The dark closed in, but when Dane would have
snapped on the lights of the flitter, as Meshler made no move to,
the ranger caught his wrist.
“No use letting ourselves be seen,” he explained,
and Dane was disconcerted at his own instinctive but perhaps
dangerous move.
“Where are we? Any clue?” Tau asked.
“Southwest! To our reports there is nothing here but the
wilds,” Meshler returned. “Have I not said
that?”
“This Trosti station,” persisted the medic.
“With what are their experiments concerned? Ag work,
veterinary procedures, or general research?”
“Ag work, but not altogether for Trewsworld. They have a
conditioning-for-export license. But they are of no concern. I have
visited them on my rounds. We are well past that site, plus the
fact that they had no installation capable of a beam such as
this.”
“Trosti,” Tau repeated thoughtfully.
“Trosti—”
“Vegan Trosti. This is one of the foundations set up under
his will,” Meshler supplied.
Vegan Trosti! Dane thought of the hundreds of rumors and
supposedly authentic stories about Vegan Trosti. He was one of
those men possessing what Terrans used to claim was a “golden
touch.” Every invention he backed, every exploration he
financed, was a success, pouring more and more credits into his
hoard. No one had ever learned just how much wealth Trosti had
amassed. At intervals he made over some astronomical sum to a
research project. If that paid off, and they regularly did, the
profit went to the lucky planet giving it a base.
There were, of course, the other tales, too, such as grew from
the shadow of such a man—that his “luck” was not
always a matter for open investigation; that some of the research
projects could not bear too open a scrutiny, or that they carried
on programs on two levels, one that could be reviewed openly, the
other masked by the first and for purposes far less advantageous
for the public.
But, though such rumors had become legends also, there had never
been one bit of proof they were true. And the credit side of
Trosti’s ledger was very impressive. If he had made any
mistakes or taken any steps along another road, such were buried
and forgotten.
So had Vegan Trosti lived, a power about whose person
practically nothing was known. He shunned publicity with an almost
fierce hatred. There were stories that he often worked among his
own employees—especially on explorations—without their
knowing it. When he disappeared, he had set up such a tight legal
control of his empire, insuring that it was to be used for knowledge and general good, that he
was looked upon on many worlds as a hero, almost a demigod.
How he had disappeared was not known, in spite of the
investigation of the Patrol. It seemed that his deputies simply
came forward some planet years back and announced that his private
ship was long overdue and that they had their instructions in such
a case to dissolve his holdings, carrying out his express commands.
They had proceeded to do so, in spite of a bright beam of publicity
allowing no concealment.
The story was that he had set off on one of his expeditions and
that he had ceased to report regularly as he had always done.
Following the time order he had left, his men moved to do as he
wished should such a circumstance arrive.
Never had anyone learned anything about his early years. His
past, beyond a certain point, was as blank as his final ending. He
was a comet that had shot across the inhabited galaxy and left
changes on those worlds it touched.
“We’re losing altitude,” Meshler suddenly
exclaimed.
“Something else—” Once more Tau leaned forward
so that his head and shoulders were close to the two before him.
“See here?” His arm was a dark shadow in the dusky
cabin, but what he held out for them had its own light about a
dial. On the face of that, a needle quivered to the right, and from
it came a buzzing, which seemed to Dane to grow even stronger.
“What—?” began Meshler.
“There is radiation ahead, radiation of the same type but
stronger than that from the box on the Queen. I think we
are going to have some answers to questions shortly.”
“Listen—” Dane could not see the
ranger’s face. It was only a lightish blur in the gloom, but
there was a note in the other’s voice he had not heard
before. “You say this radiation turns a thing back through
time, retrogresses it—”
“All we have is the evidence of the embryos and the
brach,” Tau said.
“Well, suppose it affected us. Could it?”
“I don’t know. That box was brought on board the
ship by a human. Thorson saw it being handled by an alien woman. Of
course, they may have sent their messenger on board to die, but I
don’t think so. They needed the Queen to ferry their
cargo here, and the ship could not have been handled by a crew who retrogressed as rapidly as the animals it
affected. We would not have been able to come out of hyper. But if
the radiation is stepped up, then I am not sure—”
“And you say that’s the same radiation
ahead?”
“By the reading on this, yes.”
But what he might have added to that was never said, for the
flitter gave a sudden downward swoop. Meshler cried out and
wrestled with the controls—to no purpose. He could not wrench
the craft from the force pulling it earthward.
“Crash aid!” Dane sensed rather than saw the
pilot’s hand swing out to hit the panic button. He did the
same on his side of the cabin. How much time did they have? Enough?
