Dickson, Gordon R Masters of Everon 1

MASTERS OF EVEROPI

by

GORDON R. DICKSON

On Everon, their home world, maolots grew to be the size of large Terran horses; Mikey had simply never matured on Earth. Al-though it was eight years sińce Jef Robini’s brother Will had sent the cub home—Will had been with the Ecological Corps at the time, overseeing the colonization of Everon —Mikey was still no bigger than a St.

Bernard, and his eyes were as tightly sealed as they’d been during his infancy.

Yet Jef knew the young maolot was not blind in the sense that an Earth crea-ture would have been. He knew it because    I

Mikey and he shared a curious sort of telep-athy... a nonverbal rapport that seemed to be growing stronger as they approached their destination.

Everon, the planet of Mikey’s birth —and Will Robinfs death.

Sitting with Mikey, apart from the ship’s other passengers to whom even a smali maolot was frightening, Jef thought about his brother again. The official notifi-cation from the Corps had been cold and vague, with no mention that Will had died    i

in the linę of duty. Rumors had floated back    <

to the Robini’s that their son had deserted    i

his post, gotten involved with criminals; but Jef had never believed such talk. He meant to find his brother’s grave on Everon and put an end to the rumors.    !

But that was personal, and right now he had a morę pressing concern—

Mikey. Their closeness had led to Jef’s Ph.D. thesis: that the maolots held a clue to the greater understanding of Everon and, perhaps, all colonized worlds. Now that he was about to test that thesis, his mind whirled with ąuestions. How would Mikey take to his home environment? Would he grow to fuli, open-eyed maturity? Would he know how and what to hunt? Most of all, would he be accepted by his own species?

The maolot growled just then, upset-ting and angering some of their fellow passengers, and reminding Jef of the hostility he and Mikey had faced throughout the voyage. He knew that maolots were formid-able predators and sometimes preyed on the humans’ herds of variform livestock, but it seemed unreasonable to blindly hate creatures that were only fulfilling their natural role in a planet's chain of life.

Was it possible that the colonists no longer cared about Everon’s ecology? Did the Corps officials protect maolots and other native life forms—or didn’t they?

Suddenly Jef realized just how little he actually knew about Everon’s native flora and fauna, its human settlers and its im-ported herds—the very basics of survival. In truth, there was just one thing Jef was certain of as he prepared to set foot on Mikey’s home world:

Will’s death was not Everon’s only mystery.

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