I rescued Ruzzok.”

Mezzen pulled a face, increasing his ugliness to a quite extraordinary degree. “What of his comrades who are still prisoners of the fairies? You did not rescue those.”

The meeting was not going as Laedo had hoped. “I took a risk in rescuing even Ruzzok. If I had tried to release the others the fairies would have been upon us.”

Grunting his scepticism, Mezzen then said, “How many of us gnomes do you think this vessel could carry? Fifty? A hundred? Damaged though I assume it is, since it cannot take you home, it still brought you here from the world of the fairies. So it can return there as well. You could travel to and fro, transporting large numbers of us to assist the coming invasion.”

Mezzen looked at him steadily as he added, “Be our friend and we will be yours.”

Laedo reminded himself that all previous invasions had failed. In all likelihood this was because the gnomes’ catapults could not fling enough troops and materials to the other half of the split worldlet.

Ethically, he could not for one moment consider siding with the gnomes in their grotesque ambition. It looked like he would have to return to Fairyland and get to work on the projector station’s command system.

A thought occurred to him. Erspia-3 was similar to Erspia-1 in some ways. On the latter, the planetoid had also been divided, by ‘good’ followers of Ormazd and ‘bad’ followers of Ahriman. The dichotomy was more complete on Erspia-3, with two landscapes facing one another across a ten mile gap. On the one were the peaceful, delightful fairies. On the other, the belligerent, rapacious gnomes.

Perhaps the legendary Klystar liked to play with the good and evil aspects of the human psyche, separating them and allowing them to struggle with one another in various ways.

Another thought struck him. The surface gravity on Gnomeland was as weak as on Fairyland, but there appeared to be no need for it, since the gnomes did not fly. Why… ?

Of course. It was to enable the gnomes to reach Fairyland so as to engage in warfare with its inhabitants.

Everything had been planned from the start, just like placing a bridge between two formicariums so as to watch the two nests of ants fight one another.

Including the improbability that the gnomes could actually succeed in conquering Fairyland using their own resources. Laedo’s cargo ship could tip the balance in their favour.

“I shall have to think about it,” he said.

“What is there to think about?” Mezzen challenged, his voice loud and suspicious. “Our interests converge. You wish to have your ship repaired. We wish to take possession of the land in the sky. We can give each other what we want.”

His voice fell. “Or are you really here as a spy for the fairies?” he rumbled. “To report on our preparations?”

“I do not wish to see anything of your preparations,” Laedo replied mildly. “There is no reason why I should act for the fairies. They cannot manufacture a steel part for me.”

He stepped towards the portal. “Please give me a few hours to think about this. I will come out and speak to you when I have decided.”

Silently Mezzen and Ruzzok followed him along the corridor. Laedo opened the port.

“Hold him,” Mezzen snapped.

Two more gnomes were standing on the platform at the top of the steps. They pointed weapons at Laedo’s chest.

These were not the long spears or elegant longbows favoured by the fairies. They were compact, powerful-looking crossbows, lever-drawn, trigger-operated. In the groove of each cross-piece rested a wicked steel bolt. Paralysis seized Laedo as he saw the gnomes’ forefingers curled tensely around those triggers. He felt unable either to reach for his gun or to press the stud which would close the port. Instead he raised his hands and backed away, almost bumping into the two coming up behind him.

“We will keep our bargain once the war is over,” Ruzzok promised him. “We will help repair your ship.”

They took him back to the main cabin. “Now,” Mezzen said, “show us how to work this vehicle.”

“You won’t be able to do it,” Laedo claimed. “It takes years of training.”

In fact he imagined the gnomes would be able to master the controls quite quickly once they had been demonstrated, at least as far as the close manoeuvring engine went. That was all they would need to fly between the two landscapes.

“That may or may not be true,” Mezzen replied thoughtfully. “If it is, you can fly the machine for us.”

Laedo realized he was being threatened. Did he face torture? He was beginning to curse his rashness in coming here.

“What if I simply take it up in the air then crash it, killing everyone on board?”