The ground was only a dark mass, and he had no idea of how fast
they were falling to meet it.
He felt the soft spurt of safe-foam on his body, curdling around
it in the protective device of the flitter. It twined and coiled as
he sat. Now it was as high as his throat, about his chin. He
followed crash procedure, settled back in his seat, and shut his
eyes as the protective covering jellied in around the three of them
and the brach. Dane should have warned the brach, but he had
forgotten all about the creature, who had been so quiet, and now it
was too late.
Relax. His mind fought his nerves. Relax, leave it to the
protective jelly. Tense up and he would delay the safety factor in
that. Relax. He set his will to that now.
They struck. In spite of the safe-foam, it was a jar that
knocked Dane into semiconsciousness. He did not know how long it
was before he regained his senses enough to grope for the release
catch on the cabin door to his right. He had to fight the pressure
of the jelly to do that, but at last his fingers closed on the bar,
but his half hold was torn loose as the door was opened with a
sharp jerk. The jellied foam slipped toward that opening, carrying
him with it as he struggled feebly to break free.
The safe-foam was being torn away. A great scarf of it fell from
his head and shoulders. He opened his eyes into a blinding glare of
beamer and blinked, unable to see, nor as yet able to understand
what had happened. They had crashed and then—
Hands pulled him free
of the foam with no care or gentleness. Speed seemed to be the thing desired. When he could stand,
he was jerked to his feet, the beamer still so centered on him that
he could not see who held it or the faces of the men who stripped
off the jelly. There were two of them, and when they had done, they
swung him expertly around and applied a tangler to his arms and
wrists behind his back. Now he was as safely their prisoner as if
they had encased him from shoulder to waist in plasta of the
quick-drying sort.
Having made sure of him, they gave a shove that sent him
staggering forward until he bumped against a surface with painful
force. With that to steady him, he edged around. The bedazzlement
left by the beam straight in his eyes was wearing off. He could
see, though the men who were working on Tau remained only shadowy
figures.
Dane never knew how many of them there were, for he was sure
some of the party kept out of sight, using the beamer as a cover,
but they worked with such efficiency that one could believe this
was an action in which they had been drilled.
They had all three from the flitter under control. But they had
not brought out the pack with the brach! Didn’t they know
about the animal, or didn’t they consider the alien
important?
The jelly, once exposed to the air, would disappear as the
strips pulled from the prisoners were already doing, so that the
brach would be freed shortly by himself. But the alien might be so
terrorized by the crash and the jellied foam that—Dane did
not know what he expected of—or for—the brach. Then he
heard the crashing of what could only be a crawler in progress
toward them, and he hoped the alien would escape notice.
A line snaked out of the dark into the path of the beamer, was
hooked fast to the fore of the flitter, and that mass of wreckage
began to move, complainingly, under the steady pull of the crawler.
Dane was not to see its eventual destination. A hand caught his
shoulder, dragged him away from his support, but continued to push
him along over a very rough path, where he stumbled and would have
gone down several times if the unseen guard and guide had not kept
his hold.
They came at last into a clearing, where a rock ledge jutted out
to make a roof over a camp. There was a portable cooker there and other gear piled under the overhang, enough to
suggest their captors had been there for some time and were well
equipped.
There was also a diffuse lamp, which gave a subdued light. It
had been set on lowest level, as if the campers begrudged the need
for it at all.
In that glow Dane was able to see the three men who had brought
them in. They wore regulation one-piece hunting suits with the
instrument- and tool-hung belts of those venturing into the wild on
a planet not native to them. All three were Terran or Terran
colonial stock. But the one who rose from beside the lamp at their
coming was not.
He was of a species strange to Dane, very tall, so that he had
to hunch his shoulders and incline his head under that roofing
ledge. In the light his skin was yellow (not brown-yellow, as one
of ancient Terran Oriental stock might be, but a brighter hue). And
his eyes and his teeth as he opened his mouth gave off
fluorescence—the eyes being ringed with some glowing
substance.
His hair was scant and grew in ring patches, with even spaces
between, about a skull that rose to a cone-dome at the top. But his
body, save that his arms and legs appeared too long for the size of
his torso, was like that of a Terran and covered also by a
hunter’s suit.
Dane wondered if Tau, with his greater knowledge of X-Tees,
could name the species. From whatever world he came, it was plain
that the alien was in command of the camp. He did not speak but
gestured, and the three from the flitter were shoved on, back
against the rock wall, then pushed down, to sit facing out into the
night, while the tall alien hunkered down beside the lamp. What he
held in his hands, curiously limber hands—his fingers moved
as if they were boneless tentacles—was a com. But he did not
speak into it. Instead, he used the tips of two of those squirming
fingers to beat against the mike in a swift clicking.
