Earthblood by Keith Laumer, Rosel George Brown Page A

said. "Aren't they going to investigate his death?"
    "Why should anyone bother? He wasn't much use with a ruined hand, anyway."
    "But what about his friends . . . "
    "You're talking like a Terry," Stellaraire said, and sipped her wine appreciatively. Roan tasted it, too. It was a blossom-pink Dorée from Aphela and it tasted like laughter.
    Algol II was a wonderful pale green gold-edged mountain that filled half the immense view screen in the dusty old room that had once been the grand observation salon.
    "I've got an idea," Roan said, standing with his arm around Stellaraire's slim waist. "I've been thinking about what you said, about there being a lot of mutant Terrans here, and about the climate being like Terra. Why don't we stay here? When the show pulls up, we'll disappear. Gom Bulj wouldn't go to the expense of coming back after us—"
    "Why?" the girl asked, raising her violet-penciled eyebrows. "What would we do on Algol II?"
    "We wouldn't stay—just until we made enough credit to leave. I have to get back ho—back to Tambool. Ma's still there, all alone now."
    "But the 'zoo is my home! I've never been any other place, since I was ten years old. It's safe here; and we can be together."
    "And besides," Roan went on, "Ma will know all about where I came from; maybe who my blood father and mother are. I have to find out. Then I'm going to Terra—"
    "Roan—Terra's just a mythical place! You can't—"
    "Yes, I can," he said. "Terra's a real place. I know it is. I can feel inside that it's real. And it's not like other worlds. On Terra everything is the way things should be. Not all this hate, and not caring, and dirt, and dying for nothing. I've never been there, but I know it as though I'd spent all my life there. It's where I belong."
    Stellaraire took his hand, leaned against him. "Ah, sweetie, for your sake I hope it's really there—somewhere. And if it is," she added, "I know someday you'll find it."
    The 'zoo went well on Algol II. Roan was surefooted and nimble on the high wire in the light gravity, only three-fourths ship-normal, and Stellaraire's dance was an immense success with the mutant Terrans, who were odd-looking dwarfs with bushy muttonchop whiskers and bowed legs and immense bellies and no visible difference between the sexes; but they appreciated the erotic qualities of her performance so well that a number of the locals occupying ringside boxes began solemnly coupling with their mates before she had even finished.
    Afterward, Roan found Stellaraire by the arena barrier, watching Iron Robert in his preliminary warm-up bout.
    "I've planned a route for us," he said softly. "As soon as—"
    "Shhh . . . " she said, and put a hand on his arm, her eyes on the spotlit ring, where the stone giant was strangling a great armored creature with insane, bulging eyes. It was already quite dead, and he was mauling it for the amusement of the crowd, which had no way of knowing the beast had died minutes before.
    "Listen," Roan insisted. "I have clothes and food in a bundle; are you ready to go?"
    She turned to look up at him. "You really mean it? Now? Just like that, just walk off and . . . "
    "What other way is there? This is as good a time as any."
    "Roan, it's crazy! But if you're going, I'm going with you. But listen. Wait until after Iron Robert's act. We can slip away while the tops are going down. Somebody might notice if we tried it now—and whatever we do, we don't want to get caught. Gom Bulj has some pretty drastic ideas about what to do with deserters."
    "All right. As soon as the fight's over and the noisemakers come on, we'll mingle with the marks and go out gate nineteen. There's a patch of big plants growing over on that side, and we can duck in there and work out way to the town."
    There was scattered applause as Iron Robert tossed his victim aside and raised his huge, square hands in his victory sign. He came over to where Roan and Stellaraire stood, accepted a towel tossed to him by Mag or his