“You would die too.”

“I do not like being forced to do something.”

Mezzen, with what Laedo thought was uncanny perspicuity, approached the control board. His eyes darted quickly about the slides and keys. Suddenly he turned to the others.

“Take him away. We will experiment.”

As he was hustled through the door, down the steps and across the ash-covered ground, Laedo took comfort in the fact, incredible though it seemed at first, that the gnomes had not relieved him of his handgun. The reason was obvious once he thought of it. The object was not a weapon in their eyes. It was simply an ovoid shape, moulded to provide a handgrip.

Now, he thought, should be the time to use it. But the prospect of one of those metal bolts tearing through his body stayed him. Besides, he did not know if he would have the stomach to kill the number of gnomes necessary to make his escape.

Perhaps under cover of darkness he could slip away from wherever he was to be held and recover the ship… Such vague thoughts in his mind, a bolt-laden crosspiece still nudging his back, Laedo was marched beneath the huge catapult machines which he now saw closely for the first time. The beams on which the small cabins were perched were angled high in the air. Whole batteries of windlasses worked winding mechanisms for forcing down those arms, ready to be released with bone-shattering force.

Now they passed a line of blast furnaces and searing heat scorched Laedo’s skin. The gnomes tending the furnaces seemed able to work incredibly close to their roaring mouths, as though they were impervious to heat. Further off could be seen a complex of metal-roofed sheds, probably factories and workshops.

A great mound of tailings loomed ahead. Laedo was conducted round it and saw, some distance away, the entrance to a downsloping tunnel. The gnomes urged him towards it, and soon he was being taken underground.

The walls of the tunnel were rough-cut rock, the roof buttressed with timber supports. Flickering light came from sputtering lamps set in cressets. At intervals side tunnels appeared, into which or out of which gnomes passed, carrying digging tools: pickaxes, shovels and rakes.

Was iron ore or coal mined here? Laedo presumed Klystar had stocked the planetoid with both, otherwise the gnomes would quickly have denuded their world of its forests in their need for charcoal for smelting.

His question was answered when a wagon went past them hauled by a team of four sweating gnomes. It was piled high with what he presumed to be ore.

At length he was pushed roughly into a side tunnel. A gnome of unusually large size confronted them, fangs reaching up half his face, a whip dangling in one hand.

One of the two who had brought him here spoke. “This is a prisoner, not a slave. He is not to be put to work unless otherwise ordered.”

The big gnome trailed the lash of his whip negligently on the dust-strewn floor of the tunnel. “He can be quartered with the others just the same.”

The others left, clearly assuming that the big fellow could handle Laedo if need be, even though armed with nothing but his whip.

Still Laedo did not resort to his gun. This was the first he had heard that the gnomes used slaves, and he was curious. The overseer, if that was what he was, cracked the whip and inclined his head on its bull-like neck, indicating that Laedo should proceed down the side tunnel ahead of him. Laedo obeyed.

About fifty yards along an opening led into a bulbous chamber.

It was a slave sleeping quarters. When Laedo saw the ‘slaves’ he received a surprise. Four naked, begrimed fairies lay on the floor, looking up with sleepy woe as he and the gnome entered. They seemed to shrink instinctively away from the whip which the overseer trawled absent-mindedly to and fro in the dust.

Yes, they were fairies, but something was wrong. Twin stumps jutted from their backs.

Their wings had been cut off.

“Stay here until you’re sent for. Don’t wander off. Food will be brought to you.”

The overseer left. Laedo stared at his fellow prisoners, who stared back with little sign of interest. Two were male, two female, and their backs were scarred from whipping.

“How long have you been in Gnomeland?” he asked.

After a pause, one of the males answered in a listless murmur.

“We were born here.”

“There are others? Fairy folk, I mean?”

“A few.”

The gnomes must have contrived to bring back prisoners during one of their earlier excursions to Fairyland, Laedo reasoned. These were their descendants.