None of the men spoke to the prisoners, nor did Meshler ask
questions. When Dane glanced at the ranger, he saw that the man was
studying the scene with an intentness that suggested he was making
a mental listing.
The strangers wore hunters’ clothing. Their equipment was
that Dane had seen used by sport hunters on other worlds. But if they had legitimately entered the wilderness on
Trewsworld with that excuse, they would have been licensed and had
with them a guide. There was no sign of any guide. Nor did they
hear again the crawler that had dragged away the flitter. Dane
deduced that the party was larger, and there might be a reason for
the others to keep out of sight.
Having sent his click message, the tall alien brought out a
long, hooded cloak, wrapping it well about him, and went to curl up
at the other end of the camp under the ledge. He was followed
shortly afterward, not to the same place, but into slumber, by two
of the three Terrans, none of whom had so much as glanced at their
prisoners since they had herded them in. The third man remained by
the fire and held an unholstered tangler across his knee.
Dane knew little of electronics, but in this camp he saw nothing
like the box from the Queen. Nor was there anything to
suggest that the powerful force that had brought down the flitter
had its source here. The puzzle that had enmeshed the
Queen gave hope of clue now and then, but none such led
anywhere.
He was tired, but in his present uncomfortable position he was
not so fatigued that sleep came. Nor, when he looked at Tau
and Meshler, had they succumbed either. The sentry by the fire now
and then arose to walk back and forth, dividing his attention
between a quick glance at the captives and a longer look into the
dark beyond the very limited light of the lamp.
He was on one such beat when Dane caught a flicker at the other
end of the campsite. Something moved there, and with caution. It
was far too small for even a creeping man. The brach! Though why he
expected the alien to have tracked them here, Dane could not say.
The creature would be more likely to run away from the threat of a
party who had so easily taken men prisoners.
The sentry turned, and now Dane could see nothing at all. When
the man came back to the lamp, Dane was not quite sure he had ever
seen anything.
Yet he kept stealing glances in that direction, being careful
not to turn his head, to attract in any way the attention of the
sentry. And he was rewarded seconds later by the sign of another
flitting, this time from the protection of brush to a second cover behind a couple of supply boxes. There was no
mistaking that silhouette—the long horned snout of the
brach.
What the alien proposed to do (unless he had merely followed to
cling to the proximity of the three from the flitter because their
familiarity was a forlorn feeling of security), Dane could not
guess. He had seen the brach use a stunner. But those who had
stripped them out of the safe-foam had disarmed them. And, unless
there had been some weapons in the flitter that the brach had
located, he had no chance if discovered. There was no way of
communication possible, yet Dane found himself thinking a warning
over and over—not that that would carry.
The sentry got up for another of those periodic prowls, and as
he turned his back, the brach scuttled out into the open, as
soundless in his passing as if he were a shadow. Making a quick
dash, the alien was now crouched beside Tau, his head stretched at
an uncomfortable angle. The horn—he was using his horn on the
cords of the tangle!
Being what they were, those spun restrainers could not be easily
cut or broken. They were ultra elastic on the surface, yielding
under pressure of knife blade but not allowing their thick surfaces
to be cut.
Yet Dane could see the small movements of the brach’s
head. He must be tearing at those ties. Tau winced as if those
efforts were painful, but he did not move and held steady.
Then Tau’s arms flexed a fraction, and Dane knew a spurt
of excitement. Somehow the brach had broken the tangle strand. Tau
was free, though he made no move to act upon that freedom.
However, the medic leaned forward slowly, holding his body as
far as he could away from the wall, and Dane knew that the brach
was wriggling through to come to Dane’s own assistance. He
was right, for shortly thereafter he felt the fluffy warmth of the
creature pressed tightly to him, the jerk and tug on the tangle as
the alien sawed away with the horn. Then, too, he was freed, edging
away from the wall, in turn, to give the brach a chance to reach
Meshler.
The guard had completed his sentry beat and settled down
again by the lamp, though he continued to divide his watch between
the prisoners and the outer dark. He was too alert for unarmed men to make any plan not well thought out.
At last he got to his feet and went to one of his sleeping
comrades to shake him awake. Oddly enough the roughly aroused man
said nothing, only accepted the tangler and the post by the lamp,
while the first rolled up in the same coverings from which the
other had just crawled. Their silence struck an odd note—it
was almost as if they could not talk.
