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    The Keeper
    The Keeper
    The Keeper
    Ebook54 pages45 minutes

    The Keeper

    By H. Beam Piper

    ()

    Read preview
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateNov 27, 2013
    The Keeper

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      Book preview

      The Keeper - H. Beam Piper

      The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Keeper, by Henry Beam Piper

      This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

      almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or

      re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

      with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

      Title: The Keeper

      Author: Henry Beam Piper

      Release Date: September 20, 2006 [EBook #19338]

      Last updated: January 17, 2009

      Language: English

      *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE KEEPER ***

      Produced by Greg Weeks, Sankar Viswanathan, and the Online

      Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

      Transcriber's Note:

      This etext was produced from Venture Science Fiction, July 1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

      Evil men had stolen his treasure, and Raud set out with his

      deer rifle and his great dog Brave to catch the thieves

      before they could reach the Starfolk. That the men had

      negatron pistols meant little—Raud was the Keeper....

      THE KEEPER

      by H. BEAM PIPER

      When he heard the deer crashing through brush and scuffling the dead leaves, he stopped and stood motionless in the path. He watched them bolt down the slope from the right and cross in front of him, wishing he had the rifle, and when the last white tail vanished in the gray-brown woods he drove the spike of the ice-staff into the stiffening ground and took both hands to shift the weight of the pack. If he'd had the rifle, he could have shot only one of them. As it was, they were unfrightened, and he knew where to find them in the morning.

      Ahead, to the west and north, low clouds massed; the white front of the Ice-Father loomed clear and sharp between them and the blue of the distant forests. It would snow, tonight. If it stopped at daybreak, he would have good tracking, and in any case, it would be easier to get the carcasses home over snow. He wrenched loose the ice-staff and started forward again, following the path that wound between and among and over the irregular mounds and hillocks. It was still an hour's walk to Keeper's House, and the daylight was fading rapidly.

      Sometimes, when he was not so weary and in so much haste, he would loiter here, wondering about the ancient buildings and the long-vanished people who had raised them. There had been no woods at all, then; nothing but great houses like mountains, piling up toward the sky, and the valley where he meant to hunt tomorrow had been an arm of the sea that was now a three days' foot-journey away. Some said that the cities had been destroyed and the people killed in wars—big wars, not squabbles like the fights between sealing-companies from different villages. He didn't think so, himself. It was more likely that they had all left their homes and gone away in starships when the Ice-Father had been born and started pushing down out of the north. There had been many starships, then. When he had been a boy, the old men had talked about a long-ago time when there had been hundreds of them visible in the sky, every morning and evening. But that had been long ago indeed. Starships came but seldom to this world, now. This world was old and lonely and poor. Like poor lonely old Raud the Keeper.

      He felt angry to find himself thinking like that. Never pity yourself, Raud; be proud. That was what his father had always taught him: "Be proud, for you are the Keeper's son, and when I am gone, you will be the Keeper after me.

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