Transcriber's note:
This etext was produced from Analog Science Fact—Science Fiction,January 1962.Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the copyrighton this publication was renewed.

NAUDSONCE

BY H. BEAM PIPER

ILLUSTRATED BY MOREY

[Pg 3]

The sun warmed Mark Howell's backpleasantly. Underfoot, the mosslikestuff was soft and yielding, and therewas a fragrance in the air unlike anythinghe had ever smelled. He wasgoing to like this planet; he knew it.The question was, how would it, andits people, like him? He watched thelittle figures advancing across thefields from the mound, with the villageout of sight on the other end ofit and the combat-car circling lazilyon contragravity above.

Major Luis Gofredo, the Marineofficer, spoke without lowering hisbinoculars:

"They have a tubular thing abouttwelve feet long; six of them arecarrying it on poles, three to a side,and a couple more are walking behindit. Mark, do you think it couldbe a cannon?"

So far, he didn't know enough tohave an opinion, and said so,adding:

"What I saw of the village in thescreen from the car, it looked prettyprimitive. Of course, gunpowder'sone of those things a primitive peoplecould discover by accident, if theingredients were available."

"We won't take any chances,then."

"You think they're hostile? I washoping they were coming out toparley with us."

That was Paul Meillard. He had aright to be anxious; his whole futurein the Colonial Office would be madeor ruined by what was going tohappen here.

The joint Space Navy-ColonialOffice expedition was looking fornew planets suitable for colonization;they had been out, now, forfour years, which was close to maximumfor an exploring expedition.They had entered eleven systems,and made landings on eight planets.Three had been reasonably close toTerra-type. There had been Fafnir;conditions there would correspondto Terra during the Cretaceous Period,but any Cretaceous dinosaurwould have been cute and cuddly tothe things on Fafnir. Then there hadbeen Imhotep; in twenty or thirtythousand years, it would be a fineplanet, but at present it was undergoingan extensive glaciation. AndIrminsul, covered with forests ofgigantic trees; it would have beenfine except for the fauna, which wasnasty, especially a race of subsapientnear-humanoids who had just gottenas far as clubs and coup-de-poingaxes. Contact with them had entailedheavy ammunition expenditure,with two men and a womankilled and a dozen injured. He'd hada limp, himself, for a while as aresult.

As for the other five, one hadbeen an all-out hell-planet, and therest had been the sort that get colonizedby irreconcilable minority-groupswho want to get away fromeverybody else. The Colonial Officewouldn't even consider any of them.

Then they had found this one,third of a G0-star, eighty millionmiles from primary, less axial inclinationthan Terra, which wouldmean a more uniform year-round[Pg 4]...