The brach had wriggled from behind Meshler, and Dane knew that
the ranger must also be free. The alien worked his way along, using
the men and shadows for cover, finally hunkering down behind the
pile of boxes that had been his first goal upon entering the camp.
The guard by the lamp was on sentry go now. Just as he reached the
most outward point of his beat, the brach moved. Dane could not
quite make out what the creature had loosened and pushed, but it
rolled with a clatter for the lamp. In the last few seconds before
it struck, Dane made ready.
It had impact enough to overbalance the lamp, and the light went
out. Dane and the others threw themselves forward, out of range, or
so they hoped, of any tangle discharge. Nor did Dane try to get to
his feet, but scuttled, keeping as belly-down as he could, heading
for the open. Sounds told him that his companions must be following
the same tactics.
He expected to hear a shout from the sentry, some outcry to
awaken the sleepers. There was a scuffling, and he heard the hiss
of what could only be a tangler discharged. But if that touched
anyone, it was not him.
Then he was out, getting to his feet. He brushed against another
body, flailed out with his arm, and felt the slick surface of a
thermo jacket. A hand caught his, linked fingers, and together they
made what speed they could into the thick brush lying to the right
of the ledge. That vegetation would deflect any tangler. But surely
their captors had more dangerous weapons—
“Tau?”
“Yes!” The whisper was from his side.
“Meshler?”
“I don’t know,” the medic whispered.
They had no way of keeping their forced entry into the brush
silent. The crackle of their passing must be a loud announcement of their path to their late captors. Then Dane was
brought up short as a pair of hands seized him, and he swung about,
aiming a blind blow at his assailant.
“Quiet!” There was no mistaking the ranger’s
voice. “Take it smooth—easy!”
He tugged Dane along, and Dane’s own hold on the medic
drew him in turn. The ranger certainly had, Dane decided, an
extraordinary degree of night sight, for they were no longer
threshing about in brush, though that did beat at them as they
threaded a way along, either following a winding path or going
through a thinner area of growth.
Their best pace was not a good one. Dane still wondered why
there had been no sounds of alarm from the camp. Then came a sudden
spring of light. The diffuse lamp must not only be working again
but also turned higher. Only the fugitives were screened by the
growth in between.
The plates in their space boots clicked on a more solid surface,
and the brush was gone. Walls of some kind rose dark and solid on
either hand. Dane looked up. He could see a narrow strip with a
star or two emblazoned in it.
Something brushed his knee. He broke his hold on his two
companions and stooped to feel the brach. The alien was shivering,
and Dane held him close while he unsealed the seal of his thermo
jacket and pulled it around them both.
“What is it?” whispered Meshler.
“The brach—he’s cold.” Dane wondered how
long the creature had suffered the cruel night air.
“Does it—he—know where the flitter is?”
Meshler’s whisper was urgent.
In handling the brach, Dane had discovered the alien still wore
the translator. Now he pulled at his hood and whispered into the
mike, “The flying thing—where is it?”
“In a hole—in the ground.” To his relief the
alien answered promptly. Dane had thought that he might be half
conscious from cold.
“Where?”
The brach wriggled in his hold and Dane felt his head bump
against his chin as it turned, pointing left.
“Left—in a hole, he says,” Dane reported to
the ranger.
Meshler started so confidently in that direction that it was as if he could see clearly. But when the Terrans stumbled
and lagged, he came back.
“Hurry!”
“Do us no good to hurry if we get broken bones for
it,” Tau returned reasonably.
“But,” Meshler began, “this is open
ground.”
“In the dark,” countered Tau, “it could be
anything.”
“Dark? You mean you can’t see?”
Meshler sounded honestly surprised, almost shocked.
“Not at night, not well enough to go charging along
through this,” Tau answered.
“I did not know. Wait then!” Meshler’s
indistinct figure twisted about. Then the end of a belt flapped
into Dane’s reach. “Link together—I’ll
lead.”
As soon as Dane caught the belt and Tau’s hand was set on
his shoulder, the ranger stepped out as confidently as if he held a
beamer focused on the path ahead.
“Still this way?” he asked a moment later.
“This way?” Dane relayed through the translator to
the brach.
“It is so. Soon big hole—”
Dane supplied that information. And soon indeed did they come to
a big hole—a break from the height on which they stood,
leading to an unknown dark plunge.
“You see anything?” he asked.
“They’ve finished off the flitter,” Meshler
returned bleakly. “But we’ll need supplies—if
they’ve left any.”
The belt was suddenly hanging limp and loose in Dane’s
grasp, and he heard sounds that must mean that Meshler was
descending to the flitter.