The slight, light-boned fairies would hardly make ideal slaves. Physically they were puny compared with the gnomes. Probably they were used in a spirit of triumph and domination—a grim foretaste of what would transpire should the gnomes gain possession of the other world. As it was, it looked as though these four were being worked to death.

The slaves sank back into their exhausted sleep. Laedo sat with his back to the chamber wall. He glanced at his timepiece. It would be dark in ten hours.

Thoughts of karma assailed him. If the gnomes succeeded in learning to control his cargo ship and as a consequence conquered Fairyland, it would be as a result of his ill-considered actions. Bad karma indeed.

After a while the overseer returned and kicked the fairies awake. It was time for their shift. They dragged themselves to their feet and staggered out, clinging to the walls for support. Never, Laedo reflected, had they known the pleasure of soaring through the air, of passing through leafy glades or settling on giant boughs with the poise of butterflies. He considered what he might do about it. On Fairyland, crippled though they were, they would be looked after—or so he assumed, provided the fairies did not have some unsuspected hard attitude towards deformity.

Another de-winged girl fairy entered, also naked. She thrust a bowl of slops at him, leaving without meeting his eye.

Raising the greenish mess to his nostrils, Laedo laid it aside after sampling its vile aroma.

There was nothing to do but wait. He laid his head against the rock and tried to doze, ignoring the comings and goings in the tunnel outside the chamber.

Eventually he was roused by the return of the four fairies whose sleeping chamber this was. They scarcely seemed able to stand, flinging themselves to the floor as soon as they entered.

They were unwilling to answer questions, but Laedo persisted. “Have you ever thought of escaping?” he asked.

“Escaping to where?” one of the fairies replied wearily. “The gnomes are everywhere.”

“What if you could go to Fairyland, where there are no gnomes, only people like yourselves?”

“Is there such a place? It is only a fable our parents liked to tell.”

They all closed their eyes and soon were snoring. Laedo waited a little longer. He noticed that there was less activity in the tunnel lately. It seemed the gnomes scaled down their work at night.

He shook the fairies awake, ignoring their fatigue. “There really is a fairy world,” he said. “I can take you there. Come with me.”

“You are a fool,” said the male who had spoken earlier. He looked at Laedo in puzzlement. “You cannot defy the gnomes.”

“Watch this,” Laedo said. He unhitched his gun from its holster, adjusted the setting, and directed a beam at the side of the chamber.

They stared in disbelief as melted rock trickled down the wall.

“See? This is a better weapon than the gnomes have. And I know a way to get to Fairyland.”

One of the females shook her head hysterically. “No! We must stay here! The gnomes will kill us if we try to leave!”

Her reasoning was probably correct. Laedo’s plan, simple as it was, had every chance of going wrong.

But in his view the chance was worth taking, and it was the only chance they would ever have. So he was making the decision for them.

“If you insist on staying here, I will kill you,” he promised.

That seemed to frighten them into compliance. They had probably seen slaves killed for disobedience.

The only light the chamber had came from the nearest cresset in the tunnel. Laedo edged himself through the entrance, peering this way and that and listening intently.

No gnomes were in sight. And there was no sound of movement, not even the distant chinking of pickaxes he had earlier heard echoing through the tunnels.

“Come with me.”

“But it is our time to sleep!”

“Sleep later.” Laedo waved his gun. “Come with me!”

They obeyed. Proceeding down the tunnel, Laedo found he could extinguish the cressets by throwing a handful of dust on them. He created darkness behind them as they went. They turned into the main tunnel, which was also deserted, and sidled close to one wall until gaining the surface.

As on Fairyland, the structure of the split world, with its moonless, almost starless night, was an advantage. Overhead loomed the blank darkness of the opposite landscape, unenlivened by the light of fires. Only a few stars glinted through the gap between the two horizons, forming an embracing ring of distant points.

