Illustrated by FRIES
The single thing to fear wasfear—ghastly, walking fear!
Stiff with shock, NaomiHeckscher stood just insidethe door to Cappy's one-roomcabin, where she'd happenedto be when her husbanddiscovered the old man's body.
Her nearest neighbor—oldCappy—dead. After all his wire-pullingto get into the FirstGroup, and his slaving to make afarm on this alien planet, dead inbed!
Naomi's mind circled frantically,contrasting her happy anticipationswith this shocking actuality.She'd come to call on afriend, she reminded herself, abeloved friend—round, white-haired,rosy-cheeked; lonely becausehe'd recently become awidower. To her little boy, Cappywas a combination Grandpa andSanta Claus; to herself, a sort ofnewly met Old Beau.
Her mouth had been set for asip of his home brew, her eyeshad pictured the delight he'd takein and give to her little boy.
She'd walked over with son andhusband, expecting nothing moreshocking than an ostentatiouslystolen kiss. She'd found a corpse.And to have let Cappy die alone,in this strange world ...
She and Ted could at leasthave been with him, if they'dknown.
But they'd been laughing andsinging in their own cabin onlya mile away, celebrating Richard'sfifth birthday. She'd been annoyedwhen Cappy failed to showup with the present he'd promisedRichard. Annoyed—while theold man pulled a blanket over hishead, turned his round face tothe wall, and died.
Watching compassionately, Naomiwas suddenly struck by thematter-of-fact way Ted examinedthe body. Ted wasn't surprised.
"Why did you tell Richard tostay outside, just now?" she demanded."How did you knowwhat we'd find here? And whydidn't you tell me, so I couldkeep Richard at home?"
She saw Ted start, scalded bythe splash of her self-directedanger, saw him try to convert hiswince into a shrug.
"You insisted on coming," hereminded her gently. "I couldn'thave kept you home without—withoutsaying too much, worryingyou—with the Earth-shipstill a year away. Besides, I didn'tknow for sure, till we saw thetree-things around the cabin."
The tree-things. The trees-that-were-not.Gnarled blue trunks,half-hidden by yellow leaf-needlesstretching twenty feet into thesky. Something like the hoarymountain hemlocks she and Tedhad been forever photographingon their Sierra honeymoon,seven life-long years ago.
Three of those tree-things hadswayed over Cappy's spring fora far longer time than Man hadoccupied this dreadful planet.Until just now ...
The three of them had toppedthe rise that hid Cappy's farmfrom their own. Richard was runningahead like a happily inquisitivepuppy. Suddenly he'dstopped, pointing with a fingershe distinctly recalled as needingthorough soapy scrubbing.
"Look, Mommie!" he'd said."Cappy's trees have moved.They're around the cabin, now."
He'd been interested, not surprised.In the past year, Mazdahad become Richard's home; onlyEarth could surprise him.
But, Ted, come to think of it,had seemed withdrawn, his facea careful blank. And she?
"Very pretty," she'd said, andstuffed the tag-end of fear backinto the jammed, untidy mentalpigeon-hole she used for all unpleasantthoughts. "Don't run toofar ahead, dear."
But now she had to know whatTed knew.
"Tell me!" she said.
"These tree-things—"
"There've been other deaths!How many?"
"Sixteen. But I didn't want totell you. Orders were to leavewomen and children home