The dark closed in, but when Dane would have
snapped on the lights of the flitter, as Meshler made no move to,
the ranger caught his wrist.
“No use letting ourselves be seen,” he explained,
and Dane was disconcerted at his own instinctive but perhaps
dangerous move.
“Where are we? Any clue?” Tau asked.
“Southwest! To our reports there is nothing here but the
wilds,” Meshler returned. “Have I not said
that?”
“This Trosti station,” persisted the medic.
“With what are their experiments concerned? Ag work,
veterinary procedures, or general research?”
“Ag work, but not altogether for Trewsworld. They have a
conditioning-for-export license. But they are of no concern. I have
visited them on my rounds. We are well past that site, plus the
fact that they had no installation capable of a beam such as
this.”
“Trosti,” Tau repeated thoughtfully.
“Trosti—”
“Vegan Trosti. This is one of the foundations set up under
his will,” Meshler supplied.
Vegan Trosti! Dane thought of the hundreds of rumors and
supposedly authentic stories about Vegan Trosti. He was one of
those men possessing what Terrans used to claim was a “golden
touch.” Every invention he backed, every exploration he
financed, was a success, pouring more and more credits into his
hoard. No one had ever learned just how much wealth Trosti had
amassed. At intervals he made over some astronomical sum to a
research project. If that paid off, and they regularly did, the
profit went to the lucky planet giving it a base.
There were, of course, the other tales, too, such as grew from
the shadow of such a man—that his “luck” was not
always a matter for open investigation; that some of the research
projects could not bear too open a scrutiny, or that they carried
on programs on two levels, one that could be reviewed openly, the
other masked by the first and for purposes far less advantageous
for the public.
But, though such rumors had become legends also, there had never
been one bit of proof they were true. And the credit side of
Trosti’s ledger was very impressive. If he had made any
mistakes or taken any steps along another road, such were buried
and forgotten.
So had Vegan Trosti lived, a power about whose person
practically nothing was known. He shunned publicity with an almost
fierce hatred. There were stories that he often worked among his
own employees—especially on explorations—without their
knowing it. When he disappeared, he had set up such a tight legal
control of his empire, insuring that it was to be used for knowledge and general good, that he
was looked upon on many worlds as a hero, almost a demigod.
How he had disappeared was not known, in spite of the
investigation of the Patrol. It seemed that his deputies simply
came forward some planet years back and announced that his private
ship was long overdue and that they had their instructions in such
a case to dissolve his holdings, carrying out his express commands.
They had proceeded to do so, in spite of a bright beam of publicity
allowing no concealment.
The story was that he had set off on one of his expeditions and
that he had ceased to report regularly as he had always done.
Following the time order he had left, his men moved to do as he
wished should such a circumstance arrive.
Never had anyone learned anything about his early years. His
past, beyond a certain point, was as blank as his final ending. He
was a comet that had shot across the inhabited galaxy and left
changes on those worlds it touched.
“We’re losing altitude,” Meshler suddenly
exclaimed.
“Something else—” Once more Tau leaned forward
so that his head and shoulders were close to the two before him.
“See here?” His arm was a dark shadow in the dusky
cabin, but what he held out for them had its own light about a
dial. On the face of that, a needle quivered to the right, and from
it came a buzzing, which seemed to Dane to grow even stronger.
“What—?” began Meshler.
“There is radiation ahead, radiation of the same type but
stronger than that from the box on the Queen. I think we
are going to have some answers to questions shortly.”
“Listen—” Dane could not see the
ranger’s face. It was only a lightish blur in the gloom, but
there was a note in the other’s voice he had not heard
before. “You say this radiation turns a thing back through
time, retrogresses it—”
“All we have is the evidence of the embryos and the
brach,” Tau said.
“Well, suppose it affected us. Could it?”
“I don’t know. That box was brought on board the
ship by a human. Thorson saw it being handled by an alien woman. Of
course, they may have sent their messenger on board to die, but I
don’t think so. They needed the Queen to ferry their
cargo here, and the ship could not have been handled by a crew who retrogressed as rapidly as the animals it
affected. We would not have been able to come out of hyper. But if
the radiation is stepped up, then I am not sure—”
“And you say that’s the same radiation
ahead?”
“By the reading on this, yes.”
But what he might have added to that was never said, for the
flitter gave a sudden downward swoop. Meshler cried out and
wrestled with the controls—to no purpose. He could not wrench
the craft from the force pulling it earthward.
“Crash aid!” Dane sensed rather than saw the
pilot’s hand swing out to hit the panic button. He did the
same on his side of the cabin. How much time did they have? Enough?