Otherwise the night was relieved by uneven glares from the blast furnaces. Laedo realized that he and the fairies would have good cover from the sight of any gnomes tending those furnaces, if they made their way round the other side of the big mound of tailings which separated the mine entrance from the open space where his ship was parked—if the ship was still there and had not been flown away by the determined Mezzen. The wingless fairies huddled with fright and unfamiliar cold as they came into the open. He herded them forward, anxious to get into the mound’s shadow.

Blackness engulfed them as the furnaces disappeared behind the bulk of the pile. The fairies moaned in bewilderment as they stumbled in complete darkness, until Laedo took the risk of bringing out his flashlight, tuning it to a diffuse, dull glimmer.

Treading crushed ore, they crept round the mound until emerging on its further side. Laedo smiled as, by the faint light washing across from the furnaces and filtering through the angular shapes of the catapult machines, he saw his cargo ship.

It lay on its side. Mezzen’s efforts had been rewarded with some success, evidently, but not enough. He had managed to turn on the manoeuvring engine, but had been unable to control it.

Laedo wished he could have witnessed the looks on the faces of the gnomes as their ‘experimenting’

caused the cargo ship to tilt over and crunch on to the cinders, creating chaos in the lounge/control room.

Presumably the problem had been left to await the dawning of the next day.

He turned to whisper to the fairies, pointing to the ship. “See that? That’s what we’re headed for. Quickly now, follow me.”

He went loping across open ground, not too fast in case the weary fairies were too weak to keep up with him. He paused before the looming ship, brought out his remote and ordered the steps to descend.

The steps emerged from the foot of the now horizontal doorway, sensed that the ground lay in the wrong direction, and skewed themselves round in order to reach it. Laedo dashed up the crazy staircase and opened the port, then turned and gestured, calling out in a low voice.

“Up the stair, quickly! I’m taking you to Fairyland!”

They hesitated at first, then one of the females bravely took the lead, clambering up the steps.

Encouraged by her example, a male followed. As she reached him, Laedo shoved her through the port and told her to keep going.

“Halt! Stand where you are!”

The voice was vibrant and raucous, a gnome voice. Gnomes were running across the open ground, taking aim with crossbows.

“Hurry!” Laedo shouted. He began to panic as he pushed the second fairy through the port. In the low gravity the gnomes were bounding across the cinders with phenomenal speed, like bouncing balls. At the foot of the stairs, the remaining male fairy gallantly urged his companion to ascend.

With alacrity she did so. Halfway up, a crossbow bolt took her full in the back. She tumbled from the steps with a dying gasp. Laedo glimpsed the tip of the bolt protruding from her chest.

He pulled his gun from its holster once more, and steeled himself to an act of violence.

He fired at one of the advancing gnomes. He had scarcely ever used the gun before, and his aim was bad. The beam missed. He kept it on continuous and sent the beam wavering around until it found its target. The gnome’s legs collapsed under him as his life was extinguished.

Laedo was screaming furiously to the remaining fairy, who instead of racing up the stair was examining the female to see if any life remained. He had left it too late. Two bolts hit him at once, one in the head, the other through the ribs.

A gnome appeared at the foot of the stairs, snarling up at Laedo. He had already discharged his crossbow and had no time to reload. He threw it away, trod carelessly on the male fairy, and scrambled upward, reaching for Laedo.

Hurriedly Laedo pointed the emitter of his gun and pressed the stud. The big, ugly face melted and charred. The gnome fell to join the two fairies in death.

Backing at a crouch through the doorway, Laedo thankfully closed the port. It was awkward making his way along a corridor that lay on its side, but at least he was safe now. He grinned as he heard crossbow bolts raining against the hull with banging, clattering sounds. They would make little impact against a hull built to withstand space debris travelling at high speed.

He wondered whether he should feel bad. Two of the fairies had met their deaths because of him.

No, he decided, he should not feel bad. He had estimated the risks and made a calculated decision.

Given time to think, the fairies themselves might regard death while attempting to escape better than a life of misery and servitude.

The two who had survived were in the lounge, squatting in consternation on the wall which now served as a floor. Contriving to gain the control board, he set the ship gravity to a low level and switched it on.

With squeals of alarm, the fairies slid to the real floor and clung to one another.

