The Project Gutenberg EBook of Exile, by Horace Brown Fyfe

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Title: Exile

Author: Horace Brown Fyfe

Release Date: August 16, 2007 [EBook #22346]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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EXILE

BY H. B. FYFE

ILLUSTRATED BY EMSH

The Dome of Eyes made it almost impossible for Terrans
to reach the world of Tepokt. For those who did land
there, there was no returning--only the bitterness of
respect--and justice!

The Tepoktan student, whose blue robe in George Kinton's opinion clashed
with the dull purple of his scales, twiddled a three-clawed hand for
attention. Kinton nodded to him from his place on the dais before the
group.

"Then you can give us no precise count of the stars in the galaxy,
George?"

Kinton smiled wrily, and ran a wrinkled hand through his graying hair.
In the clicking Tepoktan speech, his name came out more like "Chortch."

Questions like this had been put to him often during the ten years since
his rocket had hurtled through the meteorite belt and down to the
surface of Tepokt, leaving him the only survivor. Barred off as they
were from venturing into space, the highly civilized Tepoktans
constantly displayed the curiosity of dreamers in matters related to the
universe. Because of the veil of meteorites and satellite fragments
whirling about their planet, their astronomers had acquired torturous
skills but only scraps of real knowledge.

"As I believe I mentioned in some of my recorded lectures," Kinton
answered in their language, "the number is actually as vast as it seems
to those of you peering through the Dome of Eyes. The scientists of my
race have not yet encountered any beings capable of estimating the
total."

[Illustration]

He leaned back and scanned the faces of his interviewers, faces that
would have been oddly humanoid were it not for the elongated snouts and
pointed, sharp-toothed jaws. The average Tepoktan was slight