The ground was only a dark mass, and he had no idea of how fast
they were falling to meet it.
He felt the soft spurt of safe-foam on his body, curdling around
it in the protective device of the flitter. It twined and coiled as
he sat. Now it was as high as his throat, about his chin. He
followed crash procedure, settled back in his seat, and shut his
eyes as the protective covering jellied in around the three of them
and the brach. Dane should have warned the brach, but he had
forgotten all about the creature, who had been so quiet, and now it
was too late.
Relax. His mind fought his nerves. Relax, leave it to the
protective jelly. Tense up and he would delay the safety factor in
that. Relax. He set his will to that now.
They struck. In spite of the safe-foam, it was a jar that
knocked Dane into semiconsciousness. He did not know how long it
was before he regained his senses enough to grope for the release
catch on the cabin door to his right. He had to fight the pressure
of the jelly to do that, but at last his fingers closed on the bar,
but his half hold was torn loose as the door was opened with a
sharp jerk. The jellied foam slipped toward that opening, carrying
him with it as he struggled feebly to break free.
The safe-foam was being torn away. A great scarf of it fell from
his head and shoulders. He opened his eyes into a blinding glare of
beamer and blinked, unable to see, nor as yet able to understand
what had happened. They had crashed and then—
Hands pulled him free
of the foam with no care or gentleness. Speed seemed to be the thing desired. When he could stand,
he was jerked to his feet, the beamer still so centered on him that
he could not see who held it or the faces of the men who stripped
off the jelly. There were two of them, and when they had done, they
swung him expertly around and applied a tangler to his arms and
wrists behind his back. Now he was as safely their prisoner as if
they had encased him from shoulder to waist in plasta of the
quick-drying sort.
Having made sure of him, they gave a shove that sent him
staggering forward until he bumped against a surface with painful
force. With that to steady him, he edged around. The bedazzlement
left by the beam straight in his eyes was wearing off. He could
see, though the men who were working on Tau remained only shadowy
figures.
Dane never knew how many of them there were, for he was sure
some of the party kept out of sight, using the beamer as a cover,
but they worked with such efficiency that one could believe this
was an action in which they had been drilled.
They had all three from the flitter under control. But they had
not brought out the pack with the brach! Didn’t they know
about the animal, or didn’t they consider the alien
important?
The jelly, once exposed to the air, would disappear as the
strips pulled from the prisoners were already doing, so that the
brach would be freed shortly by himself. But the alien might be so
terrorized by the crash and the jellied foam that—Dane did
not know what he expected of—or for—the brach. Then he
heard the crashing of what could only be a crawler in progress
toward them, and he hoped the alien would escape notice.
A line snaked out of the dark into the path of the beamer, was
hooked fast to the fore of the flitter, and that mass of wreckage
began to move, complainingly, under the steady pull of the crawler.
Dane was not to see its eventual destination. A hand caught his
shoulder, dragged him away from his support, but continued to push
him along over a very rough path, where he stumbled and would have
gone down several times if the unseen guard and guide had not kept
his hold.
They came at last into a clearing, where a rock ledge jutted out
to make a roof over a camp. There was a portable cooker there and other gear piled under the overhang, enough to
suggest their captors had been there for some time and were well
equipped.
There was also a diffuse lamp, which gave a subdued light. It
had been set on lowest level, as if the campers begrudged the need
for it at all.
In that glow Dane was able to see the three men who had brought
them in. They wore regulation one-piece hunting suits with the
instrument- and tool-hung belts of those venturing into the wild on
a planet not native to them. All three were Terran or Terran
colonial stock. But the one who rose from beside the lamp at their
coming was not.
He was of a species strange to Dane, very tall, so that he had
to hunch his shoulders and incline his head under that roofing
ledge. In the light his skin was yellow (not brown-yellow, as one
of ancient Terran Oriental stock might be, but a brighter hue). And
his eyes and his teeth as he opened his mouth gave off
fluorescence—the eyes being ringed with some glowing
substance.
His hair was scant and grew in ring patches, with even spaces
between, about a skull that rose to a cone-dome at the top. But his
body, save that his arms and legs appeared too long for the size of
his torso, was like that of a Terran and covered also by a
hunter’s suit.
Dane wondered if Tau, with his greater knowledge of X-Tees,
could name the species. From whatever world he came, it was plain
that the alien was in command of the camp. He did not speak but
gestured, and the three from the flitter were shoved on, back
against the rock wall, then pushed down, to sit facing out into the
night, while the tall alien hunkered down beside the lamp. What he
held in his hands, curiously limber hands—his fingers moved
as if they were boneless tentacles—was a com. But he did not
speak into it. Instead, he used the tips of two of those squirming
fingers to beat against the mike in a swift clicking.