Laedo switched on the close manoeuvring engine, raised the ship off the ground and brought it upright.

He switched on the external screens and turned them to image intensification so as to be able to see clearly by what little light there was.

The cargo carrier soared idly over the scene below. Gnomes were swarming like ants. Then Laedo observed to what purpose. One of the catapult machines was being frantically cranked. At the same time it was being rotated, on some sort of turntable. It could be aimed.

The cabin was removed. In place of it came a simple bowl, and into this a large rock was being levered with great effort.

Laedo took the ship higher. Seconds later, the catapult flung aloft its projectile.

The rock came surprisingly close, passing within yards. Laedo watched as it continued upward until it dwindled into invisibility. Was it destined to crash somewhere in Fairyland’s forests?

Now more engines were being wound down. Laedo doubted that the missiles could knock his ship out of the sky even if one struck, but he didn’t want to take the chance. He headed for the world overhead.

On the way, he reflected that on Erspia-1 he would not have found matters as easy as he had on both Fairyland and Gnomeland. In some ways the fairies and the gnomes remained simpletons. They were too separated to have learned astuteness through regular contact with one another.

Was Klystar or his agents observing their behaviour? Were there watching devices recording all that took place? Laedo still had no better explanation for this group of worldlets than the one given by the staff of the Ormazdian projector station. Klystar was studying human nature.

He turned to the two fairies he had succeeded in rescuing.

“It’s all right,” he reassured them. “You’re going to a better world. Sleep now, if you want.”

They stared at him, stunned at the sudden change in their circumstances, but they asked no questions. It was as if their ingrained habit of obedience was now transferred to him, for they lay down on the floor, closed their eyes, and soon were asleep.

Briefly he felt the ship go through the inertial barrier, then he turned it round to descend on the other landscape. Again using the image intensifier, he cruised around until he located the clearing where the projector station was parked, and settled down beside it.

Then he, too, decided to sleep, and retired to his rest cubicle.

He had set the timer to wake him an hour after daylight. Returning to the lounge, he found the fairies still asleep. In all probability they had little or no knowledge of day and night. They woke and slept at the behest of the gnomes.

After a leisurely breakfast he went outside. Best to check if Histrina had behaved herself, he thought.

He found no sign of her in the projector station. Re-emerging, he scanned the sky.

Up above, he saw what looked like a pair of strange birds writhing together far aloft, as though in a mating dance, or else fighting. Suddenly they plummeted, then just as abruptly, checked their fall.

Laedo ran back into his ship, switched on an external viewscreen and directed it upward at full magnification. What he saw made him hold his breath, cursing his oversight in not taking the gravpacks with him on his sojourn to Gnomeland, instead of carelessly leaving them in the projector station.

Histrina was wearing one of the gravpacks and was once again disporting with some fairy girl, expressly against Laedo’s orders. She was laughing, her features ugly with sadistic glee. The fairy was clutching at her, panic on her face.

Histrina had broken both her wings, which twitched and trailed uselessly.

With a cry Laedo ran from the ship and into the projector station. He quickly found the second gravpack, strapped it on, dashed outside and surged into the air.

So engrossed was Histrina in what she was doing that she failed to see Laedo coming. She tore the fairy girl’s grip free of her clothing and held her up by her forearms, staring avidly into her terrified, helpless face. Then, despite the injured girl’s pleas, she dropped her.

With a wail the fairy plummeted slowly past Laedo, steadily accelerating in the low gravity and instinctively trying to scull the air with her broken wings, which fluttered pathetically behind her. Laedo’s hand went briefly to his gravpack’s control knob. He swooped after her, caught her deftly in his arms and felt her cool, slim arms go desperately round his neck.

He headed away from the station towards where he knew there was a tree village. His hope was that the fairies had medical skill and would know how to mend the girl’s broken wings. If not, he would offer to attempt help with his ship’s facilities.