None of the men spoke to the prisoners, nor did Meshler ask
questions. When Dane glanced at the ranger, he saw that the man was
studying the scene with an intentness that suggested he was making
a mental listing.
The strangers wore hunters’ clothing. Their equipment was
that Dane had seen used by sport hunters on other worlds. But if they had legitimately entered the wilderness on
Trewsworld with that excuse, they would have been licensed and had
with them a guide. There was no sign of any guide. Nor did they
hear again the crawler that had dragged away the flitter. Dane
deduced that the party was larger, and there might be a reason for
the others to keep out of sight.
Having sent his click message, the tall alien brought out a
long, hooded cloak, wrapping it well about him, and went to curl up
at the other end of the camp under the ledge. He was followed
shortly afterward, not to the same place, but into slumber, by two
of the three Terrans, none of whom had so much as glanced at their
prisoners since they had herded them in. The third man remained by
the fire and held an unholstered tangler across his knee.
Dane knew little of electronics, but in this camp he saw nothing
like the box from the Queen. Nor was there anything to
suggest that the powerful force that had brought down the flitter
had its source here. The puzzle that had enmeshed the
Queen gave hope of clue now and then, but none such led
anywhere.
He was tired, but in his present uncomfortable position he was
not so fatigued that sleep came. Nor, when he looked at Tau
and Meshler, had they succumbed either. The sentry by the fire now
and then arose to walk back and forth, dividing his attention
between a quick glance at the captives and a longer look into the
dark beyond the very limited light of the lamp.
He was on one such beat when Dane caught a flicker at the other
end of the campsite. Something moved there, and with caution. It
was far too small for even a creeping man. The brach! Though why he
expected the alien to have tracked them here, Dane could not say.
The creature would be more likely to run away from the threat of a
party who had so easily taken men prisoners.
The sentry turned, and now Dane could see nothing at all. When
the man came back to the lamp, Dane was not quite sure he had ever
seen anything.
Yet he kept stealing glances in that direction, being careful
not to turn his head, to attract in any way the attention of the
sentry. And he was rewarded seconds later by the sign of another
flitting, this time from the protection of brush to a second cover behind a couple of supply boxes. There was no
mistaking that silhouette—the long horned snout of the
brach.
What the alien proposed to do (unless he had merely followed to
cling to the proximity of the three from the flitter because their
familiarity was a forlorn feeling of security), Dane could not
guess. He had seen the brach use a stunner. But those who had
stripped them out of the safe-foam had disarmed them. And, unless
there had been some weapons in the flitter that the brach had
located, he had no chance if discovered. There was no way of
communication possible, yet Dane found himself thinking a warning
over and over—not that that would carry.
The sentry got up for another of those periodic prowls, and as
he turned his back, the brach scuttled out into the open, as
soundless in his passing as if he were a shadow. Making a quick
dash, the alien was now crouched beside Tau, his head stretched at
an uncomfortable angle. The horn—he was using his horn on the
cords of the tangle!
Being what they were, those spun restrainers could not be easily
cut or broken. They were ultra elastic on the surface, yielding
under pressure of knife blade but not allowing their thick surfaces
to be cut.
Yet Dane could see the small movements of the brach’s
head. He must be tearing at those ties. Tau winced as if those
efforts were painful, but he did not move and held steady.
Then Tau’s arms flexed a fraction, and Dane knew a spurt
of excitement. Somehow the brach had broken the tangle strand. Tau
was free, though he made no move to act upon that freedom.
However, the medic leaned forward slowly, holding his body as
far as he could away from the wall, and Dane knew that the brach
was wriggling through to come to Dane’s own assistance. He
was right, for shortly thereafter he felt the fluffy warmth of the
creature pressed tightly to him, the jerk and tug on the tangle as
the alien sawed away with the horn. Then, too, he was freed, edging
away from the wall, in turn, to give the brach a chance to reach
Meshler.
The guard had completed his sentry beat and settled down
again by the lamp, though he continued to divide his watch between
the prisoners and the outer dark. He was too alert for unarmed men to make any plan not well thought out.
At last he got to his feet and went to one of his sleeping
comrades to shake him awake. Oddly enough the roughly aroused man
said nothing, only accepted the tangler and the post by the lamp,
while the first rolled up in the same coverings from which the
other had just crawled. Their silence struck an odd note—it
was almost as if they could not talk.
The brach had wriggled from behind Meshler, and Dane knew that
the ranger must also be free. The alien worked his way along, using
the men and shadows for cover, finally hunkering down behind the
pile of boxes that had been his first goal upon entering the camp.
The guard by the lamp was on sentry go now. Just as he reached the
most outward point of his beat, the brach moved. Dane could not
quite make out what the creature had loosened and pushed, but it
rolled with a clatter for the lamp. In the last few seconds before
it struck, Dane made ready.
It had impact enough to overbalance the lamp, and the light went
out. Dane and the others threw themselves forward, out of range, or
so they hoped, of any tangle discharge. Nor did Dane try to get to
his feet, but scuttled, keeping as belly-down as he could, heading
for the open. Sounds told him that his companions must be following
the same tactics.
He expected to hear a shout from the sentry, some outcry to
awaken the sleepers. There was a scuffling, and he heard the hiss
of what could only be a tangler discharged. But if that touched
anyone, it was not him.
Then he was out, getting to his feet. He brushed against another
body, flailed out with his arm, and felt the slick surface of a
thermo jacket. A hand caught his, linked fingers, and together they
made what speed they could into the thick brush lying to the right
of the ledge. That vegetation would deflect any tangler. But surely
their captors had more dangerous weapons—
“Tau?”
“Yes!” The whisper was from his side.
“Meshler?”
“I don’t know,” the medic whispered.
They had no way of keeping their forced entry into the brush
silent. The crackle of their passing must be a loud announcement of their path to their late captors. Then Dane was
brought up short as a pair of hands seized him, and he swung about,
aiming a blind blow at his assailant.
“Quiet!” There was no mistaking the ranger’s
voice. “Take it smooth—easy!”
He tugged Dane along, and Dane’s own hold on the medic
drew him in turn. The ranger certainly had, Dane decided, an
extraordinary degree of night sight, for they were no longer
threshing about in brush, though that did beat at them as they
threaded a way along, either following a winding path or going
through a thinner area of growth.
Their best pace was not a good one. Dane still wondered why
there had been no sounds of alarm from the camp. Then came a sudden
spring of light. The diffuse lamp must not only be working again
but also turned higher. Only the fugitives were screened by the
growth in between.
The plates in their space boots clicked on a more solid surface,
and the brush was gone. Walls of some kind rose dark and solid on
either hand. Dane looked up. He could see a narrow strip with a
star or two emblazoned in it.
Something brushed his knee. He broke his hold on his two
companions and stooped to feel the brach. The alien was shivering,
and Dane held him close while he unsealed the seal of his thermo
jacket and pulled it around them both.
“What is it?” whispered Meshler.
“The brach—he’s cold.” Dane wondered how
long the creature had suffered the cruel night air.
“Does it—he—know where the flitter is?”
Meshler’s whisper was urgent.
In handling the brach, Dane had discovered the alien still wore
the translator. Now he pulled at his hood and whispered into the
mike, “The flying thing—where is it?”
“In a hole—in the ground.” To his relief the
alien answered promptly. Dane had thought that he might be half
conscious from cold.
“Where?”
The brach wriggled in his hold and Dane felt his head bump
against his chin as it turned, pointing left.
“Left—in a hole, he says,” Dane reported to
the ranger.
Meshler started so confidently in that direction that it was as if he could see clearly. But when the Terrans stumbled
and lagged, he came back.
“Hurry!”
“Do us no good to hurry if we get broken bones for
it,” Tau returned reasonably.
“But,” Meshler began, “this is open
ground.”
“In the dark,” countered Tau, “it could be
anything.”
“Dark? You mean you can’t see?”
Meshler sounded honestly surprised, almost shocked.
“Not at night, not well enough to go charging along
through this,” Tau answered.
“I did not know. Wait then!” Meshler’s
indistinct figure twisted about. Then the end of a belt flapped
into Dane’s reach. “Link together—I’ll
lead.”
As soon as Dane caught the belt and Tau’s hand was set on
his shoulder, the ranger stepped out as confidently as if he held a
beamer focused on the path ahead.
“Still this way?” he asked a moment later.
“This way?” Dane relayed through the translator to
the brach.
“It is so. Soon big hole—”
Dane supplied that information. And soon indeed did they come to
a big hole—a break from the height on which they stood,
leading to an unknown dark plunge.
“You see anything?” he asked.
“They’ve finished off the flitter,” Meshler
returned bleakly. “But we’ll need supplies—if
they’ve left any.”
The belt was suddenly hanging limp and loose in Dane’s
grasp, and he heard sounds that must mean that Meshler was
descending to the flitter.