Dipping into the lush and pleasant foliage, he dropped into a flower-bedecked bower and flew along it until coming in sight of a flat expanse which was actually a fork between two gargantuan boughs. It was like coming upon the central green of an ancient village, for clustered around it at various levels were picturesque tree houses, perched cottages roofed with giant leaves. Laedo alighted on the moss-covered bark.

Emerging from doorways, fairies glided or stepped to where Laedo gently laid his burden on the moss, careful of her bedraggled wings. He turned to the villagers, seeing their dismay.

“She has been injured,” he said. “If you cannot mend her, bring her to me.”

With that he was off again, back to the projector station and Histrina. He found her lying on her back on the grass, limbs outspread, eyes closed in a posture of utter contentment.

The gravpack lay beside her. Laedo snatched it up, at which Histrina opened her eyes and sprang to her feet.

“Oh, that was go-o-o-od,” she growled softly. Then she suddenly became angry and accusing. “But you spoiled it! You caught her!”

Arching her fingers like a cat, she struck out to scratch his face. The gravpack dangling by its straps from one hand, he fended her off with the other and slapped her hard.

“What did I tell you?” he bellowed. “And what do you expect the fairies to do about this?”

She nursed her reddened cheek. “They can’t do anything. They’ve only got bows and arrows and spears.

We’ve got your gun.”

“I’ve got my gun.” He snatched it from its holster and pointed the beamer at her. “Maybe I should use it on you. Now get back in the station and stay there.”

Sullenly she obeyed, glancing back at him with resentment. Laedo waited until she had disappeared into the station, then went into the cargo ship.

The wingless fairies came sleepily awake as he entered, looking at him half from curiosity, half from fear.

He fed them, then took them outside to gawp at the scenery.

“This is the world where you belong,” he told them. “This is what the gnomes took your ancestors away from and made them slaves. Here there are other fairies like yourselves who will help you. There’s just one thing wrong.”

He paused. “The other fairies have wings and can fly in the air. The gnomes cut yours off when you were young. Do you know that?”

They nodded. The male replied. “The story is passed down that what the gnomes remove is for flying.

But we never really believed it. It’s just that they would get in the way when working in the tunnels.”

“It’s true. Here, fairies fly. Unfortunately your wings cannot be restored to you. But with these devices on your backs you can still fly, as if you had wings.” He indicated the gravpacks. “Then you can take your proper place here.”

He had feared that the two would be too crushed by their life experiences to be able to learn anything new. He was proved wrong. They had, after all, been raised in an atmosphere of engineering, and the gravpacks were simple to use.

His second fear, that they would be frightened and bewildered by height, was also wrong. Their instinct to fly asserted itself almost immediately. He started with the man fairy, taking him into the air and showing how to use the single control, then he showed the girl. In less than an hour they had both mastered the whole thing.

Back on the ground, he solemnly made presents of the packs. “Go in that direction,” he said, pointing.

“Keep looking until you find people like yourselves. Explain your story to them and they will help you.”

They took to the air, circling one another and laughing with incredulous delight. Then they set off, low over the forest canopy.

Now there was nothing to do but wait.

The five-men commission came late in the day, spiralling down into the clearing to settle themselves cross-legged on the grass, where they confronted Laedo grim-faced.

Among them Laedo recognised Highbreeze, the air marshal he had met on the day of his arrival. But he was not at the head of the commission. This was a somewhat elderly figure announcing himself as Wafting Leaf. “The young woman whom your companion crippled has received the attentions of the healers,” he said, “but it will be a hundred days before she can take to the air again, if she ever does.”

He raised his eyes to the cargo ship and projector station before continuing. “By our laws your companion’s act is punishable by death. Also, we deduce that it was you who released the gnome prisoner and that you took him back to Gnomeland. This also is punishable by death. Against these crimes we are obliged to balance the fact that you saved the crippled young woman Red Petal’s life, and that you rescued two mutilated fairies from Gnomeland. We have questioned these two. There are legends that gnomes kidnapped babies long ago, but frankly we are shocked to learn that members of our race are kept by them as slaves, and in such horrible conditions.

“Before pronouncing judgment, I must ask why you went to Gnomeland in the first place.”

Laedo decided to tell something close to the truth.

“My only aim is to return home,” he said. “I had hoped the gnomes would help me repair my ship, and I took the prisoner with me to try to earn their good will. Instead they took me prisoner. Luckily I managed to escape.”

Wafting Leaf nodded and appeared to accept the account. “I can only observe that you badly misjudged the gnome character. Such ignorance supports your claim to belong to neither of our worlds. We now come to judgment. In your case, one act cancels out the other. But not in the case of your companion.

There is still the matter of poor Red Petal’s broken wings.”

“I can only apologise for my companion,” Laedo said. “She suffers from a mental illness. This causes her to act badly. I hope to have her condition treated by experts when I return to my own world.”

Wafting Leaf considered this. “If what you say is true, you should not have left her at liberty.”

Laedo lowered his gaze and was silent, recognising the truth of the other’s words.

Wafting Leaf spoke again. Laedo had been nervous that the fairies would ask him to enable an attack on Gnomeland, in an effort to rescue every slave there—an enterprise for which he felt more sympathy than the project proposed by the gnomes, but for which he had zero willingness, particularly in view of its impracticability. The elderly fairy’s pronouncement, therefore, came as a relief.

“It seems best that you should leave our land as soon as possible. We will defer the death sentence upon your companion for ten days, in recognition of your need to effect repairs. Meanwhile, you are forbidden to have any further contact with our people.”

With grave dignity the five fairies rose and launched themselves aloft to go winging into the distance.

Laedo sighed. Ten days. He reminded himself that he still had little or no idea of how he was to gain control of the station’s command system.

The only warning was a steely glinting of metal in the early morning sky. It was as if the flat upside down landscape had begun to sparkle and glitter.

Then the glints blossomed into tiny white flowers which grew as they descended. Soon gnome-crammed cabins were landing all over Fairyland.

And not just cabins. Batches, packets and tied-together bundles of materials floated down under the big parachutes, even components of the big catapult machines ready to assemble for communication back with Gnomeland.

It was the biggest gnome invasion Fairyland had yet seen.

One which Laedo, as he watched the wicked snowfall, was forced to recognize had probably been precipitated by himself. The gnomes, concerned that he would warn the fairies of their plans, had struck ahead of schedule.

One question was answered for him. The gnomes did have telescopes. They knew where he was. A cluster of cabins was targeting the clearing. As they came nearer he saw guide cords tugging at the edges of the parachutes, giving a measure of guidance.

It was only one day after the commission’s judgment. So far all Laedo had done was to affix his cargo ship atop the projector station as before, and remove some panels under the main board in the control room, hoping he could figure out some way to bypass the automatic control. He had just woken up after a night’s sleep and come outside for some fresh air.

A long shadow fell across him. A billowing parachute was sailing over the giant treetops and heading towards him.

A crossbow bolt hissed aslant and bit the turf near his foot.

Laedo yelped and ran for the projector station’s stair. He made it inside and sealed the hull as the first cabin was tumbling to the ground.

In the control room, he switched on the screens and yelled at the control board.

“Klystar is not here! We are under attack! Take us to Klystar!”

This time no parchment chattered out of the slot. The station shuddered slightly and lifted itself.

Crossbow bolts clanged on the outside hull. The station topped the forest canopy and soared majestically into the air.

Already the fairy militia had risen to meet the attack. He saw fairies winging about the descending cabins, exchanging shots with the cramped passengers. Some were armed with long pikes with which they tried to sever the parachute lines—a manoeuvre which usually was usually rewarded with a crossbow bolt through the chest.

Laedo saw one brave fairy charge in to jab between the bars of a cabin with a spear, only to become tangled in the parachute cords. The parachute collapsed and candled. Fairy and gnomes fell together to their deaths.

Still ascending, the station passed through a second wave of cabins, parachutes not yet released. Then it was heading for the gap between the two opposed horizons.

Where to now?